The Dr. John Delony Show - Grief, Death, & Video Game Addiction

Episode Date: September 25, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So, send us your questions, leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291, or email [e-mail]. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 1:39: RANT: Using machine metaphors to talk about human beings 3:51: At what age should kids be exposed to funerals, death, and grief? John also expands on the unhealthy avoidance of death and grief in our culture as a whole. 13:44: What should I expect as I go back into the dating scene in middle age after a divorce? 23:05: My husband plays 8 hours of video games a day, ignoring our baby and me. 36:31: Lyrics of the day: "MMMbop" - Hanson   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.  

Yo, yo, today we're going to be talking about taking kids to funerals and how to teach kids how to grieve. We're going to be talking about dating again after a divorce, and we're going to have a heartbreaking conversation with a wife and new mother whose husband is addicted to video games. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show, where we're taking your calls about your life. We're talking about relationships, relational IQ, how to get along with one another, how to fight fear, your mental health, parenting.

We're going to be talking about, about maybe folks who are still raising the roof and folks who are still making don't skip leg day jokes. Dude, enough. Here's the thing. The roof is as high as it needs to be. We're all good on that. And if you're still skipping leg day, you should probably go to church. There's something wrong with you.

Okay, so let's all just agree we're done with the raise the roof and the leg day jokes. But back to it, we're going to talk about all of that. We're going to talk about everything. All right, so whatever's going on in your heart, your mind, your universe, your planet, your church, whatever it is, I'm here to walk with you. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or email me at askjohn at ramseysolutions.com.

That's askjohn at ramseysolutions.com. All right, so I want to start today before we go to the phones. Just before we went on air, good friend James here, who's running the sound and is the producer of the show, he forwarded me a podcast title. Here's the name of the title, How to Install a Successful Operating System in Your Child. And dude, I almost instantly got rocket diarrhea. And here's why. I cannot stand when people think of their kids as robots or computers, and here's why. If you think your kid is a computer or you use nonsense like, I need to upgrade my kid or I need to get him a new operating system, I know you're trying, like, people are trying to be cool and, like, talk with the times.

Those type of metaphors are dangerous because what happens is you look at your nine-year-old and they do something that nine-year-olds do. They leave their towels out. They talk back to somebody. They gallop into some wall somewhere because their bodies are growing faster than their brains are. And your default setting becomes, there's something wrong with my kid, or I need to fix something, or there must be a broken line of code. And that's why we've got so many parents, not totally wise, some of the reasons why, parents will go sprinting to their doctor or to the internet. What's wrong with my nine-year-old? Nine-year-olds and 12-year-olds and 20-year-olds and 50-year-olds are not robots or little boxes of wires that need upgraded operating systems.

Everybody needs people who love them and who will be with them and who will look them in the eye and acknowledge them, listen to them, and value them, and hold them accountable, and punish them when necessary, and, and, and. But stop with the install a successful operating system in your child. Just quit with the nonsense, man. How about this? How about how to love your kid?

How to love and hold and hug. How to instill value into your child. Let's make that podcast. I'm going to make that podcast, James. We're going to go with that one. All right, so let's go to the calls. That's just rocket diarrhea before we even get going. All right. Let's go to Lucas in Riverside, California. Lucas, what's up, brother? How can I help? Hey, John. Thanks so much for taking my call today. I think you are a phenomenal addition

to the Ramsey Network. I love what you're doing. So thanks for talking to me today. Thanks, brother. I appreciate that. So I am a funeral celebrant here in Southern California. And every now and then, the topic of having children at funerals comes up. People may have had a bad experience growing up, or they don't think funerals are, quote, appropriate for children. And I'm just wondering what advice

or guidance that you would give to a family regarding having kids attend funerals or even be part of them in some way. Man, you stumbled into soapbox number two for me, and we haven't even gotten rolling, Lucas. So before, man, I've got all kinds of thoughts on this. Before I get going, what do you think? You live in this world. You deal with death. You deal with grief. You deal with all kinds of spectrums of mourning and frustration and denial. What do you think? So my initial thoughts and what I've kind of, I guess, haphazardly counseled people on before.

Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm going to stop you there. Yeah. So I'm going to stop you there. Yeah. So I'm going to use you because you called, okay? Let's don't say kinda and, you know, I want you to speak boldly. Here's what I've been doing this. Here's what I recommend. And have the courage to be wrong, but I'm almost guaranteed you're not going to be.

Go for it. Perfect. I'll be confidently wrong if I'm wrong. Yeah, Lucas getting it. So I tell people that our culture is incredibly death averse, and most people don't have these conversations. And I suggest that kids be involved as early as possible, because if kids can love somebody, they can experience grief. Oh my gosh, Lucas.

Dude, I'm high-fiving you from Nashville to Southern California. You are in the right job. You are the person that people need when they're experiencing loss and they're experiencing brokenness. I 100,000 times a million percent agree with you. We have stripped all negative emotions. We've pathologized everything that doesn't feel quote unquote happy, right? And we've labeled it as depression or anxiety. That's the two that we kick off all the time. But you're exactly right. We try to hide and shield uncomfortable feelings, especially from our kids. And you've got to pay the piper on that one somewhere down the road, right? So here's a couple of my thoughts, Lucas. And weigh in because you're an expert here.

And I'm more of a sideline quarterback. I believe with all of my heart to take every kid to every funeral, particularly when they are in their close sphere. Meaning their grandparents, their parents, their siblings, their cousins. Get your kids involved in funerals and celebrations of life. Let them see you sad. Let them see you as a parent mourn. You are not doing your kids any favors by hiding it. I have a personal example of this. One of the things that my dad did, so my dad was a homicide detective. He dealt in the ugliest of the ugly. He dealt with death

all day, every day as a part of the first half of his career. And one of the things he did for me was he sheltered me from funerals. He didn't want me seeing the stuff that he saw every day. And at the time that was wise and that was good. And he was doing the best he could. And here I am 25, 35 years later, and that cost me for a season. I went through a season where I didn't know how to deal with death. I didn't know how to deal with grief. I didn't have the tools and I didn't have a map.

I didn't have an image of a mom and a dad who were sad and still loved each other, who had healthy coping mechanisms and just how to live life through tragedy. And so it became an important thing for me to make sure my kid was exposed to not grotesque and gruesome things, but to go to funerals, to experience sadness, to see dad and mom sad, and to say, what's wrong, mom and dad, to see tears come from our eyes, because that's part of the human experience. I heard a quote, man, maybe about 15 years ago, and I wrote it down. It was, kids are overexposed and underexperienced. And I think that attributes, I mean, that's for all of us, right? Overexposed and underexperienced. And what that means is they've seen a million dead people

on a computer or on TV or in a video game, and they've never been in a room and felt the weight of someone who's actually died, a dead body there, the passing of a loved one, the collective grief. And that goes on, right? They've seen a million sex acts on TV. They've seen a million sexualized images and they've never burned an entire movie just trying to, you know, to move their hands in the right way so they can hold hands with somebody that they're, you know, that they're in love with. They skip all the steps and so they've got these images, they've downloaded the images. There I go. Using a freaking computer analogy. What a moron. So they absorb these images, but they don't have the experience to back that up. And you get that disconnect in their brain and you're just asking

for all kinds of trouble. So Lucas, it's been my experience, which again is limited compared to yours, that one of the greatest gifts you can give a child is to let them attend a funeral with you, let them attend a viewing with you, let them see people who are crying, let them experience what your body feels like when you're sad, and to then process it with them, to talk about it with them, to show how you can value people when they're not there, how memories remain with you, right? How that impacts your spiritual walk. It just impacts everything. So what do you think about that? Does that make sense to you? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that was kind of, I guess that's kind of, I guess I just, it's good to hear somebody

affirm that because that's the one area I'm not really that trained in. And so I just wanted to make sure I was on the right track, I guess. Absolutely. And Lucas, I would even go one step further. There's become a new trend over the last five to ten years where people would say, I'm just too sad. I can't go to the funeral. Ridiculous. Ridiculous.

Go to the funeral. I don't care if you don't feel like it. I don't care if you are sad. And I'm talking to grownups here. I don't care if you're sad. I don't care if it just feels heavy. You gotta go. Your body needs that collective processing.

It needs to be in community with other people who are grieving to help you get through a process. If you skipped a funeral, if you didn't go to your dad's funeral because of X, Y, or Z, I'm going to recommend that you hold another ceremony. Hold a special moment. If your dad sucked or your mom was abusive and you said, I'm not going to that funeral, I don't care who you are,

that winds its way into your body, into your collective psyche. Having some kind of process, whether it's writing them a letter, whether it is writing them three letters. I've recommended that before. Write a letter for thank you for what you gave me. Write a letter for thank you or screw you for being such a terrible parent. And then write them another letter with here's who I'm becoming and here's who I'm going to be. And whatever your process is, have a process. We have got to stop being so scared of feeling uncomfortable, of feeling sad, and of feeling loss. That's a part of the human experience, and we can't skip it.

One last thing I want to throw out there, and again, thank you, Lucas, for that call. One last thing I want to throw out there. If your kids feel grief on their parents, meaning let's say somebody at church passes away and mom and dad are sad. Dad loses a friend, like maybe not a close friend, but just like an extended friend at work. And dad's sad. But dad thinks, you know what? I don't want to bring my nonsense down on Tim. Tim's only six and Susie's only four. I don't want to bring my sadness onto them. The kids will feel that grief. They will feel that sadness. They'll feel that

disconnection. And what small children especially will do is they backfill that gap with, I must have done something wrong. I must be the reason dad is feeling this way. And you'll feel kids, you'll see kids withdraw from parents who are mourning or get super clingy, which is real frustrating when you're trying to mourn. So I lost somebody that I love recently, my football coach that meant a whole lot to me, he died two nights ago. And I got the news on my phone and my dad sent it to me and I got sad. His name was Coach Loper. I loved him. He played an instrumental role in my growing up as a young knucklehead little boy. And I got sad. And it just so happened that when I felt that sadness, Josephine, my four-year-old, came around the corner onto the front porch.

And she said, Daddy, what's wrong? And I pulled her up on my lap and I said, Daddy's mentor, Daddy's friend died. He's no longer with us. And she looked at me and put her hand on my face and said, Daddy, that's sad. I'm sorry. And she's four. And she's already understanding that people's sad. I'm sorry. And she's four and she's already understanding that people pass away. Life is hard. And that sometimes the best thing you can do for somebody

is to look them in the eye and say, I'm sorry, and put your hand on your face. And for a four-year-old, that means I love you. I love you. I love you. So all I have to say is that's what I'm doing in my own house. Lucas, good for you. You're in the right place. We're blessed to have you. All right, let's go to the phones. Let's go back to the phones. Let's go to Chelsea in Kansas City, Missouri. Chelsea, what's up? Hi, John. How are you? I am outstanding. How about you?

I'm doing awesome. Good. So how can I help this morning? I have recently gone through a divorce, and I'm getting back out into the dating scene. And I just, it's hard. I'm in my mid thirties and I just want some guidance on how to make this work. And I have two kids, two young kids, six and two. So six and two. So how long were you married?

That's interesting. I was married for a year. Then we divorced for a year and i had my daughter was two at the time and i dated somebody and it just scared me so much i remarried my ex-husband again and we had another kid and then so you remarried because you got scared you remarried because you got scared or you remarried you dated dated somebody new and thought, no, he's the one, I love him, or I don't want to invest in any more time than anybody else? What was the reason and you went back? It wasn't because you were scared.

Why did you really go back and remarry him? Well, it was kind of out of fear because I didn't want my daughter to grow up in a split home with having to choose a new parent and a new family. So I went back to my husband. So you weren't scared of a new relationship. You were scared of your daughter growing up in a separate house. Okay, that makes sense. And so why did you get divorced the second time to the same guy? For the same reasons.

We just aren't compatible. We just don't get along. We don't to the same guy? For the same reasons. We just aren't compatible. We just don't get along. We don't have the same life goals. Give me some more details than just not compatible. And there's a reason why I'm asking this, but not just to be gratuitous. Yeah. Well, he doesn't have the same work ethic as me, drive. We don't agree on parenting. His parents pretty much hand him everything and don't really make him work hard for anything. And my mom is completely the opposite of that. We've always had to work really hard for everything in our life. So those things sound like, those things sound like some things that every couple goes through. Something below that made you get

divorced twice. What is it? Those are just discomforts. Those are things that every couple deals with. I thought we should do this. I should do this. Those are usually navigational issues. Something below that made you get divorced twice. We got married because I got pregnant with my daughter. So I married him because I thought it was the right thing to do for her.

Ah, there we go. And did you, did you resent him? No, I didn't at the time. I think I do more now. I just kind of felt like I was doing the right thing. Like God picked him for me because I was so bad at picking people before. And then that happened. And I was like, well well this is the one and thought that I could learn to love him and I I guess that's kind of

where I'm like getting into the dating scene I don't want to just learn to love somebody but I also know the butterflies and the fireworks that's not always healthy either. Right, right, right. So here's a couple of things I could pass on to you. Learn to, and I'm making a note here. So I think first I want to differentiate between learn to and choose to. Learn to suggests that something is going to come from out there and present itself to you as like new knowledge or new information or new things you can brush under the rug like he's just gross and or he's rude or he yells at our kids instead of hugs them whatever the things are and you're going to learn to deal with those things and that's not

a healthy way to approach relationships you can learn new information to process it and you use the information but just learning to that's not a good way to look at it. I do believe with all of my heart, this idea of choosing. You do choose to be in love. You do choose to be in a relationship. You do choose to remain married. There's a great theologian, Rich Mullins, who once said, the worst part about being a Christian is that it's every single day. And you can never memorize enough scripture that you don't got to get up and try to live right the next day. That same thing applies to exercise, right? You can never have such a good workout on a Monday that you're squared up for the rest of the month. The worst

part about being in shape is you got to get up on Tuesday and work out again and get up on Wednesday and either rest or fix your body and work out again. Love is the same way. And I heard this maybe a few months ago and it stuck in my soul. Where do you think we get our most detailed metaphor for love? The picture we get of romance and of love and of starstruck love. And I just gave you a hint there. Where does that come from? Where does our picture of ultimate love come from? I have no idea. All right. Here's where it comes from. Romeo and Juliet. Okay. Romeo and Juliet, two star struck lovers who see each

other from across the room at a party, the gods faded together, and then they end up dying because their love is so deep. Or maybe Titanic, right? Or the notebook or any of these things where you see somebody, it's it, and then you are willing to die. And the reality is this, Romeo and Juliet were two teenagers who wanted to hook up. They secretly got married and they threw a temper tantrum and one killed the other one and they killed himself. And so these two 16 year olds have become our model, right? Or Jack and Rose on a boat. And I forgot Rachel McAdams and Gosling. I forgot their character names. Kelly through the booth is giving me a hard time here. Noah and Allie. She couldn't let it be. Noah and Allie. She couldn't let it be Noah and Allie, right? Here's the thing. Love and relationship and marriage is a choice. And so what you are going to have to do when you head

back out there, Chelsea, is you're going to have to decide, I want to love this person. And if you get the butterflies and the feelings and the things, that's great. Or you're going to choose not to love that person, right? So that's number one. Number two, you're going to find out to love that person, right? So that's number one. Number two, you're going to find out about yourself and childhood insecurities. All of these, do I look good? Am I first in line? Does he like me? Does he listen to me? Do I have acne? All these things that you thought you did away with in middle school will come flooding back to you. And so most people get caught off guard. I'll say most, many people get caught off guard by this reemergence of this little girl or these little boy insecurities

that come rushing out after having been in a long-term relationship. And you'll get this sense like, man, I thought I would be past this by now. I thought I'd be all growed up and everything'd be all good. The reality is no, those things live deep in you because they're only healed through relationship. And now you're they're only healed through relationship. And now you're dealing with a fractured relationship. And the final thing I'll tell you is this. Expect to have doubts about your judgment. Or another way I could say it is you're going to lose trust in yourself because you thought that God told you to do something when you got pregnant. And so you got married.

And then you chose to get divorced. And you thought that was the right thing. And then you got remarried. And then you got divorced again. So most people forget when they get divorced, they're not just losing a partner. They're not losing a dream. They're not losing a future.

They're also dealing with lost trust in themselves. And so what I want to recommend as you go out, as you start hitting the dating scene, obviously you're going to respect your kids, right? You're not going to bring home knuckleheads to meet your kids until you are very, very serious. You're not going to drag them through a series of relationships. So that goes without saying. But I want you to have somebody that you can talk to, whether it's a close friend and not just like a, yeah, girl, woo, not a friend can talk to, whether it's a close friend and not just like a, yeah, girl, woo, not a friend like that, but somebody who's a little bit older, a little bit wiser, maybe somebody who's been remarried, maybe a counselor, maybe somebody at

your local church, somebody who will walk with you and will give you some insight and some wisdom to deal with the exciting butterfly moments, the middle school, high school moments, and then the middle school, high school, college insecurities, and the ups and the downs. And then as you choose, not as you feel fated, or as you feel, oh, it's going to happen, but as you choose to say, this is the guy that I want to spend the rest of my life with.

This is the guy that I'm going to get up every day and decide that I'm going to love. This is the guy that I'm going to lean in towards, even when he's annoying, even when he's frustrating, even when I feel vulnerable. That's going to be the guy that you end up with. That's going to be the guy that's going to help you have a healthy marriage. And I'm going to expect him to do the same thing for you. I'm going to expect him to choose you every day. And choosing is so, so hard. So prepare to feel insecure again. Prepare to feel like you don't trust your instincts anymore. Prepare to have somebody that walks with you, a community of people that you trust. Go for it, man. Go for it, Chelsea. Protect your kids in this process and protect your heart. So thank you so much for the call. Let's go to one more call. Let's go to one more.

We got time for Julia in Salt Lake City. Julia, what's up? I feel singing this morning, man. What is up, Julia? Hi, Dr. D. So I have a question in regards to my marriage and my husband's video game playing. Hold on, hold on. Did you just say my husband's video game play? Yes. Oh my gosh. James and Kelly, so far today, we have had the downloading operating system into kids. We've had parents who don't take their kids to funerals

in the trifecta. You're telling me you got a husband who plays video games? I got to hear more about this. Go for it. Yeah, so it gets excessive. I mean, it's always excessive, but there are two versions of him. There's the version that can balance that with normal life, and then there's the version of him that ignores everything else

and can't deal with real life, can't hold a conversation, doesn't want to go to family events, doesn't want to talk to his mom, doesn't want to play with our daughter. Like it's so bad. And he's had this problem since early childhood. I didn't know how bad it was until after we were married. So this has been going for like 25 years at this point because his mom just couldn't ever like pull the plug on it when he was a kid. Oh, what a failure. Why did she not do that? She tried.

Single mom tried to do her best. She thought just changing the password on the computer was enough, but he got his own computers and he'd play all day and through the night. Okay, I want to stop you right there because I want to say this publicly. This is not to you. This is to everybody out listening. A parent who comes to me and says, hey, my nine-year-old is addicted to their iPad, I'll always stop them and say that's bull crap.

Nine-year-olds only get iPads through their parents. Period. End of story, end of discussion. My kid won't stop playing video games. Then you take the controllers and you smash them into a million pieces. Kids only have access to this nonsense when their parents are either too insecure, or, and I'll give it to you, they're exhausted. I understand that. And a single mom trying to navigate their day and two jobs and school, I understand handing a kid a controller because it just keeps everybody happy. I get that.

I get it. I get it. But I just couldn't pull the plug. It's parents not owning up to their responsibilities and stepping in that gap and getting rid of the freaking controllers. All right. That's my aside. Go back, Julia. Yes, you're good.

So when I met him while we were dating, he was hardly playing at all, as far as I could tell. He was really involved in church. He was really thoughtful about dating. We had a really good social circle, and we were just always out and about doing stuff. He took good care of himself. And then after being married for a little bit, we've been married for four years now.

Um, like every six months or so, I just have to have like a complete breakdown to snap him out of it because he's just lost in his video game world. What does the lost mean? Like how many hours a day? Like at an absolute minimum, three to four hours. Typically, after a workday, seven to eight hours. And then on weekends, probably, like, double that at least. Wow. So this is a full-blown lifelong addiction. Yeah. Like, he gets home from work, and I'm like, hey, I need you to take care of the baby.

And he's like, okay, give me a minute. And he goes and logs in on his computer. And I'm like, I... Wow. So are these the multi-online player games? Do you have a whole community that he's going to, like, trolls and frogs and Navy snipers that he's running around with? Yeah. So it's really strange.

Sometimes he's like, oh, yeah, it's all about the community. It's because, you know, like, I need, like, my boys. He doesn't know any of these people in person, and he never will. Right. Because they're not real. Or they're middle schoolers in Russia. Right. God almighty. Yeah. Other times though, he's just mindlessly clicking and it's the same game he's played since he was a kid. And I, I actually like banned it for a while. I was like, I'm done. I like, this has to go away. And he humored me for like three or four months. And then

one day he was like, yeah, so I downloaded it on my phone. And I've been playing during my lunch breaks. And so I don't think it's that much of a problem. And he put it back on his computer again. And he needs to play it now. So what is your sex life like? What is your intimate life like? It's kind of gone away.

Some of that has to do with our baby being born this year and sleep deprivation and C-section recovery and PTSD and a number of things. Um, so back me up right before the baby was born, still four to six hours. I mean, I'm just looking at the math on the hours here, right? I mean, there's not a lot of time to squeeze in connection time. No, no, there's not. And I told him that too. He's like, like every once in a while he'll say, Oh, like, you know, like our intimate life has disappeared. I'm like, yeah, because like, I'm not a microwave. You can't just push a button and I'm ready to go. Like you have to actually pay attention to me. We have to do date night. We have to cuddle

sometimes without the expectation that that's going to happen, it takes effort on your part. And so sometimes he puts in that effort and other times he's like, I like it's too much. I'm just going to play my games because that's easy. Wow. So we'll talk about the video game thing here in a minute. I don't want you to blow by the sense of rejection and the sense of, um, I wish I had a better word for it. I'm kind of at a loss right now. The infidelity that he's choosing video games. He's choosing rolling around with middle school kids with his controllers as opposed to being with his wife. And I don't want you to miss that.

And I know that's easy to focus on the video game part, but that's got to suck, right? That hurts. Yeah. That hurts. Yeah. That hurts. Definitely. So I don't want to minimize this. There are guys who come home and numb out who don't either don't have the tools, and women do it too, right? There's men and women who don't have the tools to be in relationships.

They don't have the tools. You said you got a young kid, right? They don't have the tools for dealing with the stress and the overwhelming feelings of shame and what do I do when a newborn comes home? They don't know how to deal with rejection at work. That happens, right? And there's folks who spend one or two or three hours a night, four to six hours a night, eight to nine hours a night has so many derivative bad effects from lack of sleep to lack of human contact to literally living in a fantasy. That's every bit, as far as I'm concerned, as dangerous as an alcoholic addict, as someone

who's cheating on their wife, because they are choosing other behaviors or choosing other fake relationships to numb out and not have to deal with the person in front of them. And so now that you've got a daughter here, I want you to be very serious about thinking through protecting your daughter and his daughter from this level of disconnection, because she will quickly understand that she is in second place to a computer, that she is in second place to a distant father. More insidiously, it'll be a distant person who's in the same house, right? And a kid can not regulate well, but they understand the physical presence. Dad isn't here, right?

Dad left us. Dad moved out. Mom moved away. She's got a new husband. But when they're in the same room and they're distant from you, kids will backfill that with, this is my fault. This gap is my fault. And they will try all sorts of connecting, numbing behaviors to try to bridge that gap. And this is a serious thing. Again, just in my own house, just for what it's worth, there are no video game consoles. My kid wouldn't know how to turn a video game on. Now, I'm crazy about it, right? So I know

there's going to be a million people. You think the CrossFit community came after me. Man, the video game folks, I get it, right? But I want my kid to experience outside. I want my kid to experience playing baseball with dad, just throwing it back and forth. I had to learn, I'm still having to learn how to play dolls with my daughter, how to just be bored and be connected with my kids. And what they think is interesting, we're going to think is interesting. Or if I'm out doing yard work, my kids are coming with me. If I'm going hunting or fishing, my kids are going with me. And that's a part of the responsibility of having kids. Now, I don't want to say all video games are evil or whatever. That's just the stance I've taken, mainly because

I can't control myself. I don't mind saying this again on this podcast. A few years ago, before I knew there were a bunch of cheaters, I was a near religious Astros fan. And one of the things I gave myself for a gift was the MLB ticket. And so I ordered, I got all the Astros games just piped into my house. And I found myself getting home from work and I would just go lay on the couch. I was exhausted. I was on call 24-7, 365. I was just working, working, working. And I'd just go lay down. And my son came in one day and he asked me a question that was a dagger to my soul. And I really haven't picked up professional sports or college sports since.

Because I'd get home and I'd say, hey, son, why don't you come lay down and watch the game with me? We love the Astros together. And he'd say, well, let's just go play catch. And I'd be like, let's watch these guys. They're professionals. And that was my way of numbing out. I was exhausted. I didn't want to go chase a ball. He was like six or seven. He threw

the ball crazy all over the place. And then one day he came in and asked me this question. Hey, daddy. And it wasn't a drama question. It wasn't a guilt question. He was just like a seven-year-old or eight-year-old asking for facts, asking for data. Hey, Dad, do you love me as much as the Astros? I was like, say what? Do you love me as much as the Astros? Because I was laying on the couch watching him, and he was just standing there. And I looked at him and said, son, I love you more than I will ever, ever love the Astros. And I got up and turned off the game, and I really haven't gone back.

I really haven't gone back because my son is more important. My wife is more important. My daughter is more important. My community is more important than living in a fantasy world, than living in a fake world of elves and trolls and shooter games and all of the things while the world is spinning and passing us by. So for you, Julia, you've got to intervene. You've got to intervene in a significant way. And so I'm going to recommend you go meet with

a professional counselor to get some tools on how to identify your personal values, the values you're going to have in your home for raising your daughter. And of course, you're doing this with him. And you're going to have to come up with some or what behaviors, some or what ideas, because at this point, this is a lifelong thing. He is connected to this box. Your husband is, he's connected to this game, this, this pseudo fantasy community, and he's not going to be able to turn it off on his own. And you're not going to be able to have blowups. You're not going to be able to turn it off on his own. And you're not going to be able to have blowups. You're not going to be able to punish him into recovery. He's going

to have to decide, I want human interaction. I want to learn how to be uncomfortable with other people. I'm going to have to learn how to be disappointed and feel ashamed and feel nervous and feel sexy and feel loved. He's going to have to learn how to do all those feelings because his mom didn't teach him. His mom didn't teach him. And it is what it is. That's the husband you've got right now.

I hope beyond hope, beyond hope, he will lean in and say, you are right. My wife, my daughter, my family, my future is more important than an imaginary game. I hope you will. I hope you will. I hope you will. The tools are out there and the resources are out there. But at this point, Julia, all you can do is you can take care of you, your thoughts and your actions, and you've got to protect that daughter of hers. And so go see somebody ASAP, start working through this

process, and then be ready to have a good, deep, clarifying, boundary-filled conversation with your husband. And one last piece of advice. Don't have that conversation one night at midnight when you're just frustrated and you're angry. Set it up. Put it on the calendar. Make it a destination. Y'all go to breakfast. Have somebody come.

Take your daughter for vacation. And y'all go have this conversation in a controlled, quiet setting. And just say enough is enough. I'm not going to share my life and my daughter with a video game, period. I hope he turns around and I hope he realizes how important you and your daughter are. Call me back in a few weeks after you had this conversation. After you've had time to meet with a professional, I want to hear how this is going. And if he wants to call me, I'd love to talk to him too. Have him give me a call or shoot me an email at askjohn at ramseysolutions.com. That'd be fantastic. All right. So

as we wrap up today's show, man, we had some heavy ones today. It really kind of comes back to just being intentional with your kids, loving your kids, recognizing that they are important, that the person you chose to marry is important. They just are. And you choose, you choose, you choose, you choose. Love your kids, love your spouses, love yourself. All right, so as we wrap up, we're going to go to the song lyric of the day. I know I've talked about some fancy songs, but this one spoke to my heart back in 1997. I was in college. We had U2 was out The Beatles of course were doing their thing We had some extraordinary hip hop artists

But then out of nowhere Three Brothers hit the scene And just like Like a parachute of love and joy That dropped down in my heart The 1997 Legendary classic record Middle of Nowhere

By the one and only Hanson. They gave us mmm bop. Listen to the poetry here. You have so many relationships in this life, only one or two will last. You will go through all the pain and strife, then you turn your back and they're gone so fast. Oh yeah. And they're gone so fast, comma, yeah. So hold on to the ones who really care.

In the end, they'll be the only ones there when you get old and start losing your hair. Can you tell me who still will care? Can you tell me who still will care? Oh yeah. Get this. Mmm bop. Doobie doo bop.

Do bop. Doobie doo bop bop. Do bop. Yeah, yeah. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you.