The Dr. John Delony Show - Is My Husband’s Depression My Fault?

Episode Date: July 10, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: A woman struggling not to blame herself for her husband’s depression A couple who wants to buy their dream home—but the kids are away for the summer A woman trying to help her pregnant sister get out of an abusive relationship 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: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I want to help her, but she went and she had reached out to me. You can't. I know, I know. But she had reached out to me. And she wanted out. And she called me saying that it was really messy. And I got it.

I am very worried about her. Yeah. What is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. This is a show about you and the mess you found yourself in or the ashes you're trying to climb out of. This is a show about real people going through hard stuff and trying to figure out the scariest question we can ask ourselves what do i do now i'm john deloney and i've been walking alongside people for for for 20 years or more um helping people figure out

what the next right move is we're talking about mental health and emotional health on this show we're talking about our marriages we're talking about dating we're talking about kids talking about all of it whatever we're going through. Um, I promise is I'll sit with you and we will work through it and figure it out. If you want to be on this show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291, or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And before we get to our first call, um, we are recording this the day after Father's Day, so I hope it was great and wonderful for you all. As I asked some people and I got to work this morning, it was not great for some of y'all. So I hope this week is Father's Day week for some of y'all if you have to play

makeup. And don't forget, if you're going to buy supplements, buy from the best, go to thorn.com slash the letter U, thorn.com slash U slash Deloney for a massive, massive discount. All right, let's go to Lauren in Phoenix, Arizona. What's up, Lauren? Hello. How we doing? Good. How are you? I mean, I don't know that I could be doing better.

How's Phoenix? Oh, it's actually not as bad of a summer as a lot of them, so can't complain. Very cool. My family back in Texas yesterday was 111, and I thought, oh, man, that is early to be that hot. So I wish you all the best this summer. Thank you. So what's up? How can I help?

Well, my big question is my husband has clinical depression and just wondering what I can do to take better care of myself. Oh, man, that's hard. How long have you been married? We are going on 11 years now. How long has he been struggling? Since he was a teenager. Okay. So just talk to him.

Go ahead. He was diagnosed when he was a teenager, but he struggled with it probably since middle school age. It was something when we were dating that he told me about, but kind of said, you know, it wasn't a big deal, and it was mentioned once. And then after we were married, I found out that it's a very big deal. Not that

it would have been a deal breaker, but it was something I did not know how to handle. So paint us a picture of what life is like loving somebody and building a life with somebody who has been wrestling with clinical depression for most of their life. Well, I honestly didn't understand what depression was. I grew up in a family that didn't talk about mental health a lot. And it kind of, I took on a lot of blame for myself. Like, why is this so hard? It's because I'm not doing a good enough job.

And in our first 10 years of marriage, we had already moved 10 times. We are in our 11th place and the longest we've ever stayed anywhere, and we've been here two years now. But it's always like feeling like if you make a change, it'll be better. We tried living by my family. We tried living by his family. We tried living in a better, warmer environment. We've tried all kinds of different things. And I just kind of like have this miraculous hope that things are just going to get easier for us.

And of course, that doesn't always happen. Do you recognize now after 10 moves in 10 years, that's not true? Yeah. Yeah. There's, um, you've probably heard me say this on the show before, but the worst part about moving is that you go with you. Yeah. The worst part about going around his family and your family and the new job, then a new place, then another new job, and then let's start our own business and all those cool things that just make life an adventure is that you go with you.

Yeah. And so I will high five you and love you and be here on the phone. If you want to move again and you think something's going to be different out there. I'm also fully ready to dive in if you say I'm kind of done running from this. I am. You sound tired from this. I am. You sound tired, hon. Are you tired? I'm very tired, yeah.

What happened that precipitated this call? Was there a blow up or a scare or a... He got really sick with his stomach and we've been in and out of the ER with it and they kind of told us it's probably anxiety-related. Right. And so I've been worried about his health a lot, and he hasn't been doing well. I love my husband, and the reason I'm still here is because he's always trying to do better, trying to find the next thing that helps.

He's been through acupuncture. He's been through all kinds of things. The one thing I haven't gotten him to try is counseling. That's the hardest one for him. He went through a lot of it as a child and doesn't feel like it helps him, so he's not willing to try as an adult. So, oh won't get into his clinical depression.

If he wants to call the show, I'd be happy to walk down that rabbit hole with him. And I'd be happy to lovingly and as I've done over the course of my career, I'd sit with him and I'll challenge him appropriately and love him appropriately. That's cool. The person who's on the phone with me today is you. And it's a hurting wife who's tired of watching her husband drown, who's frustrated when you're filling a raft

and he won't grab it. But then he yells, I've got a new backstroke that I'm going to try. And you jump in to backstroke with him and you find yourself further away from shore. And none of this stuff's working. So the only person on the phone is you. And so I'm going to tell you a couple of hard truths and give you some, some, maybe some things to try. Okay. Okay. Here's hard truth number one. You cannot cure or heal your husband's depression with a period at the end of that sentence.

Yeah. You've been trying for more than a decade and you have to stop. You've got to stop. Okay? Yeah, it's exhausting. It is. And in a really weird way,

it creates what I call this inverted shame cycle where you try to help him. He knows you're trying to help him. He feels shameful that he has to get kind of help, this kind of help from his wife, which then in somebody struggling with clinical depression doesn't serve as a jet fuel. It serves as a pile of soil.

It just buries you. And that makes you want to work harder to try to help. And you start saying yes to crazy ideas and weird things. And you're like, I'll try that. I'll try that. And then he feels ashamed that you tried that. You see what I'm saying? And it just creates this inverted loop. And somebody at some point has to break that cycle. And you're the one without clinical depression. So I want to point to you. Is that a responsibility you would own? Yeah. Okay. Here's the greatest gift you can give yourself. And as a result of taking care of you, your husband and your marriage. Okay. And that's for you to strongly and firmly begin to create really firm boundaries. Because your husband has nothing to anchor into right now.

Not that you can be his anchor forever, but he needs somebody in his life to say, I'm not moving anymore. I need a home. A friend of mine, when I was spinning out and I was out of control, my wife called him, one of my close buddies, and he came home and I was talking about house.

I'm gonna sell this house and move to this house and we're gonna move to this house. And by this time, mind you, my son had moved more times in his childhood than I had in my entire 35 years of life. And my buddy said, dude, your wife needs a home. And that sentence was like a, it was like a knife in my chest. And so your, your husband doesn't have a friend like that so that's going to be you saying this is where we live and I'm not going to consider moving

for three to five years I need to make a home here I need to make friends I need to have people over to our house here are the things I am going to do because here's what I need I need to have people over to our house. Here are the things I am going to do because here's what I need. I need to exercise.

I need to have friends. I need to have a local church. I need to have a movie theater that I go to. Whatever the things are in your life, you have to be bold and willing to say, here's what I need. And here is where I am dropping anchor for a season. And because he has not experienced that, that will feel threatening. That will feel disruptive.

And that might send him feeling lower. That is not your fault. Yeah. That's not your fault. That will be his adventure, his journey to heal in that capacity. But this is where we live or this is my job. So that's number one. Number two, you're going to have to feel guilt over resentment. And I say this all the time when it comes to like in-laws and stuff, but you're going to have to start saying out loud, here's what I need and here's what I want. And he might not be able to provide that for you because he's sick. Got it. You are going to have to start saying out loud, here's what I need and here's what I want. And he might not be able to provide that for you because he's sick. Got it. You are going to go get it.

You are going to go see a counselor. You are going to go see a marriage counselor, even if he won't go with you. You are going to make sure you go to a dentist and a health club, and you're going to make sure that you are doing the things that keep you well and whole. And you haven't done that for a decade have you no it's it's hard why is it hard i moved away from my support system so many times and i just don't have anybody right now i know it's lonely

and he is my best friend and he just doesn't feel good. And it's just hard. Are you willing to give him a picture of what well and strength and tiny little steps towards being whole look like? Yeah. Because I think you've spent a lot of time sitting with him in the sewage. And that's what great friends,

that's what love looks like. I don't know. I'm just, the biggest picture, the way to describe it is like, he's on a roller coaster instead of me just staying steady. I just ride the ups and downs

and I feel bad when he feels bad because I want to make him feel better and I can't. And the greatest gift you can give him is to get off the roller coaster completely. Just get off. Yeah. And it's not that you're running from him. It's that you're providing a stable base, a stable platform for him to anchor into. Yeah. I don't see a path for him being well

that's not going to include some sort of significant therapeutic intervention with a counselor. And maybe he's at a point where he needs to try ECT or ketamine or some sort of psychedelic. I mean, maybe he needs to bring in the heavy artillery, but he's going to have to do that therapeutically with a therapist who knows what they're doing. Yeah.

And there's just no path forward. Yeah. And I want you to hear me. Seeing somebody who's suffered from major depressive disorder or clinical depression on the other side of some of those, after years of, they call it, I won't use those technical terms. Depression becomes so, so challenging. And to see people on the other side of this, that are, it's like a light came on. So I want you to hear me say there is hope. Thank you.

There is what I would call radical hope. Friends of mine who just quit drinking after a decade and after some of these treatments, and they're a joy and they had kids and they laugh a lot and they make fun of their old selves in unimaginable ways. The hard part is you can't get him there.

He's going to have to choose that path. What you can give him, though, is a real-time picture of what it looks like. And you're going to break that cycle I was talking about, and everything in his body will try to reconstruct that cycle. He might get extra low. He might get extra mean. He might get extra fill in the blank. You can't control any of his responses to that.

What you can control is this one sentence, I'm worth being well. Yeah. Whatever that looks like. Is that fair? Yeah. I'm really proud of you. I'm proud of you for loving this guy for more than a decade and the way you have. And I'm proud of you for saying, this is as far as I can go.

And I don't know what to do. And I'm proud of you for calling. It's hard. I'm going to be proud of you every step of the way you take. And by the way, healing from depression is, I mean, it's little wins, baby steps, little wins, little wins, little wins. Tiny little steps that suddenly become big changes over time. It's like compound interest. And it's the weight of these massive changes that keeps people locked up.

And that's not how you heal from major depression. It's teeny tiny things. And it's brain chemistry and it's therapy. And it is some of these new therapies that have come out that are just looking to be magic. And it's a wife that says, I'm getting off the roller coaster, and I'm going to be well. I'm going to create a platform or a foundation for you to anchor into if you want to and if you're willing to. Hang on the line here. I'm going to send you a copy of When Your Past Changed Your Future. I want you to read that book. And here's my promise. I'll be with you

every step of the way, sweetheart. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Start taking care of Lauren. Start taking care of Lauren because that's the one person you can help right now. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work.

We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life, and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp.

BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks

with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, we're back. Let's go out to Asheboro, North Carolina, one of the most beautiful places in the country. What's up, Bradley? Hey, Dr. John.

How are you doing today? Great, man. How are you? I'm the country. What's up, Bradley? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing today? Great, man. How are you? I'm doing good. What's up? Well, so my question is, I have five kids, and they are at my mom's for the summer, just hanging out doing summer fun things with them.

And my wife and I, we are considering selling our current home and buying a new home while they're gone. Could it be easier to move with no kids in the way of moving? But is it weird to like, then go pick up the kids and just come back and be like, Hey, here's our new house. Like, should we have a conversation with the kids like their FaceTime or, I mean, they're eight and under. So most of them in my mind like won't even really be you know they're easily adjustable but then again at the same time I could see that being a big deal for kids you have five kids eight and under yeah yeah they're all about 18 months apart I bet your house is so incredibly still right now.

Is it amazing? It is. It's awkwardly still. I'm used to quiet being something that's getting destroyed, and now it's just peace. It's weird. Are they at your parents' house? Yeah, my mom.

Is your mom and dad just snorting Xanax off the bathroom counter? How are they doing this? I don't know. They're troopers for sure. I could just see your mom being like, well, your dad started smoking again. Hey, that's great. How far away is your parents' house? How far away are they from you guys?

12 hours. So they're in Mississippi. Golly, man. How old is your youngest uh two and that two-year-old is not going to see y'all for the whole summer uh well so we plan a midway visit to basically to kind of uh you know hang out for a few days. Okay. And, uh, so I, yeah, it's, we're testing that this is the first summer we're, we're trying it. Okay. It wouldn't surprise me if that two year old or that, I guess there's a four year old,

if a two and a four year old ended up needing to come home halfway through, maybe, um, that wouldn't surprise me. That's, that's a lot, a lot of separation from mom and dad for a two and a four year old. Just developmentally. That's a lot, but, um, maybe with their brothers and a four-year-old it is just developmentally that's a lot but uh maybe with their brothers and sisters eight six and five i mean even five that's that's a long time but all i'd say that's not even why you called so if i always find myself in your situation so you're thinking about selling the house y'all live in it'd be so much it's easier to do everything just it's just going to the bathroom is so, so much easier.

Having breakfast is so much easier. But you're thinking about selling your house and moving to a whole new place? Well, basically, you know, I mean, the housing market is crazy, but my wife was looking up home values and realized that, like, basically for the price,

for the value of ours, we could, there's like new developments and new neighborhoods growing up that have much more, you know, playgrounds and things like that. And so we could potentially give, you know, be in a better situation, more rooms for the same price. So I could, you know, as we currently are in, where we're in like 1960s home, where at any point, you know, something could really go wrong. We could end up being in a newer one

with the same money, basically. Yeah. I mean, and new things are going to go wrong in new houses too. So what I want you to do is to, if y'all decide to move, great.

I don't want you to create a bunch of problems where you live now. I'd much rather you see some opportunity somewhere else. Yeah. Right. Because your house, I'm convinced that the house you're in right now,

you could raise all five of these kids and you and your wife, and it would be tight and be maniacal and you'd be loud and all those things. But y'all could do it. You're seeing some new developments that have some cool amenities that you guys want as your family that might make your life more fun or a little bit easier or whatever. That's all well and good. So if you were to sell your house and let's pretend it sold in 30 days and you were going to move and let's pretend in August, August 1st is your move date and you're out of here and your two-year-old and your four-year-old have come back home. Here's what I would do in that situation. I would have a place picked out that I put an offer in. This is going to be our home. I would not say, hey,

we're thinking about moving this or that or that or this or anything like that. I would say we found a place and here's why those kids that young, the ambiguity, the, you instantly pull the tether out. It doesn't make sense. Whereas you and your wife are like, Hey, we should look at some houses that can become fun. And that can become an adventure for a kid. It can be unsettling, but you guys, you guys find a place. Here's where we're going to go. Then you take pictures of where their bedrooms will be and what we're going to move. It's Piaget and it's old. We're going to move into very concrete. This is going to be your room. What color would you like it to be? Red or orange?

Orange or pink? That way they get the concreteness. We are moving to a new house. Hey, look, here's a picture of the pool. Here's a picture of the playground. Here's some things that are going to be very real in our lives. And you get some ownership in this move, however small it might be. And by giving them some ownership, they have a vested interest. They move, I can't describe it other than they move into that choice and that decision and when they walk in that sense of this is all new this is all kind of freaky is also i picked that color that's mine and this is my room or this is

our like if you're sharing rooms this is our room and we picked this and maybe you ask doing a baseball poster or a hello kitty post i don't know what your kids are into. But find one or two little variables that they get a choice in all the way down to your, maybe even your four-year-old. But for sure, your eight-year-old, I guess you have a six, you have a seven or something like that, five-year-old, something like that? Yeah, yeah, eight, six, five, three, two, I think. Okay, yeah, so your eight and your six're 6 and you're 5-year-old.

I would sit them down separately than the other two and say we're going to have a big kid conversation. We found an amazing new house that's going to give more space, that's going to be by a new park and a pool, and they're going to go, wow, and then one or two of those kids, if not all of them will go, but I like our old house, and what about my room? And that's when you can say, check this out. And you can have an iPad forum or even put it on a big screen TV

and say, this is going to be your room. And you get to pick between baseball or football or whatever and like whatever and whatever. And you get to pick this color, which one do you want? And just go through it that way. And that way, when they show up, it's more of a sense of ownership and not a sense of they pulled the wool out from under me. The worst thing you can do was just drive home and pick them up. And be like new house. And then they will never feel settled for the rest of their life. That's not true.

They would be fine, but, um, I definitely wouldn't do that, but I would, I would bring them into it when you have some, some security. This is where we're moving.

This is the house. And when they can have tiny little bits of ownership. I think that's awesome. Okay. Okay, yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. The older ones were my main concern,

and then, yeah, who knows, we might get to getting everything house ready and then decide, hey, we still really like this house. I had a professor, a counseling professor. Her name's Aretha Marbley.

She's just a really important person in my life. She gave me some advice when my wife got pregnant with Josephine six years after we had Hank. And she said, you can avoid all of the problems that the first kid experiences with your second kid

if you will just do one thing. And I rolled my eyes. I was like, whatever. Everybody's giving me all this stupid parenting advice. And she said, just from this point forward, start referring to your wife's pregnancy as his baby. Just his baby. And what I didn't understand developmentally at the time

was he was very, very young, but he was so desperate. Kids are so desperate for any shred of ownership. And as parents, we can't give them a lot of ownership. And there's some kind of weird cultural zeitgeist where it's like, they do what we tell us and we tell them. That's terrible parenting. But if we teach them little bits of, hey, here's what ownership looks like and feels like, and you get to pick this.

And if one of them does a temper tantrum, I don't want to move, I hate this. That's fine. You move their house on them. That's cool. When you're ready to come back and have this conversation, we'll be happy to. I'm sorry that you're choosing to throw a temper tantrum over a really neat thing,

but I do understand that this is scary for you. So when you're ready to choose what room color you want, come on back. We can't wait for you to be here. And I'm going to let them go have their little fit and go do their little thing. I'm not going to get affected by that. I'm going to do what's best for my family, right?

But, man, you give them a little bit of ownership, whether it comes to having a brother or sister, you give them a little ownership into their appearance and how the room looks. Little bits of ownership, man, goes such a long, long way with childhood development. So well done, man. I don't know how y'all pulled the scam of the century, sending all five of those kids away, but well done. Well done. And best of luck to you, man. If you do get a new house, send us a picture and we'll post it up here, man. Can't wait. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right.

I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things,

or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose.

And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day.

It's a discipline and it's a practice. And here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself

and sometimes you do this with a group and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet Earth, Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show, get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app

when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, we're back. Let's go out to dear Marie in Madison, Wisconsin. What's up, Marie? Hey, Dr. John. It's a little surreal to be talking to you. It's very surreal to be talking to you.

I promise. What's up? I am calling calling and I'll just phrase my question first, but I am calling, um, cause of my sister. I would like to know how I can still possibly help her out, but to protect my family and our sanity as she has a child in an adult body and is making choices day to day that are devoid from reality. And I can definitely give you kind of the backstory. Yeah. Is she a child in adult body cognitively? Like she's got, um, she's got cognitive impairment or she's just an adult being a moron?

Pretty much the second. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Tell me more. I want to hear this story. Um, so I am an adult scapegoat child. Um, I left home over 12 years ago and went no contact seven years ago with very few exceptions. Literally my exception is funerals and my grandma's 90th party. Um, I am not 32. Okay. All right.

So, uh, I helped my sister, uh, who is a doormat or invisible child, um, get out about six years ago now. And she only decided to leave, quote unquote, after a very traumatic event that her parents had put her through, but she still maintains contact. What's that event? What's that? What's the event?

The event that I'm calling about today? No, what's the traumatic event she escaped from? The traumatic event that she had was, it's really messy, but so there's a man that showed up in our life and my parents, I have, we're part of a family of eight kids. So I nailed up to the eight. She was the second. And then there's a third one. And the third one is definitely narcissistic. My mother is the narcissist too in the sister, Teresa. And he told her at some point that he's like, I want to be with you. I'm going to date you. I'm going to tell your parents today. And then what ended up happening was he got there. My dad's like, you need to choose. You need to choose. And he was like, pretty much screaming, yelling in his face. This is what

my sister has informed me about. And she, uh, um, she said that she's like alright I'd choose sister three and Kayla was just completely devastated after that and then he just jumped in his car and left and that was it it's like an old bible story yeah it is

how old was your sister gosh this is six plus years ago so it was like 24, 25 when this happened how old was your sister? Gosh, this is six plus years ago. So it was like 24, 25 when this happened. How old was sister number three? 18 months younger than that. So there's 18 months between the first four. So they were 23 and 24 or 25 living at home. Yep.

And your dad was trying to arrange marriage with this mystery man. The other messy part, by the way, is he was also engaged to someone else. And I found this out from his sister, our adopted sister. All right. This is like, even Jerry Springer would be like, all right, that's enough of this. All right. So you want to help your sister.

So has your sister, is she still at home? Has she moved out or what? No, she's moved out. And this is actually why I called. So she just informed me a few weeks ago that she's seven months pregnant, closer to eight now. And my husband and I just had our first child here back. We've been married six years, but we just had our first child in January. And she claims that she didn't tell me because we were expecting our child and she didn't want the focus to be on that.

And she knew how I had to react. It was more reacting to the father because as I know, you know, is there's a lot of repeat with relationships we have to relive the trauma almost. And my sister has been going to therapy for five years, but she continues with relationships where people are emotionally, mentally, and financially abusing her all things that her family did.

And the father of her child, he is one of those toxic abusive types. And at the time I wrote him, we were aware of four times that her family did. And the father of her child, he is one of those toxic abusive types. And at the time I wrote him, we were aware of four times that he's cheated. This is during the first phase of them dating. And second phase started up again last year. And just this week, I learned that she had put a tracker on his car last year and found out that he was cheating again. So now there's five total times. And it was my aunt that told me this, not my sister. My sister also admitted that he's financially abused her in the past.

Five weeks ago she moved in with him. Okay, so how can I help you? What do you want to do? Well, I want to help her but she went and she had reached out to me. You can't. I know, I know, but she had reached out to me that she wanted out

because she called me saying that it was really messy. And I thought that it was. I am very worried about her. Yeah. Because pretty much I've taken care of all my siblings my whole life. I was not only a scapegoat, but I was the parent. Yeah. So here's what needs to happen really quick, okay?

And this is just you. And then we can get to the other things, the other people, okay? There's part of this frantic, I can hear it in the call. There's part of this frantic need to be the person who's out. Like, you're the scanner system for everybody in the family, for the brothers and sisters, for the who's dating who, and your body is running on drama. It's running on cortisol and adrenaline.

That's how you operate. And you've been running that way since you were a little bitty girl because you grew up in chaos with really crappy parents. Fair? It's fair, but I honestly, Dr. John, I run from drama, which is why I call because I'm ready to run again away from this because I don't want this in my family.

Okay. Or my family being my husband and my child. Sure. Absolutely. So here's the only way it works. To balance, I really, really love my family members and I want to take care of them. And they are making really poor decisions. And I'm not going to allow that poison into my home because this cycle stops with me. Yeah. Right. So here's what that means. I'm never,

the moment somebody starts to tell me about one of my sister's boyfriends, I end that conversation. Done. I don't want to hear it. Don't care. I don't want to hear it. The moment somebody starts talking about, did you hear your sister? Did she? Nope. Don't want to hear it. I'm not going to engage in that sort of gossipy conversation. I'm clearing my life of that mess. I will talk to my sister on a regular basis of some sort. And if my sister wants my help, here's what that's going to look like. You will get rid of your cell phone. You will never contact this guy again. You'll go to court and get full custody.

Like whatever you need to do because you're not bringing that insanity into my house. And I want you in my house. Here's the thing. She's going to have to make grown-up choices. Yeah. And you're going to have to make grown-up choices. Yeah. And you're going to have to make grown-up choices too.

But we have to create a place of steel and concrete so that anybody who needs help can anchor into it. And right now, you care about them so much, you're willing to dive back into that mess that you've spent so long healing from. Well, to an extent, I'm not willing to dive into it it which is why i'm calling because okay that's fair she she started reading a because this is kind of why i said my bind boundaries and i've been very hardcore it is you know if i know they're going someplace i will not go good like because i don't i don't it's hard and my husband has watched me like it was so hard walking away and it happened right before we got married because I uninvited them because my mother being who she is but um and hey I would stop with all diagnostic language yeah sorry like no I'm just saying this like it'll

it'll give you peace like I I've more peace well I I mean I'm trained in that and I don't refer to my friends as like, that guy's got depression and that guy's got anxiety. I don't even do that. And I know all the lingo. I just will simply say, yeah, that person makes me feel uncomfortable or that person brings too much chaos. I'm just going to, I'm going to bow out. I don't know if your mom has narcissistic personality disorder, if she's just mean, if she has a lot of trauma in her childhood, here's the deal. It doesn't matter. She treated you like crap and she stole from you and was abusive and your dad's

trafficking his adult daughters in a weird way. The whole thing's just a mess. And so, I'm out. I'll leave your diagnostics to the psychiatrist. I'm out. I'm going to go create a great life. And if you can, move across the country. I actually did.

Good. My husband was unhappy, so we partially moved back, but I put my foot down. I would not move back to the state that everyone was in. I mean, so you're proving me wrong. You are really working hard to heal, and that's awesome. Yeah, it's just, this is the one sister that I have contact with because like I said, I helped her out, but she's, these choices she's making now she has a baby girl that she's about to have is part of me. Again, this is where my, my go-to for response has always been flight.

That's why I'm a workaholic and I know it, but it's just, is this the time where I have to, I guess, run again and just walk away, but always let her know the door is open when she is ready to actually make those adult decisions. I think you're done running. Okay. But I think that you now have gone out to the front of your property and built a pretty firm boundary. Okay. And so I don't want you to look at saying no as some sort of trauma response. This is you speaking out of a position of strength and health. And so I don't want you to look at saying no as some sort of trauma response.

This is you speaking out of a position of strength and health. This is what healing looks like, unfortunately. We think that when we heal, it's going to be like, all right, everything's going to be awesome. It's not. It's not. Because the world around us hasn't healed. In fact, sometimes getting well, healing, and living in a peaceful situation can be unnerving. One, because our nervous system only knows chaos.

And when it has no chaos, it will either spin it up and create it, or it will try to go achieve something to make us feel good. We got to get a drill in somewhere, right? Or it will feel like depression. It will end up just sitting there drinking or Netflixing our lives away. And so I get that impulse but this sounds like you're operating not from a trauma response not from running but it sounds like you are like you've drawn a hard line and you can go out to the gates and you can hand her a piece of paper that says here's the here's what it will take for you to come to my home okay and that could be whatever you and your husband decide it's going to be.

And she needs to know if she comes to your house or if she becomes a part of your life, here is what will get her sent away. All right. If you bring an abusive man into this home, if you're in contact with somebody that's abusive, you're allowed to do that, but you cannot live here. If you swear, if you smoke in the house,

I don't care what it is. Yeah. You can make any rules you want because it's your place. Yeah. here. If you swear, if you smoke in the house, I don't care. I don't care what it is. Um, you can, you can make any rules you want cause it's your place. And what you, what you can give somebody over time. Here's my guess. My guess is she's going to get really mad at you. Like you're leaving me. Like you, you're, you're just bailing on me or you're all high and mighty or you escaped and it's how lucky it is to be you and all that nonsense and you're going to choose guilt over resentment every single time because you don't ever want to hate your sister right no i i don't hate my sister i know but if she moves into your house with this new little baby and that boy comes around and then that boy you walk in one day and

that man is alone with your kid you know you will hate your sister we're not going there yeah we're going to choose guilt we're going to put strong boundaries up and if sister doesn't doesn't um doesn't live into the boundaries you make for your life and for your family then she's opting out and i'm gonna feel guilty about that because i want to help her but she's choosing she's choosing not to take help right now. Yeah. Right? You getting back in that chaos isn't going to help. Is there any way that you know of where you can, because she's almost creating a delusional world right now.

Like I said, she was open to moving, talk to him, and just being who he is. It's just, she's like, the hairs on her. No. The only one that I know of is constant touches with reality. And that is you deciding I'm going to write her a letter every week. It just tells her I love her. And here's a great thing that happened. And here's the weather.

I'm talking about some very detailed reality things. Or I'm going to call you once a week and we're going to talk for 30 minutes. And then at 30 minutes, your watch is going to beep or your phone's going to beep. And you're literally going to say, all right, I got to run. Have a great, even if it's in the middle of a conversation, you're going to, what you're doing is you're, you are modeling in real time, what boundaries look like, what peace looks like. Hey, me and my husband are going on a date tonight. So we got a big romantic one plan. We've got a babysitter coming over. So y'all have a great night. I'm going on my date. Oh, it must be nice. Oh my gosh. I wish I, yep. Yeah. It's really incredible. And I hope you'll

join me someday. Have a great one. And I'm hanging up, right? I'm getting out. But no, there's no way that you can get involved and make her choose not this guy who's a gaslighter and a whatever and a whatever and a whatever and a partridge in a pear tree. You can't do anything about that. You can provide an alternative place of peace and safety for her,

but she's going to have to opt in. And I hate that for both of you. I especially hate it for that little bitty baby girl that's on the way Because that little baby girl didn't didn't ask for any of this nonsense But dude, I'm proud of you Marie for getting out I'm proud of you for creating strong boundaries and saying not for me and my family not anymore and I know that that felt like once we got established, everything was going to be just, ah, and it's not. Sometimes when we heal, our eyes are open to just how chaotic

and madhouse the rest of the world actually is. Create a peaceful home and then create the boundaries by which people can enter it and choose guilt over resentment every time. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to

whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we are back. Got an email here from Victoria Locke. Pretty amazing. Victoria says, I'm sitting next to my mom who's on hospice after a two-year battle with brain cancer. Last year, my best friend from college told me the classic, if there's anything you need, you let me know. And she added, if your mom wants to backpack the Grand Canyon again, I will help carry gear for her. I dismissed this offer at first thinking it was crazy. However, I later decided that it was worth a shot. I bought the permit and started planning. My friend brought two of her friends to help. My sister Brittany came too. To make a long story short, we pulled off the trip and I will never regret doing it. I'm just going to pause right there. What a great

friend. Like metaphorically and in reality, I'll carry your gear. When you can't, I'll be there. To make a long story short, we pulled off the trip and I'll never regret doing it. We laughed together, had questions for humans conversations. Yes. Saw the stars, drank wine, chased sunsets, ran away from rain and had a generally good time. Mom gave me a beautiful example of what it looks like to live fully and courageously, no matter what life hands me. And she got an example deep in her soul of what raising an extraordinary daughter looks like. Because she raised a daughter who would grow up to be an amazing woman who had great friends and who knew what care and compassion looked like and knew what planning looked like

and knew what hard, scary things we're going to do them anyway because we only got one more shot looks like. Your mom gave you a gift, but Victoria, you gave her, I can't imagine a greater gift from my kids. Because of my mom, I will choose to treat this one life

like the precious gift it is. Victoria, that's incredible. Thank you for sharing this. Thank you for taking questions for humans with you down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Those cards have ended up in places I never in a million years would have imagined. But the thought of a mom dying from brain cancer and her daughter and her daughter's friends sitting in the bottom of the Grand Canyon. Laughing, telling stories, drinking a little bit too much, doing questions for humans, looking at the stars. Man, that can get me choked up. Thank you for allowing me to have a teeny tiny little place in this amazing story.

You're a good daughter raised by an extraordinary mom. She's lucky to have you as you were lucky to have her. Thank you all so much for listening to the show. That's it for today. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Have fun and make good choices. We'll see you soon.

Love you all.