Men Who Do All They Can to Fight Aging, and the Wives Who Don't Like It

An illustration of the, the difference between us— typical dude, typical woman— is you will see a lot of guys online, especially in our world, the relationship chat world. We will kind of prop ourselves up as men as saying, as we're getting older, we're actually getting better, that we're more seasoned, mature. You know, we have this whole notion of the silver fox, if you will, which is, you know, the older guy that women find attractive. He may be physically appealing, uh, he's financially responsible, he's at a career level higher than what he's ever been, he's got more money in the bank, he has higher status, and he has his pick of the litter, supposedly, of, uh, women out there. It's kind of— let's be honest, I think, you know, we hear that so often, but how many men really fit the bill? I think it's relatively small. But I think it is, let's be honest, maybe more common for the— is this true or is this wishful thinking on my part? Let's open up to discussion here. 50-some-year-old, the guy that I just described, is he going to have his pick of the litter more so than the 50-some-year-old woman? Is the 50-some-year-old woman going to be more affected by age? Is she going to have a smaller dating pool, for example? Is if she were divorced, is she's gonna— is she gonna have a harder time finding a mate? It would seem that a lot of men point to and say, oh yeah, well, us men got it way easier, and us men do things to, oh, fight Father Time in the form of hormonal therapy. A lot of us are on testosterone. If you guys weren't at the last BroFest, I said, just out of curiosity— we got it on video— who here is on testosterone replacement therapy, if you're comfortable saying it? And like, I don't know, over half the room raised their hand, and I was like, oh shit, wow, okay. And that's, that's huge. So We are not averse to saying old age, F that, whatever I can do to keep going, keep being strong and hitting the gym. And we're exercising and we're doing all these things and dressing better and we're dialing back the hands of time and we kind of pride ourselves on that as dudes. You're pointing to something that's not very nice about the quote mating game, as I often call it, which is we have this— is dichotomy the proper term where we have the people that are good for long-term partnership and relationships, and they have a, a, um, a certain set of qualities and traits about them which make them— wow, this is a good long-term relationship partner, good head on their shoulders, faithful, intelligent, emotionally, yada yada. And then we have on the other side over here, which is, oh wow, this is the short-term fun person. And those people tend to be quote unquote hot sexy. When we look at the, um, you know, beneath the surface, so to speak, we're like, I'm not gonna— I would never marry a gal like this, but I'll drool over her. Maybe if I'm so lucky as to have one or two nights with her, great, but long term, no. And both men and women have that split. Women— men hate to hear, hey, you're more long-term relationship material, you're not one-night stand material, mister. We're like, hey, whoa, And what's it— what's interesting is that women tend to be like, oh good, I'm glad to hear that. When, when they're told you're, you're more marriage material, lady, you're not wham bam thank you ma'am, she's like, well good, I'm— I don't want to be wham bam thank you ma'am. It's kind of interesting, the, the dynamic there. But at the same time, there is the dichotomy of the Mr.

or Mrs. Right and Mr. or Mrs. Right Now. I think it's what you're speaking of.

Yeah, yeah. And it's a very real thing. It's interesting how we both process it. At the same time though, Um, how best to put this? We— what we see, from what I've seen, or my admittedly biased perspective as a dude here, um, is that the women, when we enter into a long-term relationship with them, seem to— not all, but boy, I would say the majority— seem to really fight any kind of bringing in that, that world of the sexy, shallow, whatever. Which, by the way, very important in the mating game, especially in the early process. Oh, who's that over there? She's cute. And then you get to know her, and yada yada. It seems, um, the women kind of fight that quite a bit. They're like, we're not that anymore. That's not us anymore. We need to, uh, we need to put much more emphasis on the deeper, for lack of a better word, stuff. The companionship stuff, the family stuff. That's huge. And anytime any of that other shallow stuff comes in, such as seeing my husband's eyes follow that young something as it walks by him, she's just like, no likey, that's no, no, no, no, we must eliminate that as much as possible. And to hear things such as, um, we have data that shows that men tend to spend more time looking at online dating profiles, for example, of younger women. And no matter how old the guy is, whether he's 20 or whether he's 46, he's still looking at the same 20 to 23-year-old gals online and ogles at them and spends an inordinate amount of time looking at them, liking their photos or whatever it is. And we have the OKCupid data that shows us this, and I think Tinder and everybody else shows the same thing. Oh yeah, men tend to like to look at the young ones, but then the men come back again and say, well, but not for long-term relationship stuff, and they're just the eye candy, you know. Um, and women don't like that. It's not nice to point out that at a very visceral attraction level, you ain't it anymore, lady. That's not nice. Who wants to hear that? I wouldn't want to hear that.

It's awful.

To me, if I come— whether it's my wife or whether it's me or whoever, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever it may be— to come home and say, I, I got— I, I bench press 225 pounds and you can actually see my ab muscles now. I have never seen my ab muscles. I would hope that your partner would be like, there's my sexy dude, awesome, I love it. Yeah, look at you, six-pack, you know. And like, uh, oh, let me see you from that angle, you look good. As opposed to Dude, shut up already. Why would you say, oh, shut up already? Because you're, you're very sensitive to your, you know, you're very, uh, what's the word, insecure about yourself. You don't like that.

Yes, I think the insecurity is the, the important factor, especially when you're in a newly committed relationship in that honeymoon phase, um, because the whole point of going through the process of getting married and getting together and everything like that was to instill security. So anytime those old insecurities start to well up, they mean more because, hell, we just went through all this so that way I didn't feel this way anymore. Now all of a sudden I'm starting to feel it again. And that's one of those things like unmet expectations, the emotions that come behind that. So I can definitely see where that comes from. And from a raw visceral level, yes, it's unpleasant for them, but that's part of the life though. Because if it became instantly secure and everything was fine as soon as you got married, marriages wouldn't last very long at all. Because if marriage started a utopia, we would be destroying it even faster. And there's the old Greek myth about, you know, if everybody was put in utopia, it would go to hell in 2 weeks because people would get bored. It's the insecurity that is needed to be healthy. The question is, at what level? Is it healthy? Especially when the reaction seems disproportionate to the action taken, such as, hey, I've been going to the gym and I'm excited about seeing this. You know, not getting— you're expecting a positive reaction, you get a negative reaction, it hurts twice as much.

Yeah, yeah, that's a double-edged sword. I don't know if that's the right term, but it's not good. I, I've said I don't know how many times, um, to think that we as men want perfection from our spouses, our partners, is, is ridiculous. No, We are way more lax when it comes to cosmetic flaws and things and extra 20 pounds or whatever. It really is about how you carry yourself and your confidence in yourself. And it's also— we love to see effort from our partners. And the phrase I often use is there's nothing more musical to a man's ears than a woman saying, I better do fill in the blank because I got to stay sexy for my sexy man. I'll see you later. You know, like, where you going, wife, with your gym bag? I'm going to yoga. Oh, okay. Yeah, gotta stay sexy for my sexy dude. See ya. Magical. And she could come back looking exactly the same and still be the same 15 pounds overweight or whatever it is. And we're just like, it's great that I have somebody who values me and values us and wants to put a little bit of effort, God forbid, and do a little something to keep up, you know. And I in turn will do the same. Oh, look, my wife's looking good. I better You want some pizza, Ralph Brewer? No, I'm good, thanks. God forbid, you know, it's, it's the nature of the game. And that's, uh, that's the old mating game for you. And it seems like us in our world, we've, we've kind of latched on to that, but that is somewhat foreign to a big chunk of the population. There's like, that's not nice, it's not fair, you gotta grow, we're all growing older, we can't keep fighting Father Time, yada yada. Why not?

One of the things I was I was going to bring up and I lost track of it was the whole thing about the silver fox is we're men, we're competitive. Okay. And we already know that a majority, a minority of the men have a majority of the pick of the women. That is something that has already been proven. So yeah, there's the whole, you know, go dad bod, but there's also the accept me for who I am. And that leads to one type of group of people. And then there's the other type of group of people that put in the effort and want to be part of the the, let's say, 1% or the higher sexual market value group. And I think when you get two of those people that are misaligned in that, you're going to run into some very, very big problems. And that's kind of the point is you don't care if the wife goes out to yoga and then goes hit Dunkin' Donuts on the way home. The fact that she went out to yoga, that makes the big difference. It's the effort. I can't tell you how many times we've all gone out to go exercise and then go binge drinking beer all weekend with the guys, knowing that we've completely ruined all the work that we've done. But it was the fact that we're putting in the effort and accounting for it, not just letting it go to the wayside. Um, and I think it revolves back around to that discipline. What a lot of people are looking for in a good partner is discipline, and with that discipline comes consistency. And what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, the, uh, yeah, the, the whole concept of, um, this is something that a lot of your more conservative types will, will harp on, but it's completely valid, is this concept of, uh, what do they call it, like everybody gets a trophy, you know, when you go to some kind of event. And you know, when I was a kid back in the old days, it was, here's your, you know, the blue ribbon and the, the first, second, third place, and that was it. Uh, now when my kids go, they literally walk out with these giant cardboard boxes and go and go, all right kids, come over here if you haven't got a trophy yet. And everybody just swarms the cardboard box and they're handing out these little cheap plastic gold-looking trophies to everybody. For what? You showed up. And then the kids have a, you know, shelf full of these trophies. That is, if you study like the origin of said things, is kind of a feminine thing, which is a lot of women basically saying, you know, it's not fair that we're leaving poor Billy out over there. Poor Billy tried his ass off and he doesn't get anything for it.. And a more masculine frame of that is, yeah, sorry, that's, you know, Billy needs to work a little bit harder. Maybe next year. Um, you know, it's just the nature of the beast. These 3 kids were a little bit better than Billy. That's why they got 1st, 2nd, 3rd. Um, to just hand Billy the thing and say, there you go for being you, Billy. In our mind, it's like, it's, it, it doesn't work that way. It's, you're not teaching him anything. He has no incentive to do better. But that's not a very feminine thing. The more feminine thing is to— we want harmony. We want the social group to all be in harmony. We want less— we want people to feel bad. And so you, Mr. Going to the Gym and Doing All This, that makes me feel bad, makes me feel icky, makes me feel— we got to cut this shit out. It ain't fair. And that's a very feminine take on a very masculine thing. We don't get it. I can certainly see her point of view, but I think ironically is that best for the relationship? There's a big question. Is, is tamping down your, your man's efforts in that way, trying to get him to reverse course and accept the aging, not go to the gym 5 days a week but instead go to walks with her 2 days a week instead of— you know, if he dials down, what's the end game there? What's the end result? A less happy dude? Who's 20 pounds heavier says, oh well, I'm 53 years old, is what it is, and they can both be comfortable and she can be less stressed out, that, you know, is that best for the relationship? Um, this concept of, uh, if he improves, it is a, uh, a potential detriment or danger to our relationship— that notion didn't just fall from the sky. This freaking happens often. It's just, it's just one of the downfalls of being in a relationship with somebody else. They can go elsewhere if men and women both do this. It's not a, a uniquely hypergamous woman thing. It's if they're introduced to a new world with new people, new whatever, new— they have a new sense of self, they could very well say, I think I want to go with Plan B over here. Now here's, here's a, uh, let's flip it. Should men feel bad if, let's say for example, he goes to some workout class thing— CrossFit is the big brand that everybody seems to join, you know, whatever it is— and he joins a group of like-minded individuals all trying to get in shape, and he's hanging out with a bunch of gals that are all, you know, got, you know, shapely figures, and they're all, you know, in shape and yada yada, and much better shape than his wife, and they're all a certain mindset, and he comes home to wife and he's just kind of like, yeah, I don't know, this just doesn't do it for me anymore. I kind of, I kind of enjoy the energy or whatever of this group that I've been a part of for the last year or whatever. Should he feel bad for that? Should he feel bad for outgrowing, turning the page on his wife in that relationship? Maybe she's a perfectly faithful, awesome, but boring wife, you know. In, in, uh, the context of what you're, uh, saying, am I to presume that the guy has given her the time and opportunity and had a direct conversation with her about what you just said. Well, you— or does it— is it a gradual thing, or does he just one day just go, you know, I don't know if this is really going to do it for me anymore? Let's say it's at the early stage of that where he comes home to the wife and goes, fuck, I wish my wife was like those gals at the gym that are squatting 225 and everything else. You know, I wish she had some kind of energy like this. Instead, she's more concerned about decorating the house for Christmas. And you know what used to be cute and homely and, and maternal and awesome to him is now kind of a drag. Um, this is very real stuff here, guys, especially for you. Join new, uh, new interests and stuff outside of the home, whatever it may be. They're introduced to a whole new group of people, and it introduces new energies— not necessarily affairs and everything else, just a new way of life and a new way of thinking. And it's attractive to them, and the old way is, is bad. A lot of women report the same thing. Like with that example with the guy who's like, you know, I've been going to the gym and I'm introduced to a new group of people and my wife's just not exciting anymore. Is that necessarily fair when you got a 59-year-old postmenopausal woman who had a knee replacement and had spit out 5 kids and everything else, and you're sitting there going like, it'd be nice if you could, like I say, squat 225 like Buffy at the gym who's 23 years of age. It's not fair. And frankly, you're kind of a dick for being that way. And you know, you got to show some empathy to the, to the woman. You know, it's not fair to her to, to try and compare. But at the same time, there's a part of you that's like, you know, I just don't have feelings anymore. Well then, yeah, put in the work, as Justin says, to reconnect if possible. Some of us have wives that are like, you can go do your thing, I don't care. Some of us have flat out heard, maybe you need to go get your girlfriend, you know, hurtful thing to hear. And Samantha, uh, Dr. Samantha Robin Whiten has pointed that out, that she hears that quite often from her, uh, clients. That she works with where the woman will say, maybe you need to go get a girlfriend because I don't have that interest in physical connection anymore. And the men are averse to that and say, no, I want my wife, I don't want another woman. It's like, oof, ouch, tough spot to be in. So you may find yourself in that spot. None of this is easy, folks. But to Justin's point, um, some of you got really good women and they do deserve a chance, and they do deserve your love and empathy. And to discard them simply because insert reasons, it's not the nicest thing in the world. And I know some of you have been hurt by women who did exactly that to you But two wrongs don't make a right.