The Dr. John Delony Show - A Sexless Marriage, Money-Mooching Parents, & Infidelity

Episode Date: October 7, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So, send us your questions, leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291, or email [e-mail]. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 2:45: Husband is messaging other women on Facebook, I feel betrayed. 21:08: I'm 19 and my parents are draining me of money; what do I do? 27:03: My husband and I don't have sex anymore 39:24: Lyrics of the day: "I Was Wrong" - Social Distortion tags: infidelity, sexless marriage, sex, intimacy, finance, Esther Perel, Jack Moran, Emily Nagoski   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.

Hey, on today's show, we're going to be talking about adult themes. So if you've got little ears in the room, take cotton swabs and shove them way down deep there, or send them outside, tell them to go be human beings, get some cuts and scrapes and play in the yard. We're going to be talking about social media and cheating and marriage. We're going to be talking about a young man whose parents may be using him for money, and we're going to be talking about somebody struggling through a sexless marriage and what to do next. Stay tuned. Yo, yo, good folks. I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. The show for you, about you, where we walk alongside one another,

talking about relationships, relational IQ, mental health, parenting, falling in love. Sometimes we talk about people who don't know that hallway traffic rules are the same as the highway. So if you're going to text and walk down a highway, oh, nope, you're going to not walk down a highway. But if you're going to text and walk down a hallway, walk on the right side. Or you're going to get some donuts and coffee in your hair. I don't know why that's so hard. Walk on this side or that side, just like you drive your car, right? So whatever, if you're looking for honesty in a world where truth doesn't exist anymore,

if you want a first or second opinion, if you want to learn how to walk down a hallway or learn how to talk, which I'm not doing very well this morning, I'm here to walk with you. So give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Again, you can email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. People are emailing all over the world. The support has been off the charts.

It's been extraordinary, overwhelming, and beautiful, so thank you so much. Email askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. Leave your number, how we can get in touch with you. Let me know what's going on in your heart and your mind and in your relationships, and Kelly will reach out and see if we can get you on the show. Just a quick update. The show launched a few weeks ago, and the response, like I said, has just been second to none.

Could never have imagined this from a guy that listens to like three podcasts. And that's only on occasion. This has been overwhelming. It's been a dream come true. Big shout out to Kelly Daniel and James Child, Zach Bennett and the squad who is putting this thing together behind the scenes. I'm grateful for them. Thank you all, and I'm just grateful for you, the listener,

who keeps tuning in, the YouTube folks who keep watching. Thank you so much as we are trying to figure out how to be humans again with one another. So let's go to the phones. Let's start with Beth in Bristol, Virginia. Beth, how in the world are you this morning? I'm good. How are you?

Good, good, good. How can I help? Well, I've been married for 12 years. We have two small children. And I found out a few months ago that my husband has been messaging other women on Facebook. And a couple of them I've seen were not, you know, just kind of benign, but there was one where he was talking to this girl and it sounded like, I couldn't see the whole conversation because I think he had deleted some of it, but it sounded like they may have known each other before, but he proceeds to tell her, and I'll kind of be PG about it, but proceeds to tell her how attractive he thinks she is.

And that's all of the message I've seen. But I've been kind of struggling with it, trying to figure out, is this like cheating, or am I kind of overreacting about it or and how I should approach him about it so Beth what did you say to him how did he respond when you talked to him about it well I haven't talked to him about it yet I haven't talked to him about it it kind of threw me for a loop and okay um I'm just you know I just don't really know what to say to him about it yeah so paint me a picture I guess paint me a picture. Kind of blowing up, I guess. Paint me a picture of your marriage. How is it? How have things been? You know, they've been pretty well.

You said that with hesitancy, that's been pretty well. Like, give me, when we got married, we had a pregnancy that I went to preterm labor and lost a baby. And so we've been through a lot, several deaths in the family and on and on. But I mean, we get along pretty well. We don't really argue very much. You said you have young kids. Tell me about your small kids. How old are they? We have a 10-year-old and a

soon-to-be 3-year-old. Okay, so you're in the same boat as me and my wife. Alright, so y'all are flat on in it, right? Yeah, my little boy was kind of a surprise. Yes. Surprise! Yes, but it's a good surprise on most days, right? Yeah, yeah, he was a good surprise.

So, cutting through all of the this's and that's. No, actually, before we cut through anything, I've got to know, who have you talked to about this? Nobody. So you've just sat on this for a few weeks, all by yourself. Yeah, yeah. How did you stumble on these messages well um he's kind of guarded about his phone so i mean i don't go on it a whole lot but he uh had left it over there and it deemed or something and i was just kind of curious you know who it was um and it was a message from this random

person i was like i don't even know this person you know why was the message from this random person. I was like, I don't even know this person. You know, why would they message my husband? So I looked at that and then I seen the other messages. So did something in your heart and mind tip you off that something's not right? That the boat you two drift next to each other on, they're starting to drift apart? Or is this just you happen to grab the phone? Like I said, you know, he's kind of guarded about it, about his phone.

He rarely kind of leaves it just laying around. After I had our son, something similar kind of happened. He said it was nothing, but he was on Instagram. And I don't even know how i came across it now but um it was like he had posted a comment on somebody else's picture and i guess that's how i seen it but he had sent me something in spanish and it was like you know you're as beautiful as a rose or something like that so something very specific he sent that to me like previously that day in another message and then i was on Instagram just looking around and

I've seen he had posted that on some other girl's picture. Yikes. Yeah I confronted him about that then and he's like no that you know that was just an error or something and you know we kind of had a little discussion about it but. So has he ever cheated on you before? Has he ever cheated on you before? Not that I know of. You know I don't have any physical evidence that he's ever cheated on me. Physical evidence, because now we're a detective agency, right? Yeah. That's right. So the ultimate question here is this.

Do you feel betrayed? Well, yeah. I mean, it's really upset me. But, you know, it's kind of like, you know, it's kind of like pornography. I mean, I've mentioned, because he has, I know he has watched porn before, and I told him that I don't like it and yada yada, and he says he's stopped or whatever. But I've talked to other people about it. They're like, well, porn's no big deal.

I'm like, is this more like kind of a porn issue? Well, so that's where I'm asking you is the only voice that matters right now, and I'm going to walk you through a couple of things here, but the only voice that matters to me right now is you, and do you feel like you've been betrayed? Yeah. Okay. So in my opinion, then it's cheating. If you think it's

cheating, then for your marriage and your values and your context, it's cheating. And so you notice the questions I asked you, which is who have you talked to about this? Because you're going to get all kinds of different, if you go to the magazines or the Googles or your friends are going to get all kinds of different, well, you should just think this, or this is no big deal, or this is a big deal. And that can be really painful because in your heart, you're thinking, no, it is a big deal, right? Yeah. So that's kind of what I was wanting to get an opinion about. Is this a big deal or should I be concerned about it? Here's my thoughts on cheating. And these are hard and these are probably countercultural. I took these directly from who's the matriarch of relationship language in the modern world, and that's Esther Perel.

And she writes a lot on infidelity. She writes a lot on marriage relationships and how couples work through things. And as I was going through her information, one thing stood out clear to me, and it was a heart stop moment for me because it made me have to look in a mirror too. And my guess is that 99.8% of the people listening to this and watching this are going to have the same moment. But as far as she's concerned, as far as I'm concerned, cheating, infidelity is a secret. And that's the full sentence there. It's a secret. And so, we live in this culture where the definition of cheating keeps expanding, right? It's just getting bigger and bigger,

and the access and the ability, and as is a quick text is a flirty bump into somebody in a hallway is going to grab lunch and have coffee with with female co-workers or is it you have feelings for somebody at work they're a fun person to flirt with but you're never going to cheat physically right and so um at the end of the day I think you know if someone or something is cheating if it involves secrets, if you can't tell the other person and the other partner. And so I had to be honest with myself and think, man, how many times over the years have I cheated then under that same definition? As people are driving now thinking, well, don't I get my own private life? Or people watching the YouTube like, well, I get my own private. Here's the thing, man, a relationship, a marriage means you become one. And so when your right arm starts hiding things from your left arm,

that's the very definition of infidelity, right? And most of us think of cheating as, I didn't sleep with anybody. I didn't put this there. I didn't kiss anybody. I didn't hold their hand. And so I love that Esther Perel says, cheating is a much bigger picture. It's this idea of desire. It's this idea of eros. And a secret becomes a brick of fire in your soul. And so I don't know anything about your relationship, Beth. I don't even think about your husband. I don't even think anything about that, right? What I can tell you is just because somebody is chatting with somebody else doesn't mean that your marriage is broken. It doesn't mean that he doesn't love you, right? Often those kinds of things are about him. There's a great guy, his name is Jack Morin. I wrote it

down here. The erotic equation is attraction plus obstacles equals excitement. Or as Esther Perel says, we are most intensely excited when we are a little off balance, a little uncertain, or poised on the perilous edge between ecstasy and disaster. And so often cheating isn't about the person you're leaving. It's about leaving you, the person you've become. And often in relationships, without thinking about it, you got two young kids, you've been together for a decade or more, you've been together for two years or more, and it's not what you thought it was or life became life. You want to leave the dead, undesirable, frustrated, abused, lonely person that you are. And so my question for you, Beth, is this.

Paint me a picture of you sitting down to talk to him. Do you want to go to war? Do you want to blow things up? Do you want to know what's wrong with you? Like, does this make you question? Am I still beautiful? Does he still desire me? Or does this make you want to fight for him?

Right? Well, I don't know about this. Unfortunately, I don't know about the third one so much. Cause you know, I kind of see this as he's the one going out and doing this. You know, it's not like some girl messaged him and was like, oh, I think you're really attractive. And he was like, well, I'm married or whatever.

It's him telling this other girl how attractive he thought she was or whatever. But, I mean, it does make me angry. In what way? Angry for how dare somebody be in the heart of my husband? Or angry, how dare he did this and he's throwing everything we've got away? Probably a little bit of both. Okay. And, you know, it does make you wonder, is this the first time he's done this? Is there other times that I just don't know about that he's done this?

And it also could be that the person on the other end of this phone, on the other end of this phone, is a 72-year-old coworker who he says, you're beautiful as all get out. Probably not. But here's the deal. You don't know. And you don't know because you have a secret now from him, which is that you know this thing. And that you're secretly playing detective behind closed doors, and you're secretly having all of these imaginary conversations with him. You're secretly judging him, watching him like a hawk.

And I'm not saying you're out of bounds on those things, but what I'm saying is you're living in secret too. Yeah, that's true. And so under my definition, under Esther Perel's definition of infidelity, of cheating, it's this idea of holding a secret, right? And so you're not stepping out of the relationship erotically or physically with somebody else, but you're stepping out of the relationship as this 30,000 foot Hawk judge, right? Having fantasy conversations with yourself, with him. You've probably even imagined running into this other woman and how

you're going to do whatever, you know what I mean? You start having this world and suddenly this guy laying down in bed with you has no idea that his wife is literally on fire from the inside out because you're carrying hot bricks too, right? Yeah. So can I ask you a couple of hard, hard questions? They're going to make me not a fan. People on the internet are not going to like that I'm asking you these questions. Okay. And I'm asking you this not because you're the woman. If you were a guy calling me with the exact same question, I'd be asking these exact same

questions. Okay. This has nothing to do. I think women have taken heat for millennia for your job to make sure he stays fired up and at home and blah, blah, whatever, dude. So I'm not asking this because you're the woman. Okay. Am I asking you this because you're the woman? No. Okay, good. All right. You're listening. Okay, great. So do you wake up every day or most every day with a single-minded mission to make your husband feel desired? That he is sexy, that he is vulnerable, that he is safe, and that he is loved? Oh, wow.

Probably not. It's a yes or no. Probably not. No adjectives no no as far as you feel comfortable and safe do you try the wacky intimate things that he's into or do you value yourself and your sleep and how you eat and how you exercise not to have a hot body that whole thing's been perverted and is ridiculous not that but so that you can be whole when you enter his space when you enter into his world um i kind of lost you on that one okay do you take do you love yourself enough to be whole so that when you okay yeah all right that's that's what i'm asking

i mean i probably could do a better job well it's not a judgment thing it's just a thing to think through right do you look at a screen more than you look at his eyes here lately probably okay so here's all I'm getting at. Not that anybody causes anybody to do anything. I'm talking about an ecosystem or a context. I'm talking about people who cheat often don't hate the person that they cheated on. They don't want to not be in relationship with. They just want to feel alive. They want to feel desired.

They want to feel like somebody sees them and hears them and loves them. They want to feel that little bit of, ooh, this is a disaster. This could be dangerous. And when couples decide together that we're going to create that world inside of our tight, boundaried, up relationship, man, you can get a forest fire inside of a jar if couples do it right. And it starts with one another saying, I'm going to create a context. I'm going to create, as Emily Nagatsuki says, I'm going to create a world where it is all ons here and no offs. I'm going to create a world where it is all accelerator and very few breaks, and we're going to honor and love one another in this context.

And that still is not going to guarantee that somebody doesn't cheat because the price of love is hurt. The price of love is risk. And love is hard and love is scary. And so that's why direction, secret, free. Here's some things I love. Here's some things I don't love. Here's some things that would make my world be less full of offs and more full of ons.

And man, there's just places where Eros, desire, love takes off. And then, man, you're talking about a whole new planet for relationship development, for growth, for intimacy, when suddenly you're the one getting those texts. You're the only one getting those texts. You're leaving notes for him. He's working really hard in the gym, not just to have a hot body, but because he knows, man, when I work out, my brain is clear. My heart is clear. I do look pretty good. My testosterone is running. My body's working and I can fully be present with our kids. I can help with energy after dinner. I can help go to the store and I can can clear the deck so the romance party becomes a gasoline-fueled fire.

But at the end of the day, you don't know any of that, Beth, because you haven't sat down and had a conversation. Cheating and infidelity start with secrets. They start with secrets. Every couple defines those differently. Every couple has different values different things that are okay in one relationship and not okay in another relationship but they start with secrets and so you're gonna have to sit down and have a conversation please don't have this conversation when you're fired up when you're exhausted on the back end

of another fight set up a breakfast set up a, set up a dinner where you go out and you say, hey, I love you. We've been together 12 years. We've got two kids. We're exhausted. I feel us drifting apart. I found a message. I went to grab your phone. And if he throws a temper tantrum and says, I told you not to look at my phone, then he's a child and a baby.

And you can stop the conversation and say, you're not ready to have this conversation. We're going to have it, but you're not ready, and we're going to come back, and we're going to do this again because I love you and I love this relationship. But don't give up on your relationship for a series of texts just because there's infidelity, just because there is, oh, I've got a lot of secrets. I have a lot of things that I probably haven't talked about with my partner. Don't throw out everything you mentioned, right? You mentioned we've been through deaths together. We've been through a heart-wrenching loss of a baby, a miscarriage. We've been through all these things together.

He's a good dad. He's a good man. He's looking for excitement. Or maybe he's a jerk man, whatever. Start with a conversation. Beth, thank you so much for the call. Thanks for letting me spend a little bit extra time on this particular issue. We get a lot of conversations, a lot of questions about cheating, infidelity. What does that look like? We're in a whole new world. Check the show notes for some of the books that I recommended, some of the authors here, Esther Perel, Emily Nagatsky,

and then we'll go from there. All right, let's go back to the phones. Let's go to Cody in Somerville, South Carolina. Brother Cody, how are we doing? I'm doing great. Excellent, brother. How can I help? So I am 17, about to go to college, and I feel that my family is just trying to drain me of money for everything. So you feel like they're draining you of money. One is a feeling, one is a thought, and one is an action. So tell me what's making you feel this way. Oh, well, then it's all three.

Excellent. They asked me for so much money, and I told them that I'm trying to go to college, like I need money for college, I need money for an apartment, and a whole plethora of things. And neither one of my parents work and have worked for six to seven years. How did they get by, man? I have another brother, and he works all the time, and he just fell in that sinkhole with them.

Do they have any long-term disabilities, or do they just choose to not work? My mother chooses not to work, but my father, he got hurt and he's waiting for disability, but disability has apparently taken five years. Wow. So I can hear almost a hint of disgust in your voice. Is that fair? Yeah, that's very fair. Okay. So at the beginning, I didn't hear you quite right. You say you're 17? I'm 19. Oh, you're 19. So do you still live? I'm 19. Oh, you're 19.

So do you still live at home? Yes, I still live with them. Okay. But I'm trying to get out of that environment because I know that environment is just horrendous. So when do you move out? That's why I'm here. I wanted to ask about when or how I should move out and about what.

Tomorrow? Why are you still there? I can't just get a place immediately. I don't have enough income. Where are you working right now, man? I am working at Spinks Gas Station. I make, on average, most all the time, about $1,600 a month. Get another job.

Get two more jobs. Get three more jobs. What's holding you back? Nothing, really. I mean, the only thing that's really holding me from the apartment is probably the income. And also, I feel that it would be better to have a roommate to help with the bills, cut them in half. I feel that would be the best way. All right. I'm going to give you some hard love here, Cody, because you called me. Is that cool?

Mm-hmm. Just a second ago, I asked you, did your parents have any long-term disabilities? And you told me, my mom doesn't. She just doesn't work. My dad does, but evidently social security or evidently disability takes five years to come in. And in that sentence, I heard the disgust and the disdain and the frustration with your old man. I heard your disbelief of always having an excuse.

My dad's always got a reason why he's not doing a thing. He's just saying, well, the check's going to come, and there's going to be this other thing. And so here's the deal, Cody. I heard that in you. If you really wanted your parents to stop taking your money, you would have moved out. You're 19 years old, you're an adult You're old enough to be sent to war

You're old enough to buy smokes You're an adult If you want out of the situation, Cody Get out of the situation Start tomorrow, go get a second job, a third job A fourth job, work like crazy Talk to your brother and say Dude, we've got to stop floating mom and dad

They've got to start working They don't have any reason to go to work right now because money just magically appears and they're robbing you of your future. But you're always going to have an excuse, man. You've got a model in front of you of people who lay down excuse after excuse after excuse. Not to say that your old man is not hurt, man. Long-term disability sucks. It's debilitating. It takes your soul from you.

It takes your dignity from you. I'm not saying that he doesn't have some serious challenges. What I'm saying is I'm already hearing you, Cody. Well, you know, I kind of need to wait for a roommate and then. Dude, just go do it, man. Just go do it. Just go do it. Just go do it. Tomorrow, go get another job.

It's in the middle of a month right now. By the middle of next month, you should have an apartment lined up. You should have a deposit saved up. Go work like crazy. Go get it done, brother. And yeah, move out, man. And then go to college Go to a local community college there in Somerville

Go find a local community college there in South Carolina Get started on your classes Go to a local trade school And make some smoking money being a mechanic Being an air conditioning guy Go to school At a local community college And get on whatever it is you're going to be getting on

But the day you stop putting these barriers in front of yourself, stop inventing excuses, well, I need this. Just go, brother, run, run. You've got permission and freedom. And don't be a punk to your parents. They love you even if they don't know how to show it. You take the high road, treat them with dignity, treat them with respect. Tell them at this time next month I'm moving out,

and they're going to say, we've heard that before, Cody. And then you put together your plan and you live it and you work it out and go do it. Okay. After you move out, Cody, I want you to call me back. I want you to call me back and let me know how you feel. If you feel free, if you feel open, if you feel scared, I want you to give me a shout back and let me know how things are going. All right, Cody, you can do this. Just go do it. Just go do it. All right. Let's go to take one more call. Let's go to Valentina in Fort Lauderdale. Valentina, what is up? How are we doing? Hi, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a big fan. Thank you so much. I'm a fan of yours. How can I help? Thanks. Well,

I live in a sexist marriage for over nine years, and I don't know what to do. I've gained weight. I'm a little depressed. I don't know what to do. So sexless marriage, it's been sexless for nine years, or y'all have been married for nine years, and it's evolved into this? We've been married for nine years, and since we got married, his libido or his desire has decreased he has been tested his testosterone is low then we just recently tested and it's high now it's normal but his desire isn't there okay and it's hard for a woman to have um a higher desire or i guess maybe, I don't know if I'm the only woman that has this in America,

but my husband has like zero desires. We have intimacy once every two months, once every month, once every three months. It's very difficult. Yeah. So you posed several questions there. So number one, no, actually it's a big secret and it's a secret that weighs on the hearts of women, millions of women across the country. It weighs in the hearts and backs of millions of men across the country is this idea of expected libido. Guys are, the cultural narrative is that guys

are just these sex crave lunatics that are always wanting to do it and that's all they ever think about. And wives are prepped for this. Well, you know, he's just going to, and then they get to this marriage with a set of mixed-matched expectations, and then things just go awry. So out of just sheer curiosity, what are the things you've tried over the last nine years? Well, I've tried role-playing. I've bought very sexy lingerie. Even though I'm not into porn, and he was very into porn when we were dating, and then suddenly it just, he took off all the porn out of the house when we were dating. Our sex life was awesome when we were dating. And then

I've even suggested if that stimulates you, if you want to watch porn, we can try what they're doing. And it just, I don't know. We've even tried to set up a schedule to see if such days we can role play and we'll meet me at a bar,

we'll go to a hotel nothing you've gotten to a point where you're trying to make it happen what does he say he's very ashamed and we had a huge fight um a couple days ago i'm sorry i'm getting emotional no of course he just said that i have to deal with it and it's difficult yeah absolutely we've you know we are we've been trying to have a baby but like i told him we need to try if we're trying to have a baby we haven't been able to conceive in five years but we both need to do our part right Right. So I just feel lost. I feel very lonely.

Yeah. I feel very alone, abandoned emotionally. I've never, ever cheated on my husband. I've never wanted to do that, and I don't want to do that ever. I'm a Christian woman. I love my husband. I don't know what to do. And I sank into a little bit of depression.

I feel I gained 20 pounds because of it. I don't know what to do. So number one, I want to applaud you for reaching out and being vulnerable, okay? Thank you for honoring me with your trust there, okay? Thank you. The second thing is, as trite as this sounds, this is more than likely not a Valentina issue. Okay?

And I want you to, I mean, high praise to you for giving it all you had and for really trying to work through if it was situational-based, if it was desire-based, if it was all do fantasy-based, whatever it happens to be. It sounds like you've put in the effort and the love and the care, and you've tried to really do your part there, and I salute you, okay? I want you to hear that. The other side of you just got to deal with it, that's not an acceptable answer to me. And so where this call is hard for me is I can't talk to him. Right. And so my guess is, well, I don't even want to speculate. There's so much that leads to low libido. There is so much that leads to the potential for sexless marriages. And it can be everything from, like you said, shame. It's

relational based all the way back from childhood. There could be this moment when you became girlfriend, you became wife, and he's got a picture of wife, which is really just an elevated mother and guys don't like to sleep with their mothers. And so it could be this big psychological quagmire. It could be something not testosterone related, but something other, more medically biological related. It could be that he is finding himself attracted to men and not women. It could be a hundred thousand different things. And we've discussed that, you know, are you homosexual? Do you like men? He says no. He's not attracted to men. He's not a drug addict at all.

Right. He's not into drugs. He's not cheating. I've looked. And nothing. It's just. Here's the deal. Here's the deal.

Listen, listen. Listen. This is going to be hard to hear, but he is not a puzzle to be solved. Okay. And he's not a puzzle to be solved. Okay. And he's not a problem to be fixed. He's a person to be with, and what I'm guessing is the amount of shame he is walking through the world right now is extraordinary. And people who are feeling shame,

think of a backpack full of cinder blocks. And people who are carrying that around say things that they don't mean they get frustrated at the world just because their knees hurt just taking simple steps and so statements like you just got to deal with it that's not a statement of somebody who loves and cares and desires somebody that's a statement of somebody who's hurting okay yeah and so he's had an erection problem so he has ed ED. Right. He does have that. And the root of so much of that can be psychological and physical and trauma.

It can be so much. Have you guys gone to see a counselor? Has he gone to see somebody psychologically? We have the first year of the marriage because from the day that we got married, we had intimacy that day and then five months later, we didn't. And I kept, you know, pursuing him and nothing. So I did go to a counselor by myself. So at first, he did go for one or two sessions, but then he didn't want to. He was too ashamed to talk to a woman about the situation, about the fact that he can't get an erection.

And it's difficult for men than for women. That's what he said. Well, that's just, again, it's not. That's just, guys, him trying to package this in a way that he can wake up every morning. Because the shame is pretty overwhelming. So he's got to. This is not a, you know, I think this is a have to. He has to go see somebody and talk about the things that are wound up in his heart and soul.

And here's the thing. You can't make him do that. The more you try to control and pressure and push, that's more bricks and more rocks of shame in the backpack that he's already fallen over from, right? What you can do is you can go see somebody to deal with your frustration and your heartache, and you can model for him what somebody standing a little bit taller and a little bit taller and a little bit taller looks like, okay? I'm telling you this, but I'm also telling anybody watching this, anybody listening to this. Life is too short to live in a sexless marriage. Life is too short to live with bad sex, with people who don't talk to one another, people who don't communicate, people put up for a decade with things that they don't like, they're not comfortable with, things that they wish their partner was doing. Just because they carry these secrets around, they don't have hard conversations with one another. And so we will go two years, five years, 10 years, 20 years without having hard conversations. And suddenly, man, we find ourselves sitting on a couch, again, two inches apart from one another and 2,000 miles away.

We're on different planets, right? And life is too short for that. I'm speaking to the choir here. I know that the only person, this is going to be hard to hear, the only person, Valentina, that you can deal with right now, the only person that you can change is you. You can control your thoughts and your actions. And the things that he says, the things that he doesn't respond to, a decade of trying to become his muse is worn your soul out. It's heavy and it's exhausting. And I want you to walk with a professional counselor for a season to make sure that that doesn't become your shame that you're carrying. That somehow your value is diminished because you couldn't accomplish this thing in somebody else.

You have more value than that. You've got more integrity than that. And you are worth more than that. And I want you to model for him what getting well looks like, what being whole looks like. I'm not concerned the fact that he's got libido issues. That happens. I'm concerned that he doesn't care enough about you to go to the ends of the earth to try to be whole and well. And men listening to this, men watching this, there is not an excuse to not be honest with a doctor. There is not an excuse to not go see a counselor and say, help me. I am drowning the person that I love more than anything else in the world

because of crap that I'm carrying that happened to me when I was a kid. There's no shame in not being able to put down your own bricks, guys. I'm telling you from a dude that struggled with it. It's hard. It is hard. But when we commit to somebody for the rest of their life and we tell them that we love them, we have an obligation to go to the ends of the earth. The ends of the earth. That means going to have an awkward check at the doctor. That means sitting down with a therapist, male or female, I don't care,

and saying, here's what happened to me when I was a kid. Here's what I see when I look in the mirror. Here's what a wife meant to me growing up. And all of a sudden I can't be, I was wildly in love, passionately in love while dating, recklessly erotic when we were dating. And now that we're married, I lost it. The whole role transmission, the whole thing changed. I'm terrified of being a dad, whatever the thing is, the combination of medical, psychological. Guys, go see somebody.

And this is not just about sex. This is about depression. This is about anxiety. This is about guys who are worried about being good parents. I don't care what your issue is, guys. Get over it. The world needs us to step up and start feeling. The world needs us to step up and start being vulnerable. The world needs us to step up and start being vulnerable. The world needs us to step up and start being with people, not over them, connected to them, not in charge of them.

And so I'm begging you guys, go talk to somebody that will hear you and that will love you. All right, Valentina, thank you so, so much for this call. I want to thank all the callers today. Just remarkable. Beth and Cody and Valentina, thank you so, so much for this call. I want to thank all the callers today. Just remarkable. Beth and Cody and Valentina, thank you so much for everybody writing in, for everybody listening, everybody watching. Thank you for walking along this journey with us. All of us are real people. We're all on the same team.

We're all just trying to figure out what the next wobbly crooked stack is going to look like. And we all need each other. All right, so as we wrap up the show, whew, man, I don't often do this. I don't often do this, but I'm going to go with the greatest song ever written. I, man, sometimes I bring my JV game here. The greatest song ever written by the greatest rock band of all time. I'm putting a stick in the ground. I'm making a declaration, ladies and

gentlemen. Here it is off their 1996 record. White heat, white light, white trash, social distortions, greatest song ever written. Mike Ness and company rattled off this gem. It's called I Was Wrong. He wrote, when I was young, I was so full of fear. I hid behind anger and I held back the tears. It was me against the world and I was sure that I would win, but the world fought back and punished me for my sins. Well, I felt so alone and so insecure, but I blamed you instead and made sure I was heard.

They tried to warn me of my evil ways, but I couldn't hear what they had to say. Here's the magic words, gentlemen. I was wrong. Self-destructions got me again. I was wrong. I was fighting everybody. I was fighting everything,

but the only one I hurt was me. I was wrong. Whoo! If we could all say the words, I was wrong, follow it up with, I'm sorry, what a world this would be. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. you