Taking Your Dead Bedroom Questions LIVE: 10-Year Droughts, Avoidant Wives & Why Ultimatums Work

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. Greetings everyone, how are you guys today? Uh, looks like we've got a small group to start with here. I'll wait a little bit. People start filing in. But for those that don't know, watching on the recording later on this or watching us live here today, my name is Ralph Brewer. Sorry, I wish it was something cooler. I've been doing content, creating content under the Dad Starting Over name for over a decade now. You may have seen me on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, whatever. And my following is starting to grow on X, or Twitter as it used to be known. So hello, whoever's watching me on X right now. Welcome. Um, I have written 5 books, one of which kind of took off and was somewhat of a hit, especially for a self-published book. It's sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and that book was called The Dead Bedroom Fix. That's how a lot of guys know me. I've spoken on a variety of different topics over the years of doing this, and the number one topic by a long shot for men that I talk to is sexless marriages, or dead bedrooms as they're known. So that's the number one pain point for men, is guys not getting enough. So I wrote a book on that You can learn more at deadbedroomfix.com there. Um, and that gets more attention than anything. So a lot of guys know me as the bald dude who talks about sexless marriage thing, but that's not the only thing I talk about. And in fact, that book is somewhat of a gateway into my material, more of my material, and into my larger organization that we call Help for Men. And you guys can learn more at help4men.com. Within Help for Men, we have a community that we call the Brotherhood, and you can learn more at help4men.com/join. It is a pay-for membership community for men all over the world who want to join other like-minded men on getting better and becoming a more secure dude and having better relationships and all that fun stuff. We get together for live private forums, live Zoom meetings that are very frequent. I just hosted 3 of them myself this week. I think we had a total of 6 meetings this week. Each of them are an hour or more. We record all of our meetings so you can listen back to them. We have a giant archive of like 2,000 hours of meetings at this point. So pretty cool stuff. In addition, all my books, courses, one-on-one coaching, we get together in person for conferences in the United States as well as in Australia. So check it out, helpformen.com/join. If you're a dude and you want to work with me and get some help on a lot of your relationship-oriented issues, we would love to have you. So check it out there. Oops, sorry, making noise here. I, um, Let me make sure I'm not missing some comments here. Mike says, hey, Ralph, I hope you're well. Well, hello, Mr. Mike. How you doing? Mike from Facebook there. Guys, if you could, as you are coming in, if you could do me a big honking stinking juicy favor, click on like or subscribe or follow or share or however the hell it works. That really helps. That tells all these social media outlets like this is something that we need to share with the rest of the world. You got Mr. Paul from YouTube saying, hi, Ralph, thanks for the videos. My name is Paul. Hello there, Mr. Paul. How are you, sir? Nice of you to join us today. Hope you're doing well. Where are you guys from? I always like to hear where people are from. One of my little quirky things. I think it's cool that we reach every corner of the, of the world out there. We have guys from all over, like I mentioned, Australia. For whatever reason, my audience is number one, United States. And if we had to break down the United States, it's number one, the southeastern part of the United States. It's really big for my material for whatever reason. A lot of conservative guys or maybe something to explore there. I've talked about that in the past. California, it says, uh, Tone, Mr. Tone, um, he says you're the man. Well, thank you, sir, appreciate that from YouTube there from California. Got a lot of guys in California that get my material and a lot of guys in our brotherhood group. You can see the little domain there, a little, uh, link rather, the website address there on the, on the, on the page there. Join, check it out, guys, help4men.com/join. That is our private support community for men only. That's where we get a lot of stuff done. I would love for you guys to join me there. It'd be pretty cool to see my YouTube audience on there as well. Mr. Paul says, you've helped me, uh, cross the gap in several ways to understand my marriage from many perspectives. Well, how awesome is that? Thank you, Mr. Paul, appreciate it. And Paul is from Oregon. Getting more and more guys from your part of the world, Mr. Paul. Um, I— it's funny, I was just on a call yesterday and we had a new guy in the call who said, I'm from Seattle. And I was like, well, strangely we have like 3 or 4 guys on this call alone who are from Seattle. So that part of the world, the Pacific Northwest, for whatever reason I guess breeds a lot of relationship difficulties amongst the guys. And they find my material somehow. So welcome. Good to have you here. Thank you so very much. And if you could, guys, while you're here, give me a like, give me a follow, subscribe. Always helps out a great deal. Thank you so very much. I am live streaming this on a couple of different Facebook accounts and a couple of different YouTube accounts and an account on X. So guys, welcome. Thank you so very much. Hey, Ralph Brewer says Matthew the Handyman from YouTube. How to do. I love the energy, guys. Thank you so very much. Um, these live streams that I do, which I would love to do more often, is just— you guys know better than anybody— kids, work, all this shit. Next thing you know, it's already 5 o'clock at night and you gotta, you gotta get going. You got a lot of stuff to do. So I run out of time on these. I need to do a better job of budgeting my time and, you know, setting aside certain days and hours for these kind of things. So I do these when I can. The good news is that— let me, while I'm mentioning that, let me bring up my calendar here. We got some good live streams coming up here, guys. Um, Monday, this coming Monday the 20th at 11 AM Central Time, I will be live here with Miss Laura Howe. Do you guys know Laura Howe from YouTube? Um, British lady, good-looking British lady, the, um, therapist, counselor Laura Howe. If you don't know her, check her out, guys. You would love her stuff. She's going to be live with me here on 11 AM Central Time, US Central Time, on Monday the 20th. And then I think I have another one coming up that week. Do I not? Yes, I do. We got a live stream with a follower on Friday. He— I'm doing a live stream with a follower because he reached out to me that said reading my book, The Dead Bedroom Fix, really helped to turn his marriage around. He and his wife are in a much better place, and they have actually started creating content and things on their own as a happily married couple that have kind of reignited things. And I'm going to talk to them on Friday. So how cool is that? So I'll be a week from today.. And then I have another live coming up on Monday the 27th that I'm very excited about with a lady by the name of Cassie. Cassie is a doctor-to-be, PhD-to-be. She's an occupational therapist and she also works with children and people on a lot of relationship type issues, attachment and so forth. She's an expert in all that realm. So I'm really excited to be working with her here in the future. We're going to be doing more live streams together. I think a lot about her, a lot of respect for Miss Cassie. So Miss Cassie, if you're watching, I don't know if you're joining us here today, be sure to chime in on the comments and say hey howdy. But I'm looking forward to that. And, uh, and then on the 30th, I'm not going to do a live stream, but I'm going to do a recorded interview for the podcast and for the YouTube channel with Miss Allison Armstrong. If you guys are big into the world of relationship talk, she's one of the biggest there is out there, period. Author, content creator, you name it, she has her own platform and everything. Allison Armstrong, I am chatting with on the 30th. So be on the lookout for probably sometime in August for that to come out on video format and all that good stuff. So got a lot of stuff going on here, guys. Let me get rid of this so it doesn't shine in my face anymore. There we go. Jesus. Um, and then we got Paul talking about the Pacific Northwest. He says vitamin D deficiency creates scenarios that are repeatable. You might be on to something there. I took control of my own health a couple years back and got my mental health and life back. Very good for you, man. Didn't see this on the website, FYI. Glad I got the notification on my phone so I can join in. Yeah, I haven't put any— I, you know, I'd love to say that I put these on the website or whatever, or email or whatever, but it's just as these go, um, unless I have them scheduled with like other, uh, content creators, authors, and so forth. Those are on the schedule. Those are on like Facebook, YouTube. If you go there, you will see it as a scheduled thing. But something like this, an impromptu live, no. Nothing on the schedule. But you know what's interesting, Matthew and others? Um, I get more attendees through these impromptu ones than I get through the scheduled ones. What the f— I mean, guys, come on, I put the schedule on, I put them all together. And— but anyway, uh, most of the viewers of these watch it on the recording later, and then I will cut this up into clips and put it out there if there's some good stuff. But anyway, I don't do these lives to pontificate and blab on and on and on. There's plenty of videos with me doing just that. Sorry. But what these are is, like Mr. Scott here says— Mr. Coach Scott, excuse me, took me a second there. Coach Scott from the Help for Men team, he's kicking off with a question. Guys, we're opening this up for questions. If you want to share your story, if for whatever reason you think there's value in me spewing my nonsense about it, then please share. But Mr. Scott here, Coach Scott says, kicking off question: What uncomfortable conversation saves men years of unnecessary suffering. I'm going to rewind the hands of time, if you will, when I— as far as I'm concerned, from what I've seen for years of doing this, you know what saves a lot of suffering? Let's keep it in the relationship realm because I assume that's what you're going for here, Scott. You're with a gal and you're falling head over heels in love with her. It happens. She's in love with you. You guys start having those thoughts, if not outward conversations about our life together. This is where you go, all right, possible wifey-to-be, or at least long-term partner-to-be, let's get some stuff out there. Where do you stand on the kids thing? Why? Okay, where do you stand on the money thing? Are you all about sharing funds? Are you— do you— if you become married down the line and have kids, do you plan on working and having a career? How do you balance that and the kids? Do you— where do you stand on a man being breadwinner or you being the breadwinner in a relationship? Blah, blah, blah. You know, these are like technical, awkward. Who talks about that shit kind of thing, right? You're supposed to talk about that stuff, guys. Pardon me. And even talk about the most uncomfortable of uncomfortable things. Where do you stand on the whole sex thing? While you, you and I girlfriends seem to be getting on an awful lot now. This is the new honeymoon stage of our relationship, so to speak. This is when we're going to get it on more than any other time. There's like a— I think there's a technical stat out there that shows for the average couple, for example, in the first 3 years of your relationship, you will have more sex in those first 3 years when you first get to know each other and all this other stuff than all the other years combined in your marriage. That's like the average couple. "So, wifey, knowing that, what do you think about— how do you plan on helping us keep the spark alive between the two of us?" Because if I'm making a lot of assumptions here, like, pretend you're the average dude out there. I, the average dude, have a pretty high libido, which means I want to get it on pretty frequently. And when I don't, I get pouty and I get upset and I don't feel right. And it's just, it's yucky all around. And my girlfriends and wives in the past or whatever it is that they don't like it too well. So anyway, how do you see this wifey-to-be, partner-to-be? That may get some good conversations going. I mean, what if you're head over heels for a woman and you guys are clicking on everything and you have that conversation and she says to you, Ralph, it's just, it's not that important to me. You're like, go on. She's like, I don't ever think about it. I don't want to, you know, if, if someone told me today like you're never ever going to do it again, I'd be like, that's fine. That's not good. That's not good for if you are a high libido person. You have realized, oh shit, I just matched up with somebody that's the polar opposite in that realm. That does not make them a monster. That does not make you a weirdo. It just means you're just disconnected in that way. And maybe you need to kind of go back to the drawing board and say, huh, is this something I want to pursue knowing that that big part of who I am as a human being is going to be a struggle with this person down the line? Even though it's great now, she just told you bluntly, dude, at baseline, I'm not really like that. I'm just drunk on the new relationship chemicals. That's why I get it on so much with you and all this stuff. That's what she's saying. That's the kind of uncomfortable conversations you need to have with your prospective mate very early on in the relationship. That saves you a shit ton of trouble down the line. I mean, taking the sex thing out of the equation, what if you're like, what do you think about kids? And the woman says, I don't want any. I have no plan on having any. I plan on being a raising some pets and have my husband or whatever, and that's it. And you're a guy that's like, oh shit, I want to have a legacy here, I want to have like 8 kids and I want to have grandkids. And then you two are wildly mismatched in that way. It's not going to work, guys. Money— what if she says, I plan on being unemployed and staying at home all day and raising kids? And what if you're a guy that's like, oh shit, I'm not going to do that. I saw my parents do that and it didn't end well, and my father ended up going broke in a divorce or whatever it may be. So I've told myself from I knew day one that I would never do that. My wife has to work for a living and contribute. Then you're mismatched in that way. Why does nobody have these kind of conversations? What do you guys think? Leave a comment. Why do you think no one has these kind of uncomfortable moments where you sit down and go, okay, we're falling in love here. Let's look at this pragmatically. Let's really dissect what's going on here and let's think about our future together. Why? I have my thoughts, but I want to hear what you guys have to say. Maybe Coach Scott, you want to chime in on this? Why does nobody have that talk? I say nobody, few people, um, anyone. I'm gonna just hang that out there. Let's hang that out there, put that on the shelf for now because we have Mr. Matthew from YouTube saying, this morning I let my sexual frustration show. I told my wife that I desired her after a hug. Oh, you monster. She didn't really respond. Now I feel embarrassed and frustrated. What's your advice for handling this better? You, my friend, are exhibiting what we see all the time in my world. This isn't necessarily a gendered thing, as in this happens more to men than it does women, but that's who I talk to are men in your position. Mr. Matthew, you are what we call— and I'm making a lot of assumptions here, okay? So I'm being a know-it-all bald asshole here, so bear with me. But just based on what little I see from here, the type of guys that I attract to me and my material. Here are my assumptions. You're what we call an anxiously attached individual. You're pursuing. You need a lot of reassurance about you and your connection with your partner. Are we okay? Give me sex that shows me we're okay. Give me sex that shows me I have value and I— validate me, goddamn it, please. Show me something here. And the other person's like, no, I'm good. That's what we see in my world. Anxious guy, avoidant woman, right? That's kind of what you're showing here. So, you know, how best to handle this better is, my friend, you need to work on your security within yourself. You need to not hang all of your sense of security and worth on the shoulders of your wife. Frankly, from what I hear from a lot of wives, that's what they feel from their anxious husbands. Like, God, this guy, man. No matter what I do, it's never enough for him. No matter what I do, it still feels like I have to cater to his sense of worth and his feelings are very sensitive and I have to watch what I say and how I say it. If I don't hug him back in a certain way and kiss him in a certain way, and if I don't give him sex frequently, this guy's spinning out of control. It's not good. And I'm not putting all the onus on the guy saying that you're a little wuss, simp, asshole, whatever it is, then that's why you're causing this. She's got her problems too. Often in these cases, she— if she's in fact avoidant, That's her form of insecurity. She's like, as soon as things get real, I don't like it and I spaz out. And I'm not a very sexual person when it comes to real relationships. I'm only sexy when it comes to being out in the market and single and in a new relationship. I'm making a lot of assumptions here again, but that's what we hear over and over again. So, my friend, if I may, see that little link down there at the bottom, helpformen.com/join. Check it out. I, I do it. I know I'm biased in this. If it's not our group, join another men's group. If it's not my books, read other books on the topic. The Dead Bedroom Fix is a good book for you. Let me bring that up here. Banner. Deadbedroomfix.com. Check that out. Deadbedroomfix.com is my book that pretty much addresses all this kind of stuff. That's why it's so popular. It's such a common thing. Um, back to the whole uncomfortable conversations. Tone, uh, Tone here from YouTube says it's because we're dum-dums. Well, that's kind of a general I was looking for something a little deeper than that. Why don't we have those difficult conversations? Jamie from Facebook says, never really had those conversations before marriage. I would think these conversations addressed every couple of years because we're all different from our 20s, 30s, and 40s. Good point. I love it, Mr. Jamie. Yeah, I think that's a good thing. But why didn't you have those conversations? They don't have those conversations because it immediately takes you out of the honeymoon phase. It could be. You don't want to ruin a good thing, basically, right? The honeymoon phase, man, we cannot overemphasize how addictive that is, how amazing that feels, and just how we want that to persist as long as humanly possible, especially us anxious dudes. Holy crap, I'm getting all kinds of attention and sex and love and affection. This woman's texting me nonstop. It makes me feel validated. It makes me feel great. I don't want this to end, so I'm not about to go Timeout, wife-to-be. Let's talk about this before we take this any further. And at the risk of stopping this immediately, I want to talk about us. Very few people do that, men and women alike. But as far as I can tell from where I'm sitting, that's what it takes. Mr. Paul says, I'm not sure where I fall on the dead bedroom spectrum. I had that conversation with my girlfriend at the time and we lined up on about 8 out of 10, politics and religion being the misses. Ooh. Those are two big— especially today's polarized political landscape, those could be big things. Mr. Antithesis from YouTube says, my sex drive was pathologized regardless of how much I tried to explain why it was important to me. You have to find somebody who will actually listen to you and your needs. Or it's not necessarily to listen to you, Mr. Antithesis, it's be matched with you in that way. I mean, like, think of something like as silly as food— think foods that you like, and you go to the person and go, I hate fruits and vegetables. And they're just like, I, I am— I, I love fruits and vegetables. And you're— and, and they think that it's super, super important that you like fruits and vegetables. And you're like, but I hate it. And you're like, well, it's really important to me that you like it. You're like, why? Who gives a shit? That's like what the avoidant person thinks in these kind of things. Like, why? Why is that so important to you, the sex thing? And also, dude, stop. That's weird. That's how they think about this. And you're like, huh? It's such a crucial thing for human beings to be connected in that way and to show love for each other in that way. And it's crucial for a relationship. Well, it's not for them. So you are very mismatched in that way. You're not, not a good match with them in that way. Unfortunately, a lot of you don't realize that until what, after marriage and 3 kids? Um, uh, avoidant woman to you, but legs behind her head like Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny put his head— anyway, um, to another man. You're right, Mr. Gator, Gator from YouTube. This is the thing that blows all these anxious men away. My wife's like, no, no, no, no, no. Then we divorce, or I catch her in an affair with another man, and boy, does she get a lot of sex done then. This makes no sense. It must be me. I must be a wuss, simp, loser, asshole, beta male, whatever, whatever. I'm telling you guys, 9 times out of 10 of those situations, just wait. If she makes a relationship with that man and forms an attachment with that man, in relatively short time, she will be in the same position that she was with you. There are people, men and women alike, who do not flourish sexually within the long-term monogamous relationship. Once they're in it, they are bored shitless. They are just like, I don't get it, this is— I don't feel anything anymore now that we're married, we have kids and all this. I'm like, and they seek out that dopamine hit, that spike outside of relationships that are not committed, that don't have any kind of realness behind them. Then they feel it. I've spoken to men who have this, absolutely I have, and these are a lot of men who, um, have a a lot of sexuality, sexual partners in their past, real player types. They, um, they, they finally find the one because they want to settle down. They're tired of jumping around from crazy woman to crazy woman, and they have a woman and they make babies and everything else, and he's just like, is this all there is to it? This is boring as shit. I used to like have 3 women a week, and I used to party, and I— and those men cheat like crazy. I talk to them. Um, your avoidant woman, kind of the same thing. So it's a human thing, it's not so much of a woman thing. Uh, then we have Paul said, we lined up on the sex and did well, thousands and thousands over 15 years. That's a lot of sex, Paul. And then she weaned me off of it and I imploded. Um, Bo says, you did have those healthy conversations explicitly with your ex and things still changed. Sorry to hear that. Matthew YouTube says, uncomfortable conversations are just that. It's not fun. It's awkward, potentially upsetting, rather avoid. Mr. Tone from YouTube says, my story, 47 years of age, not married, but been together for 17 years, have 2 kids. My business of 20+ years is failing. My marriage is failing, dead bedroom. Sometimes I feel like leaving. Sounds like you're going through it, mister. Sorry to hear that. Let me bring it up here. Yeah, do you have a support group for you if you want to join us, talk all about it? We would love to help you out. Um, Mr. Gator on YouTube says sex is used to snare you in, and then once the pee trap closes, you are done. So that's a very common sentiment amongst men, and I get it, I do, because on the surface that's the simplest explanation. How many guys out there are like the first 3 years, the honeymoon phase of the relationship. For some people, it's like first 3 months, but let's stick with the first 3 years. Um, well, we got it on a lot, and then as soon as we said I do and had kids and everything, it just stopped. So this 3-year phase here must have been like a total fake thing, like she was just putting it on. This was a calculated plan on her part to ensnare me into her trap, and then once I was in, she bolted the the trapdoor shut so I couldn't get out. And I'm telling you, in the majority of cases, no, that's not the case. If you were to go back, Mr. Gator, to your wife's past as girlfriend to you— and this is the phrasing I often use, lack of something better— and you hook like a brain reading machine up to her head to measure her level of like horniness and lustfulness and in-loveness with you, it was off the charts. She was head over heels for you. She was just thinking about you first thing when she woke up, last thing on her mind when she went to bed. Horny as hell. But for some people, dare I say women more so than men, when the comfortability, stability, safety, when all uncertainty goes out the door, eroticism goes out with it. And that's really difficult for, for men to hear. It's really difficult for women to hear, especially coming from a dude. But I'm not the only one to say this. There are books written on the, on the subject from PhD doctors and so forth, with a lot more popular and a lot more intelligent than I am, all come to the same conclusion. Novelty and newness and stuff is pretty damn important to women, and we need to recognize that and instill that into our relationships, or else it fizzles and it gets boring, and the women are like, I don't know why, but I don't feel like it anymore. It must be him. Let's get a divorce. Sucks, but that's it. Um, And then we have Mr. Gator saying, women generally bore of monogamy long before— I think you mean before men do. That's true. That's statistically— that's what we see. Almost 10 years, no intimacy. Oh, Mr. Shrimp Wagon on YouTube. I love these names. And no affection after second kid at 36. She said no kids and cut everything off. You mean no more kids? Never talked to her about it. I feel I should have to. I feel I should not have to. I'm not ugly. Dude, 10 years of not doing anything shows you— let's put it this way, not to beat you up, beat a man while he's down here, but if you endure something for 10 fucking— excuse me, sorry— if you endure something for 10 freaking years, a decade, you are showing the other person this is cool, that's fine. Now I have some guys that push back on that, say I've been telling this woman for 10 years Dad, I don't like this. It's like, yeah, dude, but you're still there. You're not saying, hey sweetheart, I told you, you don't want to work on this, you don't want to go talk to somebody, you don't want to do anything to come over to my side of the aisle. I guess we got to shake hands and say this isn't going to work out. See you later. Like, none of you do that. What you do is complain for 10 years, and yet you show her via your actions, I'm cool with this. I'm saying this, but my actions and my body and Everything is saying otherwise. So she learns pretty quick, he's cool. He's going to be pissed. He's going to piss and moan over this and he's going to whine. But in the end, he's not going anywhere. That's why this persists. And in a more dramatic way of looking at this is Shrimp, you got something going on, dude, because that's not normal. It's not healthy for a person to stick around in a relationship like that for that long and not either leave or fix it. Um, that shows that you got issues around probably something called codependency, Mr. Nice Guy syndrome, or you have very little sense of self-worth. Although you say I'm not ugly, well, good for you, dude, but so are you going to take that elsewhere? Obviously not. Are you going to say, wifey, it's been nice knowing you, but we need a divorce? Obviously not. So why would you change? That's human nature, man. A common little— how to say this— a little analogy that I use is this is like you're at the office and you're the boss and you assemble your team and you say, guys, here's the deal. No matter what your work performance is, I'm never, ever going to fire you. Okay? So you can rest assured, you can work through your day-to-day routine here at the office with little stress about, oh my gosh, is Ralph Brewer going to fire me? No, I promise I never will. Okay, so back to work, guys. I'll see you after lunch for our next meeting. You goddamn well better believe at your next meeting, half those people aren't going to show up. This is human nature, man. As soon as people get the idea of like, I'm perfectly safe no matter what I do, they take the easiest route. They take the route that doesn't cause them pain, suffering, work, whatever, you better believe half your team's going to be going home. I got shit to do, boss. Sorry, I'll see you tomorrow. And you're like, what happened? No, you told me I'm never going to be fired. As far as I'm concerned, I did enough work for today. See ya. Hey, where are we at on that project? I don't know, man. Let's get to it next week. But it's due tomorrow. Sorry, dude, couldn't get it done. Same kind of thing in relationships, in marriage, men or women alike. It's ultimatums, man. No one likes the old ultimatum, but guess what? Ultimatums work. Just human nature is what it is. Hmm. 8-year, really? 8-year relationship due to, due to get married in September. Oh, so you're going to get married in September. This is Mr. Silverback Shotcaller on YouTube. Due to get married in September. First 3 or 4 years before kids was off the charts. Now I'm met with, don't touch me, I'm busy. You always sexualize everything. Uh-oh, my friend. Um, so you already had kids, so you're basically married just without the getting the law involved. Let's just put that out there. And in fact, I would say the law is already involved by the fact that you've cohabitated for so many years, I assume, and have these kids together. If you were to say, see you later, wife, see you later, partner, um, I would assume probably some money and things are probably going to go to her in the form of child support and otherwise. I'm not a wherever you're at in the world. I don't know. I don't know how that works wherever. But anyway, I would think anyone listening to your story, man or woman alike, would say, don't— no, don't get married. You obviously have something very big here that's going on between you two. This isn't good. And getting the law involved in legal whatever, it's not going to solve anything. It'll probably just make it exponentially worse. Let's just put that out there. So, uh, started reading your book. Thank you, I appreciate that. But I think that will open your eyes to a lot of things. And then Shrimp Wagon, you were saying the reason for you staying connected is you are Christian and you are sucking it up. You know, this is an, um, a slippery slope topic that I don't like to get involved in. I don't like getting involved in religion and politics. It's too polarizing and it's a bunch of horseshit. I don't like it anyway, right? But I will say this and leave it at this. Men of faith, awesome. I think that's a great thing, and I never belittle a man for having faith, no matter if I don't or what my flavor of faith or whatever spirituality may be. If that's a big part of who you are, great, keep it up. But I will say this, I can't tell you how many effing guys I know that are in horribly dysfunctional relationships, horribly toxic, with a woman that treats them like shit. They don't touch each other. She belittles him. It's awful. Even to the point— I know this goes against a lot of the tenets of your faith and so forth— even as far as wife openly cheated or got caught or whatever, Christian man, for example, will go to his pastor, leader of his church, who says what? Drum roll. You better stick it out, dude. The family is above all else in our church and in our doctrine. You need to make this work.. And that involves a lot of turn the other cheek and just deal with it, dude. I don't know what to tell you. And frankly, at the risk of being offensive to people who follow that ethos, it's a bunch of bullshit and it's very unhealthy and I disagree with it. So I'll just leave it at that. You should have read your audiobook. The other guy's voice is good, but you have a really good voice, DSO. I have um, author— or authored, what do you call it— narrated all of my books but one, and that book was Rebuild. Is that the book you're referring to? Yeah, I just had no time, patience, or anything. It is a lot of work to narrate a book and edit and all that other stuff, and I was like, you know what, no, I'm just going to pay somebody else to do it. So Rebuild is author— or here I go again— narrated by somebody else. All of my other books are narrated by yours truly, and I have 5 books total. Shrimp Wagon said, read a couple of your books of yours, by the way. Well, thank you, appreciate it. Fight for Better Now says, howdy, a regular on here. Hello, Mr. Fight. Mr. Johannes Wagner says, from YouTube, says, hello Ralph, married for 12 years, 3 kids. How can I stay happy? It's a loaded question. And how can I stay motivated when I know I will never have sex life I want to have? Divorce, talking, or consoling are not options. Why not? You can't divorce, you can't talk, Counseling and counseling— you say consoling, I assume you mean counseling— and counseling are not options. Why? Are you completely helpless and at the mercy of this relationship? Are you just like, yeah, fuck it, whatever happens happens? That passivity, man, that kills so many men. You're a human being with a brain, and you have control over this just as much as your wife or anybody else does. I mean, I don't know what to tell you. Um, "The old advice I had to reject," says Antithesis. Oh, going back to— I skipped it because I was wanting to get to some other questions here. Oh, thank you, Mr. Shrimp Wagon, for the donation there. I appreciate that, man. That means a lot to me. On YouTube, you were able to give me a little donation, whatever. I never bring it up because it's— I don't know, I feel uncomfortable doing so. But thank you, I appreciate that, man. That's awesome. Um, but Coach Scott asked a question about, "What belief about masculinity did you have to unlearn, and why is it so difficult for men to admit that something they were taught may have hurt them. Um, belief about masculinity that I had to unlearn— I'll leave that to you guys. Nothing's really coming off the top of my head. I would say that, um, for me, probably whether it's via my direct upbringing with my mother, who I spent the most time with, or whether it was societal messaging, or did I selectively listen to things or whatever, but for me Um, the whole concept of tough alpha male masculinity thing wasn't really a thing in my world. What was more of a thing in my world was, dude, chill out with the dangerous guy stuff. Prop up more of your soft stuff. Prop up more of your feminine side. Be a more— you're a sweet empathetic guy, push that more, more, more. Let's temper down the rest of the stuff. While you may have a, an aggressive streak and a sexual streak and a stuff that makes you more stereotypical man, push those down and prop up the rest. That was what I have to overcome as a young adult and something you kind of have to work on the rest of your life. And that kind of contributes to kind of my more nice guy codependent kind of streak in me. Um, with that being said, we have somebody replied to that saying, uh, Antithesis says that the old advice I had to reject was putting women on a pedestal. So, uh, I was taught that to be chivalrous and a gentleman— so there you go— uh, that meant that you treat women especially well regardless of actions and behaviors. That's some programming that needs to be overcome. Um, that's a very codependent thing, basically. Mr. Gator says, I think the reality of the situation is that people are responsible for their own happiness. Many women don't understand this and outsource their happiness to the man that they are with. Divorce, repeat. Um, I'll push back on that a little bit. I get where you're coming from, dude. We've all seen that, right? But how many men do I see that do the same thing? All of them. They all outsource their happiness to their woman. They hang everything on their woman's shoulders. They don't have friends. She's my friend. They have lovers and she's my lover. Well, that went out the door. Well, shit, I guess I don't have a lover. She's my— hell, I have guys that are like, she's my coworker or she's my boss, whatever. They really intertwine their lives 100% with their wife. And then when divorce happens, they're just left like, holy shit, I don't know what This woman doesn't make me happy anymore. I don't know what to do. This woman doesn't want to touch me anymore. I don't know what to do. And it's kind of sad. And Shrimp says, I am a boss and business owner. Mr. Gator says, if you start— and Gator's just all kinds of stuff here— if you start moving like you don't need her and you don't, There is a good chance he will start— she will start moving towards you. Not necessarily. Move like she can and she will be replaced. Know your own worth. That's a— that's a— that is the mantra of a lot of very insecure guys that are like, I'm tired of being— feel like I'm the one who always has to move towards my wife. I'm tired of being the one that always has to pursue. I'm tired of being the one. I'm tired of being the one. F her, man. Let her 'Come to me for once.' And you're right, sometimes Gator, the woman goes, 'What's going on here?' And you start spiking some of her anxiety, and she comes more to your side, and she's like, 'I see what you're doing here. It makes me uncomfortable. Let me come to you for once.' But I tell you, there's also a big chunk, Mr. Gator, of very dismissive avoidant women who say, 'Oh, thank God. I was wondering if you would eventually get off my back,' which causes the anxious guy to go, 'What the fuck? All this relationship advice I hear tells me to back off, and I did, and it made things worse. Now she's gone for good. Now she ran off with some other man. Now she's divorcing me. The point is that you don't want to be so needy and so dependent on them and so hanging on them, because regardless of what their temperament is, that's unhealthy, dude. Don't do that, man. That's not good. Regardless if it's your friend or your coworker or your lover or your whatever it is, your wife, just don't do that. And when you back off, yes, some people may say, oh, thank God, you let me breathe a little bit, I appreciate it. And others say adiós. Regardless, it's still the right thing to do. You don't want to be so hung up on what it is they do and how they feel and all that stuff. And Kush from YouTube says that's the book Rebuild. Okay, cool, very good. Thank you for listening, by the way. Hmm. Mr. Kur, C-U-R, from YouTube says, I must really have issues because I've stayed 20 years unmarried in a sexless relationship. Brought it up hundreds of times. I find it basically impossible to end it. Hmm. And stick to it because of her tears. So you come to her— oh, we're continuing on. I've basically compromised on everything while she compromised on nothing. I dream of the escape. I looked at scheduling a meeting with you but couldn't figure out how on your website. Good question, man. This is just— you've just opened up Pandora's box here. Can o' worms. Insert analogy here. Um, Mr. Kaur, uh, number one, to book time with me, you got to be a member of the Brotherhood. You see that little link there? In fact, I need to put it in the chat here. Or in the comments rather. So you got to join our support community first. Yes, there is a small monthly fee for doing so. And then once you're in that group, then you can book time with me, with myself, or anybody else on the team like Coach Scott here. And we're glad to chat with you one-on-one about this. But yes, you got an issue, dude. And that issue is the rest of us, and I think our perspective as an outsider looking down on your situation. Like, think like a 30,000-foot view. All of us are looking down on your situation, and our perspective has real value here, Mr. Kerr. And that value is, is that we're not emotionally tied to the situation. We don't have all of your emotional baggage that keeps you tied to— yes, a lot of your past has a lot to do with what got you in this mess. So we're just looking at this very pragmatically, and we're all looking at this going, dude, run for your fucking life. Excuse my language, I've been cursing a lot today. We don't get it. Why are you in a relationship for 20 years to a person you're not married? I assume no children. There's no connection there in that way. And you personally need that. Not everybody needs that connection, but most do. And you're one of the people that need that, one of the guys that need that connection. And it's not happening. And yet you stay. Got something going on up here, dude. Got to get to the bottom of it. That's codependency 101. And the fact that she knows exactly how to push your buttons to get you to stay and to shut you up is by doing what? Turning on the tears. And she knows that that's all I got to do. And Mr. Kerr is going to go, never mind, I didn't say anything. I'll just stick around for another 20 years. You know when that ends? Today. I think you need to stop that today. That's— but again, way, way, way easier for me and others outside of your situation to say than for you to say. I get it 1,000%. You need some help with that. That's okay, man. It's all right. Check it out. HelpForMen.com/join. That's the Brotherhood. Um, oh, but then you say the other problem is she will put out after 6 months. So 6-month drought, then she'll put out again. She knows how to shut you up, dude. She knows to give you a little cookie. I'm like, it's a kid that's just whining and complaining, whining and complaining. You're a little kid complaining about something, you go, here, shut up, here's the thing. And they go, yay! And then they come back and complain again. Like, oh God, that's how she's looking at you. That's how she's The avoidant woman breadcrumbing you is what Gator says. That's exactly what this is. It's not healthy, man. It's kind of like, if it helps in this, it's sad that I have to say this for a lot of guys to, for it to click with them. Flip the genders. There's a husband who's very avoidant, very cold. He doesn't want to connect with his wife in any way. She's like, can we go on dates? And he's like, no, leave me alone, woman. Can we do this? No, no, no. And then finally the guy goes, All right, shit, what do you want to do? You want to go to the movies or something? And the wife's like, yay! And they go to the movies and they have coffee and she's like, this was the best day ever. And he's like, yeah, good, whatever. And then another 6 months goes by and they don't go on another date. She's like, what the hell? He knows to shut her up. He's like, fine, let's go to the— I'll go to the fair with you or whatever. I'll go to the flea market. Fine. She's like, yay! Then another 6 months goes— it's the same thing, man. Uh, it's not good. And let them go, says Gator. Yeah. But again, Gator, way easier for you and I to say, but it's— the conversation needs to be simple. Says Fite, I get you don't want sex, but I want sex, so I'm going to go get it elsewhere. I mean, that sounds cold and maybe don't put it in that way, but to soften it a bit, this is a very important part of my life and it is for most human beings. The fact that you don't think so, it's cool. That's your opinion. 'But that's not how I see the world, so I'm going to say goodbye, go get it elsewhere.' And Scott— Coach Scott says breadcrumbing. Breadcrumbing is like just giving you little bits, little— not the full meal. Here's a little, a little crumb here for you. And the guy's like, 'Oh,' and he eats it up. And she's like, 'Okay, good, that'll satiate him for a while.' And I'm not sure exactly— that's my interpretation of it. I'm not sure what the origin of that phrase is, but it's a pretty common phrase in our little world. Giving him breadcrumbs to just to appease him for a bit, to shut him up basically is what that is. Uh, gentlemen, I do need to wrap it up here soon. Anything else? I got neck pain. Anything else before we, uh, hang it up here today? Uh, excuse me. I do appreciate you all joining me here today. Very, uh, lively, energetic group today with the questions. This is awesome. Again, whenever I do these impromptu, unscheduled, just whenever I have time, they always end up better than my Schedule one. Uh, Mr. Jack says, recovering codependent anxious guy here, married to a fellow recovering codependent anxious gal. We've been doing the work for years. Challenge now is breaking the cycle with our extended family. That's huge because your kids have that— will have the tendency absolutely to do the same within their relationship. So that's where it takes you to go, son, I recognize something's going on here. Let me tell you what I went through. What's so frustrating is that with your kids, that's about as far as it'll go. I mean, what are you going to do, hold them down and say, no, you're not going on that date with that girl? She's just like your mother. No, but you can just say, just some things I've seen here, just some things that you might want to open your eyes to. I've had those kind of conversations, and it's best— that's all you can do, basically. And a lot of people saying thank you. Mr. Antithesis says thank you. Thank you, Mr. Antithesis. Thank you, Kerr. Say you like these lives for a good— thank you. Um, and then Gator saying breadcrumbing has given you just enough to stay and then go back to the status quo. It's just enough to satiate you, just enough to keep you on the line, so to speak. Basically, it's sad. It paints them as a conniving, uh, whatever kind of person. But yeah, there's not everybody's cut out for the healthy relationship stuff. And somebody who cuts off physical intimacy or any kind of intimacy with you for an extended period of time and then paints you as the villain for doing so, they got a problem. And they are not cut out for a long-term monogamy. For the— is by the definition of the average human being. You got to let them go. And you have no kids holding you. You got no marriage. Dude, get the fuck out of Dodge, man. That's all I got to say. But again, we're only hearing one side of the story, blah, blah, blah, you know. But anyway, taking everything you say at face value. Are the calls only video or do you do video audio once a member? Oh, once you become a member, the Zoom calls that we do, if that's what you're referring to, are on Zoom. And so we have the video so you can see me and others if they turn their camera on, and we talk via audio, obviously. And then we record that, and the recordings are just audio in like a podcast format, if you will, for our members, if that's what you're referring to. The Help for Men Brotherhood membership, helpformen.com/join. Check it out. Um, and we have like, it's going on 2,000 hours of said recording, so it's pretty nuts. You'll never run out of stuff, and we add to it every single week.. So if you're a guy who likes listening to audio content on your drives or your treadmill walks or whatever, you're going to be in heaven. Mr. Chuck says, is there a way to get notified of the YouTube stuff? I get all the Zoom meetings automatically pushed to my calendar, but I had no idea about today's broadcast until someone alerted me. So remember, Mr. Chuck, maybe you're the Chuck that I know in the Pacific Northwest, but no, other than I don't think that there's— I think YouTube itself as an app— or as a whatever— will inform you. Yep, that's that, Chuck. And then Facebook also as well informs you via the notifications feed on that. Otherwise, no, this was not on the calendar. This was not scheduled, so hence why. Oh, you say you meant the one-on-one. Oh, okay. The calls are— one-on-one chats are video like this, so via Zoom. And then you are given the recording if you request it via the audio recording of that Zoom meeting. So good question. But yes, it's face to face, so to speak, via Zoom. But I have some guys that are like a little averse to showing me on their camera or they're just not able to at the time. I would say probably the majority of my chats are me on video and the other guy audio when I do the one-on-ones. Kind of interesting. Some guys are driving around in their car. Some guys are walking around with their little AirPods in. You know, all that good stuff. Um, all right guys, thank you all so very much. I appreciate all of you. Appreciate all the questions. I appreciate everybody buying the books and all that other stuff. But guys, the, the, the big, big thing that we have that is so very valuable, and this is why I put it together, that I'm so very proud of it, is the Brotherhood. Check it out. Check it out for a month. help4men.com/join. If you don't like it, you can always cancel. No skin off my back. No biggie. It's not for everybody. It's for those guys that want to get involved. You want to get involved in meetings? It's awesome for that. I mean, So many meetings every single week for not very much money. Guys look at that and go, what's the catch? I mean, this is a lot of meetings for not much money. It's like, yeah, we want to get you your money's worth. We're here to help guys. We're not here to get rich, right? And then with the one-on-one coaching with myself, it's a huge extra bonus. All my books, all the audio, all that stuff. Check it out, thebrotherhoodhelpformen.com/join. And that is it for me today, guys. Thank you all once again. Hope you have an awesome weekend. Make it a good one, and I'll be back here same time on— not same time, 11 AM Central Time on Monday with Miss Laura Howe. So be sure and check it out. All right guys, have a good one. Toodaloo!