The Dr. John Delony Show - Choosing Guilt Over Resentment

Episode Date: September 8, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode What it means to choose guilt over resentment My girlfriend's dad won’t give me his blessing to marry her. How do we move forward from here? We're headed toward divorce after years of counseling. Email: My sister just experienced a bitter divorce, and she has asked me to help her with a symbolic funeral as part of her healing. While I understand the why, I don’t understand the how. What sort of things should we do or say? Lyrics of the Day: "Long Road (To Nowhere)" - Eric Peters   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp dreamcloudsleep.com/delony Conversation Starters Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: marriage, disagreement/conflict, divorce, substance abuse, infidelity, bipolar disorder, abuse, grief   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talked to a young man who asked his girlfriend's dad, can I marry your daughter? And he said no. We also talked to a wife and mother whose relationship is headed towards divorce and she's stuck and afraid. And we also talked about choosing guilt over resentment and how hard that is. Stay tuned. Yo, yo, yo! What's up? That's a bit much. Coming in hot this morning.

I don't know what time it is. I'm sorry, James. Kelly, her eyebrows shot up. Like, that was too much. Sorry. Let me do this again. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to the John Deloney Show, where we talk about joy and laughter.

I don't know. What's going on, man? Hope you all are doing well. Thank you for joining us. There's a billion podcasts. You chose this one. We're glad that you're here. So good.

James Kelly, how we doing? A little tired still. Yeah? Coming back slowly. My shoulders hurt from carrying the weight. But beyond that, I'm good. Well, after the show yesterday, James and I identified you as the potential super spreader who's trying to take over the show because you want to be the producer and the talent. I want to be the next you?

The bar is low. I get it. I get it i get it but james and i are on to you now we see what's happened and um it's good to see you nothing just eating your breakfast back there like you don't even care nothing hey so before we get going i want to do a quick response something i got on the internet yesterday so So we put one of those things up, ask me any kind of questions. And this idea of resentment and guilt came up. And I just mentioned as a throwaway line, choose guilt over resentment. I got a ton of responses to that

question. What do you mean choose guilt over resentment? What does that mean? And people ask me, I'm always telling people that resentment is the end, right? That's the death of a relationship. That's usually the death of your work environment. And so always telling people choose guilt over resentment. And I've seen that popping up in popular like pop psychology books over the last year or two, choose guilt over resentment. Here's what that means. Here's an example of what that means. Let's say that you go to Thanksgiving at your mom's house last year, and you go to Thanksgiving and it's a disaster. Everybody's just complaining and whining, and it's COVID this and politics that, and you and your kids, you and whoever you're married to, whoever, we're done.

We're never doing that again, ever. And then fast forward to this year, and it's August, it's September, it's October. And mom shoots the text and says, hey, Thanksgiving is going to be on this day at our house. And you inhale sharply, like, oh, man, I'm not doing that. I said I wasn't going to do that. This is when you choose guilt over resentment. This is when you text back and say, we're going to be doing Thanksgiving as a small family unit this year. I'm going to be doing a Friendsgiving with my friends here in my local city and I'm not going to be able to make it. I'm going to be doing something with my local church. I'm going to be doing a Friendsgiving with my friends here in my local city, and I'm not going to be able to make it. I'm going to be doing something with my local church.

I'm going to be doing something with my workplace. I'm going to be down at the Mission serving Thanksgiving lunch for homeless folks. Whatever it is, you say no, and then you know what's coming. The tears, the drama, the, oh, I'm sorry. Oh, is it because, all that. And then you feel guilty that you told your mom, no, that you broke your mom's heart, whatever stories you choose to tell yourself about that situation. Or the other alternative is, is you say, and you don't answer. And then you send some texts to your brothers and sisters.

You send a text to your dad. You complain about it to your friends. You whine about it. But you know what's going to happen. You know, I'm going to end up going. I'm just going to go. And then you get close to time and she says, hey, I haven't heard back anything. Just still making sure.

We're having dinner on Thanksgiving Day at 4 o'clock. We're going to have this evening lunch dinner combo thing that nobody really likes, but that's just what we do. And then you look at your husband, you look at your wife, you look at your girlfriend, and you're just like, I guess we're going. And then you are huffy and whiny the whole week leading up to it. You put off work stuff until the last possible minute so that you're frantically packing to go. You drive. You complain about the gas prices. so that you're frantically packing to go. You drive. You complain about the gas prices. You wind up.

We don't get any snacks. We're just going to eat crap food all the way. And then you get there. And then mom starts in on politics and COVID and whatever. And here we are again. And then you know you're not going to get any sleep because you don't sleep good on the couch. And you're on the pullout because the kids get that. And it just starts. And so you go and you resent the whole thing. You resent the food. You resent the invitation. You resent the cramped conditions,

the time of lunch, and you just resent up until the time you resent the whole trip. And then you're exhausted on the way back and you're whining and you're complaining about. And so what you're doing when you choose resentment is you're exhausted on the way back, and you're whining, and you're complaining about it. And so what you're doing when you choose resentment is you're choosing misery. You are choosing dysfunctional relationships. You're just choosing to put coins in that slot. I'm just going to choose misery, choose misery, choose misery. And so what I want people to begin to do

is have boundaries and choose guilt over resentment. Choose the guilt you're going to feel by holding that boundary. Choose guilt by saying no. Choose guilt that when your local church says, hey, will you come teach Sunday school? And you just go, no. You instantly go, I should have gone. I should have done it. Or when your husband says, hey, I really want to go eat here tonight. And you know that that food gives you rocket diarrhea. You're not going to go and just say, no, I don't feel like eating there tonight. I want to eat here. That's better than choosing to just go, okay, whatever I'm going. And then be resentful of him, be resentful of the restaurant, be resentful of the waitstaff, of the babysitter, being resentful of everything. So what I want you to do is look around your life. Find those places where you

have chosen resentment, where you continue to do things that make you miserable and that when you show up, you choose to be miserable while you're there. I want you to find those places in your life and say, no, begin to draw boundaries around those things and choose guilt over resentment. Because here's what you're going to find. Guilt won't kill you. Never has, never will. And you're going to find that, wait a minute, guilt didn't kill me. And I'm actually stronger for having had a boundary and holding it. And now I've got to deal with the relational impact of this because I'm not the peacekeeper here. It's not my job to make sure everybody else is okay. Me just resent them all the time. So I don't want to eat Taco Bell

again. I'm going to say no. And I'm going to feel a little bit guilty because I drew this boundary. I get that. And now I'm going to have to deal with the imbalance in my marriage. I'm going to have to deal with the imbalance in my dating relationship. Or my kids say, can I have, can I, can I, can I? And you just don't know. You cannot. I'm going to feel that weird pang of guilt because I told my kid no. And I'm going to wonder, where does that guilt come from? And I'm going to start tracing that back.

I'm going to do the hard work. I'm going to find out where that guilt, I'm going to free myself from that over time. But you're going to find that you get stronger and stronger every time you stare guilt down. You realize I can do hard stuff. I can. I'm stronger than I thought I was. I need to get a friend to help me with this one because I feel really guilty by telling my mom no. I feel really guilty by not going to do whatever dad wants to do again and again and again. Choose guilt over resentment every time. Every time. And then watch how powerful

and strong you become and watch where you have to start dealing with some of the stories you've been telling yourself for years and years and years. So that's choose guilt over resentment. Hope that helps. All right, let's go to Gabriel in Toronto. What's up, Gabriel? Hey, man. I'm good. How are you? I'm outstanding, brother. How are we doing? Yeah, yeah, I'm doing all right. All right, man. So what we doing? Yeah, I'm doing alright. Alright, man. So what's up? How can I help? Yeah, so I would like to

propose to my girlfriend. But when I spoke to her dad sometime around March, he did not give me his blessing to take her hand in marriage. Oh, no. He said no? Yeah, he said no.

Dude. And that was in March. Tell me how that... Hold on, hold on, hold on. How did the conversation go? Did this shock you or did you know this was coming? No, you know what?

I didn't know what to expect. So I guess it kind of did shock me um i just asked him like yeah we know we've known each other for this time and i have this much money um and he's like oh yeah that that amount can uh buy you a trip like just buy you a flight ticket basically said i have no money. I don't have an education. And he just said to chill for five years. For five years?

Yeah, that's what he told her. That's what he told her. All right, so you... Wow. One day I got to check with him and make sure he's cool that I tell that story. One day I'll tell the story on the show about when I asked my father-in-law if I could marry his daughter. It's outstanding.

His response to me. And by outstanding, like I still shiver, but, um, so you, this, you just got to outright no. So you call this dude, did you call him or did you go in person? Please tell me it was in person. No. So she, she lives in a different country, so I had to call him. Okay, so you call him and he just says no.

And then do you circle back to her? Does she know this exchange happened? Yeah, yeah. So what does she say? I'm out? Or forget that guy? Yeah, I mean, she gets pretty emotional about it. Well, I would imagine so so I'm kind of at a

loss I haven't heard of this happening very often um and so does she want to still go through with this thing I mean how can I help I mean let me say it that way yeah yeah so she does like she wants to like she wants me to propose. She wants to get married. But, you know, I always heard like I obviously I want to respect like her dad's blessing. I mean, it's his daughter. Right. But so the kind of the problem is, is that she he doesn't really treat her her family the best.

Mm-hmm. And she told me that he has, like, some narcissistic traits. What's the culture here? And so he's Nigerian. Okay. So a lot of, like, I'm not saying all Nigerians are like this. No, no, no. It provides cultural context there.

Yeah. Yeah. It's like a lot of pride. You need to be stable, have an education. Like that's a must or else you're stupid. Right. Well, and that's not just Nigerian. That's many, many, many cultures, right?

So you asked for this blessing. You didn't get it. And were you really asking for it, or were you trying to do the thing that you thought you were supposed to do, and then, of course, he was going to say yes, welcome to the family, or were you really asking? Because if you were really asking, he said no. If you were doing it more as a romantic gesture, and now you got some input that you weren't really asking for, that's a whole other track. So were you really asking or no?

I would have liked to have his blessing before, so I guess yes. Okay. Yeah, but I asked it in March and then now it's, now I'm going to see her in September. Okay. Um, yeah, but I asked it in March and then now it's, now I'm going to see her in September. Okay. Um, so it's kind of like a while and I was, uh,

I have her mom's blessing. He said, he said five years, man, you've given it like three months. Yeah. So not the greatest timeline. So let's,

let's back out for a second. Is he right? Do you have no money? Do you not have an education? Do you not have her best interest in mind? So, I don't. I made a plan to not go to post-secondary. Okay.

I do entrepreneurship. Okay. Are you actually, are you actually pursuing entrepreneurship? Are you just one of those guys that does a lot of like Googling and you want to be like a, like, like a halfway day trader? Cause I got an idea and I got a lot of money in Bitcoin or are you actually

working 130 hours a week to get a new small business off the ground? Um, so I have been, but like not 130 hours or whatever, but I have like, um, a few businesses, but I was, I wanted to start something on the ground once I move. So I don't just start something here and then have to leave, you know? Um, you're not to leave, you know? What's holding you back? You're not in school. You're not working.

You're entrepreneuring. Why don't you just move now and get going? Because it's really hard to get a permit, get a visa. Absolutely. And if we got married, I would get it instantly and avoid that. Man, this whole thing's getting messier by the second. Yeah. So how old are you? 21.

21. 21. Do you want to marry this girl because you love her? Or do you want to marry this girl because she's going to get you relocated faster? No, because I love her. How long have you all been together? I wouldn't care where we went. About a year and a few months now.

What's the rush? Uh, I think we kind of just want to start our life together. I mean, this is all mutual, by the way, it's not just me like wanting a visa, wanting like all this stuff. I know that that could sound bad, but yeah, we just kind of want to start our life together. Um, you know, start living together. Um, she's starting a business too. So I would help her with hers. Um, I guess we just want to start our life, you know, and then he wants to move out of the house. I want to move out. Yeah. Ultimately there's, there's a couple of things at play here. And some of this you're not asking me, but I'm telling you anyway.

If you're going to, quote, unquote, commit to a life of entrepreneurship, I can tell by your voice you're not there yet. Because committing to a life of entrepreneurship isn't just, I got a couple of businesses I'm starting. I'm just going to sell shoes on eBay. Does that work? Yes. There's a thing and blah, blah. Be committed to an idea to making this thing work, to adding value and good in the world. And dude, that purpose, that why, that drive should have you up before any of your neighbors and should have you working way into the night.

And there's an entrepreneurial ethos. When you're around real entrepreneurs, you can feel it on them. And it isn't something that you do to avoid college. I've got a couple ideas, man. I'm just thinking about, because I know those guys too, and they're just wet blankets. They're just sad, drippy. I don't do they just, I'm like, my shoulders are ooging up right now.

Does that make sense? And so if you're going to commit to that, there'll be a fire in you. Like a fire. Yeah. And that will make its way through the telephone. That will be somebody that dads want you around, right? Because you have a zest for life. You've got a zest for adding value to other people,

especially and foremost, that guy's daughter. Okay, so you didn't ask me about that. If I want you to hang up this phone and sit down and actually say, what do I want to do? And it shouldn't, just sitting around, wait until you move

or I want to start, get going today, man. Get going today. And if you build up a bunch of clients and then a year later, you're married and you're living in a new country or a new town, awesome.

The skills you'll have learned now will translate directly where you are. Whatever that hustle is, that grind is, the how to get funding is, the hours were, all of it will, nothing will be a waste. Nothing. Okay? So that's unsolicited. As it comes to his daughter, it's a simple, simple thing. He said no.

He said wait five years. And so y'all can either get married no he doesn't have his blessing depending on who he is the cultural implications where he lies in his family all that stuff he may cut you out forever and if y'all are good with that then be good with that go into it with um with eyes wide open. Or he may have been blowing smoke at you just to see what kind of man you are. And you get married and he gets really pissed off. And then you really show him how much you love his daughter.

What kind of good you're adding to your local community, to her life, to the world, to that family. And then he comes around. And then in five or 10 or 15 or 20 years, this is a funny story that y'all tell at religious holidays. Or you hold off. I mean, that's what it comes down to.

So is she willing to say, forget this guy. I'm out of my dad's house. I'm moving out. I don't care what he has to say. I've got my mom's blessing. That's good enough for me. Let's get married. Yeah.

Okay. Then what are you waiting for? Something's holding you back. I mean, I'm planning to do it in September. So not much is holding me back. I just wanted to get some wisdom and insight, I guess, right? Yeah, at the end of the day, she's not property. She's her own person.

Yeah. And dad said no, and it's going to be hard, okay? It's going to be tough. And so don't think it's just going to be this, ah, it'll be all good. It may not. He may cut you all out. Hopefully he doesn't.

Here's what I would do if I were you, okay? Here's what I would do. If I asked my father-in-law, hey, can I have your daughter's hand in marriage? And he said, no, you can't. I don't think you're, I think you're a bum. I think you're lazy. I haven't seen that you love her. You're 21. You're a kid. You've only been dating her for a year um

No, y'all aren't ready for that And then you that stings and you go back to her and she gets upset and you're upset And then you decide you know what i'm gonna do it anyway Four or five months later. Here's what I would do out of respect I would write him a letter, handwritten letter. No, I'd probably type this one. I'd type this one. I'd write him a letter and say, I want you to know I've taken your words into account and I'm grateful for your perspective. Here's the things that I'm doing. Here's how I love your daughter. Here's my commitments to

your daughter. Here's my commitments to your daughter. Here's my commitments to your family. I am choosing to go forward and ask her to marry me. I do have your wife's blessing. I hope that in time you and I can come together and have a great relationship. I do understand that I'm going forward without your blessing. I hope to earn, or I hope that you will give me your blessing in time. And that way you are looking him back, like you eye to eye him, y'all did over the phone,

but you said, can I have the most precious thing in your world? And he said, no. And now what you're saying is I'm taking it and I am going to join your family. I am not taking it because you don't own her either. I am going to co-create a world together with your daughter. And I want you to know that I respect you and I appreciate it, your insight and input.

And I hope that in time I can earn your blessing. But I'm moving forward. And that way there's no secret. There's no hiding. There's no hiding. There's no, you ducked into a corner and just did this thing. No, you stood back up. You have enough courage to override the blessing

that you asked for, that you didn't get. But y'all need to have clear eyes about what this relationship's gonna look like without dad. He may not go to the wedding. He may not fund the wedding. He may tell the brothers and sisters, y'all are forbidden to go. And some of them may not go.

All those things, make sure you have your eyes wide open. Please go to a pre-marriage counselor. Talk about this stuff. Because it's going to be hard on your wife, especially if she loves her and respects her dad. This is a hard, um, rock and a hard place she's found herself between, right? So please go to pre-marital counseling, get some insight into this and best of luck to you, brother. Let me know how it goes. I am interested if you're going to go ahead and propose in the next month or so. And I guess when this show's come out, it'll be a right about when you're doing this. Let me know how it goes. Write me back and I'd love to hear about, um, does he come around or does he cut y'all out or what happens next? But kudos to you

for your bravery, brother. Stand up on both feet and look him back in the eye and, um and take the high road. Make sure he's got something to hold in his hand. All right, we'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. All right, we're back. Let's go to Kathy in Topeka, Kansas. What's up, Kathy? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm rocking on. How are you? I'm really freaking nervous. Ah, don't be nervous. Hey, can you talk directly into the phone?

It sounds like you're on speakerphone. I'm not on speakerphone. Ah, there we go. Okay, now you're back. Okay. All right, don't be nervous. Listen, I don't know what I'm doing either, so we're both making this up as we go. So you're good. You're good.

Okay, we both know that's not true. So what's up? How can I help? To stick to what Kelly told me to do. Hey, listen. All of our lives are better when we just do what Kelly tells us to do. Okay? I agree. That's a good rule of life.

I actually have that tattooed on my forearm. Do what Kelly says. That's a good idea. Yes. Okay. tattooed on my forearm, do what Kelly says. That's a good idea. Yes. Um, okay. So basically, um, the last seven years of my marriage, basically the whole time I've been married has been a rollercoaster and kind of the same cycle of stuff. Um, which I know we'll dig into in a minute, but, um, the last few weeks, some boundaries that we have set have been intentionally violated.

And I just literally in the last 24 hours, that cycle has shifted to the next phase. And now I feel like I'm being too harsh or rigid or unreasonable by demanding dramatic change. So you're talking very cryptically about cycles and things and roller coasters and ponies and dragons. Like, be specific. For seven years, what has happened? Has he been cheating on you? Is he an addict? Is he abusive?

For seven years, you've been dealing with what? All of it. He's been cheating on you for seven years? No, not constantly. No, and not... There was one affair that I know of for sure. And I know that he's had other emotional affairs. Okay.

Whether or not they're physical, I don't honestly know. Okay. He, a couple weeks before we got married, tells me that bipolar disorder runs in his family. Okay. And it's not surprising. He comes from a line of alcoholics. Okay. Um, and it's not surprising. Um, he comes from a line of alcoholics, so that has been,

so is he an alcoholic? Sometimes when he will admit it, but yes. Okay. Um, he, he, uh,

a year and a half or so into our marriage, two years into our marriage, he got actually in a horrible motorcycle accident where he almost died because he was under the influence. Um, we've been married for seven years in literally every year, if not more often, like the first few years that he was really drinking heavily. Um, like we would separate, we've separated separate physically separated. Like he moved out of the house twice and we've been on the brink of divorce every year for seven years um so what has kept you together um he every once

um like when when we've separated we've started to go to counseling. Okay. So he has done that. A couple of years ago, he started to look into being evaluated for depression, anxiety, bipolar, you know, things like that. And he just kind of fell through the cracks. So you're doing a lot of talking about him. I'm asking you. And I've done talking about him I'm asking you I'm asking you why have you stayed in this marriage through an affair, through an alcoholic through what I

can only imagine is he doesn't come home some nights through a couple of separations where y'all said we gotta get away from each other why have you stayed in this marriage for seven years? Well, after the first time it was, I knew that I, I didn't help the situation. I'd never been, um, I've never been around an alcoholic in my life, um, up until we got together.

So you already, you already dumped it back on him. I'm asking you. Why have you stayed in this for seven years? You've been a part of the challenges in the house. How so? Well, partially because I didn't know what I was doing.

Stop. Just tell me. Talk into the phone. Tell me. Own this. Own this. This is your life, Kathy. This is your life. You are in the epicenter of your life. Own it.

The good stuff and the ugly stuff. What have you contributed that in your mind you feel like you've contributed that meant you should stay? That you played a role in this thing, so I'm sentenced to living in this thing? I mean, I guess I just knew that... Don't guess, don't guess, just say it. It wasn't giving it my all. Like, I wasn't being patient. I wasn't doing everything that I could.

I knew there were challenges within me that I needed to fix. Those challenges, back to cryptic language. Have you had an affair? Have you cheated on him? No. No, I have not. Are you an alcoholic? No. Are you abusive? No.

I can be condescending. Okay. I can be a know-it-all. Okay. You know, even just a couple days ago, like conversations, like I can be, I guess I can be, I can be demanding. Okay. You know, I'm not always patient.

I'm not always patient. So over the last seven years, would it be fair to say that in some times you've been more his mom than his wife? Oh, totally. Okay. Totally. That's, I mean, and I've, again, that's, I've been in counseling off and on, you know, for five years. Sure. for five years trying not to be that. I know that I've taken too much responsibility, looked at what it...

Because when the arguments happen, it's always, well, you made... He will tell me, well, you made me do this because you keep running your mouth. And that's gaslighting nonsense, and you know that. I know. I know. And conversely, he's not making you do anything either.

Right? Now, you know and I know I'm oversimplifying this. Right. Right? What I'm trying to get you to do is these things get so tangled up, and everything gets all wound up together. The good stuff, and my guess is when things are good, they are unbelievable. When you finally take off mom hat, and I'll even say when you're able to take off your mom hat, right?

Somebody's got to pay the bills and put food on the table and make sure you're not living in a pigsty. I get that. And someone's got to make sure that idiot goes to work. And somebody's got to hug that guy when he's sick, right? And vice versa. When he is on, he's not using, he is probably incredibly loving and committed. Right. Is that fair? Like right now in a day, he's like, it's all puppy dog face.

There you go. There you go. I love you. And I'm like, but that's right. What about the last three weeks? That's right. That's right. So listen, these things get so tangled up and it's hard to pull apart which part I own and which part I just deal with and how much of this is truthful and how much of this is not. And it just becomes a mess, right? And then it becomes, well, if he would just fill in the blank and then he is saying to himself, well, if she would just fill in the blank and you then he is saying to himself, well, if she would just fill in the blank, and you get in this, someone's just got to stop the dance.

You've heard me say that before. Someone's got to stop the dance, turn the music off, and just say, what is happening? And these things go in these cycles because the goods are so good, and we allow that to cloud over all the bads. And the bads can be so bad that we let them cloud over the good stuff. And we just find ourselves stuck in this inactivity, right? We're just frozen.

So something happened a couple of days ago where you said enough is enough is enough. What was it? Well, we've, so we've been, we, we started with a new counselor, um, about a year ago and we set down some pretty firm boundaries. Well, firm boundaries. Um, one of which is because when he gets angry about anything, he automatically is, I'm going to leave or I want a divorce or, you know, obviously, cause that's been part of that cycle. And so, um, you know, for the last year, everything like

we've been, you know, doing okay, working through, you know, issues as they come up and that sort of thing. Um, but three weeks ago he got mad at something absolutely ridiculous. Um, you know, we were trying to get the boat back, um, onto the trailer with my, my oldest son who is 20 and he didn't do something right. Cause it was the second time on the boat and he, he got upset. He was like, well, this is why we never take it out. This is, I'm just going to sell the thing. You know, just starts going off.

So he has a temper tantrum like a child. Right. Okay. And so I'm like, all I said at that moment was, you know, hey, just calm down. And, you know, just chill out. And so when we got home, and our child that we have together, he went inside. How old is that child?

He's six. Almost seven. And so he went inside and asked me, why are you mad at me? And it's funny because I literally just heard you yesterday say silence is violence.

And silent treatment is like the thing. And so he'd given me the silent treatment. And again, that's one of those things that we're trying to fix. And I was like, why are you mad at me? And he just goes off about how nobody appreciates the luxuries that he pays for because he owns his own business. And he busts his butt. I mean, he does. He is the hardest working person.

I know. I mean, I can't get him to stop working usually because— He's an addict. Exactly. He's addicted to that as much as anything else. So then we get the wah, wah, wah, woe is me. Nobody appreciates the... And then he says, he's obviously, I'm going to sell the boat.

And I said, okay, sell it because nobody likes it when you turn into a bleep every time we take it out. And... That was helpful. Good job, right? I didn't claim it, Adam. It doesn't matter. Exactly. But you're like, sweet, a little fire. I'll throw claim it Adam it doesn't matter

exactly but you're like sweet a little fire I'll throw some gas on it so you threw gas and then what? and then he told me to pack my stuff and get out so I just kind of it did escalate a little bit more but I just I stopped talking

after that point and then the next morning I was making breakfast because, you know, we go to church every Sunday, whatever. So I sent our son in to get him for breakfast and he didn't come. And so I went in and I just kind of plopped on the bed and pretended like nothing happened. And I said, are you going to come eat breakfast? And he says, no, I'll do it my darn son's like I do everything else. And I'm like, okay, so we're still there today. And I said, you know, I was like, what did you mean what you said? Because we've promised each other, this has been thing, that we're not just going to throw this stuff around.

Yeah. And he said, well, I wasn't drunk and my blood sugar wasn't high. So, yeah. So here's the thing. Okay. This is a life you've chosen for yourself. And it's not changing. Right.

And so at the end of the day, you have to have your or what statement. Right. And more so for you, you've got a six-year-old little boy absorbing this, that this is how men handle problems. This is how dads handle problems.

This is what marriage relationships look like. Right. This is how grown handle problems this is what marriage relationships look like this is what um how grown-ups act they threaten each other with what i think is um the worst thing you can do to somebody which is to cut relationships that's what get out means right right That what you have done, who you are so bad, I am severing that relationship with you. And your son is absorbing this as life. This is how this works. And Kathy, this is how stuff rolls down generation after generation after generation. And for some reason, the roller coaster ride has been enough for you to hang on there and I'm not telling you to get out of this thing

I'm not telling you to stay in this thing I'm telling you that you're getting the life that you allow and you are living the life that you that you are continuing and if you've been going to counseling for seven years that you are continuing. And if you've been going to counseling for seven years with multiple different counselors,

and here we are seven years later, and your husband got frustrated trying to put a boat on a trailer. I've been there. It's the worst, right? It's the worst. But that was enough to make him act like a five-year-old. Or when he started to act like a five-year-old, his wife said,

hey, will you chill, which happens to me regularly, and I have to make a decision. Am I going to double down on being an idiot, or am I going to breathe and look at my son, who's wide-eyed, staring at me, and I'm going to say, dude, I'm sorry. I know we're trying to figure this out. Your dad's a moron.

Or am I going to use silence as violence and huff and puff and stammer around my house? Does that make sense? Sure. This is the life. So the question you got to ask yourself is, am I done with this or is this going to just be my life? And if it's just going to be your life, let me say it this way. You can't change him. You can't. You can only control you. That's it. And it's scary and it's frustrating and it's hard. If you're going to stay, be all in when you stay.

Work hard on yourself. Do what you can do in this situation. And if you are married to a guy who rolls over every month and becomes a bear and choose, I'm avoiding him. Or if you're going to leave, go.

Right now you've got one foot out and one foot in. And so you are having this wavering life. Your kid can't stand firmly. You're not standing firmly. Your husband's not standing firmly. But I don't, I consider threats abusive, especially relational threats. I consider ignoring somebody abusive.

I consider that abusive. And so the abuse in your house has to stop. I consider when you lob grenades back at him because you know he's spun out and he's exhausted and, and, and. That's not cool either. when you lob grenades back at him, because you know he's spun out, and he's exhausted, and, and, and, and you, that's not cool either. What your house desperately needs is a big dose of grown-ups, and neither of y'all are acting like grown-ups.

I'm not saying that you have, you haven't earned it. I mean, it's been a rough go. I get that. But that house is desperate for new people to act like grownups.

And there's none. So at the end of the day, here's what I'm telling you. You can't control them. You can't. You can only control you. Threats are abusive. Silence can be abusive.

Everybody's got to start acting like grownups and you've got to deal with it. If you're going to stay, be all in If you're going to go, go Don't be Switzerland here on this one We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show Hey, what's up? Deloney here

Listen, you and me And everybody else on the planet Has felt anxious or burned out Or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we are back. Hey, Kelly, you've put this email on here. Let's not take one more call. I want to answer this email here. You've put on here the last 20 or 30 shows.

Eventually. Eventually, you'll get to it. We'll get to it. Usually, when you put an email in here, it comes up with some regularity. So here is the email from Lisa. Lisa writes, my sister just experienced a bitter divorce. She's asked me to help her with the symbolic funeral as part of her healing. While I understand the why, I don't get the how. What sort of things should we do or say? Okay, so here's what I take

into consideration when I'm having a ceremony. So y'all have heard me say that over and over, have some sort of ceremony. And I love this question, Lisa, because this is getting into the, all right, Deloney, you say all these things all the time. What does that actually look like? Here's the beauty of this. It can look like anything. So I'm thinking back to little ceremonies I've had in my life. When I left a job and I wasn't leaving on the best terms. When I have relationships I haven't let go of. When I'm dealing with childhood traumas, right? All these ceremonies, quote unquote, look different. Sometimes they include one person and it might be me writing a letter to my

childhood self and reading it in front of my wife, see somebody I trust, or reading it in front of my buddy Todd or in front of my buddy John, right? Whatever that looks like. It might be going and having a drink with Kevin and Michael on somebody's back porch Kevin's got an awesome thing in his back and I just say hey guys I just need to say some stuff out loud can you not just listen

and they go yeah and then I just say this happened at this job and I still carry this thing around and I need to let this thing go and so I'm just using this marker, guys. I'm just letting it go. And Kevin, somebody who will inevitably say, what good are you taking from it? And which I think is a great question. So we'll get there here at the end. I've done things where the lights are really low and it's almost like a seance of sorts. I've done things with full fluorescent lights on and I've packed up stuff in a box and

I've taken it and given it away. I've torn things out of journals and put them in my fire pit outside. I'm big on marking things as before and after so I can have these touchstones that say, this hurt, this sucked, I got stuck here. And now this officially marks the first day of what comes next, right? This is the period at the end of the sentence is what I tell myself. And so here's two important things to keep in mind. Number one, it happened. And so marking it with the good stuff and number two, the bad stuff. What we often do in these situations is make them all somebody passed away, let's say. It's all the great stuff. It's all, we're going to miss them. They were this and wonderful and blah, blah. It's important to also talk about the

negative stuff, even if they're not that negative, right? Maybe it's they were abusive and they were a great husband, but man, they did get angry and he passed away suddenly. You got to heal from both of those things, right? You're going to miss the good stuff and you're going to exhale because now you're going to have to learn

to live without that tension because your house suddenly is a lot more calm and it's a lot more scary because he also kept you safe. But all right, so it's both hand, or it may just be that he always left those little whiskers when he shaved and they were just everywhere, like all over the bathroom. And you know what? You're not gonna have to clean that up anymore. It's good to mark those things. And so it's marking the humanity parts, the good stuff and the bad stuff. You worked a job and you just get fired or you work a job and you just beat you up and beat you up and you finally get a new one and you're going to have

to move. And you're looking at the certificates you got. You've got this pack of pay stubs that you don't even know why you kept them, but you did. You've got this training that you went through. So you got a certification, but you don't, all of that stuff. You sit down and you can do that one by yourself. You can do that with a friend. You can do that with a spouse. You can do it with your kids, right? But it's sitting down and saying, what am I not going to miss about this? What did I learn from this?

And what are some good stuff I got from here? I learned how to deal with hard conversations. I learned that I can get fired and I wake up the next day and I'm still breathing. That's good. I learned that I can dump my entire life into a job and over the next 24 hours, it all goes away. And so who am I? I'm not going to ever let my identity get wrapped up in a job title again, right? It's just taking full ownership of these things.

And sometimes you will weep bitterly. Sometimes you will laugh like crazy. Sometimes you'll do both. Sometimes you'll just have to exhale deeply. Sometimes you're going to keep a little, a little, a little trinket. Sometimes you're going to realize, you know what? I dated that person for five years. They are a part of me. I dated them for two years and I loved them. I went all in and it didn't work. And I remember how good it feels when you go all in on something. I also remember how bad it hurts when you go all in and it doesn't end up, you know, being for the rest of our life. So I'm going to keep this little thing that we got on that one trip, or I'm going to keep this one letter

and the rest of this stuff I'm going to throw away. Or I'm going to get it all out of my house. I'm going to clean it all out. All right. I'm going to write down and we're going to put this in a fire. We're going to put it over a candle and we're going to burn it. I had one person that I worked with that wrote a letter to his dad, wrote a letter to his brother that had taken his own life and then went out to a firing range and shot holes all through it. He was a big gun collector. It could be any number of ways to do this. There's not a right or wrong other than process the good, process the negative, put a period at the end of that sentence. And one thing that can become really powerful in this moment, this is adding on to it, is a short commitment to yourself, whether it's a set of

affirmations that just say, I'm still breathing. This hurts more than life itself, but I'm still here. I don't know what tomorrow's going to look like, but I'm okay. I'm stronger than I thought I was, right? So whatever that set of affirmations are, and if you're with somebody and you're up for it, you can turn this into a, here's my commitment for the next 30 days. I'm going to move my body. I'm going to exercise. I'm going to call somebody. I'm going to write a letter. I'm going to whatever. I'm going to do this for the next 30 days. And so it ends up being a recognition of the good stuff, a recognition and ownership of the bad stuff, a period at the end of that sentence, A set of affirmations. I'm still breathing. I'm still here.

I'm not breathing well. This is scary, but I'm here. And then it can be, and here's what the next 30 days, because that's all you know, right? You don't like, I'm going to make a life where I'm, you don't know, man. Life just got hard. Maybe you have to work three jobs now

because someone you love just left or you're moving out like the last caller. You finally say, you know what? Enough is enough. I'm out. And I'm going to mourn the good stuff, mourn the bad stuff. And then here's what's next for me. So those are some ideas. It can look like anything, but make sure you keep those boundaries there. And if at all possible, you've heard me say this, I'll say it over and over. I'll say it again and again. Grief demands to be witnessed, right? So doing this with other

people, whether it's one person, two person, five people, just on somebody's back porch, or you're looking directly into somebody's eyes. Grief demands to be witnessed, right? So great question, Lisa. I hope that helps. Try something in your life. Try a symbolic funeral. My daughter missed the first week of kindergarten this past week. All excited. We have, you know, all, my wife's a teacher. I've been a teacher. We know how important the first week of kindergarten this past week all excited. We have you know, all my wife's a teacher I've been a teacher. We know how important the first week of kindergarten is where they make friends that you know It's all that she missed it. And so we're having to have a ceremony in our house me and my wife just because we're mourning it just oh, man

That's gonna be tough be tough on my daughter's gonna be tough because she got sick so What's that gonna look look like, right? And so just owning that. Try a small symbolic funeral as part of your healing. Pick something that's happened, whether it's COVID, whether it's politics, whether it's whatever, relational stuff. Pick something and commit to a small ceremony. Try it out, practice it,

and then see how you feel the next morning as you move on with your life. All right, as we wrap up today's show, this guy's a good buddy of mine. I've been waiting. His records are so, so good. He's a close, close friend. He's an incredible painter, incredible artist. He lives here in Nashville. He's been a buddy of mine for about 20 years.

You want somebody to check out, man, it's Eric Peters. He's just an extraordinary artist. But off his 2006, his 2006 record, it's called Scarce. Scarce. Scarce. It's the last song on the record, and it's a song that gets me every time I hear it. It's called The Long Road to Nowhere, and it goes like this. There's a feeling that I get. You're not done with me yet, but I go to bed at night feeling lost. It's dangerous. I know I could go out on my own

and run away and never come back. But faith feels more like murder. And these little deaths keep hurting. And it's a long road to nowhere and there's a good chance I'll get there. But as long as you're beside me, home is where I'll be. And there's a place inside of me

where I've never quite believed that change was something good and always welcome. And here it is, I'm torn. I'm an ancient being born in a hole inside my heart that's always bare. And faith feels just like murder. These little deaths keep hurting me. It's a long road to nowhere.

There's a good chance I'll get there. But as long as you're beside me, home is where I'll be. So glad you're with us right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show.