How A Father's Self-Ownership Shapes A Son's Strength with Ralph Brewer

the best possible outcome from all of this is that you have two people on the same game plan as far as what the kids this is we wanna do what's best for the kiddos and that may mean sometimes our feelings get hurt because kid says I can I go stay with mom tonight I know it's Dad's night but I miss Mommy it's fine you know again no it's my time damn it it's like no you go to your mother as long as she's cool with that I'm cool with that too whatever you want to do kid

that was something that was a little difficult for me and for most men you know going through that process is you don't want to have use the kids against each other welcome back to raising men

I'm your host Sean Dawson now we often talk about the crisis of masculinity in our culture but we rarely address one of its quietest symptoms which is passivity we see the data 86% of men feel heavy pressure to be a provider yet 40% of young men say they have absolutely no one to turn to for guidance there's a massive gap between the men we feel that we should be and the examples that our sons actually see at the breakfast table today's guest is here to help us close that gap by

starting with the man in the mirror Ralph Brewer is the founder of the help for Men Brotherhood and the creator of dad starting over his latest book is called Rebuild Ralph thanks so much for joining us today it's a pleasure to have you on the show thank you for having me thank you so much John appreciate it now let's start our conversation with the book that started it all

it's called The Dead Bedroom Fix now while that is an adult topic it speaks really down to the core of a man's sense of self work worth I think and it's something that we just don't talk a lot about what prompted you to put that book out into the world good question out of everything I could have talked about you know why that well my story real quick

is that I went through a nasty divorce I became a single father to three little kids and I started blogging about my experience under the name of dad starting over that's where that name came from and I've been creating social media content under that name for over a decade now and I started writing on a whole bunch of topics in a blog and like most blogs I didn't get much attention until I started writing on the subject of sex

specifically sex and marriage and somebody said I like your take on this and this you should write a book on it and so I was really hungering for some kind of mission and something to do with myself and you know really get me going something to light a fire under my butt and so the idea of writing a book something I like writing I've never written a book before so I did it and when you know it it kind of took off so much so that actually the third edition of that book came out last year

and it's called The Dead Bedroom Fix as you mentioned and since that point and from that point forward out of all topics I've ever spoken about that is the No. 1 topic by a long shot

I mean I can talk about custody of kids financial issues physical fitness all the typical dad things you know guy things and then nothing nothing nothing alright how about the fact that a lot of us aren't getting any in marriage or not enough and kaboom the bomb goes off and guys just lose their minds and that's all they want to talk about so if you know if my uh website traffic is down a little bit or my social media traffic is down a little bit I'll just put on one of those videos and Kaboom

it'll spike again so it begs the question

what the heck's going on why out of everything I've ever spoken about why is that the No. 1 topic and I'm not alone I know psychologists and other content creators who put out similar material covering you know a span of the human condition and they will say the same thing sex sells and it's any marketer businessman will tell you the same thing oh yeah you know sex sells that's what a lot of guys want to talk about I think it's a little deeper than that

uh maintaining a healthy sexuality according to the average Joe our definition of that within the confines if you will of a long term monogamous relationship is relatively difficult and we've been undersold just how difficult that is most of us yeah I think the popular culture almost it well it conveys that it should be effortless and you know you ride off into the sunset and you live happily ever after and then and and thereafter it's you know it's all roses and

and puppy dogs and it's not that easy is it if it was then I wouldn't sold so many pricks so it's it's a big problem and it's something that's not talked about enough

and it's something that a lot of men here's a really negative way to look at it if a lot of young guys were pulled aside at the age of when they're starting to consider let me find my life mate and all that other good stuff

we were pulled aside and given like a boot camp so to speak on here's what marriage is like and here is what it takes to make maintain connection and there's a very good chance you may not maintain the connection way the way you want to I wonder what percentage of men would bow out of the relationship game completely that's like a really big eye opener for a lot of women to hear like oh my gosh it's that important yeah it it's that important to a lot of guys yeah I think that's

I think that's right and by the way there's a positive feedback loop there too right as as that declines or a negative feedback loop as that declines the relationship gets worse which makes it harder to get that going

and vice versa if if if your sex life is amazing then that really um translates to a wonderful relationship as well yeah we know for a fact with data that those couples that say we are happy as a couple man and woman both there's a definite correlation between that and the frequency of sex in the relationship the couples that say once or twice a week on average are the happiest couples

I love that I love that we're bringing data into this so so tell me about what's yeah you know what is the fix what is you know if if you're a if you're a man that you're looking down the barrel at that and you know ultimately um what I should do is buy your book but uh but you know give me give me the 50,000 foot view

the majority of men that consume my material and get to the point of buying a book watching a YouTube video entering my men's group are what we call anxious men it's a all encompassing term

you can look at it a couple different ways one is that they are very anxious in their temperament filled naturally with a lot of anxiety and thing two is they are very anxiously attached to their partner there's this whole theory in psychology called attachment theory most people within relationships that are anxiously attached or preoccupied with a relationship are usually women but there's a large contention of men out there and those are the men that take in a lot of self help

relationship oriented material

how can I make my marriage better how can I reignite my sex life and on and on those are the most of the men who bought my book can fall under that category so for those men if there is hope for your relationship and hope for turning around the sexuality in the relationship to way oversimplify the answer is to become a more secure man to become more secure in who you are and consequently more secure in your attachment to your partner not constantly pursuing them not constantly hovering over them

not constantly needing reassurance from them

please wife make me feel better stop being upset yes dear whatever you say dear happy wife happy life just fine don't be upset I can't stand that you're upset when you're upset it ruins me completely it's very codependent is what the psychologist would call that a very codependent nature to these men Doctor Robert Glover wrote a book called

no more Mr Nice Guy that is all about that codependence in men one of the biggest books there is on the topic that is the big relationship slash sexuality killer within a long term monogamous relationship that I see I'm sure there are all kinds of different facets of dead bedrooms out there we have a lot of avoiding men that don't want to connect emotionally to the women they're just like leave me alone you know very typical stereotypical guy thing but that's not who I see at all interesting so

but I mean is the solution just to be more of an asshole that's one way of looking at it in fact funny you say that that's the way a lot of anxious guys see it a lot of your nice guy types when they see a man who has a lot of luck with women and he will look at the guy and study the man they're like he's kind of a dick he's kind of he's he's kind of really full of himself and cocky he's like that's one way of looking at it or you could say in psych terms I'm not a psychologist

but I know enough to be dangerous

the psych terms would be he is very low in trait neuroticism means he doesn't have a lot of negative thought anxiety depression he's more upbeat guy and he's very extroverted usually he puts himself out there he's not afraid to to fail he's not afraid to get turned down by 20 women in a row oh well who cares no big deal well the guy who's very introverted and very high in neuroticism a very anxious guy gets turned down once or twice and he's done yeah

so there's something to be Learned from those extroverted guys and it's not so much be a cocky asshole as it is to be confident sure in who you are very secure in who you are knowing who you are what your values are and what your identity is that's what I wrote my latest book rebuild talking about building that identity a lot of men go through their whole childhood young adulthood and into marriage without really knowing who am I what what do I want does this does my new mate match up with that

nobody asks those questions it all boils down to if you're a very insecure man does she like me enough and not run away like all the other girls did

if not oh good enough she's my wife to be then and we need to be a little bit more pragmatic about picking our mate yeah well one of the things that I've realized uh especially since having kids is that so much of life boils down to attention between two extremes and it's really all it's always very tempting to to decide that one of these extremes is maladaptive or isn't working for me so I'm just gonna go all the way to the other side and what you're describing here is

there's a tension between becoming an anxious nice guy who just wants to please everybody all the time which means that like frankly your wife is not going to be attracted to that she's not looking for that she's looking for a provider and a protector and those you're not sending her that signal versus on way on the other side of the extreme just being a complete asshole and the right tension there I think is is really

really critical especially when it comes to the messages that you're sending your kids right you don't want to send your kids the message that you are a jerk to your wife but you also don't want to be the doormat over there and so you need to figure out what that tension is and honor your spouse honor your wife in a way that it that that isn't isn't chasing after her trying to please her and being anxious would you would you agree with that you nailed it that that's the difficult thing

that that delicate balancing act is what I often call it yeah you do need to be emotional and open and

vulnerable with your spouse but there's a limit and if you're an anxious man who has a lot of oh tension and anxiety built up which a lot of these guys do and they hold it in and they hold it in and they hold it in and then kaboom

they emotionally vomit as it's called all over their spouse and the spouse just left going what the heck is this I I can't trust this man anymore I don't feel safe you'll hear the ladies say around this man anymore uh often this comes at a moment where the woman is having a very unsteady emotional moment and she comes to hubby and she's like I I'm not feeling good I'm feeling anxious about this I'm feeling unsure help steady me and he just can't take anymore and he vomits all over her

so the lesson is just this circle of back and forth of I can't be this way cause I can't trust him with my feelings and he emotionally vomits all over her and he's like look I I knew it men can't be vulnerable with women it's it's that leads to a lot of dysfunction in the relationship and around and around they go it's very unhealthy so what do you do

I mean if you're feeling this anxiety if you're feeling that what do you do about that how do you become how do you experience that security you know it sounds a little boilerplate and a lot of guys listening to this kind of roll their eyes but you hate to say it but a lot of the origins of this starts in childhood you were raised by a certain mom and dad who raised you in a certain way and the way they interacted with you has a lot to do with how you interact with your romantic partners

and your kids down the line and then you watch them and how they interact mom and dad if you're so lucky they stayed married throughout your childhood and you watched the dad say yes dear

whatever dear and escape to the basement and work in his workshop and stay the heck away from mom and mom rolling her eyes and discussed dad all the time you internalize that and you had a front row seat for it well I guess this is just how couples act and then you marry somebody just like mom and you're like oh man here we go again and like clockwork you get divorced just like mom and dad did or whatever it may be and we're just repeating these same patterns all over over and over again so

I think it behooves a lot of guys to first

take an honest step back and you may do this via therapy I'm not a therapist but a therapist may sit down with you and just say let's really sit down and think about what's going on with you where do you think this comes from tell me about mom tell me about dad aha now we've identified it now you can say now you can recognize when you're going down the wrong path here and you can go you know what time out stop let's let's not do this path let's turn around go back and try again

and a lot of that starts with recognizing all those things that you were taught as a kiddo that aren't so healthy and a lot of that is OK now that we've kind of identified and we know what the wrong path is what's the right path here what what do I want out of life

unfortunately for a lot of anxious type men who are married to their polar opposite ironically the very avoidant woman a lot of these men realize there's no help in this this woman has told me from day 1 how she is and I said you got it and I married her and I had kids with her and I've done so for the last 15 20 25 years whatever may be I can't turn this around tomorrow and most likely statistically I probably won't be able to turn this around not to the level that I want in a relationship

I want a nice loving partner who I can be open with

somebody who likes physical intimacy somebody who when I walk in the door says how was your day handsome yeah that sounds silly but a lot of men like almost weep when they hear me say something like that because they've never heard it ever and I listen to the stories of their wife and I go that's never gonna be her my friend you know you can become the most secure individual on the planet earth you can look like a Greek God you can do all these great things that's she is who she is

and she has told you Point Blank she ain't never gonna get help with it cause she doesn't see that there's a problem so the more secure you become as any person who works on this kind of stuff what they'll tell you is you're gonna leave some people behind and those are people that you determine aren't so healthy for you and unfortunately that may be your spouse and the mother to your children that sucks yeah I I I'm I'm with you I I think that is that's a great segue into uh

another topic the topic of your latest book uh which is called rebuild and so you know obviously sometimes it doesn't work out or sometimes you decide wow we're just we're just not gonna be compatible now what do you do hmm yeah what do you do do well for a lot of guys it's you better buckle up your life's about to get very interesting unfortunately you know divorce is not a pretty thing although I am hearing more

and more about very amicable divorces I think what helps in that process is the fact that more and more the women in our lives make just as much if not more than us and so that kind of changes the tone as far as child support alimony and everything else is concerned and often you go let's just go to the mediator and the mediator says you get this debt you get that debt you get this asset you get you get that asset uh 50 50 child custody is becoming more

more common some states are defaulting to that you know if there's divorce then we will default to 50 50 you have to prove that there's reason not to as opposed to you need to prove reason that there should be that's an awesome thing

so a lot of men that I talk to are financially I'm not hurt that bad in fact after maybe six months a year or so down the line I go you know what it's almost like I got a raise I thought I thought the divorce thing was supposed to be bad it's like when you eliminate a whole another person and spending habits out of the equation you you may end up doing better and what a lot of men say is uh the relationship with my children has actually improved because I'm much more focused on them

when I have them under my roof yeah when they're with mom for the the week after that I often still go to all their practices and their sporting events and their school events and I pick them up for lunch every now and then uh the one kid text me I don't know where and said you wanna do dinner and I took him out to dinner and they realize it's almost like um my time is limited I know it is

I'm not gonna have this kid 24 7 so I better make it special while I have them yeah it's funny how that how life kind of teaches us those lessons but a lot of men do pretty well after divorce I know there's a big uh uh oh what's the word narrative out there that men are destroyed men are you know brutalized in divorce and so forth again talk about data driven if you compare the men and women men tend to do a lot better financially if you want to use that as a gauge

after divorce long term than what women do so I'm not saying that as a pro divorce guy I'm doing that as a I'm saying that rather as a guy who says if it's inevitable like there's no going there there's no changing this it is what it is you've tried everything you can and the wife just gives you the big middle finger and says go away and you realize this is the only way to go down you'll you'll probably it's not the end of the world yeah

you'll be okay it's not the end of the world I I think um I think that it it can also really improve your relationship with your now ex spouse because you're now just partners in raising your children and if you can get on the same page about that and there's not all of this added expectation of whatever resentments were building up over time that you now it's it you just narrowed the scope of of your partnership and it's easier to succeed because it doesn't have all these other things

very well put I love it you're exactly right it's it for a lot of people we were already co parents anyway it's just that we were technically living under the same roof it was already kind of a business negotiation any kind of romance or emotional connection was gone years ago but now it's on the table at post divorce

yeah there you go I was gonna say it's more overt it's out in the open now this is what it is we can drop all the pretense and the knowledge and the resentment of not connecting that way and husband you can stop being so ticked off that I won't touch you anymore it's understood that yeah we're not living in the same roof we're not husband and wife obviously we're not gonna touch each other anymore phew we can just you know take that off the table and concentrate on what we need to concentrate on

the kiddos right and you're right you could be like why why didn't we do this sooner as sad as that sounds but another another thing that can happen there is it can get sour the resentments can just overflow and you don't get that meeting of the minds about okay now let's just make sure our kids thrive and it becomes it becomes a battle and and that is particularly dangerous I think for

for a father or parent of boys um because boys have much worse outcomes than girls if there isn't a man in the house or they're not spending time around quality men and that that can end up being the default if in these sorts of ugly situations what what do you think you need to do in order to establish that healthy relationship with good boundaries and make sure that your son is getting access to the best part of you and and all of that let's just put this out there

for the men that I work with those anxious men that I talked about not only do they tend to pair up with the avoidant woman but they often times especially our neurodivergent guys the guys that are on ADHD autism spectrum and so forth they have a higher chance of connecting with a woman who may have a personality disorder for example so they're in a very toxic relationship it doesn't show its true toxic colors until down the line after kids come into the picture

and you got a lot of stress and everything settles in the honeymoon phase passes and then you're like who is this person it can get really really toxic and really nasty in a hurry and then once you divorce it seems like those women are hell bent on making your life hell as much as possible they will kick a man while he's down and it doesn't make any sense to the poor guy who's like I I I didn't want the divorce I wanted to stay together I'm just want to do this for our kids

and why is she trying to punish me at every turn

this is very important for those guys to get help don't do this alone you can get overwhelmed in a hurry and what you need to learn are those tactics of there's a little psych tactic called a gray rock I don't know if you're familiar with this

when you're dealing with like a narcissistic person or somebody who's very histrionic and trying to get a rise out of you emotionally an example I often give is let's say you two are in mediation and you're sitting across the table from each other and you get to the point of a divorce mediation and you get to the point of they talk about child custody this is a really common scenario by the way and they're like okay Mister so and so proposes that we do a 50 50 split

one week with mom one week with dad here's how we'll handle the holidays and summer break and everything and the mom just starts bawling her eyes out I can't believe you're taking the kids away from me this is horrible the kids need their mother um I should have them 75% of the time this is wholly unfair just because I did these horrible things to you cheated on you whatever doesn't mean that I'm a horrible mother why are you punishing me like this why are you punishing our kids

and on and on and on a gray rock picture just a lump of stone sitting there not reacting just listens to her and says okay

on to page 2 and as if you know none of that phases you that is the oh the the template structure you need to have in mind for you and your interactions with your toxic for lack of a better word ex going forward all that just bounces right off of you it has no impact on you there's no legal anything there so why even bother responding to it or taking it in and on top of that the emotional component know your legal rights

I don't know how many men just roll over and just be like ah drama I don't like it all this negativity and toxicity from her fine fine whatever fine and in the process of doing the fine fine whatever fine they're giving up money they're giving up time with their children they're hurting themselves in the long run when they need somebody put an arm around them going buddy you know you have rights here you don't have to give all this up no one asked you to spend this extra money you know

you have the right to see the child X percent of time whatever it is in your state country whatever yeah so know your rights get an attorney that's gonna fight for you understand the inside out of all of this stuff and don't let her emotionality affect you so much uh you have a right to see those children just as much as she does

and don't let anybody tell you otherwise it could be argued that women are more nurturing and you know they tend to be the logistical managers in the in the family let's be honest they're the ones typically that know the doctor appointments in the this school thing and that thing you may have to take that over dude or you're gonna take over some of it it's just a matter of yeah you're gonna it's a new skill you have to learn just like any other not a big deal but you're right

it can get pretty nasty there's this whole

parental alienation thing that you hear often about where the for example the mother of the children may say you know your father is a horrible terrible person let me try to poison your mind about things about dad whether they're true or not so that you will spend more time with me and you will instead of going to dad that's a very common tactic for a lot of frankly mentally ill women and that's not a slam a lot of them do have mental illness you know borderline personality disorder

bipolar disorder whatever it may be those are not unheard of in my world when it comes to anxious guys who got with the wrong gal so many years ago we hear this kind of stuff all the time yeah I

I and I imagine you know I imagine the mother has her own version of that story and at the end of the story the most important thing is that you come up with a constructive mechanism moving forward right I mean and and it can be an asset this this new regime that you're getting into can be way better than the old one you just have to seek it out and and better for both of you and that's that's that's the goal there right and if you if you start focusing on

if you if you have this fixed pie mentality and and it's easy to get there where where every every loss to her is a gain to me or vice versa she feels that way about me then it it's all I I feel like the the divorce industrial complex

that's what they almost thrive on right you know the the the divorce lawyers will sit there and and they'll be happy to continue fighting for 10 years and that's not in your interests at all I don't think no so you know so the best possible outcome from all of this is that you have two people on the same same game plan as far as what the kids this is we wanna do what's best for the kiddos and that may mean sometimes our feelings get hurt because kid says I can I go stay with mom tonight

I know it's Dad's night but I miss Mommy that's fine you know again no it's my time damn it it's like no you go to your mother as long as she's a cool with that I'm cool with that too whatever you wanna do kid that was something that was a little difficult for me and for most men you know going through that process is you don't wanna use the kids against each other I think that's a good I try to talk about the last topic that I that I really want to cover and and that is the brotherhood um

you know data shows that 40% of young men don't feel like they have

anyone to turn to for help and and I think that the institutions that we men used to rely on in order to get us together and get us talking about difficult subjects those are gone and that is an opportunity and it and and it's and it's a problem in the sense that the problem is that the institutions are gone so if we don't intentionally make it happen it won't but the opportunity is we now have a way of making it happen that we can customize to ourselves but you've created a society of men

a brotherhood that proportion that that that tries to address this tell me about that yeah overall with men to your point about guys feeling kind of isolated and no one to turn to that is not just kiddos it's adult men dare I say probably more so with adult men especially after children come into the picture and that gets more in focus after something like divorce so we have a guy who goes through the horribleness of divorce and he's like well world here I am Mister Vulnerable

hurt by divorce and he just hears crickets

he doesn't hear a lot he doesn't get a lot of the same kind of over the top fan fair help that maybe his ex wife gets it could be argued she did a much better job of cultivating a network while you guys were a couple together while you were more isolated that's very very typical it could be argued it is kind of a sexist thing the damsel in distress syndrome people tend to come to the rescue of a woman in need versus a man but it behooves us as men to be very purposeful

and creating that community for ourselves most men are very passive when it comes to cultivating that you know from a wider 30,000 point of view we have uh this concept of it takes a village to raise a child whatever it may be in my opinion that's very true and for some reason we've over the past several generations have moved towards no we don't need the extended family and friend network and everything it's just fine with just wife and I so it's not uncommon for guys to say

we moved across country for some job opportunity away from all my family and friends that I've known for years and oh crap now we're divorced and I have nobody to help it's just me all by my lonesome it's like yeah dude it's not supposed to be that way

it's supposed to be a whole community around you of grandpa's grandma's aunts uncles cousins friends of friends and everything else that help each other we've gotten away from that now more specifically down to the men we've really gotten away from any kind of fraternal organization all centered around some kind of cause uh so what I will hear often from men is when I ask do you have like men in your life you could turn to they say well I have this guy named Joe

I hang out every now and then with him we watch football and then there's this other guy who is the husband of the woman that my wife works with and I kind of I'm we're kind of buddies we text you know funny things back and forth every now and then and that's about it that's his social network and he does so when things really hit the fan so to speak and things are going bad he basically has wife to lean on and when she's gone he has nobody to lean on so we recognize this

it was something I experienced myself so I created the Brotherhood

you guys can learn more at help for men dot com you can go right to the join page

at help for men.comslashjoin and it's hundreds and hundreds of guys from around the world all getting together in private forums nobody else can see what you're talking about private zoom meetings we have a bunch of zoom meetings every single week and then we record all the zoom meetings so if you want to listen back to them like a podcast format we have like over 14 hours of podcast or of audio from our meetings as well as all my books courses one on one coaching with myself

other guys on the team we get together in person at a conference in the US as well as Australia and it's a bunch of guys that all get together for the purpose of talking about this really difficult stuff that they don't talk about with their buddy Joe and they certainly don't talk about it with their ex wife or anybody else stuff like the sexless marriage or if you're a divorced guy um I can't seem to get a date uh I can't seem to get past the first date or two with a woman or

I'm having a really difficult time finding my purpose in life and what the heck I am and or after a divorce I'm really struggling financially and whatever it may be all these the gamut we have probably the majority of the guys in our group are actually still married and they hope to remain that way but it's tough it's really tough they're maybe with the wrong gal they don't have the skills necessary to keep it going and then we have the guys that are divorced

guys that have never been in a long term relationship and we have a very very good community very close knit and a lot of resources there under the umbrella of the Brotherhood and it's probably the most not probably it is the most rewarding thing I've done so far is to be a part of that group and to start that group and be a part of a day to day it's awesome I can imagine I uh what do you think the what brings most men to that group and what do they get out of it

still the number one driver to that group is the dead bedroom fix book yeah so it's the last survey I did something like 70 some percent of the membership came as a result of that one book now here's the thing though when we look at the guys that are in the dead bedroom situations and then the guys that have gone through the divorce middle of divorce whatever they're on that relationship spectrum a lot of stuff in common

namely that anxious temperament that I talked about the anxious form of attachment attaching to the wrong women a history of wrong women we used to consider maybe I need to focus my my efforts just on the dead bedroom sex and marriage thing like scrap all the other stuff and just hone in on this Silo right here cause that seems to be where a lot of people are coming in well but a lot of those guys end up being divorced guys end up being you guys struggling with relationships in general

guys struggling with with parenting and they all mix together how they got in really doesn't seem to matter all that much yeah I do you do you find that I mean it's gotta be the case is there any data about this that it's gotta be the case that men who are in this brotherhood or have this kind of social grouping have to be more successful

at navigating these challenges is there data that that that you have access to that uh that shows that people in general men or women it's just the fact that women tend to do a better job of it need to form a social group and community around themselves in order to have good mental health we're herd animal if you you could you could have thank you you could have a guy that's got I got my sleep honed in I got my fitness honed in my job I'm making high six figures and everything else

but he doesn't ever talk to anybody or interact or have any really good friends or anyone to vent about things he's not gonna be a healthy individual he's gonna suffer as a result and it's not uncommon for those guys who seem to have everything going for them to be depressed and often the missing component is other people as sad as that is yeah I I mean I've told this story before

but I I have a close friend who we were talking and he goes oh yeah I need to tell you about something and I said I I said oh just as long as you're not telling me you and your wife are getting divorced we're in good shape and he was just quiet and this oh has been one of my closest friends since we were in eighth grade together and I mean I had the predictable reaction oh we gotta work this out and there's no way and we can't you know blah blah blah and all this stuff and then

he started telling me about what his life has been like in the last 10 years and I was shocked because like I'm one of his best friends and I didn't know any of this stuff and then I realized that I have my own challenges I have my own challenges that I haven't necessarily shared with him and what kind of friend have I been to him where I'm not I'm not sharing with him the deepest most difficult things I'm dealing with and he's not sharing with me and we're supposed to be best friends that's

that's sick my wife has probably eight people that she shares every detail of her life with and she has this rich social fabric and I realized that I didn't have that at all and by the way I'm you know pretty successful reasonably happy great guy I I have a wonderful life but boy I haven't cultivated that and and it really really shocked me this situation with my friend really shocked me and we ended up bonding over I mean I kind of I I tried to help him navigate his

his divorce situation which ended up you know like you described ended up being a net benefit for everybody involved because it it you know they were able to to forge a partnership that that worked out really well but that's awesome yeah

vulnerability is a tough thing for dudes meaning roll over expose your belly and say this is who I am this is what's going on with me because a lot of us have been taught let's be honest that some of us had got bit of timer too when we did that we were made fun of or the girl didn't want to talk to us anymore or something like that and it doesn't take much for us guys to internalize and go okay message received you kind of keep that stuff to yourself or else you get punished

what what we've Learned is even with your your best friend you're like I just keep this to myself I don't need to bother bother Joe with this what a lot of men need is some kind of overt

obvious structure to be in place to say this is where you talk about this stuff this is where you are safe to do so trust me we've all been there and done that we've seen it all we've heard it all don't feel embarrassed by sharing it has to be really over the top obvious like that and within behind walls so no one else can see what you have going on your ex wife won't see it your current wife won't see it your kids won't see it it's just between us dude

then they let the guard down and then they're like okay and men can be as vulnerable as you can I mean tears hugs the whole nine yards as long as they feel quote safe to do so and that's what our group and groups like it are all about I love that you know I I one of the things that I I absolutely love about some of your writing is

you emphasize ownership over blame and I think that this is a we need to take ownership of of our community and you can sit there and you can wallow in your basement and play your video games and vape or whatever and and blame the world for the crappy state of your life or you can take ownership of it and one really good first step of taking ownership of that is is to join your group appreciate that yeah victimhood is very contagious and very addictive

there are entire communities online of men who do nothing but bellyache about those stupid women and the world is out to get us and don't even bother trying it's very nihilistic just I mean if you wanna simplify it there's a lot it's a loser mentality right you're just gonna lose anyway so why bother trying and boy you watch those groups if one of them tries to escape the group and the crab trying to crawl out of the bucket boy they pull him right down so you'll see it online

there's a lot of communities of men are you familiar with guys that call themselves incels are you familiar with this term the involuntary celibate guys get those guys all in a room talking together oh boy and if one of them happens to meet a girl that he likes oh they'll all let him know that she's a worthless you know what don't even bother it's terrible you're gonna lose she's gonna cheat on you and leave you crabs in a bucket man and that stuff is very infectious

and it's tough to escape from yeah and and by the way if you feel the pull towards that look around you which one of these guys do you wanna be right you I mean that's you surrounded yourself that's who you're gonna become if you're not already yeah that's that's it's it's scary and it's sad and I but it's the only community these some of these guys have and I feel like yeah and and what what's part of what what is partially attractive about that group is that

these men hate to hear the terms like ultimate responsibility and all things because what they what they infer from that is so this person across from me like this toxic woman that I'm with she's completely at zero fault it's all me is that what you're trying to say

it's always the men's fault the men just get really angry about this like no dude regardless of what she does you still have ultimate decision over are you staying in the relationship what are you putting up with what are your boundaries what will you with your identity and all these things that's all on you man no one said you have to stick around with that woman she's gonna do what she's going to do or that guy's gonna mistreat you whatever it may be

you don't have to remain in this in this victim mode you have ultimate responsibility over your life you get to make all the decisions not her and but that's a little scary isn't it it's much easier to point across the aisle and say no it's all them that's the excuse my language the chicken shit way out yeah and and it's it's not masculine right there's nothing less masculine than a voluntary victim

right yeah the the the whole but the whole masculinity thing is up for grabs I guess now the in question now I've been on shows where it's been asked Ralph what does it mean to be a man I go that's a good question it's it depends on who you ask and when you ask it and where in the world you're asking it there seem to be some tenants that are constant or consistent across cultures and across geography but that's a big question now and a lot of people are saying does it even matter

what's masculine and what's feminine can't we just all live our lives I say well you can try to be as egalitarian as you want but there's certain structures and underlying behaviors that always seem to seep to the surface in men and women again cross culturally wherever you're at in the world so there's some very very good things about quote masculinity that we don't want to you know throw the baby out with the bath water there are some toxic things for sure

just as there are with the opposite sex but there's some real positives and we seem to be losing a lot of that unfortunately and I'm hoping I'm hoping through conversations like this we can uh we can claim it back very good so I

I love to finish up these conversations by asking more or less the same question of everybody and so if you had to distil your philosophy into one principle that every father should be trying to pass down to his son to survive today's cultural landscape what would that principle be

it's okay to get help I don't know how many really great men with a lot of really great potential limit themselves a great deal by not just raising their hand going can somebody help me out with this because they're too proud they have too much of an ego or they don't want to come across as weak and they don't want other people to think less of them every single great man that I've ever known great is a subjective term the guys that I look up to they've all recognized the value of help

in form of networking groups and getting together with their peers and doing the power lunches and getting together with their business groups whatever it may be networking groups I've been an entrepreneur for years and my eyes were opened years ago to I didn't realize there were these business groups with all these important men just sitting around you know they're not just shooting the bull they're actually helping each other out and I know a guy you need to talk to and don't do that

if I were you I would do this it kind of opens your mind oh wow

all these guys are getting help they all say hey guys help me out with this that doesn't necessarily need to be just in the business world it most definitely needs to be when it comes to what's going on up here in your head and your your mental and emotional well being it's okay to say I need some help here and if if more and more men truly embody that and felt safe to do so we would cure a lot of problems out there yeah I I would even add to that and it's more than just OK it's it's a virtue

it's a absolute positive virtue and in fact I mean think about it this way if another man came up to you and asked for help wouldn't you be thrilled isn't that you would feel honored by that and he looks up to you why so why aren't you honoring other men by giving them the opportunity to help you very well put I love it Ralph it has been an absolute pleasure uh speaking with you thank you so much for taking the time to dive deeper into Ralph's work and find his brotherhood the list of his books

all of those things the links are all in the show notes so definitely check them out Ralph it's been an absolute pleasure thanks again for being on on uh on Raising Men and remember that you are a great parent raising men is produced by Phil Hernandez this episode was edited by Ralph Tolentino