In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host Ralph Brewer reads a listener’s letter (John) describing his wife’s affair that began in September 2023, her move‑out in November, and her request in early 2024 to reconcile. Brewer outlines the timeline, acknowledges the pain of betrayal, and then delves into a broader discussion of affairs: different “flavors” of infidelity, possible underlying causes such as childhood trauma, emotional abandonment, or compulsive attention‑seeking, and why some women may return after an affair ends. He advises John (and listeners) that reconciling is unlikely to succeed, citing the wife’s likely need for external validation and the strain of repeated therapy on the husband. Brewer emphasizes the importance of the man’s own healing—therapy, self‑improvement, building friendships, career growth—and warns that continued patience for a partner who repeatedly seeks outside attention can erode self‑esteem. Throughout, he repeatedly promotes the Help for Men Brotherhood, describing its private forums, live Zooms, coaching, and free access to his books, urging listeners to join. The episode ends with a final recommendation to let the ex‑wife go and focus on personal growth, while also inviting the audience to the Brotherhood community.
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Okay, if you're a frequent listener of the Dad Starting Over podcast and you find yourself saying, "Yeah, that sounds like me," well, you don't need another podcast episode. What you need is support. The Help for Men Brotherhood is where men go when they're done pretending that they got it all handled. You know, your dead bedrooms, your divorce, your loneliness, your rebuilding life. We have private forums, frequent live Zoom meetings, one-on-one coaching courses, all my books at no additional charge. And yes, we get together in person. Real men and real conversations. So stop doing this alone and join the Help for Men Brotherhood today at help4men.com/join. I look forward to seeing you in the next member meeting. All right, 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 for the whole world to see here. And this one comes from John. Not very original. Its subject line is, "Wife cheated, now wants back." Heard this one a few times. He says, "My wife had an affair in September with a couple worker." I think he means coworker. "Uh, fell in love and moved out in November." September. Whoa, she didn't waste any time. Oof, this is a testimony to the power of an affair for some people. Um, he says, I have accepted it and started moving on and healing. Uh, she has now started asking me to work things out and she wants to come home. I don't want to because I can't trust her and I know she hasn't changed and it disgusts me to think about what she did. We have an 11-year-old daughter who seems to be dealing with everything really well. I can't help to think it would be better for her if I at least tried with her mom. I did try to save our marriage from September until January. January is when she finally confessed to her affair. I accepted the marriage as over then. We have been married for 15 years, together 18. Uh, that's the end of his message. So first of all, man, there's something about this 15-year thing. I personally experienced this and I just keep hearing this number over and over again. You know, you keep hearing about the 7-year itch and so forth. I keep hearing 15. I don't know, just an aside. It's kind of interesting. I always see these little patterns in human behavior and they're always interesting to me. Uh, okay, so I'm trying to get the timeline here. So this, I'm recording this, it's August of 2024. So he's saying September 2023, um, wife had affair. You're finding out about this all after the fact. She fell in love and then suddenly she moves out in November and you're like, whoa, what's going on here? And it wasn't until that couple months after that in January she admitted, okay, there's another dude. Sucks. I'm sorry you're going through this. I know it hurts. Been there, done that. So have millions of other men and women for that matter. Uh, betrayal is not a fun thing, trust me. I understand you're going through it. Um, so then she's gone, you're starting to lick your wounds, you're going through the healing process. It's still early, right? January, you discover this. It's good. 6, 7 months later, still relatively early in the process, and here she comes back saying, um, you want to try this again? You want to get together again? All right. I've said this before in many videos, so I apologize if this is kind of a rehashing for some of you, you know, some of your more habitual DSO watchers. Thank you, by the way. There's different types of affairs. They all suck. They're all bad. They all hurt when you were the quote unquote victim of this, right? But I've always said there's different flavors of affair. One is, I was on a business trip, I had one drink too many, I started making out with the person, one thing led to another, oh my God, I'm sorry, let's go to counseling, I will never ever do this again. And those people don't do it ever again for decades. Still stings, still comes up in, you know, marital conflict for decades, but they're able to get past it and work past it and figure out, you know, the boundaries. Maybe the person says, I'm never drinking again, whatever. That's one example, right? Not unheard of. And then there's the one that I hear all the freaking time, and I think it's a testimony to the type of men that come to me for help. It's a testimony to those men and what type of women they attract to them, so on and so forth. What I have seen, and I'm not saying this is necessarily what's going on with you, although if I were a betting man, it's probably what's going on with you, is that your gal your ex, let's call her, um, it's got problems. And she probably has problems that date way back to childhood. Things happen to her. I'm not saying necessarily— usually people, when I— when they hear me say that, jump right to like sexual abuse or something like that. That's obviously not unheard of, unfortunately, in our world, especially for the ladies in our life to endure sexual abuse. It's far more common for them as females than it is for us men, and that's terrible. And yes, that has repercussions down the line for them forming romantic relationships with others, unfortunately. And a lot of them don't get help out of shame and so forth with that. And then they bring all that baggage into their future relationships, and sometimes it explodes. Not always, not always in the— in this fashion with affairs, but it's not unheard of. So that's one flavor of dysfunction, you know, sexual abuse. It could just be, um, they sat back as a kid and watched one or both of their parents, you know, screwing around, just emotional trauma, abandonment, and so forth, which leads to things such as seeking out attention from others, um, seeking that thrill and dopamine hit of, you know, the, the thrilling, um, sneaky new relationship energy of an affair. Nothing can compare to that. There's no drug on the planet that can make you feel that good for some people. And I bet your wife is one one of those people that is wired in that way. I'm saying all this because that's who she is, and that's always going to be who she is. It's always going to be part of her makeup. And people who are wired in that way, what they need to do is say, help, I need help, because I have a compulsion, I have a tendency within me, I have— I need, I need to seek out attention, and I need to seek out that dopamine hit from others when I'm in a quote-unquote boring, monogamous, safe relationship with somebody, something that a lot of people, you know, strive towards and fight to achieve. Once they get it, they're like, ugh, this sucks. I need— where'd that excitement go? Where'd that all the attention from all these men go? Now I just have one who's just this doting person who's— all I have to say is honey and he's just right by my side in a second. That turns me off. I don't like it. At all. Um, they don't make the best monogamous partners— sorry, long-term monogamous partners— um, unless they say help and they go get help. And that ain't easy, dude. It's not easy for them, it's not easy for the partners. It takes a lot, a lot of patience. And what I've seen is, for guys in your predicament, is you may say, all right, let's try this. Then you go to therapy again and again and again and again. And during this therapy, there's two things going on. Probably if you're Mr. Anxious Dude, like a lot of the men that I work with— and there's nothing wrong with that, I'm one of them— is, um, not only are you going to therapy with partner, ex, whatever, but you're also working on your own. You're reading books, you're doing the podcast, you're doing the YouTubes, you know, all this other stuff, right? A lot of men, you know, listening to this are nodding, going That sounds familiar. That's a lot of us. So you're getting better. Your sense of worth is going up there. You're taking ownership of your own faults and you're working on them. You're getting better. You're feeling better. You're more comfortable in your own skin. You're getting more attention from women. That's a big thing. Men are respecting you more. Your friendships are growing. Professionally, you're growing your career. Everything is improving. And then you come home to this wife who in order to get to a baseline level of normal has to go to therapy like 3 times a week, has to read books, has to come to you with story after story of, hey, I slipped up a little bit today and I was flirting with a guy, we exchanged numbers, et cetera. And eventually men just go, I, I can't do this anymore. I don't have the, the patience for this. I don't have the low self-esteem to endure this. I'm worth more than this. And it usually doesn't work out. That's probably what's going to happen here. Now, more cynical side of me says, why is she suddenly coming back to you? You know why, dude. It didn't work out with the other guy. The other guy made her feel like a million bucks. She's wired in a way that she threw away a 15-year relationship for a couple of months of feeling really, really good. Doesn't bode well for the future of you two. And then it didn't work out And now she's just stranded out in the ocean looking for an island or a boat to, you know, hang on to. And what is the most obvious island to return to? The ex-hubby that she was with for 15 years. Usually this wanting to reconnect isn't born out of an innate or real need for connection and love for her ex. She didn't suddenly say, 'John is love of my life. What the hell am I doing? I miss him more than anything. I love and adore him, dude. Let's work this out.' It's more like, 'I've been dumped. I'm lost. I'm abandoned. I'm scared. Where do I go? Oh look, there's John.' I'm sorry, that may be heartbreaking to hear, but that's usually the case. Not the good, uh, foundation for a long-term relationship. I'm sorry. And what may further freak you out a little bit is probably with time when you look back on this relationship, you know, when the fog clears, the rose-colored glasses come off, all that other stuff, you know, insert analogy here, and you look back on the relationship, you may go, you know what, there was that incident 7 years ago, there was an incident 3 years ago, there was— now you start questioning everything and you go, I'm not sure this was her first rodeo. And you know what, buddy, probably not. It's usually part of their makeup. Again, they're not wired for this long-term monogamous thing. A lot of people aren't. They, whatever you want to call them, people of usually personality disorders go along with this, really aren't. So nobody in my mind, let her go. If it helps to soften the blow, it's what's best for her too. She's like a teenager, you know, or a 20-year-old that kicking out of the house saying, you got to go on your own, you gotta go get a job. It's kind of what you need to do for her. I gave you 15 years of my life, I gave you love and companionship, and I was faithful and all these other things, and then you did a big oopsie. I'm not going to soften the blow of your poor life decisions. I'm sorry, love you, but you got to go. All right, high five, sister. Best of luck to you. I hope it works out for you. That's the overall gist of, you know, what you need to do. And she may 5, 10 years later come back and say Thank you. That was the best for me. Appreciate it. And you may be friendly or friends, God forbid. Who knows what life has in store for you? But as far as this one being your long-term romantic partner, probably not the best bet, dude. All right, brother. Oh, and check out our private group for men. A lot of guys in your shoes in the group. HelpForMen.com. And the group is called the HFM Brotherhood. So go to HelpForMen.com/join. Or just navigate to the Brotherhood on the website and join over 700 men from around the world. We all talk in private forums, live Zoom meetings. You get my books all for free, over 800 hours of audio content, all kinds of really cool stuff to help you on your journey. And, uh, hope you can join us. We look forward to meeting you. All right, John, thank you so very much.
