“Depressed About Marriage… Is It Even Worth It Anymore?”

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. Hey there, folks. We have a new Dear DSO entry on the website, and you can submit your own story or question at deardso.com. That's dearso.com. Just fill out the form, and if your story or question's a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world to see, or for the podcast listeners to listen to on the Dad Starting Over podcast. Listen to it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you may listen to your podcast. And if you're watching this on YouTube, do me a big favor, pretty please, click down below and click on subscribe, click on like, Leave a comment. That will help me out a great deal. Thank you so very much. Now on to today's story. This one comes from Jerome. That's a good name. He says, dear DSO, that's me, by the way. He says, I saw your interview with Michelle Langley on YouTube. That was really good, but also very depressing, he says. Let me pause there. Michelle Langley, she is the author of Women's Infidelity. Part 1 and Part 2, 2 different books that you can buy on womensinfidelity.com. I did an interview with Michelle on another YouTube channel and podcast called Help for Men. I have the Dad Starting Over YouTube channel and podcast, and I have the Help for Men YouTube channel and podcast. Help for Men is devoted just to interviews with important people. Michelle wrote a book called Women's Infidelity years ago that got to be very, very popular. You can only buy it online. She's made a big business for herself consulting with folks and talking to them about recovering from the betrayal of infidelity, coming to terms with it, understanding it. She consults with men and women alike. So check out that interview over on the Help for Men YouTube channel. Just do a search for Help for Men Michelle Langley, and you'll probably find it. Moving on, he says, my dream has always been to have a wife and a family. Listening to you and Michelle, along with a lot of other YouTube videos and podcasts, And I'm finally realizing that what I've been working for doesn't exist. Women aren't naturally monogamous? He asked. This is in reference to something that Michelle said in our interview. I was in a long-term relationship that ended about a year ago. We were together for 7 years, and she cheated on me. Oof, sorry to hear that. He said, I've had a hard time dealing with it, and that's how I found your material. I'm leaning more towards not marrying, but that makes me feel depressed. My entire life has led up to the point of starting a family at this point in my life. Oh, so you're saying you're at a certain age where you should be having wife and kids. Got it. And that's the end of his message. So Jerome here, by the way, Jerome, thank you for reaching out. I appreciate it. And I can totally relate to, and I think a lot of guys can relate to your sentiment here, which is when you kind of peer behind the curtain, so to speak, to use the vernacular that a lot of guys use, to borrow from the movie The Matrix, you took the red pill, meaning you finally see the truth that what you had thought was this way was actually this way. Black is white, dogs and cats living together, mass hysteria, right? You don't know what's real anymore, especially after taking in some of my material, listening to this interview or watching this interview with Michelle on the Help for Men YouTube channel and podcast. Check it out. Probably watched my, uh, my chat with Orion Taraban. I did one livestream for Dad Starting Over. I did an interview over on the Help for Men channel as well. All that kind of stuff. In addition, we also have material that's out there by a lot of ladies, not just Michelle. Uh, Esther Perel, I mention her all the time because she wrote a book that really knocked a lot of people out called, uh, Mating in Captivity. Really puts a different spin on this whole relationship, long-term relationship game, sex, and everything else. So there is an aspect to this long-term monogamy game, or marriage, that is most definitely not out there in the normal, I guess you could say, lexicon or, or popular culture speak when it comes to relationships in general. You kind of have to peer behind the curtain to see some of this stuff, but it's out there. Again, mating in captivity, other material. And it points to, to a little-known fact, that is, women tend to have a much higher libido, a libido that is better matched to the average dude. So average gal and her libido is better matched with average dude and his libido when those two people are not committed to each other. That's kind of counterintuitive, isn't it? You would think that we would be more comfortable with each other, more secure with each other, and more sexual with each other once we really kind of get to know each other. Once that familiarity, comfort, and safety sets in, we should be more free and open to explore each other more sexually. And some people actually claim that and say, "No, that's actually," and they're not lying, they say, "100%, that's me in my world. I don't feel comfortable being open sexually with people unless I really know them, trust them, and I know that they're committed to me, et cetera, et cetera. Well, the fact is this, and it's not anti-woman by any stretch. This is, again, Esther writes about this a lot. Our pal, Dr. Psych Mom, Dr. Samantha Rodman-Whitton, talks about this all the time. I've done many, many videos on this, so I apologize if you've heard me say this a few hundred times. There's the female libido when you're in the dating phase, getting to know the guy phase, when you're in the, hmm, is he my boyfriend or not? Are we eventually gonna get married or no? The uncertainty's in there. Eroticism, libido, sexuality is heightened at that phase. It's almost as if Mother Nature is saying, hey, you two, get together and make babies. We're both really tuned into each other if we're a good match, if we really click in that way. And we get a whole lot of humping done during that time. And then when we commit and we're like, we're getting married, right? Right. That level goes down a little bit. We're moving in together. That level goes down a little bit. We get married, it goes down a little bit. Sometimes it's such a little bit that it's almost imperceptible by both. I don't know if that's the right term to use, but it's not an overtly bad thing. It just, it's just what it is. We're busy with moving furniture and moving into our new house and planning this and planning that. We don't even notice that we went from so many times a week to just once a week. Some guys are more sensitive than others, and oh yeah, they notice, but it's not enough to make a stink over. So it is what it is, right? And it's usually not until kids come into the picture that a lot of men go, hold on a second, this is bad, to the point where it's unhealthy by anyone's standard. They go to a marriage therapist, the marriage therapist says, yeah, this ain't healthy, guys. To do it, you know, once a season is not good. Something's going on here, let's get to the bottom of it. And what a lot of women report is, man, I don't know what it is. I would love to want it more, but I just don't now that we're committed and got the kids and the house. It's just, that takes me out of the mind frame completely. And then unfortunately, a lot of those folks divorce. Let's just go our separate ways. Obviously we're not meant for each other. A lot of those people think, men and women alike think this way. If I don't have those lustful feelings, if I'm not head over heels for this guy or gal, this must mean that this ain't meant to be. And away we go, divorce. And then they break up and we sit and watch these gals just flourish sexually outside of the marriage. Now, a lot of those women, to their credit, will say that's because my husband was a royal dipshit. There was nothing attractive about him. I'm free from his stifling, sexually stifling ways, and on and on. Even if you have, let's say, an ex-husband that was a really genuine good guy, there really was no problem. You just didn't mesh in that way. 9 times out of 10, the woman's gonna report, "I feel sexually energized outside of this relationship." It's Mother Nature turning the dials back up again. It's time to, let's crank it up. Let's get the mating dance going again. Guys experience some of this as well, arguably to a lesser degree. We do experience it, but not to the holy shit, who is this person degree that we see with a lot of women in our lives. Again, not a condemnation or demonization of women. It's an interesting little quirk of human nature. This is what Michelle and others are referencing when they say women are not naturally monogamous. They don't necessarily mean that women aren't interested in long-term bonding with another person and going through life with another person. That is a very real aspect of human nature that we see cross-culturally, across time, throughout all of human history. We see that people tend to want to pair up or pair bond with another human being and say, it's you and me going through life together. We see this all over the world. But what we don't see necessarily, and this is what's kind of hush-hush these days, especially in more Western cultures, if you will, is what we don't say is, but that doesn't necessarily mean strict sexual monogamy. Sleeping with others outside of the prime relationship is kind of a given in some cultures. Some cultures, it's just a known thing. It is what it is. No big deal. Some cultures is it's kind of a big deal, but we understand that it's a necessary part of human nature. We just kind of look the other way when it happens. France is infamous for this. But a lot of cultures these days basically say we know that that innate desire for others is in there, but we need to squash that and shame it and push it down as much as humanly possible. Strict, strict sexual monogamy is a must. And what Michelle and others are saying is, guys, the ladies aren't necessarily wired that way. You say I do and you commit and everything is safe, or as Michelle puts it in our interview, flat, you know, emotionless. There's no more emotional spikes and uncertainty and everything. When everything is flat and safe, your gal is just turned off. And it takes work to bring that back. To bring it back in spurts. It takes a lot more concerted effort on both parts, the men, the man and the woman, to keep that energy going. That's why they always say relationships are work, marriage is work. And some people are like, no, if it feels like work, it's not real. That's horseshit. Marriage, long-term relationships, if you want to keep them sexy and romantic, is work. That's basically what Michelle is saying. To think that it will naturally come about just because she's a woman and she's She's got what she wanted, which is the husband and the kids. Shouldn't she also be naturally turned on as a result of all this? No. In fact, just the opposite. Sorry if you've been, you know, told otherwise. You've been sold a bill of goods. It's not how marriage is for most people. It takes work. It takes effort. Some people try to short-circuit this and do things like open marriages, like open, open marriages, swinging, and other things like that. Which they will all report, oh my gosh, we've never been more turned on than when we do all this. But you're playing with fire. You're introducing new humans into the equation. It's not invariably, but it's often enough that we see it quite often with the people that reach out to me. It was like, we opened it up and next thing I know she's running off with some other guy. He's running off with some other girl. He doesn't want to come home. He'd rather stay out and bang this other chick. She doesn't want to come home. She's with her new boyfriend and divorce and It's not fun. So here you are, Mr. Strict Monogamy, I assume. I want to get married. I want the wife. I want the kids. And here are people saying, cool, but once you do that, the sexy time is going to be, eh, it's going to take a lot of work to get there. And some men hear all that and go, oh, well, never mind. I don't want to do that. If that's the case, then you're probably not cut out for the modern-day interpretation of marriage, and that's cool. Then just go be a bachelor. But the Jeromes of the world here say, "I don't want to just be a bachelor. I want my wife, I want my kids, and I want my horn dog woman in bed." Well, dude, you can get those things, but you need a lot of luck. Number one, because it's my contention that a relatively small portion of people can pull pull that off successfully, and you need a lot of know-how. You need some skills. You need some tools in your toolbox, your mental toolbox, to accomplish all that. And it's not so easy, and it takes two. You can put all the work in the world into it. You can be the most handsome, charming, lovable, sweet, but tough alpha male type dude, as the kids love to say these days. But if you're married to a psycho, it doesn't matter. If you're married to a woman who has a lot of baggage, emotional baggage, if you're married to a woman who, God forbid, has a history of sexual abuse behind her, she was abandoned as a child, her mom and dad divorced and she has no real good relationship with her father, she doesn't have her good male role models in her life, she has a mom who was a narcissist, she has a dad who was an adulterer, I don't know, all those things, None of that is a fault of hers at all. I would not wish that on anybody. But what we've seen again and again is that can very well have a very major impact on that person's ability to form a successful long-term relationship with others down the line. So you got that working against you because we got a lot of ladies that have those issues out there, and men too. In fact, dude, Here's the big mind F for a lot of guys. I bet you got some of that in your background too, don't you? Hence why you connected with a person, with your ex of so many years, that you were together for 7 years and she cheated on you. I bet if you look back, you got some issues from your childhood which allowed you to connect with such a person, which allowed you to connect with or stay connected with such a person. I bet you had issues for a big chunk of that 7 years, but you kind of dutifully looked them over, or overlooked them rather, and just said, eh, it's no biggie. And then it all blew up in your face. Why am I speaking like a know-it-all in such platitudes? Because I've seen it, oh, I don't know, a million freaking times. So you gotta figure that out. So get your shit figured out, figure out what's going on with you, become a more secure individual, become an individual that doesn't really need that marriage, family, wife, whatever. And the irony of all ironies is as soon as you don't really need it and you're cool up here and you're cool with yourself and you have a community and you have friends and you have interests and life is abundant to you, then it's almost as if the universe or God or whatever you want to call it opens itself up and says, "Okay, now you're worthy of good secure individuals. Here you go. Here's a potential mate for you. Here's a potential partner for you," or partners plural or whatever it is. And then your romantic life kind of takes care of itself. But even then, it's still a lot of work. Even for the secure dude, even for the healthy guy and the healthy gal, they still got to work it out. Why? Because we don't have this natural programming within us, the average gal, the average guy, to say, "Now that I'm committed, this all just becomes super easy. We're just super sexy and fun together, and all this is just going to be— all we got to do is hit a button that says 'married' and this all takes care of itself," right? You got a lot working against you, dude. That's what we're saying. And I've often said, and I've said in other videos, we need to basically pull guys and gals into like separate little boot camps for those people that say, I want a family and I want to start a family eventually down the line. We go, cool, you're going to go to like a week-long boot camp so we can show you what this shit's really all about. Unfortunately, I think if we do that, a big chunk of the people will get up from the boot camp and just leave and go, fuck it, I ain't doing that. I had no idea this is what it was like. I thought it was going to be easy. So we're going to be left with a relatively small number of people that will do it, and fortunately they will be more successful than if we kept everybody doing like we're doing now. Right now we're basically telling everybody, this is the key to your happiness. Wife, kid, just do that, dude. We don't do all the other stuff like, and here's what you're in store for, and here's what you need to have innately in your mental toolbox to make it successful. Here's what she needs to have in her mental toolbox, or lack of baggage, and all this other garbage. We don't say any of that. There are a lot of— not to sound conspiratorial or whatever, but there are a lot of other forces at play that on a society level kind of push us in that direction into long-term monogamy and marriage and push us into the institution. A lot of our economy is based on that. When that breaks down and people aren't getting together and making babies and stuff, a lot of systems that we have in place kind of break down. And it's not pretty. And we're seeing that now in a lot of industrialized countries where people just aren't getting married and having kids anymore. And people are freaking the fuck out about it. A lot of your more conservative types are really freaking out about it. So it's not so simple. This isn't the big feel-good rah-rah that you're probably hoping for where I could say, nah, dude, they're all nuts. Marriage is amazing. Marriage can be amazing, but it ain't easy, dude. And for some people, based upon your background and so forth, it's even harder than for the average guy. Even if you're the most secure man on the planet, you still— it still takes two, as I often say. Gotta find the right gal, gotta have some luck, you both gotta put in the work, and on and on and on. So just a small portion of that big puzzle, one little piece of that big jigsaw puzzle is— and by the way, women's libido tends to crank down quite a bit when they're in long-term monogamy. That's one piece of the why marriage is difficult puzzle. All right, brother, thank you for reaching out. Obviously I could talk on and on about this. I appreciate you reaching out and writing to me, and I appreciate you guys watching. We'll see on the next one.