In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, the host addresses a listener’s (named Mark) situation of a long‑term, sexless marriage that culminated in his wife’s affair with another woman. The host walks through Mark’s background, the gradual decline of intimacy after children, Mark’s attempts to revive the bedroom using advice from the host’s book The Dead Bedroom Fix, and the discovery of his wife’s emotional and sexual connection with a female partner. The discussion pivots to female sexual fluidity, citing research that women’s sexuality is more mutable than men’s and explaining biological and social reasons why women may engage in same‑sex relationships without identifying as lesbian. The host emphasizes that the core issue is not the wife’s label but the breakdown of emotional and sexual connection in the marriage, and that the affair merely exposed an existing problem. Practical advice is offered: set clear boundaries, stop trying to “decode” the wife, focus on self‑improvement, and seek support from the Help for Men Brotherhood and the host’s resources (books, coaching, forums). The episode ends with a call‑to‑action to join the Brotherhood and a reminder that the priority is the listener’s own recovery, not labeling the spouse’s sexuality.
Chapters
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 far as sexless marriage, the topic that I've covered over the last several videos, and thank you all so very much for clicking and liking and leaving a comment. This one is a little different. Let's say you're in a sexless marriage, no intimacy, no lovey-dovey anything, and then one day you find out that your wife is cheating. Awful, terrible. But as far as content that I produce, not unheard of. But it's not with another man, it's with another woman. And that leaves you sitting there thinking, wait a minute, is my wife gay? Is this just some kind of phase that she's going through? And why the hell does she suddenly have a sex drive but not with me? Let's talk about it. I got an email from a guy, let's call him Mark. I can't remember if I've used that fake name here recently, so sorry, I tend to repeat myself. I'm not going to read his email verbatim because it's an especially long one, but here are the highlights. He says his marriage slowly went cold. A lot of us can relate to that. Sex life dropped after the kids. Common. First, the sex life was occasional, and then it went to rare, and then it went to not at all. The not at all thing lasted 5 years. Not good. So he did what a lot of guys do. He read my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, and you can learn more at dadbedroomfix.com. He did kind of the superficial stuff, if you will. He worked out, lost a bunch of weight, started dressing better, and then he did more of the schmoozy stuff, and he tried to be more attentive and more emotionally connected to her. Nothing seemed to move the needle as far as the whole bedroom department is concerned. And then one day he notices something, and a lot of you guys can relate to this, unfortunately. He noticed that she was on her phone a lot, smiling at her phone, typing messages and texting somebody all the time. She was acting different, dare we say really happy. So it doesn't take him long to say, uh-oh, something's up here. And he does what a lot of guys do, gets a hold of her phone, and he sees a lot of messages. A lot of messages to another woman. The messages are sexual, they're emotional, it's everything. And it's been going on for a long-ass time. And based on what he sees in the messages, yes, it seems that they have met in person. This is a full-blown affair. And so he confronts her, and she kind of belittles the situation. She says she's still trying to figure herself out. It's different because it's a woman, and she still loves him. And that left him and all the other guys that have been in this situation, which is unfortunately relatively common, it leaves them saying, what the hell? Is my wife gay? Did I marry a lesbian woman and I didn't know it? How can that be? She seemed very not gay for a lot of years leading up to this. She's never even hinted at being attracted to women. I, I'm totally confused. For Mark and others that are going through this, you're hung up on the whole gay, it's another woman thing, and that's understandable, but you're focused on the wrong thing here. The problem is, is that your wife checked out of the marriage and emotionally and physically formed a bond with another person. That's it. If it was another dude, you would, quote, understand it more, right? But this doesn't fit your mental model for what a typical affair via heterosexual woman, what that should include. And so your mind is just scrambled right now. But let's address the giant elephant in the room. Shall we? Is your wife gay? And the answer is maybe, maybe not, but it's not even the right question right now. A lot of men assume that sexuality is very fixed in nature. You're either straight or you're gay, and that's it. But when we look at the research, the real science behind women and sexuality, we will see that as far as their sexuality is concerned, women are far more likely to report their sexuality is very fluid in nature. I've heard men refer to it as they tend to take the shape of whatever container they are poured into. That is not a slam, it's an insult. Women are far more likely to experience, quote, attraction outside of their normal sexual preference. That sexual preference is more likely to shift over time, and women are far more open to same-sex sexual experiences without labeling themselves as lesbian. So this doesn't necessarily mean that, yeah, your wife is gay. It just means she is shifting her sexual attention elsewhere, and that elsewhere happens to be another woman. Let's talk about women's sexual desire in general, not necessarily under the umbrella of gay or straight. A lot of women, dare I say most women, do not operate with what we call like a spontaneous form of desire like us men do. I often joke that a man just sees his wife walking across the room, he sees her butt in those pants that make her look really good, and he's ready to go. Women typically don't operate that way, especially women in long-term monogamous relationships. For the average woman in a long-term relationship, she's going to need to feel emotionally connected. We've heard that before. She's going to need to feel seen. And appreciated. She needs to feel understood. And yes, there needs to be some semblance of novelty and excitement in there to get the motor going. So if she makes that connection at all those levels with somebody else, man or woman, yes, we can get that responsive desire going. So all those things such as emotional and being seen and being appreciated and all that stuff combined with new novelty, sexuality can very easily follow all of that. There is a crass saying, something like a shoulder to cry on later becomes a you know what to write on. There's some truth to that. There are some theories as to why it is that women seem to be much more sexually fluid than men. Like, let's stick with hetero women and hetero men. Why is it that a typical average hetero woman is far more likely to say, I experimented, like, let's say, back when I was in college or something with other women, versus a typical average hetero dude is most likely not going to report that? Well, there's the theory that same-sex relationships, for example, carry far lower risk— actually, no risk— of pregnancy. So biologically, there's no cost to exploring that route. There's no long-term consequence to mating. Man and woman mate, even if she's on birth control or so forth. There's like an innate fear or chance in there for them to procreate. So there is no long-term consequence for doing the horizontal mambo with a fellow woman. That may lower the resistance. A lot of the boundaries that get in the way of doing the old hokey pokey. That in turn makes experimentation more likely. Another theory, which I think carries a lot of weight, is that women tend to be way more apt to create social bonds. They rely very heavily on social group networking. Historically, they needed to do so in order for what? Survival. And when you are shoulder to shoulder with a lot of people, working very closely with them in social groups, you have a much higher chance of forming that emotional connection. And when you form all those layers of connection, sexuality follows. This is especially true today with social media and the internet and our phones and so forth. It allows us to have very quick and easy access to other people at a pretty intimate level. Mark and others that are going through this, we're getting lost in theory. And really, to be completely honest with you, that doesn't have anything to do with anything. None of that will change your situation. This is not about your wife, quote, discovering that she's gay or that she's bi or that she's sexually fluid or whatever she wants to call it. This is about her becoming interested at a very deep emotional and sexual level at somebody else that is not you. It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's the truth. Very often when a marriage goes sexless— let's stick with the trope of wife who is disinterested and husband who really wants it— very often it is not because wife has zero sexuality. Very often it is because that innate sexuality that she has within her is smothered by a lot of other stuff, and it is not being directed towards husband. Over time in a typical relationship, attraction does tend to fade, resentments settle in, emotional distance between the two grows, not to mention that you become safe and predictable and comfortable. And a lot of those things, as we've learned, work against the typical human sex drive. So when that switch flips, so to speak, the sexuality doesn't necessarily disappear completely, it just gets redirected somewhere else. How many times have I heard a guy say that his wife's nightstand is just stacked with romance novels and he cracks one open and it's the most pornographic thing imaginable. Or the vibrator has been replaced 3 times because she keeps wearing it out. The energy's in there, it's just not directed at hubby for whatever reason. And sometimes it's directed at another woman. Now, could this be a phase in your wife's life? Sure, maybe. Sometimes it's just out of curiosity, sometimes it's that novelty, sometimes it's an escape from what she sees as a very dead, blah relationship, and sometimes it is the beginning of a completely new identity. But again, doesn't matter, dude. Your problem isn't trying to figure out what label to apply here. Your problem is asking yourself, what do I want out of this relationship? What kind of relationship is acceptable to me? Am I okay being in a relationship with a wife who gets that type of need met elsewhere? And if not, is there any realistic path back from this where we can get back together? Don't get stuck trying to analyze her. Don't get stuck trying to decode the situation. Frankly, don't try to understand her. You did not lose your wife to another woman. Frankly, dude, with high In hindsight, after all the fog clears, you're gonna see that you lost this woman years ago. This is just where all the ugliness surfaced. She got in a relationship with somebody else and it's a woman. The affair did not create the problem, it just exposed it. So the only thing you can do at this point, a mentally healthy approach to this is confront it honestly. This is what's going on. Set your boundaries. Here's what I will and will not put up with. You stop chasing her approval. Stop trying to talk her out of this and appeal to her logical side and start rebuilding yourself, dude, because whether or not this marriage survives, and it probably won't, you need to come out of this stronger. You need to learn a lesson or two from this. This is exactly why I created the Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. You don't need generic advice. What you need are other men in your life who have been there and done that. That helps expedite the process of getting better. If you haven't done so already, I recommend checking out my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix. It's available, as well as all my other books, to my— the of the Brotherhood at no additional charge. But regardless if it's our group or just amongst friends or whatever it may be, you need to surround yourself with strong guys that are there to help you. Remember, at the end of the day, this is not about her sexuality. This is about the reality of your relationship and whether or not you are willing to face that reality. Because the worst thing you can do is sit there and hyperanalyze her and try to figure her out while your life falls apart. All right, guys. Thank you so very much for watching. I do appreciate it. If you could give me a like, give me a subscribe, and I'll catch you on the next one.
