In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host Ralph Brewer opens with a promotion for his Help for Men Brotherhood, a private community offering forums, Zoom meetings, coaching, and his books to men dealing with divorce, loneliness, and rebuilding their lives. He then reads a Dear DSO submission from a listener called "Torn Dad," who describes a 16‑year marriage with six sons, his wife's recent declaration that she is polyamorous and bisexual, and her ultimatum: an open marriage or no marriage. She plans to bring a boyfriend into their bedroom while he is at work. Ralph dissects the situation, attributing it partly to the husband’s past verbal abuse, alcoholism, and neglect, and partly to broader trends where women often initiate open‑relationship discussions. He references a survey from the Open Minded website showing women frequently start polyamory conversations, and he speculates on the wife’s possible influences and personality traits. Ralph offers practical advice: consider therapy for both partners, set clear boundaries, protect legal and financial interests, and, if necessary, prepare for divorce by consulting an attorney. He emphasizes that the husband should prioritize his own well‑being and not stay in a relationship that disrespects him. Throughout, he repeatedly promotes the Help for Men Brotherhood as a resource for men needing support, ending with contact information and a call to join.
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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. All right, folks, we have a new Dear DSO entry on the website, and you can submit your own story or question to deardso.com. That is deardso.com. Fill out the form and if your question or your story 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 find your podcasts. And if you are watching this on YouTube, first of all, thank you. Welcome. But if you could do me a favor, click down below on subscribe, click on like, and after you watch this, if you are so inclined, leave a comment. All of these things really help me and help to grow the channel. Thank you so very much. On to today's Dear DSO submission. This one comes from Torn Dad, and the subject line is Living My Worst Nightmare. Not, not good. He says, my wife of 16 years, they have 6 boys together. Holy crap. Wow. She gave me an ultimatum 2 weeks ago, quote, open marriage or no marriage, as she is now a, quote, polyamorous bisexual, and this monogamous marriage is pure hell, end quote, for her. She has a boyfriend that she loves. Surprise, surprise, and he's coming to my home next week to fuck my wife in our bed while I go to work. But it's okay, I have nothing to worry about, she says. She'll never leave me and she'll always love me. After all, as a polyamorous person, she's capable of loving multiple partners, quote, infinitely. And then he says, What the eff, man? It's bad enough that she's gonna eff him, but just her being in love with him is a huge turn-off. Obviously, she's totally not thinking of me all the time now, like I am her ex— hers exclusively. It seems she's totally not thinking of me all the time now, like I am her exclusively. Oh, I see. So you are thinking about her all the time now, but she's not thinking about you all the time now. Something to be learned there. It seems totally unequal and unreciprocal. Is that a word? Now mind you, I've been a neglectful, distant husband who took her for granted. That's big of you to admit. He says, so I'm pretty certain that I drove her to this. Not necessarily. She also put up with and endured my years of being a verbally abusive Alcoholic. Then he says, shaking my damn head, smdh. But I do love her, and I can't imagine myself with anyone else, and I really don't want to leave her and, quote, abandon my family, which I love to death. Back to that. Um, she says if I truly loved her, I'd let her do this and respect the person who she truly is. But I love her so much that I don't want her to be with anyone but me. She calls that, quote, possessive, and I need to, quote, get over her being with him. We both feel entirely disrespected. I don't know what the hell to do. I really don't want to start my whole life over. Wow, Torn Dad, TD, this is a good one. I mean, you got a whole bunch of stuff all wrapped into one here. You probably got with a gal under very dysfunctional kind of circumstances. I'm just inferring a lot here, I don't know. But just based upon the drama that is ensuing now and the hints at the drama that she has endured from you over the years and stuff, it's probably a marriage that was born out of some chaotic beginning. You probably look at your past and go, holy shit, I had a lot of stuff from my childhood and previous relationships. And then you look at her past and you're like, and a whole lot of shit went on there too. And then you two got together together and kaboom, a big chaotic shit show. Surprise, surprise. I hear this, oh, I don't know, every single day. So you get together and you find out, wow, you're not a very good spouse, are you? You're a verbally abusive, dismissive, neglectful alcoholic. Okay. And yet she stuck around, which shows you got problems and she's got problems, but you guys stuck it out. And then you kept on keeping on, and then here we go, here comes the woman in the door one day going, "Hey honey, guess what?" "What's that, dear?" "I am a polyamorous bisexual woman who is going to bring a man into the house while you're gone. I'm going to do the horizontal mambo right there on our bed. See that bed right there? Yep, me and him are gonna get it on right there. And if you try to do anything about it, I'm gonna divorce you and take you away from your 6 boys, et cetera, et cetera." I get that about right? That about summarizes all of it. What a shit show, dude. Um, is there, is there saving this situation? I guess technically. Hey wife, timeout. Can we not do this polyamorous bisexual whatever thing? And can you please dump new boyfriend? And can we please go get therapy and work on each other individually and work on us as a couple? And so a lot of guys listen to that are laughing right now because what are the chances of that? It's not good, dude. She's in the throes of something. She's been heavily influenced by something. What I imagine happened, I'm gonna guess here. It's gonna sound shitty of me, but dude, I've been doing this for a while. This is not new, by the way. I've heard this whole wife wants to be open marriage thing quite a bit. In fact, I've quoted this often, so bear with me if you've heard me say this more than a few times, but it's such a mind-eff for so many people. There was a website out there who did a study that if you do a search for it, there's news articles picked up on this story and it's been all over the place. A website called Open Minded. It was for couples that are in these open relationships. They, for those that don't know the terminology, they are primarily each other's partners, but they are open to having sexual contact with people outside of the marriage. So they, uh, They have this community of tens of thousands of couples in this open-minded website. And the people that run the website did a survey of their members. Hey, just curious, open-minded couples, which of you first came up with the idea of being in an open marriage? Who proposed it? 2 out of 3 couples, 2/3 of the couples said it was the woman who initiated it. How interesting. Why is that? Boy, we could go on and on and on about this. Are women just not naturally wired for monogamy? Is that a thing? There are people that propose that, like, yes, sexually, if you want to keep things sexual in a relationship with a woman, long-term monogamy, that ain't it. Um, while others may point to some type of— maybe this is a byproduct of like a sexual revolution, this is a lot of women trying to find themselves, and a lot of women— is this a A reflection of just how bad a lot of male partners are out there. And on and on and on, trying to figure out what the hell's going on here, but it's a thing. And Mr. Torn Dad, you're exhibit number whatever for, wow, this is a thing. I'll be darned. Yeah, your woman came to you one day and said, this is how I am. Now, back to what I think's going on here. She fell in love with somebody. It happens. Whether it was some internet thing or some in-the-office thing or whatever it is, people fall in love with people all the time. People fall in love with people all the time outside of their your primary marriage and whatever. It's called cheating. It happens quite a bit. So that's what happened. And she gets with this guy, and this guy is probably, if I'm guessing, into the polyamory, swinging. But I— the bi— I don't know where that comes into play, but I'm guessing that this is probably what's going on. And your wife is probably of the type that is pretty easily influenced by such things. I bet you if we look back on your past as a couple, you can probably point to a lot of instances where she kind of falls into things or really gets into things and really kind of— she kind of— she's kind of very liquid in her behavior, and she kind of takes the shape of whatever container you pour her into, so to speak. A lot of women get into, um, oh, a lot of multi-level marketing things. Next thing you know, they're like, I'm gonna make millions selling Tupperware or lipsticks or something like that. It's like a very uniquely, um, bored housewife thing. I'm saying a lot of stereotypes and things that are insulting to people, but I mean, come on, this is a thing. So she may be one of those types, pretty easily influenced, pretty open-minded. That's a personality trait to a fault. So she gets with somebody, she falls in love, and this guy's like, you know, I belong to a community of people, this is what we do. My last 2 or 3 girlfriends have been this way, I have these other gals on the side, I'm not giving them up, this is who I am, take it or leave it. And He's like, I take it. In fact, I— that's my lifestyle now too. I love you. Yay. And away they go. This time next year, is she going to be the same? I don't know. Time will tell. Let's see. But here's the point, um, most likely this will persist. Most likely she's not going to stop doing this no matter what you do. Um, but you don't need to be around for the ride, dude. And you are very in a very unhealthy way hanging on to a relationship when the other person just told you, "Beat it, dude. She knows you're not up for this. She knows you're not going to go for this. She doesn't give a shit. I know you got 6 kids, 6 boys, and all this other stuff. She don't care, dude. She's overwhelmed by the feelings of new guy. She's in love with new guy." Now you're kicking yourself, and frankly, Rightfully so, rightfully so, in a lot of ways due to your past alcoholism, abusive nature, and so forth. Did you push her towards this very specific type of behavior? No. Did you push her away towards potentially other people? Yeah, probably. You pushed her into the arms of others, and that's not necessarily in a romantic way. Um, you know, it could be she went and got help as a person who's been abused, and next thing you know, she joins a therapy group, a support group, or something like that. And and they in turn tell her, you need to leave this asshole. You know, if that were the— that's not the case here, but if that were the case, could you say, man, I pushed her away from me? Yeah, you pushed her into the arms of people who told her, leave the alcoholic dickbag. And, um, so the pushing away, yes, but where she went from there, that's not— this, this polyamory bi stuff has nothing to do with you, dude. It's all due with her. Um, so The past is the past. I assume you've gotten help with your alcoholism and you're now sober and you're dealing with your anger issues and everything else. Cool. That's good for you. But that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with what's going on now. And it doesn't necessarily have anything to do with her future. You need to worry about you, dude. This whole, what do I do now? I don't want to leave her. That's not up to you. It takes two to tango, my friend. And the other person said, I don't want you anymore, I want this guy. Now I know she says, I still love you, I want to hang on to you. It don't work that way, man. Um, people have boundaries for a reason. I know I don't want to be with a spouse who sleeps with other people in my bed and rubs it in my face and does all this stuff. And the poly— no, that's not me. You have every right to say that, and she has every right to go, oh well, I guess we're not married anymore. And she's right. You ain't married anymore, dude. Why does she want to keep you around? The safety, the security, the comfort, the stability, the familiarity. She knows what's going to happen tomorrow if she stays as your wife. 6 kids, a lot of bills to pay, all that good stuff. If you suddenly disappear tomorrow off the face of the earth, her life gets a lot more complicated. Now, wouldn't it be nice if she could get new boyfriend, the new romance, exploring this new polyamorous life and everything else, plus still maintain all that safety, security, stability, familiarity, and everything else. Wouldn't it be cool to have both? That's what she's doing. She's— is she using you? Yeah, basically. I mean, let's be honest here. Do you want to be used? No. Well then don't be. Yeah, but Ralph Brewer, I don't want to leave her. You can't have your cake and eat it too, buddy. It's not how life works. She is in essence, in a way, abusing you. Is she giving back what you gave to her years ago? I guess you could look at it that way, but it doesn't matter. She at that time said, I'm going to stick it out with you. Should she have? Probably not, but she did. And now she's given it back to you. Are you going to stick it out? Sounds like you don't want to, but you do want to. And here's me saying, don't, dude. No. Big life lesson for you here. Life has all kinds of little, you know, crossroad moments, and this is one. When your spouse comes to you and says, I want to bang another dude in our bed, and there's nothing you can do about it, see you, goodbye— that's where you go, oh shit, this is not good. And yes, wife, no, you go to an attorney tomorrow and you say, here's the situation, here's the assets, here's the debts, here's all the financial everything. Here's the kid situation. Here's all this other stuff. Where do I stand if I file for divorce tomorrow from this woman? Protect yourself. Take care of yourself. I guarantee she's been down this road. She's talked to somebody already about all this. If not, great, you, uh, get ahead of her in the little race here because things are about to get very interesting for you, my friend. All right, that's a good one. You're going to need some help. May I suggest our community, the Brotherhood. You can learn more at help4men.com. Click on Brotherhood in the menu or go directly to help4men.com/join. It's a private community for men only, men that need help, and men that need to work with other men, which is the vast majority of you out there listening to this right now. That's the key component, the key piece of the puzzle that a lot of you don't have. You don't work with other men, like-minded men who are trying to help each other out. You have a lot of casual relationships— maybe a lot's not, not right— you have a few casual relationships with some men from work, husbands of the gals that your wife hangs out with, that kind of thing, but none of them you can really turn to with this kind of stuff. Am I right, Mr. Torn Dad and others? That's why I created the community that I did, the Brotherhood. Help4men.com/join. Private discussion forums, live Zoom meetings, we get together in person all kinds of extras like all my books at no additional charge, all kinds of good stuff, courses, coaching, you name it, it's on there. Check it out, theirbrotherhood@help4men.com. Mr. Torn Dad, thank you so much for reaching out. I do appreciate it. I wish you all the best. Please keep in touch. And guys, thank you for watching and listening on the podcast, and we will catch you on the next one.
