In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host DSO begins with a promotional plug for the Help for Men Brotherhood, a support community for men dealing with divorce, loneliness, and rebuilding their lives. He then reads a listener email from "Steve" who questions DSO's critical stance on open marriages, sharing his own experience of a sexless marriage that ended when his ex‑wife was discovered cheating. DSO responds by stating he personally does not judge consensual adult sexual choices, but he argues that the current cultural trend of open marriages is largely a one‑sided, manipulative tactic used by bored or unfaithful wives to justify affairs while retaining the benefits of a traditional marriage. He uses vivid analogies (the gun metaphor) to criticize media encouragement of such arrangements, labeling the phenomenon as hedonistic, short‑sighted, and ultimately harmful to men. DSO concludes with personal observations that these arrangements often end with the wife bonding with a new lover and the marriage dissolving, reinforcing his warning to his male audience.
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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. Hello everyone, DSO here from dadstartingover.com, and here's another older Dear DSO email that I never did do audio for. It's been up on the website for a while, but here it goes. It says, Dear DSO, I've been following you on Facebook and I have read all of your posts on the website. I think what you're doing is great and it means a lot to guys like me. There is one thing that I don't understand, and that's why you seem so hung up on open marriages. I have a friend that is in an open marriage and they seem to get along great. My ex-wife and I were in a sexless marriage for years, and I suggested to her that we think about opening our marriage. She didn't agree with it, so we didn't do it. But it turns out the reason we weren't having sex was because she was cheating on me for 3 years. I totally get why some people may want to explore that kind of marriage. If it works for them, what's the big deal? Steve. Well, Steve, I will be the first to say that anyone and everyone should be able to do whatever they please in the confines of their own bedroom. If it has no effect on me and my life and doesn't hurt society in general, what do I care? Let your freak flag fly. I personally know people who are swingers. And they seem to have an excellent marriage. I truly do not care, and I don't think it's my business to preach what is and what isn't right for their sex life. But please understand the specific phenomenon that I am discussing in my posts. I'm looking out for men, my readers, guys who have been hurt in relationships to toxic women, and they are starting over in life. This current phenomenon of open marriage isn't about two people mutually talking things through and deciding that having sex with others would be a fun and good experience for their marriage. The phenomenon that I'm talking about is a one-sided epiphany by bored wives who understandably want a little extra oomph in their life. And 9 times out of 10 is actually a wife who has feelings for somebody else already outside of their marriage, and they're looking for a safe excuse to start an affair. Thanks to the current social climate, the trend is for married women to treat their sexuality like a toddler that has just discovered a gun under dad's bed. They have no concept of safety. It's up to society to say, "No, you're married, Susan. Put the gun down. It could be loaded. Quit waving it around like a madwoman. Put it back where you found it." But instead, we have a media that seems hell-bent on telling Susan to pick up the gun, put a bullet in the cylinder, turn the safety off, point it at her head, and pull the trigger. Hey, she may survive and it will be thrilling. To tell her to put the gun down and walk away would be tantamount to treating her like a toddler, and that hurts feelings. That's misogynistic. Bad husband. In short, it's a one-sided, manipulative, short-sighted, hedonistic, and unrealistic ploy for some women to have their cake and eat it too. She wants the comfort and familiarity of the provider while testing the waters with a new lover. I have personally never seen it work long term. It usually ends with the woman becoming bonded to her new lover and detaching from her provider husband. Much like the reader who commented on the original post that I made, which he said, and I quote, "One day she came home, just like you say, crying. She fell in love and she couldn't help it. So that means we can't still be married?" 'Wait, isn't this an open marriage?' I said. 'No, because he doesn't believe in open marriages, so she needed to divorce and to be with him.'
