The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m a Pathological Liar

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: A man who wants to stop being a pathological liar A man struggling to connect with people after his wife left him A new mom whose husband doesn’t believe postpartum anxiety and depression are real Lyrics of the Day: Boys Of Summer" - Don Henley  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: 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. The one very bad piece of advice I was given at the time was don't talk to anyone. This is from her and her side of things. This is between you and me. Don't talk to anyone about it. And I took that advice. You know, you don't get to throw grenades at my house and then expect me to cover for why their house is in ashes. Hey, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Thank you so much for joining us. On this show, we talk about what's going on in your life, whether it's your mental health, your emotional health, parenting, your relationships, your marriage, who you're dating, whatever's going on in your world, we're here. And we're going to walk alongside each other and figure it out. And we don't have to agree on everything. We don't have to vote the same way. We don't have to be excited by the same things, but we are committed to, to walking alongside each other and figuring out the next right step. Hey, big, big day today. We're supposed to launch this with new music, but there's some drama behind the music.

But check it out. Check out this awesome, cool new graphics here, man. If you are listening to this on podcast, make sure you check out YouTube today. They did the art guys. I don't know what to call them. The designers. Is that their official names?

Graphic designers. Or art guys, whichever. Graphic designers. Not that I worked at a college with graphic design as majors. But they did a great job, man. It captures the... Yeah, it's just right. It looks good.

I'm excited. I wish I had that kind of talent. I just usually look at stuff and I say, it needs to be more like Slayer. And there's always one guy in the room who's like, okay, I'll take it from here. Everyone else just thinks I can only imagine it around and then they move on.

Anyway, all right, let's go to Sammy in Billings, Montana. What's up, Sammy? Hello, Dr. John. How are we doing? Good. Thank you for taking my? Hello, Dr. John. How we doing? Good. Thank you for taking my call. Of course. Thanks for being available. What's up? Yes. Well, first, I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize in advance. I am a native English speaker, and nobody can understand me either, so we're in the same boat this morning.

Okay. So I am a pathological liar. I don't believe you. Just kidding. Just kidding. Tell me about it. I don't know when it exactly developed, but it started affecting my job performance right now, and I guess my family life too.

Yeah, so I don't know how to solve this. What do you lie about? well even the smallest insignificant thing like I lie about them and sometimes I embellish events and yeah and

give me some examples what do you lie about? well sometimes like I would be talking to a friend, and my wife would ask me about what I was talking about, and it's like nothing significant guess last week, I lied about something I did. I made a mistake on my job, a really small mistake, but I didn't tell anyone. And I guess they found out and it made it worse than it is. Yeah, it usually does. How long have you been in the States? So 10 years. 10 years?

So I'm originally from the Middle East. Okay. How old are you? Uh, 32. Did you lie when you were 21? Uh, yes. Yeah? So, I...

So, um... Back home, uh, I had a... Uh, really, like... My dad was a scary dude. And I think he, so maybe I think I started lying first to him when he was, like, would ask me about stuff. When you say scary dude, was he abusive? Did he hurt you? No, but verbally.

Okay. Uh, physically, not a lot, but more, like more verbally. But some, some physical? Uh, not a lot. I mean. But some? Yeah, like I guess four or five times. Okay.

Yeah. Um, and yeah, sorry, go ahead. Let me, let me jump in here. So, anytime we have some type of behavior that in a way

becomes automated or becomes a habit, it becomes a, a default setting. I always want to, and back out, and take a 30,000 foot view of, of the behavior. And I always want to, and back out, and take a 30,000-foot view of the behavior. And I always want to ask one overarching question.

And for the last 150 years or so, maybe a little bit longer, the questions we have asked at that 30,000-foot view range from what happened to you when you were a kid to what what's wrong with your brain chemistry, to any number of questions. The question I don't hear asked very often that I'm trying to be more assertive in changing the public's narrative and how we approach some of these challenges. And this is whether I'm reaching for junk food when I get stressed or whether I reach for another drink when I get frustrated or when I respond to a text of somebody I'm not married to because it makes my heartbeat a little bit faster or if I just default to lying all the time. The question I want us to ask is, what is my body trying to protect me from. Because I'm convinced that all of the all of the architecture

of where some of these challenges of where these challenges distill in the brain and in the body cascade out in a million different ways physiologically and genetically. All these things are all over the place. But at the core is you have a body that's trying to protect you

from what? Getting hit when you were a kid or getting screamed at when you were a kid, getting left by your wife, being judged, getting fired from your job and being ashamed. What is your body trying to protect you from, Sammy? And by the way, this isn't just in moments when you lie. This is all the time this little machine is running underneath the surface. I guess being discovered. What would somebody find?

I mean, logically speaking, it's not anything bad. I mean, relatively compared to... Yeah, but let's take logic out the window because logically, not admitting to a small little issue at work doesn't make sense. And so logic doesn't count here. Be honest. What is your body trying to protect you from? Can I throw some things out there that might help? Yes. I bet you are, and tell me if I'm wrong, I bet you are profoundly and deeply lonely. I bet your wife is one of the only, if not the only, people that you can truly count on. And even that has a strange hierarchy in the relationship to it. And your friends are kind of your friends, but they kind of work together.

My guess is you've got stress about money. My guess is you've got stress about a whole family unit back home telling you what you need to be doing and how successful you need to be. Am I on the right track at all? Yes. I don't know. I think I have two personalities. One that's inside and the other is what I face the world with. Okay. I'm convinced that the core human need is this. When you distill everything down, the core human need is this. If people actually knew me, would they still love me?

And here's my promise to you. Let me back out. There is no psychiatric consensus. So if you look at all of the literature, there's no consensus on pathological lying as a disorder. They even took it out of the last DSM-5 for people who give a crap about that stupid book. It's not even a tangible concept, if you will. It's floating around, right? And so we're going to ask ourselves, what is our body trying to protect us from? And you've given me, in just a few short minutes, you've given me some insights. You come from a really abusive home. You're dropped into Billings, Montana as a kid who grew up in the Middle East, who's learning the language in real time. You're like trying to change the oil on the car as you're driving. You have a job with a lot of stress. You've got a

marriage. You're isolated. You don't have your whole community with you all the time. And as you mentioned, you've got an inside guy inside your body that thinks a certain way and talks a certain way and has certain views on the world and you have an external way you present yourself. Carl Rogers called that a lack of congruence. You have to bring the inside out. Okay? And so here's what that looks like. You have to find people that you can trust that you will say those inside things out loud period i'm terrified about fill in the blank i hate fill in the blank the politics of so and

so makes me want to vomit if i see another another fill-in-the-blank, fill-in-the-blank, fill-in-the-blank, you have to be committed. And if you cheated on your wife, you've got to say it out loud. If you did some things in the Middle East that you're not proud of and you're here trying to recreate your life,

you've got to speak them out loud. You've got to find people that you trust. That might be a therapist. That might be a religious pastor, a religious leader. That might be a couple of close, close friends, but you have to make that commitment. And then when it comes to lying, I want you to change your identity completely. Okay. Here's how we do that. I want you to begin to repeat on a daily basis. I am a man who only honors the truth. I'm a man who only speaks the truth.

I'm a man who only says the truth. And you're going to have to practice being awkward in those moments. So with practice, it'll get better. It will get better only if you go all, all in. This is like stopping drinking. If you're an alcoholic, you can't limit your drinks to Fridays and Saturdays because you'll end up hungover until Thursday. And then you'll start right back up again. This means that you're going to say something.

Your wife's going to come in and say, who are you on the phone with? And you're going to say, oh, it was my dad. But actually it wasn't. It was a friend from work. And you're going to have to stop yourself and say, I just told you my dad, that wasn't true. It was my friend from work. Your wife's going to come in and say,

hey, where were you last night? And you're going to say, oh, I had to work late. And you're going to have to stop and go, nope, I wasn't. I was out with some friends. I stayed late talking to this woman that I kind of have an attraction to and we probably need to talk about whatever the thing is. You screw something up at work. You're going to stop what you're doing and go find your immediate leader and supervisor and say, hey, I just made this small mistake. Here's how I'm correcting it. Or here's how I've already corrected it. Here's how I'm about to correct it. You're going to practice telling the truth. And when you tell it,

you're going to feel so exposed and naked and terrified. I want you to feel that. Absolutely feel that in your bones. And exhale. This is the heading into that storm. I'm a guy who only tells the truth. I'm a guy who tells the truth. I'm a guy who tells the truth.

And I will tell you, Sammy, I was a guy that lied about everything to everyone all the time. Always. And then I changed my identity. And now I've become pathological about truth telling to the point that I have to be careful because I can come across as a jerk about it. But there will only be telling the truth from this point forward. Your relationships aren't worth it. Your mental health isn't worth it. Your emotional health isn't worth it.

Losing your wife isn't worth it. Losing your job's not worth it. Tell the truth. Bring the inside guy out. Let the world meet that guy. Be fully you. Be fully you. We'll be right back.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna 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.com slash Deloney. All right, we're back. Let's go out to SLC. Let's go out to Salt Lake City and talk to Eric. What's up, Eric? Hello. Hey, man. Hey, John. Thanks for taking my call. Of course. Yeah, man. And so you called back in 2021 about a divorce. You're thinking about a divorce. Tell me about that. So, golly, that's a lie. It's a recap was my wife who gave me an unexpected news.

It was on our 11th anniversary that she had been working to get a divorce and I didn't know it was coming. Uh, I hadn't, we hadn't talked about it, the divorce or separation. It was never, at least from my perspective on the table. And, uh, I was pretty broken, uh, to say the least. And I called in looking for some, for some advice on how to, first of all, how to cope and how to move forward and how to work on some of my issues. Did I screw it up? No, no. If anything, I was a screw up, man. You, you were, your advice was, uh, it was potent in a good way. It, it was some advice that I needed to hear that I didn't have anyone else to tell me what to do with, uh, namely the thing I wasn't doing is I wasn't talking to

people. I was isolating and trying to be private about it. And you said, dude, get some friends in your world. And so I took that advice the best I could. And furthermore, decided to make myself better rather than blaming the situation. And that's what I'm working on for a couple of years. I love it, dude. So how can I help you today, man? So without attempting not to get into too much detail,

the one very bad piece of advice that was given at the time was don't talk to anyone. This is from her and her side of things. This is between you and me. Don't talk to anyone about it. Just maybe your parents or something, but don't talk to anyone. This is between you and me. And talk to anyone about it Just maybe your parents or something But don't talk to anyone This is between you and me

And I took that advice Oh no, did you? I did Well, that was before I spoke with you Did I have the exact same response as I just did? Basically, yeah Oh gosh You don't get to throw grenades at my house

And then expect me to cover For why their house is in ashes Like if you blow my house up You can blow it up, I'm going to tell everybody Right, you don't get to tell me that And I wish I had done that What you're saying at the time I was desperate to save my marriage

I was already in the process before I got the news Of working on myself And being a better husband And I was It was the process before I got the news that of working on myself and being a better husband. And, and, uh, I was, it was kind of, you know, one of those three steps forward, four steps back, two steps forward, one step back. And one of those, but I was making progress. And so I was surprised to get the news anyway. The, so I, I tried to comply in order to, in my head, I was, the story I was myself was, if I show her I'm being kind and compliant, then she'll see that maybe I am more workable than she thinks,

and maybe she'll come around. And that's Eric thinking that this divorce ever had anything to do with him in the first place. Yes, and that's been part of my journey over the past couple years is realizing this had a lot less to do with me than I was led to believe. Eric, she bailed on you because something was going on with her. You don't, you don't drop a bomb on an 11th anniversary with no conversations, no lead up, no discussion, unless something's going wrong sideways inside of you. I'm sure in retrospect, you've, I'm sure you could have

done things differently. Let's make no mistake, but bro, she didn't. Yeah. That's not on you. It would be unfair of me to say it was all her. You know, I had, I had my own issues. They weren't nearly to the extreme that she has since led me to believe, but there, there were some problems. uh, many of which, you know, your last caller was talking about honesty. I had some honesty issues that I had to work on and I've gotten a lot better at over the years. And so I'll tell him now it does, it does get better. But you also heard my question, right? Um, what's your body trying to protect you from? And sometimes people develop dishonesty because they grow up in such toxic, sick situations that their body knows if you tell the truth here, it's simply not worth getting hit over and over and over and over.

And so let's create a neutral path. It's like one of those walkways in an airport. It's just like a moving sidewalk. I'm just going to create that so that I can have a frictionless life. Right. It's not, it's still dishonesty. It's still a lie.

It's still not true. Um, but man, sometimes people come by their dishonesty, honestly. Right. Yeah. But so where are you right now?

Yeah. So, so to circle back to your question is I have, I took much of your advice and put my shoulder to the wheel and I've been working on me for, well, since 2021. And I have come a long way through therapy, uh, built, you know, rebuilding some relationships with family and, uh, essentially making myself be the guy that I want to be. And it was a hard road. It was, and it is a hard road. It continues to be a hard road, but I like the Eric today infinitely more than I liked the Eric back then. Dude, that's awesome, man. Good for you.

It's it's, and I, and your call was instrumental. So thank you. Now you asked, what is my question? So despite all of my growth, despite all of the progress I've made during that divorce process, because I did keep to myself, what I didn't know is that she was not, of course. And she had been going to anyone in our universe who would listen, including my dear friends and family members with wild accusations that I never heard in the courtroom, you know, such as he was abusive, he was

controlling, he didn't let me spend money, he didn't let me visit my family, things that were wildly untrue. And unfortunately, I don't know what to attribute it to, social climate or what have you, but a lot of people, vast bulk of people at best decided to cut ties with me. Eric, I'm going to tell you something really hard. I'm going to interrupt and tell you something really hard. Yep. Thank God they're gone. Here's why.

If one of my, if my wife called any number of my buddies, this isn't just limited to my core crew, any number of my friends. If she called any number of her friends and said, John is abusive. He won't let me fill in the blank. The number of them that their first instinct would be like, no way. Followed by I'm calling him or I'm going, I'm showing up at his house. It would be a flood because I've got that level of trust and rapport with him. They know me. I'm an open book. I'm as wide open as could be. Now, if she called her friends and was like, John's always late to everything and he's a goofball and his music is terrible. Yeah, they believe that. No question about that, right?

But here's the deal. The fact that those people in your orbit never came to you with that, never challenged you on that, never met you in your front yard and said, who do you think you are? And gave you an opportunity to explain. You don't want those people in your life because they

were never a part of your life to begin with. They were leeches. They were hanger-ons. They were along for the ride or for the party, dude, but they weren't in it with you. And I know it's hard when you think I had, it's like having 100,000 followers on Instagram and suddenly they cancel all the bots and you're down to 20,000. And it hurts because you lost 80,000 followers, but they weren't real to begin with. That's what just happened with you.

And you can look at the landscape and the number and see how it just, it went zoop and dwindled down. But man, I'm telling you right now, you're in a better place to rebuild something new. Forget those folks. And you've listened to the show long enough. I don't normally say that. I have little, little patience at all for friends who don't have the courage to say, let me talk to him. I invested enough that I'm involved in this because we're close, we're connected, we're friends, we're family. I'm calling them.

If I'm not worth a phone call, then so be it. And, you know, I'm grateful you said that. I'm coming around to finally believing that. My folks gave me similar advice. And I think, uh, uh, to wrap up the background and to get to the actual question, I suppose is I think it made it really hard for me not to believe the accusations because I thought we were ride or die. I was a guy who showed up when we're moving. I was the first guy to show up. I was the guy who showed up when you're hurting. And I was, I was the one who, as you say, I did show up on the yard i did call them and so when everyone else seemed to bail you know it devastated me so

that was the actual question it was despite my growth i have this i didn't used to be this way but i have this really uncomfortable uh mechanism in my body, I guess, that's making it difficult for me to – I thought I was doing everything right as a friend. Why is it that – I guess what I'm trying to say – how do I articulate that? I'll answer it because I know what you're trying to say. You've got to go again. Yeah. It's kind of like talking to somebody, and they're like,

hey, I've got this much money to buy a house, but I live in California and houses are triple the price as they are in Kansas. So is it cool if I just go ahead and buy this? And I would tell you, your wife burned the landscape clean and you got to see what trees in the field remained. And there was many fewer trees than you thought. And that doesn't give you a pass on all the loneliness research that exists that says, if you don't have a group of people you can be yourself with and be vulnerable with, you will die. And I'm feeling that. It's been nearly two years now and I still feel pretty lonely. There are some new people in my world that are getting to that friendship point, but it's definitely a loneliness I haven't felt in a

long time. So I guess, are there any tools that I can develop or get to help myself open up again and be myself with people, uh, to, to, to open myself up, to be vulnerable. The only, the only ones that I've seen be effective at all. And the science on this is, is dismal. Um, and again, it's hard, right? It'd be really hard to do a controlled study on this. But the two things I've seen be successful is find shared experiences and go first. What I mean by that is join a soccer team or a softball team or a chess club. Join an existing thing where y'all can do a thing together where you're not just sitting at dinner staring at each other and being like so how do you feel because that's awkward and weird but go to the fights go to the fights go to the fights and eventually like has happened um i watched the ufc fights with a group of guys and we every time there's a big fights we all get together at one guy's house and we watch them. And after two, three, four, five times, somebody texted me and said, hey, we need to go to lunch.

And then things got real. But we had shared experiences. We were cheering. We were laughing. We were ragging and making fun of each other, having a good old time. And then there was some safety built so that someone could say, hey, I need a question about my kid. Or the second one is just go first and be weird. You be the house that every time there's UFC, have people over or whatever

sporting event or whatever Bible study or whatever thing is like, hey, I just went and bought $5,000 worth of rogue lifting equipment. I've got a workout at my house every morning at six o'clock. You guys are all welcome. Maybe one guy shows up, maybe no guys show up, but maybe a few guys will show up and then one or two of them will continue to show up and then y'all will go grab coffee together. Or y'all go hunting together. You go fishing together. You go, I don't know, go knit sweaters together. I don't care what you do, but it's easy to get into this circling the airport in the plane where you're waiting for somebody to invite you and nobody invites you.

And that reinforces the message that everyone sucks and that nobody wants to be around you. Or you go and it's a little bit awkward and a little bit weird. And that just reinforces that every, you see what I'm saying? It just kind of, it's a little bit awkward and a little bit weird and that just reinforces that every – you see what I'm saying? It just kind of – it's self-perpetuating. So the only way through it is through it.

You have to head into the storm, into the storm, into the storm, over and over and over again. And your body is doing exactly what it's designed to do, which is to keep you from getting hurt again. And I wish there was any other way around it. You just can't get a pass on math, right? It just is. I mean, this is the brutal part

of having somebody break your heart. It's like getting bit by a rattlesnake and yet the only way to live is by handling rattlesnakes, right? You got to go back out there again and risk it again. Well, I've done hard for a couple years i can keep doing hard a little while longer i think i think that can i can be super honest with you

i think you've done peripheral hard which you have to do right you got to keep the the lights on and the bills paid you got to keep food in your stomach right i think you're about to enter into the season of super hard the beauty of super hard is I have found it's, if you will head directly into it, it's not as long as people think it is, but it is painful. That might be taking six or seven of those folks that actually just completely bailed on you,

call them back, take them for coffee. And say, hey, what stories were told about me? Why didn't you call? Like, was that not worth a phone call? And there might be some closure there. And people may say, hey, I'm really sorry. Because also two years ago, it was the middle of COVID. Everybody was crazy.

Everybody was scared. Everybody was everything. And so it may be worth you circling back and letting people have the opportunity to say, I'm so sorry. I screwed this up so bad. And you can rebuild something there maybe. Sure. That seems logical to me. But I would pick five or six of them that you love.

And if you don't reach out to them, write them a letter that you're never going to send. And just let them like get that out of your body onto a piece of paper. I thought I was at least worth a phone call. I thought I was at least worth the confrontation at my front door. If you thought I was really abusing my wife, I was really controlling her and wouldn't let her call out the phone, wouldn't let her visit people. That's crazy behavior. Was that not worth that? A phone call? And quite honestly, Eric, they may say, well, you did this and this and this. And so it was illogical. And you may find out, man, I've really had a lot of growing because I kind of put this image out there. Who knows what you'll learn but ultimately hardest part about broken relationships is that our body puts a GPS pin in there and says never again

those relationships got us hurt last time we're not doing this this time the only way to health and healing and being well is with other people so you got to go again and you got to go again. Head on the line, Eric. I'm going to send you all of the questions for humans cards for friends. Um, Jen, like, I don't know, guys night, girls night, friends, couples, and I'm going to send you a copy of own your past, change your future to, um, check it out. It's got a whole section in there about making friends. Um, give that a read. And then dude, call me back anytime. I'm really, really proud of the work you're doing. It's amazing. We section in there about making friends. Give that a read. And then, dude, call me back anytime. I'm really, really proud of the work you're doing. It's amazing.

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

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get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, we're back. Let's go to Zoe in Atlanta, Georgia. What's up, Zoe?

Hi. How's it going? It's going good. I'm super nervous. I'm a huge fan. Oh gosh, don't be nervous. Thank you for being a fan, but don't be nervous. I promise I'm not very good at this. What's up? Okay, so basically, in essence, like, I guess a simple question is, how do I deal with having anxiety or postpartum anxiety specifically with my husband who doesn't really understand mental health or really believe in mental health issues? I don't know if that's the correct way to word it, but I guess I can give you background information if that's helpful. Yeah, because my first thought is, well, you should just leave him.

But that's probably not going to be helpful. He's from another country, so they don't really talk about mental health the way we do here in America. And he also has never had any mental health struggles, I guess. But I've always kind of dealt with anxiety. So I have a little bit more experience with that. It's not that he doesn't believe in it, but he kind of equates having anxiety to stress. So if I'm ever telling him, like, oh, I'm anxious, he's like, what are you anxious about? Like, just go fix it and do what you need to do to not be anxious when it's not really that simple. So if he doesn't understand, I guess it's more of a complex issue

where I can't just go do the dishes and then no longer be anxious, you know? Have you gone to see a counselor? I haven't. Okay, that's where you need to start. A couple of things. One, you can't continue to go to a source for somebody to hear you, to connect with you when they are telling you, I don't know how to connect with you. I don't even, this connection is never going to happen. And so I do think it can happen, but you have to decide to stop going to him for that because he can't provide that for you. He doesn't have a cultural context for it my hope would be someone who didn't have a cultural context

could have a scientific context or have a um professional context and so i want you to go to a counselor and get some support and care there and at some point invite him to come with you okay do not do that at the beginning because you're going to have to do the work you need to do to heal the ecosystem that has given you this anxiety. And some of it, if it's from before you were pregnant, it could be any number of things. If it's postpartum, then it could be any number of things.

But you need to sit down and get that stuff worked out and begin, not worked out in a, you need to fix that. That's not what I'm talking about. But you need to get some tools and get some insights into why your body is trying to protect you in that way, trying to take care of you in that way. And what alarm bells it's sounding, and then invite him in, and hopefully a professional who's got an ability to teach and inform can give him insights that he's not able to hear from you. Okay. That's helpful.

But quit going back to him for it, because he's not going to, he's not quit going back to him for it. He's not going to give it to you. Okay. And I just want to say he is like incredibly supportive and loving and all of that. It's just, he doesn't understand. So he doesn't know how to like support me in that area and the way that I need to be,

you know? So I think it is helpful probably for me to go seek. Well, and let me, let me dig into that for a second. When you say he's not able to support me, what do you think you need when it comes to support? Sometimes I guess I just want him to be like,

I'm so sorry that you're struggling today and kind of give me a hug and things like that. I was talking to him about it last week, and he was like, because he works from 10 a.m. until midnight, five days a week, so I'm basically a single mom five days a week. And so that can just add a lot of stress into my life. And so I was talking to him about that last week, and he was like, well, maybe you need to go get a hobby like play tennis or something. And I was like, I mean, I'm lucky if I can shower for more than three minutes at this time. So I'm not really looking to go play tennis, you know? Yeah. But it sounds like a guy that not trying to give him a pass, but he's not going to be able to help meet your needs

and support you in the ways that you need, unless you are very explicit in how you teach him. Yeah. How would you recommend I? Just like this. My wife and I have had to come up with a whole different language because like him, when she said she was struggling with something, I just solved it because I'm a genius and I know everything. Right. And come to find out my wife is 10 X smarter than me. She didn't need my, my advice. She needed me just to sit with her and listen and say, that sucks. Yeah. And so she taught me that by saying this, Hey, I know you love me and I know you want to connect with me. And when you tell me just to go play tennis, that tells me you don't even have a clue as to what I'm working through.

So can I teach you in real time how to love me better? If he says no to that, then you'll have bigger issues. Like most men, he would say, oh God, please. Anything, any sort of data would be helpful. Yeah. Because here's what I bet happens. I bet you reach out and you say, man, today was this and the kid diarrhea all over me and puked on me.

And then we had a lunch date and then it got canceled. And he responds with how he would deal with those situations. Yes. And then he feels you get would deal with those situations. Yes, yeah. And then he feels you get disappointed and mad at him. And he doesn't know why his wife doesn't like him very much. And you don't know why. You can't just sit with me and be quiet. It's all of that.

See what I'm saying? Yeah, that's perfect. And it's, yeah, exactly what it is where he tries to help and he really does try to help, but he doesn't like, like you said, with your wife, he's more solution oriented. So he's like, well, what do we do? And sometimes it's not like, there's nothing you can really do. I guess I just want support in that way. So, and don't use, don't use words like support, use words like, um, my wife will say this and we've been married for almost 21 years. She will say, I just need you to sit by me and hold

my hand while I tell you this. And that's a signal to me to be quiet. And then sometimes she will say, I am being vulnerable and I'm going to ask for your thoughts on this. And I'm not going to lie. When she says those words, I want your thoughts, I get so fired up and excited that I can actually feel like I'm helping because I'm so insecure in my own presence that I think the only way I can help is by running my mouth, which isn't true. Yeah.

But she taught me. She taught me she taught me yeah the same as in the morning her is her sacred private time like that's like it's just such an important time and so for years i would wake up and i am bouncing off the walls at 5 a.m and she she is like a ghost coming out of a mist, like kind of slowly the molecules are finally coming together to form a human. And I'm like, hey, what's up? And so she had to teach me, hey, you're a lot in the morning. And I had to teach her, it really breaks my heart

that you won't at least say good morning. And she says good morning every morning now. And it's awesome. We have a moment and I'm quiet. I take my drama downstairs, right? You know what I'm saying? So all I have to say is we honor each other by not asking each other to read our minds. Yes. We don't say words like support or care for me or love me. I got to be specific, got to be explicit. Here's what I need. And then you got to be prepared for the vulnerability because if you tell him exactly what you need and he goes, nah, I'm not doing that.

Then you have to deal with the fact that you're married to a jerk but most people just skip straight to jerk and they don't ever give their spouse or their boyfriend or girlfriend or whoever they love the opportunity to fully meet their needs because they don't say them out loud right my guess is if you will honor him by being very explicit about your needs, that he will meet those needs and begin to connect deeper with you and your anxiety will slowly start to fade. Yeah, I really do think that that is the case. He's very responsive whenever I do need anything from him. I think you're right.

My problem was like thinking of support as just this general thing and not being specific about what I need. So I think that would be really helpful. That's awesome. And here's how I'd start the conversation. If I'm you, I would start with, I've been using these big amorphous words like support and care,

and I've left you to guess and try to figure it out. And that's not cool. And so I'd like to love you and honor you by being specific. And so there's gonna be two ways you can help me. One, I just need you to sit by me and listen. Or sometimes I might ask you for your insights. And I'm going to ask you, please don't give me advice or your wisdom if I don't ask for it. But I promise I'll ask for it when I need it. Just give them that. Give them that.

Also, I want y'all to try SOS, skin-on-skin contact, four times a day. It doesn't have to be sexual. In fact, it usually isn't. It can be if you want to. Knock your lights out. But it doesn't have to be. Just right when y'all wake up in the morning, just 10, 15, 30 seconds, holding hands, putting your foot on his foot under the covers

right before you leave he leaves for work, right when he gets home and then right before bed and he works till midnight so maybe that's not possible but do it the best you can get some skin on skin contact no talking, no solving no

running through the ticker tapes. Just being together. Let that exhale happen. Thank you so much for the call, Zoe. And please, if you continue to have postpartum anxiety, this anxiety is new after you've had a baby, please go see your OBGYN. See your doctor and let him or her know that you're still struggling with this. Because it may be completely outside the realm of just

emotional health. Maybe some true biological things going on. Thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back. All right, as we wrap up today's show, I'm going to go with the old classic, one of my favorites of all time. You got to love the great and powerful Don Henley. And these little kids named the Ataris covered this song. And man, I got to say,

not a huge remake guy. They crushed it. Song's called The Boys of Summer by the great Don Henley. It says, nobody on the road, nobody on the beach. I feel it in the air. The summer's out of reach. Empty lake, empty streets. The sun goes down alone.

I'm driving by your house, though I know you're not home. But I can see you, your brown skin shining in the sun. You got your hair combed back and your sunglasses on. I can tell you, my love for you will still be strong after the boys of summer have gone. I'm not a boy

of summer. I'm more of like a yeah, just kind of a sad winter boy. Love you guys. See ya.