Chat With Ralph (DSO) Live! #infidelity #relationship #marriage #divorceddad #divorce

All right, all right, all right, folks. Tis I, Raffalito, AKA DSO from dadstartingover.com, doing yet another live here on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, X, whatever it's called now. So welcome everyone. If there's anybody there, now is the moment to say howdy. I am looking over here. Pardon me as I look off camera. I notice I do that quite a bit. It's just because I'm monitoring things going on here with this live. I'm not ignoring you. Looks like we have a few folks on. Hello, few folks on. Don't be shy, please say howdy. I've done more than a few of these and it always takes 5, 10 minutes for people to file in. Then we get a full house and get all kinds of questions. So I will kill time here, I suppose. Hey, we got a thumbs up. Yes, if you could— thank you, whoever did that— if you could give a thumbs up, a like, wherever you're watching this, uh, give it a share, however it works, wherever you're watching this. Again, this is going out live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter/X. Can't get used to the whole X thing. Not sure if that was a good idea on Elon's part or not. I'm not a billionaire, so what do I know? But it seems like Twitter was a good brand. Adnor says, hey Ralph. Hello Adnor, how are you sir? That is Adnor from YouTube. Always cool to see folks on YouTube. Um, not so popular on YouTube, but I'm getting there. The audience is growing, getting more and more views. I think my, um, views, followers, all that stuff has grown by a few hundred percent this month. So if that sounds awesome, don't get too excited because I didn't have very many followers to begin with. Um, you know, I don't— uh, Adnor says I can also, uh, stream live on Twitch. I have not done a damn thing with Twitch. I can only manage so much. And Twitch, as far as I know, excuse my old man ignorance, is very big with the live streaming gaming community. Is that right? Um, yeah, I do simulcast right now, uh, via a program called Ecamm on my Macintosh. All I gotta do is say where to go, log in, and it blasts out to everybody all at once. That's how I'm able to do this all at once, but I just haven't added Twitch to the mix. Um, maybe I should, eh? Maybe I should get with the times, get with the youngsters. Hello, Scott. Scott is joining us from YouTube. Scott is one of our Dad Starting Over coaches. Excellent segue to talk about what that means. Um, for those that don't know, I started this Dad Starting Over thing years ago, and I started by writing books, one of which took off. And that book was called The Dead Bedroom Fix, which got all kinds of people following me and writing to me and everything else. So I wanted to take advantage of all those eyeballs on my stuff, and so I wrote more books, and I started a private group for men only called the DSO Fraternity. And you can go to dsofraternity.com, and we have a special deal here. And I am a bad host, and I don't have it ready, but I will here during this live broadcast, whatever, I'll post the link in the comments, um, for folks that you can get 1 month free of the DSO Fraternity. So basically test drive it for free, and if you like it, cool, keep— you know, after that you have to put your credit card information in. It does not charge you for the first 30 days. If you hang on past the 30 days, then it starts charging you month to month to month until you say cancel. So you could sign up for a month, and if you're like, I don't really think this is worth it, I don't like it, then just cancel before the 30 days and No skin off our backs. We want folks that want to belong to the group and get the most out of it and get involved and, and use all the resources. But let me here find that link and I'll get that set up and put in the comments for you guys that are interested in joining private group. So anyway, we have as part of that group, we have what are called coaches, which is myself and some other gentlemen, Scott included, that can work with you one-on-one to help you with your issues. Think of it as counseling. We are not licensed therapists or mental health professionals. We are simply dudes that have been there and done that. And Scott, uh, sticking with Scott here, uh, part of his story, his brand if you will— Scott lost a shit ton of weight. Scott has been working on, uh, I don't want to talk out of school here, Scott, you can help fill in the blanks here. We all have anxieties and anxious personalities to us within the Dad Starting Over world. If you're watching this as a dude You probably do too. That's what we've learned. There's a lot of us out there anxiously attached to our women and have all kinds of anxieties we put out in the world, in the world of relationships, and it's really colored our relationships in life. And that's what brings guys to my books like "The Dead Bedroom Fix" and to the Dios of Eternity, and we all work together to get better. As I have admitted over the years of doing this, I was a very anxious young man. I was a very anxious adolescent, teen, young man, married in my first marriage. Just ask my ex-wife, she'll probably tell you, oh yeah, he was an anxious dude. And that didn't go too well for me, as a lot of you know, in marriage number one. And that's something I've really, really worked on over the years. And one of the things I put together here recently, I actually put together a course, a video course for guys dealing with anxiety. You can check that out. DSO Fraternity members get like half off the price of that, as well as half off the price of coaching, as well as free books. Free audiobooks, free meetings, live meetings with myself and the other coaches, access to the, uh, live, uh, rather the private discussion forum, access to our in-person meetups, all kinds of cool stuff. Alexander from Facebook says, I always really enjoy your videos, bro. Thank you, bro. Thank you for what you do. Well, you're very welcome. Thank you for watching. Um, And he says he's recently pointed a few of the friends towards the group. When you say group, I assume you mean the, uh, page on Facebook. Technically not a group. Technically it's a Facebook page. It's a public page just like any other page. As I often say, you know, Nike, McDonald's, all these other companies have public pages, and you can go on Facebook public page for any of these companies and say whatever you want. You know, Nike sucks, Adidas rules, or whatever. Those aren't groups, those aren't private. We have our own little private group, um, called the DSO Fraternity for all that kind of discussion. No ladies in there, sorry ladies, just for men only. So check it out, dsofraternity.com. And let me— if you guys will excuse me for just one moment, talk amongst yourselves. I don't know if you remember that from Saturday Night Live when I was a kid. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll give you a topic: the Holy Roman Empire was neither holy nor Roman. Alright, where is it? Man, I'm gonna have to go back to— you know, if anybody has any questions, now it's time to type them up on the, on the old comments there, and I will, I promise you, answer them. Unless it's completely asinine or inappropriate, then I'll just ignore it. There we go. Here's a link. I'm putting in the comments. That is going to— why is that just going to YouTube? Damn it, program. Let me jump over to— there it goes. Now it's going to Facebook. Yeah, I just had to pause, or just had to be patient rather. So there's a link to try out the DSO Fraternity for 1 month for free. Scott says, I'm feeling verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. You remember that? Yes. Oh, that childhood. Um, Jake says, not sure I have any questions, just want to thank you for all you do. Well, thank you, Jake, from Facebook. I appreciate you for watching, following, reading, all that good stuff. Appreciate all of you, in case I don't say that enough. Uh, I love what I do, and, uh, thank all of you guys for allowing me to do that. Hmm, you know who's a Holy Roman, says Atharva. Hint, he's in the DSO fraternity. DSOfraternity.com. That's a good plug, I like it. Um, Atharva from India, one of our DSO fraternity members. So we got a couple of members here on board. Anybody else in the frat like to say hi? Anybody like to say, uh, what you get out of the frat? That's what we call the DSO fraternity for my non-English speakers. Frat is short form for fraternity, in case that was confusing. I got to remember I'm talking to people all over the world with these things, so you never know. Dsofraternity.com. I'm getting verklempt. Duran Duran is neither a Duran or a Duran. Talk amongst yourselves. I see I've opened a Pandora's box of Saturday Night Live, uh, memories. Um, oh, okay, here we go. A real question from Mr. Rodney on Facebook., did you consider that your ex may have had ADHD? It sometimes presents like narcissism. Um, no, I don't believe my ex had ADHD. I don't believe she's a neuro— a— what's the— damn it, why am I— my ADHD brain's not functioning properly today. Um, she is your neurotypical. I don't think she's on the spectrum, ADHD, or whatever it may be. And yes, it sometimes presents like narcissism to some, um, there is some bleed, isn't there, between the ADHD world and the autism spectrum world. Uh, neurodivergent— there's the term, it wasn't coming to me. Um, they're all kind of in that neurodivergent world, and sometimes depending on where you're at in the spectrum, it could be a little bit down here or way over here, sometimes that presents as a person who is non-empathetic, doesn't care, just by their actions. Or sometimes they do have difficulties with empathy, and sometimes that can present itself like narcissism, like they're just an evil asshole, when in fact, no, they're just wired a little differently. They just present it in different ways. No, my ex was not that way. In fact, I would say I am more in the neurodivergent world than what she is, if I'm being 1,000% honest. I have traits of ADHD in me. I have not been formally diagnosed, but in reading and doing this for years and years, I can definitely see some of myself in some of these stories and some of the things I read where I go, oh, that sounds familiar. So yeah, maybe it's something I should look into. To what end though is the question. Do I want to get medicated? Do I want to get therapy? I don't see it as really a detriment to my life all that much. I'm an entrepreneurial guy, and what a lot of therapists will tell you, if they have an entrepreneur business owner type guy in front of them, they're like, yeah, 9 times out of 10, ADHD. It's something that's unique to that world. Alexander from Facebook asks, What advice would you give a dad who is a real, real meek to his wife? Meek meaning weak and kind of timid. Um, she finally had enough and left and took the kids, going to court, all the good stuff. What advice would I give? Well, um, let's think about it. What you're saying is, I'm meek, I'm weak, um, don't put your foot down, not confident. I, you know, I guess we need to flesh this out more. Oh, jerk, not meek, he says. So you were a jerk to your wife. Well, where'd that come from? Why were you a jerk? What does that mean? Were you angry? You have anger issues? Did you— were you insulting? Were you not appreciative? So she had enough and took the kids. Well, can she technically take the kids? She can't just pick up and say, these are my kids now. So there's some— you have legal rights to see said kids, so you need to go get that taken care of. Sounds like court's involved. Um, no, so in general, I did bad things to wife, wife had enough. So it sounds like you need to, Alexander, get to the bottom of why you do bad things, or did bad things rather. And most of the time it's because shit happened to you as a kiddo, am I right? Kind of colors your, your relationships moving forward in life and how you interact with other people in romantic loving relationships. So You need to get that shit figured out because you're gonna do it all over again with the next person, and there's gonna be a next person. Trust me, there's usually a next person. Um, Jake says he'll check out the frat for a free month. Excellent, good deal. Thank you so much, Jake. Hello from South Africa, says Sheldon. Well, hello, Sheldon. I used to do a really good South African accent. We had, uh, for a while there, a bunch of guys from, uh, South Africa in the, uh in the frat. Uh, what is the South African accent? Kind of sounds a little bit like, uh, a little Australian-ish. South Africa is an interesting history if you read up on that. It's got that Dutch thing going on and the English. It's very interesting. Uh, Scott mentions the meeting archive. Uh, yes, we have, um, we have live meetings, as I mentioned, in the DSO fraternity. We use Zoom as the tool to conduct the meetings because most people have Zoom these days, and we record them So, well, what good is recording them if you don't put them for people to go back and listen to, right? Well, that was kind of a struggle to figure out how to make a library of all these. So we found a tool that allows us to do that. So we have a library, an archive, if you will, of every meeting we've had in the DSO fraternity. It is saved and recorded, and we have like something like over 600 hours now of meetings that have been recorded, and you can listen to them right from your phone. We— you get a— you get an invite, a private invite that allows you to add the audio feed of the meeting recordings to your phone's podcast app. As long as you're paying your dues, you can listen to meeting after meeting. They're basically their own little podcast. And if you're a guy that likes to listen to audio, you got a lot of driving, you will never run out of shit to listen to, trust me. Because as soon as you think you're making any kind of headway, we've already added like 3 or 4 more meetings. It just keeps coming and coming. A little overwhelming, um, a lot of stuff. And then we have a DSO Fraternity podcast. It's technically— it's not a meeting, it's just like, I guess you could call it, uh, monologues by myself and others, uh, that aren't meeting related. And, uh, a lot of good stuff. And then the audiobooks, all that fun stuff. Um, I apologize for completely butchering this name. Rodiguelio says hello. Is that right? Probably not. Hello from the Philippines. Well, hello, R, as I'll call you. Uh, Ollie says he's in France. Well, bonjour, Ollie. Alexander says, uh, um, I apologize, my eyes are failing me right now. Snapalways.com for ADHD. What's that, Alexander? Is that all about ADHD stuff? Uh, David asks if my ex is still with the AP, which stands for affair partner. Yes, they're happily together. Been together for shit over 11 years now. So, um, they seem to be perfectly happy and they seem to be two peas in a pod and they just, they click. And, uh, I wish— honestly, this isn't bullshitting— wish them all the best. Why wouldn't I? Do I want him to suffer and I want him to do bad? And no, I'm doing okay, more than okay, and she is too. So, um, what I often tell people is, in a way, it was the best thing for both of us. What wasn't good— pardon me— were the methods in which we got there. A more adult thing would be for her or I to have to sit down and say, this ain't working, we know it's not working, it hasn't been working for a long-ass time, what are we going to do about this? Maybe we should go our separate ways, maybe be, you know. Instead, it was affair, crazy behavior, you know, kids in the mix and all that other stuff. It wasn't good. But in the end, years later, that was for the best. So she's doing well. I hope she continues to do well. I hope he does well. More power to him. Um, Atharva says It'll be the best thing you did. It's like the movie Limitless. You take a pill and the whole world seems easy to conquer. Atharvo, is that in response to the frat, or is that a response to ADHD meds? What's that in response to? Um, gotta remember, we got these comments just keep coming, so we got to make sure they all kind of make sense. So maybe you want to preface, guys, your comments with, in regards to... so we know what the hell you're talking about. Daniel asks, what are my thoughts about, uh, depression and how it can erode a marriage? My thoughts on depression are it's a pretty bad thing, and people that have not experienced it or have no experience with it don't understand it, do they? Um, for those of us who have suffered from depression, it is not necessarily woe is me, I feel sad, life sucks. It's like a It's— that's, you know, can be a component of it for sure, like a neuroticism, the propensity for negative thought. But it's, it's more so— there's a physical element to it. It's— I feel literally like a blanket is on me and holding me down. You know, doing something as simple as checking the mail, I'll often say, is a difficult thing. To make the walk to the end of the driveway is a feat. Um, that's depression, and that's— that makes it very, very difficult to function. And, uh, depression, um, how to conquer and overcome it varies person to person. Some people are lucky enough to say, I just need to alter my diet, my sleeping patterns, quit alcohol, uh, exercise, and it alleviates 99% of my symptoms. I'm good to go. And they have a daily prescription on how to keep on, on top of that. While others, it's, it ain't doing it for me, I need a little bit of pharmaceutical help or otherwise, and that helps me get over the hump and then allows me to exercise, eat better, and all this other stuff. So it's all over the place. So how it can erode a marriage— obviously can erode a marriage. There's quite a few men that I speak to who are unfortunately, unfortunately with the, the wife who has a tendency towards anxiety and depression, and A lot of men early in the relationship, they see it, or sometimes the wives or girlfriends at the time, and then later wives are pretty open about it. Like, I got problems, I'm medicated, or I've always had issues. I've always, you know, I've had to get help, I've been hospitalized or something like that. And, and the men hear these things and say, oh well, nobody's perfect, it is what it is, we'll live with it. She seems fine, we have— we're a great loving couple. And what I often hear is, and then we had kids. And for a lot of depressive, anxiety-prone individuals, especially the ladies, because they're the one bearing the brunt of all the, you know, they're the ones holding the kid and ejecting said child and going through all the hormonal issues and everything else, um, that's when the old depression really rears its ugly head and things go downhill fast. Um, and, um, that's really, really rough and it's tough to overcome and And a lot of people don't survive that as a couple because with that comes all kinds of other stuff. And Scott G, who is on Facebook and a coach within the Dad Starting Over world, the DSO fraternity, welcome Scott. He says that my marriage suffered from a work-related depressive episode. Plenty of self-work and life is good now. Yeah, so we all have our little crosses to bear, don't we?. And, uh, uh, who knows what the, uh, the spark— that's not the right word because it's kind of the anti-spark, isn't it? The, the thing that— the grenade that's thrown in the room that just blows it all up and causes the depressive episode. Like I said, childbirth, some kind of death in the family, who knows what it may be, or some work thing. Um, if you are prone to it, that depression— not everyone is— then, uh, who knows what that trigger will be or how you will deal with it when it happens. Um, Irv from Facebook, also a DSO fraternity member— hello, Irv— and also in my— I don't know if I should say where you're at, Irv, but we are in the same state currently. Um, says that, yeah, clinical depression is not the same as what our society uses when they say the word depression. It's too way overused. It's kind of like the current, uh, term that's used quite a bit online is narcissism. He or she is a narcissist. That's the current overused term. Way overused term. Uh, depression is also a way overused term. I'm depressed. Why? I got an F on my quiz at school. So you're depressed because of your F? No, you are upset with yourself and you feel down, and by this time tomorrow afternoon you'll be fine. You're not depressed. That's— let's not use that term. You don't need to go run to meds and talk to your therapist and say— you just need to deal with a little life moment like we all do, but you're not depressed. So So it's kind of insulting to people who do or have had to deal with depression. It's a very real thing and not to be taken lightly. Uh, anything else, ladies and germs, as far as my little feed is concerned here? Oh shit, no, I need to scroll, dummy. All right, uh, Herb says, proud hillbilly here. We are in Kentucky, for those that don't know. No, I'm not originally from here, in case my accent doesn't give it away, or my lack thereof. Um, y'all, can, uh, Scott, the other Scott— we have two Scotts on the Dad's Starting Over team, in case that's confusing to you guys— can you share some examples and ideas on ways that a man can communicate to a woman without coming across as needy, overwhelming, and maintain a masculine role? Some examples of that. Well, what I find is a man that— the man that needs to hear uh, advice along those lines, Scott, are what you and I both know are men that we call anxious. And those men are— have a form of anxious attachment. And their, um, their style of interacting with people in a romantic relationship is one of chasing, pursuing, trying to fix, trying to hang on. And they tend to lean towards a much for lack of a better term, not the most masculine frame in the world, do they? So it's, um, a quote— I say quote-unquote when I say masculine because that's such a subjective term. I take masculine here in Kentucky and it's different from masculine in New York City, which is different from masculine in India, which is different. But there are arguably some tenets, some foundational things that are consistent across the board, aren't there? Regardless, we know what a— what manly behavior is regardless of where you're at. And there's some little subtleties along the way, sure, but one of those is, um, dare I say, to be stoic under pressure, to be able to handle what life throws at you, to be the foundational rock in the relationship, in the home, in the family. Somebody's got to be Somebody's got to be the tough one that people can turn to when shit hits the fan. And, um, right or wrong, that tends to be the old dude. At least it should be in the minds of most people. And, uh, communicating to a woman and coming across as needy is not portraying the most, uh, steadfast, strong, foundational, stoic man persona that we all want. So ways to communicate with a woman. Let's say that legitimately is something wrong with wife. Maybe there's an interaction with wife and she says something that just makes you go, "Oh!" A lot of men that are on your more anxious side, probably most of you watching this or listening to this, whatever, you don't just do the, "Oh, what the hell is that?" You do the, "Oh!" And then the brain starts ruminating and spinning into territory of, yeah, this is bad. You may not necessarily overtly verbalize this in your head, but in general, what you are doing as Mr. Anxious Guy is saying, her behavior could indicate something is really, really bad under the surface, which could in turn result in the end of us. Here's us. I'm seeing behavior that may result in us going apart, and that fills me with a great deal of dread and anxiety and all kinds of bad stuff. And for our extremely anxious men, that could be, dude, anything. The woman sneezes the wrong way. What's wrong? You know, she's got a weird look on her face. There's something up with her. She's 5 minutes late from work. Is she cheating on me? These are all very insecure, anxious things. So let's say you know your woman better than anybody, and you're like, something's off with her. She's not her typical self. She seems down. A manly, loving, leader-y, masculine way is, you know, put your arms around her. What's up, sweetie? What's going on with you today? You're not yourself. Let's talk about it. What's up? That's not anxious. That's not needy. That's not trying to be Mr. Fixer. That's not chasing after her. That's being the good leader, boss. It's almost a paternal figure, isn't it? That's what's disturbing to a lot of men, especially men these days in a more egalitarian-focused society that we are. There's no difference between men and women. Horseshit, of course there is. But no one likes to talk about that these days. And to go towards that more paternal kind of thing, that really rubs people the wrong way. Like, I don't want to be this father figure that's like, come here, sweetie, let's talk, let me put my arm around you. That's like, uh, well, welcome to being a dude in a relationship. You got to do that stuff sometimes. And you would hope that your partner is receptive to that loving, strong behavior. And then sometimes you gotta— when they're just like, no, I don't want to, you just go, cool, you know, back off. Let her, let her do her thing. She wants her distance, she wants her space. It is what it is, man. Um, that's tough. That— hey, let her have her space. Anxious dudes are like, I can't let her have her space. Why? I may lose her. It's, it's a tough spot to be in when you're Mr. Anxious. So follow-up to that, Nick asks, would you say that the word— Nick from Facebook asks, would you say that the word, quote, insecure gets applied too often? Like those who prefer spouses with low to zero body counts, spouses who believe that their partner should not have close opposite-sex friendships, spouses who do not want their partners engaging in porn, and many other traditional beliefs and desires in a marriage. It seems like I see the word insecure a lot these days to describe people with those boundaries. What sayeth you? What sayeth I? Excellent question. So basically what you're saying is, I have values. My values are such, and you're hearing pushback from the chorus of people online and elsewhere saying, your values point to insecurity in you. To which I say, I really don't give a shit what they say. And I'm not saying I necessarily prescribe to everything you say here, but if I did— let's say I'm a Christian conservative guy, these are my values, these are my beliefs— and then you hear Mr. or Miss over here saying, your beliefs are horseshit, you're just insecure, you— what you have to do is let that go in one ear and out the other. I'm one of those guys like, I don't really give a fuck. Can you believe that this woman said fill in the blank? So can you believe this guy said So, you know, when somebody comes to you and says, just because I've slept with 300 individuals doesn't mean that I'm a bad monogamous relationship partner, you just smile and go, that's your opinion, cool, high five, more power to you. Can you kindly get out of the way, please, so other more worthy people that fall under my values can come to the front of the line, please? Because you just lost your place. I think for those 300-body-count person, you just insulted them. You just told them that they're out of the list of people that Nick would call partner. Well, Nick, you just say, sorry, those are my values, that's my criteria. You're— you've just left the line. Sorry if that hurt your feelings, but I have my values, I have my boundaries, I have all that. That's my Take. You're insecure. Cool. Okay. Can you get out of line, please? You're off the list. You're not on my list anymore of potential partners. Sorry if that hurts feelings. I'm sure there's shit about you, Nick, that doesn't appeal to 300 body count person. Maybe you're not as sexy and outgoing and open-minded and everything else as they would like. You're not a match. Big fucking deal. Sorry, I'm cursing a lot today. I need lunch. Brandon from Facebook says, when is the best season to get divorced during the year? I don't know. It always seems like you wait until after this and that. Okay, well, this brings up a good point. Let's make a big assumption here, Brandon, that you are in a genuinely dysfunctional, toxic— overused word, people hate when I use that word— relationship. Like, anybody in their right mind would, would look in on your relationship and say, Jesus Christ, what's wrong with these people, right? Sorry, taking the Lord's name in vain there. I know that bothers some folks. Um, and then what invariably happens with a lot of guys when I talk to them, where I'm listening to these stories of like these really badly dysfunctional, bad relationships, and I'm just like, holy crap, dude, and like, what keeps you around? He's like, well, I do plan on separating, divorcing, but here's the deal, we got Christmas coming up, right? I can't divorce during Christmas, it'll ruin Christmas forever for these kids. Okay. And then there's New Year's, can't do that. And then, well, my wife's birthday is in January, so there goes Jan— I can't drop the bomb on her in January. And then my youngest has a birthday in March, so I can't. Dudes, you will always find a reason to kick that can down the road. There is never a perfect time to end a freaking family. This is like the biggest thing imaginable to say, we're done here. It's traumatizing to everybody, you, her, the kiddos. It's a giant thing, so you will never find a perfect time to do so. That does not exist. You will never find when the planets align just right, when the money's just right, when the, when the timing's just right. When the— some people say once the kids are out of the house. When's that going to be? 19 years from now? Oh Jesus, dude, if you're lucky. Sometimes those kids don't leave, especially now with the economy the way it is. They're not going anywhere. There's never going to be a best time. Um, all right, apologize, dead air here, silence as I read. We got a lot of stuff coming in, I can't read all of these because like I mentioned, I need to eat. Matthew says that the anxious attachment thing is tough to overcome. It feels terrible to stabilize, but dissonance is required to balance out sometimes. I don't know. Yeah, it is tough when you're like, I'm wired and have always been wired to be anxious and reach out and pursue and attach because I feel like this person's going to leave me. Any kind of anything veering towards the center, which is secure. So we have to get my hands right here. Anxious, avoidant, that's your two opposite ends of the extreme. In the middle is what we all want— secure. Anytime we— Mr. Anxious— excuse me, this was anxious side, wasn't it? Anytime an anxious dude over here veers towards secure, it feels like, um, asshole behavior. It feels like I'm being a royal dickhead, I'm avoiding, I'm abandoning, which is what you innately want to avoid, is being abandoned. Um, and it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel right. It's kind of like when I wrote in my book The Dead Bedroom Fix that men need to realize that they need to cultivate more of their lover side, the erotic side of their personality, their persona, if you will. A lot of us anxious dudes, we have the provider side down pat. We're good with our kids, we're good with the domestic stuff, we got all that down, right? But we lose sight of the more attractive stuff, the lover side. And one of those things I say in the book is you need to get the fuck out of Dodge and get away from her. Get away, get out of the house, go do your own thing. Stop being just so hyper-attached to her and hanging on her, and it's all about her and the kids. You need your own little independent life. That's normal and that's healthy. It's also— drum roll— attractive. What you'll find is that a lot of stuff that's normal and healthy is attractive. Funny how that works. So, but a lot of anxious dudes, uh, will read that, just say, uh, dude, I can't just leave her. We got all these responsibilities with the kids, and besides, she'll think I'm cheating on her. She'll think I'm a bad man. No, dude, people have their own lives. It's okay. And she should too. Should be plenty of times where she said, you got the kiddos because I'm running off to fill in the blank. Yeah, go have fun, Mr. Anxious. Here's— I said, yeah, right, she's gonna leave you and just go screw a bunch of guys, right? No, she's— this is a good healthy dynamic between people. Get the hell out of Dodge. I apologize if I'm missing questions here. Uh, Scott from— Scott M. from the DSO Fraternity says, men have a tendency to, quote, fix it instead of listening. How do you suggest that men figure out when it's not about the nail? Do you know what he's talking about, the not about the nail thing? There's this awesome YouTube video where this woman, they has this little fake nail sticking out of her head like somebody drove a nail into her head, and And she's sitting there talking to this guy like, it's just— I just feel this overwhelming pain and this tension. And I think she even says like, my sweaters keep getting snagged. And the guy's just looking at her going, it, it might be the nail in your head. She's like, I— would you stop trying to fix everything? You know, just listen to me. I want somebody to listen to me, not try to fix everything. It's like, okay, go on. And she goes on about, there's just this unrelenting tension and pain in my head, and it's pounding. It's like there's something in here. And he's like, It might be, you know— okay, sorry, I won't. That's— I mean, dude, that, that video was perfect. We just see the most glaringly obvious thing. Like, I see you're in turmoil, woman. It's so obvious. It's this. Can you just— all you gotta do is tweak this little thing or take the nail out, so to speak, and everything's— and she's just like, damn it, dude, can you stop trying to freaking fix everything and just listen to me? I get it. I get both sides, actually. I mean, there are times when I have, uh Like, uh, my relationship with my mom is such that my mom is very, very neurotic, and she doesn't like to see anybody in any kind of, uh— she's also very codependent. She's a very anxious person. She doesn't like to see any kind of pain, any kind of negativity, any kind of anything. So if you just share a story in passing about something that happened at work or something with a friend, she will immediately go into fix-it mode of, did you try, did you think, did you say? And you're just like, I'm It's not the intent of this conversation, Mom. It's not for me to come coming to you for advice on how to fix this. I'm just sharing a story. I think that's kind of a minor league version of what a lot of women do, which is, I just need to emote. I just know that— I just need to know that you're there for me. You're not going to judge. You're not going to try to fix. You're not going to try to get in here, Mr. Anxious, and just solve things because you can't deal with the anxiety either. I need to know that you can just handle this stress and anxiety that I'm emoting and I'm dumping on you right now temporarily, and give me a hug and a kiss and say, 'Yeah, that sucks,' pat me on the butt and send me on my way. That actually, as wife, makes me feel better. That doesn't compute with our male brain at all, but that's the— that's what a lot of women say, and that's how they are wired. And it's way different, isn't it? Because we're just like, if something bad, then freaking fix it and shut the hell up. Um, I'm looking here, more comments. Daniel says, Daniel from Facebook says, is it just me or does it seem that there are more marriages ending after the 15 to 20 plus year mark than ever before? Why do you think that is? I don't know if that's for a fact. I, you know, is it just me or, well, it's just anecdotally, we're just seeing with our eyeballs things on the internet, I assume, right? And probably things amongst your friend group. That's not enough for us to say that there's a societal trend. But what is it in the past? If in fact that wasn't the case in the past, what was it that was stopping people from ending their relationship at the 15 to 20 year mark? Was it that they were just gloriously happy and that everything was amazing and they had no reason to divorce? No, probably there were barriers in place. Let's be honest. And now we're tearing down barriers, or in fact, creating benefits to saying adiós to each other. You know, you tear down walls and you prop up a prize at the end, then of course you're going to have more divorces. So if it's a husband-wife, you get some kind of reward for splitting from her, and there's very little obstacle in the way of doing so, you're going to have more and more. James has a good question. James from YouTube asks, can a divorce bring on anxious personality disorder or anxious attachment style where you may have never been that way prior? All right, again, not a mental health professional, but I've read enough to play the part. Um, what's interesting is Uh, this— you're an anxious dude, you— that didn't just come out of nowhere. You learned it by sitting back and watching as a kiddo the dynamic between mom and dad. Uh, often that dynamic that you watch as a kiddo is, let's say for example, mom was very, very anxious and dad was the very, very avoidant one. Mom was the one always bringing drama. Dad was the one to roll his eyes and go, I'm going to go to work for an extra 4 hours, you know, that kind of thing. Um, you sit back and watch that You internalize that as a kiddo. And let's say for most of your life, you kind of played the part of Dad. You were kind of avoidant like that, very like drama-averse, like, just leave me alone with the drama. Let me, let me do my mission as a man. Let me go do work and just leave me the hell alone kind of thing. And then a trauma happens to you. And what's interesting is you flip and you become Mommy. So you have the two within you. It's just some kind of external stimuli pulls that out, so to speak. I'm oversimplifying, I know, and a psychologist may hear me saying, eh, you're missing something crucial here, but that's how I internalize, or that's how I explain all of this. You sat back and watched the two, the dynamic, and you're playing both sides out later in life when you're in a relationship. That's pretty common. So that may be what you're seeing there, James, is something unleashed. That part of you that wasn't in there before. Scott Morales with all kinds of cool questions here. Can you explain— sorry, let me get this proper for the clips because I will cut this up into clips later. Scott asks, can you explain, quote, gift-giving mistake that is called out in your book, The Dead Bedroom Fix? A common thing amongst our anxious dudes out there is to try and earn love and affection from his wife, his partner. And one way in which they earn is by doing things with the underhanded, unspoken intent of trying to get something out of the woman. So sure, the guy, he will up his chores and do all kinds of stuff around the house, but he's always looking over at the wife going, huh? What do you think of that, huh? Love me now? Give me attention now? Give me a blowjob now? Sorry. That's how a lot of some anxious-y guys, they see it as a very transactional thing. I did this, mommy, do you approve? Now do you love me? If it sounds very infantile, there's a reason. All that came from childhood. Well, one of those things is, if I give you a gift, wife, now will you like me? Let me give you that dress that you always talked about. 'Now you like me? Let me give you this thing, that thing.' And when the relationship dissolves, sure as shit, these guys say, 'I can't believe she broke up with me. I can't believe she cheated on me, dumped me, whatever it may be. I gave her this closet full of shit. She didn't— she was never wanting for anything. She has, you know, the BMW in the garage, the Louis Vuittons in the closet, all this other stuff.' And then everybody comes back to him with, um, Yeah, you don't, you don't have to buy her affection, dude. That's not how this works. Well, to a lot of men, that's how that works, unfortunately. And gift giving, a gift for your partner should always come from a genuine place. I give something to my wife because I know she's going to love it. And I know she, her eyes are going to light up. And it makes me feel good to make her feel good. And I want to show her that I love and appreciate her. That's why I get her that special little something. I don't give her the special little something so that she will give me attention that I so badly need. I don't give especially the sexual variety. That's weird and it's childish. And if that kind of, you know, hits below the belt for some of you guys listening to this, you got to work on that. That's what that's talking about. Jake says, what's up, Ralph Brewer? What's up, Jake, from Facebook, also a DSO fraternity member. Got a lot representing here. Scott G., also DSO fraternity coach, says from Facebook, for me as a DSO coach, I see the 8 to 10 year mark as the biggest benchmark for divorces in our group. Interesting. And then the gray divorce, the 20, 25 years, also common as well. Gray divorce meaning usually the term given to your older kids are out of the house, two people look at each other and go, what are we doing with each other again? Usually it's a unilateral thing, just a one-sided thing. What am I doing with you again? The kids are out of the house. All that's done. Work's complete. I don't really have overwhelming desire and love and romance, romantic feelings for you anymore. So let's, let's cut ties. That's your gray divorce. And then so what explains that 8 to 10 year mark that you're seeing, Scott? There's the old 7-year itch. I think it's a very real thing. Means the honeymoon stage is over. We've gotten to know each other. We have all our little idiosyncrasies that, that annoy the shit out of each other. We've made kids already, we've already procreated, all that's done. Uh, Mother Nature's just basically telling us, guys, you're done here, you can go your separate ways. So a lot of us cave into that, unfortunately. Um, Matthew from Facebook says, go check out DPM. DPM is, for those that don't know, Dr. Psych Mom. Yes, please check out her stuff, excellent stuff. And And DSO will agree. Uh, Dr. Psych Mom just posted a paid podcast about this very thing. What very thing was that? Was that the bouncing between the avoidant and the, uh, anxious personas, if you will? Um, yeah, I didn't make that up. That's something I've learned from listening to people, smart— smarter people like Dr. Psych Mom and others that have, you know, a lot of letters after their name and degrees. They all went to school for this stuff. I didn't. James says thank you so much. James from Facebook, thank you so much, makes a lot of sense. Well, thank you for following today. Where are we at on time here, folks? Not quite an hour. Let's go, let's go an hour today, shall we? Anything else? Any other questions for myself? I'm going to, uh, all right, see if this works. Post again that link. Yep, there it is. I am posting in the comments. This should show up on YouTube as well as Facebook, um, a link to the 1 month free of our DSO fraternity membership for men only, private group, men only, lots of cool benefits. You can check it out, give it a test drive for 1 month free. Yes, you got to put your credit card info in. If you last past, past that 30-day month mark, it'll start charging you month to month. But if after the first month you're like, I don't think this is really for me, cancel. No skin off our back. We're not going to charge you anything. And if by accident we do charge you after, you know, or maybe on day 31 you're like, I don't want to do this anymore, and we'll give you your money back. No big deal. I'm not here to steal money from you guys. I'm trying to build a group of like-minded, hard-working dudes who want to, uh, all get better and help each other out. That's the whole purpose of the DSO fraternity. So check it out, guys. Scott says, yeah, at the 8 to 10 year mark, school-aged kids are the focus and consumes the marriage. God, dude, um, kids— and it is no knock against kids, I— that's what I don't want to come across as, because by nature we have to devote a great deal of time and energy into our kiddos. We have to, or else they don't survive and they don't thrive, they don't become normal little adults later in life. So we have to devote a great deal of time time and energy to that. Unfortunately, what a lot of us, especially us anxious-y dudes, learn is my wife doesn't really seem to pay much attention to me anymore. What happened to all that validation I was getting? Physical, emotional? What happened to all that attention? What happened to all that love and affection? Well, there's only so much energy in one human being, and a lot of it's got to be directed to the new little infant over here. And then the infant becomes 8, 9, 10, 12, 18 years of age, that doesn't really let up, especially if you have a, a gal who is very, very anxious, um, a lot of anxiety. She's going to be hyper, hyper-focused on those kiddos, and husband went from number 1 on the list to number 92 on the list of things to worry about. And that's a major stressor on a lot of relationships. I know that's just one of dozens and dozens of ways that, uh, life can introduce stress into a relationship, but that's just the one that we see a lot of. In the Dad Starting Over world. And it takes, um, ironically— I don't know if that's the right term— it takes the dude, the one who feels forgotten, the one who feels neglected, it takes him to go, uh, us, we can't forget us, uh, we— it's important that us stay connected. That doesn't necessarily just mean in the bedroom, although that's a pretty big part of it. It means in a lot of other ways, emotionally, physically. We got to get away. It's— remember what connected us to in the first place? We have to keep that spark going or else it just— a little pilot light on the oven dies and it's cold and dead. And that's unfortunately what a lot of people see. I say it's the dude because often— not always— often the woman goes into almost what I call like a sexually dormant phase where that side of her and that side of the relationship just gets brushed off the table and forgotten about completely. And it takes her husband, her peer group, her social group to say, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's important that you maintain you as a happy, healthy individual. You're a dependence as an individual. You're not just mom. And also as wife and former girlfriend to this guy over here that you love more than anything, it's important you guys get away. We got the baby, we got the kiddos. Go, you two, go away for a weekend. We need that in our lives, or else, like I say, Mother Nature just naturally turns that knob down. It's not so good. And I wrote a book that in part deals with some of this from the man's side, and it's called The Dead Bedroom Fix. So check that out. Uh, Scott with the questions here. I did not put Scott up to this. He's hitting me with all the awesome questions here, I think because Scott's been in this Dad Starting Over world for years. Thank you so much, Scott, if I haven't told you enough how much I appreciate you, young man, and all you do. Um, He's not a young man, but he does— Scott, how are you? Older than me? I think you are. Yeah, um, but Scott does ask about a young man. He says in his scenario here, I have a young man in my life. What resources would you recommend to advise a younger man on how to learn a lot about a lot of the things that took us a lifetime to learn, especially when it comes to self-improvement and relationships? Well, it just so happens I wrote a book about that too, um, and that book is called Real Talk: No Bullshit Life Advice for Young Men. Real Talk. You can check out Amazon, it's on Audible, uh, so you can hand the kid the book and say, dude, been there, done that. I know what you're going through. I know this puberty, kids, girls— kids, no, he doesn't— hopefully not kids— girls relationships, porn, all this other nonsense. It's all your head spinning, dude. I've been there, done that. Here's a book that kind of addresses it from A to Z. Um, what I've learned though is a lot of kids aren't very receptive to being a dad handing them a book. I gave my own kid a copy of the book that I wrote. It's literally down the hall here collecting dust on his desk. Maybe one day he will. But I think what is even, uh, That's kind of like a foundational— here's like, if you ever want to turn to something to read or like a resource for you, here you go. I wish somebody handed me this book. But in addition to that, dare I say even more important, is the dad putting the arm around the kiddo saying, what just happened there? You and— I saw your interaction with your friends or the girl, or I heard you talking about whatever. Let me give you some advice, kiddo. What more can you do? Whether he ingests that now or years down the line, or finally, you know, processes— I say ingest it, digest it— that's up to him. And sometimes, as we all know, you can only, you know, lead a horse to water. It's whether they drink or not is up to them. Um, think back to when we were teenage boys. My dad had pulled me aside for shit like that, I'd probably be like, uh-huh, uh-huh, anyway, and just not even listen to the guy. Um, but sometimes you get through, and sometimes some little nugget of something clicks. I had a moment like that here— shoot, it was maybe a couple years ago— with my youngest boy. My— I tried to do this as diplomatically, politically correct as possible, but I noticed that my young boy, whenever we went to events like basketball games for the high school team or whatever it may be, was hanging out with a group of girls. And, uh, his brother said something. His brother's older brother said something about it to him. Why are you hanging out with the girls anyway? And he's like, shut up, you know. Do you let the conversation in there, or do you say, uh, no, let's talk about that, son? Which is what I did. And we had probably one of the best interactions ever between myself and the two boys in the car on the ride home. And it was, why do you think you hang out with the girls a lot more? Is it because the boys are Are the boys mean? No. Is it just how it worked out? Do you find yourself more in common with the girls? Or— no. It's like, well, I go, there's nothing wrong with hanging out with girls. It's awesome. They're your buddies, they're your friends. Cool. But what I don't want to happen, son, younger son, is that later you're like, I don't like hanging out with boys at all. Boys make me feel uneasy. Girls make me feel better. Because What you'll find is, son, down the line, for a lot of guys, you know, good boys like you, is that you hope that that will in turn result in those girls later becoming your girlfriend. Assuming my son is of the heterosexual variety, which I'm pretty sure he is. I don't— even if he wasn't, hey, still love him, whatever. But assuming he likes girls later in life, um, I don't want you to think that that will be— you're in for becoming boyfriend to those girls, because that's not really how it works. Girls tend to like the boys who have a more varied group of friends. They hang out with the guys, they do the guy stuff, they do the sports stuff, and then yeah, they maybe they got friends that are girls too. On, you know, it's good to understand girls in that way, but it's not gonna get you points down the line in that way. I don't want you to think that. And my older son was in the backseat just going, yep, yep, yep, tell them. Yep, I tried to tell him. And my youngest son got quiet, and, uh, you could tell we really hit a nerve with him. And then later he brought it up, later that night when we were watching like football on TV or something, like, uh, he asked me something about what'd you say about the girl thing. So I could see it clicked. And that's still a couple years later, still, you know, remains in my brain. It's one of those key moments. And that's the moment that I never would have had with my dad. When I was a kiddo, especially at that age. I think the only thing approaching that was my dad saying, uh, what's your girlfriend's name? Blah blah blah. Son, I don't want to be a grandpa anytime soon, okay? I was like, okay. That was the extent of our conversation. I don't want to be a grandpa anytime soon. Um, and Scott says, uh, he's 45. So I am older than you. Oh, young man, adorable. Um, José de Briones, hola José, says, how to deal with new relations— new relationships, me having an 8-year-old child half the time. Well, my knee-jerk thought right away is do not introduce your new lovers, relationships, girlfriends, whatever you want to call them to your 8-year-old until you've known this person— give it, man, give it a year at least. Why? Because you get to see that person and how they are for real, and let some of those new relationship energy puppy dog feelings, you know, subside a little bit, and you become a more structured, genuine, dare I say, relationship. And then you can see, is this in fact a person I want to introduce to our world? Because That is a big freaking deal to introduce new people to your children. Um, you know, think about it from your kids' perspective. You just rocked their world with a divorce, the separation. Everything they knew that was safe and secure and for sure in the relationship, assuming there wasn't horribleness in the family, you know, chaos and so forth, dysfunction, assuming if you were to ask the kid, they'd be like, everything's cool between mom and dad. Let's say that that's the case, and then you suddenly go, oh, by the way, we're not gonna be mom and— we're not gonna be husband and wife anymore, and you're gonna have to bounce between two different places. You just threw a grenade in the room, is the phrase I often— you dropped a bomb on that kid. So his world's just been rocked, and he— that way, if he's like a lot— if he or she is like a lot of kids, they're looking for some semblance of, uh, normalcy, stability, and security, safety. And for a parent to go, uh, hey kiddo, everything's cool, everything's fine, your mom or dad, we're on top of this. Oh, by the way, here's a new replacement mom. That's how they view it. Here's dad's girlfriend that he's going to be spending a lot of emotional time on and ignoring you. That's also how kids internalize that. You damn well better make sure that that person's going to stick around. Because the last thing that kid needs is to see a revolving door of dad's girlfriends coming in and out, in and out. Doesn't set a good tone for, uh, that, that kid down the line and his relationship, his or her relationship with kiddos or with people down the line, because they end up doing the same thing, bringing people in and out of their life. No, you need to show that kid stability. And my voice is starting to go. Tara says, as a woman— Tara from Facebook says, as a woman, losing yourself into kids, it's a hard thing to break as our brains are one track, and oftentimes we don't even realize until someone nudges us pretty hard. Very well put, Tara. Thank you. Yeah, and you need that nudge. And often, if that nudge comes in the form of anxious husband who's been begging you for sex for the last so many months, that nudge means nothing. It often needs to be a nudge outside of that world. It's kind of like the husband who often tells his wife, "You're so beautiful and sexy. I love you. Jesus, look at you. Look how hot you are." Means nothing. But then the guy at the office says, and she's like, "Oh, hello." Or could be the gal at the office says, "You look beautiful today. Look at you." And she's like, "Well, hello." And husband's back there like, "I've been telling you this for years. It means nothing." No, you're right. It doesn't mean anything because coming from you, you're Mr. Comfortable. You're not going anywhere. You're Mr. Husband. You're the guy who's been begging for sex anyway. We all know you have an ulterior motive here. So, um, same kind of thing. She needs to, uh, hear this stuff from outside. If that sounds sexist, I'm sorry, but that's just been my experience, and I think a lot of guys can nod, and a lot of women too go, yeah, it's true. Um, I'm gonna cut it, uh, shut it off here soon, ladies and germs. But Joel from Facebook says, I'm trying to get my wife into counseling. She finally admits that she has depression, doubled her meds but she has anxiety too. Well, the two usually go hand in hand. I started counseling for grief, uh, with the passive-aggressive goal of couples marriage counseling, uh, hoping to improve and bring her along eventually. I think it's time for me to fully admit to wanting couples counseling to begin with. Yeah, and be more direct, uh, or else we start going— either start going or else. Yeah, so I'm adding a lot here to the story. Correct me if I'm wrong, Joel. So your wife's counseling, depression, it's been tough on the relationship and your patience is running thin. She's medicated, doubled her meds, anxious. You started going to counseling and this is interesting. So you're talking about you're passive-aggressively, I'm gonna go for my own individual counseling. You say grief counseling. Is the grief revolving around what exactly? Is there a specific trauma in your life that we're dealing with here, or is this grief in general and with your relationship? But you say it's kind of a passive-aggressive thing that you kind of hope it's a stepping stone towards you two going together to counseling to work on you two. Yeah, just, we need to go to counseling, like, and I booked it next week, Wednesday, 8 AM. That's how you deal with these things, especially with Miss Depressive Anxious. She's not going to do it, is she? No, of course not. She's got problems. God bless her, wish her all the best, but she's got problems and she probably always will. And that's her cross to bear. So she needs to come up with a daily prescription for life to keep that depression, anxiety at bay as much as humanly possible. Take her meds, therapy, all that other stuff. And here's you kind of passively-aggressively doing stuff to fit in. Nah, dude, it's got to be aggressive-aggressive. And you're right, it ultimatums. Ultimatums work. I'm not Mr. Anti-Ultimatum. Honey, we're in trouble here. I assume— again, I'm filling in a lot of blanks here. We're in trouble here, and if we don't get help with said trouble, you and I are no more. That's how serious this is. That's what gets stuff done. Uh, Scott G says, this is exactly my coaching focus. I specialize in the masculine. Scott G, for those just joining us, is part of the Dad Starting Over team. And the DSO fraternity, dsofraternity.com. Uh, he says, I specialize in the masculine lover side of the equation. Many men we talk to don't have great emotional intelligence, sexual experience with women, or both. Uh, your typical anxious dude doesn't have a lot of romantic experience. Typical anxious dude that we talk to— not everybody— um, is rejection, rejection, maybe a little kind of girlfriend here and there, nothing serious. And then, oh look, this one seems to like me. Sure, she has these 27 red flags, but she seems to like me okay, and she's pretty enough, and hey, I'll make her my wife. And they get married and they're like, oh shit, there's a lot of red flags through the years, but hey, what can I do? I don't have, uh, I don't have many options in life. I don't like myself very much is what these guys basically are saying. And, um, yeah, they're lacking in the old, uh, emotional intelligence. I know there's— it's not the most technical psychology, psychological term in the world, but you— I think we all know what we mean when we say that. Um, a lot of men on the autism spectrum, neurodivergent types, and they have a very difficult time navigating these waters in the relationship world. And, um, oi, pardon me. And, uh, yeah, it's tough for them, so they need some help, and we have guys like Scott to talk to. Um, Hmm, okay. Wordsmith430. Wordsmith, hello. A frequent commenter on my YouTube videos, which, buddy, I appreciated a great deal. I need more views and comments and so forth and shares and everything else on my YouTube. So thank you. I recognize your, your name and your little picture there from YouTube. Excuse me. Uh, Wordsmith says, I've got— Wordsmith from YouTube rather says, I've got so much resentment in my sexless marriage. That I'm just ignoring her, barely talking, staying busy and absent. And she seems to be getting more clingy, but still no sex. I'm planning to exit. So you've just described— again, I'm inferring a lot here, I'm assuming a lot here. But you're describing a very typical scenario, which is one is the pursuer, Mr. Anxious, hanging on, grabbing, and it's not really getting much of anywhere because the other side is Miss, Miss or Mr. Avoidant. 'Get away from me. That part of me is done now that the honeymoon stage is ended. Now that we have kids, I'm really, really done. So just back away, back away, please.' And then the other one finally, probably after a period of years and so many, you know, litter of kids later and everything, finally says, 'Yeah, I think I get the picture here. I think I'm not really wanted. Never mind, I'll just back off.' And it's— that's when the pursued, the avoidant one, sometimes goes, 'What happened to my Source of validation here. What happened to my person that's pursuing me? Even though I didn't really want anything to do with them, it was nice to be at least wanted. They gave me some semblance of something here. So, hey dude, what happened? And that pressure off of their shoulders, you know, the anxious person is a lot of weight on the shoulders. That anxiety, that anxious person chasing after you and wanting you and begging you, it's Oof, it's smothering. And so when that blanket is released, suddenly they're more open, feminine, bubbly. Sometimes, sometimes when you let them go, they just go. They, they're out of there and they disappear forever. But it sounds like, Wordsmith, you're getting a little bit of reaction in a positive way. Still no sex though. Um, that's key. This is something that a lot of men, um, especially when not with a lot of relationship experience have a difficult time with. And that is, we snuggle, we hug, we kiss, we're deep conversations. We, we— everyone on the internet tells me emotional connection, emotional connection. I think we got that in spades. But still nothing happening in the bedroom. One point I want to get across is There's a big difference between the world of the comfortable love, I guess we can call it. You have comfortable love with your kiddos, snuggle with your kiddos on the couch watching movies, with your dog, with your sibling, but you don't have an erotic sexual connection, do you? It's two different worlds. That erotic, filthy, dirty, sexy, kinky, yadda yadda, that Men, for some reason, try to connect those two, and those are two different worlds. Marrying the two together is awesome. If you can pull that off, that's what we call a happy marriage. That's what we call a great relationship. That's what we call fulfilling, healthy relationship. That's really tough for a lot of us. And, uh, I think what you're exhibiting, Wordsmith, here is I'm really addressing this side over here, still haven't addressed this side over here. And, uh, one shortcut method to getting this need met is to basically leave that relationship and find somebody new, because there's nothing more erotic and more of a turn-on and all that stuff than the old new girlfriend. It's not very healthy for the marriage though, is it? Um, because hopefully you leave said marriage before pursuing girlfriend, unless you are in some kind of open relationship or quasi-open relationship or Whatever. There's— I've learned over the years there's whole flavors of relationships that I was completely ignorant of until I started doing this. And some people claim to be able to string decades of a happy relationship together while doing that open thing. Whatever. Whatever floats your boat. Hey, who am I to judge, right? But, um, I don't think that's something you want to go for, is it, Wordsmith? You probably are more along the lines of, I just wish my wife would get, um, really turned on and suddenly want sex with me. That'd be cool. Don't hold your breath. I remember your story from your previous comments. This is a multi-year thing you're dealing with here. This is a multi-children thing you're dealing with here. If I remember right from your story, you also have, um, you also became Mr. Stay-at-home Dad while she went home and made— or went to work and made the bacon. You got a lot of shit working against you, dude. And if there's hope for you two, it's only if she raises her hand and says, yeah, I got issues. And you raise your hand and you say, yeah, I got issues too. And you both go, maybe we should work on said issues. Yeah, I think we should. All right, high five, let's get to work. And are you, Mr. Pat— gonna be patient enough to deal with more years, months and years of work of lack of passion? Because it's— you can't just turn on like that, not within this relationship or relationships like it doesn't happen. Like I say, you want— if you want that, go get your girlfriend. I'm not, I'm not condoning infidelity or anything like that. I'm just— biologically, that's the key for you and her, by the way. She'll come alive again with somebody new. That's just how it works. You would too. So it takes a special kind of work to make a relationship long-term remain sexy, fun, all that other stuff. Um, but just a healthy relationship, it takes a lot of work. You have a lot of unhealthy shit— you know, the giant wall between the two of you, you and your wife. You're trying to tear down that wall and then work on the healthy sexy. Best of luck, dude. That's gonna be tough. And I'm not trying to paint a cynical negative picture. I'm trying to be realistic. Hmm. Mark from Facebook says, "That's tough." But it's something you have to work on. The next person you meet hasn't done anything to betray your trust. You move on. You be the high-value dude. And work on your abundance mindset. Well, we're hitting all the catchphrases here, aren't we? And I'm guilty. I say them all the time too. High value dude, abundance. These are very masculine things we hear all the time on the internet. You can't control others. That's true. Only what you bring to the table. Clean your side of the relationship. It's all we can do, guys. How much better would we all be if we all just said, men and women alike, yeah, I got some issues I need to work on. Love you, dear, but I got to work on some stuff and let's work on it together. I work on me, you work on you, we work on us together. Work, work, work, work, work. What I'm hearing from a lot of people, men and women alike, is work. I do enough shit as it is work-wise. I really don't need to pile more work on my plate. And then the follow-up to that is, unfortunately, what I— man and woman, dare I say more the woman side— have been told is that this shouldn't require work like that. This all shit should come naturally. And when it doesn't come naturally, then that's the indication that this is off and we should probably just either flip the off switch but remain in the relationship in some kind of dysfunctional, dormant, brush— pardon me— brush it under the rug kind of thing, or we just divorce and start over with somebody else. That's what I see, is that this predominant thought of it shouldn't really take work, and as soon as it feels like it is, I'm out. Not good. That's not conducive to positive long-term monogamous relationships. Tara makes an excellent point. Tara from Facebook says, it's definitely not mutually exclusive, but initiating the dual nature, the erotic and the comfortable, sexy and the not, you know, the whatever, family stuff, you want to say that, uh, it's the hardest part in her humble experience. I think once you begin that journey, it becomes a much more natural state of being. Dare I say, Tara, that it's probably more difficult for you ladies? And that's not a condemnation of you ladies. I think a lot of therapists would say the same thing. Dr. Psych Mom often says, uh, when she has men come to her with stories of, my wife seems to have shut down sexually ever since marriage and kids, I'm not putting words in her mouth, but I think her experience would be, yeah, welcome to being married to a typical woman. That's kind of how we're wired. When in the confines of a long-term monogamous relationship, women's sexual energy tends to get cranked down. Take her out of that and watch her go, woo, I'm back again. Sorry, that's not negative. That's not evil, as a lot of men like to frame it. That's human nature. Us men experience much the same thing. To a smaller degree though, dare I say a much smaller degree, and our testosterone and our raging libido— not for every man, but for a lot of men— can overcome pretty quick a lot of those feelings. Dude, I know, um, and we were just talking about this the other day amongst the group, um, plenty of men who are in relationships— this is going to paint men in a really bad way, but I'm— if there's anything, I'm realistic here. We're not angels as men. A lot of men are in relationships with women that, no joke, they look across the table at this woman and just say, I don't like her at all. I'm not physically attracted to her. Everything she does annoys the shit out of me. I'm really angry about insert 99 things here. She's kind of a loser. She doesn't take care of herself. She doesn't do anything. Um, I can't stand this woman. And when you follow up with then what the hell are you doing with the woman? Or why are you not doing anything to improve said situation or whatever? Or, dude, why are we talking? Talking about my coaching clients, they will follow up with, drum roll, um, I want more sex with my wife. And they don't see anything weird about that. The male libido is such that he's been without it for months, if not years, to the point where he's going crazy. And he sees fellow human being next to him woman that he made vows to. So he's like, I don't understand why we're not having sex here. Do you like her? No, I don't like her. But you want her sexually? Yes. That sucks. That's not good. If any of you men can relate to that, you need to go back to the drawing board and take a deep, hard look at yourself and figure out, you know, why that's not good and why people like me sit back and go, dude, no, Don't do that. Um, but, um, that's the nature for a lot of men. So that's a, that's a, an extreme illustration of how our libido and our sex drive as men can overcome a lot of bullshit, I guess, in other words. And we're still able to do the erotic side of things even though this side over here is completely gone. We still have this and it's just fine. And a lot of women have a hard time dealing with that or understanding that. And I think of a lot of men hearing what I just described can nod their heads and say, yeah, I can see that. Throwing myself under the bus, that was maybe not to that degree, but I can relate to that somewhat from my marriage number one. And that's not a condemnation of her, that's a condemnation of me. That was shitty of me. I was in a relationship with somebody that— was I attracted to them in that way? No. Did I have over-the-top gaga lustful loving romantic, aww, kind of feelings for her? No. Did I ever? Yeah, for a relatively short period of time. But I was caught up in the machines, the machinations— is that the right term?— of the marital thing and just got overwhelmed by the marriage, kids, all that stuff, and just lost sight of all that other stuff. And, um, I guess I didn't see anything wrong with that. But did I still want action in the bedroom? Yeah. Was that shitty of me? Yeah, it was. And, uh, not perfect. I put it all out there. I think a lot of men can relate to that. Um, I'm going to do one more of these and then I need to eat or I'm going to pass out. Uh, Do you think that the rise of social media negatively affects— let me back up here and do this properly for the video. Um, Colin, is that how you pronounce your name? Colin from Facebook asks, do you think that the rise of social media negatively affects relationships? I've been reading that some theorize the instant validation leads to narcissistic tendencies. With the instant validation. He says again, um, is it the false impression of grass is always greener? Abso-fucking-lutely. Excuse my language. Yes, especially amongst our more young and impressionable. Absolutely. I mean, you gotta hammer into our young teens' heads. And, um, dare I say that women are more impressionable in this way than men are? More malleable in that way? I don't know. I'm not a psychologist. Maybe a psychologist type can, um, dig into that more. Why is it we see that women, especially young women, are more susceptible to things that they see online than what men and young men are? In terms of, uh, we see a rise in eating disorders, um, we see a rise in things such as, uh, self-harm amongst young teen girls. Why? Because they saw it on Instagram. Women hurt themselves physically because they see other women hurt themselves physically. Um, this isn't, this isn't to say women are stupid. Don't misinterpret what I'm saying here. Um, there's a personality trait called openness. Women tend to be far more open than men are. When you're too open, you let a lot of shit in and it can influence you. Voilà, social media just really caters to that in a very negative way. So when I'm on social media and I'm flipping through going, look at this perfect family and their perfect kids and their perfectly clean house and their perfect vacation. And look at her, she doesn't have an ounce of cellulite on her body. And look at her husband with his six-pack abs and look at their perfect little blonde children. And there's a lot of ammunition to make you feel not so good about yourself. And it's not real is the point that I think we should make to women in our lives, the young women. Um, you're seeing the highlight reel of life. Not only that, you're seeing a digitally altered, in a lot of ways, highlight reel of life. Miss Gal with not an ounce of cellulite on her body— she has cellulite. I've been in the photo video business, or I was, for years. Don't trust anything you see, folks. Um, you know those, uh, fitness before and after photos of men before, kind of dad bod-ish looking, followed up by ripped dude because he took some shit supplement, you know, that doesn't do anything from GNC. Sometimes those before and after video or photos are taken on the same day. No bull. Um, I've seen that firsthand where you, uh, take the photo, do a little digital this, a little that, apply a little oil, do a little fake tan, and holy crap, the dude looks like a completely different human being, and it's the same dude, hours apart. That's it. Don't trust what you see. Um, don't let it affect you so much. And do we see a rise in narcissistic tendencies as a result? I'm not sure of that, but we do see people that are, uh, yeah, trying to seek instant validation in form of they're the one putting out the material— like me, love me. And then we see the people that are taking in the material and feeling worse about themselves. Oh, I'm not as perfect as she is. This sucks. Yeah, it's not a good thing. And I say this as a guy who makes money on social media. Uh, that's how I get a lot of attention to me. So how ironic. Um, and to me, into the world of the Dad Starting Over world, is via all these videos and things that I put out there. And millions of people have seen them. And in turn, uh, the, the social media platforms such as Facebook actually pay me to post. The more and more I post and the more things like it, the more people that like it and share it and engage with it, the more I get paid. In addition to that, I have product that I sell— the Dad Starting Over DSO fraternity membership, books, courses, all that stuff. So it's a moneymaker for me, and times can be a good moneymaker for me. So, um, it's kind of hypocritical of me to say it's not the healthiest thing in the world, this social media. Um, and, uh, Vance, who is a coach within the Dad Starting Over world, he's a fitness-focused coach in our world, um, and he has a course out there. Check out dadstartingover.com. He has a course available, a no-bullshit 1-hour lecture on how to gain muscle, the science, a real science-based approach to gaining muscle, no bullshit. Vance is a professor at the college level, by the way, and also Vance is a, um, Olympic weightlifting. Vance, you can say this better than I can. Championship-level weightlifting coach, Olympic-style weightlifting. Anywho, so he knows what he's talking about. In other words, um, Vance says that Facebook Messenger allows more strangers to hit on you more often as well. All of this social media bullshit allows people to interact with other people like that. Again, we're eliminating boundaries, aren't we, between steady, committed relationship in singlehood. And, uh, we're breaking down communication barriers so that people can just instantly talk to each other. I get messages all the time from people. Rarely do I get hit on, nor do I want to be hit on, ladies. I'm not— I'm not inviting this. Every now and then I'll get a message from some lady asking if I'm married and yada yada yada, and they'll say I'm cute, which of course makes you feel good. But, um, I can see where that can go for some people in wrong way in a hurry. And, uh, if I'm seeing that, Mr. Very Average Looking Bald Middle-Aged Dude, I can't imagine what some young good-looking dude, or hell, the young good-looking woman, what they see. Oh my God. So, wow. Yeah, the, the, the temptation is out there. The avenue for inappropriate discussions and more is out there more than ever before. So we got a lot of shit working against us, don't we, in this relationship game? Us monogamous people, that's for sure. Um, yeah, Christine says that she knows a woman who's nearly 40 years old and she gets sad if she doesn't get likes on her social media posts. Yeah, we all know those people. Um, she thought she was too old to be susceptible. She's a human and she's susceptible to that. And social media is engineered for people like that. Unfortunately, Vance says he is a senior international coach. Thank you. Well, thank you, Vance, for being on the team. All right, folks, I need to go eat or I'm going to gnaw off my foot. Thank you all so very much for joining me today in this live endeavor. If you have any questions, email me. Oh, at the— if you have something you want me to do a video on, dadstartingover.com/diaso. I'm going to put it in the comments here, folks, so you can see it. Mm, wow, I can't read this. See if that works. DadStartingOver.com/dear-dso, and I will— you can fill out a little form. If I think it's going to make for a good video, I'll do a little video response and put it out there for the world to see. And go to DadStartingOver.com for all the articles, courses, link to the DSO fraternity, check it out. I've posted in the comments here a couple times already the link to the, uh, 1 month of free of the DSO Fraternity. So if you're a guy on the— not quite sure if it's for you or not, check it out for free. What can you lose? We're not going to keep charging you. If by accident we charge you for month number 2 and you didn't want it, we'll give your money back. You can ask anybody. I'm not here to steal your money. Easy to work with, cancel anytime. DSO Fraternity. All right, ladies and germs, thank you all so very much, and I hope you have a wonderful week. Oh, it's a weekend, isn't it? Louisville, Louisville football, go Cards! They play Miami tomorrow. I want all of you to watch them and cheer them on. Then they're going to play Florida State in the ACC Championship. This is huge because Louisville has sucked for years. So go Cards, and I'll see you around, guys. Bye-bye.