The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “Can I Win My Wife Back?”

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

🔥 Microhabits for a better marriage. Download the Together app.   On today’s episode, we hear about: A husband wanting to avoid divorce A man whose job is harming his sex life A wife wondering how to deal with the coming changes   Next Steps: ❤️ Get away with your spouse today! 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.   Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers!  Go to Joi + Blokes and get 50% off labs and 20% off products. Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors!  Get 25% off your order at Thorne.   Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today.   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How do I maintain a positive relationship with my spouse after a divorce? We're separated right now, and it's leaning that direction. Is now the time for space and silence? Is now the time for you to go knocking that door? Yeah, I don't want my wife to leave, and I don't want to leave her. Then go freaking get her. What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. Coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee.

I'm live right now, but you're not hearing this live. But we can pretend. We can pretend this is live, taking real calls from real people about your mental and emotional health, your families, your marriages, whatever you got going on, your kids. If you want to be on this show, click the link in the show notes, and it will send you out to a form, and it will go to Kelly, our overlord, and she will see if she can get you on the show. Let's go out to Portland, Oregon. Talk to Ira. What's up, Ira? Well, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. Thanks for calling, dude. What's going on, man? And not much. Let's see. So I have a question. How do I maintain a positive relationship with my spouse after a divorce?

Ooh. I guess it depends on the nature of your ability to be emotionally regulated. And that's a really nerdy way of saying, can y'all be adults? That's fair. That's fair. You know, we have two kids, so we want to make sure that we're doing the right thing. We're separated. right now and it's leaning that direction. So I'm just most concerned about making sure that through the process of the divorce of it occurs and afterwards that we're just being adults around our kids, making sure that they have the best experience in life and make sure that those kids are, you know, happy, healthy and keep moving on in life. So the hard truth is the data tells me that for the best way to have those things, be successful as that you and are you married to is it a wife yes that you and your wife

get together and scorched her through old marriage and build an amazing new one tell me more for the for all those things you rattled off that's that's that's that's what the data says would be the greatest gift to your kids second would be co-parenting as good as you can yeah but it's a distant second right so tell me tell me like you guys got separated what's going on Well, it's been a situation where it's been a rough couple years and I'm sure we're in a messy middle of having kids that are, you know, between, you know, both under 10 years old. Oh, man, yeah. We've kind of, yeah, exactly. And we both worked full time.

We've been a little bit more emotionally distant than I'd like to admit over the last probably year, year and a half. It looks like we went to a therapist recently. We had this great conversation, but it also kind of unveiled that she's been having this building issue for. for over a year. And I completely understand it. Like, I'm not a perfect person. I get it. And I'm still open to keep the relationship going.

I also have enough context clues to feel like I know where she's going. So right now I'm giving her the time and space to kind of really feel this out, make sure it's the right decision, and make sure that whatever way it goes, I feel like I've done my best from this point forward. I'm started, you know, we've just kind of, my tone is not the best with our girls, and I'll be the first to admit that. I'm starting parody classes. I see a therapist. I'm working on it.

Some of our parenting manners are a little bit different. She's a lot more outgoing. She's a lot more successful than me, and I'm a huge fan of hers. I'm like totally like I'm our number one fan. But I've also realized that her not making me a priority of her period of time has really drained me. And I've realized that recently due to the fact that I'm putting a lot of energy into her and it's not coming back. And it's showing up in negative ways. Yeah.

And so the way you describe, I've got a couple of thoughts here. I'll start with this one. The way you describe that is a very common, the word I use is a dance. She feels like she enters into a man's space who, she feels bored. borderline apologetic for how successful she is. And he gets grumpy, he gets sharp, he talks to my daughters in a way, right? And when you start thinking that way, then it slowly becomes us versus each other. And then you are trying to connect in the ways that you like to connect, which may be physical connection, which may be, don't you think my jokes are funny?

We're not having sex anymore, whatever those things are. And that becomes almost repellent because emotionally you're not a safe. person to be around and it just goes in a figure eight right yeah and so the things that you want are in direct oppositions to the things that she want at the time that you both want them and it becomes like putting two north ends of a magnet together shoots itself apart what i'm concerned about with you is it seems like she's given you a really clear picture i'm wondering and i'm again i'm throwing some up against a wall here so if you all talked about it and created a really firm plan with a therapist throw off what I'm about to say.

But I'm wondering if you, your instinct to provide space and give her time to think is the exact wrong path. And instead, I mean, I'm, gosh, I hate to do this because I'm so repulsed by them usually. I'm not repulsed by them. I think they're so fun.

But in terms of, um, they're not good models for how a normal life works. But I'm thinking of like a John Hughes. Like you out like, like, like you're junkie i'm thinking of is now the time for space and silence is now the time for you to go knock on that door and you drop down to one knee and say i've let you and the girls down and from this point forward i will fight for you till the end of time i love that and you go scorched earth on the man in the mirror because i'm telling you brother like the thing that changed my

house was when my wife i mean it was a long conversation and i've mentioned on the show few times, but, dude, I was doing everything I possibly could. And when she said, oh, no, no, no, you're as good a dad as I've ever seen, but you have a nuclear reactor in the middle of your chest and we can all feel it. I literally went into a therapist. She was a colleague of mine. And I said, evidently there's something else wrong with me. And dude, we talked and months later, I started talking about stuff that happened to me as a kid that I had never told to anybody. But it unwound it. You get what a lot. You get one. saying. Yeah. But that took my wife saying like, no, I love you, but here's a path, man. And it

feels like she's giving you a path. Over the last year, this has happened and this has happened and this has happened. And you're like, well, I guess I'll give you some space to see if this is what you want to do. I like the idea of you going out on your shield. I like that. Because at least if she chooses to leave you and says, nope, I want to file for divorce, will be adults about how we're going to do. I want you not to have said, man, I stood on the sidelines and let her kind of do her thing. I want you to know I went to the moon to try to get her.

And that, brother, that's you not hedging your bats because if you do that and she still leaves, that's going to hurt bad. But that's you putting both feet in the boat, saying, no, no, I'm going to keep rowing. If you want to jump out of this boat, that's okay. Now that may, if y'all, again, all have agreed on this and she doesn't feel safe and she said, I need space, then disregard what I'm saying.

But if you're just trying to stay neutral in this deal, this is not the time for neutrality. This is a time for you to go get your wife. I love that. Yeah, she doesn't feel unsafe. So that's a good thing. Yeah, there's nothing like that. There's nothing in that world. But listen, it can't.

There's a weird, man, we could talk forever about anthropology and evolution and blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing. For most men, and again, I'm over-gendering this, and I know that, so relax internets, but most men, just if you went to lunch with a bunch of dudes today and you were like, hey, guys, can I tell you what's going on in my heart, you would never get asked back to that lunch again. If you all are doing, if these are a group of guys that you work hard with on a regular basis and you all do stuff together, and then one day when you all are digging a hole or

You know, working on a project, you're like, man, my marriage is falling apart. Because y'all did something together, y'all were doing something together towards a common goal, that bought you permission to be emotionally vulnerable with these guys. And the complete opposite things happens often with women. For all of human history, if a woman got pregnant, it meant she might die. And at best case scenario, she lives and she has to keep this, a new thing. human alive for 20 years. And so she had to know socially, emotionally, is this person going to be here before I let

them into my body and potentially alter my life's trajectory? Safety-wise, death, and keeping a kid alive. And what I mean by that is for most, I don't say most, for many men and many women, men need physicality to buy permission to be emotionally close. and women need emotional closeness to buy permission for physical intimacy and they blow by each other. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. We're trying to solve connection and I need this so that I can feel, I want this so I can feel safe enough to be like intimate emotionally and I want this so that I can be emotionally, I mean physically intimate here and everybody misses each other.

So one person has to go first and you called me so I'm saying go take a knee at the Airbnb where she's staying and say, I've let you down. And I'm in. And I'll fight to the end for this marriage. I'll fight to the end for you. And if you couch it in because of the girls and all this,

then she becomes a proxy so that your girls are okay. She needs to be the sole reason. Yeah, I don't want my wife to leave. And I don't want to leave her. Then go freaking get her, man. Thank you. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, I do.

And one question I want you to ask her when you're talking with her. Our two questions. Number one, honey, how do you want this home to feel every day when I get home? I want you to be happy that I'm here. What must be true? And it might be as simple as I want you to be in a good mood. I want you to be happy that you're here. I want like we have two young kids.

The house is going to be chaotic. I don't want the chaos. I don't want stuff on the floor. I don't want piles. I don't want backpacks. I don't want that to throw you off, man. You're the dad. And if those things do throw you off,

then like, dude, I'm going to go through the counselor and be like, why do little things make me feel out of control? And you probably got to deal with control issues, which is probably why you got anger issues. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah. And I'm making something up here just off top of my head. And then the second question I want you to ask her is,

will you love me enough to give me a roadmap on how I can best love you? And I will follow that map. And in a few weeks, I'm going to give you a roadmap back to me because your wife has a role to play here too. Are you in? I'll do that. I'm in.

I'm 100% in. This is like your hell yeah moment, dude. I'm going to go kick a door and, well, not, you know, proverbally. In Portland, you're going to go to jail, brother, so don't do that. Go ask the mailman for a consent form to knock on the door. I will. I'll go do that. I'll have to fill out a couple forms and I'll do that, yeah.

And then they're going to take 19 months to get it through the government councils or whatever. No, dude. You go stand outside the front yard with the radio and say, I'm not going down that a fight. I love you. And I love us. And here's the thing. Brother, y'all get to choose what tomorrow looks like.

And nothing is inevitable until somebody signs the paper. Yeah, that makes sense. Right? Yeah. If she comes back in a few weeks or a few months or tonight and says, I've already made it my mind, I promise you, I'll get you back on the show and I'll walk you through how two people can co-parent well together.

Well, thank you. But something in my guts tells me that's not your story. Yeah. Something in my guts tells me your daughters are going to have a ringside seat to what happens when two people recommit themselves to each other. They say the words, I'm sorry. Your kids will have a picture of what redemption looks like, which will end up being the greatest gift you could ever give them. I'll do my best. No, no, no.

There is, what is it? There is no try. We're going to go get it. You do not, yeah. Okay. go get her. And please God, man. Like, I say this all the time,

but let me know how it goes. And if your wife wants to call me, I'm all in. Yeah. And here's this. I'll even one up because I believe you. I actually believe

you're going to go knock on that door and say, I said till death to his part, I'm all in and I've let you down. If you're in and you all decide to rebuild, I'll give you two free tickets to my money and marriage event in October. Oh, well, thank you so much.

I appreciate that. Okay. You and your wife will be my VIP guest. Y'all can come. I'll give you a whole roadmap. I'm in, I'm in if you are, okay? Yeah, okay. All right, brother.

Thank you so much. It's been a high honor to talk to you. That's well. Thank you so much. Go get her, man. Appreciate you, brother. All right, well, bye. We come back, man. I got to stop.

That guy's awesome. That guy's awesome. Yeah, we're all like, it's rare that we're all in here like, oh, yay, great. We like this guy that we don't get a lot of uplifting. That was great. Go get him. Go. Gooder, fight for your marriages, y'all.

Fight for your marriages. Until you're looking at the paper with your spouse's signature on it saying, I'm done. Fight for your marriage, man. You get to pick what tomorrow looks like. Both of you all do. And you get to pick who you are going to be rebuilding this thing. God, that's awesome. We come back.

A man asks how to handle sexual desire and stay connected to his wife when work keeps them apart. All right, this makes me nuts, but our culture has made being exhausted something to be proud of. People brag about how busy they are, how little sleep they get, and how exhausted they always feel. Being tired is not a flex. You know what's a flex? Getting good sleep. And good sleep starts with a great mattress. And that's why I love mattresses from Helix Sleep.

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in your faith or you want to even learn about what this faith thing is, give Hallow a try. You can try a Hollow for free for 90 days at hallow.com slash Deloni. That's three months for free at hallow.com slash Deloni. All right, let's go out to Colorado Springs, Colorado, and talk to Isaac. What's up, Isaac? Hey, how's it going, Dr. John? Doing great, man. How are you?

I'm doing pretty good. Excellent. What's up? So, I just wanted to see if you had some advice for me because, you know, I'm the problem here. I'm trying to figure out how to work my life. You know how it goes? My wife's great. Just to clarify, she's fantastic.

I don't even know what's going on Why do you think you're the problem? Just because So I'm away with work And What does that mean? You work during the day You travel a lot?

What does that mean? Yeah, so I fly to like California weekly So I'm gone Monday, 4 a.m. I'm gone. I get home Friday after midnight, basically. Dang, Gina. How long has this been going on?

About two years. Is this a indefinite? I'm working towards I work from home position with the same company but you know I gotta do the grunt work

to begin with for a few years if you know what I mean yeah for sure I'm still doing grunt work for Kelly totally get that okay so

walk me through what's what's going on so the issue I'm having is I'm a Christian so I believe that I'm not supposed to do anything sexually

except for with my wife you know nothing online you know, explicit, like, it's totally shut down, right? Okay. So when I'm gone to my wife? Yeah, stay away from pornography in any way of, you know, movies, TV, all that. Cool.

So when I'm away from my wife, I have, like, strong feelings to, like, wanting to be with her. And kind of my coping mechanism so far has been I shut down during the week. I don't think about it. I don't go there. But then when I come back home, you know, my wife's ready. she wants to do stuff, you know, I've been gone all week, and I'm having a hard time, like, flipping that switch back on quickly, and because we only have two days, you know, it kind of affects things.

So that's kind of the issue I'm struggling with is how do I stay pure, but also, like, when I come home, like, be ready to, like, you know, do stuff with my wife and take care of her needs, but she's been lacking throughout the week, you know? You've got needs, too, man. I guess everybody has to make decisions for themselves, okay?

My question is flipping the off switch the most effective thing meaning are there ways y'all can flirt are the ways you can talk are there ways you all can face time? Are there ways you can keep

connected to each other? Keep the fire cooking so that when you get home it's game on, right? You get what I'm saying? Like how How creative, and by the way, this can be so the most fun a couple can have is we have three kids under the age of six. We have in-laws who have moved in with us.

How creative can we get? And often the creativity leads to play, which leads to fun, which leads to a injection of life into a couple sex life. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And so, like, what does creativity look like? you sit down with her and have this conversation. I would also wonder, and this, how old are you, brother? I'm 28.

Okay. Often physiological things get blamed on emotional things. And here's what I mean by that. If you're been doing this for two years, getting up at 4 a.m. on Monday, flying to another town, working all day every day, getting up, grinding it out, and then flying back, your body is exhausted. You got time zone changes, you've got work changes,

you are context switching pretty significantly from a work environment, a go, go, go, go, go, to now I have to put on a different hat, be a husband, be connected, be emotionally intimate to somebody that I'm only spending two days a week with. That's a lot on your body.

and for men there's often not a psychology we've all been trained since we were zero that all guys want a sex all the time and then you have a willing participant you have a wife who's like I can't wait to get home I'm gonna we're gonna I'm gonna rock your world boy and you're like dude I need to sleep tired and then you begin to think something's wrong with me

is there any possibility that's the case yeah Yeah, I think that's exactly what's happening. It's just, you know, I don't know how to deal with that to make sure that she's well taken care of. And that's kind of what I'm struggling with. So this is going to sound crazy, but the greatest gift you could give to her is that you show up whole. So what must be true about your physical health while you're out of town? Can you get sleep?

Can you go to the gym? Can you make a commitment to E-write? Can you take care of yourself so that you're fully whole? Like, you can't be taken care of. her needs if you don't have anything to give. Then it becomes two days of performative interaction. And then y'all have a transactional relationship. You don't have a marriage.

That's the last thing I want. Exactly. You get home and you have yet another job to do before you get back on a plan to go do your other job. And the bigger question I would ask you is, you said you're trying to work towards a particular position that may or may not be there. Is this the life? Forget the job for a second, man.

a job is a thing that helps us get the life we want we don't build our life around a job and so ask yourself is this the life I want and in my 20s when I was in graduate school and I was working full time and I was getting a PhD and I was running around with cops in the middle of the night like doing crazy stuff

I was working towards a thing right so there was a sacrifice but i knew where i was headed with it i had no idea i was going to end up in this crazy life but i i knew what i wanted to go do and i knew i needed to cram as much experience and academic knowledge and professional experience all at once i knew that but it was towards a thing it doesn't sound like you have an anchor it doesn't sound like you have a reason hey we're going to do for two years i'm gonna we're gonna be a part five freaking days a week that's a long time so that in year three we get x y or z because my fear for you is you're going to look up and you're going to spend seven years like this and you're going to be 34 and you're going to be

like dude what happened to our life you get what i'm saying maybe i need to have more structure and figure out exactly the plan and obviously life happens and the plan changes but at least then i have a plan to alter but i don't think it starts with its structure is very important but structure towards a thing. So most people put structure around a goal and they end up losing their life, the life they wanted to live because they had to meet this goal. Like I had an, I was had an obsession with making X dollar amount by the time I turned 30. It was a pathological obsession. And I hit that number, I think one year later, maybe two years later. I was working full time and getting a PhD and I think I was teaching classes at two or

or three different universities. Like, I was doing all this crazy stuff. I lost the life that I wanted that I thought that dollar amount would give me in pursuit of that number. I hear this a lot from folks like, I'm going to run a marathon this year. That's awesome. Great. Run four of them.

That's awesome. But they end up with their marriages further apart. Their health is actually worse and their kids don't know them because I'm going to hit this goal. And I want goals to be in service to a life that you actually want. So I want you to ask, before you start going through structure, I want you to ask yourself, dude, what kind of marriage do I want?

What kind of life do we want? What kind of guy do I want to be inside of this marriage I've got? And then we're going to start talking about what kind of job do I need to get. And if y'all are broke, if you have debts to pay off, if you're in a season, then those kind of questions are luxury questions.

I don't have the luxury to ask that. I'm working three jobs, minimum wage. I'm trying to scratch and claw to keep the lights on in my house. That's awesome and noble. Doesn't sound like that's where you're at. at. Thankfully, we're in baby steps four, five, and six. All right, so for people who don't know that, like, you don't know, you don't know,

you don't owe anybody any money, right? And you're working on, have you bought a house? Do you all have a house? Yeah, we have a house and we're working on paying that off, but we're also investing in. It's great. That's awesome. So ask yourself, is this the career you want? Is this the life you want?

Do you want to have worked really hard to not owe anybody any money and to buy a house that you don't ever get to live in? Because that life is pretty awful, if you ask me. it is but it was a commitment that I made to try to build a better life for my family so that we could have a debt-free life because I was working in the trades and I just wasn't getting paid enough to have a stay-at-home wife it just wasn't to reality so I had to find a job that could pay me more and the travel job pays great I know but it's costing you're so it's costing you're so it's costing you your soul it's costing you your soul I I have no data to back up what I'm about to say, but I can almost guarantee you I'm right. A kids are going to be better off with two working parents that have dinner on the table as often as they can than a stay-at-home parent and a completely absentee parent. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. And dude, I'm, I'm, you've worked so hard the last few years to change the trajectory of your family's financial future. That is noble and that's good. I just don't think this, this doesn't sound like a long-term solution for your family. because what your family really needs is dad around. Is that fair? Tell me I'm crazy. I might be crazy.

No, you're not. My daughter begs me to stay home every time I leave. And I want to be careful about giving a seven-year-old that kind of power, right? But there's something about that. And, dude, I will tell you, I went through years when the one thing I knew that I was not good at was I was a terrible, not terrible, I was good, but like, I didn't know how to be a dad. And I didn't know how to be a husband to someone who was a mom now. I just felt like I was doing everything wrong.

But I knew the greatest gift. I thought the greatest gift, the story I made up for myself was the greatest gift I could give my family is to not be here and make sure money's depositing in that account so they could have the life they want. It never occurred to me that what they really wanted was me. And I honestly did not have a psychology for that. I had to go learn what that meant and how to do it. Yeah.

I just hate the idea of you. If you have to, you have to, man. And men for all of human history have been making major sacrifices so that their wives and kids are okay. And if y'all have to do it, brother, you have to do it and it's going to come at an extreme cost, but sometimes nobility doing the right thing comes at a huge cost. I get that.

But if you're in a position now where we've cleared the deck financially, I'm going to start being really intentional about finding a place here in Colorado even if I have to drive down 25 to Denver and then come back like I'm going to see what's out there because I don't know man I wonder if

if the your sexual challenges in your marriage are just a are not the actual issue they're the light on the dashboard telling you that something under the hood isn't good I've heard that before that you know sexual intimacy is the warning light of something else going

wrong, but I've had so many conversations with my wife about things we can change and things we can do. And like, you know, it's great when we, you know, have phone calls throughout the week so that she feels emotionally connected, but that's just, I don't know, it doesn't do it for me as much, you know. Okay, then what would do it for you? Have you been honest about what would do it for you? That's the hard part is, I don't know. Okay, that's where creativity and fun comes in. Yeah. Like, if you're like, dude, I want to learn how to play, I'm going to play basketball. I've never even dribble. Okay, well, you can just sit on the sideline and watch people play and be like, man, I want to do that.

Or I'm going to pick up a basketball and try to figure out how to dribble first. And I'm going to figure out how to shoot. And it's going to be hilarious because it's going to be awful. And then I'm going to start playing. Like, it's, there's so much pressure gets put on this and so much existential weight that it loses the joy and the fun and the play. And joy and fun and play are so connecting. But if you're in this for the next six months, in this for the next six months, in this for the next year, then yeah, some structure is going to be important for you so that you show up.

Like, I'm going to face time my kids every night. I need that. I'm going to facetime my wife and we're going to get weird. I'm going to exercise. I'm going to sleep. I'm going to eat, take care of my body while I'm gone. I'm going to come back 30 pounds lighter in seven months. Like you get to, like all those things you get to decide what those are, but you cannot go around filling up people's water in their water glass if your pitcher's empty. And if you do get home from an exhausting job Friday night and you just need to sleep till noon on Saturday, let's just put that on the calendar and don't beat yourself up about it. I'm wiped out. And then come noon on Saturdays, I'm up and I'm ready to go, both with the kids, both in the bedroom, whatever that

looks like. But we often get going in our life. And I think one of the most damaging sentences a person can utter, a couple can utter, is this is just the way things are. Most of the time in the United States, that's not true. It's the way we've allowed them to be, not the way things are. And if you don't like the way things are, even if it comes at a big shift or a big change or a drastic shakeup or whatever, you get to change. choose what happens next. And so if you don't know what would light your fire back up,

just start trying stuff and have fun with it. And I don't know, it's my recommendation that just indefinitely being away from your wife and kids five days a week so that they have a house that they live in without you. Man, that's a tough life. It's a tough life. like you and your wife getting away for half day and just saying, hey, what kind of world do we want to build? I promise you you could stay home, but man, I'm never home.

I'd love it to reimagine that. We come back, a woman asks how to prepare for her first child in transition from a career to a stay-at-home mom. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Summer is a time when people escape. They escape from work. work, they escape from their schedules, whether it's relaxing or going on vacation. Listen, we've all

been sold a lie that if we could just get away from it all, everything would magically work itself out. But here's the thing. A vacation won't fix what you won't face. If you're anxious, burned out, struggling, these problems will be waiting for you when you get home from whatever vacation you take. This is why I recommend talking to someone, and this is why I recommend BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that fits into your life. You can talk with a licensed therapist by phone, video, or messaging from anywhere. No commuting, no sitting in a waiting room, just a safe place to process what's actually going on in your life wherever you happen to be. All of Better Helps therapists follow a strict code of conduct, and you can message your therapist in schedule sessions right in the app.

If it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. This summer, don't just escape and don't ignore what's coming to the surface. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop running from everything and start dealing with it. Go to betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off. That's BetterHelp, help.com slash deloney. All right, hey, take one second. It's longer than one second, but I like to minimize time because time isn't real for me. That's what Kelly says all the time.

Time's not real for you, John. Take two seconds and hit the subscribe button if you're watching this on the YouTube or if you're listening to this on podcast. And if one of these episodes, if it strikes a chord with you, with your spouse, with a friend, with a sister, with family member, brother,

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God, help me not Louisville. Oh, Kentucky and talk to Ann. What's up, Ann? Hi, how are you? Awesome. How are you? Oh, pretty good. As good as I can be on a rainy day. Yes, for real.

Very, very cool. It's been raining like crazy here in Nashville, but it's also, man, my wife has these wild gardens and they are amazing right now. So I'll take it. So what's up? Yeah, so I'll kind of jump into it. It's kind of funny I'm making this call without my husband because we both love to listen to you separate. and then compare notes on the episode. So we'll have a good...

That's pretty fun. That's pretty cool. I like that. Oh, yeah. So, hold on. Who thinks I'm right more? You or him? Probably depends on the topic.

Awesome. It's almost 50-50, I'd say. We're usually pretty close in the greens, but every now and then you throw us a curveball. I love. Awesome. Every once in a while I try to hit a batter, so that's good. All right.

You know, it keeps it fun. Yeah. So later this month, like, later this summer, next month, just a few weeks, we are going to be welcoming our first baby, first for both of us. Ew. So very exciting, very crazy time in our lives. So on top of having our first child, I will be transitioning to a stay-at-home mom after my maternity leave.

And so I just kind of wanted to call in and see if you have any advice for us as we enter these new phases of not only our marriage, but our family dynamic. Yes, dude. Thank you for the call. Yeah. Like the fact that you're pre-planning this is so wise. That's awesome. Are you a list person?

What do you mean by that? A list person. Like my wife, her love language is lists. And I can tell how stress she's getting by how long her lists are. Or are you kind of just like a rip it and go. kind of person. Oh man, I am so type A. I have a shared note app right now with him and it has a breakdown of our to-do list by gestational. Nice. All right. I will speak to you in that language. All right, cool. I was trying to find out whether I should speak Spanish or French or English and I will

speak list language for you. Okay. Yeah. So here's what I want you and your husband to do in the next, like maybe this weekend if you'll have time. If you don't have 17 other things on that list already, which I know you do, but maybe you can move them to the next weekend. Here's what I want you to do. And I want this to be the funnest, exciting, not a drudgery thing at all, okay?

Yeah. I want y'all to get together and I want you to go to a long breakfast together. And you've heard me say this a million times, but now I'm talking, not abstractly, I'm talking to you. Yeah. How long have y'all been married? we are hitting our second marriage anniversary in September oh dude okay y'all are running a gun and

and how old are you yeah uh we are both 29 oh perfect awesome okay so i want y'all is one of you and it'd be either one's fine you called so you get to say it one of you say you know what and after this is over um we'll do some i don't know kelly uses her does her internet magic can we clip this and send it to him because I want them to get it before the baby's born. So that way you and your husband can both listen to it, okay? Yeah, that'd be awesome. So I want one of you to say

the marriage we had is over. What do we want to build next? And here's the things I want you to think about. What are the things from your old marriage that you loved? Spontaneity,

planning, like the silly sex times you had or the serious love making, like what are the things that you want to bring forward into this new marriage? And what are some things that you're looking forward to letting go of? Okay, so that's number one. But somebody having the courage to say, okay, we're about to have a brand new marriage. We've never been married and had a newborn in the house. It's all new.

So we're going to, and the beauty of this is we're building a thing we've never built before. And so we're going to give each other grace and we're going to always be practicing, which means we can be curious about it. We don't got to be judgmental about it. Okay. Yeah. The second thing is I want, when you make a list every day and every week and every month, I want you to begin adding a space for, I have no idea what's going to be coming.

Yeah. And leave four or five blanks and then put the next thing you want to get done. Because list people. I think that's kind of been a struggle for me. It will be. Jumping to the unknown. I've worked in the same career, you know, since I graduated college. And, you know, I've, you know, obviously we know our relationship.

And it's like, wow, there's a lot of unknowns. Yes. And here's where you have a chance to bury yourself or a chance to get on top of the sand. Okay. If you're a person whose identity has been for the last 20 years, I will accomplish the things on this list with excellence. I get things done. Bringing an unwieldy infant human into the world throws not only your schedule and your lists out into the wind, but it throws your identity out into the wind. Yeah.

Because you don't know what kind of sleeper you're going to have. you don't know what kind of colic you're going to have. You don't know what kind of like diarrhea schedule. You have no idea if your kid will be able to feed as you. And so often like it's the judgment of the things that we thought were going to happen. For instance, let's say you have spent your life rolling your eyes. And I'm making this up completely, okay? Rolling your eyes at the thought that a mother would buy formula for their baby.

Right? and then suddenly your baby won't latch or you get impacted and you have to have formula for a season because you can't breastfeed. The challenge is it also unwinds your identity. It also you become one of those women you have judged over time and it becomes unmooring. Who am I? Right. And so I want you to begin to be curious about those things and hold. them really open-handed because we have a way we want this all to go and the only thing we know

is it probably won't go like that. And if it does on this one, it for sure won't on the next one. Yeah, I have heard. So here's the thing. It's, it's, but you've never held your hands open before. You've always been so good and so accomplished and so smart at getting things done on your timeline or meeting somebody else's deadline that your hand has grown. grabbed like really tight hold on the handle of that identity. And so I want you to practice letting it go. What does that mean? Maybe for the next month until your baby's born,

I want you to practice just once every two or three days, not doing the dishes before you go to bed. Mm-hmm. You're like, I can't do that, right? I want you to practice taking all the couch pillows and dumping them onto the floor before you go to bed. Oh, man. Yeah, my husband's going to get a good laugh out of this one.

But here's why. Because this is about to be the next four years of your life. Yeah. And it will not be because you're not a great mom, not a great wife, not a great friend. It'll just be because this is life now. And it's the gap between reality and what I thought my identity was

that ends up unwinding people, okay? So here's another thing. If you don't have it already, A1, without a doubt, I want you to get a text thread with three other women who are a year or two or three ahead of you. Okay.

And I want you to contact them personally and say, y'all are going to be my three or four rider dies during this birth process over the next month and for the next year or two following. because I don't want you Googling a rash at 2 a.m. when you haven't slept in five days.

Yeah. I want you texting a friend. Holly Baldridge. Holly Baldridge, that's a name of a friend of me and my wife's. She was right down the street from Sarah Simpson. I'm naming the women that literally saved my wife because they already had young kids. And when Hank got his first rash when he was an infant, I thought it was over. and I remember Holly coming over to the house

and she laughed and she's like, oh, it's just this, fine. And having them in, like, for me, they were great, but having them for my wife, for people that text at 2 a.m. at 11 p.m., that was so important for her to just have a small tribe. And your husband has to have men in his life that he can go at least once a week and hang out with. And you're going to be like, no, he needs to be here doing stuff.

He does, but he also needs to not get disconnected from a gang, a group of men who are like, yep, yep, I can't kill style. Just like, yep, pass the nachos, right? Yeah. And then you all get to decide as this thing unfolds, once a day, how can I love you today? And you're going to commit to being honest with him. Here's what I want today. Here's what I need today. And you're going to commit to, how can I love you?

And for the first six months, probably nothing. right and we're going to do something every day we're going to check in with each other every week we're going to sit down and say hey how's our money how's our marriage how are you how am i how's our baby and once a month we're just going to say all right we've never been married with a three month old how are we doing we're just going to check in every day every week and every month yeah and then we're going to talk about money we're going to talk about our sex life we're going to talk about in-laws who want to come be nosy and how long do they want to stay and who has to make the phone call to say yes or no, we're going to just put all that on the table. And when you get

into these rhythms, it gets easier. Big conversations don't become events because we already have these things on the calendar when we get together and talk. All right, what am I missing? What else are you worried about? I think you got a big portion of it. I am a little nervous about just the stay-at-home mom aspect and like how that changes life and I am like miss social butterfly like I love being out and talking and so like part of this is like I feel a bit nervous about being alone socially um it's a nightmare and fight it with everything you got fight it with everything you got yeah take your baby with you invite women over like fight back on this insane notion that stay-at-home moms are supposed to stay locked in a box with an infant

human alone forever. That's madness. It's never happened in all of human history until like 1950. It's insanity. For all of human history, women raised kids with cousins and nieces and weird aunts and neighbors. This whole idea that you're just supposed to be exhausted and never sleep, whatever, that's never happened in all of human history. Yeah. Until 1950s. So fight it with everything you got. Have a house full of women all the time.

Sign up for stuff, go to stuff. And I know you've got nap time and all, like routines. I get all of that, especially in the beginning. But the more people you can have over. And again, part of why I told you to mess the house up a little bit before you go to bed. Yeah. Because I don't want friends coming over to become yet another performance for you. Yeah.

Where I got to clean up. I got to this. If twice a week, three times a week, you had a group of moms over to have coffee and the rule was no makeup, no clothes, and I'm not cleaning up anything, now you're talking. Then your shoulders drop when they come over. Yeah. But fight it with every... Yeah, that would definitely, like, challenge me for that. It will, it will.

But you're going to lose your spirit. If you circle the wagons and you emerge from your home in two years, you'll be a shell of your former self because you've got to have other people in your life. Mm-hmm. And I know that sounds scary, doesn't it? Yeah. Okay. The loss of identity is a really big and powerful thing. And can I give you one more?

Yeah. You may stay at home for three months and realize this is not for you. Mm-hmm. And A, that's okay. And B, you're going to feel super guilty. And C, your husband may feel like, well, I thought we had an agreement, and we had always committed you're going to be a stay-at-home mom,

there might be grieving during that season, but you're not a bad person, you're not a bad wife, and you're not a bad mom. You've never done this before, so everything you're heading into is a theory. Yeah, I know, I'm...

Go ahead, go ahead. Yeah, I'm kind of just using this as a break. I love my job for the most point, but it's hit me like at a burnout phase. Yeah, great. And so I know that, like, regardless of post-maternity leave, I don't want to come back to where I'm at. Great.

Because I don't like the person I am when I come home on a bad day. Nice. And those bad days are sometimes more often than I would like. Are you a teacher? I don't want to do that with a new baby. No. No, I work in corporately. I work in marketing.

Okay, okay. Which is a whole. Yeah, gotcha. You don't have to say anything else. So here's a fun part of the exercise with what kind of marriage do we want? Ask yourself, who do we want to be? And then we're going to create a structure around that identity question. I want to be a mom and a wife that is still fun, that is still out and about, that has people over all the time.

Okay, what must be true? Oh, man, I got to get a full night's sleep. I've got to exercise. I've got to have people around me all the time, which means I'm going to have to get over that this house is not going to be spotless all the time. I'm going to have to get over that I can't control. Sometimes I've got big plans and babies super sick and we can't go. I'm going to have to hire a babysitter, even though I feel guilty because I think mom should always be around

and should just sacrifice themselves and never have babysitters. Like, you get what I'm saying? But that order stems from who am I going to be and who do we want to be? And then we're going to create structures and systems to back up an identity. Yeah. That makes sense, but all close together. And I want you to take two words with you from this call, okay? Okay.

Open-handed. Okay. Open-handed. You get two months into a thing, that's not working. Cool, we learn something. We're going to do something different now. We're not going to bathe in shame. We're not going to bathe in guilt.

We're not going to bathe in judgment. It didn't work out this way. Cool. We're going to try a new thing. And give your husband that same grace, too. Because you know what? He's never been married to somebody who has an infant. It's going to be new for him too.

Yeah. Everybody's doing something new. But the fact that you even thought to call is so great. So great. We actually submitted the question together, following up like a date night because we're trying to squeeze in like as much as possible before the baby gets here. Awesome.

So hopefully like we've kind of started this, but like the pointers that you're giving will help us probably build a stronger foundation. Just know the feelings are going to come and that you're not broken. Your feelings are good. Feelings of guilt, your feelings of I miss the workplace, your feelings of I hate the workplace, the feelings of my baby's driving me crazy, the feelings of if my husband touches me again, I'm going to set him on fire, but also I wish you would hold me. Like all of it, it's just going to be a conflicting mess and it's like, I'm going to keep, I'm going to hold them open handed. And every day, every week, every month, my husband and I are going to have a rhythm where we get together

and touch base. So that these big unspoken things don't become monumental unspoken things, which become like the soil for the trees of resentment. Yeah. I definitely don't want to get that far. Yeah. So just go ahead and put on the calendar now. You like to plan out in the future.

you can't plan anything that's coming. You can at least plan your weekly and monthly meetings with your husband. You can plan those things. Yeah. That'll help. You can plan your nightly mess-up. Yeah, he'll get a good laugh out of that one. I usually try to put everything away at night.

I know you do. And he's just like, let's make out. And you're like, I've got to vacuum the roof or whatever you're doing. I don't know what you're doing. Right. So, like, it's, you all work it together. And he's going to have his own things. He's got to let go up too, right?

but man, you're all going to be awesome. It's been an honor to talk to you. Such a blessing. I wish you guys the absolute best. Hang on the line. I'm going to send you together at for a year as my gift. Hope to God you're not married to an Android guy. But to Android people, relax, relax.

It's coming. But it will help give you all a thing y'all can do every day to bring the two of you closer together, especially during a big sea change. of a life like adding a new baby. I hope it goes awesome. We'll be right back. The wait is over.

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company.com today to check out what's available right now. That's montananininevcompany.com. All right, what's up, Kelly? All right, I have a together question. Okay, can I ask you one question though before we talk about Together app i just notice it's just this second and this is on me because it's been there for years like now that i've made like eye contact with it i'm like oh that's been there forever my daughter and my wife and now you are all water bottle people at all times what's i would love to become a water bottle person because it looks awesome my wife takes i mean brings to the kitchen table. Is it help you count, like, how much you're drinking?

Is it just easier? Do you have, like, a phobia about somebody else drinking out of your glass? Like, what is it? No, I don't use it to be like, this is 24 ounces, so I've had three of these today at all. I just always like to have water with me. And so, yeah, I've got this one here, and then I've got one at home, and I'm the same. That's what I bring to the dinner table. I have one on the bedside table.

it's last longer than I like iced water like my husband loves room temperature water I don't get that but I love ice water so this the ice stays colder

in a bottle versus if I just have a glass of ice water Alright here's my real question How much vodka's in there? I don't drink John and you know that I know but it's kind of like when you ask somebody Like how much money do you owe I don't know anybody money

Except for a hundred thousand dollars of student loans in the car payment Yeah it's like that It's like I know you don't drink but vodka doesn't count sometimes. All right, what's your question about together? You're a dork. All right.

You're a dork. So, you use a lot of sciencey words when you talk about the... I like how you... Sciencey, yeah. But you talk about neuroscience, relationship science. Blah, blah, blah. What's the science behind all that? What is the real, like, where does that come from?

We know that. Is that something you just made up? It's okay if it is. Well, I don't understand the question. So when you, what is the science behind? Would we say, you know, these are like the neuroscience behind doing these little habits every day? What is the real science behind that?

It's, I mean, it's, it's a broad, huge category. So if you look at all the activities that we've loaded in there, some things are about the 30 second hug has to do with touch and has to do with bioregulation and has to do with pausing and has to do with ultimately

I know you're going to end up with eye contact with that which has oxytocin for women like it's a whole bunch of stuff so it's not like the app is from a particular stream of science it's woven throughout the whole thing

it's the foundation of it and you get a layer I was going to say deeper, but not above it. Social science is sometimes sketchy at best. And sometimes it's good, but man, a lot of times it is sketchy on a stick. But like there's a lot of studies about couples who talk together and couples who make eye contact and couples who touch more and couples who are in connection and have regular rhythms, etc.

Do better over time. And the whole thing built on the Gatman's work about bids is the way they call it, which is I'm going to do a thing towards you. you will you receive that and do a thing back towards me? And so it's woven throughout the whole thing. But it's not just like, here's a piece of science and we built it on that thing. It's woven throughout the entire app. But at the end of the day, it works is the most important thing. Is that helpful? It is. I think the idea is that this isn't just a bunch of crap we made up and threw in an app. There's legit science behind this stuff that proves these things work. Yeah.

And sometimes, I'm going to be honest, sometimes I'm like, I think we should do this. Sure. But, I mean, I've spent 20 years getting two PhDs. It's in there, right? I need to probably put up, like, if I have an activity with just an asterisk by it and just be like, Deloni just made this one up because it sounded hilarious. That would be fun too. I think we've over-indexed, not on data, but I think we've become an overly optimized,

obsessive culture, and I don't think it's served us well in a lot of. lot of different places. What do I mean by that? It's a conversation that was Steve Ronella when we were talking about, I was struggling to find the data on marriage initially. And he just looked at me and said, I don't care. Marriage is the best thing for me. And I'm watching it happen. And I was like, yes, that. It's just what my grandmother didn't do things because she had the neuroscience. She didn't because it made sense. And I think that's where we're all kind of swinging back to. And I think that's a good place to me. The Apple change of marriage, go get it. Thank you.