The Dr. John Delony Show - I Was Blindsided by Our Divorce

Episode Date: August 9, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: A man totally blindsided when his wife asked for a divorce A woman who can’t stop comparing herself to her sister A teacher wondering if it’s time to quit To pre-order John's new book Building a Non-Anxious Life click here. Lyrics of the Day: "The Policy of Truth" - Depeche Mode Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance to win $3,000!  https://bit.ly/TDJDSgvwy Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Anxiety Test Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. She explained that from the beginning, she felt like she had to hide who she was from me or I would leave her and not love her. Quote unquote, you don't know the real me. And that's almost always a contextual excuse for I am starting to not like the way I feel in the life that I'm co-creating.

I want out. What up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Some say it's the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting show ever. It's not. It is for sure not. But I'm glad that you're here. On this show, we talk to real people going through real challenges in real time.

And whether it's your emotional health, trying to find peace and joy and sleep, whether it's your physical health, what's going on with your mental health diagnostics, or you're just trying to be a better husband, a better wife, a better parent, we have got you covered. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. And don't forget, my favorite supplements on the planet,

the ones my family takes, the ones I take for years and years, thorn.com slash U slash Deloney. T-H-O-R-N-E dot com slash U, the letter, slash Deloney. And don't forget, pre-sale the book. It's here.

It is here. It's not here. It's up there. But Building a Non-Anxious Life, my brand new book, comes out in October. It is in pre-sale now. Please pick it up. It's got a ton in pre-sale now. Please pick it up.

It's got a ton of pre-sale things that go with it. So it's like, if you buy now, you get all this stuff and a pony. I'm not going to give you a pony, but you get it. It's a lot of stuff. But this is finally a path out of living a burned out, chronically stressed, anxiety-ridden life. And I'm tired of all of the industries going to war against our bodies, telling us that when our bodies react a certain way,

that our bodies are broken or somehow dysfunctional. They're not. They're working. What's dysfunctional is the way we are choosing to do life. And so I'm excited about this. Mom works out about this and I have been about anything here. And that says. And so I'm excited about this. My mom works out about this and I haven't been about anything here. And that says a lot because I'm pretty excited all the time. Go check it out. Go to johndeloney.com and pre-order

Building a Non-Anxious Life. I'm super hyped. All right, let's go out to the 806 to Amarillo by morning and talk to Jack. What's up, Jack? Hey, Dr. John. How you doing? I'm doing better than I deserve. Well, dude, we are partying, man. I'm doing about what I deserve. I'm just

kidding. I'm doing great. Doing great. What's up? Well, I'll just go right into my question, but basically to give you a summary, yesterday I thought that my marriage was over and that my wife was going to be leaving me. I'll go ahead and read my question that I sent over to you guys. My wife has decided that she is done with our marriage and wants a divorce. I have asked if she wants to try couples counseling to try and save our marriage, and she said no. She explained that from the beginning, she felt like she had to hide who she was from me, or I would leave her and not love her. After seven years of hiding, she is tired of pretending and wants to be free to be herself. I never knew she felt this way or that she was hiding her true feelings from me.

What do I do now? And there um, there's a couple of updates on that, but, uh, I'll, I'll leave it there and you can give me the updates on there. Um, so I, uh, of course that was, let me tell you this before you give me the updates. I don't buy that letter. Okay. Um, and I'll tell you why. I mean, I don't buy her. Yeah, I don't buy it, but keep going. Okay, absolutely. So the updates, that was Monday night. And so yesterday I thought we were done. Yesterday evening, I talked to her again and she, she does want to try counseling. And, um,

I, I think what has happened, what she, what I think she was communicating to me is that she was trying to hide who she really was because she was afraid I wouldn't love her. And then she was trying to leave because she was afraid I would leave her when I found out who she really was. Does that make sense? Absolutely.

And sometimes there's a lot of what I would call fantasy talk. There's a lot. She's probably been having that imaginary conversation in her mind for a long time. Right. And there's something about saying it out loud. When you hear it come out of your mouth, you realized on its face, it doesn't make any sense. I'm so scared you're going to leave me. So I'm going to leave you. That doesn't make any sense, but inside your body, it does, right? Cause your body's telling you to run, run, run, run. And, um, because he's,

he's about to reject you. Don't let him do it. You get out of here first. Right? So yeah, that makes total sense. Um, the thing that I balk at, um, is the quote unquote, you don't know the real me. You don't know the real me and I can't be me. I don't have any use for that unless somebody has sat down and said, Hey, I haven't been honest with you. Here's what I'm into. Here's what I think is funny. Here's what I need from you. And then you as husband get to say, I'm out on that. Now we can talk about I'm having to hide. But people who just bail because you don't know the real me, I just don't buy that. That's almost always a contextual excuse for I am starting to not like the way I feel in the life that I'm co-creating.

I want out. Does that make sense? Okay. That does make sense. And she did share some of the things that she felt like she was hiding. Okay. And I have her blessing to share those with you, if that's all right. Yeah, go for it. Okay. Um, so the, kind of the antithesis of this is I, I, two weeks ago I caught her crying. Um, and she explained that she was feeling unfulfilled in our marriage and the life that we've built together. Um, we have, we have the life of, you know, we have a house, we, we both have full-time careers. We have a daughter, um, and she was feeling unfulfilled in that marriage, in that life. Um, and she felt like she had built our relationship on a lie. Um, because when we met, um, I, I had never, I was a virgin, and she told me the same thing that she was as well.

So what she was hiding from me was that she had actually had a few casual romantic partners in the past. So that has nothing to do with virginity. This has to do with, she knows that she married a guy with a particular value and she lied. Right. And she's never been able to walk on firm foundation, not because of the actual action itself, but because she knows she didn't tell you the truth.

And that has haunted her for whatever reason it's haunted her, her entire marriage. Right. Yeah. So her saying that out loud, did you run for the hills and say, get out? No, absolutely not. Did she have some sort of cathartic, did she feel better after she said it? If I had to analyze the situation,

it looked as though she had let go of a burden that she was holding on to for a long time. I imagine, yeah. Yeah. She didn't exactly say anything that she felt better or that she didn't really say anything. She did feel lighter, if that makes sense. Absolutely, man. It's not a coincidence

that she came back a couple days later and said, hey, I want to try to work this out. I don't think. Because my pushback, my answer to someone who says, I don't like the life I've built with so-and-so. I don't like the life we've built together. I 100%, I've been there myself in my marriage multiple times.

The catch is you can build something else. Absolutely. Right? You can build something completely different. Is it going to be awkward? Yes. Is it going to be weird? For sure.

You're going to have to get new friends and like the old Seinfeld, you have to get lava lamps and you're going to have to, well, I don't know what your thing is, but you can build

anything new. You just got to put the work in. You got to go get the professional help you need to learn new skills to go do what you got to do.

But this idea that it has just run its course or the idea that I don't like what we've built. Cool. Been there. Build something else. Absolutely. And the impulse is just to bail and run. And what she did, I'm actually proud of her. That would have haunted her forever.

She wouldn't have gotten the relief that she thought she was going to get by being out of this relationship with you. And if I'm you, brother, there's probably more coming. Oh, yes. I've been preparing myself, and I've also been trying to share things with her that I haven't been completely honest about. And I can share those with you if we would like to get into that. Bring it on, man. Yeah, absolutely. And you had asked if I ran for the hills. I did tell her that I want to build a new life together. That's awesome. Good for you.

That is almost verbatim what I told her because I still love her, and I love the new her that I'm meeting. I love her more than I ever have. I know that maybe that's not relevant, but I want to make sure. It for sure is, because she took a chance, she took a risk. Yeah.

And her body had told her, if you tell him the truth, he's done, he's out of here. Yeah. And not only were you not out of there, but you leaned in, you got closer. I also want to say, Jack, when y'all go see a counselor together,

it's okay to be sad that she lied to you for all these years. That's okay. Yeah. It's all right. There's a weird thing. Like, let's say somebody was sexually abused as a kid, and they don't tell their spouse. And then year 10 comes along, and't tell their spouse. And then year 10 comes along and they tell their spouse.

There's this dual compassion, like, oh my gosh, I can't believe you were hurt like that. I love you. And then there's also the, what was it about me that I wasn't safe enough to tell, right? That's a normal reaction. And so it's not normal to keep those things inside not talk about them but it's also all those all those feelings are normal you're not crazy okay but right now it feels like the whole thing there's a relief there um what did you feel like you needed needed to contribute oh um so while while she was sharing her her past with me um i explained to her that i had been hiding something from her as well, and what I was hiding

was a porn addiction. Yeah. And she, when I told her that, she's actually the first person I've ever told, and you are the second person. Luckily, it's just me and you, man. Yeah, right? It's just me and you.

Nobody listens to this show, dude, so you're safe with me. You're safe. Well, thank you. It's until my wife and a million people. And a million people, yep. How long has that been going on? Before you were married? Yes, I would say I found access to that kind of stuff around age 12,

if I'm remembering correctly. It is not uncommon. Well, I won't go down that road. I'm glad you told her, man. Thank you. And she felt that disconnection. You felt her disconnection. And y'all have been about solving it in whatever ways your bodies could solve it. So she's not here. So I can just ask, ask you, what are you going to do,

man? Are you going to go to a, an essay meeting once a week? Are you going to go to, um, meet with your group of guys? Like, what are you going to do?

Um, what I'm going to do is, uh, I I've asked her what practices we would like to put into place. And, uh, if, and I've, I've told her she can ask me any questions that she wants to. She's still thinking about it and processing it.

I want you to come to her with a plan because what you just did was you put it kind of halfway on her. I want you to come with a plan as here's what I'm going to do. Anything you need to do to feel safe in this relationship or to rebuild trust, I'm in. Gotcha. And vice versa, you held a lie about joint values that we shared for seven years plus all the time we dated. So almost a decade. I may over the next five or 10 years, ask you more questions. I may want to learn more about that. And that's not me being gratuitous.

That is me learning about my wife because now a whole new portal has been opened. Yeah. Right. And that's just part of learning and getting to know each other. Absolutely. So, yeah. Do you have like a specific question I can help you with? I think it sounds like you're on the right track, man

It's not go find it go find a good marriage counselor and y'all lean in and commit I think the biggest commitment you make right now is not how we're going to solve all these things But our commitment is I will tell you the truth no matter what we are a couple that tells each other the truth we are a couple that Under penalty of law and penalty of death, we will tell each other what we need in the moment, in the day and in the month. I'm not going to hide that anymore. Right. And you brothers, you got to go get help for a long, long-term addiction. Yes, absolutely. I have to say, I think when, when I sent the question yesterday,

the, the, what do I do now was kind of a, you know, do I respect her wishes? Do I, do I let her go? Do I file first? Um, cause I, I wanted, I want to respect her wishes and do, um, do what she needs to be happy. But with this new information, I feel like the answer is just to keep fighting for her. Keep fighting. I would. I'm not a fan at all of what I call the bailout file. It's very, very common that somebody comes in and says,

I'm not happy in this marriage we've built together. I'm not happy in this. I'm not happy in this. You've been doing this. You don happy in this. I'm not happy in this. You've been doing this. You don't do this. I want a divorce. Then they just sit there for months. And so if you want to leave me,

and so often, man, guys leave the house, women leave the bed and go sleep in the guest room. Bro, if you're leaving me, you can do that. But this is my house and this is my bed. If you want a divorce from me, great, you file the paperwork. I'm not a fan of the, I'll do the dirty work for you. It's kind of like that Michael Scott, like, I declare bankruptcy. Like, that's not how

that works. Right. Right. You can't just announce to somebody, I don't like the life we've built together. So I'm out. You go file so I can tell everybody that he filed on me so that I can tell everybody that he did this. And then in five years, this can be kind of a blind side story, right? Am I doing that? You're welcome to not sleep in my bed or our bed. It breaks my heart, but you're welcome to do that. I'm not leaving. Okay. Right?

So, and some of that is this. I've walked several people who I love through messiness in this area over the last couple of years. There's this idea, this feeling that when I file divorce, when we get divorced, my life will be exactly as it is now, just not with you in it. And probably some sort of replacement vehicle for you. I'll still be in this house. I'll still be in this bed. I'll still go to the same supermarket. Our kids' relationship will still be like this. We're going to have this fantasy co-parenting relationship. And then I can have the man of my dreams.

It's going to make me all feel great and good and wonderful. And I am of the impression that, I call them micro doses, but not the psilocybin kind, micro doses of, you have to understand if you file for divorce, we got a kid, we have a life, you're blowing up everything. There is no plug and play here. And so if you want out, you can be out. If you say, hey, we're just going to start practicing this.

We're going to do kids on Tuesday, Thursday here, and I'll take them on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And then that very next week, it's like, well, hey, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. Like we're going to, we're going to, I'm going to be an adult. You're going to be an adult. You want to destroy everything and burn this thing to the ground. You're like, you're able to do that in modern America. I'm not participating in that. I'm not going to be a jerk. I'm not going to be rude. I'm not going to hold things up. I'm not going to be like, never. I'm not going to be a stalker, but I'm going to sleep in my bed. Does that make sense? Yes, absolutely. And I know I'm going to get some pushback on that. I don't care. The other thing is this, I would begin to lean in, and I know I say this like a broken

record on this show, I would make it a practice every day of your life to wake up and look your wife in the eye, hold both of her hands and say, how can I love you today? And if she says, I don't know, I don't know, just say, give me one thing and begin to lean into it that way. Because what y'all are gonna have to rebuild

is not some tactics and strategies. You going to have to rebuild is not some tactics and strategies. You're going to have to rebuild the foundation of this thing because the foundations it's fell over, right? It fell over. She told you this, you told her this, y'all been keeping things from each other. You both have been in systematic dishonesty with one another. All right, let's rebuild it. We're both in it. I do love you. She loves you. We're going to rebuild this thing from the floor up. And we're going to start with connection. We're going to start with telling the truth.

We're going to start with how can I love you? I'm going to go first. Servanthood, right? We're going to go that way. We're not going to go with, I get to look at your phone and I get to ask you all the questions about your old boyfriends that I would have asked you. That's not where we're going to start. We might get there, but that's not where we're going to start.

We're going to start with connection, with love. Thanks for the call, my brother. Dude, call anytime. I appreciate your vulnerability and you being open. Be a couple that always tells the truth. Be a couple that says their needs out loud. 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 Hallow helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet earth, Hallow, right now.

And listen, viewers and listeners of this show get three free months when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of free months when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Minnesota and talk to Kaylee. What's up, Kaylee?

Hello. How are you? So good. How are you? I good. How are you? I'm good. Can you hear me okay? I can. I can hear you great.

What's up? Well, my question is kind of just how can I stop comparing myself to others? I feel like I've been doing that for years, and now I feel like I'm specifically comparing myself to my sister all the time and also we have kids who are three weeks apart and I feel like I'm also comparing her son and my son because they're so close in age like if her son talks more than my son does right now I'm like oh my gosh my son is so behind. And so I was just kind of wondering your thoughts on that and how I can stop comparing my, just my life to other people. It sounds simple, like just stop doing it, but I don't know. It's like my thoughts just take over

and I kind of feel like I need to be doing more with my life and things like that. So this often comes from a place, a home environment where somebody had to do things in order to get love. They had to make perfect grades. They had to perform on a ball field. They had to do things so that was that you, you know, it, it, it really wasn't, but I will say that I've heard you say've heard you say that on the show before, and I kind of was always reflecting back to my childhood. And I grew up with just my mom and my sister for the most part. It was just us, and my sister was like straight A's, never got in trouble, like just the stereotypical first child. And I was like the complete opposite and my mom literally like truly never once ever compared us never once made me feel like I need to be doing more

um but then I think about like my dad and he just wasn't in the picture much like at all and um got remarried two months after divorcing my mom and had twins and just kind of started a new life there. So I don't know if it maybe stems from that. Two things. One, we'd have to spend some time together, but it would be such a rare situation with what you described with your mom. Okay. That would be so rare. And I would tell you this, it's not worth mining and going down every rabbit hole in your mind right yeah i would be willing to bet whether it's glances whether it is high fives whether it is i'm just talking to your sister right now that straight a straight a sister got the nod the second thing is is yeah it very much could it's a very real possibility that there's a little girl in there wondering, what was it about me that dad left?

Right. And I'm going to keep my head on a swivel and look for every place in the world where I'm not the best or I'm not the prettiest or I'm not the tallest. I'm not making the most money. I'm not the smartest kid. Whatever the thing is, because I'm so paranoid about somebody else that I care about leaving me. And I've got to achieve perfection to get there. And of course, you know, that doesn't exist.

It's not real. Yeah. Right? I'm kind of getting a little emotional right now. I'm just sorry. No, it's good. You're good. You're good.

And so- I just have a lot of feelings, like with my dad, just kind of leaving and just not really being a dad. Have you ever talked to him about it? I never have, no. Yeah. It might be worth that conversation.

Do you still have a relationship with him? Yeah, we do. And he's, like if I've ever needed anything, like with money, things like that, he's always helped. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. You needed something way more important than money and he left. It's real easy to look at tangible things like clothes and a car and car insurance and say, he gave me everything. No, he didn't, man. He left.

Yeah. You're not crazy. He's just like super involved in my half-siblings' lives. And it's just like he never taught me how to drive or went to a softball game or went to my prom. So I think a lot of like the comparison and things, I guess maybe stems from that. I'm probably not fully healed from

that obviously i'm crying right now but sure i guess i have a lot of work to do from from that yeah i here's the thing about comparison um you have to heal that from the inside out yeah and there's not going to be an external thing that comes in and makes you feel whole enough to not care how your sister, even more so not care how her toddler's doing, but to celebrate the fact that he's really smart. Yeah. Celebrate the fact that he knows 50 words and your kid only knows six. Yeah. And I really want to get to that place. I really really do so go there with gratitude Okay I you you've heard me say a lot on the show about keeping a gratitude journal right five things at night that you

That start with the sentence. I am grateful for and just do that every night But I want you to start a gratitude journal where you are intentionally grateful for the success in other people's life Okay, i'm so grateful that my sister is so beautiful Intentionally grateful for the success in other people's life. Okay. I'm so grateful that my sister is so beautiful. Yeah. I'm so grateful that my nephew is just crushing it. Yeah, it's a really good idea. I should be doing that.

And I want you to spend some time talking to my friend Kaylee in a positive way. Cause it's not better or worse. It's just different. You're going to have a different life. You've always had a different life from your sister, right? Right. Yeah, exactly. She wore high heels and you wore Converse and she made straight A's and you got dates, right? I mean, it's like y'all had different lives, right? Yeah. Yeah. And the thing is we're so different, but like, y'all had different lives, right? Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, we're so different,

but like we're so close. Like we hang out all the time. Of course. We have a really good relationship and she's never made me feel either like I need to be doing something more. So I'm grateful for that. Have you ever told her that you feel like

you live in a shadow? No, I've never said that. I think you should. Okay. I think you should. Okay. I think you should. Yeah. I think you should tell her, I've spent so much of my life being jealous of you

because you're so beautiful. Your kid's smart, this and this and this. Yeah. And I want you to know, I'm still working with, I still wrestle with that haunting question, why dad left us. And I want you to know I love you and I'm so proud of you as my sister. Yeah.

But I also want you to know I'm struggling. Okay. Good idea. And if you didn't have a good relationship with her, I wouldn't say don't just bomb her with that. Right. It sounds like y'all are super close. My promise is that she feels that disconnection. She feels that gap in your relationship.

She doesn't know what it is. Yeah. She just thinks it's your relationship. She doesn't know what it is. Yeah. She just thinks it's crazy sister, crazy aunt Kaylee. Yeah. I just also feel like I'm doing, I'm a teacher. I just feel like even there,

I'm like, oh, this teacher is better than me. And I don't know. I just, I don't know. It's really tough. And I just feel like I need to be like changing my thoughts around it it is it's a hundred percent and what i'm about to tell you to do is so cheesy and it's so absurd

sounding and it's been magical in my life and in others lives but there's something about looking in the mirror and balling your fist up your hand up in a fist and put it in the middle of your chest and looking in the mirror and saying, I love this girl. Okay. I love this guy. Yeah. And then writing down, I'm a good teacher. I'm a good mom. I'm a good fill in the blank.

And I'm going to make that a repetitive thing until those thoughts become part of my life. Okay. Okay. Also, you can't just think your way there what does that mean i've had to come face to face sometimes when i'm struggling with comparison that that person actually does work harder than me they are smarter than me and sometimes i've had to up my game yeah right Sometimes my comparison has been right. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I can see that too.

But also, my buddy Lane Norton, he's ripped beyond measure. He lifts like a forklift. He can pick up that much weight, like a house. And when I'm around him, dude, talk about comparison. He's handsome. He's really successful at business. He's a world champion. I am not those things.

I'm a YouTuber, Kaylee. You know what I mean? And I jog. You're not that, though. You're a good YouTuber. I go jogging, right? But here's the thing. I don't want that life he has. Yeah.

Like, that's not, I love cheering for my friend. I don't, I don't, my buddy who's an attorney, I love that he's so successful. I don't want the life of being a lawyer. Yeah. Right? So it's in celebration. It's in recognizing I feel myself comparing and him being like, yeah, he's a world champion lifter, right? I it's in celebration. It's in recognizing. I feel myself comparing and him being like, yeah,

he's a world champion lifter, right? I'm not that. Or when I was a teacher, like this person's an incredible teacher and they work at it too, a lot. I don't. So I can not be a teacher. I don't want this life or I can work really hard at getting better at it. But all that comes back to that comparison, which is I'm good. And you cannot get that peace externally. Has to come from the inside. Has to come from the inside out. And so I want you to spend, like I said, spend some time in gratitude

for the success of other people. I want you to practice not staring at your own belly button and looking up and out. And then I want you to practice not staring at your own belly button and looking up and out. And then I want you to take that same posture and look in the mirror and look at Kaylee and let her know that you love that girl. You love her. And here's some things about her that I do love.

And here's some things we're going to work on. Let's practice that for 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. And let's also bring your sister into the vulnerability. I struggle with this. Do you struggle with anything from dad? I still struggle with being second to you. I still struggle with why he left. Do you have anything that haunts you? And she might say, no, you're crazy. She probably not going to say that. You're a great sister, Kayleelee Your little one, your son Is lucky to have you

Your nephew's lucky to have you Your sister's lucky to have you Kaylee's lucky to have Kaylee 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 costumes

Seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves.

I have been there multiple times in my life, and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist

anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch 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 D'Loney. All right, we're back. Let's go out to Boise, Idaho and talk to the great Nicole. What's up, Nicole? Hi, I'm so excited to talk with you today. I'm excited to talk to you. What's up? Okay, I just want to say before I start that you've helped my marriage in so many ways. Like every day, my husband gets home from work and he'll literally ask me, what new thing are we going to try from that process?

Meet me on today. It's been, you've been amazing. So thank you. You're welcome. But listen, you can't be like, when you're mad at him, you can't be like, well, Dr. John says that you can't do that. You promise? I promise. John says that you can't do that. You promise? I promise. You do. I can tell you don't totally have don't weaponize me. I already have enough

people who don't like me. It's fine. All right. I'm going to be walking through Boise one day and he's going to be like, Hey, we got a problem. And I'm not that tough. I'm not that tough. All right. So how can I help you today? Thank you. Thank you for, thank you for being in our gang and for saying kind things. That really makes, that's awesome. Um, so my question is, how do you know when it's time to find a new job or if you need to do more trauma work or change your lifestyle? Well, I think it depends on, yeah, tell me the backstory. I'm a kindergarten teacher. You're, you're what? I'm a kindergarten teacher You're what? I'm a kindergarten teacher

And I have been for 8 years now I really do love it I love my kids I love the act of teaching But I am really struggling with living in this Constant state of fight or flight During the school year I've been through really intensive Trauma therapy with living in this constant state of fight or flight during the school year.

What are you scared of? I've been through really intensive trauma therapy. Let's back out of trauma therapy. What are you scared of? What's your body reacting to with a room full of kindergartners? I've been physically hit in my classroom. I've been spit on. And so it's that aggression is your school one of these increasingly um i can't even wrap my head around how insane this is that and i know it's five-year-olds like

i know sometimes that doesn't matter that doesn't matter that doesn't matter um what matters is you have an administration that will remove those kids from the learning environment. Correct. Will they? No. Or they will for a moment and then they're back after they calm down and have a Laffy Taffy or whatever it is. With no intervention? Correct.

Yeah. Here's what's happening all across the country, and it's going to keep happening because of the coward, cowardly and insane way school administrators and school boards are setting up teachers to be abused, screamed at, yelled at, spit on, hit at all levels because they will not remove troubling kids from the learning environment. And they are destroying the learning environment for every other kid in that room. And so I'm going to tell you, you're not safe in there. And let's be super clear. If those kids are doing it, they're coming from homes where that kind of is either tolerated or that kind of behavior is picked up. Right? Yeah. It's learned somehow. So I'm telling you, if you're my wife, who my wife was a teacher forever, and that's her world. And she said, I'm tired of

getting spit on and hit by kids. I would say quit today. And I need you to hear, I need everybody listening, I need you to hear me say, I dedicated my life to educators. Both my PhDs come out of a college of education. That's what I love. That's who I am. I love spending time with administrators. I love spending time with schools. I love spending time with teachers. That's my world. I married one for God's sake. I love that crew. And I'm not going to subject a group of people to insane violence, to insane all day, everyday disrespect, a disrupted learning environment because people are too cowardly to take on obnoxious, annoying parents. I just can't in good conscience say, well, you just got to tough it out, honey. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Now, if you're wired for it, some people are. Like, bring it on. If you're wired for it, what you have to do is to work outside of the classroom so you can be well so you can go back in. Right. Right. Right. I think that's what I'm having a hard time with.

Cause I, I mean, I love the kids so much and I'm good at what I do. It's taken me a long time to be able to say that out loud, but I'm good at it. Good. Good. The kids deserve that, but it's hard. Cause I, my body, I shut down whenever those things happen.

I would be willing to bet you money. You shut down bigger. You shut down before that. What's, what's, what's the bigger shutdown? I don't know. Cause, um, the great, there's, there's an extraordinary book. I recommend everybody read it. It's called burnout by, um, Emily Nagatsky and her sister. I think it's Amelia Nagatsky. Um, it's, it's excellent and it's written to professional women, but I think men, I got a lot out of it and I sister, I think it's Amelia Nagatsuki. It's excellent. And it's written to professional women, but I think men, I got a lot out of it and I've recommended it to men all over the place too. But they distill burnout down into three areas. The feeling that number one,

nothing I do matters. I can come at 6 a.m. and tutor. I can come at 6 a.m. and help these kids learn how to count. I can come at 6 a.m. and clean up the room. I can stay till 6 a.m. and tutor. I can come at 6 a.m. and help these kids learn how to count. I can come at 6 a.m. and clean up the room. I can stay till 7 p.m. Nothing I do is going to change these kids' lives. Nothing's going to change the system. Nothing's going to change anything. The second one is this deep and profound, not tired, it's exhaustion.

It's in your bones, right? It's this overwhelmed when I pull in to the driveway I of the school building my body starts to shut down because

it can't handle what's coming and then the third one is I think the most damning one is this increased isolation

it really starts to siphon off other people from you and it's isolated isolated isolated isolated is this increased isolation. It really starts to siphon off other people from you. And it's isolated, isolated, isolated, isolated. Yeah, I could see that. Because I get home and I just, I don't want my husband to touch me.

I don't want to talk to him. I just want to go to bed. Which then your body starts yelling, I need connection, I need connection, I need connection. Yeah. And then it runs out the door and starts this whole process over again. You see how I just how that spiral spins tighter and tighter and tighter and tighter.

Yeah, I see that. So when I'm talking to first responders, when I'm talking to people who are emergency electricians, they got to be up at 2 a.m. hanging from a pole fixing electricity so a whole neighborhood block can have heating and cooling, right? What I tell them is you have to, have to have friends not in your industry that you hang out with on a regular basis. You have to have regular intimate contact with your husband or

your wife. It's put on a calendar. You have to be safe in your work. You have to deal with the fatigue. And often we think dealing with fatigue means doing nothing. It's usually the opposite. I have to start an exercise program. I got to start honoring my body with what I eat. I've got to start. And you think right now, like I couldn't possibly move and go to the gym after the day. I would tell you that would transform your life Um, my buddy sal de stefano with the mind pump guys. He's told me that when he was a personal trainer people used to um sign up for personal training with him And they would skip because they didn't have enough they would say I don't have the energy today

And he would say you're paying for it and they would come and they would come and they would come. And he said, within six months to a year, they would cycle off, right? So they would see have a trainer and then not have a trainer, then have a trainer, then not have a trainer. He said, he'd get a call from these clients and they would say, hey, I'm out of energy. I got to start working out again. Because they realize that energy begets energy, that the path towards a body feeling like it can handle more is movement and exercise. You might be a CrossFitter. I don't know.

You might be running marathons. I don't know. No, definitely not. I just know because my community has been teachers my whole career that when you go to work at 7 a.m. and you deal with 30 people running around everywhere and an administrator that's running around everywhere and no support and angry emails from parents that your school district expects you to respond to every 14 minutes. And by the way, get off the computer, but why aren't you responding to these emails?

All those things. Then they get home and then they collapse. And then they grab something to prop them up. Unhealthy, they grab another drink. They just Netflix themselves out. And that starts a cycle of wah, wah, wah, right? And then your body just says, hey, I'm out. Yeah.

I don't want this life. I think the biggest thing is I've noticed I'm just so much happier since we've been on summer vacation. I just feel light and happy. Yeah. And so my question to you would be, can you recruit, like, what are you doing to feel light and happy? Because you're doing different things. It's not just the absence of.

What are you doing? And can you put that into practice for your school year? Can you be responsible for some new boundaries? Meaning, I leave at four. Ta-da. Well, I need you to do all this work. Well, I leave at four. Then we're just going to have to.

Yep, you might have to. But I don't do 12-hour days. Yeah. Right? I do not. I do not have kids that spit on me. They're not welcome in my class. And that's something, I guess I have a hard time, but like, I'm, I'm allowed to say that. Like, I think, I think at some point teachers have to start saying that

or the entire education system in the United States is going to implode on itself. Yeah. Yeah. And I know that's a huge burden for you and you don't have to carry it. And if you're not going to carry it, I applaud you, but you got to, you got to get out of that job because you're not safe. Yeah. No, you're right. And I think the part two is I'm having our time thanks for trying to get pregnant. And so I'm worried about even if I do get pregnant, the stress on.

It might be. Let's let tomorrow's worries be let's let tomorrow's worries be thought through tomorrow yeah that's a tomorrow thing what I would like to see you do is build a life worth living and let your job be a part of that not try to survive the life you've created because of the job you have and so I'm going to send you a copy of a brand new book. It's called Building a Non-Anxious Life, okay? Okay.

And it's got six choices that you and your husband can make together on building a non-anxious, a non-burned out, a non-chronically stressed life. And as a part of that, we all have to work. I would be willing to say work is important. We're not designed to just sit home and collect checks. That's why their whole country went crazy when the government said 300 million of y'all are not essential. We'll just send checks. Y'all stay

home. We went crazy. We're not designed to not have a purpose and a role. And so work, hard work is a part of that. Dangerous adventures are a part of a non-anxious life, but they have to be in the right context and you have to have connection and community and safety and health and healing and all these other things so that you have bedrock to anchor into and you can rappel off and do the hard job. That makes sense. You see, like, it inverts everything that we're told about how to, like, do I just quit this job? Maybe. Maybe. But I hear in you, you love it. I really do. You love it. And you're really good at it. And you see these kids and you are the first other adult many of these kids have ever interacted with besides their parents or their grandma or whoever, and you're real, real good at it.

It's just getting exhausting. So maybe before you quit, you sit down and you back all the way out and you say, okay, how can we build a life so that I can both go do my job well and when we get pregnant and have a bunch of little knuckleheads running around that I can be a great connected mom there too. And if I choose to stay at home and we have kids, great. We're going to cross that bridge when we get there. That's not today. It's not today. And let this be like for every administrator, every principal, every teacher, every school board member, you have to make the learning environment a safe place.

And I don't mean safe in the wah-wah, I can't hear things I'm uncomfortable with. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I think that's insane and nonsensical too. What I'm saying is if a teacher is getting hit or spit on or cussed at, you have to remove the kid from the learning environment, period. And I'll go this far. I don't care if that kid has trauma

or has reasons for acting out as a child. I fully understand that. I've dedicated my life to sitting with those kids, but they can't be in this environment because they don't have the tools to be there. They need some support and help. And burning the rest of the learning environment to the ground and running every teacher in the country out of their job cannot be a part of the solution.

It can't be. It can't be. We've got to do something different, guys. We've got to do something different. Because great teachers like Nicole are heading out the door and we cannot have that I got two little kids in public school I got a vested interest in this please let's solve these challenges

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. I'm so grateful that y'all joined us today. Don't forget, go to johndeloney.com and pre-order my brand new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. It's going to change your life. It's going to change the life of your family, your kids, of your community. Thank you for being with us. Thank you

for being in our gang and thank you for picking up this book. Today's song of the day is shout out to our first caller. They're from Amarillo, Texas. It's the great and wonderful Depeche Mode. They're actually one of my favorites. Yeah, the first caller's from Amarillo, right? Yes, the first caller. You made it sound like De the first caller's from Amarillo, right? Yes, the first caller. You made it sound like Depeche Mode was from Amarillo, Texas. They are for sure not from Amarillo, Texas. Not from Amarillo. Not at all.

Nope. No, they would not have been accepted in Amarillo, Texas. Depeche Mode and their song Policy of Truth. You had something to hide. Should have hidden it, shouldn't you? Now you're not satisfied with what you're being put through. It's just time to pay the price for not listening to advice and deciding in your youth on the policy of truth.

Listen, husbands and wives, tell the truth, even when it's hard. We'll see you soon. Love y'all.