In this Dad Starting Over podcast episode, host Ralph Brewer opens with a promotion for the Help for Men Brotherhood, a support community for men dealing with divorce, loneliness, and rebuilding their lives. He then reads a Dear DSO submission from a woman who calls herself “Sexless Mom.” She describes a 20‑year marriage in which she was sexually rejected, only to discover that her husband had been a sex‑addict who paid for sex with roughly one hundred sex workers. She details her emotional devastation, loss of self‑esteem, and the impact on her children, and asks how she can move on and whether she can forgive him. Brewer responds by framing the husband’s behavior as a manifestation of sex addiction and an inability to maintain sexual intimacy after the wife becomes a mother. He discusses how some men view their wives as maternal rather than erotic, leading to affairs. He identifies the wife’s likely codependency as a factor keeping her in the relationship, and advises her to prioritize distance from her husband, focus on co‑parenting, seek professional help, and work on her own patterns that attract such partners. Throughout, he emphasizes that these issues are human, not gender‑specific, and invites listeners to share similar experiences. The episode ends with a call to engage with the community, subscribe, and comment.
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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. As I have said countless times in countless videos and articles and podcast appearances, Not everyone is cut out for this long-term monogamous relationship game, or marriage. It takes a certain set of skills, a certain know-how, a certain disposition, personality, to pull it off. It is most certainly not an institution that is for somebody who has some, oh, real insecurities and real skeletons in their closet, and some really unhealthy behavior and manifestations of said anxiety and insecurities. And this is not limited to the ladies in our lives, not by a long shot. There are plenty of men out there who do not so good things repeatedly throughout the course of their relationship that threatens that connection with a spouse, which is perfectly exemplified by today's Dear DSO submission. And by the way, you can submit your own story to deardso.com Fill out the form, and if your submission's a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world to see, or for the podcast listeners to listen to on the Dad Starting Over podcast, available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you may listen to your podcasts. By the way, if you're watching this on YouTube or anywhere else, do me a favor, hit subscribe, hit follow, hit like, leave a comment, share, hit the little bell, however it works. I would greatly appreciate it. That would help me out a great deal. Thank you so very much. Now on to today's submission, which comes from A lady who calls herself Sexless Mom. That doesn't sound good. She says, I have been living in a sexless marriage for years against my desire. In our 20-year marriage, I have never turned my man down for sex. She says, husband told me that he had a medical problem. I believed him, and although very sad and disappointed, I thought that this is my new reality. It turns out that my husband was cheating on me with sex workers. He is a sex addict. In the meantime, I have been a loving, devoted, supportive wife and mother, not knowing what he was up to. I am fit, even slimmer than in college. I am toned, attractive, and was turned away by him so many times that I eventually stopped trying. I ultimately accepted that this was our new reality. A sexless bedroom. I am an 8, she says, and he is a 4. But when you're paying for it, I guess looks don't matter. I discovered the cheating and the truth came out that he slept with almost 100 other women. Dude's got a problem. He was afraid to have sex with me, afraid that he would give me an STD. I kicked him out of the house after I found out. My self-esteem has taken a huge hit As you can imagine, the kids and I are wrecked. Oof. I feel emotionally devastated. I don't hardly recognize the person I see myself becoming. Husband wants to reconcile, but I am not sure I can. I wish I could forgive this, but I can't. I really believed in us, and now I don't see him in the same light. I've lost respect. How do I move on? "how do I bounce back? I feel that I'm in a pit of despair." Well, Sexless Mom, this is really sad. I'm sorry that you're going through this, but this is something that I hear unfortunately quite often from the men in my audience. So as I often say to people out there, this is not a gendered thing. This is a human thing, unfortunately, that you, Sexless Mom, and others are experiencing. How to succinctly summarize what it is you're going through. You met a person who has a real problem. You call it an addiction. That may be applicable here. I don't know. I'm no expert on this. I don't know your husband, obviously. But I would say in general terms, homeboy's got a problem. He, it seems, is unable to connect in that way with you, the person that he has committed to in a long-term monogamous relationship. He probably sees his sexuality and all that goes with it as something that's kind of shameful and dirty and something that is only applicable to sex workers and that seedy underground world. He doesn't want to bring that into his relationship with you. This is not unheard of. It's— I was going to say it's common. Common's not the right word. It's a known phenomenon that we see in some men, especially after their spouse becomes a mother. She gives birth, he sees her in that maternal light, if you will, and she ceases being his erotic partner. Flipping it over to the men, some men see a version of this from their wives. They say, as soon as we said I do and we moved in together and things got comfortable, my wife went from this, you know, sexy vixen type of person to a very maternal, domestic, almost grandmotherly type of person. And she shut that side of her life off completely. And then those men sometimes discover, just like you did, affairs. And he's like, this makes no sense. She was this, you know, seemingly asexual or sexually dormant creature who wanted nothing to do with me in that way. And then suddenly I find, you know, evidence of just doing all kinds of kinky, crazy things with other men and hotels and other stuff. This makes no sense. They are experiencing some little version of what you're experiencing here, which is that sexuality, eroticism, whatever you want to call it, is for that world, not for our world. Once we are committed and safe and secure and all that other stuff, that just wipes the sexuality off the table. Those people are not wired for long-term monogamy. Long-term monogamy where sexuality and romance and all that stuff is important, which for most healthy people is very, very important. But man, it does not work for those people at all. They just don't have that wiring by virtue of probably some really shitty stuff from their childhood. I'm guessing probably husband had to put up with a lot of shit. Am I right? None of that, just like I say with the women that, you know, exhibit the same kind of behavior, none of what they went through as a child is their fault by any stretch. And some of that stuff is really, really out there, awful stuff. But what is their fault is how they deal with it and how they cope and how they don't get help with it at all. Your husband is probably not the type to say, I'm going to go talk to somebody about my sex addiction issues and really get to the bottom of this and work on reconnecting with my wife. He's probably the type that's like, "I don't want to talk about it. Can we just move on? I promise I won't do it again." Yes, he will. So just like I say with all the men who come to me with a similar situation, the bigger picture question here is, or the bigger picture issue here is rather, it's the toughest one to face, which is, what is it about you, Sexless Mom, that causes you to stick with a person who rejects you over and over again in a relationship? You could say it's your faithfulness, your vows, and everything else, but really it's what we call the old dreaded codependency. It's not good. A secure person would have seen all of this and said, "Well, what's wrong with you? This isn't good. Do you want to work on this? If not, oof, sorry, I got to move on. I made a big oopsie being with you all these years." But instead you kept on and kept on and kept on, and you can see where that leads you. A whole lot of pain and misery. So what you need to do is figure out what is it about me that causes me to, number one, attract or be attracted to this type of person. That's a lot to work on there. And then what causes me to stay attached to them? And, you know, talk about he wants to reconcile with you and you're not sure that you can. Of course you're not sure that you can. Any secure individual would run for the hills, kids or not. Again, he's got a lot of problems. You need to stay as far away from him as possible as far as being a romantic partner is concerned. Sounds like you've still got to co-parent and all that other stuff, but you need to keep your distance as much as possible from him because interactions with him and communication with him will probably drive you nuts. Let him figure out his problems on his own. You're not his therapist, you're not his parent, and you are no longer his romantic partner. If you ever were. Oof, that's kind of a deep subject to explore, isn't it? But I do wish you all the best. Thank you for reaching out. And guys, if you can relate to Sexless Mom's story here, let's hear it in the comments. What do you think? Have you dealt with some of this? How did it turn out for you? And guys, thank you for watching, and we'll catch you on the next one.
