In this episode of the Dad Starting Over podcast, host Ralph Brewer introduces the Help for Men Brotherhood as a support resource for men dealing with relationship breakdowns, loneliness, and rebuilding after divorce. He then reads a “Dear DSO” submission from a listener identified as “Mr. K.” Mr. K recounts his second marriage: he met his wife at work, they began a relationship after she left a boyfriend, but over time she showed little sexual attraction, kept a log of his sexual advances, and later had an emotional affair. Mr. K feels responsible for the marriage’s failure, wonders if he was emotionally abusive, and asks what he did wrong. Brewer analyzes the situation, suggesting that Mr. K may be codependent, possibly neurodivergent, and that the relationship was unhealthy for both parties. He advises Mr. K to stop trying to fix the marriage, to seek professional therapy, to join a men’s support group (specifically the Help for Men Brotherhood), and to surround himself with healthy male role models. Throughout the episode, Brewer repeatedly promotes the Brotherhood’s resources (forums, Zoom meetings, coaching, books) and encourages listeners to subscribe, like, and submit their own stories.
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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. Okay, so today's Dear DSO submission is the perfect example of a guy who's just taking everything on his shoulders. He assumes that the downfall of his relationship is all his fault. What did he do wrong? And guys, that may not all be you. You two just may be bad news together. So let's talk about it. And by the way, you can submit your own story or your own question to deardso.com. Just fill out the form. And if your story, your submission is a good one, I may 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, wherever you you may listen to your podcast. And by the way, there is an option on the form you can check box, submit your email address, and we can talk one-on-one about this and record our conversation. Don't worry, nobody will see you, they'll just see me and just hear your voice. And by the way, if you're watching this on YouTube, do me a favor, click on subscribe down below, click on like, share this, leave a comment. I would really greatly appreciate it. Thank you so very much. Now on to today's submission. This one, he gives his full name. He actually, if you're watching this, Mr. K, we'll call you K, just the letter K, you did opt to do the interview, but I reached out to you and I haven't heard back. So I'm gonna go ahead and just do a prerecorded video here. But Mr. K says, my second marriage, first one was a mistake. I met my second wife at the hospital we both worked at. Oh, nurse. It's kind of an ongoing joke in my world. Anyway, I flirted with her, he says. She flirted with me, but she had a boyfriend at the time. Of course, uh, she broke up with him to be with me. Wonderful. Fast forward a few years. She was never really sexually attracted to me, I don't think. It always felt like a chore for her. In fact, she got pissed when I would ask for it and went as far as to tell me that she wouldn't shower for days In parentheses, and she kept a log so I wouldn't be attracted to her. She had a notebook to keep track of when I was trying to fuck her. Anyway, fast forward a few more years and she had an emotional affair with an old, quote, friend. Well, of course she did. I forgave her and then tried to start picking up the pieces, but I just couldn't let it go. I yelled at her, and she tells me that I've always been, quote, emotionally abusive. And I don't think I am. I never berate her or say bad things about her. If anything, I spoil her rotten. Maybe that's where I've gone wrong. Anyway, love your content. It helps. Okay, Mr. K, my friend, you know, this is one of those where you want to take a guy and you either want to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and say, what the hell are you thinking? Or, you know, put an arm around him and say, "Dude, let's come have a chat here. Let's sit down." I'm going to assume maybe you didn't have— you don't have much relationship experience. There may be possibly, and this is not an insult, and yes, this is something that I probably overemphasize because it's not that common in the general public, but it is way common in my world, which is men looking to other men for some, I guess you could say, self-help advice or some relationship-oriented advice. And the thing I'm talking about is neurodivergence, or neurodiversity, you'll hear it called. Guys, for example, on the autism spectrum have a very difficult time with relationships. They're not quite sure what is good, what is bad, what to put up with, what not to put up with. They take a lot on their shoulders. This is all my fault, because a lot of relationship-oriented stuff throughout their life has been very difficult. And this is just one in a series of difficult things to happen to them. So they try to work through it and they reach out to me going like, I'm not quite sure how to navigate this. Where did I go wrong? What did I, what did I do wrong? What went wrong that caused this. And that's kind of the tone of your message here. Let's just check the facts here, shall we? She was with somebody in a long-term relationship, it sounds like, and then she dumped them to be with you. Not the greatest beginning to a relationship, I know. That's not necessarily indicative of something bad, but all of a sudden you went from that to you fast forward a few years and she says, I'm not sexually attracted to you. Sex with you is a chore. I dislike you so much that I'm not showering in an attempt to keep you away from me. And then she kept a log of when you were trying to have sex with her. I don't know why, maybe she's building some case against you. All of this, my friend, a secure individual, person that's secure within themselves, somebody that likes themselves, would say, oh, this is weird, or this is wildly unhealthy. I need to run for the hills. I need to get away from this person. I'm sorry that I intertwined this person in my life. Big mistake, big oopsie, moving on. And then you turn the page on that chapter of your life and you move on without her. That's what secure individuals do. The fact that you're hanging on and hanging on and hanging on and then reaching out to me going, man, what did I do wrong? Maybe I spoiled her too much. You're missing the forest for the trees here, dude. Giant elephant in the room. The woman's a little loopy, a little nutty, dare I say. At very least, emotionally not regulated. It's just, it's not working with her, obviously. Move on. Next. Dump this woman and just shake hands and say, obviously this was a big mistake. Sorry about that. I learned a lot. You learned a lot, I'm sure. Moving on. You know, it is what it is. But then you have the really tough work of saying, what is it about me? If you've watched my stuff, you've heard me say this a few million times. What is it about me that attracted this woman? Attracted her to me? I was attracted to her. What is it about me that overlooked all this nonsense that led up to this point? And what is it about me that hangs on when I can clearly see what's going on here? And what is it about me that keeps blaming myself for all these problems? In one way, you do have ultimate responsibility for being in this relationship. You're not like a, you know, just a complete victim here. And the responsibility is not saying no, not saying enough is enough, and not leaving when everything is pointing to this is a horrible relationship that never should have begun. So again, you need help. Let's just put that out there. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing bad. There's nothing nefarious about saying a man needs help. It doesn't make you weak. It doesn't make you less than. It makes you a human being. I recommend going to a therapist and just saying what you told me here. And if you want, you can use me as an example and just say, I reached out to some kind of online coach guy and he says I need to go to therapy because he's worried about my codependence, or he's worried about my extreme anxious nature in relationships. He's maybe even concerned that I may be neurodivergent or something like that. And just put it all out there and just say, I need help, professional person. And if they're a good professional person, a good counselor, they will say, not only do you need to see me like, you know, once every couple couple of weeks or something like that, and we'll talk through these issues. But you need somebody you can talk to on a regular basis. You need to surround yourself with healthy men, guys that can act as role models as you go forward in life. And if I may be so bold, we have a group just for that. It's called the Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com or jump right to the join page at help4men.com/join. We get together in discussion forums, we get together in live Zoom meetings, we get together in person.. You get access to all my books. You get access to over 1,000 hours of audio content and on and on, all kinds of good stuff that you can access literally 24/7, 365, and you will never run out of stuff to learn from in our group. We created the group just for guys like you, guys that need a little extra boost, little help, and there is nothing wrong with that, my friend. So check it out, Mr., what do I, Mr. K, and that goes for any of you watching this. If you can kind of relate somewhat to Mr. K's you know, story here and you're like, I'm not quite sure where to go from here. I recognize this is a problem, but what do I do? Therapy, men's group. If it's not our group, some other group like it, some fraternal organization where you can surround yourself with men that are all there for the express purpose of helping each other. Big thing. And drum roll, Kay and others, stay away from the women for a while. Figure out your shit first. It's not fair to them and it's not fair to you, your family, whatever it may be, to bring other people into your world when frankly your world is so very broken. But I do thank you for reaching out. Thank you for sharing your story. I do appreciate it. Please keep in touch. And guys, thank you for watching, and we will see you on the next one.
