The Dr. John Delony Show - How Do I Tell My Child the Truth About Her Father?

Episode Date: August 27, 2025

On today’s episode, we hear about: -        A woman wondering when to tell her daughter the truth about her father -        A bride-to-be who doesn’t want to take her fiancé’s last name -        A mom who wants to stay at home with her kids but has to work Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation  🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Need to talk to someone? BetterHelp is virtual therapy when it’s convenient for you. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. These are the BEST sheets and towels in the world. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.   Getting lots of spam calls? DeleteMe can clean up your online presence for you. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  Find peace every day. Hallow is the simplest way to slow down and get your head right for the day. Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial.  I have Helix Midnight mattresses in EVERY bedroom in my house. Get 20% off when you visit Helix Sleep and take the sleep quiz to see what you need!  I took Thorne supplements way before I worked at Ramsey. Stoked that we can work together now! Get 25% off for LIFE at Thorne.    Head over to Poncho Outdoors to try the best outdoor performance shirt for yourself!   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Big news. New dates for money and marriage getaway just dropped for Valentine's Day weekend, 2026. Get tickets at ramsysolutions.com slash events to get away with your spouse in Nashville, Tennessee. When should I tell my daughter about her biological father? She is starting to ask questions and piece things together, and I don't know where to go from here. So how old is she now? She is almost eight. Yeah, probably a couple of years ago.

We don't also want her asking, and what else does my mom not told me? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show, taking your calls from all over the planet about your marriages, your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your kids,

whatever you got going on in your life. If you want to be on this show, go to john deloney.com slash ask ask and honestly that's the only way to get through to the show i don't answer direct messages when it comes i do answer dms but not um not show related stuff and that's the way to get on john deloney dot com slash ask ask love to have you on the show hey quick shout out andrew block the bearded wonder back here um a lot of us showed up to surprise your uh new fiance the other night, you pulled off an incredible surprise engagement. So congratulations, dude. And she said yes. We were all stunned, but she did. And we weren't surprised at all. It's awesome.

Congratulations, man. That's very cool. All right, let's roll out to Albuquerque, New Mexico, one of my favorite places in the world. What's up, Taylor? Hi, how are you? I'm doing great. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. Awesome. What's up? So my question today, I was wondering, when should I tell my daughter about her biological father? Tell me the story. So about eight, nine years ago, I met my daughter's biological dad. Everything was fine in the beginning, as it always is.

Fast forward, we had a child, and then he completely disappeared. So then fast forward three more years, and my now husband comes into our lives, and she has known him as dad ever since. But she is starting to ask questions and piece things together, and I don't know where to go from here. So how old is she now? She is almost eight. Yeah, probably a couple of years ago. Yes. Yeah.

So the, let's reverse engineer this. a way that an eight-year-old could absorb it, right, or metabolize it. Number one, her understanding will be different than yours because she's eight, right? And you also have the hurt associated with that relationship and the abandonment and the fear, being a single mom, all that stuff. She doesn't have any of that. This is just her life. This is her lived experience. It's all she knows, right? What we don't want to do, because there's going to be some heartache as she gets older, and she begins to ask herself what was so bad about me

that my dad left. We don't also want her asking and what else has my mom not told me? Right, and that is my worry. Yes, and that's a very real worry that I would, if I were you, I would let that guide the importance of just being honest moving forward.

So have y'all talked about sex yet or how body parts work or why she has her body parts and that kind of stuff? Yeah, we've talked, not sex, but we've talked about body parts the appropriate names what that you know all of that yes okay would she if you sat down and said how does how does a baby get inside mommy's tummy would she know mechanically how that works no no she wouldn't know that okay um if she did that's often a good place to start

but she's going to know dad dad right and so yeah she's going to know her lived experience with the man who has shown up in her life but she's going to know her lived experience with the man who has shown up in her life but she is going to need to know sooner or than later that part of her was from another guy so mommy was mommy made a baby with another man and he was sick what yeah he was not doing good and he left why did he leave he was really struggling and going through some hard stuff and honestly i'll never know and you can tell her that made me really sad and And I know that someday that's going to make you really sad. And then your amazing daddy showed up.

And he chose you. And that's going to be the lifeline for the next 18 years of her life. That in those dark moments of why did my bio dad leave, this guy chose you. And so if he doesn't already, that needs to be part of his regular. cadence you are beautiful you are smart i love you and i'm so glad that i chose to be i i get to be your dad yeah he is that 100% thankfully awesome awesome amazing awesome amazing and what we're going to try to do is give her some sort of tether some sort of anchors so when the reality of of all this begins to wash over her um it's always going to be dad your bio dad your father if you will was sick he was

struggling because nobody in the right mind leaves their daughter right right and so give me an example of some of the questions she's asking so i also she has a brother who has a different dad um who is she is aware of his other dad you know what i mean but so you have two kids by two different dads i do okay that's actually i don't say awesome but that makes this conversation much easier right yeah so you can say me i don't know you know how long little brother has has his bio dad you have that too where is he yeah he was really not doing good so he was sick and sick is a word that an eight year old can wrap her head around right and in her mind it's going to be a sick tummy it's going to be whatever um and you can say he was sick in his in his

mind he had owies in his head and owies is probably too young for an eight year old right eight year olds going on 18 yeah eight eight year olds are really savvy yeah yeah and very very smart and so um that's where i would start in the fact that you she has a a mental picture a model in her mind of stepdad is taking care of little brother and loves him and hopefully he's saying the same things you are a handsome little boy and i love you and i'm so glad that i got to choose you i chose you Out of all the kids in the world, I chose you. That he's doing that too. Then she's got a model of,

we need to have this conversation about your other dad, about your father, if you will, not your other dad, but your father. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I guess it was, oh, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, I guess I didn't plant the seed well enough when she was younger because, I don't know, I guess that would have been a really good outlet for me at that time.

Like, yes, your brother has a different dad, and so to you, and then now your dad now, you know, my husband now is your stepdad, but like at that age when she was three going on to four, like she always just called him dad and like that's what she always knew. So I never like planted that seed when she was younger and I think that's where I'm at now. I'm like, oh, shoot, you know, I maybe should have. Well, and honestly, my daughter's nine and I am daily, literally daily. My wife's out of town.

She's in Texas taking care of some family Who lost their home and all this flooding mess It's just been me and my daughter For a while now And my son's out, he's been at another camp in New Mexico It's just been me and my daughter And I am daily astounded by how insightful she is And I know this

I know child development, I've worked with young kid And I'm like, oh, she picks up everything And not only does she pick it up She wraps what she picks up in a story that is homespun that is often nowhere near the truth but it makes sense when she says it yeah you what i'm saying even my mind yeah she she asked my wife a few weeks ago um because she's she reads all the time and she's burning through all the judy bloom books and the harry potter but but she has put together that when parents get divorced dads get apartments and she jokingly said last

last night we were having pizza together. I took her up for pizza. And she jokingly said, Dad, have you thought mom might just be getting tired of you? And she started laughing. But even she, like the wheels are already turning. Like, oh, what if, what would happen if this was our life? Right.

And so I called my wife and I'm like, are you getting tired of me? And my wife's laughing. She's like, but all it to say is I would start with my eight-year-old. I have a real big grown-up talk I need to have with you. so can i give you a totally unrelated example about how i did this once in my life yeah one day when my son and i don't remember how young he was he was much younger than eight but um and i made this cheesy and this is not generalizable to every situation but i want you to like the intentionality he said something along the lines of um maybe he was four or five i don't remember

how old he was but he said i'm asking for this stuff from santa and if i don't get it from Santa, I'm going to ask God because he'll give it to me. And I was like oh, you're starting to conflate the two. And so literally what I did was I said, hey, I need to have a grown-up conversation with you and it's going to be hard and so we're going to go do it in a place where dudes have

hard conversations. And he looked at me and he goes, where? And I said, we're going to go sit in the back of my truck in the driveway. And so we climbed up in the back of the truck and sat down and I was being ridiculous, obviously. but I created a special location and a special space and it was somewhere that we don't normally go so he knew this is going to be a different kind of conversation

and he was so honored by the intentionality around the specialness of it all so I don't know if that's a park bench for y'all I don't know if it is a probably wouldn't do a diner and I always tell people to go to breakfast but I probably wouldn't do that with an eight-year-old because there's so much going on but we're going to go in a special place

because I need to have a grown-up conversation and I think you tell her when you were really young I didn't have this conversation and I should have had this conversation with you earlier and it's really big and even if you say mommy's sorry that I should have had this earlier

I should have said this earlier and you know like how a little brother has a different daddy so do you and she might have a million questions and what you have to commit to is telling the truth. That was one of my questions, yeah. I feel like, yes, I know the truth is very important, but also, like, when she gets older,

is it important for her if she ever wanted to to, like, build her own impression of him? Because, like, I don't want to tell her the truth, and then she builds her own impression off of that. Yes. Or how much of the truth do I tell? You know, like... There's a hundred percent chance.

especially in the world we live in now with technology and social media and well 23 me just went under but but all that like all that genetic stuff there's a hundred percent chance she will have an interaction with him at some point or she will seek one right and so you don't want to have this conversation

your dad sucked or he was a bum and he or words like he left us because she will know half of me as him And if he's bad, half of me is bad. That's why we're going to say he was sick. Everybody gets sick. And you can say, I don't know if you've had a,

if you ever like had knee surgery or had a broken foot or you had a tummy ache or whatever, you could say, remember that time I got sick or I hurt my knee? His hurt was in his mind. And it was so big that he just had to go. Yeah. And I'm going to use intentional words when she's eight like he had to. He wasn't okay. He was sick because I'm not going to use words like he chose to.

When she's 12, 13, then we're going to have that harder conversation. And you've got to buckle up because that's a nightmare for a kid. Yeah. I could only imagine. Yes. But what she will also have is by that point seven, eight, nine years of ever, every single day, the man who has chosen to become her dad. And I would steer clear of words like stepdad right now.

Oh, yeah, we don't use them. I only use them to, like, adults not around her, you know, just so they get the idea. Well, and I don't even know if you need to do that. You don't need to be disclosing your whole... Because there's something, there's a part of you, my guess, is that you have some shame about, I got two different kids by two different dads, and I'm married to a third guy. And you walk... I should, but I don't, honestly.

I'm not saying shame. I'm not saying like... Yeah, yeah, I know. I get the stigma, I guess, but I don't. Good, good, good. And I don't want you leading into social situations, like trying to explain it all. This is their dad.

Yeah. And if they want to dig in and they're close enough relationally with you that you feel like they're safe enough that you can tell like the full story, awesome. But I would refer to him as dad everywhere. Yeah. and because he's he's awesome and he's chosen to be that but he plays a very important role in

her health and well-being going forward yeah and do you think i should have the conversation with her just her and i or with him as well i would have it just y'all too first okay and then possibly plan something special with him and understand that your eight-year-old may say i don't want to I don't want to talk to him or she may and any feelings she has are going to come out heavy all over the place and it might come out in you're not my dad I don't like you all that stuff and that's where you and your husband have to be really tethered that your eight year old's feelings are not going to dictate anger responses emotional responses like she's her her feelings are going to be really big yeah right or she might go okay all right yeah cool but that doesn't mean even if she plays it totally cool

that doesn't mean that it didn't impact her in a major way right yes soon as possible have that and tell her we're going to have a grown-up conversation and this is a really hard one because

mommy didn't do this one right and so mommy's gonna have to tell you the truth about some stuff and we're going to have a special conversation and she will anchor into that. She'll remember that conversation. As long ago as it was, my son remembers the back of the truck conversation. And obviously, telling my son Santa's not real is different than, you know, hey, who you think is your father is not your father. But making it very special

and very direct and refusing to say awful mean things about dad and just saying he wasn't well. He was not well. Is the right way to go. But thank you so much for a call. It's game on, dude. let's make this happen asap and then buckle up it's going to be a tough ride as she tries to figure out who am i and we never want her to question while she's seeking identity identity by way every kid seeks identity but this is going to be a unique um chasing of who am i um she's never going to wonder if she's loved because we're going to make sure we are hyper intentional about making sure she has loved and seen and known in that house every single night of her life thank you so much for the call. We come back. A woman wrestles with changing her last name after marriage.

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slash deloni. With Helix, better sleep starts right now. all right let's go out to atlantic iowa and talk to dj what's up dj hi john how are you i'm great how are you i am living the dream aren't we all just a little bit i've never met somebody who says i'm living the dream and that meant things are going awesome i've never met that person what's up uh yeah so me and my fiancee we got engaged a couple months ago and we're just kind of looking at it now and I've mentioned it before where I'm very, very against changing my last name. Oh, nice. This ought to be a good one. Okay, go for it. Tell me about it. So, yeah, I was, I've always been a tomboy and stuff like that.

And growing up, I was in sports. I was referred to by my last name more than I was my first name. So one thing I told him early on was I'm more open to changing my first name than the last name. And now I'm, I'm in the military, so it is just common courtesy. Everybody calls me by my last name. It's never a first name basis. And so now I'm just imagining a world without my last name. And it's like a grieving point, kind of. Yeah.

Very, very real grieving point. Tell me about the man, I'm assuming it's a man, telling me out the man who gave you that last name. he's like everything to me i guess would be the best way to say there we go tell me about him tell me about him uh he had like a really really hard childhood that um when i did hear about it i think i was maybe like 12 when i officially heard the full story was very out of the ordinary and um just seeing how he came from he has every right to be the worst person possible in my mind but he chose to be like a Christian father and completely turned his life around so while his brothers became addicts he became somebody very well known in the military and an amazing father to me and all of my siblings so so how much of this is you're losing your name which is very real and how much of this feels like you're somehow burying or dishonoring the man that literally changed his family

tree by loving you well it's definitely got a lot to do with that i definitely can feel that i just feel like i'm losing a piece of my family i suppose could i challenge the loss the name is the name we'll talk about that in a second but instead of thinking i'm losing my dad tell me about this guy you're going to marry he's got a lot to live up to and i love that the standard for you is high. I love that. I wish every dad's at the bar is so high that whoever their daughter was going to marry,

like that sucker's got to step up real tall because the bar is high. I love that that's your lived experience. I loved it. Tell me about this guy you're marrying. He's just perfect. I promise you he's not perfect. Promise he's not perfect.

In my eyes, of course. He's just, we're complete opposites from each other, So we really just balance each other out the way we can communicate. I think it's the healthiest I've ever communicated with pretty much anybody. And it's been honesty. Like we've had our ups and downs. We've been together five years. He just checked all the boxes throughout the years.

He was there when I was going through really hard times. I was there when he was going through really hard times. he did the right things at the right times and God has always been the center in our relationship and that's definitely been a priority since day one. So you've told me a lot, you've used very military, um, descriptors. And so let me replay what I just heard.

He's very loyal. He shows up. He does the next right thing. When things get chaotic, he goes in. do you love this man and want to spend the rest of your life with him absolutely do you want to build a new world with him yes okay awesome that's what that that's perfect and i know that can be a little bit mushy for a military kid to say um but you're getting married to him so it's okay to be a little bit gross so here's the thing

i would love for you to imagine or reframe if you will the greatest way you can honor your father's new legacy is to continue it by not losing your dad but by gaining an incredible new member to this family unit that operates different than anybody in that family line

has ever operated before. Like you're gaining one, you're not losing one. And your right to grieve the fact that when you get married, your dad is no longer your priority. And your dad

he gets maybe a second vote depending on what family you're in her third vote but you are opting to give husband vote number one and if that's scary or that's uncomfortable that just means your dad was awesome and it's up to you to go begin to reprioritize the men in your life in that way otherwise I would tell you don't marry this guy because it's unfair to him you bring him in and you're like okay we're going to do what my dad says I don't definitely not you're like no

we're all good on that yeah I'm too stubborn for that good good so tell me about when you talk about your name because you're not losing just your last name you're losing you're losing like an

I'm trying to think of the right word homage is that the right word it's not the right word it's um you're losing this honorable name that you have a picture of and that's your dad but you're also losing your first name too right uh not changing my first name that was no i know but like everybody calls you by your last name everyone has called me deloney i know that when somebody calls me john they either don't know me um or i'm in trouble nobody calls me that my bosses don't call me

that my nobody calls me that right um yeah and so you're losing your first name too in way, right? Mm-hmm. It feels like I'm turning into a completely different person. And when you get married, you are. And that's not a bad thing. It should be a scary thing, but it's not a bad thing. Two are becoming one.

Yeah. Right. So when you tell this guy you're going to marry, that you're apprehensive about changing your last name. What does he say? At first, it kind of took him off by surprise, and then we talked about it again, and he said, well, we can hyphenate our last names.

That way you can still have it, and you can keep it. He's very open to talking about it, which I really appreciate. And then he lays down the boundary that he's not giving up his last name. I completely agree with him on that. which is weird. Sure. So here's, here's, there's, we live in a, just a sliver of history when there's a million

different things, ways. And there's going to be a million different opinions, right? I have a, um, a couple who lives on my street, they're great friends, they're both really famous. And they got famous before they got married. And so, like, her public name is what it has always been, but on their marriage certificate, she took his last name i have other friends it's mostly been my academic friends um who got their phd in with their unmarried name and it would create professional confusion to go back and change

all the citations and all the papers and so they have hyphenated it and then there's some of the most gangster tough strong feminist women i know who have gone in and said, I don't like this, but this is what I kind of want to do. And they changed their last name. So I guess the most important thing I want you to hear me say is, y'all too agreeing on it, I think right now is the most important thing. Yeah. And I've asked a bunch of questions around it simply because I don't want you to get caught up in the naming of all of this.

I want you to make sure that you are entering into a marriage knowing my dad's vote is I am intentionally moving my father's vote in my life, my brother's votes down in my life because it's going to be me and this guy ride or die. You just gave me a big pause. Tell me about that. All of my, well, not all of them on, I have two other brothers.

They're also military. And my father and my brothers, we've all kind of like military trauma bond. I guess you can say. And so just reframing that feels like a huge step that's going to take a lot of words. It is, it is. But I'm going to tell you don't marry somebody

if you're not willing to put both feet in that boat. Because if you marry him and you just put one arm in this new marriage and you have one foot in one brother's boat, one hand in another brother's boat, another foot in your dad's boat, your new marriage will sink. because your husband will have married you and three other dudes right and so if you're going to marry him he deserves all of you the same way you deserve all of him so that y'all two can create a new one man it's been a high high honor getting to talk to you dj thank you for the call you call me anytime and i will as a gift i don't know when y'all are getting married if y'all are married in time i'm going to give you and your fiancee if he becomes your new husband.

Tickets to one of the money and marriage events, either in November or Valentine's Day weekend, as my gift. But you got to go through with it. And quite honestly, I won't care what y'all's last names are when y'all show up for the conference. So hang on the line here and we'll get you hooked up. I don't know when your wedding is. If it's in five years, then we'll just put a rain check out there.

But if y'all get married soon, I'd love to have y'all as my guest at the Money and Marriage event. You're awesome, DJ. All right, we come back. A woman is struggling with always wanting to be a stay-at-home mom. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. These days, it feels like there is advice for everything health-related, cold plunges, gratitude journals, screen detoxes.

But how do you know if this stuff actually works for you? When I first started this show, I had a morning routine that was clinically insane. Every second of every minute was scripted and prescribed. and I realized I was doing all the health things right, but my life was increasingly out of control. With the internet leading to information overload about mental health and wellness, I personally know that it can be a struggle to know

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And it's easy to get started. Just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And as the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. BetterHelp has an app store rating of 4.9 out of five stars based on over 1.7 million client reviews. Stop the wellness paralysis and call my friend. friends at BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloni. All right, Indianapolis, Indiana. Let's talk to Sarah.

What's up, Sarah? Hey, how are you? What's up? I'm doing great. You? Hi, I'm nervous, but good. I'm nervous too. I'm nervous too. What's up? Okay, so my question is, How do I cope with being a working mom when I've always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom? Tell me about your dream to be a stay-at-home mom. So, I mean, it's just what I've always wanted. Like growing up whenever other kids are, oh, I want to be a doctor. I want to be a lawyer. Just being a wife and mother has always been what I've wanted.

I always just kind of expected that to happen for me. And so now that it hasn't, I'm struggling with it. So do you have kids? Yes, I have a 10-month-old. A 10-month-old. Oh, no. Have you already gone back to work? Yes.

Oh, man. It's horrible. Yeah, the number of, like, absolute amazing executives and professional women I've worked with over the years who come back to work after having their first kid or their second kid and they're six months to a year in and they're just dying inside. I can't tell you how many I've talked to. And I'll be honest, some of it has surprised. to me, right? I've been shocked because before they had their kid, they're like, I'm never, I can't wait to get back here. And then it's like, yeah, I quit. This is stupid. You know what I mean? Absolutely. So tell me why you're not staying at home. So my job is the one that provides our health

insurance. My husband has like a very good job, but it just doesn't have that benefit. But he kind of fell into it and makes a lot more money than he probably should doing it. And so moving to a different job for like insurance benefits isn't much of an option and then just paying them for him outright is crazy expensive yeah so if you've listened to this show for a while you know one of the things that always challenged married couples on anybody but especially married couples is this when you feel like there is only an either or option I want you to put five crazy options on the table and seriously take pen to paper or keyboard to excel and explore the realities of those other options. Because I feel like you and your husband have possibly trapped yourselves in absolutes.

I have to. We can't. This would never work. Can't never have to. Those are all absolute words that bear. people and their words rooted in fear. Sometimes they're rooted in math, right? If you told me, hey, we, I have a nurse practitioner degree and I owe $95,000 in student loans and my husband owes 50, like, you all have a math problem that y'all backed yourself into before you had a kid. So that's

just a reality to that. If you're saying, no, we have enough money, we would have to go do something different, or my husband would have to get trained in something else and we have to take a pay cut for a while until like those are all options that you can explore what i will tell you is um and i'm going to say this and it's going to sound like i'm i hate to even say this um can i just call out you are now officially a card carrying um member of the american woman's industrial guilt complex that sounds accurate if you stay at home you're feeling guilty about your family. And if you are working, you're feeling guilty about being a bad mom. And if you talk to your husband about maybe getting another job, you feel like a bad, like you're, you are in a

situation where emotionally right this second, you can't win. Okay. So knowing that we are not going to feel good right this second about any of our next move, we can then start being honest about what would the next right move be. You get what I'm saying? I do. Okay, so I'm telling you all that as to preface to I'm going to tell you something and you have to promise me I won't get off the phone and spiral out okay okay I promise by the way you can spiral out if you want to I do it on a weekly basis right I promise you two years from now five years from now your husband would rather be married to somebody who loves the life she is co-creating with him even if that means less money I promise you, your kid, you're 10-month-old, will do better over time if she has a mother who is regulated in her own skin, meaning every minute she wakes up in the morning, she's not already having to reapply makeup because she's tearing up, thinking about dropping her kid off at a daycare center.

and so knowing that i'd rather you have a season of we don't have very much money we are broke we are struggling we are grinding it out husbands taking a second job whatever you're working part-time whatever we have to do to make this next season because it's just winter right spring will come but right now it's winter we've got to bundle up it's annoying it's hard i would rather you all explore the realities of those things, then you wake up in three or four years and just hate your life. And for all the moms who always wanted to be stay-at-home moms and they just have a 10-month-old and they're going stone mad, then I would tell you, consider the other alternative, right? So this isn't just for moms who are working who want to stay home. It works the

other way, too. But it's so easy to get trapped in those can'ts, nevers, have-toes. that I want you to be honest about exploring other alternatives, even if they're really uncomfortable for the next six months or next year. So how does that all hit you? Just the idea of it. The idea of in a few years, like absolutely hating my life is terrifying, but then also, like, having to change so much and take that pay cut and have to, because right now we don't really worry about money too much,

but then kind of having that worry also stresses me out. So it's just a lot. Yeah, it's a lot. It is. Can we dig into the word worry? Is it worry or is it be intentional? I'd say it's more worry because, I mean, growing up, my parents were always stressed that about money and I don't want that for my son. Yep. Okay. And, yeah, I don't want him to have to see us with that stress either. Okay. When I say worry versus intentional, is it worry like we will not have enough money to people? pay our bills or is it intentional like this is going to be super annoying because we're going to have to

watch the budget very very closely for 24 months with that I'd say it's more intentional okay and I would tell you often intentionality is the right next move for almost all of us in almost every situation it is very annoying that I have to get up to exercise for me to feel good like a whole person I hate it like I would much rather just wake up really late and run out the door and go to work. But that intentionality saves my marriage. It saves my relationship with my kids. It saves my employment.

It saves my life. So that intentionality, that frustration gives me the life that I want to live. So what does your husband do? He is a video editor. Okay. And you say he just stumbled into that. What does that mean? Um, so he, without too much detail, he had a pretty popular YouTube channel, actually, for a little while.

Okay. Um, and his employer found him through that and just offered him a job straight through that. Um, whereas normally he'd need to have the degree and apply and all that, but they just found him. Okay. So what you're telling me is he won the lottery one time. playing the YouTube game, and I say won the lottery, tongue and cheek, he must have been very good at what he was doing

because that's a very hard place to be successful in. I know because I live in it. Right. And then he was so good at what he did, somebody came after him and found him and made him such an offer that he shut that one down and went to do something else, right?

Yes. What that tells me is you are married to a very talented, very hardworking, very savvy man. Is that fair? Yes, I am. Okay. So to say, this is our only shot,

is not honest. It's also just guilt because I mean, he's also told me because he wants this for me as well. And he's told me he'll do anything to make it happen. But then it's the guilt of I don't want to make him get a second job or leave his job. And I want to tell you choose guilt over resentment starting today. Because as I told you earlier,

you're going to feel guilty about every move that you make. Mm-hmm. Or every move that you don't make. If you have a man who's saying, I want to be the guy who gives my wife and my young son the life they want, then that is the life he wants. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. And by the way, if my wife came home tomorrow and said, we have to be done with this. Kelly just looked up and she's like, please don't quit.

But like, if she, my wife came home and said, we have to be done with this. It's too much. It's too big. It's just, I can't handle it anymore. There's not a question in my mind that I would not opt out of this thing. It might be us being real and saying, it's going to take us six months. It's going to take us a year. It's going to take us, I've got to figure out what comes the next.

I've got to start reapplying, all that. There would be some logistics to it. And I'd be frustrated. I'd be annoyed because I love what I do. and that doesn't mean that it wouldn't be the right thing to do. But what I would tell you as a husband, if my wife is silently suffering and not telling me

and trying to, I mean, slowly burning like an old cigarette with ash of resentment, I would be really frustrated because I would lack integrity. because we both said we're both all in that meant we're going to be honest with each other

we're going to do the next right thing for each other and we are going to build the life together that we both want and so just know if you keep going to work and it's breaking your heart every morning and it just feels in your guts this is wrong

you're going to feel guilty about that and if your husband says I'll quit this job today for you and the kids and we're going to have 24 months and we're not going to make very much money and you're going to have to be really savvy about where we get groceries from

for a while and we're going to have to get non-cage-free eggs or we have to eat eggs from chickens and cages for a year like I don't know what y'all do but like then you're going to feel guilty about that and if you don't change anything you're going to feel guilty about that like there's not a path that you can take right now we're not going to have some sense of frustration and so let's then go do the next right thing and I'll tell you on behalf of husband's man you sounds like you married a great one sit down and have an honest conversation about okay what would a transition actually look like and just be honest about okay

we've said we can't do this and we can't do that let's put five options on the table and really imagine what would that look like it might mean we have to move it might mean he has to go back to school it might mean any number of things it might mean that he sits down with his employer and says hey if you really want me I got to get some health insurance

I'll split it with you I don't know. I'm just making stuff up, but through your silence, I'm hearing a woman who feels trapped. Yeah. Were you trapped growing up? Um, I mean, yeah. Okay.

Yeah, kind of. Was it your job to make sure everybody was okay growing up? Yeah, I had a sibling that was a lot younger than me, and he was kind of my responsibility. What I would ask for you, on behalf of your husband, who's not on the phone here, I would ask that you not take that into this new marriage that you have, this new role as a mother you have,

this new world you all are co-creating in real time. tonight I want you all to sit down and say okay let's imagine he puts three on the table and you put three ideas on the table and they're all nuts let's go through each one of them all right what if we moved what if I just took this other job or I've actually secretly been applying for or what would it look like in six months come Christmas that we're in a different place maybe we have to sell our house and rent maybe we have to fill in the blank but let today be the day that you sit down and say honestly I don't want this to be my future and I want us to begin building an off ramp here so we can get into and go a new direction in our marriage let him step up and be the husband that he sounds like he wants so desperately to be for you pretty awesome thank you for the call Sarah and congratulations on having an amazing new son we'll be right back all right everybody talks about how important important supplements are. But most of what you see on the supplement shelves in your local grocery

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them too. Stop guessing what's going into your body. Take what it needs. needs and nothing it doesn't go to thorn dot com slash you slash deloni to get 25% off your order when you create an account that's t h o r n e dot com slash the letter you slash deloni all right kelly am i the problem all right so this is from colissa in iowa was it colissa explains at all that was clarissa clarissa yeah all right all right So this is Calissa? Calissa. Calissa.

All right, Colissa. And she writes, My in-laws were watching our three boys over the holidays. She decided that they all needed haircuts. So she, not a trained hairstylist by any means, gave them all horrible bus cuts without my knowledge or permission. I had to take them to the salon the next day to get them all fixed. Well, that wasn't the right solution, but keep going.

We didn't speak for the rest of the holidays, and we skipped Easter with them. We haven't reached out. whatsoever, which they are sorry, they haven't reached out whatsoever, which is highly unusual. The silence is very loud. My kids are asking when we will see them again. I'm totally content with them out of our lives, as is my husband, but is that a petty reason to cut off contact? There's only a thousand character limit here, so I don't have space to go into all the details about all the other things they have done.

That's what I knew. This is just the straw that broke the camel's back. Am I the problem? No, you're not. because A, that doesn't happen in a vacuum. B, if your in-laws were amazing and one day grandma got a wild hair to shave all the boys' heads, y'all would have had that conversation. And that would have been an, oh my gosh, I blew it, I screwed up, I'm so sorry.

Like, y'all would have had that conversation. So clearly there's other things at play here. And you said it at the very end. So no, you're not the problem. I don't know what's right for you and your family moving forward. the fact that your husband is like goodbye and good riddance that tells me mostly what I need to know which is those are his parents and he's done with it

and bye Felicia so that's what I got to say what do you think Kelly oh I agree um I mean the thought of my mom just shaving all my kids hey I think that'd be hilarious and me and my wife would love that but you can't do that right if it was just like you said a one time thing and everybody would laugh about it the hair goes back that's fine but this is clearly even even being mad like hey

don't ever do that again like i know dude this is clearly not a one-time thing no no and you don't fix buzz cuts in a salon come on now come on now right i think at that point you just have to cut it all off go to a barbershop shout out tennessee barber co what up just saying Sheaking her head. Kelly is more of a great clips kind of gal. No chance in Haiti would I take all of this curly hair to great clips. Love you guys. Bye.