The Dr. John Delony Show - How Lies Can Destroy a Marriage

Episode Date: November 2, 2022

On today’s episode, we hear about: - A woman unable to trust her husband who constantly lies about the most bizarre things - An exhausted father and husband who works full time and is also trying to start a produce farm - A woman who grieves the relationship she never got with her schizophrenic father Lyrics of the Day: "Little Lies" - Fleetwood Mac 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. I don't trust my husband. How did he lose trust with you? He likes to tell half-truths and, I mean, he likes to lie. I was going to say, your language is somebody who is so gaslit, like you've got third degree burns what is up this is john with the dr john deloney show so grateful that you joined us and given us your most precious resource your time it's the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast that's ever existed and we also talk about education and politics,

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All right, so when you get this, these will just be out, but I just got these dropped on my desk. These are the newest questions for humans, and here's what we got. We got second edition questions for humans' friends, second edition questions for couples. Oh edition questions for couples oh we have second edition parents and kids my kids and i and my wife did those last night at dinner and they were a blast and just for a short time i've decided to i don't usually try to be a hero. I am this time. We're saving your Christmas and your Thanksgiving. So we've created New Year's and Christmas cards that you can take on the holidays.

And they do say like, we don't have a Thanksgiving one per se, but these are two holiday packs that you can take with you on holidays. When you're going to be staring at your mother-in-law and you don't know what to say and she doesn't want to hear what you have to say anyway, now y'all can use the cards and have a great holiday season.

There's no COVID conversations. There's no Trump or Biden conversation questions. There's none of it. It's just human interaction. Human 101. Go to johndeloney.com and you can get the new questions for humans. You can probably buy them in some kind of wild bundle or something like that. But thank you for supporting it and thank you for making your families

and your relationships stronger. It's awesome. All right, let's go to Leanne in Kansas City. What's up, Leanne? Hey, how's it going? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing well. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. What's up? So, um, I bottom line is, yeah, just say whatever it is. Just say it. I, I don't trust my husband and I don't, I don't know how to trust him. Okay. How did he lose trust with you? So he likes to tell half-truths and intentionally. I mean, he likes to lie.

I was going to say, your language is somebody who is so gaslit, like you've got third-degree burns. He tells half-truths. He's a liar. Let's start with that. Okay, keep going. What does he lie about? I mean like small things,

but also really big things like to him, it's small, but like to say, we can't make it to, um, somebody's birthday party. And he thinks he needs to come up with like an elaborate, really deep reason why we don't need to be there.

And I'm like, we, we're not going because whatever. I mean, we don't want to go. Right. We don't want to go or, or not that, but he'll do that. And then he will lie about big things too. Like, I mean, I can think of a million things, but like, okay. We had to get rid of a cat that we had. Okay. And this is, this feels so dumb saying this because this is how dumb the situation is,

but we had to get rid of this cat because he wasn't taking care of it when I was gone, which again sounds dumb. But the reason he told everybody else was because this cat got sick and we couldn't take care of it anymore. And that just wasn't the reason. And I'm like, you, you were, you were being irresponsible. That's why we had to get rid of it. It's like, clearly he's uncomfortable with these things, but after so long, I, I just can't trust him. And then smaller things like getting into onto the field at football

games. Like he thinks that's so great, but he's like, he's lying about it by printing off fake passes as a grown man to get onto the field at a football game. And I just find it so childish and embarrassing. And after now 10 years of marriage, like I, all those small lies built up over time. I just, I don't trust them. What else does, so I hear you a hundred percent. There's something else. What is it? I, I don't't I don't know like like there's something sitting but has he cheated on

you no I mean there was there was a long period of time where he just wouldn't have sex with me and it hurts so much. And he just kept saying it was because he, you know, medication or, um, yeah, mostly just medication. Or he was like, I think I'm asexual. And I'm like, what? That doesn't make any sense. And I will like the entire time or like this three year period, I really, I just questioned it the entire time. Three years? Three years. Wow.

And. Do you all share your money? Yes. Well, I mean, yes, but there's money that I don't see fully, I guess. So here's the deal. It happens. You've run into an old college friend who used to be big and they lost a bunch of weight. You haven't seen him in a few years. it's like whoa it looks it's so dramatic and they it feels so good but for them they know it's dramatic they see the number on the scale but to them it happened every day just like a quarter of a pound here half of a pound here gain a pound back lose one and a half pounds right and that happened over the period of a couple of years. And so it's very gradual.

And suddenly they're a totally different person when you walk in, right? Yeah. What's happened over the last 10 years is you have gradually, grain by grain of sand, lost your footing on reality. Your husband lies about everything and he's lying about big stuff too. And you know it. And my guess is not only is he great at lying and cutting corners and

cheating, he's living in an alt reality, right? He lives in a world that the rules don't apply to him. Reality doesn't apply to him. And everyone else is stupider than me from the guy the poor volunteer at the high school football game to my boss to the people who took my cat to my wife they're all dumber than me I'm running a scam on all of them and what happens when that happens over time without the the big bludgeon of you found pictures of him with somebody else right

there's that but that's not what happened here this was just pebble by pebble by pebble and suddenly over time you the person you trust the least is leanne you think you're crazy yeah you're not crazy you're not crazy okay and i'm like the heartbreaking thing here is you've been being dragged underwater for a long time and you keep wondering why you can't find your footing as though it's your fault. Yeah. So here's the path out and it's not a pleasant one, okay? Okay. It's sitting with somebody who you know and love and trust and who actually knows this dude knows the whole story knows everything

Because because my I almost guarantee in the in the core of my being I know That if you and I sat here and peeled back the layers on this there is some bad stuff Yeah Is that fair? Yeah Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah. This type of behavior and this type of pattern doesn't happen this long without there being some big stuff that you simply put hardwood floors over because you couldn't bear to look at it or feel it. And so this sits with you sitting with somebody else. If you don't have a close, close friend that knows everything or a sister or a cousin that knows everything, you go get a counselor. But you've got to come up with your no more list and you're going to have to

have an or else okay okay um there has to be a reckoning with coming clean here okay you're you're dangerously close to losing yourself for good and I don't want that for you and what I mean by that is you prop your feet up and you drop your shoulders and you say the scariest words in English language it is what it is and then this just becomes your reality you know what I mean and hey you're a grown up you can choose that i wouldn't wish

that on my worst enemy is what it is but you can choose that moving forward you can decide that's what it's going to be i hope you don't i hope you don't i hope you look in the mirror when we get off this phone and you say i'm worth way the hell more than this and i hope you look in the mirror when we get off this phone and you say, I'm worth way the hell more than this. And I hope you get off the phone and you look in the mirror and say, I deserve to be told the truth. I deserve to not cheat it on. I deserve to not be married to some immature moron who's hiding money from me, who's hiding relationship stuff, who's hiding deep secrets about his own sexuality maybe. I don't know what he's hiding, but it's clearly a deep well that you haven't been invited to you're his wife and you get invited to those things by virtue of marriage and so he can come clean he can stop his lie addiction to dishonesty his addiction to thinking he's better than everybody in his world that everybody around him is stupid, he can quit that, or he opts out of your relationship

because you're worth more than this. And you know that I don't ever, I've got a rule about saying you should leave, but it's time for real, real hard boundaries in your relationship because you're worth more than this, Leon. Way, way more. 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 Churchill 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 churchillemortgage.com slash D'Loni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back. Hey, I gave Leanne a copy during the break of Own Your Past, Change Your Future. It's a book, it's number one bestseller about, i gotta own what happened i gotta own the life that

i have stumbled into or i've allowed to be created or i was dragged into or shoved into i gotta own it and then i've got to ask myself what do i do next and how do i get out right how do i make changes and so i said that along to her too um i have a visceral response to that type of lying and dishonesty. All right. We're going to go on to the next call. Let's go to Alex in Seymour. What's up, Alex? Hey, brother John.

How are you? Partying, dude. What about you? Some would call it a party. I'm lying to you, man. I'm at work, man. I'm at work. Well, I'm not really at work. I'm running a scam here called a podcast, but it's cool what's up with you man uh not a whole lot uh well actually no that's a lie myself

uh we've got a lot going on uh so uh let me just dive into the to the question see if uh where we can go from there cool uh i work work a normal full-time job. Okay. And I'm also trying to get our small little business off the ground. And in the process, I'm trying to figure out how to do that, give the proper attention to my wife and two-year-old, and then give enough attention to the business so that it keeps making progress, keep hammering down on debt because we're doing that plan as well. And really just not try to leave everything behind me just in ashes.

It seems like what's happening. So some, yeah, something's happened that precipitated this call. What is it? Uh, man, I just feel fried. And then I, I, I'm trying to, like I said, I'm trying to get the business going. The goal is to make this a full-time gig. And what's your current day job? I'm an engineer.

Okay. And what's the business you're trying to crank up? Uh, we're actually a small scale farming that's turned into a larger scale farming and I find a lot of heavy black and white, huh? Oh, no, I can't imagine how, how, what a gift it is to go from being an engineer and that pressure and that's all the spreadsheets and all of the, all the stuff. Right. And then heading out to the farm. What kind of farming are you doing? We do produce. I think this year we did somewhere around four acres of produce.

Okay. Hundreds of meat birds, thousands of dozens of eggs. I think 2,200 dozen eggs is what we can do a year. I also added honeybees. Why not? Why not? Are you making money on that? Are you still dumping money into it? Actually, I am

in the positive. It's not much. I'm trying to use the day job to get the big equipment and stuff like that and funded that way when I

ideally step into it full time that I don't have to keep buying equipment and that way hopefully the first full time year is much more profitable. There's a few thousand bucks being uh, you know, buying equipment and that way that hopefully the first full-time year is much more profitable. Um, so yeah, there's a few thousand bucks being made, not much, but there's a lot of also investment in there as well. So if I were to somehow be able to have that, you know, furnished to me, then it would be much more impressive. But right now it's,

it's not very impressive, which I didn't really expect what just i need to go ahead i was gonna say here's the bottom line is you've got a lot going on man a lot and i am all about all about like right now i'm writing another book, this is my busy season when I'm on the road all over the place. Last week I was in three States. Okay. Um, I got this show, co-host the Ramsey show. I've got other media that, I mean, it's, it's madness. And three weeks ago, I sat down with my wife and we mapped out the next three months. They're going to be wild. I, maybe the next four months. It's going to be madness. I canceled some family plans, sent an email out to all of my family and said, we're not hosting holidays this year. It's just not, I mean, it seems to be too maddening.

So what I tell you that to tell you, man, sometimes with work and with little kids, which I got two, and being married, trying to hold that all together, there's seasons of chaos and that's completely okay. It's when everybody knows this chaos is coming. This chaos is here. Here's how we're going to navigate it. We're all on the same page. We're checking in.

My wife and I check in once a week, if not twice a week. Where are we? Where are we? Where are we? And it's got an end date to it. And it sounds like, I'm just going to be honest with you, how old are you?

Just turned 30. Okay. Oh, man. Here's what you are reminding me of. Tell me if I'm off. I'm a full-time college administrator in the executive leadership team of the student affairs division.

And then I have a little boy and he turns 18 months and I realize I don't know how to do this Because every time I hold him he cries for mom and I don't know how to like I play trucks And then i'm so bored within 38 seconds. I want to take that truck and stab it into my eyeball And my wife has changed i've changed. I don't know what to do But i'm good at my job. And so I start doubling down a little bit more and a little bit more. And then I took on a full-time faculty role on top of my full-time administrative role. And then I took another part-time job out of the president's office working on a special project. And all of that in my head was this

idea that I'm working towards this magic moment that I'm going to be free and I'm going to achieve my way towards, um, I'm going to overachieve at work to make up for, I don't really know what the crap I'm doing in my house. Am I right or am I wrong? Yeah, I mean, a lot of that rings with me. And now, I mean, the end of this season, the season now for us is largely just sales. The last round of birds are done. The bees are up for the winter. Obviously, produce is done. And, I mean, we just kind of barely scratched.

I don't even know if we've made it. Crawled across the finish line this year, just, just barely hanging on. And the, uh, it, you know, I walked through the day struggling in the day job thinking about all the things we got and it just feels like somebody standing on me and I don't know how, uh, I mean, like somebody's standing on me yeah and i i don't know how uh i mean i just want to just kind of like sit in my burning house and and you know let it fall in but hey at least it's warm yeah exactly exactly like there's comfort in the chaos i don't because hey if when there's comfort in the chaos. Because, hey, when there's comfort in the chaos,

you get to avoid reality. Because when you're putting out fires or you're dodging the smoke, you actually feel like you're accomplishing something that you don't feel like when you're just sitting by your wife holding her hand

or that you're sitting down on all fours rolling a ball back and forth with a two-year-old that going, bah, bah, bah, bah, bah, and then randomly just says, I hate you.

Right? At least when the house is on fire, you got something to do. The problem is the house is on fire. Yeah. And I try to bring him with me. I know. I know.

Hey, hey, you're a good dad, man. You're a good dad. It. You're a good dad. It's just too much right now. It's too much. So my question for you would be,

is now the time to have 22,000 million dozen eggs? Is now this time to be like, you know what else we should do? We should add bees. Let's do bees. And you know what I know? I know you've already thought about bringing goats or sheep or cows on next year. Well, if we find the property.

I knew it. See? Sucker. Listen, you're going to busy yourself to death. Yeah, you talk about diseases of despair. And I feel the busyness's just a lonely place and it almost feels like the heart just like hey that that last day was so busy you just took three of three days away from me i mean it just um yeah yeah you know when's the last time you took a break, man?

Uh, let me ask you, let me ask you a different way. How's your marriage? Uh, so yesterday was actually our anniversary. We, uh,

quote unquote, celebrated with carry out and hanging out. Not really. I haven't really anything significant about it. That was even more bothersome. So when I ask you the question, you did a great job. You did a great job of aiding it.

But when I ask you how's your marriage, the truthful answer is not well. Right? Or, not what you had envisioned it would be. Yeah. Um, do you hate your engineering job? Oh, I hate it. Okay. Okay. I mean, it's, it's the golden handcuffs feeling. Yeah. I got that. I've been there. I've totally been there. I get it. I don't want to, uh, uh, it seems selfish if I, if I were to just say, you know what? Throwing all my cards in on this, we've, we've, uh, you know,

proving we can make some money. If I put more time in it, we'll make some more money. And, uh, but if that were to fail, I don't know if I would, Hey, it just feels incredibly selfish and the shame that would follow that. I just can't even imagine. Here's what's, here's what's more shameful. If you ask me, there's no shame in making a calculated risk and going for it. Because if you take a calculated risk, not an idiotic risk,

not a moronic risk, but one with a spreadsheet and some wisdom and some people who've done this before and sit down and chart it out with you. Not one that's going to take on a whole bunch of debt and it's going to put you and your family, the livelihood at risk. But a calculated risk that can pay off significantly for your family is good. And a calculated risk that could pay off that fails is extraordinarily good for your family is good. And a calculated risk that could pay off that fails is extraordinarily good for your kids because they get to watch their dad got in a ring

and took a swing at the biggest guy in there and he got knocked down. And then they get to see what happens when you get knocked down and you get back up. So that's not the issue. I think more shameful is living a life of quiet desperation and teaching your son this is what manhood is. I think more shameful is sacrificing your marriage to the altar of busy. Yeah.

Right? Or trading, dragging your… It feels like it. It does. I would rather, and this is going to sound crazy, and here's how radical I'm suggesting. I'd rather see you sell the farm tomorrow to put it up for sale

and spend three years in your engineering job with an idea that in 36 months, I'm out of here. I have no debt. I've put my family in a position where we got six to nine months to a year's salary so we can jump off this thing and do something different. Right now, you're spreading yourself so thin. Or I'd rather you hire somebody to run the farm for the next 24 months. Keep it, hire somebody so that you're not having to work a full-time engineering job and go out and do this and you're going to lose money but you're building right now

yeah and nobody you your mind your training you could create a plan infinitely better than one i could draw up with my humanity psychology background i'd be wanting to think about everything you know how to actually chart it out on a piece of paper and say, I'm going to start here. And by this date, I'm going to have this much money. I'm going to owe this many people, $0. I'm going to be ready to make a move then. And then you sit down with your wife and say, we have 24 more months. How can we carve out the greatest life worth living in those 24 months while I put extra work on top of extra work on top of extra work into this deal? Because here's what I'm wondering. I'm wondering if you hate engineering.

Totally fair. And you created an exit plan and you slowly started building your exit strategy and now you're halfway in it and you don't like it either. Oh, I should mention, I mean, this is year three. Okay. So it's not like yesterday. No, no, no. I know. I know.

But is it possible that you're year three and you're like, oh gosh, this is a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of work. Oh, I'm totally aware of the work. I really do truly find a lot of joy when somebody comes back after they buy, you know, say a chicken breast and throw them and say, man, those were freaking awesome. I don't know how you raise those birds, but it was fantastic. Or the honey or this or that or the other. I mean, it's just an awesome high. Absolutely.

It really, I do feel like I'm really serving somebody the best way that I know how. I think my wife enjoys, you know, that part of it as well. She certainly doesn't like to get her hands dirty as much as I do. Hey, listen, listen. I see it in her eyes. Your whole voice changes talking about this. It's quite, yeah, I mean. Your whole voice changes.

So let's do this. It's almost spiritual to me. Yes. So let's do this. Let's stop screwing around with the other stuff. You can't, you can't keep. The fine stuff or the.

No, no, no. With the. Going to engineering every day and hating it farming all hours of the night Not being present with my wife not learning the skills of how to be a husband to somebody who's um Got a kid

Not learning the new skills on how to be a present father You may not have got that from your old man Or you may have got a great old man, but just times have changed. You got to learn some new skills Right now you're trying to do all of these things at the same time and it's not going to work So either come up with a scorched earth plan Financially in your home. We are going to not spend a single penny Beyond what it takes to survive for the next six months because I've got to get out of this engineering job. And I'm going to go full tilt into this farming deal if we can afford it,

if we can make it. And if we do the math and we realize we can't make it, we'd have to have another billion eggs or another whatever, then we're going to figure something else out. And by the way, the other night, me and Ben Hill and several others played in a rock band. It was so incredible. So fun. There was 2,000 people out there screaming, yelling, going bananas. It was a spiritual moment for me. If you ask my 18-year-old self, it's what I was put on earth to do, to be in a metal band.

And I also had to come to terms with it doesn't pay my bills and it breaks my heart. And it makes me sad because I would love to do that as much as I love this job. I would love to be a full-time rock and roller. It's not going to happen. I'm not that good. And so instead of trying to do it for a living, I do it in pockets and I do it regularly and I do it by myself sometimes and I do it with a group sometimes. And if there's a big show, I'll throw my name in the ring. But I've turned it into a hobby instead of a way of being. Right?

But if nothing else you hear, this may not be the season for you fill in the blank. You're going to have to take a break from something because this can't continue. I can hear it in your voice. Last thing is you need to go talk to a grown man ahead of you. A couple of men who are wise, who are 10 years ahead of you in the farming game, five years ahead of you in the engineering game, who have had kids who are 10 years old and eight years old

who are ahead of you. Because right now it feels like you're drowning and you're probably not drowning like you think you are, but it feels like it because all the feelings are new. That's why community is so important. Get some men in your life who've got some wisdom, who are a little bit ahead of you down the road. Okay. Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future 2. And I want you to read it and think about this other stuff because you and I could talk for a long time. I know it. I want you to get to the bottom of the life you've accepted and be about building something new. We'll be right back.

All right, we are back. Let's go to Alexandra in Suex Falls in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. What's up, Alexandra? Nothing much. How are you doing, Dr. John? Good. Y'all having fun? You know, it's like 50-some degrees here today, so maybe not quite as much fun as I had hoped we'd have.

That's like the depths of winter here in Nashville. Very cool. So what's up? Can I jump right in with my question? Let's do it. Okay. So I typed it out so I wouldn't get too tongue tied. Perfect.

I'll go ahead. How do I connect with my father who I'm starting to resent? A little bit of backstory. So my dad has drug induced schizophrenia. He's had it since he was in his twenties. And he had my sister and I, when he was 28 and 29, my parents divorced shortly after that. And he went to jail for a little while. I was six months old and my sister was a year and a half. Growing up, my dad lived with my great grandmother and we would go see him at her house during this time. He cycled every three to five years. So when this would happen,

we would go a little while without seeing him. And we were told that he was ill, not really explaining anything else. Um, and then once he was doing better, we'd go back and see him like nothing happened. I was about 16 when somebody finally explained it to me that it was a mental illness and explained to me a little bit about what schizophrenia was and why we were allowed around him at that time. And so at 19, he went off of his medication, so he cycled. And at that point, I guess my family had kind of decided that my sister and I were old enough to figure it out by ourselves. And with literally no guidance at all, we were able to help him get into, checked into the ER because at 19, I have no idea how to handle a mental illness at all. And so we went to the ER because that was what I guess we were supposed to

do. And so we got him a psych eval and then got him put into a behavioral health unit where they got him back on his medication. And he got out a couple of days later and we went and got him, brought him back to my grandmother's house. And that's kind of how it's been ever since then. We moved him up to Sioux Falls. He used to live in then. We moved him up to Sioux Falls. He used to live in Iowa. We moved him up to Sioux Falls because we thought maybe him being closer to us and, like, seeing us more would be helpful to him. But he's actually started this cycle now every, like, couple months, every two to three months. So he goes off of his medication for two to three months and he hides it super well. He

doesn't talk about it very often and he hates whenever we bring it up. And so usually we just try not to. And then we notice things, we start getting text messages about like needing to run and hide and how people are after him. And then it takes us about a month or so to convince him to go back to behavioral health, get him checked in, try to get him back on track. There is a program here that you go to right after that, right after being in the hospital and he never stays on it. And so he's good for about two to three months and then we just start over again. Okay. Okay. Listen, listen, listen, listen. I'm hoping somebody's told you everything I'm about to tell you. Okay. Okay. Listen, listen, listen, listen. I'm hoping somebody's told you everything I'm about to tell you. Okay. Is that cool? Yeah. This isn't the way this is supposed to be. And when you were born,

you deserved a dad who was fully present with you who held you like the princess you were because you were his baby girl and who dedicated his life to making sure your life was good and you deserved a dad who was going to hold you and every day despite your protests tell you that you were beautiful and that he loved you and despite your protest he was going to look you in the eye and say, I'm so glad that of all the crazy people in the world, God picked me to be your dad. That's how it's supposed to be. And I'm sorry that you didn't get that. But I need you to hear this direct.

The dad you missed growing up was not your fault. The dad you missed growing up was because he was sick, not you. And you have spent a long, long time trying to bridge that gap to a relationship back to him because your little six-month-old and seven-year-old and 12-year-old and 19-year-old body is trying to tell you somehow this is your fault. If you would just fill in the blank, move him closer,

pay more closer attention to his meds, maybe he moves in. All of this language that cycles through your head over and over is that somehow you need to be doing something different and then dad can be okay. And that's not true. Goodness. Okay. Am I wrong? No, you're not Okay, I want you to do me a huge favor

I want you to take as deep a breath as you possibly can and hold it Three, two, let it out And I want you to drop your shoulders all the way down Okay I could feel them creeping up to your ears Okay okay I could feel them creeping up to your ears okay schizophrenia is the devil because it takes the people that we love

away from us and they're there in body and they look at us and you've been with your dad when he's off his meds when he's off cycle and he's at us and you've been with your dad when he's off his meds, when he's off cycle and he's looking right at you, but he doesn't see you. You know what I mean?

Yeah, absolutely. It's terrifying, isn't it? The absolute worst. Yeah. The temptation. Where do we go from here?

You're not going to like what i have to say okay and i want you to know if you hang up this phone you say that guy sucks i'm totally okay with that okay my promise is i'm just never gonna not tell you the truth okay i also know that it's easy for me to say what i'm about to say because i don't have this challenge in my house and I can't honestly say how I would respond if I was in your same boat. Okay. But you cannot be the person responsible for keeping your dad well. You can't. You can't check up on him every 30 minutes and make sure he's on his meds. You can't make sure that when he stops taking his meds that he doesn't have access to phones and stuff because he's gonna go fill In the blank fill in the blank fill in the blank You cannot make your dad be healthy and whole and i'm so sorry

In a season when he is on meds And he's it sounds like he levels out Is that fair yeah okay when he levels out there has to be some sort of conversation which is dad if you get off of your medication you are making a choice to no longer be in my life in my sister's life and i miss you and I want you in our life and I hope that you will never make that choice. But when he's on his meds,

he understands that his brain's not telling him the truth. Does he? Not really. Okay. It just turns the volume of the alarms down a little bit so this is the thing that i get a little bit confused about um he was discharged from the military when he was 18 i think and what they had told him was that he had multiple personality disorder or something like that and then he got the diagnosis of schizophrenia. And the thing that I don't understand is normally, like you said, medication turns the volumes down.

He actually likes being off of his meds. Like he- Oh, dude. Yes. I've never met a schizophrenic person. That's not true. Maybe one who enjoyed being on their medication. Because there's this impending sense that, um, it's like being in a room full of crowded people with headphones on, you know, they're talking and they might be talking about me, but I'm wearing headphones because I can't take the volume. You get that, you know, that, that, how that would just gnaw at you, you know? I know they're talking and I want to know what they're saying,

but I do know this. If I listen to what they're saying, I go insane. I hurt myself and other people. And so my path forward is one of two choices. Being like sticking my head into the fire or choosing to not listen to what's going on in the world

around me. And so the tension is there. I've met one person who enjoyed being, was able to preferred being in relationship than being on the inside of this radical information they had, right? And I don't know enough about the neurophysiology of schizophrenia and the schizotypal disorders and all the different little nuances of that. My guess is their brain lesions were a little bit different or their brain chemistry is a little bit different. No, it's a choice. It's a battle.

It's a war because you feel this impending sense of, dude, dude, dude, dude, they're coming and you are choosing not to look. That's what that feels like. And yet- So what you're suggesting is that when he's off of his medication- No, on. On, on. Oh, oh, go ahead. Go ahead. I cut you off. Go ahead. When he's off of his medication, he doesn't, he doesn't get the choice to be in relationship with my sister and I. Um, but when he chooses to be on it and that's the other thing is if we've tried that before, we're like, if he's off of his medication, we're still talking to him, but we're not pushing him to go get, but we're not pushing him to go

get evaluated. We're not pushing him to go to the hospital. And so, I mean, nobody is then it just doesn't happen. And then, so this happened two weeks ago, he disappeared for seven days, left his phone, left his car, left everything just gone, dropped off the face of the planet. Um, and i filed a missing persons report on him and he showed up seven days later said he was living in the woods he enjoyed it out there but he came back because he needed his phone can i tell you it sounds like this is escalating yeah i just at some point at some point you go sit down

with the local care services and or whatever go back to the hospital you had him admitted to originally and ask about the procedure in your particular state for an involuntary committal because it sounds like he is fast on a path

to not being able to take care of himself. And you have to recognize your limitations. You do not have the ability to deal with the level of psychosis your father has. Okay?

And that's a powerless feeling. We've gone through that four times this year okay we've done this involuntary commitment okay you just keep cycling and so how many how many times do you no i would ask for i would i would ask for what does a court order look like to make this a permanent residency the hospital no no no A long-term care treatment center. Oh. For somebody with psychosis who is unable to care for themselves.

And if he's a threat to himself or others, there's a possibility that you can get him committed long-term. And I would pursue that if I'm in your exact shoes. Because here's the deal. You can't solve this. You can't solve this. You can't fix it.

Right. And it sounds like if he's continuing to get off his meds and he's cycling more and more and faster and faster, and now he's disappearing for two days, and now it turns into seven days, and now it turns into, see what I'm saying? This is on a trajectory that I don't like. And you and your sister are going to have to fight the impulse to blame yourself for the trajectory because it's not your fault.

Right. Your dad's not doing well. In fact, the greatest gift you could give your dad is for you to be whole. And when he's on his meds and he has a conversation with you, those rare conversations where everything's light, everything, he can maybe make some jokes. He remembers the old days. You think to yourself, there he is. There he is. There's the real him.

I can go get him. I can go get him there. And unfortunately, that's not the whole real him because the whole real him is very, very sick. And it's easy to live in a fantasy. And even when he's cycled off and you continue to talk to him and you continue to talk to him

and you continue to talk to him, you're just heading down a bottomless pit with somebody. And I know it's your dad and I know it's so hard. I know it's so hard, especially given the years of abuse you suffered. But the wise mature thing here is to step back, take 10 paces back and put your hands up and say, I don't have the expertise to heal my dad. I don't have the expertise or the financial wherewithal or even the ability to continue to prop my father up for 5, 10, 15, 20 years, however long this is going to go. And this is starting to cycle faster and

faster and faster. And he's going to end up hurting himself or somebody else. So it's time for me to call in folks who could care for him long-term. And let's go down that road and see what that's going to look like. I don't know what that looks like in Sioux Falls. My guess is they've got some significant resource opportunities there, but that's where I would go. Remember, remember, remember, it's not your fault. It's not your fault. 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're back as we wrap up today's show. The song of the day, throwback to caller number one from the great Fleetwood Mac. Song is Little Lies, and it goes like this. If I could turn the page in time and I'd rearrange just a day or two, close my, close my, close my eyes, then I'd rearrange just a day or two. Close my, close my,

close my eyes, but I couldn't find a way. So I'll settle for one day to believe in you. Tell me, tell me lies. Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies. No, you can't disguise. Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies. Although I'm not making plans, I hope that you understand there's a reason why. Close your eyes. No more broken hearts. We're I hope that you understand there's a reason why. Close your eyes. No more broken hearts. We're better off apart. Let's give it a try. Tell me. Tell me. Tell me lies. Tell me sweet little lies. Don't. Don't lie. Don't lie. Tell the truth. See you later.