The Dr. John Delony Show - Caller: “Why Is My Wife Unhappy?”

Episode Date: October 9, 2026

💬 Tired of having the same arguments with your spouse? Get Dr. John Delony's Conflict Game Plan   On today’s episode, we hear about: A man striving to help his wife rediscover herself A woman wondering if she should tell her kids about their dad’s affair A man who misses the in-laws he lost after his divorce   Next Steps: 🔥 Microhabits for a better marriage. Download the Together app. 💬 Get the Free Conflict Game Plan by Dr. John Delony ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway. 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Episode Chapters 00:00:00 Intro 00:02:20 My Wife Has Lost Herself 00:21:06 My Husband’s Affair Saved Our Marriage 00:43:40 I Miss My Ex . . . In-Laws   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

My wife and I have been married for 24 years. We have five kids. I think what's happened over the years is she's been meeting a lot of needs of a lot of people. It's almost like in meeting all these needs for so long, her ability to figure out what she desires or what she wants, those muscles of atrophied. What up, what up, what up. This is John of the Dr. John Deloney Show. A Houston kid dropped in the middle of Nashville, Tennessee, taking your calls. Man, I wish I was still a kid.

Being a kid when I grew up, me and Kelly, I had the last great American childhood. Yeah, I would love to be a kid when we grew up, not now. Not now. I'd rather set myself on fire than be a kid. Back when we were kids and like literally no one knew where we were. Ever. And here's what's awesome. I don't think anybody cared where we were.

No, I was a third kid. No one cared. The greatest gift I could give my appearance was going away. Go away. Yeah, yeah. And not in a traumatic way, but in a... No, just go. Not here.

Just not here. Drinking sugary Kool-Aid that somebody's mom brought out. I like how you pause. Drinking. Hickory Kool-Aid. Kool-Aid. But all, you know, like everybody's bikes being at one house. Bikes, dude.

And that's how you knew you got left out. Everybody's bikes were somewhere. And like, mom calling around from house to house trying to find you if they needed something. The best. Be home when the street lights are on. And we lived in a Colossack. So when the street lights came on. Even more of the best.

Yeah. But even like after dinner during the sun. summer, go back out. Oh, go back out. Yes. And then that one guy, I know exactly who he is. I'll just say, Mr. Q, if that ball's on my lawn, I'm going to pop your ball.

That was a real guy on my street. It was so great. And anyway, pine cone war. The best, the best. But we're not there anymore. I'm an old man now. And we are in the 21st century. And it's chaos.

And that's what this show is about, is sit in the middle of whatever storm you find yourself in with your relationships, your mental, emotional health, your kids, whatever you got. and I'll sit here with you and we'll figure out what's the next right move

for you and your family. If you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you. Click the link in the show notes and we will get you on. Let's go to Boise, Idaho, and talk to Steve. What's up, Steve?

Hey, Dr. John, thanks to let me pull up a seat. You got it, brother. I'm glad you're here, man. What's up? Hey, my wife and I have been married for 24 years. We have five kids. The oldest is 22

and the youngest is 10. So we are in it. Yeah, dude. We've been in it for a long time. You all got after it early and y'all have been in it a long time. We did. We started early. And so, and my wife's been a stay-at-home mom the whole time.

So she's really been in it. She's a fantastic mom. And so I think what's happened over the years is she's been meeting a lot of needs of a lot of people. You know what I mean? Yep. And so as in our conversations as we've been talking, what we've kind of come to or what I've, as I've listened to what she's saying, it sounds like it's almost like

in meeting all these needs of all these people for so long, her ability to figure out what she desires or what she wants is like those muscles have atrophied. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I imagine to any, any mother listening to this episode

to two guys going, yeah, and then this happened. And they're like, yes, yes. So the one of the hardest yet most beautiful yet most painful things I've endured in my adulthood is having a woman, and I've been married 24 years too. My best friend on planet. Like we're together until one of us is in the ground, right? And she's gone from like rock star research professor. No, Rockstar Elementary School teacher to, like, renowned research professor, to quit all of that, to stay at home, to author, to code.

But the whole reason I tell you that is less about the jobs and more about the dramatic identity shifts she's experienced and how hard that is. And like the question, who am I now and who do I want to be and who am I going to be is such a powerful existential question that I've had. the privilege to not have to deal with, right? Because I got to go to work, right? And there's not like a, I guess if she, man, God, if she made a million dollars, dude, that would be so awesome. That would be so awesome. But like, I haven't had to wrestle with who am I as a mother

and the mother trying to take over the role, like, in combat with the identity of a wife, right? And with a woman, right? And that being in conflict with the identity of professional and that being in conflict with the identity of just me, I'm me. What do I want? Who do I want to be? Right? What a nightmare, man. And so is she, I mean, you got a 10-year-old, so I imagine it's fourth or fifth grade. And so there's less, I mean, there's more time at home where there's just not humans that need you right now. Can I have a snack? Can I have a snack? Can I have a snack? Obviously, there's still the management of a household, but is she starting to ask questions about, like, who am I? Yeah, I think that's part of it. And there is more time now, right?

So I think if we can facilitate the right, like, where do we? It's weird being an adult and not knowing what you want, right? And like, we're educated adults and it's like, how can you not know what you want? But that's where we are. And I totally get it because of what you've laid out beautifully. But like, where does she go? Or like, how should we help her start figuring out what do I want? Because she does have extra time now.

The greatest gift, and I can only speak to this from my singular lived experience, okay? Anytime, either one of a romantic partnership, right? Either one, I always want to put them in the driver's seat. But like you mentioned, she may look at you and say, I haven't driven in 20 years, in 22 years, I haven't driven, I want to drive. I don't even know, right? And you as husband, who loves her, it sounds like y'all are pretty tight, right? Like, you all have a good marriage? Right.

Yeah. Yes. It can feel real, like, you can feel like a failure. Like, I can't fix this one. I can't help. I don't know what I can do here, right? And so what I would tell you from my lived experience is, I spent a lot of years trying to fix it as though she was somehow broken and I was wrong.

And instead of where I'm at now and have been for probably the, you know, a better part of a decade is, a constant reassurance that whoever she wants to be and whatever she wants to wherever she wants to follow her nose and whatever she wants to get into there will not be a bigger

cheer leader on planet Earth than me the only encouragement the only like come on like I'm speaking this not as like you will not like that but as buddies like I challenge you to go do something wild I challenge you to go take on this project

I challenge you to fill in the blank. And that might be y'all signing up for dance classes together. That might be you, you take her hand and lead her to new experiences, weird experience. Like, we're going to start going to Thursday night late movie. We're both going to sleep through it. I'm making stuff up, but I want you to, once a week, I want to encourage you. Once a week at dinner time, I want you to leave. I want you to go do something fun just for you. And she might say, the funest thing in the world for me is to have dinner with my family. Great. Awesome. But continually, hey, we've got money set aside. You want to go back to college? You want to take a class.

I'm thinking in the last five years, my wife has taken a, she's like a licensed coach. She got her master gardener certification here in Tennessee. She's done some wild cool stuff. And I'm watching her become this amazing person that there's no script for, right? There's a script for professional. There's a script for mom, she's a script for wife. I'm watching her go and do. It's so awesome, but it does take a lot of encouragement in that whatever you want to do, wherever you want to be, I got you. Right now, it sounds like what your wife needs is freedom to go explore, but that freedom, often we think, like, we're just going to knock all the fences down and you're free.

That can be overwhelming. So you're anchored to this amazing guy named Steve. And I got you. Go do crazy stuff. Join a book club. Go do stand up. go learn the guitar, like go begin to follow your nose. Like, who do you want to be?

What do you want to be? A question that I often recommend folks ask is begin to ask, who don't want to help now? Right? That's good. Who don't want to help? And do I want to help start a radio show? Do I want to help single moms? Do I want to help?

And that can tend to guide you. Do I want to help people get their plumbing fixed at their house? I don't care. But that might be a path that helps somebody at least get started in a direction, right? Yeah. When she's at home, like, how is this coming up? Is she getting concerned? Is she getting worried?

Is she becoming hollow? How are you experiencing this? No, it's more like this. So I'll say, so I've been saying, how can I love you? Nice. And what I almost always get back is a to do, usually for one of the kids, right? Some tasks, yeah. Like a kid here, whatever.

Yeah. And so I get that. But I just got the sense that that wasn't really connected. to her, you know what I mean? And so I would say, like, do you feel more connected to you? Do you feel more loved? And she's like, I don't even, she's like, don't get me wrong. I'm grateful.

Like you took stuff off my list. But I don't necessarily feel more connected. And I'm like, well, maybe we're not getting to what you want. When I ask you that, she's like, well, I don't even know what I want. Like, I'm so into the day to day, the tasks of studios that I can't even, like what I is buried in there so deep. I don't even know how to connect to it. For me, much less tell you what I want.

Gotcha. Gotcha. You know what I mean? And there's also, I think for her, there was also growing up where negative emotions were not allowed. Yeah. And so she either had to go have him somewhere else by herself or she had to be positive. And so this may be actually, you know, 43 years of I just buried what I want or my raw natural emotions. And I don't let anybody see them, you know.

And so I feel for her like the, again, the way you've laid it out plus, I just think the, the muscles there, it's just super atrophied and I don't know if she feels confident. Like, how do I work these muscles? How do I even ask this question? You know what I mean? Yeah. A great path for you is

like appropriate, yet over the top a little bit. Curiosity. You may have heard me mention this on the show. I had this big revelation, I think two years ago now, around New Year's when I took I take a day or two like a retreat for myself

like what kind of guy were you last year and who do you want to be this year right and I usually do it after me and my wife have had our big who do we want to be as a married couple time away and I had this big epiphany like I know my wife

we like share a house we share a bed like we share kids like I know her but I don't know her anymore and we're both former college professors we're nerds and so I asked her to make me a syllabus of her

And she was like, what are you talking about? And I said, like, give me 10 podcasts you listen to and are like. Give me the last five or 10 books that you like got something deep out of. Or you just liked or that were ridiculous, but they held your attention, right? Three TV shows. What are some big questions about AI, about politics, about the direction of the world? What are things that scare you? I said, make me a syllabus of you.

because I want to spend some time like re-getting to know you and here was a powerful moment for us like one month went by two months went by and I was doing something I was like I never got that syllabus and so I texted her hey you never sent me that syllabus

and she texted back I was hoping you forgot and I texted back why you were joking well here's the here's the kicker she said I said why did you hope I forget and she said

I'm suddenly afraid that if you really know you won't like me anymore. And I was like, good. In my soul, I was like, do we've been together 30 years between dating and being married. Like, my ship has sailed, right? And that innate fear never leaves a person. Ever, ever, ever.

And it was this light bulb for me, like, in the tiny stuff, in the handholding, and the 60-second hugs and the how can I love you today, those things are really important, but I only can know those things if I know her. And so it's this constant process, and we all change.

Like, I'm married to, like, version 40 of her, and she's married to version 200 of me. Like, I married to a brand new woman. I'm not married to the same person I married 24 years ago, so I want to get to know her. But that syllabus exercise, man, was awesome. I listened to all the podcasts. Some of them were pretty insightful.

Some of them made me want to stab my ear drum. out. And like I read several of the books. Two or three of them were really impactful for me. Several of them I couldn't even get, I mean, I was like, this is drivel. Like, I don't even know what this is. But when we went to dinner, I was like, hey, tell me about this book that really impacted you in this way. And she's like, it meant this and it said this. But that was me less about the book, but getting to know how she's experiencing the world now. And man, that has made all the difference in the world. Not just that one time, but a constant re-getting to know each other all the time. I love that. But yeah, the, the, that who am I question, what do I want question,

and the toggling of identities, especially for women and wives and mothers and professionals or not professionals, it's just, it's impossible, you cannot win. And so the anchoring point, like, I'm going to hand you a machete and you're going to head off into the woods and you're you have to carve your own path, but I'll be right here. I'll be with you the whole way cheering you on, taking dinners when you're gone, like doing breakfast, making lunches, whatever I got to do doing laundry, whatever I got to do that have quote unquote traditionally been your job for the last 20 years, I got you because I want you to be in the process of rediscovery because then I want to get to

know her, right? No, I love that. Can I just tell you you're a man, you're like the model guy, dude. It's awesome. Thank you. It's awesome. It's inspiring to hear her husband who loves his wife like this and wants to be a part of her world, right? That little secret world y'all created.

That's awesome, dude. And I want our next 40 years to be playful and spontaneous and that kind of stuff and not this list of I have to. You know, I should. Yes. You know what I mean. And you'll have five kids, right? Yeah. Dude, just blow off the fifth one.

Nobody cares. He didn't even care. Just like start doing fun stuff together. Not really, but kind of. Agreed. Agreed, yeah. And if there is, if you sense this fear, this I don't even know, I don't even know where to start, I don't even know how to start, man, sign y'all up for dance classes once a week.

You go first, and she might go to one class and be like, I hate this. But at least now she knows not to go down that path. And give her, not permission, that's the wrong word. for such encouragement to begin to practice speaking her mind what she wants what she thinks is fun um and this dude this uh great conversations for the bedroom hey what are what are three or four things you used to be super into that we don't do anymore what are three or four things that you like when we first got married we got into a routine and you're like dude if we never do that again i'd be so happy um what are three or four or five things you want to try in the bedroom like

just begin this play together right this is like this is ours we get to do whatever we want with that and man what a magic trip y'all can go on dude my last my last thing i'll say is this and i know i'm talking a lot this one's so fresh for me um i know i'm trying to think off top of my head one two three four i have four women in my life that i'm not related to who have been down this who am i what i want to be what i want the back half of my life to be what have like those questions right and they're with really encouraging partners. And they have been frustrated and almost,

Heartbroken is probably too dramatic of a way to say it, but they've looped all the way around and they really like being homemakers. And there's almost a sense of disappointment in themselves that really what they love is making sure everyone's car has gas in it so that they can go, do their crazy things out in the world.

And if that's where you all land, then even more amazing. And that will take another round of support, cheerleading from your perspective, right? If that's where she lands, I really just love being here. And now that our kids, 22, I'm going to start a weekly letter writing.

I'm going to start visiting more. I'm going to start traveling to see them more. I'm going to be around. Like, that might be what she loves and where she lands. and if so, awesome. That's not a thing to hang your head about for her or for you.

That's the thing to celebrate too. It's that sense of becoming. But man, you're a good, good man, Steve. I appreciate you calling. Yeah, and you happen to hit a strike a core with me just because I've been walking alongside my rider die, an amazing woman for years,

like wrapping her head around. I got this responsibility, this task, I want to do this. I'm super skilled at least 50 things. She's more talented than me. me than anything. And also that sense from the world, right? Like, you only have worth if it has a direct deposit attached to it or I can't believe you're letting other kids, other people raise your kids, or I can't believe you're walking away from a generation of a century of women fighting for

your opportunity to go out in the workplace. And it's just all these other people telling you what to do. And yeah, then it's just like, I just want to turtle up. And, but man, my wife is such a great contributed to the world, to our home, to me, to her friends and colleagues and the people that she helps and supports, people who read her work, like, it's just inspiring to be around. But it's a battle. It's a battle. And knowing you, Steve, are going to be right there, right or die with your wife, man. We'll give her the anchor point for her to just swan dive off the side of that bridge. So good for you, brother. When we come back, a woman asks if she and her husband should tell their kids about a past affair, and if so, when?

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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 like share subscribe all that good internety stuff makes a huge difference for everybody in the club let's go to seattle washington and talk to andrea hey andrea what's up Hi, how are you doing? Doing great. How about you? Doing well. It's a pleasure to talk with you today. You too. Thanks for calling. What's going on? So I need help trying to figure out if we tell our kids about an affair that my husband had a couple years ago.

Tell me what's going on. So he had an affair about two years ago, and I call it the worst and best thing that ever happened, kind of blew our marriage up. We did eight months of counseling and we are better than we've ever been. And we're in a really great spot. But we've learned a ton and down the road, I just, I don't know if we should tell our kids, if we should tell them part of it, all of it, wait for them to ask, if we should come out and tell them together, just all kinds of questions. What's the impetus for wanting to tell them?

So my husband was wrongly diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Okay. And come to find out after the affair happened, he's actually bipolar. Okay. And so it was a struggle with his mental health for a decade. And he almost, he had a suicide note written and was ready to end his life. And all of this happened. And it kind of blew us up in the best way possible and got him the right help.

And it's so cool to see him go through all of that and be courageous and be a man that I lost for a long time. And with our kids now, just with what we've learned about mental health and relationships, what part of that should we tell them or should we tell them at all? Because I know once we tell them, their views of us and him will change a lot. Yeah. How old are they now? Right now they're five, six, and seven. Okay, God, no, no, not now. Let me say this way.

Absolutely no, you don't have to. That's you and your husband's story. Where I think it could be a powerful conversation down the road is as your kids get older, as it becomes age appropriate, you begin to slowly open the lid to your life too in an effort to become 360 degrees. You teach your kid I'm a whole person too, right? And when they're six and seven and two and four or however old, that's a great time that they get to see mom or dad weep.

And they're like, why are you crying? Because mommy's sad today. Because you lost a friend because you got just, you know, and you know what I'm talking about here you got one of the lightning bolts one of the images from the old days and you it happened you're sad and your kids are loving and they curl up on you like oh mommy don't cry and you say no no crying's okay when you're sad but thank you so much for your heart right and what you're doing in that long tiny little glimpse is teaching them oh my mom is a whole person right and it's okay to cry when you're sad it's okay to be upset when you're frustrated and and here is a lived

of what a emotionally mature adult does with it, right? And so when your 19-year-old comes home from college and is sobbing and says, I got cheated on, and you all have a great relationship that you started working a decade and a half before, that might be a great moment to sit down and say, I've been there, right? And now you're opening that human experience. or your husband may be able to sit down with your 19-year-old and say,

let me tell you part of our story. And here's what forgiveness looks like, and here's the work I had to do to make it right, and here's the work your mom had to do to, like, put both feet back in the boat again in this thing called our marriage. Like, that's when those kind of stories can become really powerful. Otherwise, it feels like y'all have, this secret between you and it's, y'all feel like it's too heavy to carry and you want to

your kids and say, y'all have to carry part of this too. Mm-hmm. And that's y'alls. And I would, I would suggest as y'all continue to heal and you continue to rebuild this marriage y'all have, that y'all begin to set it down. It's a part of your story. It will always be part of your story, but it's not the destination of who y'all are going to be, right?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I can still be heavy sometimes. But totally and and I'll tell you, Andrea like you're not broken because it's still heavy sometimes and there's not something you're not a bad wife and you're not all in on rebuilding just because some days you can't get out of bad or you're doing something mindless and that picture pops into your head right and you that doesn't make you that makes you completely and totally human and then you have a game plan on what do I do with that? that image. What do I do with, what am I going to do next? And your body continues to shift your

default setting and be like, we weren't safe then, but we're safe now. Right? That's just healing. Because you, because that, an unregulated person with bipolar that got misdiagnosed, that the affair was not the only thing you were dealing with in that house. Yeah. Right? That was a chaotic time for y'all, wasn't it? Mm-hmm. It was. It was really hard. And Chaotic is the nicest way I could say that. Right? Or a better word might be, it was a scary time.

Fair? Yeah, survival. Yeah, you got three really young kids or two young kids. You find out you're pregnant and then all hell's breaking loose, right? Yeah, not a good time. And so your body remembers that,

puts a GPS pin in that, and says, never forget this, Andrea, because it could happen again. And that's just your body trying to love you well. And what you have to say is, I get it. Thank you for trying to take care of me, but I'm good now. I'm working towards something different now. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. So do you feel a pressure? Do you feel dishonest? What's the, what's the, what's the feeling behind the feeling you have?

I think just after all this happened, really struggling with vulnerability and who to be vulnerable to. We were really careful who we told. Sure. My family doesn't know. So it's like, one day if we decide to tell the kids or if it comes up, just kind of opening Pandora's box that way. But vulnerability feels amazing too. So just weighing both of those. Yeah. And like there's a biological cost to secrets, right?

They'll kill you. And having people in your life that you can be fully whole with, fully real with, fully open with is critical to species survival, right? You got to have that. And we live in a culture that thinks, you know, everybody has access to everybody's everything all the time. And that's just simply not true. It's probably very wise that y'all haven't told your family and may never tell your family because it's none of their business. It's not their marriage.

And that doesn't make you deceptive or not a good person or whatever. That makes you very protective of you and your husband's secret world. And that's the right thing for y'all. And maybe his parents are more supportive or willing to show up next to y'all. Like, great. That's cool. Yeah. every every it's that's you being not dishonest that you being wise yeah can i tell you a thing that's

sitting in the middle of my chest right now yes please the more i listen the more we talk more i talk i'm talking too much today um the more i talk and the more i hear you the heavier this is still sitting on you it feels like do you want to be further along than you are like tell me what you're experiencing. I think I hold this all still really, really close. And even the people that feel safe to talk to, you don't bring it up very often. So it's an isolating feeling a lot of the time. What does not isolating look like for you? What would that look like? Being risky to open up with people more. Okay. What does that mean, though? I feel like there have been a couple opportunities like with my girlfriends that I could have shared but chose not to just for fear of

I don't want them to view like my husband and I differently and it would be such a shame if they because a lot of people don't view affairs very very well so and I feel like we have a good people view us as a really strong couple and so that right for them to that right there's what's going to kill you that's what's going to kill you Because you're not protecting him. And in some ways you're not protecting you. You're protecting the image y'all portray. And that's going to get real, real exhausting, carrying that.

Yeah, it is. That's the actor popping out from behind the curtain in front of on stage in front of the audience, being like, it's all great. And there's a fire going on backstage. Mm-hmm. Right? How much, this is just because I've had this conversation with so many men and women, but especially women.

Obviously there's the, I don't want people to say bad things about my husband. How much do you carry, and I hear this a lot, and you may say, I don't care that at all, that you had a story that had been in your head,

either consciously or unconsciously, that if that ever happens to me, I'm gone. And you might have even told stories to yourself about other women who stayed. What a weak lady. I can't believe she's just staying. And then now you're like,

oh, I'm her. And I don't want any of my girlfriend. to find out. I think for me, I knew, like my husband, I have talked about it in this affair with 80% him and 20% our marriage, like his mental health. And for me, I felt like I stayed really strong through all of it and it wasn't my fault. But I think I'm at the point now where I want to make meaning out of this and I want to share kind of the grit of our story. And he still holds a lot of shame and embarrassment from everything. So I want to,

I want to be more open and he's still pretty protective. Okay. So is that where the conflict is? Is that you want to tell your girlfriends and your husband says, don't tell anybody we're not allowed to tell anybody? Keep it a secret? Yeah, I would say. That to me is next level that you'll need to work through.

Yeah. And there's a balance between, like, that, yeah, I'll just leave it there. Like, that's a next level thing because, in a roundabout way he's asking you to hold his to carry his shame his embarrassment his frustration his image and that's his to carry that's yalls as a married couple's to protect but that's his to carry and in no way am i saying make a big facebook post about it and not do an instagram swipe thing with it but but yeah you've got to have girlfriends that you can be honest with and exhale in front of

and weep with. Mm-hmm. And this is going to sound awful because I'm going to pile on you right now. You're also going to have to sit down with your closest girlfriends and say, I've kept something big from you for two years. I'm sorry. Yeah. Right?

Mm-hmm. And the longer that goes, the bigger that conversation gets. Mm-hmm. But especially your kids don't need to be the outlet. Yeah, absolutely not. So what's this conversation look like with your husband? I think just that of I can't hold his shame and I'd love to talk about what it looks like to share our story with safe people. It can move forward and I don't know, not feel so heavy with this anymore.

Yeah. And I heard you say two things and so hold the tension of these two things. There's something about I need some people to sit with me that I trust that fully. that fully know me. I do not have, I'm giving them backstage passes. They get to see me behind the curtain, right? And there's what I think is a very modern temptation of the only way to make meaning

about something is to make it famous, to get likes, to get audiences, to get nods, to get tears out of it. And that's not always making meaning. Making meaning may be you saying, this is,

I found out. I'm a way stronger woman than I thought I was. And here's how I'm going to use that strength moving forward. I may go back to and get a degree in therapy and I'm just going to focus on women who've been cheated on. I'm going to focus on wives of husbands with bipolar. I'm going to focus on, who knows, right? But making meaning and fame are two radically different things. Yeah.

And I don't want you to put a dollar amount or a likes amount or a shares amount or a book, deal as part of, like as a sign for yourself that I've made meaning of this? Mm-hmm. Right. Yeah, I like the, I've made meaning just, I was way stronger than I thought I ever could be. Pretty cool. Well, making me, that's a, that's a recognition, that's a realization, but making meaning is, what are you going to do with that strength?

Yeah. Who are you going to love and honor and serve with that strength you have now? Which is funny, during all of this, I was going to school to get my therapy degree. So now I do couples therapy. Nice. Some meaning right there. There you go. I mean, so, okay, so I'm talking to a fellow therapist.

Like, I'm not a fellow therapist. I just fake it on the internet. Like you, what would you tell a client who came in to see you? Going through this. Yeah. To the woman in front of you saying, I can't care. I've got to be able to share this and have some people in my life that I can talk to. And husband says he's still too embarrassed and ashamed.

And so I'm not allowed to tell anybody. anything, which I'm a strong woman now. It's my new identity. And I'm still being controlled by this guy's insecurities. What would you tell them? Gosh, I feel like validate everything. It's strong to be weak. It's all okay to feel all of it. It's okay to want to share. You need to share. It's okay to not share with people too. Like all of it's okay. That's the difference between a licensed therapist and me. You have to... I can just say what I think

and you have to follow the code of ethics, so that's awesome. But maybe that's a fun exercise to do or a hard exercise is to do an empty chair exercise with yourself and put a picture of yourself on an empty chair in front of you and let the chair be the therapist

and you tell your story to you and then ask yourself, what would I tell me? Like you got to get some women in your life that you trust, some of your closest friends. You're becoming somebody you never wanted to be, which is somebody who held secrets from those closest to her. You're becoming somebody that is not in alignment

with this meaning you're making of what happened, which is I'm strong. And I'm going to do what's right for me, for my marriage and for my kids. And I'm going to honor and love and support and be friends with my husband. And also he's got to carry what's his and I'll carry what's mine. And there has to be a coming together there.

And so if you back all the way out two years, lots of diagnostics, lots of management of true mental health disorder, lots of, like the storm is, the storm itself has passed, but man, we still got a lot of rebuilding to do. and that's part of the new marriage after the storm is over, right? And then we're going to rebuild again. We're going to rebuild again. But now you're at the next layer, if you will, the next level.

And that is, I need some support now. I've been holding this thing together for two years. I need some support. And let's have that hard talk. Thanks for a call, dude. You're awesome. And it's inspiring to see two people go get the help they need, do the work, and to prioritize this thing called being married,

and it's messy and ugly and gritty and like stub your toe, skin, like, it's painful. And it's amazing to watch. You walk through it, Andrea. Thanks for the call. We come back. A man asks how to stop missing his ex-in-laws and feeling betrayed by their loyalty to their daughter.

We'll be right back. I know some of you out there are hurting, and I mean really hurting. Your marriage is falling apart in real time, and you and your spouse both know it. You're watching a son or a daughter disappear into addiction, and you feel completely powerless. Some of you are carrying trauma so deep and heavy it's affecting every area of your life, and you've tried everything you can do and you can't seem to shake it. When things feel this desperate, a weekly therapy session might not be enough. That's why I want to tell you about the Vine and Root program from Capstone Well,

this. These are three to five day on-site therapy intensives for couples, families, and individuals who need more than a standard 50-minute therapy session once a week. You'll work with your Capstone's team before you even arrive so the moment you get there, the real work can begin. Once you're there, you won't just talk about problems. You'll start to get to the root and heal them. Every single day, you'll sit with a therapist who's completely focused on you. You'll do the deep work that leads to real change so that you leave with hope, a plan, and the tools to keep moving forward. I know the people at Capstone personally. If someone I love needed this level of care, Capstone would be my first call because I trust them and the work they do. If this is you,

don't wait. Go get help now. Go to Capstonewellness.com slash Deloney and click on Vine and Root to learn more. That's Capstonewellness.com slash Deloney or click the link in the description. Okay, so listen, I have heard you, and I've started creating, me and my team here, I've started creating tools that are free that are just for you. And there are tools that y'all are asking me for, like, what is this, what is this weekly rundown? What is this conflict framework? Like, how do we have a, like a hard car?

We're building them out and we're just giving them to you because you've been with us for so long. You're trying to do the work in your house and I love you guys for it. So one of the things that we've created is the weekly rundown. I'm always like, man, listen, if you and your spouse, you and your girlfriend, you and your boyfriend, will just get together at the beginning of a week and be honest about reality. Here's what's on our calendar. Here's what our work week is going to look like.

Here's the expenses that are coming our way. We've got a dentist appointment. We got an oil change. We got to get two kids to the doctor. We've got, we've got like, and hey, what about us? We got to put us on the calendar, whether we're going to put sex on the calendar twice this week or one. this week or not this week or we're going to put um this time after the kids go to bed we're just going to watch an old episode of the office but we're going to plan it now and even when we quote

unquote don't feel like it we're going to walk through that thing together because we decided at the beginning of the week here's who we're going to be this week right so we created the weekly rundown it's very similar to what me and my wife do on a pretty regular basis here's a calendar here's the stuff going on what's your work week look like for me she'll ask how many should you shows do you have? Do you have a lot of recordings? Do you have a lot of media? Are you traveling? I'll ask her, like, you got this thing. You go, what do you got going on? You're writing a lot. And it just aligns us. And then we are united before the chaos begins. So it's completely for free. Click the link in the show notes. It's my gift to you.

Take this thing and use it for just a month. Just once a week, any night of the week, any morning of the week. Me and my wife usually do it on either Saturday mornings or Sunday evenings, but just do it together and begin staring the week in the face and commit to not letting the week happen to you, but you and your spouse are happening to that week. And it just reimagined your whole marriage united. So click the link in the show notes for the weekly rundown. Go check it out. It's got to Charlotte, North Carolina, and let's talk to Thomas.

What's up, Thomas? Hey, and I've got a new one. one for you. I miss my ex-in-laws. Nice. Nice. Tell me about it. New territory here. Yeah. Yeah. So I was really close with my ex-in-laws, like a second family. I mean, I have a really good home life growing up, great parents, the parents you could ever hope for. So it's not like they were replacing like a bad situation for me or anything like, you know, from family growing up. But they were just really Great people really just brought me right into their family, you know, from my ex-father-in-law and ex-mother-in-law to my ex-brother-in-law, they're like brothers and sisters. It was just a really good, it was just great.

My ex-wife ended up having at least two, possibly three affairs with guys, coworkers at work. And it absolutely just wrecked me. but I accepted the divorce was over, or that the marriage was over, and, you know, just went through with getting a divorce. And it was just, it was rough. They, even her family was very, just furious hurt by what she did after everything came out. I actually didn't tell them, you know, she did. So it's not like I was running to spread anything. thing and to the point where they spoke to me personally, just like, hey, we're really

concerned about her and what she did. It just doesn't seem to show so shocking. And they even wrote my parents a letter just apologizing for what their daughter did. I mean, they were just heartbroken by it. So fast forward, maybe about a year after our divorce was final, she ended up marrying one of the guys that she was seen when we were still married. her and this is what really just killed me man her family even after being so supportive of me and our kids and everybody what we had to go through and they went halfway across the country

to celebrate this huge wedding they had and just seeing pictures of bro you got stop stop stop stop stop stop get out get out yeah get out you're killing yourself man you're killing yourself Yeah. Like I'm heartbroken for you, dude. Yeah. But this is about missing them. This is about, but it's missing. It's way more than that, dude.

I heard Ellen Langer. She's a famous research professor, like one of the pioneers. And she said, and I'm challenging your language on purpose because I want to get to the root, okay? She said, how much is one plus one? And everyone's like, well, duh, too. And she said, well, sometimes. At which I'm like, oh, here we go, some little trickster. And she said, one pile of laundry plus one pile of laundry is one pile of laundry.

It's context, right? Right. So you didn't get a second family. Yeah. You got an even bigger, awesome one. Yeah. And somebody blew it up. Yeah.

What was doesn't exist anymore. and as heartbroken as you are and as mad as you've run the scenarios and had the imagination of her with other guys like all of that what you really want is a teammate but think through it like not logically nothing about this is logical

it's just so powerful the emotions and the feelings like did you want her dad to shunner his daughter yeah right yeah yeah yeah hell yeah honestly yeah honestly yeah Yeah. Okay. There's zero consequences for what,

not only she did to me, but to our kids, our young kids, you know. Oh, so you got kids too, huh? Yeah,

young kids. And it's just like, I just, honestly, I hate every holiday now. Yeah. I live for January 2nd, where Thanksgiving,

Christmas, New Year's, everything is done, and I can just, I just hate it. And that was always one of the most favorite times a year for me. And I just hate it now. I don't think you hate it now.

I think you're grieving, man. There's a difference. It's been like three years now, you know? All right. Well, maybe. But here's what I want you to do when you're planning, like we're heading into the fall right now as you and aren't taking this call. Right.

I want you as you begin to plan ahead because you're a single dad now, part of the time. And as you're planning ahead for what Halloween will look like and fall school stuff and Thanksgiving and Christmas, I want you to get a picture of your ex-wife in an eight and a half by 11 picture and frame it and put it down on your desk or on your table. And before you start mapping out what this fall is going to look like, I want you to look at that picture and be like, you know what you ruined my life? I want you to keep ruining it. I want you to keep ruining my life, make me hate what was one of my most favorite things, ruin my precious limited time with my children. And then hopefully you'll feel how ridiculous it is to allow her to continue to speak and poison your life. You know what I mean?

She's still in bed with you, dude. She's still at the kitchen table with you, ruining your life. She's already done it. She walked away. And I'm with you, dude. I would have hoped her dad would have been like, no, sure. gun, but he's not, that's his daughter, right? Yeah.

And this is going to sound like a, like I'm real punch in the gut for you. The greatest gift for your kids now, not before, but now, is that mom is regulated. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Because, like, as healthy as a mom as they could possibly have in this crap show, the better off they're going to be. Right. Right.

And I guess I've realized that, you know. Man, this is a part of me that I just feel like I didn't do, I didn't do anything wrong and all the consequences of it. And I know there's give and take on any relation, all that, but like I feel like I suffer all the consequences and she and he are celebrated. Okay. Can you change any of that? No. No. Okay, that's all you need right there. Being, being mad about it, being frustrated about it, being angry about it, yelling to the heavens, it's unfair, it's not right. None of that changes the reality that you find yourself in. And so all of the energy you're using in that type of, I hate my life, I'm alone, I walk down the hall, half the month, and it's silent, and it shouldn't be silent. I got little kids. You shouldn't be silent here in this house. Yeah.

All that grief, all that energy, you can, man. You can just keep, you can put it in a giant, um, Yeti and just chug it all day long. Yeah. Or you can put your head up against their door in the room that they're not sleeping in this particular week and sob your eyes out and then ask yourself, what am I going to go do now with this time, this energy? What kind of man can I?

I become so that when the truth of this thing slowly unfolds over the next, by the way, brother, 20 years and your 25-year-old son or your 25-year-old daughters having breakfast with you one day, that they will be able to go, my dad is just a straight-a- badass. You know, no, no, no, no, no. What's the old saying, a hope without a plan is a wish. Yeah. At some point, you have to decide, I'm going to keep waking up every morning. and drinking poison hoping something bad happens to her. Or I'm going to go drinking poison. You've made yourself nuts, brother.

Yeah, and honestly, I don't know how to not be nuts. Well, being nuts is part of it. Give yourself some grace. I'm giving you grace. Somebody blew your life up and then just moved on, right? Yeah. And so there is consequence. There's significant consequence.

It just doesn't look like it. And if all, the only access you have is whatever leveraged fancy car she pulls up in to drop the kids off with, whatever Instagram highlights or Facebook posts you see, then you're going to backfill what you see with stories about how great her life is and how bad your life is. It is not as good as you think it is. Yeah. And over the course of the next few years, your kid's eyes will begin to open up. Yeah. And hopefully they have an anchored, rooted father whose house got blown to smithereens. He wept in the front yard.

He spent a couple of years just dazed and confused. And then he got work gloves out and started cleaning the yard up and rebuilding the house. How he wanted it built. Yeah. And so, bro, if I said your homework assignment is to go sign up for two things twice a week, you got to go do it. What would you sign up for? Pick anything. You know, I'll already go to the gym regularly.

That's for you. You got to go do something that people will notice when you're not there. What would that be? Because you go to the gym and you got headphones in, you're just, you're taking your, isolation to a different environment, but you're still all alone. You know, honestly, that's a, that's a good question. I don't know what I could do to go where people would miss me. I feel, and I know this is not reality, but it just feels like, it just feels like I'm just

checking the days off, you know, Monday, check, done, Tuesday, check, done. And I look back and years have passed, and it's like I'm still just checking days off of my life. You know what? I've been having this conversation with folks for 20 years, and that's the best picture I've ever been painted of that. You're exactly right. You're exactly right. And you're at a fork in the road.

You can check the rest of your life off. You can do that, brother. Yeah. Or you can not let your life happen to you, but you can say, I'm getting back in the game. What game do I want to play? Man, it's tough. I can't even, bro, I can't even wrap my head around how hard it is.

I say this with all the love of my heart. I wouldn't trade places with you for all the money in the world. You know what I mean? Like, you're in hell and you've been there for a while. Don't bring a picture of her to the pit you're in, to the edge of the pit, and look up and let her leer over at you anymore. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point.

What's your custody arrangement? 50-50 Half a week or week on week off How does that work? It's Since we live in the same town It's We usually do

Three days with me Three days with her Okay It's kind of It honestly it's It's just something we kind of came up with ourselves And the boys really Like it that way

So it's just been a good fit Are you Are you all able to go to Parent conferences together Are your kids old enough for that kind of stuff yet? Yes, yes. Are you all able to go to Little League practice or whatever together? Yeah, there's no, honestly, I just, she doesn't really start drama with me, and I don't, I don't start with her.

So we can, we, we are fine to be in the same room together and then communicate about the kids and stuff like that. There's no tension in that. Okay. I want to tell you, I honor you for that, brother. I'm proud of you. It's hard. I mean, I haven't been there, but I can only imagine I would have gone to jail a few times. So if I saw this other dude.

So, like, you're handling this externally, really impressively. And your kids are the direct beneficiary of it. So what does it look like to, I'm making this up, but you get the kids, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. What does it look like Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? To one night you sign up for whatever league,

another night you sign up for, I'm, dude, I'm making stuff up. Chess club, jiu-jitsu, I don't care. Softball league, I don't care. But you're going to start putting yourself back in this thing called life. Yeah.

I'm going to get three dudes from work and we're going to go hike every Wednesday I'm going to go. Like, I'm just, I'm going to force myself especially when I don't feel like it. Can not miss. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. I do need to do more of that consistently. I do. Change your language, brother. Starting today, change your language. You're done needing. Yeah. You get to now.

Yeah. You get one lap around this crazy track called Life. She took four years from you. That's it. at the end of that sentence, she gets no more days of your life. Yeah. And sign up and have it be ridiculous. Find yourself two weeks into a ceramics class being like,

what the hell am I doing here? Like find yourself, find yourself laughing in the car. Like, God, that was terrible. Yeah. Begin to feel emotions again other than anger and sadness. Yeah. Yeah, that's It's tough, but I have to do it

You get to do it Yeah Yeah Same as lifting heavy weights It's hard, but you get to Yeah Yeah And man, your life will transform

And Because you did the work To refill your pitcher You will have Endless energy Joy goofiness When your knuckleheaded kids show up

On Thursday Friday Saturday Yeah. And then you can be a laser beam for them. And when they leave Saturday afternoon, you can have that complete burnout. I'm sad. I miss them.

Or you might be like, oh, thank God, right? Like, however you feel. And you can go to a movie, you can just say Saturday nights or my get a pizza and watch nothing on TV. Yeah.

Or every Saturday night, I run five miles alone, because I don't care. Right? Like, I don't care what you did, but it's just you saying I'm happening to life, not life is happening to me. Yeah. I agree with everything, all of that.

There's no way to think or feel your way through it. You have to go do it. Yeah, I've proven that to myself the past four years. Okay. We're going to continue to think. We're going to continue to feel. That's part of the human experience. But we are going to take number one priority is action.

Yeah. As my buddy, Michael Easter says, go do something. It doesn't matter what. what that is. I'm going to start living my life. And you're going to make friends. You're going to meet other, you're going to meet somebody. You're going to start to feel laughter again. You're going to start to feel nervous again. You're going to start to feel bored again. And that's the human experience. I hate this happen to you. And I am super jazzed up to see what you do next. We'll be right back.

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All right, Kelly, we have a, am I the problem? But I have another question to ask you before this. Go ahead. This is a new segment that I just invented called, is it me? Yes, the answer's yes. Is it me? Or can we be done with portals? Oh, like, every doctor's office has a portal and every...

Not only at my kid's schools, not only does the school have a portal. does my kid have one? Every teacher has a portal inside the portal. And from that portal, if a certain check box is checked, I get email correspondence for all. And then there's the doctor portal, and there's the dentist portal. Oh, you had to go to a different doctor?

Well, you have to have the HMO portal that then goes to the different doctor portals. Listen, Kelly, listen, we had this badass invention called a file cabinet and an even more awesome invention called Manila folders. and it seemed to work great for a long time. If I never see another portal, I would be a happy guy.

You won't be a happy guy then. I hate to tell you. So is it me? You just need to get over my portal on this? No, it's not just you, but also don't think there's a way around it. So my daughter has a doctor's appointment, an online doctor's appointment in the morning, just a checkup for some medication stuff, and she's going to be out of town with my husband. And I keep all the portals.

I'm the one that has all the portals. I have all that. but he's going to be doing the doctor's appointment. And so I had to, we had to get into the portal, get into the logins because he can't do the doctor's appointment with her without it. Well, okay, that's the other thing about freaking portals. Every, like, it seems like every nine minutes.

I'm sure it's a little bit longer than that, maybe 18 minutes. I get some update that I have, my password's expired. I have to change my password, so I change it. And they're like, well, that's what it was last time. And so you can't use that one. But don't use the one on your bank and don't use the one on your attorney. retirement account, not your life insurance, not your job. I got portals at work.

I got portals everywhere. And you know what else? You know what else? I think we're like being rounded up by big portal. I think big portal's coming for us. And I also think this. There's another thing going on in this country that I'm really pissed off about. And it's the attack on knobs.

There's no more knobs. You know what I want in my car? A volume knob. I just want to turn it. The other night, I lost my Roku remote. You know what I watched on YouTube? Like an hour and a half of drivel. Because there was no knob on it.

I just want to push a thing and say change. And they're like, sorry, you have to have our magical little, little freaking device. You know what else? There's no knobs on doors anymore. Now it's just like, beed, beedip, beep, beep, beep. And it, can we jest, man. That's why I have kids.

They can go change the channel for me. We don't need all this other stuff. and God help us I can't do I can't I can't if I have one more portal to log into

if I get one more email from like a four years ago teacher who's got like theater practice and I'm like get me out of your portal all right so my the problem go for Kelly actually on that note

I think we're just going to end by me saying hey folks we need some more of my the problems and we have a new way for you to do that So you can still... If you tell them to go to a portal, you're out. If you go to a portal.

You're off the show. We will... Hey, I mark my words. There will never be a Deloni portal. Ever. Ever. I'll put my foot down. I'll quit.

I'll just... I will go back to the street corner yelling out, like, mental health advice where I used to be before they found... Y'all found me. Like, we can't. We can't. I can't do it. I can't.

I want a button. I want a knob. And I want a file cabinet. I don't know why that is... We've spent a trillion dollars. solving that problem and it was never a freaking problem to be solved it wasn't a problem it wasn't a problem i don't need to talk into my remote i don't i don't need to tell it because you know why pushing a button isn't a big deal it's just not a big deal it's not

what dude listen all right say what you're going to say what are you going to say i press the button like 10 times and then hit to turn it off and then turn it off i'm not doing great What? I never noticed. You seemed fine. I thought the worst thing in the world was a square Kia. Just the... It makes me crazy. Square Kia drivers.

It's not. It's the portals. That's taken over. It's taken over. All right, I'm done. Go ahead. By the way, you have spouses of two people in this room that drive those. I know.

But I now... That's now on the job, like on the application. Because I will weed you out. There's no way, Alex, would have made it through if I hadn't known that. We weren't married yet, so. Oh, yeah, it was just some girl you were. A zebra print Kia.

It's even worse. Okay, yeah, my husband's is just black and it was a... Your husband has one? Well, it was a default because it was a car... Your husband's the coolest guy, I know. It was because we had a car that died, and then... So my son had it, and it was kind of one of those, like, he ended up having to drive it for a little while, so kind of a thing.

Yeah. Because the car he had died, so... And my son bought a car, so he ended up driving it. And anyway, so if you haven't am I the problem? I'm speechless. I doubt that. Very, very seriously, very seriously doubt it. If you haven't am I the problem, you can still email us in John at johndeloney.com slash ask.

You can still fill out the form. We will still 100% take those. But you can also call us at. But with two T's. 844-6-9-3-3-2-9-1. Leave us a voicemail. 60 seconds. Say that number again.

8-44-693-3-3-2-9-1. Leave a voicemail. Try to keep it around a minute if you can. And at the beginning, say your name, where you're calling from, or whatever name and the happy location you want to choose, and tell us, I'm calling with them by the problem. That way we know immediately. Because I get a transcript of the voicemails. Oh, yeah. That way I know immediately.

That's what this is for. Ask your question, and it has to be a question that we can answer without any follow-up. So it can't be some thing that requires 20 minutes of back and forth. It can't be one of the questions we take on the show. Y'all have heard enough of these and by the problems to know. It's got to be just like, hey, am I wrong? Is my mother-in-law bad, or, you know, whatever. Just get to ask the question, and we might play your voicemail on the show, and then John will respond to it.

So that would be amazing. And then you respond with the correct answer to my response. Exactly. With the same person answer. Yes. So, yes, send in your, am I the problem, voicemails? We can't wait to get them. It's going to, I can't wait.

And join me in the fight against Big Portal. Together we can bring back file cabinets and knobs. Love you guys. Bye.