The Dr. John Delony Show - Greatest Hits Vol. 5: Your Favorite Calls of 2025

Episode Date: December 31, 2025

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These are the calls that we picked that caused the most dust up in comment sections. Tell me about that. People had some thoughts about these calls. So listeners, these are your fault. We have been in an affair now for the last probably eight months or so. It is New Year's Eve. And if you're with us, I'm super glad you are here, or if it's gone into the new year and you're just getting the download of this show,

you're driving home from something, you're waking up, wondering what couch you're sleeping, wherever you happen to find yourself, I'm glad that you're here. Happy New Year. Like all of us, 2025, was a bit on the, who, chaotic side. And I'm, I don't know.

I get accused of being pessimistically optimistic about everything. Like, it's all coming down, but it's going to be fine. And so I'm pessimistically optimistic that 2026 is going to be the year we transform and that we make things right on a grand scale. But I know this, we probably can't all affect much of that stuff, but we can affect the things in our own hearts, and our own heads, and our own families, and our own homes,

and our own marriages, and our own kids, and with our own friends. So we're going to start there. I'm glad that you're with us to this show is a special Kelly 2.0, I mean,

divided by 2, Kelly 1.0. You're the square root of Kelly 2.0. You're like the horse-covered buggy, and she's a Tesla. It's okay. Wow.

What's like, New Year, New John? Come on. No, it's not New Year's yet. It's New Year's Eve. Tomorrow. man new year new me totally kindness i'm looking forward to tomorrow i'm sure you are all right so this is the best of these are three shows three calls we call them the greatest hits here

greatest hits oh yeah i got greatest hits that's awesome um it's the greatest hits of 2025 these are the calls that we picked that caused the most dust up in comment sections tell me about that well normally our calls get i don't know a couple hundred maybe five or six hundred comments. These calls got thousands in thousands. Yeah. So like 1 3,500, 5500, and one of them got 8,500 comments. So these, people had some thoughts about these calls. So listeners, these are your fault or you did this or however you want to put it. But for whatever reason, these caused drama or strong feelings, which in return caused more strong feelings. And so we're going to run them back. We put them all in one episode. This is 2025. greatest hits, three calls guaranteed to get you and those in the car with you right now talking. Buckle up. Thanks for joining us on the Best of 2025 episode and make good choices tomorrow. Let's go right down the street here in Nashville, Tennessee, and talk to Will.

What's up, Will? How are we doing, man? Hey, John, how's going? I'm doing all right, brother. What's up? Hey, so I got a quick question for you here. I kind of got myself in a little bit of predicament. And so I'll just get right into it.

My wife and I, we've been married for about five years. And in that time frame, I was able to reconnect with a friend of mine that I had made, a male friend of mine that I had made after high school and whatnot, started to kind of hang out with him and found out kind of. kind of through hanging out with him, that his wife kind of made a pass at me. And we have been in an affair now for the last probably eight months or so. We've obviously talked about just about everything under the sun. And I guess I'm trying to figure out, you know, am I interested in this person?

Or is it just the thrill of having an affair? and doing something, obviously, that, you know, you're not supposed to do. And so I'm trying to figure out how to figure that out because, you know, I just want a little bit of advice on trying to progress forward with that. Oh, man. So let me just walk it back and you can just tell me up or down. so you are sleeping with a great friend's wife correct does your friend know he does not does your wife know she does not and so you're not calling me to ask like oh god i've blown up my

life in my wife's life and i've blown up one of my close buddies's lives it's not why you're calling. You're calling to ask, is this true love or not? I'm calling to ask because, you know, in the time that I've chatted with this person, you know, we've obviously, we've talked a lot more about the, just the physical nature of things. And, you know, there's been times where we both had the idea that, you know, our lives potentially could be better with that other person. But obviously, that's not something that I, you know, want to, I don't want to jump into something or I don't want to technically pursue something. And then turns out it was just because of the thrill of

an affair. I mean, my wife and I, we've had our struggles and our issues free, the involvement of the affair or my friend, almost called it off a few different times without that being a factor um so i think it was just kind of came across at the timing that i was the most vulnerable to accept it um but yeah so so i guess the best thing i could tell you or the right thing i could tell you is you are so um what it's like you're watching um the lion king you're watching like a you're watching like a disney movie in the theater and you're watching these animals all talking to each other and you're wondering what it would be like to talk to one of those animals too like okay your your questions are so divorced from the reality with which you

actually find yourself that it tells me that you've had to construct a world where this is okay and there's a world that everything's going to be okay on the other end of this because if you didn't have that kind of psychological moat around what you're actually doing you would implode because you become somebody that you could never have imagined you would be you're sleeping with you're sleeping with one of your closest friends wives period right actively for over a year having sex with somebody that's not your wife putting her at physical danger, putting her at grave emotional danger. I mean, like, and what you're thinking about is, man, isn't this going to be wonderful

the other side of this thing? It's kind of like watching, it's like you're in Los Angeles right now, watching your house burned down and wondering where you're going to put the new kitchen during the rebuild. Right. Like you're not absorbing reality. And so, number one, no place in this kind of. conversation are we talking about how are these feelings real or not not until we've looked your wife in the eye and said i've blown our marriage up and i don't want to be with you anymore

not until you've looked your buddy in the eye and said i've been sleeping with your wife for a year and i'm sorry and after the ash settles back to earth after that conversation those conversations then you can ask yourself okay and are we are we are we in a relationship are we going to try to build this thing and make it go and move forward together which the percentages on that just the scientifically the the percentages of those relationships being successful are very very very low right because then the old bumper sticker like it's true somewhere somebody else is tired of her too and you also right like y'all get you're all just living in a fantasy world we don't have to deal with reality you just get to have these romantic oh my gosh

conversations and you get me in passion and we get to have sex and there's nothing anchored to it in reality like dishes and bills and hey we're trying to build a life together and i want to do this but i want to do this yeah y'all you'll have to you're skipping all of that so until you anchor back into earth any conversations you'll have are just fantasy they're just disney movies they're not real why why haven't you sat down and had that conversation with your wife yet um So we've been obviously dealing, like I had previously stated, we had been dealing with our own, obviously, struggles. Yeah, but you took struggle every marriage has to.

I've had nightmare struggles. You went the next step. Right. So I haven't sat down and talked with her about it because I guess I'm kind of put it in my mind that if this marriage that I have with my wife were to potentially fail that I didn't want this reasoning of what's going on be... Bro, you have failed it. Like, you're the failure.

You get what I'm saying? Right. And I'm sure she's got her own challenges. I'm not saying she's perfect, but... Right. Like, you're actively sleeping with your buddy's wife. You're like, well, if this thing doesn't work right, it's like, you're the one that's not working right in it.

You get what I'm saying? Right. No, I'm aware of... that part what I'm saying is that like obviously our marriage pre this had obviously it's problems we were trying to you know work on those things and I obviously made the mistake initially and you know her and I we haven't engaged in anything in a while because obviously I'm taking a step back but it's also one of those that it's at the point where I feel like in order to build with my wife, if that's what her and I choose to do,

then I need to obviously be up front and honest with her about everything that has happened. And if I do that, then... Bro, listen, listen, listen, listen, listen. You're... And I, like, I'm really close to compassionate for you right now. I'm frustrated with you. I'm angry with you. But I'm also compassionate because I think you have created a delusion that you live in.

And you use these... I wouldn't disagree with that. You use these huge circular, well, you know, and then we might... Listen to me so carefully. You're having sex with another man's wife and you're going home and you're laying in your bed next to yours. You're having sex with your buddy's wife. And then y'all go have dinner together as a foursome. That is where everything has to start.

You can't be sleeping with somebody else's wife and trying to see if your marriage is going to make it. That's madness, Will, madness. And you can't be hanging out with your buddy while you're banging his wife and be like, well, I'm trying to figure out if our feelings are right or wrong. What are you doing, man? You get what I'm saying?

No, I get what you're saying. I think... So like today, today needs to be the day. Today needs to be the day that you tell your wife, we've got to talk. I've been having an eight-month affair with our mutual friends. And I've blown our marriage to smithereens. Yes, we had problems.

Yes, there were holes in the boat, and I detonated it. And you being a grown man. I need to say, I've already got me an apartment. I've already got me a friend's couch to crash on because I know I've blown your world up and I don't want you to have to move to. And maybe she comes back and says, well, I should probably tell you I've been sleeping with somebody else too.

Maybe. Right? Maybe. Who knows? Is she having an affair too? I would doubt it. Okay. Obviously, I don't know, but... And then you ask your friend, I'm going to meet you in a diner here in Nashville. We've got to talk. Or you tell you're...

the woman you're having an affair with hey you got to come clean with my buddy I've become somebody that I never dreamed I would be and I have to stop I think that's that's where I've been struggling because it's like I have gotten

far down the road obviously and I think in my mind I have this delusion that there is a different path out besides going back there's not a way to land the plane there is no going back but your fantasy about how this plane lands is false too both are true so there's no going back you blew it up the boat's gone you and your wife might choose to go to swim to shore

amid all the rubble and rebuild a new boat that happens all the time and i'll walk with you if that's what you'll want to do you and this other person have a sliver teeny tiny sliver of satire statistical probability that you've blown up your life, she's blown up hers and y'all choose to build a boat together on whatever shore y'all swim to, maybe. But you'll always wonder if she's sleeping with somebody else like she did with you and vice versa. She's a very shaky ground to build a new thing.

But it happens. But there is no like, then you have a hard conversation with your wife and she's like, well, I don't really want to work on this. And you're like, that's cool. I already have a four-bed. bedroom three bath house with somebody else and her your buddy her husband is like ah well it didn't work out this time that's just not how this ends man right and so the quicker you can re-anchor to reality and from a place from the inside out because dude you have you have created

a verbal gymnastics studio that you just swirl around and ride the monkey bars in but your feet never touched the ground. You've got to be able to look yourself in the mirror and say, dude, I blew my life up. Like, do you feel that? I think, like, I hear no remorse, no, like, yeah, yeah, well. No, I think it's one of those that I'm trying to, you know, obviously I haven't let,

many people if anybody know about this situation you know so obviously i've only ever had my opinions weigh on it and so having you know an outside source weigh in on it is obviously beneficial but it's also making me hear things that i haven't heard obviously things that were are accurate but i haven't heard because i'm not telling myself those okay you need to after this call everyone like everyone likes to think that obviously there's a good way to land every plane in life obviously

so you know I think I have been caught up trying to figure out if it's possible to land it versus actually realizing that it's not what you're trying to do is to convince yourself that if this is actually low

or this is actually viable these feelings and the excitement of sleeping with somebody that's not your wife? Which, dude, I don't begrudge you that one bit. You probably feel alive every time you sneak away. Every time you almost get caught and you don't. It won't surprise me at all if you felt dead in your own skin for the last five, six, seven years,

how long you've been with her. I get that. But you're trying to convince yourself that these feelings are somehow, valid in the grand scheme of the cosmos and that it will justify destroying your wife's life and destroying the life of your buddy and so two things love is not a feeling it's a choice you make every single day it's a decision and a marriage is a choice that two people make every single day of their life man

and so whatever happens with this other person you all have to choose that every single day right except that choice is going to be anchored into styrofoam because you know oh she's capable of blowing this whole thing up at any time and i am too and she'll know that about you that's why statistically speaking it's very unlikely that it continues but again it's part of this psychological construct you're trying to build Like, your plane is going down and you're trying to, like, figure out the right way to pull the cushions off of the airplane seats so you'll land comfortably. It's not going to happen. So what I'll tell you is at the end of this thing, there's a fire.

You can do a control burn right now and try. Or you can just wait until the whole thing goes up and smoke, but it's going to catch fire. It's already on fire. Yeah, I think I've just, I spent too much time dancing around and trying to figuring out how to make the fire as small as possible when in reality the focus should be on that the fire is happening regardless. And I need you to internalize in your guts. Your house has already burned to the ground. Hers too. They're gone.

They're over. The marriage you had is over The marriage she had is over The little plate time you all have together is over You all have to decide what we're going to build next But bro you've got to come back and re-ancher ground man You've blown your life up And you've blown her life up

she's blown her life up. I mean, I don't know a way that you're going to sleep all night. I don't know a way that you're going to have peace at all. Do you sit down out of a conversation with your wife until you let her know, you've got 24 hours and I've got to come clean with my buddy? Because I'm not going to be this guy anymore. And there's a high statistical probability that when the smoke clears, you've got nobody.

You've got no friend. you've got no girlfriend you've got no wife that's a high high probability and then you'll have to choose to do the next right thing amid that ash but man stop with the verbal gymnastics stop with are these feelings real but start with i've cheated on you and i blew our life i've been doing it for almost a year now through the holidays through your birthdays i was seeing somebody else i was sleeping with our friend. Let's start there. We'll be right back.

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Glad to be on, a little nervous. Oh, you're good, brother. Thanks for calling in, man. Yeah, yeah. So, yes, I'm glad to be on, nervous to be on. This is a little different for me. There you go. I appreciate you having the courage to reach out, man.

Yeah, yeah. It's just you and me and a couple million people. It's all good. Oh, yeah, nobody. nobody listens right and trust me no nobody does listen so yeah so how do we how we jump into this

and cannonball cannonball is the best way cannonball yeah so so a whole whole whopping seven months ago married this amazing beautiful woman we started dating

approximately three years ago and moved really fast I mean, she was the unicorn that every guy dreams of running into. She started off kind of as a client of mine through a hobby job that I was doing. And then we had both recently, you know, ended previous relationships and kind of found confidence in each other and quickly snowballed into a relationship. and, you know, same hobbies, same interests, same, you know, everything. And we got married in May. I had brought a lot of baggage into the relationship financially and entered this marriage,

not really standing on my two feet, just trying to play catch up with life and bad decisions in the past. And everything was great up until planning the moment. marriage. Our relationship had kind of gotten a little rocky there for a little bit, and I kind of alluded to, you know, just the stress of planning a wedding and planning a marriage. And, you know, post-wedding, you know, we had that little honeymoon phase and things just never really ironed themselves out. and so we started going to couples counseling at the beginning of June and first first session was

great you know I made an advent you know I'm all in just personal personal values upbringing you know you all in to work on your marriage and lean into it and so I was all in and Our therapist gave us homework. We came back to the following week, and she dropped a bombshell that she had gone back through a money tracking app that we had started doing together to kind of manage finances, kind of build a budget out. And she had found where I had basically paid for porn. Um, it was something that I didn't deny it when she brought it up.

I made it to it. It was something that I had struggled previously with years and years and years ago. It wouldn't necessarily say addicted to it, but struggled with it. I'd stopped and then kind of relapsed back into it in the last year, year and a half.

And about August, I kind of had that realization of, you know, I'm a married guy, I've got a wife, what am I doing? And, and stopped, cold turkey. But she went through that money app and did some digging and investigating on her own and found it. I tried to cover it up. It was an app where you could change the name of the charges and things like that. I had seen it on there.

I tried to cover it up out of shame. guilt. Never admitted it to her out of shame and guilt. I had told her that I had previously had a problem with porn and admitted that to her later in our relationship out of a fear of being vulnerable to her and being judged for it. And I guess when she did her whole investigating and found it, it blew up to, I can't be trusted. She called me a cheater a couple times, which hurt the most because I would never, while I understand that porn, you know,

some people can look at it as cheating, I would never act on that. I would never physically step out of my marriage. Yeah, but she doesn't know that. Yeah, she doesn't know that. But the trust thing is the hardest part, that she feels like she can't trust me. And she basically said that she wanted, that she needed some time to think. And our therapist suggested the one week, no contact.

That was the hardest, longest week of my life. I thought at the time. And we reconvened. And she walked into the therapy session late. I noticed she didn't have her wedding band on. When I saw her walk in the door, my heart immediately sank because that was the first thing that I noticed that she wasn't wearing her wedding band. And she sat down and said she wanted a divorce. And my life has been basically crumbled since then.

So we're a month post that last therapy session. Our therapist suggested we each individually see therapist. Um, again, I dove all in. I've been meeting with my therapist weekly, um, here more recently, biweekly, um, and I'm all, I'm all in, you know, trying to do better for myself, um, fix my problems, my vulnerability, my honesty problems, um, vagueness problems, um, and trying to figure out how I can, you know, earned my wife I still have heard of my wife

although she's filed for divorce so she has filed paperwork yeah she's filed paperwork she's gotten her lawyer I got my lawyer just to cover you know protect myself and we're kind of letting the lawyers

you know do their thing but I'm still okay but so you got you have to exhale that this is over yeah and you haven't yet have you no I'm still trying to

to, I'm still trying to hold on, I'm still trying to fight because I do, I do love her with everything that I've got and, and willing to do anything to show her that I'm all in. I know, but you've got to hear her say, she doesn't care. Yeah. I don't know, it's hard to hear. Yeah, it is. So how can I help you, man? I hate that you're going through all this.

I don't know. I understand, you know, I've got to go through the self-healing process first. I'm still going. Well, you do, but... Really just move, move. I'm in a hole, and I'm just trying to figure out, you know, how that light at the end of the hole. Yeah, stop digging. Yeah.

Stop digging. Okay. here's why i wrote this down when you first started talking you came into this marriage thinking you were less than her sexually financially probably attractiveness like you came in thinking oh my gosh look at the fish i got on this line yeah and so everything all of your actions are from a position of i love how you just ended it i'm in a hole yeah and until you stop working walking around giving your credit card to a to a porn company is in the whole behavior yeah that is less than that is i am desperately trying to feel alive in my own skin so much so that i'll take one of the

most untrustworthy groups of people on the planet and give them my account number. Yeah. You said something that I want to make sure I double click on. You kind of held some stuff back from her because you were worried about her judging you. But I got a sense that you kind of feel righteous about that. Like, yeah, see? When you found out, you're not you're judging. me? Not really. And I dove into that as I've always had issues with just being vulnerable.

Yeah. Just previous life. I lost my dad when I was in fifth grade and, you know, I kind of was forced to grow up and had to put on this persona of being 10 foot tall and bulletproof for family and stuff like that. And I've always had a problem of letting myself be vulnerable to other people. um and i didn't realize how much that affected me until i dove in with my my personal therapist um so so what so it was a scared i was i was scared of being and i don't blame her for the way that she acted um well but hold on hold on it's very very rare um i i'm not sitting in day in and day out in marriage therapy offices okay so so in law offices. But in my world, it is very, very rare for somebody to find an old incidents

of paying for, or pornography, search history, found an all expense. What was this? Because that story's not super ringing true with me. Either that or she wanted out of this thing so bad and she found a path. Yeah, and that's what I'm thinking. that this was kind of a death of a thousand cuts and that was the...

Yeah, but you were only together seven months. There's not even time to have a thousand cuts unless you're screaming at her and hitting her and swearing and just being an all-around scumbag, right? Yeah, no, and it was actually kind of the opposite direction. So what did she find? That's what she told me, you know, and there was really nothing else. I mean, I had tried to start a business right there, when we got married,

um, which took a lot of my time, which probably wasn't the smartest, smartest move on my part. That's, that's all fine and good. There's something else here, brother. And I,

I don't know. Um, was it pornography or was it, like, webcam girl? Like, what, was it interactive?

No, it wasn't interactive. It was only fans, but it was, I was strictly paying, paying for videos. There was no interaction there. or anything like that

I was just paying for videos and subscriptions and subscriptions and you know she she she basically said

that you know a lot about it um I relapse I'm cheating on her um well and you say you don't have

an addiction problem but you continue to use addiction language yeah and I was never clinically dynast is addicted but I guess I am

I mean I don't think you are just from what you're talking about but I don't work with you Daniel Day out so I don't know but um I I really don't know how I can help other than the faster you exhale into I mean she's it's one thing if she says

I want a divorce takes her ring off and then doesn't do anything for a month or two. Yeah. Then you, in my world, that's the, so you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah. This is, this is filing, here's the paperwork, the lawyers have a date, and we're moving down the road. That's when, like, here's the deal, man, you can't go to all this therapy and do all

the stuff to try to win her back. You've got to go to the therapy and stuff because there's something not right. and it might be that she's not right and I might say she can do whatever she wants she can divorce you for whatever reason and she feels this is infidelity it's infidelity I'm out okay but um either this is just

I don't know I'd have to talk to both of you longer I think to get a better beat on this thing but what I can tell you is the faster you exhale and grieve this thing say it's heartbreaking you did some stuff you weren't honest about it it doesn't matter what anybody else's opinion on it is she says that's a violation that's infidelity i'm out i can't trust you sexually i can't trust you financially you hide things you go change labels we went to marriage

counseling in june and it's august when i found this out and so we've been through two or three months of counseling and you didn't tell me i'm out i'm out people can judge her all day long she's got every right to walk it's you that's got to exhale and go okay this is happening what's going to be different next time and by the way she's not a unicorn dude when you put that kind of pressure on somebody that somehow you have found this mystical being that people tell you doesn't exist you find somebody and you choose to love them and you keep showing up and you keep showing up um so yeah the best thing to tell you man is see seeing a counselor but also put yourself in a position where you can begin to act differently in a way that you learn to trust you.

Because right now you're entering into all these relationships, the counselor, the marriage, the everything from in a hole. Stop digging and just stand up. The hole's not as deep as you think it is. Stand up. And this one may have cost you everything. And I have to dig down on the chin. That's another big loss for you.

First your dad and your marriage is tough. tough, tough, tough, tough. There is healing another side, man, but you've got to own the reality where you find yourself. Thank you the call, man. Best of luck to you. Holler back if I can help in any way, man.

If you've got some directed questions I can help with, I'd be happy to walk with you. We'll be right back. Hey, I want to talk about, my friends, at Cove. You cannot control the world outside your front door. You just can't. The news, the noise, the traffic. There's a lot out in the world

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Hey, Devin, what's up, man? Hey, John, thanks for taking my call. You got it. So we talked back in September. refresh us what's going on your life back in September all right so back then my question was hey my wife gave me an ultimatum have a third baby or possibly she was walking I called in to get a couple of tools from you

I used a couple of those but now I'm coming back to the well to see if they have any more knowledge for me as I continue to navigate through this so that were my recommendation is not great it's okay if they weren't what out you're you're fantastic But I find myself in kind of another odd predicament with her. But I'll unpack however you think would be most people. Tell me about today's call. What's going on?

So the main point was we got to a point in that discussion over the third baby. But he's really a proxy battle for me kind of capitulating anything and she wants and her going nuclear, so to speak, if you didn't get what she wants. We got to the end of that and it came to that sort of lights up conversation that we had. And I said, listen, however we got here, you know, the important thing is that I think we try to build something new. So I kind of established I wanted to build something new. I wanted to put away all of the insecurities, all the issues we had, kind of put those down and just start something new. And she never really said if she was in or out.

She was very upset in that moment, obviously. But then a couple days went by where she was sad. And since then, she's been normal-ish, but not affectionate. So it's almost like she's in, but she doesn't want to say she's in because she's still kind of punishing me, because she'll ever forgive me. And I don't know how to reengage it and say, hey, you know, three months ago, we had this weird conversation about whether you're going to leave or not. Never really shut if you're leaving. So it's kind of walking on this anxious eggshells all the time. Like, are you just going to leave or what's going on?

So what has stopped you from sitting down and having, like, I wouldn't have been able to sleep for three months with the looming potential, like, separation. Like what has kept you from sitting down over dinner and be like, hey, you mentioned you were leaving. Are we all in? Are you in? So, honestly, the reason why I haven't brought it up to her again isn't because I'm afraid she said she's going to leave. I don't actually think she's going to leave, and she's not going to say that. But I think the problem is based on how our relationship goes, she's never going to ever say she's all in because she has to have that like over my head because she's been using that for several years. Like, I could leave if you don't do X, Y, Z. So I feel like if I bring up the conversation, like, hey, let's resurrect this terrible conversation from a few months ago.

She'll just be like, oh, I mean, obviously I'm in, but like, you know, I don't know. Maybe you're from now, I'll be unhappy. So, like, she'll never give me any resolution to it. That's why I don't bring it up because it's like, all right. I mean, maybe the other part of that, and just to finish this point is, and I said this to her, if we go forward and we're not having another baby, I understand it's going to change the family picture that she had in your mind. But there'll be a season of grieving in your life, which I'll be, I'm all in to help you with and walk with you through So I don't know if this is like, okay, she's kind of getting to acceptance her own way and she's in her grieving process, but how long do I let that go before I go, hey, you know, you can't, we can't live in an affectionate less relationship forever because we're normal day to day, but there's just no effect on her part. It's just like, no, done. She's kind of checked out that way. So it's odd.

I, man It pains me to say what I'm about to say Because it kind of violates one of my core tenets Is that okay I get after it Your wife is incredibly immature Oh yeah And

I've got a close close buddy that was Tell me about this amazing therapist he has And he said What's so great is my therapist Kind of his wife interpreter And I was like what does that mean it's like well my wife will say things and the therapist will be like well here's what she actually means

and it's so great and I said no your therapist sucks because because you don't you're not supposed to have an interpreter you're supposed to learn to be mature and just say the thing yeah right and like be an adult and if somebody is always threatening to leave you they have left yeah they're out and they aren't in. And so you can't build anything.

All you can do is be drug behind whatever truck she's driving down the road. Yeah. And so I guess what I would tell you is this isn't, she's not being a person of fidelity in your marriage. Yeah. Right? In this way, correct, yes. She's not, maybe she's not sleeping with somebody.

But this is the, this is the person. This is the same thing. You're like, yeah, it's not sleeping with anybody. Like, here's a thing. It's similar to guys who spend every weaking moment that they're not at work on the golf course. Yeah. And their wife is getting just, just scraps. And then when you call them on it, they're like, what, what, are you kidding me?

For real, I do all this. And it's that. that's not being a person that's cheating you're just cheating with the golf course right yeah what's happening to you is the same thing it's just hey are you said you're going to leave me and these two kids are you going to leave oh no i don't know man maybe like like you that's that's infidelity that's cheating that is not giving you her full self and so you're eating like you're just feeding on scraps and you're starving to death yeah i think that's completely true um and to kind of give you a little more depth on that she she's created this devious way in which she doesn't say like i i don't know

if she actually said directly i believe but she she very strongly like intimates that and she knows that that's my greatest fear but then like when i've brought this up to her throughout the process the other kind of smaller fights or this nuclear one i directly articulate like i'm afraid that you will leave if I don't give you what you want. And she would kind of almost do this, not to overuse the word, but gaslight, like, why would I leave? I'm not going to leave. And then we get to the next fight, and she's like, you know, I really can't do this anymore.

I don't know what I'm going to do it. And so it's like, she never says, like, I will leave, but she lays that thought in my head. And the reason why she'll never say, hey, hey, listen, I'm all in. It's because if she does that, she's putting down that weapon she's always had, which she knows is my greatest insecurity, like, I'm afraid you're going to leave. So what if you do, what if you take all the bullets out of that weapon? How so? Like, we're recording this.

We're coming up on the new year. Yes. What if you let her know today? I've got child care. And we're going to take a Saturday and part of a Sunday. And you and I are going to map out 2025 together. And here's how we're going to map it out. We're going to map it up in four ways.

we're going to spend the morning talking about how we see each other we're going to talk about things that we see the other person doing that are great then we're going to go to another restaurant we're going to go get coffee we're going to get morning brunch or whatever and we're going to talk about known what are the things going on in your guts are you happy in this home that we're creating together how can we love each other better and both people get to speak then we're going to go to lunch and then either during lunch or after lunch we're going to talk about celebration who do we want to be this year what's that going to look like identity how are we going to celebrate each other

how are we going to cheer each other on and become each other's biggest cheerleaders and then the fourth one is nuts and bolts how are we going to make this thing happen what must what must go away so that this new year is becomes true seeing known celebrate and challenge okay and let's say you put that on paper forget her little threats if you think those threats are they're just they're toothless tigers then at some point you have to be the adult and say whatever I'm gonna keep going because y'all are in this weird dance where she loses power and so she pokes and you over like well over correct she's gonna leave and you shut down for a month and she gets back on top

and then you slowly start becoming a great husband again and you're back engaged with the kids and then she feels like she's losing it so she's like I don't know yeah it's I feel like she's I think she looked into like I don't know I don't think that she necessarily looked into like divorce

or anything but I think she's like envisioned that and she realized how hard it is so now she's she's not planning actively leaving but my concern is that the next time you know three months from now she's like hey let's do whatever and I go all we can't do that then it's not getting what you watch, not getting said that, then it's going to be another fight, and this will come up at some point. But to your point about, if I may, the kind of like the

retreat you laid out, I kind of did that in a sense, not as well as you did, obviously, because you do this for a living, but, like, during the period, the past month of us being in this weird dance was our wedding anniversary. So I kind of, I got up like a room at a hotel with a restaurant, just kind of like a start over type of treat thing. Kind of with this, with what you just kind of laid out in a framework in mind, but not as well. And she first, she declined. She said, well, we shouldn't go away together. There's not an good idea. And I said, why? And she's like, well, because they have all these problems. I was like, I was like, okay, whatever you want to do, but I don't have to cancel the reservation until, you know, X day. So then she waits until

that day, and she goes, all right, we can do it. We can go. We have to talk about things. And I said, okay. And we went, and we did it. We didn't talk about things. I didn't bring it up to be fair. But I was kind of waiting like, where are you going with this? So we just had like a decent evening but I was like why didn't we do this what's going on like are you not

want to talk about are you over I keep trying to read Tee leaves which is stupid go right through the situation because here's the thing

if she's going to leave you she's going to leave you I totally agree I think she's already left you she just left you in your own house she's left you physically she's left you emotionally

she's left you spiritually she's left you she's moved out she just did the math she probably sat with somebody and they did math and she's like oh i'd have to go to work well and so if i could just expand on that for a second um not to not that i'm great about anything but like i do

roughly not at 10 things in the house so like meals cleaning cooking i do so i do so i feel like she probably thought uh my life would be much more difficult i'll just live here and have them do everything but i feel like if i stand up and like pull back a little bit and what i'm doing because i'm also overwhelmed with the amount of stuff i'm doing it's completely unbalanced then she, I always feel like she's going to leave. So everything is kind of through the lens of like, if I stop doing this one nice thing I do, is she going to leave? And I have to get like, regain my personal agency and take power back in my life.

But I'm just, I don't know. I'm so, like, terrified now after years of dealing with this and this very acute, like, recent situation, I just don't even know how to start except saying like, hey, one of those reasons of that conversation from a few months ago, what do you do when are you leaving? And then I feel like it won't be resolved because she'll just kind of be like, Well, well, you know, maybe I will, I don't know. Okay, so let's flip the whole thing around then. Okay.

We're going to go on a retreat and we're going to talk about 2025. And that's when you lay out in 2025, I am, you, Devin, I'm committed to being well, being the best father and the best husband I can be. And that means I have to be honest about my time. I have to be honest about my work. I have to be honest about my commitment here at home, domestically, like with chores and stuff like that, and how I am seeking to be the best person I can be, exercise, sleep, and all that. So beginning January 3rd or January 1st or whenever, I'm no longer doing

X, Y, and Z. I'm going to do dinner. I'm going to do my laundry. I'll do the kids laundry. I will make the bed in the morning. I'll mow the one. I'm going to ask you to be responsible for after-dinner cleanup we can figure out who's going to go to the grocery store or we can figure that out or you start nailing these things down but if you do it as punishment

then you become her. Correct, that's my problem, yeah. We're not doing it for punishment. We're doing it so you can be whole finally. You've never been whole in this relationship. And so you have to hear, hear me say you're worth being whole and here's the thing my buddy henry cloud uh like the like the goat psychologist right um who wrote the book boundaries he has a great story about a talking with

a father about his son who's just living this crazy life and he says i don't know what to do i give my son everything i give my son everything i give my son everything and dr cloud has this great response he said it sounds like your son needs to get some problems yeah yeah and so your wife doesn't have to do anything and you continue to cash out every bit of agency you have because this isn't a whole relationship she's not a person of fidelity and so what you have to say is okay this year i'm not going to i'm not making dinner anymore no more laundry no when i look at my calendar i will exercise for an hour a day. I will take my kids to breakfast and then get him to school twice a week. I will work and I'm also going to get that graduate degree I've been thinking about. And so

here's what that's going to cost and here's what time that's going to take. So here's going to be the jobs left undone that as the co-creator of this household is going to be your responsibility. Are you in? And by the way, now that we're here, what are the things you need to be hold? this year and how can I help fill like scaffold those things how can I walk alongside you how can I love you better and what you're going to get is somebody feeling in real time this isn't just a power play anymore this isn't just sitting on the couch lobbing grenades I may I be here tomorrow it's not that this is like oh hours time commitment participation accountability the stuff marriage is made of and here's the thing you

you got to hear me say this she's already left you and so your plans aren't working your attempts to take hold and to get her to not leave they're not working she's already left she just still lives at the house and you pay for everything the goal here is to say you deserve to be married to a man that is whole who can show up and protect and provide and do all these things and be totally connected to you here's what i'm going to need to do that and I deserve to be married to somebody who's whole and who wants all in on this thing. What do you need?

I'll do everything I can in my power to make that true. My guess is that it's just going to, like, it's kind of like you have a really dirty windshield and you're flying down the highway at 95 miles an hour and you're afraid you're about to go off a cliff and you're scared if you clean off this windshield, it's going to show you that you're going off a cliff. It might.

But the reality is you don't know where you're going because the windshield's so dirty. So we're going to get in a room and we're going to clear off the windshield. And maybe you're finding that you've already driven off the cliff and your car is just spinning its wheels as it's careening towards the ground. Or you might find out that there's hundreds of miles of empty road ahead of you that you can keep driving together. But she has no incentive to change her life because she likes her life as it is because she does nothing. she just pulls you around on a leash and she's always got this atom bomb in her pocket which is well maybe it won't be here tomorrow

and for you it's all right that's not going to hold power over me anymore I'm going to go do the next right thing so that I can be whole and that's the only path you'll have towards hope towards building something new is saying here's the role I'm going to play in building here's the role I am asking you to build

to take on in our building are you in and dude call me after this meeting call me after it because this is going to be a truth telling a clearing and maybe there's some ground rules no leaving no grenade throwing no bombs no what we're just going to lay this thing out here and need both of us to be adults in this thing been a tough tough year and i've been chasing you forever i'm going to stop chasing we're going to anchor in thanks for the call brother we'll be right back all right this time of year we are giving a our time, our money, our sleep, and sometimes without meaning to, we're giving away things

way more personal, our data. And that's why I recommend delete me. Listen, I like a good deal as much as the next guy. But I want you to remember, and I got to remind myself, every email click, every newsletter I sign up for, I'm handing a piece of my personal life. You're handing a piece of your personal life to someone else. And that information does. just stay with them. Shady data brokers, grab it, bundle it, and sell it. Your name, your phone number, your address, all of that is floating out there in the digital wilderness, and people are gathering it up and selling it. That's how you end up with all these spam calls and weird texts that make you feel like someone's watching over your shoulder and absorbing your digital life.

If you want to take back your privacy and your piece, you need Delete Me. Delete Me is like a digital cleaning crew. They find your information on these data broker sites and they get it removed and they keep it gone. Peace doesn't just come from turning off notifications. It comes from knowing that your data isn't for sale unless you say so. Right now, you can get 20% off your annual plan when you go to join delete me.com slash deloney. Go protect you and your family this year. That's join, join, join delete me.com slash deloney. All right, that was the greatest hits of 2025. I'm when I say greatest hits, the episodes that cause the most drama in the comment

sections and tomorrow is New Year, New Me. I hope it's New Year, New You. Make some great goals. Identify who you want to be this year and then backfill that with some easy, low-hanging fruit, some action steps you can take to become the person, the husband, the wife, the parent, the friend, the neighbor, the church member, whatever that you want to be this year. I love you guys, and I can't wait for 2026 to hit. We'll see you soon.