In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host Ralph Brewer opens with a promotion for the Help for Men Brotherhood, a support community for men dealing with relationship, mental‑health, and life‑transition challenges. He then reads a listener’s anonymous submission (titled “Any advice will do”) from a man who calls himself “Tough Spot.” The writer is a 15‑year‑married veteran with three children (ages 9, 6, and 2) whose marriage has become emotionally and sexually distant over the past nine months. He describes his wife as a “mom‑bot” who is pre‑occupied with the kids, is currently studying to become a registered nurse, and is on an SSRI for anxiety, which he believes has severely reduced her libido. He also notes his own mental‑health work related to his military background, his financial contribution to the household, and the disproportionate share of chores he handles. The host analyzes the situation, discussing how SSRIs can lower sexual drive, how postpartum and deployment periods often diminish intimacy, and how military and nursing professions are frequently linked to relationship strain in his experience. He offers advice: open communication about sexual needs, consider therapy or medication review, evaluate the wife’s willingness to reconnect, and weigh the cost of staying in an unhealthy marriage versus the impact on the family. Throughout, he balances empathy with candidness, acknowledges the complexity of the decision, and repeatedly encourages listeners to seek support through the Brotherhood.
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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. Long-term monogamy, marriage, and sexiness, uh, it's tough to marry the two, no pun intended. It's even more difficult when you throw things like anxiety and depression and 3 little kids and a military career and an avoidant wife and all that good stuff, like our friend here in today's Dear DSO submission. And you can submit your own story or your own question at deardso.com. Just fill out the form, and if your submission is 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. And do me a favor, if you're watching this on YouTube or wherever it may be, hit like, hit subscribe, hit follow, hit share, leave a comment, click the little bell, whatever it is. All those things help me a great deal. Thank you so very much. Now onto today's submission, which comes from a guy that calls himself Tough Spot. And the subject line is, "Any advice will do." Well, all right. He says, "I've been married for 15 years. We have 3 kids, ages 9, 6, and 2." Oof. "And my bedroom has gone cold for the past 9 months. There have been drop-offs after childbirth, which I completely understand. She's kind of a mom-bot," he says. This is the term that a lot of guys throw around, mom robot. Mom robot, mom bot, or momby, mom zombie, means she's very preoccupied with the kids and that seems to be her only driving force is kids, kids, kids, kids, and she, you know, sets aside her health, the health of the relationship, and all kinds of not so good stuff. So he's saying she's one of those. And she has been put on an SSRI for anxiety, he says, which is tanking an already low drive that went from 5 to 7 times a year, not good, to 9 months of nothing. She is back in school to finish her RN, registered nurse, degree, he says, which is a cliché for you that I don't quite understand, and I would love to get some insight there as well. Let me pause there. Um, often when I hear from a lot of drama in relationships where the wife is doing a lot of not-so-good things, for whatever reason, I have noticed that there is a trend where the wife is employed as a nurse. I don't know what that is. Maybe it's just there's nothing to it at all, you know, or maybe it's just that people in the healthcare field lend themselves to some not-so-good behavior. I don't know. But it's just that we've noticed that whenever— there's two things that we've noticed in my world. Whenever we hear guys say, my wife's a nurse, we all go, ooh. And if we hear, um, my wife is really into horses, for whatever reason, a lot of drama comes with those two worlds. But I digress. He says, uh, simultaneously I am seeking help for veteran-related long-term mental health struggles. Let me pause there. Um, in addition to the nursing thing and everything else, there's also a world on the men's side that lends itself to a lot of relationship drama, and that is military life. I've said this before, this is not an anti-military thing in any way, shape, or form. I am a military brat. My father was career military, U.S. Air Force. He was in Vietnam and forth. So I know that world well, and yes, it lends itself to a lot of marital relationship drama in general. He says, I'm really missing connection with her. The lack of physical intimacy is a big deal to me, uh, and I'm not out of shape. I'm a fairly active guy who works out. I'm not overtly overweight. She has some pretty intense mood swings as we have a pretty busy life. I feel like I'm walking on eggshells quite often, but it's nothing new. She was pretty sexually active when we first got together, and then a 1-year deployment early in our marriage began an understandable tapering in that department. And then baby-making came along, and part of me wonders that now she's done baby-making, that she doesn't see a need for any of that kind of intimacy. I have approached her with my concerns, and she doesn't see it as a problem. She claims that she finds me attractive. I'm a good husband, a good lover, a good Father, I love her. I just don't know how to get through to her and get through the drive dampening medication. At what point, at what point is enough enough? I make 3/4 of the money while she spends most of it. I cover 95% of the household chores and kid work because she's in school 50% of the time, not to mention studying. I've been supportive of her emotionally and accommodating her time, and whenever she has free time, she's glued to her phone and she rejects any initiating of sexual activity. I guess I just need a little advice on whether or not I'm being anxious, or should I just consider throwing in the towel? Um, Mr. Tough Spot, you got a lot of stuff going on here all in one message. You have the, uh, your military stuff and your mental health issues, which I'm glad to hear you're getting help with. You have her and her mental health issues, which she is medicated for, and you have learned unfortunately that a common side effect, if you will, of such medications, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors. A common side effect is a lowering or complete depletion of libido or sex drive. Sexual desire just goes bye-bye in a lot of people. So you're taking all this into account and you're like, man, this sucks. We've just lost connection with each other. And I think anybody listening to this story will go, yeah, dude, what'd you expect? You know, the mental health concerns, the military thing. Uh, you get the nurse thing, you know, that's kind of a, it's kind of a joke. I wouldn't put too much, um, emphasis on she's a nurse and that means something bad or whatever. Um, but it does seem like you're kind of at an impasse here. And I think if she was like many ladies in this position, um, I've done other videos on this where a woman will say, hey, look, I have to choose between you and I and our sex life or my mental health. And I'm choosing the mental health. I'm better off overall on said medication. I'm sorry that that results in the destruction of our sex life as a couple, but oh well, dude. What do you want me to do about it? Either I'm sane or I'm sexy. Take your pick. It sounds like she's taking her pick. You could be two adults about this and talk it out and go, is this what's going on? You know, you don't see any need for this. It was already low to begin with, it sounds like, the activity between the two of you. Not good, dude. But that sounds like it all came about as a result of kids and everything else. On top, now you have the medication and all this other stuff on top of that. So no, it's not good. And you're asking a pretty pointed question here, which is, it's almost as if she's done the job of having babies, now she doesn't need you anymore in that department. And that is at the root of a lot of human behavior, Period. And this is not necessarily a gender thing. We see the same with the genders in reverse, where the man is like, "I knocked up the woman, and now my eye is wandering and I'm looking for the next one." A lot of people that study infidelity in men will say to women that are pregnant, "Be careful. If your man has shown in the past a wandering eye, or you've caught him texting women or so forth, as soon as you get pregnant, the chances of all these things amplifying infidelity-wise skyrocket. So there does seem to be something in the human animal with, I got the job done, I'm knocked up, or I knocked her up, or whatever, now it's time to find another one. There have been theories that the honeymoon stage of the relationship where you— they're most hypersexual, uh, the length of time for that to occur, that hypersexual honeymoon new relationship energy stage, it's not a coincidence that that length of time coincides with the amount of time it takes to have and take care of a small infant to the point of weaning, is what they say, which is the point of that they're not so dependent upon mom and dad so much anymore. That, you know, corresponds to the, the time period of the typical honeymoon stage, new relationship energy. So yeah, you're on to something there. There's something to that. But people that have a good head on their shoulders, they have the tools in their mental toolbox to navigate a long-term relationship. They may recognize those tendencies in themselves, but they put up boundaries and they do the work to stay connected to their partner. That sounds like that's not kind of part of your marital culture, is it? The question is, how much energy do you put into trying to instill that in your wife? Like, look, it's important that we, you know, stay connected in that way. How receptive is she gonna be to such a talk and such behavior on your part? Probably not very. Maybe, you know, now it's time for the old healthy version of the talk. We have drifted slowly apart. Your medications and so forth have kind of, you know, put the last bit of water on the fire. What do you say, wife, to us working together to come closer together as a couple? It doesn't necessarily mean jumping into bed right now. We need to slowly but surely reconnect as a couple. Are you on board with that, dude? If she says no, then you have a very real and common decision to make. Just how important is this to you? Are you willing to throw away a relationship for this and throw away, quote, a family for this? A lot of guys say no, and they stick it out for decades with a very substandard, unhealthy, and really emotionally and mentally debilitating relationship. It's no way to go through life. But at the same time, splitting up a family like this and all these other things, it's also really tough. Choose your poison, my man. Lessons to be learned here. Maybe you should have taken the time early in the relationship and, you know, settled things down. You know, you're going away on deployment. Well, now's not the time to get married. I know a lot of military guys are laughing right now because it's so common to meet a gal when you're in the military, quickly go through the courtship phase for a matter of weeks and months, get married, and then he takes off, and then all hell breaks loose, and she's cheating and he's cheating and all kinds of stuff. Again, military life, oof, good luck. So are you anxious? Yes, somewhat. Is she avoidant? Yes, somewhat. How much is that? How much of her avoidance is brought about by childbirth and, and the pharmaceuticals that she's on and all this other good stuff? There's no way of knowing. This is one of those, you know, you wish you were a fly on the wall to see your interactions as a couple, to see, you know, what it is you, you're doing and she's doing. Um, do you have any concerns that she may be getting her needs met elsewhere outside of the relationship? I'm not mentioning that just to stoke the anxious flames, you know, within you, but that is something that is not unheard of in your world, in your world of military guy married to a nurse. Sorry, that's just a thing. Eh, probably nothing happening there, but you never know. There's really no grand solution here. Like, "Dude, yes, leave her." Eh, ain't that simple, is it? "Yes, dude, stay with her." Eh, it ain't that simple, is it? Such is life, my friend. If I may suggest, if I may be so bold, check out the Brotherhood, help4men.com, or go to help4men.com/join to jump right to the join page. It's a support community for men. We talk about this stuff all day long, every day. We have live meetings, we do one-on-one chats, we get together in person. Check it out, the Brotherhood at help4men.com. Thank you, Mr. Tough Spot, for writing in. I do appreciate it. And guys, we'll catch you on the next one.
