In this YouTube advice segment, host Ralph Brewer reads a listener letter from "Angie," a woman who left her husband for an affair partner and now faces chaotic co‑parenting with her ex. Angie describes the children’s hostility toward the new man, disagreements over house rules, finances, and social‑media use, and her lingering love for her ex, who blames her entirely for the marriage’s breakdown. Brewer acknowledges Angie's responsibility, emphasizes that the primary focus must be the children’s well‑being, and advises her to take concrete steps: own the mistake, communicate calmly with her ex, seek consistency in routines and rules across households, and end the new relationship because her heart remains with the ex. He suggests using a neutral, fact‑based approach when discussing issues (e.g., bedtime schedules, insurance) and recommends removing the new partner from the picture to reduce emotional turbulence. Brewer also offers one‑on‑one coaching through help4men.com/coaching for anyone seeking deeper, male‑perspective guidance. The tone is conversational, candid, and at times admonishing, but ultimately supportive, urging Angie to prioritize healing, consistency, and the children’s stability.
Chapters
Alright, we have another Dear DSO entry on the website, and you can submit your own story or question to dadstartingover.com/dear-dso, and if it's a good one, I will answer it here for the whole world to see. And this one comes from Angie, and the subject line is Wife Who Left. She says, I love your content, and I have learned so much about my situation from the perspective of of a man. I am a woman who had an affair and I left for the affair partner. I have only ever been with my husband and this new man. The grass is not greener and everything is not peachy keen. The kids hate him, the affair partner. They take out their frustrations with the situation on me all the time. They hate my new house. You name it, I'm dealing with it. I still have love for my ex. Oh boy. And if he would tell me that he would take me back, I would in a heartbeat. My affair partner even knows this and of course feels like the second choice now. My ex didn't see anything wrong with the marriage and still doesn't, so he is placing 150% of the blame on me. My ex is refusing to co-parent with me stating that my house issues, um, that my house, my issues, his house, his issues. Oh, I see. He won't share what his rules are, what his policies are regarding what the kids pay for, such as car insurance, etc., or anything. He's even allowed our children to get into multiple social media platforms, which I was adamantly against, but he did this on his time with them. How do you finally get to a place of peaceful co-parenting with your ex? I know you said you have a good relationship with yours now, so I hope that you have some ideas. Thanks. Well, what a good, what a good question here, Angie. Sorry you're going through all this, but you know, there's a part of me, the knee-jerk thought for probably the majority of men watching this right now is, haha, Angie, you made your bed, you gotta lie in it. And, you know, let's be honest, there's something to that. You made a big oopsie here a while back, got with a new man, it didn't quite work out, um, and you're seeing the repercussions of a pretty big not-so-good decision on your part. Um, so, but I'm not, but I'm not going to throw stones here. None of us are infallible. We all make mistakes. You made a big one. Um, all I can tell you is things heal like this with time. Usually. And you can certainly help expedite this by, you know, reaching out to X and just saying, you know, point blank, we all know I did a big bad thing. I don't know if it's just years ago, months ago, I don't know how long ago. I understand completely your frustration, anger, and everything towards me. Bitter hatred probably is a good, you know, phrase to use here. Um, but we need to set those kind of things aside and work together on raising these kiddos. Uh, here's the thing though, Angie, anytime you go to husband and say— ex-husband, excuse me— and say, I disagree with the way you're doing fill in the blank, in one ear out the other. You could— I mean, it could be the most obvious thing, like our kid is addicted to peanut butter, so please stop packing him peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, you're going to kill the kid. That will even probably go in one out the other. Everything that comes out of your mouth is colored by what you did. Same kind of thing that I say to a lot of men who have had affairs. I've talked to a lot of guys who have had affairs, and, you know, maybe some 30 years goes by in the relationship, like they did it very, very early on in the relationship, like in the dating phase or something. And sure shit, 30 years later, if he and the wife have some big disagreement, she'll be like, well, why don't you go run to your horse, Stacy? And he's like, okay, Stacy died, or Stacy's now an old lady. Um, that was one time 30 years ago. We have to move past this. And he has a point, and she has the point too, that it's always going to be there. It's always going to be lurking. I mean, the guy could be dead and buried, and she's going to go to the gravesite, and she's going to be like, Stacy come see you. It's always going to be there lurking in the distance, behind the scenes. Same kind of thing. You're eventually going to get to a place where this is better. Time time does heal all, uh, but there will always be that inkling of, you're the one who caused all this. You know, if you come to him with, I am stressed because of— his knee-jerk reaction for quite some time is going to be, well, good, you deserve the stress. You made a big dumb decision that everyone around you saw. Boy, this is going to cause you a lot of stress, and voilà, now you have stress. So live with it. You know, suffer and lay in this stress bed that you made for yourself. He's got a point. But at the same time, we're talking about the well-being of the kids. So it's just a matter of putting it out there. I understand how you feel. I understand where you're coming from. But we really need to think of these kiddos. I'm not trying to be— I'm not trying to poke at you and try to get you to feel bad, ex-husband. I'm not questioning your parenting and all this other stuff. I can see a lot of what you're doing and saying is basically lashing out at me, and I get it. You can lash out at me all you want. I deserve a lot of it, to be honest. But let's not let the kids suffer as a consequence. The social media thing— anyone with any kind of expertise on the matter will tell you, get your kids off that shit. And now they're on it, so this isn't good, ex-husband. You could say like, you know, I would like to know what you do for this and this, ex-husband, not because I'm trying to be intrusive and nosy, which is probably how he's looking at it, or trying to control you Another way he's probably seeing this, what I'm doing is trying to get a flavor for what it is you're doing so I can duplicate the same over here so that our kids will have an easier time with the transition between the two homes. Like, what time are you putting the kids to bed? 10? Cool, I've been doing 9:45, and I'll move it to 10 just to keep it consistent. And, you know, that kind of stuff. But, uh, Angie, big elephant in the room, you still have— you would take your ex back in a heartbeat. Your new dude knows this. I mean, what a dumpster fire. You gotta let this new dude go. This is nuts. This is kind of— it's very dysfunctional, very like, ugh, you know. This was a big mistake. Let him go. Work on you. Okay, what a grand opportunity. You have wiped the slate clean. You would have time to yourself. You have time to, you know, let's say it's your non-kid week, or however your situation's worked out between the two of you. Pretend here for a moment that it's 50/50. You have a non-kid week, it's not clouded by new guy. A lot of time for self-reflection and growth and everything else in your life. Um, you know, use that time effectively, wisely. Leave men alone for a while. I say the same thing to guys, so I'm not, you know, giving you different advice just because you're a woman. That's human advice. You're not in the right headspace to bring other people into your world right now, obviously. Don't try and rekindle things with your ex. That's not healthy. I don't know the particulars of your split. You've insinuated here that you are not to blame 100% for the downfall of the marriage, but you know, you did a bad thing with the affair thing, but probably in your mind that was an end result of, you know, 100 other little bad micro things leading up to that moment. So I don't know, maybe your ex was an abusive asshole. Maybe, I don't know, maybe he was an angel. Maybe he's just a boring dude and you got bored with him. And everything in between. Don't know. So if you, Angie, would like to talk to me one-on-one about this, you can. I do talk to ladies, not often, but on occasion. Um, you can go to help4men.com/coaching. Even though it's Help for Men, occasionally I get a lady who books time with me because she loves the male perspective, as women often say to me. So help4men.com/coaching. You can find my, my bio on there and select me and select a time to work with me one-on-one, or any of the other guys on our team. Um, but, uh, wish you the best. Sorry you're going through this. Uh, it sucks for those all around. You did hurt a lot of people with your mistake, but a lot of us hurt people with a lot of our mistakes. Not all of us can relate to this level of hurt and what you did. I have been on the other side of this, so I know how badly it hurts, and I know the feelings that your ex is having towards you 100%. All I can tell you is with time, hopefully. It gets better, but there's no guarantee. The only thing you can do is, uh, take the high road and in my opinion, get rid of new guy. Not because new guy bad, but because obviously you don't have the right type of feelings and everything for this guy. You're still hung up on ex. Ditch other guy, leave ex alone and work on you, Angie. All right, best luck to you.
