Ross's wife had an affair and won't have sex with him, but gets jealous when other women show interest. He's been in a dead bedroom for years, transformed his health, and gave her a year to change or he's leaving. The host says her perimenopause and depression matter, but so does the affair, and self-improvement alone won't fix this.
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All right, we have a new Dear DSO entry on the website. You can submit your own story or question to deardso.com. Just fill out the form.. And if your story or question's a good one, I'll probably 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. Oh, and by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube, if you could click down below, be a big favor to me and click on subscribe, click on like, and when you're done watching the video, leave a comment. Let me know what you think. Okay, onto today's submission. And this comes from Ross and the subject line is jealousy. He says, I feel like we are keeping this marriage afloat because it is more important and more important to her to keep me from being with other women rather than trying to win me for herself. Uh, dead bedroom for several years. Bought the book, read it, took notes and put it into practice. Lost 4 inches off of my waist and gained 30 pounds of muscle. My goodness. Good job, Ross. Uh, she still doesn't want me sexually. She says she loves me and I believe her. Uh, she's going through the perimenopause thing and is depressed. Well, those are two big things. Uh, women are starting to notice me and it really makes her pissed, but she wants very little intimacy with me. Prior to marriage counseling, she said she does not want to be with me anymore. It's not good. Later during that fight, she said she does not want to see me with anyone else. It later emerged during marriage counseling that she had an affair last year. She hates women talking to me or flirting with me but does not give me any attention herself. He just kind of jumped over the affair thing, didn't he? We haven't had sex in 3 months. I do not flirt back with these women, parentheses, they tend to come on to me when we go to clubs together when they think my wife isn't looking, as I would never hurt my wife that way. The book. Uh, he's talking about The Dead Bedroom Fix, by the way, deadbedroomfix.com. He says, the, the book worked and women notice me, just not the woman that I want, my wife. The only clue I got that she is depressed really bad and she blames most of her feelings and frustrations on me. Um, we are still in marriage counseling and I plan to stay in this until the youngest graduates. If she can change like I have I would be thrilled. If not, I'm done in little over a year. She is attractive and in good shape. We are best friends and do everything together. So the question is, why jealousy over other potential women but no effort on her end to keep me engaged? Well, Ross, um, just taking what you say at face value here, let's just put it all out there, shall we? The perimenopausal thing is a huge, um, has huge potentially negative impacts on all kinds of things in, in their, their whole makeup physically and emotionally, including libido could be down, including all kinds of things that have nothing to do with you. And then we have depression. Is she in fact diagnosed as being depressed? Is that what came out in therapy? Like, woman, you're suffering from depression? Well, dude, boom boom, there you go. Um, but then you just glossed right over something I mean, this should have been like the— you should have led with this. She had an affair last year. That's huge, dude. So you have this woman who's just been turning you down for years. No, no, no, no, no. You're like, okay, what if I improve myself physically, improve myself mentally, go to therapy and do all these things, huh, wife?
Now do you like me?
And she's like, no. And then she runs off and does somebody else. That should have been your indicator right there, Mr. Ross. Like, ah, shit. I've been putting a lot of effort into yourself, which is great. Everyone should do that. Stay in great physical shape, work on yourself mentally and emotionally. You're still Mr. Anxious Preoccupied, hanging on to something, which is evident by the fact that your partner went off and screwed somebody else and still rejects you. And you're just like, maybe I can still win her over. I don't know how much more of a message she can give you. She does not want you. Insert plenty of valid reasons why, but she doesn't want you. And then she does the ultimate, which is, but I do want him over here. And she goes and does the hanky-panky with some other guy. Hello, I don't know what to tell you, brother. It's over. What are you trying to do? No, I, I, by virtue of all my self-improvement, this will, uh, inspire her to follow suit and do the same and hit the gym and do all this other stuff and join me in my adventure and all kinds of crazy kinky sex will result. No, she has shown you that ain't her, dude. Dare I say, probably not the majority of women. There are some out there, some lucky guys that go through these changes and then they're like, my wife has just jumped right on board and we're just the happiest, sexiest couple ever. Those people exist, God bless them, but probably not the majority. Certainly not the majority where the woman's perimenopausal, depressed, let's assume that's a real thing, and has a history of infidelity. I don't know what to tell you, dude. Writing's on the wall. It's over with this one, probably. Unless she's like, all right, dude, I promise I'll get help. Let me figure out why it is that I did the infidelity thing. Let me work on my depression, maybe hormonal therapy for the perimenopause. It's just work, work, work, work, work, work, work. And she has a huge mountain to climb and she may not ever, you know, reach the peak, reach the top of the mountain. She may put in a lot of work and it's never going to be enough to catch up with you, Mr. Ross. And she may put in a lot of work and then realize, yeah, still, I don't want to be with you, dude. I don't know what more I can tell you. Just let her go, dude. All right. I mean, I appreciate you reaching out. I do. It's not what you wanted to hear. Check out our community, the Brotherhood, help4men.com/join. Join a bunch of men that have been there and done that. You got some stuff you need to work on. All right, my friend, so check it out. The Brotherhood, help4men.com/join. All right, but I do thank you for reaching out. I appreciate it. And guys, thank you for watching, and we'll catch you on the next one.
