The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “My Husband Is a Selfish Lover”

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

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

My husband is a very selfish lover. I don't know how to get my sexual needs met and to get him invested in that. Most couples settle for the exchange of orgasms and call that a good sex life. That's not a good sex life. What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show. Taking real calls from real people who are going to do real challenges in their life. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes,

and it will send you to a form page thing somewhere on the Internet where you'll write out what's going on in your life. They'll go right to Kelly, and she will get you on the show. Let's go out to Huntsville, Alabama, and talk to Destiny. Hey, Destiny, what's up? Nothing much. Just have a question for you. All right, bring it on.

What's going on? So my husband, who I've been married to for about 17 and a half years is a very selfish lover, essentially. And my question is, I don't know how to get my sexual needs met and to get him invested in that for me. How long has you been selfish to use your word? So our entire marriage, and I'm a very generous lover. And so, you know, the first 15 or so years, I mean, I, like, you know, we've talked about it. We've had those conversations. We've, you know, I've told him about how I feel.

So it's not that he doesn't know or isn't aware. It's, I just don't know how to get him motivated to be interested. Like, any time that he tries to, I guess, do something for me, it really is with him in mind. For example, he'll buy certain sex toys, say, you know, saying that, you know, I think that you'll really enjoy. this, but it's really for him to enjoy. So, for example. Hold on. Let me interrupt. So in the here, I'm interrupting intentionally.

After 17 years, there's a track your brain gets on, right? Like when you start telling the story, it's, think of like a train, leaving the station, and it just goes from here all the way out. So I want to interrupt it along the way a little bit and try to get to some solutions here, if possible. to answer your big question and I hate to say this you cannot motivate somebody to not be an ass

if he's an ass he's an ass you get what I'm saying and so if you can honestly look where this conversation goes sideways is it's what you want gets framed as needs and what you everything becomes about how you make me feel.

And what I want to do is get real tactile. Right? And I use that word wrong. I want to get real specific. Let's say that. Okay. And so instead of throwing this word need, need is, like, you need oxygen, you need food, you need water.

A more vulnerable thing is here is what I want. Right? and if the person you've been married to for 17 years looking across the table, you says, I don't care what you want. I'm not doing that. We're going to have sex. I'm going to get off and I'm going to go to bed. Then by framing it as a want, you have to sit in that grief of I'm married to an absolute jerk

who doesn't care about me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I would be really heartbroken. And if you say, hey, Hey, I want you to do the following things, or the following things help me reach orgasm when you do those things. And they say no.

And I will not do those things. Then we can be, tell me about, let's be curious about why you say no, is it because it's painful? Is it because it's, because this can get weaponized on either side of the row here, right? But like, how clear have you been about, I want you to do these things? Well, it's basically, for me, it takes a really long time for me to orgasm. Okay. And so it takes a lot of focus.

And I mean like a really long time, like a really long time. Okay, but hold on, hold it. And I have to focus. And that's just really hard for him to do. He gets tired. And it's just, you know, it's not, it's not immediate gratification for him. So therefore it's hard for him to do. It's not hard.

It's not, I mean, it's just not hard. It may be frustrating and may be annoying. It may be, it's not hard. Let's back out of sex for a second. Where else is he selfish in your relationship? Oh, lots of areas. Okay. So this isn't universal.

Everybody's experience with sexual gratification, with orgasm, everyone's different. right bodies are just different and unique but a common thread i've heard over the years from talking to countless people is it there's almost a direct correlation between emotional connectivity outside of the bedroom and the length of time it takes me to orgasm inside the bedroom does that make sense yeah yeah no no totally i've i've just kind of i guess maybe convince myself that I don't need the other emotional connectivity if I could just get the physical focus. Yeah, but you almost have to transport yourself, which is what takes a long time. Do you

what I'm saying? Yeah. Because most couples settle for the exchange of orgasms and call that a good sex life. That's not a good sex life. There are seasons when that's the best, I mean, when you You got three kids run around and you got bills. There is seasons when, like, man, we're in this thing together. But over the arc of 17 and a half years, settling for just trading orgasms is not what I would wish for anybody. Yeah. I just don't see anything. I don't know.

I don't know what I can do better. I don't know that's a matter of you doing better as much as. it's resting in I'm married to somebody who doesn't care about me emotionally, physically, sexually, spiritually, who's just out. I personally, I don't have a lot of,

I don't have a lot of respect for men or women who treat their spouses like that. And on the other side, if often these worlds are co-created, and that's a nerd word, a way of saying, if for 15, if I was talking to him on the phone, or 15 years or for 17 years, he's like, yeah,

I tried to do the laundry early on and I did it wrong. And I've tried to help with the dishes, but I didn't put him in exactly the right place. And so all I got was criticism. And so he's slowly learned over 15 years just to slowly back out of the life because it's your world and he just kind of lives in it. Or maybe not at all.

Maybe that's not you guys experienced at all. Well, it kind of definitely is, and it's not more specifically about he does it wrong or anything like that. It's just more we don't agree on a lot of things. So the kind of roles that we've been that we are in is, you know, like you need to work and make the money and I'll take care of everything else. Because when you try and step into here, it only causes arguments and contention and disaster. So tell me about the arguments and well we just I mean we don't agree on a lot of things we don't agree on parenting styles we don't agree on finances we don't agree

um you know just on a lot of things do you all agree on where you want to go on what you want this thing called your marriage project to look like um so because what usually happens right now for me it's just surviving our kids and then looking at it again after they are out of the house. How old are they? I have 15 and a half, 14, 11, 11 and a half, and 9.5. Okay. It's busy and chaotic, but I wouldn't wish survival on anybody. Well, the other option is too bleak.

I don't understand. So the other option would be have him completely out of the house, which would be a divorce. That to me is just too hard. And I don't know. I almost feel like I have to have a justification for it, you know, besides, but he's selfish. There's a third option, which is you all take your, both of y'all clear the deck completely and say, we get to choose what this house feels like. I would like that very much.

but he's, I don't know, he's kind of at a standpoint. He's, he's done a lot of work on himself because there's been a lot of other issues. You know, he's had anger issues. He's had some other issues that he struggled with. And he's done a lot of work. And so I think he had a point where I'm done. I've grown and he says that I don't respect how much he's grown. Is there any truth to them?

No, I do. I just, it's not enough. What does that mean? Well, I believe that my husband has a lot of issues and I don't know if he has the ability to have a different perspective. So, for example, like with anger, you know, he was at a point where he would get angry and he would throw things and break them. The kids' toys, one time a cell phone because the kids were using it, and he was mad that they were on it and he took it and threw it and busted it. You know, just it was, he never intentioned, like he would grab a kid's arm and accidentally hurt them.

And then so he, you know, I'm like, this is this, no, this can't. change or you've got to go. And so he, I mean, this has got to change or you've got to go. And so he's, you know, he's gone to therapy. He's really worked on his anger and he does not yell. He does not throw things. He does not touch the kids in any way. And so, but that any time that we know that he's going to be upset or that he

disagrees with something, we're on eggshells. Like, we worry. And, you know, when. he does get upset. You can tell in his body language. You can tell in his tone. And he's trying to say that he's fine, but we're all like, we can tell that he's not fine. And it's just kind of like a trigger response where we know he hasn't had an outburst in a long time, but he could. And it's not like he'll go three months without having an outburst of yelling. And then something will happen and he'll yell.

And it's scary. And so we kind of live in that. And so I've told him that, you know, it's like we live in that whether you've, yes, you've grown, yes, you no longer do these things. We're, we still, I mean, it's going to take, you know, a long time for us to just fully trust and feel safe that you're never going to have an outburst because in three, six months you do um you listen destiny you can you can't live like this i mean you can't tell you what to do but i wouldn't recommend living like this to anybody i mean you're using words like scared and i have to

tiptoe in my own house and all four children are waiting for the next thing he's going to smash and punch a hole through or start yelling. Like, it's a very unsafe place for you all to be. And I, one million percent recognize that not a lot, like, thinking about even the alternative there is really scary. I get that. But you're living in scary. So it's some weird, I hate to say it like this, but you're having to choose you're

scary. And it's, I think it's a lot because for the most part, you know, it's manageable. I know, dude, but I want you to consider, and I know you probably have, and so I'm saying this more for the listener than for you, but also for you. I don't want a life that I have to manage. There's things I have to manage, but I want my home to be my safest place on the planet outside of this crazy world we have going on. And if you are counting down the days that you have nine and a half years left before your youngest is gone, so you can be a lot of the world. and finally move on and try to squeeze whatever life you have left in your bones, I don't want you to live like that.

And I especially don't want those four kids to live in that. I don't want him to live like that. Yeah, his perspective is he doesn't see that at all. He has a difficult time, you know. And I think our life is better than the life that he had growing up. So this is fine for him, great for him. I promise you it's not I promise you he doesn't like coming home

and knowing his wife doesn't like him and that his kids are scared of him I promise you he doesn't like feeling out of control I've worked with too many men closely that nobody likes that so how do I help it get better how do I help him? You can't help him you have to make choices for you

and some adult in their life has to help make choices for those kids but you have to start saying as for me, here's what's going to be true. The only person on the planet you can control right now is you. So at the end of the day,

you're just in a tough situation. Every path you have is challenging. Every path you have is hard. And in fact, I'll say every path you have has got varying degrees of unsafety, a lack of safety to it. And so it's you truly owning,

all right? I get to decide what happens next. And if the decision is, I'm going to let this slide, I'm going to let this thing go, I'm not going to worry about this. That's part of being married, right? But when it comes to issues of safety, when it comes to issues of just disrespect

and a lack of love, I'm worth more than that. I don't want to model that for my kids. And this vision of this life I had that I want, I'm trying so hard to hang on to, he's taking it away. And so I've got to own this reality. And I've got to own what happens next.

But instead of getting with some friends and just talking about it and talking about it, I want you to begin to formulate, here's what must be true in my house, and then here's the things that would have to happen to make this true. And it's often a lot of really small things. And some men and women just don't want to do it. I don't want to be a part of that. This whole picture is very little to do with sex at this point, and a whole lot to do with your body's not safe.

If you can't have trust and you can't have safety, you don't have a connected relationship, period. That's the prerequisite for a connected relationship. So ask yourself what must be true there? I hate that I can't just solve this one for you. This is a tough one. You've got a long road ahead of you. You've got to get some trusted people in your life to walk with you.

Thank you for the call. Call anytime. We come back. A woman asks why she worries about divorce, even though she has an amazing marriage. We'll be right back. I've seen the data. I know that so many,

many of you avoid talking about life insurance because it forces you to imagine things you don't want to think about. So many people don't have life insurance. But here's what you need to remember. Life insurance isn't really for you. It's protection for the people you love. And I recommend term life insurance from Xander insurance. When a family loses someone they depend on, the last thing they need is the financial chaos on top of the deep grief. People don't always realize how much they carry for their family every day. It's child care, it's meals, transportation, paying bills, holding everything together. Term life insurance helps protect your family so they can focus on grieving and healing and not scrambling to figure out how they're going to keep the lights on.

I've used Zander since long before I had a show because I trust them. And Zander makes buying term life insurance so simple. Their team shops top-rated companies for you. Zander works for you, not the insurance companies. And they help you understand your options in plain language and they help you find the coverage that fits your family and your budget without pressure, gimmicks, or confusion. You don't need a sales pitch. You need protection for your loved ones.

Go to zander.com today to get a quote. That's zander with a z.com. All right, so it all started with cozy earth towels, these amazing giant super absorbent, comfortable towels. And then I got a cozy earth comforter and I got some cozy earth blankets and they were amazing. And then I got some cozy earth socks. And now cozy earth is in every nook and cranny of my house. It's even on my body.

And recently I got a pair of cozy earth everywhere pants. I didn't need another pair of pants, but I got them. And like all other cozy earth gear, they're incredible. And of course, those cozy earth sheets. Listen, these are not normal sheets. made from viscos from bamboo. You know what that is? I have no idea, but I do know this. Cozy earth sheets are soft, breathable, and somehow they keep you cool without feeling cold, and they don't sweat you out. Cozy Earth sheets help me sleep better. They're the best. And here's the deal.

Cozy Earth gives you a hundred-night sleep trial on betting and a 10-year warranty on everything else, so there's no risk. Try Cozy Earth for yourself. Go to cozy earth.com slash Deloni and use code Deloney and you'll save up to 20% off your entire order. That's cozyEarth.com slash Deloney. Use code Deloney. And if you get a post-purchasease survey, tell Cozy Earth you heard about their amazing gear right here on this show. All right, let's go to Fort Wayne, Indiana and talk to Samantha.

Hey, Samantha, what's up? Hey, how are you? I'm all right. How about you? Good. So I just have a question. I'm wondering why I worry about the possibility of divorce, even though my marriage is amazing, and how I can stop the constant worry about that.

Ooh, good question. Do you struggle with anxiety just generally? Yeah. Okay. Tell me something you were anxious about before you were anxious about getting divorced. Well, I guess that just started when I got married. So even since, you know, I first got married, I've been anxious. about not staying married forever and not ending in divorce.

So before that, it was just anxiety about everything, school, life, family, the future. I can never remember a time I didn't worry. Okay. What did, if you were to step back from yourself, I know that's like a weird thing to do, but if you stepped out of your body and got 10 feet behind you and saw you standing in front of you, right? What would worry be doing for you? What is it protecting you from? Honestly, nothing, because I have a really good life. Extrinsically?

I worry about the what-is, but... Tell me about growing up. Well, I have a lot of trauma growing up. Tell me about it. I think that's where a lot of it stems from. I have issues with my real dad. There was a lot of abuse there. some neglect. And then I actually was adopted by my stepdad when I was 12. My real dad signed over his rights.

You know, and I thought that would cure everything. But, you know, it didn't. And then even growing up, I still with my mom, I was never the chosen one. It was always my sisters. And I think that's probably where a lot of it stems from now. Yeah, probably. Is he going to find something else? or, you know, but he's never, ever.

Let's don't put this on him and let's don't even put this on you, okay? Let's reframe the whole thing. Okay. The one guy in your life who from the day you were born is supposed to fight hell on earth for you left. Yeah. And then this other magical savior came in. did a noble good thing and didn't, and between him and your bio mom, they didn't leave you, but they left you inside the house. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. So what if you were to be

really compassionate with yourself and think, huh, my body's working perfectly? Because it's run this script multiple times before. And it's always, it's always, it's just trying to keep you safe from yet another devastating heartbreak. And I say this all the time on the show. The things that keep us safe as kids will destroy our adult relationships. And so the work for you is not to beat yourself up and be like, why am I worrying about this? This is so perfect.

And I should have everything. Because then the weird thing is you create the world that makes it hard, right? Yeah. It's a matter of practice. and some of that is trauma work and some of that is body work and some of that is maybe an anxiety medication for a season and some of that is just practicing feeling anxious and being grateful for your body instead of fighting the anxiety being like oh man you're trying to keep me safe i appreciate that i'm going to go do this i'm going to go hug him i'm good i don't like the idea of physical right i understand that Yeah. And again, that may be the thing that your nervous system needs. Yeah.

What about physical intimacy, set your body on fire from the inside out? And just all of it, honestly, like the holding hands, hugging sexually, like, it just all makes me very uncomfortable. Okay. I really want you to go see a trauma therapist if you haven't. Yeah, I've done, I've seen a therapist for a long time. I did attempt EMDR with somebody, but I don't think she was very well trained in it, so it didn't go very well. I'm not opposed to doing it again.

EMDR is one of 50 things. It works for some people. It doesn't work for others. Yeah. But I'm telling you, as someone who had a wild childhood, on the other end of this, there is peace that you cannot imagine. Okay.

Okay. That's the best I can offer you is, from a guy that was crawling around outside of his house thinking his house was collapsing to a guy that can barely keep his eyes open past 9 o'clock because I'm just tired, not like my life. There was a hellacious amount of work in the in-between. Okay.

EMDR, I've heard it's magic for folks. It wasn't really a thing for me. But there was a couple other things that really were. Okay. Okay. But the human body needs touch and when touch gets weaponized with abuse, it disconnects you from yourself, right?

Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, it's touch. It's like even words, too. Like, he, you know, that's his love language is words of affirmation. And it, like, I just, I struggle with that, too. Compliments and telling him how much I care about him. And, you know, I struggle with all of that, too. I know, but the struggle doesn't mean it's not important.

Yeah, well, that's what I'm worried about is I don't want my struggles, excuse me, my struggles to push him away because he, you know, he knows about my entire past and has never, you know, it's never scared him or anything. He's always been there and is there for me no matter what I need. I know, but it's hard, right? Yeah. I just don't want to push him away is my fear. Okay, then.

reel them in. Okay. All right. And here's what I mean by that. When it comes to body safety, there's just some trauma work that people need to do. Okay. If you're coming from an abusive situation,

if you were sexually abused or physically abused, like there's some work that needs to be done there. Okay. And sometimes it's 12 sessions. If you get a good trauma therapist, sometimes it takes a year or two. sometimes there will be little glimmers of it throughout your whole life. And that's just, that's, that's the hand you, of cards you were dealt.

Okay. Right. When it comes to, I struggle with words of affirmation, I'll push back on you pretty hard on that one, okay? Okay. Put three reminders on your phone, three different alarms three times during the day. Okay. And when the alarm goes off, send him a text about how great he is. That's not hard.

That's a thing you can do. you can write him a note and leave it on his pillow. Or put it in his car on a sticky note on his steering wheel before he leaves for work in the morning. Okay. Those type of quote unquote struggles, the path is not to continue to work around them. It's to go right freaking through the middle of them. Okay. And the healing that your body will achieve is this.

I feel uncomfortable saying nice things because I used to have to say nice things so I wouldn't get hit. I'm going to practice saying nice things and I'm going to watch his shoulders drop three inches. I'm going to leave a note in the car and I'm going to look out the window where he can't see him. I'm going to watch him get it and watch him smile ear to ear.

Okay. And my body's going to know, over time it will learn I wasn't safe then, but I am safe now. Right? The same thing will happen with physical touch, with sexual intimacy, that's what healing is. used to not be safe then, but I am safe now. And the only path through that is right through it.

Yeah. The challenge with doing that sexually is without any kind of trauma healing, that can be real dicey. So I would not recommend just forcing yourself through something like that. That's worth the healing. But when it comes to saying nice things, receiving nice things, being told compliments back, practice feeling anxious and taking it anyway. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah, I feel like my mind knows like it's okay and I'm safe, but then my body just does a whole other thing. That's right. And that's trauma. It's the disconnection from yourself. That's anxiety, right? I know this thing and I'm separate from it. I'm going to give you two things, okay? I'm going to give you my book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. I want you to read it cover to cover, and I want you and your husband to use that as a roadmap. app. The second thing I'm going to send you is a year of the Together app for free. And I want you all to use that together. And it's tiny little activities to do. And when you feel anxious, put your fist in your chest and literally say to yourself quietly or inside your own mind, you're trying to keep me safe again. Thank you for that. But this one's good. This guy's good. I'm safe now. And it's just practicing working through

that and over time your body learns, ah, man, I got thrown in the trunk of my own car growing up, but now I'm driving. In fact, I love saying kind, wonderful things. It feels good for me and for my partner. But make a call today and let your words be this. I experienced abuse as a child and I want to go through trauma healing. And I've tried EMDR in the past and I'd like to try some different modalities, great, good, grand, wonderful. Can you help me? Be very specific. Not, I want to go talk about it and recycle it all, but I want to experience healing so that my home, my marriage, my relationships, if I have kids in the future, those will be my safe, warm haven from the craziness that's the world outside. But yeah, when you say, like, I'm worried about

the possibility of divorce, man, your body is just doing what it knows and that is to protect to you. Good on it. Good on your body for trying to keep you safe. Now we have to teach it through action, not through more thoughts and not through more words, through action. I used to not be safe, but I am safe now. Hang on the line here. We'll get you hooked up with those resources. We come back. A woman asks how to stop thinking she's better than her husband. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Deloney for Joy and Bloaks, a brand new partner for our show, and I'm so, super excited to have them on our team. The modern healthcare environment tells us to focus on symptoms, what feels wrong. But staying at the surface and focusing on how you feel never gets to the root

of the challenges you're facing. This is why I'm a huge fan of getting your blood tested on a regular basis to find out what's going on inside your body. And I'm a big fan of Joy and Bloaks. I've had blood work done by all the major platforms, and Joy and Bloaks is one of the best. They start with a comprehensive blood test that gives you real data about what's going on in your body, but it doesn't end there. A comprehensive blood panel doesn't mean much unless you're an expert, or you can talk with someone who's a professional and they know what they're talking about, and they'll walk you through from start to finish what's going on in your body and what you can do next. Joy and Blocks is that partner. Joy and Blocks pairs you with a clinician who will review

your results, create a personalized plan with you, and help you take action. Whether The answer is a few lifestyle changes or a more comprehensive treatment plan. Everything can be prescribed and managed through Joy and Blocks. Joy and Blocks is for men and women who want to be proactive about their health and want to get to know what's actually going on in their body. Go to Joy &Bloaks.com slash Deloni and get this. Get 50% off labs and 20% off all products. That's J-O-I and B-L-O-K-E-S, Joy &Bloaks.com slash Deloni.

All right, Boise, Idaho. Let's talk to Jenny. Hey, Jenny, what's up? Hi, not much. How are you? I'm good. What's going on? Good.

So my question is, how can I stop thinking I'm better than my husband? Yikes. I know that's not true, but I just find myself constantly, like, criticizing everything he does and, like, judging him. whether it's like interactions with our kids or like him being lazy or thinking he's lazy and it just like dawned on me the other day when one of your lots of your callers when you ask them is your husband a good guy they answer oh he's the best and I was like I don't think I would ever say that and it just made me so sad and so I want to stop but I can't like I will like tell myself don't do it focus on the good and only last like a couple days and then i just find myself

back to like judging everything he does so um so judgment protects us it creates psychological space and so my question is always like i always want to start from a place of what if my body's right so if my body's trying to create space from this person from your husband is it right to be doing so um and if you if you can't say yeah he's a pretty great guy tell me about that um well i mean he's done a couple things that have like hurt me pretty bad

but those have been long enough ago that I feel like at this point I should be like like I've forgiven him or I thought I had but Well it should have and have are two different things

How long have you all been together How long have you been married? Almost 25 years Okay And how has he hurt you in the past? He like had a one night One time of fair, I guess you would say.

And then he told me about it a couple days later. We went to therapy. I thought we had worked through it. And then I don't know how much. That was like 17 years ago. So that's been a long time. And then another time he was traveling for work. And a coworker who's a woman, went to like hug him good night.

And he like squeezed her butt. And so that was like an issue at work for a little bit with that. So, yeah, those are the two things he's done that have hurt me that I thought I'd forgiven, but maybe I'm still protecting myself. I don't know. Can I throw some other options out there and you say no way or maybe? Yes. If those are the two things you know about,

Is there a possibility that there's other things that you don't know about? I would say that's pretty small, but I couldn't say like 100%. Okay. Where are... So those two things over a quarter century together, he's done those two things.

Let's say that 17 years ago, he made a huge mistake. He slept with somebody, came to you right afterwards, and said, I've blown up everything. Do you want to rebuild? And you said yes. And then years later,

he hugged a co-worker and grabbed her butt, caused HR issues, caused, it's a weird thing to say it like this, but caused safety issues. He could have lost his job, could have been a big deal, right? Yeah, for sure.

And plus, who wants to be with that guy, right? It's one of those things that, like, I don't respect the guy who does that. Great. All right. Where else are y'all not aligned? Where else do you think I'm doing this right and he's doing this wrong.

I don't, I think probably the only thing I could really think of is, like, parenting, but I think that's more like a male-female thing. Like, I think, like, sometimes he's just too hard on our kids. Hard, like. Like, mean to them or, like, expecting too much of them, or, like, he takes his joking too far, but I think that's just being more sensitive.

I mean, maybe you're being too sensitive Or maybe you're being protective That's not a gendered thing That's not a male or female thing Okay As much as it doesn't sound like you're on the same page And my wife and I My wife and I have a pretty great marriage

And we disagree on any number of things But we disagree together if that makes sense Yeah Or she disagrees with me But she understands the spirit with which I'm doing those things Does that make sense? Yeah. She might think, oh, that joke was too far,

but she also knows he's trying to connect with the kids. He's trying to be silly. Not. Let me say it this way. Not always, but most of the time my wife gives me the most generous interpretation. And my question to you is, is there not a generous interpretation to be had here? Or do you need to do some pretty serious soul searching and say,

I agreed 17 years ago to stay with this guy and build a new marriage. The work that needs to be done here is he's actually a pretty decent guy. I have to. I've got to write that woman 17 years ago, me, a letter and let her off the hook. I've got to start taking small action. So let me ask you this. When's the last time you made him a cup of coffee? I couldn't tell you.

Okay. Often these feelings of contempt and criticizing are often met with they're changed not through trying to think your way out of them but through I'm going to do different things for the next six weeks I'm going to wake up a few minutes before him and I'm going to make coffee just like he likes it when we get up in the morning I'm going to give him a long 30 second hug before anybody does anything

I'm going to leave him a note in his car these these little the godman's calling bids there's small little actions towards him, not every morning you wake up, you stretch, and you climb up in your lifeguard stand and you look down upon him from a seat of superiority. Yeah, that's definitely what I feel like I'm doing.

But it's protective. Curiosity brings you together. Judgment separates you, and judgment keeps you safe, right? If I can, if I can, that's what politicians do. They demonize another side to give you permission to think and act and feel however you want on your side.

Judgment's just protective. That's stupid. That's dumb. I can't believe you're doing that. Or you see an action in the story you choose to make up about that action is always going to be a negative story instead of a positive one. Right? Let's feel like you walk in and his shoes are right by the door and you all have had that

conversation a million times. You get to make up the story that comes after you see those shoes. He's lazy. What a bum. He expects me just to pick him up. man, he knows I hate this. His day must have sucked. I'm going to do something extra nice for him.

I'm going to grab those shoes and do one nice thing. Our attitudes when it comes to judgment are almost always changed through action, not through just trying to think harder about something. Okay. That makes sense. But I can't tell you're pretty good at, I'm usually pretty good at trying to capture the spirit behind a question. I can't tell if you're upset with him or if you're upset with yourself.

I would say it to me. Like, I know he's a good guy. I know he's done dumb things in the past, but I do think he has changed. Okay. And, like, we've talked about those things, and he's, yeah, like, somewhat regularly. So, yeah, I think it might just be whole. holding on to thinking. I don't know.

So I'm going to send you the Together app too. And this isn't a sales pitch. It's literally a thing you can do every day towards him. Okay. And my challenge even beyond using the app is come up with six weeks worth of, I'm going to do one thing a day for that guy. And in so doing, here's the question you have to ask yourself. Are you becoming the person you want to be inside your own scale?

Yeah, I would say probably not. Okay. Do you judge other people too? No, that's what's so weird. Like, I feel like I'm actually not a judgmental person, and I give everyone the benefit of the doubt except him. Hmm. Have you ever told him you're sorry? No, no, no, just for being so critical. Oh, no.

Maybe start that tonight. What would you lose by celebrating him? That's a good question. I don't know why. It sounds so scary to do. do. I know. I could put into words, but it just does sound terrifying because I feel like I would be admitting that I'm not like as good as I profess to be, maybe. I don't know that it's a matter of good or wrong, good or bad, but it might be rooting out some parts of yourself that I want to let go of.

I want to be open-handed about. And for five million reasons past and present, this guy has become my whipping boy for every insecurity I have, every frustration I have, every everything I have. And I'm going to at least do my best to become the best version of myself, which means I am going to treat my rider-to-is spouse better than anyone else in the world. It might mean y'all swipe the deck and rebuild the new marriage starting today. You asking him, what are five or ten ways I can love you on a regular basis? and then I'm just going to make a commitment to do those things. And by the way, here's five or ten ways you could love me on a regular basis

and see if he'll make that same commitment. I think he would. So if I ask you honestly, is he a good man? Is he or no? Yes, he is. He really is. Okay. So now you're one of those women that's calling into my show saying they're married to actually a pretty good guy.

Yeah. Why don't you want, why do you judge those women too? Why? I would call out with him that I sit in a judgment seat over you and I'm going to make a commitment to climb down off that seat and there's going to be days that I, without even, it's so automated at this point, I'm going to climb up and I'm going to ask you to let me, hey, can I say that over again?

Or the moment of thought pops in your head, he's so lazy, I can't believe that you catch yourself and you literally say out loud, nope, not true. He's a good guy, he's exhausted. And has he hurt you? Yeah, real, real bad. He slept with somebody else. Of course that hurt.

It was painful. He almost got himself fired by being a disrespectful goon at the office. And also, it sounds like he's made some pretty amazing changes. It's going to be you through action, climbing down off the lifeguard stand of judgment and just saying, I'm going to get in the pool to. We get to create what we want this house to feel like. And I don't like be feeling like I'm a judgmental person. But judgment protects us. And so always ask yourself, what am I trying to protect?

myself from. Is it getting hurt again? If so, and it was 17 years ago, and we're on the same team, challenge yourself to get both feet in the boat again. The only way to do that is through action. I believe in you. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Deloney. Listen, no matter what you do, your personal information is everywhere in this digital world we live in. You have to supply your info anytime you buy something online, your home address, your phone number, your email address, you might as well upload your passport and their social security card, even if you just go down to a local store. They want all of your personal information too, and all you want is some pencils, right? That's why I use and recommend delete

me, because almost nobody thinks about what's being done with your information after you give it to everyone who's asking for it. There are hundreds of data broker websites collect posting and selling your personal information without your permission. And most of us don't even know it's going on. Delete me finds your personal information on these data broker websites and their privacy experts get it removed for you, making you less vulnerable to personalized scams and spam. Delete me keeps monitoring and removing your information throughout the year

and they send you reports showing you exactly what they found and removed. They've saved me hundreds and hundreds of hours. so far. I wouldn't even have known where to start looking for all this information. Delete Me's got you. Giving your information away sometimes is unavoidable, but DeleteMe helps you take back your privacy and control. Go to join DeleteMe.com slash Deloney and get 20% off an annual plan. That's JoindeletMe.com slash Deloney. All right, we're back. Hey, take two seconds, subscribe, like, share all the internety stuff. All right, Kelly, what you got?

All right, so we got an email from a guy that was on the show a couple of years ago, and his call was about, he was divorced, and he was dating his kids' best friend's mother. I don't know if that rings me bells. It doesn't, but that sounds like this show. Yeah, and so his question. Oh, it does. It does.

How do I tell my kids? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that was his question was, how do we tell the kids that were dating each other without making it, like, super, super weird? So two years later, and I got a follow-up that I think is worth reading. He writes, he says,

Hi, Dr. John and T. Two years ago, I called into the show to work through my anxiety, telling my children that I was dating their best friend's mom. Turns out they already pretty much knew. They are too smart for their own good. Fast forward to now, and we are getting married. All right. The kids have integrated with each other better than we could have ever imagined,

and none of us could imagine not having everyone together as a family. family. My love for my fiance and my future stepdaughter has only increased these past years, and I'm so excited for what the future holds for us as a family. And for those that are watching, I'm posting a picture of their engagement. Nice, dude. Congratulations, guys. Good for them. That's awesome. I'm glad that worked out really well. And they must have handled that really well because if the kids are all integrated and that's perfect, awesome. That makes me happy, Kelly. We needed a happy We needed a win today, Kelly, so thanks for sharing that one with me. Why are you looking down?

No reason to sit in the show. If y'all ever knew what Kelly edits out of the show. Love you guys. Bye.