Dad Starting Over
@dadstartingover • 8,344 subscribers
Author, speaker, creator, and founder of Help For Men. I help men become more secure and have better relationships.
Videos
I had an avoidant wife on the show to give my guys the other side of the story, and this part hit. She said the marriage was fine in the honeymoon years because she still had a job, still had her own life. Then the kids came, she became a stay-at-home mom, and, her words, it was the death of her independence. From the outside she was living the American dream. He made good money, she got to stay home, she was supposed to be happy. Inside, she said her soul was dying and she didn't even have the language for it yet. That's the woman a lot of you are married to. Not cold. Disappearing.
Dad Starting Over619,980 views • 10 days ago
![Sexless Marriage... So I Stopped Initiating. She Didn't Notice. He stopped initiating six months ago. He told himself it was a test. He waited for her to notice. She never did. In this video I break down what's actually going on when a husband quietly withdraws from his sexless marriage and his wife doesn't react. Spoiler: it's not what most guys think. It's not her being checked out for a week. It's data. And the data is loud. We cover: The quiet test most men eventually run Greg's email Why this wasn't really a test What her silence actually means ]Why withdrawing in place never works This isn't about sex What to do instead If you're a married man dealing with a dead bedroom, emotional disconnection, or the slow realization that your marriage stopped being a marriage some time ago, you're in the right place.](https://image.24vids.com/tw-2064875100650827890/amplify_video_thumb/2064872691568414720/img/XZL6d-kOhnWaMp6l.jpg)
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Sexless Marriage... So I Stopped Initiating. She Didn't Notice. He stopped initiating six months ago. He told himself it was a test. He waited for her to notice. She never did. In this video I break down what's actually going on when a husband quietly withdraws from his sexless marriage and his wife doesn't react. Spoiler: it's not what most guys think. It's not her being checked out for a week. It's data. And the data is loud. We cover: The quiet test most men eventually run Greg's email Why this wasn't really a test What her silence actually means ]Why withdrawing in place never works This isn't about sex What to do instead If you're a married man dealing with a dead bedroom, emotional disconnection, or the slow realization that your marriage stopped being a marriage some time ago, you're in the right place.
Dad Starting Over1,028,322 views • 2 months ago
Your wife goes through menopause and the sex just stops. She comes armed with articles: science says this is normal, get over it. And slowly, over three years of little rejections and eye rolls, you start to believe wanting your wife makes you the bad guy. You're 54, healthy, and you feel like a creep for wanting sex. You're not wrong. You've been quietly talked out of your own needs.
Dad Starting Over531,284 views • 1 month ago
A guy wrote in and it gutted me. Married 16 years. Sex dried up about four years ago, and when it did happen it felt like she was doing him a favor. He did the talks. The help-more-around-the-house. The date nights. Nothing moved. So eight months ago he quit. Stopped the little touches, stopped bringing it up. And she got happier. Noticeably. Back to the gym, old friends, a little job at a boutique she loves. Then the realization: "the only thing standing between her and being happy this whole time was me wanting her. My wanting her was the problem. And now that I stopped, she's thriving."
Dad Starting Over154,658 views • 18 days ago
Ask a man when the wheels came off the relationship and he'll usually name one moment. "When we had the baby." A woman said the part out loud that most guys only feel. Her tank was full from the kids. All the hugs, all the love, and she didn't need any of it from him. So the marriage sat on the back burner for years, and nobody in her life ever said 'put the baby down and go have sex with your husband.' Then the kids get older. They need her less. She looks up and the tank is empty, and there's a husband she stopped reaching for five years ago. This is how it happens. Slow, then all at once.
Dad Starting Over193,168 views • 1 month ago
This might be the most honest thing a woman has ever said about why wives try to change their husbands. Alison Armstrong worked it out herself only recently. The second she pairs with a man, she starts a program to fix him, because she's driven to be perfect, and his visible weaknesses make her lose admiration. But underneath that is something sneakier. 'I want you to get good at it so I don't have to carry the weight of it. I want you perfect at everything so I'm let off the hook for the very things you married me for.' Read that again. Sometimes the push to fix you isn't about you falling short. It's about her getting out of what she signed up to carry.
Dad Starting Over123,292 views • 25 days ago
Young men are in trouble and nobody's saying it plainly. The kids don't drink anymore, so the old social lubricant is gone. They don't meet in person, they meet as a two-inch photo on an app. So the average guy, a little overweight, social skills of a sofa, gets one match every six months, while a woman gets six this afternoon. Antisocial behavior is now as bad for you as smoking. And about 20% of guys are getting all the fun.
Dad Starting Over168,193 views • 1 month ago
Here's the pattern I see over and over with female infidelity. A controllable nice guy marries a controlling, avoidant woman, the kind who learned young that you can't depend on anyone. She's successful, she runs everything, and she still has needs she won't let herself admit. So she compartmentalizes: you're the safe, predictable home, and someone else is the fun. She thinks she can run both worlds at once. She can't. And when it blows up, out comes the midlife crisis: to hell with all of you, I'm doing things for me now.
Dad Starting Over170,594 views • 1 month ago
Your wife's at the sink doing dishes. You tell her she looks good. She doesn't look up. "Can you take the trash out?" Your chest drops. Now you do one of two things. You sulk. Haul the bag out like it insulted you, go quiet all night, wait for her to ask what's wrong. That's holding your own mood hostage. It never works. Or you rage-quit. "A woman who valued me would light up when I compliment her." Four minutes later you've divided the furniture in your head. Same anxiety. Both say the same thing: her reaction decides your worth. So was the compliment a gift or an invoice? A gift has no strings. An invoice expects payment. If you felt robbed, you've been billing her for years and calling it romance. One flat moment means nothing. Months of them earns a conversation.
Dad Starting Over46,353 views • 14 days ago
Long-term monogamy is not built for red-hot sex, and pretending otherwise wrecks people. We're wired to come alive early, when it's new. Will you stay with me? Desire dips. Move in? Dips more. Marry? Kids? For a lot of couples it falls off a cliff. One wife put it perfectly: it's not that I'm ignoring him, I just forget he exists sometimes. That's not evil. That's biology, and nobody warned you.
Dad Starting Over112,888 views • 1 month ago
A guy finally gets his wife into couples counseling. He's actually hopeful. Four months later, every session is just a list of everything he's ever done wrong. The time he messed up in 2019. The thing he already apologized for three times. She comes in with notes. The therapist nods along. And the year with no sex? Never comes up. He pays 150 bucks to watch his wife prosecute him.
Dad Starting Over63,694 views • 1 month ago
A guy named William wrote in, and this one hits a nerve. 46, wife 44, married 18 years, two kids. The sex had slowed like most long marriages but wasn't dead. Then six months ago his wife sat him down and said she thinks they should consider an open marriage. He thought she was joking. She said she still loves him, but she feels like she missed out on experiences when she was young and wants to explore her sexuality while staying married. When he said that sounded insane, she called him close-minded and said modern relationships are evolving. He asked if there was someone specific. She said no. He doesn't believe her. And ever since, the sex got worse, she's on her phone more, out with friends more. His words: I don't want an open marriage, I want my wife, but I'm starting to wonder if she's already mentally halfway out the door.
Dad Starting Over15,363 views • 21 days ago
Menopause does dial down the hormones, and yeah, it can make sex very painful. But reduced desire is not the same as zero desire, and there are avenues for treatment: HRT, lubrication, sleep, exercise, etc. There are women in their 60s with healthy sex lives because they went and proactively dealt with it.
Dad Starting Over28,919 views • 1 month ago
A lot of women simply aren't turned on inside a marriage. It takes novelty, excitement, and real emotional connection to get her there, while the average dude, even stressed out, is basically ready to go if his wife says the word. So watch what happens when you take that same woman out of the marriage and put her back on the market. Most report a surge of sexual energy. And she explains it to herself as 'he was suppressing me all these years.' Maybe a little. But the bigger truth is this: her desire peaks in uncertainty and newness, not safety. Which is exactly why an open marriage sounds invigorating to her and terrifying to you. You feel a constant hum for her after 20 years. She needs the spark of the unknown, and marriage killed the unknown.
Dad Starting Over14,367 views • 21 days ago
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Sexless Marriage… She Says No Sex After Menopause Is Completely Normal
Dad Starting Over43,786 views • 3 months ago
Alison Armstrong told a story that's the whole lesson in one moment. Early on with her partner, he was driving too close to the edge of the road and it scared her. So she said what most of us say: 'do you always drive so close to the white line?' From the back seat she watched the back of his head, and he said, calm as anything, 'that sounds a lot like criticism, and I stopped taking that a long time ago.' A man who would not cave. And it made her cry, but she felt safe enough to tell the truth: 'I'm so sorry, I was scared.' Months later, when he drove too close again, she'd learned. She just said, 'I'm scared you're too close to that car.' Same information, no knife hidden under the nice words. And that, she says, is everything men need to know. Criticism and complaints aren't actionable. But 'here's what I need, here's what it would look like, here's the difference it would make, and tell me my part in it,' that a man will act on every time.
Dad Starting Over13,075 views • 25 days ago
They surveyed 60,000 couples in open relationships and asked who brought up opening it up first. Two-thirds of the time, it was the woman. Women tend to need novelty more than we admit, and that doesn't make her a monster. It's the same reason a stressed-out man says yes to sex and a stressed-out woman says please, not now. Different wiring. Stop taking it personally and learn how it actually works.
Dad Starting Over17,018 views • 1 month ago
The trap almost no man sees coming works like this. She sells you on it: a whole sexual reawakening awaits, I'll do my thing and you do yours with other women too. And it lights up that part of a man that wants variety, the same wiring porn and everything else preys on. Guys go wide-eyed, woman after woman, all above board, win-win. Not so fast. What actually happens is she has a lot of luck, a boyfriend on the side or jumping from man to man. And you? A couple months go by, you finally get a date, it's mediocre, then a dry spell, then a woman ghosts you the second she hears you're in an open relationship. She's thriving, you're striking out. Eventually you say time out, I can't do this, and she says too bad, so sad, and files. Because opening a marriage doesn't add spice, it invites chaos: jealousy, rage, despair, and the slow realization your wife is slipping away.
Dad Starting Over10,148 views • 20 days ago
Sexless Marriage... How Long Will You Wait For Her To Change? He told himself the same thing for eleven years. Just hold on until the kids are grown, then we'll reconnect. The empty nest came. Nothing changed. In this one I read a real email from a 58-year-old man sitting in a silent house, asking if it's too late and whether he wasted his window. Then I walk through the final talk. When to have it, how to have it from a place of strength, and why "waiting it out" is the trap that costs men their best years. This isn't about blowing up your marriage. It's about refusing to spend the next 25 years as a ghost in your own home.
Dad Starting Over18,757 views • 2 months ago