The Dr. John Delony Show - I’m Tired of Supporting My Husband and His Daughter

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

On today’s episode, we hear about: ·      A woman frustrated by her husband’s choice to stay unemployed ·      A young man unsure how to stop watching porn for good ·      A husband struggling to help his wife, who’s dealing with mental illness Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test  📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation  🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🔴 Get 15% off with code DELONY at BON CHARGE. 🌿 Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.  🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 🥤 Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi.  💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne.  🏋️ Go to trainwell to get started!   Explore More From Ramsey Network:   🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm wanting to get help to understand if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband financially until he gets a job. I imagine there's a lot here, huh? I have every confidence in him that... You shouldn't have any confidence in me. Good morning, good afternoon, good night. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. I'm so grateful that you're joining us. On this show, we talk about your mental and emotional health, your marriage, your kids,

local schools, whatever you got going on in your life. My promise is I'm going to sit with you you and we're gonna figure out what's the next right move for you, for your family, whatever y'all are working with. If you wanna be on this show, this is real people going through hard stuff. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message and we'll holla back girl at you or go to johndoloney.com slash ask, A-S-K.

All right, let's go right down the street here slash ask, A-S-K. All right, let's go right down the street here in Nashville, Tennessee and talk to Christine. Hey Christine, what's up? Hey, good morning, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. Of course, thanks for calling. Thanks for getting up early with us.

What's up? Absolutely. So I am hoping to get some help with making the next right move. Quickly getting into my question. I'm wanting to get help to understand if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband financially until he gets a job.

Ooh, I imagine there's a lot here, huh? There's a ton. Yeah, let it rip, let it rip. Okay, so by trade trade he's an accountant And a couple years ago, he transitioned into the mortgage industry and became a branch manager That's been a rough couple of years, huh? Oh It was yeah and in August of 22

Decided that it was no longer a healthy place to be. So, it did the mortgage industry and he spent the last couple of years trying to figure out what the next great job is for him. And unfortunately, there just hasn't been a lot of progress. So as an accountant over the last three years, in one of the most bananas job markets in the history of the United States, where in many places it was a sign up sheet, right? It was like to get a job.

And I know that's not the case across the board, but for a licensed accountant, for somebody who knows how to manage numbers, good, good, God Almighty. And he quit, I was going to say the last two years or so, it's been a bloodbath in the mortgage industry, but 22, it was still raining mortgages. Right. So he quit when this thing was hot to trot, right? Well, it started slowing down in June and by August, things had really just for him dried up.

Okay. But more than that, it was just sucking the life out of him. Sure. And he was miserable. Okay. So we agreed it was time for plan B. But he jumped off the boat without just into the lake. He didn't have another boat to jump into, right? Correct. Yep.

He tried the e-commerce world for about six or seven months, actually more like a year. What does that mean? Like buying and selling, reselling eBay stuff kind of yeah yeah so he just watches a lot of Instagram reels yeah have you sat down and told him I no longer respect you. Yes. Okay. How'd that go? He understood. Okay. He apologized, recognized, you know, the failure in providing for the family and, you know, needing to find a job and turn things around.

How have y'all paid the bills the last three years? Me. Okay. Yeah, so I am the sole income for our family. He has a daughter and we are not receiving any child support from his ex-wife, so everything is sitting on me financially from end to end. Is she not your daughter also? No. I mean, she's my stepdaughter, but no, she's not my daughter biologically. How long have y'all been married? A little over 10 years. So you've had a youngster living with you for 10 years and you don't consider her your daughter? I do.

The relationship is really strange. She's got a lot of trauma with her mom, so she doesn't trust women. And her dad is the end-all be-all. And so we're more like friends than she's my daughter. Not for lack of trying. It's just the circumstance. Well, let that be another call. Let me another call. So I'm going to call for that. Yeah, that's a whole other thing. So go back to your question again. What are you asking? I'm trying to figure out if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband, to cut up the

credit card, to cut up the debit card, and almost force him to go get a job at Home Depot or something like that to help bring in income so will actually support himself as well. So the answer is you can do whatever you want. You're an adult. You're grown up, right? I would suggest that is essentially an in-home divorce Okay, that is you choosing to formalize the separation that has already taken place and It wouldn't be a legal formalization, but it would be a financial formalization

These are your bills. That is your kid. This is my house Yeah, and then I don't want to do that. But then the next step is he won't These are your bills. That is your kid. This is my house Yeah, and I don't want to do that. But then the next step is he won't Right. He's not like he Forcing him is not going to work. It hasn't yet. You've tried all sorts of ways. I can almost guarantee it and I don't know any Married couple in this situation where where the wife has lost the amount of respect you've lost, and I'm trusting you that it's not about a dollar amount. It's about like, this is three years and like you said, fine, you don't have your dream

job but like you haven't been working at Home Depot and then going to throw boxes at Walmart until midnight and then getting up at 5 a.m. to drive Uber and then getting up the next day. Just as I know men across the country get up and grind it out on behalf of their families. Forget their dream job. Forget their person, purpose and passion or whatever other BS that is on Instagram. Like they get up and they make things happen. They mow lawns. Then they go clean up the church. I remember my dad being a policeman who made hardly anything and then we clean the church on the weekends and then we go mow

lawns and even like would you do what you got to do. And I've never met a couple in your situation where your sex life is great, where you all are exercising together going for walks or hikes or your dating life is great. You get what I'm saying? So it just like the whole relationships in ash. Yeah. And so it just like the whole relationships in ash Yeah, and so I It sounds like you're at an or what moment so I guess I'd ask you are you done being married to him Not at all. Okay. I

Have every confidence in him that you shouldn't have any confidence in him Oh, I was gonna say that when he does something, you know Well, I was gonna say that when he does something, you know He does it well. I just like what he's doing right now is nothing and he's doing that remarkably Well, okay, that is sure. All right, that is sure. Here's here's what happens People in your situation often want to own part of reality They want to hold on tight to this image that this is a good man, he's a good guy. It's just been three or four years since he's had a job. He just plays a lot of video games and lets his wife get up and go to work while he's

still in bed every day. And then come home and make dinner three nights a week or four nights a week and like whatever. So there's, and then always has a scheme, right? You want to hold like, no, he's a good man. He loves me, whatever. So there's, and then always has a scheme, right? You want to hold like, no, he's a good man. He loves me, whatever. And on the other hand, he completely abdicated his responsibility to provide for his daughter, provide for his wife,

to do anything remotely contributing to the household. And what I want to tell you is that you only holding part of reality. The reality is behavior is a language. Your husband said, I'm out. I was afraid you were going to tell me that. Until you rest in that. Because now you have impetus to act.

You have to do something. I mean, actually, you don't have to do anything you can live like millions of couples do Which is a completely? lifeless bloodless marriage Yeah, yeah, where you watch TV and scroll and he watches TV and pornography and He's just waiting to get the girl out of the house and he found somebody to pay the bills Because by the way, he probably doesn't want to be in his skin right now either does he? No, not at all.

I don't think so. Is he struggling from depression? Has he gone to see, I'm assuming he hadn't gone to see somebody, right? No, he hasn't. Okay. I think there's an element of it there. What does he do all day?

Well, it's really weird. So I guess technically, he has a job but he hasn't been paid for anything that he's done. And so he has a hobby. Yes. Yes. I'm in my office upstairs. He's in his makeshift office in the bonus room, doors closed. I don't know what he does. I don't hear him on the phone. Um, if I, you know, walk in to ask him a question or whatever, he's sitting at his computer, but I don't know what he's doing. And there's no tangible evidence. When I ask him about, you know, this deal that closed, you know, what,

what's it look like getting paid? Christine, there's no deal. You know, there's no deal. Yeah. You know that what's it look like getting paid Christine? There's no deal. You know, there's no deal Yeah, you know that Yeah, and I think in some ways you're letting the closed door keep you from the conversations that you know, you need to have And I just don't know how to have the conversation a different way It's not that any of them. So I, man, she really challenged me on this. I heard Dr. Becky Kennedy say recently, a boundary is something that requires nobody

else to do anything. A boundary is for you. It's a declaration of what you're going to do. And I think that you're at an either or moment either. I love him, I'm not getting divorced, I'm married to a guy that won't work. I'm married to a guy that is giving a yet another troubled picture to his daughter of what marriage looks like. But this is a guy married, partridge in a pear tree, I'm gonna make the best of it. I'm going about my life That's option a

Option B is I've tried every conversation statement. I've tried Dressing in sexy things. I've tried these these kind of pseudo Never again conversing. I've tried everything So I'm at the end of my line here I've tried everything. So I'm at the end of my line here. So you get a job by this date and by job I mean there's a direct deposit happening in our joint checking account or you are choosing to leave. I don't know another option because right now you're choosing misery by sitting in the

middle. Yeah. And you're worth choosing misery by sitting in the middle. Yeah. And you're worth more than being miserable all the time. He is too, by the way. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Have you ever asked him, hey, do you want to be married to me? That was actually a conversation I was planning on having this weekend.

Yeah. And here's what I would do. I would write down your conversation points. Okay. And be very clear about using I statements. Yeah. And you probably heard me say that a million times and I know it gets hard when it's something like this. Yeah. But if you say I'm tired and I'm getting the message loud and clear, you don't want to be married to me anymore. And I'm getting the message loud and clear you don't want to be married to me anymore I'm ready to go like if that's what you want. I'm ready to have that next step conversation It's gonna break my heart, but I'm not gonna hold you here anymore

And I have to have something different in my home. I have to have a husband that contributes That I can anchor into also Okay, and that contributes that I can anchor into also. Okay. And for whatever it's worth, I know often women know this intellectually, but just from, from my guts. I don't know that it can be overstated how much dull-eyed men walking around have been told explicitly implicitly it's the air we breathe that you I mean the question is what are you worth? That's the question and men answer that with a number. I Am worth this much. I make this much Not I make furniture not I make people

Have more peaceful lives I make this many dollars and So I'm not defending him, but I'm providing a context And so I'm not defending him, but I'm providing a context that sometimes when a wife grabs her husband and says, I don't care about the number, I care about watching the man I love have no purpose. And ultimately the house is, is, is the life is leaving this home because the life has left you. So I don't care what the number is right now. I don't know what your financial situation is. That can be a whole other call, but I don't care what the number is right now. I'm assuming you'll have money for groceries, but you got to do something. You have to go regain purpose. And for most people, regain purpose is done in tiny steps, tiny wins. I'm going to go get a job at Home Depot.

I'm going to show up on time and I'm going to wash my clothes and put on my uniform and I'm going to help get a job at Home Depot. I'm going to show up on time, and I'm going to wash my clothes and put on my uniform, and I'm going to help other people have better days. I'm going to go work at Walmart from 8 o'clock PM till 2 AM. I'm going to put on headphones, and I'm going to listen to podcasts, and I'm going to throw boxes. I'm going to stock shelves so that some exhausted mother comes in off her night shift at 6 AM, and she can get the food she needs, and she can get back to her kids.

I'm gonna go do that. I'm gonna go provide some value somewhere. The money will follow. But maybe sitting down and say, I know you're not making what you used to and I know you feel trapped and yada, yada, yada, but forget the money, I'm watching my husband lose purpose and this has to happen.

But at the end of the day, here's your box 10 Christine and I want you to unbox yourself and That's either accepting what it is making peace with it and deciding I'm not gonna complain and whine about it this is what it is what it is or Here's my line And then your husband who gets to make a terrifying choice Is he in or is he out and if he he's going to be in, here's what that means very clearly. Let me know how that conversation goes, Christine. And if you all have that conversation and he wants to give me a call and ask for next

steps, I'm happy to walk alongside him too. Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about Helix. All right. Do me a favor. Close your eyes and think about your mattress, the one at your house.

Be honest. Is it lumpy and gross and full of weird stains? And do you think about how comfortable your mattress is at home every time you're out of town or staying in some hotel? You know it and I know it. Your entire life would be better if you had an amazing comfortable mattress that let you fall into deep, refreshing sleep. It's time for you to check out the mattress that I sleep on and that my entire family sleeps on,

Helix mattresses. I'll tell you this, my Helix mattress has helped me get to sleep faster and sleep deeper so I wake up more refreshed. And Helix mattresses has mattresses for everybody, no matter how you sleep. If you run hot, if you've got spine concerns, if you lie on your back or your side or your stomach, whatever. Plus, Helix offers a 100 night trial and every Helix mattress comes with a 10 or 15 year warranty. Right now I want you to stop for two minutes, get online and take the Helix Sleep Quiz just like I did.

You'll find your perfect mattress and you can buy it right now and they'll ship it right to your door. And this is incredible. Right now, Helix has a special march sale that's tied into that big basketball tournament. To celebrate all the brackets and buzzer beaters and cinderellas, you can get 20% off site-wide. Go to helixsleep.com slash deloni today for 20% off everything. That's helix, H-E-L-I-X, helixSleep.com slash Delony. With Helix, better sleep starts right now. Let's talk about Hallow, the number one prayer and meditation app in the world.

It's officially Lent, which are the 40 days leading up to Good Friday and Easter. Lent is when Christians all over the world commit to a season of fasting from all sorts of things, and they commit themselves to reconnection and remembering prayer and meditation. Right now, Hallow has a challenge going on called The Way. It's meant to reflect living the way of Jesus. And that means doing hard things that lead to peace, joy, and healing.

Throughout The Way, you'll get to hear some incredible stories from people like Jonathan Rumi of The Chosen, Chris Pratt, Mark Wahlberg, and more. And you'll be invited to participate in experiencing life change yourself. Plus you can check out Halo's Lent Challenge for Kids called The Little Way. It's a fun, meaningful adventure for the whole family

as y'all will follow along with two kids learning to live out gratitude every day. And this is just a tiny bit of what Hallow offers. Hallow has a huge catalog of music, guided prayers, meditations, and more. And when you sign up at hallow.com slash deloney, you'll get three months for free. So you're covered all through Lent and beyond.

Go check out hallow.com slash deloney for three free months. That's hallow, H- l l o w dot com slash deloni. All right, we are back. Hey, don't forget to subscribe, hit subscribe and leave five star reviews. And just otherwise click the thumbs up. I don't know how the internet's work. But just let the algorithms know you're in on the show. And if something we talked about today, like you're like, oh, man, my

friend needs to hear this or my mother in law needs to hear this, please send the show their way. It makes such a huge difference with all the internets and the computers and the algorithms. And by the way, it just helps people. And here's another cool thing. Big announcement. We just had our money marriage get away here and it was off the chain like always. We're running it back like we do every fall. Every marriage needs intentional time away a way to disconnect from life.

So busy-ness, reconnect and build a life they love together. Here's what we're doing. We're running the Money and Marriage Getaway. It's gonna be in November 6th through 8th, 2025. Three days here in Nashville with me and my good friend, Rachel Cruz, and a couple of other super special guests. We're in Nashville, so you never know who's gonna show up.

Three days of laughter, hard conversations, maybe some tears, intentional time together, and lots of practical teaching. We talk about money, we talk about sex, we talk about communication. It's kinda like if you listen to the show and you wanna be like, yeah, but, but, but, but. That's what this retreat is, is us getting into the details.

And my favorite part is we intentionally keep this small. We intentionally don't put it in four or 5,000 seat places because we want people who show up to have access to ask their questions, get their questions answered. So if you come to this and you leave without your question answered, that's on you. We try to get to every single question that we can and make sure people are heard and seen

early bird tickets for the entire weekend and by the way, we keep it intentionally below market value because I want I know people are struggling financially It's 750 bucks 749 dollars for three full days And every time we launch this event tickets sell out fast. So hurry up get on at ramsysolutions.com Slash events or you can click the link in the description if you're listening on the tubes or on podcast. All right let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Fletcher. Hey Fletcher what's up? Hey how's it going? Doing great brother how are you man? Good good. Can I give you some context? You can do whatever you want man cannonball. So whenball. So from the time I was maybe 13 to 18 or 19, I struggled with porn about like most guys do, I guess. And I was able to get on top of that

and fast forward till now, I'm 23. And my girlfriend and I of three years are I'm wanting to get engaged to her by the end of the year and get married next year. Awesome. And I've had a couple times of struggling with that again in the relationship and I've been super transparent and honest with her about all that. And we talk about everything and she tends to be more of the insecure person anyway.

And that's not made her feel super safe. And I just wanna make sure that everything is as it should be as we go into a marriage and we're not going to, I don't want to bring any issues into the marriage. Does that make sense? Oh, you're going to bring plenty, dude. You'll bring tons of issues, most of which you don't even know about yet. And she will too. And so I want you to exhale on that one marriage is two people agreeing come what may we'll be right here and When you we turn this corner together and you realize Your dad wasn't who you thought he was or her mom wasn't who she thought she was or whatever like I'll be right here

And when you get sick and when you go through challenges and when you struggle with addictions, I'll be right here. So how can I help you today? I just, I just don't want to bring that particular issue on him. I know we're going to keep growing up and everything, but I just, I can't afford to make her feel like that. I don't want her to settle for someone who would still deal with that, you know,

which I don't feel like I do, but I just want her to feel safe and heal that trust that's been damaged before. I feel like there's a question beneath this question. Because I mean, cutting to it, you struggle with pornography as a teenager, and you were a teenager during the years when it was the Wild West,

when moms and dads just gave their kids cell phones, like gave them open access to the World Wide Web, and then one of the most insane parenting shifts in the history of humanity. And me growing up you had to find somebody who had a dad who had a playboy or a penthouse and now every every pornographic everything of all time ever is in a cell phone and parents just hand them to their 13 and 14 and 15 year old kids. It's madness. It's insanity. Yeah, but listen, bro, you're a child from 13 to 18. Let yourself off the hook. Relax. Okay. Don't go to war against your teenage self, your kid. All right. You bringing in self hatred. I'm more concerned about that.

Let me put it that way. I'm more concerned about that, let me put it that way. I'm more concerned with you going into your marriage thinking you're gross or something's wrong with you. The second thing is, let's just be honest. Is that cool, just you and me and a couple million people listening? You're always gonna be interested in seeing beautiful naked people, always. beautiful naked people always and so beating yourself up about that is Matt is its madness don't do that there are beautiful attractive people everywhere

all over it just isn't is it's that next step dude when you decide to log in and click on it, right? Right, right. And you can set up systems, you can set up accountability, whatever the things you gotta do, you can set those things up so that you don't do that thing. Yes, sir. You get what I'm saying? So that part.

Right. That part is something we can work through. You're not a bad guy. I don't think you're evil. I don't think you're a terrible person. But what's beneath this is something I want to dig into more. What's the thing beneath the thing? Is she having doubts about marrying you because you looked at pornography

before? No, she's, she's all on board. We're both on the same page, but just looking back on, you know, those times, I know really, really hurt her, you know, and I just don't want to do that again. Okay, then I'm gonna tell you something crazy. All right You have a pen and paper write this down, okay don't You know what I mean, right if she truly forgives you then you need to do the hard work of forgiving yourself You messed up you violated y' You violated y'all's shared trust. She said, pornography is infidelity as far as I'm concerned and it makes me feel less than.

And you said, I hear you. And it sounds like a couple of times you broke that trust. And you're a courageous 23 year old. Most 23 year olds are just a ball of hormones and cowardice you're not that You went and told her hey, I messed up and I'm sorry and You had to deal with the consequences, which is her telling you that breaks my heart It makes me feel less than it makes me feel not beautiful. Whatever else she's whatever she said right And if she says I forgive you I still want to marry you, then you need to stop carrying those bricks around.

Yeah, she's been nothing but what she should be. She's been nothing but loving and supportive. Okay. So why do you hate Fletcher? I think when I was younger, you know, like you're saying, there wasn't a lot of talking about all that, you know, with parents and everything and definitely didn't feel like guys were dealing with that anyway. So here's the thing. You also grew up in a generation where 99% of sex ed came from pornography. It's how it's because parents sure as hell weren't having that conversation because they

were raging cowards and they either didn't know how to do it or they refused to go with the tools to do it. So they had this awkward super talk one day and then called it good or they never had that talk. They put a pamphlet on, you know, in your backpack and said, go on about your day. Or they outsourced it to some 25 year old youth minister who, don't get me started, dude.'s the thing you were set up to fail as a 13 year old and your parents may be amazing and wonderful but most parents handled this terribly okay it is what it is what it is but here we are

now your adventure moving forward is to learn how to not blush when you hear the word penis, to be able to stand in front of your wife and say, this is all of me, do you still love me? Cause I love you. And to be able to have frank and fun and erotic and hilarious and awkward conversations

with your wife about sex and nobody taught you about that and so you're gonna have to fumble through it but keep committing I'm gonna mess this up we're gonna screw this up let's try it again let's try it again let's try it again do you understand yes sir I like it but man I don't think you're a bad guy, Fletcher. In fact, I think you're one of the good guys. Thanks. And you're going to struggle with the idea of pornography probably for the rest of your life.

And so you, I mean, you'll get old and you don't care. But when I say struggle is you're always, I mean, it's like being an alcoholic and they just are not alcoholic, but it's like having struggling with alcohol. Then all of a sudden, a couple of computing companies give you an endless stream of a super insane alcohol and put it in your pocket and say, you have to have this at work. You have to have this for your social life. You have to have this for everything. And by the way, don't drink.

Right? It's madness. Right. It's madness. your social life, you have to have this for everything. And by the way, don't drink, right? It's madness. It's madness. Yeah. So it might be, you're not gonna have a personal computer. You're just gonna have your work laptop. That's all you're gonna have at the house. It might be that you get one of those

accountability software programs and you give it to one of your buddies. You give it to one of your buddies. You give it to your wife. It might be that the next time you get you, you find yourself like starting to scroll and wanting to go down to find some pornography on your phone or on your, on your computer, you stop and you say, okay, what's going on in my life? Do I feel lonely?

Do I feel tired? Do I feel bored? Do I need to release? Do I feel super horny? feel tired? Do I feel bored? Do I need to release? Do I feel super horny? Like what am I feeling right now? And let that be, be curious about it. When you go into judgment, then you go into just that dark shame

and then your body has to do what it's gotta do to try to feel better real quick, right? Yeah, that's true. So the thing that has helped me eating junk food, which is one of my great vices is right when I'm about to grab yet another handful of cookies is to ask, am I actually hungry? What else is going on in my life? Almost always when I'm just grabbing junk food, I've got some sort of relationship challenge, whether it's with my wife,

my kids, my parents, my work colleagues, I got something relational going on. And it was such a revelation to figure that out. Do you get what I'm saying? Yes, sir. So track it back. Track it back. Every time you're about to click on something, just stop and go, okay, what's going on in my life?

But I'll tell you this, no one has ever gotten permanently better by hating themselves into behavior change. You have to decide your worth, not poisoning your mind and blowing out the hedonic parts of your brain and super charging your sexual appetite in a way that no human on the planet can satisfy. Thank you. Is that fair? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Do you trust that girl that you're about to marry? Yeah. Does she say she loves you? So much. Yeah. Okay. Then if she's someone who tells you the truth, I want you to believe that. And I want you to be sad for a minute.

Maybe you write 13 year old you a letter and say you're about to go through six years of unfettered access to the most vile, crazy, supercharged, bananas things in human history. And you're a kid and you shouldn't have gotten access to that. And I'm sorry that the world did this to you. But now that I'm an adult, I'm going to take control of this thing. Yes. Is that fair? Let that little kid off the hook man. He's a kid. He's 14 years old. 16 years old. Right? As a society we don't let those kids smoke cigarettes and drink beer because they're kids. So it doesn't help anybody to get to be 23 years old and turn on and yell and

scream at them because there was a lack of adult supervision in their life. And there was some really supercharged algorithms that targeted them and took their souls from them. And I'm not going to blame a 16 year old for wanting to see naked girls. I'm not going to blame a 16 year old for being curious about sex because nobody else in the world is talking about it. I'm not going to be upset with a 16 year old who wants to see what naked men look like. I'm not going to get mad at that.

They're 16. I expect adults to be adults and right now they're not. By the way, adults are like, I don't care. I'll just give my kids a phone. It's fine. It's just like, it's not. This is what we get. We get 23 and 24 year olds who want to get married and they hate themselves for things

they did when they were 13, 14, 15, 16, 18 and whatever because nobody helped with boundaries. That's what we got. As adults, man, we kind of do better. We just do. Fletcher, thanks for the call, brother. Let me know when y'all get engaged. We'll be rooting for you. I think your future fiance, your future wife, is marrying one of the good guys.

Blessings to you, brother. We'll be right back. Alright, here's the deal. The modern world exposes us to things that were unheard of until just a few decades ago. And I don't mean the lame cat videos and endless streams of AI influencers. I'm talking about screens in our homes and offices, fluorescent lights, EMFs, these things that can affect our mood, our sleep, our anxiety and more.

And that's why I'm so excited to partner with Bond Charge, a world leader in red light therapy and EMF blocking gear. I use Bond Charge products all of the time, literally every single day, and I love them. And here's why you'll love them too. Studies show red light therapy can help boost your mood, reduce stress, and help with sleep. It can help you recover from aches and pains,

I used it on my foot this morning, transform your skin, and even help with cellulite and stretch marks. My red light therapy panels, the infrared sauna blanket, the EMF mat, and more have become a cornerstone of my health and wellness routine. Like I said, I use them every day. And check out BondCharge's other amazing products like blue light glasses, EMF protection products, infrared sauna blankets, and 100% blackout sleep masks.

Go to BondCharge.com slash Dulony and use coupon code Delony to say 15% site-wide. That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E dot com slash Delony and use coupon code Delony to say 15%. All right, let's go out to Charlotte, North Carolina and talk to Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick. What's up, Rick? Hey, hey, how you doing, Dr. John? I'm doing all right, man. What's up Rick? Hey hey how you doing Dr. John? I'm doing alright man. What's up? Hey my reason for my call is I'm want to know how I can get professional help for my wife who's struggling with mental illness without having to get law enforcement involved. Ooh paint me a picture here. So over the last couple years there's a lot of behaviors that my wife has experienced in the house and with me that causes calls for concern.

Some of them are she's had a lot of weight loss and no appetite. I have witnessed her like hitting at herself, like in her arm, like she's in pain. Um, something's bothering her. I've seen her hit her face. Um, I've seen bruising on her. Um, she walks the house continuously. There's tape over closet doors. She puts barricades up inside the pantry. Um, is she using?

Not to my knowledge. No. Um, she on any sort of prescription medication? The only prescription medication that I recall, and this was about a year ago, is she was taking Topamax, her migraines. And there was lots of calls for concern because of some of her behaviors. My daughter confronted her with it, and I did too as well and I don't know that I don't believe she's still taking that but I do believe it had some impact on

her. Okay. If based on what you're telling me, how old are you guys? How old are you? How old is she? I'm 53. She's 56. Okay. And this is all sudden and new? This isn't, this isn't been going on for 20, 30 years? Not for 23 years. I've, me and my daughter have talked about it.

She's brought up things in the past growing up that kind of like small indicators that some of this with some tendencies were there with the paranoia and the concern that, you know, that other people were doing things to her or she's always walked around, you know, scared to death of what other people think about her. But here are the last two to three years it's gotten worse. And then here recently it's progressed that I was out of town one weekend for work and my, I had my son come and stay out of concern for her safe,

for her. And while he was there, he witnessed it firsthand and he confronted me about calling the police because he felt like he needed to call the police with some of the behaviors. Okay. So one of the example was, there were some lights outside and she swore up and down it was people stalking the house. Sure. Okay. So there's, in the nerd word is decompensating. So it's you're just watching somebody essentially turn to ash or a pillar of salt right in front

of you, right? They're becoming a shell of who they were and descending into, I guess the crass way to say it is descending into madness. They're experiencing a world that objectively doesn't exist, but to them is very, very real. Okay. And I have tremendous, I've sat with those folks and I've sat with people, I mean, holding their hand with them clenching me as though there is somebody with a hatchet coming at us and there's nothing there.

And so my compassion for folks in her situation run very, very deep. Okay. I also, um, understand that the perception of, um, let me say it this way. You as a husband, how long you been married? 20, 30 years? 30. Okay. 30 years. There's a sense that, um, and this isn't to call you out,

this is to give you peace. There's a sense that A, these things sometimes happen by degrees. And it's kind of like seeing an old friend from high school that suddenly gained a hundred pounds. They don't recognize it, but when you see them, you're like, oh my gosh, right? Or the opposite, they've lost a hundred pounds for them

It was just a couple ounces a month for the last 30 years And so this might be happening by degrees and you just you're just picking up extra weight because it's kind of your life But your son shows up for a week and he's like, whoa dad. Mom is not safe Right, so there's that but there's also Here's the other side Right. So there's that, but there's also, here's the other side. You're not a bad guy. You're not an unattentive husband if your wife is using and you don't know. So I want you to, I want you to, I want you to free yourself from, no, I'm confident that's not true. And I want you to put everything on the table right now as a possibility. Okay.

Right. Okay. So give yourself some peace. If peace if she's somehow got a hold of some medications some drugs and she's using and you don't know it That doesn't make you a bad or unattentive guy Okay, sometimes people who struggle with deep deep profound paranoia are Extraordinary at hiding Because in their souls they have to because nobody else knows what's going on Okay, okay, so I tell you that to tell you you are at a place now. I'm just telling you professionally She desperately needs you the man who loves her to intervene on her behalf

And what that looks like is a direct conversation. This ends today. You're gonna go, you can come with me or someone's gonna come pick you up. You get to choose, but you're going today for a psyche valve. Okay. And that's an end of a conversation and it has to be done in a way.

And sometimes people can do it by themselves. So I've done it for people, right? When they think, you know, no, I can manipulate my husband, I can manipulate my wife and I show up to the house. I'm like, yeah, yeah, manipulating me because I don't care. I'm mistaken this, but you are calling. Or sometimes people get their family together. You've probably seen some of those intervention kind of shows, but it's basically a declaration. This ends today. But it's basically a declaration this ends today. Okay. Here's the, depending on what state you're in and depending on any number of other factors,

sometimes people can walk in and the standard, the standard for a state to take away somebody's civil rights, to say you have, you are no longer in control of your life we are that standard should be and is very very high. So sometimes adults will get like like committed they'll be in an institution for three or four days and then it will occur to them I can just leave I'm an adult and often they're right. What does that look like when she's still holding a job? And has for the last couple years without incident. I can almost use the part that's using part. Yeah, I mean, you don't know what they're dealing with at work either.

I know she's a healthcare professional. Okay. So she helps other others at an assisted living, nursing home, caretaker, and has for her entire career. And that's the complete... And my daughter is also a healthcare professional as well. And we've had the same conversation is she still holds the job. She still goes to work every day and everything seems fine.

But as soon as she comes home, it's like she does all the things that I'm describing. And that's the where I struggle. Well I would say I would say two things. Number one, that's yet one more data point that she may be, to put it nicely, borrowing from a pharmaceutical cabinet. If she's got access to other people's pharmaceutical drugs and she's just, you're watching her rapidly change in front of you. Because one of the things I want to know if I'm doing an assessment on somebody is do

they have access and if they're a healthcare professional, the answer is undoubtedly yes. Yes, correct. That's number one. Number two, people who struggle from extreme paranoia sometimes are experts in compartmentalization because they think they're running a game on everybody else. Not a game, but they're running a, they're having to survive. So think of it like a Sherlock Holmes episode where he has to dress up and go and play a part. Right. And so it can go on for years.

And here's the, here's the other thing I would tell you, without a proper clinical assessment, you at home trying to armchair quarterback it, she's, you're watching her get worse in front of you. assessment, you at home trying to armchair quarterback it, you're watching her get worse in front of you. That's my fear is it's getting worse and in all honesty, I believe she thinks I'm the enemy. That's great. That makes sense.

That is okay. And when you tell her you have to go see somebody, you've got to go get a clinical assessment because I'm losing my wife, you will be the devil incarnate. And you have to love her enough to walk through those hot coals. That's my fear. What's the, I mean, here's the other thing, brother. What's the other side of it? Well, that scares me too. Yeah. I mean, it's almost a no win because it's what's worse.

I mean, I know what the end game is. Choose your heart. Let me, can I be real crass with you? Yeah. Or not crass, just real direct. That you're gonna choose your heart. You're gonna choose for a season to have your wife who is not well

think she hates you. She doesn't. But to confirm, when you think everyone's out to get you and you find out somebody else is noticing your behaviors, it just confirms it. It makes it worse. It's like gasoline on a fire. Right? Right. Except it's too brutal. Like not you too. Right? Not like you're my husband. You don't see this. And so yes, expect an amplification of this a hundredfold and it all to be channeled on you. The other side of it is often when somebody is unspooling like this, they know it, they

feel it. And it often ends with loved ones planning a funeral. That's the scary part, but I do know that living like this now is not sustainable. Correct. And so anytime I'm talking to somebody, I'm always looking at trend lines. Everybody has bad weekends, bad days, bad whatever, that's fine.

This is something that is on a negative trend line. You stepped out and had a third party show up and your son went, oh my Lord, we gotta get her some help. So unless your son is a hypochondriac, and I say that in a funny way, not in the clinical way, but like he's overdramatic and you know your kid. But it sounds like when he said it, you were like, I know, you're right.

Well, I know he's right and I think he did convert her with that. And she immediately replied, I don't have any mental problem. I don't need mental help. But we all, me, him and my daughter all believe that she needs something. Okay, so I would not use the word mental help. I would have all three of you. If they're, are they adult kids? Adult kids, they don't live at home. We're all living in different areas. Perfect.

I think all three sit down and say, we love you. And we know that you're not well. And everything about you tells us that you're terrified and you're scared of your own home and your own skin. We want you to go talk to somebody. I'm fine, I'm not gonna do that. Well, here's the deal. Today you go,

and I'm willing to risk you being upset with me and have you involuntarily committed, or I'll go with you and we'll get you checked in. So what does that look like? Do I just take it to the hospital? If you, well, if you, yeah. Prearrange it? you yeah, rearrange it. Yeah, rearrange it and you can go to a inpatient Where they can do a 48 hour a 72 hour hold?

If she signs up for it, then that's a whole other track But you'll have to wait. Unfortunately, you'll have to wait until something bad happens if you're gonna if you're gonna have her involuntarily committed You have to wait till she flies off the handle or starts banging on stuff or hitting herself or stuff like that because that again that threshold is very very high. Right. Because they don't want old grouchy husbands whose thinks their wife is annoying and in the middle of a football game that get committed right so that lot and that line is very high. And I've struggled with that too, because even my son, and I've told my son if she ever pulls off one of these again, that I would do that.

And she disappears into the back room or to the bathroom and starts to cry and screaming and yelling and like she's in pain or something. And I don't know if that's the right time to do it because 20 minutes later, she's back to normal, it seems like, for a little bit. And then she'll lay on the couch for 30, 45 minutes and- That's right. It's exhausting. Something happens or-

Yeah. It's exhausting. Correct. And it just wears me out. And I know, and I probably should have mentioned this earlier, is she does been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And I don't know if that's tied to it or not, but I think sometimes that causes some pain and that pain she in her mind it's being caused

by someone. Right, but fibromyalgia is often a almost, I don't say almost universally. It's been a minute since I read the latest, but it's almost universally. It's been a minute since I read the latest, but it's almost universally. It's rarely diagnosed in somebody that doesn't have existing mental health disorders. Right. That makes sense. And I'm sure there's a chicken or egg component to it, but chronic pain often is highly comorbid with other more significant challenges. It's your body's way of saying, I'm trying to get your attention. We're not okay.

We're not safe. And it could be relationship challenges. It could be work challenge. It could be any number of things going on. But I think it's sitting down saying the time has come. I love you enough to risk you not liking me, being mad at me, hating me, whatever you think you're going to say,

but you got to go get some help. Do you have any um and I say this very delicately do you have anybody at know anybody at her workplace where you could sit down and talk I do not okay I would be stunned if they don't know something's up she's done well with with this one. Now I know previous to this one, there was a couple instances in previous work where, and she wouldn't tell me everything where she left the work. She actually got in a leadership position and then something, it seemed like it was going south a lot of the paranoia stuff that she would bring up but then all of a sudden she left took another position and then within a month she was at home for a couple weeks and then she came back and told me she there were some differences and then she left and

then got this one and she's had this one for about a year and a half okay my guess is it's unspooling fast too. Okay. That's, I mean, I mean, all and again, all we're doing is following patterns and trends here. I think you want to validate her lived experience. I don't want you to say I don't think you're hurting. I don't think you're scared.

All those are very, very real.'t think you're hurting. I don't think you're scared. All those are very very real. I Think you use I words a lot I can't sit here as your husband of 30 years and listen to you go in the bathroom and scream and then collapse I as your husband of 30 years I as your son cannot listen to You hitting yourself in the face, hitting yourself on the arms, screaming, yelling, I can't be here to watch you falling apart like this and hurting like this. I'm gonna call and sometimes it's threatening. I'm gonna call somebody and they're gonna come pick you up

or we're gonna get in the car, we're gonna go down and get you get the help you need. I don't think you're crazy, but I think you are hurting so bad it's cruel of me to let this continue to go on like this. I'm just telling you Rick once you get on that roller coaster it is indeed a roller coaster and we are playing a two-year five-year ten-year game even. You're going to risk not being liked you're going to risk her saying evil and awful things to you you're going to risk her writhing and having no place for that pain to go.

So you, you're the, you get, it gets dumped on you. That's for sickness and health for better and worse. I hate that, but it is. But I promise you, I promise you, it's better than planning a funeral. I promise you. Thanks for the call, my brother. Thanks for the call. You call anytime and I'm happy to talk to her too. I can be of an encouragement to her.

We'll be right back. All right, listen folks, there's no such thing as mental health separate from physical health, separate from emotional health. There's just health. It all works together and everything's connected. It's almost impossible to be whole in one area and struggling in another. So if you're ready to make positive physical changes that can help restore some balance

to your whole self, check out Trainwell. Trainwell offers tailored workouts with step-by-step guidance from real people, meaning it's not just an app and it's not just an app and it's not just a personal trainer, it's the best of both. To get started, you just answer a few questions about your fitness journey, hop on a chat with an expert trainer to discuss your goals

and make a personalized plan, and then it's time for you to get to work. As you complete workouts, your trainer will keep tweaking them to help you get better. I love the workouts, my wife loves them, and we both love how they adapt to our travel schedules. TrainWell takes away our excuses and makes it easy, and they can do it for you. If you're ready to start taking control of your health, take the quiz to find your perfect trainer at trainwell.net slash deloney today. And they still have a special offer for my audience.

Just $69 a month when you lock in your plan, that's almost 50% off their regular monthly All right, we are back. I want to read some questions from recent money marriage event. These are questions that people can drop in an anonymous box. An anonymous box. I'm great at talking. Here's a couple of questions. How do I tell my wife of over 10 years that I still feel inferior and compare myself to her former husband and boyfriend,

but she still makes me feel special. I just don't know how to get over those other men. Here's another one. How do I rebuild trust after an affair? I would love some steps to learn to trust again. Here's another one. I am broken and not feeling like I deserve or can be fixed.

I cope by trying to give to everyone else, which helps me feel a little better, but I still feel depressed at times and can get angry with myself and others. Is there even one thing I can do to help me? Here's one more. What do you do when you've both been married before? How do you make yourself stop feeling

like you're plan B or plan C? And this is strange for me personally, just because I get questions all the time on Instagram, by the way, I don't answer social media questions ever like this. You get tons of comments and things like that. And for whatever reason, there's a distance in those questions.

I don't know if a person wrote them or if a computer wrote them, they come just across in the same font. There's something about reading these note cards, people's, I'm thumbing through them if you're just listening here, but it's written in people's handwriting. And some of this handwriting looks clean and some of this handwriting looks desperate. And I know I'm reading into that, but it's just heavy. And so if you're asking yourself questions like this, This is gonna sound bananas, but I want you to turn off the podcasts. And I want you to have a spark from a

YouTube show. I want you to put down the books. By the way, I have a podcast, I got a YouTube show, I write books. Those are good for awareness. They're good for step by step plans. But when you're asking yourself, I'm feeling broken and I don't feel like I can or deserve to be fixed. I had an affair and I don't know how to rebuild trust and myself and my partner and I need someone to walk with us step-by-step-by-step.

How do you stop feeling like plan B or plan C? Because if both of us, if both of our lives had worked out as we'd originally planned and we wouldn't know each other, we'd still be married to our original people. Like if you're there, can I recommend, please go see a counselor, especially men. We all go see a therapist, please. And if the therapist is terrible,

go a couple of sessions and go somewhere else and ask for action steps. And I know as well as anybody does that sometimes it's cost prohibitive 250 bucks an hour cash $175 an hour cash and you're trying to figure out how to pay your light bill these days I get it or it's yeah I would love to see you our next available appointment is in seven months and you live in some rural community and that's all you got you got no access or you can go into a local church and sit with somebody who's completely untrained they don't know what they're doing and they they beat you over the head with kind of out-of-context Bible verses and you just

walk you stumble out into the light thinking something you're even worse off than you I get it I get it there this is one of the reasons why I support a program like BetterHelp, where within 24 hours they're gonna talk to you and you're gonna see you. And they can do couples counseling and all that kind of stuff. If you can't get into a local therapy place in your local community, in your town, if you can't afford it,

please call my friends at BetterHelp. They'll answer the phone. And if you don't like the therapist, if it's not gonna work for both of you, then you can switch. But please make a commitment to yourself. If this is you, if you're walking around feeling like you're not, you can't be fixed.

If you're walking around thinking, I'm always gonna be a plan B. I'm always gonna be a plan C. I don't know how to flip that. Please, please go see somebody. Please go see somebody. Whether it's a local therapist, whether it's a local trained pastor,

whether it's my friends at BetterHelp, please reach out. You are worth being well and you're worth waking up full of joy in the skin you're born in. Thank you so much for being with us on this show. You are worth being well. Make the call. Love you guys. Bye.