The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m the Result of My Mom’s Affair With a Married Man

Episode Date: October 13, 2023

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

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. My dad stepped out on his then marriage and had an affair with my mom. He had two children at the time, so I was raised as an only child by having siblings. And when I would ask him about it, he said that they didn't want to have a relationship with me. The truth was that they didn't even know about me. No one did. What in the world is going on? This is John with Dr. John Deloney's show, a show about your mental and emotional health, your ADHD, your depression, your anxiety, as well as your joy and your laughter and your warmth and your sleep and your peace. It's about your families, about relationships, your marriage, your breakups, your laughter, in your warmth, in your sleep, in your peace. It's about your families, it's about relationships,

your marriage, your breakups, your kids, your schools, where you work. It's about everything going on in your life. And my promise in the most lonely generation in human history, my promise is I'll sit with you. I'll sit with you and we will figure it out. I may not have the right clinical answer. And if I can't find a buddy of mine who's a researcher somewhere who's working on some big challenges,

if I can't find the right person, I'll send you to somebody who can find it. But my promise is, I will tell you the truth and I won't leave you alone. That sounded weird. I'm not going to like not leave you alone like in a creepy way.

I won't leave you all by yourself. How about that? Is that a better way to say that? Today's lyrics will be every breath you take, but please. I'll be watching you. Oh man. Hey, the way we talk about mental health, and this is my team, this is my tribe, this is my gang. It's not working. It's not working. We've got to change the conversation. Here's the question I want you to ask as we enter in today's show. What if, what if your body's working exactly as it should? And what if your anxiety and your depression and

your kid's ADHD and your frustration and that loneliness, what if your body is working exactly as it should? What would that mean about what we have to do differently moving forward? And the government's not going to come save us. We're not going to read some article in some magazine or some blog and go, oh, that's it. We're going to have to choose to do things differently. And that's what this show is about. It's about making choices to do things differently. At the end of the day, you can only control two things, your thoughts and your actions. And that's it. And that's it. And that's terrifying. And that's where there's peace. If you want to be on the show,

go to johndeloney.com slash ask or go give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Building a non-anxious life. My roadmap on how to build a new life that is not so burned out, not so chronically stressed, not so anxious, is out right now. Anywhere you buy books, you can go to johndeloney.com. I get a few more cents on the dollar when you do that, but I just want to get this book out to as

many people as possible. All right, let's go out to Trenton, New Jersey and talk to the mighty Erica. What's up, Erica? Hi. Hi, Dr. Deloney. What's up? Thank you for taking my call. Of course. Thanks for calling. What's happening? Yeah.

Well, first, I will admit I am very nervous. And two, that I'm not a longtime listener. I just came across your channel about a month ago. And after binging many of your episodes, I thought, you know, this guy seems to know a thing or two. And I think you'd be a great person to ask my question too. So I appreciate it. Welcome to our gang or our little madhouse gang. That's not so little anymore. We're super happy to have you. What's up? Thank you. Um, okay. So my main question is, will I regret cutting ties with my dad? Um, and I guess some sub questions to like further discuss

or explore would be, how do I find peace with my decision? And if I don't completely find or feel that peace, is it because it's not the right choice? That's a great question. Can I just answer this off the top of my head without getting too deep. Asking yourself the question, am I going to regret this down the road, is really a recipe for anxiety. You're pre-imagining what the future's

going to hold and you don't know. I'd much rather you ask the question, what's the right decision for me right now that's going to help me be whole and me be whole and me be healthy and me be aligned with my values and my people? That is a much better question because here's the deal. If you decide for us, and I don't even know what the story is on your dad, we haven't even got to that. But if you decide for right now, I need to create some space between

me and my mom, me and my dad, me and my whoever. That's not a declaration of independence forever, that you're not going to circle back at some point in your life. That means right now, I can't breathe and I'm around that guy. I can't sleep. I start spinning out. I need to make some space. And that's right now. And that can be for the next year. It can be next five years. That doesn't mean forever. So the question, I, I just, the question of, am I going to regret this? Man, I don't even like that question. Um, cause it just, it just assumes that you can read the future. And, uh, so, so what happened? All right. Um, so I guess the backstory would be, um, my dad stepped out on his then marriage and had an affair with my mom. Um, he had two children at the

time. My parents were never really together. So I was raised as an only child, despite having siblings. And when I would ask him about it, he said that they didn't want to have a relationship with me when the truth was that they didn't even know about me. No one did. No one on the side of the family knew. That sucks. So are you a product of that affair? Yes. I said that so ugly. Are you a product? Like you're a loaf of bread, right? No. Yes. Okay. You're the greatest thing that ever happened to your mom and your dad. Your mom recognizes it and your dad doesn't. So, and then he lied to you about your family. Yes. Okay. And so you grew up thinking that your half siblings didn't like you, didn't want to talk to you, didn't want anything to do with you. Right.

I actually, I feel like I spent most of my childhood feeling as if I was the one having the affair with him because I knew very little about him. Like, I didn't know where he lived. He had told me he lived an hour away when he actually lived like 20 minutes away. I didn't have his cell phone number. Like our main form of communication was through email and it was like his work email at that. We'd have to go like out of town to hang out so that like he or we wouldn't be recognized. And there were even a couple of times I can remember growing up, like running into him in public and he would like look the other way if if he was with his like now new family hey hey erica your dad sucks and i say that not even laughing i'm sorry that that was your dad and let me let me like be as direct as i can

um i went to hug my seven-year-old little girl this morning and she did her matrix move, which she's been doing much less recently, but I grabbed air. I hugged air and she looked at me with kind of that, ha, ha, ha, you missed me. And I had to go and I just said, hey, I love you. And I almost wept on the way to the car. Because I can't breathe without my daughter in the room. And you deserve that too. And you should have had that.

I can't even wrap my mind around seeing my daughter in a strange place and not having the entire world stop so I could drop down and give her a hug. Your dad sucks. Your dad's a coward, an absolute stone coward and i'm sorry And I would say that to his face if he was standing two inches from me I hate that for you I hate that for you. You know what? I also hate it for your mom. I hate it for your mom because your mom um deserve better than that, too

Yeah, and I think she carries a lot of guilt too feeling like she put me in that situation no no no no well she hooked up with a married man there's that right and there's there's consequences from that but i don't like looking at you as consequences right yeah like you're a gift you're here for a reason and you probably do a lot of good in your local community with people who love you and people you care for. So, the fact that you're here is right and good. But your mom can't feel guilty by saying, hey, father, here's your baby girl. And expecting him to act like a decent human being.

Yeah. What a, gosh, that's awful. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Because here's what I also know. I know the downstream ripple effect of that is, how old are you now?

31. A 31-year-old woman whose body asks herself every day, what was so bad about me that my dad wouldn't say I love you and wouldn't invite me into his life? What was so bad about me? And you've probably been trying to answer that question in some stupid ways over the years. Is that fair? Fair. Very fair. You're like, uh-oh. Yeah. Yeah It's part of your nervous system. I don't think you I mean you may have made some choices that made your life really complicated and hard um

But i'm not even i'll call them stupid choices, but I don't think they were dumb I think your body was doing what it could to try to solve the question of What's so bad about me? And i'll find somebody to love me I'll find something to cover up that hurt and that's really hard. It should not have happened. Okay, so how can I help? What's your question about future regret?

Hold on, let me do this. I'm talking a lot. Okay. Is what I'm saying sit with you? I mean, does it make sense? Yeah, yeah. It took a few weeks to get to this point with my previous therapist. So the fact that we were able to do that in just a few minutes.

Yeah. I kind of cut through the first three weeks of therapy usually. Yeah. But yeah. And so I think just to kind of like add on to the backstory, which kind of leads to my question is fast forward to um a few years ago about 2020 we found out that he had been keeping another secret and there was another sibling that we didn't know about no you mean a pathetic liar who cheats on his wife has other lies and cheats that doesn't tell people about you know and it's funny because growing up i would always tell my younger brother who i do have a relationship with, you know, like, I wouldn't be surprised if dad had another sibling. And then boom, it happened. I was like, I mean, just look at his like patterns, you know? Yeah. Ta-da. The sun came up again. No

way. All right. So you've got other siblings. Right. And so there's another one. And so despite it being a triggering situation, I supported him through it the best way that I could. But then I soon felt betrayed when I realized that this new sibling had already been introduced to his family and had been to his home. And I was like, wait a minute, like I'm 31 and I still haven't experienced that. And that became a pretty defining moment for me. And that's when I decided to completely cut ties with him. But I go back to that initial question. I often wonder if I made the right choice, if I'll regret it, or if I'm even being selfish by not allowing him to have

a relationship with my family and specifically my daughter. I'm going to tell you something really hard. I want you to internalize this deep in your soul. Okay. Okay. He left you a long time ago. Yeah. Your dad abandoned you like a coward and left you. The problem is he's such an extra layer of weak, cowardly man that he left a ribbon out his shut door for his daughter to hold on to.

You ever seen those? They're like the old science videos that we watched when we were kids, and they're on YouTube now. But you ever heard of like ducks, like baby ducks, they imprint. And so they'll have a duck's eggs will hatch and they'll put a big wire, like a, like a wire mesh looking duck in the middle of the room. And these baby ducks are born and they run in and they imprint on that metal duck. They just, the first thing they see that's mom, that's it. And monkeys do that too. They have balloons, monkeys that have like uh imprinted on balloons and the balloon is their mother and they'll hang out and they'll do

everything with them your dad did that with a shadow of himself to you he left you a long time ago and if you've listened to this show if you've done a binge on the show and talked about um like you hear me say like i think reconciliation is something to always strive for almost always and i think forgiveness is something important always strive for, almost always. And I think forgiveness is something important to strive for. And I believe forgiveness works here too, because I don't want you carrying around his cinder blocks everywhere. Just forgiveness is for you. It's you setting it down.

I'm not carrying this stuff for you, old man. You're a disturbed, cowardly man that abandoned his daughter. And I'm not carrying that anymore. Your dad did not leave you because something was wrong with you, Erica. He left you because something was wrong inside of him. Period. I think the thing that feels like regret is deep and profound heartbreak. And it's right and good because your dad's awful. But the fantasy that he's going to one day pick up the phone and invite you to meet your family, it's not going to happen.

If you want to meet your brothers and your half-brothers and sisters, you're going to have to reach out and call them and tell them. He's not going to do it. You can't expect a rattlesnake to not bite you. Your dad's a coward. That's who he is. That's in his DNA. He's a cheater. He's a liar. That's who he is. So he's continued to choose to be. Yeah. And I think when I, when I cut ties with him, I was making that choice to not allow him to hurt me anymore and to just control what I could control. And that doesn't mean you did the right thing. And we often think that if we do the right thing, the world just works out. You did the right thing. Let me say it like this. You can do the right thing and it still hurts real, real bad. Yeah. You can end. I thought I would. Yeah. You thought you'd feel a different way right

yeah i thought i would feel peace like okay like a weight has been lifted off my shoulder and in no in fact the opposite gets heavier yes and here's but here but you're you're attributing to something it's not because you're attributing it to regret which is you blaming yourself again which is what little girls do when their dads abandon them. That weight you feel is reality. He's not going to call. He's not ever going to welcome me in. That is called heartbreak. And all of the imaginative scenarios, all of the Facebook and emails you get back and forth, all of the little stolen glimpses you have, all of the little acts as he gifts you of his shadow, that's not a relationship with your dad.

Are you? And so I think what you're feeling deep inside is, oh my gosh, my dad left his daughter. Do you have kids? I do, my daughter. Can you imagine? Can you just flip it around? Can you imagine?

Just your daughter walks up to you in the mall and you're just like, shh, and you walk away? I could never. Yeah, I can't even wrap my head around that. Yeah, it's hard for me to comprehend that he would do that. And my daughter's mean, and she doesn't like me. You know what I mean? Like, she's mean, and I still couldn't. I can't imagine that level of despicable cowardice.

I can't. Yeah, yeah. But that's your world. That's the truth, right? Yeah, and I think that in some ways, I'm grieving and mourning. Yes, yes. Not only the picture that I had of what my relationship could be with my dad, but of him and my daughter. Because I thought, surely by now, even if you didn't get it right with me you're

gonna do it for her and I realized that that's not the case and I'm like I refuse to I refuse for my daughter to feel what I did that's right so here's here's the statement where's your daddy my dad's really sick his mind and his soul don't work as they're supposed to. And he's really sick. And he had a hard time telling the truth. He had a really hard time with his babies. And it makes mommy sad because I could never imagine a second without you in my life. And I think healing for you is, I would tell you, you know what I tell you? I'm going to tell you to treat this the same way I would treat you if your dad had just suddenly passed away. I think it starts with you writing three letters. One letter to thank you. And I

know that sounds insane. Thank you for meeting my mom when you did and for having me. Because if it was a one night stand or a six month rendezvous, whatever, I'm here. So thank you for that. The second letter is how freaking dare you. Leave me with a lifetime of wondering what was so bad about me. And I want you to write that letter and be bloody honest to yourself, honest to him, as though you finally have permission to say the things that you need to say. And the third letter is, dear dad, wanted to let you know, here's what you're going to miss.

You're going to miss your amazing granddaughter. And as of now, you're never going to see her because I don't have her around cowardly, weak, dishonest, unsafe men. You're going to miss your daughter growing up to be an incredible woman and an incredible hard worker and a great mother and a great wife, a great all those things. And I wish you the best. And you end the letter with this, from this point forward, I'm not carrying you and your dysfunction on my back anymore. Love, Erica. And God help you, don't send these letters, but I want you to fully experience them. I don't want you to do it when you have the office plane or reruns of some

murder podcast playing. I want you to write these when your kid is with a sitter, your kid's at school, when you have some time off work, when you can just fully be present with these letters and they should be really heavy and really hard. Then maybe write a fourth letter to your mom and just say, thank you so, so much. Thank you for being a great mom, for showing up, continuing to show up, even though you were kicked to the margins. And thank you for being there for us. And then just enter into a season of grief. Shouldn't be this way, but it is.

Start journaling with yourself. This is how I feel today. Thank God I have my daughter. Thank God I have my mom. Thank God I have my husband, my partner. Thank God, thank God, thank God. next day. Man. Today's really hard And then you're going to build a new picture One that doesn't include him

And maybe one day in 10 years he has an awakening a reckoning And he calls and begs what have I done? I'm, sorry, my baby. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And then maybe you're whole and you're well, and both feet of yours are anchored into the ground. And maybe you say, I'll meet you for coffee. But if it was me, it's for me and my house, I'd block the number. I'd delete the email.

And I would begin to build a world that already exists in reality and it's a world without my dad I hate that for you I'm going to send you building a non-anxious life I think that might be a great roadmap for you to begin to create something new without him I'm also going to send you

own your past, change your future which has a lot in it about a roadmap for dealing with historical trauma and building something new when everything that you thought was going to be there for you falls apart. Thanks for the call, Erica. 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 to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to NOLA, New Orleans, Louisiana, and talk to Matt. What's up, Matt? Hey, Dr. John.

Can you hear me? Yeah, what's up, man? Oh, not too much. All right, so I'll get right into it. I need any kind of advice you can offer on how to address the issue of my daughter's mother allowing her access to a smartphone. So I can fill that in a little bit more if you need. Yes. It sounds like the way you said my daughter's mother sounds like y'all aren't married. Yeah, unfortunately we're divorced My daughter is 12 We share custody And aside from this one Massive issue

We seem to be pretty on the same page As far as our daughter goes Except for this Really one issue And I've tried Every kind of conceivable approach That I could think of To try to talk with her about it.

Explained all of the potential dangers and consequences of letting a 12-year-old have unfettered access to a smartphone. There's even been two incidents that it's already caused, one of which was more of a discipline incident. But the second one was a pretty serious scare where our daughter was potentially in some serious danger, if I hadn't caught it. And I don't know, nothing seems to work to try to get through to her, and I'm just looking for anything. What's her excuse, man? I mean, what is her response when you give her all this info? Well, the most recent one was just she,

her behavior was good and she earned it back. So after the major scare, I agreed to, we agreed to a compromise where I did plenty of homework and found a kid-safe phone with some sufficiently robust safety features that I was satisfied with. And she used that for a while. And then a couple of weeks ago, I found out she just let her have the smartphone back. And when I asked her about it, she said, oh, well, her behavior in school was good. And so she earned it. So here's what you're dealing with.

You're dealing with a woman who is so desperate for her kid's approval and so desperate for her kid to like her and so desperate to avoid confrontation with a 12-year-old that she's willing to sacrifice her psychological well-being, her emotional well-being, her body image, and her physical and psychological safety. not to mention any future employer who happens to get a written record of idiotic things that 12 and 13 and 14 and 15 and 16-year-olds say and photos they take of themselves to boys who are like, please, please, please, please. She would prefer to be cool. And prefer to be liked. You hit it right on the head.

So listen, all of the data in the world doesn't matter. You're not... Look, man. Many, many, many, many people could solve type 2 diabetes in 90 days. They don't. Millions and millions of people could lower their risk of lung cancer by quitting smoking. They don't. Millions and millions of people could lower their risk of lung cancer

by quitting smoking. They don't. You're not dealing with an information deprivation. You're dealing with a very insecure adult who's allowing her 12-year-old daughter to prop up her emotional regulation. And I hate that for you. Yeah.

So I would stop going to war with my ex-wife because there's no one wins this. Yeah. I would do the best I could to put those little iSpy apps, I don't know what they're all called, where you can see where your daughter's going maybe, but that's a losing proposition. Kids are just too smart.

Oh, I fully understand that one. And I'll also say this. But that's a losing proposition. Kids are just too smart. Oh, I fully understand that one. And I'll also say this. My son, most of his friends have phones. Yeah. And when they come to our house, we don't allow kids to have phones. And there's this really rad thing. All the parents are all in, all of them.

When they walk into our house, they hand my wife their smartphone. My wife just keeps it and tells all the parents, if you all need one of your kids, text me and I'll get them. And the parents love it. And you know who else loves it? The kids love it. So, when she's at mom's house, she's got her phone. She's at your house, there is no phones. Period.

And she will kick and scream because those things are so addictive and they are their lifeline to their friend communities and they are their lifeline to everything. And the parents are adult. The adult world has failed these kids, but that's where we are. And so just prepare for her to be mad, but she's not mad at you. She's mad that her body's screaming at her because you've cut off her supply. Yeah. Okay? Yep. And, by the way, when she's over with you, you're going to put your phone away, too.

Absolutely. I hate this for you, dude. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think it goes without saying that my biggest fear is that it's going to take something massive happening before you know the realization hits that oh this is this is a bad idea i actually don't think that would solve it because you can look at the child predator um numbers in this country and the sex trafficking numbers in this country and how quick um predators just swarm like ants to chat rooms with 12 and 13 and 14 year old girls.

Doesn't matter. Parents don't care. They still hand their kids phone. It's insane. It's insane. Absolutely. I, I work,

I deal with that in my line of work. So I, I'm very, I'm very familiar with, with all of it. Yeah. Man. Okay.

Yeah. There's not a thing, man. There's just, I mean, it, your daughter could get, I don't want to, your daughter could get, I don't want to put things out into the universe. Your daughter could get way over her head. Yeah. And she would have the phone back in four months.

Three months. Yeah, that's basically what happened. What did she do, if you don't mind me asking? I mean, she was in serious danger of getting groomed. I caught her talking to some stranger that she met online that claimed to be a boy her age, but you know how that works. Fortunately, she didn't send any kind of inappropriate pictures or anything like that. This time? but this time, I mean, it was the, it was, there was classic groomer style language and, and there were pictures that were sent to her of supposedly the person she was

talking to that was pictures of a, a young boy. But I mean, you know, you know how that works. Yeah. But here's the thing already stamped inside of her already stamped on the inside, on the inside of her chest, right by her heart, is how alive she felt when that fake boy was telling her how pretty she was and how smart she was.

And there will come a moment when she's 16 that she goes chasing that again. Yeah. And she might not send photos when she's 12, but when she's 16, it's a different game. When she's 17, it's a different game. When she's 18, it's a different game. When she's 17, it's a different game. When she's 18, it's a different game. And moms and dads, if you think I'm playing,

I've just done too many sexual assault investigations at the university level. I've sat with too many young college students who explained to me what happened to them in high school. I'm telling you, and you keep doing it anyway, and you keep doing it anyway. Dude, now you got me all fired up, Matt. Yeah, yeah.

Like I said, I deal with it almost every day in my line of work. I deal with that kind of stuff. I'm well familiar with all of it. That's my biggest fear. Here's the workaround. There's not a workaround.

Here's the reality that you have to choose to live into. Okay. Okay. It means sitting down with your 12 year old daughter and being incredibly explicit. If somebody asks you to take a picture of yourself, don't, and please let a grownup know. And if you don't trust me and you don't trust your mom, trust Miss so-and-so. I actually told my daughter the other day, I have kind of a, I don't want to say frequent, but a quiet check-in just as using professional skills. I just happened to be her dad. But I said, and you remember, if you don't want to tell me and mom, you can tell Miss Beth, you can tell Miss Rachel. And my daughter said, oh, dad, I know.

But I think you sit down and be very clear about, hey, honey, I deal with my job. Old men trick young girls into sending pictures of them without their shirts on, without their clothes on. And it feels scary and it feels exciting and it feels a little bit dangerous and it's really, really scary. Never. Even if you know that's your boyfriend on the other line, he can screenshot that photo, maybe show an example of a screenshot and he'll have it to

show his friends forever. Never do that. Please never do that. And I think you have to get very, very explicit. Obviously, she's 12, so be age appropriate. Don't be a weirdo. But I think that explicitness moves up. It becomes increasingly more direct as she gets older. She has to eighth grade and high school and beyond. But dude, I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Your wife's not like, no way. I didn't know that. She knows. She knows. She's too insecure to look at her 12-year-old daughter and say, I'm your mom and I love you so much. I refuse to open the hounds of hell inside your house and inside your bedroom and inside your head. I'm not going to do it. My job is to protect you. Instead, she answered her phone and said, here's every creeper in the world on planet Earth. Best of luck to you. Unbelievable, man. Sorry, Matt. Sorry. Jeez Louise. We'll be right back.

Alright, we're back. Let's go out to Seattle, home of Soundgarden and Nirvana and talk to Claire. What's up, Claire? Hey, how are you? Partying, dude. What are you up to? Oh, you know.

Oh, you know. Just Seattle ended up. Is it raining today? It is, actually, for the first time in a while. If you could do me a huge favor and go holler at your baseball team. Tell them to just take 30% off and back it down a notch. My Astros are in danger of not making the playoffs because your boys came out of nowhere. So just send a nice note and tell them to just chill out. Okay. What's up? So I've been

listening to your show for a while and I guess I've heard you talk to several people about, I guess, living in a fantasy when it comes to, I guess, accepting the reality of the person that's right in front of you. And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about if I'm doing that or if I'm seeing the potential in somebody and supporting their growth in life in the context of a romantic relationship. Sure. Tell me more.

Something happened and that's why you called. What happened? Well, you know, we've been dating for two years now. And from the beginning, I knew that, you know,

he's prone to a lot of anxiety and depression. And when he's really feeling those things, it's like this dark cloud that follows him around, you know, he's quick to anger. He's super defensive. He can be really cold and like just negative. And it seems sometimes even like suspicious of me that I'm going to hurt him, you know, in some way when I'm just trying to be caring. And on the other side of that, when he's not feeling that, you know, everything is so great. He's playful and loving and I feel so cared about.

And I really encouraged him to seek help. And he's been going to therapy. And I feel like things have, I guess, gotten better. But, you know, I'm also a particularly sensitive person. And so, you know, if he's short with me, it just feels so heavy sometimes. And I'm like, man man is this going to be is this am I going to is this going to be like this forever and sometimes I it just feels overwhelming and I think do I just need to accept this is who he is is like a cold short person or am I actually like investing my time and energy into helping him grow and build a relationship? Does that make sense? Yeah, totally.

Can I say a couple of hard things and you push back if I'm wrong? Yeah. Think of me like you're at the doctor's office and it's like, does it hurt here? Does Can I say a couple of hard things and you push back if I'm wrong? Yeah. Think of me like you're at the doctor's office and it's like, does it hurt here? Does it hurt here? That's what I'm doing right now. Okay. I think there's something else.

What's the something else? I guess I don't know if there's anything else. How dark are those dark moments? I mean, I guess what bothers me the most is like, he'll, when he's angry, he raises his voice and sometimes he'll swear. And that's really triggering for me.

Yes. So here's, that's what I was getting at. It's not a matter of him having anxiety. It's not a matter of him having anxiety. It's not a matter of him having depression. I know loads of people, myself included, who have those traditional diagnostics that have great relationships. But they're a context. They're not an excuse to scream and swear and cuss at somebody you love.

And beyond the raising your voice and swearing, he scares you. Yeah. And so I just tell you my house. Well, let me, before I even tell you about my house, I don't want you to look at this relationship like it's a bank account that you're trying to invest over the long haul. Like he's not a, he's not a mutual fund. Yeah.

The question you need to ask yourself is, do I feel safe and loved and seen and heard and still loved anyway in this relationship? Not if I do a bunch of the right things and keep pushing him and grooming him and coddling him and for the occasional like, oh, you're great for the occasional ray of sunshine in the next 15 years, will this finally all go away? The answer is no. Yeah. Because he's not a mutual fund. In my house, my wife and I came to the understanding that my refusal not to not be anxious,

because that's just my body trying to get my attention, not to be running really low. That was my body trying to get my attention. But my unwillingness to go way upstream and change the way I do things, that was the problem. And so when we sat down and said, hey, if we're going to both feel safe in this relationship,

if you're going to be the man that I know you can be, and I'm going to be the most plugged in wife that I want to be, here's what I need from you. And it I'm going to be the most plugged in wife that I want to be. Here's what I need from you. And it wasn't to not be anxious. It was, I need you to take care of yourself. I need you to put the computer down. I need you to sleep.

I need you to never scare me in my house. Right? And she didn't say all those things. I'm just, I'm speaking in her language into your home. The conversation is if he won't go do the things, he went to counseling, which is great. That means he's sitting down talking to somebody. Is he then going to the gym? Is he then going to work a second job to pay off what he owes? Is he then going to do these things that's going to give him peace in his home? That's the bigger question. What say you? Well, I don't know. That's a lot. It is. It is. How about this? Have you been completely clear and honest and direct about what you need, what you want, and what your boundaries are.

Yes, I feel like I have them. Okay. Have you enacted those boundaries? For instance, if you yell and swear at me, you are, through your behavior, kicking me out of my own house, and I will leave. Or kicking me out of the apartment, and I will leave. Well, I'm just having a low episode. You don't even care. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Your low episodes are not an excuse to treat me like garbage. If you're having a low episode, it's your responsibility to step out. Go get the help you need. Go get the care you need. Go do the things that help you be well and whole. Be honest with me.

Yeah. Not use me as a living embodiment of a Xanax to try to make you feel better. That's not my job. Yeah, and that's what I worry about because I put so much responsibility on myself to try to, I guess, soothe him

that it weighs on me. Yeah, because you're his mom now. Yeah. You're like a pet owner. You're a mother. You're not a girlfriend. Is that fair? Yeah.

Yeah. Like, there's no such thing as a perfect person, and there's no such thing as the one. Those are all Hollywood myths, so it's not real. It's actually way before Hollywood, but that's not real. The question you have to ask yourself is, is this person doing whatever they can

to help me meet my needs so that I can do everything I can to help meet their needs so that they can do everything right? Are we both in this together so we can build something amazing? Or am I still on the road trying to change tires? And when I talk about like a fantasy,

somebody sits down and says, Hey John, I've got this idea for a business. The idea for a business is, um, a group of people, um, everyone, people are gonna have cars and they're just going to be connected on their cell phone and you're going to be able to just hit a button. And that person who's closest to you is just going to swing by and pick you up. And we're going to handle money over here electronically. So there's not even an exchange of money. You don't even tip in person. And I'll do a whole bunch of background checks on the person

over and over and over again to make sure they're safe. No more taxis, no more you having to park downtown, no more any of those things. You just hit a button on your phone. Someone's going to swing by and pick you up. If someone explained that to me, that'd be awesome. I'd say, I can see how that could work really great. There's going to be a lot of regulation, a lot of things we have to do to get there, but I can see it.

And when my daughter brings me her wooden helicopter idea built out of some sticks out of a, like, some sticks and a chair and some rope. I can see it. I can also see that it's not going to work.

Yeah. So let me ask you a hard, hard question. Are you done? And you're just trying to give yourself permission to be done? Does your ROI language suggest,

I heard a comedian say the other day, the worst part about a long-term breakup is you get no future credit for that in the new relationship. You can't be like, you can't meet somebody new and be like, no, no, no, no. I already went to all the weddings. Like I did that. Like you got to go to the other weddings now, right? You got to do it all over again. Um, and somebody with an ROI mindset sometimes find themselves in relationships long-term that they should have left a long time ago. Um, but they've deposited so much in the account, they don't want to lose that sunk cost. Yeah. Are you done? Right. Sometimes in those moments when

they're low, I feel like that. But another issue, I guess, is that I don't really trust myself to make that decision because I've had a tendency to run away when things are hard before. He said the worst thing you've done for yourself is given yourself so many options You got so many degrees and so many credentials and so many experiences That you can just cut and run and you never have to live through something when it's hard and Only when you put in the work during the hard season. Do you get this amazing harvest on the back end? But if you cut and run and every time you show up, it's just when they're picking apples And you don't like to sit there through the drought man you don't get to see the super harvest on the back end. And he was right. He was absolutely right.

I cut and run. And so what I've learned to do is I outsource that. Before I quit my job as a senior student affairs officer, I flew across the country, sat down with two of my oldest buddies and said, I'm thinking about quitting all this to become a podcaster and a YouTuber. Does that sound smart? And they were like, you're nuts. And that sounds right. Like you're going to get to travel around and speak, write books, get on the road, help people.

It's nuts, but it's right. I was too close to it. Yeah. Do you have some women in your life that know what you've been going through, know your boyfriend, know how your tendencies that you could sit down and be completely honest with? Yeah, I do. Would you be willing to honor them and you by saying, hey, I need y'all for three hours on Saturday morning. I'm going to lay this all out and let them speak into your life a little bit. Yeah, I can do that.

I think that would be awesome. At least give you some clarity. And tell them, I promise I won't get mad and I won't do classic Claire or I try to over-explain myself or whatever your classic moves are. Yeah. But give them permission.

I'm not seeing this clearly. And I talked to this goofball podcaster and he suggested that I get a different opinion from people who love me. But I think that's where you're at. Here's my super fear. I think in your gut, you know. And maybe you spent a lot of years learning to shut that inner voice up, or maybe this is the time too, your inner voice is wrong. Either way, I think you know. Question is, do you all agree about the need for a change? And are you both taking steps, however wobbly or wonky, towards those changes, towards that new tomorrow?

And if you're doing that and you're in, then that's awesome. My wife has been there for me as I have had to completely relearn how to be a grownup. And I've probably done that three or four times. And I've been there with her when she's made her changes. That's the nature of relationships. But it all starts with an agreed upon,

here's what I want this house to feel like. Here's what I want my marriage to feel like. I want it to be warm. I want it to be hilarious. I want it to be safe. I don't want to walk into my apartment and feel scared that I don't know what mood you're going to be in. I can't control that. I know you're right. So your work is how do we get way upstream of that and begin the healing process there? Because you deserve somebody that doesn't scare you, somebody that doesn't swear at you,

somebody that doesn't scream at you. You deserve that, regardless of what their diagnostic is. Let me know how that conversation on Saturday goes. I'd love to get some feedback on that. And let me know what those women you trust say. But I think you know. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com.

All right, we're back with a new installment of Am I the Problem? Is It Me? Go for it, Kelly. All right. So just as a reminder, email us your questions if you have a question, want to know if you're the problem. Send them in. Make them short. We'd love to read them. Okay.

All right. Hi, John. My name is Nicole, and I have an issue, and I've been told that I am being unreasonable. I'm getting married early next year, and I have five bridesmaids. I'm getting some flack from a few of them over the cost. Between the dress, bachelorette weekend, showers, hair and makeup, and travel to the destination wedding, it will be between $4,000 and $5,000 per person. Good God!

I don't think this is too much to ask. It is! Since these are my best friends. It is. Then you pay for it. A couple of them want to drop out because they say they can't afford it. Yes. I don't think this is unfair to ask. It is. Please, John, please tell me that I am not the problem. You are 1000% the problem. You and everybody else who expects your friends to shell out $5,000 for you to live out your fantasy. Yes. Think about this.

What if all five bridesmaids just wrote you a check for $5,000? You'd have 25 grand. Yes. Yes. And yes. But how do I do it? That's ridiculous. I don't know.

Here's how my wife did it. She asked all of her friends, Will y'all buy yourselves a new dress, whatever y'all want, something that you'll wear again. And so our pictures of our wedding, everyone had different things on. And I was going to wear khakis and a white dress shirt. And all my groomsmen were like, you look like an idiot. And so they decided what they're going to wear. And I went along with it. You know, we didn't have any stress. And they had to come, many of my buddies had to come eight hours away from where they all lived.

And so I was responsible for their housing. And the housing wasn't great. So their sacrifice wasn't $5,000. It's they all crammed into one of my buddies' houses. And there's a lot of shenanigans stories about that one. Whoa. But that's what they did. I don't know.

Am I crazy? Oh, no. You're 100% on bread. The whole way – and granted, I've been married for almost 20 years, so it wasn't quite this bad when I got married. But the idea of the bachelorette weekend – I even had a friend that was in a wedding, and this was a family member of hers.

There was a color scheme, a palette that they all had to buy clothes for the bachelorette party to match this color palette so that all the pictures, they all matched. Stop doing life for freaking Instagram. Quit. Quit doing life for your dumb photo album. Do life because it's awesome. Because you want to make memories with your friends. My gosh, what is wrong with us? A color palette? If I handed my buddies a color palette, I would not go to the bathroom.

Well, yours would just be black. For years. You know why? Because it would be shoved so far up. I mean, you've got to be color palette. What are we doing? This is your life, and it's ending one friend at a time. And what bothers me, it's not about their marriage.

No. This is all about the wedding. Yes. And I'm all about a beautiful, nice, big wedding. I love that. Awesome. Awesome. But be respectful. In this day and age, asking a bunch

of 25 and 30-year-olds to come up with $5,000, good God almighty, that's a lot of money. Yep. Congratulations, Nicole. You are the problem. Jenna, am I crazy? You're younger than- No, you're not crazy. That's 100% true. I mean, I got married a couple of years ago and it was like, I had my bridesmaids pick like low budget dresses. I even paid for some of their flights to fly out to see me for our bachelorette party. Like I covered a lot of the expenses for them because I don't want, I don't expect them to just drop thousands of dollars on my wedding. That just seems ridiculous.

You know why? Because it is. People have lost your minds. Listen, it's about your marriage. And yes, I love a good party more than anybody. It's about your marriage. Color palettes I can just imagine like a group

if there's ever a draft for a new world war that there's a group of folks lining up in front of like the wings in Nashville and it's like we gotta get our

the color palettes right before we get shipped off what are we doing what are we doing thanks Kelly now I'm gonna be all bad mood McGee That's right. Before we get shipped off. What are we doing? What are we doing? Thanks, Kelly. Now I'm going to be all bad mood McGee for the rest of the day. This had the exact outcome that I wanted it to have. I love you guys.

Bye.