The Dr. John Delony Show - Boundaries with an Abusive Father & Preparing for Holiday Family Drama

Episode Date: November 13, 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 at johndelony.com/show or leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 3:07: Teaching Segment: Family Boundaries During the Holidays 14:25: My husband has been drinking a lot since his parents died and I am having a hard time with it. 29:35: I was sexually abused by my father when I was young. He is trying to engage with my family and I'm not sure how to handle it Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life - Henry Cloud   tags: boundaries, family, alcoholism, marriage, resentment, bitterness, counseling, sexual abuse, Henry Cloud 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 talk about adult themes, and so be sensitive and be careful for the young ears in the room. I also want to point out that we take live calls and we often don't know where they're going to go, and so today's show can feel kind of jarring. We talk about family boundaries around the holidays, and it's fun, it's lighthearted, I'm being silly, and then we get into a couple of calls that are really hard. They're also about boundaries, about setting boundaries with addicts, about setting boundaries with abuse. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? What's up? I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show.

It's a live show where we show up and walk alongside people who are struggling, folks who are trying to do the next right thing, and fellow human beings who are learning how to be human beings again. We talk about everything on the show, anything and everything, no matter what's going on in your heart, in your mind, in your family, in your workplace, there are so, so many people across your state, across your country, across the world who are going through very similar things. And it just takes one person to be brave, one person that just reaches out and says, I don't know what to do.

And you're going to help so many other people. And on this show, we talk about falling in and out of love. We talk about loss. We talk about loss. We talk about family issues, scratching and clawing for hope. We may even talk about, hey, here's the deal. This weekend, this happened. If you're not a hunter, just hit the little forward button a couple of times and pass this. My son and I went squirrel hunting this weekend and we, we eat the squirrels. And I know that makes us weird. Like we are from the 1400s, but it is what

it is. We are hunting squirrels and I got a squirrel and I was cleaning the squirrel. My daughter showed up and she's four and a half and she looked at it or she's almost five now, and she was like, ew, ew. But she likes to eat them. And so we talked about the cleaning process, and we were just having a regular conversation. Well, that night, we do our bed pile. We read books and stories. And then we turn the lights off. And I tell my daughter, hey, I love you.

Have a great sleep. Hope you have great dreams. And as I was walking out of the room, she says, daddy, this is pitch black. And I turn and say, yeah, baby. And she said, and I quote, you know, that squirrel doesn't forgive you, right? So awesome. And I said, honey, you are right. That squirrel is not going to forgive me. So we're going to talk about everything on. That squirrel is not going to forgive me. So we're going to talk about everything on this show. We're going to talk about family. So before I get going on family, give me a call 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or email me at askjohn at ramseysolutions.com. That's askjohn, J-O-H-N, at ramsaysolutions.com.

All right, so I want to start today's show not going directly to the phones. I want to talk about holidays. This holiday season is going to be bananas, but it's also a gift. And I'm going to tell you why it's a gift shortly here. But one of the biggest frustrations I have is when folks pretend that the holidays just appear out of the mist, that they don't come on the same day every year, that you can't plan for them, that you can't expect the same conversations over and over again. And it might be financially, it might be about money, right? That how many times have we got to mid-November and we're like, oh my gosh, I can't afford Christmas presents.

Or it gets to be December 15th and you're like, I don't have any money left and I got to buy eight presents for fill in the blank. That shouldn't surprise you. That shouldn't surprise you. That means you're not living an intentional life. It means you may be out of control if you're not planning ahead, right? And even $10 a month over the course of 12 months and you got $120 to buy a couple of gifts for a couple of people, right? And even 10 bucks a month over the course of 12 months, and you got 120 bucks to buy a couple of gifts for a couple of people, right? But that's number one. But the bigger challenge is that we pretend that the same holiday feelings aren't going to show up every

year. That suddenly we're going to go to this same Christmas Eve event that we've gone to for 15 years or 20 years or 30 years, and that same uncle isn't going to pull us aside and make the same incredibly offensive ethnicity jokes, or that same grandma isn't going to try to pull your cheek off of your face, or that same granddad isn't going to corner you and start hammering you on politics and who you voted for. And I, can you believe that the fill in the blank, we just pretend that those things aren't going to happen this year. And we may think they're going to happen, but we just always end up completely psychologically and emotionally unprepared for the aftermath, for the fallout, for that dark plane ride home, or that silent sadness trip that you and your new husband

and your dogs or you and your older wife and your kids, you'll just drive back and it's that icky, weird, like, blech. Here's the thing. You got a gift called COVID this year, and I know it's awful to call it a gift, but I'm trying to find the silver lining, folks, so go with me on it. Here's the thing. We have an opportunity to change traditions. We have an opportunity to speak up and be heard in a way that we haven't before. Millions and millions of us have dealt with financial challenges, have dealt with employment challenges, have dealt with transportation challenges, have dealt with mobility challenges. Some states, if you leave, you got to quarantine for 14 days before you come back. You can't just leave for

a weekend and hop back into your same life. And so I want to talk about how to set family boundaries during the holidays. And I want everyone listening, all 33 people of all 33 of you, right? Who are mowing your lawn or riding your bike or cleaning your house or driving to work, whatever it is, how you might be listening. I want you all of us, I want all of us to, to agree right now that we're going to set holiday boundaries. Okay. So here, here's a couple of things we can do to set boundaries. Number one, you remember that you, Y-O-U, are in control of your schedule. Before you commit to travel or hosting plans, you decide what your limit is. Three days, two weeks. If you're married or you're going to be traveling with a boyfriend

or girlfriend, sit down and co-create a plan together. This is how many days we are staying. This is when we are going to leave. And then you are going to announce those plans to somebody else, whether it be your mother, your dad, your in-laws, the multiple in-laws you have to go to, your dad's new wife and your mom's ex-husband, whoever you're going to, you decide, you set the schedule. You determine it. And by the way, don't drive or fly thousands of miles to a place that's inhospitable or threatening. Just say no. Just say this year, hey, we're not traveling. And don't lie and say, well, we can't this year, but you could. Just say, I'm not going to come this year. I'm going to send gifts instead. I hope we can all

FaceTime. Here's what we're going to do. But you set your boundaries. Be honest about it. Stand up tall about it. And listen, if you do go and you say, I'm going to show up for three days, do not go and whine the entire time you're there. That's like bringing poison to the group. That makes you the problem. It's a waste of energy. It's a waste of time. It just brings everybody's moments down. If you're going to go, go with a smile on your face, go with joy in your heart, right? If you are so selfish that you cannot honor your grandparents with the night free from beer and cell phones, if you'll just comb your hair with a part for one night, tuck your shirt in, honor and respect him.

No, dude, that's not me, bro. I've got to be true to myself. Shut up, dude. Honor your grandparents or don't go. Don't go. You play dress up on Friday back when we used to be able to go to concerts and you'd get all dolled up for whatever concert you were going to, dude. You'd be like, I've got my leather pants and my cool boots or whatever it is. I don't know what you got dressed up.

But you can get dressed up for concerts. You can get dressed up for dates. You can pretend for a night or two with your grandparents. You can pretend for a night or two with your parents. Dress up. All right, so number two, decide beforehand what you won't tolerate and stick to it. For example, Thanksgiving is just a couple of weeks after the election.

I'm hoping we have a president by then. We might not. If you don't want to talk about politics, send an email beforehand that says, we will not discuss politics. This will be a politics-free Thanksgiving. Period. We will not talk about it. And if somebody violates your boundaries when you're there, walk out. Or ask for a guest list of who's going to be there. And if someone says, hey, I want to take a bunch of pictures of your kids, say, no. You cannot take pictures of my child and post them on social media if that's not what you want.

If you don't mind that, then rock and roll. Or if you have an alcoholic relative who puts you and your family in danger when they're drunk or they make everything weird. You say no. And here's the thing, just walk out. Just walk out. And if you have situations where somebody's not safe and you can't afford a hotel room in case you have to leave, then don't go. Don't go. You get to own you. Okay? Number three, have a plan when things escalate. What we were just talking about. If somebody always wants to front hug real tight and they start coming in every year, they're front hugging uncle, uncle, whoever. You can say, stop, please. I don't like that. Or that one uncle guys who always grabs you by the neck or behind the ear, you can look at them and firmly say, hey, stop grabbing me, please.

Be direct. Have a few phrases ready to go. Please stop hugging and kissing my kids, period. And if she keeps doing it or he keeps doing it, leave, right? If uncle whoever won't stop talking bad about a particular group of people, people who don't look like you from different religions than you, different geographic locations than you, you can look them in the eye and say, please stop. Please don't talk about that group in front of my family like that. Thank you. And if they continue, this is my house. I can talk to whoever I want to.

Bye, Felicia. I'm out. I'm going to leave. See you later. And it doesn't have to be dramatic and it's not a big stomp out. You know why? Because you're a grownup. Just going to take your kids and say, you'll have a great night and we will see you tomorrow. Or thank you so much. And we're going to head back and then you and your family can have a nutrition night off and just eat ice cream until your brains come out. All right. Whatever it is, set your boundaries and then have a plan for when things escalate. And here's number four, going back to the grandparents thing, understand your role. If you're a guest at someone else's house, recognize that you don't

have the same authority as you might in your own house. If you are a boyfriend or a girlfriend, or you're visiting your in-laws, keep in mind that you can respect their home. Be a person of dignity, right? If you are going with somebody to their parents' house for Thanksgiving, whether you're married to them or you're just visiting, y'all are just dating, that's not about you. It's about them. So if your father-in-law asks you to do some weird thing, if your mother-in-law asks you to get on the roof and re-roof the house, or, hey, tonight we're going to go do a weird family thing where we, I don't know, fill in the blank with whatever weird things your family does, just say, cool, I'm in. Or if it violates your

boundaries, just say, I'm going to step out tonight. I'm going to head to a hotel. You'll have a great fun time. Don't make a scene. Don't be dramatic about it, but understand your role. And if you can't pretend, if you can't dress up, if you can't honor your parents and your grandparents for one night, for two nights, God help you, man. Just don't go. Just don't go and make the holidays the moment when you, yeah, yeah, show them. Do that in July. Okay? And here's a note to parents of adult children. This is for parents out there.

If your kids can't travel to see you because of finances or other plans, let them off the hook. Of course you want to see your grandkids. Of course you do. Of course you have missed out on everything because of COVID. Of course you've been nervous and scared and lonely. But beating up and guilt tripping your adult children helps nobody. It puts them in situations that they can't deal with financially. It puts them in stressful emotional situations.

Be the grown, grown, grown, grownups. And you might have to let go of that fantasy and that picture you had of this gathering, this special meal, this photo by a tree, and you're going to have to create a new picture for what holidays are going to look like this year. If your kids can't make it, choose beforehand. You're not going to talk bad about them. You're not going to guilt trip them, but you're going to immediately go into, well, what's a new picture mode? We're going to have a, we had to do my mom's 70th birthday this year via Zoom. Was it ideal? Nope.

Was it hilarious and fun? Yep. It ended up being a blast, right? Whatever the new thing is going to look like this year, go for it. Everybody be adults. Everybody be compassionate with one another. This is the year to come up with new boundaries. This is the year to come up with new boundaries. This is the year to come up with new traditions.

This is the year to double down on respect and dignity and honoring one another instead of like, yeah, dude, I always wear my leather pants and no shirt to holidays. That's got to be me, dude. Stop. Quit. Look around the world, man. That kind of nonsense is killing us all. Be cool. Be cool. Right? Good. Okay. That's my discussion on family boundaries at the holidays. Let's all agree we're going to love each other through the holiday season. It's going to be hard. It's going to be cold. It's going to be a mess. We're going to just gut off the heels of the election. It's going to take all of us to be grownups, all of us to love each other and to smile for crying out loud. All right, let's go to the phones. Let's go to May in Cincinnati, Ohio. What's up, May? How we doing?

Hey, Dr. John, how are you? So good. So good. How is Cincinnati? Ah, chilly. That's, if you live above Oklahoma for the next four months, the normal response is cold, chili, dark. So anyway, that's awesome. Okay, so how can I help today, Mae? Okay. So I was calling a couple years ago.

My husband's parents died in a car accident. Hey, take a breath. Take a breath. And he has chosen to cope with alcohol. Oh, man. I'm so sorry. Turn a click. I'm so sorry.

No, you're good. So while you're doing that, I'll restate it. So a couple of years ago, your husband's parents tragically died. Was it a car wreck? Yes. Okay. So they died suddenly and out of the blue in a car wreck, and your husband has chosen to cope with that with alcohol.

That's been his numbing methodology of choice over the last few years, right? Yes, and it has started to spiral out of control. I'm coming up on three years, and I'm just starting to feel really resentful of him. He just really checks out, and I don't know how to deal with all of these feelings I have. So talk to me about him. You said, I feel resentful. I want you to verbalize for me, what does resentful mean? He works and he drinks and that is about the extent of his

day. He comes home, he disconnects from me, he disconnects from the kids. He doesn't really engage with us. He doesn't help me around the house. I have begged, pleaded, cried for him to get help to, to help me. And he's just, he just doesn't hear me. He would rather just drink and spend time on his phone and just shut down. So I'm going to ask a couple of probing questions. Okay. And you can, you don't even have to go into them. You can just yes or no. I'm okay.

I'm trying to get a full picture of your husband here. Has he been faithful all three years? Um, about a year ago I found him, he was talking to other women online. Okay. Has he ever been with any of them? He says no. Okay.

And none of them were local, so I doubt it. Okay. Is he going to work? Is he staying? Yeah. Is he, he's drinking, his drinking hasn't taken over to the point that he's not going to work anymore, right? No, he goes. Okay.

Probably hungover or maybe still drunk, but he goes. Okay. Tell me about his parenting. Is he engaged with your kids or is he just completely checked out? Completely checked out. Okay. How old are your kids? Well, they're his kids.

My kids are grown. Okay. They're 14 and 15. Okay. And how long have y'all been married? Um, about 13 years. 13 years. Hmm. Tell me about the man he was before this, before the accident. Um, honestly, it's really hard to, there's like, it's just been so much that it's really hard to remember all the good things because I'm so deep in resentment at this point. He was more engaged with the kids and as the family, he drank, but it was casually.

And then he never grieved this, never dug into his feelings about his parents and, and worked through this. He just checked out, huh? Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to give you some hard truth. Okay. And I'm going to be as honest with you as I can at the same time as compassionate as I can, because they're only words that can describe the situation and this just sucks and I hate this for you and this your second marriage is that right no it's my first your first marriage okay but you have other grown kids yeah my kids are older yeah okay um yeah this sucks So here's the thing. Resentment is the nails in the coffin of a relationship. It is very, very hard to come back from resentment. And if somebody's sitting in

front of me and they are having to choose between anger and rage and resentment, I'll take anger and rage seven days a week because resentment is so hard to come back from. It's just poison. And it's also not unfounded, right? The guy you married a decade in experienced a life-altering tragedy, and he disappeared on you, right? I want you to, as much as you can, get out of his head and get out of his heart because that's going to kill you, literally, okay? Why he's doing what he's doing feels personal, and it feels like it's an attack on you. And if he's a true debilitated alcoholic, it probably has little to nothing to do with you. Okay. He's got a whole bunch of demons. He's trying to keep it bay.

Does that make it right? No. Is it ridiculous? Yes. Is it killing everybody in your house? Yes. But you getting in his head and trying to figure out why he's doing this, I wish he was doing this. That's only beating you up. It's not solving any of your problems. And so you've got to make a plan. There is no relational healing while somebody's an alcoholic. There just isn't. There is no way people get well until people get sober

because you're not dealing with the person. You're dealing with the shadow of a person. And this goes to people who work 120 hours a week and someone wants to fix their marriage. Then they got to stop because they're addicted to busyness and folks who are addicted to fill in the blank, pornography, drugs, alcohol, whatever the addiction is, whatever the numbing behavior is, they have to stop that for a period of time before any relational healing can happen. And so what I'm telling you is you are now in a place three years later, this isn't a phase, this has become a way of life. Your kids deserve better than this. You deserve better than this. And your husband deserves better than this.

Right? He admits despair and that sucks. But until he decides through his own heart that he wants to get well, then your relationship is going to be what your relationship is. And so what you have to do is you've got to start making decisions for yourself. And that's going to look like getting some people that you trust in your life that will sit down with you, walk alongside you, whether that's an intervention with your husband, whether that is you saying, I'm going to move out for 30 days until you decide to get yourself well. Whether that is you deciding this is just going to be what this is for the next five or six years until the kids graduate, whatever that happens to be. But resentment is, it's just like the old AA saying, resentment is poisoning yourself and hoping he's going to die. You're the one that's bearing the brunt of that resentment and those kids, not him. Right. And so when you think about if you were to move out tomorrow or you were to ask him to move out tomorrow, does that give you relief and peace in your heart or does that make you real anxious and angry and frustrated? Anxious. Why does it make you feel anxious? because it feels like it's just removing him from the situation where he would probably just be able to drink in peace and i'd still have all the responsibilities because i don't know

that he would be capable of taking care of the kids and do you hear that language that you're talking about you've got to got to make peace with that you are the only one taking care of those kids and it's going to be that way for the foreseeable future. And the longer you lean into, I have to take care of these kids and it's because of him, you're literally poisoning yourself. You're going to have to change the way you talk to yourself, that voice inside your own head, because the chemical response of your body is poisoning you. You just are living off cortisol and adrenaline for the last two or three years. My guess is you probably haven't had a chance to grieve either because you've been trying to keep a duct taped house together. Right. Have you met with somebody?

Have you ever sat down with a counselor and just says, here's my last couple of years? I started to. Yeah. Probably about a year ago. Okay. And she really just like honed in on his drinking and like how I needed to get him help and I didn't find that helpful. Listen, that's a crappy therapist, dude, because you can't help somebody like that. All you can help is you, right? And so I want to tell you that your therapist didn't do a good job and there's somebody out there in your local community that's going to be great.

Okay. And so I want to encourage you to go again because you're at the what is going to be next for me because now I'm living with an alcoholic who was a functional alcoholic, and now he's disappearing because the next step is he's going to skip a day of work. And then he's going to not go back the next day, and then he's going to stop being employed. This is just a trajectory now, okay? Okay. and the older your kids get they're absorbing every second of that tension every second of that resentment and you're going to have to do the best you can to double down on how much you love them make sure you are touching their face every day I want you to hold their face every day and tell them how much you love them

tell them how grateful you are that you get to be their mom I want you to plan I know you're exhausted I know but I want you to plan dates with them I want you to plan. I know you're exhausted. I know. But I want you to plan dates with them. I want you to just go pick up donuts every once in a while. And I think eating donuts is terrible, but there's just some joy, right?

Nothing a little carbs and sugar can't take the edge off of. I want you to find joy and giving them laughter. And I want you to find joy and giving them connection because that connection and laughter is going to heal you too. But until you let him off, I mean, he's out. You've got to just begin setting up each morning without him in the picture because he's gone. Okay? I have 100% faith in redemption.

I've just known too many former alcoholics who completely turned around. And sometimes it takes an intervention. Sometimes it takes rock bottom. redemption. I've just known too many former alcoholics who completely turned around. And sometimes it takes an intervention. Sometimes it takes rock bottom. Sometimes it takes filling any number of blanks. But I do know this about addiction. The only person that can help somebody get well with alcohol is them. They have to make that decision. And then they got to seek out a community that's going to walk alongside them for the rest of their lives. And that's going to involve dealing with his parents' death. That's going to involve dealing with the pain of this marriage. That's going to be a lot of adventures he's going to have to walk through. And if you're by his side, oh, that'd be so beautiful.

It'd be great. But also you need to live in the reality that um you're living with an addict and your relationship will not get well until he chooses to to get himself well and until you choose to get yourself well and you are living on bitterness and rage right now resentment is that fair i think some of yeah that's right i think some of it is like we've had conversations where I've confronted him on the drinking, maybe confronted is a bad word, but like talked with him about it. And he like acknowledges it, that it's a problem and it's causing issues in their marriage. And then what he does now is he hides it from me. Right.

And continuing to challenge him on the drinking is futile. I want you just to stop doing that. It's not helpful. It's not going to change. If he knew how to be connected with you, if he knew how to fully be loved by you, if he knew how to grieve the loss of his parents and to grieve the loss of his innocence and how to be a father who's totally present with his teenage kids, he wouldn't need alcohol.

And if he was able to process childhood traumas that existed, he would need to numb that out. And so he can't. And so at this point, beating him up about it isn't helping. That drives it underground, like you just said and so what he needs is you to love him but you also you need to begin to love you and you need to begin to honor yourself and those kids and that starts with you healing from the inside out and you cannot do that by yourself and you can't do it with an addict so you're going to have to go get a counselor you're going to have to get a group of women in your community that you can't do it with an addict. So you're going to have to go get a counselor. You're going to have to get a group of women in your community that you can trust, you can sit with, not for griping and whining sessions,

but for sessions where they can just hear your feelings, hear your pain, sit with you, and then walk with you as you begin to heal from that. Healing may look like therapy. It may look like you being really intentional about a workout program and a nutrition program. It may look like you being really intentional about being a hyper-connected parent, doubling down on those kids and loving them. It may look like you journaling and doing gratitude work every single day so you begin to shift your default setting from one of resentment and that piece of crap who's just sitting on the couch, dragging his boat underwater.

You cut that rope, you cut the rope. He's not going to anchor you down anymore. And then y'all going to rise above it. So, but that starts with you honoring yourself. And my, my opinion is you need to get a counselor. You can find a new counselor. It's not going to spend all your money and your time talking about somebody else. It's going to talk about you and what you can do to get well. And then you run from there. So May, thank you so much for the call. That's a hard one, man, because it's not an easy solution and you're on a long, long journey. That's why I just started the whole call was saying this sucks because you're in it now. But we'll be thinking about you. If you decide to make some major transitions, if you decide to

have an intervention with his friends and his family, if you decide to go see somebody, call me back. Let me know how your walk and your journey is going. And I'll be here to help. Thank you so much for the call. All right, let's go to Lauren in Seattle. Lauren, how are we doing? Pretty good.

How are you? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. How can I help this morning? Well, my question is about boundaries and how to cope if people or a person, a particular knew that whenever I was an adult and I had some power that I would do something about it and that he wouldn't be able to do anything to us anymore. So now as an adult, my husband and I have set up boundaries for him, but he doesn't really respect those. We've moved the boundaries further and further away just to protect our kids, because if he's already stepping over the boundary, we want to make sure that that stepping over doesn't affect our children. But now at this

point, we've moved him far enough away that he's supposed to not be contacting us at all, but he still does. And then he's getting more sneaky about it. So he'll write us letters, but not put a return address on it or try to get my brothers to contact us. So this has been going on for about five years, so I'm not really sure if we can expect him to ever change or if maybe there's something that we can, I don't know, that I can implement to help me cope. It really bothers me a lot whenever he does that. Yeah.

So I'm going to go all the way back. And there are two people on planet Earth that were given the singular task of making sure you are loved and connected. And one, if not both of them, utterly and drastically not only failed that, but they scorched that. And I want to tell you on behalf of your community and your friends, I'm sorry that happened. That sucks. Thanks. Dads are not supposed to abuse their daughters.

No. Okay. Yeah. And I don't want to blame your mom. I don't know that situation, and we don't have time for that. But moms are supposed to be there to protect their daughters too. Mm-hmm. Okay. And I want you to know all of that sucks and I'm sorry that happened. Second, when you came out and talked about this, what happened?

When did you decide to talk about it? I actually didn't. I, my husband and I started having kids and we started having daughters. So every alarm you have in your heart and mind was set off, right? Oh, yeah. As soon as we found out we were having girls, we knew we had to do something. And so we lived a long ways away from them. So we just had set up that he wasn't allowed to come visit. And if he did, he wasn't allowed to stay at our house. And he had to be around the kids only with us in the room.

We felt like we could do a good job there. But after we had our second daughter, my husband was at work, was going to go back to work. And I was about to go back to work. So I asked my mom to come and help when I went back to work. And he then, of course, jumped in real quick and said he would love to come up and help and watch our girls. No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah. Well, and we had never said anything.

And I feel like I just don't have a lot of courage whenever it comes to him. So I just texted him and told him he wasn't welcome where we were. And then he apparently was confused and showed the text to my mom, who had kind of maybe had an inkling that something had gone on when I was a kid. But she started quickly putting two and two together. So listen, your voice, the words you are using are classic language of somebody who has been abused and traumatized by someone who was supposed to love them okay and do not please please don't beat yourself up for things like courage for things like feeling afraid for things like feeling hurt please let yourself off the hook for that there is a little girl inside of you that is still trying to protect you.

Okay? And I want you to know she's done her job, and it's time for her to go lay down. Okay. Okay? Okay. And when you feel that feeling of – and your heart starts racing really hard, and you feel like you need to have a hard conversation, and you just start to flinch, I want you to exhale and say, thank you, sweetheart. I've got it from here. And that's when the rage-filled Lauren can show up.

The adult Lauren who will burn a house down for her baby girls, right? Then she can show up. Okay. So boundaries are important. And we, I talk about boundaries a lot. Our friend, Henry Cloud, the master, the guy who wrote the, literally wrote the book called Boundaries, talks a lot about the importance of drawing boundaries. This is different. This is nuclear. This is, you will stay so far the hell away from my family and my children that if you sneeze in this direction, I'll call the cops on you and I'll call them again and I'll call them again. Yeah.

And here's the thing. And I would. I just don't know. He just seems like he's not listening to that. People who are broken in the way that he's broken, and if you've listened to me enough, you know I don't like to use that term. Child predators, people who prey on children, people who abuse children sexually, they only respond to power. That's it. Yeah.

And they don't get inklings because an inkling is a crack in the concrete that they can slither into. They don't get suggestions because suggestions, they feel like vulnerability and someone who preys on children preys on vulnerability. Yeah.

And so your brothers, have you sat down and had a real direct hard conversation with them? Well, I've told them everything because my other brother also has a daughter. Okay. They, I feel like they didn't know until about five years ago and their world kind of came crashing down. I haven't told them what to do.

I've been trying to let them kind of navigate that. Have you explicitly told them what happened? I emailed them. I told them everything. Okay. Yeah. Good for you. I felt like I had to.

Yeah. I sent it to both of them and I said, I don't ever want to talk about it again. You guys have all the information you need. This story is your story, and nobody is allowed to ask you questions and force you to answer things you don't want to answer. This is your story, your narrative, your world, okay? And I want you to always feel in control of that narrative. And when you don't, that's when you have control of part two, which is I'm walking away, okay? Okay. So you control the story. Okay. but your brothers may need some coaching. And as you mentioned, if they had idolized this man and they had pumped him up and suddenly they found something out about him, then they might need some guidance. However embarrassing that is, I wish they wouldn't need guidance. I wish they would have men in their life that they could sit down and talk to who would be straight with them.

But here's the guidance. That disgusting man will never be involved in our family get togethers. If he knows where we are, I am not going to be there because my job is to protect my heart and mind and my soul and my daughters. Your husband is going to step up and help too because his job is to love and honor and my soul and my daughters. Your husband is going to step up and help too because his job is to love and honor and walk alongside and protect you and his daughters, right? And there is no word mincing moving forward. And I'm not telling you what to do.

I hope I'm empowering you. That that little girl can finally lay down and go play like she's supposed to. Yeah. And freaking Lauren. Most of the time I live great like that. My husband's great and we live a ways away from him, but just even just a couple of maybe two weeks ago,

that's my brothers came and said, well, what are we supposed to say to dad whenever he asked about you? And I was like, why is he asking about me? He knows he's not supposed to have anything to do with me, but I was like, why is he asking about me? He knows he's not supposed to have anything to do with me, but I was like, why do you even have to ask? Yes. I told them that they should tell him to ask me if he wanted to know something and he knows he's not allowed to contact me, but.

So here's the thing. Give them a couple of words to use, which is, y'all are not to speak on my behalf to that disgusting person. My hope is that you would never talk to him. He cashed out his father card. He gave it up. Yeah. And he has done nothing to redeem it. Nothing.

No. Right? No. Yeah. And so I would tell your brothers, I don't want to have a conversation with you about that man ever again, ever. And if any of you guys give him our address, if you send him any photos of his granddaughters, then I'm done with y'all too. Because you have chosen a side that is not one that I'm comfortable with. And there's a period at the end of that sentence.

Okay. And here's a period at the end of that sentence. Okay. And here's the thing. I need you to hear me directly when I say this. There wasn't something wrong with you as a baby girl. There was something wrong with him. Yeah. There is nothing wrong with your boundaries now.

The problem remains with him. Okay. And I want to honor your brothers. I know it's confusing and it's easy on this side of the fence to be like, they should just do that. It's hard. I get that. But your brothers have a responsibility and they need to get it done. Okay. Do you think if my dad had any chance of ever, ever being redeemed, like ever coming, do people like this ever come around? And if they ever would, what, I kind of felt like he might have to hit rock bottom, which is lose absolutely everything if he was ever going to look inside of himself. But I thought that maybe he'd have to lose his whole family. I believe strongly. I mean, the cornerstone of why I do what I do

is because I believe in redemption. I believe there is no one person who cannot, with the help of a lot of other people and with God and a lot of strength and a lot of support, often professional help, can't claw their way back. I believe that. I also know the data that says adult men who abuse young children have a very, very hard road back if they ever want to come back. And it starts with a getting on your face in the mud and begging for forgiveness and being completely honest and open and then seeing professional help for years. And still, I'm never going to leave that person alone with my daughters.

Period. No. Right? I'm not going to have that person to my house. Period. The relationship is forever altered because of what they did, because of who they chose to be, not you. And those who do that are master guilt trippers.

You are the one screwing up Christmas. You're the one that wrecked my marriage. You're the one that screwed up my relationship with my sons. Bull crap. He did. What you are having to do is put the fire out that he lit, and that means you have to stand in the front yard with a hose and get everything wet.

And he set the roof on fire, but you're having to douse the pictures and the couches and the piano and the guitars. You're dousing everything because of a fire he lit. And what abusers do is they stand in the front yard and say, why did you get my pictures all wet? Because you set the fire, dude, right? So I do believe in redemption. That is not your story to walk. No. My brothers just ask, and I told them that I'm not the one who can help him. I know that for sure. And they're not the ones who can help him either.

You don't think they can do anything? Absolutely not. They keep thinking, they're like, well, I had asked him to go to counseling. This was myself years ago. And he went for like two times, and he said it was way too hard. It made him cry. He was so sad. Yes. There she is.

And then he quit. So then that was when we decided there was no hope for us. Then he's a coward. He is a coward. And he's not willing to do the work. So is there redemption possible for him? Yep. Is he willing to do it?

Nope. No. Okay. Nope. Okay. And that is not something your brothers can do. And I appreciate their heart, man. They love their old man, and they're trying to rack their brains.

I can't believe this happened. Yeah. But it is what it is. Okay. this happened um but it is what it is okay what they can do and brothers out there listening to this there are moments when our parents blow our minds i cannot believe my dad did that here's their choice and i and if you listen to my show at all you also know i don't like binary choices either ors i'm giving you an either or they can choose to double down on their sister and to reconnect with you because you probably have years and miles of pain and disconnection that you're going to be healing from for the rest of your life and they can love you and every time they reach out to you and say, hey, what about dad?

It hurts because you don't even have the words for it. And your body falls apart from the inside out. And you're like, what? And then you look in the mirror and think you're crazy. And so what they can do is they can let him know. You hurt our family. You imploded our family because of your sickness, because of your choices to abuse our sister.

And my guess is you aren't the only one. That's my guess. Yeah, I hope not. But yeah, I know. I know the statistics, but yeah. And so he chose that. And until he chooses to get – man, to feel uncomfortable in counseling for a couple of decades, he should be in jail, quite honestly. And what I'll tell you this, here's a hard thing, and then we can wrap the call up.

Okay. The hard thing is this. If you know that he has access to kids? I will go to the police. You have to report that. I will go to the newspaper. I will tell everyone in the entire world. I've already run it through my mind. But running it through your mind and actually doing it are two different things.

I would do it. I already know for sure that I would do it. But he did try once to have some kids around him, and my brother's completely flipped out and of course and then he stopped flipping out is that step that's step 1a step 1b 2 3 4 and 5 is calling the police and you think i should call the police if he even makes – like do you think I should have called the police back whenever he got a girlfriend who had granddaughters? Yes, I do. I don't know when to –

Yes, I do. Okay. I do. Okay. I absolutely do. All right. And I don't have a lot of quarter for this situation at all. Okay.

But yes, and if he reaches out to you I would call the police if you have a restraining order against him I'd call the police if he gets in contact with your brothers and wants to go visit them and their kids, I would call the police and I would tell your brothers

every time I know that he's at your house around kids, I'm going to call the police if you want to make a police record about your childhood, depending on what state you're in, there may not even be a statute of limitations on that deal. There's not. I already looked.

That might give you a step towards healing. Because he's not getting the message. Yeah. And every time he tries to ask about you, it's a power move. Every time he sends you a letter, it's a power move. Okay. And he will only respond to somebody.

Do what? I kind of thought, I said, I kind of thought about being like, you won't leave us alone. We should tell the police. But then I thought they'd just laugh because it was like, he sent you a letter, ma'am. You're fine. Nope. I don't know. If you go to a sex crime investigator who knows what they're doing and you go to a sex crime advocate who knows what historical trauma does to children and how that ricochets through their life for the rest of their life, they'll hear you and they won't laugh at you.

Okay. They'll honor you. They'll honor your story. And at best, they can go to his house and go through his stuff and open an investigation. At worst, they've got him on record. Yeah. So if he shows up at somebody else's house again, then people can get involved.

Okay. All right. But I want you, here's the thing though. You don't have to yell and scream and fuss and fight.

This is your story and your narrative. If you see that he's around kids, you do. You have a responsibility. I'm putting that

on you. I will. I will. I want you to never lose control of the narrative again. Of your story, of who you choose to tell it to, how you choose to tell it, that's yours. You've had enough people in your life take your power away.

Yeah. And I'm glad that you've got a husband who loves you. You've got two baby girls that you love dearly. And I hope that you can be honest and direct with your brothers in a way that they can now understand, oh, we've got to pick. We've got to take a side.

Okay. All right. Is that cool? Hey, thank you for trusting me with a call. Yeah, thank you. That was helpful. You're a brave, brave woman, Lauren, and you. That was helpful. If you do choose to call the police on your dad, who will walk alongside you and may even be in the room with you when you decide to meet with your brothers, may give you some language to talk to your husband, and more importantly, give you some language to talk to yourself. But as I started the call, I want you to let that little girl who's been protecting you for years and years and years, I want you to let her go out and play.

And I want you to let that healing begin. All right. So here's the deal. So I was just talking to Lauren, and now I'm talking to you. If you know of somebody who's abusing children, and that somebody's in your home, that somebody's in your church, that somebody's in your workplace, you have to call. You've got to get involved.

It's not by your hand, but in your lap. Somebody dropped a grenade in your lap and you've got to deal with them. And it sucks and it's uncomfortable and you have to do it. If you are hurting children, stop. Stop. You are lighting a forest fire in the heart and soul of a young person that will never be extinguished. You are choosing through your own selfishness and sickness to destroy a person. Stop. If you have a brother or sister that you find out was abused by somebody you loved, call them, go meet with them in person and tell them that you love them, that you are so sorry this happened and ask them, how can I connect with you?

They don't need your advice. They don't need your recommendations. They don't need your recommendations. They need you to shut your mouth and be connected to them. And to say, I love you and I'm so sorry. What can I do to help? Normally we wrap up the show with a song. Hey James, I want to kill it. Ending the show today with song lyrics doesn't sound like the right thing to do. Sucks. People hurt their kids. Today's show is heavy and

I want everyone to know there is peace out there. There is healing out there however hard it is. If your parents died tragically your father who abused you won't leave you and your new girls alone, there is hope and peace out there. Get with people who will walk alongside you.

And I want you to know, you are worth being well. It may suck getting there, but you're worth it. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. it may suck getting there but you're worth it this is a dr john deloney show you