Sexless Marriage... How Long Will You Wait For Her To Change?

The question is not, does she still love me? The question is not, do I wait until the kids are out of the house? The question is, how long do you give your relationship with a woman who has so obviously checked out? When she has made it crystal clear year after year that she does not want you. A lot of guys in a sexless marriage have a plan, and the plan is, I'm just gonna hold off until the kids are grown and out of the house. That's when we will have more mental energy available for the both of us. We will be able to reconnect as new empty nesters. I want you to really think about that plan. Is that realistic? I think this story is going to hit a lot of you right between the legs. By the way, if you have a story that you would like to share, you can do so at dearDSO.com. Just fill out the form, and if your story is a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world to see. And by the way, while you're here, do me a favor. Give me a like. Give me a subscribe, leave a comment down below. It helps me out a great deal. Now on to today's email from Tom. Tom says, "DSO," that's me by the way, he says, "I'm writing because I think I'm the cautionary tale you warn guys about. 58 years old, youngest left for college 3 weeks ago. For 11 years I told myself the same thing, just hold off till the kids are out, then me and her will reconnect." travel, all of that. The empty nest was going to fix us. Well, the house is empty now, and last Friday we sat at dinner and didn't say a single word to each other for the whole meal. Not one. I counted. The only sound was forks. That's when it hit me that there was never gonna be a reconnection. There was just her waiting for me to stop asking and me waiting for a day that was never coming. We haven't been intimate, and genuinely, I don't know. Years. I stopped keeping track because keeping track was making me crazy. So here I am, 58, staring at 25 good years left if I'm lucky. And the thought of spending them eating silent dinners makes me feel something close to panic. But starting over at my age sounds insane too. Who does that? I guess I'm asking, is it too late? Did I already waste the window? First of all, Tom, brother, thank you so very much for writing in. I do appreciate it. I know that's not easy for a lot of guys too. Roll over and expose your belly, so to speak, and be vulnerable with everyone. So kudos to you. Thank you so very much. Appreciate it. So yes, your words are ones that I wish a lot of 40-year-olds, hell, 30-some-year-olds in position of long-term dead bedrooms, this is what I wish they would listen to. So no, you're not wrong. Yes, you are the cautionary tale here. So let's dig into it, shall we? Let's start with the whole dinner thing with the forks on the plate. Says everything, doesn't it? Here you are, no kids, no distractions, no nothing. It's just you two and nada. It sounds like, brother, you have already grieved the ending of this marriage, and this is just putting it right in your face. For 11 years, 11 years, you guys have been disconnected. I assume no sex during that 11 years. Hell, the worst I've heard is like 30 years plus. So this does not surprise me. For you guys that are new to this, yes, this happens. That reconnection that you were hoping for, one that would just happen serendipitously, you know, just randomly one day, it's never ever going to happen. It's not because you don't deserve it, Tom, and others that are going through this. It's because you actually never like scheduled it to happen, so to speak. You were both caught up in what I call the family machine. You're getting the kids to school, you're taking them to this thing, you're going to your job, you're cleaning the house, etc., etc. Next thing you know, 11 years goes by and holy shit, we haven't touched each other. The kids being out of the picture, the kids leaving the home, It's never going to fix anything. Why? Because the kids weren't the freaking problem. You know what they were? They were a distraction. They were keeping all of your mental energy focused on one place, the kids, so that you couldn't acknowledge this giant space between the two of you. That woman was never in a million years gonna wake up one morning and say, "Holy shit, I love Tom. What am I doing? Let's get this lustful romantic relationship on the road here." That moment is just for the movies, dude. It's just for romance novels and so forth. That is not real life. The only way that shift ever happens, and it's not instantaneous, it's a long gradual shift. The only way that happens is if she says, "Um, I need help here. I got a problem. I'm very much disconnected from my spouse. I see him reaching for me consistently and I keep keeping him at arm's length and it's been years and this is really weird and wrong. I need to fix this." What are the chances of her doing that? Insert laughter here. Exactly. It's not gonna happen. That's not who she is. She told you flat out who she was so many years ago. And dude, she wasn't kidding. It's time that you believe it. So did you just waste that window of time in your early 30s and 40s where you could have, you know, moved on from her and gone to somebody else? Not necessarily. I mean, you said it yourself. You have maybe here a window of 25 healthy years ahead of you. That's your next window, dude. That's the window. That's the only thing you can control here. Can't get in a time machine and go back to the past. So why worry about it? Eyes forward. I also wonder if there's a part of you, and this is really common for a lot of guys that are like in their 50s and 60s and beyond who say like, I'm of an advanced age, so to speak, which is up for debate, but I'm supposed to have like my need to be wanted and needed, so to speak. My need to feel mutual desire from my partner, my need for that romantic connection, all of that. I figured that would kind of die down by now. And the fact that I still need all of that, does that make me some kind of needy weirdo? Because your spouse certainly makes you feel that way. Maybe she's got a point, right? No, you are a man, a healthy man, a sexual creature, a human freaking being. That whole thing doesn't just switch off after a certain point. Like, oh, I've hit 58 years of age. Oh, phew, that's done. No, it doesn't work that way. As I've pointed out before in other videos, you know that there are guys that father children like in their 60s and 70s and beyond. Don't recommend it. In fact, science says may not be the healthiest thing in the world for you or the kid or anybody. But it happens. You're normal. You're healthy. This is all to be celebrated. Putting that aside, I'm going to say this because I've said this 1,000 times and I've said it in my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. I get a lot of heat for it. And that is in a romantic relationship, not a roommate relationship, not a best buddy relationship, but in a relationship where we are romantic partners. If you don't have a romantic connection and sexual intimacy, there is no need for said relationship. Period. Sure, you have the shared history, the comfort, the kids, the home, the little inside jokes, all that good stuff. That is all great. But you know who else you can have that with? A roommate. What can you not get from a roommate? Mutual desire. That romantic connection. That thing which is so healthy and so amazing when it's with the right person. Again, it's all normal. And don't you dare allow anyone to tell you that you are weird for still wanting that. All right, next point I wanna make. Tom and others, you know that talk that you have had with the wife probably more than once over the last so many years? It's the wrong freaking talk, I'm sorry. There's the unhealthy version and the healthy version of the talk. The unhealthy one is the one you've probably had, and it's basically putting a lot of pressure on her shoulders saying, why the hell are you so broken, woman? Why have you not done what I need as a man? Don't you realize I have needs? You're supposed to do these things. You're my wife. All of my sanity, all of my mental health rests on your shoulders. Fix me, mommy. And yes, I just threw out the mommy thing. That's what happens there in that dynamic is that you start to feel like somebody she has to take care of. And that's not good. The proper talk, the healthy— was over here— the healthy version of the talk is one that comes from a completely different angle. It's calm.. It comes from a place of strength. It comes from a place of no fear. You're not asking her to fix anything. You're just calling it for what it is. Our dynamic is weird. It's unhealthy. And I can't believe that you're okay with it because I'm certainly not. Let's put it all on the table and we're gonna fix this once and for all and high-five each other and say, team Tom and Mary, whatever the hell her name is, let's get to it and let's work on this so we can have an awesome next 25 years. Or do we shake hands? And go our separate ways and wish each other the best. If she's willing to put in the work, you're willing to put in the work, but you're gonna hold her to it. You're gonna say, no, you gotta put in the work. No more of this bullshit of the, yeah, yeah, whatever, and we go back to normal. Nope. From now on, as soon as I get a glimpse of you giving up, Tommy's outta here. And look, I know how this sounds from where you're sitting, Tom, and other guys listening to this, rolling your eyes going, yeah, whatever. Yeah, like that's gonna work. Again, you're looking at this all the wrong way. Man, you're just putting everything on her shoulders. She's the boss. When she rolls her eyes, "Oh, boss says we're not gonna have that conversation. I guess we're not gonna have the conversation. Boss says that we're gonna live in a sexless marriage. I guess we're living in a sexless marriage." Dude, yank your head outta your ass. This doesn't get better unless you finally stand up for yourself. That does not mean that you demand that she lay there while you, you know, do your thing. Don't do that, dude. That is way unhealthy. What you want is a mutual agreement between two people that we're gonna work on this relationship and hopefully, fingers crossed, that results in a sexual relationship. And yeah, you gotta be real patient, both of you, through all of this. But the good news is you don't have to do this alone. Guys, check out the brotherhood at help4men.com. Jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. We have hundreds and hundreds of men from all over the world, from the US to Australia and everywhere in between, all getting together frequently in live forums, live Zoom meetings. We get together in person in conferences. We have all my books. We have like over 1,600 hours of audio for our members to listen to. All those meetings are recorded, all my books, all kinds of cool stuff. Check it out, the Brotherhood at help4men.com. So you finally get the nerve, you sit the wife down and you say, look, here's the deal, and you have the old healthy version of the talk. She might cry and go into a rage of some kind, some kind of huge emotional dramatic moment, right? You stay calm. You've probably seen that before. You just let her do her thing, let her get it out, and you just look at her calmly and say, I completely understand where you're coming from. That does not change a thing. We're still where we're at. So what do you want to do, wife? And if she storms out of the room, she goes, go fuck yourself, I'm tired of talking about this. It's the same thing with you, goddamn it, let's just stop. You have your answer, dude. She broke up with you. She probably broke up with you like a decade plus ago. Just hung on. You just buried yourself in there like a tick. It's time to let her go. And yes, I use the term let her go because frankly, you're the only one really hanging on here. Which brings us to the next point here, which is, is it realistic for a 58-year-old to start over? Dude, I know 58, 60, 70-plus-year-olds starting over, and guess what? They're having the time of their life. Can an older man potentially get with younger women? And no, I'm not talking about 19-year-olds or whatever, but maybe you're a 58-year-old and you want to be with a 38-year-old, or you want to be with a 40-some-year-old. Is that possible? Absolutely. If that's your thing, yes, it's more than possible. Can you have a healthy sexual romantic relationship with a woman your age? Absolutely. If you put in the work and you become a much more secure man, you don't just settle for the first woman that makes goo goo eyes at you, and you live life very intentionally, and you have a sense of abundance about you, and you look at life as a very joyful thing, and that includes dating and getting to know people, then yes, you can have an amazing time. And then you know what? There's almost this second round of kind of, I don't wanna say depression, but kind of not so nice feelings that hit you, which is what? Man, I should have done this so many years ago. But we can't ruminate on what was and regrets and everything else. It gets us absolutely nowhere. We just have to look forward. And yes, Tom and others, 58 years of age, is there hope? Goddamn right there is. Don't listen to all these sorry sacks that are all like, you know, this nihilistic black pill view of relationships and you have to be this and you have to be that and no woman will ever look at you. Just stop. Get out there, meet people. If you're a socially anxious guy, just put yourself out there again and again and again. It doesn't mean, you know, hitting up every woman that you see. It just means becoming a more open, joyful, and yes, charming individual. And yes, dude, the world is your oyster. Trust me. And for those of you who haven't checked it out yet, check out my book, "The Dead Bedroom Fix," deadbedroomfix.com, as well as the Dead Bedroom Fix app at deadbedroomfixapp.com. It walks you through all this process on a day-to-day basis, things to do, not to do, all that good stuff. It's been a huge hit so far. Thanks to all of you who have downloaded it. So, Tom, buddy, let me just end with this. You are not alone. Far from it. There are millions of Toms out there, and I have worked one-on-one with thousands of them at this point. And Tom, buddy, you just have to believe it when I tell you, yes, there is hope. You just need to get out of your own damn way and raise your hand and get some help. Check out the Brotherhood that I mentioned, check out the Dead Bedroom Fix book and the app. All you got to do is raise your hand, ask for a little help, and we're here for you, brother. All right, guys, thank you so very much for watching. I do appreciate it, and we will catch you on the next one.