The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “Is My Husband Truly Done With Porn?”

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

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How do I begin trusting my husband's recovery from addiction? He is struggling with pornography. Okay. But it turns out that he's actually been addicted since he was about eight years old. And it's been something that's always in the back of my head, always. What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Comedy from Nashville, Tennessee.

Hope you're doing well. Hope the chaos in your life is the fun kind of chaos, not the, ah, man, kind of chaos. Whether it be your marriage, your mental and emotional health, your kids, your life, your money, whatever you got going on in your life, I'm glad you're here, pull up a seat, and we're going to figure out what's the next right move for you and those you love and care about. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes, and Kelly will reach out. She'll hollabler back girl at you. And yes, she is, yes, yes, yes, I can confirm.

Can confirm. But I was going to do a whole rant on Letterkinney, the greatest show ever, but I won't. All right, so let's go out to Orlando, Florida and talk to Alyssa. What's up, Alyssa? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? Doing awesome. How are you?

I'm doing all right. What's going on? Well, I am having a couple issues that I was hoping you could help me work through. All right, let's dump the box out on the counter. Let's figure it out. All right. I wanted to ask you, how do I begin trusting my husband's recovery from addiction? And how do I know when my instinct that he's relapse is worth a confrontation?

Ooh, two good questions. What is the, let me write this down because I don't want to forget it. All right, so what's the addiction he's struggling with? He is struggling with pornography. Okay. Tell me about it. So I know that we had talked about this before we began dating. We've been together for five years now.

And when we were kind of opening up to each other about, you know, our struggles and our issues, his issue with pornography came up. And I thought it was something that had been passed. But it turns out that he's actually been addicted since he was about eight years old. And it's really affecting our marriage. It's affected our entire relationship. I feel like this is something we have to discuss and here recently even argue over at least once a year, minimum. And it's been something that's always in the back of my head. Yeah.

Tell me, take a breath with me for a second, okay? Okay. You're good. I know that's tough. Have you ever said that out loud to somebody? else, not your husband before? I have not. Okay.

I can feel it on you. Hear me say this. I'm glad you're here okay and you're not crazy. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to ask you some weird questions or it might not make, just go with me on it, okay? Okay. Is your core struggle, you hate pornography, you think it's gross, bad, wrong,

evil, whatever word you want attached to it? Or is it the catalyst for the person inside your marriage? You said it's really affecting your marriage? It could be both. Maybe a little bit of both. I know that it's not healthy and not good,

but I feel like it's been taken to the extreme and it's like he has this secret little life that I'm not a part of then I don't know where the ball stops rolling. Will he stop at pornography? Will he cheat? How do I know? Yeah.

And the reason I asked that question is I got a sense from the way you pose that question. Beneath pornography, give me the real fears you have. Is it the type of pornography? Is it the financial cost? Is it the lack of intimacy? is that you can just tell because his eyes are glazed over and he's disconnected from you.

Give me a rundown of what your deepest fears and experiences are. I mean, it's been a little bit of all of the above. I mean, there's been times where we've gone two months without sex at all and it didn't seem to really bother him. It didn't seem like he noticed

and that was really hard for me. It makes me feel rigid. constantly, especially when, you know, I'm, I try to initiate and he's not interested. And because I don't know, I don't know what he's looking at. And it's been really hard for him to talk about. So I can't be that or try to fill that gap. And I feel shut out. Yeah.

And this is, man. Yeah. When you get off this call, it'll be a challenge. listen. Theo Vaughn, the comedian podcaster lives here in Nashville, and he just put out an extraordinary interview

on his show with a guy named Steve Walt, W-O-L-T, I believe, and he's the founder of Valor pornography recovery. But it is an extraordinary interview. And two guys talking

at length and depth about the all of the madness that is pornography that's just got his chains around you. But I think it's an enlightening interview. And man, he probably won't, but your husband needs to hear it more than anything. I think I'd be able to get him to listen. Okay. And obviously, if you know Theo, as a person, I love him.

I mean, it's a comic, I love him, but it's always not, he's, it's not a clean show. but it's definitely, if you know anybody's struggling in pornography, it's a really powerful, powerful listen. Okay. So, and here's why I tell you that. One of the key components that's hard for spouses to hear is your rejection is very real. And his usage of pornography may have nothing to do with you, which almost makes it worse, right? yeah i can't decide yeah right and i've heard that a thousand times like i i don't know which one is worse which is if there's some sort of deficiency in me or in our sex then maybe that gives me a

path to something i can fix and repair um which are both i don't like those words in this in this moment but that's where our thinking goes or oh you just don't need me you don't want me like you want that or you have to have, right? And so here's the thing for him. Let me back out. What have y'all tried? We've tried, you know, VPNs and blockers and things like that. We tried keeping an open discussion about it.

And he'll do really great for a while. And I know that he feels ashamed of himself. And I do feel like he wants to try. I've gotten to the point where I don't really believe what he tells me. Right. Because I can check in and I can ask, you know, how are you doing? And it's a really difficult topic to bring up because I feel like every time I bring it up, I'm setting him backwards. The fact that just talking with him about, your husband about it, quote unquote, is a confrontation, is a setback.

Tells me there's been zero healing. There's been some white knuckling and scratching and clawing to not do a thing, but not to address the issues underneath the pornography. Do you what I'm saying? Yeah, I can see that. And so he's at a point now where the VPN stuff and all, like checking your history and the conversations that turn flashpoint and turn into World War III and will you never and why don't you? and all of that is unhelpful at this point. He's got to go to a recovery program, especially he's been dealing with this thing he was eight years old.

Yeah. He has to go to a recovery program. And I would steer clear of a weekend church retreat. He needs to go to a recovery program, whether it's valor, whether it's SA, whether it's some where he gets in a room with other men and is able to exhale and tell his story and hear other men tell their stories.

because the shame is going to kill him. Yeah, I see that in him. Shame, this is a Brunei Brown quote, but shame eats secrets for breakfast. That's what it, that's the gasoline shame runs on a secrecy. And by the way, you feel it too, right? Maybe a little bit. Not in him.

No, well, you can, you, you're going to have to be able to say, I don't respect you. you're going to have to be able to say out loud, I'm worth more than coming second place to your addiction. You're going to have to say, I want sex and intimacy in my marriage. I don't want that outsourced. And I don't want to feel weird or wrong or whatever

for wanting to be with my husband. Yeah. Until you can say what you want out loud, it's going to continue to be this weird figure eight cat and mouse game of who's trying to avoid who. And then once a year that figure eight meets in the middle and there's a big explosion and then you all go to your each individual corners

for the next 11 and a half months. I feel like these are some of the things that I've brought up to him before. And like I said, we'll have a really good discussion. He'll know exactly where my head's at. I thought that maybe I knew where he was at. And then we'll be doing good. And then something happens.

And he knows that stress is what brings him back. So I try to eliminate stressors for him where I can. Alyssa, Alyssa, let's take pornography off the table. Because it's tied into relationality and it's tied into intimacy, is tied into identity and self-worth and all that, sexuality. It's got so much baggage. So let me use another addiction. Okay.

Okay. You can't make him not drink. The only person you can control is you. Right. And what does that mean? That means you say you cannot be in this home with me and your baby if you've been drinking, period. You can't play defense on stress for the rest of his life. That's work that he has to choose to do for himself and for you and for God sakes that little baby.

Yeah. Right? Right. because you're exhausted. And so the conversations have to turn at some point to, I think I know where he is and he kind of knows where I am. And it has to be, here is what is going to be true in my home, because I'm worth this.

And here's what I'm going to do next. Because right now he gets to have one uncomfortable month, a couple of uncomfortable check-ins a year, and then he can not have the pain of having to change his life. And your fear is about, is he going to stop here? is he going to click on the wrong thing and send him down the wrong rabbit trail he's going to end up in a real real big mess is he going to meet up with him all those fears are very very valid and real and so the original two questions you ask me number one is how do i learn to trust you put a very clear path in front of him

and he gets to choose to walk that path or not and that's not you running around like a mom trying to clear the deck for him. And how do you know if your intuition is worth a confrontation? Man, checking in on somebody you care about in love when you all have a shared goal and they're working to get well, that's never a confrontation. You know what I'm saying? The fact that the way you label it as a confrontation is

tells me he's not putting the work in. Sometimes I wish that I could just roll with it and ignore some of the signs that I see. You can't. I don't want that. It's not being honest to yourself. That's not being honest to him. It's not being honest to that baby.

No. Did you take care of somebody growing up? Was it your job to take care of the adults in your life growing up? Not so much the adult. I had brothers. Okay. Little brothers. Okay.

But I mean, was it your job to make sure they were behaved so mom and dad didn't get mad? It was. Okay. I want you for the first time in your life to care about your spirit, to care about your insides, to care about what you need and what you, more importantly, what you want for the first time. You've been caring for every other adult in your life for your whole life, and it's

exhausting. You're going to crash under the weight. Or here's what you're going to become somebody that you don't want to become, right? Yeah, I see that. You become bitter, you become resentful. Somebody at work is going to tell you that they think you're great and wonderful, and you're going to be like, do I haven't heard that in four freaking years. You're going to become somebody you don't want to become. And so when anyone comes to me with a challenge,

like this in their marriage, the question I always ask him is, who do you want to be in your marriage? And what must be true for that to take place? I think I just want us to be secure and steady. I don't want our son to see or have any kind of fear that, you know, mom and dad aren't doing good. I know, but you're not doing good. And so we also don't want our son growing up feeling that cognitive dissonance and says, I know my house doesn't feel connected. my house doesn't feel safe, but all the adults are smiling.

I must be crazy. And here's what that will do. He'll find some vice to quiet that gap. And this family trauma will roll downhill. Yeah, I can hear let that happen. There you go. At some point, you're going to have to write down on paper and look at it and weep over it, but you're going to have to write down an or what statement.

You become a partner of fidelity, of integrity. You put me in this marriage first before all of their things, including your pride, including your ego, including your addictions. Or what? I've tried to write that statement a lot. I know. I know. It's a scary thing to put on paper because it makes it really, really real.

But we're way past VPN blockers and weekly history deletes. thank you so so much for the call thanks for waiting through the shame and the embarrassment and just the discomfort of all of it and saying help there's an honor to sit with you but hear me say you're worth more than that you're worth more than this and so is he for any men out there struggling with pornography especially as an addiction on that listen to the interviews with i wrote it down here it's yeah steve wolt w-l-t and theo Yau Vaughan. It's a powerful discussion. And if it's time to go seek treatment, go seek treatment. It's embarrassing and shameful on this side. It is freeing on the other side. And you and

everybody in your life is worth it. When we come back, a man asks how to cope with homesickness, financial struggles, and addiction after moving states. We'll be right back. This drives me bonkers, but our culture has made being exhausted something to be proud of, right? People brag about how busy they are, how little sleep they get, and how exhausted they always feel. Listen, being exhausted is not a flex. You know, it's a flex, getting good sleep. And good sleep starts with a great mattress, and that's why I love my mattress from Helix Sleep. Helix is not just a show sponsor for me.

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All right. Let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona. It's probably 8 million degrees there today and talk to Vincent. Hey, Vincent, what's up? Yeah, it's pretty brutal. So my question, I'll just ask the question up front. So how can I cope with homesickness, financial struggles, and being an addiction and recovery when I move states.

And I can give you a little backstory on that. Yeah, that's a lot all in a row. Yeah. Yeah, tell us going on, man. Yeah, so I'm married. My wife and I, we were together for five years before we got married. married. And we've been married for, it'll be two years in July. While we were dating, I noticed, you know, how much she would be affected by the darker winter months. We were living

in Washington State at the time. So she, it was clear to me that she had, you know, like severe seasonal affective disorder. And, you know, we tried a bunch of those, you know, having all those lights that imitate the sun. Sure. We tried, like, glasses that shine that light directly into your eyeball, you know, which I don't know if that was, if that's a good thing to try or not. Well, try anything, try anything that works. But so you all ended up moving? Yeah.

Yeah. She, you know, she just laid it out for me. She said, I love you. I want to be with you. But I just, I can't live in Washington anymore. And you said, I love you too. Let's go. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. It was a huge moment for me. I mean, I've lived, you know, I've lived in Washington my whole life. It's where most of my family is. You know, I had a job that I loved. she's from another country

and you know my family loves her and like did their best to make her feel loved but yeah I mean ultimately I said okay I mean you know like the career move was the biggest challenge like I worked

you know I worked at like a very high luxury resort and I was making good money but I felt stagnant there so like I kind of thought of this as okay well this will be an opportunity for me to change careers, you know, and, you know, when we make this move to Arizona. So I enrolled in real estate school, got, you know, got the 90 hours of education, flew down there, passed the exams, and got license. and then during this time we also had a baby.

And but... What addiction are you struggling with? So I've always struggled with opiate use disorder. Is that a clinical diagnosis or is that you reading about it on the internet? Yeah, so that's the... clinical diagnosis. You struggle with opiates for a long, long time? Yes.

Okay. So bring me to right now, because right now you have a whole bunch of change all at once. And I'm guessing it's not all going well? Yeah, I mean, a lot's happened in the last six months. I mean, I, so we moved to Arizona. I was, I joined up with the real estate team. and like I just I just felt so lost and depressed there in Arizona and like I had no family no friends

and you know like no like recovery system and just like move into a new town and get a new place and having to call and turn the lights on and the water on and get the internet set up part of packing up and moving across the country, and I know this because I've done it, you move across the country, part of moving into a brand new system where you know nobody is I got to go meet a gang. I got to go meet friends.

I got to go to a local church. I got to get into my recovery group. I got to invite some people out to lunch for a season. Yeah. And I know I need to do that. It's, I don't know. I'm just, an isolator.

I'm an introverted. I know, but it's killing you, brother. I know. The first thing you have to do before you try to tackle any of these other big issues is you have to get plugged into a recovery group ASAP. You've got to be clean. Yeah. Nothing else matters right now other than sobriety.

And as a self-admitted, isolator, super introvert, in a brand new place with no community. those demons are going to come screaming at you and claw on your skin off your body. Right? Yeah. Yeah, they did. Okay. So none of this other stuff can happen if you're not sober.

You can't be the dad you want. You can't be the husband you want. You can't think clearly about a brand new job in a really difficult time to start being a relitter. And by the way, there's a million amazing resorts in Phoenix. Like, what I'm trying to tell you is there's other options. can't see or feel or experience any of those other things if you're not clean yeah it's you know like it's just i i i don't want you to i don't want i don't i'm i don't want you to think that i am you know like i was so happy when i was in was in was doing really good and i've been on i've been on like

you know, I've been on like medication assisted their treatment for the past like five years. Okay. And I, and it's not a solution. I know that, but, I mean, it is a solution, but it's not the solution that I want. You know, like, because it's just another way for me to cope. Sure. And, um. I want that for you too, but here's what, here's what has happened.

you made and I'll say you alone because I want you to hold it okay okay you made a humongous decision yeah and you made it with and for somebody that you looked in the

her eyes and said I'm going to spend the rest of my life with you ride or die till death to his part and then you got there and you took one foot out of that boat and you put it back in the other place yeah right

and so you haven't given your full place a chance I promise you you're romanticizing parts of your past yeah you did have friends you did have family you did have community your life would be bonkers right now as a newlywed with a new baby

in a job either you hate and felt was dead in or starting a brand new job if you'd gotten your real estate license in Washington yeah right So the compounding factors here are, I've managed sobriety chemically, pharmacologically, over the last five years. Yeah. And I lost that support system and either haven't gone to renew it or to reestablish it in my new place.

There's just a lot going on, man. And I just, when it feels like a lot, it's good to take things one at a time. You've got to get into some recovery care. An opiate addiction is, by all accounts, the gnarliest, hardest, scariest one. Yeah. Okay? So you got a, you got a hellacious journey ahead of you. You're worth that fight.

So is your wife, so is this little baby I'll have. Absolutely. And the second thing is you've got to get some little wins financially. So completely emptying out your old basket and putting all of your eggs in this brand new basket in this brand new market and this brand new job that is almost entirely relationship-based as an isolator and an introvert was a pretty pretty raw move right yeah so give yourself some grace i try to think it didn't work or it's going to take a long long time to set up and um i got to go make some money i need some little wins both for my spirit for myself and for like food and bills

Yeah. Right? I got to get up and go for a walk in the morning before it turns into a thousand degrees. I got to get some sunshine on my body. And I hate to tell you this, brother, not one person can do these things for you. Yeah. There's many people that will do them with you, but you have to decide you're worth more than this that you got right now. Fair?

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Ah, you just dismissed me on that one. Do you not believe you're worth the fight? I don't feel that right now. No. I don't. That's fair.

I'll sit here with you on that. I feel a lot of guilt. Yeah. About moving. Like, I mean, there's so much I feel guilty about. And, you know, like, I just feel like I took, I feel like I took my grandson away, or my, you know, my dad. I took my, sorry, I'm just nervous. No, you're good, man.

But, you know, like I just, I feel like I broke up my family by moving to Arizona. You can choose to see it that way, that you broke up your family. You can choose to see it as you expanded your family. You can choose to see it as me and my new wife went on an adventure for two years, five years, seven years. You can look at it in any number of ways. But right now, everything you look at and see and feel is so clouded. with either use or your body just screaming and clawing at you. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. Give me six months of recovery, of sobriety, of you going to meetings, and going to see a doctor, and give me six months of you working a job or two where you're actually getting a paycheck. Yeah. And then if you look at your wife and say, hey, I made a promise to you that we would move here.

and in the same way that the Northwest was killing you, this is killing me. And so, I want us to make a plan together that maybe going all the way to the other side of the country was too far.

Yeah. And let's see if we can come, like, right, so it's, we're going to do those things, but we're going to do them in the right order, man. Because here's what's going to happen. You go back on what you said without going fully all in,

on it and you romanticize the past and you run back to it and you're going to have guilt there because you're going to go with you and your guilt will move to another story and to another person you think you're hurting another person you don't think you kept your word with and another person you're break you see what I'm saying you're going to go with you wherever you move that's why I want you with your feet on the ground in Phoenix Arizona to say I'm going to work on getting well now for me for my wife and for my kid and I don't feel it I honor that feeling, brother. I'm sitting here right here with you.

I'm not going to try to change your feelings. But I do want you to take the next right action, even though you don't feel it. Okay? Okay. I'm telling you, I love you, and you're worth it. And so when you don't feel it, remember me saying that.

Okay? And I haven't told anybody this publicly. After being here, moving away from my friends and my family of four decades, to Tennessee, within 18 months, I was looking at jobs again back at my home state. Yeah.

And I'm glad I didn't. I have a whole new world, a whole new system, a whole new group of friends, a whole new everything, man. And that's not everybody's story, that's fine. It may be that y'all end up, maybe not going back to Washington, but maybe going halfway. Maybe going to Utah, where it's sunny all the time.

Yeah. And it's just a long drive. Who knows, man, but that's not for today. Today is I'm going to go stare this dragon down once and for all, and I'm going to get a group, and we're going to walk right through it together. I'm going to go to meetings. I'm not going to miss. I'm going to go see a physician.

I'm not going to miss. This isn't going to help you with that level of recovery, but I'm going to give you three months a better help for you. So you have somebody to talk to you today that's not going to cost you any money, okay? Thank you. Just a licensed therapist. As soon as we're done here, I want you to take the code that you're going to get, and I want you to make an appointment,

and they'll see you within the next 24 hours, okay? Because I'm worried about you, okay? Okay. I believe in you, brother, okay? Even when you don't, I do. I appreciate it. And you got a wife and a baby, and so you don't have a lot of other choices, right?

We've got to make this work. No. We've got to make this work. I know. Okay. I know. I know. But making this thing work is not about homesickness

or financial struggles. I mean, it's a reality to, we need money for bills and food, but it's not about guilt or it's about I got to get clean. Step one, I got to get sober. And then we're going to start plowing through these issues one at a time. But I want you to give me six months of sobriety and six months of working two jobs, standing up a little bit taller.

Six months are going to meetings every day. And then we'll have some clearer eyes on whether Arizona is a place that you guys can build a new family, build a new world, maybe get your parents out of that northwest dreariness or we're going to consider moving in the next year or two. Thanks for the call, brother. It's been an honor to talk to you. I believe in you, man. Remember that when you don't feel like it.

Remember, I believe in you. We come back. A woman asks how to help her husband manage his stress about money when it affects everything in their marriage. I've been there. We'll be right back. All right. Here's something I've learned over the years of sitting across from young men who are struggling with trauma, addiction, mental health challenges, or other destructive behaviors. When I would send them out to therapy, I often found that one 50-minute session a week might not be enough to turn things around.

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Gotta go visit there one day, man. Let's talk to Emily. Hey, Emily, what's up? Hey, Dr. John. How's it going? Great. How are you? I'm pretty good.

Well, my question is I was just hoping to get a little insight into how I can kind of help my husband when he gets pretty stressed out about finances. Ooh. What's his, well, before I jump into that, tell me about it. Yeah, so we actually are a real estate team. He and I work together. and it just seems like, you know, there's ebbs and flows to real estate. And when we're maybe down a little bit, he just gets a little bit stressed out.

He starts freaking out a little bit more about finances and starts getting worried about, you know, our future more. And, you know, obviously as a man, I completely understand that, that he's, you know, the provider for our family and whatnot. but sometimes I just feel like it can affect the rest of our family and like our relationships to each other and with our kids. So when he does kind of get stressed out, I just sometimes don't know what to do. So give me a couple of examples of quote unquote when he gets stressed out. What is that? What do you experience? I mean, it's not anything crazy.

It's more so just he gets a little bit more in his head. he can't sleep. And I just don't, you know, I don't have that experience when I get stressed. I guess I just don't worry as much as he does. So when he gets stressed, he's just a little bit more short. Not as fun to be around, of course. Sure. Yeah, that's the main problem.

Are the money stress is real, meaning, are you all pretty leveraged? Do you all owe a bunch? and if if you don't make X number of sales every month, the whole house of cars comes down? I don't know. He might feel that way. I personally don't. I know, but that's not a feeling.

That's a math problem. Yeah, so we do have a pretty hefty mortgage, but that's really the only debt that we have. Okay. What is true about that hefty mortgage? Um, well. And I'll say it this way. When the last house I owned in Texas I bought, and this is like going to be humorous now,

I bought it for $175,000. And I could not breathe. I could not believe that any human would spend that kind of crazy money on a house. And I paced, I didn't sleep. And so that was. that was me not being well at all right i would probably trade one of my kids right now for a hundred seventy thousand dollar house right like not really but um and then i talk to other people who they make six hundred thousand dollars a year combined and they have a four million

dollar house and the math isn't mapping or they make 60 grand and they have a 350,000 our house and the math isn't math. So looking at this purely objectively, what's the math problem here? I mean, that's a good question. It's not like we're struggling to make our payments each month. We also have an Airbnb in our property that kind of, it makes quite a bit. On average, it covers at least half, if not more, of our mortgage each month. And, you know, of course, we have other expenses, just day-to-day living. And we have three young kids at home. So we're just busy. What's your husband's money story growing up?

I felt like his family had quite a bit of money. They had enough family. They lived frugally, but I don't think he ever really worried necessarily about money. Okay. Sometimes the worry can be two-sided. It's either you grew up in scarcity and you know the pain of not having enough. stuff, right? You know, you feel the tension in your home when your parents are worried if they're going to be able to buy groceries that month. And there's also another side to it where your parents

talk down about people who didn't have resources, or they kind of made fun of, or there was just, this, this expectation that if you're a real man or a real person or a real success, you got to have this and you got to have that and you got to have that. You got to have a house looks like that. You got to have a car's like that. You've got to have an income that's this many number. on it and this many commas in it. So the pressure can be all over the place, not just, we often think of scarcity, but sometimes that pressure is shame-based and ego-based on the other side of it, too. All is to say is this, it sounds like your husband, not, I'm not saying this as a clinical

diagnosis, but it sounds like he is struggling with anxiety at a pretty deep level. And money becomes the flashpoint that sets off the machine. He can't hold it anymore, right? Mm-hmm. And so it's him saying, let me back all the way out of this and heal from the inside out. Mm-hmm.

Because it sounds like a man that doesn't have peace in the middle of his chest. Mm-hmm. Is that fair? Yeah, I mean, that's what he tells me. His chest gets really tight and it feels like there's an elephant

sitting on it when he gets stressed. All right, I'm going to send you, I wrote a whole book on this called Building an Unextriced life. I'm going to send, I'll send you two copies, one for you and one for him. I want you all to read it together, okay? Because here's the question I want y'all to reverse engineer. Two questions.

Number one, how do you want your home to feel? Are you asking me? Yeah, I'm asking. Here's why I'm asking you. Here's why that question is important. Because most of us have gotten caught up in all these crazy traps for what we're supposed to be doing, what our kids are supposed to be doing, what they're supposed to be wearing.

We got to have a VRBO. We also have to have some crypto on the side. We also have to have this many credit card points, and we have to have our own business. And we've forgotten why we're doing all this stuff. What's it for? What is the arbitrage and the gap and moving it from this fund to that fund

so we can make the spread and invest it in? Did you get the SpaceX cap? And what I want people to ask is, hey, don't ask those questions first. Ask this question. What do you want your house to feel like? And most people want their house to feel full of laughter and warmth, peace, silliness. Maybe a place to, like, it's a, it's a, it's a cave where you can go, ah, from the crap show that is the world.

And the second question is, how do we solve for peace first? And what that usually means for most people in your situation is, what are the things we're just going to stop doing because we want laughter in our life. Yeah. And if part of that might be, like me, your husband might have a clinical anxiety disorder that he's going to have to go sit with somebody and work through as a part of, let's have a house full of laughter and warmth and silliness that we can't wait to get home to. And by the way, y'all got three young kids. So it's going to be chaotic. But I will tell you this, as a guy who took sleep medications, hypnotics for years, I cannot keep my eyes open when I put my head on my pillow anymore.

And that was because of doing the anxiety work. And then having to go make actual changes in my life. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. I mean, I agree with you and that's totally, I mean, I want my house to feel stress-free and we can go have fun. It's going to have stress in it, right?

Yeah. I mean, I just feel like there should be a balance. Of course, you know, we're not out spending tons of money all the time and going out to eat and doing activities all the time. We're pretty frugal with our money, but it just feels like the balance is still a little bit off. So if you got a million dollars, if y'all sold a $100 million ranch in Bozeman and y'all got your 6% from that, I promise you within 30 days your husband will have found a new thing to worry about. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because it's not about the money.

The money is just simply the blinking light on the dashboard right now, but the problem is in the engine. Mm-hmm. Right? Mm-hmm. Or the analogy I use in the book is the money problems that he feels in his chest right now. Either he's got a bunch of hidden debt that you don't know about and a bunch of hidden leverages that you don't know about, which may be true. I hear that all the time. or it is just the smoke detector in the kitchen going off,

but that's not where the fire is. The fire is in the middle of the spirit. I don't know how to be a dad of three kids. My life has changed. My marriage has changed. My life is a different person. Now I'm a different person now. We don't have a map back to each other.

Who knows what the thing is, right? Does any of this ring a bell or is it, do I sound like I'm just talking gibberish? No, I mean, it definitely makes sense. I can see that. I guess my question is then, how would I, how can I be supported while he kind of walks through that? If it's not, you know, maybe the money is not the problem

and he needs support in other areas. One, I'm going to send you those two books. I want you to say, hey, this goofball podcaster sent these to me. I want us to read this together. Okay. Okay. And if he won't read the books, email us, email Kelly or Alex back,

and we'll send the audio version. Okay. That's number one. That'll give you a roadmap. But number two, I want y'all to take a half-day retreat. I've said this a million times on the show. I want you to take a half-day.

The marriage y'all had doesn't exist anymore. The life y'all had together doesn't exist anymore. Two young, married goofballs running around, Bozeman, just doing whatever you want, whatever you want. It's over. You got three kids. You got business.

You got life. You say real estate's been ebbs and flows. It's been a lot of ebbs lately, right? So it's just, just, there's a lot going on. And there's something really transformative about a couple looking at each other and literally swiping the deck clean and saying, we get to pick whatever life we want starting today. How do we want this world to feel? And what must be true for that to happen? From that conversation, you might have to say, I would love you to go see a counselor about your anxiousness.

I'm not anxious, we're just got money. I'm asking you to go talk to somebody. I'll go with you if you would like. But I see a man that I love and I see him dying in his own skin. And I don't want the old guy back. I want you to feel good so that we can build this new awesome thing together. And if you've got stuff, your marriage is different too, Emily. So your world is different.

Your identity is different. Everything's different. and so you asking yourself what I need to do. Yeah. All right? And the path is like asking each other on a regular basis. How can I love you? I'm going to send you the Together app too.

And it doesn't sound like you'll have marriage issues as much as we just need to have points of connection back. Sometimes these things can be as simple as once a week we're going to meet up. And we have three young kids and we don't have a trillion dollars because evidently babysitters costs $450 an hour now. So we're going to go on the back porch. No kids allowed. We're going to drop in front of a screen. You all know I hate screens. Turn it on.

We're going to sit on the back porch and we're just going to look at each other and say, who, we're doing it. What does this week look like? Schedule-wise? What does this week look like financially? Let's pull your credit reports and look at everything you all owe.

Where actually are we financially? What's the state of our business? Let's just start putting some of those things. out on the table. And the book will give you a roadmap for all of that, building an on anxious life. We'll link to it in the show notes for anybody who's interested in it, but I'll send you a couple of copies for y'all two to read together.

Talk about each chapter once a week. But let's reimagine our home. What do we want this thing to feel like? And how do we solve, not for the next? How do we solve for peace here? And sometimes solving for peace means I'm going to go bust my butt in the gym. I'm going to go bust my butt in the therapist office. I'm going to go learn jiu-jitsu.

It doesn't mean that you just take your foot off the gas, but it means the things you're slamming the gas pedal down on the floor for are leading to a thing that makes you go, allows you to go, ah, it's building the life you want, building the marriage you want, building the life that doesn't have anxiousness and it all the time. And it kind of levels out those ebbs and flows so you can cheer on the good days and you can go, ah, man, on the bad days. But they're not a matter of life or death.

But I want you to have peace in your home. man, I want your husband to have peace in his heart. Hang on the line here. We'll hook you up, Emily. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back. I love, love, love my poncho shirts. And whether I'm at church, I'm out and about, people are stopping me.

And they're like, dude, you're wearing poncho shirts. Are they really that awesome? Yes, they're really that awesome. I've been wearing poncho shirts for years. If I'm on stage, if I'm traveling, if I'm out running around town, I'm probably wearing poncho shirts. Right now, because it's a billion degrees outside, I'm wearing their original and ultra lights a lot.

They're light, they breathe, and they move with you. They're tough enough that I'm never worried about them, and they look nice, so I can wear them anywhere. And here's the thing, I don't have to think about it. I just grab one, throw it on,

and then I'm gone. So yes, when people ask me, do you love your poncho shirt? Are they worth it? Yes, I wear them because they're the best. Go to poncho outdoors.com slash deloni and check out all of their styles. Sign up with your email,

and you'll get $10 off your shirt. your first purchase. That's poncho outdoors.com slash deloni. All right, Kelly, am I the problem? All right, so this is from Lauren in Lakewood, Illinois, and she writes, Am I the problem for feeling hurt when my husband publicly equates our marriage to biblical plagues? No, why is she complaining? Then later tries to play it off as a joke.

For example, during a recent family get-together, a group of us were playfully debating cell phone usage. My husband is the king of roasting others, so we were lightly roasting him over his screen time. It quickly devolved into him turning on me, implying that being married to me was hell by saying, quote, some people get boils,

some plague of locusts, I get married. This kind of comment is a regular occurrence, and then he later acts like nothing happened and doesn't understand why I'm upset. Am I the problem for being hurt? All right, so a couple thoughts here.

Thought number one. I recently added a whole section in my hour-long stand-up routine about the women's health challenges that may or may not be in my home. Menopause. No, no, no. Menopause I was ready for. It's the pre-version. Perry. I was not aware of that one.

We don't talk. We don't talk. Okay. Okay. So, I think personally it's some of the best stuff I've ever done. My wife thinks it's not so funny. And so we've talked about, and by the way, she's never even heard it, but the idea of it. And so we have taught, there's some things I've taken out that she has said like, hey, that's too far, or that's really personal, or that's just objection.

Effectively, don't say that out loud because you're a man and you're going to get yourself stabbed in a parking lot. Or possibly in your studio. There you go. So all that to say is, I regularly think things are funny. And my wife says, hey, that hurt my feelings. And I've gotten better over a quarter century together, like navigating that and knowing like. And even she'll say, hey, guys, to me and my son, those jokes are for not in the kitchen. And I'm like, yes, you're right.

Right. So there's that. That's not what she's talking about here. She's talking about a guy who can dish it up but can't take it. And I have a problem with that. If you're going to get in the ring and play and you're going to throw punches, you got to expect to get hit back. And that's part of the fun of an engagement.

But if it hurts your feelings when someone's like, ooh, you're using your phone too much, if you can't handle the heat, then you stay outside of the kitchen. You don't go in there and play those games. And so it's less about the joke he's making and it hurts my feelings. No, have that conversation, and he needs to be a grown man and be like, dude, I didn't mean to hurt. I would never mean to hurt your feelings.

I won't make that joke anymore. Even if that joke is so, so funny, so funny. I will not make that joke. It's so funny, Kelly, so funny. But I'm not going to make the joke because I never want to hurt you. And let me explain myself because at the end of the day, anytime I'm talking about jokes on a stage, I'm the butt of the joke at the end of the day. That's the goal of it, right?

and she's conceded like all right I hurt's my feelings but I know my husband's not a jerk this guy sounds like a jerk to me and so no on its face making a joke about my marriage is like a biblical plague that can be funny with a group of people that are all in on it and whatever it's it's that he just stabs

right whenever when he's slap fighting he stabs real fast and then he's like what what we're just all playing and so that's where I think the real conversation is that was a long-winded answer to I would sit down and have a conversation with him about, hey, this particular joke hurts my feelings. I would appreciate if you didn't make it anymore. And tell him exactly what you want in a kind, loving way, and hopefully he's mature and respectful and sees it.

I mean, it's willing to keep it up, right? What do you think? Overall, yeah, the only thing that struck me a little different is if you keep making a joke over and over and over and over and over. Yeah, super fair, good call. At some point you're like, there's something legit here. Is this how, I mean, you're either just an ass. Or a one-joke pony, right? You're just like, I got a joke, huh-huh.

Come up with some better material. Yeah, get new jokes, dude. Right. Or, hey, is there something we need to talk about? Yeah. Yeah. Because when you, yeah, when somebody says something over and over but layers it with humor, there's something legit beneath that.

Like you, like, oh, you're late again. Yeah, we're not even laughing about that one anymore. There's a lot of truth in that, and it hurts. Who is hurt by that? Who, who let the dogs up? Good job, Kelly. Love you guys. This is about to get sideways.

Bye.