The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m a Trauma Nurse Struggling To Connect in My Marriage

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

In today’s episode, we hear from a mom wondering whether she and her husband should tell their kids about his past sex addiction, a parent whose young son’s intense behavior issues are disrupting the family, and a young couple who’s overworked, burned out, and looking for reconnection. When do we tell our kids about my husband’s past sexual addiction? Our son has behavioral issues & it’s affecting our family vacation plans I’m a trauma nurse struggling to connect in my marriage Trauma Stewardship - Laura van Dernoot Lipsky & Connie Burk Lyrics of the Day: "Stop This Train" - John Mayer 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 Greensbury Resources: 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.

On today's show, we talk to a woman who wants to know how to tell her story about her troubled marriage and the healing that's taken place. We talk to a woman who wants to take the family to Disney World, and one kid is not going to let that happen. And we talk to a woman who's a trauma nurse with three small kids, and she's exhausted. Stay tuned. What up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Why are we yelling? Because I'm excited. Dude, the pre-sale for Own Your Past, Change Your Future,

this new book is just running and gunning. I can't even tell you. Man. Okay, I even tell you. Man. Okay, I can't tell you. We're going to have two confessions today. Confession number one is writing a book is the most nervous I've ever been. Like, professionally. Because there's nowhere to hide.

I told stories in this book that I've never told anybody. And you put all your thoughts on how you interpret the research and the literature and all this stuff. I can't even tell you how grateful I am, how many people have stepped up and bought it. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. RamseySolutions.com or JohnDeloney.com, you can get a copy of this. I'm also super grateful for BetterHelp.com. They stepped up a free month of counseling. So you finish this book and think, all right, I got some stuff I got to work on. I got some conversations I need to have. I don't know where to go. They stepped up. They

got behind this thing and we've got to hand you a phone number. You have a month of free counseling to go talk to somebody. Super excited about that. So hey, johndeloney.com, check out and grab this new book and it will be hitting, I think it comes out, comes out in April. But pre-sale is going on right now. And James, you called me out on this the other day when we were recording the audio book. And I, so here's the thing, the wax of the gummy bears, I'm just saying this because I'm an addict, right? It's like, no, man, no, like cocaine's good. The wax of the gummy bears helps my throat

when we're just reading for hours and hours and hours. And there's a section in the book where we're talking about food and what our food system is, our food choices and all that stuff. And James says, isn't it kind of weird

that you're talking about this while you're mainlining gummy bears? And I thought, James, you're super right. Like, even if it helps my throat, I got to take even more ownership of my body and my mind and all that. And then Alex showed up today. So this is confession number two. Dude, it is Girl Scout cookie season, and I have been...

Man. I bet my glucose is 1,000 right now, my blood glucose. These are so good. We'll take those off your hands and bring them in here. Listen. Yeah, if you want to put those thin mints in here, I'll hold them for you. There's never been a live fist fight on YouTube. There probably has been a million of them, but not in this studio. Dude, Samoas. Oh man. If you're just listening to this, I'm holding a box of thin mints that's mostly gone

and a remaining unopened boxes of Samoas, but I've already crushed the, oh man. Like I, I, I think I need to call somebody. I've got, I'm going to go to the callers. Let's go to Alicia in Spearfish, South Dakota. Hey, Alicia, what's up? Hey, Dr. John, how are you? Hey, I'm almost in a diabetic coma after how many Thin Mints I've eaten today, but I'm doing great.

How about you? Oh, I'm good. A little nervous. Super excited to be talking to you today. Hey, listen, 100% chance you're better at this than I am. So you have nothing to be nervous about. I'm nervous. So how can I help? What's up? And in 2019, my husband came forward and admitted to a sexual addiction that had been going on our entire relationship. And through a lot of intensive therapy and just a lot of other counseling, We have an amazing marriage right now. We just, he's my best friend and my safe person. And we've done a lot of hard work to get there. But right now we are thinking about getting our story out there more publicly, like through our church and, um,

all of our close friends and family know, but we feel like we should tell our children before this gets out. We live in a fairly small community and we would hate for them to find out by someone else. Absolutely. So when and how is the best way to go about telling them our story? Sounds like this is a remarkable story of bravery and honesty and redemptions. That's you, Alicia, are incredible. So, walk me all the way

to the beginning here. So, y'all dated for a while, I'm assuming, and then you were married for 10 years. I hear a lot of the phrase

sexual addiction and it usually isn't, but sometimes it is. When you say sexual addiction, walk me through, what was your husband experiencing? Or what was he doing? Sure. Yeah, it started out with pornography and then strip clubs, then shady massage parlors, and then up to prostitution.

Okay. And was this interfering with your finances? He was sneaking around? I mean, this became a way of life. Yes, I had no clue. And yeah, he spent a fair amount of money on it. I did not notice it. Just because in the realm of our income,

it didn't make a huge dent, but a few thousand dollars worth between that 10 year, well, probably five year span, I would say. So walk me through, he sits down and unpacks this for you. Tell me about that day. He came forward to me saying that he was struggling with a pornography addiction. And again, I was blindsided. I was really hurt by that. And after a few days of processing, I had a few questions about that. And at the, I had about, I don't know, probably 10 questions to ask him regarding the

pornography. And then at the end I said, I know this is a ridiculous question, but I just, I have to know, have you ever cheated on me? And I mean, we were watching The Office. It was a Friday night and I was not expecting the answer that I got. And, um, what a moment to ask a shapeshifter question, right? Yes. Like I said, I was not expecting, I was expecting to be reassured and it just all came crashing down. And, um, unfortunately my oldest daughter at the time heard me freaking out and, um, my husband tried to like calm her down and send her back down to her room to go to bed. And, but it was, our pastor came over and one of my best friends came over to help be with us in that moment.

But yeah, it was very traumatic. It's a traumatizing time. Yeah. And so what has happened over the last couple of years to help heal you, your marriage? I mean, 10 years of, of dishonesty and betrayals, a long time. What has happened in the last two years to have you speaking so highly of him? Well, I was, he had been pretty emotionally disconnected our whole marriage, which makes sense now. But so when he told me this, I was ready to file for a divorce. And, you know, I couldn't get an attorney to call me back. So I agreed to go to counseling with him because he really wanted to make it work.

And so, yes, did like a few weeks of intensive therapy in a different state. And, you know, he never once blamed me. He took full and complete ownership. And I just saw so many tears from him. And he let me yell and scream and he just would say, I know you deserve so much better. And he, um, just put a lot of things in place. He's been in several accountability groups and, um, and he actually set up consequences for himself when he would, um, if he were to even say a white lie, he would sleep on the floor at night and or drink a cup of pureed broccoli because that was something he wanted to fix in himself. So he was very determined to sober up. And the way he's been with our children has just been incredible. I'm. So can I ask you, can I ask you a, a deeply personal question?

Sure. Um, and you may have heard me talk about this on this show. One of the most common things I hear from folks who are in a relationship where there's cheating is that the rage and the anger and the mistrust and all that, but deeper than that, more painful than that, or more, maybe not more painful, but more disorienting than that is that I shared a bed with a guy for 10 years and I missed it. I didn't know. And I'm crazy. I feel crazy.

How in the world do you miss your husband with prostitutes and with, you know, massage parlor trips? And how did I miss thousands of dollars? And you start backtracking it. It's almost like watching Fight Club for the first time and you realize, oh, I missed the whole movie, all right? Or The Sixth Sense or something, right? So how did you feel? Are you good? If you are, you need to bottle that up and sell it because that's incredible.

Well, I still struggle with that whenever I get a little uncomfortable with a situation as he has to go out of town overnight somewhere. Um, I, I, yeah, I do still struggle with that, but, um, not, it gets so much easier as more trust is built. Okay. And he, yeah, he's just been very open and honest with, yeah, whatever I need to look at, he's willing to give it to me. Awesome. So he's doing his best to live a transparent life, which lets you breathe a little bit, right?

Yes. That's awesome. All right, so here's a, how old are your kids? I have a seven, four, and nine-month-old. Okay. So tell me about this decision to be public with this story. What are y'all thinking? Yeah, I, my eyes have just been open to how big of a problem this is.

And, and I've had friendships who have had struggling marriages with husbands who have gone outside the marriage. And I just want to be able to provide a sense of hope that it can work out if you make it, if you put in the work for it.

Sure. So my rule of thumb, and this is going to be different, and again, I'm not basing this on any research that I've read, so I want to be clear. This is coming just from me. My rule of thumb is, is however long a thing went on is how long you wait until you start telling that story publicly. And here's a couple of things to think through.

Generally, it's with folks who struggle with drug abuse or folks who struggle with financial issues that the moment they get clean for any period of time, they want to go tell everybody about it. And what I've seen over and over and over again, and this isn't your story, so don't hear me talk about it in your story, and I'll give you some context for, I think, for your situation specifically, is you can end up taking people with you the second time. If you have a relapse, if something goes wrong, if something gets off the tracks. And I want to see people be whole and well before they start. So for me, I was buried with anxiety.

I was buried with nonsense. I didn't treat people right. And it was a decade ago. And now I'm becoming, I'm talking about it publicly. Now I'm writing books about it. Now I'm speaking about it because I've got a decade's worth of healing underneath me. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And when the attacks come, when people write me and say, you're full of crap, you misinterpreted this research. I think what you're saying is nonsense. And I've had some prominent people in the country really challenge me on some stuff. We got toe to toe and on some hard stuff, right? And I've had equal support too. So it's not like it's just raining. But if I hadn't had this long of healing, if I wasn't this secure in what I think and what I know,

and I didn't spend this much time in the research and the literature, all that, those things would decimate me and inadvertently send me right back to where I was. Now, it may not be a sexual addiction like in your case, but addiction will find its way out in other places. It may even be, and this is going to sound crazy, addiction to transparency. Anything that I'm holding on to as a crutch to get through a hard season or a boring season or a tiring season ends up being an addiction. That doesn't mean you guys wait 10 years, okay? Here's what I think

you guys can do. We regularly, my wife and I, almost, oh my gosh, sometimes every week, this past weekend had a couple from out of state working on some stuff, working through some stuff, came and stayed with us, thinking through some things. That happens all the time. And the work that my wife, especially, she's just so gifted in it, but that we do behind closed doors with people that nobody ever, ever knows, that ends up being legacy shifting or shape-shifting. And it's not that we're doing all the work, but we're providing space and some encouragement and some wisdom and some walk alongside.

Yep, that too, I've been there too. It doesn't need to be spoken publicly. If you are a resource and a caring person, caring couple in that way, man, you will find yourself inundated with people who want to talk to you behind closed doors. How your friend showed up for you in the middle of the night, you could do that for 10 years and no one would ever know on Instagram that you're doing this. And you are saving hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of marriages just by your presence,

just by your willingness to speak. And eventually that becomes, hey, I'd like you to come talk to my group. Like whatever, I went and spoke to the Celebrate Recovery group. I'm gonna go talk to a church group. I'm gonna, whatever that is. Hey, would you come talk to our group? Or at work, hey, we'd love for you to talk about this.

But there's a way to lean into this without, I wish I had another way to say it, without getting famous for it, okay? Yeah. It's so easy to jump from the crazy story to we should write a book. Here's a simple example in my house. My son, when he was born, my wife was a, she was a nationally recognized researcher when it came to child literacy. Teaching teachers how to teach kids how to read.

She was a savant. And then my little boy comes along and I have a PhD in higher education. I've spent a lot of time in student development and childhood development. That's just what I did. That's what she did. Our son was incredible temperament wise, attitude wise. He just was a great, easy kid. He was really articulate. He could speak well. He could read at a young age. And there came a moment when he was, I don't know, four or five. I'll never forget the arrogance. What a moron I was. And I looked at my wife and said, I think every other parent is an idiot. This isn't hard if you are incredible and brilliant like the two of us.

And she probably rolled her eyes, but I didn't pay attention because I was too arrogant back then. And I said, we need to quit our jobs and get on the road and write a book about how to be a great parents. And then we had my daughter, same parents, same geniuses, just a totally different human. And my daughter's incredible, and she is a human hurricane in all the best ways. We have no business writing books on this right now, right? And so I tell you that to tell you this, I would slow down. You're talking the healing here is three years, two years in a little bit of time. for a decade or 12 or 15 years of betrayal, that's still relatively raw. When it comes to talking with your kids,

seven, four, and obviously not the nine month old, seven and four, that's real young to sit down and say, hey, mommy and daddy are going to go talk about all the stuff we did or the stuff that happened to us and what daddy did. And maybe your seven-year-old could have a context there, but it would have to be very high level, very age appropriate. No seven-year-old is going to understand massage parlors or prostitutes or they would understand daddy made some really big mistakes and it hurt mommy a lot. And now daddy's changed and he has really grown hard and mommy has forgiven him. And when y'all do have that conversation, you're holding hands, you're seeing each other, you're smiling. And because as soon as you talk about that fracture, that kid's body is going to go into fight or flight. Oh no. Right? And so I'd

be very, very careful and very slow, age appropriate, introducing that stuff. What happens a lot in this situation is parents want to absolve themselves of what they're carrying around and the kids are not strong enough to carry it. So don't tell them because you feel like, we just gotta be honest with everybody, bro. Like they can't handle it. It's too heavy, right? As they get older and they make,

you have high school kids. Now you're talking, you can sit down and have some harder conversations. Maybe even middle school again, but we're talking very age appropriate. When I would actually sit down and say, hey son or or daughter, I got to talk to you about some stuff I did before you were born. I mean, you're talking junior, senior in high school, maybe even later, maybe in college. Like I got some stories I got to tell you. Here's what kind of jerk I was,

and here's how sick I was for a season. That a season. I feel like I'm bursting your bubble here and I know you guys have a heart of gold and want to help other people. What I really want is I want y'all to be wise and I care way more about your marriage right now and your three little ones than I do a story or a book that can be written. Does that make sense?

Absolutely, yes. I totally respect that and I guess it's more about when to tell the kids who I'm afraid if we don't, if like, if we wait until they're in high school or college age, are they going to be really mad that we kept this from them? I mean, what would it be trade? No. What does it gain them? If you lie to them, yes. If one of them ever asks you in middle school when they get cheated on the first time, you don't even know what this is like.

This never happened to you, has it? And then you can say, oh, honey, I got a story to tell you. Right? If you lie to your kids, that's where resentment comes from. Choosing not to burden your kids with 10 years of infidelity and 10 years of prostitutes and massage parlors, that's big time. When your husband and you sit down to have the talk about pornography, which I've had both of my kids now, six and 12, right? Y'all have that conversation? You could talk about, hey, there's some hard things. But there's stuff I'm not talking to my son about yet.

And I'm real, real open with him. He's not there yet. He's not there yet. And so one day we'll get there. One day we'll have some harder conversations or some deeper conversations. I'll tell him about some of our friends that he knows and loves, some of our community members and family members that he knows and loves. But right now I'm more focused on telling him the truth than I am lying to him.

Does that make sense? Absolutely. Okay. In a radically honest house like you have now, don't let that, don't hand your kids bricks of truth

that they're not strong enough to carry yet. Okay. Is that fair? Yeah, I can definitely do that I don't want to burden them with that If it's not going to help them Can I tell you this?

You're a great mom Thank you No, no, you just, you gave me the Which is your way of dismissing things You're a great mom You're a great mom And there's a season of doubt that's still here That's normal Which is your way of dismissing things. You're a great mom. You're a great mom. And there's a season of doubt that's still here.

That's normal. It will take years to heal. And you're not crazy. And this guy won the lottery with you. Absolutely won the lottery. And outside of the challenges and infidelity, the way you talk about him sounds like you won the lottery with him too. And- I definitely did.

So y'all are gonna continue to grow and heal together and you're gonna create something masterful that will bless a bunch of people. I wanna see you bless people behind closed doors for a season, quietly, through relationship, over a kitchen table with meals. Nobody ever knows, in and out. And get good at that. Get honest with that.

Continue your healing journey with yourself and with your husband. And man, then the book will come one day. The big story and the big reveal, that will happen one day. I would just let that play itself out a little bit longer. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, October is the season for wearing costumes and masks. And if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era because, I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever. All right, look, it's costume season. And let's be honest. A lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social setting. We do this around our 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, 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 learn to be honest with yourself, and you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct 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, and you can 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 your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey and you get matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Let's go to Casey in Raleigh, North Carolina.

What's up, Casey? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm so good. How about you? I'm doing pretty good. I love your show so much. Happy to talk to you today.

Hoping you can help me a little bit. I don't know about that, but thank you for loving the show. That makes me happy. Yeah. Well, so it's going to start out sounding very trivial, but we'll get into it a little bit. So we currently have a Disney trip planned for May, which we've had to rebook two times because of COVID. But we're really excited, except for I'm also extremely terrified because of my son, my oldest son. I'm really nervous that he's going to kind of ruin our trip.

I know this sounds horrible. Hey, hold know this sounds horrible, but not at all. Not at all. Talk to me about what's going on. Um, so every time that we've taken him on a trip, um, you know, we go into it with, with really high hopes and good expectations, kind of trying to lay the groundwork. But he is very controlling. And when he's not in control of situations, he can become very defiant and kind of downright mean, extremely volatile, and just very hard for him to regulate his feelings. How old is he? He's almost nine.

So he'll be nine in April of this year. And I just feel like the whole family is always kind of walking on eggshells with him and constantly trying to navigate situations till we don't trigger him. And, um, you know, so I just constantly feel like I'm trying to unravel a puzzle of like his heart and mind. And I don't know how a lot of times, sorry if I'm getting a little emotional.

No, it's hard. Yeah. And his sister, um, who is, she just turned six. She is the complete opposite.

She is so go with the flow. She's easygoing, but I also kind of, you know, look at her sometimes and I see her when he goes into this, these, you know, heightened deregulated emotional places that she just kind of, kind of goes into a shell a little bit or disassociates a little bit and just kind of like goes into her own little world where she's almost very unresponsive. And he's so responsive, you know? Tell me about the, tell me about the, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Tell me about, tell me about home life. Is there chaos in home?

I mean, I don't want to say yes, but I mean, if it's not saying no, if it is, say yes. I mean, I don't know that it's chaos. It's just busy. There's a, we're, we're very busy. My husband and I, we both work quite a bit. You know, we always have something going on. I wouldn't say it's chaotic. It's just I feel like we're constantly trying to not discipline him but, like, regulate him daily. And it's actually kind of put a strain on the entire family over time. What you've described to me is, both with him and with your daughter, are two response systems to the same issue.

And I'll simplify it here, but we've got a fight, flight, or freeze, or fall in response system. When things get chaotic, when our bodies feel out of control or unsafe. And for a kid, a lack of connection is unsafe. A lack of really firm boundaries. I know where I'm anchored in here. Their body says, sound the alarms. We're not safe. Things aren't okay. A marriage of two parents who are not on the same page or who are running and gunning, who are chaotic, who have things going on behind closed doors, that tells a childhood body, you are not safe. And this, I must have control, this unregulated, this dysregulated, I will get, I will find a way for you to see me, is a biological response. It's off, it's rarely,

in fact, I struggle with even character issue for an eight-year-old. This is his body taking over. And then you've got a daughter who knows, I'm going to disappear. I'm going to vanish. And then you're talking about the freeze response, right? And if you have a third kid that may nuzzle up to you, and that might be the fawn response. I'm going to get super close to the person who I'm terrified of or the situation I'm terrified of, and I'm going to love them through this. And if I'm really close and I'm terrified of or the situation I'm terrified of, and I'm going to love them through this. And if I'm really close and I'm in love, then they won't hurt me.

I won't be hurt. It feels something environmental going on here. And that may be for a different phone call, but this is one of the curses. I just wrote a book about this, almost this exact thing. There's a couple of chapters about this very thing, which is we have just kept running faster and faster and faster. And we've, without even meaning to, created a world that our bodies cannot exist in. And then we bring kids into it. And man, we throw diagnosis at them. We throw behavior plans at them. We throw

school punishment at them. We throw all kinds of stuff at them. And if we distill it way down, their behavior is a language. And what they're telling us is, I don't feel safe. Wow. Heartbreaking. I mean, it is. Trust me. I've been there too. I've been there too. Does that ring a bell with you or am I out to lunch? And feel free to say you're nuts. No, I mean, it does ring a bell with me. However, you know, we have, I feel like, but maybe it's just because I'm trying to figure out, like you said, a diagnosis in a way.

Because he's like an angel at school. Anyone outside of our immediate family and maybe my grandparents and sisters, nobody else would know anything like this about him. So what does he get at school? Structure, firm structure, very, very clear boundaries. A teacher shows up every single day with the same routine. There's no race to this, and then we're going to go to that, and then, hey, everybody's got to get up. Because we all know, we just go when the bell tells us. Or we all go, it's 1110,

we all stand up, we go to the line, and we stand there. So school is a highly structured, safe place. And I don't say safe place like in the woke, you know, getting in a box so nobody can say mean things. Safe physiologically, biologically for his body. The adults are slow. They talk quiet. They look you in the eyes. They get down on your level. You hear what I'm saying?

It's these tiny behaviors. And I'm telling you this not to guilt. Nobody wins with a guilt trip. That's not what I'm trying to do here. It was a shapeshifter moment when I realized the way I was doing life was contributing to the chaos of other people's lives around me. And I wept. It was hard. I had to grieve it because I didn't mean to be doing that. I thought I was getting everybody amped up and we're going, we're going to,

we're going to, man, we're going to slide into the end of my life with no tread left on the tires. We're doing it all, working it all. And I realized I was, I was like being married to a taser.

Everybody, right? And so I tell you that, that's a separate question you even called me. How's your marriage? And I'll just be totally honest. Y'all good? No. Okay, there you go.

And that may be a third separate. We'll just make you a regular on the show. Right, I could use that actually, probably. But like, I've picked up some of the things from your show

that I've been trying to do, like the physical touch, you know, like making sure, and we've been to a lot of like play therapy and like relational therapy types of things to try to like, you know, figure this out a little bit. And, you know, he loves like, you know, we'll go to bed before we go to bed at night, we make a pizza on his back, which is so random, but like it calms him, you know, it's the touch. And then like the thing that you've said about putting the hand on the back of the neck and 30 second hug, we've really been trying to do that too. But what other ways can like, I mean, obviously it's a big question, but like, how can we start making him feel more safe and secure without just like those quitting our jobs tomorrow?

Two things. Number one, and I'm just putting this out there. One of you may have to take a reduced load or do something different that might come to it. First and foremost, when somebody calls me and says, Hey, I need a book about anxiety for my kid, or what is your recommendation for childhood anxiety? The first thing I say is fix your marriage. And not one person has ever come back when they asked me that question and said, dude, my marriage is great. It's perfect. Why? Now, I'm not saying that there's a one-to-one causal relationship here. The correlation in my experience is very, very high. And so the greatest gift, because here's the thing, when you're in a marriage that's rocky, that's messy,

that's even, even if it's not rocky or messy, and you're laying in bed at night next to somebody that you love and you feel totally alone, and I know you know what I'm talking about, right? When you feel that, your body becomes dysregulated. What you have is you've got years of maturity, you've got professional responsibilities, and you've got muscle that you can gut it out.

But a kid's body absorbs every second of that. And so if you've got two adults living in a house who are co-managers, but they are not intimate, both sexually and psychologically and spiritually, if they're not on the same page, the kids absorb that tension. They absorb it. And so when somebody says, hey, how do I help my kids got anxiety? Kids really anxious all the time. I always tell them, fix your marriage. Go see somebody today because your kids are going to anchor into that. And a good marriage at home, there's some great studies on kid happiness

in third world countries where there's deep poverty, but parents are connected. And the kids are anchored in so tight to that thing. And then they can swing down and act like kids and be maniacal and go through kids' stuff and fall and break their arms and fail and screw up. Because man, I am tethered into something really tight. But then you come over here, man,

we got all the money in the world, but like I say, we're co-managing our houses. We are not in intimate relationships with our spouses anymore. And the kids are just free falling. And I absolutely 1000% know, cause I've been there, how hard this is to hear.

I know it. When it comes to the Disney world thing, this was a shapeshifter moment for me, sitting down with a child psychologist, child counselor that I just love and have high, high respect for. And she put a lot of time and energy into mentoring me. Two important things. Number one, we always, as a parents, we get this picture in our head of what a family or our family is supposed

to and or gonna do. And then come hell or high water, we make sure this freaking thing happens. And the second thing is, is we tell our kids what they're going to love. I just did this the other day. We had a foot of snow here in Nashville, and I told my daughter, you are going to love me shoving you down one of our hills in a thing. Just trust me. She hated every second of it, and I should have listened to her. Now, there's those times you need should have listened to her, right? Now there's those times you need to push them and say, right?

So that's what I'm talking about. When I take my daughter, let's say, say, hey, we're gonna go to a movie. And 10 minutes in, she says, I don't feel good. Can we go somewhere else? My temptation is to say, no, I paid for this movie. We're watching this movie.

What she's really trying to tell me in her limited words is I'm dysregulated. This is too much stimulation. I'm overwhelmed. I really like to just go walk around a park with you. And I should have gone to the park in the first place. I'm the one that was like, no, you should do the movie too. So I would tell you, if you can't, if you're a family unit, and that includes all of your kids, if going to Disney World, going to Disneyland is not going to be a net benefit, don't go. Don't go. Don't torture each other just to say we went to Disneyland or so that y'all can post about it or tell your friends or it's a status. Don't do it. If you and your husband want to go, go by yourselves and don't even tell your kids. Just go.

But there's a picture in your head. And now it's been worse because it's been canceled twice. Stupid COVID. This is, I don't give a crap. This vacation is happening, kids. Right? And I get, I get that. If your eight-year-old is going to be miserable and your daughter is going to have fun until she's not, don't go.

Go camping at a K. You know, we did last for vacation last year, we went to a KOA. It cost us like $28. And my kids are still talking about that vacation. And I felt like a sham of a husband and a dad. I felt so lame. And now, dude, I'm KOA all day. I'm going to get KOA tattooed on my chest. It's so awesome, right? Not really. But it was so lo-fi, so chill, and it was incredible because we did the vacation that our family needed, not the one that was going to get me acclaimed with my friends and community and that I had in the back of my head.

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, they've been saying they want to go for the past two years. Oh, what kid doesn't want to go? Of course. Of course. And my kids also tell me that they would love, love, love ice cream for dinner. True. And I also know, no, you don't.

Because you're going to wake up tomorrow and you're going to feel terrible. And you're not going to sleep tonight. And you're going to be miserable at school. And you're going to get in trouble. So part of that parent and child worship is discernment, right? But I get that. No kid is going to be like, I don't want to go to Disneyland. Are you crazy?

No kid will say that, but they will fight and claw and scream and throw fits and feel unsafe. I would love for y'all to go, man. I'd love for my family to go. We're saving up to go someday. I would love to. But man, I got to make sure everybody's involved.

Will you heal your marriage or will you at least lean into that? Yeah, definitely. I want that for you. I want that for your husband. I want that for your whole family squad, man. You're super worth it. For real.

And have you taken him to get tested, your son? Oh, yeah, lots of them. Lots. Okay. And I hear this all the time. You've got all the diagnosis in the world, all the whatever plans and all the this is and that. There's a core issue here. My guess is, and again, you and I are talking for 10 minutes all the time. You've got all the diagnosis in the world, all the whatever plans and all the thises and that. There's a core issue here. My guess is, and again,

you and I are talking for 10 minutes on the radio. My guess is, or on the podcast here, my guess is there's a chaos in the family system somewhere. Maybe you just sit down with your husband tonight and say, hey, I talked to this guy. I talked to a coach today. Things feel off the rail. Like we are running so fast. I talked to a coach today. Things feel off the rail.

Like we are running so fast. I miss you. A, what happened? We got to own what happened. And man, can we just start telling each other the truth? I'm not okay. And we're not okay. And I don't think that you're okay.

Y'all start there. And so often the kid stuff begins to take care of itself when mom and dad are super locked in. 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 home buyer 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, we are back and come on, Eileen in Omaha. What's up, Eileen? Not much. How are you? Super good. How about you? I'm all right.

Uh-oh. What happened? Yeah. Well, actually, that phone call right before kind of hit close to home. Uh-oh. Oh, no. My question to you, I guess, is kind of how do I get my marriage and family life back on track? Oh, man, what happened? Well, I guess, is kind of how do I get my marriage and family life back on track? Oh, man, what happened?

Well, I guess kind of a little bit of background. I'm 26. My husband's 27. We got married pretty young, 21, 22. So we're going on five years here. I've got three kids. We've got one that just turned four, a two-year-old, and a three-month-old. I'm a trauma nurse.

I work full-time. My husband is a subcontractor, has his own business. Um, and we've kind of been really working hard the last five years. We've paid off my schooling. We've just finished building our home. Um,

and we have a decent marriage, but things just don't seem to slow down for us. I feel like we're both just so exhausted at all times. And we just can't get on track. Yeah. Yeah, I'm so – and I hear that little baby in the background. It's all good. Trust me.

I got two myself. It's all good. You got three small kids or two? I've got three. A four-year-old, a two-year-old, and a three-month-old. Three. Oh, my gosh. Okay.

So a couple of things. Number one, you've been married five years. Did y'all date for a couple years before that? No. It was like from the time we met to getting engaged to getting married, it was like a year and a half. Wow. That is quick. Way to go.

Moving quick. I love it. Okay. Okay. So you are in what I call the window. Five to seven years is a window. Seven to ten years is a window. And then that 15 to 18 years is a window.

And it's a window where you are running and gunning. This is the one y'all are in. Running and gunning. This is the one y'all are in, running and gunning. You married somebody. Then there's a lot of new variables like jobs and work and school. And I don't know, three kids ages four and under, right? So you threw all these things in there. And here's what happens.

We stop liking who we become. Yeah. And that reflects how we, that impacts how we then interact with other people. Most importantly, the person that we love and committed our life to. And so these are seasons when marriages start to have cracks in them

and people start to get exhausted and they start to lean this way and that way, right? And it's often people will blame their partner in this deal. That's usually not it. Usually, I don't like who I've become. I don't like how I look. I don't like how I feel. I don't like, I used to be fun and spunky

and I just want to go to bed every night at 4, 45 p.m., right? Oh, yeah. All those things, right? So tell me about Eileen. You sound like an incredible woman. Why are you struggling with Eileen? Honestly, I can't even figure that out myself. I feel like before I was really energetic, really outgoing.

I was a people person. I come from a bigger family. I'm one of seven, the second of seven, and my husband is one of nine. Oh, so y'all just got started. Yeah. We come from large families, and it just feels like we're almost used to this chaos in a way,

but now that we've got work and we have a farm and we've got the kids and we both work full time, it's like even things such as date night, there's such a burden. And I've like tried to do the whole thing. You know, I've listened to your show where it's like, schedule it on the calendar. Sometimes I'll do that. And we're just there. And I'm like, well, do you want to be intimate? He's like, do you want to be intimate? I'm like, no, I'm me too. too and it's like let's go to sleep wait the three-month-old is up the toddler's back in our room and it's like I just feel so burnt out and I don't even know who I am I put on like 70 pounds with the three kids I started going to the gym but even

going to the gym it's like I constantly have all these things I need to get done that my mind it just never turns off and I feel like I'm not being a good mom. I'm not being a good wife. I hate, I always loved being a nurse till maybe the last two years. I hate doing that, but I don't know what I like, you know? And so I don't, I don't even know, I guess who I am anymore. And my spouse is great. He's always, you know, if he's always encouraging me to go out and to kind of do things for myself. And when I am just completely burnt out, he takes over when he's really exhausted. I try to, you know, cover for him, but it's just like we can never be in a good space at the same time almost.

Wow. Thank you for articulating that. You're awesome. Have you heard me talk about bricks in the backpack? All right. So this is an important moment for me and me getting well years ago. Okay. You can have trauma as a kid. You can be the big car wreck. And we think of the word trauma. You know this. You're a trauma as a kid. You can be the big car wreck. And we think of the word trauma.

You know this. You're a trauma nurse. Like, man, people, I've been in trauma units with some regularity for a season. It's stunning the things that people find themselves wound up in, right? Yeah. Wow. Literally wound up in things sometimes, right? So we know of trauma as the big thing.

They got COVID and two weeks later they were dead. They got hit by a car. He was cheating on her for 15 years and she didn't know and he had another family. We know of big T trauma. And so when I think of trauma, we are all born with a backpack. And some of us were born into families that were the only African-American family in the neighborhood. That's hard, right? When you look around and see nobody looks like you. Families who were born into abuse, family who was born into, this is just the way we do

things, the wrong religion, whatever the thing is. So people are launched into the world with cinder blocks in their backpack. Some of us have none. Some of us have several. And over time in our life, we collect these bricks over time. And then I ran into my friend, Dr. Lynn Jennings. She is a, she researches secondary traumatic stress. And I didn't know what that was. And there's a whole backstory to it. It's an extraordinary thing

and it gave me so much insight into my own physiology, my own body. When you live and work and walk alongside people who are hurting for your job, when you go into the fire to help others, it's vicarious trauma. It weighs on you too. And it might not be a cinder block,

but it might be pebbles or it might be medium-sized or tennis ball-sized rocks that go in your backpack day after day, patient after patient, moment after moment, hard conversation with family after hard conversation with another family. And over time, in short order, if you're a trauma nurse, that weight in your backpack is the exact same of somebody who grew up in a big time traumatized household. And you're carrying that around. And then you got, so just picture yourself with this huge backpack full of rocks. Cause every day you're putting in, um, you're taking care of people, right? You're intubating people. You're jabbing them with all kinds of whatever things

you're putting in their arms and bag, whatever you're doing there as a trauma nurse, right? You're intubating people. You're jabbing them with all kinds of whatever things you're putting in their arms and bags. Whatever you're doing there as a trauma nurse, right? Sewing people up, holding people together, right? And then you walk out with this backpack full of bricks on and you're like, well, I gotta go be sexy tonight. That ain't happening.

And by the way, I got a three-month-old that my body is still a machine slash jungle gym. And I got to get done with that. I got to get done with work so that this guy can then get all handsy, right? I mean, at some point, what you have to do is you got to deal with the trauma, whether it's secondary trauma, whether it's real trauma, whether it's a combination of both. Most of us have a combination of both. And I can't tell you, hopefully you can hear it in my voice, how lighter I walk through my life now that I got a system for dealing with these secondary trauma, that I got a system for dealing

with the big bricks, and I got a system for dealing with it when they show up time after time. And some of that's meeting with a counselor. Some of that's, you've heard me talking about my daily gratitude practice and journaling practice and exercise practice and taking care of my body. Those things, practices in and of themselves, I don't think work if they aren't tethered to somebody who has a strong sense of, I'm okay with me.

And right now you're not okay with you, but I need you to hear me say, it's because you're exhausted because you can't run all these bricks. If you can set those down, holy smokes, then you walk into the bedroom and you're like, I'm not so tired anymore. You can go dancing with your friends. You're not so exhausted anymore. Your head doesn't hurt. Your head doesn't hurt. Your back doesn't hurt. There's remarkable stories. There's a great book by Paul Conti about trauma that folks will drop 50 pounds after several months of trauma counseling.

Just letting their body process this stuff and then they're able to move on. And their body quits holding on to whatever that pathology is. Why do I practically start, I mean, doing that, I guess. It's a great question. All right, here we go. The first thing is I want you to grab a book. It's called Trauma Stewardship. Anybody working in as a trauma nurse should have a copy of this book. When I did a practicum working with traumatized and sexually abused kids, my practicum advisor, Dr. Gomez, gave me this book and said, you cannot work with these kids until you read this book. I made it to chapter seven and I had to put it down. And I called him and said, I made it to seven, man. I'm really struggling with this book. It was hitting home hard. And he laughed and he goes, wow, man, I'm only to chapter nine, right? It's a hard book and it is critical. Okay. In that book, there's several practices. I will give you a few too. In fact, I want you to hang

on the line. I'm going to give you a copy of my brand new book on your past, change your future. It's exactly what this is. Okay. It's not going to come out until April, but I'm going to put you on the list to give you a copy of it. Okay. As part of a pre-order. And here's another thing. It comes with a free month of counseling from BetterHelp. Okay. Do you have a counselor in your area? I wouldn't know. Okay. Okay. We should. I mean, I just haven't, I guess, taken the time to. You do, I promise. All of this starts with this.

I want you to say these words out loud. I am worth being well. I am worth being well. If you're not well, your kids can't be, your husband's not going to be, the people you care for are not going to be. And when you're a brand new mom of three bananas, beautiful, wonderful, maniacal, fun kids, and you're also loving and taking care of people every day and trying to keep a farm up,

and you're proud and you're in love with a guy who's also keeping his business running full speed, you go to the bottom of that list. And somehow we picked up this awful narrative that everybody else needs to be taken care of before we do. And I need you to begin to say, nope, I've got to come first for a season. I've got to make sure that my oxygen mask is on first before I try to put it on my kids. What does that practically mean? That means that you go to bed and you and your husband work out

some sort of schedule with the kids. That may mean you got to get one of those little pump machines. You may already have one and husband's got to wake up a couple nights a week. That may mean that you're going to cut back on your hours and you're all going to slow down on your wealth building for the next few years and create an environment where you can get some,

your body can get some rest. Or maybe you transfer out of trauma and you move to another unit. That may mean that you're going to journal every day. And you're going to talk about, I miss my old Eileen. And who is new Eileen becoming? Who is she going to be? And you do go to the gym and you do say, I'm going to be a good steward of my body. I'm worth feeling good, so I'm going to put mostly good stuff in my body, unless Girl Scout cookies are out, and let's be honest,

then we're all just going to go, we're going to crush them, right? I've got a trauma guide, trauma 101 guide. You can go to johndeloney.com and go through that. But I want you to begin to write down on a piece of paper,

what does Eileen need to be well? What does well mean for me? Is it sleep? Is it connection? I'm telling you right now, just listen to your story. You need, need, need to connect with a counselor. And I'm going to give you a free month of counseling with BetterHelp. That's online counseling. If you have a counselor in your community, I'd love for you to start there as well. Okay? Okay. And this is not you sacrificing your kid's time, your husband's time.

This is you being well. And your husband deserves to be well too. What are you both working so hard for? I don't know. what are you both working so hard for? I, I don't know. I, I honestly think it's kind of that idea. We have a picture of what life should look like.

I came from a family that was quite well off. He, on the other hand did not. And I think he's trying to, I noticed that like my husband, he tends to give the kids a lot of gifts. He constantly buys them things. And we're financially well off.

And for me, I guess as a child, I grew up having a lot of things. So I just don't care for them as much as he does. He puts a lot of value on those things. So you're running to something and he's running away from something. Yeah. And here's what I want you to do, both of you. Stop running. Stop running.

And so you've listened to the show enough to know that I'm going to tell you, y'all need to get out. You've got three kids. Clear the deck. Great. Your parents are awesome. Awesome. That was fun.

It was fun growing up and being rich, and we had a good time. And his parents didn't have a lot. They loved him clearly. He's great at loving you and those kids. Awesome. What do we want our one wild, crazy, loony tune, reckless filled love life to look like? Just us two and our three little kids

and probably the other nine we're gonna add later on. Right? I don't know about that. What do we want? This is ours. It's nobody else's y'all get to paint the picture and this Eileen should be exciting

and fun and oh my gosh let's walk together towards a thing not run from something yeah let's hold hands and walk to a cool thing and we're going to take 50 years to get there and then we're going to die

we're going to be dead it's going to die, right? We're going to be dead. It's going to be exciting. Hopefully I'll make it longer than that. But, and, and that's where this thing ends up. Let's reverse engineer that. What do we need to do right now? You know what we need to do right now? I'm going to work less. We're going to make less money. I'm going to be home more. I'm going to sleep more. I'm going to be intentional or I'm going to keep going trauma nurse and husband, man, we're going to hire somebody for this farm. We're going to slow things down a little bit. We have to, we got to, because we're worth it. I'm worth it. You're worth it. Let's back this thing down a little bit. And that may not be the solution, but it's an option. And when both of you are running and gunning and flying

and going and going, it just feels like, hey, this train can't stop. And what I want you to do is it can, it absolutely can. And it all starts with you're worth being well. And now let's reverse it. What does well mean? What does well mean? What does it look like? What are the behaviors we need to do? What are the thoughts we have to do? All of it. Let's go to johndeloney.com. Check out the Trauma 101 guide. We're going to get you hooked up with this book. This book will walk you through it start to finish. I have a feeling this book was written for you, Eileen. It was written for you. Man, and let me say, I'm so grateful for you.

You are awesome. Great mom, great wife, great trauma nurse. I know you're exhausted, I know you're cooked, I know you're fried, I know your body has had it. Whew, it's time for healing. 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. Hey, as we wrap up today's show, don't forget, own your past, change your future. The new book is in presale right now. So grateful for everybody for their support. Please go pick it up. Get free month of counseling with betterhelp.com. Today's song of the day, John Mayer lyrics, stop this train. And it goes like this. Nope, I'm not colorblind. I know the world is black and white. Try to keep an open mind, but I just can't sleep on this tonight.

Stop this train. I want to get off and go home again. I can't take the speed. It's moving in. I know I can't, but honestly, won't someone stop this train? Don't know how else to say it. Don't want to see my parents go one generation's length away from fighting life out on my own.

Stop this train. I want to get off and I want to go home again. Listen, everybody, you can stop the train and just go home. You're worth being well. We'll see you soon.