The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m a Serial Cheater and I Want To Stop

Episode Date: April 27, 2022

Today, join as we talk with a police officer desperate to change his pattern of cheating, a middle school teacher struggling with burnout, and a woman who wants her pregnant sister-in-law to leave her brother after he sexted a minor. I’m a serial cheater. I don’t know why but I want to stop. I’m a middle school teacher struggling with burnout Brother sent inappropriate texts to a minor. How can I help support his wife? Lyrics of the Day: "You Are The Best Thing" - Ray LaMontagne Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage 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.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. And one thing that I definitely notice about myself is the pattern that I seem to always cheat on every relationship that I'm on since 20. You're a pretty lonely guy. Is that fair? Yeah. And so loneliness exacerbates what you're experiencing. Ayo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. We talk about your mental health, your wellness,

your marriage, your friendships, going on dates, education, what's going on in this classroom these days with your kids, whatever we can do. Talking to first responders, we're talking to everybody. If you want to be on this show, we'd love to have you. Give us a shout at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291, or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K, and this little web form will show up like it's 1987, and you can fill out the web form, and it will go to Kelly's electronic communication box. Email is what the kids call it these days, and we will get you on the show. Super excited.

All right, let's go to Ethan in Chi-Town. What's up, Ethan? Hey, Dr. John. How are you? I'm good, my brother. What's going on with you? Not much. A little How are you? I'm good, my brother. What's going on with you? Not much. A little nervous.

Sorry, I've never done anything like this before. Hey, listen. I'm terrible at this. And so when people hear it, they'll be like, who is that guy? And they're talking about me, not you. So you're good to go, man. So what's up? Okay, good to know.

So I am a first responder in Chicago. What's your gig, man? I'm a first responder in Chicago. What's your gig, man? And I'm a police officer. Excellent. Yep. You're a typical beat cop. There we go. Hey, I'm grateful for you, man. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. So the reason I'm calling you guys is because over the past, I don't know, maybe like a year or so,

I've been feeling a lot of like ups and downs. They're much more defined to the point where like, I've like, I've noticed it. Um, and, uh, I guess, uh, the past month, um, I guess now my ex-girlfriend, uh, caught me, uh, cheating on her. And, uh, so obviously that absolutely did not help whatsoever with my situation and actually made it worse. And so it made me reflect a lot about, you know, everything that's been going on. And one thing that I definitely noticed about myself is the pattern that I seem to always cheat on every relationship that I'm on since 20. I'm now 37.

And so I've only had like, you know, five major relationships. But it seems like I find one. I'm really into them. It feels great. I feel like I'm in love with them. And then somewhere along the line, I cheat. And eventually, I feel like I no longer want to be there. But then I don't want to break it off.

And, and I guess I just make things worse so like they can just leave me. And so I've never been caught. Uh, this was actually the first time. And, uh, so it, like I say, it made me feel worse for the fact that I, I hurt her so bad. Um, so it just, like I said, it just seems like everything is just like collapsing around me. And it's just like trying to find a way out and reason like, why do I keep doing knowing that I know it's wrong? Why do I keep doing stuff like this? And, you know, I guess, you know,

I guess you already know, I've heard you mentioned that your father was a police officer, you know, like the job is stretched. And I, I didn't realize like, I always thought like, well, it's not a big deal. I see this stuff or whatever, whatever move on but all of a sudden things are just kind of like coming back to me and I'm like why is this why am I thinking about this uh scenario or that event and I just yeah sorry yeah hey man that's good I appreciate that so number one thanks for your honesty uh it takes a lot of courage number two um you 37 so how long you've been in i i've been in total uh going on 90 years now okay so you're almost a decade and you know as

well as i do that culture is heavy on keep your mouth shut and do your job right so the fact that you made this call is an act of bravery that, unfortunately, many of your colleagues don't have the courage to summon. So I'm proud of you there, okay? So you've presented two different issues that may intertwine here and there, but let's separate them a little bit, okay? Okay. One of these is, to quote the old Vander Kolk book, the body keeps the score. And there's only so long you can work the beat. And for most people in our country, probably in the world, they have no idea what's going on in their neighborhoods after hours, right?

Right. None. Absolutely. Zero. None. Absolutely. Zero. None. And have no idea that guy they see out mowing the yard had the cops called on him at 2 a.m. by his girlfriend because he was beating her.

Like, they have no idea. The dead body in the ME shows up at 3.30 in the morning, and nobody even knows it happened, right? And so, and you do that all day, every day, day after day after day after day. And you have to show up to a situation, and here's the deal. In the new world, you have to be perfect. You better be perfect, right?

Yeah. And so, because everything you do is now recorded, audio, video, everything. Be perfect. Question everything. That's right. That's right. So, what I would strongly encourage you to do, and when I say strongly encourage you to do. And when I say strongly encourage you,

I'm just telling you just like friend to friend, you have to. You got to go sit down and tell somebody. And I absolutely understand that this cannot be somebody associated with your work. And if that's the case, I'd recommend you go find somebody, not insurance, figure out, find, pay the cash.

And so there's not a diagnostic record and sit down with somebody and say, hey, this thing's starting to wear on me. I'm not okay. And they're going to walk you through it. I was fortunate. I was part of a patrol team, but I had a, every time I'd get out of a messy situation, right? Like cleaning up a scene before a mom came home, right? Or helping move a body before so-and-so showed up, before sister got there, right?

When I was a part of those situations, I was blessed with a supervisor that would call every time and say, how are you? You okay? Walk me through what you saw. And what I didn't get at the time was there was a processing going from limbic to frontal lobe to simplify it, which is letting my body know you just experienced some stuff that was chaos, man. You just saw guts and brains and blood and people.

You just saw somebody tell their child that their dad's dead. Like you just saw some stuff you're not supposed to see. And I need to make sure you're with us here, that your body knows you're safe right now. And right now, your body, because this is what you do all day, every day, and probably you're a pretty lonely guy. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I just have to admit to that. It's hard. It's hard. It's hard. And so loneliness exacerbates what you're experiencing because your brain needs human beings. And what happens a lot with lawyers, what happens a lot with doctors,

what happens a lot with cops is nobody understands their world because it's so chaotic. It's just so different than the norm that you end up hanging out with only cops. Right, yeah. And then when you're not working, you're talking about working. I can't believe Sargent's moving us to 12s instead of 10s. And I can't, right? That's all you do. Man, they're taking us.

I cancel days off. Yeah, dude. And we're going from six to glocks. It's ridiculous, man. And it's just nonstop. It never quits. And so your brain never gets to watch the sun freaking come up. Right.

Even when I try to hang out with like civilians or non-covs, they always ask me those stupid questions, you know? Yeah, you ever shot anybody? I'm like, dude, right, absolutely, it's tiring. It is, it is. And so the re-entry program, when you meet people, they're going to ask you those dumb series of questions. The worst is when veterans come home, right?

Did you kill anybody? Did you shoot anybody? Right, and you get that all the time too. It's learning, and this is going to sound ridiculous, the same as when they took you to marksman classes. You're going to have to learn a new set of skills. And here's why that sucks. Because when we were kids, dude, they just dropped us all in a box and said, y'all play, and we did. They put us on the same kickball field or on the same football team or on the same whatever, and we just figured it out. And when we're older and we're adults, we don't have that skill set.

That skill set's gone. We've lost it. And in the same way you can't just go pick up and run a marathon right now, you can't just pick up and become best brothers with somebody. You have to. It's annoying, and it's long, and you have to slog through especially those first four or five awkward moments. And this is the pot talking to the kettle, man. I'm a lonely guy too, right? I'm having to practice friendship and that sounds stupid.

All right. So that's number one. Number one is you got to go talk to somebody. Okay. You are ripe for making a poor decision because your body's trigger is really, really tight right now. Okay? Okay. You're going to not show up.

You're going to miss a call. You're going to go sit down and all of a sudden you've been in the restaurant having a burger on shift for 45 minutes and you've missed three calls in the car, right?

It's going to happen, right? Right. Or you're going to get on scene and you're going to snap at somebody who's just trying to figure out how they can do the next right thing. That's my fear. It is, right? And so I'm telling you your body's getting close, and I want you to go talk to somebody, okay?

Hopefully you have a sergeant that has passed along how important this stuff is and that you all have a culture in your unit of being open and this stuff not coming back to bite you during annual reviews or get you put on a desk for a time. Hopefully, you've got a supportive, but most police departments in the country don't have that yet. They're getting there. People are moving, and there's a lot of shifting and changing, and it's beautiful to see, but most people aren't there yet if it's not go see somebody.

Here's part two. How long have you looked in the mirror and said, I'm not enough? Your whole damn life. Yeah. Since I can remember. Where'd you learn that? Who told you that? It would sometimes come from my, uh, from my dad and from just, uh, my, uh, childhood time in, uh, in school. Okay. I got, I got bullied a lot.

Uh, I got picked on for like the dumbest things, like the color of my eyes or my smile or, or something like, or my shoes. So you got picked on. How did your, how'd your old man respond to that? Um, honestly, I wish he would have responded. It seemed like he, he, him and my mom are still married, but, uh, I always felt like he was far away, even though he was here at home. Um, most of the time I just remember him like just watching TV and just not really caring about what was going on. And if something would happen, he might say something here and there, but it never felt like he truly cared and wanted to show me how to defend myself or protect me or anything like that. It just seemed like, like I said, he was home, but he just was not here.

That's how I felt. He's six feet apart, but 6,000 miles away from you, right? Absolutely, yeah. Hey, here's the thing. And I don't have any evidence to back this up other than just sitting with countless people over the years. I think there can be as much, if not more trauma than if he had just left. Because when he just left, then you got to deal with it. But when they just sit there,

and by the way, trauma can be acute. It could be you walk into the house and you see part of that person blown all over that wall. That's trauma. When you're hugging a mom who's holding you so tight because her baby's dead in the next room, that's trauma, right? Trauma can be acute.

And trauma can be what didn't happen. And your dad should have looked at you in the eye and said, I love you, son. I'm so sorry this happened. Give me a hug. That should have happened and it didn't. Now, here's the problem. You've spent your life trying to answer that question,

trying to make it so. And when you find somebody as some sort of conquest, trying to answer that question, trying to make it so. And when you find somebody as some sort of conquest, tell me if I'm wrong, a few months in, you get bored. To quote the great Esther Perel, you stop feeling alive. This has nothing to do with the women you're with. This has everything to do with you. And you make a choice to not be alive. And the only thing to get your heart rate up

is i'm not getting caught this new person caught my eye and then in short order you blow the whole thing up and then you control alt delete and start the whole cycle over again am i right yeah literally it's like you've been like you know me but yeah i do brother i do trust me i do so listen the only way to stop cheating is to say, I will never cheat again. Okay. And what I'll tell you is you're better than that. And the women that didn't catch you, you made them crazy because they knew there was a disconnection. And you know what they did?

They thought it was them. And that's wrong. It's not right And that's wrong. It's not right. That's true. Right? And they walk around now wondering what they did, why that man couldn't love them.

And it probably fulfilled a story that they've been passing along for their whole lives, right? That they've been spinning around. So I am getting on to you. Stop. Stop. You know what? Yeah. Okay?

You have a choice in every relationship, and we all do. I've been married almost 20 years. I've got the same thing. I have to choose how do I remain alive in this relationship? And not alive like I'm dying. My wife's not suffocating me. How do I keep my heart rate up? How do I keep this exciting?

How do I keep this fun? How do I help meet her needs so she can help meet my needs and we just get on the loop like that? Not, how can I prop up this shallow, thin ego? Because nobody ever told me I was worth a crap. See what I'm saying? Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense. Okay.

So again, this is looping back to when you make that call today, you're going to get on the phone and you're going to be brave as all get out, like you are right now. And you're going to call a counselor and they're going to say, hey, what's up? And you're going to say, I'm a police officer. I'm worried about confidentiality. I'm starting to have signs of excessive stress

And burnout from my job It's hard and I need to talk to somebody And I'm a serial cheater And I want to stop And that's where we're going to go Okay? Okay And listen brother

Hear me say this Because nobody's ever told you this I'm a 6'2", 200 pound, 195 pound guy, okay? I can't shoot as well as you and you could probably beat me up, especially if you're wearing all your gear and if you got mace for sure. But listen, I love you

and you're worth being loved back. And I'm grateful for the work you do in your community, the crap that you see and you deal with 24-7, 365 that nobody sees. And I'm grateful for the work you do in your community, the crap that you see and you deal with 24-7, 365, that nobody sees. And I'm glad that you don't want to put yourself in a situation where you're going to hurt somebody. Yeah.

And you're better than the way you're acting. You can do better. Both and, right? Yeah. All right. Exactly. Thank you so much. Listen, hang on the line.

I'm going to send you a copy of a new book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. I'm sending a bunch out to the local police department here in my community. I think it'll help a lot. You've been through a lot. You've seen a lot. And then the question that we all have to ask ourselves is what do we do next? And this book addresses it, and I'm going to give it to you free of charge. I'm grateful for you, man. Your new day starts right now.

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And I also learned this the other day. This is so great. You can leave reviews. Did you know that? Oh, I knew that. Yeah, I didn't. Hey, leave reviews, all positive ones. If you have negative reviews, just email them to James directly.

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That's cool. But anyway, is that a good thing? Yeah, that's great. I mean, most people that leave reviews only have negative, you know, like you tend to not leave a review unless you have a really bad experience. All the stars. All of the stars. All of them. And if you have less than all of them, email James directly.

He loves negative feedback. All right, let's go to Anthony in Atlanta, Georgia. What's up, brother Anthony? What's going on, doc? How we doing? Fantastic, man. Thank you for the call. You got it, man. What's up? So I'm in a job that I think I was made for it. I think I love it at its core, but recently, it's been really difficult. And it's just kind of sucked. And I think a lot of other people who are in this job think the same thing.

Can I guess? Go ahead. Either police officer, nurse, or teacher? The last one. You got it. Yeah, dude. Fantastic. What grade do you teach?

What do you teach? So I teach middle school Spanish. Oh, man. Hola, me llamo Juan. ¿Cómo estás? Mucho gusto, Juan. Muy bien. Good, man.

So obviously you had a teacher that taught you something, right? I grew up in Houston, and my dad was fluent in Spanish and he just, he would talk to me in Spanish and he would say funny things to me. So I had to learn. It's just part of it, but it's cool. Yes, I did. I did have great Spanish teachers, by the way. Awesome. Senora Perez. She was awesome. Badass. She's good. All right. So, all right. Done with that. On to the next. So how can I help, man? Yeah. So I guess my question is, at what point should I look for something else? And like, at what point should I say, okay, this is hard. It's supposed to be hard.

It's kind of hard in a good way. But at what point should it just be like, this is not, I have to find something else or move to a different district or something like that? Great question, man. That's a question on everybody's heart and mind right now across the country. And that's in almost every job right now. You can see the stats. People are just quitting and leaving. They call it the great resignation. What else is going on in your life? Do you have other stuff going on or is the, I can hear it on you. Is this all job related? I probably have some other stuff. I'm currently

doing my master's. I probably have some stuff. I'm in graduate school. Continue. That's good. I have a son who turned two in February. Yep. Continue. And me and my wife are in our third year of marriage. Dude. So this is going to be spoiler alert. You have a lot going on.

And then you get home from work and you have more going on. Right? Yeah. For sure. That's a lot, a lot Right? Yeah, for sure. That's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. Okay. So first and foremost, you have a brand new marriage, brand new.

And it sounds like y'all had like a cool, fun, reckless nine or 10 months and then she got pregnant, right? Not even, yeah. Look at you, you're like, not even, man. And so now you're trying to figure out how to be married, trying to figure out how to change a thousand diapers a day, literally.

I thought kids pooped once a week. I had no idea it was 10 diapers a day. And you're trying to deal all that at the same time. And you're in grad school. Are you doing online courses or are you having to go all that at the same time, and you're in grad school. Are you doing online courses, or are you having to go to class in the evenings? Luckily, everything is online. Okay.

Well, here's the thing. Luckily and not luckily, because luckily, it's all online, but that means you're around everybody. Right. And I loved, loved my programs being in person because I had to unplug from home and go, I could plug fully into my schoolwork.

When you have online courses in a two-year-old and a three-year-old marriage, you're not really anywhere ever, right? Yes. You're kind of at school scratching out assignments and you're kind of hugging a kid and you're kind of like, hey, can you come help me with this?

And so you're kind of parent, you're kind of husbanding, right? Both, all of it, hey, can you come help me with this? And so you're kind of husbanding, right? All of it? Right. Yes. And then stinking emails, dude. They never quit. And any kid that gets a D is clearly because you suck at your job, right?

You understand, yeah. And it's not even worth failing the kid. The paperwork and the complaints and having to justify it to your parents, it's not even worth failing the kid. Like the paperwork and the complaints and having to justify it to your parents, it's not even worth it. I'm just gonna give you a D because I don't wanna fight you, right? Over and over again.

And so here's the deal. Your body is paying the price and it's exhausted. This is the cornerstone, right? Like from the great Nagatsuki sisters, it's a deep exhaustion, depersonalization. Like you kind of just stop caring. How long have you been teaching?

This is my second year. Okay. At the start of year one, tell me if I'm wrong, you were going to be the teacher that helped him learn a second language. Everyone needs to know a second language. How do you not know a second language? And we're in Georgia.

Learning Spanish is beautiful. It's going to help you be hospitable and communicate with your neighbors. It's going to be great. And I'm going to be the teacher. And then here you are two years in and you're like, ah, whatever. Let's get your assignments in. Right? Yes. Absolutely. Is that fair? Okay. And the third part of this is futility. What I'm doing literally doesn't matter because none of these moronic kids even care. Yeah. And that's kind of where my head has been, I think. And that's kind of what's been the most difficult this second half of this year. I feel like, okay, I'm showing up every day. I'm putting my best foot forward. I'm doing my master's. And then at the end of the lesson, the kids literally

don't care at all. And so it's like, you know, is that my job? Is my job to show up and be a light and go home and then come back the next day? I just don't really feel like I'm building anything yet. Okay. And that's kind of difficult. Absolutely. So your body's burnt out and public school, are you at a public school? Yes.

Public schools and private schools. Forget about that. All schools have been an absolute zoo the last 24, 36 months, okay? Yeah. So I'm going to tell you a story that happened to me and then I'll answer your question on the back end, okay? Beautiful. I was working at a university and I had somebody that I had high, high trust in. Somebody that I had spoken to my life on spiritual matters, had spoken to my life on professional and personal matters.

I had high trust. The person's about 10 or 15 years older than me, very wise and brilliant. There was a student situation and the student was not being treated with, I thought, dignity and respect to the point that I thought, I don't think I can work here anymore. And I trusted this person's wisdom. And I also am a hothead. And so I know that before I do drastic things, I'm going to go sit down and talk to somebody. So I sat down with this person and explained everything. This is what's happening. This is the pattern I've seen with a wide swath of students. And in this particular case, here's the part where I think I've got to draw a line.

And he patiently listened. And here's what he said. And A, he screwed me up forever. And he changed the trajectory of my professional life with this one statement, okay? He said, based on what you've told me, John, you're free to go. You're free to go. What's happening is wrong.

What's happening shouldn't be this way, and there should be some changes, et cetera. You're free to go. And then he followed up with this sentence. But I want you to never forget, the moment you walk out that door, these students will still be here. And if everybody who cares leaves, the students are on their own. And I looked at him and said, dude, I hate you. I hate you, right? And from that moment, my mission shifted. I then said, where can I find places where I can enter into the messiest of situations, the hardest situations, the ones that make me the most uncomfortable, where people like me are stuck

in these situations, in these systems, how can I enter into those spaces, and how can I turn a light on, and here's what had to happen, I can only do that if my body's okay, if I'm well, if I've got relationships. So here's my guess. You have an exhausted wife and you're exhausted and you're half present and half not. And you have a two-year-old that just goes all the time. And your sex life's a mess, or at least not what you had in your mind and pictured in your mind. You've, because you're so busy, you're stopped hanging out very regularly with any group of guy friends.

You're pretty lonely. You have no hobbies other than the stupid master's degree and trying to grade papers and respond to pissed off parent emails, and they don't even know Spanish. And, and, and, and. And it probably cuts in on your workout time. It probably cuts in on the right.

And it's easier just to grab something on the way home from work. You see what I'm getting at? Yes, absolutely. You have to provide an ecosystem for your body to be well. What does that look like? You must have friends. You gotta have guy friends that you leave.

And your wife's gonna say, hey, you're not here enough as it is. You have to have that. You have to step back and say, hey, our marriage is happening in real time. I don't like where it's headed. She doesn't like where it's headed. Let's sit down and say, all right, we're three years in.

Let's do the good, the bad, and the ugly. We may not even go see somebody. Not because it's broken, but this is the recipe for how one tiny little inch apart becomes five feet, becomes 10 feet, becomes 10,000 miles in 10 years, right? Yeah. How can I start leaving the house for my grad school stuff so I can unplug? I'm going to go to a local coffee shop. I'm going to go to a local fill in the blank. I'm going to do it at my office at school so that when I'm home, I can be fully

home. Even if that means I come home at eight o'clock on those nights or nine o'clock on those nights, that's fine because when I'm there, I'm fully there. How can I put an exercise program? How can I make sure I'm starting to sleep? How can I have some boundaries at school? And those things, you take care of those things and your body begins to go. And then you have the strength and power

and creativity returns. And you can enter into that chaotic school and say, all right, y'all don't care. It's my job as your teacher to figure out how to make this stuff worth caring about. Right. How can I bring in people from the community that speak Spanish that I can show these folks

what it looks like when somebody lights up when you speak to them in their native tongue? What a gift, right? How can I teach people how to say thank you, how to talk about love, how to talk about connection, how to talk about support and help and care? How can I do these things and communicate the importance of language? How can I do some of that? And when your body's in fight or flight, brother, you can't. But when it's at peace, and I'm not saying you're not busy, you're still crazy town busy, right?

Right. But you're well in your busyness. Hear what I'm saying? Absolutely. Okay. So to answer your original question, how do you know when it's time to leave? Here's my, here's the story I tell myself. I don't run from things anymore.

I go to things. So in the rare situation that I have to transition, like I've got a poor leader, somebody's unethical, and I have to leave this situation, I'm going to go to a thing. See what I'm saying? I'm not going to run from, because the sucky part about running is that wherever you end up, you go with you. And so you're exhausted, burnt out fried frazzled marriage exhausted two-year-old dad is in grad school that guy's gonna show up at the other school district and at the other school district under the other school district and parents are parents brother kids are kids you know that yeah and so it may be that you have a sucky leadership system at your school that's for

real that happens i've I've seen those. I've talked to those folks. It's real. And it may be that you need to change places. But go to something, not from something. Does that make sense? That sounds like a trite little thing you stitch on a pillow.

I get that. But do you hear what I'm saying? Absolutely. And yeah, yeah. All right. So your homework today, you like what I did that teacher? Your homework today is to sit down and say, where are the areas I'm not homework today, you like what I did that teacher? Your homework today is to sit down

and say where are the areas I'm not well? Where are the areas I'm not whole? And how do I begin to backfill those things? And most of that conversation is gonna take place with your wife. It probably starts with this. Hey, honey, I'm not okay. I've put too much into the bowl here

and I'm not okay. Can you help me begin to walk through this? And she'll probably have a great insight into, yeah, you don't sleep, man. Or now you started snoring or now you've really started snapping and such and such. And I miss you and all those things.

Y'all can begin to work on this together. I'm going to send you a copy of my new book too. It'll help you walk you through that and I'll do it free of charge. Hang on the line and Kelly will get your info and she'll send it to you. Thank you for heading into middle schools every day, into the battle zone. Thank you for trying to learn more and being a continuing student. Thank you for trying to be a good dad, a good husband. Look in the mirror and

say, that guy's worth taking care of. That guy's worth loving and begin to build that world. We'll be right back. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new homebuyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage.

Churchill is a Ramsey-trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades, and their Home Buyer Edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillmortgage.com slash D'Loni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, hey, we're back. And hey, shout out to teachers. Last caller, Anthony's a middle school Spanish teacher who loves it. He says it's a dream job. For all teachers, all year long, you've been

grinding out to make sure your students are actually learning despite all the distractions. You work so hard, and like Anthony, you care even harder. And there's teachers like you that have taught our foundations and personal finance curriculum to teach people how things that our government doesn't know, which is how dollars work and how math works and how debt works, right? Changed the lives of over 5 million students, teachers like Anthony, who are going every day and trying to make a difference in the lives of these 5 million students, teachers like Anthony, who are going

every day and trying to make a difference in the lives of these students. Hey, where I work here at Ramsey Solutions, in my personal heart, I've been a teacher, my wife's been a teacher, my mom, dad, teachers, that's just who our family is. We love teachers. And so here at Ramsey Solutions, we're going to give away, can't solve your problems, but're gonna give away cash So go to ramsaysolutions.com Slash teacher for a chance to win Thousands and thousands of dollars Multiple teachers will win up to five grand Cash

It won't make everything better But man It'll help just a little bit Alright go to ramsaysolutions.com Slash teacher for a chance to win Let's go to Emma in Provo, Utah. What's up, Emma? Hi.

Oh, nothing much, just tired. Welcome to 21st Century. What's up? So my brother has had a couple of felony charges against him, and I want to know how to help my pregnant sister-in-law, um, be a sport for her. Um, she thinks it's some sort of scheme against him. And I know that I probably can't change her mind, but I want to be there for her. Um, but I don't want to like her to think that I believe that my brother's totally innocent. Okay. So what did your brother do?

Well, he has a couple of charges that have to do with a minor. He had one charge that he was pretending to be a minor and then that he had some inappropriate conversations with a minor online. Okay. Did he ever connect with him in person? No. Okay. That you ever connect with him in person? No. Okay. That you know of, right?

Yeah. Yeah. That I know of. No. Okay. Um, and you're, you think he did this? I think, yeah, I think he could have done it. Um, it was really surprising for me and like, I would have never guessed it, but there's

other things that in their relationship and other things that I've heard from my siblings that make me believe that he could have done this so have you sat down with that and just sat in it for a second that's hard it is I've tried to my my husband's like honey you need to like work through this and then just not try to get in his head because I do that. I try to get in people's heads. Don't do that. It's an absolute waste of your time. And it ends up poisoning your body literally with the cortisol and adrenaline.

Don't do it. Your homework tonight, before we even get started, and I'll answer your other question here, I want you to write your brother a letter that you're never going to send him. Okay. And I want you to be honest with him. Okay. About how pissed off you are, how angry you are that he screwed up the whole family, that he blew up his own little marriage, that he hurt another child, multiple other children, right? I want you to be honest in this letter, okay. Okay. Don't cut corners. Don't be like, well, what if it, you're not going to send it to them. This letter is for you. Okay. Okay. And if possible, I'd love for you to read it out loud to your husband.

You've heard me say this before. It's from the great David Kessler. Grief demands a witness. Somebody has to sit with you as much as that sucks. And your brother has blown up everything. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And when people blow up everything, a couple of things happen. Either some people rally around them and go,

it can't be because I can't live in the world that I'm now being asked to inhabit, which sounds like what your sister-in-law is doing. Yeah. Right? Or people, they are able to see, oh, no. Or they deflect or they ignore, kind of like you've done. Like, I'm just going to ignore it and I'm just going to move on. Everybody's just got to sit in reality, right? So we're not going to get on to sister.

Right now she is duct taping and string and ribboning her life together at the moment. Yeah. Right? It's exploded. Yeah. Right? It's exploded. Yeah. And she is in the situation that I've been with when somebody's house burns completely down and they're heading home and they say, they're told, hey, your house is a total loss.

And you talk to them and they say, well, I'm just going to go by and see what I can grab, what things are left. And you say, hey, it's all gone. And they say, yeah, I know, but there's going to be some stuff that they can grab, what, you know, things are left. And you say, hey, it's all gone. And they say, yeah, I know, but there's going to be some stuff that like they can't,

they can't see that picture until they're in it. Right? That's where she's at. I don't beat up people like that. I don't go to war with people like that. Their world's a mess, right?

Here's the hardest thing. Has she asked for your help? No. And that, ah, it's the worst. Because you, your brother's a part of you, and you want to help make this thing right right now. You want to get in and start sweeping up and cleaning up and repainting so that everything can be as it was, and everything will never be as it was.

Even if he's found not guilty coming home, as you mentioned, there's some stuff that needs to be discussed, right? Yeah. And even if he's found guilty and he gets 10 years because he didn't make actual contact, or he gets five years and pleads it down to two and he's on probation, whatever, everything's different now. Yeah. Do you have your own kids? I do. I have two boys. Yeah. and now you've already backed it up and said When did I leave him? Did he ever, right?

You've already been down that road Yeah And every future engagement, every future family thing All that is screwed up now Because of one person's decisions And so you want to go fix it and hear me say this And it breaks my heart to say it out loud. You can't.

It just is. And so the greatest gift you can give your sister-in-law is to go see her in person. Are you all close? Will she see you? I don't know if she'll see me, but she's like an hour and a half away. Okay. She's kind of mad at us. Yeah, that's fine.

That's fine. Tell her you love her and tell her you are here to walk alongside her any way that you can and that you're here and you and your husband decide, what does that mean financially? Does that mean when they get kicked out of the house because there's no more income coming in or if it's childcare or if she has to move closer to you guys so that y'all can help keep the baby while she's right whatever that looks like um y'all you and your husband decide what your boundaries are going to be and then you let her know i'm here at any time and check in on her once a week but don't insert yourself into her life if she doesn't want you there because that's not going to be supportive and help that's

about you trying to make this thing a little less sucky for you. And it actually doesn't help her. Yeah. Okay. Maybe it's DoorDash. We're going to send you food once a week. You don't have to eat it, but we just love you. And we're going to send you food once a week for the next foreseeable future. That might be a thing y'all can do. You know what I mean? And you can go with your other brothers and sisters and say, hey, I'll do the food train. We're going to make sure they got a meal once a week. Here's what you're doing. You're playing a long game now. You're playing a 10-year game, a 15-year game.

I want there to be a trail of text messages and personal letters and visits if possible and meals sent. We kept trying to show up for you and for that little one. We kept trying to show up. We kept trying to show up. We kept trying to show up. Okay? That's the game we're playing. And listen, you have to grieve this.

I'm so sorry. Thanks. I know. I've been avoiding it. I know. I know. You have to. I get it.

I get it. I get it. I get it. And it doesn't have to be. Yeah, it kind of needs to be soon. Let it be soon, okay? Okay. And when it washes over you, it's going to be brutal.

That's what you got to do with other people. Do you have a girlfriend or two you can call that will come sit with you? Yeah, I do. I do. Maybe give that a shot, man. Maybe your husband's not the right guy to read that letter to. Somebody's got to sit down and listen to you and hold you and hug you. And... down and listen to you and hold you and hug you. And child abuse is so destructive to so many people and to those sweet, sweet kids who for some reason had access to online engagements.

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 are back.

Hey, this is super important. And so I want to read this. This is a shout out. I have a job where like I'm in front of the microphone. And what most people will never understand is that much of the show's ideas and how it gets shaped and stuff is because of Kelly, because of James, because of Jenna. Right. Like folks who are helping with the calls and helping craft like, hey, I want you to talk about this. I read this article the other day. Most of the articles I read are for geeks, right? And James and Kelly

and Ben, like they speak like humans, right? And so Kelly came with the idea of, hey, I'm getting a lot of emails, a lot of calls about suicide and I want to do and we need to do a suicide show. And even I was like, man, that seems like a lot. But it's one of the highest-rated shows we've ever done, and the feedback I've received from that show has been extraordinary. People just saying, thank you for talking about it. Thank you for giving us some practical tips. But this is one note in particular, and I won't use the name

because I didn't get permission to, but here's a note that came in and said this. I just want to say thank you for saving a life. Last night, my wife's friend called and was talking, venting about her marriage issues, wasn't concerned that she's been calling to vent at least weekly. But later that night, she texted my wife some dark things, included that she had cut her wrist, but it wasn't that bad, and quote-unquote, I can't do this anymore. I'm embarrassed to say our first instinct was she's probably not actually trying to kill herself. Maybe this is just for attention, and this is just a one-time thing. But I remembered a story you once told of when you came upon a young man sleeping

who was actually attempting suicide, and you were unsure what to do. And all of a sudden, a voice was in my head screaming, what are you doing? Call 911. I looked at my wife and said, we don't have a choice. If you don't call, I will. I was so nervous. I've never called 911 before, but I'm so relieved I did it. It turned out she had taken a whole bottle of pills and slit her throat and wrist repeatedly. She was taken to the hospital and is okay now and getting the help she needs from medical and psychological professionals. Thank you so much for encouraging me to call

even though I was unsure in the moment and scared of the repercussions. I now know the risk of not calling is far greater than the risk of calling. First and foremost, what a gift. Thank you for sending this note. Second, more globally, when in doubt, call. Somebody brings it up.

I shouldn't be here anymore. I don't want to be anymore. They start giving away their stuff that's surprise possessions to you. When they start saying things like, hey, I cut myself, I cut my wrist, but it's not that big of a deal or whatever. I just take an extra. Call. Just call. Just call. And thirdly, many of you are at your job right now,

or you're heading to your job and you don't end up at your job's equivalent of being on a stage. You don't end up at, you're not the one who makes the final presentation. You're the person with ideas. You're the person supporting things. You're just the person creating things. So I can put my name on a podcast or on a radio show and put it out there and I'm the guy talking, but this person's alive because of Kelly, who did the work behind the scenes, who came up with the idea for this show and put together the call list and made sure that everybody was comfortable they were going to call. This was an idea that started in the heart of mind to somebody that's not in front of the microphone, but that ended up saving a life two or three people down the road. And I want to encourage you, whatever your job is, whether

you're the teacher in front of the classroom or you're the aid in that classroom, whether you are the wife who's the attorney who's getting ready to go defend in court, or you're the husband who is the stay-at-home dad, making sure everything, everybody has a role to play. Everybody. Everybody has a role to play. What you do is important.

As my friend Ken says, what you do matters. So thanks, everybody. Thank you, Kelly, for this idea. It's awesome. And thank you to this couple who called. Thank you for everybody for listening to the show. So as we wrap up today's show, man, it's the great, the great Ray LaMontagne.

And here's a song, You Are the Best Thing. Baby, it's been a long day. Baby, things ain't been going my way. And you know I need you here to clear my mind all the time. And baby, the way you move me, it's been a long day. Baby, things ain't been going my way. And you know I need you here to clear my mind all the time. And baby, the way you move me, it's crazy. It's like you see right through me and make it easier. Believe me, you don't even have to try because you are the best thing.

You are the best thing. You're the best thing that ever happened to me. Baby, we've come a long way. Baby, you know I hope and I pray that you believe me when I say this love will never fade away because you are the best thing. And to everybody listening, y'all are the best thing. And I'll see you soon. Coming up on the next episode, this is the best mental health podcast ever. I am wondering if it's okay to completely disconnect and, like, no longer have a relationship from my sister. So you don't want to hang out with your sister anymore?

You don't want to cut her out of your life because of the way she looks? It's a factor. I mean, I really want kids, but I struggle. I'm also, you know, faith-based, so I struggle with divorce and leaving my wife behind. Has she left you behind? A little bit in this decision, yes, she has.