Mrs DSO and I Talk About Date Nights and Getaways

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. All right everyone, DSO here from BadStartingOver.com, and with me today is the one and only lovely and talented my wife. You know her as Mrs. Adioso. All right, howdy young lady, how you doing?

I'm good. How are you doing?

I'm doing all right. Can't complain, you know, belly full of food. Got a woman next to me.

Did you eat all that beef?

I ate all that beef, baby.

Wow.

So we were thinking of what to talk about. We haven't done one of these in a while. And, um, I actually proposed the question to the DSO fraternity group. Go to dadstartingover.com/join if you don't know what I'm talking about. And I asked them, I said, um, Mrs. DSO and I want to do a podcast. What do you think? What are some topics? And we had everything. We had everything from, um, can you talk about the politics in Western medicine?

Which, this is not a politics podcast.

No, no, it's like interesting, but it's a good topic, I guess. Thank you for that, Scott, but not necessarily for this. Um, all kinds of ideas. Nothing really jumped out at us. Oh, got to talk about that.

Also because we've talked about a lot of it already.

Yeah, I could have, for some of those suggestions, I could have linked them to some existing podcast episodes that we've already done. Um, but, uh, because we've already covered like 3/4 of stuff that was mentioned on there in some way or another. But you and I really haven't talked about, um, what we think makes a good date night, some examples of good date nights. Date nights are a crucial big part of us, and it always surprises me how it is not a crucial big part of everybody's. In fact, I think we're kind of in the minority when it comes to going out and doing stuff as a couple sans kids.

But I think we've also learned from our past mistakes.

Yeah.

And we do it better this time. 'Cause the couple that I just mentioned, our friends, mm-hmm. They had a, apparently a big marriage crisis 5 years ago when they have 3 kids, 3 boys. And 5 years ago, the youngest was 1 year old and the others were like, I don't know, 10 and 5. So that was a pretty rough time for them. And they went into marriage counseling and they came up with the rule of twos. Have you heard of the rule of twos?

I have not. Please do share.

I don't remember at all, but it was basically, they go every 2 weeks, they have a date night. Every 2 months they have a weekend away, and every 2 years they go away for a whole week without the— and that's all without the kids.

Nice. How many years before the week away? Every 2 years?

Every 2 years, which I think is a long time, but I mean, but you know, 3— leaving 3 boys with somebody, you have to find somebody.

Now do they have— all right, so I'm going to play the part of of guys listening to this kind of going, yeah, right. Do they have a big network of people to help them out? A family?

So they do not actually have their in-laws in the town. Their in-laws are several states away, but then they plan on— they plan their getaway when the kids are on vacation and summertime, and they drop the kids off at the grandparents.

There you go. Yeah, okay. So they're there, they're just far away. Yeah, but they can't tomorrow say, hey, we gotta— we want to run away for a couple of days, right?

I don't know how they do the— I think the weekend away, they just drop them off at various friends' houses for be at sleepovers.

So some women listening to that may, you know, sneer and say, uh, no, I don't think so.

Yeah, we need to talk about that. There's, there's something really wrong with the parenting that we're doing. We talked about that a few times this week.

Yeah. Um, we're totally already off topic because, uh, well, but yet it's part of the whole thing because I'm trying to put myself in the, in the mind of a lot of guys that I talk to and their spouses. Because what I hear over and over again from these guys that I talk to is Dude, I've tried. I suggested we do this, I suggested we do that, I planned something, and every time the wife just sabotages it or outright says no. And then she'll say, because I can't trust, um, your mom with our kids because I don't like your mom, and my mom lives 6 hours away so we can't call her, so therefore we don't go out anymore. Done. And that's it. It's like this, this overwhelming anxiety and guilt about leaving kids alone overrides their desire to spend time with her husband one-on-one.

And I get that to a degree, because thinking of leaving my kid alone with just you for my little conference here in Chicago makes me uneasy. But then I'm like, well, she's with her dad, so that's going to be awesome. But just the feeling as a mom of aban— abandoning, quote unquote, your kid even for a day, it's just paired with a lot of guilt. But I think that's okay when you have an 18-month-old But there is a point where they can express their needs, and then you don't really need to hover over them. And I think then it's absolutely okay and healthy to leave them with other people. It used to be like that. It used to be that a whole village of people was raising your kids, and it wasn't just you two.

That's it. Yeah.

And I think we've moved away from that too much.

Yeah, it's a combination. We've moved away from that 'it takes a village' approach, which is, um, there was a— oh shit, who was it? Was it Hillary Clinton wrote a book called that? It takes a village, really. I think so. I don't know why Hillary Clinton's coming. I think she did. So not to politicize it, but, um, not that I'm necessarily a fan of the woman, but she had a point, and it does take a village to raise a human being. I remember as a kid, babysitters, friends, the parents of the friends, Granny and Grandpa. It was all— it was just this giant team effort of everyone just understood, yeah, yeah, we're in this to help out. And now I see a lot of people Yeah, moving several states away, uh, so many broken homes. And people have— well, my wife doesn't talk to her mom anymore, she hasn't in several years, so we can't ask her, so she's off the table. And dad took off. And I hear that all the time. So there's just this compounding awfulness of broken homes and all kinds of drama. And then we have— mom has just this unhealthy level of anxiety. We've talked about that, we did a whole podcast episode about what's up with women and mental illness. Mental illness, it's hard to say. And so there's a big issue there with all these women that just can't leave their kids alone because they go completely gaga, go nuts.

Yeah, so that needs to be—

that ain't something. And that ain't us because yet we have— excuse me, not ever gonna be us because we have— we both are cognizant of the fact that it can slip into that pretty easily. And we both make the concerted effort to do stuff together without the little baby in tow.

And, uh, because you're gonna still be a couple when the babies are all out, and then we don't want to have nothing to talk about.

Well, we have— there is that growing phenomenon of the thing called the gray divorce, which is the kids are out of the picture and they look at each other and go, what now? And, uh, very often it's the woman saying, I don't see a real need to keep you around, mister, anymore. So yeah, but that's— adios. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, I married you to get really old with you and change your diapers.

Really?

I mean, I'm not excited about that.

Okay, it's on tape, so to speak. It's recorded, guys.

Okay, here's the German poop thing again.

Oh, here we go. Yeah, I wasn't even going to mention that, but sure.

I don't know where your mind goes.

For new, for new listeners to this, uh, Mrs. DSO here is German. I don't know if you can tell by her little bit of an accent there. And all Germans have some kind of weird obsession with—

it's— that's you guys—

with poop.

It's you guys projecting your obsession. It's really not.

Yeah. So anyhow. Yeah, listen, guys. Date night. Okay, no, wait a minute. New guys, listen back to this show. Every single episode, there's some mention of poop in there.

That's because of you.

Is it though?

Yeah.

Is it?

Date night. So my favorite 3 date nights do not include poop in any way, shape, or form.

I hope not. Yeah, let's talk about our favorite idea of date night and what that means.

Well, idea or what we've done.

You want to get specifics of, I, you know, this date on this year because we did this. I think that's good. That illustrates the point of what makes a good date night.

Yeah, I think I'll point out the ones that I like that are just standing out now.

How about you go one, then I go one?

Yeah. But honestly, I'm having like, we've been dating for 9 years now, almost 10 years and a half.

Notice how you said we've been dating. You mean we've been together for.

Well, but yeah, but I think we're still dating and that, I think that's just adorable. But that's important.

You're always dating.

You're always trying to create that, that initial spark. And I, I still feel that initial spark when we get all pretty and we go out and you tell me how I look and I tell you how good you look. And then I get a little pat on my butt and then we kiss and then it feels like that first kiss all over again. So see, it works.

You were wearing— not to deter— you were wearing quite the little outfit yesterday. You look like a little Roman goddess wearing a bra. It was a, yeah, a braless, uh, off the shoulder. It helps.

Abercrombie and Fitch, $29.99.

And it had the little— yeah, but it was the strap going across diagonal thing with the one exposed. I like that. And you even wear the little like Roman sandals to go with it. And I don't— that's not quite a mini skirt, but it was above the knee. And yeah, and then you walked in, I was like, hello nipples. And so you're like, yeah, I can't go out like this. So you literally put on little pasties over your nips.

And then there's air conditioning everywhere, it's freezing.

But see, that, that— this is not, again, not to deter or go take a left turn in the conversation, but that's a cute little sexy moment. You don't have those cute little sexy moments unless you put in the effort of, you and I need to get away. That's not going to happen with a 1-year-old climbing all over you. And is she climbing and clean— cleaning up all her little books that are all over the place and everything else, those, those, those don't lend themselves to those little sexy fun moments like this.

Yeah.

What does is we're going out on a date.

Woohoo. Right. And I think a lot of couples mistake the fun, exciting moments that they have as couples with their parents, as parents, not as couples. Because when you are parenting a 1-year-old, there's lots of cute and funny, silly giggly moments throughout the day. We have lots of lovey times, lots of sweet moments, but it's not a couple moment. And I think a lot of people confuse that and forget that there was that time where they had sexy couple moments.

Going back to the origins of this whole thing, the book I wrote, The Dead Bedroom Fix, as well as, uh, books that other people have authored such as Esther Perel in The Mating in Captivity— there's countless books on the subject and they've all recognized the same thing that I did, which there's a very real difference between the domestic/paternal/whatever you want to call it side and then your more erotic sexy, romantic side. The two don't mix necessarily. You can somewhat mix them, but they don't mix. They just live together next to each other. They don't ever intermingle. They're always separate.

They're very separate.

And so if you never even jump over to the other side of the fence, like ever, you forget about one of those sides. Yeah, very easily. And in a marriage with a kid, you always stick over to the domestic side and you just stay there and you stay there. Yes, stay there.

And I must say, when you try to cross over to the other side, while I'm in full mom mode and I'm, you know, I'm on my phone reading work emails, the toddler is crawling all over me, I've got yogurt on my arm sleeves for some reason from baby feeding, and I have my hair flying all over the place, and you come over and you try to cop a feel. I am not in the mood at all.

I don't try to cop a feel, I do, baby.

Well, but I'm just saying that that's a— that's, I think, where a lot of women and men have a misunderstanding in their daily life is because you guys always have that little sexy part on your minds, and we shove that in a very dark corner far, far away when we're in mom and working mode and household mode and cooking for everybody mode.

So you see the importance of date night.

Date night has to happen.

Otherwise she's just gonna be stuck on mom. So for all you guys that are like, when I ask what do you guys do together? Well, we took the kid to, oh no, no, just stop right there.

That's not date night.

What do you guys do together? Well, the other day at soccer. No, no, no, no.

And or, or, oh well, we watched the show on Netflix. No, that's a sometimes thing. If you want to do date night that centers around Netflix watching, that's cute and okay.

You put the kid to bed and you can't get out of the house for whatever reason. You don't have the mom.

That shouldn't be an every night thing.

That shouldn't be your default go-to. This is it for the next few months until maybe we get away.

But we've done it.

You guys got to find some, some way to get away. So anyhow, anyway, back to your favorite date night that comes to your mind. Number one is—

I don't know, but one of the first ones that comes to mind is the Lantern Festival here in Louisville. Oh, that was cute where you drew the butt.

Yes, I drew the butt. You want to explain that?

Anyhow, I, I don't even know how that came up, but you surprised me with this whole secret, hey, we're gonna spend that whole Saturday and I will not tell you what we're doing. And I got very controllingly nervous about what am I going to wear, do I have to wear cute outfits, sexy outfits, casual, where are we going to go eat, is, is there going to be water, is it going to be raining? And you said just just bring something that's adequate for a wet environment. And here I was putting my rain boots in the suitcase, and you did not tell me until the very last second where we were going. And we were going to this Chinese Lantern Festival where everybody was handed a lantern to write and paint and decorate, um, and do whatever you wanted with it. And then they were all released after dark, after sunset, on the river. Which makes for a really cute photo op. And you could walk around and see what people wrote on their lantern. Some people got very emotional, you know, getting over losses and stuff like that. Yeah, or, you know, saying goodbye to an illness that they overcame. And we of course were all goofy and making date night top— drawing date night topics and drawing cartoon versions of ourselves on it. And for some reason you decided on your lantern you wanted to draw a butt. I see nothing wrong with with this. I mean, no, it's fine. It's very much us.

I'm hoping that somebody picked all those up and looked at them. Oh, look, and I miss you, Grandpa. And oh, this is sweet. John plus Sally. What, what is— Bob, is this an ass? Yes, it is.

Anyhow, I thought that was a very cute date night because it had a little bit of everything. It was romantic, it was meaningful, there was a little bit of moment for couples, cute reflection time. There was the excitement of not knowing what was going to happen. We did go out for dinner, I think, or we had food there. I don't know.

We did more than that on that weekend.

Oh yeah, I'm not even done yet.

Okay, my bad.

Um, and like the whole festival, they had little live music spots, they had food trucks. It was just a lot going on. It was very casual, very relaxed. It was outdoorsy. It just had everything. It had the romance of the sunset. That was one, one thing. And then that, that's what Made it even better. We stayed at a hotel in the city, which a really nice hotel, which we had never stayed there because it was new. And in the morning, he surprised us with a spa treatment. Mm-hmm.

Right there in the hotel, they had a little spa so you can get a massage.

And what is it with all these women that say, I don't like my feet touched. I don't like my body rubbed. What is up with that? I don't understand that.

Some people are very closed off and not very open and not very—

It has to do with the comfort level.

Yeah, that's a very vulnerable thing. Just to lay there and say, do what you will, stranger. I mean, people don't have a—

you kind of have to trust them that they're not going to go to town on parts that you don't want to be touched.

That's an extra bonus there.

It's true.

Anyhow, do that in Kentucky.

So what's your first date night that comes to mind that you really liked?

Um, I was thinking that they all kind of centered around— it wasn't necessarily just like yours isn't a night, it was a weekend. But my number one thought was our first getaway to New York City.

Well, that's more than a date night.

Yeah, that's a— but that's a getaway that's away from kids.

That was awesome.

I was thinking, does that qualify? Yeah, it does.

It's just you and Do you want to share just how many times we did it that weekend?

I have shared that on numerous occasions in my writing and in my podcast of, of 4, 4 nights and 13 times we had sexual relations with each other in, in that 4 nights.

Well, granted, we were just dating for like 5 months or so.

We had been together just 5 months. Is that all? And we, and, uh, we decided, we, I like New York. You like New York? Yeah, let's go. And really made an awesome little trip out of it. And I had no kids for that period of time. And what all did we do?

I don't even remember because we've done so many New York trips.

We did the bar hopping thing. We did the museum thing. Walking through Central Park thing.

World Trade Center.

Now here is where from the— was that on?

Oh, we went to the High Line too, I think.

That wasn't on that first trip though.

Where did we get peed on? That, oh yeah, that was when we were going there for our wedding. Please clarify what that was about.

So there's this thing called the High Line in New York City, which is an old, uh, elevated, um, train, train track.

Yeah.

And going through a part of Manhattan, and they have made it like a pedestrian walkway with flowers, and you can go, and it's a neat, cool view of the city. And to get up to that elevated area, you have to walk up some steps. I don't even think there's an elevator up there. Probably is, but we took steps up. And as we were walking up this spiraling metal staircase, water is dripping down from above. And it's like, oh, that's nice. There's a leak or something up here. It wasn't even raining.

It was a leak, all right.

And we walk up and there is that gal completely drunk, drunk, not even sexy, with her pants pulled down to her knees, squatting. Of all places to pee, she in her drunken state said, how about I pee over this open staircase where people are actively walking up and down? That makes sense. Yeah, and, um, she was peeing and the one thing she said was, I had to piss. And we're just standing there disbelieving. In my brain, it took probably a good 10 minutes to go, what just happened? You immediately went into what the f mode and she saw your face and said, I had to piss, and kind of quickly walked away. That's what I remember.

Yeah, I was belligerent. I would have punched the lights out of that chick.

And I was just like, that just happened? Was she peeing? Did that just happen? Did I get any on me? What, what is— so yeah, we got pissed on in New York. So that wasn't that first trip.

No, that was the wedding trip when we went there for our wedding.

We've been back there a few times. Yeah.

And, uh, we went to comedy shows there, which is also a great date night, by the way, to go to comedy show.

But here is, in my man brain, maybe why that particular trip sticks out in part, and on top of the obviously huge sexual component of it. But to continue with the sexual theme is that we went to a strip club together for the first time. That's true. And this was— you were just like, strip club? Yeah. And so relatively new relationship, so I'm just like, well, this woman is just checking boxes left and right.

Well, and those girls were like all over me.

But I'm just saying, there's just the simple act of, hey girlfriend, strip club? Yes. I mean, it's true. I, you don't realize that's relatively rare.

I mean, yeah.

And so right away, good. And then when we get there, the girls are just all kinds of crazy for you. Uh, the, the women are all mostly good looking and it's awesome and everything's great. And we're there for not very long and then we leave. And of course that leads to all kinds of fun between us, but that opened our minds to, we're a pretty sexy couple and we're pretty, uh, Not really open. Yeah, that's it. That's the word. We're very open to this kind of thing, and that's an integral part to who we are, is just kind of step outside the little sexual comfort zone and do something kind of titillating. To some listening to this, it's kind of like they laugh and roll their eyes and go, if they think that's crazy, that's nothing. But to others, they're raising their eyes going, oh shit, my wife would never do anything like that.

Yeah, well, there's a big spectrum. Some people do very crazy stuff, and other people think it's crazy to just have oral sex.

But I— okay, but I would say, um, I know it is— I would say probably the vast majority of men hearing this would say, I would love if my wife did that. So ladies listening, step outside of the comfort zone. You may have fun. If not, what's it going to spell? The end of your marriage? Because what, you notice your husband looking at pretty girls on a stage? It's, you know, it's a silly thing to be concerned with, but it obviously— we know we noticed that it's an integral part to who we are as a couple and a fun little sexy side to us, a secret little sexy side.

I think, I think one of the reasons why I felt comfortable going to a strip club with you was that I felt not threatened at all, because I felt that we were a very good couple. We had a good thing going. I knew you were crazy for me, and I didn't feel like I would lose you to a stripper. And I think that's a fear, although irrational one.

Yeah, I was good.

But I think that's a fear that a lot of women have, especially if they're post-baby body and You know, they just think they don't have it anymore, and, and, but they just, they're very shallow in that respect. They don't realize that their men really love them. They're not going to just leave them for, for a stripper. Yes, they may lust after a stripper, but hey, you can get your appetite elsewhere as long as you eat at home.

Yeah, I don't think a lot of women realize just how easy it is to prevent that. The preventative medicine is just so basic, it's not even funny. Um, And how many guys, how many guys go to a strip club and see all those women and say, "Yeah, but she's not my wife. Let me tell you how awesome my wife is." Not many. A lot of men go to the strip club and look at them and go, "Huh, man, kind of wish my wife was open and free and sexy like that, at least a little bit." So if you can introduce some of that free, sexy openness to your relationship, it's, you don't have to be one-tenth of the visual sexy that the woman up on stage is. Those women are hired simply because they look the way they look. A woman who spits out 3 kids is not going to look like that, probably. But if she can introduce just a little bit of that sexy something to her attitude and titillating playfulness, the playfulness, that youthfulness, if you will, to the man, then he's going to forgive a whole hell of a lot and say, yeah, that, that 10 on the look— and on a scale of 1 to 10, that 10 of a woman up there she's nice to look at, but she ain't my wife. That's a very rare thing. So when I was in that moment, and still to this day, I would go to such an establishment and I would say, oh yeah, she's pretty, look at her, but she's not my wife. And done. And because you did those, in part, some of those sexy things and very open sexually to those kind of things. So that's why that sticks out to me for a variety of reasons. We just, we were getting to know each other, we had fun. And that opened my eyes to, oh wow, this is a sexy girl.

So what would you do if I sent you a stripper jumping out of a cake to a hotel that you're staying at? What would you say? Watch her and say, oh, that was awesome, now go home?

Are you insinuating she's a hooker?

I mean, I don't know. Let's say she really likes you and sparks fly.

Am I on FaceTime with you at the time?

No. Oh no.

Well then, no. I mean, unless you're expressly cool with that, which knowing you is not that far off the mark.

I'm not. No, no, no. Okay, I'm just, you know, planning your Vegas birthday.

Oh, okay.

Um, either way, are you done with your New York thing? I'm trying—

is that it for New York number one?

Well, I'm just thinking we went to Café Wah where we danced. That was fun. That was our first one.

Did we dance there?

Yeah, we— I— yeah, no, I don't know, kind of.

I think we sat—

then we stand up, or we, we wanted to dance but there was no space.

We sat at a table. Yeah, Café Wah is a very cool old club that has a house band that plays all kinds of cool cover tunes. Jimi Hendrix famously performed there. It's right next to— it's in the Village, right?

The Comedy Cellar.

Yeah, it's right next to the Comedy Cellar. It's very cool. Um, and we've been there a few times. That's kind of one of our spots. So yeah, and we both love New York, so we kind of bonded over that.

And yeah, we still have lots to do in New York. Um, what else can we think? I do love every time, it's still not tired of it, our date nights at escape rooms. Because for the same reason, and may you see a little theme here, I like the element of surprise and mysteriousness. But what I like about the date, the, the escape rooms, is that we can work together as a team and use our communication skills and how we just function together, um, to, to break, break out of those rooms. And I really, really enjoy that. It's playful. I like that too about date nights, to be playful. Um, that doesn't work for every couple. I've had couples that almost break up over those because they're so competitive and they stress each other out and get frustrated with one another. And so that doesn't always work. If you know that, that, that's not for you, then you probably shouldn't try it. But We had a lot of fun with all of our escape rooms.

Yes, I love all those.

Yeah.

We've had a couple of somewhat duds, but over the years of doing those, man, we've done probably 20 or more of those.

Probably. We started in the pandemic, so I think for a while in the pandemic we did one a month.

Yeah, they were awesome.

Yeah. All right, that was my second. What is your second?

My, uh, this is another sexy one, but it didn't necessarily start off that way. Sexy. Yeah. Um, Location is kind of escaping me exactly, but you'll know what I'm talking about. One of our cabin getaways.

Those are not date nights. You're talking about weekends.

Yeah, that's what I think about as a date.

All right.

I qualify a date night or weekend or whatever as away from kids.

I see.

So do you think if you stay overnight and sleep at this other location, it's no longer a date? Now it becomes something more? Yeah. All right, well then we'll call this a date/getaway then. Um, so yeah, in the cabin, outside, the snow. It's, it's, we were in a hot tub outside naked and it started snowing on us.

And my favorite moment of that is still me getting out all sexy and naked and like all suave and I slip and—

slipping and falling.

Oh, that was so graceful.

But that was, again, my theme is not necessarily just the sexy part of it, which of course is important, but, um, it's the completely away. I'm seeing a theme with all my favorites as completely away. We don't have to run back home real quick. We don't have to worry. It's no time constraint. It's just you, I, and a blank canvas of fun, whatever that may be. So it's, we're gonna make ourselves a little dinner in this cabin and go out in the hot tub and Enjoy the snow, and then later the next day go hiking. I like that.

Okay, so since you're talking about your favorite getaways, then I, I think I kind of want to get my— keep my theme as, yeah, just talk about my favorite date nights, you about your favorite getaways.

I would say your first one though, the lantern thing, was a getaway, cuz that was span— that expanded over 2 days.

All right, well, okay, well, so my number 3 then would be New Orleans.

Oh, good one. Yes, that was a good one.

Yeah. What was so special about it?

Well, it was just, uh, fun.

Just the quirkiness of New Orleans. And it was a, it was a busy weekend, but not the busiest. I think there was some festival in town that made it pretty busy, but it was nice enough to be able to walk around everywhere. And there's just so much goofy stuff going on. I think just like watching all that, and there's lots of— but it was just so colorful and different. I just really, I think New Orleans is one of those places that you escape really into a different culture.

It does very much have a, uh, a dirty European kind of feel to it.

Yeah, a little bit.

Um, so thinking to, well, again, that's a getaway. That's a, uh, to me, what appealed to me about that was its open nature of we just have these 1 or 2 days in this city. What are we going to do? Well, whatever the hell we want to do. It's not like by 2 o'clock we have to— I don't really like that that much. Sometimes you have to do that. Yeah, we're signed up for a tour of someplace, you got to be there too. That's fine, but it doesn't— it's not a turn-on to me, as opposed to an empty canvas of whatever the hell it is we want to do. That's what I like, and I think that's the theme for all of my little fun things. But in general, um, thinking of a specific night, not necessarily, but I always like our dinners out. And that sounds like a cop-out, a kind of a generic thing, but, um, no, but we make a deal out of it.

We don't go just to Wendy's. Yeah, we either make it a really fancy dinner where we go all out and get the 7-course menu and spend way too much money and are very stuffed.

I haven't done that in a long time.

No, but I would like to do that again. That was fun. The one in Maine I'm thinking of, that was really nice. But, um, those are expensive splurges. You can't do that all the time. But I also like the just this, hey, there's this new restaurant that was rated top and let's try this out or let's try this cuisine. We like trying. We just, we like, and that's, I think, another theme of us is we like trying new things. We're open to things. And so we've done everything from mini golfing to sky, we went to the Sky Zone. We did the indoor skydiving the other day.

Oh yeah. What's that called?

It's not Sky Zone.

iFly. iFly. Yeah. That was cool.

What haven't we done? We were going to do that paddleboarding in the fall in Texas for date night. I like that.

We've done, uh, well, in keeping with—

We've done kayaking classes.

Okay, yeah, let's keep with the theme of doing kind of out there.

Yeah, new things that we have to—

Almost a little dangerous. Um, or not danger, thrilling.

Oh yeah, the zipline adventures.

Oh yeah. So that also good things that draw you close together is, is an element of danger or we're really stepping out of our comfort zone and doing something thrilling. Uh, we ziplined. I don't even know how to describe this. It was ridiculous. It was literally 1,000 feet in the air, I think, uh, at one, at one point. And, uh, yeah, you're going from one mountaintop to the other, and if it snaps, you're just dead. There's no, there's no question. And that's scary. And I'm not a fan of heights. That was scary for me. And I remember going from— you go from one little spot to the next, that's not so bad. And then the next spot, I go, okay, that was a little bad. I remember like the third little spot, and I looked over at it and I go, wow, that's really far. And the guy goes, I'm sorry, what? I said, I said, man, that's really far. And he goes, oh boy. It's like, what? He goes, no, nothing. And then when we got to the next spot, I was like, okay, is this a joke?

Because I can't see the end of this.

Yeah, where are we going? You see that speck of dust way up? I go, no, we're not— how's that even possible? And we did. You're just on that zipline forever, and the line is so long it like sags down and 1,000 feet below you have rocky terrain. This was in Colorado, and, uh, that was scary as hell, at least for me. And then it was okay. Yeah, it was okay.

Let's see.

And so, um, those are— and then, oh, the other one I was thinking of was whitewater rafting.

Oh yeah, that was fun too.

We did the highest level possible, level 5, I think they called it, in danger-wise. Yeah, it goes from 1 to 5. We did a 5, uh, once, I think.

Well, we didn't do the one that they have in West Virginia where it's like 10-foot drop. We haven't done that yet.

I think we had a drop or two in ours, but not a— yeah, but these were 5s that we went on.

Yeah, they were level 5, but I think the level 5s in West Virginia way worse.

Yeah, so that was pretty cool. We saw—

that was actually nerve-wracking because I fell out.

We got kicked off. Uh, we saw a woman go under, remember?

And she got all bloodied up.

Yeah, so yeah, that was, uh, kind of— that's kind of a cool adventure going outside your comfort zone for sure. Um, but again, the commonality in all of these We're away from kids. We're away from the domesticity of life. As I'm getting older, personally, I can attest to, and I totally relate to women who say, I can't get, quote, turned on. And that doesn't necessarily mean sexually, just the switch flip that turns you into— I don't know what you want to call it— what's a youthful, sexy, excited version of yourself? Um, that's for me. As I get older, the more I dip my toe into the domestic world, the more difficult it is for me to jump over to that sexy, fun, thrilling side, whatever you want to call that, whether it's literally sexual in nature or whether it's thrill-seeking or whether it's fun on the town, let's get dressed and that. I really have to detach myself from, uh, baby and 3 kids and house to do that. So maybe that's why, to me, that getaways are so memorable because that is the ultimate getting away from me.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to getaways when we can figure out how to take care of the baby, but I'm not ready to leave her.

That's just only 1 year old, 13 months, whatever.

But I think, um, we have still made a good effort at getting our date— even date lunches, date coffee dates. Like, we— I think we're getting good at sneaking in whatever time we can get. Like, if it's the middle of the day where the nannies can come by or your mom can watch her We'll sneak out for a 2-hour getaway and just go to the gym and have a coffee after, or go to an art gallery.

Or so, for example, um, I was up here— down here, excuse me— working on my book and doing some calls and stuff, and you texted me, lunch tomorrow, want to go somewhere? And I was just like, sure. And you said, where? I was like, I don't know, let me— I'm in the middle of this other thing. And then I thought of a place and sent it to you and said, how about there? And you said, when's your last call tomorrow? And I said, I'm done at 1. And this is all over texting while I'm on my computer. And then, uh, well, let's— we can make it for 2. They have an opening at 2. Cool, let's go at 2. So we're going to leave the baby with my mom, go to there at 2 o'clock, probably be gone for a couple hours, and then come back. And then my other kids— get one of my other kids, go to a football game for my other kid. And so now I'm— I've gone right back to the old domestic family life, but that's what you got to do. But again, in that short 24-hour period, it wasn't just kids and family life and house for that full— we, we carved out that little bit of 2-hour time too, with just you and I.

Yeah, you know what I hear a lot from my mom friends is, oh, I don't have time to— I don't have time to go to the gym, I don't have time to cook fresh meals, I don't have time for my husband and, and doing date night. And I understand that lots of people really easily fill 36 hours with just stuff of like taking care of the kids, feeding them, doing their own job. But there is really a chance for everybody to sort their priorities. And if you— absolutely, I worked 73 hours last week and I still had the baby and I still had my nannies that wanted to go home at some point and I operated till 9:30 at night, but I still made it to the gym twice that week. And yes, that's not a lot. But I made that a heartstop priority. And sometimes you just have to sneak it in somewhere. And I disappeared for an hour and a half on Monday at 1 PM. Just told my nurse practitioner, hey, you need me right now? And then she said, nope, you can leave and do something. And instead of having lunch, I just went to the gym and had a shake on the way back to work. That, that sometimes is what you have to do. And it's the same with date nights, I think. And it doesn't always work well. I think some days you lose on this side and sometimes you lose on the other side. But as long as you keep things in balance and you make everything a priority at least once in that week, you can— yeah, you can figure out a date night.

That's the, the key term there is priority. And that, uh, but a lot of people are so far gone into the, the family side of the fence, the domestic side of the fence, and they throw all their eggs into that basket that it slowly but surely diminishes their interest in the other side of the fence. To the point where, why would I make any effort towards that? Well, don't you want to hang out with your husband at least once a week? Nah, I mean, I see him every day, and you know, what more do you need?

Yeah, but whenever have you not discussed, uh, meal plans, picking up schedules, sports events? Like, are you actually dating and hanging out and talking about other things, or are you just arranging your life schedules?

That's my point. Yeah, the point is that they don't prioritize that other side of the fence at all. They see no need to prioritize it because the other thing—

they're—

the other side is okay. Yeah, they feel safe and secure. That's a big thing with women. Um, and, uh, nothing is, um, urgently threatening that side of their world at all. So why put effort into doing anything else? I'm cool right here where I'm at. They go into the sexually dormant phase, and, and it's just very, uh, very upsetting to men until something kind of jostles them and wakes them up from that. But you don't need to sit around necessarily and wait for that if you put the preemptive measures in place to carve out time for the other side of the fence a little bit. But that's easier said than done for a lot of people, and a lot of people just aren't wired for that openness like that. They're just very closed-off people, and when they're in the early stages of the relationship, that lends itself to all kinds of high feelings of, yeah, this is great, And when that fades, it's, let me go back to my typical dormant, blah self. And that's where a lot of guys get that bait and switch from. She was awesome before, but now look at her. She's a mom. She's gained 50 pounds. She doesn't want to do anything. And pretty upsetting.

How far are we into this podcast?

Almost 40 minutes.

Okay. So do you have any other date nights that you can think of? Because I'm— I know we've done so many. We've done picnics. Remember the one time where I did— you drew you a map at my place? And you found me at the picnic site?

Yes.

In the park in Cincinnati?

Yes. And we ended up having sex out there.

But did you have to share that?

That's how I remember it. It was dark. It was outside. See, these are all big guys. You know, a lot of ladies listen to that kind of roll their head going, Jesus, this guy. But hey, um, That's what we remember. That's the ultimate connection there. Look at me, wahoo! But it also illustrates the point of you're not going to have those yahoo moments unless you do those little things like put in the effort. Now admittedly, that was early in the relationship, pre-baby and pre-everything else, but trust me guys when I say we had plenty of obstacles to get in the way of this kind of stuff. Plenty. With your work, with my kids, with all this drama and other crap going on and everything else, we had plenty of opportunity to go, can we just stay in?

Yeah, I think, but because I think both of us felt some liberation from those, you know, of me, I felt liberation when I was with you from that side of my fellowship where it was all about, you know, dying babies and serious stuff. And you had your, all your drama still from the divorce and the babies at home.

You were most definitely my oasis away from—

so I think that's why it was a liberating experience for both of that, yeah, to be together.

That other side of our life was a major turnoff in a lot of ways.

Yeah. So, which is interesting because now we live in that other side together. And, uh, do we still feel liberated when we hang out together? I think I do.

Yeah.

Like, you still—

it's an escape still, that oasis out in me, especially if it's, um, knee-deep in the 3 kids, 4 kids now, and everything else. And then it's a Oh, 2 o'clock's coming up, we have our date, yay!

I'm so excited for that.

And then you have that feeling when you go and you're having a cocktail and the chicken and it's awesome.

And then you drive back and you're like, oh.

But then, yeah, as I'm getting older, that drive back is, it's not depressing, but it's a letdown.

Yeah.

It's a comedown.

Unless you sneak in a quickie somewhere in the woods. Which we have not done, just to point that out.

Haven't we though?

I don't think so. We talk about that, but we haven't.

We have, um, what we have not. Yeah, we have the place where we're going to eat tomorrow.

Oh my gosh, you're right. Oh boy.

Yeah, here, I'll share more. The place that we're going to eat tomorrow, right across the street from it— not right across, but close to it— is a big park. And in that big park— I'm trying to, I'm trying to leave out as much details for me as possible. Yeah, we did the dirty back there. Totally.

Oh my gosh, yeah, terrible. We were a terrible couple.

We were We're naughty people. Still are.

No, Ralph Brewer.

Yeah.

Anyhow, um, so you know when we were talking about that, I— when I drew you the map, we just— we've done that a few times, like scavenger hunts for each other. Remember where I planned you the whole day in Dallas and I got you all those little— I got you a bag, a Weekender bag that had all those random hints, like a little toy pig and a lock and you have to figure it all out.

I needed some help with pretty much all of those. So I'm not the smartest when it comes to the puzzles and stuff.

You're very good at the escape room, so that can't be right.

It's because you and I work together very well on that, because it's—

yeah, we kind of spark each other off.

Yeah, it's like you sit there and go, wait, what about the 2? And I go, yeah, the 2. And then that sparks me. Otherwise I would never even notice the 2. Yeah, it's— we work very well on that. And I have to commend you on— you are the If it's a race to keep up to who does the most thoughtful, surprising stuff, you win that hands down.

I don't think so. You've done something— you guys need to know that the most epic ever getaway was the one in New York City for my birthday, where you surprised me the entire trip of like 3 or 4 days.

Mhm.

You had it planned out to a T, like every single step of the experience was planned out, reserved, researched so thoroughly to match my personality, from the matcha pancakes to the, the library-themed hotel, to the sushi. That was just the best sushi I've ever had in my life. So you did so amazing that I think that cancels out everything that I've done in the 9 years. So there you go. I feel like we're even.

I think, uh, what I have working on my side is that it is relatively rare for men to stop, clear their head, and say, let me put a lot of deep thought into, uh, my woman here. And planning, planning a weekend away. It's not that we hate it, it's not, it's just making that room in our head for that because we don't have much room in our brain. But, but what we do—

well, because a lot of that room is occupied by butts and babies.

But what we do put in there, the 3 or 4 things, we're really good at devoting time to that. As opposed to— and I've mentioned this before— as opposed to you ladies, you have 1,272 things at once, all of which you don't give enough attention to because no human could ever give proper attention to all those things. So you fail and you get anxious. Well, those guys are like 3, 4 things, and then when somebody brings number 5 into the picture, we're like, eh, just get it away. I don't want to talk about it. Yeah, let me alone. I'm fine with my 3 or 4 things. So it's very conscious effort to wipe the plate clean. Screw work right now, the kids, everything else. I have to concentrate on this. So I think you inherently realize what a big deal that is. And oh my gosh, he really put effort into this. So that elevates my efforts even further than what they really were, because you have done scavenger hunts and little thoughtful things and little love notes and little books and paintings and all kinds of very creative and loving things that made me just go, oh man, I need to step up my game.

Wait for your stripper in the cake in Vegas.

I'm waiting for this. I'm going to, uh, she keeps bringing up Vegas. I haven't mentioned this, I don't think, to the DSO guys. I'm going to Vegas pre-Bro Fest. Bro Fest is our big annual gathering with the DSO fraternity members. I'm going with some, a couple of old friends from back when, when I was in my 20s living in Illinois. We're getting together again, haven't seen them in a while, and we're gonna meet in Vegas over my birthday in November. And I'm, as far as what I'm hearing, apparently I need to expect a hooker.

No, no, no, it's tripper. Let me, let me be clear.

But you gave her very hookery qualities there when you talked about her coming to my room and doing things.

I mean, isn't that the whole thing? Oh, there is a package delivery and then the mailman is actually not a package delivery guy but a stripper.

I don't know about a mailman necessarily.

No, but I mean, there's like that theme in the movie. So I'm sure there's also the girl jumping out of the cake. There has to be a thing. If it's not in Vegas, then where is it?

True, true that.

Yeah, I'm gonna find that chick.

Or you could just save all that and I'll just go to a strip club with my friends. And see like 12 of those in one room. I don't need a cake in the room and—

But it's your birthday.

That's true.

So other date nights, I kind of, I'm running out of, we have done just so much that I just, it all kind of blends together.

I mean, we've gone international. We've, uh, cities like, uh, New Orleans, New York City, where else? Uh, San Diego. Well, no, that was with kids. Sorry.

Yeah.

Um, I'm thinking sans kids here. That's the whole point of this. We've been a lot of places with the kids.

We have.

Um, oh, here's a good point. We went to Charleston, South Carolina, and we went there with a relatively new baby, 3-month-old, 3 months old. And even during that trip of so many days, several days, which was a surprise by you to me, right? We're going on a trip. Woo! So see, there you go. She's always surprised me with little things. We're going on this trip. And we go there and part of the surprise was, and on Thursday, I found out that there is a babysitting service and the girl comes to your room and watches your baby for you. And it's, you know, it's all licensed, whatever, nanny service and everything. And you get to go out for the evening and have fun.

Yeah. So that's become a thing now that when we take the baby, we do take the baby on trips with us. But we find, we always ask at the hotel, we do pick nicer hotels, but we do ask at the hotel if they have a babysitting service. And some, a lot of them will not have one on site. But they partner with nanny agencies or local babysitting agencies and usually have really good experiences with them. And that was a really great, great experience. Yes, it might be a little scary to have a random stranger be in a hotel in a different city.

But they put you at ease with, here's her full bio. You could talk to her ahead of time if you wanted to. And like, this is what our plan is, blah, blah, blah. And just get to know them. And we've never had, we've gotten, yeah.

And I mean, we did stay stayed in the hotel for date night because the hotel was known for its really good restaurant. So that put me at ease a little bit.

But didn't we pick up and walk around after that?

I think we did. Oh yeah, you're right.

We went for, um, walked around.

But we know we went home so I could put the baby to bed, and then we left again for the bar.

So there you go. So this is real effort, hiring somebody. So there's money, there's a time. If we're going to devote that, we're going to do this just for us. So we're going to take some nice clothes, get all dressed up, go out Come back, breastfeed the child. All right, Nanny, we're going back out again. All right, go back out again, put the baby to sleep, go back out again for the cocktail hour. This is effort and this is work. And this is at any point in that a lot of people with a 3-month-old would be like, can we just stay in?

Yeah, I mean, we're tired.

And do we have to go out? At least one of you might say that. And that's the thing you have to push through. No, you're still my wife, damn it. Or my girlfriend, we're going out.

Yeah.

And, um, that lends itself to those other things you talked about, like the fitness level and the diet level and everything else. And it's, no, I have to at least work out 2 days this week. I told myself I was going to do my— I've been doing more long walks here recently, and I've told myself my exercise routine is now, uh, gym one day and active rest the next day, which consists of walking at least 10,000 steps around my neighborhood. Next day, gym. Next day, da da da. That's my little carving out time, and that's also obviously for my health. As I get up there in age, that's important. But it's also for— I gotta stay somewhat sexy for my woman here. And if I lose that, I gotta stay somewhat sexy, suddenly those 6 days a week of exercise become 4, become 3, become 2, become, hey, I went to the gym once, I'm doing all right. That happens really quickly.

It does.

And so you got to watch that.

Do you have any date nights in mind for the future?

Hmm, as the baby gets older and as we feel comfortable leaving her with people, then that opens up to all kinds of things. And that opens up to— I like the little weekend away thing.

Oh, of course, all the time. So, no, I mean, I love—

that's a given.

I love going on— and that's me. I would like to go somewhere every weekend if I could, but that's kind of expensive. Yeah, I don't want to leave my baby every weekend either.

Yeah, you don't necessarily need to hop on a plane either. Um, so jump in a car and drive a couple hours somewhere is perfectly okay.

Yeah, like we haven't explored Austin Hill Country.

Mhm. And, uh, we haven't really done a— yeah, we, we've done a Nashville night together.

Yeah, we've done a few of those, which were okay.

Chicago we haven't done together.

It's true.

So all kinds of little ideas for going to a city and just seeing the city and having fun. Um, specifically what's coming to mind for a date night, nothing's really coming to mind as a super cool activity we must do.

I definitely want to do the really fancy dining again. And, um, you know, now that concerts and all that are back, you know what we've never done?

We were doing that a lot for a while.

Yeah. And we've never been— when we have been to New York, we've never actually been to the Met or a Broadway show. Maybe we need to find one of those next time we go there.

We did go to Radio City.

Oh, with the Rockettes, but that was with the kids. It doesn't count.

True, it doesn't count. Um, I haven't been to a Knicks game.

Oh yeah, we go on sports games. That, that was one of our day things too.

They got so expensive pre-baby. We did concerts, we did basketball games, football games.

That football game was a good game night too.

Yeah, so A lot of little opportunities there. But as you see, all of this is prefaced by pre-baby. Now that we have baby, admittedly, that cuts down on the options.

This is why we need to move to New York City, because then you can just walk out the door.

It doesn't—

no, no, you walk out the door and you have it all.

A little pricey to live there.

That's okay. We can just cram ourselves into a studio.

I don't want to do that.

Me neither. Let's just get this business rolling so we can afford a penthouse on the Fifth Avenue.

We have to go on our date night tonight, which is upstairs, to watch— or no, we're gonna watch on the big TV. It's Dragon House of Dragons. All right, folks, I think that's a wrap. That'll be it for this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast. Please check out dadstartingover.com. Check out the DSO fraternity, dadstartingover.com/join. Um, what else to plug? Got a new book coming out. Oh, a little teaser for you, it's called Real Talk. No bullshit life advice for young men. It is being edited as we speak. The audio is done, needs to be edited, put up on Audible. A lot more work to do, so we're probably several weeks away before it's available to the general public, but it is coming. Look out for it. Real Talk is the name of the book, and it is targeted at teenage boys. So it's the result of me hearing more than a few hundred times, how come nobody taught us this shit when we were kit. So there you go, um, trying to fill a niche there. So thank you, Mrs. DSO, once again. Pleasure as always. And thank you guys for listening, and we'll catch you on the next one.