The host argues that changing a spouse's personality rarely works without professional help and years of patience. He shares a story about a woman married to an emotionally cold military man, then pitches his Help for Men Brotherhood community offering coaching, forums, and courses for men rebuilding after divorce or dead bedrooms.
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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. And I wanted to talk a little bit about, um, women that I talk to. I mention that every now and then. Once in a blue moon, a lady will pay for my time to chat with me one-on-one as if she's a dude. Uh, yes, at help4men.com, believe it or not. And every one of the women that does this says the same thing: I like watching your stuff, I like what you have to say, I like your perspective as a man, um, may I ask you some stuff about my current situation? And, uh, Here's what I've learned. We are so alike, the men and women, it's not even funny. I always chuckle when they're telling me their story, and I'm like, I don't mean to laugh at you. That's not, that's not why I'm laughing. I'm laughing because this is every dude I've talked to says the exact same damn thing. We're human beings, the human condition, just so similar. So we think we're just so unique, team woman, team man. No, we're all so alike. One thing I hear from a lot of men as well as women is, um, my spouse has been this certain way with these certain personality traits for years and years, sometimes like 20-plus years. And for some reason, they kind of wake up to, this is no good, I don't like this, the person who's talking to me, and, uh, what can I do to make them change. And the change is usually pretty severe in terms of personality. Again, in essence, what they want to do is change the personality of their spouse to better, to be more healthy as far as they're concerned. And to the men and women, I say, is it possible? Yes. Well, what do I need to do? Well, that's the thing. You should be a healthy, loving partner no matter what, because that's just what you do. But if you expect being a healthy, loving partner for— to get them to instigate the level of change to the degree that you want, probably not going to happen. They need some kind of outside help. For these folks, it takes them saying, "Help!" and then they go talk to somebody and sit back and wait because this shit's going to take years. An example: I had a woman reach out to me Lovely woman. And she was with a guy who she admittedly got with years ago because he was the quintessential Mr. Alpha Male tough guy, military guy, really like quintessential comic book hero dude. And she liked that about him. Made her feel safe. She was attracted to his kind of hyper-masculinity, for lack of a better word. But after so many years of being together, she's like, you know, it'd be nice if he were more loving. And romantic and giving and sweet? Well, Mary, has he ever been giving, romantic, loving, and sweet? Well, no. Well, how is he? Well, he's cold, indifferent, distant, has anger issues, all these other stuff, PTSD from past war experience. And it's like, oof, wow. Yeah, it's gonna take a while. And if it's gonna work at all. Just like with the men, she and other women like her don't want to hear that. They want the quick fix. What book can I read? What podcast can I point him to? What course can he take that we can fix this? Let's go chop chop. Because both men and women that I talk to, they're in this self-redisccovery phase, self-help phase, and they're enacting a lot of change in their life, looking better physically, feeling better physically, emotionally going to therapy and taking classes and courses and reading books. And they want their spouse to change like now. It's like, it ain't happening, sorry. So I just wanted to share that, how similar we all are.
