“He Forgot Our Anniversary… Again. Should I Finally Leave?”

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. Guys, these issues that we see, these relationship issues, in case you didn't know, they're not gendered. A lot of women reach out to me and a lot of them have verbatim the same stories that you guys have, such as today's Dear DSO submission. And you can submit your own story or question at deardso.com. That's deardso.com. Fill out the form. And if your story or your question is 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, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you may listen to your podcasts. And if you're watching this on YouTube or X or wherever the heck it may be, do me a favor, click on subscribe, click on follow, click on like, leave a comment, share, click on the little bell thingy, however it works wherever you're watching this, man. I would really, really appreciate it. Thank you so very much. And, and, and on to today's submission. This one comes from One Last Try, and the subject line is 42 years. Should I quit? She says, I am 65 and my husband is 70. We have been married for 42 years. In that time, he has never remembered our anniversary. 10 years ago, I retired and I told him I want to spend time reconnecting, parentheses, acting like newlyweds, and not buy property and build again. He didn't listen. He told me he made all the money and we were going to buy property. I caved because I wanted him to be happy. 4 years later, we were in a serious financial hole, and he said the only way out is to file for divorce. After a few weeks, he had not done it, so I did. My lawyer said legal separation was a better option. I filed, and he told me he was happy that I did it so he didn't have to. 6 months later, We had sold everything, built our savings back. I told him I want to spend a year living and traveling in our RV. Everything was paid off and we had healthy retirement checks. He agreed, and then one month into traveling, he said he couldn't do this and we had to buy property again. Uh, we did it his way. I found property that wasn't going to put us in the poorhouse, and we have spent 3 of the last 4 years doing nothing but work. This year, when he forgot our 42nd anniversary, I finally blew up and I told him how I felt and that our sex life was nothing but a chore. He said nothing, and so I walked off and spent the night in the guest room. I found your YouTube channel and I spent a week watching and learning. A few days ago, using what I learned from you, I calmly told him that we need to talk. Well, good. It didn't go well. I told him I didn't think he was going to change. You're right, he's not going to change. And I wanted to change. We decided to talk to a lawyer about divorce. Today I ordered the Dead Bedroom Fix book. I'm hoping to give it one last chance. Well, Miss One Last Try, first of all, thank you for writing in. I appreciate it. Ladies, feel free to write in. Always good to hear the, you know, other side of the table here, your perspective. Uh, The Dead Bedroom Fix is a book for men. You may have already, by the time, you know, I'm reading this, you probably already read the book and went, oh shit, this isn't for me. I think I, I limit the, uh, advice to women by like a page or two at the very beginning saying, ladies, this book ain't for you. But if you're, you know, you insist on reading this, here's your dead bedroom fix cure. You're welcome. Now us guys, it's a lot more complicated than I cover in, you know, 7, 8 chapters or whatever it may be. Um, With that being said, I'm going to say to you what I say to every man who writes to me with such a story. And again, I hear this almost verbatim from guys all the time, older men. Um, this is who your spouse is. Uh, he's not going to change. He is not a romantic human being. He doesn't have a romantic bone in his body. You are a tool in his life. He is the director of the movie and you have your role. You can consider your role like a cameraman, actor, the guy who holds the little microphone, what do they call him, the grip or whatever the hell it is. You're not the director. He is, in his mind. So every time you try to direct things, go, "Hey, director, I have an idea for a scene, we can do it." He's like, "No, shut up." That's who he is, it's not gonna change. I know he sounds like he's some kind of real estate mogul wannabe. I don't know why he's always buying up property and working on it or whatever. This is his thing. Sounds annoying as hell. I wouldn't deal with this. So here's the deal. You need to really sit down and think about what is it about you that caused you to stick around with a person like this for so long? Is it the fact that, you know, he made the money? Without him, you would have been, you know, destitute and on the street and alone. That is the driver for a lot of, you know, we talk about, you know, marriage was so great in the days gone by. Grandma and Grandpa were together for 60-plus years and they were perfectly happy. No, a lot of them were not. A lot of them were a grandma who was just like, I can't leave this shithead. If I do, I'm going to be on the street and alone. I don't have any money. He's the one that makes everything. I was the one who stayed home and raised 3 or 4 kids, and on and on. Maybe that was your situation. And now after so many years or decades of this, you've kind of grown into a routine. And what everyone around you sees is, oh wow, this guy's almost abusive. I don't know if abusive is the right term, or just really neglectful. And just an asshole, and you're just like, it's just who he is. It's something I've dealt with for decades, 42 years. I don't know, you've seen he's been this way for 42 years, I assume. What makes you think, you know, one more try and he's suddenly gonna go, oh shit, I don't know what I was thinking for the last 4 decades. Let me turn things around and become the romantic, empathetic, sweet guy that she's always wanted. It doesn't work that way, sweetheart. It's, and it's not going to. 2 choices. One, stick it out. It is what it is. Distance yourself from him. Stop being so dependent on him. Let's do this. Let's just go do your own thing. If you want to go on the RV, I don't know if you have some girlfriends you can hang out with and go do things with, go do it. You don't need him. Or thing 2, I mean, basically if you listen to option 1, it kind of sounds like divorce but without the divorce. So why not just go through with the divorce? What is it about you that is so dependent on a person like this? It's not good. Something you need to figure out. I know you're later, you know, you're 65 years of age. It's not like I'm talking to a 35-year-old here, but there's still lessons to be learned and it's something that you can pass on to— I'm looking, did you say you have kids? You didn't. Um, assuming you have kids or nieces, nephews, lessons that you can pass down to them, or, you know, not necessarily overt verbal lessons that you give to people, but by virtue of your behavior, these people will see, oh, this is— somebody finally woke up and realized that they don't have to be in this god-awful relationship with this god-awful person. They can move on and do bigger and better things. That's a positive thing. I don't care if I'm talking to a man or a woman in this situation. This is not healthy, and this is nothing that can persist. It's not sustainable. That's the term I'm looking for. This is not a sustainable situation. I'm sorry. And you know that. It's just really scary, especially at 65 years of age after 40-plus years with one man. It's really scary to say, I don't need this guy anymore. I'm gonna go do my own thing. And then for a lot of us, usually men more so than women, we realize, oh, I don't have much of a social group of any kind beyond my spouse. I've put all of my mental energy into this person, all my friend energy and hobby energy and everything else into this person, into the relationship. And now when they're gone, I don't know what they have to do. Maybe that's part of your concern. Cultivate your social circle. Get to hanging out with ladies. There's a lot of ladies your age who, you know, husband's passed on, they're divorced. The old gray divorce is a common thing, as we know. And get with them and live out the remaining years of your life in peace, away from this controlling a-hole. Yes, I said it. And I'm jumping to a lot of conclusions. I don't know his side of the story. I'm just hearing one side of the story. This is one of those I wish I was a fly on the wall to actually see what's going on here, but I'm gonna have to take everything you say at face value, take your word for it. If this is true, then sister, I don't know what the hell you're doing. All right, but thank you for reaching out. I do appreciate it. And guys and gals, thank you so much for watching. We'll catch you on the next one.