The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “Is My Girlfriend’s Insomnia a Deal Breaker?”

Episode Date: October 14, 2026

❤️ Preorder Build the Marriage You Want today and get $100+ in bonus items   On today’s episode, we hear about: A man struggling to show up for his girlfriend as she battles insomnia A man wondering how to keep a strong marriage when he and his wife are complete opposites A dad concerned about the rebellious decisions his son is making   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 Intro 00:01:08 I Can’t Sleep With My Girlfriend Anymore 00:21:24 Was Our Marriage Set Up for Failure? 00:36:02 Will My Teen Son Wreck His Life?   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

brought to you by my friends at Churchill Mortgage. If you're looking to buy or refinance, check them out. I've used Churchill and they are great. Go to Churchillmorgage.com. How do I support my girlfriend through one of the roughest times in her life it seems while kind of navigating my own well-being. She's starting to lose, like, faith, that she'll get better. And I think the solutions I've came up with, she has not been a fan of some of them thus far.

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2499, get it now, and we will have it in your mailbox, January 26. Thank you so, so much for riding with us, and I'm so grateful you're here on this show. All right, it's got to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and talk to Nick. Hey, brother, Nick. What's up, ma'am? John, it's crazy and it's good to talk to you, brother. You too, my man. Appreciate you.

Yeah. What's up? Yeah, well, so my question is basically, how do I support my girlfriend through one of the roughest times in her life, it seems, when she's dealing with some pretty serious insomnia and some pretty acute stressors in her life, while kind of navigating my own well-being and having, you know, that cup full enough to pour into her. and it's kind of complicated by the nature of my job being really performance-based, and that's really the only way I get paid. So what's going on with her? So she has struggled with chronic insomnia since she was a late teen, so she's been on Trazodone for six years.

And, yeah, she's really had a hard time, but she was actually, like, weaning herself off of it slowly, only on, like, 25 milligrams for the past few months and like still sleeping and doing great. Then she caught one of those nights she catches every once in a while where she feels like she just got absolutely zero sleep. Yep. Like she just feels like, oh, I just didn't sleep even though like I looked it up and, you know, maybe technically she's getting like little micro moments or whatever, but she feels like she got no sleep. Sure. We've been to the ER several times. She's been prescribed of mere, like so many different medications by her psychiatrist that just haven't worked.

and she's, like, starting to lose hope, you know? Sure. She's starting to lose, like, faith that she'll get better. And, you know, I mean, I'm sure you know what, like, what insomnia does to the brain over weeks and weeks and weeks. Dude, I was on Ambien for, like, seven years. Yes, I know exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. And it does. It really does. And how old is she? She is 25. Okay. And she's your girlfriend. So do you all live together?

How is this? How are you wrapped up in this? Yeah. So we do live together. We moved in in October. Okay. And I'm saving up for that ring. I promise.

I'm going as fast as I can to get down that road. But yeah, we do live together right now. Okay. So tell me about you wanting to take care of you. Yeah. It's just been hard because, so my job, is fully commissioned based. It's the first time, you know, I've moved out of my parents' place, and we moved in in October, and, you know, it's the first time I'm fully on my own, paying my own bills,

you know, keeping up with everything. But it's a fully commissioned based job. And so, you know, it's a sales position. If I don't make a sale, then I don't make money and I can't pay rent, you know? And so on nights where she's, like, waking up in the middle of the night, hysterically crying and like just you know it really having a tough time obviously that makes me not be able to sleep and then I wake up and I feel like just extra irritable or just not fully cognitively there I'm making like silly paperwork mistakes because you know there's a lot of money on line on on on on on these deals and you know I make a silly paper mistake and then it's it can be really detrimental. And I want like I'm trying to draw a line between wanting to be there for her and

support her as much as I can, but like wake up feeling fully rested myself so I can show up in my job and for her. And I think the solutions I've came up with, um, she has not been a fan of, uh, some of them thus far. Like one. One of them being, um, going to my parents' place and, and getting sleep in, in the guest. and her kind of feeling on that is like, you know, well, listen, like, we want to get married. Like, I don't want you to run off to your mom and dad's place whenever we have these types of problems. That's fair. Which is fair. It's just fair, yeah. It's more of like a desperate move on my part. I feel like, you know, that's kind of a fault of mind as I'm a little, like, I'm independent to a fault at times a little bit.

And so I don't feel the, I guess, the strain of separation as much as her. And then I also am like, in my head, I'm just like, well, I need, I need sleep. Like, I can't take this anymore. But, you know, that's not intemptive to her situation. So it's, I'm going to say this and it's going to sound mean, okay? And I'm not trying to be mean at all. But y'all are playing house and you don't want to hold the responsibility of, a shared life together.

And here's what I mean by that. I don't talk about it very much on the show. It's still a pretty painful part of my life. I went stone mad for not sleeping for years. And it was my job to make sure I did not impact my wife as much as possible. And so the nights I would wake up sobbing because I just wanted to sleep And it had been five days

And I couldn't see straight It was my job to make sure I went somewhere In the house or in our apartment That let her sleep all night That was my job And on the other side When she woke up and knew I'd had a really bad one She signed up for better or worse too

and she knew three or four things that we had already talked about that she could do instantly to just bring the temperature down a little bit and then some of it was both of us being adults like having to go to work and I'll tell you

I ultimately had to change jobs and change universities and change careers right and so your girlfriend has a hard like if the work she's doing and the life she's choosing is costing her

one of the basic human things, which is sleep, then she's got to ask herself bigger picture things, right? And I do know, I know folks who have struggled with it forever have mined every, like trauma, everything, and they still struggle with it. That may just be the lot she has. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. I know she loves, yeah. Yeah, dude, I loved what I did. I loved running around all hours of the night. I love being on call 24-7, showing up to really wild situations to be supportive. I loved that, and I couldn't keep it going, much less with kids.

Right? And so here's the thing, y'all are trying to have the best of both worlds, which is we want to live together. We want to try this thing out. but if it gets hard, I'm not going to go sleep at mom's house. Or I want to have the best of both worlds here. And when it gets really hard, I'm not doing this by myself. I'm waking you up too.

It's your job to 24th. Right? And so it's, you can't make her sleep. She's got to make a choice to, I'm going to continue to, and I get the losing, bro, trust me, I get the losing hope. I get it. I get it. It's really hard, man.

I'll tell you on this side of therapy and getting off medications and a season of new medications and then now, bro, I can't, I think I was asleep in four minutes last night. I got home from the comedy club, talked to my wife for a few minutes, and I was out, right? I didn't believe this life was possible. It is. But it wasn't work my wife had to do was work I had to go do. She was supportive. She was right there with me. you know, there have been several nights where we woken up in the,

twice now where we woke up and she was literally the second time she expressed thoughts of just like hurting herself. So we had to bring her to the ER and, of course. You know, she had to be checked in and then, you know, on the way home, I literally was sobbing and I called the crisis line, not because I had done to hurting myself, but I was just like, I was such at a loss. I was like, I don't know.

I was losing hope, you know. I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make her sleep. She's been on seven different types of positives. You can't. You can't make her sleep. You can be a sturdy presence.

Right. And so y'all sitting down together and saying, okay, here's the world we live in right now. You've been struggling with sleep since you were 18, 17 years old. Been on Trazodon for a bunch of. And by the way, if Trazidone worked, then don't taper off of it. But if you haven't slept in a long time, or especially don't taper off without the help of a psychiatrist. But that's a truth. I love you and I want to marry you and you don't sleep well.

And another truth is one of us has to be clear-headed. I remember when my wife got pregnant, like when she first had our son and I was going to be one of those trooper dads and I was like, if you're up feeding the baby, I'm up feeding the baby. And she was like, are you crazy? One of us needs to sleep. Go to bed. Right? And that was her saying, I need one clear-head. in this house right now.

And so, like, there's, and you have to say, I got to sleep so I could show up for work. And so how do we build a world together where both of those things are truths? It's not an, it's not a, and by the way, neither of you will be super comfortable with either of those things. But that's part of doing life together. But discomfort together is different than misery or about. abandonment or, you know, you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, I'd want to build a life with her. And, you know, I've been single for so many years.

I guess I have the, you know, I don't, it's not in my, I don't want to say it's not in my nature, but like, it's not in my habit system to like when things get really hard. Like, yeah, I just, like, go back into myself. And I'm like, okay, well, if you want to build a life with somebody, your habit system does not exist anymore. Yeah. Y'all come up with a habit system together. Right. That's part of doing life together, which is why all the data says, like, living together first

usually doesn't work, not usually, living together first doesn't guarantee that we're going to try this thing out and practice together until we decide to make the plunge. No, for sure. I'm putting a ring on a chance I get the money. I just, you know, that's, it's really, just financial a financial thing. I would have married her a long time ago, but she's, she's right to wonder if things get hard for me, is he going to go sleep at Mommy's house? That's a good, I mean, it's a good call out on her part. Yeah. Right? It definitely is. Definitely is. Yeah,

I had to, when she said that, I was like, oh, um, dang. And sometimes if y'all were married and y'all were living together, and she was going through intense, like, sleep-deprived psychosis to the point of potentially being suicidal. Yeah, bro, you got, I mean, I hate to say it like this, but you got to just suck it up. There's part of like, I will be there for you. Yeah. And then I'll have extra coffee or whatever in the morning, but like, that's way more important than my

dumb job. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure it is. Absolutely, it is. And so some of it is, like, you've got to decide, am I in this thing with her? and if I'm in this thing with her, I got to reprioritize my little habit schedule, my comfort of mommy's bed, my commission-based job. I got to reprioritize my life.

Number one comes her. Number two comes everything else. And hopefully she does the same thing. Number one comes him. And the best way I can love him is being in service to myself first. I got to make sure I got to cross every T and dot every eye trying to get well.

and if that means taking fewer hours. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I want to ask you this then because that's a difficult dynamic, I guess, in my head of having that conversation of telling her like, hey, you can't wake me up in the middle of the night when you, like, I don't know how to phrase that

in a way that sounds like, that doesn't sound like leave me alone. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know how to have that, like, tender type of conversation where it's like... That's not tender, homie. You can't do this. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Right. And I don't want to, I just don't want to make her feel like, because she does feel like a burden on me, and I don't want to make that feeling worse for her. But at the same time, I like, I want to explain to her, like, like you're kind of like what you're saying of, we need at least one clear head in this house, you know?

I know, man, this call is taking a different turn than I thought I was going to, which isn't a bad thing. It's just different. Can you see how she's absorbed the message that she has a burden? Yeah, I could see that. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. You took her to the hospital a few times, and then you're like, dude, I've got to go somewhere else.

You're on your own. Oh, God, what did I do? What did I do? I don't want to make her feel like that at all. Here's the path forward. It's just, in my mind, it's simple. If you've never done it before, it might feel insurmountable. It's not.

It's you sitting. down with her in the middle of the day or the middle of the afternoon or in the early evening before the nighttime, because now she's in that loop where she's scared she's not going to sleep. Yes. So then she gets fully, completely goes to war inside her own body, which is the last thing you need to do before sleep, right? Right. And so before she gets to that point in the evening, you all sit down and you say,

I've told you one thing, but I can totally see. how I've let you down and I'm sorry. You come before work, you become before everything. I don't have the money yet, but I want you to be my wife. I'm never going to abandon you again. And I want us to talk about now how we can love each other when things get hard. How do I love you well when you're not sleeping well, but you're not at the acute crisis point? and here are some ways

I would love it I want you to love me when you're just having one of those nights and it's 2 a.m. But I need to get some sleep and if you ever think about hurting yourself you wake me up 10 times

10 nights in a row 100 nights in a row I'll be there for you. It's less about a compromise and more about a negotiation and compromise people lose stuff a negotiation. A negotiation

is how do we both win on this deal? And yes, if you want to be like dig into it, yes, people are not going to get everything that they want, but we're going to negotiate how we both become the best versions of ourselves, given some really hard constraints we have, one of which, the main one being her health challenges right now. But that's priority number one, man. Thanks for the call, brother.

Appreciate you being open and thinking through it with me. And if she wants to call in, I don't have a lot of help and support. It's just a tough, tough thing, but I'm happy to talk to her if she wants to call in also. Appreciate you, my man. We come back. A man asks how he and his wife

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This year, you have time to keep calm ahead of all of the holiday chaos by preparing differently. Go to betterhelp.com slash Deloney to check out. your payment options. That's better help. H-E-L-P.com slash Deloni or click the link in the description. It's got to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and talk to Mark. Hey, Mark, what's up, man? What's happening?

How we doing? Not too shabby. It's a beautiful muggy day in Louisiana. Excellent, man. Excellent. One of my favorite places in the country. I love Louisiana. See, I'm born and raised here, but I honestly believe it's a place to visit and not to live. Well, I've only visited, so I'll have to trust you on that one. Yeah. So what's up, man?

How can I help? So me and my wife truly do love each other. We get along, we have great marriage. I think we could both agree on that. We've had, you know, rough spots as marriage, you know, but we have a recurrent issue. where, so I'm artistic and I don't really fully understand the way that people speak sometimes. There are a few times I've even had to listen to your show a couple times over just to kind of really fully grasp stuff. But she, surprisingly enough, works with special education kids.

And so for her, sometimes it's really, like, difficult to, like, conversate with me in a way in which I can understand because she's used to working with children. And so when it comes to a, she's like this concept of like, okay, you're grown now. You should be able to communicate with people. And even though that's not particularly always true, you know, it causes this situation where we are constantly coming across certain subjects. and, you know, things in our life that we realize, like, we are two very different people. Right.

I mean, even down to our race, she's black, I'm white. You know, she comes from a rich family. I come from a four family. Like, she, you know, went to college. I went to got my GED. Like, everything in our life, our likes of music and movies and shows, whatever, like, everything is just opposite. it. And so it creates these, not really issues, but like just reoccurrent, like, arguments where it's she's trying to explain to me, I guess, why she thinks and feels certain ways about certain things.

And then I don't comprehend that. To me, the reasoning, the logic, the math doesn't add up. And so for my mind, it's like, okay, I can't go off of emotion. I can't go off of those things. And so it's hard for us to communicate to where we can always, I guess, what's the word that I'm trying to find? Connect. Yeah, like connect in a way that is outside of just like, I love you, you love me. We are happy together. That's it.

Like we have no other areas of connection and of like. Okay, hold, let me, let me jump in here, all right? So you gave me three distinct challenges. Okay, so I'm going to pull them apart real quick. Okay. Challenge number one, I've worked in and around mental health for years and years and years and years. The last thing on earth I can do is walk home and try to counsel. my wife, even counsel my kids. The trade that I am engaged in, my dad was a homicide detective,

and he told me repeatedly that he was trained. The thing that makes you good at being a homicide detective will really disrupt your family. And so issue number one I'm hearing is your wife needs to stop treating you like an elementary school kid. She needs to... That's actually a conversation we've actually recently had where I was like, you know, I understand that this is your day job. But you're her husband. Yeah, I'm not a patient or a student.

Correct. I'm your husband. And so, like, I need... Even if you don't understand my thought process and where I'm coming from or how I'm coming from, like, I need you to still trust me that scenarios, the thought process, it's all there. I'm not a child who's not going through the thought process. Right, and that leads me to the second thing.

All those differences you labeled, you, you, I mean, black and white, money, no money, education, no education. All of that could be, like, to make it Louisiana, a recipe for the greatest gumbo on planet Earth. Oh, and that's the way that I see it. So that, how is the whole... Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hold on, hold on mark, hold on mark. Here's the problem. If your wife comes from education and money and works with kids with special needs and she looks down on you as though you are less than, those issues that you brought up, those differences will not be all mixed in the same pot.

It'll be two different pots where one is judging the other one. And that somehow, or something it kind of feels. and I've explained that to her. Like, and she has, so it's been obviously a learning curve for the both of us and marriage. And so, you know, that's one of the things that we have discussed. And she's getting better as time has progressed. So we actually just made our three-year marriage anniversary up in May. So, like, it's a learning curve still.

Okay, here's the third thing. Let me tell you the third thing, okay? And then we'll talk about all of them, okay? Let me get the third thing out. Third thing, just because you can't plug into whatever. feelings or emotions she has doesn't mean you have to approach her with an algorithm and doesn't mean you have to approach her feelings computationally and doesn't mean you can't just sit there and hold her hand and say thank you so much for telling me that and so just because you can't

match emotion for emotion or feeling for feeling I don't have autism brother and I can't match my wife feeling for feeling emotion for emotion. We're different people and she can't match me. What we can do with each other is not be scared of those big feelings or little feelings or emotions and sit there with each other. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. So if you're able to when she's telling you a thing that she's feeling, this is going on at work, I had this client, I had these parents, I have this issue with my mom and dad or whatever, you can hold her hand and put your hand on the small of her back and just say, man, that sucks.

Thanks for telling me that. And not try to fix or solve or compute what she's saying. You get what I'm saying? You get the drift? Yeah. So there's this theme in Parks and Recreation that always has kind of like played back in my mind in that situation,

which is Anne is pregnant. The guy, I forgot his name, Andy Chris Pratt. He's trying to fix everything and somebody tells him like, just tell her it sucks. Just stop trying to fix it and just tell her it sucks. Just be there for it. And it's the same thing.

And that's kind of what I've had to teach myself to do because of that exact situation. Perfect. Actually, a situation just happened last weekend. We've kind of struggled with having kids and um or so far and somebody had asked her like when are you all planning on having kids and she took that kind of to heart and i don't see the emotional side of it i'm like okay she just asked a question like you know i feel like that's a very basic normal question and but for her

it was like more emotional because it's a little more personally attached and you know so on and that's basically what i had to do was just okay you're right or not you're right but like Like, I'll just sit here with you. That's right. Obviously, that kind of bothered you and hit you the wrong way. So, you know. And giving your wife space to feel and knowing you're not going anywhere and you're not going to try to solve it. And knowing the next time somebody, y'all are out as a couple and somebody says, are y'all going to have kids?

You hop in and answer. That's what I'm really want to talk about right now. That's right. Or we're working on it. Or maybe one day. and you take that from her is not a fist fight, but it's you stepping in front of her

and saying, I got this. Even if you don't understand the impact of that question on her, or the feeling of that question, right? Yeah. That's you showing up for her as her husband. Yeah. I don't remember, what was the second point? The second one is,

I'll just say this as bluntly as I can. she's not better than you because she went to college. And she's not more right than you because her parents had money and yours didn't or whatever. Yeah, that's also something that we've been working on. So that's the thing is like, I listen to you all the time. She listens to you most of the time. Not all the time, but most of the time. And she would have been on with me, but as I said, she's a teacher so she can't, like, get out of class.

Sure. What do you do for a living, Mark? So I'm actually a welder. Oh, great. It's awesome. Are you employed full-time? You work in your butt off? Yeah.

Excellent. Working like 50, 60-hour weeks sometimes. Outstanding. Outstanding. So part of this, brother, is you all have multiple cultural strands you're trying to weave together to make this one amazing life together. You'll have the challenge of you'll want to have kids and it hasn't happened yet. you'll have the challenge of

um an intellectual exceptionality in you you you both process the world and feel it differently and you started this whole call off with i love my wife deeply and she loves me so can i give you like if i if you hear anything from me like she's got to learn to take off her teacher hat when she walks in the door and put on friend hat wife hat ride or die hat. Honestly, I think y'all, I think being a little, and again, I know I'm talking to somebody who you told me you have autism. I spent my career working with, with brilliant, smart, kind, hardworking folks with autism. So I'm telling you this from a place of love. Feel the analytics rising up. And then the next logical thing is to not be logical. The next logical thing is, I'm going to

grab your hand and sit here and say thanks for telling me though. I hate that for you. Okay? Yeah, that's fair. And if you can have the conversation, not if you can, I know you can, have the conversation, when you come home and through the door, here is two ways you could love me. Number one, don't have your phone out. Number two, I'm going to turn the music on and I just want to dance with you.

And begin to have the conversation about, hey, I don't need a teacher when I get here. I experience the world differently than you, and that's what makes our particular gumbo so amazing. And let's don't have, like, brother, me and my wife don't argue about politics because we don't talk about them very much at all. Yeah, we've kind of strayed out of that conversation because we realize I was just beating a dead horse. So look, dude, you're three years in. It took me like 20 years to figure that out. So good for you. You're ahead of the curve, man.

But yeah, when it all feels like it's one big. problem, see if you can pull them apart. You don't need somebody coming home and lecturing you. You don't need somebody who thinks they're better than you or you're better than them. There doesn't have to be a right or a wrong when you're talking about deep philosophical issues. And you're not going to understand or compute every feeling or emotion she has, but you can compute that your wife needs her husband, just to lean in to sit there. Hold her hand. Be that man.

Thanks for the call, brother. Appreciate you. Appreciate you reaching out. Get back to Weldon, my man. We come back. A man asks how to let a 17-year-old son make mistakes without letting him ruin his future. We'll be right back.

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Head to mkc.com to see what's available right now. And one thing you should know, Montana Knife Company knives sell out fast. Sign up for email and text alert so you can be among the first to know of new releases. That's mkc.com. All right, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Let's talk to Shame About Ray. What's up, Ray? Hey, Dr. John.

Thanks for having the time to talk to me today. You got it, my brother. What's up? So, it's probably a little dramatic, but... Have you met me? I'm pretty dramatic. You're good. I promise you.

How do I let my 17-year-old make mistakes without ruining his life or any ruining his future? Ooh. That feels like a lot of pressure on the word mistake. Tell me what you're talking about. Well, I guess, I guess, I guess more. A better question is how do I know when to step in and step back? Ah, good question. What are you wrestling with?

Well, some of the decisions he's made, you know, and some of the statements he's made, like, you know, for an instance, he dyed his hair color. He died his hair, a color I definitely would not have choos. What color? And it's going to blue. Yes. Okay, cool. It's a punk rock kid at heart. Good for him.

All right. But yeah, you wouldn't pick that for him. him. I wouldn't pick that. And I guess my question was to him is, you know, he's looking at future, you know, future careers, future jobs. He's going on applicants, you know, he's going on interviews and things like that. And, you know, I ask him, you know, what, what do you think, what do you think they're going to think when they see you, you know? And, and I guess that's my, that's where I mess up, where I'm like, do I let him just be, be himself and let them choose decisions like that? Or, I mean, not even just that, just, you know, I mean, he does have a part-time job right now because he's still in school.

But, you know, certain positions that he's looking at, like, there's better route this way or there's a better, just, you know, look further down the line, how, where is this going to lead you? and sometimes he's he's okay with my advice and then sometimes he's like okay you're full of it but some of that makes him 17 right right right i i i think there's always attention and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you there's always a tension of how do i help my kids i have a 16 year old son i'm right there with you he hasn't died his hair blue um but he has a very particular haircut that he loves that I just can't wrap my head around, which I had this epiphany the other day. I was like, oh yeah, that makes me an old man now. Like, I totally get it, right? How do I help him be the best version of himself? And also give him wisdom. And I can only tell you

the rule of thumb I've given parents over the years and that I'm living by now is I want to let you climb up whatever tree you want to climb up. But if I think you're going to fall and that fall is going to be permanently damaging to you, I'm going to get involved. Right. Right? And so here's

an easy thing. Less talking about the haircut situation or the hair color situation or whatever. We're going to look at character. Right. We're going to look at, does he work hard at school? And he's got a part-time job. and is he respectful to you and to his siblings and to his mom is he show up for his stuff at home?

Then I'm going to let him go learn natural consequences when he applies for 25 jobs and gets zero of them. And also, I'm going to have a, hey, if you're going to stay here after you're 18, you've got to pay rent. Right. Or I'm going to help you go to college in this kind of way, or I'll help you at trade school in this kind of way,

with this much money or this kind of school or whatever. I'm going to be real clear about the impending concrete barrier, which is the real world, right? And then he gets to make, you know what I mean? He gets to make, for a season, my son really wanted to be a game warden. He loves being outside. And my first thought for six months was, that's not going to pay enough, it's not going to pay enough,

it's not going to pay enough. And then I realized I'm imposing my, my values on a kid who wants to go spend his whole life serving. Shame on me. And now, like, now he's got different ideas about what he wants to do. But I can't run him back my life or the one I can't Uncle Rico his life. I wish of, I should have, I could have. And also, he's got to learn there's some real consequences to, like, you want to have blue hair.

You're probably not going to get that job. Maybe you will. And maybe he at 17 has figured out, I don't want to. to work for somebody who cares that much about appearance. I want someone who is going to care about my character and work ethic. And then you might want to go, well, that's kind of awesome, right? Right, right, exactly. I guess I'm worried about the consequences.

You know, that's my, I guess, in the back of my head. What consequences are you worried about? Well, if he doesn't, you know, when he finally graduates and if he still got this mindset of I am who I am and this is what I'm going to do, and then he falls on his face. He will. And that's my, you know, you always want your kid to succeed, obviously, but. Yeah, but success is a trend line.

It's not a stock market. It's not a ticker, it goes up and down, up and down, and you hope it goes up over time. And success means different things. Is it a financial success? Is he going to be the best husband of all time? Is you going to be a good contributor to, you know what I mean? Like, that means a lot of different things.

Got it. And so painting him a picture of the man you hope he becomes, and when he does fail, I'll be right here. I'll be sitting right by you. Right. Right? Yeah, I guess. That's the hard part for me to swallow, I guess. Yeah.

Is this? But, I mean, you, I'm telling you, I spend a career with 18 to 28-year-olds whose parents had come in and done all of. the weightlifting for them. And they had never failed. They had never stumbled. They had never just eaten it. They had never been rejected. And they didn't have a psychology for it.

They didn't have the neural wiring for it. And they imploded. Gotcha. And so there's something powerful by not getting what you want. And having dad right next to you, saying, I still love you, man. Right. I mean,

I, you know, I mean, me and his mom have sat down several times telling them we're here no matter what, you know. Now, you want to do something really wild? Go dye your hair blue. I would love to. I respect. But I don't know if my boss would like that. Go talk to your boss and say, I want to make a point to my 17-year-old for a week.

I'm going to dye my hair crazy. Is that cool? It's definitely a possibility. I could go do that. And really, I can wear a hat anyway, so I guess that wouldn't cover that up if it wasn't, I guess. Invite your son to do it with you. Tell them to like, oh, you're going to dye my hair blue too. You know what I mean? Good idea. I'm right there with you then.

So it becomes kind of a bluff call. I've had a lot of conversations with my son about this and this thing. And my daughter's 10, so we're slowly, slowly having these conversations. She wouldn't fully metabolize them yet, which is here is the uncomfortable truth about the world. The world desperately needs you to be fully you and do the things that only you can do and part of life is playing the game. And that's also, I have a 13-year-old daughter too. so when I make decisions or I'll talk to my son, she's going to pick up and she's watching. So I want to make sure that, you know, I do it right.

Well, and I tell both of my kids, hey, I'm your dad. I get to make fun of your hair. That's my job. And it doesn't impact how much I love you. And I can say nice hair and I love you. Those are just words. Do I hug them every time I see them?

Right. Do I hold my son's face and tell him, I'm so glad I get to be his dad. Or the sappy text I just sent him a few hours ago right before I started recording these shows. Like, they're going to get my behavior way more than my words. Right. And I get to be dad.

I get to say dumb jokes and I get to be silly and I get to step over the line too far and my wife throws something. Like, I get to have that because it's my house. Right. Like, it's part of it. And also, you're not going to do anything that's going to keep me.

me from loving you. Right. And sometimes you just cut your hair and get the job and the health insurance so that you can get to the place you want to be, which is, sounds like 100 years from now, 35, and you don't owe anybody any money and you can do whatever you want in the world. Right? Right. And that's hard.

It's hard to teach that. Yeah. And sometimes pointing out to your son, this is me playing the game, bud. I do that all the time with my son. If I'm going to do a speaking gig and I have to like wear a suit jacket, Dad, what are you wearing? Because them seeing me in a suit jacket is very rare. And I tell them, it's part of the game, son.

This is a way I can honor this, these group of people that's paying for your, your college education and for our light bill. And if this is what it takes to honor them, what a small thing it is. Right. But I call it out, right, in the house. I want to teach him. There's sometimes you play the game, and sometimes you stand up for yourself. And you got to live and die with those consequences.

But, yeah, he needs to fail. He needs to fall, and he needs to know my dad's still right here with me. Right. Yeah, that's just something I have to swallow. Well, listen, it's so, trust me, it's so much easier to tell you this than it is to live it at my house. I promise you, man. I'm dying right now. I'm dying.

I'm dying. I've made a commitment to my son because his buddies listen to the show. I'm not going to, I'll never talk about stuff is going on that's for real at our house, but I'm right here with you. Okay.

It's way easier for me to lecture you about it than to experience it in my own chest. It's hard. I'm glad I'm not the only one, I guess. No. If you're a parent of a 17-year-old and you're not experiencing this, you probably should go see somebody right now, right?

It's hard, hard, hard, hard, hard. Letting your kids fail is the worst. It's the worst. Yeah. And it's absolutely the best thing for them. It proves to them I can get up and go again and go again and go again. All right. And that's the nature of life.

You're a good dad. If you have the courage, if you have the guts, to also dye your hair blue, send a photo and we'll post it. because you'll become a legend to fathers everywhere. That would be amazing. That would be super rad. If your kid, by the way, if you're listening, if your kid cuts their hair and a mohawk, get a mohawk. If they want to get one of those mullet things, get a mullet thing.

They want to dance, then say, I'll dance too. And bring them along with you. Bring them along with you. Life is about deciding when am I going to draw the line, when am I just going to play the game to get the life that I want, for me and for those I love. and that's a hard, tricky balance that I don't know you ever fully get until you're 90 years old looking in the rearview mirror,

but kids got to learn to fail and got to know they're still loved when they do fail. You're a good man, dude. Thanks to call, Ray. We'll be right back. All right, you've heard me talking about it for a month, and it's official. My brand new book, Building the Marriage You Want, is available for pre-order.

Picture me sitting at the table with you and your spouse, helping you both take the next right step in your marriage. That's what this book is, me sitting at the table with you both, walking you through what to do in your marriage. I get into all of it, why marriage is so hard in the 21st century, why I think marriage still matters, and I'll give you a playbook for the stuff that trips most couples up. Communication, conflict, sex, money, being married with kids, all of it.

Nothing is off the table. If you like this show, you're going to love this book. pre-order building the marriage you want today for 2499 and get over $100 in pre-order bonus items. Go to john deloney.com. All right, Kelly, something awesome happened. What is it? Yes, this is from Bailey in Fort Collins, Colorado. And she writes, I've been telling my three daughters, I'm so glad God chose me to be your mom after hearing you share about saying this to your kids intentionally.

They do the eye rolls and sometimes ignore me, but I say it regularly. The other day, my four-year-old and seven-year-old were making up after a disagreement, and I looked over and saw my four-year-old make direct eye contact with her sister and said, I'm so glad God chose me to be your sister. My eyes definitely filled with tears. Thank you, Dr. John, for all you do and for the practical tips to encourage a kind and loving home. Excellent. Well done.

That's awesome. And it would have been more awesome if the seven-year-old had just smacked the four-year-old and said, ah, shut up. But good. That's awesome. I'm glad. That makes me happy. Good call.

Hey, it's the little things y'all are doing. in your homes that are changing it for everybody. Thank y'all. Keep doing it, and I'm grateful for you. See you soon. Bye.