The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “I Fought for Our Marriage . . . It Didn’t Work”

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

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We talked, and I told you to go fight for your marriage. That is correct. And you said, you know, go put up a boom box and go fight for your marriage. Yeah. And I said, you know, will you fight with me? And her response was, I don't know. Oh, God. Hello, hello.

What's up? This is John of the Dr. John Deloney's show, comedy from Nashville, Tennessee. Take it in your calls. Real people going through real challenges. I'm glad you're here. Pull up a seat and we're figuring out. We will figure out, said the guy who can't make a complete sentence, what's the next right move? Man, if you can see the eyes of judgment from our overlord Kelly.

They burn. Let's go out to Portland, Oregon and talk to Ira. All right, so Ira, is it a week or two ago we talked, and I told you to go fight for your marriage. Is that right? That is correct, and good morning. Yeah, it was like a week or two ago, we chatted and you said, you know, go be silly, go do, you know, a John Cusack film in the 1980s and put up a boom box and go fight for your marriage. Yeah. And I got to tell you.

Yeah, and I did it. I loved the idea. So I pinged my wife. I said, hey, you know, where are you? And I wanted to make it as embarrassing for myself as humanly possible. but sadly she was just at the house so all I had to do was by myself so I grabbed my Bluetooth speaker

I put it in the hair I she pulled up and she's like what's going on? I'm like just do me a favor let me act like an idiot for a minute and I said just go inside let me knock on the door she goes inside and knocks on the door I hold a Bluetooth speaker in the air

and I play a song from Garden State Oh what a great movie I know it was exactly exactly I mean, I was, I mean, just like, just Steph Curry, sinking three-pointers. Those were awesome. So I get on my knee and, you know, I just say, you know, this is, you know, I know this is hard. You know, we've gone through a lot. There's a lot of things that we as a team, as partners, as a couple, need to fix to, you know, build a relationship that we want to have for the rest of our lives.

But I want to be able to look back and say, you know, I was always so proud of fighting for each other. and I said, you know, would you, and I mean, I was ugly crying. I knew it was all coming out. And I said, you know, will you fight with me? And when I looked up a little bit of a sullen face, a little bit of surprise, and her response was, I don't know. Oh, God, dude. Yeah, exactly.

You know, you kind of know when somebody's out of the fight, done with a fight, not able to do that anymore. And, you know, I own every single part that I should have done better for our entire relationship. So is it, it's over and over? Did she file on you? She requested, officially she requested a divorce at our last therapy session. And I was hoping that we're going to have some more time with separation to really kind of look at it. but she was done done.

And I don't really see that as any way of coming back. All right. Let's pause for a second. Like, so number one, and then we'll get to your question, because I only have another question. I have to applaud you, man, with all my guts. And here's the thing. This divorce goes through and it's final.

She's requested it, so I'm assuming let's play this out. this divorce happens in 30 or 60 days you are an unmarried man you will be able to look yourself in the mirror and say I literally went to my knees for this marriage yeah and I wasn't perfect in the past but I went all in and there won't be any lingering well maybe if I had whatever like you win for it yeah so I want to applaud you man and I want to tell you that future you is going to be really grateful that you left everything out on the field. Yeah. You know what I mean?

You're right. Like when you talk to an Olympic second or third or fourth placer and they're like, no, that guy was just faster than me. Yeah. I put every, or I'm a big UFC fan. Like somebody gets knocked out. They're like, oh, dude, I had a great training camp. I went in ready to go and that guy just beat me.

There's a sadness and there's a heartbreak and there's the depression, all that stuff. But there's also the, no, I did everything I could. And so well done, brother. I hate the outcome for you. I'm such a romantic. Good call on Garden State, by the way. Oh, I was trying. I mean, you went like, that's like, that's layers, dude.

That's a good move. But like, I'm proud of you, dude. That's for real. Thank you. I wish more people would fight for their marriage that way. Yeah. Yeah. I think one of the big things that I learned from this,

And I actually was sitting down with some folks last night. I said this to them. It's like, if you think there's a problem, start fighting immediately. Don't wait until we're here. Yeah, amen. Yeah. And I wish more people did that. Yeah.

So how do I help you move them forward? Or you might be like, dude, screw your stupid advice. I did what you said, and it was terror. It didn't work. It was the best advice I've ever received because I truly feel like I did everything I could once I knew it was a five alarm fire. It's awesome. Well, good for you, man. Yeah.

Yeah. In your experience, I just need some help learning how I can have a positive relationship with my spouse after divorce because we have kids. Yeah. It's going to be very similar to what you chose to do at your front door. Not so dramatic, obviously, but you got a ringside seat to the truth that you can only control you. And so you have to ask yourself, who do I want to be? regardless of the emotional maturity of my former spouse and the mother of my kids. And so the work on yourself continues.

And my hope is y'all can sit down and say, okay, we've had our differences. We didn't work out, but you're the mother of my kids. I'm the father of your kids. And the greatest gift we can give our kids now after our marriage is over, repairing that would have been the best. Absent that, the greatest gift we can give our kids is to be each other's cheerleader

for them. And dude, I've seen couples just do amazing jobs at that. And I've seen couples just burn their children to the ground out of spite and anger and frustration and immaturity. It really, as simple as I'm going to make it,

it's a choice between two adults that kids are more important than grievances. But you can only do the best. A couple of like rules of thumb, no matter what, never, ever, ever talk bad about her because your kids, half of them is her. And so if you ever roll your eyes,

oh, your dumb mom's late again or whatever, they will know part of them is dumb. Part of them is annoying. Part of them is a brat. Part of them is whatever. And so as hard as it will be, I'm going to always tell the truth. I'm not going to lie. And hopefully your wife will sit down and say, no, your dad really wanted to stay married,

and I'm choosing to leave. I'm choosing to end this marriage. Sometimes people say, hey, I want to leave, but don't tell the kids. Let's say that we both agreed on that. That's a hard thing for me to swallow to say it that way. I'm never going to lie to my kids. I don't think that's ever a wise thing because they'll feel it. Yeah.

And so I, but you might be honest and say I wasn't the guy that I wanted to be and I let things get too long. And how old are your kids? Five and seven. Okay, they don't need that level of explanation at this age anyway. Yeah. Do they know this is coming? How have they handled the separation? They've been really okay with it once we gave them real.

visibility of saying, hey, we've said this, but the reality is, we're, you know, we're separated right now. We kind of said it in different terms, but, and then just gave them a real schedule of what was going on, where they were going to be, made sure that they were taking care of those. There was no surprises. Okay. So the word divorce will a ricochet through them in different ways. Schedule, I mean, expect them to have a fantasy that's something that y'all are going to get back together. and expect them to try to do what they can to bring y'all back together

and it will be y'all's job to make sure they know this is not their job yeah and so if y'all can sit by each other and look at each of them and say y'all are amazing and y'all are wonderful and this has to do with mom and dad

this has nothing to do with you guys yeah that makes sense but kids have a supernatural way of they're going to say things like but dad you told me to always forgive why isn't mommy forgiving you? Right?

And they'll ask you questions like that and you'll have to be like that's a good question. Yeah. And then they'll say, Daddy, you always tell us to never be mean. Why are you mean to mommy? And you'll be like, oh, right? So, I mean, expect those things

and honor every question that your kids ask. And it's okay to say things like I'll tell you more details when you get older. But right now I'm just sad. And kids also think that adults can just do whatever they want. And so if you're like, no, I'm really sad, they'll be like, well, then just go back with her.

Right? They're going to ask questions like that. Just prepare yourself for it. Yeah. I don't ever want kids going through a divorce to feel like they're not allowed to ask questions. And they will learn real quick, whether their fears and concerns.

are their adults in their life can hold them or if they can't. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. The girls have been laughingly asking me, are you going to cry again, do they daddy? I'm like, no, I'm not. Thank you for asking. Yeah.

But they need, they're going to be really sad and they're going to be heartbroken. And they're going to do it, handle it in different ways. One kid may go get straight A's. One kid may really struggle. Like, just don't look at outcomes. Look at the kids, right? and them seeing their dad cry is a blessing for them

of the highest order because it lets them know they're not crazy right and when one of y'all starts dating this whole thing kicks back up again because then it starts to be like oh they're not getting back together right and kids will hold that fantasy for a long, long time

yeah right but the best line I ever heard was the moment somebody requests a divorce and or files for divorce, the marriage is over and you and this other adult are now engaged in a business transaction.

Would you honor each other in a business arrangement the same way you would honor somebody else you're doing business with? Will you be kind to them? Will you be honest with them? Will you treat them more than fair? Right?

And so reframing it that way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I think I'm just going to, my opinion on this is that I just need to take some time before I do any business transaction to get over the, kind of the shock and all. Yeah. Well, you might not have time. You might not have a bunch of time.

And that's where sitting down and asking your wife, do you want to get a mediator or do you want to get, we're going to get lawyers? I prefer to get a mediator and save the money. If you want to get an attorney, I understand. And I'll get one too and we'll let them fight each other. Yeah. But these things can get real expensive, real fast, and real dramatic real fast. Yeah. Agreed.

Did not expect this to be happening right now, John. Nope. Nope. Nope. I'm sorry. I'm heartbroken with you, man. Hey, man. I appreciate it.

I appreciate all you do for all these folks out here, including me. So thank you. I really appreciate it. Dude, I'm so sorry. My plan didn't work. Me too, but man, I'm not blaming you. You're a great plan. You kidding me?

I would hug you if you were here that you went for it, brother. You went for it. And I wish more people would just go for it. And it didn't work out. But I tell you what, man, you're going to be able to look yourself in the mirror and put your head on your pillow knowing

I fought for my wife. And she said she was done. And so now we get to decide to be adults on the back end of this thing. I think the next path forward is to eat for y'all two to go out and have a meal together and to say i want to confirm whether you you want to get a divorce if so here's my questions do you want to get a mediator um i'm not interested in fighting you i want to love and honor our daughters well i want to be respectful

and honoring of you in this separation like what do we have what kind of conversations we want to have um i know couples who've gone through mediation and they end their marriage for a couple thousand bucks or $500. It's just simple because they're not interested in burning each other to the ground or trying to get retribution or anything. And dude, I've seen divorces go on for years and years and years to the tune of hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, which is insanity to me. But alas, fighting over a plate or a whatever, a shovel or whatever.

So I think heading into it directly, like right into it. All right, so you said, like, this is what you want. I want to be a person of integrity through this, and I would head right through it, not try to avoid it. I don't know if you're ever going to feel ready to go through with something this big that you don't want to be doing in the first place. But thanks for a call, brother. Bam, man, that would have been awesome if it worked out, but I'm proud of you.

We'll be right back. Everywhere I go, I'm wearing poncho shirts. I was recently out and a guy came up to me and said, hey, listen, be honest, are these poncho shirts actually worth it? Are they that good? You're always talking about them? And I laughed and said, yes, they really are that amazing. I've been wearing poncho shirts for years. If I'm on stage, if I'm traveling, if I'm running around town. This weekend, I took my daughter to this really fancy play. What was I wearing? Pancho shirts. Right now, I'm wearing a lot of their originals and ultralights because it's hot outside, even in the evenings. And those originals and ultra lights, they're light, they breathe and they move with you.

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Sign up and you'll get $10 off your first purchase. That's poncho outdoors.com slash deloni. Hey, it's Deloni. I talk to people all the time who are experiencing difficulties with their health. Low energy, brain fog, poor sleep, sexual dysfunction, or just this general feeling that they're not well, but they can't explain why. Even though this is super common, it doesn't mean it's normal.

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Joy and Blocks is for women and men who want to be proactive with their health. If this is you, stop guessing and start getting answers. Go to Joy &Bloaks.com slash Deloni and get 50% off labs and 20% off all products. That's J-O-I-A-N-D-B-L-O-K-E-S dot com slash Deloni. Let's go to Houston, H-Tone, and talk to Jack, Jack, Jack. What's up, Jack? Awesome. So my question for you was, how do I save my marriage and rebuild after me and my wife

have been through maybe everything that we can go through? Tell me about it. So basically, we've been married for about five years. We had a good few years, and then we lost our child at 20 weeks. at that point what happened is her feelings just got really deeply affected

and part of me was not able to fully fulfill her emotional needs I always brushed a bit under drug type of thing and as it progresses throughout the years we kind of grew just a bit distant and a few years ago

we even went even more to just like fight about it and all the things. A year ago, we separated just because we just couldn't be with each other. And we're still fine. We still talk. We still, you know, good people to each other and maybe hoping that we can rebuild, having intimate time sometimes as well. And we always thought that, hey, maybe we're not for each other. We're good people, but maybe not the right season. And about not too long ago, she mentioned like, hey, look, you know, there's this person. And I was like, hey, yeah, I mean, if you're happy, that's great. And when that gentleman came into the picture, actually, I got so

hurt to the point where I actually was able to look into the mirror and be like, hey, what's the reason why this marriage failed? What could have done better? And it was a few painful days and weeks to the point where I finally was able to open myself and be like, hey, what did I mess up? And I realized that a good part of it, when she was feeling hurt, I was not taking care of her hurt. And when I was feeling hurt or not respected, I would not be like, hey, how can I help you to be better? I was always type of selfish.

Like, hey, if I hurt, you should hurt too. and I believe that's what broke us apart since the gentleman came in he realized that it might not be the best for them to like continue the relationship and we've been talking a lot more since then

a lot more openly and for the first time ever we actually were able to hold conversation for hours without arguing just little listening but throughout this whole time she's been very hurt by my actions.

And for her right now, it's slightly challenging to come back in the relationship because she doesn't know how much to trust. We do believe that we can work things out. We just need a path of how can we overcome this and trust each other again. How can we rebuild everything?

And we are very open. We talk a lot about it. and we're starting having new memories again. But I do know that because of the gentleman, which I'm grateful for, if he was not in the picture, I would have probably not be able to open myself. I would have probably been the same stubborn person.

So I don't hold anything towards him. At the end of the day, I told myself, hey, if things won't work out, at least I was able finally to open myself up to see what I actually. happened within myself. And the challenge was when she found this person, she realized that she could be a younger version of herself,

which she never was able to. So she does hold some sort of emotional attachment to him. But since then, she realized they can be together because she knows it's going to hurt me too much. yet I would like to see how can we rebuild especially thinking account that she had a very deep emotional connection with this person yeah I mean there's the gosh there's so much here

I would love to spend several more but yeah exactly I'd spend several hours with you I think you're man I found myself agreeing with a lot of what you said I found myself agreeing with a lot of what you said I found myself wanting to push back on a lot of what you said. I think the important part is for the time we have is recognizing you and your wife are both at, you've crossed a finish line. The old relationship y'all had is over. Do you want to build a new one?

And part, a key component of rebuilding is, y'all agreeing on where this thing wants to go but I guess the place I have to challenge you on is you can't be responsible for her emotions when you're with somebody um Jefferson Fisher gave me this line and I love it it's just during a private conversation when you're with somebody like when you marry somebody um when you're deeply connected to somebody you give each other the nuclear codes to your to your spirit you can blow each other up but you choose not to use them right and so you can hurt each other but she has to own her emotions, the responses to those feelings,

and you have to own yours. And so then when you've owned yours and she's owned hers, then y'all are able to sit at the table and say, how can I love you today? And that might be different than how I can love you tomorrow. And then y'all begin to ask each other, what do we want, what do we want our home to feel like, what do we want tomorrow to feel like,

what do we want 10 years from now, to look like. And so I think you've got a lot of counseling language, which is good, but it can also trap, be a trap. I'm glad that you're able to hold,

like an enlightened person can hold even the worst, most negative things and say, but because these things happened, here I am, right? So the fact that you can be grateful for this guy that moved in on your wife shows, hey, like, good on you, man. Like, you're at a place where you're like, I'm going to choose to use this as an opportunity for growth,

not an opportunity to double down on the old, stubborn, mule version of myself that I was. But the real question is, do you want to show up and work really hard to be the absolute best version of yourself? Yeah. And then spend the rest of your life giving that, full version of yourself over to this woman.

And does she want to do the same? Yeah, I think that's the tricky part. It's not tricky. I think we want to make it really complicated, but it's real, real simple. Does she want to become the best version of herself? Be honest, be open, not hold all of the past grievances in her back pocket

like an Ace of Spades to play anytime she feels like she's down in a poker hand. and does she look at you across the table and say, I want to build something new with you. It's not tricky. It's pretty simple. And then you're going to move forward, not looking for fireworks shows and attachment styles

and all this other bull crap. What you're going to do is you're going to take a million tiny steps. How can I love you today? Hey, can I say that again? Whoa, I'm finding myself getting angry again. I'm going to accept that anger, and then I'm going to go make a choice to do the next right thing, even though I don't feel like doing it right now.

It's going to be that over and over and over again. Yeah, I do agree with that. But you can't make her love you? Yep, but I did come to that conclusion. And you can't make her want to be married to you. Yep. I tell myself daily that, you know, it happened. It happened for a reason.

And, you know, it got to be like, hey, look, guys, you deserve a second chance. I'll be happy. If not, it's going to be sad, depressing sad, but at least, you know, I finally found a way to actually open myself and understand the small things that I was doing wrong that piled up to the point where it got what it got. Can you give yourself some grace?

I've been through three pregnancy losses with my wife. It almost blew us up too. Because I grieved one way, she grieved another way, and we did not know, but we didn't have language, we didn't have tools to talk about what grief looked like. And her grief sent her into a black hole, and my grief sent me to work.

Neither of those were healthy, but I wanted to fix the problem and move on because I didn't understand. And she didn't understand that I didn't understand. And then it happened again, and then it happened again. And so what I've learned to do is regret some of the things I did and didn't do,

and also I give old me a lot of grace man because that guy didn't know and I do now and now I can do it better this time or next time but if you walk around saying like what I did wrong and what I needed to fix then you look at yourself like a car engine

instead of a guy that didn't have some tools you get the difference there yeah I get it and lately go ahead lately I mean last four weeks as I was able to look in the mirror and me like hey what

could I've done better I took the small things I've done wrong like hey it comes up again how can I improve on this time and she's seen all these small changes and she simply loves who I am today right now and who I'm becoming and we still talk slightly

here and they're like hey how we can reveal the only challenge that's going to be on her side is like, hey, how can I move on from the past relationship that's been there? Let's build a new one. Let me trust the new version of you. But trust is not going to, trust is going to come from a thousand tiny actions. It's not just a switch you flip. And so here's your question for her.

I need two weeks of a roadmap to rebuild trust. Otherwise, she's going to be chasing a feeling. And when you chase feelings, they move on. you because they're not designed to tell you the truth. That's not a feeling's job. A feeling's job is to keep you safe. And she's been hurt before. And so if she's trying to feel trustworthy, like that she trusts you, that every time you do something that's trustworthy, you show up, you keep your word, you're on time, you catch yourself before you blow up or before you shut down, her body's going to move it. Because the goal,

isn't to trust you again in her nervous system. Her goal is to never get hurt like that again. And so what she's going to have to do is sit with you and say, for the next 14 days, here's what I need. And if you can do those things, if you could choose to walk that path of reestablishing trust, and by the way, she's got to do this for you. She didn't, she's not perfect here either, right? Yep, we all the doubt of mistakes. Okay, so we're both going to give each other a path towards rebuilding this thing and reestablishing trust. And even though we don't quote unquote feel like it, if you're doing those things,

it's going to keep moving the ball forward down the field. Yeah. But she's going to chase feelings if you don't have this, this direct clarity on. Here's what I need you to do to reestablish trust. I need you to wake up in the morning and call me. I need you to walk in the door and not have your phone. And the first thing you do is come hug me.

I want 30 minutes of time with you, no screens, no nothing. I want you just to sit at the counter while I'm making dinner while you're making dinner and I just want to tell you about my day. And you don't roll your eyes, you listen, you ask questions, right? That's how you're going to reestablish trust. And otherwise, you're going to be in a feelings competition with this fantasy of this other guy. And he's playing a different set of a rule, like a completely different game. You're playing football and they're playing baseball.

And so she's going to have feelings of it was different than her hurt. And it was a distraction from her hurt. And maybe this guy listened more or let her be sillier or she could rest her head on his shoulder where she couldn't do that with you. And it's going to be a feelings competition. And one will always win out because one is a fantasy. You all went through real life, real hard stuff together. This thing she has with the other guy is not real life. It's a distraction.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes a little sense. She won't find out real life until they go through something, till his mother gets sick, or until he loses his job, or she gets pregnant with him and she miscarries again. Like, then we'll start to see, like, oh, now this thing's got some weight to it. But right now it's playtime, it's fantasy. It's a distraction from the hurt she shared with you.

And, brother, if y'all have not had a... Just the two of you, a funeral for this pregnancy you lost? You need to do that. We did. Okay. But as you mentioned before, she was trying to grieve, and I was trying to just provide, and that was what, you know, went different paths and as it grew more and more, I felt disrespect, but in the same time, I give, I didn't give 100% for her.

Right. So how could I expect 100% back? But let's look in the rearview mirror with some grace. Yeah, she says the same. And let's look in the rearview mirror at two young folks who loved each other and who did not have the tools to handle such a big thing that happened. Losing a child is one of the things that separates couples. Whenever I sit with a couple who's either about to lose a child or just did,

the first question I asked them is, do you all want to stay married? Because everybody grieves differently. it's like a fingerprint. And if you don't have a ton of compassion, not understanding, because you don't understand it, because everybody's body does something different. If you don't have a ton of compassion to how your spouse is grieving,

you will end up a million miles apart. I feel like she's got compassion for you. I've got grace for you. The only person who doesn't have grace for the past is you. Yeah, she says that a lot. Okay. He's a lot late like, hey, look, you know, you didn't have any better.

I want, here's the deal, I want you to write you, however old you were six months after you lost his pregnancy. I want you to write you a letter and tell you that you forgive yourself. Sure, there's things I wish we could have done differently. There's things I'd even say we did wrong, but you'd never dealt with a loss like this. You'd never dealt with a grieving wife like this. And so you open up your toolkit, you didn't have any tools. And we're going to commit ourselves to A, loving, really well moving forward, and be getting those tools so that when, not if,

but when we face tragedy together in the future, I'm not going to do it perfectly. Nobody does grief perfectly. It's not a judgment thing. It's a jungle you go through. But I'm going to open my toolkit up, but I'm going to have some more tools in there. And the tools might be compassion.

The tools might be emotional regulation. The tools might be, I'm going to go deal with my own anger, so that's not my body's first response to things. But write yourself a letter. And if you really want to have the courage and begin taking steps towards trust, read that letter to yourself to your wife. And then at the end of the day, you're going to have to sit in front of her and say, I want to dedicate my life to loving you well, which means I got to be okay. I got to fill up my picture so that I can spend the rest of my life filling yours. Will you do the same? But you're not going to be able to get in the boat and row and her stand on the shore and watch you row to determine whether she wants to be married to you. She's going to have to get in the boat too. Both feet, both of y'all. How are we going to do our money?

How are we going to do our conversations? How are we going to solve problems in here? How are we going to forgive each other moving forward? Because we're both going to hurt each other again. That's the nature of relationships. We're going to say the wrong thing. We're going to do the wrong thing? The question isn't do relationships run out of gas?

I just don't believe in that. I believe that one or both decide I don't want to keep driving this thing forward. Pick my foot off the gas. Or I'm going to take an exit ramp. And so if you all want to get back on the highway together, y'all get to choose to do that and just be really clear with the path. Thanks for the call, brother. Appreciate you, man.

You're doing the hard work, and that level of reflection is pretty impressive. So I'm proud of you, man. Y'all call anytime. We come back. A woman asks how to balance healthy habits without feeling socially isolated. This is a big conversation happening all over the country. I can't wait to jump in. Hey, it's Touloney for Howlowe.

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Good. This is so cool. I just submitted my question and now I'm talking to you. That's fantastic. It's so cool for me. What's up? All right. So my question is, how do you maintain healthy habits like not drinking, regular exercise, eating well, and going to bed early, while still staying socially engaged and forming new connections? I noticed that a lot of these activities kind of revolve around sharing a meal, having a drink, and staying up late. And they all tend to bond people. And when you opt out, I feel a little lonely and honestly kind of boring. So how do you navigate all that? Yeah, man, this is the million dollar question right now. And my buddy Michael Easter just wrote a great article about the pathology of over-optimization. Right? Like, what's the point in having 5% body fat and a perfect sleep score on whatever device you're wearing if you have no friends? Exactly.

I don't really want to go over there and be like, oh, I'm eating 1,500 calories so I can't. Yeah, exactly. Enjoy the mail with you. I mean, I can tell you how I've managed that, and I'm a guy who struggled with disordered eating my whole life. And I went down rabbit holes way before they were cool. I've been tracking stuff since, I mean, I had spreadsheets with blood. I mean, I'm a dork, okay?

I can tell you now I don't have any sleep. I don't have any gear on anymore. I don't track anything anymore. If I'm trying to do a particular cut, I do track calories for a season using the carbon app. But other than that, I'm pretty loose now. But I can tell you the principles that I hang on to. Yes.

I don't want to get to the end of my life sitting in a rocking chair, an old wrinkled old man, and have looked back on my life and said, man, really crushed that sleep score. right yeah I want to look back on my life with a couple of other old people on the rocking chairs and be like can you believe we made that we survived that remember that one time I want that I want that right so for me it's become a guy who lives his life out of balance quite often it's become a balancing act here's my principles and they're different for everybody I mostly try to get as good sleep as I can and that means that if I have a chance that to go do a comedy set, I'm going to be up late that night. Tomorrow night I'm driving to another state with a couple other comedians and I'm headlining a thing.

I'm going to be up really, really late. I would much rather have that shared experience than an extra hour of sleep that night. But that also means I got to be pretty smart about the rest of the week. Great, cool. I don't drink. And yesterday at band practice, a guy showed up with a six pack of beer and I was like, I'll have one and it was awesome. You know what I'm saying?

So it's like, and it probably if I attracted my sleep, it would have impacted my REM sleep last night a little bit. Big deal. I had fun with my friends last night. We jammed. We played 80s metal. It was awesome. And then I worked out this morning.

So you get what I'm saying? Yeah. So you kind of don't opt out of like all of them at once. You kind of just pick the ones that you kind of want to go for it. Does that make sense? I want to ask myself, what am I optimizing for? And if it's not relationships and peace, then I don't want it. Right.

It's the reason I don't day trade. It's the reason I don't have a bunch of single stocks. I'm probably leaving money on the table, but I'm sleeping well at night. You get what I'm saying? Yes. Like it's just the ROI for my life after sitting with people who have everything. anything you can imagine. They got it.

And they are miserable. And the most fit people on the planet. And they're miserable. I know. And I just don't want that. No. Because I'm doing this off to live a life, not to keep me from it. There you go.

I want to feel good in the morning so that I'm a good husband and a good dad. And I show up here within an hour of when I said I was going to start the show. Right? Like, and I want to be pleasant to be around. You know what my word of the year was last year? Delightful. Me. Because I got tired of walking into rooms and everyone went, ugh.

Or they went, because that guy's going to be nuts. And so I'm more delightful when I sleep. I'm more delightful when, I'm, you know, I take care of myself. Tadda. But man. A couple times a week,

I can get wheels off. So let me ask you, what are you optimizing for? So I am 33 right now. I'm heading into my last year of law school. So I've been working full-time, going to school part-time. So right now it's kind of exciting because I'm looking ahead. And I want to get married and have kids, but I also kind of want to be like a community-based attorney. So I feel like I got it, like networking is going to be very important to me coming up.

And I'm excited to do that. But also, like, I built a lot of habits in law school, like, going to bit early and, you know, trying to maintain my weight in law school because it's stressful. So I want to keep those habits, but still kind of be involved in the community. Yeah, I don't, where do you feel like those are in opposition? It just seems hard when everything is like, you know, every, you go off for, or do you go to a restaurant and, like, you want to eat the pasta and you want to enjoy the good meal. or you're having a drink and you feel like, I don't know, I feel like drinking is like kind of a bonding experience

and then when you opt out of it, I don't know, I just feel like alone and kind of boring. Okay. Whose story is that? I don't know. I guess I just don't feel like the fun person like when they know. You know what I mean?

Like I've always been the kind of responsible one. I've always kind of done the quite right thing. So it feels weird to say, yes. What version of yourself do you think improves when you've been drinking? Well, to be honest, I don't really drink a lot. I have two drinks and then I'm done. I'm a lightweight. So I think it's just easier to have a conversation and, you know, like, what do you even do with your hands sometime? Or like, what do you talk about when you're not talking about the meal or having, you know, you're not talking about drinking, you know? Yeah, and I've had this conversation with Chris Williamson.

He has a great take on it. He hosts the Modern Wisdom podcast, which I was listening to it on the way into the office this morning. I love his work, but he said the best podcasters are men and women who live really interesting lives off the microphone. And so you're in a season right now where you are like law school in and of itself is a nightmare. Put on top of that, working full-time. You're going part-time to law school in your 3-0-year, which is nightmare on top of nightmare. And you've given yourself,

I would probably posit this as some sort of Xanax, like a thing I can control in a world where I'm out of control, right? You can't control grading, you can't control what all the techno-overlords are saying about the future of the legal profession. You can't, any of that stuff. Like, the one thing I control is I will, not go to that party and I will go to bed and I'll get perfect hours of sleep. I will have zero drinks.

I will have 1,500 calories. Like you can control those things, but that control becomes not in service to you to give you the life that you want. It becomes a thing you can control. It becomes a pathology. What do you mean pathology? It becomes a very unhealthy, healthy habit. A healthy habit done for unhealthy reasons.

Let me say it that way, right? Like, it is important for my body to have an alarm system called anxiety in case it notices something in my environment that I need to get away from or to turn and fight. It becomes a pathology when it starts sounding that alarm for everything all the time, right? So that healthy thing done unhealthily will kill you. And so the bigger question for me is, like, what kind of life do you want to have? Or how do you solve for peace as a community-based lawyer? what do you think it's going to take practice um like i don't want to use those things as like a crutch you know what i mean like and i hear what you're saying about control and i i totally agree

with that um and you know working just working in the legal field is pretty stressful um it's so stressful yeah it's so stressful you're really i the thing that i like is taking and helping people with the problems but i'm sure like you, it can be a lot. It's a ton. But also, like, you and I have an extra responsibility to make sure we're well outside of the office. So then we show up and sit with hurting people.

We're anchored in, right? And so some of that comes at a cost. Like, I do go to bed earlier than all of my friends, right? So then having to know which way, if you're, like, leaning too far into the healthy habits or you're not leaning. It's not either or. It's why once a month you get with a group of friends and ask yourself and be reflective, do I like the life I'm living?

Because there's, the myth of it all is that there's a balance somewhere. It's one of the greatest nonsensical lives of our time. There's never been this stupid idea of balance ever in human history. You know what led the charge? Seasons. There were seasons when you get up at 4.30 because that's when the sun cracked the horizon and you worked until it went down. That way your family could live through the winter.

And then when there was 40 feet of snow outside, you sat by your fire because you couldn't go outside. There was no balance. It was seasons. And we opted out. I mean, we've hacked our way around weather. We have air conditioners and heaters and cold plunges and saunas. Like we worked around it,

and now we think we're above seasons. We're not. And so we're shooting for this thing. called balance. What's the right amount of cold and the right amount of just shut up? Like, what kind of life do you want? Right. And so, and I'm not saying you shut up. I'm saying us culturally shut up. Right. And so, man, there's going to be, like for the last two years and especially the last year, I've been working on what I will call the book of my lifetime. And there has been zero balance in my life. None. Zero. I've been so out of whack,

out of balance, that I'm a walking zombie right now. But here's what's awesome. I had it on the calendar. I knew this was coming. And so, this into the summer and into the fall, I am built in with my wife, with my colleagues, restoration, ways I can get my feet back underneath me. Does that make sense?

And so you're in a season as a 3L heading into taking the bar while you're also working full time. there is no, nothing, no semblance of balance in your life. And that's super okay. You're probably right to be doubling down on any to make sure I'm sleeping, I'm exercising, I'm not just going off the rails on a crazy train with my diet, right? Like you're probably really wise to do that. And if you think you're kind of boring, but you're getting up as the best version of yourself,

awesome. It's like, it's like it's the dead of winter and you come out in a coat and you don't feel sexy right now. right? Because you have all of your poofy jackets on. Great. It's not sexy season. It's cold outside. Right? It's just remembering swimsuit season's common. It's just not right now. And I want you to be intentional about what do I want that summer to look like when it gets here? What do I want? Like you get that, you log in and it says, boom, you pass the bar. What do you want the day after that to feel like? I want to talk to people again. Yeah. Amazing. So put it on the calendar, build it in.

Okay. You're not crazy for being out of balance right now. You're in one of the most stressful seasons of human can go through. And if you haven't been in a law school environment, people that just don't know. And the one recommendation I gave to everyone of my law students was don't try to work. And you're working full time, right? So you're adding on top of it. Because you have to.

I'm working full time because I'm going dead free. That's it. I mean, so you're, you are grinding in a really noble and powerful way. Don't add to that grind. Don't take this huge wagon you're trying to drag through the jungle and add center blocks to it of shame and guilt, and I should be, and I can't believe I'm not. Yeah.

You don't need any more weight on that wagon. You're pulling. Okay. You do need something on the calendar that says, I'm going to go to Ireland or I'm going to go to the beach, and I'm going to be silly and I'm going to exhale. I'm going to...

Here's my rule of thumb. One of my rules of life for John Deloney is I don't ever fall off the wagon. But I do park that wagon and climb down and roll around in the mud sometimes. It's all about intentionality. Does that make sense? Yeah.

So you're planning to jump off. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I knew last night dude, I'm playing 80s metal with great friends. And this will just feel better in the morning if I didn't sleep very well. Right? Like, I knew it. It's just going to be more fun.

And by the way, that was a story. I told myself, too. I would have had just as much fun without it, but I don't know. It just felt awesome. Yeah, yeah. And I'm a grown-up. You know what I can do? Kind of whatever I want.

Yeah, but that's awesome. It is. And you're also looking over the edge of a whole, bunch of freedom, right? Yeah. And that freedom comes great responsibilities and freedom brings risk with it. If you're a great attorney who wakes up every day with an eye towards, I want to do the best I can to help people, business will find you. Colleagues will refer you. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And you know what you have that very, very, very few of your classmates and your colleagues are going to have? No student loan payments.

you know what that means it means you can take whatever cases you want or don't want that means you can really anchor into a really firm moral compass because you don't have to you don't have a lender leaning over your like a shadow over your

you when you sleep at night saying hey you owe me money tomorrow and so while all of your classmates are running around nervous freaked out like begin to dream a little bit what kind of life to want to build and if you want to get married, have kids, which I think would be amazing and awesome. I'm a big fan, then I would skip the networking events

and I'd go on dates. Yeah. I guess it's just how you do that without having a drink. I just don't outsource my judgment very often. What do you mean by that? I'm just pretty careful about who gets a vote into whether on what I'm doing or not doing.

Like, if I'm with some people and I'm like, no, I'm going to have Diet Coke tonight. And they're like, are you serious? You're not going to drink? I'm just not going to hang out with those people anymore. Like, I don't have time for that. And I hang out with wild people. And I get that zero times.

Zero. I can't remember the last time somebody said something to me about not drink very often. Yeah. And so you have to be honest about whether those stories are real. And by the way, the pressure to drink in law school culture is astronomical. If that's the voices you're allowing into your spirit, just close that door, slam it shut today. But if there really isn't other voices, and these are just stories you're

telling yourself, I'm not as fun if, I'm nervous, I'm uncomfortable if, I'll begin to ask you, what kind of life are you leading outside of whatever it is you're doing so that when you show up at that table, you're the best version of yourself, that person that you want to best, most be. And that's the person that gets a vote. And I'm, I always caution everybody, man, if you can't be the best version of yourself without alcohol, without a drink, without drug, like, talk to somebody. Because there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, there's a shield there somewhere that alcohol helps remove. And I want to know, is that shield self-serving, or is there a way we can take it down without having to chemically alter it? I just want peace in my life, which means I want laughter and joy and fun.

and mostly sleeping and some staying up way too late. So take care of yourself. You're not in a season of balance. You're not going to be for a while. That's okay. Put some things on the calendar and then begin to ask yourself, how do I want this thing to feel? Both in the dead of winter,

which is what season you're in right now, and in the spring breaks. Thanks for a call, sister. As you know, I'm a big believer in therapy when it's necessary. It's a powerful way to dig into, patterns, personal challenges, and practice new ways of relating to others and living life in the presence of a trained, licensed professional. But sometimes challenges take more than a traditional 50-minute therapy session. Sometimes pausing the grind of everyday life and digging into a

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in all experiences. They don't push anything on anybody, and they follow a strict code of ethics. Vine and root is a real investment of your time, your energy, and your money. But if you're serious about getting well, change requires serious commitment. Go to capstonewellness.com slash deloney and click on Vine and Root to learn more. That's capstonewellness.com slash deloney. All right. What's up, Kelly? All right. So I have a question about the Together app. You seem to have a lot of them. I do. Um, and so, because that's my job. Oh, that's what you're doing doing. Yes.

I thought you just continue to have more and more questions. I have a lot of questions for you, but they're not for now. Okay, so one of the biggest things we hear from people that are using the app, when they're first coming on and they're filling out their kind of intake stuff about what the issues are in their marriage and things like that, is that people have negative communication patterns. That's a big one that comes up. First of all, what does that mean to have negative communication patterns

and how can an app like this help? It's been my experience. I would say 999 times out of 1,000 when somebody says, we need to work on our communication or we're not communicating well in our marriage or relationship or whatever. What they're telling me is,

I want my spouse or romantic partners to do something different and I need a different way to tell them so they'll do it. Meaning, I want to work on my communication so I can get them to do whatever I want. and that's just not how that's communication to for coercion to force somebody etc so um most people come to an app like this to a marriage conference to a like buy a

marriage book with some idea that we need to communicate better and they're right but underneath that what they want is i just want my spouse to do whatever i want them to do and that's not ever a successful path towards healing a relationship. And so what the app does is the app gives very clear prompts for questions to ask, things to do, things to say. And as you progress through the app, it gives you frameworks for conflict, not for catharsis. And the difference is not for five-hour marathon conversations where we just talk,

talk, talk, and talk and get all of our feelings out, which feels good, but you don't solve anything. The app actually gives you a framework for. This thing happened. Here's the story I made up about it. Here's what I'd like to be different next time. All right, so it actually walks you through it. So, yeah, the app will teach you very specific things

for how to communicate better in your marriage, not to get your partner to do what you wanted to do, but to bring you all closer together so that y'all can build the marriage you want. See you next time.