In this excerpt from the "Dad Starting Over" podcast, host Ralph Brewer first promotes the Help for Men Brotherhood, a community offering forums, coaching, and resources for men dealing with relationship challenges, dead bedrooms, divorce, and loneliness. He then delves into the central thesis that increased safety and comfort in long‑term relationships tend to push erotic energy out of the partnership. Using a "front‑door/back‑door" metaphor, Brewer explains that as stability enters through the front door, sexual desire is expelled through the back door. He cites works by Esther Perel (Mating in Captivity) and Wednesday Martin (Untrue) to support the phenomenon, and illustrates it with extreme examples: a man who loses 100 lb or jumps from a $50k to a $500k salary suddenly gains many dating options, which can make his partner feel threatened and lead to anxiety about infidelity. He links higher testosterone and perceived options to higher infidelity risk. Brewer shifts to attachment theory, describing a common pattern where anxious men (often codependent, “Nice Guy” types) pair with avoidant women who resist deep emotional discussion. He references the "Dead Bedroom Fix" book and the "No More Mr. Nice Guy" concept to illustrate how men seek to fix relationships but may become people‑pleasers, while their avoidant partners pull back, creating a push‑pull dynamic. He offers concrete advice to a listener named Brendan, urging both partners to acknowledge their attachment styles, seek therapy, and practice vulnerability, noting that avoidant individuals often struggle to ask for help. Throughout, Brewer promotes his resources (deadbedroomfix.com, helpformen.com) and emphasizes that maintaining a balance between safety and eroticism is a continual, challenging seesaw for most couples.
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Well, a new analogy I used, and this isn't anything I made up— the analogy is something I made up, but the, the, the, um, Phenomena is not something that I made up. There are, uh, pardon me if you've heard me say this a million times, it's getting to the point where I'm annoying myself by repeating myself over again. I need new material. But there are authors who have authored books on this subject as well as related subjects, such as Esther Perel, who was a psychotherapist, a woman, hence the name Esther. And, um, she wrote a book called Mating in Captivity. And there's another book by a gal named Wednesday Martin who wrote a book called Untrue. And, um, a lot of other anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and so forth, a lot of women who are pointing out, yeah, there's a very real phenomenon of once safety and security come into the picture, eroticism, overt sexuality goes out. So the little metaphor, I guess you could say, that I use is, um, you have a home and it's filled with sexuality, eroticism, all that stuff that we love as men in the early stages, right? And, uh, there's a front door and a back door. As comfort, security, stability, safety come in the front door, it pushes some of that eroticism, sexuality out the back door. Not for everybody, but for the majority of people, we can say, yeah, it's kind of a thing. And again, books have been written on the subject. So when men try to overtly bring back some of that sexual and erotic energy into a relationship, women are like, I'm kind of scared that we're going to lose some of those safeties. So when he tries to bring it into the— from the back door and bring it back in the house, she's worried that it's going to kind of push the safety and security and everything else kind of out the front door. And she has a point to worry because it's true. Some horrible examples of this are, as a man, let's say he goes from 100 pounds overweight to losing a bunch of weight and looking like a Greek god. He goes from $50,000 a year job to hitting it big, and he got a big career change, and now he's making a half million dollars a year. So he's looking great, he's got a lot of money. I, I use these two extreme examples to illustrate the point that he now has a lot of options mate-wise that he didn't have before. As horrible as that is to say out loud, we can all agree, yeah, probably, right? He takes his new self out into the dating market. He's going to get laid. He's going to get a lot more attention from women. And wife innately knows this, which may be in turn why she's kind of nervous about, why are you going to the gym so much? Why are you dressing so much nicer? Why are you losing all this weight? Because she's worried you're going to be Mr. Sexy again, and that's going to shove me right out the front door. And, um, and she's right. So that— there's a higher chance of that happening as a result, because we know a good predictor for, uh, infidelity, for example, in men is frankly how many options does he have. Another thing is the higher testosterone in men, the higher chances of infidelity. These are not nice things, they're not very pro-male things, but if we can't look at these facts, we can't be honest with ourselves as men. Sorry, that's the way it is. So it's always a delicate balancing act of that back and forth, in and out of the Bringing in the safe and comfortable, but maintaining the sexy. To do that dance consistently, it looks like this. It's always a back and forth, back and forth. We got our date nights and the weekend away from the kids. But hey, we're back with the kiddos. Got to reintroduce that. Somebody got sick. Somebody lost the job. Oh, that really bring— we got to really focus on safety and security and stability. Hey, everything's great now. Somebody lost 100 pounds. Bringing the sexy back in. It's always a back and forth, a seesaw. Type of thing. And that's very, very difficult for a lot of people. And what I've seen is probably majority of people in my life that I have known have just thrown out the sexy erotic completely and said, that's just done. We're just a couple of overweight, comfortable, schlubby, who-the-hell-cares kind of people. Let's just sit in our recliners and watch TV until we die. As horrible as that is, a lot of people live that lifestyle until one of them wakes up and says, I don't want to do this anymore. And then, oh shit, all hell breaks loose. And I've talked to men who have been on the receiving end of that wake-up. Their partner, the woman, woke up and said, I don't want to be like this anymore, I want to go to the exercise class, I want to work on my career. And the chances of divorce go up. But it's still a good thing, that balancing act back and forth. Anywho, so, um, And then Brendan says, hearing that out loud is just echoing what I probably thought already. I brought this up with her, but she doesn't seem bothered and would rather ignore the problem than come up with a solution together. Brendan, my friend, that's not good. Um, are you familiar with this concept of the, the anxious person and the avoidant person? Um, psychologists do a heck of a job of labeling things, and for good reason. We want to categorize label and better understand and put practices and things in place to help out people under said labels. And so they— somebody years ago came up with this idea of attachment. How you as a child attach to parents and vice versa dictates in part, a large part, how you attach to people later on in line, down the line, especially romantic relationships. So what I have noticed over the years, I've said this many, many times, is, um, a lot of the guys that come to my material are guys that are really trying to work on their relationship. Like the Dead Bedroom Fix book— Dead Bedroom Fix— go to deadbedroomfix.com. Um, guys that read that book, they book time with me. You can do so at helpformen.com. Um, they talk to me one-on-one, they join our men's group. They're really actively doing the good dude thing, which is working on the relationship. They see the value of the relationship, keeping the relationship going and making it as good as they can, and trying to fix some not so nice stuff. They're very anxious in their attachment. They're very preoccupied with the health of the relationship, which sounds great, but it can go too far, and, uh, they become people pleaser, yes men, Mr. Nice Guy types. If you've read, uh, No More Mr. Nice Guy, that is a book about, um, a phenomenon we called codependency. We have a lot of codependent men in our group and so forth. And who they tend to match up with— and Brendan, tell me if this sounds familiar— is women that we call very avoidant in nature. They don't really like all the lovey-dovey stuff. They don't like to have long drawn-out conversations about the relationship. You want to go talk to a counselor about some of our issues? Oh, I don't want to go talk to somebody about my issues. No, everything's fine. You know, we haven't had sex in like 3 months. That's kind of weird. I don't want to talk about it. No, no, um, couples don't do that kind of stuff. Just don't worry about it. It's not, it's not that important. Everything's just kind of like, meh. And the more you push and the more you pursue, the more they do this. It's always the Pursuing, back off, pursuing, back off. Ironically, most avoidant people in the world are men. Men are the ones that are rolling their eyes going, can we stop with the drama? Can we stop always trying to talk about shit? Can't we just live in peace? Well, we have the anxious men with the women that are playing— the women are playing the avoidant role. Um, that much like with the anxious attachment, the avoidant attachment is born out of what they endured or what they experienced, as in this case, as a young girl. What we see often in the guys, or in the gals of the guys in our group, for example, is they will say, my wife was the type that kind of had to take care of herself. Father probably out of the picture, uh, mother can't really depend on her all that much, so she had to take care of herself. And she— a lot of these men say she kind of excelled at that. She hyper-excelled as a student, as a career person, and all this other stuff. Very hyper-independent, I'll take care of it type person. And they're not the most loving human beings in the world. They're not the most loving, schmoozy, cozy, lovey-dovey, as we say, kind of individual. Maybe a little bit at the beginning of the relationship, enough to fool Mr. Anxious into thinking, yeah, I found a good one. And then as the comfort and stability there comes that, is the comfort and stability that I say sexual and eroticism for her, also just the schmoozy lovey stuff goes out the back door as the comfort and stability comes in the front door. And the only way this gets better, Brendan and others that find yourself in this dynamic, is if the avoidant person says, I got a problem, I need help. My makeup, as far as my attachment— they probably don't know that vernacular— my personality is such that it keeps a lot of my insecurities and problems from childhood bubble to the surface, and it kind of ruins my romantic relationships. I keep losing good people like Brendan here. I'm pretending I'm your significant other, so I need to work on that. Or else I'm gonna lose him or any other future people, I got problems. And I see Brendan over here, he's trying, he's going to this DSO guy's livestreams and asking questions, he's buying books, he's doing all this, he's trying to fix and become a more secure version of himself to become a better husband. I kind of need to do the same. That's what it takes. But Brendan, buddy, that's really freaking rare. Like, I don't know what percentage, but it's point something percent. I'm sorry, it really is, because their nature is such that it prohibits that vulnerability to get to that point. To say, "I need help," is hugely vulnerable. It's hugely, like, not independent. It is saying, "Help." It is extending a hand saying, "Will you help me, please?" to a therapist, to a loved one, to a family member, whatever it may be. And that's very, ugh, they don't like to do that. So to go to a therapist and really open up about this stuff, "Let me tell you about my mom and dad," It's no, that's very anti-them. They don't do that. So it's a giant leap of faith and it's really, really hard for them to do that. Now what may help is that they have a partner who's now more secure. Now they feel a little bit more comfortable in doing so. For some are lucky, from what I've determined is that this avoidance, for example, kind of exists on a spectrum. Some people are super, super avoidant, some just a little bit. For those that are just a little bit, they tend to respond better to a guy who's more secure, or manly if you want to say that. He extends his hand, she takes it, and he's like, come over here to the secure side. And she follows him and everything goes well. And she's much more open and bubbly, feminine, loving. And the guy goes, this worked, this is great. From what I've seen, they're in the minority. It seems that those that are more so avoidant, just, they don't, when you extend the hand, they pull theirs back and say, I don't think so, mister. Nope, I'm not doing that. It sucks, but it is what it is. And that does not get better with time, and that certainly doesn't get better after kids. And we bring that— when this comfort, familiarity, comfort, familiarity, safety, security comes in that front door, all that lovey-dovey stuff goes out the back door and it's gone. And the back door's shut, locked, deadbolt nailed shut, and they never coming back. Unfortunately, unfortunately, I'm sorry to say that.
