The Dr. John Delony Show - Girlfriend’s Dad Won’t Give Me His Blessing

Episode Date: April 29, 2026

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I really want to propose. I love her a lot, and I've asked her dad for his blessing twice now, and he's rejecting me twice. Oh, no. I want to respect him, but I also really want to get married, and I want to propose my girlfriend. Do you buy his concern, or do you think he just doesn't like you? What up? What up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show. Taking real calls from real people from all over the world. Talking about your mental health, your emotional health. your relationships, your marriages, your kids,

whatever you got going on in your life. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you. No matter what you're going through, I'd love to have you. Pull up a seat and we can figure out what's the next right move. Click the link in the show notes. And it will direct you to the place where you can fill out the form and it will go to Kelly, the overlord of this whole operation. Let's go to Seattle, Washington and talk to John.

Hey, John, what's up, man? Hey, how are you doing? I'm good, brother. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I'm a little nervous. Ah, that's all good, man.

What's up? So, yeah, my question is, I've been dating my girlfriend for about three years. We started dating high school. We're 20 now. And I really want to propose. I love her a lot. And I've asked her dad for his blessing twice now, and he's rejecting me twice. Oh, no.

I want to respect him, but I also really want to get married and I want to propose my girlfriend. So I'm just wondering how to move forward with that. situation. What is what does she say about it? She also really wants to get married. She is kind of bugging me to propose and so she's in the same boat as me. Gotcha. What did her death say?

He pretty much says that we're too young which obviously I get and that you know we're both in college so we don't have stable incomes and we need more life experience, more maturity, stuff like that. Okay. Did he give you a date? No.

Okay. So do you buy his concern or do you think he just doesn't like you? I do understand the concern, obviously, because we are young. But it's just hard, too, because I don't really have a relationship with him. So it's kind of hard to still try to, I guess. respect his opinion? Well, the problem is you asked for it. And so the question is, were you asking him or were you telling him?

Because you asked him, I mean, the first two times you asked him, and he said no. So if you were asking for his permission, he denied it. If you were trying to do like a ceremonial thing and you really don't care what he says, then go on with your life. Yeah. And just know that it will come with some sort of cost. Yeah. And the bigger concern I have is, and maybe this has already happened, is that he doesn't

have a kind of relationship with his daughter, that she could go out with him and say, hey, dad, this train's leaving the station. I want you to, like, I get that you think we're too young. I get that you see all the potential pitfalls, totally. get that and understand it. I'm going to do this. I want you in my corner. And then her dad gets to make a grown-up decision,

which is, no, I refuse to be a part of this thing. And that would be heartbreaking, or he can choose to stand up next to his daughter and knowing, I wish they weren't doing this, but now that they are, there will be nobody more on their team than me. But that sounds like a conversation she needs to have with him. Yeah.

Has she? Yeah. No No And yeah She has been Kind of distant from him recently She

Is actually living with my With my grandparents right now Because he didn't have Room in his house for her to To live there Her dad? She's 20 Why doesn't she have her own apartment?

We're both in school So we don't have a ton of money Obviously But And the plan would be to get married and move in together. Okay. I have questions, but those aren't the questions you're asking, so I won't answer them.

So, I mean, the big deal is be a grown-up. If you're going to take a grown-up, the grown-man decision, make a grown-up, like, you're going to do a very grown-up thing, which is, till death do us part. Right. Then make your move and just know that any grown-up decision always comes with an upside the downside to it. Yeah. Why doesn't she have a good relationship

with her dad? I think she feels that he doesn't put an effort, I think. Okay. So is he just armchair quarterback in this thing? He has no relationship with his daughter doesn't help her with college,

doesn't help her with anything, but then he's going to sure throw his opinions down? That's kind of how it feels, yeah. Okay. Honestly. What does he fund in her life? Car insurance, cell phone, tuition, anything?

maybe her cell phone I think that would be about it though okay prepare for all of that to get cut off right make a plan for that and in fact not only make a plan for it step up and disconnect from that you know what I mean? Yeah I'm of the I have

I have friends that are still on a family plan that have been married for God knows how many years and that's insane to me get your own plan right so yeah like when you when you get married and you say I'll take care of this woman for the rest of her life. I'm going to be in service to her forever. That's just going to, so make a budget together, make a plan together. How are we going to fund this thing? How are we going to live? How are we going to eat? That kind of stuff.

Yeah. Right? And it might be that y'all get married and live at your grandparents' house for a year or six months. If that's the case, sit down with your grandfather and come up and draft an actual lease of some of sorts. I want to pay you 200 bucks a month. That's all I have and you're support it. Like, whatever it looks like is cool. It's all good. Um, but it's just, I'm going to take full ownership of this. Yeah. And, and, um, can I challenge you on something? Yeah. I want you to take full honest responsibility here. And what I mean by that is, you don't, respecting somebody means you take all of their opinions to heart. You don't respect. this guy, you want him to like you.

And those are two different things, right? Yeah. Now, I respect people immensely, and I disagree with some of their positions on things. And that's all good, right? That's life. But I don't hear that happening here. I hear what you really want is him to like you. And he's saying, no, I don't.

I don't like your decisions. I don't like your choices. Yeah. And so owning, I'm going to respect him. I'm going to always treat him with dignity. that doesn't mean I have to do everything he says and he gets to choose whether he respects you back. Yeah.

But respect, let me say it this way. Respect is not approval. Respect is relational, right? It's a posture. It's a way of treating somebody. Yeah. Honoring somebody, even when, especially when you disagree with him.

Is that fair? Yeah, yeah. I would, I think that pretty much sums it help. Okay. So let go of the facade that I want to do right by this guy. guy and respecting him is going to be, I'm going to take care of his daughter till the end of time.

Respecting this man is I'm never, ever, ever going to get sucked into an emotional fight with him. I'm never going to get sucked into any of this drama. I'm not going to get sucked into drama. Respect is I'm always going to treat him with integrity, even when he's not treating me with integrity. like that's what respect looks like not just two people like wanting to like each other yeah you know what I'm saying

yeah 100% so you're gonna do this thing or what yeah I think I am okay so I can't recommend strongly enough if he is unsafe then disregard what I'm about to say

but I think it's worth the conversation for his daughter and him to talk. And this is part of her being, making a very grown-up decision and her stepping into her role as a new grown-up as a co-head of this new world y'all are creating. Yeah. Right? And if she says, no, he's not safe.

He's abusive. He'll yell at me, scream at me, call me stupid, whatever. That's fine. Then he's opting out. But I'm just telling you 30% of the calls, 35% of the calls that come into this show are about people cutting off their relationships with folks because they disagree with each other. And I just think that's a travesty. Yeah.

Right. Yeah. But best of luck to you, man. I wish you guys the best. Thanks a lot. I really appreciate everything. Cool, man. Go get them.

And I've got a book on marriage coming out later this year. And it's heading to the printer in a couple of weeks. And so pick one of those up when you can. I think it'll help as you guys. to launch into this new adventure. It's awesome. We come back, a man asks if he should step in to fix the relationship between his sister and his father before it's too late. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Financial stress does not just destroy your bank account. It also destroys your mental and emotional health. It can also put a great strain on your

relationships. Money worries cause anxiety and they're one of the leading sources of conflict for couples. I know this personally. My wife and I struggled for years to communicate centrally over money issues. And look, therapy isn't about financial advice, right? But it can help you build healthier ways of coping and give you strategies to communicate about what's going on in your side, your chest, about your money, your fears about money, and what to do next. I want you to reach out to to my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist. BetterHelp therapists work according to a Code of Conduct and they are fully licensed in the United States. You can message your

therapist and schedule sessions right in the platform. And if the first therapist isn't a good fit, you can switch at any time for no additional cost. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, help.com slash Deloni. All right, let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Lee. What's up, Lee? Dr. John, how you doing today? I'm good, my man. How are you? I'm good. Thanks for taking my call. It's an honor to talk with you.

It's an honor to talk to you, my man. What's up? Yeah, so, hey, I've been chewing on this question on my head for quite a while. I'm worried about my sister's relationship with our dad, and I'm stuck between trying to give my honest yet unwarranted advice to her on how I think she should move forward and then just minding my own business and letting things unfold as they will. So I wanted to call and I get your opinion on that. I appreciate that, man. So tell me about the dynamics of their relationship. Yeah, so, you know, my sister and I moved out here to Texas from the West Coast about four years ago. We lived together. We have been super close our entire life. Our dad's been in our life, our entire life as well.

And I guess just over the years from her perspective, she feels overwhelmed by his presence. She feels that he's overbearing and controlling and actually used the word traumatized by her childhood with just how much he kind of took control of everything. Is that real? Some of it I can see where she's coming from, but I think it's misguided. I don't think it's exactly the case. In my honest opinion, he's just a loving dad that goes over the top sometimes with trying to solve his kids' problems.

And honestly, it's kind of on us for never having set boundaries with him. And from my perspective. Okay. Yeah, I would love to hear her side of it. What you're saying is what I'm hearing all over the country, which is this was trauma, this was trauma. It's like, no, it wasn't. It was a mom or a dad who loves too big and they're annoying.

Or they try to solve all your problems for you. And actually, you let them solve a whole bunch of it. That's not trauma. That is them taking up space. And so some of it's you being grown up and setting boundaries. I 100% agree with you But I also want to hold space for Especially in father-daughter relationships

I also I mean I don't want to put this on your father in any way shape or more fashion okay But I've just my 20 plus years of working with people There are things that go on inside of a house that nobody knows Right yeah And so I always want to hold space And my first instinct is to say, I believe you, when a sister, a mother, a daughter comes out and says, hey, this has been

happening. But there is a, like a reckoning, if you will, or a, can we find truth together? Can I hear your story and offer another side to it if you hear that way? So what's your dad say about all this? So that's, this is kind of what I'm stuck on. My dad has no idea. He's got no clue that he's doing anything wrong. You know, thinks everything's all, you know, sweet and jolly over here. and that's just simply not the case when it comes to my sister's perspective. He's been out here visiting in Texas quite often the start of this year because I'm going through some health problems and I'm on bed rest and need a hand with a bunch of things. So he's been out here more than usual.

And she just feels completely just overwhelmed by his presence, feels that he sucks the life out of her. And kind of what in terms of what he's doing, she feels he's over the top love bombing. You know, trying to, trying to manufacture emotional moments to get some sort of validation or satisfaction out of her out of her that he's doing the right thing. And when it comes to that, I do agree with her. He's, he's always been, and I feel crazy saying this, he's always been so over the top with how much he loves us. Like, it'll be, it'll be every 10 minutes. Hey, I love you. I'm so proud of you.

You know, thanks for being my son. Thanks for being my daughter. God, with all due respect, your sister needs to get over that. Yeah. Like, let a father say, I love you until he goes horse. Let a father look at his son and his daughter and say the words, I'm proud of you. A thousand times a thousand times a million. Right.

Now, if he's saying, I love you and I'm proud of you, and then it's followed by 30-minute diatribe about how you're not doing this and you're overweight, you need to fix this and why are you working here, then that can be manipulative. But my God, dude. I understand. I understand. You know, just at least from my perspective,

that's not my personality at all. I 100% hear what you're saying, but to be honest, it does make me uncomfortable because I don't know what to do with all that energy, you know, when it's so constant. But why do you feel like, so think about it like this. Think about it like, I overuse this, I know,

but think about it like a cinder block. He has this big emotional thing. I love you. I'm proud of you. I'm so proud of you. And he reaches over to hand you that cinder block. Why do you have to pick it up? Yeah.

Why can't you say anything other than thank you? I love you too. And they get on about your day. What is it about this energy that you think you have to absorb, deal with, manage, pick up? You know, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Me, I've always been a bit of a people pleaser.

You know, maybe it's just wanted to avoid a difficult conversation. And like I said earlier in the call, you know, the feelings of, you know, just being overwhelmed by his presence, you know, him always trying to fix things, you know, in my opinion, it's on us because we've never tried to set boundaries with him before, you know. At this point, how old are you now? I'm 25. Okay. He's 27. Yeah, I one million percent agree with that.

Yeah. If he is a way too much lovable, always going to be there for his kids' father, who's got a humongous son and daughter-sized hole in his heart when you moved across the country, God Almighty, dude, let him have that. Yeah. I understand. And what does even a boundary look like here? Dad, you could only say I love you four times a day.

That's silly. Yeah. Dad, no more saying you're proud of us. Like, come on. You know what I mean? Like, let the guy be a big, lovable goofball. And then when he reaches out to say, I'm going to call the insurance company, say, no, dad, I'm a grown man. I need to do that on my own, period.

Yes. Yeah. And I think that that's more of, that's more of my sister's thing is she doesn't feel like she knows how to do anything because he's always taking care of everything. No, no, no, she's 20 freaking seven years old. If she was 17, fair. She's 27. She has a let him do all the things. Yeah. And it complains about it. Yeah. So the analogy I always use is young adults are teenagers and then young adults and I would even go back to middle school but that's too dramatic for a lot of our listeners. So let's say high school into college into new adulthood. Every morning you walk into a wait room of life and there's millions and millions and

millions of parents. We call them helicopter parents. We call them bulldozer parents who run into the weight room behind you, see you about to get under a bench press bar, and they run over and either take all the weight off that bar, or they try to spot you and they lift way more than they should. And what they're doing is they're robbing you of getting stronger, right? And so that's an analogy, but here's what it looks like in the real world. Hey, I forgot my homework. Well, let me run up there and I'm going to talk to the teacher and they barge in class and I need to talk to you in the hallway. And the teacher's like, what? And there's a parent there trying to talk to them. That's happened to me when I was a high school teacher.

Okay. There is versus, I hate that you forgot that. I'm going to let you turn in tomorrow and I'll sit here with you when you're bummed out that you got a 50 because it's late or a zero because it's late and I'll create some space for you.

I'll sit at the kitchen table with you while you try to scramble and solve your grade problem. Or, right, like, I have to let you lift weights. I'll be right here while you're lifting. But when you're 27, you're laying down on that squat bar and he runs in, or on that bench press bar and he runs in there to do it,

you're letting him do it. You're 27 years old. Grow up. Grow up, right? Yeah. And by the way, this sounds crazy. It sounds crazy. But one of the greatest gifts

you can give another person is purpose, is meaning, as a thing. it's one of the things that I hate that has happened in our culture is Uber, Instacart, those are just two easy ones to come to mind.

Those are amazing technologies and they've robbed us, they've robbed our neighbors of being able to help out their neighbor. Hey, can I borrow some sugar? Can I borrow some eggs? It sounds like it's a pain in the butt to give somebody a couple of eggs.

It actually makes me feel important that day. Or, hey, can I get a ride to the airport? I roll my eyes, but I got to do something for somebody. Exactly. And so where that applies to you guys, giving your dad, hey, dad, can you help me with this? Dad, I'm thinking about buying a new truck. Can you find out the top three kind of trucks and give him an awesome thing to do? So he's like, ah, I help my son.

I still have value in my son's life. That's a gift, man. That's a gift. Yeah. Not a traumatic overbearance. Ah, geez. jeez the whole love bombing thing man that's like just instagram therapy gone a muck like yeah i mean i hate to say this but assuming there's no secret abuse somewhere there's no

historical he was a raging alcoholic for your childhood he's trying to over make it up right now whatever assuming that's none of that's true you just got a big lovable too much dad a think god you have that a hundred percent and b yaw is a 25 year old, 27 year old need to start being grownups and saying, dad, I need to do this on my own or I want to do this on my own. Yes, I 100% agree. So Dr. John, how does, how do you have that conversation, you know, with my sister about going about it in a loving way rather than telling her to, in your words, grow up? Or is that the way to do it? My sister has told me to grow up several times in my life and vice versa, and I'm grateful for it.

Yeah. We have a very honest relationship. You and your sister may not have that. Where it might be a little bit different is you saying, or a different tact or different track is, you saying, I'm so grateful that we have a dad that loves us this much that he'll travel across the country

to help out his son with health issues because most parents would not. Yeah. And I'm going to start working hard to set some boundaries. And I'm grateful that we have him. and if you want to talk about about him, I don't want to be a part of that. 100%.

And so it's you, it's going to feel, actually the boundaries need to be set with your sister. Mm-hmm. Hey, if you're going to run down, mom, you're going to run down, dad, you're not going to do in front of me

because I don't want to hear it. Exactly. Yes, he's got problems. All parents have problems. Yes, he's annoying. All parents are annoying, myself included. And that guy loves me

to the moon and back. Your sister's got, is wearing a pair of glasses, and that pair of glasses is, dad sucks. and dad's too much. He is traumatic because his presence is too big

with his love. And so short of her taking those glasses off and choosing to see him, yes, he's annoying, yes, he's too much, but my God, he loves us like crazy. Short of her doing that, anything you say is just going to,

it's going to bounce off those glasses. And so her hearing you talk about how grateful you are for him, dad's going to teach me how to work all of this. stuff so I can begin doing it on my own. I'm going to begin affirming dad instead of

like being a moving target for his love where he's just chasing and chasing and chasing. I mean, you have to do it by example. That's the best thing I could tell you. But no, like you're sitting now your dad and saying, man, you tell your daughter that you love her too much and that you're proud of her too often. She can choose to not pick up that energy and carry it.

She just needs to be a grown-up at this point. My goodness. Thanks for a call, brother. Thanks for loving your dad. Thanks for loving your sister. And thanks for loving yourself. When we come back, a man asks, should he intervene in his younger brother's

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Birmingham, Alabama, right down the road from where I am right now in Nashville. Let's talk to Blake. Hey, Blake, what's up, dude? I'm doing pretty well. How are you doing in Nashville? I'm doing great, man. It's beautiful today.

It's awesome. What's up? I needed your outside advice on how I have to address the situation with my youngest brother, and whether it's something that I need to address or am I just over expressing myself and my past mistakes on to his current stage of life?

Oh man, that's a wise question. Good on you, brother. How old are you? I'm 24. Okay. So tell me how old your brother is. He's 15. 15?

There's one in the middle, so we're a little bit separated in life. Yeah, that's nine years. Was he a, oh, luck, was he planned? Honestly, I'm not. too sure. Okay, all right. He probably was intended. Okay.

All right. So tell me about what you're seeing in him and what you're worried about. So I personally struggled with pornography addiction through my teenage life. Our parents divorced when I was 12, and I kind of picked it up and carried it with me for about a dozen years. And my brother, who was three at the time, he also had a lot of different struggles. he dealt with that are tied with broken parent relationships. He currently has pediatric diabetes that he struggles with.

He has poor motivation in school and has even had some suspensions. And I believe that now with the state of life that he's in, some of those negative symptoms may be coming out in his relationship that he has with girls. And I've known that he's been dating for a little bit, and I've seen pictures of him online that he's posted kissing his girlfriends in the past. and my wife sent me a TikTok video that he posted recently where he is kissing his girlfriend on video and posting it to social media

for his friends to look at and interact with. Gotcha. Does this girl know that's happening? I believe so, yes. They're both expressive in the video interacting with it. Okay, so she knows she's being recorded? Yes. Okay.

Yeah, I would get involved with any A 15-year-old I didn't know But I'd also know He's not going to listen to me Yeah, right? So yes, there's This is A 15-year-old kissing his girlfriend I happen to think that's awesome

But not understanding I'm posting these pictures The comments on these things The escalation of this Let's post the next thing what's opposed to the next thing. Yeah, I mean, he's wandering into some uncharted waters, and he's 15, he doesn't know any better.

That's why he needs adults in his life that love him. And they put some pretty significant boundaries and restrictions on him. That's what the adults in his life are supposed to be. Where's your mom and dad on this one? They are aware of the situation. My mom has said that when he's around the girlfriend, who she's met, he's great, and she claims that she doesn't leave them alone in person,

which... I'm not worried about that. I'm worried about why does your 50, why does she let your 15, why does she let your 15, your brother still have a cell phone? I'm not entirely sure. I think a lot of it is the communication restrictions

that may come with divorced parents where if she has a phone with him, then she knows that she's able to communicate with him. I know that she said that she's been on his social media pages before, but this current TikTok account, it's one of those private ones where you don't let his parent on there to see what you post stuff. The responsibility here is with your mom.

You as older brother, yes, you can come bomb it in there. He's not going to change his behavior because of what you tell him. You know what? That's not fair. Maybe he will. Maybe he will. Maybe y'all could have a connected conversation. That's true.

I'm wrong on that. I'm just being Debbie Downer right now. Yes, you having an honest, real conversation with him is important, and you should do that. But I think I would lead. he's 15, so I would lead with your struggles first, like letting him know I've been here. I've been there. And this is the Wild West out here on these accounts.

I would be really clear what you're talking to him about. What I mean by that is, if you're worried about him being sexually active at 15, you only need to get involved in that. I think 15's too young to be sexually active. If you're worried about him being online a lot and also getting into, like, over his head with pornography.

I'd get involved with that. If you're worried about him posting pictures of him making out his girlfriend on the internet, that's a conversation, right? But if you come in all jumbled up, and it's going to be hard for a 15-year-old to follow what your big concerns are. And maybe it's all three of those things

and you put them down on a list, right? Yeah, I agree with that. Would you recommend when that conversation does happen, is that something that I should have one-on-one with him, or should I include my parents with those discussions? Both and. Both and. It depends on the nature.

Like, what you're telling me is he's doing things in his house that his mom allows him to do, which is to have social media, have a smartphone, have a girlfriend over, and they make out and post pictures. They post videos of it. So all that's a permitted behavior that your mom is allowing to happen. Yeah, that makes sense. I think that one thing that I was wanting to make sure that I had a clear understanding of before I had any discussions with him is understanding where the conversation boundary stopped with me as a brother and start with me as a parent. Because I have my own feelings of how social media is used nowadays and I also have a one-year-old of my own.

and I don't want to project what my own boundaries will be from my son when he's 16 on to him because then I'll be feeling the role of my parents. No, no, what you're sharing with him is this is such a big deal in my house. My son will not have access to social media until he leaves my house. That's how big of a deal I think this is. And if you can look at him and say, I've deleted social media off my phone, that will make an impact on him. the thing

bringing your parents along is saying I'm going to tell mom that I think she should take your cell phone away or let you have a smartphone but delete the internet off of it completely and set up

through the router where if you try to download any apps she'll know because I think it's that dangerous I need you to hear me say I'm going to tell mom that yeah I think that's a great idea I think that

if you find out he's sexually active and by the way you're his brother. Sit down and say, are you sleeping with this girl? Like, be direct. There's no reason to beat around the bush on this deal. You're his brother. Yeah.

That makes sense. You can look at him and say 15 is too young. And I also know it's awesome. Trust me, I'm married. I'm rocking it on until the break at dawn. 15's too young. And you remember being 15. That's going to go over about as well as you banging a gong in front of him, right?

Yeah, I don't know. But you loving him enough to look him in the eye and kind of put him on the spot and say, ask him really direct questions. Are you looking at pornography online? oh come on man no i'm asking you right now that was a demon in my life dude it buried me are you looking at pornography like be real direct with them and not in a not in a mean way but in a i love you enough to say hey i think a truck is coming down the highway and you're standing in the lane i love you enough to be really direct with you right now because you're 15 yeah and then having a conversation with your mom about i don't think y'all get the full grasp of this you're in an in-between era, right?

There's some parents that think, oh, I did stuff that my parents didn't know about when I was a kid. I snuck CDs and I snuck cigarettes and I rode my bike and told them I was going one place and then I went somewhere else. That's different than putting your stuff out on TikTok. It just is. It's different. And I think parents want to be like,

ah, when I was a kid, it's a different thing now, right? It's global. It's, it's, let me put it this way. He's not paying for TikTok, right? no so that means him and his girlfriend's video is the product TikTok is selling because they're a trillion dollar company and them making out and posting videos and showing his friends they are a product that is being marketed sold and letting your mom and well you bring up a great point i think that's actually something that may even be beneficial for my brother to hear also every everyone on the planet

The full social media. That to me is the biggest eye-opener is. None of us have ever paid for Google, for Facebook, for Instagram, for TikTok. It's all free. Yet they're all trillion-dollar companies, multi-hundreds of billions of dollars companies. So you have to ask yourself, what is the product? Why are they evaluated like that? Because we're not giving them any money.

Oh, crap. We're the product. We, the people who use these things, we are being bought and sold. Right? And I'm an old man now. I'm a grown-up. You're a grown-up. We get to decide what we put out of ourselves to be bought and sold.

15-year-olds don't have that kind of autonomy. We don't even let them buy cigarettes because their brains aren't developed yet. We don't let them buy guns and alcohol, right? Because they're 15. And so they need adults in their lives that say, I love you enough to say, sorry, I love you enough for you to hate me, to be pissed off at me to throw temper tantrums.

But I love you enough to pull you away from the truck because you're too young to see how bad this is going to be. Yeah, I guess the next question I would have is preparing myself for the relationship with him after the conversation has had, because, I mean, every 15-year-old loves to hear the words the they're wrong and I think he's to do something different. So how did I approach him afterwards?

Did I check in after a little bit to see how everything's going? Could I let him come to me with the topic again? No. And I would have something prepared. So here's something that happened with my daughter this weekend, okay? My daughter and I went to the zoo this weekend, just us too. It was awesome. but every five minutes can i buy this can we buy this why can't we buy this and then she would drop

her shoulders and put her head down and then we'd go to the next thing we walk by another little kiosk can i buy this can i have this and finally i stopped and said hey here's how much money it costs to walk into the zoo today and it's a jillion dollars and to buy tickets to these weird crazy rides that i'm scared of heights but i'm going to go anyway with you because i love you and you like to ride these crazy rides. And you want to go see the dinosaur exist, all the stuff, right? And so I had a hard conversation with her in the middle of the zoo, very quiet, respectful one, but like, hey, I need you to be grateful for what we have here.

And immediately, she was like, sorry, sorry. And I go, no, no, no, no, we're not doing that. I'm telling you how I feel. And I'm telling you, like, we're here together, and this is what we're doing. don't ask me for any more stuff. And immediately, I looked up to try to find something that I could reconnect with her on.

So we walked about five steps, and I was like, hey, which monkey do you think is more cool? This one or this one? Because I like this one. And immediately, she was like, well, I actually like this one. And I said, tell me about that.

And she told me all about it. Here's what I was doing. We're having a hard, direct conversation right now. This, in no way impacts how much I love you, how connected I want to stay with you. And so the next, like after you have this hard conversation and it gets awkward probably, maybe not, maybe he's desperate for kids crave boundaries, even if they don't like them. Like their nervous system craves them. Then maybe after that you say, hey, I want to hear from you. Like mom and dad's divorce screwed me up. How are you doing?

And let him talk. Right. And so what you're giving him is, and I'm not lecturing you, I'm just telling you the truth. I'm your older brother. I'm a decade ahead of where you are right now, and I see the mess you're walking into, and I love you more than life itself. Tell me about how you're doing it on the inside. What's a win you've had at school recently? What's a thing I could do to help you out these days? Because I know it's tough being 15. Right? And so what you're doing is you're giving him your, in the marriage literature, the Gottman's call it bids. I'm giving you attempts at reconnection. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And prepare for for him to be mad at you. That's just part of loving 15-year-olds is there's going to be times

they're mad at you. But you're sturdy enough to hand to weather that I don't like Eunice. And the next time you see him, don't bring it up. The time after that, bring up a little bit. Okay. But here's the overarching thing that I'm hearing from you and I want to just call it out, okay? Just because you struggle with pornography for a decade doesn't make you disqualified to have this conversation. It gives you insight. to how important this conversation is. But I want you to walk into this conversation with love and compassion

and your shoulders thrown back, not with your head down, like all shucks, with confidence, right? Yeah, yeah, I can do that. And so walk in, like, I love him enough to do the thing that my own mom won't do for him.

My own dad won't do for him. And you're playing, what you really are looking for here, is for the actions to stop, the behaviors to stop, and that's going to come from your mom, not from you. But what you're looking for is I want a 21-year-old brother who didn't escalate these actions off a cliff. I want a 21-year-old brother that's like, man, I'm so glad.

I was about to go off the deep end with some stuff. And my older brother stood there and protected me. Like, I want to have a great relationship with 21-year-old little brother, not be liked by 16-year-old little brother. And that just means you're an adult and that means you love well. So thanks for the call, my brother. Great, great question. Great question.

Yes, if any teenager's in trouble, any teenagers doing things that aren't wise or aren't smart, everybody needs to be a part of those conversations, especially parents. But sometimes they just won't. And so brothers, siblings, friends, community leaders, whoever, somebody's going to be. dust up in that gap. We'll be right back.

Okay, true story. I was going to lunch with my producer Kelly, and she got into my truck, and she was expecting to hear some kind of wild punk rock music or heavy metal music, and she was super shocked to hear a gentle voice reading Jesus' famous sermon on the mount. I looked at her and said, yeah, I don't just advertise Hallow. I use it every day. She just stared out the window in disbelief. Listen, Hallow is the number one. Christian prayer and meditation

app in the world for a reason, and it's become one of the most important things I do to start every day of my life. Anchoring myself in prayer helps me slow down and prioritize what matters most to me before the world takes everything else I got. Hallow gives you space to breathe, reflect, and pray. It's guided, it's simple, and it meets you where you are to help you anchor your faith practice with daily reflections, scripture, music, special series, and most importantly, peace. There's no pressure here. It's just a daily practice. And you can try Hallow for free for three months only through my link. Go to hallow.com slash Deloni and sign up for free today. That's hollow.com slash Deloni for three months for free. All right, Kelly, what's up? All right. So I have another question for you about the Together app.

Let's do it. Have you been using it? Ooh, you're sure smiling a lot. Oh yeah. We get a lot of questions and emails from users on the app and emails for the show about my spouse won't do it. Yes. You know, my husband won't do this or my wife won't do this. So we hear like, okay, one person could do it. Explain that.

How does it work? What's the benefit of it? The way we talk about it behind the scenes, the nerds and I, like, I'm one of the nerds too. Probably the chief nerd. is one player and two player mode because I know that millions of people

will buy this app and be like, hey, I got us this thing that's going to help us to bring us together and their spouses be like, that's stupid. I'm not doing that. Or yet another,

or whatever. So we've built it specifically so that one person can do it and it will give you daily actions. Here's the worst part about being married, I think. You can only control you, your thoughts and your actions.

It is infinitely easy. My wife and I use this app every day. It's infinitely easier knowing that both of us are doing it. It's awesome. It's hard to do it by yourself. And that doesn't mean I'm not going to go first. And you hear me say this all the time. You got to turn off the music and turn the lights on.

That's what this app is. It is stopping the dance and saying, I'm going to do one thing a day towards you. And so, yes, one player mode is, we built it that way on purpose knowing that a whole bunch of spouses aren't going to use this or are going to roll their eyes.

But what we've heard over and over again is the spouses that use this alone in one player mode and they do it for two weeks, for three weeks for four weeks, their spouses trickle in. They're like, hey, what is, like, what are you doing?

Like, where does this note come from? Why do you want to hug me? Why do you want to go for a walk after dinner? Why did you write me this long note telling me whatever? Why did I walk in and you just flashed me? And it was, by the way, awesome. but why, like, where is this change coming from?

And that's when couples are like, I get a daily micro habit every day and I'd love it if you want to do it. And by the way, to bring your spouse in, no extra money. It's cost the same, right? So you can bring your spouse in for free if you've already paid for it.

So anyway, that's one player mode. That's what that is. So if you are in a marriage and your spouse is going to roll their eyes, great. All you can control is you. So the Together app will definitely help you start

taking the next tiny right step towards a better marriage. Love you guys. Bye.