In this monologue‑style episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host Ralph Brewer first promotes the Help for Men Brotherhood as a support network for men dealing with relationship and life challenges. He then recounts his wife’s arduous pregnancy, describing her pre‑pregnancy fitness background, the complications of polyhydramnios, a C‑section, and severe pre‑eclampsia, followed by a grueling postpartum recovery. He outlines her demanding career as a surgeon, frequent travel, and chronic back injuries, emphasizing how physically and mentally demanding her life is. The core of the episode focuses on his wife’s negative self‑talk about her post‑pregnancy body, the frequency and content of her complaints, and the potential harmful outcomes: a self‑fulfilling prophecy of weight gain and depression, or marital resentment and loss of attraction. Brewer argues that negative self‑talk must be “squashed” early, offering a blunt confrontation that spurs his wife to exercise more and dress provocatively. He expands the argument to a broader gender commentary, suggesting that women’s constant body criticism erodes “wife points” and that men will eventually disengage or seek alternatives. The episode ends with a call for women to stop negative self‑talk, framing it as a path to healthier self‑perception and stronger relationships.
Chapters
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. Prior to getting pregnant, my wife was in amazing physical shape. She was petite but strong, curvy but fit. Her years of healthy eating, a background in ballet, numerous yoga classes— well, they all added up to a woman that could walk across the room and turn me into a slobbering sex doofus. Even after 2 serious back surgeries to repair a herniated disc, because the second surgery was to fix the damage from the first surgery to stop a serious spinal fluid leak, this woman still put in the hard work to keep in shape and she was every bit as sexy as ever. And then she got pregnant. And as any woman will tell you, carrying a human in your belly for 9 months is really rough. The hormonal changes, the physical changes, the pains, the heartburn, the nausea. On top of all that very normal stuff, my wife suffered from polyhydramnios, an excessive amount of amniotic fluid surrounding the baby. So picture a typical pregnant belly in your mind and now double that. That was my wife, little petite thing with a belly the size of one of those giant exercise balls at the gym. And I'm not gonna lie, It was a hilarious sight to see. And then the baby came. Ejecting that fat-headed child— and she gets that from me, by the way— from my wife's nether regions, well, that wasn't happening. And Lord knows she tried for hours on end, but the ol' C-section was eventually called for. That means a longer recovery time. So there you have a poor woman who endured 9 months of walking around with a giant ball of liquid and a little human attached to her, only to be gutted like a fish and told that her body will have some pretty serious limitations for months to come. That's tough for a very physically active new mom to hear. We hobble home in pain to care for the new infant, only to have to go back to the hospital again because my wife's blood pressure shot through the roof. She was suffering from a condition called preeclampsia. If left untreated, you can easily die from it. Fun times. So back we go to the hospital to spend 2 more nights with my wife hooked up to the IV bags that were pumping her full of magnesium and giving her a headache from hell. The blood pressure finally came down and we were sent home again with our new baby girl. My wife has endured a lot of hardships in life. She has a career that is about as hard as you can get into— a surgeon. She's living away from her home in Germany to marry some dude, me, in America. She's dealing with an American dude and his 3 kids and that guy's ex-wife. She's working long, unpredictable hours as a surgeon on call. She's traveling back and forth between Kentucky and Texas on a regular basis. She's dealing with a debilitating back injury, surgeries, and therapy. She's fighting the evils of time, staying in shape as much as humanly possible. This chick is tough. That's in part why I married the woman. I respect the hell out of her, but holy shit, I have to work hard to keep up with her. And you know what? I love it. She makes me want to be a better man. For a woman like her to look up to me and say, that's my man, well, it doesn't get any better than that. But for the first time, 8+ years of our relationship, I am seeing a chink in the armor. A real sense of her fragility as a normal human being. She doesn't like her post-pregnancy body, and she mentions it quite often. Too often, actually. But hey, that's normal. I totally get it. It's gonna take a while for her body to snap back. Even after years of hard work and dedication, it most likely won't be the way it was when we first met and before the baby. She can work her tail off in the gym, and she can count every calorie, But Father Time will just laugh at her and say, "Oh yeah? How about this new wrinkle? How do you like that? How about how— what gravity is doing to your boobs and your butt?" You know, it's not fun, but such is life for all of us. There's a delicate balancing game at play here that I see most women completely failing at. That's the balance between trying to stay as healthy and attractive for yourself, and dare I say, for your spouse, being realistic, and knowing what is and what isn't out of your control, and yet loving yourself anyway. Based upon my recent trip to the shopping mall and the display of giant puffy fake lips, giant fake boobs, and even more obviously giant fake butt implants that I saw on display, many women sure haven't discovered that elusive life balance. They are still holding on tight to the younger version of themselves. They hate what time has done to their bodies, and you know, it's kind of sad to watch. The concept of growing old gracefully is not in their vocabulary. My wife's negative self-talk began shortly after the baby was born. They pumped her so full of fluids that it looked like she had gained 50 pounds overnight. She was obviously very bothered by this. That weight quickly went away, but then she was left with a nasty scar and a body that just wanted to rest and recover. She took several months off of work and she spent a good deal of time on the couch. That's when little things here and there started to come out of her mouth. Her: Are you gonna love me if I'm a blobby, out-of-shape mom? Me: No, because you're not going to be a blobby, out-of-shape mom. After several months of rest and some very light exercises to help keep her spine from exploding again, my wife went back to the gym. Into her trainer. This is while working full-time, breastfeeding, caring for a new baby, and still traveling and doing all the other stuff that she's always done. She's still, of course, not back to her pre-baby body. It's only been 9 months. Any moron would think that is completely normal and expected. But still, my wife has to point out all of the flaws of hers. These pants are just way too tight. They didn't used to be. I need to lose 10 pounds. That's not too bad. But these comments started to come daily and then multiple times a day, every single day. My belly won't go down. I know I'm bigger, but I'm just so hungry while breastfeeding. You're losing weight and that's not fair. My boobies are going to look deflated when I stop breastfeeding. My butt is way too big for something sexy like that. I can't wear something like that. Maybe pre-baby I could. These little things are understandable. They're a verbal expression of the anxiety that she's feeling over her changing body, and I get it. Have I ever given her reason to think that I am seriously bothered by her completely normal and expected body changes? No. If anything, I've been the same slobbering doofus who's crazy about his woman. The problem with all of this negative self-talk is that it never results in anything good. Ever. So it has to be squashed early on. If not, one of two things happens. Number one, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The wife eventually listens to herself and she gives up, and she becomes one of the myriads of moms who become obese and slip into depression. Or number two, the husband has enough and he comes to the conclusion, you know what, you're right, you're out of shape, and I'm no longer attracted to you. Either get in shape or shut the fuck up. But you know what? More often than not though, the man will not express this conclusion in a verbal way, but rather in a growing resentment and disconnection from his wife. The sexy thing he fell in love with is gone. Oh well, off to porn and fantasizing like every other dude that he knows. Ladies, if you have a real winner of a husband, you know, every woman's dream, then that means that he has options in life. He likes to surround himself with winners. That goes for his friends, his colleagues, and yes, his wife. A woman who complains about her appearance and then claims that her appearance stops her from feeling sexy and therefore she can't be as intimate with the man as she used to be, ooh boy, that's not gonna last very long. He'll either give you some version of the big uncomfortable talk or he will be humping his cute secretary faster than he can say, "I hate my big belly." I told my wife in a very succinct way what I thought about her frequent negative self-talk. Me: You really need to stop with all the negative talk. You're not fat. Seriously. When ladies keep up with all this negative talk all the time, do you know what happens? And she says, the man eventually agrees with her and says that the wife is fat. Me: Yep, they agree, and then they get mad when the wife doesn't want to fix it. Her: Okay, geez, calm down. The calm down comment was her way of kind of stepping back and having the last word, and that's fine. It doesn't hurt my feelings. But you know what else happened? She suddenly wanted to hit the gym a little more. She wore a very sexy outfit to bed with zero mention of how fat she felt in it. My little confrontation was a bit of a wake-up call for her. She has a choice in how she perceives herself and how she expresses that feeling to the world and to the man who loves her more than anyone. Let's look at it this way. Let's say I lost my job suddenly. My wife would still love me, right? Well, let's say I started looking for a new job, but only sporadically. Most of the time I'd be sitting at home and complaining about not having enough money for all the stuff that I want. Then I would complain that my wife would probably love me more if I had a job again. And then I'd talk about it, wish I could go back to the old me that had money and I could afford all that cool stuff. And then I would see a guy with money on TV and I complain about how it's not fair they show guys like him on TV. It's hard to get a job. Eventually, the wife is going to get just a little tired of all your complaining. She'll be especially annoyed after she spends all day at work listening to men there talk about their new car that they just bought, the vacation that they're planning, the jewelry they bought their wife, etc., etc. That wife would come home, hear the husband complain again, and then she'd blow her top. And she would say something like, "Or you could just shut up and get a damn job and stop complaining all the damn time." And you know what? Not a single person would think that she's a horrible person for doing so. So ladies, stop with the negative self-talk. It gets you nowhere. You're not earning good wife points. You're earning loser points, and nobody likes a loser.
