The Dr. John Delony Show - How Do I Make Friends as an Adult?

Episode Date: December 16, 2022

On this episode, we hear from: - A man whose social anxiety prevents him from cultivating the friendships he deeply desires - A woman worried about moving away from her special-needs brother when she gets married - A husband wondering if he should buy a gun against his wife’s wishes to protect his family Lyrics of the Day: "21 Guns" - Green Day  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. If we were to get engaged or married, I would have to move an hour away from my family. I'm feeling really guilty about that because I have a brother with special needs. My mom and my brother really depend on me. I think you should feel really guilty because you're destroying your family. I'm totally kidding, Kim. Hello, hello. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

What are you doing? I hope you have survived Thanksgiving and you are preparing for the next holiday. Boy, boy, I can't wait. My Thanksgiving was magic. It was low, low key. Just our family and another family. Our family and another family. And we just chilled.

I played spike ball. If you haven't played that, it's incredible. And you end up diving around your front yard. And there's just ACLs and hips and elbows flying everywhere. So fun. Talk trash with some high school kids. It was just good for my soul. Hope you had a good one too.

Many of you did not. And that's why you're here listening to this show. Trying to figure out what you're going to do next. And that's what we're here for. On the greatest mental health podcast ever. If you want to be on this show, give me a call. 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K, ask.

Kelly, good Thanksgiving for you? Yeah, we had a nice one. We went down to my in-laws in Alabama. It was good. I ate too much food. Alabama. Is there just banjos that start playing when you cross a line? Kind of.

Feels that way sometimes. All the radio stations switch. Yeah, immediately to, what's that song from? Deliverance. I wasn't going there, but I was just thinking bluegrass-y, but just kidding. That's where I was going. All right. Hey, before you send me your cards and letters, I love Alabama.

I'm way to go. All right. Let's go to Avery in New York. New York. What's up, Avery? Hi, Dr. John. What's up? It's an honor to be speaking with you.

It's an honor to be speaking with you. You're a fan of the show. Thank you so much. What are you doing? Um, so I have a social anxiety as well as trust issues, which makes it hard for me to make friends. Ah. Um, but then I get like anxiety about the anxiety. I start overthinking it. I want to know like, what's the healthy approach to just like get out of this

vicious cycle loop. Can I go one more? So you have social anxiety. So the idea of being with people, is it with crowds or with groups or just one-on-one is all of all the interactions just make you anxious, make you uncomfortable. Yeah. So groups especially, but even one-on-one in the beginning till I like till I get comfortable with

the person. Okay. So then you start thinking about,-on-one in the beginning until I get comfortable with the person. Okay. So then you start thinking about, you start getting anxious about the anxiety. And then have you white-knuckled it and just tried to push on through, which makes you super awkward and off-putting when you finally get in the social situations, which makes everybody kind of back up a little bit. And that makes your anxiety alarms even louder. And then it just starts looping on you. Yeah, that's true. And also I have the trust issues come up.

Where does that come from? So it comes from basically my mom has bipolar. So she was like out of the picture when I was, she a, in a ward when I was young, like. Oh, so she was institutionalized. Okay. For, for your whole childhood? So like for like two years from like, I don't know, two to like four. Oh, wow.

Okay. And, uh, my dad is like old school. He's very like tough. So. Okay. Um, yeah. very like tough so okay um yeah so i'm gonna in just a few minutes of time we have here i'm gonna draw a thread it may or may not be right but it's close enough for what we need to do to move forward okay okay those years zero to four are some of the most if not the most important relational years of a young developing mind and

body. Okay. And what that little child desperately needs is affirmation, skin to skin contact, presence, eye contact that is like, I see you and I'm experiencing you from both mom and yes, dad too. Okay. And you didn't get that. You should have got it. And I'm sorry that you didn't get it. Trauma has been labeled the things that happened to you, but trauma is also the things that should have happened to you that didn't. And so I don't want you to minimize what a huge deal it is that from two to four, your mom was in a psych ward

getting help that she needed, good for her, and you were left with a somewhat angry, somewhat militant dad who was just probably trying to keep food on the table and keep this household running, but there were some critical relational needs that were missed from that little two and

four-year-old little boy. I just want to add also like my whole childhood, even like till now, my mom and dad are like fighting. You know, my dad says that he always tells us that he's only in the relationship for the kids. Sure. Stuff like that. Yeah.

Thanks, dad. That's real helpful. How old are you now? I'm 24. Okay. All right. So let's just back out. And so we know anxiety is an alarm system, letting us know that we're not safe or that we're not connected. Okay. And it becomes insidious when we can't get connected because our body sounds the alarms that connection is going to hurt us. And in your case, relationships have been a weapon your whole life.

They've been painful. They've been absent. They've been not what they should have been. And so your body has identified relationships as something that will hurt you. And yet, that's the only thing that will calm your freaking brain down is true, authentic, real connection. Fair? Are you tracking with me? Yeah, fair.

Okay. Yeah, I... Go ahead. I was going to say, so I don't want you to think you're broken. Your body's actually doing a pretty good job of taking care of you. Because hey, the two most important relationships failed you, and they continue to be a mess and so why in the world would we trust anybody else with the inner parts of our soul and being let's just we're going to go ahead and label relationships as threat and we're going to move on with their lives you see what's happened here so your body's actually working great it's doing exactly what it's designed to do. Identify threats and protect you from them. Okay. And you recognize how lonely that is. And your body will avoid stress by

smoking a cigarette. It will take short-term release over long-term. This is going to kill you in the long-term. So your body's trying to protect you moment by moment, but being lonely is a cascade of stressors that are going to kill you in the long term. So you got to have to go right through the middle of this, okay? Okay. So how would I do that? Okay. So the only way to heal from anxiety is to go right in the middle of it, is to walk right through it. The more you avoid it. It actually becomes a self-reinforcing mechanism that gets stronger the more you avoid it So you start to go into a room full of people your heart rate takes off on you

Your thoughts spin up on you start ruminating really really fast your hands get sweaty and then you close the door Your body says oh sweet. That's how we keep him out of that room. That's how we keep him safe. And so the next time you try to go in the room, it's gonna go even, your heart rate's gonna get up even more and your hands are gonna get even more clammy and you're gonna get even more anxious. See what I'm saying?

Because it learns that, oh, that works. That keeps him out of that room. And so what we have to do is we have to retrain our bodies that other people aren't a threat to us. Mom and dad were, that happened. There's a period at the end of that sentence. Now I get to choose what happens next. So let me ask you this. You have a group of friends. What's the worst thing that could happen? You say a joke, you walk into a room, a crowded room. Let's imagine, what's the worst thing that

could happen? And your heart rate should probably be getting up right now. Like as you start to think about it, I want you to picture it. What would happen? I guess someone would like make fun of me or just, uh, what would they make fun of you? What would they make fun of you about? I don't even, it doesn't really make sense. It's just, that's what I feel. I know. Let's go through it. What would they make fun of you?? I don't even, it doesn't really make sense. It's just, that's what I feel. I know, but let's go through it. What would they make fun of you? You got weird hair? No, they, um, I guess they wouldn't like what I'm saying or they would just like snub me. Okay. But about what? Um, whatever, whatever I would say. Okay, you see how anxiety works?

It's very vague. And when you try to get down and you start drilling into, okay, what is it? What's the things you would say? Do you have bad politics? Do you have, okay, I'll tell you mine. I'm super pale, like a vampire.

Team Edward, right? I've got, my teeth aren't sparkly white. I used to have acne when I was a kid. So I always thought people were looking at my teeth and looking at my skin and looking at my, like, golly, does that guy ever go out in the sun? And I go out in the sun all the time. So that kept me a little bit of a distance.

Or I was always awkward. I would tell jokes that would be like not that funny or they were really, really funny, but kind of in a crass way. And they're only appropriate for a small group of friends and not appropriate in this group. Or I just say the weird, awkward, right? So I want you to drill down with me real quick. What is it? What is weird about you? What would they point out and go? Ah, there it is.

What is it? Um, I'm trying to think, I guess. Let me cut to the chase. It's not there. Yeah. Your body's chase is protecting you from ghosts. Okay. Okay. And you might have a political opinion. You might have an opinion on a world issue.

You might have a particular religious belief or any number of things. Okay. And somebody is going to make fun of you. They're going to ridicule you over it. Cool. Then your heart's going to still be beating. Your blood's still going to be flowing through your body. You're still going to be you.

You're still going to be a kind, compassionate 24-year-old making your way through New York. You're still going to have parents that struggled your whole childhood. It's not going to affect you. They don't get a vote. And so it's leaning into the facts over those feelings those feelings are data and then we're going to keep going keep on moving forward most people with social anxiety have a picture of what they think is going to happen and they have a picture of what negatively and they have a picture of how they're going to feel when they finally get those friends.

And neither of those pictures are real. They're distortions. So if they get around a group of people that love them and they get home and they still feel a little bit awkward about the night and they start replaying some of the conversations, then they think, oh, they weren't really my friends. I don't know what I did wrong. and now they're off to the anxious world right so right i want you to practice a couple of things okay number one every time you start to feel anxious about friends i want you to pause or you're about to go to an activity you're about to go to an activity, you're about to go to an event, you're going to a work thing or whatever, whenever you feel it, I want you to pause,

take a big deep breath, hold it for three to five seconds. And then I want you to ask yourself this question. Huh? What's my body trying to protect me from? Oh, it thinks they're going to make fun of me. It thinks that they're going to get really close to me and then abandon me for a couple of years.

My body is trying to keep me from getting loved, from loving somebody again, because last time I loved, they left. Right. Or yes, I've got crooked teeth. Okay. Yes, I have acne. Okay. Yes, my hair is falling. Whatever the thing is that you're worried about with your physical appearance. Cool. I'm moving on. And here's what we're looking for. Space. We're looking for a gap between our bodies taking off on us, trying to protect us,

and then that action, that thing that we're going to do next. And we're going to try to extend that gap like, huh, man, it is getting fired up as I walk into this ballroom or into this movie theater with a friend or as I go out on this first date. I can literally feel it. And then when I sit down with that person, I'm going to say, man, first dates make me anxious.

I'm going to go ahead and just put it on out there. Or I am super weird on first dates. I'm sorry. I'm way better at the date two and three. Do you see what I'm saying? I'm going to go ahead and take the bullets out of my own anxieties gun. So it can't shoot them at me anymore. It's got nothing left.

Because I'm with a group of guys. Yep. Like what would be the, what would be the, well, so I would take that, those deep breaths. And then what would I,

what would I say? Ask yourself, why am I nervous around these guys? Do I feel less than them? Do they have bigger muscles than me? Are they, are they more making more money than me? Do they have nicer cars or apartments than me? Like what, what am I, what, why is my body responding as though I'm not safe? I'm in danger.

I'm inferior. Ask yourself those questions. And I have radically different political beliefs than my best friends on the world. We're different on almost every metric. And we razz each other and we give each other a hard time about it. And we make fun of each other, like the whole thing. And there's times that I've left angry and they've left angry. And then we just get back together the next week or the week after that. But there's a very few people in my life that get a vote. And the rest of people don't. And if you can't be fully you around this group of guys, cool, man.

They're just not going to be your gang. They're not going to be for you. Does that make sense? What you have to do for the first time in your life is practice feeling safe. Okay? Okay. And so I just want to recap what you're saying. Basically, you're telling me that I should take those deep breaths, think about what do these guys have over me?

Like, why am I less than them? No, no, no. You're not less than them. Why does your body respond as though you are? What is your body trying to protect you from with these guys? This has nothing to do with them. This has everything to do with you. Why is my body trying to protect me? And then there's going to be some times when your body's like, I got to go home. Cool. That alarms got real loud. Hey guys, I'm going to go and cut out tonight.

I'll see you later. I do that with some regularity. I've got a deep history with anxiety. And when I do that, then I ask, man, those alarms were loud tonight. What is that about? Most often in my life, it's because I haven't been taking care of my body. I haven't been sleeping. I haven't been eating right. I haven't been taking care of my body. I haven't been sleeping. I haven't been eating right I haven't been i've gotten behind at work. I've got laundry piles everywhere. I've created a chaotic environment for myself

So I asked myself why the alarms are so loud See what i'm saying and every once in a while I got to cut out I just cut out early and you know what my friends who love me they don't care They're gonna give me a hard time about it because they're my friends, but that's. And the people are like, oh my gosh, you're going to bed. You're already leaving. What a loser. Well, we're not going to be friends. So have a good, you know what I mean? I have a good one and I'm not going to, I'm not going to lose a second of sleep over their opinion because their opinion doesn't matter to me. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. You aren't broken, my brother. You just have to learn a new set of skills. And that is how do I be in the presence of relationship?

And by the way, don't use a group of guys. Like, I've got to go make friends. I got to go make friends. You got to be my friend. That is a recipe for you feeling anxious and they become a tool that you are using to make yourself feel better and everybody can feel that be with people because you're worth being around be with people because you want to

enjoy people's company and you want to have good times with people and share misery with one another so i should start with like one-on-one. That's totally up to you, man. There's not a right or wrong way to do it. What we're doing, whether it's one-on-one, like, Hey dude, let's go hang out. Um, take the pressure off this. Hey, uh, Hey guys, let's all, we're all going to the movies. Let's go catch a concert. Let's go do whatever. Let's go down and go bowling or whatever the thing is. I don't know what y'all do in New York. Um, let's go do those things. And then, yeah, I'm going to go. And by the way, almost every time I'm heading out to go somewhere, my body tells me,

you don't want to do this. We had a flag football game the other day. Dude, I sat in my car for 20 minutes before I walked outside. It was so fun by the time it was over, but I felt the alarms and my body's trying to avoid this thing. I am going to do it and I'm going to choose to go out and have a positive attitude about it. And I did. It was a blast. And this is 10 or 15 years of me working through this, Avery. So this isn't something that's going to happen overnight, but find a friend, go hang out, go just go get coffee. Be like, hey, what's going on? How's your life? I'm going to send you the questions for humans.

I'm going to send you guys night. I'm going to send you a dating pack. And I'm going to send you friends. So you can, if there's just a group of dudes, y'all are hanging out, you can pull these things out. And your friends are going to give you a hard time, guys. If you pass, if you pull out the questions for humans, guys night, they're going to make fun of you pull out the questions for humans guys night,

they're going to make fun of you. That's fine. That's fine. Um, if you have mixed couples, great. If you're out dating, you're like, all right, I'm not great at first date. So I got these cards. Great. And if that person's like, oh my gosh, what a loser. I don't want to be around you. Then you've just saved yourself months of months of heartache on the front end. Cause this is, it's not going to end well, right? If someone's going to just prejudge you that way, but whether it's one person, whether it's a bunch, here's what we're doing. We're asking our bodies, why are you trying to take care of us? And we're creating space, just a gap between our body feeling it. And then boom, we are off to the races. When my thoughts start going down, I can't believe I said that, that was so stupid. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.

I'm not gonna have this conversation. It was a dumb joke. I'm moving on with my life. And we're gonna slowly retrain our bodies to take control of our thoughts and of our actions and to let our bodies know that relationships, yeah, they can hurt us. They're the only way to peace and safety.

Thanks for your call, my brother. 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. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. 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. Churchill is a Ramsey trusted provider

that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their Home Buyer Edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Church Hill-certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. 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. All right, we are back, Jack. Let's go to Columbus, Ohio and talk to Kim.

What is up, Kim? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Fantastic. How are you? I'm doing good. Awesome. What's up? Well, I'm calling because I'm dating this wonderful man. Oh, gross. Gross.

And we've been dating a little bit over a year now, and with the holidays coming up i'm really hoping he proposes oh i hope he does just for humanity's sake but i hope he doesn't just because you've built this thing up so good because here's what happened hey if he doesn't propose you're gonna feel like he took something from you and you know what he took from you everything? Everything. That's how you're going to feel. And I'm so excited about this. When my friend, I had a friend who went to, uh, was going in for like an annual review and thought that they were getting a raise of like some crazy amount of money. And instead of the crazy amount,

they got like half of that crazy amount, which was still an insane race but they felt like someone had taken that other half from them like you stole this from me anyway i'm so excited for you um do you think it's actually going to happen are you just trying to to will this into existence well he asked me for my ringside oh gosh the guy what happened hey you're done with him he's out forget this dude he should have been way smoother i had to sneak rings from my girlfriend and take him to the jeweler and be like this is the size ring she wears i don't know anyway whatever he's not very smooth but if he's worth loving forever then i'll let you have it okay cool he is all right so okay So what's your question? I'm just talking too much now. What's your question? My question is, well, um, the thing is he lives an hour away. And so if we were to get engaged or married, I would have to move an hour away from my family. Um, the problem is I'm feeling

really guilty about that because I have a 26 or 27 year old brother with special needs and they my mom and my brother really depend on me and it should be an exciting thought but it's just full with anxiety and what if and should I mean should I be feeling guilty about this? Should I not? I just... I think you should feel really guilty because you're destroying your family. I'm totally kidding, Kim. Okay, so tell me how... I can't tell you how to feel.

Your feelings are just your body trying to let you know. There's signals for your body. So let you know um there's there's signals for your body so i can't tell you like you shouldn't be feeling this you should be feeling that what i can tell you is here's how we're going to process those feelings how do you you said your parents your mom and your brother really rely on you how um well like i said he's 26 or 27 and he lives on his own. And so it was a transition maybe like a few years ago to get him out of my mom's house and into his own house. And the plan was that my mom and I, along with a few other home health aides, who are fantastic, by the way, it was to get him comfortable on his own. And then once he was comfortable with

the other aides, we were supposed to start taking less and less hours. Fast forward to two years later, I'm still working full time, helping him out. My mom's still working. And the staff we have now is great, but with the shortage of workers and also he's pretty particular who he's around, it's been really hard to find other aides that match. Is he autistic? Is he autistic? Yes, he has autism. Okay. I just worked with a lot of folks with autism. So is he, well, I don't want to get sidetracked here. Is there a chance that this plan y'all drew up two years ago was overly ambitious and there just needs to be a reckoning with reality that needs to happen with your mom, with him, with you, with everybody? I mean, maybe so.

Okay. Yes. Often we get these plans because we want them to work out so well, right? And we, especially when someone has special needs, we over, we can, we can over hope that they're going to be able to figure some things out. And it's hard to read the data back to ourselves in real time. So two years later, and you have not been able to back off the time investment. Two years later, you're still not able to find aids that can fully meet his needs. And two years later, your mom is still struggling. That tells me that two years later, this idea of him in an autonomous living situation may not be tenable.

It may not be in the cards. Right. And that's really hard to say out loud, right? Yeah, it's really hard, but it does make sense. I guess I didn't think about it because he's been doing better, but then also he hasn't. He used to attend a work program, and now he's no longer attending the work program, which means that we had to find another aide until that hour for the work program that he was going to. And it just seems like he just wants to stay home all the time. But the problem is he requires 24 hours the problem is he can stay home.

Is that fair? Yeah. Yes, he can. No, I mean, why, why in the world would he go to a work program if he doesn't have to?

Right. When he had some very strict access to people's time and he had to go to the work program, he went right. So let me ask you, can I ask you a really hard personal question how much of his care and how much of the things that you say are needs for him are actually ways that you feel like you are contributing to him and to your mom meaning how much of his care is about you versus how much about him. And this is an accusation.

This is just, I want you to be honest. What do you mean by that? Meaning if you just pulled, you just, if you just extracted yourself and moved an hour away with your new husband. That may or may not happen, by the way, you just packed up and moved. Would his life come crashing to a halt? Would your mom have to figure out other alternative arrangements? And then all of a sudden, you give it two or three months after some fits and stops and starts, and then he's just moved on without you. And that feels as devastating as watching him struggle. Um, okay. I see what you're saying. My fear is with me not working in the household or with him anymore, that I would

be the cause for him to no longer be able to live on his own in an apartment setting. And he would have to go more into a group setting. And you have not given me any indication that he's going to do anything other than have a group situation. Right. Because right now you're propping him up. Right. Is right now you're propping him up. Right.

Is that fair? Tell me, again, I don't want to be harsh, but I've spent 20 years having hard conversations with family members about young people with special needs. And we have to say, here's the truth to the situation. Why do you feel like you have failed him if he ends up going to a group home? Where he can have direct access, direct care.

He can have community. He can have people who are trained in. Why do you feel like you'd be failing him? I don't know. I don't know where that comes from. Let me ask you a harder question. Why do you feel like when you have joy that you're somehow taking something from him? Because I think you're scared to get married because you're scared to move on with your life, a life that he can't have. And there's a part of you that feels guilty about that. Yeah. And you know what,

now that you said it out loud, that does make a lot of sense. And I think that guilt also comes from my mom because I know that she'll be alone and it feels like I'm moving on, not moving on, always be in connection with my family. I'm not going to fall off the face of the earth on them. But I yeah. I guess I feel like they do better when I'm

just around. And I bet that's true. I bet their life is easier and I bet there's more joy and I bet that's true. I bet their life is easier, and I bet there is more joy, and I bet things just go better when you're around. There's no doubt in my mind. Because you're an amazing young woman, and you care deeply for your mom, you care deeply for your brother. The one person you've left out of this whole equation is Kim. And you've managed to like piecemeal a romantic relationship together on the side here. And on top of your duties of working full time and taking care of your brother full time. So that your mom could fill in the blank. So that your brother could fill in the blank.

All of this is about propping up a fantasy that's not real your mom had a different picture of what her life would look like and she has a special need 26 year old son you've given her an amazing opportunity to not have to deal with that directly but at some point she will. And your brother, who sounds like he's a fun-loving, like he's a lovely guy, he's got a lot of challenges, but he's fun, he's cool, or you wouldn't want to spend that much time with him.

You had a picture of those people who sent their kids or their brothers to those places. And you see all this comes back to you you don't want people to judge you in the way that you judge other people right and so I will tell you you're worth having

a really rambunctious reckless love and you're worthy of getting married and if you gotta've got to move, you got to move. And also you really need to sit down with your fiance, your maybe fiance and have the conversation. Here's what kind of sister I am. My mom and dad pass, he's going to live in a home in our neighborhood or around us. Or my goal is within 10 years, I want to have a house with a back apartment on it that we can have a nurse. So

I want you to know this is the kind of sister I am. Or we're going to support him financially because when my mom passes away, we're not going to have any money. We're not going to have, she doesn't have a special needs trust built. Like we'll be really sober minded and clear eyed about these things. But the idea that you can, what you're going to do is you're going to end up avoiding guilt for so long. You're going to resent your brother and you're going to resent your mom. And then you're going to resent you for feeling resentment over those two people. And your husband's going to resent you for feeling like he's in third place all the time. And your kids are going to resent because they don't know where, you see what I'm saying?

Choose guilt over resentment every single time. And do it with dignity and respect. Meaning if you just pack up and leave without a runway, that's pretty not cool. But letting folks know, hey, we're getting engaged, which means we're going to be married in the next year, which means at some point I'm going to be moving. Mom, we have to have a conversation, a very true and real conversation about transition because this isn't working. Okay. Is that fair? It is. It's just hard. Tell me why it's hard. It's hard because I know everyone's going to be upset. When did it become your job to make sure other people weren't upset?

Because, man, that's an exhausting role. It's not. Oh, you said it. You said it. You said it. It's not your job. Okay? you said it. It's not your job. Okay. Now I'm also somebody who, um, I believe in taking care of your family. I really do probably more so than is, is makes sense. And I believe in taking care

of the least of these in our communities, much less in our homes. Okay. So your life may look different. You may never get that Lexus. You may be a Camry family forever because you're saving the money up to pay for your brother's care or for a home health nurse or whatever. You may never have a five bedroom house on 30 acres in a whatever thing you dream about. You may be a three bedroom, two bath house, even when you have three kids. Like, so making peace with some of these things in the short term will give you so much peace in the long term. It's just being honest and intentional about it all.

Does that make sense? Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Here's where I would start. I would start with a conversation with your mom. Say, Mom, in 2023, I'm hoping to get engaged from this knuckleheaded whatever guy. I'm hoping to get engaged.

We need to have a hard conversation about brother because the plan we put in place is just not working. So we need to plan either he's going to move

back home with you and we're going to get some aides and nursing help here or we need to start looking at group homes and we got a year out. And you need to have a secondary conversation with the person who,

before they ask you to marry them. And hopefully you've had this conversation, but we're going to have a very direct conversation about, hey, here's the kind of sister I am. And part of marrying me, part of loving me forever is I'm a sister who takes care of her brother when he can't take care of himself. And we're going to be very honest about the finances.

We're going to be very honest about our boundaries. And most important, you got to put your oxygen mask on first, Kim. Taking care of you isn't selfish. Taking care of you isn't somehow a violation of your mom's love or your brother's love. You take care of Kim. You make sure Kim has great relationships and that Kim's body is taken care of with good food and with sleep and with exercise. You take care of you. You got a good job so that you've got something firm that you can anchor into and repel off the side and then take care of the other people in your life. Otherwise, man, you find yourself just flying in the wind like a kite trying to take care of everybody all the time.

And that's not sustainable. And it ends up in ashes every time. Or you end up 58 years old and you're bitter and you're upset and you resent and you look back on your life and say, I don't want that for you. I don't want that for your family. I don't want that for your brother. I don't want that for anybody. So let's go all the way back to the beginning here and say, let's have some hard conversations. Let's be honest about, am I doing this for me or am I doing this for my brother? And let's be honest about what our marriage is going to look like. And when you get engaged, call me, call me. We'll do a big announcement here on the show because I'm excited for you. Thank you for trusting us and for walking with me, Kim. Good luck to you. We'll talk to you soon. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by

BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts

of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule.

You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, we are back.

Let's go to Ben in Chiton in Chicago. What's up, Ben? Hi, it'siton in Chicago. What's up, Ben? It's going good. Excellent. What's up, man? How can I help? All right, so a lot of context here. I'll try to get through as much as I can,

but my fiancee, who I'll call my wife for the call, just because by the time this airs, we'll be married in a couple weeks from now, and it's fewer syllables, so it makes it easier for both of us. Congratulations, man. Yeah, thank you. We got a home about nine months ago, weeks from now and it's fewer syllables so it makes it easier for both of us um congratulations yeah thank you we got a home about nine months ago and it's the first home that we've ever had so obviously when you get a new home there's a lot you can read about that's a lot you can learn

but there's a lot that you don't know when you learn a lot of first-time homebuyer lessons and unfortunately one of those lessons recently came up so uh, uh, last week I was about 40 miles away, trained boxing at my old gym. Um, the wife was at home and a couple of blocks away from us. There's like a, a commercial district, um, with a vape shop and that shop had gotten shot up there about seven or eight shots that were fired, uh, gun and put the scene. Um, no one's really sure where they went but obviously from my home you could hear

the gunshots you could then have the other cops come all the cop cars were within

view and because he had pulled the scene the cops were running around looking

through all the yards including ours to see if they could find the gunman so I

wasn't aware that this was happening as it was happening because I was at the gym

about 40 miles away my phone was in my bag because I'm obviously not checking my phone while I'm training. And when I finished up, checked my phone, saw that my wife had dealt with all this and was very rattled by it. And so it sort of was this situation where for her, she has a lot of concerns where she felt unsafe.

I was pretty sure just based on what I had seen on it that she wasn't in any danger. Sure. Especially not by the time that I heard about it. So I wasn't as content about that at that point. But I did feel as though having the house for nine months that I'd really missed an opportunity to really do my job and do my part as kind of the man of the house and really help protect the house, have a plan in place in case anything happens If you knew what to do or if I was there I would know exactly what to do To actually have like the right equipment If needed to protect ourselves Because at the moment we are currently unarmed

All we really have is Pepper spray and some kitchen knives You say the right equipment like get a bunch of guns I don't know if we need a bunch necessarily But guns are definitely on that list Part of your equipment The way you said equipment I was thinking like We're gonna get some rakes and a shovel and a pitch for it uh but you're talking about getting a gun okay yeah okay yeah so so i'm pretty familiar

with a lot of like combat stuff like as i kind of hinted there like i was doing boxing like i've been in combat sports for a while and as much as i would love to just handle everything hand-to-hand, I feel like it's the best way to do it and you can use the least force necessary. The most important thing in a fight is range and there is nothing better range than a gun. You could take the scariest guy, say Mike Tyson, ask me if I'd fight him for a million dollars, I'd say no. Ask me if I'd

fight him from 50 yards away with a gun in my hand and he has none, I'd probably win that fight because that's effectively the power of one of those tools. And so if somebody is coming to my home to do harm and has one of them and I don't, it's potentially going to be a very bad day, not just for me, but for my family, and especially if I'm not home and I'm not there to protect. So having that scare, to me, it just kind of reinforces that it would be a very wise

move to have a weapon uh if needed um the odds of it being necessary aren't incredibly high but in the event that it does happen it would be very important to have um but that's where the problem begins so um my wife uh comes from a left-wing background her family's very left-wing and she's kind of got like a visceral fear of having a gun. It's not so much like... To her, the idea of having a gun in her home is just something that she's very uncomfortable with.

Not only because of the fact that a gun is effectively a death machine, but also because actually seeing it sort of like... It tells you that there's a potential for harm out there that that gun may be needed one day. So she's incredibly uncomfortable with it. So it puts me in a spot where if I feel like it's my job to protect the home, I have to decide if I'm unable to convince her.

And obviously, the correct answer here is to lay out a great case where she realizes, okay, this is the right move and I'm on board with it. But if I'm not able to do that because there's going to be a lot of work that's going to be needed for that, do I either A, go with their wishes and not get the gun and we just don't have it, or B, potentially end up in a situation where the gun would have been the thing that would have saved us, but we didn't get it because I went against my better judgment and then something really bad happens.

All right, let me hop in here. First, I want to get rid of the left-wing, right-wing framing. All of us grew up in homes that give us particular strengths and particular baggage that we bring into the home that we get married, we're creating on our own. So I don't want her to – I don't want you to saddle her, and I don't want her to, I don't want you to saddle her and I don't want her to saddle herself with, well, I grew up in this super rat wing home and we were pew pew or this super left wing home and we didn't have, I don't want any of that. I would rather her take ownership of how she feels right now. And you take ownership of how you feel right now. In her home, in the home that she is creating with you, she does not feel comfortable having a gun in your home.

In the home that you are creating with her, you don't feel comfortable not having a gun in your home. Okay? Let's start it there because it keeps all the baggage and all the smoke and it keeps all that out of it. Because all of us, regardless of the homes we grew up in, we have to make choices about the homes that we are going to create for ourselves.

Okay? So I'm going to back for ourselves. Okay? So, I'm going to back all the way out of this thing and then I'll answer your very specific question. Okay? Is that cool? Yeah. You are feeling,

what you are feeling has nothing to do with guns. Okay? You are feeling something terrible and beautiful and terrifying all at the same time. Can I tell you what it is? It's love. And that's how we're going to connect. Okay. It's taking the covers off the plugs and actually doing the scary thing of plugging in. Okay. And what you are coming face to face with when you got done boxing, right? And I trained for years.

Like it feels good and all hardcore. And there's a very, you know what? All my training, all my years of training. And I trained with who are in the ufc i train with all kind of crazy the years of training a hundred percent of the time i will walk away from a fight that's what i got from my training i'm gonna walk away it's not worth it and i don't know who's got a who's gonna smash me in the head with a hammer i don't know who's got a gun pointed on me i'm walking away your wife is okay well knock your lights out because I know my wife. So you'll have a great day. I'm out of here. Right? So all that, what you've come face to face with is you're not going

to be able to protect her all the time. And there's going to come moments, whether it's in the car, whether it's an office mate, whether it's a boss who's a jerk, whether it's her dad, whether her older brother, who knows, whatever it is, you can't be everywhere all the time. And this is beyond the gun conversation. This is something you have to make peace with. This idea that I'm married to her, so I got to protect her. I want you to re-examine that. You do need to have a plan. And that was a good thing that came out of this. You don't need to sit down and say, whoa, what are we going to do? Right? Same as the first time something catches on fire in a newlyweds new home. And they're like, oh, we don't have a fire drill. Like, what do we do? Or sit down and

do a will together. Like who's going to get the dog and the kids when we die, right? Um, those are all important. So glad you'll have a plan. And part of your plan might be having a gun. Great. But above that, there's something powerful that you need to absorb, which is you cannot be everywhere all the time for her 24, 7, 365. It's impossible. And that is a burden you are putting on yourself that's going to make you insane. It's going to make you mad. Okay? If you live in a home that is simply unsafe, do whatever you got to do to move. If you happen to be in a house where there was a crime committed a couple of blocks over and the police came and it was unnerving, yeah, that's unnerving, man. It's's wild it's really unnerving um that's something to absorb and feel and then put that into your plan so is are you tracking with me so far

yeah it's scary as hell to think somebody could hurt my wife and i'm not there is that true yeah yeah i understand i can't be there all the time, but I guess part of me, it's just like, if I'm not there, then I just want her to have the best chance possible. And there you go. There you go. She'd have a better chance that there was a weapon. And then if there wasn't,

that's, that's, that's, uh, potentially, potentially. Um, so answering beneath that,

creating a safe environment for your family, we're going to have, there'll be debates on what the word safe means in the comments of this thing. I know. Um, if your wife tells you, I can't sleep, if there's a gun in this house at this moment,

I would recommend not overriding her right now. That doesn't, that doesn't sound like a loving move or a safe overall move. Okay. Um, I would, here's what I would do. I would create a, what would we do plan with your wife? And so let's sit down and have some fun with it. Like, and maybe invite a couple of your neighbors over. Like, what would we do if somebody showed up and started

filling the blank, banging on the door? Are we going to answer the door? We're going to call 911. Like, what would we do? And let's go through some of those things. I live out in the country, man. And my wife and I have had those conversations. And who do we call? Where would we go? We've talked to my kids. Hey, if I ever fall off a ladder while you're here, here's where you go. You're going to go down the hill and you can go across the creek to this guy's house.

And so have that plan. That's awesome. The second thing is I would invite your neighbors over to your house. And y'all have an open conversation, get to know their names. Okay. That's going to give your wife peace that she is not isolated and maybe having your neighbor's name or two or three people she could call if something sets off is going to be much more of a gift than knowing there's a John Wick gun in the drawer back there. Okay. Okay. The third thing is if it's possible, and this sounds so cheesy and I know, but my dad was a cop. So, uh, if you have a conversation with the police, uh, invite them over or have somebody go visit, have somebody swing by and just to develop a relationship with them, get the crime stats for

your area, know how safe it is where you live, right? That could be a possible thing. So let's get to the gun part. I am a My dad was a homicide detective a SWAT guy and i'm a texan. So I've got enough guns in my house. Okay Also, my wife grew up in texas. She was a competitive shooter and she hates him. She doesn't like him. Okay? She's more of a statistician than me

and just looks at the data that more people get hurt with their own guns than they actually fight off intruders. And I don't know if that data is true, but that's,

it floats around out there. So, here's what I would recommend. Sit down with your wife and say, hey, would you take a class with me?

Would you at least go to a range and try and she might say absolutely not I will not do that okay chances are she will or would you take

it would make me feel more secure if we just went and took a class together or would you feel more safe taking a shotgun class which i think is a better home defense weapon than a 45 or whatever thing would um would you be willing to go do that with me i'm gonna take a class i want to really know what i'm doing and

i want to know how this stuff works and by the, even if you've done it your whole life, I'm going to take a course. I would love it if you joined me. And that way it's much less I watched a lot of movies and it's a lot more that I'm going to get trained on how to take care of my family and keep everybody safe.

Does that make sense? Yeah, I put the idea around her. I guess just the idea of being in the presence of one is kind of difficult. Absolutely. The more we talk about it, I think she'll move on a little bit more. We both have the same goal.

We both want to keep the family safe. We don't have kids yet, but that's something we want to get started on soon. We have the same goal. It's just how we get there. I think taking a class. I think there's something to be gained by taking a class. And you can think about this all day long.

It's not until you actually experience it that there's any sort of transformation. I can talk about gun safety all day long with my kids. It's a very big deal to me that they know exactly how these things work and why they're so dangerous and why they're to be revered and why they are very specific tools for very specific moments. And so I'm very intentional with my kids. I don't want it to be some dragon somewhere that they call upon thinking because they've watched some movies, right? I want them to actually have seen it and felt it and smelled it, right? Smelt it. And I want them to have experienced all of the whole process. And now I've got a 12-year-old little boy that is in

absolute reverence. He handles a weapon in my presence better than adults I'm with. It's very, very impressive, but it's through years of just training, right? And high, high, high intentionality. And so I tell you, to tell you, I think a class just talking about it like, yeah, yeah, yeah, man, that's not going to move the needle on the safety conversation. Actually saying, hey, I'm going to go take a class because I want to get good at this. I want to be very competent in that. And what you're going to find is very similar to, very similar to your boxing training, your martial arts training. I was really cavalier, my man, really cavalier.

I was one of the first guys in Texas to get the CHL when that was a thing. And I'm real cavalier about the whole thing. And then I started going into homes and helping police officers clean up suicide scenes. I started going into homes to tell mothers that their kids have been shot and killed. Started running around. I had a patrol car that I went on patrol and I got to see some things that really changed my perspective on that similar to

I trained mma and boxing all that stuff And I ended up fighting I ended up walking. I made me an infinitely more peaceful guy Became very very able to take care of myself which empowered me to then walk away And it was when I got out of the movies and started showing up to these homes And cleaning up scenes that will haunt me for the rest of my life that I made peace with

oh man I'm gonna do everything in my power to create a safe home environment that doesn't include first offense right because the reality of how that plays out is gnarly.

Now, can I take care of myself? You better believe it. Yes. I've trained and I still train. But I do those things so I don't have to. And I hope that that makes sense. I hope that that makes sense. My promise to you is if y'all just ran out today and bought a gun and put it in your house, your wife would not feel safer.

And statistically speaking, y'all wouldn't be quote unquote safer. If y'all go take classes and you learn what to do and you have a plan of what happens if somebody knocks on the door, if somebody beats the door and if somebody kicks in your car window, whatever. Now we've got a plan that we've practiced. That's where safety comes from. That's when your body goes, okay, we know what to do. We know what to do. So that's my recommendation, my brother. Thank you so much for trusting me with a call.

Good luck with your wedding. I hope everything goes awesome. And hope she still wants to marry you after nine months of living with you. Just kidding. Hope it all works out great, man. And thanks for calling. Thanks for calling.

This is a hard conversation, but I appreciate your trust. 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. All right, we are back as we wrap up today's show. One of the greatest bands of all time. I love them.

Love them. Green Day. And I guess since I mentioned gun in the last episode or the last thing, Kelly pulled up their hit 21 Guns and it goes like this.

Do you know what's worth fighting for when it's not worth dying for? Does it take your breath away and you feel yourself suffocating? Does the pain weigh out the pride? And you look for a place to hide. Did someone break your heart inside? You're in ruins. One, 21 guns. Lay down your arms and give up the fight.

One, 21 guns. Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I. When you're at the end of the road and you lost all sense of control and your thoughts have taken their toll, when your mind breaks the spirit of your soul and your faith walks on broken glass and the hangover doesn't pass, throw your arms up into the sky. It's just you and I. We'll see you soon.