How Can I Learn to be Happy With My Dead Bedroom?

All right, we have a new 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 create a video and share it here for the whole world to see. And this one comes from Johnny Nix, and the subject line is Fleeting Connection. He says, hey Ralph Brewer. Well, hey Johnny. And he says, most of my struggles feel like You wrote the Dead Bedroom Fix book. I wrote third edition, just came out July of 2024. Check it out, deadbedroomfix.com. But he says Dead Bedroom Fix, uh, I wrote specifically for him. He says, you know the drill, uh, my wife does occasionally engage in the bedroom and will even seem to enjoy it once she gets going. That's very common in the world of women and long-term monogamous relationships. We call that responsive desire. The desire seems to spike once she gets going. She's responding to the act itself. She's not spontaneously like, "Let's just do this, dude," you know, while sitting on the couch watching TV. That's a very man thing. My thoughts go something like this, quote, "Wow, that was amazing. Surely she wants to connect like that again." This is a very common dude thing. But no, it's like she's off the hook. And she has completed her wifely duty. She comes back around, let's say, 1 to 2 months later. Such a fleeting feeling of connection. She's a typical kid-obsessed, sex-negative, highly sensitive woman. Ouch. Um, how do I maintain positivity and appreciate the opportunities I do get to connect with her? By the way, after I read The Dead Bedroom Fix, I went on a self-improvement journey, physical and mental. And she was not pleased. She sees any time away from her and the kids for me as bad and abandoning them. So we are pointing, um, that's the end of his story here. We're pointing to some fundamental insecurities on the part of the wife, aren't we? Kid obsessed, um, you go to the gym or to your therapist or whatever, you're taking time away from me and the kids. That's, you know, a very secure person would say, go, you and push you on your way out and say, "Good for you. We'll see you when you get back. Love you." And then when you return, it's her turn to go out and do her thing, right? That's a very healthy thing to do. Your aversion to this responsive thing, it's very common. A lot of men are like, "I just want my woman to jump my bones every now and then." Well, yeah, once in a blue moon, sure. But for most people in long-term monogamous relationships, eh, don't hold your breath, dude. It's what I've seen. It's gotta be the dude that, you know, drives the ship and directs things. You know, let's— away from the kids, sweetheart. Come over here. And then how to do that in a not so forceful, needy, you know, spazzy way— that's the difficulty for a lot of anxious dudes out there. They tend to take a little bit too far, and then when they get rejected, they are— they take it very, very hard. So it's tough to be cool. And then, you know, it's not for a month or two later, by my estimation. It's a subjective thing. Ask this person, they may disagree or agree. I think that's too long in between sessions, as we say. I don't think it's healthy. That's a good way for you two to drift apart. That's what you're showing me in this message is you, Mr. What's your name again? Johnny, you're pissed and upset, sad, angry. You're basically drifting apart from your wife going, I don't like this. I don't know if I can deal with this, this month or two without. Don't blame you. So in that month or two, What is, you know, leaving a lot of blanks here. What is the atmosphere of your relationship during the times in between? Is it you continuously trying to romance a woman? Are you pushing too much, too little? Are you sitting back with your arms crossed pouting because she doesn't seem to be receptive to things? I don't know. So let's say you are working on this and you're doing everything right. Well, you go to a therapist, you talk to me, you talk to somebody, whoever, and they come up with You're gonna have to date, you're gonna have to go to lunch together, you're gonna have to carve out time for each other, you're gonna have to do all this and that, you're gonna not be so pushy and know when to back off and know when to pursue, and you're doing everything by the book. And what if I were to look into a crystal ball and say, I can tell you what your future is. Your future, dude, is at best, it's gonna be once every 1 or 2 months you guys get together and it's an awesome session. Is that doable for you? For lack of a better word. Can you live with that? Is that sustainable for you to remain in this relationship? For you to say, no, I don't think it's going to cut it, it's perfectly okay. Not going to shame you for that. You're a dude, you're a human, you got needs. That ain't cutting it, shake hands and you go your separate ways and you find somebody that— or somebodies, plural— that will fill that need for you. And she may call you a monster if she's very insecure. It's probably gonna, you know, really rattle her. You say she's sex negative. You apply a lot of negative labels to her. She's very kid-obsessed, sex negative, blah blah blah. You may be exactly right. I don't know. There's a lot more to the story here, I'm sure. And we're only hearing one side of the story. I'm sure maybe if we asked her, we'd hear something completely different. Don't know. Um, but, um, yeah, you gotta ask yourself, what do you want? Um, and if you don't get there, what does that mean for you? What's the remedy here? I've talked about it before. Some people— I do not recommend this, by the way— but some people have come to the, uh, compromise of you look the other way while I get it over here. Men and women alike have done this, generations. Um, be more out in the open about it? Open marriages, the swinger thing, that's a thing, um, or the divorce thing, um, all different kinds of ways of Mr. Johnny getting his needs met. Are any of those viable for you? Do you see yourself going down any of those roads? A lot of stuff to explore here, my friend, but I think the way you frame it is, how can I live with this and just be happy? What am I gonna do, flip a switch and go, suddenly, Johnny, you're okay with only having sex twice a month? Or excuse me, once every other month? Or no, that will never ever happen. And you're not saying anything that's like, holy crap, you know, out there as far as levels of activity are concerned. You're like, if you told me like, I'm only happy if we do it every single day, 3 times a day, I'd be like, dude, that's not— it ain't gonna happen, man. But all I'm hearing is you're not so happy with once every month or 2. Well, hell, who would be? I tell you who it would be. Probably somebody who's ill or somebody has a hormonal problem. That's who it would be. Or a 90-year-old dude. But that ain't you. She's not the only one in the driver's seat. You are too. Your needs are every bit as viable as hers. So I would love to chat with you one-on-one about this. You can certainly book time with me at help4men.com. Go up to coaching in the menu, or better yet, join our men's group community we put together called the Brotherhood. You can learn more help4men.com/join, and you can join us. We got— you can get like 900 hours of audio content, you know, very active private forums, live Zoom meetings. We record all the Zoom meetings, you can listen back to them later. There's a podcast, there's my books, audiobooks, no extra charge, discounts on courses and coaching and in-person meetups and conferences, all kinds of cool stuff. So check it out at help4men.com and the HFM Brotherhood. We would love to have you. But thank you for reaching out. I appreciate it, and best of luck to you, and do keep in touch. All right, brother, thank you so much.