"She Refuses Intimacy, Treats Me Like a Servant… But I Can’t Leave"

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's deardso.com. And if your story or question is a good one, I will create a video out of it for the whole world to see, or for you guys and gals listening through the podcast, I'll create audio out of it for you to listen to on the podcast. And thank you for listening on the podcast. Dad starting over, do search for dad starting over. And you can find me wherever you listen to podcasts, probably Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and everywhere in between. We also have a podcast, Help for Men. I don't know if you know, Dad Starting Over is part of a larger organization called Help for Men. You can learn more at helpformen.com. And I have a podcast called Help for Men as well as a YouTube channel. If you go on YouTube and do the little tag, whatever, of @realhelpformen, you will find it. I am reserving Help for Men just for interviews. With important people to talk all about men's issues. So check it out. But anyway, back to the old Dear DSO, and this one comes from Nathan. Nathan has titled this Tired of Life. That didn't sound good. He says, Dear DSO, that's me, by the way. Ralph Brewer is my real name. He says, after waiting 2 years before marriage for sex, and then he says parentheses, since wife wanted to stay a virgin before marriage. Our sex life started okay. That didn't sound good. He says, after our second child, which was about 10 years into marriage, sex suddenly stopped. So it went from okay to nothing. All right, in span of 10 years. Um, I have been in a sexless marriage for about 8 to 9 years. Uh, the moment I say something or I mention something about sex or even come close to her within 3 feet, Her character completely changes. Ironically, she introduced me to your book and claims to have read your book, parentheses, although I doubt that. After reading your book, I realized how anxiously dependent I was. I completely changed. Let me pause there because as we go along, obviously I've already read this, but as we go along, let's put put that in the back of our minds. Has he completely changed? Is he no longer Mr. Anxious? Spoiler alert, no, he's still anxious. But anyway, I continue on. Um, again, he says that he has completely changed, but there was no change in our sex life. If we do have sex, it's when she comes home drunk after drinking with her friends. That's not good. Or we are away on vacation, just the two of us. Well, that's Not so abnormal. She now refuses to go on vacations or weekend trips because she has caught on about the sex. Uh, when we do have sex, it's not that exciting either. She has never performed other sex acts on me. And he says, for example, BJ's. Um, I feel deprived in the sex department. Let me pause there. Um, I thought we were sexless for 8 to 9 years. Sexless usually means like zero sex, sexless. But it sounds like you've had a mediocre sex life for 8 to 9 years, if I'm understanding you correctly here. Um, 10 years of so-so followed by 8 to 9 years of sexlessness, whatever that means for you. But then you further qualify that and say only when she's drunk, only when you go on vacation. But that's no longer— no longer because she realizes that going on vacation equals sex. She didn't want to have that, right? And she hasn't done extra things with you, so it's pretty blah in the sex department overall. All right, so now we're caught up. Now this is where it gets interesting. He says, I do about 90% of the chores such as making dinner, doing the laundry, dishes, home maintenance, etc. I do not ask for anything in return. I just do it. On the contrary, when she does something, I have to hear about it all day. She is now into the gym. Uh-oh. And she spends about 2 hours there every day in the middle of the day. Uh-oh. And she— here's, this is the key, folks— and she expects me as her personal babysitter while I am juggling, juggling a million things with the kids between 6 to 8 PM, prime time for dealing with the kids. Okay, that one's kind of a mess. I'm not sure She expects you— she expects you to be her personal babysitter. Right away, dude, you're gonna get a lot of people, mostly women, really pissed at you for saying something like that. You're not a babysitter. You're her— you're the kid's father, I assume, right? Um, it's, it's called just one parent. Hey, you watch kids, I go do something else. And presumably, you know, eventually, hopefully, maybe even in the same day, you have your turn. Okay, I'm back now. You get to go do something that's Pretty typical for a lot of parents out there. At least it should be. That's kind of a healthy thing. I'm going to go do my thing with my friends or my gym or my hobby, whatever it is. I'll be back. And then, all right, fellow parent, it's your turn, whatever. Anyway, um, and then he goes on to say, she literally just messaged me right now and she said she made dinner plans tonight with her friends and she expects me yet again as her babysitter. Again, you're asking for trouble with this verbiage here, mister. At least babysitters get paid, he says. I get nothing, not even a thank you. At this point, I would be happy with just those two words. Okay, so we're getting into something here. I'm gonna continue on and try to keep my comments, commentary to a minimum here. I am a successful, educated person. This year, my company awarded me with top sales award with a sizable bonus. Do you think she would care? Nope. She wasn't that enthusiastic. For me, it was a big deal because I worked so hard, so hard all year. I just felt so deflated. Back to that anxious thing. Uh, the problem is I am extremely attracted to my wife. Uh, her personality towards me is terrible though. Okay, I can't stop myself from commenting here. You're attracted to somebody who treats you like shit. Her personality is terrible. Mr. Anxious, it doesn't sound like— okay, anyway, uh, my wife was prohibited from dating other boys in the past because her parents were strict. She has mentioned to me that she wishes she had dated more people. I wouldn't say that to anyone if I knew that they were my soulmate. It hurt my feelings deeply. Also, I don't remember seeing her parents being affectionate towards each other or even towards her, so So I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. And then he says, I cannot live like this anymore. I don't know how to handle the situation at this point. We have seen two therapists and they have all sided with me. I actually did all the work, but she did absolutely nothing. She has emotionally checked out. Question: If the wife has emotionally checked out, is there any way to check her back in? I am desperate. Oh, Nathan, buddy, I feel sorry for you. This is sad. No, you haven't gotten over your anxious tendencies. Yes, you went and got help with your issues, but you need a lot more help, my friend. And this is not me belittling you. Belittling you, it's hard to say. This is not me calling you a simp or a pushover or whatever it may be. You're just a dude who has some issues. And to paint this with a broad brush— and by the way, there's lots of little intricate things going on here in this story, but first the broad brush, okay? You, Nathan, are a guy who is attracted to a woman. Attracted is not a strong enough term. Addicted to? Connected to? Like a tick. You are buried in there with a person, you know, keeping with the tick metaphor here, um, she's shaking you off or picking you off. How do you do with a tick? You pinch them and pull them off. That's what she's done. She's pinched you and pulled you off and discarded you in a not-so-roundabout way. And you just keep crawling right back and try to burrow yourself in. Eventually you need to get to the point where you go, I don't think this person wants me anymore. They see me as a pest. They see me as a little parasite, this little tick burrowing in and sucking the blood from her. That's how she sees you. And the reason— and the reason that she sees you that way is— and I am inferring a lot here, dude. I'm acting like a know-it-all, but please understand, and this is why you're reaching out to me, because of my experience in dealing with hundreds and hundreds of men, if not thousands of men at this point, who are basically all doing the Nathan thing here. So I can apply some pretty broad terms and paint with the broad brush, etc., etc. So here's what I think is going on here. You, yes, are Mr. Anxious, very much so. She is Miss Avoidant, very much so. Thanks, and you have pointed it out here, in part by virtue of the fact of how she was raised. She has this mother and father who are not pleasant to each other, not loving, whatever, to her, That's what she grew up with. She has a, sounds like kind of a very strict religious background, which, oh, put a lot of restrictions on her sexuality and so forth. She marries a guy who is not surprisingly very anxious, kind of a pushover dude, dare I say, very little in terms of boundaries. You're doing, if you're in fact, I have to take what you say at face value here. Let me get this out of the way for all the ladies that are watching this that are going to comment later. No, we're not hearing her side of the story, and I'm sure she has some very valid points that paint Nathan in a not so good light. So we're only hearing one side of the story, so we have to take what you tell us at face value. I can't, you know, make up other things or think, I bet you this is what's going on. I have to take what you have, what you say, and take your word for it. If what you say is true and you're doing all this work and she's doing nothing, not good. That shows a guy who doesn't say yo, You do dishes, I'll sweep the floor. You vacuum upstairs, I'll make the bed. That's partnering. That's what normal partner people do. Now, if you do that and they go, you know, go F yourself, I'm going to the gym, eh, not good. Man or woman, not good. Her going to the gym and saying, you got the kiddos, normal. You could do the same thing. Shocker, I know. Now, if you go to do that and she says, you know, gives you the middle finger and said, no dude, I'm not staying with the kiddos. That's your job. You're Mr. Pushover Man. I'm the one who goes out and has a life outside of this relationship, not you. Not good. So what do we do here, dude? Just going by the several paragraphs of stuff that you've given me here, you're not painting a very hopeful picture, are you? You're painting a picture of somebody who has checked out. There is this stigma in the relationship-oriented talk sphere, male-oriented relationship talk sphere, um, which says in kind of absolute terms here, when your female spouse, partner, girlfriend has checked out and says so, or acts out so— it sounds like she may have actually said this, it may, it may have come out in therapy, I don't know— hey, I've checked out emotionally, I'm disconnected from you, dude. Can you bring them back in? Technically, I guess, but as any dude that's doing this work will tell you, highly, highly unlikely. There's years and years of resentment here, potentially on her part, for a variety of reasons which may be valid and not so valid, um, which may be born out of her dysfunction in her childhood, which may be all kinds of bad stuff, right? She's going to the gym for 2 hours doing this routine of hyper self-improvement. I don't mean to stoke the anxious flames here, but that usually doesn't bode well for your relationship. She's further detached from you. She's coming home drunk. You're the one staying home with the kiddos. It does not paint a good picture, my friend. She's also saying, man, I sure wish I had, you know, lovers in the past more so than, you know, what I did because I didn't get to live. These are not good things, dude. Not at all. These all point to a woman who's on the brink of looking elsewhere outside of the relationship for companionship. Let's just put that out there. I'm sure that's occurred to you. I'm sure you've seen, read the stories and you know, you know where this is going. It's not good, dude. My friend, it's time. There's a phrase which I don't use often, but I'm going to qualify it further here. It's time to man the fuck up. That doesn't mean put on this fake alpha male macho horseshit stuff. When we say man the fuck up, we mean be an adult, stick up for yourself, have some boundaries, say enough is enough. This isn't good for Nathan anymore. We're not gonna do this anymore. The problem is, is that has the inevitable consequence, the very real chance of you two splitting up. And by virtue of what you're saying here, you are like, I can't live with that possibility. That shows me, my friend, you have some real issues that you really, really need to iron out with somebody, your therapist. It sounds like you've been to therapy or currently in therapy, or you've been to two different therapists between you and the wife and everything else. It's time to pursue that further in a much deeper, more strenuous fashion, I guess you could say. Um, more urgency behind it. Um, Mr. or Miss Therapist, I'm in the middle of what could arguably be an almost kind of quasi-abusive, um, very codependent relationship. I'm with somebody who obviously doesn't want me, and I cannot fathom the idea of being without them. And I recognize— and you could use me and say, I've spoken to somebody about this, and they say, yeah, you got a problem, dude, you need to further flesh this out and talk to somebody about this. More so. Don't just drop this and go, oh well, this is my life. You're going to end up in hell, dude. You have to address this like now. Now, what I offer— I can offer you mentorship, or the coaching as they call it, kind of an overused term. But if you want to talk to somebody who's been there, done that, I'm here to help you. We also have a men's group. You— part of your getting better— and yes, you do need to get better. This is not good, the current state that you're in. The Part of getting better that you need to explore further is working with other men. This is huge, huge, huge, huge. I cannot overemphasize this. You need to surround yourself with strong men who are there to help you. And we have a group just for that, and it's called the Brotherhood. You can learn more at help4men.com. Jump right to the join page, help4men.com/join, or go to help4men.com, click on the Brotherhood in the menu, There are all kinds of benefits to joining. You get to talk to hundreds and hundreds of men from around the world, discussion forums, live Zoom meetings. You can book time with me. And if you're a member of our group, of our support community, booking time with me and others on the team, way, way cheaper than if you're just, you know, just off the street, so to speak, and you just buy, you know, um, the, the normal, uh, non-member pricing. It's almost about half of what the cost is to the regular non-members. So you could be a member for 3, 4 months or so, then buy coaching, and it still comes out cheaper than if you just bought coaching by itself. You need to talk to somebody about this. I mean, I don't know you. I would say, my friend, I never met you, but I'm worried about you. Um, you're in a bad place mentally, and that's okay. A lot of us have been there. It's okay to feel desperate. It's okay to feel It's okay to feel hyper-attached and shamed of the fact that you feel attached to somebody who is hurting you like this. Those are all normal feelings. Don't feel like you're less than for having them. Welcome to being a human being. Some of us, a lot of us, most of us experience some semblance of this throughout our life, at some point in our life. And I can tell you after helping so many dudes, it's the ones that say, "Help," and, you know, extend a hand and say, "Help me out here," Those are the ones that get better. Those are the ones that get better faster, expedite the process of healing. Work with other guys. So check it out, the Brotherhood at help4men.com. If you're looking for a blanket statement from me on what you should do, you need to separate yourself from this person. They're no good for you. They're unhealthy to be around. Um, but let me qualify that further. I'm saying this knowing how this is going to go, but you at least have to give them a chance as the mother and as the wife and mother to your children, you have to at least go to them and say, I can't do this anymore like this. This is not healthy. How about we work together to get this done? Now you've already done that. She's checked out. Yeah, yeah. But at least got to give her another chance, right? The difference is that, Nathan, you got to mean it this time, buddy. And you got to say, I'm willing to walk away from all this, from us. Are you? And I'm not joking, wife. So are you willing to work on this or not? And you have to follow through with that. You have to show, okay, cool, I get it. You know, here's a divorce agreement. What do you think? Look it over, have an attorney look it over, whatever. And you have to mean it, have to be real about it. Sometimes that's the thing that turns these things around. Rarely, but it happens. But you have to be willing to commit to that and not bluff. She'll call your bluff. And that's where you're at right now, where you're like, no, Ralph, I can't get to that point. Well, then you can't get better. Sorry, such is life, my friend. Alright, so reach out to me, Ralph.B@help4men.com, Ralph.B@help4men.com. Check out the brotherhood. We have guys standing by waiting to help you, Nathan. And I hope I hear from you. Stay in touch. Alright, brother, thank you for reaching out.