Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - Dr. John Delony

Episode Date: August 22, 2025

Today we sat down with the incredibly wise mental health expert, author, and radio personality, Dr. John Deloney. With a passion for helping people thrive in their relationships, John tackles various questions from callers live on his podcast, “The Dr. John Deloney Show.” We brought some of those unique and challenging questions onto this episode and included additional questions sent in by our audience! After spending over twenty years in crisis response and finding real solutions and freedom in his own wellness journey, John knew he wanted to help as many people as possible heal from their past trauma and live whole, connected lives. We think he’s doing an amazing job at this and we hope this episode is enlightening! :) Follow our podcast Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/shawnandandrewpods/ Subscribe to our newsletter ▶ https://www.familymade.com/newsletter Follow My Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnjohnson Shop My LTK Page ▶ https://www.shopltk.com/explore/shawnjohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ https://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow Andrew’s Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Andrew’s Tik Tok ▶ https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewdeast?lang=en #Marriage #Relationships #ShawnAndAndrewPods Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What's up, everybody? Welcome back to Couple Things with Sean and Andrew. Today we have our neighbor who happens to be a guru in everything, mental health, relational health, marriage couples. It is John Deloney. Dr. John Deloney to you and I. He's a two-time PhD. He has two PhDs written multiple national bestselling books. And today's interview I thought was really funny and incredibly insightful. So you might have seen Dr. Deloney on the Ramsey Network. He is a prominent personality over there. Does a great job. Check out a show if you haven't seen it. It's the Dr. John Deloney show. And I hope you enjoy this. We talk about mental health. We talk about what marriage is like, family life, how to balance all that. You guys also wrote in situations personally that you're

going through to get his advice as Dr. John Deloney. So he reads through those, tells you what he thinks, and where to go from here. And if you want to find out more about Dr. John Deloney and what he's up to we'll include links down below but let's roll into this one our viewers just sent in a lot of questions for you let's bring him let's just rip rip him no I'm hooked on your stuff is wild every time it comes here I'm like what is he gonna talk about it was that y'all kindergarten no no that's how I'm coming into this man I'm done anyway so if I start crying bro I my son's a sophomore now and last year I worked through spring break

And my wife came back in And she just walks in And she goes, you got four And I was like, I got four what? And she goes, you got four spring breaks And that kid's gone I got chills, bro, it was just like And now he's, I got three

I got three left man Dang, dude He's gone, man I'm already pre-sad I didn't start deer hunting Until I was like in my 30s Hank has been to every opening day with me Every one

And I got three left And like one's like in two months He's still gonna come back for that Dang dude Not for a little bit But then he will No. I do think there is a resurgence. If you, like, have a good enough relationship, you come back. Because the economy's so bad, he'll come back. He'll be back. All right. Some call you Dr. John Deloney. We call you neighbor.

Yeah. Good to see y'all. But yeah. I'm very excited for this. I want to start. I just have to know. Was there any point during your second doctorate degree that you were like, one's enough. One is enough. You got two, dude. Listen, I have an older sister who is a, she's a savant. Like, The smartest person you've ever. Like, her head works faster. Yeah. And then my little brother missed, like, two questions on the ACT. And then there was Texas high school football guy.

I was real fast. And so since I was a little kid, I was like, I'm going to be, I'm a smart too. So it was less like, it's more like a cry for help. It's a personal problem. Yeah, it's a cry for help. I promise y'all's 20s was way more fun than mine. You did it all in your 20s? In 30.

Dude. Oh, my gosh. Andrew's about to finish his first. I know I'm proud of you, man. Now I have to get three, though, to beat him. I mean, you got a long ago. I'll always stand out on my front porch with my cup of coffee watching you and be like, how's your one doctorate, Andrew?

That'll be awesome. It's cool. No, I'm proud of you, man. That's so awesome. You just got your proposal accepted? Yeah, got it accepted, collected all the data. So chapter four is done working through chapter five. But now you just got to finish up chapter five.

Home stretch, baby. Good for you, man. That's fantastic. I am a big fan of your work, though. I hear the conversations you have around family, parenting and marriage and it's like dude i think it's such a timely issue and i'm passionate about this one because i have personally benefited from our marriage so much and i think about in a parallel universe what my life would look like if i didn't marry sean i would probably be wearing like a

mexican poncho sweatshirt long hair i don't know floating down a river on a raft or something like that now i'm you know here i'm wearing a polo do a podcast how very iowa of you well done But it just has a formative effect. And so my whole dissertation is about how families, how becoming a parent can impact your work life too. And I just think if you're able to get home life done well, it has such a positive effect everywhere. And you talk a lot about this.

So I'm speaking to the choir. But how did you get interested into this topic of family? if I go all the way back I had my own I mean I've got a good family and my wife was Dr. Adolone before me and so we were both working at a university and

things were as like my dad was a policeman and then a minister and then my mom was a stay-at-home mom and then she started going to community college in her 40s and so like I had pretty much had a good life and then when me and my wife were at the university we were making

not a ton of money but for us it was billion-gillion dollars right and so I quote unquote had everything but um I was living in other people's trauma at my dean of student's job and I was working 24-7 and then Hank came along my son and I didn't know what I didn't know I didn't know I didn't know to be a good dad and so I didn't even know what that meant like I didn't know kids pooped 400 times a day I thought they went once like a person and so like I would change one diaper and think I was like crushing modern dad and then I didn't know what I didn't know I remember, dude, I remember the time

that my wife went back to teaching she would teach night classes grad school and she said, she left me a list like get a bottle out. I took the bottle straight from the fridge and just gave it to him. A little toddler and he starts shaking and I was like, bro, if you think this is good, like wait to you can like have taco bag. I thought he was crushing it.

She comes home on a break and he's shivering and I don't know what, I don't know, anyway, I didn't even know to warm it up. Like, as dumb as that sounds and so home for me became a failure factor. It became a place where I knew I wasn't very good at this and so then I worked a little bit more

and then just kind of went like that and then that led me to my own mental health challenges and that led me to trying to figure out that's why I ended up with a second doc really I was just curious like with a kid like me who's got everything I should be immune from anxiety and depression and all this stuff

like it shouldn't happen a guy like me and then as I started this show I thought I wanted so badly to be known for the smart guy nobody cared about ADHD and stuff They just wanted to know, like, what about my marriage? What about my marriage? And so the last five to seven years

it's just been obsessive in my head. Like, man, what's happening to families? Man, they're falling apart. Yeah. It's tough time. Yeah. Is there anything that you've learned in your own marriage that has surprised you

being this expert that you are? I think the biggest revelation might be a better word than surprise. The biggest revelation is, no, you know what? Yeah, there's a big surprise. The big surprise is, um... that if I had, if every one of my dreams had come true by myself,

my life would be a hollow, miserable shell. And so the surprise is, hey, if you give up ever dating anybody else, if you go all in on another person and you keep coming back to the table, even when it's hard, if y'all will rebuild your marriage again and again and again, and then you're gonna add kids in there where it's gonna ruin your sex life,

take all your money, take all your time. And if you put that on paper, the math doesn't work out. So the big surprise is that my life is infinitely, richer and better and deeper and weighs it 18, 25, 35, you'll be never could have imagined. So, yeah, that's the big surprise. That's a good question, but yeah.

That's really good. You phrased it as never dating anybody else. Yeah. Say more on that. I love dating. My wife hated it. That was a nightmare for her. I just like meeting new people and, like, tell me about you.

Like, I like, I like that part of life. So always wondering, like, are they going to call back? Like, the other night when I was like, hey, I want to go to dinner? And you didn't call me back. Like that rejection hit home, but I was like, man, I'm going to win his heart. And look at me now. This is awesome. But like, it's that, like, I like being out and about.

And so, but saying like, okay, I'm going to take that part that I think is going to brings me life and joy. And actually, man, watching the office reruns for the 50th time or the 5,000th time, that's richer in a way that I never could have imagined. Yeah. We have a friend of ours who is newly married. in the sense of they've been married two years, which I feel like is very new. But when we first, when he started talking about our marriage and asking his questions, he was like anti-marriage.

Like I don't believe in it. I don't believe in like giving up my freedom. I don't believe like all these things, like the antagonist. And I remember we just tried to sell him on why we think it's so amazing. And it's not because you don't argue. It's not because you don't absolutely want to punch each other in the face every once in a while. Excuse me? You know, I mean...

I've seen her hit me. It's not because it's like easy, but like it is the most amazing thing you can do if you really work for it. And I will say he came up to us a couple weeks ago, two weeks into marriage and he said everything you said was correct.

Like it is the greatest thing I've ever done in my entire life. And it was funny, I was like, now I've got to convince you about the kid thing. He's like, no, no, that's not for us. And I was like, oh, you don't know. You never know.

That's a whole other level. But it is funny how there is such a misconception around intimate long-term commitments and relationships where people just think I have to give up so much and just be unhappy for the rest of my life. But think of it like this. I think that the cultural lie that we buy is that freedom is total untethered. And so it's like going on into a football game and nobody knows the rules and some guy just goes hut-hut. And then it's like that's not fun. It's not safe. Nobody would have a good time. And bounded by here's the boundaries, here's the rules, here's the scoreboard, that then you're free to go be as awesome as you want to be, to quit the game. Like, there's real freedom in that, and being tethered to somebody

and being anchored to something bigger than yourself. And I never would have believed that. Do you think that the boundaries and scoreboard of the institution of marriage is something that has mass appeal still? You know what I'm saying? Because some people would say, well, I want to create my own rules and boundaries, you know? So that's funny. that like and we haven't talked about this that's a great question um eight 18 months or two years ago

i was at a signing line in los angeles and y'all have done this before like um and it sounds awful but you kind of you have like a signing line face right and you're taking photos and you're just smiling and your face gets frozen and it but it's just kind of like uh good to meet you right and people just walk by at this table somebody slid a book in and i'm signing it and she said hey real quick is marriage still worth it and i immediately immediately launched into like a spiel like me and my wife and she interrupted she goes no no no no i know i know it worked out for y'all but i don't have to get married anymore is marriage still worth it today and i it broke that and i looked at her and i had no data i had no nothing other than

like what my sunday school teacher told me and then my experience in my house and i didn't have a good i was like i need to go figure that out and that's been that's what's haunted me the last 24 months is for like all a human history people got married to not die like literally your family's going to join her family and that will add cousins and uncles in one goal which is to not die

and now we don't I mean waters in every other room in this house and you can like push a button and some kid will roll up here like the Jimmy John sandwich like we've solved for these major things and so now we have to ask ourselves

like is this institution still worth it like do we still need to do this and I think that's a that's a harrowing scary question for all of us. Is it worth it? Yeah, it is. That's the spoiler alert of my new book. Do you know the why yet or is that still something you're working on? You can reverse engineer the why stuff in what I would call like the spreadsheet stuff like if you have a good marriage or a great marriage you're combined net ROI is like you have more money you live longer guys live longer than

women do of course because and literally I looked into that question and literally is because guys do fewer stupid things when they are married. It's literally that I was like I wish it was more complex than it's not. It's like you and I would, if we weren't married, we'd be 70, be like, you want to get motorcycles? And be like, yeah. And then one of us would die. When you have major diseases, like you recover faster and better.

So there's some of that stuff, to me, that's less important than the, yeah, the anchoring that provides a household that provides, like, the kids' success, the community's success. And then I think there's some biology to it. I think we're designed to be matched up and ride or die. There is the complexity to explaining it that we have not been able to articulate probably in the seven years we've had this podcast. My frustration and the reason we started this podcast is I was tired of the entire world painting headlines of how horrible marriage is. It all ends in divorce and pain and disgruntled people and heartbreak and hardship.

But like you cannot articulate why. Because yes, you're going to sacrifice time with your friends. you're going to sacrifice money and dreams potentially. But it is so much more fulfilling than you can ever know, but you can't know that until you give up all this stuff and get married. And it's almost like trying to tell people why faith is so amazing. I don't even know how to tell you, but you've got to trust me and you got to do it.

There's an anchoring that I think we've cut the thread to every institution in our world now, right? And so we're all floating around and anchored. And so that leaves us trying to chase the next good feeling. And there's something about being rooted with another person saying, like, until one of us dies, we're going to make this thing. We're going to figure this out. And, man, yeah, it's a powerful pair bonded anchoring that's pretty rad. And it is super hard. It is very, it's the hardest thing you'll ever do.

Yeah, yeah. But it gets, my experience is that the hard, the hard gets a little easier because, like, now we have so many reps of arguments. and like working through issues where she is a different perspective than I do where I'm like, oh no, I know that this is like really frustrating that we have different perspectives but I know that in result

is going to be so much better because we have all these reps at it, you know? Good for you. How long have been married? Nine and a half. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, it's funny because they both pause. Yeah, I know.

Yeah. And you both give a different answer which is kind of cool. Like, we didn't, we didn't figure that out until we sat across the table and we're like, all right, the marriage we had. is over. Are we going to call it? And if we're going to call it, we're going to be adults.

We're not going to be jerks. We have two kids. We're going to be grownups. Or are we going to do something completely new? And I'll remember that conversation forever. I was, I brought my wife on stage at an event one time. And I was like, hey, want to tell about that time that we almost called it. She's like, the one time? And I was like, well, I wasn't going to tell all of them, but here we are. But like, but I remember her saying, if we've chosen this, if we've co-created this miserable marriage, that means we can choose an awesome one. And it's only now,

do I know innately in my guts? Like, we're having a disagreement, we're having a fight, this is uncomfortable. But I'm not going anywhere. She's not going anywhere. And that's the question I think most people wrestle with is

if I'm totally honest, if I tell the truth, if I really say what I want right now, they're going to leave. And once you close that, there's no more exits off the highway, and you can do some pretty amazing stuff. But if you...

Okay, going down this rapid hole, if you are a person within a marriage or a relationship that has this debilitating fear, because it is debilitating and can ruin a marriage or a relationship where you're like, I know they're going to leave at some point. If they get to know me enough or if I do enough, they will leave. Can you come back from that? Can a marriage come back from that? Can you fix that in a person or is that just something that someone has? Yeah, I mean, I think, again, that's the air we breathe that we're a burden. that the world would be better off if we'd just get out of the way

like think about this like I texted you maybe a month ago and said hey there's some packages on my front porch could you go grab him I'm out of town right yeah yeah I don't know if you know this story which we couldn't find him yeah as a whole but another neighbor had come together another neighbor had come pick him up for me

which again is why you look like if I don't broke into your house or stole up I was like if I do it or wrong yeah I'm so awesome which house it's awesome Andrews are great neighbor um but but can i just if i'm totally honest like i was uncomfortable sitting in that text because i don't want to bother you guys and like nobody ask each other for a ride to the airport anymore you just uber nobody asks like hey can i borrow some eggs dude i just instacart like

our whole culture is designed to say like i'm a burden so i think the challenge in marriage is people get married and expect somebody else to fix that perceived burdensomeness that the world would be better if I wasn't around or if I'd just get small. And so yes, someone can come back. That other person can't bring you back. You have to decide I'm worth the work to go, come to believe that I'm worth being loved and then allow yourself to be loved by this other person. So in a relationship do you technically believe, is there a technically believe that's awesome that a relationship can be too far gone? Or no, because if both parties are are willing.

I'm a pretty big redemption guy. Great. Yeah. I mean, there's too many of those. I mean, they're like silly Instagram tropes, but like she signed the papers

and he was walking and she's like, no, and then they made, you know, whatever. You got mail part too. But I do think two people can sit down and say,

um, the marriage we had is over. I'm willing to build something new, if you will. I do believe that. I ask that and that technically believe because of you could go through every hypothetical situation of like but he or she did this and it's like if you have two willing parties who want to fix it you can kind of come back from literally

anything yeah but if you have one person who has turned that switch off and they're just like it's over yeah it's done yeah and that's constant that's often what I'm telling folks is like hey he left you a long time ago he just still lives in that house like he's gone like he he he's out on the marriage and that's what often happens is somebody just spends their life chasing and chasing and it's over just you all haven't drawn up papers and so that's tough can i keep going i got it i have more question okay so you find yourself in this situation someone's gone emotionally mentally now bring faith aspect into it yeah where as a if you have a faith built household to be the most faithful spouse,

you would keep praying, keep working, keep hoping that they're going to come back someday. Yeah. How do you be a Christian with someone who's checked out and say, this is just what I'm going to do

for the rest of my life? Tell me more. Like if you have a checked out spouse, who's, like you said, someone's living in the house but they're gone from the marriage. So I, so... How do you be a faithful Christian

and not... I'll answer this, but not everyone will be. likes my answer on this. I want your answer. I think that modern faith communities have distilled the word infidelity down to intercourse with somebody else. Yeah. I think infidelity is a much bigger picture. It's about wholeness. And I think you can cheat on your spouse with a golf course. I think you can cheat on your spouse with financially. I think you can cheat on your spouse in all these other ways. And I think inside certain church communities, they weaponize that. I've even

I've sat down the pastor this is years ago who said abuse physical abuse is not a reason to leave because it says infidelity and that meant sexual like and so I take a much broader picture of what infidelity means and so if somebody is out of the marriage but they want you to file so that I can walk around and be the martyr they've already laughed they've already cheated on you with right and so then there becomes a how do I continue to honor God how to continue to honor faith how to continue to take care of these kids and not continue to walk them through an electric fence every time they walk through their front door that's not honoring god either right this is such a dynamic thing though it's such it's a ever-changing scoreboard because the two different perceptions of

the reality that's happening oh dude I'm golfing and Sean it's it's the one time of year of golf that's Sean's like I can't believe you're golfing right to her it's like I'm not undermining that perception versus mine but it's a big deal if I'm out or whatever you know that infidelity it's like I have just seen more and more the responsibility of having friends that aren't just my yes man like and it's it's not a gossip when when I'm talking about my marriage or Sean with them it's like hey I need your perspective on this because I don't know if I'm out of whack and I don't want to if you're telling me I can't believe she would do that I can't believe she's upset at you and then that just simplifies my disbelief or like it's just gasoline on it yeah yeah it is it just so hard it's

a massive responsibility to say am i being level-headed about this am i seeing this correctly or fairly i mean i don't even know what the word fair means and marriage to me it's like are we being who we said we were going to be and so do we come back to the table together here's a great example so we live right on the corner from the comedy club from zanis right and um i don't know people know where you live i'll give you their address it'll be in the show notes right

um the uh um but i do a lot of public speaking and i'm enamored by stand-up comics i think they're they're masters and they're not only masters of what they do but they also work really hard together to sharpen the craft yeah so i've started hanging out there all the time and now it's like i'm gonna do 10 minutes

can i can do 10 minutes and tell some jokes and it's like hey can i do my so i've gotten obsessive and only recently made my wife go for a walk every week and so we were on another one of our long walk so that way we don't have to make eye contact and we can have hard conversations we're just walking

and she said hey can I can I say something hard I was like of course you put on the table but we're walking and she said you're at the comedy club a lot now and I was like well you go to better

and she goes it's not that it's not that you're there I love that you're there I'm getting a better version of you because you're there all the time and you're laughing or whatever she said I remember this guy though back when you were 26 and you went into an MMA gym

and you lived there for three or four years you got enamored with punching and kicking people right she said it's a pattern of a guy that I love that's feeling like the rest of his life is out of control and so it wasn't about golfing it wasn't about going and hanging out with comics or whatever it was about she loved me enough to say I see a whole picture in you

that I've been down this road with you before and are you okay like are you sleeping I know you're not sleeping right I know you're up, wandering around the house. Are you hanging out with Andrew again? And y'all just do a bunch of supplements in the front yard and do a push-up together. But it was a, but you see what I'm saying? So golf is never the thing, right?

It's not the thing. It's the can we sit down at a table and be like, I'm going to go spend some time with my friends, some guys that hold me accountable. We're going to have a good time, get some son and whatever. And you're able to say, it would be awesome if you were here, but that's awesome for all of us. Or you be able to say, I need you here. And you go, done, right? That, to me, is the integer.

That's, like, whole. That's, that's fidelity. Now, they get stupid with, like, like, you know, it would be great for a marriage if we start sleeping with other people. Like, there's a point when it gets out of balance and stupid, right? Like, but, but, um, that, yeah. I know there's not a specific answer to this question, but trying to, to mesh what we, you and I were talking about versus Andrew's question of. Did I step in something? Are you like to golf and?

No, not at all. Yeah, not at all. Okay. But I'm saying, so going back to the conversation of you have someone within a marriage who's checked out, they're done. But then you also have this situation on Andrew's side where you have disgruntledness maybe within categories of like how people are spending their time. So in the middle lies a phase of like marriage is really hard. You go through phases. You go through phases where you don't like each other. You love each other. You're in a marriage where you don't like each other. And those phases can last a while. How do you rationalize within those phases of life that I just need to support and hang on and get through it? Or how can I discern that, like, they are checked out and they're done and they're not coming back? I think it's a willingness for both people to be honest about where they are. Like, the first time I had, like, a bad clinical bout of anxiety, I was a wreck. I was a mess.

I was like trying to be friends with the cattle prod. It was tough. Like even my buddies, you could just feel him like, y'all went out without me. Like, dude, what's up? And I made,

like, they're like, yeah, man, there's a lot. There's a conspiracy theory is crazy, man. And the very first time that happened, I remember, it was,

I wasn't a confrontation, but it was kind of a showdown with me and my wife. I was like, hey, you're building a life with the kid that I'm not a part of. And I remember saying,

I have to. And that was us, both of us not having, the tools in our tool belt to like talk about it now there's been two or three seasons when i start getting pretty hyped up again and now we have a skill set that says hey i see this way up river and i've given you permission to see where i'm walking when i don't see the path right and to call me out on it and so i think it's a toolkit thing so the thing i one of the most common things i get on my show is we have three kids under five and usually is how it goes

he or she will call my show and be like or sex life is struggling and I'll be like tell me about it and we'll talk and we'll talk and we'll talk and she doesn't know if we're talking more and he's always doing this and he's playing video games and she's doing this and then somewhere 15 minutes in the call

she'll be like or he'll be like well we have three kids five and under I'm like bro lead with that man hang up and call me back in three years like this year it's winter put on a winter coat and spring is common just relax and so some of that has been able

to put on the table life is chaotic right now and we're going to get through this season together, if we can both be honest about the season we're in. And then there's, can I, I'm messing with a hypothesis. Will you all go with me on this? Yes.

I don't think I've talked about on any other show. I have a buddy, and I don't mean this in a triggering way. No. There's three of us. One guy's name was Todd, and then there's two of us named John.

So Todd nicknamed him Fat John and me Hyper John. And he's in HVAC and I was in education and now I'm a YouTuber and Todd's a banker. So Fadjohn's like one of my closest friends like that guy's like

gotten between me and he will die on the street for you. Okay? And he's a messy guy. He's just messy. He's just a messy guy. Not one time leaving his house, him leaving my house

after me having to pick up or all of us pick up like, dude, pick up. Like I've never driven home and been like, what is he trying to say about our friendship. I've never had that. And then I drive into my house that I co-own with my wife who

has been my, like, we've been together for almost 30 years, like dating and married. And there's towels on the floor. And I'm like, I knew what she... Like, I put so much existential pressure on her. And the Gottman's, they have that one line that if you distill down between money, faith, the one metric

is, can y'all just be friends? And I think in marriages, we put so much pressure on that thing to fulfill us that we forget like dude pick up the towels pick up the towels and go to bed like everything doesn't have to be this big existential

thing and then there's been times in my life when fat john's called and like hey we got talk man like you're not being the husband that I know you like man okay we this is like a die on the hill moment and I'm glad to have friends like him sounds like a good friend but it's like man sometimes just pick up the towel sometimes just like

dude your wife got three kids and you all are both working full time and you know how a bottle works like go to bed man like you're gonna live y'all will sleep together again one day i promise you go to bed like so some of it is just we put some much existential pressure what about me what about me and there's something about me just be a good friend can i ask you a question because so i'm trying to wrestle through uh we're writing a book on essentially commitment okay and you've mentioned like burn the boats that mentality yeah you also just use the term season and there is with like institutions or

specifically marriage, this trust-it aspect of like, hey, you just, I know this is daunting and this does affect the rest of your life, but it's still a good decision. Not everybody, by the way,

on the internet or YouTube thinks that you should have these burn the boats mentality. It's like, whatever, we can talk about pre-nups or all the little different nuts and bolts of it. But like,

how does one know that they're ready for that, that commitment you know what's the mentality going in it's like this one's good i'm going i wish it was more complex than this but like i think the maturity you have when you get married is like i'll wake up every day and i'm gonna serve you and i'm gonna if i'm pressing of faith i'm to pray to god that you wake up every day and say i'm to serve that i don't think a lot of people who get married are they mature there yet i don't think we were mature i sure wasn't i sure wasn't okay so so it's not about i know she's the one it's i'm ready there's no such thing as i'm ready to be married

because i'm ready to be married i'm choosing to be married i'm choosing to love you even when i see you at your most unlawable i will still choose to love you and sometimes that means i don't like you but i'm gonna do the next right thing that's like a total shift though of how it's talked about culturally where it's like yeah bro the the greatest love story of all time of all time is a horny 13 year old and 14 year old who sneak away and get married just so they can hook up and then they die in a murder-suicide pact what is this?

Romeo and Juliet two teenagers that's the most like right that's madness that's insanity that's not real and so like

yeah StarCross Lovers was like every bit as real as the Matrix is probably kind of real actually but like it's science fiction it's not real yet it it there's a great Eli Finkel wrote a great marriage book.

He's kind of like one of the marriage researcher goats. And he has a great chapter of a book called When Love Ruined Marriage. That's a very recent phenomenon. Love was never to be trusted because it was an emotion. It's a fleeting feeling. That's not how you build this important institution designed to keep you both from not dying, right? And now we try to reverse engineer it. Or let me say this way.

My granddad and grandmother were 73 and a half years married when my granddad died. died. Wow. And my grandmother was like, she's full Dolan. She was like, he couldn't awaited 18 more months. We'd get 75. She's awesome. She's hilarious. When he died, literally half of her went into the ground. They were soulmates. But in 1940, whatever, when they got married, that idea was silly. You become soulmates in the rearview mirror. You can't, we try to hack that and try reverse engineer. And right? And it's just not how it works. Well, and everybody wants the formula for, like, how do you know you're ready to get married? What do I have to have, like, in line and in an order?

And what am I looking for for a spouse? How much money do I need to have? Will you choose me tomorrow? That's it. Yeah. And it's more so, I think for us, we were young when we got, we were 23. I was 24. Yeah, 24.

And I think even more so, because I don't think we were that mature to even say, like, I'm going to serve you. Because I think we were still very much in, like, our selfish. well you're in your early 20s yeah but I think you and I both made a decision to try yeah like I'm gonna I'm gonna like not try to end this I don't mean it that way or like not try in the sense that I think there's an end but we both stood at the altar and we're like you make sense for me to try life with if that makes sense and then it evolves to become something so much deeper and so much bigger and that's what I say like I don't think you know I don't think you know what you don't know.

I do think I was just with somebody who's incredibly successful a thousand times better looking than I'll ever be and has built this incredible puzzle and it's just missing a piece. And now the search is how do I find the person to fit in that puzzle? And I think that in our culture now

where everybody's like the order of importance is get your career, get your finances in order, and then the next luxury is find a person that can go into the picture you've already created for yourself. And I think the benefit of getting married really young and dumb is you don't have a puzzle. You have this fantasy

and what you want this picture to look like and there's nothing real and so you'll have to build a thing together. I think it's hard because you have to decide I'm going to take apart this picture and rebuild, co-build a new picture with somebody else

and the more successful you are and the more secure you are financially and the more you got your own house. all those things that we've been told that those are the keys and that's that like those are the steps to to salvation if you will it's really hard to then bring somebody else

into that it's really tough that's really well said because you're also like oh I have this really nice puzzle don't and how can I form our relationship so you don't really mess with that puzzle and whatever but here's what's crazy people who are highly successful who have a formed puzzle don't want to be with somebody

who will just be a puzzle piece right they want someone who will challenge them and lean on them and be like, that's stupid. And what about it? So the more firm your puzzle is, the harder. I think it's just really tough. Yeah, I agree. That hits very close to home with friends of ours.

Yeah. Where I'm just like, I've seen friends of ours find people who would make phenomenal spouses. I'm like, what are you waiting for? Just propose. Like, just do it. And they're like, oh, well, there's this one thing. I'm like, one thing. You're going to find 5,000 things over the next 30 years.

Yeah, yeah. Which is also the problem with the internet. Now you can find so many things before you've been like... Well, and our biology is like there's maybe three marriable people in our little tribe. And two of them don't have enough goats, right? So there's really like one person. And our parents figured out for us. Yeah.

And now, yeah, our brains aren't designed for endless. Yeah. Right? It's not designed for that. But I think people get so caught up with this idea of like they're going to find the perfect person. Doesn't exist. But even if they found someone right now who they're like, they're perfect. They're not going to be perfect any year.

No. Because your life is going to shift and there's going to be something about them where they change and morph because that's what happens in life and you're going to be like, oh my gosh, my perfect person isn't perfect anymore. Right.

Or they're going to get the call that mom's got cancer and then they don't grieve in the way that your culture grieves or they clap when the plane lands and you're like, oh, what have I done? Right? Like that's that thing. What have I done, right?

So it's like, it's, yes. But if you find someone right now who's like, I don't want to, This sounds non-romantic. The whole thing is unromantic. If you find someone good enough, that's a phenomenal person to try to do life with. Yes. Romance is...

Esther Pearl talks about this so awesome. When you're dating, you're practicing safety. Will they answer the phone? Will they open the door? Will they text me back? Will they treat me with dignity when I tell them something vulnerable, right? You don't have to practice romance. You don't have to practice passionate attraction.

I think you're hot. That's why I keep texting you back. Like, I probably would, right? And so, that's our code word in our house. When I have a new suit and I come out,

my wife, she just look at me and be like, I would. And that's all I need to know. I'll wear that suit. That's it. But, like, but as a culture,

once you establish safety, safety and passion can't work, they're opposites. And so once something's safe, you exhale, your body exhales. It's a chemical change. And so we don't have a good,

model for practicing desire and that means I'm going to keep showing up and doing the things that I know you love and that's a very unlike you should do what you're like I'm gonna no man what if you woke up and I was like you know what my wife hates this haircut

I'm gonna but she tells me I look really good in this haircut I'm gonna do that you know what I mean and there's like and again it can get out of whack of course and it can get abusive and all that but if you wake up saying how can I love you man what a different way to live it's an open-handed free it's so much more freeing then trying to make the whole world love you in this imaginary way that you think you

it's a different it's a totally different way to do it which i think when correlated with the christian faith yeah the christian concept of god or like who we put in that top seat of christ it's like the person who did the most humiliating humble things lowered the himself down the most, amid the most sacrifices. Anyway, those, the marriage and Christianity, I think, do go rather well together in that sense where it's like, all right, all right, it's not about me. How can I love you today? Marriage is the whole analogy for the church, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It should be a race to who can, who can serve who the best, right? Yeah. And it's just, that's totally at odds with what our culture tells us. I mean, you made a huge sacrifice at the altar. You married a short girl. Is that what you wanted? And a blonde.

And a blonde at the time. You wanted a brunette. But see, look, you dyed your hair for him. I did. Wow. Way to give him to the patriarchy. Man. I have two disjointed, unrelated thoughts for you.

One is we just announced that we did this TV show is like the special forces. They had this whole cast of people from all over the place. And we were talking, we just made a YouTube video about how pleasantly surprised we were. at this at the process of showing up and we didn't we don't watch uh real housewives of whatever or this sister wives or whatever and uh and and and so we were like it was so fun to get to know people just for who they were and you're not you don't go back after meeting someone and google them and then you hear all their drama or the headlines or see their instagram pictures and you get their brand per se it's like you just get to know somebody yeah anyway we publish this

video and the amount of people who did not like the idea of oh this person there's no chance they could they could redeem themselves essentially you're like dang that's actually not a good way to live life i feel like yeah anyway i was shocked by that dividing the world up into us's and them is just such a silly yeah it's an exhausting way to live it also is an exhausting way to live because as that person who lives with like an us and them mentality, you got to live an absolutely perfect life. Yeah. Because if you don't, then...

You're a them? You're a them. Yeah. Is a chunk of your audience who listens to it? Are they people of faith? Yeah. Okay. I was walking down, I was the dean of students at a couple of faith-based universities,

but I'll never forget this. I was walking down with a theology professor, and we were going round and around about some big deep, blah, blah, blah thing, just dorks. and I remember he stopped and looked at me and he said this on this big beautiful faith-based canvas he said you know if Jesus was here right now

he wouldn't be here yeah I was like what do you mean and he looked there and he's like all these buildings he's like he wouldn't be here he would be down at the homeless shelter he'd been out at the HIV kitchen and I looked at him and I said then why are we here

and I'll never forget his answer he said that's the question all of us should be asking ourselves and that kind of end in the conversation like he wouldn't he would be whoever you think them is in your life that's where Jesus would be

period period and it's uncomfortable to think that way which tells me I need to go actively search out thems like if I have a natural like that's where I need to go which is why I hang out with you guys I'm just kidding that's why we're all together

exactly wait no I'm not ready I have one more dot Half, okay, one more. And then we're going to have kind of these rapid fire situational questions. I know. I need his advice.

I don't have an answer to this. I'm just workshopping it live. So, you know, I'm a good Texas male. I'll make up an answer. You did use HIN. You used the hard W.H and you did the win.

I didn't know if that's a Texas thing. Yeah, that was like the old guy. It sneaks out sometimes. I'm sorry. Anyway, you know what people say? say, oh, he wasn't faithful in our marriage? Is there any correlation in your mind to that concept of faithfulness

and, like, the great is thy faithfulness in the old him? You know what I'm saying? Tell me more about that. Why is the faithfulness in a marriage? Like, that's the same word as faith. How are you using the word faithful when someone references he wasn't faithful?

Cheated on him. cheating but I don't know how do you hear that word I hear it as like the way you described infidelity if he's not faithful

I mean no any number of stepping out especially in our society nobody is faithful on a daily basis with what you're served on social media and what you're listening to and what you're seeing

and hearing and thinking and like there's no way to be perfectly faithful yeah I just don't know if there's a correlation if it's just a coincidence that it's the same word or if there's like

actually, oh, hey, that's why that's the origin of he wasn't being faithful. Yeah, I don't know the etymology of that word, but that's an interesting question. I ever thought about that. Anyway, we can talk about that when we're pumping iron. Dude, somebody's working on their dissertation, smart guy. Okay, you can do the rapid fire. Now I'm haunted by that question. We got to move past it.

Now I've got to pull it apart. Hold on. So what's faith mean to you? How would you define that word? Or how would you mean faithful? How would you define faithful? No, I'm going to start with, I think my idea of, like, religion faith is more concrete, in my mind, than marriage, in that context of, like, marriage faithfulness. But I would say, I think, I'm starting to come, I think they're braided together. Keep going.

Okay, okay. I like where this is going. I would just say faith is what, in the Bible, it's defined as believing in what you owe. four and shoot hang it what is it what is a verse like Hebrews like what you cannot see come on okay so

so here's here's what I think here's where I think here's where I think our modern culture gets that verse wrong okay belief in things unseen yeah yeah is not an intellectual exercise

it's a practice okay it's a thing you do and I think we have taken all of the ritual and all of the tradition and all of the daily practices like an axe like showing up to the town square making sure everybody's got food and making sure everybody's okay we've taken all that away and we've gone to our little suburban houses and we are our little condos and we close the door and then we like to sit inside our

house and just say I believe I believe I believe I believe and I think belief is an action right belief is a practice the thing you do and so faithful in a marriage is I believe in this thing that I signed up for that at 24 I didn't know what it meant at in my mid 40s I don't know what it means I think I do. I promise you my grandmother at 73 and a half years of being married has a different belief in fidelity and faithfulness

and what marriage means. But I will continue to practice towards this thing. So I can see both of those working. So it's like a trust and if I do these actions then it will result in a good marriage or if I do these actions

then it will result in a fulfilling life in like the... I think that's a, I think that's a, a Wall Street-ized version of it. That makes it a 401k. If I keep putting this into it, it's going to give me this big return. And I think faithful is about relationship. I'm going to, I'm going to take a knee in front of something bigger than myself in front of God and say, dear God, I love you, please help.

And every morning I'm going to get up in front of my wife, I'm going to take a knee and say, I'm going to serve you, how can I love you? So when you're not faithful in a marriage like that It is standing up and me walking out the door and saying I'm doing to do this by myself Wow dude okay that was good I got the chills from that answer that's good That was good

That's good question I just gonna say I think you're making it's so literal But that's not how you would describe Faith as a religion Would you describe faith as religion to your friends It's like if you just follow the Bible's rules You're gonna feel better

No but I do like very all-encompassing. It's everything. The sense is it's the belief, it's your relationships, it's your practices. But I do like the challenge of proving to people why believing is good. I have this whole document that's called in defense of faith, which is like here's my argument of why you should believe it.

And it's like obviously a hilarious, silly exercise. No, but no, you know what that's going to be? That's going to be gold for your grandkids. Yeah, maybe. yeah like for really and it's good for your soul yeah i hired a guy last year uh is it 25 now yeah yeah last year my wife and i go on an annual retreat every year just to be like how how was a year like how are we doing and and then we give each other permission to like speak in like here's how i've seen you as a dad if i've experienced you as a spouse and then i take a half day or a day by myself like how to do

and had this question pop up and it was just a random out of the blue if i were if you were to ask me What are your most important things in your life? I would roll my eyes and be like, faith in family, right? And I've never had this voice pop up. How much have you spent on mental health learning mental health stuff over the past decade? And if I include graduate degrees and courses and books

and travel and all that, probably $150,000, maybe $200,000, like a lot of money, a lot of time and money. And then the next question was, how much of you invested in learning about your wife and your faith? $0.000. I show up at a Sunday school

that some dude opens a book and he's untrained and he just we sit in a circle and sing kumbaya and I'm like I'll pray for you bro

like that's kind of my commitment to that and so I asked my wife who's an old professor we're dorks but like make me a syllabus of you I don't know what podcast

you're listening to I don't know what books you're reading right now I don't know where your faith is and then I hired a guy like a coach and I was like I have a 14 year old son

he's 15 now but we have breakfast every week before I drop him off at high school. I need to be able to articulate to him what I believe. And I know how to pull apart everybody else's faith

and I know how to like slide into everybody else's room. And I'm not good at articulating exactly. This is why I think this is important. And so I think that exercise you're doing is really powerful. Even if your list ends up being dumb, the exercise is transcendent, man.

That's awesome. Good for you. You married well, Sean. I agree. All right. Do you want to ask you situation? Okay, kind of rapid fire, because... I talk too long, so you'll cut me off.

No, not at all. There's just a lot. I know, but I talked to long. A caller, people sent into our social media, and they said, first person says, I want a deep emotional relationship with my husband. How do we get that when he's never had that in his life before? My nerd answer would be, I would want him to go sit down with a professional and say, I know things here, I know my wife loves me here, and I know my kids love me here,

but I don't believe it here and that's a long journey and I'd want to know does you have a past with abuse or parents who broke out like I'd want to know where that comes from and then the bigger thing over here

is something as simple as man this can be two silly things that can be transcendent one there's a woman out of San Antonio that gave me this practice she calls it SOS skin on skin four times a day

before you leave the house hug for 30 seconds and do it until your shoulders drop no hooking up no nothing no no like leading to something hug before you leave hug right when you get back and then if you can in the morning before you get out of bed and before you go to just touch your feet together touch your hands together that's a I'd say nervous system settling practice and the second one would be asking one silly question every single morning how can I love you today give me one thing and let somebody practice being loved and that's a very hard thing for somebody who's

emotionally walled off. And can I say something unpopular? Yeah. Do as much work as you can to, I'm going to say this the wrong way and I don't mean it this way. Hopefully be gentle. Is what I mean. Be as lovable as you can. And everybody's worth being loved. That's not what I mean. But if you sit down and you're like, he's not even holding my hand. He's not putting his hand on my leg. His, he'll feel that. If you go first, if you go first, if, If you make the first move, if you nudge closer, if you let him feel loved,

that gives his body at least a chance to feel permission to go receive that too. That's what's so fascinating to me about marriage, though, is because if I ask that question, how can I love you best today? The first day, and it's like a cold response. And then I do that for day two, three, and four,

same response. It's like just an interesting exercise to continue to beat your head against the wall And be like, I believe something is going to change here. But ultimately it does. You know what I'm saying? It's lifting. Yeah.

If you're not in great shape, man, you go do a hard workout. You're sore, but you look in the mirror. You don't look any different. Yeah. And you look up six months later and everything's changed. Yeah. And there's something about being willing to put your hand in the fire and say, how can I love you today?

I don't know. Why keep asking me that? Yeah. I just want to love you. I'm going to do one thing. Pick one chore. Just do one chore that you don't normally do. and over time

either you'll find out your marriage is not in a good place or those that ice begins to melt it was kind of surprising to me you made the lifting analogy you know just kind of you're always running up

and down the street and you're really in your booty shorts with no shirt on yeah yeah dude you standing out on your front porch

just oiling yourself up every morning when I run by is so I thought it was weird but then like it's super on brand for you I thought it was an Instagram thing

that's just who you you are it's awesome everybody does their thing man it's awesome he's just out in front of his house just like oiling up it's awesome oh thank you for this oh okay man you look good if i if i had your upper body i would oil up too for the whole neighborhood it's cool okay next how to navigate trigger ping pong when you both have trauma you're working through in a relationship i got a hot take on this one you get two you get two triggers and then it's on you if there's more than that then it's like if I get to go see someone if my wife

says a thing and it sets me off fair fair if it happens again I get a restaurant she's like hey will you stop and I get instamat this after the second time it's my responsibility to go to a professional

and ask why is my body trying to protect me when my wife is trying to whatever but it's my body that's trying to keep me safe and it's my body that's detected something in this environment's not okay, which is why I'm getting triggered. So it's my responsibility to go. If I walk around through the world trying to get everybody to not trigger me, it's an exhausting world that will collapse on itself. And then to specify more than two times ever? No. Or two categories.

Oh, dude, I get triggered on all kind of stuff, right? Like, it was like a revelation when I was talking to a therapist buddy in mind, like my daughter. She's mad. You've probably seen her. She climbs up on top of the mailbox. She's mad at me. She'll come up there and just sit and like, but I'll be like, hey, Josephine, give me a hug. And she's like, no, Dad. It sets off something to me that is like primal. Like, oh, dude, it has nothing to do with a nine-year-old for God's sakes, right? And so I'm bigger than her. I've got bigger muscles. I can force her to hug me. I can force her to stand right here. That's not the problem. She's hitting a button that's inside of me. And it's my job to go sit with somebody here in Nashville and say, like, hey, I'm not okay. Like I have buttons that are so sensitive And a nine-year-old can set them on That's mine, right? That's mine And so this comment

Like I keep he keeps triggering me He keeps triggering me Then you need to go figure it out And it's not that doesn't mean the relationship's gonna survive That just means you're gonna get to You need to ask the hard questions Why does my body keep trying to keep me safe Around him around her

And that's a that's an ownership question It's always funny to me You pull up social media And it's all these guys talking about You gotta do something hard every day wake up at 4 a.m. and do the ice bath or wake up and run a marathon a day for 50 days or it's like, dude, honestly

try to be married. Empty the dishwasher. Empty dishwasher. Yeah, but like when you shave, clean up all the little hair and you think. Yeah. That's hard. That stuff is so hard. And it's like waking up and I'm going to try to be self-aware today

so that I can make sure that I can love my wife. It's like, dang, that's really hard. That's way harder than three minutes in an ice bath. Dude, I was in there multiple times today. That's not hard. Yeah. It's annoying. It's not hard.

Yeah. When I opened my eyes and my wife came in and I got in late from an event last night and she's like, hey, you said you were going to take. I must have said two or three weeks ago. I have no recollection of this that I want to drive Hank to school today. Yeah. She's like, hey, he leaves in like 15 minutes. And I was like, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, got it. That moment, if I can exhale and go, what's one nice thing I can do in this in our bedroom before I leave that will make her day a little bit better?

that's hard yeah that's hard I'm exhausted I'm tired I've no having it in coffee I haven't lifted I haven't did all like my morning routine I'm taking on my potions and powders what's one quick thing I can you know what I can make this bed and I can go around and pick up all the socks off the floor

and I can put them to hamper that's hard yeah it would have better life you know I mean it's I don't know I think we over over dramatize some of it yeah how to support a spouse that suffers with depression that's my role best case well again

depression is kind of like if you have clinical depression you can hold their hand when you'll sit with a physician like clinical depression is a real deal and it's scary if it's um what i would call instagram depression which is people are sad or it's become an identity or it's a i don't want to do anything um i always want couples to have conversations when things are good those people don't have those conversations until one of you spun out or one of you's exhausted or till you don't have any money in the account or to one of your kids is like you find out they have pornography on the computer whatever you wait until there's a crisis moment

and when there's a crisis moment you're in fight or flight and nobody's learning anything and so when things are good like hey when you get low how can I like what are things that are annoying or how can I love you well let me put this way

one of the greatest gifts my wife ever gave me was going to the hospital for the birth of our second kid she gave me a list of questions to not ask I like that because she knows I'm like are you okay and it was like do not ask I'll be in pain the answer will be yes

do not ask if I like but That was a gift. It wasn't being annoying, right? So it is asking on the front end and then having a game plan for when somebody starts getting depressed, someone starts getting low. Here's a great example.

This is like a few weeks ago. My wife came in, just walked straight in the door and said, I need to borrow your nervous system for 20 minutes. Put on Brooklyn 9-9. That was literally the greatest gift she could give me

because she would have sat down and be like, what's wrong? Nothing. What's wrong? Are you okay? Did I do something? And I would have made it all about me. Like, oh, I guess I'm not successful.

I mean, I would have gone this whole rabbit trail and really her body had she was running kind of low and it was pretty disdemic and just not feeling good and she curled up like a golden retriever we watched Brooke and I and we laughed we watched that same episode 50 times

22 minutes up she's like that was awesome she gave a kiss and literally she perked back up but that was something we'd already planned and so I think getting upstream of that as much as possible advice for toxic mother daughter relationships mother unwilling to abide by boundaries

one out of four one of one at a three about 30% of the calls that come into my show are about adults who have cut their kids off, their adult children off or adult children who've cut their parents off. And it's, I think it's

I think it's a disaster. And so I would say, like two adults sit down at a table and say, you're my mom and I love you and how can I love you? And I also know that that conversation doesn't go well a lot. But there can be a lot of good that comes

from that chapter ending and the new one starting, right? And that's, here's, in those hard conversations, I have to own, how will I be able to sleep tonight? And for me, I'm going to sleep knowing I was willing to have the hard conversation

and I was willing to treat you with dignity and respect and say, how can I love you? And I was also willing to take it when you clap back and said, you can't, right? That's hard. And I'm gonna go grieve it.

But it's the unspoken conversation. I think she's gonna, you don't know. Just go have a conversation. which is man that's that's a tough ask yeah okay three more my husband is obsessed with his i or my husband is obsessed with his phone and scrolling social media how can i get him to prioritize us um use i statements and not use statements yeah it says marriage counseling 101 like sit down and say um i have this feeling in my chest that i'm you'd rather

may not be here or that the phone is more important than me or I miss you or I love you and I feel like I have to work through your phone and if you come at somebody with like you always have your phone out whenever you come up man you've just declared war and they have to fight you back but an eye statement is an imitation um but the first time you use an eye statement it's really good as long as there's like a softening that happens but the second time you use an it can be manipulated it's kind of fun yeah i feel like it becomes a you statement like you know what i mean it's it's it's it's using it's it's using the side door to get to the house but but you're still in the house right if you come barge in the front door if you come barge in the front door somebody might try

to fight you but yeah it's coming to the side door you're still going to be in the same living room yeah okay okay um that's a good way to say that yeah okay how do i help my husband feel like he's helping with the kids when they only want mom 98% of the time who do that one hits home for me because I could not express what kind of a failure I felt like when my, I couldn't get my son to stop crying. Like I felt like such a failure.

I took his first 18 months so personally. Like insanely personally. Like I wasn't good at this because it never occurred to me that like he's just a like a nervous system with skin on it right now and all he wants is food and warmth and comfort and that heartbeat that he was up against for nine months.

right um and so i don't i don't i mean she can say that she can tell him that um honestly i think that guy needs some other men in his life that are a little bit further down the road that can say hey i know we get it and this this is heartbreaking and this sucks and here's some things you can do to feel like you're contributing um but that's a tough season but it is a season the end yeah i can't keep my daughter off me now yeah yeah it was and i dude i felt like such a failure yeah yeah i also hopefully this is like a part of this question but just to specify it the husband also has to be actively here we go down with the patriarchy sean right no like yeah like you have to be you have to be um um a father that is plugged in plugged in and here's what i did i felt like a failure

I didn't say anything because I was embarrassed and ashamed I knew unconsciously I can support my family by making more money so I started working way more and then way way way more

and then way way way more and I drove the car away from my family and in an effort to try to do something that was productive for kid number two it was like

she doesn't want me how can I help it was a totally different experience there but yes you have to have a guy that's willing to come to the table and say okay I can't have help with this lump of a thing right now that wants nothing to do with me um that's a really

classy way to talk about your newborn child lump of a thing um but how can i love you right now like is there some things i can do to help that's hard man it's hard last one i have two little kids and intimacy now feels like a requirement weekly not a desire what do i do what do you think you got more kids of me we do weekly date nights to like learn how to like date your spouse again gotcha read that question again

I had two little kids and intimacy now feels like a requirement not desire not a desire what do I do? Um I guess that question's super loaded and it can be everything from

hormones to like I don't know like a bad episiotomy it can be a thousand different things it can be a really jerk of a husband who's like hey it's been six weeks so doctor set like so they can be really loaded there and it can also be that season um where you got two little kids and your body's not yours yeah your body's a jungle gym right like there's always somebody that wants something from you and then when your pawing husband comes in he's like hey baby and you're like i can't have another human touch me right so it might be that it might also be that awkward like my body's different you're different we're all different and like how do we like

come back just that awkward um i like to say this when you have a kid your marriage is over and y'all get to choose to build a new one and you get kid number two that marriage is over it was a fun season when you just had one kid yeah you thought it was crazy it's not um and then you have kid number two and it's like okay we have a new marriage and i like that idea of like we get to decide, are we going to work on coming back together again? And then there's so much into that question. I think that was like what I meant with our answer is

we had to schedule a date night every week that even if we don't like each other in that season, we're still going to go and it helped build like emotional intimacy again where it's like you're away from kids, sit down, get to look each other in the eye and get to relearn who each other are after kids because always having kids screaming your name and stuff is not a lot

of room for conversation anymore I really think it was such a helpful predictable safe place to have the hard conversations like you were talking about earlier don't do it when there's a crisis sure I mean we would there would be some date nights where we would not talk I mean we would not talk

we just sit there and eat food and it was it was still kind of nice though because I don't know like it was just you and I and I and it was getting repetitions at being together in a way that otherwise we wouldn't have had. It's the, it's the, I mean, I hate to keep coming back to this, but like, it's some days you go to the gym and you don't have great workout, but you went, and you go again, and you go again. That's intimacy.

Yeah. Is that showing up? And this is, man, this is a really fraught. I'll just ask all of your listeners to be grown-ups. Sex is tricky because it's the one, it's one of the last remaining. places where um feelings drive everything like i did not feel like working out this morning and you do it anyway and halfway through a workout i'm like dude i'm doing this and then occasionally i don't feel like it and i start to work out i'm like dude i can't i'm i'm i'm wiped out and so there is a part of

if your wife's like we're having date night right i don't feel like i'd rather just sit on the couch and scroll Instagram I'm gonna put on my I'm gonna put on my pants to fit and we're gonna go out right and so it is one of those like I keep hearing from people after people after people especially after kids and and this over generalizes but wives will say like I didn't feel like I'm sex I don't feel like it but once it got going I was so glad right and it was a good distraction and we had a good time it wasn't great it wasn't the Super Bowl but it was we had a good like and and then more more I'm getting calls from women saying like he doesn't want to be with me he's exhausted or he's fried or he won't get off a stupid phone or he's put down the stupid fantasy leaks like and so it's just

something about like letting feelings drive every um every beginning of anything is not always a great thing um they're like a good light on the dashboard but they don't have tell the truth and so there's something about all right we're gonna i'm gonna give us a whirl and we're gonna cut the dinner short. I'm so tired. I've got to go to bed. Cool. And we keep using dinner as like, like, um, but like, you know what I mean? And, um, I know that can be uncomfortable because there's people, I don't want ever people to feel like I ever have to do something that I don't want to do. That's not what I'm saying. But, um, man, if we wait till we feel to do anything about you, that's, I mean, I don't know. I would never exercise. I would never go do hard stuff. I wouldn't

start a new book again. I never feel like writing a book. It's miserable, right? So all the things that are good in life rarely start out with I feel like I want. Dr. John Delonley. Delonley? I was going to say Dr. Dr. Doctor.

We're great friends. He doesn't even. What's your name again? My good friend, Daryl. Dr. Daryl Jones. Do you have to say two doctors in front of your name?

Is it? You just call me John. That's what my mom calls me. Thank you for your time. For those listening that aren't aware of Dr. Deloney's books, check them out.

He's written several. How many, Did you just hint that you're I've been a new one Yeah Okay it's not done yet No no no okay This will be the fourth

Two and a half Okay The first one was like a little Thin quick book That kind of took out from under us But yeah Okay My daughter says

I only have two real books Okay He also has his own show Follow him on social media I highly recommend it I've learned so much from you And thank you for joining us in person Hey thank you

Before you cut You can edit this out but don't. Y'all are great parents. Like, do you know that? Like, when I'm just out at my house, like, when I see, man, like, it's so awesome.

Just watching your kids flying down the family. I know, but, like, I always wondered, like, man, if I'd worked really hard in college, like, I couldn't have made it. You all have different brains than I do, and I see it in your child, like, oh, that's the genetic wiring of, like, elite-level athletes. Because he is amazing, right?

all your kids, but like, man, it's hot, it's cold. Like, y'all are great parents. Like, kudos to, like, I'm glad you are my neighbors. It's awesome. It's good, man. You're glad to be your neighbors. And I judge your parenting all. You should.

Thank you. It's awesome, man. You're a great parents. I'm glad you're my neighbors. This is fun. I'm looking forward to the next one already. Same.