The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “I Resent My Husband for Not Wanting Kids”

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

❤️ Preorder Building the Marriage You Want today and get $100+ in bonus items.   On today’s episode, we hear about: A wife grappling with her husband’s desire not to have kids A man wondering how to help his wife parent their violent son A woman unsure how to ask for physical affection   Next Steps: 💬 Get the free Conflict Game Plan by Dr. John Delony. 📋 Get on the same page before the week begins. Download Dr. John Delony’s free weekly marriage check-in.  🔥 Microhabits for a better marriage. Download the Together app. ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway 📞 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   Episode Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:13 My Husband Refuses to Have Kids 00:17:50 My 3-Year-Old Son Is Wrecking My Marriage 00:34:44 How Do I Ask for Physical Affection?   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! 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

When my husband and I got married, we agreed that, you know, children were on the table. But over these last several years, it seems that my husband has since changed his mind. How much of this is about kids and how much of this is, there's been several things that y'all agreed on and what your life was going to look like and none of that stuff is coming true. What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you so much for pulling up a seat. I'm just overcome with gratitude that you are. hanging out with us today. And I'm fortunate enough to spend a lot of time on the road and getting

to meet you guys in airports, in backstage, in front of stage, out in restaurants. It's just such a gift when you all come up and just tell me what the show is meant to you. I'm just blown away. So thank you for being with us. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this show. It means the world to me. Talking about your marriages, your mental and emotional health, your kids, whatever you got going on. Pull up a seat and we'll figure it out. Let's go out to Portland, Oregon and talk to Lizzie. Hey, Lizzie, what's up?

Hey, Dr. John. It's nice to meet you. You too. Dude, the sun's not even up in Portland right now. Thanks for getting up so early with us. You're right about that, Dr. John. You sure are. It is.

Early, early, squirly out there. What's going on? Yeah, well, basically, the nuts and bolts of my question is that several years ago, when my husband and I got married, we had both had premarital counseling and agreed that, you know, children were, were on the table. We were seeing eye to eye on that. But over these last several years, it seems that my husband has since changed his mind on that, and it's not really a mix and match kind of situation. So I'm wondering, you know, how I can essentially live with that and how I can still love and honor him, you know, as the vows that I took, say, to do, despite the fact that that choice has

kind of been taken off the table for me. Yeah, there's a lot here. Let me address love and honor first, okay? Love and honor doesn't mean you don't get really, really heartbroken. Yeah. It doesn't mean that you don't call out the, what appears on its face just from me, just hearing how you just described this, the dishonesty, the unwillingness to like hang on to previous commitments, right? Like, that's not what that means. And so feel free to be a human being. You what I'm saying? Love and honor, and depending on where you heard those words, sometimes means you're supposed to bury yourself, shove down any feelings, shove down any rational, like, we're doing this thing together. and you're supposed to just be the mule in this relationship,

like all that's nonsense. So be a full person, right? Tell me how much of this is about kids and how much of this is, and it will help me with where we go with this, how much of this is about you want kids and you married somebody who also wanted that same dream with you and they've changed their mind,

which, by the way, happens on a number of different topics, but or how much of this is there's been several things that y'all agreed on on what your life is going to look like and none of that stuff is coming true um really it's it's just this one issue we we see eye to eye on almost everything else we're very in a very sort of soulmate relationship we do everything together we're one of those couples that would make you go ill um so this is and that's what's so strange about it is like this is the one thing that we haven't used Usually when we have arguments, and I say arguments loosely because we argue very logically, so our arguments are weird. But when we have discussions, I should say rather, we're usually able to come to an agreement or see eye to eye, but this is like the one sticking point where we just can't.

Maybe it's time to stop being so logical. And to sit down and tell your husband that you're heartbroken. Yeah. And that one of the reasons you picked him was because you loved him, but the other, one of the other reasons that you picked him is because you wanted to share this amazing commingling thing called having a kid together. Right? Yeah. Maybe the logic protects you all from getting to what really matters in your relationship, which is deep emotional fears, um, truths, honesty, want, right? Mm-hmm.

How old are you? I'm 41. Why'd you laugh? That's kind of part of the problem. Yeah. Why did you laugh? Well, because 41 is a little late to be thinking about this sort of issue. Well, but we're here.

So, like, what is his reasoning for not wanting to have kids? Just humor me on that. Oh, no. It's every reason you could think of, Dr. John, it's everything. It's the fears of not being a good enough parent. It's the fears of what happens if we lose our jobs and we can't provide us. as well. It's the fears of what if they grow up to be, you know, people that we don't agree with and that the relationship is weird. You know, your children are not guaranteed to love, honor, and respect you.

And some of it is helped. Um, related, which is kind of goes into my age. You know, he's worried about me being a late-term mom. Like, um, you know, we did have, um, when we were first married, the first year or two, we had a couple of miscarriages. And one of those did send me to the hospital, not super, super major, but just, you know. And I think that also really badly scared him. It's, you know, he also grew up without a father himself, so he's afraid that without a role model, he'll just, you know, bungle the whole thing. And, you know, it's pretty much every fear you could imagine or come up with. Yeah.

So I'll mess up the quote to use your word. It's a great word. I'll bungle the quote here. But there's a great CS Lewis quote about you literally don't have to accept the risk of love. You can lock yourself away and bury your heart to a degree that nothing can ever get to it. And all of the fears your husband put on the table, those are all real. I spent my career sitting in those exact moments with countless people. and there's there's no there's no math equation that makes hugging my 16 year old last night

and playing my 10 year old daughter in a game of cover your assets where I finally freaking won she beats me every time and we're laughing and trash talking and my wife comes in and puts her hand on the back of my neck and like there's no algorithm for that either seeing your son reach out and help the least of these without being asked, seeing your daughter hearing reports at church camp where she showed up next to somebody who was hurt. Like there's no, the well on that is so deep. It's worth that risk a thousand times out of a thousand for me. And so your husband's done a great job of experiencing pain, the heartache of not having a dad,

the heartache and the, I'll tell you, I've been there too. the I don't know what's happening during miscarriage other than my wife is I can't I can't solve this one that powerless feeling is something I wouldn't wish on anybody um but he's experienced those things and it sounds like he's just decided I'm I'm burying my heart yeah and you can do that but I wouldn't I would not wish that response on anybody because it robs you of every good thing in the world including, if we're honest, the full connection with his wife, the thing he's trying to preserve. Mm-hmm. Right?

Yeah. Like, I'll ask you the hard question. I always ask everybody. Is there a chance you're going to leave over this? No. Okay. So part of it is I think you have a responsibility to honor him enough with being fully open with him. Mm-hmm.

And fully telling him what this means to you. and allowing him to grieve with you if you all have another pregnancy loss, if your doctor says, hey, it's not wise anymore. And we're fully going to be heartbroken and weep and sob that we had this picture of our lives with little kids running around and then it's not going to happen. That living a full life together is not trying to make sure nothing bad ever, ever, ever, ever happens because then nothing good can ever happen. And then the second part of that is

If he looks at you and says I can't I won't And you're not going to leave Then the choice for you is to be honest about your grief And your heartbreak And to fully metabolize it Because every day you wake up

Knowing I'm not going to leave And also this guys did this to me Is a choice for you to be miserable In this present moment you get what I'm saying yeah and that's hard it's hard when the person

you love and care for and have committed yourself to is also the person who is making a unilateral choice that breaks your heart that's hard yeah but otherwise you get right

into the resentment cancer right which is I want something to be different I'm not going to do different things and so I'm just going to sit here and be upset and angry and it will it will obviously poison your marriage but it will poison you.

Exactly. Right. And I don't have a good, there's anybody who tries to sell you snake oil that says, oh, here's four steps on dot dot, there's not that. It's being real sad. It's writing letters to the kids

that you didn't have. It's writing letters to the kids, if y'all chose to name them, the ones that were lost in miscarriage. It chose to do the hard, gritty work of creating a new picture of y'all at 60. and you've got nieces and nephews over, but not none of your own kids.

It's just hard, gritty work. And there may always be a little hole in your heart or a big hole in your heart, but it's owning, like this is a choice I'm making. I'm choosing to stay in this relationship. I made a commitment, even though my partner changed their mind on a major thing with us. I'm in. I'm going to show up as the person I want to be, but I have permission to have my heartbroken. I wish I had something that I would the only thing I could think to do right now is to hug you but you're not here because I hate this for you and I hate the pain he's been through too right I hate that too I do too what is I know that's a big part of it for him what does a non-logical conversation look like in your home well um I mean this is this is something I would say we've had a less logical discussion about um just because we

When my feelings come out, I wouldn't say heated, but just I have said some things to him that I regret. Okay, write it down. I want you to write him the letter and read it to him. Okay. That's the way I've managed. I've got big emotions and I'm pretty quick with words and my wife is a much slower processor and much more thoughtful and I can run over her in meetings and run over her with big feelings. And so that going back to the word honor, it's my job to say something in a way that she can best hear it. And I found that writing it down and reading it and then dealing with what I've read,

that it gives me time to edit and to process and it gives me a couple days to say, like, I don't want to say it like that. I don't want to say it like this. But that's been a helpful tool for me. Yeah, that sounds good. When we've discussed it before, we pretty much have this conversation every year. that I get older. And generally what comes out of it is, I mean, that's the thing. He's my right or die.

He is amazing in every other way. And the last time we had this conversation, like earlier this year, he said, you know, if that's what it takes to keep you, I'll do it. Like, he would, he would if I bully him into it. But I don't want to do that. No, that's, yeah. It's not the right thing to do. I'm using the word coward with a smile on my face,

not like how I usually use it on the show. But that's the kind of a wimpy thing to do. Right. So like, all right. Like, I've told you that I'm scared. But if, if you want to drag me through this,

then so be, that's, I mean, you can't bring a life into the world with that kind of, you know what I mean? That's tough. Exactly.

Um, and so I think circling back and having the conversation. But again, I don't know what benefit to you personally, to the relationship. Like, y'all seem to be at an impasse.

And you're 41, having, the once and for all let's make a call on this deal and maybe have a big conversation and then a commitment five days later with a date on the calendar already that we're going to circle back and give everybody some time to breathe and think and be thoughtful about what they want to do next okay yeah that sounds like a good idea but there's not an there's not an easy path in this one I'm sorry I wish you guys the best in the the further conversations but when a comes down to that idea of resentment. If you're going to choose to stay, don't resign yourself.

Take ownership. I'm choosing to stay. I'm choosing to be with this person. And I'm choosing as a result of his decision to put to bed my dreams of being a mom. And so here's the grief that's that's going to come with that. Here's the new picture of what our 50s and 60s are going to look like in 70s are going to look like. And here's the things we're going to have to do to be intentional to have a full life, minus having our own kids. Thanks for the call. It was an honor to talk to you. We come back.

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Hey, Chris, what's up, man? That was a good try. I try. Dude, I'm trying so hard, man. I get it wrong. I get it wrong every time. What's up? I just wanted to get some advice. Um, my son has level two autism. And when he has a meltdown, he's extremely aggressive. How old is he? He's turning four this year. Okay. Okay. And it's, um, it's really putting a strain on my marriage and it's making our house feel extremely heavy. Yeah. Tell me about the... Well, and this is going to escalate, right, as he gets bigger and stronger, right?

That's what I'm worried about. What's, do you all have a, have you all met with providers to talk through what a, what a plan looks like? We are, we're just, we're on a wait list. Okay. A wait list for a plan or wait list for that conversation? A wait list to get into some ABA therapies. Okay. Yikes.

man, I'm so sorry. Tell me about your marriage, dude. Does your wife think you're not doing it right or that you're not handling things? Like, what, what's the struggle y'all are experiencing? My wife is amazing. The closest thing to a saint that there is on a planet. She's a fantastic mother. I just feel horrible for her because she's having to do with this all in her own while I'm at work. And I come home and she's got bite marks. She's got scratches on her face. And she's just,

she's burnt out. Yeah. And I get home and I help where I can. I clean. I feed the baby. I play with my son. And it just doesn't feel like I can provide her enough of what she needs. What if she told you she wants?

She won't say what she needs. because she feels that guilt and resentment if she takes some time to go away. She feels like she won't be able to or that she can't handle it if she leaves. But she can't. And it may be the most loving thing you can do is to free her, the best you can, right?

At the end of the day, she's going to hold on to that ski rope if she wants to keep getting dragged behind the boat. But at some point you look at her and say, you're an amazing mom and this is too much. Yeah. Or asking a mom to be responsible for any sort of severing or transitioning of the relationship with her four-year-old is a nightmare proposition. And it may be the hardest thing you do is to step in between that gap and say, I'm going to make some hard choices here. I'm going to hire some help to come in here for four or five hours a day that we probably can't afford.

But I can't come home and see my wife. bitten and scratched because you can't handle it. It's a different level of care and it's not about love and it's not about I'm going to will my way through it. It's about we don't have the resources or the expertise to deal with this particular challenge. Right. Right. Yeah. In a like let me, this may be a horrible analogy. Um, imagine you had a four year old with a really big cut on his leg like a big open wound. And every day you came home and she had blood on her, she had, like, she'd slipped and fallen. Like, it was just a mess.

And if she looked at you and said, I don't want to send him to the doctor, I don't want to bring in home nursing care. Like, I want to love him. Like, I don't want to feel like I can't do this. Both of you would recognize her. We don't have the skills for this. This exceeds our ability to love in the capacity that we know how to do it. That'd be a no-brainer. And so this is similar.

except there's it's just a different challenge i do what i can and when when he's good he's he's fantastic i know he's amazing we're we're on the ground we're playing we're having a fun time i know it's just that that small 10 percent where it just goes nuclear and i feel like an absolute failure as a husband and father that i can't help her i can't help him just uh Where does that voice of failure come from? Oh, I've had it for a long time, but it probably comes from my dad as a kid. I got it just so. I hate that that's the voice in your mind because what I'm hearing is a pretty great husband and a great father.

Oh, thanks, man. I'm doing the best I can. I know. You're not a failure in any shape, form or fashion. Okay. Thank you. And if nothing else, I like to envision, let me say it this way. It's going to sound really ethereal and probably mumbo-jumbo or woo-woo or whatever. Okay. The practice I want you to engage in, and the only way I've been able to be successful with this personally is writing it down. I know other people don't have to write it down.

I do because I'm pretty messy up in my head sometimes. but the thoughts you think, the voice you hear, the you should haves, and I can't believe you didn't, and what kind of loser and what kind of husband, what kind of dad, those voices, A, are not you. And so getting to the root, and it sounds like you may have gotten to the root of some of them, whose voice is that? Who said that? You know what I mean? And the second important thing is they're rarely true.

yeah and so i used to um back in the early days like really try to pull them apart and fight them i don't do that anymore i don't got the time energy for that and quite honestly it doesn't work um what i've made peace for is i consider a lot of those voices like i think of my and again this this may be peeling back my psychology more than anybody else's there's four or five people sitting around a table constantly barking at me. And if I look at it like four or five of my close friends, like if I think of Trevor and Todd and John and Craig and Puts and Caleb, if I think of those guys,

if Caleb says something, I roll my eyes almost always. Because I was in that guy for more than 45 years. Right? And that guy would burn down a building on my behalf, and he says crazy things. And so when that failure voice kicks up, recognizing it, like, being like, oh, there you go, almost with a smile or an annoyance, not a, this is truth etched into stone. And I'm whispering into your ear. You're a failure. Yeah, I've been trying to do the thing where I've literally out loud just, nope, no, no, not doing that, not doing it. And my wife thinks I'm crazy.

Good, good. Yeah, it's still just even deeper than that, it's like, man, I still believe it. Yeah. Let's take action. Okay. What does hiring two hours of care in the middle of the day look like? Luckily, we have a really good village with us right now. Okay.

My in-laws help, my parents help, her sister's help, my sister helps. Do they have the skills to manage some of the major outburst? They do. My sister and my mom are both teacher's assistants. So they're very well. Extraordinary. Into that system. Extraordinary.

So sitting down with your wife and saying, I'm proposing a plan where three or four days a week, you're out of the house for two to three hours. So that she would. Sorry, go ahead. So that she can be in service to herself, refill herself up with whatever she wants to do, walk around the neighborhood, go get coffee and read a book, go exercise, any number of things she wants to do so that she can get back to the work that she feels called to do,

which is be there in support of everybody. But nobody can hold water if there's a hole in the bottom of the pitcher, right? Yes, sir. And so you showing up and saying, this is the best way you can love our son, This is the best way you can love our baby. This is the best way you can love me. And most importantly, it's the best way you can love yourself

so that you can do the thing you really want to do, which is love everybody. Minimum of three, I would like it to be five days a week. And you say, for the first month, I'll take the scheduling. I'll call people and figure it out. Okay. Yeah, I can do that. And let her push back on you, and there will be tears and there will be frustrations

and there will be, she'll have to deal with their own voices, right? if you're a real mom you wouldn't dot dot dot and i can't believe you're abandoning your all that stuff all that awful evil language she's got going around in her in her body in her mind and her spirit like it's not you those aren't your voices to fix but i'll sit here with you while you have them i'm not scared of them because they're not true and then that first that first knock on the door from your sister from your mom from a neighbor from whoever and If she'll do this for a couple of weeks, she'll begin to exhale and really look forward to those moments. Okay.

All right. I like that. And then if it can be a full-time job of just become the persistent, over-annoying, I will knock on every door until you get my kid in. I've been disgusting with it. Good. I'm the biggest advocate for my boy. I love him so much. Good.

Good, good, good. And if he's at a public school, they may have resources where they have to have to take him. and they have to provide some support. Yeah, we're looking into that as well. Good, good. Do you have any suggestions on me and her getting plugged back in together? Yeah. Because I feel like we're constantly focusing on him, helping him.

At the end of the day, I feel the pool to just, oh, I'm going to go to bed earlier. Sure. Hop on my phone. And I don't want to do either of those. Yeah, you all got to get away for a half day and reimagine your whole marriage. you have a different marriage now, start to finish soup to nuts, like, how do we want our house to feel at 9 o'clock? And what must be true for us to get there? And maybe you need bedtime support.

Maybe you need a family member to come over for an hour at bedtime. Or if you're doing bedtime, you'll alternate Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And I'll take them on this day. You take them on that day because we've got to be there for each other. And being able to say out loud, I miss you. I miss laughing. I miss dates. I miss, I miss, I miss.

And I'll tell you, it's profoundly difficult. Like, when I sit with parents who are telling me they have a special needs kid, the first thing I say is the number one priority for y'all is to stay married. 100%. Because every, that the needs of a special needs child will absorb every ounce of thought, energy, resources, finances, all of it, unless there's a, like a, stake in the ground saying we will stay married and we will like each other above all and then we'll figure out what comes next and every couple's different man like every single couple's different

on what brings their secret world life and y'all get in a way and just saying okay this isn't the life we drew up this isn't what we dreamed of this isn't we need to grieve the life we thought we were going to have and this is when we got and so how do we make this the best possible life given the significant challenges we're going to have forever right right and are there's some planning things out there special needs trust a fund a we're going to we're going to put a little bit more money and savings i'm going to need to get a new job because we're going to put a little bit more money in savings so that our youngest will be able to be a good steward of this pot of money to take care of big brother like there's all kinds of those things that you

begin to get those things down on paper they don't take away the acuity of the pain right now and the frustration and the outburst, but you begin to, your body begins to settle in. I've done the things that I are within my control. I can take care of these things. And you and your wife getting away and just saying, okay, we've got a new marriage. How do I want this house to feel? And let's reverse engineer it and start from there. It's not out yet. I guess it's the first public announcement I'm making. In a month or two, I've been working on this for three and a half years, but the annual marriage kit is finally going to be available.

It's the coolest thing I've ever worked on, ever, ever, ever. It is the actual annual retreat guide that my wife and I use, and then it's a monthly check-in. I've made videos with it. It's got, it's just rad. It's the coolest thing I've ever been a part of. But it will be out in a month and a half. It's not public yet.

It's not ready, but that will be a cool thing for y'all to take and to have. And so keep an eye on the show when we start launching it or on social media when we start launching it. But it's going to be a pretty amazing, amazing thing. Also, hang on the line. I'm going to hook you up with a year of the Together app for you and your wife. Y'all can use that. After you all have your retreat, this would be an awesome thing that y'all can plug in and begin working together to make sure beyond or before any and everything. We are locked in together so that our kids, especially the ones with significant needs, can get the love.

and care and support they need. You're a good man, dude. Nowhere in the world are you a failure. You're a good, good man. And your kids are lucky to have you in their life. We come back. A woman asks if it's normal to crave safe physical affection after years without it. We'll be right back. All right, we've got less than 90 days until the full weight of the holiday season is upon us. And you know how it goes. Every year is the calendar starts filling up, you tell yourself, I'm not going to let the holiday madness get to me this year. I'm going to slow down and actually enjoy the holidays. I'm going to actually be present, not just physically in whatever room I happen to find myself in. And then you're racing around to

dinners, parties, kids' activities, it's madness and you're drained and the holidays become a burden. I've done the same thing. But here's one thing I've learned. One of the best ways you can slow down and work on being present long before the holiday season hits is staying grounded in your spiritual life. Hallow is the number one Christian prayer and meditation app in the world and I use it almost every day of my life for that very reason to ground myself in my spiritual life in my spiritual practices. Some mornings, it's five minutes on the drive to work. Some nights it's a sleep prayer before bed. Whatever the moment is, hallow helps me practice present. Before the holidays takes everything from us and makes us all super busy,

I'm going to stay committed and I'm going to invite you to stay committed to practice being present with Hallow. You can try Hallow for free for 90 days at hallow.com slash Deloni. Start now and Hallow will be free for you to try through the holiday season. That's hallow.com slash Deloni. All right, Toronto, Ontario. Let's talk to Grace. What's up? Not much.

Well, quite a bit, but I only have one question, so. Okay, let it rip. What's going on? All right, is it okay if I give you just a very brief preamble to understand my question? I love preambles. Okay. All right, so here goes. So growing up, there was little to no affection, like physical affection shown in my house.

And in my teen years, I experienced a bit of sexual harassment and sexual assault at one point. And all that to say, I've been incredibly uncomfortable with touch for most of my life, and I've kind of been known as somebody who doesn't like to be touched. Like, I'm just known for that. However, the last few years of my life, I've been coming and going to and from Uganda, and the culture around physical touch there has dramatically changed how I feel about it. Over time, all the handholding and the hugging and the constant baby wearing ended up being like incredibly healing for my nervous system.

And so now whenever I'm home, I find myself really missing regular safe touch. To put it into perspective, the vast majority of physical affection, I've received within the last year has been at like either airport drop-offs or my grandfather or my dad's funeral. I just, I really miss living in a world where touch isn't either suspicious or reserved for bad news and big events. And so all this is say, is this normal or is it weird and creepy? And is there anything I can do to change how I feel? God, it's such a beautiful way to put that. That was a great preamble.

Thank you. I'm very nervous. Yeah, I know. That was, that was excellent. Bottom, bottom line, like bottom, bottom, bottom line is, human beings will die without touch. And that's one of several reasons why assault, why disordered attachments with primary caregivers

is so devastating because it's like making oxygen poisonous. Or it's like making water poison. You can't live without it. Right. And so you had a situation which is like one of those cool life-changing moments for you where you got to feel safe, loving, connected touch. And tell me if this rings true to you, it was probably the first time in your life you were touched where you didn't feel like somebody wanted something from you. Yeah. And there's something really powerful about that kind of touch. where there wasn't any hint of ulterior motive. Yeah. So no, you're not crazy at all ever.

And the way you articulate that, I don't want it to be creepy and I don't want it to be only reserved for bad news. That's such a beautiful way to put that. But it does put you in a challenging situation, which is there's no way forward without, very calculated but intentional risk. Yeah.

So what is your, what does your romantic life look like? Well, right now I'm single, so that's not, like, important right now. Okay. I guess just to give like a little bit more context, like obviously the sexual assaults have happened and that was awful and I feel like I've really worked through all that.

But even more so is, like, growing up, my dad was very sick. And so the only time we hugged or anything was when it was like, oh, this is probably going to be the last time. You might not see him again. You have to say goodbye. Sure. And so it's as much as I feel like I've really moved past a lot of the feeling suspicious, I feel like my time in a different country has really helped heal that. But the one I'm really struggling to get past is like, I feel like with my friends and family here, I don't know how to be. casual about it because it's yeah there's there's one way forward and that is to feel not casual

and to do it anyway right and when you feel your body tense up exhale and drop your shoulders intentionally on purpose those internal tightening every muscle tightening up your chest tightening up your arms the the lower back tightening consciously that's your body just trying to brace protect and you feeling that you feeling that that and then doing it anyway. You'll begin to, especially with close friends, close family people you love and care about. Think of it this way.

Not only is something not quote unquote wrong with you, but think about it this way. Your body's working perfect. So your body just put a GPS pen in touch when you were a kid. And it's the same as if you're driving with the WayZ app right now. I don't know if you'll have that in Ontario, but you're driving with like a map app, and it tells you there's a pothole here. Like, great, cool. I'm going to keep driving, right?

Right. I might pay a little bit extra attention. I'm going to keep driving. I'm going to go to where I want to go. And so your body's just trying to take care of you because it's been there before. And what you, the healing is you may have healed intellectually. You may have healed emotionally, but now it's time to heal physically. And some of that will start with you changing.

your own story about yourself, which is I'm a person who doesn't like touch. And some of the discombobulation you probably feel is a lived experience that's different from the identity you've announced to the world for the last however many years. Right. I think that rings very true. Like I've presented myself as somebody for so long, so then to come back from being away and just present myself as a new person feels very strange. Is it, what's strange? Does it feel, because that's what wisdom is. That's why we listen to podcast and read books and have conversations with people we disagree with. Because that's how you learn, right?

And you've learned something amazing about yourself, which could be like this ray of light for everyone around you, who hasn't known how to love you for so many years. And now it's like, oh, this is Grace 5.0. Game on. I'm a hugger now, right? Yeah. Versus you used to be this way and you're not. allowed to be this way like man i don't know whose story that is man but screw that old story

because you found freedom yeah and now it's just a matter of practicing freedom and i'll tell you this is how i handle things like this it's not for everybody my wife would never handle it like this i've got friends would never handle like this but i would walk into a house and be like i'm hugging everybody and i would just announce it this is happening you know what i mean and mostly for myself, but, like, if I'm trying to do a hard thing, I just announce it. You know, like, I'm not, this is the way this is going to be. I guess my hesitation there is like, if someone were to do that to me when I was in that position, I would have been, like, very uncomfortable.

And so I want to be sensitive about not putting people in the same uncomfortable position that I would have been in back when I felt that way. And so imagine this like you're walking into a house. And before anybody says anything, you go and take all their purses and backpacks and bags and coats from them and hold them just in case they may have had a shoulder injury one time. Let them be adult and let them be responsible for their bodies. You've been carrying everybody else's weight for far too long. and by trying to protect everybody from any potential maybe-ish could be i don't know you're robbing them of your full you and so where where the active generosity comes in is

if you know somebody's doesn't like touch great i'm gonna i'm gonna fist bump them that's awesome right if you hug somebody and you feel them tense up i'm gonna remember that i'm gonna make this a really quick. I'm not going to try to hug through their attention, right? Like, you know. Right, right. Yeah, and that's hospitality. That's hospitality. Right. And that's kindness. And that's not you looking at them being like, oh, what? Really? You won't hug me? No, I'm not going to be a jerk like that. Yeah. No, of course. That's not who you are. But don't rob people of you, Grace. You're awesome. You've had this life-changing experience. You're a beacon of hope of what, of what life and and love and safe touch and laughter and warmth feel like.

Give that to yourself and give that to those that you love and care about. And trust your body. When it starts to be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, this guy's hanging on a little too long. Cool, I'm not hugging you anymore, weirdo. Or, or, eesh, I kind of liked it. Kind of liked it. It's kind of awesome, right? It could be both.

Could be both. But, man, I'm excited for you and what the world's offering you. We're going to practice. We're going to feel that tension and then we're going to lean through it. We've thought about it. We've felt it. Now we're going to go do it. And man, you're going to, yes, you're not crazy for wanting safe touch.

That makes you human 101. Amazing. Thanks for the call, sister. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Go love well. We'll be right back. What's going on?

Dr. John Deloney here. All right. You know this to be true and I know this to be true. You can love your spouse madly. and still wake up feeling less like a couple and more like roommates. Life gets busy, work, kids, bills take over. There's so much pressure on a modern marriage. And that's why Rachel Cruz and I created the money and marriage getaway.

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Get your tickets today at ramsysolutions.com slash events or by clicking the link in the show notes. All right, Kelly, am I the problem? All right. So before I start on this one, we are adding something new to the am I the problem? that we are very excited about. We want your voicemails. So in addition, you can still send your email in. We'll take that. Love it. Still great. But we want you to call in to 844-49-6. So, sorry, 844-6-9-3. I was off for the last four days. Nice numbers. Brains aren't working yet. You're always good with numbers. No, she's not, which is why she does this. It's not something numbery.

All right, 844-693-3-2-9-1. Call in. give us your voicemail things to think about i need your name and a location i don't care if it's really yours or not how would i know some name some location give a fake name and location yes the fun or the name the better and we only want first names anyway that's we only use first names and um make sure when you call in after you tell us right up front this is for um and am i the problem so that way because we get a i get a transcript of it and that way i know and i can put it in the right folder keep it to about 60 seconds know that we may have to edit it if we need to for brevity. And it has to be a problem that you can talk about without additional context.

Perfect. I'll make up the context if I need to. We have no problem with it whatsoever. But it can't be like a something that would be like a 15 minute call. It has to be something short and sweet, much like this one that I'm going to read right now. Rip it. From Lizzie in Calhoun, Georgia. I want to add one thing. If you want us to put somebody in your life on blast, give us their full name and even cell number. We'll drop that too. We will not do that. In any way, I'm looking right the camera. We will not do that in any way. If John does that, I will cut it out. Okay, then you can come see me live and I will make sure we're doing this the right way. Okay, go ahead. All right. So,

this is from Lizzie in Calhoun, Georgia, and she writes, My husband's grandma invited herself over to spend the night at our house so she could attend our kids' first trail race. The night before, she was talking about a girl my cousin is interested in. She was talking about how she is so sweet and how she's so involved in their church, and she teaches children. She then turns to me and says, actually, she reminds me a lot of you. Just as I started to say, oh, thank you. She cuts me off and says, no, no, I'm sorry. She's heavy like you are.

Oh, God. She wears short skirts, and she has these massive thighs, so it doesn't look good. Then she moved on in the conversation. My husband sat there and didn't say anything. Am I the problem for being upset and wishing that he had said something to her? No, here's why. Your husband's shorts are too short, evidently. I'm just kidding.

Yes. God, that's harsh, man. Yeah, real harsh. Dang, Gina. Oh, no, no. Not the nice part. Yeah. Wow, Grandma.

Dang, Grandma. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what you're going to do. No, but I mean, he probably should have said, like, hey, Yeah. That's not okay. Yeah, totally. It was about, it was his mom saying that about him.

It was his grandma. Yeah, I mean, what are you going to do? I know. But when you add in the grandma part, it makes it over the- What are you going to do? Grandma say, that's the beauty of being a grandma. You can just say crazy stuff. You know what I mean?

Like, you get to say whatever you want. And, yeah, no, nobody, yes, she should not have said that. And there's nothing you're going to do about it. Right, because she's not going to change. No. No. But that's hurtful. I mean, I guess you could disinvite grandma for, you can do that.

But I don't know. That's awful, dude. I mean, I think he could have said something like, I happen to think my wife is gorgeous, you know, or something along that line. She said that about his wife? Yes. I thought she said it about him. No, she said it about his wife. Oh, hell no.

Yes. Okay, now we're there. Yeah. No, you got to say, no, no, grandma. No. No. She said it about her because Lizzie, who wrote in, because she said, oh, she reminds me of you. Oh, I thought she was saying about her grandson. No, I don't think he wears short skirts. If anybody, I don't care if it's the Pope. If anybody talks bad about my wife, they're going to hear from me.

So yes, you got to start a fight with your grandmother, but yes, you got to get involved there. 100%. And grandma's not going to change. Exactly. She's still not going to change. Yeah, defend your wife, man. Even if you do it laughingly or with a joke or whatever or with sensitivity because it's your grandma, man, you got to be there for your wife. And dude, stop wearing short shorts. That's a wrong call. Bye.