The Dr. John Delony Show - A Bipolar Husband, Church Conflict, a Unique Look at Grieving

Episode Date: April 2, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   My husband is bi-polar. Once a year or so he quits taking his meds. How do I help and support him when he makes that choice? How do we know when it’s time to leave our church? My brother-in-law died a few months ago and my husband wants to buy his race car and race it in honor of him. I think it is a bad idea. What do I do? Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief - David Kessler Lyrics of the Day: "One Moment In Time" - Whitney Houston   As heard on this episode: BetterHelp   tags: bipolar disorder, marriage, family, disagreement/conflict   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

So you know when you get that call and you're super excited to talk to the person and you just go and you only get 70% of the call? That's this show. Stay tuned. Hey, what up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Glad you're here to hang out, grab a drink, have a seat, or keep walking or mowing your yard, whatever it is you're doing. James likes me to change up the front of the show.

Like, the front. It's not even called the front. It's called the start of the show, because it's not a human or a pet or a car. The start of the show. it's not a human or a pet or a car the start of the show and he'll say something like hey listen you say the same thing at the beginning of every show and it's kind of annoying don't do that anymore and then i'm like all right don't do it don't do it don't do it and then i just do it because i'm thinking about it so i need to stop and he also said go back and change and put on our same color shirts again because today was black and gray plaid day. It's like, you know, counselors give you the advice, don't give kids too many instructions at once,

like young kids, especially boys. I see what you're doing here. Because they only hear the first thing. Why did you have to gender this? You would. What a jerk, man. I wore the same clothes. I'm saying the things you tell me to.

No, you're saying things I tell you not to say. See, you're getting all specific now, and it's making me uncomfortable. That's all we're talking about. So, hey, we're so, you're saying things I tell you not to say. See, you're getting all specific now, and it's making me uncomfortable. That's all we're talking about. So, hey, we're so glad you're here. If you want to be on the show, and who wouldn't want to be on this show, because it is, it is, we are straight driving here, man. We are. This is a straight shooting show, right? Pew, pew. If you want to be on the show, we about relationships mental health your marriage what's going on um being well being not well what to do next give me a call at 1-844-693-3291 that's 1-844-693-3291 if you just like seeing a grown-up um be berated like a child by the people who aren't really his boss, but who can ruin my life, right? And it's a weird tension. They don't sign my paychecks, but if they want to, I would never

get one again. That's kind of how it works. Okay, a couple of cool things. Number one, I've got to get better about this. I'm super weird about selling stuff. I hate it. But the reality is that's how my kids eat. That's how I eat. My wife, too. It's how we all eat. And here's the thing.

This is important. This book is good, and it's short. And I don't want to be that guy, but it is. So if you are struggling with anxiety, if you know someone who's struggling with anxiety, check this book out. It's called Redefining Anxiety. You can get it at JohnDeloney.com, RamseySolutions.com. It's done so much better than anybody dreamt it would do, not because it's not good, not because we didn't think it was a great product, but because it struck a nerve with folks. And there are tens and tens of thousands of people are circling back to us saying,

for the first time, somebody said things in a way I can understand in a simple way and in a direct way. And now we can actually start tackling this thing that is anxiety. So go to johndeloney.com and check this out. And while you're there, here's the deal. I hear this a lot. I've got anxiety. I'm struggling. But more than that, I'm just sitting on the couch watching TV. I'm just driving home from work. I'm just, I got to

give a presentation at work in the next 30 minutes. And then bam, my anxiety alarms go off. I'm stressing. I'm kind of wigging out a little little bit and I don't know what to do at that point developed a guided meditation it's about 10 or so minutes and it is me walking you through step by step slow down and it's a it's a cross between a meditation and a guided relax it right relaxation right a couple exercises in there but here's the thing I'm going to walk you through breathing exercises show you how to lean in listen get a guided relaxation, right? A couple of exercises in there. But here's the thing. I'm going to walk you through breathing exercises, show you how to lean in, listen, get calm, find healing, quiet those alarms down,

and then you can go on to the next thing that you've got lined up. So go to johndeloney.com. It is totally free. I'm not going to charge anybody for this. It's something that is important, man. I need someone to walk alongside as I am learning how to learn some new skills, to learn some new ways of controlling my thoughts, slow my body down, listen to these alarms, and then go make the next right thing. So go to johndeloney.com, D-E-L-O-N-Y. Download the free guided meditation while you're there. Ten bucks. Grab a copy of

the Redefining Anxiety and start to reclaim your heart and your mind. So let's go to the phones. Let's go straight here. Let's go to Susan in Greenville, South Carolina. Susan, what's going on? Hi. Great to talk to you. It's so good to talk to you. I'm looking. Thank you. I'm looking for some suggestions on how to better support my husband. We've been married for 30 years. He is bipolar and currently he's on a really good treatment plan, good medical care. But a few years ago, he had a very bad manic episode that lasted several months. He actually left, did some very bad behavior, but we got past that. But about once a year or so, he goes through a time where he just wants to stop his medication. Usually I find out three or four days after he started this, he doesn't hide it, but he doesn't tell me.

I mean, I usually find out about it. He's not necessarily trying to hide it. But when he does that, that's when I have, you know, what I think is an overreaction. I kind of have a freak out with that. And I'm just trying to find out how to better react to that because I know it's periodically going to happen and how I can help him manage that better. I'm sorry. I know this is hard, right? Living, for those of you who don't live with somebody with bipolar, it's really hard because when they are on, when they're well, when they are working their treatment plan, they're pretty miraculous people to be around, aren't they? Yes, very much so. Like they can, the folks with bipolar that I've known who are on their treatment plan,

they almost have an ability to see into you, right? And to experience you and to love in a way and they can receive love in a way. It's almost magic. And then when they go up or down, it's a whiplash, right? Because you don't know who's real and who's not. And so tell me about this episode that scared you to death. Well, like I said, he actually left, just kind of went very manic. For those who don't know what that means,

what does very manic mean? He kind of went off the deep end, I guess, very suddenly. So what does that mean? I mean, he's like, okay, within a few, within a couple of weeks' time, he left me, just completely left. Started getting involved in some very negative behaviors, drinking, sexual behaviors, and so forth. So why'd you take him back when he came home?

I mean, he was remorseful. He's a wonderful man. I mean, he's worth it. I love him. He's my soulmate. Yeah. And he was, did all, one of the conditions was that he get on a good treatment plan or at least start that process, you know, better medical management. Yeah. And he's done that, you know, and he's, he's worth it.

Definitely. How long were you married to him? You've been together 30 years. How long were you married to him before y'all realized this was what was going on? Bipolar probably about 10 years ago. I mean, we were married quite a long time. So is there 20 years of unprocessed trauma before that? To where you were a lot of... Well, he had some issues with depression. Are you talking about me or him?

If he was on the phone, we could talk about him, but I'm talking about you. What I experience a lot is folks who love people with bipolar who don't know what that is, there is a lifetime, there is years and years of really tough trauma because everybody's looking for reasons why there's a depressive episode or why there's manic episodes or why there's these rich, lovely relational moments in between.

And that you end up, the partner ends up taking the brunt of that, right? Right. And, you know, for years I thought I may be responsible for the depression. You know, what had I done or what, how had I done anything to affect that before he was diagnosed? Yep. So do you have kids? I finally realized it's not me. I'm grown, yes. No young children.

Okay. So there's nobody in the house that we need to keep safe? No. Okay. No, no. No. So did you, quote unquote, to use your words, did you freak out before this big episode?

Or is this new for you? No, this is new. This is totally related back to that. Okay, cool. So I want you- I have a fear that it's going to happen again. Yes, yes, yes. And so it's important for you to know you're not bananas.

Okay? You're not coming unglued here. You're not broken. You have a very visceral, real experience of what happens when he doesn't follow the treatment plan. You've been on the receiving end of that, right? And so when you start to, when you see, hey, it's day four or five, he hadn't taken his meds, he's starting to get louder and more, you know, starting to get buzzy, or suddenly he doesn't go to work, you come home and he's still in bed, and all of a sudden those alarms spin up in you.

I want you to know your body and mind are working perfectly, right? You're not broken, busted, or anything. You can learn some new things, but you're not busted because you saw you can learn some new things but you're not busted because you saw it happen that one time okay okay and so walk me through what your do you have most treatment plans have a i wish this wasn't such dramatic language but have a battle a plan of attack if you notice something not right do y you all have that already ironed out? I mean, as far as I can call his doctor, that's an agreement. Okay, so are you part of that treatment plan?

I have. Can the doctor call you? Yes. Yes. Awesome. Awesome. Okay, great. We have a really good medical care right now.

Very cool. Okay. So are you anticipating, are we getting close to the season when he stops taking his meds? Are you just coming off that season? A few months ago. Okay. Yeah. Just coming off of it. All right. So tell me, tell me what happened recently. Well, it was probably right just after Christmas, which is always a rough time for him. And I just, you know, I noticed I noticed I do his medications for him. You know, I put them out and I noticed all of a sudden there was like three days more than there should have been. And I questioned him and he always admits it. And he always has a reason. He was

either feeling extra tired and it doesn't make him feel good. And I recognize that it is a down because he's not, he doesn't have that high. And usually he is agreeable to go back on it and talk to his doctor. So he does the right things once I confront him about it. But I have that initial freak out where I'm just like, how could you do this? We've talked about this. Sure. And I don't want to have that reaction. I don't want to. I reaction. I don't want to.

I love it. I would like to get past that part of it. So do you function as his mom? Like when you say like I do his pills for him and stuff, why do you do that? It's easier. Honestly, he gets mixed up with it and it's. Does he choose to get mixed up? He'll take the wrong things.

No, honestly, no. it's not a choice that he makes he he'll take the wrong thing daytime or night he it's just it's difficult for him okay but sometimes i do feel like a mother or a nurse you know i yeah and i i want to be a wife yeah see that at some point you've been together 30 years, right? So we're not talking we're three years in and we're going to change the trajectory here. Y'all have been together a long, long time. And so at some point, my fear for you is you're going to get exhausted being a mom. Your kids are grown, right?

And you're going to get tired of wiping booties and wiping counters and getting pills ready every day. I have to believe that's a behavior that if he needed to learn, he could. Maybe not. Maybe the depth of his bipolar is what it is. Can he hold a job? Oh, definitely. Yeah. He's a very hard worker. Even on his worst days, he always works hard what's his trade almost an over um he's in construction so he can build things yeah 100 chance he could deal with his meds if he chose to and i think have you ever processed with a professional the trauma that you experienced Or did y'all go straight to how can we help him to never do this again? That was more, yeah, that was more focused on him and trying to fix that. So here's, I'll give you a totally new analogy for you to maybe see this in a new light, okay?

So let's say my five-year-old daughter, she gets a tummy ache in the middle of the night. She comes in my room and she says, daddy, I don't feel good. And I wake up and I'm like, what, wait, what? And then she just barfs all over me, right? All over the bed. I can't get mad at her. I can get frustrated. I can get so upset and like, oh, gross, but I'm not going to get mad because she was hurting and she went to the one place that she knew, right? Then next time, I'm going to put a bowl in there in her room, right? Or I'm going to talk to her about, hey, when you get sick, go throw up in the bathroom and then come get me, right? And she said, great, daddy. And then

if she came and barfed on me again and barfed on me again and barfed on me again, then I'm going to get mad, right? Now you're just barfing on me. And I want you to follow this plan. Like I need you to learn this skill, right? And at some point, I'm going to feel really guilty for being mad at my sick kid. I'm going to feel, I'm going to say something in the middle of the night when somebody barfs on me that I'm going to be ashamed about, right? I'm going to have to deal with the fact that I didn't like how I handled this. I don't like being barfed on and I've got somebody who's not doing well in my house, right? So it's all of these things all at once. So when somebody's got bipolar and they're a grownup and they, you have been working with them at this point for 20 years, 25 years, and then this happens.

Some out-of-the-blue alcohol, drug, sexual misconduct, all this stuff happens. You can rationalize in your head, hey, my husband's not well, and he's going to follow this plan, and then he jumps on it. It's all about solving him and making sure he does the right thing, and you work with a doctor. I've got these rules and they're all there. But you've also got to deal with the fact that you've really been busting your butt for years. And he went and did that. And that hurts. And you got really mad and that hurts. And every time you think it's going

to happen again, it hurts, right? Every time my daughter comes in at 3 a.m., I'm going to jump up thinking she's going to barf on me again, right? And so what I want you to do is if you want to stop the overreaction, number one, you have to choose and say, I'm not going to overreact. I'm not going to. I chose to take him back. I chose that. And so now I'm going to learn some new skills, which is what you're doing, which is why you're brave. And I'm so glad you called. I really want to recommend that you go deal with you and not in a bad way, but you got to learn some new skills. You got to grieve this marriage you thought you were going to have that you never have dealt with. You're going to have to grieve the fact that your husband is somebody that right now you've got to like put his medicine out for him like he's a child. And then you're going to discover your voice.

You're going to discover these things that, you know what, I want in this relationship. And I think you can get, and then you can begin to work with him on, hey, we've been together 30 years. You're 50 years old. It's time for you to learn how to take your medication the right way. I love you, and you are all in. I'm going to teach you, and we are going to work together, but I want to be your wife. I want to be, you know, we're halfway done with life, right? I want to be recklessly in love with you. I want to have so much fun, and part of that is I want to stop being your mom, and we're going to learn how to do this together, right? And that comes from a place of making

meaning from the grieving that you're going to have to do. That comes from a place of you having to learn some new tools to move forward. All that starts with, I'm not freaking out anymore. I'm not going to give him my freak out. I'm not going to give him my character. So the moment you see he hadn't taken his medication, you know what's going to happen. That's when you're going to have a set of skills. You're going to have a set of people to call. You're going to have a, I'm going to go for a walk. I'm going to head out.

I'm going to, I'm going to download this guided meditation, johndeloney.com. I'm going to go out there and I'm going to consciously bring myself down. I'm going to take 24 hours and then I'm going to circle back because I know he doesn't not like me. I know he doesn't hate me. I know he's not trying to be ugly. He's not well, right? He's got some significant challenges. He didn't throw up on me on purpose, but it happened again. And so I'm going to lean back in, but I'm not going to give him that. And that's going to start with you going to find somebody to get well. So I want you to hear me say this, Susan.

You're worth being a wife and not a mom. And you're worth being a wife and not a mom. And you're worth being loved. And you're worth grieving this marriage that you've held together, more than likely, for 30 plus years. And it doesn't mean you're going to leave him. It doesn't mean it's going to get all sideways. No, it means your voice is going to finally be heard. Probably for the first time in a long, long time. So thank you so, so much for that call. Let's go to Peter in Bloomington.

Peter, what's up, my man? Hey, Dr. John. How are you? Good, man. What's going on with you? Well, my wife and I are at a crossroads with our church, and we're trying to decide as to whether we should stay, and we're not in agreement on it. Uh-oh.

Okay. So what's going on with your church? Yeah. Hey, uh, talk, talk into your phone, man. Yeah, I'm trying. So I had to schedule this on my, on my ride home. Okay. Um, sorry. No, you're good.

What's up? So it's a church I've been. No, I just lost it. Peter, you still there? Yeah, you, Peter. Are you still there? Yeah, I'm here. Are you there? Oh, there you go. Okay, let's try it again.

All right, so go ahead. Okay, I'm going in now. Sorry. So this is a church I've been to since I was a young boy. I'm an adult now with kids. And we had a pastor change about four years ago, and there have been some disagreements on the way things should work. There's been little hurts. There's been little offenses.

You're talking pretty vague, like little hurts, little offenses pointed at your wife, at the church community. Who's hurting what? Well, so our pastor came in and is, I don't even know how to say this. The initial offense was with my wife. She had lost a close family member, and no one from the church leadership really reached out to her or did anything like that. Okay. And so that was a deep seed hurt there's some very progressive attitudes yeah from our leadership regarding race and taking offenses at at different decorations here they've brought into the church that I've disagreed with.

And again, it's not all bad. It just seems like it's little cuts here and there that keep building. And my wife has had enough. And I would like to stay and work through it. And I know I'm not a grass is greener kind of guy. So I understand that. Nowhere is going to be perfect. But it's caused quite a bit of stress in our relationship in the last year or so. And we're trying to figure out how to work through it together. Gotcha. So this is less about when do you leave a church and more about how do you and

your wife come together to make decisions for the both of you, right? Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's all been centered around the church. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's. I mean, it's all been centered around the church. Sure. Yeah, that's the easy neon sign to point at.

So what is it that you want to stick around for? Well, I still have family there. Again, there's going to be a stress in leaving that church and finding another church and establishing relationships that way why does she want to leave? is she tired of listening to you?

is she tired of every week it's another thing that you're upset about and she's like let's just go or is she saying if I keep going to this place, I'm going to continue to be uncomfortable? Yes, some of that. I seem to have a beef more often than not

with something that's happened or something that's been said. Most of her friends are gone from the church now. A lot of people have left our church since a new pastor has come. So let me ask you this. What does winning look like here? Or let me ask you this. Let me back it up before that.

You talk about there's new attitudes on progressive thought. There's new attitudes on race. There's new attitudes on race there's new attitudes on hey we're gonna do things differently are you interested in sitting down and learning new things tell me about why this is or are you more interested in this is the way this is supposed to be y'all are not doing it the way it's supposed to be done. And I'm going to be here and I'm going to engage with this community until we get it back to the way it's supposed to be.

That's kind of a binary choice. Where are you? Well, I've certainly had to swallow my own pride and willingness. Say that again. You've swallowed your own pride in what? Yeah, I lost you, man.

Are you still there? Yeah, there we go. So you had to swallow your own pride in? Yeah, I've had to learn new things. Okay. And I've had to accept that. But at the same time, I think there are certain foundational things I'm not willing to move on. And I've resisted that, spoke to my pastor about it.

It's a pain per se. So, yeah, I guess I'm kind of a little bit of both. Okay. Sounds like you, I mean, there's one or two choices, man. It sounds like your wife is tired of either her husband hurting, tired of her husband whining about it, or tired of not being in any sort of agreement. And so she's like, man, let's just go somewhere else. And this is a place that you love. That's probably pretty well summed up.

Okay. And you've got deep seated roots here. You love this place. You love what it's been about. More importantly, you love what it has meant to you meant past tense. And now it is, you're looking to what the future is going to look like. And you don't know what that's going to look like.

And here's, here's what I'm gonna tell you, man, this ends up at some point with you leaving or are you running a minister out of town and nobody feels good on the back end of that either right and those are my only two choices i mean what's the third choice give give me the way we're going give me what a win is going to look like for you that one day your your pastor is going to call you in and be like,

you know what, man? You're right. I'm wrong. Let's go back to the way it was. I'm going to do a couple of sermons on how to go back. You know what I mean? What do you think the win looks like? Well, for the sake of sounding arrogant, I'm hopeful my wife can address some of her hurts and

grow past it and for but yeah i didn't have the risk of sounding arrogant. Say it one more time. Yeah, I lost you, man. So here's the thing. When you find yourself in a place where a community is moving one direction or the other from you, and you have learned some new things, but there's also a lines that you're not going to cross, whatever that may be, right? Let me, I'm trying to think of one that's non, it's not a third rail. Thinking about like learning math.

My son, I started teaching him the way I learned math, which evidently isn't cool anymore. And it's not the right way to teach a kid how to do math. My son is so much better at math than I was. And my wife attributes that to new teaching models of math. And at first I was like, oh, they're just messing with these kids these days. Back in the old days, I had to memorize the facts and whatever. And my wife's like, how'd that work out for you? And I was like, well played. And so I sat down and had my son teach me a few new things. And I thought, man, that's really good. And I did think, man,. And so I sat down and had my son teach me a few new things.

And I thought, man, that's really good. And I did think, man, there's just some stuff you've got to memorize. You've just got to memorize that 9 times 9 is 81. You've just got to memorize some stuff. But at the end of the day, I'm not teaching math. I'm not absorbed in it. I'm stepping out of that conversation. I'm not going to engage with it anymore.

I trust my teachers. teachers that are teaching my son and then they're moving on with it and so at some point you've got to say hey this community has moved on to a different place right wrong or indifferent I'm going to mourn it and grieve it and then I'm going to go create a new community

wishing your wife would change the way she feels I don't think it has to do with getting over her issues I think it has to do with getting over her issues man i think it has to do with she's tired of listening to you she's tired of every sunday the church is supposed to be a place where we go all say hey we're all broken we're all screwed up and we all look at each other and go oh man me too you too and everybodyales, and everybody locks arms, and then we go serve the least of these. We feed the homeless, we take care of the poor, and then we go about our week,

and then we circle back. And when church turns into fights and yelling, and let's go to war against everyone else, man, it's just, it's not what it was designed to be. And so my guess is your wife's done with that part of it. And man, I'm going to tell you, you're, you can go to war with a man, try to get the guy fired, try to bring your church back to its roots and make some changes and you can do that. And if you find peace in that, then so be it. My thought on when it's time to leave a church is this. When they're no longer upholding their mission to care for widows and orphans, when they spend more money on the church show,

on the lasers and the smoke than they are on actually serving others, when their identity becomes one of a fighting culture, other people, other people, other churches, fighting takes precedence over cups of water, feeding orphans, taking care of the least of these. That's when me and my family, that's when we're out, right? That's when we're out. When church becomes a show, when it becomes a performance, that's when we're going to step away. It also is a place where we hold each other accountable, right? We have hard conversations. But if we wait until these last few moments to do that,

if we wait until these third rail political, man, it's already lost it. So I don't know if that answers your question, brother. I'm sorry I lost you there, but it sounds to me like y'all are done. And I'd love to have you sit down with your wife and say, I think I want to go find another place. Where would you like to go? And then just go visit some other places, man. Try it and see what that will look like for you.

All right, let's take one more call. Let's go to Ellie in Philadelphia. Ellie, what's going on? Hello? Hey, Ellie, what's up? Hey, I'm sorry. My phone cut out for a second there. No, that's good. How are you? I'm doing well, thank you, and you?

Very, very good, very good. So what's up? So my main question for you today is my husband and I are not seeing eye to eye on a specific issue, and I am of two minds as to whether I need to dig my heels in and really try to drive my point home, or if I just need to kind of throw up my hands and say, all right, well, this is part of your grieving process, so I'm just going to be here while you work it out. Okay. Go for it.

So, back in November, my husband lost his brother in a car accident, and it was sudden, and nobody saw it coming, and it hit him really, really hard. I'm so sorry. Yeah. Thank you. So with that, as my brother-in-law's estate is finally starting to come in the line, and we're starting to figure out how it's going to be you know taken care of essentially there's this one item uh it's this race car what it is a race car my husband yeah my my brother-in-law like he he was like a minor celebrity in our community and like one of his things was he would take the car down to the track and win these races and things and cool so yeah i mean it's not i'm a huge and listen i'm a huge fan of both minor like minor celebrities in towns i love that that makes me so happy and i love ricky

bobby and so you have just met my heart on two different fronts. And so I am so grateful that you called today. Okay. So your brother-in-law was a minor celeb, which I love, love small town, minor celeb, race car driver. And he passed away suddenly in a car wreck, unrelated. And then you and your husband are having a disagreement. Yes, because my husband wants to buy out the rest of his siblings for this car, and I just feel like it's a bad idea. Why does he want to buy the race car? Well, of the previous times that we've talked about it,

he tells me that he really wants to get the car and do further modifications to it that he knew that his brother wanted them but didn't get a chance to, and he wants to take it down and do the racing and do further modifications to it that he knew that his brother wanted them but didn't get a chance to and he wants to take it down and do the racing and that kind of thing is he a car guy is he a car racer guy well ish and that's that's part of why i have my reservations because if he were even like a casual racer i probably wouldn't even raise my eyebrows. But the last time he took one of his own cars to the racetrack was like 2018. Okay. And so why are his brother and sisters, like, why don't they just give him the car? If it means a lot to him, why don't they just give it to him?

It's just a question of, because my brother-in-law passed away. He didn't have a will. So it's just a question of like who, all that legal stuff is what they're waiting on. Okay. Does he have a family too that's parsing through everything? No, he died single. Okay. All right.

So is the question about the money? Is it about his safety? What is your concern here? It's partially money, and it's also partially just, like, I'm not really understanding why he's so hung up about the car. Because, like I said, he's not even a casual racer. Oh, the car has nothing to do with racing. Oh, I figured that much. But it's just, I don't know. I feel like sometimes he kind of, throughout this whole process, he's latched onto some odd, in my opinion, odd mementos of his brother.

Like, you know, his brother had asthma. Do we want to keep his medical equipment? And I'm looking at my husband like, why would we want to keep his medical equipment when neither one of us has asthma? Yeah. So did he love his brother? Very much. They were very close. They're pretty close.

How far apart were they in age? Five years, but they were... My husband's the second youngest, and the brother that passed away was the baby of the family. Okay, so they had to grind it out together down there at the bottom, right? Yeah. How old is your husband? He is turning 39. Okay.

So every single thing that he gives away that you all get rid of is one more piece of your brother-in-law that's turning into a vapor. Every little piece. And so you can look at that, at that, um, asthma equipment and go, why would we need a nebulizer? And your husband doesn't hear that at all. That represents a little piece of his brother. And we sell the nebulizer. We give that nebulizer away. And then there goes another little piece. And then another little piece. And the thing about race cars, the thing about modifying, the thing about racing is now you've got a project. You've got a spirit that we're going to keep alive. Not in things, but you can never fill that thing, right?

It's about making meaning, finding meaning on the back end of this deal. And it's going to be, we're going to keep going, right? We're going to keep going. We're going to keep going. I'm going to do these things. And man, a few months out, people can spend a lot of money. You hear about people burning through their inheritances that way. They go do some daredevil things. I've heard of veterans who will go try to relive something to honor a lost fellow soldier. So, man, people can really go to some great lengths to try to make meaning, try to find meaning. But really what they're trying to do is they're trying to say, I don't want to say goodbye. And the longer I can keep this alive, the longer the person I love, then I lost is staying with me.

How has your husband grieved this loss? Well, we've run like the full gamut of grieving in our household. We've done the crying and the screaming and the irritability. And for most of it, I've kind of just kind of sat back and just let him work through what he's working through. But it's just with this car, like, you know, we have a one car garage and no driveway. So like, where are you even going to work on it? You know, that sort of thing. And so what I want you to do is not try to have, no, that's not fair. I was going to say, don't try to have rational conversations because this isn't a rational project. Does that make sense? No, I picked up on on that and that's part of my frustration because i don't know how to

because out of the two of us i'm much more the more practical one so i don't really know how to right so so handle all this stuff so let's see what numbers are getting thrown around like a purchase price well then the purchase price so much isn't the issue. It's only about like $3,000 to $4,000, I think. Okay. My concern with the price is mostly, you know, the cost of the modifications that he wants to do. And then we're looking at upping our car insurance because we already have three vehicles. Now we're adding a fourth.

Okay. And then, like I said, just the storage issue because we have, you know, most of our cars are, you know, parked down on the street right now because of, you know, the town we live in. Yeah. It's not like, you know, it's not like we have a nice big suburban house with multi-car garages and driveways. You can do whatever you want so one thing that

takes down couples that most people never fully grasp until it happens to them is what i would call competitive grieving meaning for some people somebody passes away suddenly in november it is a hard hard thanksgiving christmas season really hard and then jan It is a hard, hard Thanksgiving, Christmas season. Really hard. And then January is a little bit lighter. February is the gray months, but we're starting to make peace with what happened here. We're starting to pick up the pieces.

And then all of a sudden, someone's walking alongside us, and they just fall off. Right? And suddenly it's like, dude, will you just... Like, we know this is a big deal, but we all got to get up tomorrow. And they don't seem like they can get up, right? And so one thing I always want couples to be graceful with one another in is that balance between you got to get up and go to work. You got to get up and do these things. And man, and everybody grieves differently.

If it's $3,000 and he can come up with a storage plan, that's one that – here's the thing. He's not going to work on it. You know that. I know that. He may race it once in some big ceremony. Maybe. Maybe. Right?

Yeah, for like the one-year anniversary or something. Yeah, it'll be a thing, right? Yeah, for like the one-year anniversary or something. Yeah, it'll be a thing, right? And so for $3,000, you could get – that's money, right? But the reality is once the estate gets settled, your brothers and – his brothers and sisters aren't going to charge him $3,000. You're going to give him the car. And if they do charge him $3,000, come on, guys. Let him have the car for crying out loud. Y'all aren't going to do anything with it. And if he can come up with a storage plan that's not going to break the bank, that's going to be well thought out.

So that's where you can put some of this on him because some of this is a fantasy. It's a myth. It's a way to keep a ghost at the table. And every time you say, okay, make me a plan for what this will actually look like. How are we going to afford this? Here's our budget. Here's the reality of the money we have. Here's what the track costs.

Here's what running the cars and the tracks costs, and those are expensive, right? The tires and all that stuff is really expensive. Make me a plan for how we're going to do this. And then some of that may just fall away, right? And that may be a heartbreaking reality moment for him where he realizes we can't afford to do this. Or he may circle back and say, hey, Billy Bob down the street is going to let us store the car there. It's $3,000. I can pay for it.

We can pay for this. Can I just do this? And for $3,000, sure. High five. Way to go. And then we're going to budget every month, and we're going to not just go buy bumpers and new, I don't, I'm going to start talking, carburetors. I'm trying to sound like a car guy, which I'm super not. We can't get out of control because we're going to have this constrained budget here.

Or you can ask him to come up with a broader plan for everything all at once. And then you can say, are you scared to let your brother go? Because he loved you. And I want us to work towards letting him go be in peace. And it may still mean you end up with a race car in your driveway for a season, so be it. But it also may mean that he's going to have to do the hard work of grieving. So here's one thing I do want you all to do together. I want you to get David Kessler's book, Finding Meaning. It's the best book on grief I've ever read. And I want you all to read it together. James will put it in the show notes here.

It's by David Kessler. It's called Finding Meaning. It's a masterpiece, but it's something y'all can read together and it will give you the opportunity to ask him some hard questions that are going to come from the book, not from him. And it's a really clean, easy read, and it's not anything complicated or hard, but it's not anything complicated or hard, but it's going to let him express some of his thoughts and some of his feelings. And if making meaning is, hey, once a year, I pull this thing out of the driveway and it's 3,000 bucks, man, I don't care about that. You don't have a space in your garage, right? So that is a thing, right? But if it comes down to, I don't care about 3,000 bucks, $4,000

to hang on to something for my brother, that's not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. If it is, I'm going to go mortgage the house and do these things. That's when you, as his partner in life, as somebody who mutually helps hold him accountable, he holds you accountable, we can't afford to do this. We're not going to go bankrupt in the memory of your brother. That's not going to be a good stewardship of his memory. That's going to drive us underwater. And that's not a good way to remember your brother. But this book is going to give you all a step-by-step process to walk through that. So I know that's so messy. Everybody out there, this has been hard with COVID too, right? This has been really hard with COVID,

this idea of grieving together. My wife and I grieve differently at different paces, at different speeds, in different ways. I mean, that's hard. We've been together a long time. A way to cut through that is to say, hey, is this about this car? Is this about your brother? Or are you really sad that your brother's not with us anymore? Are you really sad that you had this business that just went away? Are you really sad that your brother's not with us anymore? Are you really sad that you had this business that just went away? Are you really sad that somebody betrayed you? Because, man, then all of a sudden getting angry doesn't make a lot of sense. Just sitting here in the suck of it for a while does.

And then I'm going to walk with you tomorrow because we've got to get up, we've got to shower, we've got to go to work. But it's about just grieving. And we all do it. And it sucks. And it's a part of life, which is why we need each other. Right? That's why I need Zach and James and Kelly, all of our friends, my wife.

That's why we need each other. Because hard things happen. Thank you so much for that call, Ellie. Man, I'm grateful for you that you called. Here's the thing. I'm going to throw a curveball here as we wrap up the show I had one song but I was going to go a little bit dark and I'm not the first time I heard this song was in one of

in elementary school during one of those it was like a show we did in elementary school, like a stage. And it was like, we all danced in the same way. We didn't dance. So we all moved and we had the same movements. And I think her name was Michelle Frazier. She ended it with a roundoff flip-flop was the awesomest thing I'd ever seen in third grade. She looked like an acrobat. It was incredible. She was a wonderful human being. But this song, we had to do all these movements together. It was so great. I think this was the song. It probably isn't even the song,

but I'm going to pretend it was. Okay. So in 1988, the one and only, right? The OG queen of earth, Whitney Houston, released an album. It was actually the 1988 Summer Olympics album, right? One moment in time. Whitney drops this gems. Check this out, everybody. Each day I live, I want to be a day to give the best of me. Imagine a bunch of third graders all moving on arms at the same time. I'm only one, but not alone.

My finest day is yet unknown. I broke my heart. I fought every gain to taste the sweet. I faced the pain. This sounds like a CrossFit song. I rise and fall, yet through it all, this much remains. Now it's super not CrossFit. Now it's like a CrossFit song. I rise and fall, yet through it all, this much remains. Now it's super not CrossFit. Now it's like a weird breakup song. I want one, one moment in time when I'm more than I thought I could be, when all of my dreams are a what? A heartbeat away, and the

answers are all up to me. Come on, man. Give me one moment of time. This is the line. When I'm racing with destiny, I don't even know what that means. Then in that one moment of time, I will feel, I will feel eternity. If you can solve that riddle, ladies and gentlemen, you're the smartest person alive. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.