The Dr. John Delony Show - I Need More Affection From My Girlfriend

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

On this episode, we hear about: -       A husband who feels he may need too much affection from his wife -       A man trying to establish personal values instead of relying on the approval of others -       A woman struggling with lifestyle differences in her relationship Offers From Today's Sponsors 10% off your first month of Therapy at Better Help!   3 Free Months of Hallow  25% Off Thorne Orders  15% off the Apollo Wearables Up to $400 in savings on an Eight Sleep bundle!  20% off Organifi with code: DELONY Next Steps 📞 Ask John a Question!  click here! 📚 Get Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Take the Anxiety Test  📚Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭John's Free Guided Meditation ❤️ Money & Marriage Event: http://ramseysolutions.com/getaway Listen to More From Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. In my relationship, I have very big emotions, and my partner does not really have big emotions, and I feel like I'm kind of pushing her away. I don't like the fact you're asking for tips and tricks to change who you are in order to continue a romantic relationship. What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Coming at you live, but like on a four-week delay, from Nashville, Tennessee.

Not even from Nashville, from Franklin, right outside of Nashville. Taking your calls about your marriage, your mental health, your emotional health, your kids, your workplace, whatever you got going on in your life. For over 20 years now, God, I'm getting old. Over 20 years, I've sat with people when the wheels have fallen off. They're trying to figure out what's the next thing that they need to do because their life has hit a brick wall or a brick wall has hit them. And this calls real people going through real stuff. If you want to be a part of the show, we'd love to have you.

Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. 1-844-693-3291. And leave a message, a detailed message, for those of you born in the 80s, a detailed message after the beep. Is there a beep? I don't even know if there is a beep there should be i don't know we should make it like an old school answering machine yeah i think we're the last the last group on earth leaving voicemails yeah i can't imagine i have an 18 year old son telling him to leave a voicemail he'd be like what no hank and i my son and i were watching the matrix

the other night and i had to stop it and i was like do you know what that is and he's like that's a phone booth and i was like yep that's a phone booth that used to be anyway when you were out of your house where you made calls and it was like whoa yeah i don't even know. Oh, hey, we're back. Listen, Kelly, I am struggling today. I'm like a pot and a half of coffee in plus all my supplements, all of them. I don't. Sheesh. I got a weird feeling and I don't know how to say that. I got a weird feeling about there's just a heaviness on me, like a heaviness that things aren't okay i think things are okay it's just hanging on me i don't know what i mean i don't either things are okay here of course yeah because you're running the show and i'm not thank god um yeah i don't know i just have a sense and usually when i feel like this a couple things get me out of it one turn off the stupid news turn off social media the other one is um to go be around real people, like do fun things around real people. And my family just left. Maybe that's it. We're here this weekend and

we all had our dose of each other and who knows. My family's amazing. I don't know, dude. But I need to call into my own show and just see what's going on. That's what I need to do. Except the last person I need to listen to is me. But we're going to go to Raleigh, North Carolina, and talk to Cole. What's up, Cole? Hey, Dr. John. How's it going?

Good, man. I think I'm losing it, but you'll help me get it back here. So what's up, man? I'm hoping you'll let me get it back. What you got? So I wrote into the show. My main kind of question concern was in my relationship, I have very big emotions and my partner does not really have big emotions. And I feel like I'm kind of pushing her away. And I'm just looking for some advice on maybe some tips and tricks on how to dial my emotions back and be better for her emotionally.

Are y'all dating? Are you married? Oh, we've been dating for about five years. Okay. How long has there been this emotional mismatch? I'd say past couple years. It's just kind of... Give me an example. Okay, so I get very bad anxiety over space.

When she's in a mood, doesn't really want to talk a lot. My mind immediately goes into trying to fix the situation and that kind of gets her to shut down. And I don't know how to not let myself get into that way of just trying to fix, fix, fix. Are you an over-texter? When you get in these moments, do you start calling and texting and texting and calling and calling and texting and emailing? I'd say calling, yes. I'm not a big texter. I'm pretty old school. I don't like texting a lot, but definitely the calling. I've learned to dial that back a lot. That was one thing that she sat down and told me, hey, you cannot call me back to back. If I don't answer the phone, that doesn't mean call me again. So I've got some ideas, but just out of the gate, I don't like the fact that you are trying to,

you're asking for tips and tricks to change who you are in order to continue a romantic relationship. Why are you trying to keep, hang on to this thing? in order to continue a romantic relationship. Okay. Why are you trying to hang on to this thing? You're somebody that likes to talk on the phone, and you need lots of affirmation, and you like lots of affirmation. And sometimes there's a catch-22 there, right? People are like, man, that guy's really needy.

But also, if you just said I'm proud of you once in a while, it wouldn't be needy, right? So it's a dance, right? Oh, yeah, definitely. But why are you still chasing this down? If she's clearly saying, hey, the way you need love right now, I'm not going to give that to you. Why do you look in the mirror and go, oh, then I must be screwed up.

I need to fix me. Well, I think a lot of it, when things are good, things are great, and they're great for a very long time. It's just a very few. You ever dated somebody who's an alcoholic? No. Yeah, they say the same exact thing you just said. Or someone who's abusive, they say the same exact thing you just said.

When it's good, it's awesome. When it's bad, I go to the hospital. That land on you heavy? Oh, yeah. How come? I guess one thing that I was going to kind of bring up where I believe a lot of my anxieties come from is I grew up in a household with alcoholics

and um listening to your show i've never dove deep into like my personal mental health and stuff and the way i grew up i just kind of assume everybody dealt with the same things that i dealt with and then after listening to your show i I started diving a little bit deeper into maybe looking into my past and getting some help. I never knew what the ACEs test was. So after I heard you talk about that on your show a few times, I went

and took the ACEs test and looked into things like BetterHelp, just trying to unlock some things that I've come to know are not things that children should have been raised in. And the challenge is, you've heard me say on this show, if you listen a lot, that we marry our unfinished business. We fall in love with our unfinished business. And I want you to not numb out that feeling you just got.

I had no idea that you were raised in a family of people who struggle with alcohol. But in a way, if you're repeating this cycle, it may look different. It might have different window dressing, but it's the same house. Yeah. Right? And you may have grown up in a world where you've been looking in the mirror wondering, how can I fix this? Because clearly I'm the problem for your whole life. And all of a sudden, it's like the light bulb comes on.

The part we don't talk about very much is the price, the pain of change after we take the ACEs score and we realize things have to be different when we go to counseling and they're like, yeah, the relationship you're in is exactly like the one your mom and dad threw you in and it's not sustainable. Because now you're looking like five years and you love this person on top

of it, right? It's both and. So let me ask you this. Let's take her out of the mix for a minute. Often when people get into the pattern of calling and calling and needing to text and needing to text and needing a response right away and what about this and that anxiousness slowly builds and builds, you are using that other person. You're not trying to connect with them. You're using them as a Xanax.

You're using them as an anti-anxiety device. And most people either consciously or unconsciously don't like to be used. And it's a repellent, right? And so if you're bored or you're feeling lonely, you're starting to feel angsty, instead of going for a walk, instead of doing a meditation, instead of calling one of your old college buddies,

you just call her and call her and call her and call her and call her. Yeah. And whether she knows it consciously or whether her body is screaming at her, she doesn't want to carry your weight. Yeah. And I she knows it consciously or whether her body is screaming at her, she doesn't want to carry your weight. Yeah. And I don't blame her, right?

That's a heavy burden to carry, right? Yeah. Her not wanting to be used as a tool to make you feel better versus like, no, no, I really desire her. I love her. I want her totally different than I have to have it right now. Cause I'm going to spin up, man.

She's going to back out. So I'll ask you, what are you anxious about, man? Like what, what about, what about your world? Is your body trying to get your attention that we're not okay.

We're not safe. I'm not sure. I guess I'm just scared of being alone, really. Okay. You've been alone a long time, huh? Oh, yeah. And then upsetting her

and that becoming a possibility and being abandoned. And in a weird way, your body's response to those fears is to do the things that's almost going to guarantee that's how it ends. 100%. Right.

Have you gone online and taken my anxiety test? I took one of the tests on your website. I'm not sure which one, but I showed red in almost every category that was on there. That's it, yeah. I want you to dig in and begin to solve for peace in those areas, wherever they were red. Okay? This is going to sound bananas.

I don't know if this is true or not, but I'm going to pretend it is because it makes my argument feel stronger, right? Right. That historically, if you were a baseball player and you were in a big hitting slump, they would watch video of what's wrong with your swing. And the slumps would extend and now again this is uh i've not i've i haven't seen this or talking to a talk to a pro baseball player but my understanding is now when a batter enters into a slump they watch videos of when they were on an absolute hitting tear because the negativity reinforces itself in our mind yeah versus the this is what a smooth swing looked like. And this is what I'm capable of.

Does that make sense? Yeah. So instead of looking at the negative relationship, negative, negative, negative, I need to call you to call on your cup. Let's don't look at that anymore.

Let's look at the places where you're being successful. Number one, where are things working? And from that platform, we're going to begin to look at, man, where am I not free in my financial life, in my personal life? How's my work? Is my job going to go away? Do I owe a whole bunch of money to somebody that I can't pay back? What's the state of my relationship with my mom and dad?

If I grieve that and finally cut that off, or am I still trying to prop them up? You see what I'm saying? Yeah. Am I reactive and angry? Is my health bad? Is my diet bad? Let's begin to deal with those things.

And what's going to happen is over here, you're going to get some clarity in your relationship. Okay. And it feels like you're going to be abandoning that, that fear. You're not, you're actually going to the root where you can actually deal with it. So let me ask you this. Do you want her? Do you love this person or do you need this thing to work? I've loved her from the beginning and, um, lost her one time, and I got her back. And I feel like we're in a much better place now than we were before.

Why? Just some time apart, I guess. We started dating when we were very young. We were in high school, and then we went through college. And then once I got out of college, she was still in college, and things just weren't working out. Different stresses of me going into the workforce, her still being in college. We took a break. And now that we're both kind of have a set foundation in our careers now,

we've gotten back together, and things are a lot better. Is she the person you're going to marry? I 100% believe so. Does she believe that? Yes. Okay. And so from that place of strength, maybe sitting down and saying, hey, I'm going to begin working on me.

And I've used you as a crutch for a long, long time, always since high school when my home life was chaotic. And I want to begin to learn and practice standing up on my own two feet to be the husband and man that you deserve and that you're going to need long term. Because my guess is she hasn't had permission to have emotions. She's been the steady concrete pillar that you've plugged into, right? In a way, yeah.

Yeah. So I think it's, if you just start doing this on your own, you're going to change the dynamic of the relationship so much, it's going to be offsetting for everybody. But letting her know, I'm going to begin doing these things. I'm going to start going to the gym. I'm going to start seeing a counselor. I'm going to start writing in a journal. I'm going to start improving my professional life. I'm going to do some of these things. I'm

going to get all my debts paid off so that I don't owe anybody anything. I'm going to finally cut ties with my family, or I'm going to finally make peace with what my family is. And I'm going to stop using you and instead give us relational space for us to desire each other, to want each other. Can't wait to be around each other because I can help you meet your needs and you can help me meet mine, not because you're a drug. So go for it, my man. I'm proud of you. Hang on the line.

I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life. Just my gift to you. Call anytime, brother. Anytime. It is time to go sit down with a professional. Go talk to a counselor and begin to make your move. We'll be right back. It's time to talk about Organifi. All right, here's one of my main life goals.

I want to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible. I want to be that old semi balding guy in the back of the mosh pit. And I also want to be that old guy dancing with his beautiful wife into my eighties. And I want to be able to roll around with my grandkids in some WWE-style wrestling match into my 90s. And that's why right now I exercise, I work on my friendships, and I try to eat and drink things that only have safe, high-quality, high-integrity ingredients. And this is why I love Organifi. They're incredibly selective about what goes into their whole food blends, and Organifi gives you ingredients with about what goes into their whole food blends and Organifi gives you ingredients with integrity plant-based certified organic vegan dairy-free soy-free and glyphosate residue-free by the way that's a pesticide you don't want anywhere near you and

it's simple to get the health benefits with Organifi you just mix with water or your favorite beverage and drink it down you can take their green juice first thing in the morning to balance stress and get ready for your day. And you can take Organifi Red Juice in the afternoon or before a workout for natural, sustained energy and endurance. And I love my happy drops every day for natural mood support with saffron extract. Go to Organifi.com slash Diloni right now to save 20% off at checkout with code Dron extract. Go to Organifi.com slash Deloney right now to save 20% off at checkout with code Deloney. That's Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com slash Deloney and code Deloney for 20% off. All right, let's go out to Jacksonville, Florida and talk to Joe. Hey, Joe, what's up, man? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Partying

man, what are you up to? Oh well, just trying to party myself. Excellent. What's up man? Oh not much. So I wrote into the show and one of the things that I wanted to talk about was I started basically at the beginning of the year, I started therapy and we, you know, a couple months now kind of dug in and found out I have some codependent habits. And one of the things that my therapist wanted me to do was to build a set of personal values. And I started trying to find some personal values. I pulled, um, you know, some values from the army values when I was in the army. Um, you know, I pulled some from you, Dr. Jordan Peterson, stuff like that. But I still find myself, um, some of my values that I think I try to find are based on the opinions of others instead of like a close personal core value. Dude, why do you think so little of Joe, of yourself? um like this stems like the codependency all this stems from a place where joe

does not feel like joe's worth a crap where does that come from man um i think i think it kind of comes from trying to take care of everyone else and uh you know sometimes it feels like I leave myself out to dry. You always do. You always have. Why? I think that it's, you know, as a kid, it was, you know, a part of it was, oh, hey, you know, your, your dad's on a tear, just whatever you do, just don't set them off. Or, and I think I kind of learned that habit of, Hey, you know, your, your dad's on a tear, just whatever you do, just don't set them off. Or, and I think I kind of learned that habit of, okay, if I just go with the flow, don't, you know, make too much of a ruckus. Um, you know, I'm preaching to the choir here, but I want everyone listening because I say this sometimes,

but I don't say it enough. One of the most damaging things we can do to a child is to put that weight on them that was placed on you, Joe. Don't say this or dad's going to get really mad. You know if you do that

or your grades aren't this and mom's going to fill in the blank. And that encodes in a child's nervous system that it is their job to be the adult in every room they walk into. Because the adults in the room are dependent on children for whether they lose their temper or they get angry or they get mad or they smash something or hit somebody or have to drink or swear, whatever the thing is. And that is not a kid's job ever. It's the adult's responsibility, right? I'll tell you, Joe, that was never your job. Yeah, that's something I, you know, reflecting on it and, you know, talking with my therapist, like, and hearing what you said in

past episodes and whatnot, I do realize that it's, it was never my job to, as a kid to take care of the feelings of adults. Um, but here we are, right. And you need to make personal values and you don't even have a roadmap right so so let's back out and i want you to talk to joe in the third person like you're one of those weird pro wrestlers okay all right tell me what your friend joe values um say those words like my buddy joe values. Say those words. Like, my buddy Joe values what? That's a tough one.

I don't think so. Let's start with the easy stuff. Things like honesty and things like showing up on time and things like comedy or things like clearly of amazing taste in podcasts, right? Because you listen to this show. Of course. But what are some things that your buddy Joe values? My buddy Joe values telling the truth, personal courage, being passionate about something, being self-motivated. Why aren't those good enough to be your values?

Well, I think one of those things, my wife had a weekend away with some of her friends, and I had all these great plans. I was going to, I was going to, you know, do these house projects. I was going to go to the gym. I was going to do all this stuff. And I ended up just sitting felt kind of like wasting the weekend away. And looking back on it, I'm like, man, like, what are you doing? Like, you didn't do what you said you would do. And kind of made me look back in life of all the times I was kind of left to my own devices, if you will. And, you know, without that external motivation or, you know, an external motivation, I just, I'm not very productive or, you know, and it made me kind of think I lost trust in myself a little bit because I thought I'd made these big gains. And then I was like, Oh, here's a great opportunity for me to really prove myself. And basically blew it.

Except that every weekend is not the Superbowl. And there could have been a weekend. You just need to rest. That's true. Could have been a weekend that you and your wife have kind of been picking at each other and kind of this and then that and then that and then this and then it was like and then she left and your whole body went that doesn't mean your marriage is falling apart that doesn't mean you're a person that lacks integrity and a person that lies to himself that means you're a

person who's exhausted and you kind of you kind of you kind of wimped out on a weekend. All right. I love the old Irvin Yalom quote. He's one of the godfathers of modern therapy. He says, everything is data. The reason I like the idea that everything is data, because you can do two things with what happened this weekend that you're thinking about. You can look in the mirror and say, you freaking loser. You've always been like this.

You're such a coward. You're such an idiot. You can go down that road. And you start a biochemical cascade that's going to wind you up into a tiny little ball. You're going to be in a fetal position emotionally. And then when you get in that position, like a child,

you start looking for the adults in the room for where should I go? What should I do? And that's been the pattern of your whole life. Or everything's data. Man, when my wife leaves town, I go kaput. I want to be energized when she leaves town. What would that look like? What would need to be true there? One of those is judgmental. One of those is curious.

When I first started practicing jujitsu years and years ago, I would get so enraged when I would get tapped out. It would make me so mad. And instantly, I would go to see, you've always been a wimp. You're always gonna be a wimp. You're always gonna, right? I just, it was this judgment.

And the thing that drew me deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole in the jujitsu community was curiosity. How did you do that? Wow, you turned my whole weight over on, it was just a complete reorientation of how I approached the world. But somewhere along the way,

you picked up a story that Joe sucks and you go looking to validate that story everywhere. And as the great Brene Brown says, whatever you go looking for in the world, you are sure to find. Instead of being curious. Now, is there time to be disappointed in yourself? Yeah, of course. I've had those exact weekends you're talking about. I have a book due on month, a chapter due on Monday. It's Friday. My family leaves and dude, I just do nothing. Right? It's so

frustrating and it's so maddening. But here's what I've learned to do. I go real hard and as a, are you still in the military or are you out? No, I've been out for several years. Okay. What do you do for a living?

I drive a big brown truck around, UPS driver. Alright, so here's what I know about you. You follow systems really well. You work really hard all day, every day, and you have for a long, long time. Fair, true, or false? Oh, definitely true. True.

So you're not a weakling, and you're not a coward, and you're not avoidant of hard work. And for guys like... Hard work is one of the... Go ahead. Sorry. of hard work. And for guys like... Go ahead. Hard work is... One of the values of hard work and that's one of the

things I do like about myself is I am a hard worker. Okay. One of the cornerstones of making hard work possible is rest. And so when you have a bunch of plans and your body says, yeah, we're not doing that.

Instead of instantly going towards the great story that Joe's the worst. I want you to begin to practice curiosity. Why is my body so wiped out? Why? Oh, because I run UPS. I've been running extra shifts, and me and my wife have been back and forth on each other. She's gone.

My body finally goes, whew, let's rest. Man, I want to get a bunch of stuff done. All right, we'll get it done. You see the difference? Oh, definitely. This is not a switch that you can flip overnight, but the, the orientation towards being curious about why your body's doing what it's doing and why you're struggling and why you wanted to get these things done, but you only got a few of them done. It just takes time. You have to decide, I want to practice this the same as you had to practice your routes when you first got into UPS, same as

when you had to practice your drills when you first went to the military. This is something you're going to practice. But my guess is over time, what you're going to do is you're going to get that drill sergeant voice out of your head, and you're going to get a much more compassionate voice in your mind, and you're going to actually solve much more compassionate voice in your mind and you're going to actually solve some problems instead of looking to people to tell you what to do next. You see the difference? Yes. And that is one of the things that's like intellectually,

I know all these things. I've listened to enough podcasts. I've read books. I've watched tons of YouTube videos, all this kind of stuff on it. I feel like I got that head knowledge, but converting that into heart knowledge and action, that's one of the toughest things. Sometimes it's as simple as when you start berating yourself, you yell out loud privately in your home, stop.

Sometimes it's as simple as talking to yourself in the third person. Ethan Cross has a great book called Chatter about that. When we say words like I, I'm stupid, I'm an idiot, I screwed up, our bodies have a chemical response. When we say things like, man, Joe, you messed that up. Joe, you slept in all weekend. It creates space. It creates a psychological space that has a physiological consequence. So maybe for a season, you're going to think you're a crazy person. Start talking to Joe compassionately by using the name Joe instead of I, I, I. See what I'm saying?

Oh, I do. Joe, you're going to get up and work all weekend. Next weekend, we're going to do this stuff. Deal? Deal. That's different than, oh, once again, you failed. I'm the worst. Fair enough?

That's definitely fair enough here's a couple of other tips and tricks I'll give you I want you to instead of starting with identity I mean I'm sorry instead of starting with values and make a value list I want you to start with identity

I'm a guy Joe is a guy who I am a guy who Joe is a guy who, I am a guy who, Joe is a guy who always tells the truth, Joe's a guy that works hard and also rests, Joe's a good steward of his body, and I want you to write those things down, and from those, Joe is a good husband, so what are the values that are going to make up a good husband? What are the things you're going to have to go do?

But let's start with identity. And let's start with Joe is. And maybe you put Joe is on your mirror in your bathroom. And you put Joe is on your refrigerator. Joe doesn't beat himself up. Joe's compassionate with himself. He asks, man, why did this weekend not work out like we wanted? And you may answer it

because you're lazy. Like you really phoned it in this weekend. All right. Well, I'm going to give myself this one. And next time, we're going to get it done. Or maybe, like me,

you bite off more than you can chew. You make a list of what you're going to do when your wife's out of town. I'm going to re-roof the house, all the ceiling fans redo the flooring And my body knows this is impossible dude, this is like six months worth of work deloney So as james clear says when you're changing something lower the friction My wife's leaving town. I'm going to do one workout I'm going to do one handyman thing. That's it. I'm gonna rest i'm gonna build in rest I'm a guy who takes care of his body. He's a good steward both doing the hard stuff and doing the rest stuff

And for some of us rest, um is hard Because busyness and activity is how we get our um How we get our esteem so resting and and taking care of the machine, right? Repair and maintenance is seen as downtime, as lazy time. It's not. It's essential. But I want you to practice being compassionate to my friend Joe, being curious when things come up, when hurdles come up,

and what are some ways we can build in some very low friction changes. I'm going to do one thing when she's gone. I'm going to exercise this morning, and as low friction changes? I'm going to do one thing when she's gone. I'm going to exercise this morning. And as Nick Barr says, I'm going to do one more. I'm just going to add one more. That's it. That's it. I'm going to do one more.

I can do that. I can do one more. I'm not going to go do a new workout program for 40 days. I'm just going to do one more than I was doing. I can do that. Because I'm a guy that takes care of himself. And I hope you hear my voice. One of these paths is so much more compassionate. It's laughter filled. It's also filled with really hard work. Dude, I went hard this morning,

overdid it, but I needed it. It was good. And a few days ago, I did nothing because I needed it. And I almost never do nothing, but I did that day. I needed it. Let's stop with the judgment and start being curious. 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. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to hallowed.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Yorktown, Virginia and talk to the great and wonderful Kimberly. Hey, Kimberly, what's happening?

Hey, Dr. John, thank you so much for taking my call. You bet. Thanks for hopping on in here. What's up? So I've got a couple of questions. This is something I've been wrestling with for a while. I've been dating someone for just under two years. He is a widower. He's got three kids, but they're grown and out of the house. I'm divorced.

I have three kids, and they're still home and in the house. So initially we met. I'm divorced. I have three kids and they're still home and in the house. So initially we met. I'm pretty active. I run. I do CrossFit. I love food, but I like healthy food. We're running into issues at this point where he's in poor health. He's got diabetes. He's had triple bypass surgery and continues to eat fast food most days for two or three of his meals. And I've addressed it. I'm trying to be open and honest and, hey, this is a concern for me. This is kind of a big deal. And I'm at the point where I'm going, I don't want to watch you kill yourself slowly. know, slowly. Um, and I don't know, uh, like when the time is to say, you know what, this is just not right that we need, like, we're both nice folks. Nobody's done

anything wrong, but clearly our lifestyles are not the same or close enough. Um, I'm invited him to work out with me. I've invited him like, Hey, let's just go for walks. Like, let's start somewhere. It doesn't have to be, you to be super intense. I just need you to take an active role in your wellness. Kimberly, you're already there. It usually takes me hours of a conversation with somebody before they'll say the thing that you just said. Nobody's bad. I'm not going to sit here and watch you die.

And I said those words to him for the first time this weekend. I said, I'm afraid you're going to die. And then what? And for the past year, I've kind of been gently bringing it up. And you've heard me say this a thousand times, and I know I'll say it 10,000 times before my show over if behavior is a language what is he telling you he's not willing to i don't care right i don't care or i do care um but the work it would take to change isn't worth it or deep deep down when my wife, I wanted to rebuild my life and do something new,

and I just am unwilling to make that turn. And you are a very comfortable, low-level hospice nurse at this point, right? Or a maternal presence, if you will. Don't eat that. Move over here. Don't watch that. Will you come over here? Let's go do this. And that is how it feels like I'm the driving force. He's like, we'll do whatever you want to do. That's right.

He's cashed out. That's a voice of a man who is cashed out. And I think he sees it as, I'm spoiling you. I'm being easygoing. I'm letting you, you get to call the shots. Where do we want to go to dinner? Well, you pick. Well, and the more I'm digging into, I've kind of been on a bender lately when it comes to old school psychological research, particularly around feminine and masculine. I'm just fascinated by

how we've got to where we have, how we're gotten here. And one thing that continues to come up over and over and over again, that is so profound to me is, and my wife and I have talked about it, it's requiring a massive shift inside of me. I was raised that every world problem is mine. I caused it. I'm the problem. I need to shut my mouth and do whatever she says in my life. Whoever that she is, professor, boss, wife, my job is to say, I don't care whatever you want, dear. And what continues to come up is that puts you in a role that you don't want to be in. Fair? Very fair. I didn't know that.

I didn't know that my wife would feel more comfortable in a feminine energy by saying, hey, I want to go have steak tonight. What do you think about that? Because now I've put it on the table. And she can say, I really don't feel like eating steak. Let's go do this. That's great. That's cool.

That's very different than, I don't care, whatever you want. Well, now the whole thing rests on you. And I think the turning point for me as terrible as it sounds is I, I very clearly said for Valentine's day, I want us to go out and have a nice evening. And I left the rest to him and he said, I'm not really big on Valentine's day, but if you want to just tell me where you want to go. And I kind of did the, no, I want, I want you to make a decision and you to take charge. Yes. So if behavior is a language, what is he saying? He doesn't want it.

Right. And it's almost as though you need to give yourself permission to grieve. And on the back end of a divorce, on the back end of kids at grieve and on the back end of a divorce on the back end of kids at home still on the back end of feeling like you're going to be lonely forever all those demons that come out screaming at you is a scary proposition and people listening to this don't read the comments here because you're gonna have a bunch of goofballs lobbing grenades in here who don't live in your shoes but the reality is the thought of not being with him is almost equally if not more terrifying than watching him pass away underneath you right here who don't live in your shoes but the reality is the thought of not being with him is almost equally if not more terrifying than watching him pass away underneath you right the idea of

loneliness the idea of what's what is so wrong with me again after the lot right you see i'm saying all those things are heavy and they're scary. That is what runs through my brain constantly. Okay. It's not true. It's a lie. Are you perfect? I can guarantee. I don't even know you.

No. The answer is no, you're not. Are you going to be perfect for somebody? Yeah. Y'all gonna have to work things out. Of course. I appreciate it.

I am. What makes this, what, what, what scares you the most about this? Cause I've, here's the thing I've gotten from the way you're communicating, you're very, very smart. And you know.

And you've been down a scary road before. Like you've been down the train wreck before, right? Oh, yeah. And you see it. It's almost like I don't want to believe this is happening again, right? Yeah. It's like, I feel like you said that I already knew. I feel comfortable in my decision that like this, this is not like, we're just not right for each other and that's okay.

And I feel okay. I'm sad. There you go. But I don't, I don't want to hurt my kids and they like him. Yeah. And I don't want people to be disappointed because there's another, sorry. No, it's okay. Another failure.

It's not. It's not a failure. Relationships aren't pass-fail. They're just not. And this will be hard on your kids. Because you probably thought through letting this guy into your life a little bit. Right? Yeah. It's Yeah. And he

is good. Of course he is. He's great. He's probably a great person of character. I had an 18-year-old that thought all middle-aged white men were the worst things in the world, and he healed that part of her. Yeah.

So I don't take it lightly. I don't think he healed that part of her. I. So I don't take it lightly. I don't think he healed that part of her. I think he gave her a picture that was counterfactual. They showed her a different picture of what was in her mind and her relationship with her mom has been the healing force in her life. That's what I think. Tiny didn't hear that i think she had a limited set of facts like all 18 year olds do and all 18 year olds know how all of the world works in all of its ways and then you meet somebody that's different than you

or that was supposed to be your enemy or you were supposed to hate and then suddenly they're like that guy's pretty great or she's pretty awesome or they whoever they is um they don't want to destroy america it's not what i it's not what the news told me right but that ability to meet somebody to welcome them to change their mind that comes from you have you sat down with your 18 year old and talked this through? Um, very briefly. And she told me that she would be sad. And then I kind of dropped it because I wasn't sure how she would react. And when she told me that it was the like, well, I'm just going to have to suck it up because I'm not going to make my kid sad.

A great gift you could give your kid is to look her in the eye and say, I'm going to be real sad too. Because that way she doesn't feel crazy from her feelings. Because you're the most important, you're the most important adult in her world, in her whole life.

And your tears and your sadness and your grief give her permission to feel sad and grief. And your laughter and joy and willingness to go, I'm going to date somebody else. That gives her permission to get back up when life knocks her down. I think that's really good advice. How old are your other kids? I have a 16-year-old and a 12-year-old.

Yeah, those will be harder. 18-year-olds think they know everything. 16-year-olds are convinced they know everything and 12 year olds know basically nothing right exactly and they're all gonna have an opinion over what mom is doing you've heard me say this on the show probably a lot and i'll keep saying it um there's a reason we don't let 18-year-olds buy guns and bullets and beer. And there's a reason we don't let 16-year-olds vote or fly planes. I don't know.

Maybe they're allowed to fly planes. I don't know. And there's a reason 12-year-olds can't do anything. And that's because they lack wisdom they lack understanding they lack experience they lack so many things and so one of your kids will say I can't believe you screwed this up too mom

one of those kids will say I can't believe you're doing this to me and you are going to have to repeat to yourself, I'm not hurting my kids. The greatest gift you can give your kids is a well mom. Because when you come home from being with this guy, you're a little bit down, and you're a little bit slower, and you're a little bit, oh. And if your kids are like most kids, they absorb that

and they try to solve that. They try to fix it. My kids definitely are fixers. That's right. They're wired like me. And that's not their job. Fair? Yeah.

Yeah. And with your 16-year-old and your 18-year-old, you can tell them that. You can tell them, hey, it's not your job to make mommy feel better. I'm just sad

because I liked this guy, but we're just not right for each other. That is something that I've learned from you. I used to, in my divorce, I hid it from my kids, how I felt. My youngest was only five at that time. My big kids now, I tell them, it's okay to be sad. I tell my 12 I tell them like, it's okay to be sad. I tell my 12 year old, it's okay to be sad. You don't have to cheer me up. You know, and that's something that I picked up from listening to your show all the time. Well, the fact that you put into practice, I mean, I'm just running my mouth on a podcast. You're the one actually going out and changing your life.

And so I'm proud of you for that. That will be a gift you give to your kids that will pay dividends for the rest of their life. Because they're going to have experiences where they get really sad. They get really scared. They get really nervous. They get really frustrated. They get really happy. And when we tell them only a couple of those are okay. The other ones you need to hide.

Or the other ones mom and dad never had. So you must be nuts. What a gift you give them. Just teach them about the range of emotions that humans have. That's a great, great blessing. You still feel guilty about your first marriage?

A little bit. I feel like I failed. I was a stay-at-home mom, and I felt like I didn't meet the requirements because he stepped out a couple times, and then he left me for someone else. Yeah. So, you know, it was the what need was I not meeting that he felt like that's what he had to do.

How long ago was your divorce? 2019. Okay. I want you to write Kimberly of 2019 a letter. As though a woman walked into a coffee shop and sat down at your table and said, my husband, I just found out, has cheated on me again. What did I do wrong? And if somebody sat down today with you in a coffee shop

and asked you that question all the hair would stand up on the back of your neck and you'd be like oh sister here we go right I want you to write that letter to Kimberly and let her go because 2019 Kimberly's still walking around trying to defend you,

trying to fight for you, trying to make excuses for you. And I don't think 2019 Kimberly did anything wrong. It's a hard one. It is. Was she perfect? No, because she had done stuff differently, of course. But your husband sucked, right? So 100%. Yeah. Yes yes i realize that now so let's let kimberly go

that's your homework assignment for today is to let kimberly go and then get with a couple of girlfriends that you trust and sit down and be honest and open about maybe my relationship with this guy good guy great guy but just not the guy for me. Maybe it's done. Maybe it's over. And we're going to be adults about it. We're going to gently land the plane. There's not going to be a lot of drama, but there's going to be tears. There's going to be sadness. There's going to be some direct conversations with my kids.

I didn't fail. I'm not a loser. I didn't... Good guy. And I'm a great woman. And it wasn just good guy and I'm a great woman and it wasn't, wasn't for us and that's okay. That's okay. Hard, hard season,

Kimberly. I'm proud of you for continuing to go through it. Do not go through it by yourself. Don't go through it by yourself. Call anytime, my friend. Hey, stay tuned for a cool crap that happened.

We'll be right back. Hey, stay tuned for a cool crap that happened. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. I am just super excited to announce I'm hitting the road with my buddy Dave Ramsey this spring on a brand new tour, just us two. And we're putting a new twist on this thing. We're going to talk about money. We're going to talk about relationships and we're going to tell stories y'all have never heard before. It's going to be an incredible, fun night. But every night is going to be totally different because you, the audience, are going to help choose what we talk about. You heard that right.

It's going to be like no event you've ever been to. We're kicking it off in Louisville on April 21st, 2025. And then we're going to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and then Kansas City. You're going to laugh. You're going to learn. And if we do our jobs right, you're going to change your life.

Get your tickets for the Money in Relationships Tour today at ramsaysolutions.com slash tour. All right, we're back. A cool thing has happened. Kelly, what is it? All right, this is from Heather in California. Let's see. She says, I started feeling some separation and teen angsty stuff from my son

and realizing his activities, like scouts, were very good bonding things for him and my husband, but I was feeling left out. I made the decision to force him to a weekly breakfast. It has been a great time parents that's okay I don't want him to say

it's okay to make your kid go to breakfast with you for a while keep going alright it has been a great time for both of us and a treat we both look forward to we have dinner together every night as a family but this is just one on one time with my boy and has been a great time for both of us and a treat we both look forward to. We have dinner together every night as a family, but this is just one-on-one time with my boy, and it's a great time to talk about his classes, activities, share with him whatever stupid stories I have from my own youth,

or just be playful and goofy. He is 15, and I think our relationship is good, and it has definitely improved with this. Even if it's a laugh about me growing up in the dark ages or a developing nation, as he likes to call Indiana. Ah, teenagers. I love teenagers, man. They're so great. Like my son always tells me that I was back in the 1900s.

Oh, yay, yay. We've been doing this since August. Last week, he had a holiday on Friday, our weekly hangout date, and he still wanted to get up at 6.30 with mom and go to breakfast to sit and chat. Ah, I love still wanted to get up at 6.30 with mom and go to breakfast to sit and chat. So I appreciate the advice. It has been great for our family. Oh, it's so good. So good. There's a call earlier today when I said every weekend's not the Super Bowl. Like you had a

weekend, you're going to do a bunch of stuff and you didn't do it. You're not the Super Bowl. You had a weekend, you were going to do a bunch of stuff, and you didn't do it. You're not the worst person. You're not a loser. If it's a pattern over the course of months and years, yeah, okay, we need to deal with that. But we make everything about the Super Bowl. When it comes to our kids, we make all of these. We have to have the talk about drugs,

the talk about doing it. We have to have the talk about. The greatest gift you can give your kids is constant, never-ending, talking about nothing, things that don't matter. So that when the thing that does matter needs to be talked about, you've created a highway. So your kid naturally gets on it and comes to you and says, this person really wants to sleep with me. What do I do? I don't want to go to college. I want to go be an automotive tech. Whatever the thing is that is going to be constant, repetitive over and over. It's like working out. It's like nutrition. It's the boring

everyday thing. Do it over and over and over again. And that changes everything. We made a deal. I mean, gosh, our boy's 18 now, so, you know, we brought him home when he was two. Nathan's 18? Huh? He's 18? 18. I know.

Oh, my gosh. You're so old. I knew that was coming. I knew it was coming. Gosh, you're old. All right. Anyway, but we, he could ask us anything, ever. And kind of like y'all have got, whoever is asked has to answer it.

And unfortunately, it seems like it's usually me. It's always you. It feels that way. But whoever answers it, and we answer it to the degree that is age appropriate. And then, of course, if it's a bad word or something like when he was younger, then if you say it, you know what it means

and you're held responsible. But because we've allowed that, and I mean, we have answered some like, holy crap doozies over the years, he will still, at 18 years old, come to us with anything. And he still wants to come and sit down and talk to us because he knows we're going to be honest.

He and I had, my husband and daughter were out of town this weekend. So he and I went into Waffle House and had Waffle House yesterday. And then he willingly ran errands with me. So great, which he doesn't, you know, hardly ever wants to do. But the fact that we just opened that door so many years ago and then never judged, never laughed, never like, I can't believe you're asking me that or anything. We've always just talked about it. And so, you know, we had some pretty great discussions yesterday at breakfast that weren't weird because we've always fostered that. And I've, that probably of all the decisions

we've made in parenting and they have not all been good ones has been my favorite one that we ever made because now we just have the best conversations with a guy on the verge of adult, of adulthood. Yeah. And, um, it's, yeah, I think, I think the mistake that most parents make is they sit down with their kids once or they walk by them and say, Hey,

never be scared to ask me anything. Then they leave and they don't know how to, I don't know how to do, like, am I going to ask you, but if you practice it and practice it and practice it and practice it, and now that he's 18, um,

yeah, he's gonna like the stakes get higher. I had a conversation now that he's 18, yeah, he's going to – like the stakes get higher. I had a conversation with my son. He's going right now to a thing with a local school. Anyway, it's a whole big thing, but I told him there was a performance metric that wasn't up to snuff, up to my snuff for him. And he said, Dad, I've been working so hard X, Y, and Z and A, B, and C, and I said, you are about working so hard x y and z and a b and c and i said you are about

to cross a threshold heading into high school where effort only gets you so far the world is going to want to see the results do i like that no that is the way the world is right that conversation was hard and it was direct and it was uncomfortable and we were back and forth. But at the end, we were both still on the same team. Only because of all these years of, dad, why do you sit like that? Why do you wear that? Tell me a funny story from when you were a kid. All those things, man.

Yeah, we had to have a difficult one because he is now 18 and he is dating a girl that is 16 rut row yes and that's a different world now very different but it wasn't an awkward i mean it was a you know it's it's a hard conversation you don't want to have but it was a conversation that he didn't wasn't like mom stop i mean he listened and he asked some questions and we talked about it and you know at first he was like well it's not even happening. I'm like, I don't, I'm not asking about that. This isn't a moral issue. This isn't a Christian issue. This is just a hard conversation we're having, but it wasn't weird because we've had so many of those conversations because he's asked questions of things he's heard in school or my friend said this, and I don't know what it means, you know? And so now when these are the kinds of questions that have to happen because

these are decisions now that will change his life. It's not weird. Love it. Hey, congratulations to you, mom, who wrote in. You're amazing. Parents out there, invest the time in your kids. In the little nonsensical, non-event, run to grab something to eat times. Over and over and over again.

That is how we will change the world. Love you guys. Bye.