Chat With Ralph!

At 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-ba-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 gaff. 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!

Well, well, well. Hello folks, it's been a while since I've done one of these. Happy Friday the 13th, I just realized. Oh no, I'm cursed. Hope you're all doing well. It's your boy Raffalito back once again for another live chat with Ralph Brewer, where I sit back and wait for people to file in very slowly but surely. And ask me questions, share their stories, and all that good stuff. If you have been, um, watching my stuff, thank you so very much. I show up probably on your news feed, number one, probably because you're a dude, and number two, because you have maybe some relationship problems, or at the very least, you have been looking at material revolving around men having relationship issues. Marriage sucks. I was divorced. Divorce sucks. Starting over. Whatever it may be. My stuff came up. That's why you're now watching me live here today. Thank you so very much. For those that don't know, my name is Ralph Brewer Brewer. I've been doing stuff under the Dad Starting Over name for over a decade now. Went through a not-so-nice divorce going on 14 years ago. There was infidelity, there was just all kinds of nastiness. I had 3 little kids most the time. Again, this is like 14 years ago now. Two of the kids are adults, another one's in high school. And since then I have remarried, got a 4-year-old kid with wife number 2. Everything's hunky-dory. Uh, wife number 2 and I have been together for about 10 years. It's been awesome, knock on wood. And, um, I have authored books. You can see a few of them behind me. I've authored 5 books in total. The latest one is the one you see right It's hard to do this. There, it's called Rebuild: The Complete Guide to Starting Over as a Man. You can learn more at readrebuild.com. Do I have the— yes, I do. Go to there, readrebuild.com, and you will see my latest book. Excuse me. Um, my most popular book though is a book that I did years ago, and since it came out, 3 editions of the book. They're all independent of each other. You don't read one then the other. They're They replaced some stuff, it's updated things and rearranging of things. Uh, the third edition of that book just came out last year called The Dead Bedroom Fix. That's my most popular book. That's the most popular thing I have ever done, period. Uh, that one book outsells all other four books combined. Yeah, so it's been really big for me. So if you're a person who has read that, a guy who has read that, thank you so very much. Welcome. I am here to answer any and all questions you may have. Don't be shy, guys. And if you could give me a like, give me a share, subscribe, however it works, wherever you're watching this, that's huge. That would help me a great deal. So I started the Dad Starting Over brand, like I say, over a decade ago. Started blogging, wrote a book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, became popular, wrote more books, started a community, membership community for men, private support community for men. And after that, shortly after that, pardon me, uh, we start— we expanded away from just the Dad Starting Over name and created a larger organization that encompasses, or rather addresses, all kinds of issues that go beyond just, I'm a dad starting over in life. Because I had a lot of guys that love my material, but they're like, I'm not a dad, I'm not starting over, but I like this, I like that, do I belong? Yeah. So we started a new brand called Help for Men, and that's the name of our larger organization, Help for Men. And you can learn more at help help4men.com. And if you're interested in joining our private support community for men, you can go right to the join page at help4men.com/join. So why the hell would you want to do that? Well, uh, we have private forums for our members only, so no ladies in there. Nobody else in the world can see what it is that you're typing and asking other guys on there. Since we've started the forums in various iterations Over the years we've had probably at this point like 60,000+ discussions started. Um, very, very popular, very active, 24/7. Whatever you're going through, it's probably been said on the forums. You post about it, you'll have a whole bunch of guys saying, oh yeah, me too, and here's what I did. That's the value of a group. It's like a, um, a board of directors, if you will. You bring stuff to the table, this is what I'm thinking, guys, this is what I'm doing, what do you think? And people that have been there, done that say, you know here's what you do, here's what you not do. And, uh, then you have people saying, I'm going through the same thing, so you feel like you're not alone. So huge. So the forum's very, very popular. Next most popular thing in our group are the live Zoom meetings. So we get together face to face, so to speak, live on Zoom. I personally host 2 meetings every single week. They are an hour in length on average, sometimes more. And then the other guys on my team, other coaches on the team— Coach Jace and Gus, Austin Vance, Scott. Who am I missing? I'm sure I'm missing somebody. They all host meetings themselves. And so we have anywhere from like 6 to 8 live Zoom meetings, each an hour in length, every single week. Guys get together and talk about whatever. Sometimes the meetings are themed, you know, have a theme to them, and they'll discuss that for an hour or so. My meetings are very open unless I have a special guest. I bring special guests in— Dr. Robert Glover, Dr. Samantha Rotman-Whiten, a bunch of people that we've had that you guys may have seen on your newsfeed Lauren the Dadvocate. Um, we get together in those private meetings and we record all those meetings, so there's a big archive of meetings that you can listen to them from your phone. And there's like over 1,500 hours of meetings recorded, so you can think of them like as podcasts— interesting male relationship-oriented, male life-oriented podcasts, if you will. An hour each. You're never going to run out of stuff to listen to, and we add to it like every week. In addition to that, all the members of the group get access to all my books at no additional charge, including the audiobook version of that. How cool is that? Then they can also download an ebook version of that. So we got the— what have I covered so far? The forums, the live meetings, uh, the audio that you can listen to, the audiobook, as well as the meeting recordings. And then we get together in person, believe it or not. We have an annual conference in the US. We're thinking about maybe making that more frequent thing. Annual conference in the U.S., which our, uh, 6th annual one is coming up here in 2 weeks in Louisville, Kentucky. We're all sold out, guys. Sorry about that. You are able to, um, and I'm gonna put it here in the comments, you are able to join us remotely if you would like. Pardon me for a moment while I type. Okay, here we go. Livestream .brofest2026.com. That's livestream.brofest2026.com. That will get you, um, to show you the options to join us remotely. So you can be at home, at the office, whatever, and you can join us. You can watch the presentations live, you can ask questions live of the presenters, and then you have access to the recordings after the fact if you're not able to sit there for 8 hours and watch everything. No big deal, you can watch the recordings later. We have 2 days of presentations, start at 9 AM, end around 5. So from 9 to 5 each day with an hour break in the middle for lunch. You can watch all those, join us live as if you're there with us, ask questions, watch the recordings later. Yes, there's a small fee involved, so check it out, livestream.brofest2026.com. Check it out, guys. So what else do we do in the group? We have one-on-one coaching. You can book time with myself or anybody else on the team. Courses, the books I mentioned, all kinds of cool stuff. So check it out. That is our Brotherhood group at help4men.com/join. We would love to have you, gentlemen. I think that about covers all the business stuff. Dad Starting Over podcast is going strong. I'm posting there, uh, once a week with new episodes. And the Dad Starting Over channel on YouTube is doing well. I've had a couple of videos that are doing well finally, man. YouTube has been like this. I'll have some video that'll just take off like woohoo and get a whole bunch of subscribers, and then weeks of just nothing. I don't make dick on YouTube. Excuse my language. I don't make hardly anything on YouTube money-wise. I would love some help in that regard. I've had professionals try and help me and all that stuff. And, um, sorry, I'm scrunching my eye at this question that just popped up here. Um, But, uh, YouTube's been a tough nut to crack for me. But I still— even with that said, I got guys that join the Brotherhood group and I say, where'd you— would you hear about me? And they say YouTube. So it's working, just not to the degree of like a Facebook or some of the others. Facebook's doing really, really well. So check me out, do a search for, uh, Help for Men, Dad Starting Over, YouTube, Facebook. You'll find me, all that good stuff. I have a, um— and dude, I'm going to ask you to maybe flesh this out a little bit more, as I often say. Uh, I got a question here from Flawless Eyewear. All right, he says, uh, hi Ralph, what is betatization in relationships? Um, well, in, in, in our little world of men getting online and talking about stuff— oh, excuse me— relationship stuff, that slang term beta means kind of like, I guess, a wuss, a pushover dude, a guy who's, uh, over-accommodating. If you want to use it in psych terms and keep things scientific and not so whatever, um, probably a codependent man. Another slang term is a Mr. Nice Guy type, um, very over-accommodating, has no boundaries, no sense of self, no security. He just goes whichever way the wind blows. Please don't leave me, I'm lucky to have a girl, I'll do whatever. Oh, you cheated on me? That's fine. It's not fine, but it's— I'll stick around and try to work on the relationship. All that good stuff, right? Um, so that's what I would consider— I guess probably a lot of guys refer to as beta-tization or beta males. It's, it's a silly overdone thing. Alpha, beta, whatever. I mean, stop already. It's— guys have it tough enough instead of trying to divide amongst each other and say you're this and you're that, you're this category, I'm more of a man than you because fill in the blank. It's horseshit. But, um, You'll hear another term is simp, S-I-M-P. I think the proper term again is a very codependent guy, guy with lack of self-esteem, low sense of self-worth, um, insecure. A lot of guys don't like to hear that word, but it just means you don't feel safe, don't feel safe in the relationship, don't feel safe in yourself. I'm just— I don't like me very much, put up with way too much, never put my foot down. I don't want to rock the boat. I don't want to upset people, especially my wife or woman in my life. That's really common in my world. That's how a lot of guys find me and my stuff, and guys like Robert Glover and others, um, because they've had that issue their whole life and it's really made relationships, especially with the opposite sex, very, very difficult. And what's funny is when guys really stop and think about it, it ain't just the whole, um, female sexual romantic relationship thing. It also permeates into the job, with the friends, and everything else. That whole nice guy codependent thing is just— oof, that ain't good. So if any of you can relate to that, let me know. If any of you have been working on that or find yourself in that mess, let me know. Let's talk about it, guys. Do not be shy. Thank you, Flawless Eyewear, for the— I assume that you're an eye doctor, optometrist, whatever. You run the business. Um, interesting. But thank you for the question. Keep them coming, guys. And thank you for the like, guys. If you could give me a like, I would greatly appreciate it on this stream, wherever you're watching this, whether it's YouTube, Facebook, whatever, just give me the, the, the likey. Can you explain the process that men end up in that situation, says Flawless Eyewear. Um, good question. So you, let's say you got to do like your friend Joe, making it up, and you're like, man, why is Joe— Joe's wife cheated on him 5 times. Joe's last girlfriend cheated on him too. Joe just keeps putting up with it. Joe just keeps handing them money and hoping that they don't go away, and he just keeps looking the other way. He never sticks up for himself. Um, Joe never has an opinion on much of anything. He's just, whatever, dude, whatever, girl, yes, dear, whatever you say, dear. Like, how did Joe get this way, right? That's what you're asking. It sounds like psycho horseshit, psychobabble. Psycho meaning like psychiatrist, psychology horseshit, but it's true. If you look at 100 out of 100 of these guys, it all starts with, 'So tell me about your childhood. Tell me about mom and dad. Tell me about your previous girlfriends that you had growing up. Did you have any girlfriends growing up? What were your relationship with friends?' And so forth. And you'll see usually guys that are not the greatest childhoods, a lot of stuff that makes them very anxious, a lot of stuff that makes them fear abandonment. Makes them really stick to people that hurt them, whether it's friends or whatever it may be. And they'll see a lot of this again, a lot of stuff in their job. You'll hear about his job and he's just complaining and complaining, and you're like, you're being really mistreated, mistreated by your, your, your boss. Your co-workers are horrible to you. Like, what are you doing, dude? And he will say, I'm lucky to have this job, man. Um, I can't get anything else. I 'You know, my resume sucks. I'm lucky to get a paycheck, so I just put up with it.' And that attitude permeates everything. It's a sense of what we call scarcity, and it sucks. And there may be a grain of truth to it based upon how— pardon me— how he has developed himself as an adult over the years led him to a point where he doesn't have much in the way of options in the workplace, options in love and romance and everything else. So instead of working on yourself, instead of going, man, I suck, let me get to work on this, I, I got some problems here, problems up here, or whatever it may be— that's the tough stuff. A lot of people don't do that. What's easier is just saying, woe is me, I'm a victim, over and over again for years on end. I see these guys online every day. I see the same names over and over again in the comments on my videos and so forth, my posts that I make in social media. 'What was me? What was me? What was me?' Year after year, the same guys. And some of them are probably watching this live stream. Hey dudes, I appreciate it, but man, at some point you gotta kick yourself in the butt and say, 'I don't have to live like this. I don't have to do this. I can go over here instead.' Oh, that's a lot of work and vulnerability. That's tough for men. You gotta open yourself up, maybe go talk to somebody, somebody about your stuff. Maybe instead of hanging all your emotional weight on the shoulders of your wife, you go talk to a professional about it, um, and figure out what's going on and what got you in this mess and why do you stick around. I find myself saying the same words over and over again because it's— it like applies to every dude that I talk to. So that's the process that I see is what gets men in that situation is it starts fundamentally when they're kids and it just grows from there. Whole bunch of horseshit, and they end up in horrible positions. You know, who you marry, who you pair up with in life, man, that's a huge decision. It can be a huge mistake that leads to a world of hurt. As many guys know, you're with a woman who has just baggage a mile long, and you ignore it because you're in love, because she's pretty and she makes you feel great. And then this bad thing comes up and you're like, uh, do I ignore it? Or, yeah, I better ignore it because she's giving me physical affection, she likes me, no one has ever liked me like this before, I'll just ignore it and keep going. And the next thing and the next thing, and you have kids, and then another bad thing and another bad thing. Next thing you know, the woman's giving you an STD, she's pregnant by some other guy, she's taking you for everything you're worth in divorce, and you're just left going, what the hell happened? In hindsight, if you're like 100% of people that go through this kind of thing— it's not a gendered thing, a lot of women out there marry shitheads too and go through a lot of stuff— you realize it was this mistake, this mistake, this lack of boundaries, me never saying no, boom boom, this 39 things in a row of bad decisions, and that led me here. So this nice guy stuff is not just words, nice guy, it's a whole series of events that can ruin your life, basically. So guys, it's time to yank your head out of your butts and get to work. And I'm here to help you. That's the, that's the beauty of all this. You don't just go, oh man, I suck, my decisions suck up to this point, it got me in a whole lot of trouble, oh well, guess I'll just go the rest of my year sucking. No, you can actually go, guys, a little help here. And there are organizations like mine and others that will help you. HelpForMen.com, check it out, join our support community. Help4men.com/join. All kinds of resources, all kinds of dudes, hundreds of them all over the world ready to go. I'm here to help you, dude. Going through the same thing, been there, done that, whatever it may be. So guys, check it out, the brotherhood. Anything else? God, thank you, Mr. Flawless Eyewear. It's been kind of quiet today, small group, but I do appreciate you all joining me today. I mean, if we don't have much today, I can always call our quits and say, hey, we We tried. And, um, but I'm here for you if anybody has any questions, stories to share, anything at all. I just recorded a quick little video this morning. Um, let me pause that train of thought because I have another comment here from Mr. Flawless Eyewear. Um, what are some ways that men lose leverage he has that he couldn't realize? What can I do if I lose my leverage? Can it be reversed? I guess, what do you mean by leverage. I'm picturing like a, um, what do you call it, seesaw kind of thing, like sticking a board underneath something heavy and you're trying to lift it, and you're like, man, I've lost the ability to— I've lost my leverage. I love them. I lost the ability to gain power over the relationship, I guess you could say. So the way men lose leverage, I guess you could— how do we put that in more scientifically accurate, applicable terms, because leverage could mean like a bunch of different things. Um, how do you lose say in a relationship? How do you become a pushover? How do you go, man, how did I get here? Well, it's by lack of boundaries, my friend. And a boundary is kind of a misunderstood thing because it's kind of a nebulous thing, kind of vague-ish. You could interpret it a variety of different ways, but Basically, you'll hear it, you hear it said by a lot of people, and it's true: the boundary is not for the other people, it's for you. And that's true. So an example is, I will not put up with fill in the blank. Let everybody here know, if fill in the blank happens, Ralphie boy's out of here. I'm gonna leave. That's my boundary. And here's the thing: if you don't enforce said boundary, and believe. In that example, let's say for example, um, you're a very sensitive guy. Nothing wrong with that if that's you. And you're like, I don't like— I don't like cursing. I don't know, whatever it may be. Um, I don't like sexual jokes. Maybe you're a very religious, conservative type of guy and you're in a room full of guys. And I could just let you know, I know how these guys get liquored up. I don't drink, by the way. And you guys get all liquored up and you start acting a certain way. Telling dirty jokes and sharing stories about this and this. Just so you know, if it goes in that direction, I'm out of here. And everybody looks around like, okay, now what happens if you don't leave and dude over here starts telling some really over-the-top sexual story and he's cursing up a storm, he's motherfucking this and that, and you just sit there? And they look at you like, are you going to leave or what's the deal? And you don't. They don't take you seriously. Those are just words. Same kind of thing— that's a weird example, but I don't know why that came to my head— but, um, Same kind of thing in a relationship. Wife, I won't put up with this and this. If this happens, Ralphie boy's out of here. I'm not your husband anymore. A lot of people actually, believe it or not, do say something like that at the beginning of the relationship. Just so we're clear, wife-to-be, cheating— I don't put up with cheating. I'm out of here. It's divorce grounds for me. And the wife's like, yeah, me too. Cool, we're on the same page. Another thing I don't agree with is whatever it may be. Right? And then it happens, and then you're like, well, shit, easier said than done, because now I got 2, 3 kids, we got this mortgage on this giant house, I'm working for her father at his company, whatever it may be. Things that really cause you to be very intertwined, very connected, and it's way easier said than done just to go to say bye-bye. You're like, yeah, right, like you can do that. But you find out about some affair. You see some guy's name pop up on her phone and he's like, hey sexy, can't wait to see you tomorrow. And you're like, oh shit, my wife's having an affair. If your word means anything, if your boundaries mean anything, you go, I told you, wifey, that this is what I would do. Here's the divorce papers. You're a man of your word. You're a man with boundaries, integrity, values, identity. You know who you are and what you will and will not put up with. Now that's an extreme, uh, example with the cheating and everything else, but there are little things in life that happen repeatedly that really push those boundaries of yours, don't they? Um, we see this a lot with our kids when they're growing up. Kid, put that down. The kid's like, no, and he's still carrying whatever it may be. And you're like, kid, I told you I don't want you holding that. Put it down, please. No. You're like, okay, here we go, kid. If you don't put that down, I'm gonna take it from you. I'm gonna put you in timeout. I'm gonna take away your video game or whatever it is, and we're not going to the birthday party for your friend tonight. Kids still carrying around, you go, I told you, take the thing away from them, put them in timeout, call a friend's mom in front of you. My son's not coming to your son's birthday party. Sorry, he's getting punished. Your kids start screaming. But then the kid learns when Dad says something like that, what he says goes. It means something. And he learns— probably take him a few times, but eventually learns like, oh, Dad's for real. But if you're like, oh well, you can keep holding the thing, I'll still take you to the birthday party, I'll stay— your boundaries mean exactly dick. It doesn't mean anything. That's how a lot of men get in trouble. They stay like, I don't like that wife. Usually they're kind of meek about it. A lot of men don't like putting up boundaries. Makes us feel like an asshole. Wife, I don't like that. And the wife's like, tough, I'm gonna do it anyway. Okay, your boundary doesn't mean anything. And she knows she can just step right over the line and keep on going. I'm going out drinking with my friends tonight and won't be back till 3 in the morning. That makes me very uncomfortable. I don't like that. I think a mom of 3 kids doesn't need to be out till 3 in the morning drinking. I think a lot of not so good things happen. I feel very controlling by saying this, but here goes. Wife, I don't like that. The wife's like, who gives a shit what you like? I'm gonna go out with my friends. There's nothing wrong with that. I need to let off some steam every now and then. Okay. And you better believe she's gonna push a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more. That's what I see happens with a lot of guys. Uh, Mr. Anthony says he's listening to the book for the second time. Which book is that, Mr. Anthony? Is it the Dead Bedroom Fix? That's my most popular one, so I assume. But I got 5 of them, you know. The latest one is Rebuild. You can learn more at readrebuild.com. Um, Jamie says, I love all your videos. I have a question. Well, please go ahead, Jamie. You don't need me to— oh, he's— let me— I'm sorry, I'm scrolling down further. Um, Michael Gould. Oh, Michael, he's a, uh, member of our group. Hello, Mr. Michael. Uh, he says, can the 7 Pillars of Rebuild be used to help men avoid the need to rebuild at all? Yeah, absolutely. It's kind of like the tenets of life, right? Adulthood, if you look at it. Um, yeah, follow these things. Uh, kind of in a roundabout way, cover that in my book, uh, Real Talk, No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. Check that out.

Hmm.

Mr. Donald from YouTube says, how do I go about providing better assistance to the men around that seem to be struggling in their relationship. My relationship is great. Other men and some women see it and ask questions. That's when you do. I try to provide guidance, but I'm not an expert. I just do my best for my wife and myself. I mean, somebody comes to you and says, dude, I got a question for you, then answer it. Otherwise, no, you don't push. It's a lot of guys that, um, kind of discover, if you will, a lot of this relationship material, my material, to be like they, they have found the gospel and they just must tell everybody, and they become kind of annoying dipshits about it. It's It's like, dude, not everybody wants to hear it. They don't, they don't care. Number one, they're in a different headspace than you are. They're not in your world. So just at the very least, like, I got this cool book you should read. Done. You don't push it. You don't get to listen to this podcast. When people come to you, for sure help them and say, I, this, I don't know what to tell you, man, this is what I do. Um, or you could certainly send them my way or to some other kind of person that you respect in that way. Um, okay, this is a start over. This is Jamie's question here. Um, Jamie from Facebook says, wife, uh, been together for 21 years. You found out she cheated back in October last year, I assume. She is now showing bare minimum effort but is trying. This is the second affair in the last 21 years. I have a lot of sexual anxiety. Is this normal? And she says she wants to work on the marriage, but I don't believe her. Well, my friend, I'm sorry you're going through this, dude. There are plenty of people in this world that will say, Jamie, you're this and that and you're weak, and I'm not going to give you that horseshit, dude. For insert a variety of reasons, you decided to work on this, and some of them may be very valid. And I'm sorry you're going through this. And I'm going to speak in platitudes, meaning like absolutes, and I could be off base. But I am just giving you my perspective as a guy who has worked with— who has experienced this, number one, and number two, who has worked with a lot of other Jamies over the years, right? So with that out of the way, that's the value I bring as a perspective of so many hundreds of thousands of dudes. Your wife has a problem, okay? We can frame this as Jamie's not the greatest husband in the world, therefore she has no choice but to go and find other dudes to fulfill her needs. That's horseshit. Um, your wife has a problem. Boundaries— what I talked about just a few minutes ago— she doesn't have any. Um, one boundary is I know me, and I tend to enjoy attention from other people, especially people of the opposite sex. So I don't put myself in positions where that happens. And if I do see this kind of thing happening where I'm starting to strike up a conversation and he's starting to say things that are inappropriate, I will say, hey, it's great knowing you, but I'm married. 'See you later.' That's, that's a boundary that I have and others have. Your wife doesn't have that, and that spells— that's like bad news, dude. That doesn't work well in a long-term monogamous relationship, which I'm assuming you guys are strictly monogamous. You— it's supposed to be just you and the wife, right? That was the agreement, whether it was said outright or not. That's most people. Um, so she's had the second affair in the last 21 years. I'm gonna say this, it's gonna be hurtful. I'm not trying to be a dick. The second affair that you know of, just put out— put that out there. Probably she's had some emotional things here and there with people crossing the line here and there and talking to some dude and it goes over the line and she thinks it's fun. And again, I'm assuming a lot here, could be way off. Um, when somebody has an affair, which can happen Not as often as some of you may think. Probably more often than what a lot of you think, but it happens, right? Um, what you want to see is this: Husband, I made a big oopsie. I slept with this other person. This is why it happened. Let me put you in my mind so you understand where I'm coming from. But ultimately, very selfish and very stupid. And if you want to leave me as a result, I get it. 100%. I would probably want to do the same if I were you, but I'm hoping you give me a chance, and here's why. And here's what I want to do to work on us again and work on me, number one, because I got something going on up here that made me do that, because that's really weird and hurtful to do that. So I'm going to work on me, and here's what I plan on doing to work on me. And then I want to work on us. Can we go talk to somebody, please, about us? I'm hoping you don't leave me. I want to show you that I'm putting in work in this, okay?

And I'm—

I want to show you that I'm for real. So what can I do, husband that I cheated on, to prove to you that I'm invested in us? I've already cut off all contact with the other guy, um, already removed his number, blocked him, blah blah blah. You have full access to my phone, you have full access, whatever you want. I'm an open book because I'm your wife. I'm, I'm trying to prove to you that I'm invested in us. Some semblance of that. Anything short of that, Jamie, and others that are going through this, it's just bullshit to string you along. It's just like, uh, yeah, I want to stay married. Why? I mean, to be single again is scary. Even though they have this other person that's fun, titillating, little affair thing, it's not a relationship thing necessarily. It's not a full-blown whatever. What she has with you is safe, secure, predictable. And that's very important to a lot of people, dare I say more so for the ladies in our lives. They really need that, otherwise things feel— yeah. And so here's you going, I don't know if I want to continue this relationship. Panic. I can't lose all that. I've worked really hard to get that family, kids, Jamie. And she'll say whatever to keep you around. But it sounds like when I say she says whatever, not a whole lot. Kind of minimum. Yeah, I want to be your wife. Yeah, I love you. And you're like, well, how? What do you plan on doing? And you're not getting much. Um, I don't— Jamie, I think a bigger picture issue— put wife on shelf, forget wife for now. She's got her issues, it's not your concern. Your concern is you, Mr. Jamie. Why do you put up with this, dude? I don't know you. But by virtue of the fact that you're here, I like you and I care for you. And as, as your buddy who has known you for all of a few seconds based on some text here, um, friend, what are you doing, man? Are you okay? What keeps you around with this? Once, twice this has happened, and you can see the writing's on the wall. She's not invested in you to the level that you and probably 99% of men would want. In a partner. And you can see where this gets you. You need to get to the bottom, Jamie, of what keeps you around somebody like this. Number one, out of all the humans on the planet, you pick this one. There's a lot to unpack there, my friend. And thing two is a lot of evidence to show you that this is what you're going to get from here on out, and you continue to stay with her. Why is that, dude? I'm here to help you. Check it out, see the, the, the web this— what do you call this— URL. Sorry, blonde moment there. Um, helpformen.com/join. Support community. You can talk to me one-on-one, meetings, get together in person, all kinds of cool stuff. But we need to get to the bottom what's going on with Mr. Jamie. And any of you who can relate to Jamie's story, um, here to help you, brother. You are not alone. Anthony says, uh, Anthony from Facebook says, I'm in sales I've been trying to convince her to love me for years. Everything changed after kids, but she will say anything to get away from me in conversation. Avoidant 101. I have been focusing on me for the first time ever. Well, good for you, brother. If she wants to, uh, not love her, she doesn't have— if she wants to not— yeah, I'm not— if she wants to not love her, she doesn't have to. She doesn't want you to know. You lost me on that one. I think you missed a word or two there. And it's not a tactic this time. So you, Mr. Anxious, finally woke up to the fact that your avoidant partner wants nothing to do with you, and you're— it finally, it finally, uh, sunk in, and you're like, well, shit, I guess what's, what's my option here? I'll work on me, and if she likes it or not, that's up to her, not me. And what invariably will happen is that you will become more and more secure in yourself, hopefully, if you do the right work with the right people like myself. Help for Men Brotherhood, join us. Um, and your respect for her bullshit will go down as your security goes up. Ironically, that's when you have the best chance of you two working out, because she goes, I don't want to lose my husband, I don't want to lose my family, I got a problem. I need to work on it. And then you got to be super patient as she works on that. That's the best case scenario here. The most common scenario that I've seen is a wife who continues to drift, and she's like, shoo, he left me alone, good, because she's so avoidant in that way. That's what I see. Otherwise, you probably wouldn't be here talking to me right now, so to speak. And I, I'm sorry you're going through this, especially with kids and everything else. Yes, after kids, such a stressful thing. Such a life-altering thing that for some women, the switch is flipped and you're like, who's this person? Well, the honeymoon stage is over. This is real life now. I'm sorry. And some women do not tolerate that well. Sometimes their avoidant streak just comes out in spades. It's just like, oh geez, wow, she wants nothing to do with me or romance or anything at all ever. She is mom, mom only. Holy shit, I don't like this person. And you try like hell to get through to her. Let's go on dates. Let's go talk to somebody. And she's like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And that can persist for years. And then you, then you know what, a lot of you have the epiphany of, you know, her mom is a lot like that too. I'll be damned, her mom and dad, they suck as a couple. Look at her grandma and grandpa, they're the same too. Well, no shit, she's like this. But when you're in love and everything, you don't, you don't look at those kind of things, do you? But they matter. Russ from Facebook says hey. Right back at you, Russ. Hey, right back at you. Good stuff. Um, Flawless says thanks. Right back at you. Anthony says The Dead Bedroom Fix was the book that you read. Very good, guys. A lot of comments coming in here. Thank you so very much. Okay, I'm trying to connect the dots here. Oh, back to Mr. Donald talking about giving advice to others. Yeah, you don't want to be annoying. You see some glaring issues, uh, I don't think it's my place to point out certain behavior. I agree, it's not, unless they ask you like, what do you think? Then you tell them. I'll tell you what I think. I think your husband's a dipshit, or your wife, your wife's screwing around with the neighbor. That's what I think. But until then, you kind of keep your mouth shut. If she doesn't— if she wants to not love me, she doesn't have to. That's, that's kind of an epiphany, and it's kind of sad, especially for your more codependent kind of dudes, your anxiously attached guys. Dude, she doesn't have to love you. She doesn't have to touch you. She doesn't have to do anything. Dramatic pause. And you don't have to be her husband. It is a privilege to be Anthony and other people's spouse. You're a good dude by virtue of the fact that you're here. You're working on yourself. You're looking for answers. Means you're a good human being. A lot of people would love to be married to a guy like you. And when you happen to be married to one that says, 'F off, dude,' listen to them. They don't appreciate you. They don't want you. And that's cool. They don't have to. There is a lot of guys that get a very needy position of, she's my wife, it's her job to do certain things to me, she should just lay there and take it. And you're like, dude, that's not good. You don't want to go down that road. No, that shows you got something going on up here. If that's your mindset, you're a wildly insecure individual who just wants something out of something. Let them go, man. Well, she won't divorce me. You can divorce her when she over and over again for years, if not decades on end, says I don't like you. Listen to her. Sorry to say it, man. Jamie says, I will, I will join and reach out in the next few days to explain more. Well, would love to have you, Mr. Jamie. Many men are standing by and waiting. Oh, here we go. Mr. James, a regular. Hello, Mr. James from Facebook. He says, how does a woman act like She suddenly doesn't care about ending the marriage, as if she never cared. I realize she's probably been prepping for a bit, but, uh, do we not see her mourning the relationship? Maybe in her own way. She seems fine with everything. How do women hide this so well? They don't, unless they never really cared. Oh, epiphany, Mr. James, buddy, you have overlooked a lot of stuff with your ex. I'm assuming a lot here could be off, but I'm gonna go ahead, just be Mr. Know-it-all Bald Man and just go with it here, right? James, you married a woman who wasn't a very good spouse based on every— the multitude of comments I've seen you said over the years. And, um, she did you wrong, and you overlooked a lot of horseshit along the way because you're a codependent guy. That's what Mr. Nice Guy types do. And this is your— you don't know, but you're, you're textbook saying right out of the nice guy textbook. This just came on all of a sudden. Suddenly she's flipped a switch, and as if I never existed, and all the love and everything we had meant nothing to her. And yeah, you married a very broken individual, and you yourself are a broken individual. That's why you attracted and hung on to somebody like that for years. You ignored, you ignored, you ignored, you ignored, and kaboom, the bomb goes off. In hindsight, once you get past this, which I know you're having a difficult time with this, James, um, you'll have some aha moments. Yeah, that one moment 3 years ago when she said this and this, that was kind of a big deal, wasn't it? Yes, it was. And that time when she came home at 2 AM and she said she was going to be home at 11 PM, that wasn't a good sign, was it? No, it wasn't. These are bad things, and you just look the other way because you don't want to rock the boat. So don't come— I'm sorry to yell at you and others— don't come with the bullshit of this happened all of a sudden. No, it did not. I don't care how you sell it to me. You and I could speak for 10 minutes and we could identify instances where— what about this, James? Oh yeah, there was that. And how about this? Oh yeah. And let's go back and look at her mom and dad. A lot of guys go, do we have to? Because there's a lot of stuff there I ignored. I know, but that matters. She came from chaos. Her dad cheated on mom, mom cheated on dad, mom was a narcissist, dad was an alcoholic, dad abused her mom. You looked the other way, didn't you? Yep. Because you loved her and you thought she was bigger than all that. Yep, she's not. She's a human being. That stuff has its effects on people down the line. You're learning it the hard way.

I—

if it sounds like I'm being a little tough, I'm talking to myself too. Been there and done that. Got the t-shirt and everything to prove it. Um, and then Mr. D Hill from YouTube says, this is a good point, if they ended things so she, the wife, says, I'm done with you, mister. They feel an immense amount of pressure to make, make the right decision, so they need to at least outwardly portray that things are much better for them. True. And a lot of time they will, um, reach out for others to— what's the word I'm looking for— um, to absolve them of guilt, to prove that they're, that they're right in their decision. Um, they will take small things and really blow it up. This is really common thing. Men and women do this. I'm speaking from a male point of view. I talk to a lot of guys who endure this from women. So then he'll be like, she called me abusive. Why would she call you abusive? Because I made it— I made a point one time of saying maybe she would like to join the gym with me. I'm like, how is that abusive? Well, she took that to me saying she was fat, and then she told all her friends that I call her fat, and all her friends say he's a horrible person. I see why you divorced him. And now it got back to everybody that I called her fat and I was abusive and I was terrible to her, and now there's posts on Facebook about how I'm abusive, and, and on and on and on. You get my point. Um, and you realize, yeah, they're trying to save face. The old damsel in distress. Woe is me. A lot of people come to the rescue. It's a human tendency. Um, there's this thing called the— Google it— the women are wonderful effect. More often than not, if given the circumstance, if you got a man and woman, let's say, doing the exact same bad thing— cheating, stick with the cheating— man, woman, or excuse me, woman cheated, man cheated, same kind of circumstance, exact same thing— more often than not, you will, you will have people look at the woman's circumstance, and what will they say? 'Uh-oh, what did he do?' He being her husband or boyfriend or whatever. 'Women cheat for reasons. There must be something missing in the relationship. He must have been a really bad guy for a woman to do something like that because women don't do that.' It's the 'women are wonderful' effect. We tend to prescribe to them, um, kind of holier-than-thou, better-than characteristics, and that's not necessarily fair, but that tends to be a tendency in the human human species to do stuff like that. And we see that carried out in things such as, um, legally going back to the man-woman do something illegal, shoplifting. He stole $100 something and she stole $100 something. Sure as shit, when you compare the two, she gets the lesser sentence compared to the man. It's interesting, isn't it? So that kind of— we're more lenient We assume the best when it comes to certain things. That's a very woman thing. So, and I think women, a lot of women innately know that, and they will use that to their advantage when it comes to this kind of stuff. So that's working against you, plus rewriting of history to make herself look better. All these things, all these things that make these very difficult situations, that's for sure. Uh, my wife said you need to change everything about you, says Anthony. I hate it when you look at me, you touch me, you hug me. 'You kiss me and you have sex with me. I cannot ask her to do anything because it adds to her full capacity. I am not at the capacity at all. Get off your phone, work out, and your life will be better,' she said. 'Maybe, but I'm in okay shape and no one is more busy around the house than I am, and I am deserving of love. You made me see that.' Well, very good, Mr. Anthony, very good. It doesn't sound like she likes you a whole heck of a lot. Um, I don't know what YR means. And so we got two guys talking here. Howdy, howdy. Okay, sorry, trying to follow the conversation here, guys. Sorry for the dead air.

Hmm.

All right, anything else, guys, before we wrap her up here and I go get me some lunchies? Jack has sausage fingers. I have tiny hands, you guys have ever noticed. I'm picked on by my family for having little tiny boy hands. Insert genitalia joke here. I know, I've heard it a million times, but yes, my daughter and I both have tiny little paws, as we call them. So I don't have sausage fingers. I have the opposite. I have little teeny baby hands. They don't look so tiny here, do they? But trust me, in, in the scale of me, they're kind of, kind of smallish.

My feet—

I have size 10 feet though. That's normal, average, right? Right? There's no real correlation between this— never mind. But, um, I got James here saying hardest part has been, uh, divorced a year now. I am codependent, I agree. I went from living with my parents to living with my ex-wife. Uh, things seemed pretty— it's hard to say— things seem pretty good until we had kids, of course, LOL. And then she's a zero wife and 100% mom, and we seem to disagree a lot on parenting, um, as if she just wanted me to do what she said. It's very common. Um, but now in my mid-40s, I'm alone for the first time. So that's the bigger picture, is it's not your wife, it's you, dude. It might sound weird, but with my anxiety and derision issues, I'm struggling to live alone with the pressure. Yeah, so this is kind of a, um, uh, James, uh, being reborn, born for the first time kind of thing. You're, you know, welcome to the real world. Now you're, you're kind of on your own, so to speak, and you're kind of like, this sucks, fills me with a lot of anxiety, never been on my own before. Understandable. Um, you know, love with their parents, jump right to another person, the other person end up being a shit show, and now you're on your own licking your wounds. So give yourself a break, dude. It is what it is. But, uh, one thing I would tell you is the importance of community. It doesn't have to be our group necessarily, but we need to get out there, make some friends. I know that's easier said than done, especially as an adult mid-40s dude, but, uh, guys with shared interests Sports clubs. Get out there, work your body physically. That's very, very important for your anxiety and mental health, physical health, your looks, the whole nine yards. Push and pull heavy things, jump around, have fun. Um, yeah, the importance of community, building your own community. We have one, obviously. The domain's down there at the bottom of the screen, healthformen.com/join. Uh, would love to have you and join a bunch of like-minded guys who've been there, done that. I think it's important. A lot of guys err on the side of, I can do this alone, and no, you can't. I mean, technically you could, but you can expedite your, uh, process of getting better a lot more when you surround yourself with like-minded people. Plus, it tends not to be too good for your mental health to do things all alone if you're the average person. Um, oh wow, Mr. Jack, your issue for you at the moment is caring for your codependent dad who has Alzheimer's. And your covert narcissistic mom who has Parkinson's. Learning a lot where my issue started. Yeah, oh geez, dude, more power to you, my friend. My God, that exhausts me just hearing that. Um, I am in the stage of my life as a 50-year-old man, uh, and all you dudes, younger dudes, you're gonna get to this point where Jack and I are. It happens where the parents are aging and where you're just like, man, You're like me, mom's in her mid-70s, and you're like, elderly, yes, but she's still got her wits about her, she's still okay. But little things here and there creeping in that you're like, I could see it's coming. Uh, mom doesn't like to go up and down stairs anymore, that kind of thing. That kind of limits her mobility and what she can do. And, um, some of our parents really jump into the I'm getting older phase of life, and that kind of becomes their identity, while others kind of fight it almost too much, where you got a 90-some-year-old guy jumping in, you know, behind the wheel of a car, and everybody's like, dude, no, you're, you're almost blind and deaf, you don't need to be doing that. He's like, I'm independent, I can take care of myself. Versus the other side where you have people that are like, uh, I'm 70, I need a cane. I'm like, Mom, you don't need a cane, you're fine. You can't go up and downstairs. Like, Mom, you need to move, it's good for you to go up and down, doctor said so, you need to move your body, you need to go exercise. Can't exercise, I'm old. And you're like, okay, they kind of resign themselves, and now they become kind of a— you hate to say— kind of a burden. And you got to help them more and more, and you're like— and you become resentful. Mom just take care of herself, then she wouldn't need somebody on her 24/7 helping her out. And it's tough. And then you have— they have, you know, their mental and emotional hang-ups, and then you eventually resign yourself to— can't teach an old dog new tricks. As much as you tell mom or dad here's a book for you, maybe you need to go talk to somebody about your anxiety and your depression. They're just like, dude, I'm 75, that ain't happening. And you're like, understood, I get it. And you kind of resign yourself that way too, and you become very resentful of their mental health and lack of physical. It's a tough place to be, man. And Jack here is, uh, uh, the super extreme version of that. We have two— the two parents with their mental hang-ups as well as their very real physical hang-ups with Alzheimer's and Parkinson's and Dude, I hope you're getting help. If not, you need to exhaust every bit of help that you can. Um, and James, you're talking about your ex now has a new boyfriend around the kids causing a lot of anxiety. Yeah, understood. No one's going to fault you for that, James. Every man or woman runs into the same thing, and sometimes it gets very nasty where— you hear about this often— where a lot of the guys that I work with move very on— excuse me, move very quickly on to new relationships. A lot of guys I talk to don't like to be alone. Just put that out there, fellow dude here, I get it. And they jump to a new girlfriend and ex-wife doesn't take that well. And the man likes to kind of rub it in her face like, yeah, look, I got a new sexy girlfriend, and probably younger, and she's good to me unlike you, ex-wife. But haha, look at you, you're alone. And ex-wife is just like, I don't want this woman around my kids, I don't know who she is, I don't feel safe with her around. You, dude, you've only been divorced for a week, what the hell? And all this other stuff. Understandable. Flip it, uh, you're kind of the opposite boat, James. You're sitting back going, my God, this woman, she's got a boyfriend. I don't know who this guy is. He could be a criminal, and now he's around my kids, and it's anxiety. And plus, I've been replaced. That fills me with anxiety. Even though I've divorced this woman, I still have some emotional ties to her still. James, you got to work on that. I guess the grand picture here is, James, what can you control? Can you control who your ex-wife dates?

No.

Can you control who she brings around the kids? And unfortunately, no. What can you control is— drum roll—

you.

Maybe you need to work on your life and moving on and forming new friendships. And down the line, not right away, you know, romantic relationships and everything, to the point where you— believe it or not, James, you'll get to the point where you say to, you know, you hear about wife's boyfriend number 3 or 4 or whatever, and you're like, good for her, hope it works out. And meet the guy and be like, hey, a guy that's going to be around my kids a lot, just wanted to meet you. I wish all the best. Let me know if you guys need anything. I'll see you. And you will get— eventually get to that point. May take a while. Security in yourself, you know, so dependent on what she's doing and who she's seeing and everything else. But it takes a while to get there. James, join the group, buddy. Been standing by waiting for you for a while. We're here for you. And if you guys want to check out the group free for a month, you can do so. No obligation to continue on. Let me put the, uh, um, link here: help4men.com/free-month. Get a free month of the Brotherhood. Check it out. And all I ask is that once you get in, don't just go, 'I'm in,' and then ignore it. Get in and get involved in the discussions, get in some meetings and all that good stuff, download some books and check out free courses and everything, and get involved and really get your— I was gonna say money's worth, it's free for a month— get your no money's worth for a month. Really put it, put it through its paces so you know if this is something you want to pay for on a month-to-month basis and get involved in the discussions and meetings and all that stuff. If not, then you're out, nothing. You just say, guys, I don't want to join. You're like, cool, cancel, done. We're not going to give you shit over it. We're not going to take all your money and everything else. We're not here to rob you guys, we're here to help you. And James and others like James, I think we're a pretty good source, if not the best source, of such help in the world, period. But I'm a little biased as the guy who started the group. But for what it's worth— but guys, I'm gonna call her quits. I'm gonna get me something to eat. But it was a pleasure chatting with all of you. Thank you for all the wonderful comments. I hope you guys have an amazing weekend. I am— my wife's birthday, her 45th birthday, my wife's 45th birthday is coming up Monday, but we are celebrating tonight. Just she and I are going out, leaving the, the kid with the babysitter and my mother-in-law who's in from Germany. So two women watching one little kid, 4-year-old, and I'm taking my wife to a fancy sushi place in downtown Dallas called Sushi Cozy. So I'm looking forward to that. Got a 7 PM reservation. We're gonna Uber it and get some cocktails and all that good stuff. So I'm looking forward to it. Love spending time with the wifey, so that'll be fun. Uh, so until next time, guys, thank you all so very much once again. Have an awesome weekend. Catch you on the next one. Toodaloo!