The Dr. John Delony Show - How Do I Get My Husband To Grow Up?

Episode Date: January 18, 2023

Today, we hear from: - A wife stuck in a toxic cycle of enabling a husband who won’t work - A mom wondering how to set boundaries for her special-needs child who depends on technology - A woman unsure of how to help her family heal from trauma they’ve recently gone through Lyrics of the Day: "No Scrubs" - TLC Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. He will not keep a job. He doesn't know what he wants to do, doesn't want to work just any job. So he's working no job? Correct. And he's got two little babies at home? Yes. And he's got a wife, that means you're having to keep the lights on and

the rent paid, right? Yeah. I don't mean to be rude, but this guy's pretty lame. What up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you are joining us. We're making YouTube and podcast magic on the greatest mental health and marriage and relationship podcast ever recorded. So glad that you're with us. If you want to be on the show, here's my promise. I'll tell the truth. I'll tell you if I don't know, I'll tell you what I would do if I was in your situation. I would tell you the same things I would tell my brother, my sister, people that I love in my life. And I'll promise to sit down with you and we'll figure out what to do next. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at

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please hit that big old subscribe button that's such a gift to everybody all right let's go to nina pinta and santa maria in springfield missouri what's up hey how are you? Thanks for taking my call. Of course. What's up? So how do I stop enabling my husband so that he can step up without relying on me to pick up the fly? Tell me more. So we've been married for about two and a half years. Okay. We now have two kids, two little babies um, he will not keep a job. He doesn't know what he wants to do.

Um, doesn't want to work just any job. Um, so he's working no job. Correct. And he's got two little babies at home. Yes. And he's got a wife. That means you're having to keep the lights on and the rent paid, right? Yes.

I don't mean to be rude, but this guy's pretty lame. A little bit. I totally understand. I don't know what job I want to do. I don't want to work the perfect job, whatever. But dude, get a job at McDonald's. You got bills to pay. You got little kids. Was this... Is this the guy you married or is there a bait and switch that happened here?

I guess kind of explain that a little bit with the bait and switch. Has he always been a guy that's got a scheme? He's like, and then I'm going to buy duplexes and then I'm going to get rich. Has he always been that guy? Or was he a really hard worker then he had baby number one and he just hit a wall and then he quit and then he kind of stumbled and fumbled around and then he had baby two and he's just kind of he's kind of taken

over him like a like an illness no so we had kind of met in the middle of like covid and the quarantine and all that um we actually met and married within like three or four months so it's kind of all like catching up to me now all right so yeah um so during that time he had worked with family, odd jobs, handyman kind of work. So nothing. Exactly. Yes.

With kind of the promise of, yeah, I think I want to do military, or I think I want to do this, I want to do that. This is what I'm going to do. He always comes up with good plans, or at least puts found and try to come up with a good plan, but is terrible at following through. Can I ask a question? This is me. I want to throw a dart up against a wall. And you'd be happy to say like, nope, missed that one. How, okay, either one of two things, got an alcohol problem or some sort of substance abuse problem or his mom's still involved.

His mom. Oh my gosh. Are you for real? Very, very serious, yes. Do y'all live with them? So we did for a lot of last year. Do y'all still live in the same town? We do.

So what role does mom play in your life? She, I try to keep it as, you know, we still visit her. She babysits the kids once a week. I'll try to kind of keep up boundaries. What is he doing? What is your husband doing during the week? During the week? Yeah.

He sits at home. Doing what? I have no idea. Have you sat down and looked at him and said, what do you do during the day? I have a few times, and it's usually I just sit on the phone,

watch TV, take a nap. And what is your response to this? Before, I would try to encourage him to start? Before, I would try to encourage him to start a hobby and maybe find Get a job!

In hopes of finding a career, I would encourage him to study different... We are nowhere near a career at this point. Here's the deal. You married a career at this point. So here's the deal. You married a seventh grade boy. I did.

You married a seventh grade boy whose mommy still helps him make sure his underwear is clean. And his mommy is still directing traffic for him and his little girlfriend, who happens to be his wife and the mother of his two kids and a professional. What do you do for a living? So I'm self-employed. Um, I am, I am a hairstylist and I manage an office. Awesome. Oh, so cool. Two jobs and mother of two. Um, and it's not as though he's like a, like y'all have sat down and planned this out and he's a stay at home dad and he's takes care of all the laundry and all of the dishes and make sure dinner's

ready when you get home. None of that's happening. Is that right? We, I tried to earlier this year when we moved into the home we're currently in, I sat down with him and I said, if this is, if this is what you want, if you want to be a stay athome dad, I can make that work. If you're going to do that, then here's a list of cooking, cleaning, taking care of the babies. If we're going to switch roles, then we need to do it, I guess, as equally as possible. And then did he call his mommy and say, she's being mean again. She wants me to do dishes. And mom said,

oh, hell no. No baby of mine is going to be doing dishes. That's a woman's work. Is that what happened? Well, she was kind of on board. She was on my side at the beginning of this year. As long as I've never disagreed with what she wants.

Oh my gosh, this is such a wreck Okay, I'm just going to stop you, Nina I'm just going to stop you Yep All of the things you've tried have involved him Getting him to do things That's not working The only move you have left is to take care of you.

Okay. I don't know that you're quote unquote, enabling him as much as, enabling him would be like you buy him alcohol. I mean, you're allowing him to live in your house, which I guess is some sort of enabling, but I don't view it as enabling so much as this is not the life you thought you'd be living two kids in. Fair? This is madness. It's madness. And I know you probably feel sometimes like, am I crazy?

No, you're not crazy. This is insane. Your husband is completely bumming out on you. And as a husband and father of two myself, it's despicable and it's gross. And I would tell him so to his face if he was sitting right here. It's embarrassing. Okay. You don't deserve this. Your kids don't deserve this. And God's sake, he doesn't deserve this. He deserves a better life than the one he's waking up every day and choosing to live. a hotel, to go spend half day, whatever you need to do. And I know you can't afford it and other things are tight right now because you have a bum for a piece of paper, with a notebook, go to Walmart and get it for 99 cents. And just write down, here's what I need. Here's the life that I want. I want someone who has a job, who helps with the kids, who is a partner in this whole thing.

Not that is waiting to transition from one mother to another mother, which is what he's doing. He's got two moms, right? When I get home, I need this. When I get home, I will not do this. I need a husband who is working and helping, or I need a husband who is a full-time stay-at-home dad who is plugged all the way in. I've got several friends-time stay-at-home dad who is plugged all the way in. I've got several friends who have stay-at-home husbands. They're amazing. They're busting their butts, man. It's wild how good they are at it. But it is, they're all in. And top of that list, his mom does not get a vote, any sort of input whatsoever. Tell him you are not married to his mom.

He needs to break up with his mother because if he still wanted to live in her house, he shouldn't have married you. He shouldn't have slept with you and had two kids. That ship has sailed, right? She doesn't get a vote anymore. And you're trying to keep boundaries and keep her happy and make sure you don't cross her those days have to come to an end because those things are coming at the expense of your soul right yes you're carrying too much sister so what you're describing with the sitting down and telling him what i need, that actually happened twice in the last two months. Okay.

The first time I actually, I sat down and I told him what I wanted. It actually is mostly through text because he doesn't like to have conversations in person. Listen, that's got to stop. Electronic communication is the absolute worst way to communicate something this serious. Here's where you are. This marriage is not even on life support. This marriage is about to be pronounced dead. And then you get to choose how long you want to play married until he moves on to some other woman who's going to support him or make him feel loved. Because my wife don't make me feel loved no more in between waking up

and having Bush Tallboys and Dr. Pepper for breakfast and playing Fortnite and then going back to bed, right? And so he's going to find somebody else or his mom is going to whatever. Or you are going to find somebody else. You're going to find somebody else you're gonna find somebody at work that's actually kind and treat you with dignity and respect and you're gonna end up violating your own values so this thing is on life support as it is so it's not time to like dance around the edges anymore it's time to go and turn all the lights on and say

um you you had a here's what i want here's what I want. Here's what I need. Did you add a, or what statement to that? I added an or leave statement. Did you? And I did. And, um, he did leave, uh, when it was kind of contingent on a job and he woke up and decided he wasn't going. So I said, okay, there's the, there's the, or leave. You made that decision. So I piled his things by the door and he left. Um, and then in less than 24 hours, it was, no, I need you. Please let me come back home.

I don't have anywhere to go. And I told him, I was like, nope, there's your mom's or um shelters or anywhere else and he he always manages to talk himself himself back in no no no no you he doesn't manage to talk himself back in you allow it true you allow it is he even on the rent i mean is he even on the lease here he is yes okay so he's got a legal claim to his own house right yes and he's got a legal claim to his own children right right yeah and so you're you're a little 24 basically you're giving him like a a timeout and he's probably been getting little timeouts and slaps on his hand his whole life and like the great chuck pollenhook says your life is ending one minute at a time.

And maybe no one's ever told you this, but you're worth more than your husband is treating you right now. And you're worth more than working two jobs, coming home, seeing his feet propped up and him looking at you going, hey, the kid's diaper needs to be changed. What's for dinner? Is that how you grew up? Did you see that growing up? No. Complete opposite. Okay. change what's for dinner is that how you grew up did you see that growing up no complete opposite okay um we were raised to be uh very independent and to work hard and um and i did see a consistent family my dad uh self-employed, very hard worker. My mom took care of several of us kids.

And they worked as a really great team. And I knew I wouldn't have that exactly. Because, you know, you're never going to have picture perfect of what you think. But it's nowhere near. Yeah. So I've said this on the show before and I stand by this. Um, I think we often, we often take the word infidelity and we, we, we too narrowly define it into, are you having sex with somebody other than me i think infidelity i think fidelity i think commitment to is much broader than body parts and sex fidelity is i'm all in on this thing

and you're all in on this thing and so i would characterize what's happening as infidelity. He's taking advantage of you. And there's two kids in the mix too. And they are watching. Oh, this is how dads are supposed to act. This is how marriage works. This is what mom looks like.

And I'm not telling you for a second to divorce the guy. I can't do that. I wouldn't do that. That's for you. I'm not telling you to kick him out. I'm telling him, I'm telling you, you focusing on him, trying to get him to change his life is not working.

It hasn't worked. It's not gonna work. The only thing you can focus on moving forward is here's what I need and here's my or what statement. And you know what? I'm not, I'm taking the two kids and we're going to leave.

Or if he, I mean, if he walks out the door, I don't think you can legally keep him out of his own home, but if he chooses to leave, cool, and goes back to his mommy's house. But this whole thing, man, it's a mess, and it starts and ends with you deciding I'm worth more than this.

And I guess it also starts and ends with him deciding to stop dishonoring his wife and stop dishonoring his children and stop dishonoring himself and get up and be an active participant in his home. Because the kids are suffering, you're suffering, and he's suffering. And enough is enough is enough. I'm heartbroken for you. The three-month COVID romance isn't turning out to be what you thought it was going to be.

Maybe it's time for one more. this is the way this will be. I'm going to pay to get out of this lease and I'm out. I won't make that call for you, but you need to get some people in your life that you can sit down and work this through. Stick to your boundaries. You're worth it. We'll be right back. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. We'll be right back. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new home buyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage.

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Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillmortgage.com slash Deloney and get the home buyer edge today. Hey, that last call is going to take me a minute. It's got the oogs all over me. During the break, I told that guy, I told that last caller, I'm not going to tell you to leave him. During the break, Kelly goes, I will. Good job, Kelly.

Guys, you got to get a job. I'm just working on my neck. Get a freaking job. Find your career later. You got bills to pay. You got kids. Also, help around the house. I don't clean off the toilet seat.

Shut up. Clean off the toilet seat. Help with the dishes. They're sitting right there. You used half of them. Clean the bottles up. Help out. Vacuum for God's sake.

Take your wife's car every Sunday night and go fill it up with gas for her so she has gas for Monday. Change the way you treat people. You're such a simp. Shut up. You don't even know what that word means. Treat your partner with dignity and respect and kindness. Go first. This whole – I just hate seeing this data.

People not helping around the house Be better Raise the game dude Raise the game Alright let me shake that off Like an old hound dog And let's go out to Randy in Hanover What's up Randy?

Hi Dr. John Such an honor to speak with you It's an honor to speak with you Hope you're doing well What's up? Thank you. So I have another hot button topic, it sounds like. Push it, push it.

Let's do it. Thank you. So my main question is- Push it real good. All right, let's do it. Sorry, sorry. I'm singing. It's all right.

No, it's good to sing. I think so too. So the main question is if, and if so, how there can be a healthy relationship between screens and connectivity and connection, especially when it comes to special needs families who often rely heavily on technology and screens to help address everything from chronic medical issues, communication of basic needs and daily task completion. And I have quite a bit of, you know, background for that as far as it relates to our family, if I could kind of summarize that briefly.

Of course. So thank you. So I grew up as an older sister to a paralyzed sibling and she used screens as an escape to experience the world that was largely inaccessible to her. She still does. I swore up and down that my family would never have a relationship like that with technology. But you fast forward a few years down the road and after a very painful battle with infertility, I became a 23-year-old new mom to a 23-week gestation, 14-ounce micropremie. And she fought for her life in an out-of-state NICU with my husband at her side while he was in school. And I was working full-time as a nurse, and I went to graduate school full-time for my doctorate as a family nurse practitioner. And in that season, technology in the form of phone calls and videos and pictures from my husband were the only connection I had with my daughter. She had a 7% chance of survival.

But fast forward another seven years down the road, and now I'm an independent clinician. I work in a rural community, and I'm also a mom to that same little girl. She's seven years old. She's a warrior and a survivor. She has severe nonverbal autism. She has an autoimmune disease, and she has seizures. And so now technology and electronic communication, tech systems, videos, games, that's kind of been our only way to really connect with her and that we've found to break into her world and try to bridge her into ours gradually. My husband and I really want more for our family than a life tethered to court these screens, but we're completely overwhelmed and a bit crushed by the situation. We're fighting really hard to try to build a real life and trying to set guiding routines and boundaries to encourage us all to be more present.

But our daughter struggles deeply to connect without technology-driven tools and often screaming and violent meltdowns are what results with us trying to disconnect from them. It leaves us exhausted and more isolated than we already were. So we live in a really rural community, limited resources. We're doing lots of therapies. We have counselors and she's an amazing school system that's trying to help her. But actually a lot of the tools that the school have

are technology based too. So we're grateful for the process, the progress she's made. She had no words until she was five. She's just now starting to use very simple sentences. Wow. Making better, yeah, it's a miracle. We're so grateful. That's so cool. She's making now starting to use very simple sentences. Wow. Making better. Yeah, it's a miracle. We're so grateful.

So cool. She's making better eye contact, but she struggles with touch and sensitivity. And it's just a lot. So I actually know that from the work that I do working with families, I have a family practice provider now, and I see a lot of children with autism. This is a really common problem. And I just would love to hear what your input would be. Are you also asking me because I'm so outspoken about screens? Somewhat.

So I am an avid listener, and I really, truly, deeply respect where you're coming from. I was raised without screens. My dad is passionate about that, and I'm grateful for it. I've gotten experiences I never would have had otherwise. I had to learn technology in order to go through school and grad school. It was kind of a lot for me because I was so disconnected from it. And I wanted more of that. I saw what my experience my sister had growing up versus what I've had and then families that have come in the past years.

And I wanted to be different. But, you know, we're finding that things don't always past years and I wanted to be different, but, you know, um, we're finding that things don't always go exactly how we wanted. And, um, I've loved a lot of things that you've said, but I've struggled to try to find application for our situation. So just wanted to get your insight. Um, so first and foremost, thanks for, thanks for doing such a great job articulating your story. And here's what it sounds like to me. Number one, and I'll get to the screen stuff. It sounds like there literally is nothing in the world you can't accomplish.

And you're like the nursing David Goggins. It's like 200 miles, rice, done, right? In the middle of the night, done. There's nothing you can't put your mind to. And are you still married? Yeah, very happily. I wouldn't do this without him. Well, I was going to say, it sounds like you and your husband,

it sounds like he's a gangster too. And together, you are this unstoppable force and really in a in a i wish there was a like a more diplomatic way to say this but y'all have the opportunity to impose your will on the world because you're both really smart you're both really driven you both had resources you both had great parents and you both have figured out a way to do just about whatever you want and then you ran into this baby little girl that was possibly um outside of your sister your first tangible grasp of oh i don't control hardly anything and that's that's it's unmooring right yeah we Yeah. We've tried. We're like, we'll just stay in grad school.

We'll keep pushing. We'll keep doing. And I mean, we did. And then we've looked up and we're like, oh, but it wasn't magic. Life is still actually really hard. It's the worst. Yeah, it's the worst. And here's what, it doesn't make it better.

I don't want to say that or make it worse. But you have a lot of the answers. Yeah. And it's like, you're still looking through the glass. Like when you have a newborn and they're in that little incubator thing and you can see your baby, but you can't touch them. That's how you feel right now.

Cause you've got all the answers. You know the X's and O's. You have your own family practice. You work with people struggling and they come to you for answers. And then you turn to face your own baby girl and you can't reach through that glass. And it feels powerless. Yeah. And it's scary, right?

Absolutely. And the people I love whose kids have autism, there are people who are close to me. I can't think of I mean yes there's I can think of a couple of things but sometimes the only thing that keeps

me from just setting myself on fire because my kids have driven me crazy is that moment when they curl up in my lap is touch the ability to give touch and receive touch and for kids who have high touch sensitivities who um are neural divergent it's like it's like you it's like you're out to sea and every third breath you take is underwater because you're just bobbing out there. Right?

Exactly how it is. I just want to hug my girl and I can't because hugging her is the worst thing for her. And weirdly, physiologically, it would probably be helpful overall to body inflammation and to neural regulation and all the polyvagal stuff. It would help, but it can't. Yep. And so we just sit there and we drown together. And I'm heartbroken with you, but I want you to hear me say I hear you, okay? Thank you.

Thank you. I really appreciate that. Take all the crap I've said about screens and take it out in the backyard and bury it with a big pile of horse cha-cha, right? Is that cool? Yes. Technology is incredible. And I often say things to hit the pendulum because people are frozen in certain paradigms. I've got friends who play travel sports and their kids are amazing and

they've chosen travel sports and they live it and they love it and they would want no other things. And it's the parent's job to put some brakes on that, but I fully support it. And there's millions of other parents who use travel sports as a way to prop themselves up. Right. Right. Similar with screens. When I left, ready for my dirty little secret? When I left the office this morning, my son managed to pull off straight A's this semester. How he did that? I don't know.

I don't know. Because I know his grades were in the last week before. I don't know how it happened. But he did. And he also got up before God was awake this morning and did all of his farm, I call them his farm chores, his banjo chores. He was out there with the chickens and getting the dogs set up

and getting all the water and it's freezing. When I left the house, he had done everything. He was playing his old Wii, a video game. America, my kid was playing a video game. Okay. a video game America my kid was playing a video game okay and he had earned that right and it's we're paying close attention to it he's not playing

online games with strangers who are grooming him for things and he's got an hour he's got a time limit but I want you to hear me say you are doing what you can to breathe. And you mentioned it a couple of times. I just want to call it out.

You and your husband want these things to be different, and right now they're not. And so at some point, your path to wellness is not to continue to go to war with reality. It's to accept and own reality. This is for us right now that makes that makes a lot of sense and so here's the magic here's how you do that it's the awful g word you have to grieve it and every time you run up against something that says hey we wanted to but we can't you hear how i said that like i I really want to go on experiences and go out

and put the stupid phones down and go outside but we can't because we're on the razor's edge of another meltdown and I can't do another meltdown tonight

right and so for 13 seconds I'm gonna go sucks my husband doesn't suck I don't suck. I don't suck. My daughter doesn't suck. This just sucks. And then I'm going to exhale real deeply. I'm going to drop my shoulders and then I'm going to head back in and fire it up, dude. Let's get connected.

Absolutely. See what I'm saying? Go ahead. Yeah. And that's super helpful because I don't want to hurt her with what we do, but I've seen it help in so many ways. You know, when we started, she didn't make eye contact and now she speaks it out and she asks us to, you know, she'll bring us into whatever game she's playing because that's just what speaks to her. And she she's starting to really grow beyond that. And I want to try to bridge it and find ways to connect with her. And she's even, you know,

she has struggled with touch, but now it started off in the middle of the night. She'd push up her hands underneath us because she sleeps in bed with us a lot because of the seizures. And so we would find like when she wasn't even conscious of it, she was seeking it.

And then now she'll come and ask us to hold her sometimes and to hug her. And so I've seen it grow and it's just little when we can capture it. And so if there's ways to try to bring her back into, you know, outside and world and not the screen, I want to do that. But I tried,

I tried just cold Turkey. I'm going to go and just give her screen time, but then try to have it otherwise. But it took away her voice. I mean, that's how she talks to us. And so don't take that from her. That was really, yeah. That was so hard to realize that that's, you know, like you said,

it's the reality. So I've been trying to do some grieving for that, but then also trying to build on what we do have because it's going to be a little tiny moment. Be so grateful that you live in this weird sliver of history where they got this, all this stuff that could just be in your house. Right. Right. This stuff that was more powerful than what they put people on the moon with, the computers they used. And now we have them all over our house, everywhere.

Right. So it's a moment to celebrate. It's a season to celebrate. And you're seeing the fruits. Here's what, when it comes to screens, here's what I am super against. I'm against digital babysitters. I'm against parents opting out of their children's lives or their partner's lives.

Now we've got grownups playing video games all the time who do it as a way to occupy their kids so that they don't have to interact with their kids so they can do more quote unquote important things. That is not what you are doing. In fact, screens are a connection tool. And I have looked at some of the research and I've got to be humble to it because I'm not above scientific literature. I'm just not. And parents who play video games with their kids together, man, there's some pretty neat connections that happen there. That's awesome.

I have to own that. I wish it wasn't the case. I wish it only was dads out playing soccer with their kids. It's not real. Okay. The deal is connection. The deal is connection. The deal is connection. And this, these, these are proving to be, these technological advancements are proving to be an avenue of connection for you and your kid. Take them, take them, take them. Okay. Thank you so much for that. That, that means a lot. Be at peace, be at peace. And every once in a while, try cold turkey. Try to say, hey, let's go outside. We do. We do.

I know you will. I know you will. But you'll feel it gunning up and you'll be like, nope, turn it around. Going back inside. And we're going to give it a shot. Right. Or maybe we move. We get one of those cheap TV Roku things. We put it on the front porch and we, that way we're watching TV outside.

Maybe that's the way we can slowly integrate it in we do we have a we have a projection screen on our porch we do actually do that way ahead of the game see listen can i tell you your baby girl won the freaking lottery getting you as mom oh thank you that means a lot can i also say one more thing that you didn't that you can just say hey you edit that out you piece of crap I also say one more thing that you didn't that you can just say hey you edit that out you piece of crap can I say one more thing yes please

she's not your fault thank you she's not that means a lot that means a lot I want you to set that down you didn't do this to her thank you

I didn't need to hear that I don't know how you knew, but I did need that. You'll need to hear that over and over and over and over. You did not do this to her. The cosmos selected you and you and your husband are doing an incredible job of loving this little girl. Thank you. You understand when my little girl comes in and pinches me or just whaps me for some reason. I don't understand it. Her love language is BAM! I will remember this conversation that I had with you

because I can't imagine what you'd give up to have your daughter come in and just grab you, right? I take it for granted. And you get the, I can't imagine, if my kids started shoving their hands under my back while I was sleeping, I would want to chop them off. And for you, it is this, it was a moment directly from God himself, right? It was a moment of connection and peace. And so you are living a life, you're getting to see life below life, right? And that's

a gift, but this is not your fault. It's not by your hand, but it's in your lap and you're doing a really amazing job. Okay. Thank you so much. I truly appreciate it. I could, I was trying to guess what you would say and this is not what it was. So thank you. The insight is amazing.

Truly. I appreciate it. And it helps a lot. Thank you. Awesome. Um, now your husband's going to take this. He's going to go want to buy all the Grand Theft Autos.

Not what I'm saying, but I don't know. I don't even mind for him. Fair enough. Y'all are putting the time in. Right now, I'm in no place to tell y'all what to do, anything. Y'all get through your days the best you can. And please do this. Make sure you check in with each other, you and your husband.

Make sure you all stay connected through this whole journey. Stay together. God, y'all are amazing. I'm honored to have gotten to spend some time with you. We'll be right back. All right, let's take one more. Let's go to Angela in Colorado Springs. What's up, Angela? Hi, John. How are you?

Good. How are you? I am well today. That's an excellent qualifier. Today? Yeah. I'm all right. Yeah. I'll take my wins. There you go. So how can to him. What's up? Oh,

okay. So we are about two and a half months into, um, a few transitions and traumas. My husband just recently returned from his fourth deployment and we have three children, 16, 12 and three. And just shortly after he returned from his deployment, my oldest daughter, one of her closest friends and one of our neighbors, a 16-year-old boy, committed suicide.

Oh, man. And so we are, like I said, today is a good day. We go through cycles and transitions. And I just want to be sure that we're bonding as a family and that my kids have what they need and my marriage has what it needs. And that I'm taking care of myself as well throughout all of these transitions and traumas right now. Yeah, no kidding. How has reentry been for you and your husband? It was great the first couple of weeks and then that's fantasy land. Yeah. Yes. Um, the first few weeks of return are always uncomfortable and awesome because you

can just make out and it's all better. And then all of a sudden after that, I'm right. Right. And then after that, it's like, Oh gosh, we live together now. Yeah. Yeah. And I struggle with transitions anyways. And so it's now we're coming back around, but there are moments where it's, it's a struggle. Yeah. And you're being super, super vague. What does that mean? I struggle.

Like he's struggling with PTSD. He's not sleeping. He just keeps shaving and leaving little hairs all over the sink. And you're about to stab him with his own toothbrush. Like, what do you like? He had an affair while he was over there. You had an affair. Give me a range of what we're dealing with.

I think it's mostly me. There's no PTSD. He does really well with his self-care and taking care of his mental health. There was nothing traumatic that he experienced all over there. It really was just the fact of us being away from each other, creating our own routines, being in that transition after they leave, then I'm in my own thing. I'm in my own space. I'm taking care of the kids the way that I do it. And then they come back and there was some time that he was home on leave and it was good. And then now he's

going back to work a couple of weeks ago. So now it's a whole new set of circumstances and routines. And it just seems like there's no consistency in schedule right now, especially in the midst of the holidays as well. Absolutely. So when things feel this chaotic, the most important thing you can give yourself, there's two important things. Number one, your body is desperately seeking for homeostasis, for stability. Okay. That's not going to exist for a season.

It's very similar to like, it's winter. It's going to be cold this week. My body will be searching for warmth. It will not find it outside with me standing there in my underwear. It just won't. I'm going to have to either go inside where there's a heater on, or I'm going to have to change my, I'm going to put on a lot of clothes, a lot of layers and jackets, but I'm going to have to do something different because it's just simply not going to be warm outside. I got to own that. That's reality. So instead of your body every day being frustrated and beating

your head up against the wall and starting to get angry, starting to get resentful that, well, now the schedule is goofy again and I was going back to work and now there's this, and now we got to get in a car and drive to, instead of beating yourself up that way, this leads me to number two. You can grasp for what you can control which is Maybe day by day maybe week by week And if you use the magic sentence What does your picture of today look like? What does your picture of this week look like and y'all commit to doing that every day tell your husband? I need this right now because i'm still toggling you weren't here and then you were back and you left to get it out of your back.

And by the way, then you're now you're going back to work and now we're going to be on the road. A gift to me is how do you imagine, how do you see today going? And I'll pitch in on what I've seen and we're going to be very clear together. And so we're going to slowly practice bringing stability back into our lives. It's not just going to magically be here. And by the way, as soon as you get it, it's going to take about 18 months to be like, all right, now we're here. And then your 16-year-old is going to go to college and the whole thing starts over again. Right? Yeah.

This is the rest of our lives, as frustrating as that sounds. And so most people spend most of their time at war with change I have chosen to Love it Now I have to lie to myself sometimes because I don't always love it. But cool doing something different today. What's it going to be? And it's just it's a skill. It's something you practice over and over again, but it starts minute by minute day by day Would your husband sit down with you for 10 minutes in the morning? It's a skill. It's something you practice over and over again. But it starts minute by minute, day by day. Would your husband sit down with you for 10 minutes in the morning just to say, hey, what's your picture of today look like?

Yes, he is good at those types of things. Okay. I would maybe for the first time in a long time, because you've been survival, you've been a single mom, I would start to write down on a piece of paper, here's what I need in this new season. And it's still strange to me when we write, my wife and I do this exercise in this new season, here's what I need. And it's like, I just need you here. I think I've talked about on the show. Sometimes my wife will say for the next few months, I just need chit chat. I don't really know what that means, but I sit at the counter and we just talk about whatever. And for her, that makes her whole parasympathetic nervous system kick in. You see what I'm saying? Like being able to say, here's what I need right now. I just need you to sit by me and hold my hand. I need you just to

watch a show with me. I need you to, can we just tell funny jokes? Will you just to watch a show with me i need you to can we just tell funny jokes when you just read from an old book for me i don't know what you need but let's have that conversation as it relates to your daughter um a couple of things you can do number one i would have her um write him a letter okay um but how much she misses him how much she's how mad she is at him um what he's gonna miss this upcoming year but encourage her to write that letter um and maybe there'll be a second or third letter over time but this is one of those formative moments she'll remember this moment for the rest of her life. She's not going to remember the things you said unless you say something really stupid,

which no pressure, right? But she will remember that mom showed up and mom was warm. And mom kept showing up and mom kept showing up and mom kept showing up. Mom believed me. Mom listened to me. Mom held my hand.

Mom took me for ice cream. Mom listened when I read that letter. And here's another important thing you could do. You can write a letter to him and you can read it to your daughter and let her know this freaked you out and this broke your heart. And that way she doesn't feel so crazy anymore

because right now she feels isolated, alone. If she knows mom's hurting too, then she feels connected to somebody. How's that sound? It sounds good. Why are you crying? And the mama bear comes out. I don't know what she's experiencing I can't get in her head

that's why writing down is so important because it takes what's inside and puts it outside yeah yeah and some kids really need to talk and verbally process this I remember when my friend Greg died when I was 14

I sat in my room and I held my dog and I wept hard all by myself. I remember that. I remember when a boy a little bit older than me died by suicide and I went in my room and I just wept alone all by myself. That's what I needed. And then there was another season when there was a tragic bus wreck when a bunch of young people were hurt or killed. And I had to go, I've got on a plane and flew home because I just needed to see my dad. I need to see my mom. So it's been different moments and different seasons of my life, different tragedies, different things going on. My brain couldn't compute a bus full of kids getting

in a wreck. It couldn't compute it. It overloaded. And I needed to go sit down and see somebody, talk to somebody who was safe. And so it's just going to depend. Let your daughter guide that, but it's the, let's just keep showing up. Let's start going to breakfast together once a week I gotta go get gas Will you come with me? No, you're coming with me You have to come You can choose either Sonic or Dairy Queen But you gotta come

And by the way, if you choose Dairy Queen We're all gonna have indigestion That's very true But you see what I'm saying? I'm going to show up It's less about having all the right things to say. And more about, I just kept showing up and I just kept showing up and I just kept showing up.

And I'm going to encourage her to write, to talk, to sing. If that's what she does, to play guitar. Yeah. Music is her life. Yeah.

Maybe ask her to write him a song. Okay. And then play it for you okay creativity helps a lot but it's that mama bear don't steal grief from her don't steal her uncomfortable feelings from her she has to be uncomfortable

a friend of hers died she's going to ask that question. What could I have done? What should I have done? And that's when some wise counsel can be. He wasn't okay. And there was things going on in his heart. And in his mind.

In his home. That you will never know about. It's heartbreaking. Can I read you the letter I wrote to him? And that's how we're going to slowly get into that conversation. So one other thing before I let you go. It's really easy when we have a ton of stuff going on for it all to blur together on us.

We got holidays and we got husband coming back home. And now we've got this suicide in our neighborhood. And plus I've got this Christmas party for my little one. It feels like it's all coming down and it's not. There's three or four really heavy things right now. So let's be really intentional about pulling those apart because sometimes we can really be having a tough month financially and we had a fight and there's a Christmas party and it just feels like the world's collapsing on us. And it's not, we have three hard situations. I'm going to start driving for Uber, I'm effective immediately. You and I, let's sit down on Saturday and let's go to breakfast together and let's talk through this because you're my one and only. Let's figure this thing out.

And let's play paper, rock, scissors. We've got to go to this Christmas party, right? Let's pull these things apart, control what we can control and not let the smoke of what it feels like. Everything's on fire. It's not. There's just three small fires burning or three big fires burning, but they're all different fires. It takes a lot of patience and it takes a lot of courage to wade into those individual fires. And for most of us, we can't see it when the smoke's so clear,

so thick. And that's when we have to get friends and other people in our lives who walk with us and go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's just three fires burning. It's just four fires burning. Let's attack each one of these things and get them knocked out. The smoke will clear on its own. Your husband's lucky to have you, Angela. So those little ones. I'm sorry about your loss. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings

and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. As we wrap up today's show, this song is for the caller who got her husband at Sucks R Us. Song's

by the great TLC. It's called No Scrubs, and it goes like this. A scrub is a guy that thinks he's fly and is also known as a buster. Always talking about what he wants and just sits on his broke ass.

So no, I don't want your number. No, I don't want to give you mine. No, I don't want to meet you nowhere. No, I don't want none of your time. And oh man, I don't want no scrub. A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from me. Hanging out on the passenger side of his best friend's ride, trying to holler at me.

I don't want no scrub. America, stop being scrubs! Actually, almost all of you aren't. Y'all are awesome. But there's a few of you, and I'm watching you. We'll see you soon. you