The Dr. John Delony Show - I Desperately Need Alone Time With My Wife

Episode Date: March 6, 2024

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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. My husband and I were youth leaders at our church, and we took a step back with the arrival of our baby, but there is a teenager who is having a hard time with that. Why haven't you got mom involved yet? Well, the mom also expressed, like, if you can just be there for her. So I know the mom's kind of on the same way. Wait, what? Wow.

What's up, what's up, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you are hanging out with us today. Talking mental health, emotional health, your marriage, parenting, whatever you got going on in your life. My promise is I'm going to sit with you. We'll get down in the mud and we're gonna just sit here and we're gonna figure it out Right. We've created a world that is what I believe is the loneliest generation in human history and

We have a whole bunch of people who have a whole bunch of friends on the internet And they're trying to navigate these problems in their personal lives all by themselves. We have married couples and dating couples who sit on a couch and they're six inches apart from each other. They're 6,000 miles away from one another and we just don't have a bridge back to each other. And that's what this show is. It's me sitting with you and we will figure out what is the next right step. For two decades plus, I've been sitting with hurting people when everything's falling off, everything's falling apart, and we figure out that one terrifying question. What are you going to do now? What comes next? And that's what this show. It's real people going through real stuff. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K.

Fill out the form, write it out, hit send and Kelly and Taylor will see if you can be on the show. Alright, let's go out to Lincoln, Nebraska and talk to the great and powerful Adam. Hey, Adam, what's up, man? Hey, Dr. John, how's it going? Partying,

man. What are you up to? Hey, so the thing is my wife and I, we're new parents. The thing is, that was a great one. I haven't had that. We've had like 500 plus shows. No one's been like, all right, so the thing is, well done, man. All right. So the thing is the thing is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, it's been so much fun so far. Um, uh, we love our daughter. She's, uh, about seven months old now. Um, we love spending time with her. Um, my question really is this. So she is seven months old now, but we've only had, um, a babysitter watcher once. And that was my brother and his wife. Um, who's the one who can't breathe? Um, it would be, it would be my wife. She doesn't trust anyone. Um, and even my brother and his wife, after the one time that

they watched our daughter. What happened? Um, I mean, it was, we went out for our anniversary, um, and we were only gone for a couple of hours. We got dinner, we went to, um, Sam's club and got some groceries and then we came back and, um, I mean, I felt like everything went fine. Um, our daughter was crying when we got home. Um, I think like it wasn't anything just kind of, they were changing her diaper. Um, she was probably getting tired. And I think my wife, um, just saw that and, you know, felt our daughter's pain and, and knew that she missed us. And now she's, uh, not really willing to let anybody watch her. So can we get super real for a second? Yeah.

You've done a great job at saying all of the right things. So I applaud you. You're doing a, you're, you're presenting well. Me and my wife, we love our baby daughter. We love spending time with her. We love this new season. And you miss your wife. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we haven't really been able to go out on dates. I mean, we like spend time together in the evening after she goes to bed,

but that's just kind of like watching movies or, you know, maybe playing a board game or something, but then we get tired. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and sleep is such a precious commodity right now, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, man, this is, this one's tough for a couple of reasons, but the main reason is she's not on the phone so it's this awkward thing where two dudes are going to try to figure out a problem that we don't have insight in because we aren't a mother who's been connected to this baby for going on almost two years now right yeah um here's here. Here's a couple of thoughts, okay? The first one is,

well, let me ask one more question that's a broader question. Is this the challenge that you have, that you miss your wife, or is your wife's connection with this baby slowly becoming an obsession. And what I mean by that is not the obsession like she changes diapers and feeds the kid and does naps and all that. Are you watching your wife become a shell of herself?

Or are you watching a woman who's just becoming this person that's pretty magnanimous, but you don't know what to do now in terms of your marriage? Well, I think she's really thriving in that role as a mother, and she's always wanted to do that, and I've always wanted to be a dad too, and she's a stay-at-home mom, so she gets all this time with the baby and really no time just with me and with us together. So she want that. Yeah. Yeah. She, she says she does. She just says like, she's not ready or, um, or she just feels like our baby would be miserable with a babysitter. Okay. That baby's going to be

miserable with two parents who don't know or like each other also Right, right, right, right. Um This is tough man. Um, all right. So here's here's a couple of things. Um Here's where I would start I think it would be a cool exercise And you'll probably have to do this at home to get going. Okay, I think it would be a cool exercise and you'll probably have to do this at home to get going. Okay. I think after this year, hopefully you'll do this somewhere else, but I think it would be cool for y'all to plan and it's going to have to be between naps. It

won't be this big thing, but basically the rebuilding of our marriage because now it's all new. And I think asking her, how long did y'all date and were you married before you had a kid? Yeah. So we've been married for five years and we were engaged for about a year before that and dated for a year before getting engaged. Okay. So y'all have been the better part of a decade, right? Seven years plus. Okay. So y'all have created this marriage and now everything's different and what most i'm gonna overly gender this but most men are just waiting for things to quote unquote get back to the way they were yeah when we just went out remember we just went out remember we just like had sex on the

dinner table like just randomly like on tuesday night like remember those days and they keep waiting for this just to happen and it doesn't just happen because everything's new now and so it has to be intentional moving forward and most couples they don't take the time or the intentionality to get there until there's a crisis. And so I think it would be cool to plan a Saturday morning for the two of you. And maybe you have, my son did this several times where he was young. He was like seven or eight, but he came over to a house while mom or dad were still there and he played with the baby but he was in the house right so basically he was a distraction he wasn't a babysitter he was just a distraction

so mom or dad could do the things they need to do at the house yeah and y'all could plan and just be just dream sit talk I've been pregnant for almost nine months and now our baby is seven, almost nine months, right? Eight, nine months. What kind of couple do we want to be? What do we want this to look like? What does romance look like now?

What does, how do I love you today? What does that look like? What do we want our finances to look like? And here's what we're doing. I want to get out of the your wife's immediate moment of all i can all she can think of and she feels it in her body all she can feel is her baby's going to be tortured when she walks out the door and that's not true but we have to get out of that moment so let's get out of that moment and go over here and begin to talk about what could be, what we want to have happen, what we want this thing to look like. And that's where you're going to have to take some vulnerable steps, my brother, and say things like, I miss my wife.

I miss you. I miss the little jokes. I miss the private stuff. I miss the private dates we would go on. I miss you reaching under the table and holding my hand. I miss you. And she hopefully would say, I miss you too. And what we're doing is we're creating, all right, this is awesome.

How do we reverse engineer this in real life? And I'm thinking of the words exposure therapy. Do you know what that is no not really so exposure therapy is something they do for people who struggle with anxiety but let's say you have a phobia about snakes and you go in and see somebody what they're going to do is they're going to talk to you about snake they're going to have you sit all by yourself for a few weeks and imagine a snake just imagine and then feel your body like where is it where is that fear showing up in your body?

What's it doing? Are you sweating? Is your heart racing? And then over time, they're going to, y'all going to draw pictures of a snake. Then you're going to look at pictures. Then you're going to watch online videos of a snake. And the whole process ends with you holding a live, like, Python or a bow constrictor in the office and what we've done is we've slowly taught your brain that it has pegged this thing as the end of time but it's actually going to be okay

and it's just training your brain so what that might look like for you all is will you do one hour from 5 p.m to 6 p.. at a local diner right down the street and call somebody from your local church or your neighborhood or somebody that will come for one hour. Can we just do one hour and then we'll race back here? The catch will be we're going to do one hour. We're going to put it on the

calendar once a week for one month. We're going to exhale. Then after that, we're going to go to once, once a week at a diner. And then one weekend out of that month, we're going to go on a date for just two hours. We're going to go to dinner seven to nine, something like that. And what we're doing is we're slowly teaching your wife's body that it's okay. The baby's going to be okay. She's going to be okay. And she can settle into this complex matrix of being a wife and mother.

It just, you're going to have to be patient, but I think your patience is going to be easier when there's a plan. Yeah, absolutely. When there's no plan, it feels like those dark night of the soul questions, like, is this the rest of my life? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've definitely been thinking that, yeah. Yeah, and you know, like, oh, they always they always talk about like married couples just kind of become obsessed with

their kids and then he gets obsessed with work or she gets obsessed with work and everything just goes away is this happening is this us right so i think being intentional on the front end is super super important here um and it also it you got to hold space for her to say no and live with what that might mean. If she looks at you and says, I'm not going to go to a diner with you for an hour. I'm never going to do that until our daughter can walk and talk. I'm not going to do that. And then if that's the case, then you need to go see a marriage counselor because your marriage is going to be in trouble for a couple of different reasons. But it's hard stuff. It's hard, hard stuff. And I think it's, I'd love to talk to your wife, but I think it's worth sitting down and saying, okay, walk me through. What do you feel? Because babies cry, babies cry. That's

how they get people's attention. that's how they just say, hey, guys, I peed in my pants, they do that by going, ah, and they say, hey, I need to roll over, and they do that by going, ah, that's just how they communicate, and so it's not always catastrophic or end of time or something's hurt or whatever, but your wife is not going out because the perceived discomfort of this baby makes her feel bad. And that's the part that we have to, she's got to be willing to say,

I need to heal and grow from that. So hope that helps my brother. I'm going to send you a copy of building a non-anxious life. That may be a conversation that y'all can walk through in your home together. But I think it's worth sitting down and starting from scratch and saying,

all right, we've had a seven year run and it's been awesome. And now we have this amazing baby and everything goes out the window. What do you want this thing to look like? Here's what I want this thing to look like. Here's what I want us to continue to become. Here's what I need. What do you need? Here's what I want us to continue to become. Here's what I need.

What do you need? Here's what I want. What do you want? Will you build this new marriage with me? And then hold on. So hopefully she says yes. And then you're off to the races. She might say no.

You got to deal with that reality too. Thanks for the call, my brother, Adam. Wish you all the best. 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

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and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists 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, let's go out to Carrie, Carrie, why you boogin' in Arizona? What's up, Carrie? Good morning. What's up? How we doing?

Good. How are you? Good. How can I help? Good. Okay. So my question is, how can I maintain a healthy relationship with a teenager who's continually crossing relational boundaries that I've set in place? The backstory of that is my husband and I

were youth leaders at our church and we took a step back with the arrival of our baby, but there is a teenager who is having a hard time with that. Yeah. Cause they're teenagers. There's a reason we don't let them buy beer or bullets or drink, right. Right. Or vote, um, uh, is, so I guess question number one, is this teen somebody who just connected with you or is this teen somebody who comes from an abusive home and you're the only safe adult they know? No, it was just a friendship connection. Um, started out as mentoring, but it's just every few months it gets a little weird a little pushy yeah um this is going to be hard and you're going to have to deal with her feeling betrayed but

people disagree with me on this and i just work with young people from almost my entire career. I don't text teenagers, male or female, one-on-one as an adult who's not their parent. Oh, that's good. I don't DM kids back and forth unless there's a couple of young people. One is, I think, 20 and one is 14. And in concert with their fathers i have told these young men um there's going to come a moment in your life when you do something

stupid and you're not going to want to call your dad you call me and i'll call your dad right right and so i've got that but i don't we're not back and forth. How's it going? Whatever. If, um, one of my sons, he's 14. If one of my son's, um, friends who, you know, at our house hanging out, you know, whatever. Um, if let's say one of his friend, Benji, like hit a home run in a baseball game, I might text Benji, but I would include Benji's mom and Benji's dad and my son in that text message. So that's just a rule I have. I don't think adults should be texting other people's teen children. It just happened to my son,

and I hate it. Right. Even by people I love and care about. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. You come through me. I'm their parent, right? So I tell you that to tell you, I think we're at a place now

we've got to bring mom and dad in. Okay. When you say she's crossing the line, gets pushy, tell me more about that. So one example is when we were about to have our baby, I got a long text that she's worried I won't have time for her anymore. And then most recently is jealous of my adult friendships and is bothered by the fact that I give her one day out of the month while I give them more of my time.

And I let her know that my priorities are my husband, my kids, and my adult friendships. And then she's been kind of mad at me since. But I honestly don't care and I'm ready to move on from the relationship. And I don't know how to do that kindly. I think, have you put boundaries in? Meaning, hey, I only respond to these texts once a week. Or I only respond to these texts once a week or i only respond to these emails once a week or hey i just don't text that's not the way i communicate

anymore um if you've got some stuff you want to talk to me about i can't wait um and we get together for coffee once a month i'll be happy to talk to you okay but think of it this way instead of engaging relationally back and forth like this like, like a tennis match or a pickleball match, think you are modeling for her what a healthy relationship looks like. Right. And I don't, like if I was seeing clients or I was like talking to people that I'm coaching, I don't like call them all day. We don't talk in between sessions, right? Exactly. And this is a mentoring relationship.

It's not a friendship. It's not a, you're not, you're not, see what I'm saying? So do you have some internal discomfort? Does it feel weird? It does feel weird time to time. And that's what I was wondering if I need to get the mom involved, just because I know I can't be the sole source of friendship in her life right now. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Why haven't you got mom involved. Um, just because I know I can't be the sole source of friendship in her life right now. Yeah. Yeah. Hmm. Why haven't you got mom involved yet? Well, the mom also expressed to

me at the time we were having our baby, like, she's just nervous. She doesn't have friends her age, but like, if you can just be there for her. So I know the mom's kind of on the same way. Wait, what? I know it's an odd situation That is like Odd that's like wow Yeah So then I'm that's where I'm at Like

You're having a baby And the mom of someone else Like a teenager's mom Reaches out to you and is like hey I know you're Like having a kid and everything in your life is going to be different but like don't forget about my teenage daughter because she's empty friends and you're it yep whoa yeah that's tough um i would quite honestly i would put an end to the relationship at this point. Okay, that's what I'm feeling.

Yeah, because it can't be held in a healthy boundary, and the teenager doesn't have good modeling on the other side of this. Right. Right. Okay. When my dad quit the police force and became a minister, he said something that was really profound, and I didn't even get it at the time. I was just a knuckleheaded young kid, but he said, now that I work at the church that we attend,

you won't be able to hear me. So I want you to find men that you trust, that I trust in this building and I'll connect you with some that you can reach out to and call. But my dad set that up. Okay. And those were that up. Okay. And those were not friendships. Right. Those were, hey, man, can you, I need some help with something. I messed something up. I don't know what to say.

I have a dating question. I'm sure not going to ask my dad. Right. So, but it was set up that way. That's not what you have. You have somebody, you've become a Xanax for this woman's child and you need to get out of that. Okay. I think you just let her know really gently like, oh, I'm going to have to put an end to our monthly meetings.

I'm just spending more and more time with my husband and my new family. And it's just big and it's beautiful and it's wonderful. And I'll see you around. And I wish you the absolute best. Okay. Thank you so much. That, that feels good to have that reassurance. If, um, if she says she's going to hurt herself, if she says, well, my mom, I didn't tell you ever tell you this, but my mom's abusive, whatever. Um, then you have to go straight to the authorities with that. to the local her local school you got to call that one in right but um other than that yeah i hate this for you and again i don't blame the teenager here teenagers are teenagers right they are reaching out you clearly have made a good like a deep and profound influence in her life life. But she's running up against an adult boundary and she's learning in real time. Do

adults keep their word? Do adult boundaries matter? Do the adult boundaries hold? And so you're teaching her as a good mentor, what boundaries feel like and what they look like. And she needs to learn boundaries don't feel comfortable all the time, but they're real. Only problem is she's not getting any support from home. Ugh, I hate that. Hated, I hated, I hated. But thank you for loving the teenagers in your local community. They need mentors. They need mentors that they can talk to, they can be open with, and that model healthy boundaries. By the way, I know it's not cool. Don't text teens that aren't yours, middle school, high school kids that are not your kids.

If you do need to do that, include their parents and especially your kids on those exchanges. It just keeps everything clean and clear. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks, let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though, is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past,

it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for

your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice, and here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it, and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself, and sometimes you do this with a group, and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet earth, Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney.

It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Spearfish, South Dakota, one of my favorite places on the planet to visit. I've never been there. Let's go to Michael. Hey, Michael, what's up?

Oh, not much. Just watching the snow fall. That's amazing. It's like 108 degrees here in Nashville. Good for you, man. Is it? It's like 23 degrees here today. No, it's probably 30 here.

It's still pretty chilly. Hey, tell me about Spearfish. Pretty... Not necessarily secluded. still pretty chilly. Hey, tell me about Spearfish. Pretty, not necessarily secluded, probably about 14,000 people, just kind of in the hills. It's a very pretty area if you've never been out here before. It's probably staggering

how beautiful it is, huh? Yeah, it's a place to visit for sure. That's amazing. Alright, I'm going to put it on my list. I like to go to places with really cool names, and Spearfish just sounds rad. All right, so what's up, brother? How can I help? So I've been dating a girl for about seven months now, and her and her daughter just moved in to the house for like four and a half months ago.

Hold on. The way you presented that was incredible. Yeah. hold on the way you presented that was incredible yeah so we've been dating for seven and a half months and they just moved in uh four and a half months ago yeah it wasn't ideal and how it happened it was like a last minute um like hey my place is available kind of a thing and her daughter is with her how How old is her daughter? Eight years old. I'm trying to figure out how to navigate those waters to be the best figure that I can be. I don't know how. I didn't grow up in a loving family home.

I don't know how to navigate the step-parent role at all. I think the first key to your question is to become an actual step parent because right now y'all are playing house yeah and i mean i mean that not in a disrespectful way but but like dude you're just a boyfriend and right y'all been together you haven't been together a year you've only been living together for a few, and here's this sweet eight-year-old. Right. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot. Where's her dad?

Well, her real dad is across the state that they are moving to. That's the reason why they moved in is because the place they were living at, they were no longer able to live at. And they tried to go through income-based housing, but it took them so long to get the paperwork through that the lease that she would have had to have signed it just it didn't work out any anymore like she would have had to have been there for a year and she was moving in four months okay so i think the greatest gift you could give this kid right now is not the illusion that you're her dad. You're a guy that helped out a divorcee. You helped out a single mom and a young child in a moment of need, right? Yep. a young child in a moment of need right yep um for a kid that father figure role is really really important and it's it's what kids put they anchor themselves into and that's the part about divorce has become so commonplace these days and people don't understand kids anchor in they they bang bang bang these

steel rods into bedrock and when those things break and that's their their parents and when those things break man it's just untethering and so what i wouldn't want to get into with this eight-year-old is this weird i like like this guy. My mom likes this guy. He makes me happy. But I can't like him too much because then I'm betraying my dad, even though my dad left us. And it just becomes a big mess. I think the greatest gift you can give this kid is high, high stability.

And high, high, make it a point, make it your daily mission to bring light and joy into every doorway you enter. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. And she's kind of noticed, like, I do cold plunges and stuff in the morning, and she is, like, picking on, like, the things that I do every day. Yeah.

Because she asks me why I do things I don't want to do. And I think having like, what you're doing is you're giving, you're showing her consistency. You're showing her discipline. But I would be weary of getting into the life lesson roles. Like, I'm your dad. I'm going to teach you how to do hard things. You're just not there yet. Okay.

And I think that, but keep doing your thing. And when she asks, why are you getting that freezing cold water? You could walk through, like, it makes me feel good. And it's a scary, hard thing that I make myself do because lots of life is scary, hard things. And I, what you're creating is a, is a slow, thin layer by thin layer, a new foundation. Okay. Is that ringing true? Yeah. A lot of that is ringing true. Also, bro, honor her

mom. Yeah, I love her mom to death. I know you do, but I'm not saying love her. I'm saying, I mean, you need to do that, obviously, but honor her. Show this little eight-year-old girl what love could look like okay she doesn't have a picture of it in her head she has her body she has a nervous system

that's dealt with screaming and yelling and disappearing dad and all sorts of stuff so is that going to take time to like get through to her or is that something that will take years and years and years and years? Okay. Right. So it's kind of like you've just decided I want to get a body like Lane Norton. I just want to look like that guy. Well, cool. You just started a 20 year journey.

Like, I want to look like Adam from mind pump. And you're like, cool. 20 years from now, you'll be that Jack. And it's just going to be going to the gym every day and eating right for a long long time similar you're not going to flip a switch there's not a there's not a speech you're going to give to this eight-year-old and she's going to be like oh you're the dad i didn't have that's not going to happen that way it's going to be a back and forth and there's going to be a haunting question that chases this little girl around for a long time,

which is, why did my daddy leave me? What did I do? And you can't answer that. What you can do is provide another picture, and over time, that picture becomes home base, becomes safe. And guys notoriously suck at this because we want to go in and fix the problem on the engine,

and so the car will run. And that's not how this is going to work. This is going to be a showing up and showing up and showing up. And I hate you and you're not my dad. And I'm really glad that you're here. And then you go in your room and you shut the door and you're like, oh, she hates me. I can't believe, but we're going to be, we're going to continue to plug in and plug in and plug in. And I would avoid any, if your wife's, I mean, your girlfriend is giving you discipline type. I'm not doing that.

It's not my job. Okay. That's mom's job. You don't want to get it because that's going to come. That's what I was trying to figure out is like boundaries and stuff too. Because it just seems like extra harsh if I do it. That's exactly right. That's not your role.

That's her, that's her mom's role right now. You are just a, and I'm saying this crass on purpose. Cause I don't know. You're like, no bro, we're the toast of the town of spearfish.

But like, you're just a dude like four months. Yep. Right. It's just, and I don't, I don't mean that ugly, but like, dude, y'all got a long way to go. Yeah. And y'all can love each other and she can find safety and security in you.

Working on yourself, like continuing to exercise, make breakfast for the family. Park your car in the driveway and take 30 seconds to breathe and consciously say to yourself, I'm going to walk in this house and the whole place is going to light up. I'm going to walk into this house and the whole freaking place is going to light up. And I just want her to begin to associate this guy with joy and safety. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, it does make sense. What do you do for a living?

I'm a UPS driver. Okay, so you get home tired, grumpy, you're in South Dakota, you're having to drive through 40 feet of snow, up a hill, drop one little package off. You have to do whatever it takes you for you to do. I got to stop at the gym. I got to go get a cup of coffee.

I got to sit in my, and write in a journal. I don't care what the thing is. I got to sing eighties metal songs really loud. That may be mine. I got to do a thing because this stuff cannot come into this home. Okay. Because in this home,

I'm bringing light into this place, man. Okay. You get what I'm saying? And then I think it's important to sit down with mom and say hey I need to learn your boundaries. I'm not going to just do discipline right now because i'm not her dad yet Okay, when we get married and then I adopt her then i'll be dead. But until then i'm not there yet And so I want to support her as best I can and i'm going to You to support your as best I can and I want you to support your girlfriend as best you can. So how long are y'all already talking marriage?

What are y'all talking? Yeah, we're talking marriage. They're actually going to move across the state here in a couple of weeks to get back closer to her family so they can help out. And are you going to move? Are you going to get transferred?

I will move, yes. Dang, so you're serious on her, huh? I am, yeah. When are you thinking about asking her to marry you? I am. When? I don't know yet. Probably in the next year's time, I want the girl to be more comfortable and

just more accepting of the situation. It's going to be a delicate balance. I wouldn't rely on an 8-year-old. I don't want an 8-year-old to ever feel like she's carrying the decisions of the family in that way. Yep, I agree with that

too and at the same time i do want her to feel comfortable and safe right yeah yep it's a that's just you living it out every day every day you know what another rad thing might be if you um made a card at night and she woke up every morning and by her place where she sits, just said, I'm so glad you're, you're staying with us. Okay.

I do. I do leave notes on, she has like a little drawing desk of like, just telling her that like she's loved, she's worthy and that she matters. I do do that every once in a while. That's dope. Do that more.

Do that more. Okay. And then remember, sit out in your truck before you walk in the house and just say to yourself, I'm going to bring some laughter into this house.

Okay. I'm going to bring some joy into this house. I'm going to bring light into this house. No complaining, no whining. I'm going to bring peace

into my home. And that's going to be a gift to her and her nervous system that will be years. I mean, the ROI on that's going to be infinite. It's family tree changing stuff right there, brother.

Okay. All right, here's the deal. If you get engaged before October, I'm not pushing you and pressuring you. If you get engaged before October, I'm going to hook you up, you and your, what would be then your fiance, with two tickets to the Money in Marriage event that I'm doing here in Nashville, Tennessee. Okay. Okay?

It's me and Rachel Cruz. You'll have to get yourself here, but it's going to be a rad weekend that will set your marriage off on the right trajectory. If y'all are engaged and y'all are down here. If y'all are just still dating, it'll just be weird. You should be surrounded by a thousand married people. And you'll just be like,

what's going on? But if you want in on it, dude, I'll support your new adventure here. It's awesome. Thank you for showing up for Single Mom. We needed some help. Thank you for keeping

your head on straight that I'm not this girl's dad. And I want to do this thing right. Appreciate you, my brother. Now get on with getting married. It's time. Just kidding. It's only seven months.

Take a breather. 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 with a new segment called, John, why did you post that on social media? All right, what did I do this time, Kelly? All right, so this is one that's recent that has the most comments, and you'll know why after I read it. It's not always the best one all right do not let your children have access to social media period the data is unequivocal unambiguous

and crystal clear there is no room for debate for agree to disagree or any other arguing around the edges social media is destroying our children enough. I'm not usually that straight to the point. You say I talk too much. This one was one of the shortest and by far the most, but I know you and I also know this is exactly how you feel. So no question. So I was reading a newsletter from Scott Galloway, who is a guy, who's a thinker at NYU that I like. And we disagree on some stuff, but I like the way his head works and the way he processes problems. And he was just writing on, I think it's been 40 congressional hearings where they parade these tech people in front of various governmental bodies. And they stand in front of parents whose kids have died by suicide because they learned some technique on Instagram

or whatever the thing, or on YouTube or TikTok, whatever the thing is. And there has been zero, none, no action. Not one bill has passed, not one thing. And we continue to look at the, was with college students i was on a beta campus apple sent us iphones to hand out to every student it was a part of a digital learning initiative that was going to change the world i was at ground zero and i've watched young people's lives deteriorate in real time and it's been staggering and then

the last few years with book bans and like the the parents going to these school board meetings like how dare you put this book in the library and their kid has unfettered access to the worldwide web it blows my mind are there books in school libraries that shouldn't be there yes there's some nonsense trash in there of course is book banning or book burning ever worked in history never but on the other side of it if you're somebody who's like, I want to clean my kid's mind. Okay. I'll sit with you. We can debate this book or that book. Um, I will say that my son, when he got ahold of the band book list, he was like one of the proposed ones that it never went into effect, but it's proposed. He was like, Hey mom, why do we have all these books on our shelf?

And your mom, anyway, but my, my my my problem is we're handing these kids access and then i've been a part of for 20 years but especially the last 10 i was a part of sexual assault investigations i was a part of students who texted stuff and then can't get it back investigations i was a part of revenge porn investigate like i'm just looking at these young people and they're like help me and i said i can't you put this on the internet and they were 18 19 god helped the 12 and 13 and 14 year olds and then there's the predatory aspect and you spend any time anyway so it just goes on and on and on and a particular personal issue happened not with my family but with a friend and i just snapped and he almost always those notes are to myself and this

was the first time i was like stop you have to stop it we're not it's not a fun game anymore this is handing your kids fentanyl stop stop it i. We are going to look back on this and just hold our head in collective shame that we did this. And I would hope, I believe in small government. This is what government's for, is we are going to lean in and make some rules, right? You have to be 18 to buy bullets and pornography back in the day, right? You had to be 18 to go buy a Playboy, for God's sake. And now we hand 12-year-olds the phone, and it has every Playboy ever printed in human history. The whole thing is madness to me. It's madness to me.

And here we are. Here we are. So, yeah, don't give your kids social media. Don't give your kids access to social media. Period. Period. End of story. Conversation's over.

And if you do, you've had a great show, man. I appreciate y'all being here. I don't know. I mean, I just got to stop. Is that fair? I don't want to be a, I do want to be a jerk.

Enough. Enough. Yeah, I think that's fair. And maybe it may, I'm going to say something that's going to make me sound like a jerk. I don't get how it's hard. I have a teenager. I have a, I don't get it. I don't know, man. I can imagine it's hard to go retro. I just, it's just not hard for me to put my kid in the middle of traffic. It's not hard for me to tell my kid you can't watch certain movies because they're going to melt your brain. It's not hard for me not to hand my kid a loaded gun without a bunch of training.

It's not hard for me to do things that I know are going to be harmful to my kids. I just don't know why this is hard, but here we are. Here we are. Don't give your kids access to social media. And on that positive note, we'll see you next time. I think we just lost half our audience. We got the notice today that we're the number one show in health and wellness and number nine on all podcasts. Number nine overall.

I have a feeling that after this episode comes out. We're going to plummet down. But it was really nice while it lasted. It was super fun. Super fun. Hey, moms and dads. What if you just did it for 30 days?

Just tell your kids, hey, we're deleting social media off. And maybe you could too. You can delete it off for 30 days. Just see what happens in your home.

The first two weeks are going to be awful. Michael Easter, check out his 2% newsletter. He wrote about this. Enough. Just be done with it. I love you guys. We'll see you soon.