Dear DSO: "My Wife Wants To Go To A Bachelorette Party"

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 everyone, DSO here from dadstartingover.com and we have another dear DSO entry on the website. And you can submit your own question or story to dadstartingover.com/dear-dso. And if it's a good one, I will answer here. Before we get into it for today's question though, if you could, I would appreciate it. Give me a like or a subscribe or a follow or however it works wherever you are watching this video. I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks so much, guys. On to today's question. Today's question comes from John Rambo. The subject is The Hell Is Wrong With Me? And John writes, I've been with my wife since we were both 18 to 19 years of age. We are now 36 and 37 and have been married for almost 13 years and have 3 children together. She is still beautiful and petite as she was when I married her. She has never given me a reason that would make me think that she would ever cheat. As a husband, I am the main provider for our family. I help out around the house and am active with the children. In other words, I am present. I also do my best to let her know I appreciate her and that she is loved. In other words, I constantly try to keep her cup full. We also lately started to pray together nightly. We kind of hang out nightly to talk about life and check in and are trying to do better going on a weekly date. Very good. Well, here's my problem that probably isn't. My wife is the maid of honor in her friend's wedding. She was my wife's lifelong friend, growing up with her throughout life, and she was the maid of honor in our wedding. Here's the thing: the bride wants a bachelorette party in Vegas. To say that I'm not wild about it is an understatement. The bride can be kind of wild. And makes brash decisions sometimes. Ro, ro. My wife will only know the bride, so we have no idea if the other ladies are single or married or what they are like. These problems have led me to worry about what types of peer pressure and situations she may be put into. This has led me to have all kinds of a lot of anxiety, to the point I seeked some therapy. We have come to the conclusion that I'm worried about infidelity, even though she's never done anything, because she doesn't fill my cup daily. And she has gotten comfortable but is truly satisfied. We have talked about it and she can agree and wants to try to show more affection. The therapist also said that she is basically obligated to go to Vegas because of the whole friend-maid of honor dynamic. Which I get. And we have set some boundaries on what is acceptable or not. So why do I still have all this damn anxiety? Should I be worried? All right, John Rambo. You probably know this is not an unheard of, uncommon phenomenon, which is a man feels like some boundaries are being pushed. He feels pressure to allow his spouse to do fill in the blank. He feels very conflicted about it. Am I insecure? Or am I just, you know, am I just being a controlling asshole here? Or do I have something genuine to be concerned about. So there's two different avenues to go down. One is, are you just being super anxious and insecure? Is this a trait that you have exhibited maybe in past relationships or with this relationship in the past where you are, you know, trying to hang on? You want to talk about the relationship. You're really worried about this little thing that you saw. And do you in turn see your spouse kind of pulling back from this behavior, becoming more and more what we call avoidant? In nature. She doesn't want to talk about it. You kind of allude to some of that, um, uh, pursuer and pursuee, uh, anxious, avoidant, uh, preoccupied, avoidant type of dynamic there, uh, when you say that she hasn't been, quote, filling your cup. And you talk about you do all you can to fill her cup. So you're the one that's always, uh, bringing stuff to the relationship. You're always trying, you're always complimenting, I bet you were probably the one that said, "We should pray together and we should sit and talk about this relationship." These are all pretty preoccupied/anxious kind of behaviors. You are very invested in the relationship and you are trying to do all you can to keep this woman from leaving you. I'm inferring a lot here. I could be way off. And she, in turn, via your therapy and so forth, has said, "Yeah, I'm not really, not really a quid pro quo thing here. I'm not reciprocating." your efforts. I'm not filling your cup, as you put it. In other words, I'm not ever pursuing you in that way. You're always the one pursuing me. This is not really fair. So kudos to her for recognizing that. Yet you still have this giant elephant in the room, which is the bachelorette party in Vegas, of all places. So what is it that bothers you so much about this? Why are you still so anxious? Well, you've exhibited— if I'm putting two and two together here and I'm right— you've exhibited some anxious behaviors in the past with relationship. This is nothing new. This is just kind of a big grenade that somebody, you know, rolled into the room. And you're kind of like, holy shit, what do I do here? And your therapist says, you know, she's kind of obligated, she's got to go. To the therapist, I say, no, she doesn't. It takes nothing for your wife to say, sorry, bride-to-be and all the other ladies who she doesn't know. But I don't feel comfortable as wife, and my husband doesn't feel comfortable with me going out and doing stuff with a bunch of ladies in Vegas. That's not that unusual. And if she has, you know, some pushback from this group saying, what kind of controlling asshole is your husband for not allowing you to do all that and so forth, all she has to say is, yeah, we're a team together. He doesn't feel comfortable about that. I don't feel comfortable about certain things, and vice versa. And That's just how we operate as a couple. Not a big deal. So, but it sounds like she's going, and she's got the therapist kind of patting her on the back saying, yeah, you better go. I get what they're saying too, that there's this moral obligation. You know, you were both, or they were both maid of honors in the wedding. But there's something about the other gal that bothers you. She's kind of a free spirit. She's kind of a trouble girl. And she hangs out with a bunch of girls that you don't know what they're like. And so let's be honest, what is it you're worried about here? You're worried that your spouse is going to go to Vegas and do some not so wifey things. I mean, what, are you concerned that she's going to make out or have sex with other men? Are you worried she's going to drink heavily, do drugs, just party it up without you? What exactly is it you are worried about? Take that line of thinking all the way to the end. Let's say that she does in fact Worst case scenario, she has an affair, she screws around with some guy in Vegas, and you find out about it. What then? Well, then you divorce wife and you start over again. And that right there probably fills you with an intense amount of anxiety, and you really want to avoid that at all costs. Hence why you're putting up a lot of barriers and why you're having all this anxiety. There's also the school of thought of this is your gut talking to you, dude. Something's up here. This doesn't feel right. It doesn't smell right. There's the reason you're, you're feeling all this anxiety, and you need to put a stop to this. There's no right or wrong here, dude. I mean, let's be honest, with my situation, if my wife— and I know my wife, she knows me— let me just say this. I myself, on a birthday— shoot, this was like 2 years ago— I went with some buddies that I hadn't seen in years and we met up. We each flew individually into Vegas and hung out in Vegas. And we did go to strip clubs, or a strip club, and we did hang out in bars and, you know, had a good old almost kind of single guy kind of life. Nobody screwed anybody. Nobody fooled around or anything. And the wife was privy to all of it. And my wife and I, and our relationship's a little probably liberal in that way in terms of when I tell my wife you know, me and my two buddies are going to a strip club. She's like, oh cool, which one are you going to? That's my wife. I know, a little unusual, but we're pretty secure in our relationship that way. We're kind of a sexy couple. This is kind of a titillating, fun thing in our relationship— strip clubs, all that kind of stuff. That's what we do. But it doesn't sound like that's within your little culture of a relationship. You know, going back to me, if my wife said, uh, My friend and I want to go to Vegas. There's a few other girls that I don't know. I'd be like, where are you going? What are you doing? Have fun. Because worst case scenario, she comes back in tears. I did something wrong. You know, had sex with some man or something. I'd be like, that was stupid. Now we have to divorce. Shit. And of course, I'd be upset and crying and all other stuff. But in the end, I'd be okay. I know me, and I know my sense of "abundance" in this world. I know she's not the only human being out there that's a potential match for me. That sounds cold, but it's true, right? We all learn this when we go through breakups and divorce. So I guess, why don't you have that same mechanism within you that says, "I trust her. I feel secure in our relationship. If she does something stupid enough to let me down, That's on her. Then she loses her husband. That sucks to be her. What stops you from, you know, having that mindset? That's something to explore within yourself. And I think you're, you're tapping into stuff when you talk about your anxiety and, and how you're, you know, pursuing the wife. And it seems to be that you're the super champion of the relationship. And, but kudos to your wife for recognizing it in the therapy and everything else, that she needs to come over to your side of the fence a little bit more. But you also need to work on John Rambo, some of your anxious ways, and maybe pull back a little bit, maybe give some distance. And that's— there's nothing unhealthy about that. But again, I'm just going by a paragraph here of information. There's probably a lot more to the story here that we don't know. I would love to chat with you about this. You can always book time with me, dadstartingover.com/coaching. Join our DSO fraternity group, you get all kinds of cool benefits, including, uh, coaching is like half off. So it financially, it makes sense to sign up for like a month or two at least, do the coaching. If you don't like the frat and everything that goes with it, just cancel and you're still out way ahead money-wise. Something to consider. So John, thank you so much for your, uh, story today, uh, and your question. I greatly appreciate it. It's a good one and it's one that a lot of guys, um, are facing out there. So wish you all the best.