The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m Jealous of My Girlfriend’s Guy Friends

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

In today’s show, listen as we hear from someone recently diagnosed with OCD who’s worried about how it will impact their marriage, a man uncomfortable with his girlfriend’s male friendships, and a wife desperate for her husband to get professional help because he uses drugs and alcohol to cope with anxiety. How do I manage my OCD without irritating my spouse? I’m jealous of my girlfriend’s guy friends My husband is self-medicating with alcohol and marijuana Delony weighs in on Encanto Lyrics of the Day: "Three Little Birds" - Bob Marley 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. My girlfriend has a lot of guy friends. It sounds like you're going to be miserable. I don't think I'm miserable, really. Yeah, but it makes you jealous, and you wonder what's going on, and you wonder why not you. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, that's misery.

Yo, yo, yo! Happy April 20th. So glad you're here. We've got a packed lobby. We've got four people, and they are waving their arms. And one of them, come on, man, has an Atlanta Brave Championship shirt. Go Strohs! go Strohs go Strohs

you guys ruined my whatever hey this is an exciting show here's why it's exciting first the book is

finally in the wild it's in the stores and on the internet it's everywhere now own your past change your future it's here super hyped

to have it out into the world go get it where you get books. For those of you who have reached out from all over the planet, from New Zealand and Canada and the Middle East, it's been extraordinary. People reaching out, I'm so grateful.

You can get it anywhere. So order the book, order it. My mom's already ordered several copies. She's trying to drive the numbers up for me. Thanks, mom. You're awesome. I would just send you some because I'm that kind of son, but such it is.

And this is a first on today's show. My first, I think the tubers call it a reaction video, right? Yes, my first reaction video to the one and only show, Encanto. Encanto. If you're listening to this on podcast, this may be one you want to go watch on the tubes. It's going to be the last segment here, so you can go watch the last segment here.

But we're going to dig into the fight between Abuela and Mirabel. So good. All right, hey, let's go to our first call. Let's go to Avery in Portland. Hi, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm good. I'm excited. I am super excited. What's up?

So let's talk. Let's, let's talk. What's happening? So I recently got diagnosed with OCD. Welcome to the club. Welcome to the gang. It's so fun. Isn't it though? It's been a good time. Isn't it though? Hey, most people just do things once. We get to do them a bunch of times. And it doesn't make us feel any better. No, it makes everything worse.

Welcome to the gang. Thank you. I'm so excited to be a part of this. Um, and I want help communicating in my marriage without compulsively checking in with my spouse. Ooh, you're a checker inner. I am. Tell me about it. So I check in to see if I'm okay. Yep. And then when that doesn't help me feel any better, I check in that we're okay, like relationally. And then when that doesn't help, I check in to see if he's okay because I can tell

he's getting irritated with the number of times I've checked in. And then I start compulsively apologizing because I feel bad that I'm checking in. And so once you've effectively, on a micro level,

screwed up the relationship, then it starts the loop back over where you got to check back in. And then how are we? Right. Cause I'm not feeling good. So I got to check back in with how, how am I? And then how are we? And then how are you? And then I'm so sorry. And then how are my, and then the loop continues, right? Right. Oh my gosh. Hey, I don't know if you've ever talked to yourself in a mirror before, but that's what you're doing right now. I'm so happy that you called me. You are explaining my life in a nutshell, which is fantastic.

All right, so back up a little bit. Tell me more about OCD. Tell me more about how you came to figure this out. Because this isn't just the only thing you've had across your lifetime. What are some other things you struggle with? So ever since I was little I struggled with

intrusive thoughts and so I've been in therapy for a while and it kind of just kept getting diagnosed as anxiety and I couldn't ever, I never was able to put words to like the level of distress that I felt. Yeah.

And it felt really difficult to explain like why therapy wasn't helping. Cause I would go to my therapist and then she would help me feel a little bit better. And then I would leave and I'd be like, I have to go back. I didn't tell my therapist, like in the way that she understands. Okay. Can I, can I change your life? Okay. Yes. I'm, I'm actually excited about this call. So, um, a quick to the nerds out there who

are listening, um, fellow nerds, there's all this academic tomfoolery. There's academic gymnastics that go on to say, well, is it an anxiety disorder or is OCD a different type of disorder? All that stuff stays in the classroom and it's for people who have had a lot of graduate school to sit around and eat nachos and to go back and forth with. Where those academic gymnastics hurt people is there's folks like Avery here sitting in Portland going, I need this to stop. And I'm just doing what people say in the next expert in front of me to do. And it's not getting any better. And then here you find yourself here, right? And that OCD diagnostic helped for a minute, didn't it? It gave you a name to the dragon and it was like, okay.

And then here we are again, right back where we were. Right, Avery? Right. Okay. So I'm going to reframe the whole thing for you. Okay? Okay. Your intrusive thoughts are not the problem.

Not even a little bit. They're annoying and they ruin everything and they make the people around you exhausted with you. Right? But they're not the problem. They're actually your body's way and they make the people around you exhausted with you, right? But they're not the problem. They're actually your body's way of trying to solve this thing. So instead of thinking about the intrusive thoughts, the checking in, how do I stop that? How do I shift that?

How do I move that? We're going to change the conversation completely. You told me something really powerful and here's how I know that I'm on the right track. You would go meet with your counselor and you'd feel better and then as you left and then as one day became two days became three became four you started feeling worse and worse and worse until you could loop back and see that counselor right right here's what that tells me. Your issue is not cognitive. It's not information. It's not a hack. You know what was helping you be okay,

helping your body start to slow down and not need intrusive thoughts to protect it was deep connection with another person. And for a few minutes, for 30 minutes or for an hour, your body went, whew, we are safe in here. Right? And my guess is over the course of your lifetime, you've had some sort of,

even if you were in a loving household, partridge in a pear tree, you had disconnected relationships that your body was trying to solve at some shape, form, or fashion that would move from, hey, are we okay? How about about this? What about this?

What about this? And the thoughts get scarier. Think of it as the thoughts get more intrusive and get more scary and hop on to different and more like, whoa, why is that in my mind? Think of that as your brain trying to turn the volume up on the alarms that say, hey, we're not safe and we're not connected to people

in a way that is making my body be able to relax. Is that tracking at all with you? Yes. Okay. Keep going. Go ahead. Well, and I guess what's interesting is even while you're saying that, I hear the thought in my brain of like, how do I really know if I'm safe or not?

My alarm bells feel like they're on 200 all the time. Right, right. And so I've talked a little bit, not my full thoughts, but I've talked a little bit about pharmacology on the show. There is some pretty good evidence that taking medicine for OCD, especially, and again, let's be clear for those of you with OCD, this is on a spectrum. There are folks that every day of their life wash their hands until they bleed. And there are people every day who have to check the locks 38 times, and they spin, and they're late, and it's a tragic loop. That is a much deeper entrenched situation that needs medication,

often needs deep psychotherapy, right? So hear me say this. I'm talking to someone who I see in the mirror every morning who's struggling with intrusive thoughts that loop and loop and loop and they get louder and louder and louder. Sometimes medication helps. And here's what it does. It turns the alarms down so that I can go sit with somebody, be honest about my boundaries with my romantic partner, have some hard conversations or create some real boundaries with my family, begin to make real relationships in my community, in my neighborhood, recommit to some friendships that I've had, start to build different like sleep and exercise, things like that. They're gonna help my body, right? That helps turn the alarms down. It doesn't solve the problem. It just turns the dial back. Does that make sense? Yeah. That like physical response almost. Right. Right. So think about you've been in a hotel where the bathroom smoke detector is so finely set. It's so tightly wound that just turning on a hot shower and steaming up the bathroom sets it off, right?

That's where your alarm is. It's just so sensitive right now. So going back to when you were a little girl, tell me about home. How were the relationships there? Um, I think you've mentioned this on your show before, but my parents experienced some, like we're experiencing stress and we didn't talk about it. And so as a little kid, I attributed a lot of that stress as like my own fault. Ah, okay. And you have this little voice in your head that over the last 15, 20 years has gotten louder and louder saying, we're not okay, we're not okay, we're not okay. And you don't seem to be listening.

So it's trying to do what it can to get your attention. Okay? Right. So let's think of it this way. Just for the time being, let's leave the spinning thoughts alone because they are actually the potential solutions. Don't go to war with them, okay? Okay. And I'll say it this way. They're stronger than you. That brain is hundreds of thousands of years old. Your thinking brain is just, is younger than that, okay? So you can't go to war with those thoughts. They're just

going to get louder on you. The reassurance obsessions are simply your mind's way of dealing with the body screaming for connection and help. So what we want to do is work on feelings and we want to work on connection. So tell me about this husband of yours. I mean, I'm super lucky. He's amazing. I think he's got incredible patience. And I think I feel like I've learned what not to do. Like I've learned that I shouldn't check in with my husband, but it almost feels like we don't know what to do.

I don't know what to do instead. Like I want that connection with my husband to know if I'm okay or to be able to know if he's okay on a like much deeper level than just my compulsion. Right. So I mean, super, super incredible guy. I feel like he's been super supportive over my many years of therapy. So, um, think of this as a problem that you're probably not going to talk your way out of. Okay. So here's an example in my life when I was really in deep down the rabbit hole, I was Alice in Wonderland. Okay? I remember one of the things I kept spinning out on that I could not overcome was I kept thinking all the financial system was

going to come apart. And this is back in mid-2000s. This isn't now when there's, now it's now that message sells things. But this is back in the day. I just kept looking at all the charts and I kept thinking, this is all coming down. It's all coming down. It's all coming down. And I would go meet with, like I remember meeting with a guy. He's just a lovely dude.

He's a CFO of a $150 million company. And I walked him through and he was so gentle and so kind, but basically he was like, I don't know. None of what you're saying makes sense. And I walked out in the first thought I had in my head and he actually walked me through it. He showed me the math. He showed me the arc. He showed me how the debt covenants would roll. I mean, he showed everything to me. And I walked out of that meeting and I thought,

this guy doesn't know what's going on. That was my first thought because my problem was not that I was just missing that cornerstone piece of information. So knowing there is not one thing in the world your husband can say to you that's going to turn that voice off and put a period at the end of that sentence. I know this isn't going to help. What this is going to do is just spin that wheel faster. And so, and by the way, you know this, I'm just saying this for the audience, the more you shut that down, the more it will shoot out somewhere else, right? Your brain will come up with another way to try to get your attention, and it will be more caustic and louder and more frenetic, usually. And by the way, he's very patient.

My guess is you're super fun to be around, aren't you? I mean, I don't know. Yes, you are. People with OCD are a blast and they're a lot and they're fun to like be in orbit with until they're not, right? But he won the lottery with you too. Okay, so here's what we're going to do. When you feel intensely compulsive, your brain's trying to take off on you, the first thought is to drop your shoulders and say, huh, what is my brain trying to protect me from right now? We're going to be curious and we're going to make peace with our bodies. Okay. I'm not going to war with the alarms anymore. I'm going to ask, huh. And then I'm going to start writing this down. And here's what you got to write down.

How many times have me and my husband touched today? Have we held hands today? Have we done 30-second hugs today? Have we gone for walks today? Do we have a journal that I write in, that he writes in, that I write in? We are looking for connection that's going to go miles deep, okay? Some of this may be we haven't slept together in two months now, and it's just because we got busy, and then I got tired, and then this this popped up and we got a kid. But your body starts to rattle on you and we try to solve the rattle, right? So let's find where are we disconnected and let's start to practice ways that are connecting for us. Connecting for my wife, it's this funny game we call chit chat. Again, I think I've talked about the show. I don't understand it. You know what I mean? And for the kids, they want to come and they now know that we have, what do we call it? Adult talk

time. Y'all aren't welcome here. And they just come in and be like, what are you all done with adult talk time? But they know it. And then last night I was playing baby dolls with my daughter. We were playing family and she sent all the little kid dolls away so that we could have adult talk time. So now it's a part of her life and she's going to be able to carry that on down in her legacy, right? So begin to just ferret out in your soul with curiosity, where am I disconnected? My guess is there are some boundary issues with your family you haven't dealt with. My guess is you accept crap from people at work, and you're going gonna have to deal with some of those boundaries, where you work, why you work.

You know what I mean? You're gonna have to walk through some of those things. And then here's the last thing I'll tell you. One of like checking doors, lock doors is a thing for me. I don't, I just checked, I just check locks. I don't, that doesn't bother me anymore. You know what I mean? I, I, there's a couple of things

I've just made peace with. And so I have to make a couple of laps around the house at night. I just make a couple of laps. I don't care. I check my car and then I'll leave and I'll go back and check my car. That doesn't bother me.

I just now get to work 10 minutes. Well, I don't get 10 minutes early. I would love to get to work 10 minutes early. All the booths like, no, you don't. I get to, I get to work on time and then I ended up being to work 10 minutes. Well, I don't get 10 minutes early. I would love to get to work 10 minutes early. All the booths like, no, you don't. I get to work on time and then I end up being five to 10 minutes late because I'm checking on my car. That's fine.

You see what I'm saying? So I'm not gonna go to war with everything. But those ones that are hurting other relationships that are beginning to bury me a little bit. And when you hear me say this, there's peace on the other side. I don't struggle with it hardly at all anymore. Now it's when I'm super exhausted,

when me and my wife are having trouble, we're disconnected, when I haven't seen my kids in a while, when I'm being grumpy here at work and I'm just going from media hit to media hit to media hit to media hit to on the road to back here, then it starts to show up a little bit

and it's just a reminder. My body's telling me, hey, let's reconnect. Let's get back in touch with ourself. Does that make sense? Yes. Okay. So here's what I want you to do.

30 days. We're going to start writing stuff down and we're going to make peace with the alarms. Cool? Okay. Is that cool? And then you're going to tell your husband, guess what we get to do?

We're going to practice connection. And he's going to look at you and be like, you've said a lot of weird things and I don't know what that means, but I'm in, but what does that mean? And you can say, it might mean more in sex. And he's going to look at you and be like, you've said a lot of weird things and I don't know what that means, but I'm in, but what does that mean? And you can say, it might mean more in sex. And he's going to be like, all right, let's have this conversation, right? So, and we're going to talk about what more connection looks like. It could be writing, it could be talking, it could be him singing you songs, it could be long walks in the neighborhood, who knows what that is, but what is that going to look like? And then you're going to start making boundaries. Avery,

my sister, let me know in 30 days how it goes. Everyone else struggling for this, the thoughts aren't the problem. They're just your body trying to say, hey, we're not okay. We're not okay. Let's stop going to war with our bodies. Let's stop going to war with our communities and start saying, hey, what's the real problem here? We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and

costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life.

Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes

and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney. All right, we're back. Let's go to, we're back. Jack, I finally get to say it. Let's go talk to Jack in Michigan. What's up, Jack? Hi, John.

How are you doing? Good, man. What's up? So basically my girlfriend has a lot of guy friends, basically, and she tends to be very nice with them, and it often makes me jealous and kind of bitter a little bit and uncomfortable when I see her sitting next to them and hanging out with them. And I guess my question

is how can I deal with getting jealous and how can I overcome that? That's a good question, man. How long have y'all been dating? Uh, we've been together almost about a year and a half. Okay. Um, have you, have you sat down and talked to her about it? Yeah, we've talked about this before How'd that go? It went pretty good I mean, she's still gonna have those friends It went great

Except nothing changed It was awesome So the conversation was good So here's the hard truth I'm going to give you, okay? You can't change her and you can't change her friendships. The only thing you can deal with here is you. You can decide. I can't date somebody who spends a lot of time with other guy friends,

who goes out with them, who hangs out, who is always texting with time with other guy friends, who goes out with them, who hangs out, who like is always texting with them and always calling them, who may have had, you know, intimate relationships with them in the past. They may have dated in the past. I can't do that. And so I'm going to make the decision

since of stating my boundaries firmly and clearly and kindly, not because you're a jerk. And she can say, great, well, my boundaries are, I am not going to date somebody that tells me I can't have friends of the opposite sex. And then the choice is yours, man, to uphold your boundaries or to cave into your boundaries. It sounds like you're going to be miserable. I don't think I'm miserable, really. I think it really is a me thing

because I really trust her and she doesn't hang out with them alone or anything I'd always be in a group setting yeah but it makes you jealous and you wonder what's going on and you wonder why not you yeah I guess yeah that's misery

that's the definition of misery. And so, sounds like she's been pretty clear with her boundary. What I don't want you to do, man, is to make a choice to be miserable over a girlfriend. That's a heartbreaking choice, but it's a strange choice, right? Yeah.

Because you're going to get married and this will stay the same. And then you'll have your first kid and this will stay the same. Is that fair? Yeah, I get what you're saying. She's really great about it and she understands it. I know, but it doesn't matter

because you're hurting. Yeah. And I don't have one ounce of ill will towards her. She's allowed to do whatever she wants. And she has chosen to keep her guy friends over making her current boyfriend have peace, letting him have peace. That's her choice she made. She's allowed to do that. She's a grownup. that's the boundary she drew

fantastic i think trying to make yourself be less jealous is an exercise in futility you can become more mature right you can you know what i mean like uh you can be not bothered by immature things but trying to say hey it's a big deal to me that you don't hang out with other guys while we're dating and her saying it's a big deal to me that i have all the autonomy and freedom i want in a dating relationship cool then we're not going to work no matter how nice and kind and everybody is you went quiet on me, man What are you thinking? I'm trying to think of what to think

Yeah, it's hard So here's what I'd recommend you do And I recognize there's so much wound up in this Like, you love this person? Yeah Yeah, you do She probably loves you too, right? Yeah Yeah And she has She probably loves you too, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And she has her boundaries and you have yours. And the beauty of, that's why dating is important, right? Because you say, hey, these things matter to me. And you get to practice those things. And you get people run up against them. And you see if they hold. I had some obnoxious boundaries when I first started.

Like, it's got to be like this. It's got to be like like this i was wrong on almost all of them dude i was an idiot and but the ones that held firm they held really firm and such that is right and every relationship's i'm telling like on the long end you're she's playing with fire there, right? And you know that. Everybody knows that. And I don't have, again, I don't have any ill will torture at all. It's playing with fire. And your heart is, I mean, the alarms going off inside your body are probably telling you the truth.

But you can't control her. And so you have to be true to you, especially when you're dating. This is much messier, much harder when people are married. Man, you set a boundary and I'm going to suggest you honor that boundary. So I want you to write these things down. Write down what you believe, write down your boundaries, write down what your needs are. And hear me say this, Jack, you deserve them. Even if that means telling somebody that you love, I love you. And there's going to be

a period at the end of our sentence. That's going to hurt for everybody, right? There's no way that people don't hurt moving forward. You're going to hurt just being in it. You're going to hurt getting out of it. There's going to be hurt. You get to choose which hurt it's going to be. And when you're dating, I'm going to really strongly suggest to everybody out there, be true to your boundaries, be true to them. 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 Diloni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back. Let's go to Jennifer in Jacksonville. Howdy, Jaguar.

What's up, Jennifer? Hi, how are you? I'm good. How are you? Good. Thank you for taking my call. Of course. Thanks for calling.

What's up? So I'm calling about my husband. In his life, he's had a pretty considerable amount of trauma and loss that he's gone through throughout the years. And that has caused a pretty big amount of anxiety and probably some depression along with that. He is medicated for that from his physician, but I also feel like he is using alcohol and marijuana as like self-medication. So I'm just worried that, you know, he has a family history of addiction and I'm worried that it could spiral down that rabbit hole. And I just really don't want that for us and for our family.

So my question is, how do I help him with this particular issue when he doesn't seem to feel like it's a problem? Can I tell you the truth? Yes. You can't. And I hate that. Right. And I know you know that, and I know that's not what anybody wants to hear, but you can't. He's going to have to come to the conclusion that he's worth being well, and that he's worth being loved, and that he's worth healing, and he's worth connecting.

And weed helps things slow down and helps us forget. And alcohol helps things slow down and forget. And it's a cheap substitute chemical for connection. And as somebody who loves somebody who's self-medicating that way, it feels like he's cheating on you with those. It feels like you're sitting right here and saying, why? Why? What is it about me that can't fill that gap? And you need to hear me say it has nothing to do with you. Okay?

At the end of the day, you can't. The only thing you can do is decide what will me and my kids tolerate when it comes to our safety, when it comes to presence, when it comes to what are we communicating to our kids that this is what marriage looks like. This is what a husband and a dad looks like. That's all you can control. Tell me about some conversations you've had with him. So, I mean, I've encouraged him to go to counseling and we went to marriage counseling together, but he has never done individual counseling. I do think that he knows that's necessary, but it seems like there's always an excuse as to why it's not going to happen. He doesn't have time or he doesn't want to spend the money or something along those lines. But I guess when I say he doesn't think it's a problem, I think that he thinks because he's a functional adult and he has a really good job, he has a wife and a beautiful child and he's a really good dad.

I think that he just sees that and is like, I don't see what the big deal is if I want to do these things in the evening. Gotcha. And what are you missing out on? Like, why is it a big deal? He's got a wife and a beautiful kid and a good job. Like, why don't you, why don't you back it off 30% Jennifer? So what are you missing? So I guess he just like emotional connection.

I feel like he just does these things and then he's totally disconnected we don't really have like fruitful meaningful like conversations in the evenings once we put her to bed this is kind of what he does and it's just do this watch tv and then on the weekends you know with his guy buddies he wants to go rage and have a good old time and just forget about it. And I just think that emotionally in our relationship that it really impacts, like, our connection. I'm sorry. That feels lonely, doesn't it? Yes.

How old's your little one? She's two, and I'm actually pregnant for a second one. Congratulations. Thank you. And if you're just listening to this, my head drops. It's so common for somebody, for a baby to be born and somebody with childhood trauma, their body remembers that story. And their body sounds every alarm possible.

And if you don't have the tools on meaningful conversations, you don't have the tools that help you lean into uncomfortable relationships, then mom and baby become this, like, just a constant reminder of what a loser you are. And it just creates distance and space and distance and space. And so I'm not going to beat him up. The brave, hardest, toughest, strongest, most raged up thing he could do would be to go get some, to lean into this discomfort. And most people, most of the time, lean away because it hurts. It's hard. It's scary. It's not an excuse. It just isn't is. And what I want you to do is get very, very specific.

Here's what that means. In 30 days, I will no longer tolerate marijuana in this house, period. We have a two-year-old little girl. I will no longer tolerate alcohol in this house. I need you here on the weekends for dinner. Or if you go out and get hammered and whatever, whatever, whatever, I need you to know here's how this affects me personally.

You gotta be very, very clear. And all of these things are I statements, not you statements. Not you can't go do this. I'm saying in the house that I'm raising a young daughter in, that is ours, by the way, there will be no, we're not drinking on weeknights in this home, period. We're going to have to learn to talk. I am not going to stay in a marriage where we don't have communication. I'm not going to stay in a marriage where we don't have communication. I'm not going to stay in a marriage where between the hours of 6 p.m. until you pass out, I'm alone

with a laptop and Netflix. It's that level of ownership of your boundaries. And then you have to have what I think is the scariest thing for somebody in your position, it's an or what statement. Like, or what? Are you really going to leave them? Or are you really going to hold this boundary? Or are you going to cave and you're going to say, you know what, whatever. The picture of this thing, this facade,

I'm just going to keep it going until it crashes. Right? That or what statement is terrifying. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. You've thought about it. Tell me what you've been thinking about it. I mean, I obviously don't, like, divorce is never an option for me.

And I just, I've never pictured that for my life. And I've never pictured our kids not being in the same house with both parents. Can I tell you where this usually leads? Sure. It usually leads with somebody at work being really nice to you and you texting that person a little bit more than you probably should. And then y'all, right? Or your husband senses the disconnection. He senses how frustrated you are at him and how angry you are that he just keeps smoking weed all the time. And he feels gross about

who he has become in his own marriage. That's where this thing usually implodes. And that's where somebody's got to flip the lights on and say, hey, listen, am I on the right track? Yeah. Okay, so somebody's got to flip the lights on and say, hey, listen. Am I on the right track? Yeah. Okay. So somebody's got to flip the lights on and say, hey, we're on a bad trajectory here. I miss you.

I miss you. And I don't have the tools to bridge this gap. You don't have the tools to bridge this gap. The only thing you can do is go to counseling yourself. Have you gone to individual? I have not. Okay. I'd have not. Okay. I'd recommend that. Okay. Because you're going to need the strength and the boundaries and the practice and the all the, all the, all the, all the, right? And you're going to provide a model

for this is how far I'm willing to go to get well, to connect with you. Okay. Instead of, hey, you need to quit drinking so much at home, or I really don't like it when you smoke weed, use I statements like, I miss you. I would like to connect in the evenings without alcohol and without weed. I don't like sleeping with you when you've been drinking. The whole thing's just weird. I don't like having to come in and put a blanket on you.

I want you to come sleep in bed with us. Like, right? You see what I'm saying? I want these to be ownership statements and I statements. Is your husband hurting? Or is he just kind of a bleh? Is he broed out? Trying to live out his bros?

I mean, I think he definitely hurts. You know, he didn't grow up with a father figure. His dad passed through when he was two his mom during middle school and high school was a drug addict and then he lost his best friend his brother passed away of a heart condition so I think he's just

he definitely has a melt with a lot of that and his little two having a two year old-old in the house is sounding every alarm he's got because his body remembers the story. This is when dad dies. This is when mom gets off the rails

and she's hurting so bad and he gets stuck in a cycle. Right. Yeah. Can I just tell you, I'm sorry. Being lonely is the worst. And watching somebody you love, love, love

slowly go off the slide at the park is scary. And I'm sorry. Thank you. Please know that it's not personal. You know what I mean? He's trying to stay alive. He's not not loving mean? He's trying to stay alive. He's not not loving you.

He's trying to stay alive. And until he chooses that he's worth being connected, it's going to be a hard season. Please, please, please make a phone call. Talk to somebody today. Okay? Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future.

I want you to read it. You know what? I'm going to send you two. Ask him if you all read it together. Look at that. Look at that. Look and read it. Maybe later. You know what? I'm going to send you two. Ask him if y'all read it together. Look at that. Look at that. They're going to read it together. And y'all read it together.

And it also will send you a copy of the audio book. If, if one of y'all doesn't read and that way y'all can do it together and y'all can have something to talk about. And maybe it will give y'all a connecting point that is different than, Hey, I need this and you need to do that. This will give you a third party, right? A third entity that y'all can point at and say, well, the book said this, what do you think about that? And it makes that conversation a little bit easier. So I'm gonna send you two of them, hang on the line,

Kelly, we'll get your info and we'll get it shipped out to you and 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, everybody, we are back and we're doing something that we've never done on the show before. I don't know how I feel about it, but Kelly and the gang and the YouTubers. We're going to do a reaction video. If one more person emails me or DMs me about El Encanto and what I think about it, and is it real, and is it work, and what does it say about... So here we go.

We're going to do my first reaction video on the show. It's the Encanto reaction about the Mirabel and Abuela fight. All right, Nate Douglas, roll it up. What is going on? Abuela, it's okay. Everything's, we're going to save the miracle. The magic. What are you talking about?

Look at our home. Look at your sister. Please, just, Isabella wasn't happy. Of course she isn our home. Look at your sister. Please, just... Isabella wasn't happy and she... Of course she isn't happy. You ruined her proposal. No, no, she needed me to ruin her proposal and then we did all this

and the candle burned brighter and the cracks... Mirabel. That's why I'm in the vision. I'm saving the miracle. You have to stop, Mirabel. The cracks started with you. Bruno left because of you. Luisa's losing her powers.

Isabella's out of control because of you. I don't know why you weren't given a gift, but it is not an excuse for you to hurt this family. Okay, stop it right there. So, they're having two different conversations here. Mirabelle, that's the young

woman, right? Mirabelle is simply saying, can you see me? Can you see the good that I'm bringing to our home? And Abuela is saying, grandmother is saying, you are in service to the bigger machine here.

The facade is more important than what you, your little feelings, what you think. Do you see me versus know your place here? What's one of the most common family, like they're just talking past each other and both of their hearts are exploding in opposite directions even though they're staring each other in the eye. All right, hit play.

I will never be good enough for you. Will I? No matter how hard I try. No matter how hard any of us tries lisa will never be strong enough you said that won't be perfect enough all right hit pause here okay common move i was i was all team mirabelle but now she's triangulating people now she's dragging other family members into the formation of her boundaries. Now, how old is she in this movie? Is she like 21 or she's seven? Early 20s. No, she's seven. I don't want to be like,

suck it up, seven-year-old. If you're 21, 22, this is where, like, there's this, this is like the revelation, right? This is when you start to realize, oh, my mom's always going to be like this. My dad will never say the words, I'm proud of you. My husband or boyfriend will never hear my needs, right? These are these moments, but it's then when you go and my, my girlfriend, she sees it too, or yeah, and my dad also, and now I'm looping everybody in to the formation of my boundary, and that's a mess. When you start to have these realizations that, oh, this is going to be the way this always, you are going to be the way you always are.

I'm the one who's got to change here. What I love people to do is to say, these are my boundaries. I'm going to use I statements here. This is for me. My sister can watch this happen, and then she can choose to have her own boundaries. My brother can too. This is about me. Okay, hit play this happen and then she can choose to have her own boundaries. My brother can too. This is about me. Okay, hit play. Now I'm all into this.

Our family because you only saw the worst in it. Bruno didn't care about this family. He loves this family. I love this family. We all love this family. You're the one that doesn't care. You're the one breaking our home. Don't you ever. The miracle is

dying because of you. Oh! Look at that. Okay. So, this is when things, we're going well and then it turns Hollywood. The face, so if you're listening to this,

grandmother just had the face, right? The oh! Right? Like the face of, oh so if you're listening to this, grandmother just had the face, right? The, right? Like the face of, oh no, you're right. For the last 50 years, I've excluded my son. I've kept my thumb over everybody. This doesn't happen in reality. Very, very rare. And it doesn't happen with the music swelling.

And there's this great big thing, this idea, like this magic sentence. I'm just gonna say the magic sentence. I was working with somebody the other day and they said, I'm just waiting for that one thing that someone's gonna say that's gonna cut through it. And I finally said that thing's not coming, right? So we have this picture that when we create boundaries,

the music's gonna swell and we're gonna say our boundary across the table. We're gonna come to the realization and they're going to go, it was me. That never happens. Usually it ends with, I hate you. Get out of my house or fine then, or I'm taking you out of the will, or then I'm going to start seeing somebody else, right? We wait for this fantasy moment, this perfect catharsis, and it doesn't happen, right? So, Abuela's, so I haven't seen, I've seen it, but I fell asleep halfway through with my kids. I was tired. Now I'm going to go back and watch it. It looks amazing. But here's what's important. Like, it sounds like Abuela

created a story. She got deeply hurt and she created a story to move this family along. And the story in the short term created a lot of beauty and a lot of cool things. And there's a lot of things that she could talk about when it came to her kids, a select group of her grandkids. Is that right? Close. Yeah, it's everybody but Mirabelle has a gift. Has a gift, right?

Right. But it comes out of this pain, right? The other, another gift wasn't recognized, the son, right? And he got kicked out or he left or something. People didn't like his gift. He was like telling people like what was going to happen in their life. It's a gift of a prophet, right? Yeah.

So they, yeah, prophets always get run out of their town. Okay, so he had this gift of prophecy, right? And Abuela's heartbroken. Deep down, she is heartbroken. And instead of dropping her shoulders and weeping and leaning into that grief, she created an entire system that props herself up and the whole family up. And when you do that, it inevitably crumbles around you. Like, I guess that's what, is that what happens here?

Everything crashes and then flowers are going to bloom at the end, right? Is that how that works? Kind of, yeah. I can just hear people going, no, that's not how that goes, right? I mean, she's reacting out of this trauma that she experienced when the gift was created. So everything that she's doing now

is pretty much an act of fear of, I've lost my husband. So we're gonna hang on to this thing. Yeah, so she is like desperately hanging on to it because she doesn't wanna lose her family again. And she's pouring all of that into like the gift. She's like, we've got this gift, so we can't let it go. Okay, so the thing that kept her alive

is going to be the thing that crushes her entire system, right? Gosh, that's great. So all along, yes, realizing that the thing that kept us going, the thing that got me through the hard thing can also turn into the thing. Like being able to hide when I had an abusive dad is going to be the thing that ruins my marriage down the road. Learning how to stand up for myself and to protect my little brother from getting abused is gonna be the thing that gets me put in jail for violence, right?

So these things that help protect us early on can be the things that ultimately, and that we create identities around, but they can be the things that ultimately drag us underwater later on. And all this goes back to the greatest gift you can give your family and your children, your kids is to see them,

to love them along the way. Even if at the beginning, they don't look like they have gifts. And for those of you who are practicing thinking about learning to create boundaries, there's no big music at the end. There's usually a lot of guilt and there's a lot of exhaustion and there's tears. and it's right. You can create your boundaries. It's good. There's no music that plays. I wish it did, though.

I didn't think someone should just follow me around with a boom box for when I set a boundary, and it goes, turns it up. It makes my heart feel all good. It just doesn't happen. All right, as we wrap up today's show, hey, thanks for letting me, for all the gang. Let me do a, what do you call those? A reaction video? So good. Here on 420. And as we wrap up today's show, if you know, you know, today's

lyrics are from the one and only Bob Marley. The song is Three Little Birds and it goes like this. Don't worry about a thing because everything's going to be all right. Singing don't worry about a thing because everything's going to be all right. Rise, don't worry about a thing because everything's going to be all right. Rise up this morning, smile with the rising sun. Three little birds pitch by my doorstep singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true saying this is my message to you. We'll see you soon.

Coming up on the next episode. Hear ye, hear ye. It's John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Just yanked us back out of the 1500s for a minute. That's where Kelly likes to live, her and her romance novels. Some therapists, good geniuses, thanks for that, are recommending a rage room or a smash room,

a temper tantrum room. When it comes to kids, it can be a fun and safe activita. But kids aren't allowed to use glass or heavy-duty tools like sledgehammers. Only adults throwing temper tantrums can do that. This gets me so frustrated.