The Dr. John Delony Show - Masterclass: How to Deal With a Cheating Spouse

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

📋 Stay connected all week long. Download Dr. John Delony's free Weekly Marriage Check-In Guide:   On today’s first Mixtape episode, we take a look back at the top calls about infidelity.   Next Steps: 🔥 Microhabits for a better marriage. Download the Together app. ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway. 📞 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. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Go to Joi + Blokes and get 50% off labs and 20% off products. Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today.   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights  🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My wife and one of my best friends had over a year-long affair. I'm worried that my husband may be having an emotional affair with my best friend. I had a one-night stand or hooked up, I guess, with her stepmother. And I saw that he was on a dating site, so I catfished him. No way. Welcome to the Deloney Mix Tate. This is a new show that I've put together because you asked for it. Here's what it is.

it's topic-based episodes that we compile calls about a specific issue that you're facing in your life that will help you develop a roadmap, not feel so alone, right, and give you some steps that you can take in your own life. And so whether it's about infidelity, whether it's about exercise and nutrition, whether it's about family members cutting each other off, or any number of countless topic-based issues, we're compiling a group of calls. calls into a specific episode just for you. This is not designed for you to gawk and ooh and awe. It's designed for you if you're struggling with a particular thing

or you have someone in your life who's struggling with a particular thing, to listen to other people's experiences and to get the next right steps for you and your family. So the first episode of the Deloni mixtape is about infidelity. So many folks reach out who've got spouses who are cheating on them, husbands, wives, this first episode is about what to do in the aftermath of finding out your spouse has cheated on you. Check it out. How do I forgive and move forward after my wife and one of my best friends had over a year-long affair behind my back? Whoa.

I mean, the second part of that is, is it even possible for me to move forward? Tell me about it. Well, feel free to stop or interrupt me because I can get, there's so much that goes into this. You know, I can get ranting, but... Do this for me. Hold on, hold on. Based on what you just said, I'm all about the rant. I get it.

I want to rant for you. Okay. It's easy to get dragged down in the mud on these deals. I want you to practice just with me, staying above it and looking down as far as you can on it. Okay? Okay. Give me the high level, and this isn't for,

this isn't for, like, good radio. This is for you to be... able to begin to talk about this without getting dragged underwater by it because every time you go underwater, you get emotional and you get emotional, you act crazy either. I'm going to let her back in or she's never coming back or my friend. Let's practice staying way up here on this one.

Okay, so tell me what happened. In as few sentences as you can. Okay. Last August, I got on her laptop and found that she had been on a paternity test website. Our daughter just turned one. I had been on a paternity test website and questioned her about it and end up finding out it was one of my best friends who was also my boss.

Whoa! He was in our wedding. I left my previous job for him. What do you do? That job that I really, I'm a firefighter. Is that guy still have his job? Let's just say he left. Good.

after this. The research is pretty clear that somebody that cheats on their wife, that lacks that type of integrity at home, also lacks that type of integrity at work. Yeah, and this is an ongoing thing for him. Yeah, and you're a firefighter. I don't want a piece of crap like that out making sure my community is safe because that sucker's going to cut corners

and some innocent bystander is going to die because that person lacks the deepest roots of character. you're 100% right good man I hope that that dude's like grooming dogs or something right now where he can't hurt anybody all right so

the hard part about that too was so we actually found out she was pregnant a few months before we got married just we were already engaged it just kind of happened I mean it didn't just kind of happen well we know how it happened

yeah I was like like oh my gosh no we know how to happen all right so she had a bad reaction? What does that mean? Well, so she's always had, we've been together, we're high school sweethearts, she's always had really strong Christian values

and I don't know where the nightly found out, they like flipped like eight months before a wedding and it was really bizarre and I didn't understand why. She wanted to start using things like I'm going to do what I want to do, like comments like that, like regardless of what I think.

And so when she found out she was pregnant, she had told me she wanted an abortion. Okay. And it was really hard on me, obviously, of trying to be like, please, you know, don't do this. Like, this is our baby. Like, you will regret it. Is that because she thought it was somebody else's baby?

Yeah, which I didn't know. And she didn't tell me. Okay. So that was before our wedding. He was in our wedding. She had started the affair with him, and I didn't find out until over a year later and had continued every now and then with him. then.

How long have you have been married? A year and a half. How old are you? It'll be 25 for a few months. Yeah. This girl broke your heart, man.

Yeah. And she gave you the best thing of all time, too, at the same time. That little kid, right? Yeah. That messes with your mind up, right? Yeah.

I'm sorry, man. The only way that this marriage can survive. Can it? Yes, it can. Is it going to be hard? Yeah. You're a firefighter.

You're not scared of hard things. The only way it survives is y'all completely control, all, delete everything you knew about your marriage and you start completely over. And both of y'all are all in. And what does that mean? The fact that you called and said, I looked at her laptop. My wife and I just have laptops. Several, actually.

I guess she has her phone and my phone, but we both know the codes to each other. Like, it starts there. Yeah. You don't have secret stuff and I don't have secret stuff. We're just going to build a unified structure here, right? You wouldn't put up with that kind of logic in the firehouse, right? You wouldn't have like, I'm just going to prep this however I want. You can't because someone will die.

Same applies in your marriage. Would she do that? You mean, would she be willing to control, alt delete, start over, open up accounts, I mean, open up finances, share finances, open up electronics, cut off all contact with other people. and just go fully in us to ride or die, building a marriage that will last forever? Well, I mean, to add the extra layer to this situation, so that was like the night that I found out,

I went up to the firehouse, me and him worked different shifts, and I confronted him. And I came back, and the first thing I said was, here's what I need if we're going to fix this. And that was one of the things. And she genuinely tried for a few weeks, and then it just stopped. And I will say, like, I'm a pursuer and she's, like, definitely a withdrawaler.

Like, she shuts down. And so she shut down, and that lasted until the end of December. And I, we separated. Okay. But this is, you know, I, when we separated, it's with the hope that, like, maybe something will change. And get better. And I do see flashes of that at times. And then there's, you know, there's really high highs, really high lows.

I grew up with a mom with BPD and I see a lot of the similar traits in her and I genuinely believe that a lot of this is caused by the mental illness and my vows meant something to me and she broke your vows brother she broke your vows. I know your vows meant something to you

but she broke them. You're hanging on to a ski rope and she cut the rope and you're still trying to ski and you're bobbing in the middle of the water the boat is gone. I'm just hanging on something that I wish was there. That's exactly right. That's when I tell you, you've got to build something new.

You've got to build something completely new. And by the way, I really, lately have, you stepped in it. You didn't even mean to, so I'm not going to direct this at you. I'm kind of over the, I'm a maximizer. I'm a builder. I'm a pursuer. I'm a whatever. Like, I don't care.

Like, I am a podcasting YouTube. and radio personality. That's on my job description here at my office. I also go out and pick up trash outside if we have a bunch of guests coming. Because when things get, when you need to pull together as a team,

you move chairs together. You just do what you gotta do, right? And so I don't care if you're, I'm a withdrawal or I'm a pursuer. Dude, my marriage is about over. I'll do it ever I have to do. Yeah. If it's uncomfortable, if it's like, I don't care.

Right? So it's like, I'm just going to do my withdrawal game. No, dude, we're not time for games. You're about to be a single mom and I'm about to be a single dad. And I don't want that for us. I want that for my baby. But yes, you are holding on to something that no longer exists. The question is not, can you get it back? You cannot. It is over. The question is, can y'all build something new? And I think you can, but it takes both of you. And she goes through one day. She doesn't think there's a chance that she would ever want to be with me again. and then the next she acts completely otherwise. All right, here's someone to tell you. You have self-diagnosed her,

and you are looking at her through a lens of some sort of mental health diagnostic. Don't do that to her. It's not fair. What you have to do is to ask yourself, because here's what it does. It also gives you a pass. It helps you not look at reality.

And you've probably heard me say this a million times on the show. If behavior's a language, what is she telling you? I don't want to be. be with you. Yeah. Occasionally I'll hook up with you. Occasionally when we come to see the baby or when she comes to visit the baby or you go to visit the kid, you'll have some laughs.

You grab a drink. Maybe she's made dinner and it just feels like it would feel good, but it's not real. Is that true or false? Tell me if I'm wrong, man. I'd love to be wrong here. Very true. Okay. The only thing I think left to do is to sit down and say, I need us to be adults and

let's say we're going to go all in. And I have done my work to say, here's what all in means. Or let's call it. Because right now you're both drowning in the maybe. Maybe there needs to be some just gray mush for a while. But it doesn't seem to be effective. That's why I like separations,

like to have a date and a time and a location where we're going to reconnect, what we're going to talk about when we get there. Like that separation's got a purpose. and that's just to let the fire burn out in the house because things got too hot. And it's been four months. Has she seen somebody else that you know of?

I asked her yesterday. She says no. You can't believe that. Yeah. No, I don't trust her. Yeah. Would she go see somebody with you? We went to counseling.

She actually, like the day after I found out, scheduled us an appointment with a lady. and we went together like three times and this lady and I kind of butted heads it was a lot of like I would make the comment of how like I felt if she can't if I can't be

if I can't trust her with her phone as far as if I just asked to do something on it and she was very skittish about it pretty much the counselor told me that I have no right to even ask that. It's nonsense. Nonsense. Never walking that lady's office again.

It's bull crap. Well, I stopped. From pretty much the third or fourth appointment, she said we should want to start doing separate. And I didn't do that with her. That's absolutely nonsensical. She still goes to her, but I feel like the lady almost justifies it.

Like, I don't, I don't think it's, I think it's doing more harm than good. Here's a deal. Here's a deal. Here's a deal. you're spending a lot of time in your wife's head

and you're making up stories about why she's doing something, what it's doing, how it's, I wouldn't do that. Judge the actual action in front of you. Okay? Does it matter what she's doing? It doesn't matter where she's like all, like I,

for us to stay together, I need you to be completely open with electronics. If that's not something you can do, then that's cool. I'm out. That's not. She's told me to know. Yeah.

I think I'm just scared because I grew up. My parents divorced when I was early in my teenage years, and I had a really bad reaction to it and grew up. You know, I'll never do that. My child. So two things. You've got to forgive yourself. You made yourself a promise that you didn't realize at a young age that takes two.

And it sounds like you've worked your butt off to hold up your end of that rope that somebody else caught. And so go back and forgive your 13 year old self for being so pissed off at your parents because you don't really know what happened. You kind of do, but probably not. And give yourself some grace, man. You went all into the ring to fight that guy as hard as you could.

You just didn't know the person that was supposed to fight with you was going to cut your knees out from under you. Gotta give yourself some grace on that. And part two is be the best damn dad that ever existed that little kid. I know she is.

My daughter's mine too. I mean, it made it ten times harder to even deal with what she did because for four months I didn't even know she was mine until the results came in. I know. She'll always be her baby girl. And we're not going to talk bad about mom because she's also half mom too. And we're going to love that little girl. She's not going to know a day in her life that daddy's not telling her that she loves her. And if some crappy stepdad comes in the picture, your dad's going to be right there.

and if mom's not okay, dad's going to step in. And if dad's got to go to court and get everything sorted out what you're going to need to do, then we're going to go get things done, but we're going to take care of that baby girl. Is that cool?

Yeah. I hate this for you, man. Sounds like you tried to do right. I'm sorry. It's been eight months now. It's just trying every day. The first, like, I wrote this book a while back,

and I couldn't figure out the first the way to start it. I couldn't figure out like the entry point to it. And I finally landed on a sentence on two words, choose reality. And I don't know there's any sort of healing or mental or emotional or even physical health. I don't know if there's any way to get that without first being honest about the starting line. Here's how far I have to run. And I got to just at some point drop my shoulders and choose reality. The reality is my best friend in the world and boss didn't stabbed me in the back. He stabbed me right in the face. My wife, the mother of my

baby girl, stabbed me right in the face. Right? Yep. That's choosing reality. That's heartbreak, dude. That's grief. That's grief. Man, this anger that's raised all of it, dude. It's all good. It's all right. And then the question is, what are you going to do next?

I don't. I think the conversation I mean, I'll say this. There was a little bit of conflict between the two of us yesterday. And she said, you know, she doesn't want to be with me. And if that were to change, it wouldn't be for a long time. Cool. You need to have the courage to hear her words.

And then go do what you've got to do. You need to go to the courthouse. You need to get an attorney. You need to go do the next right thing. I just feel like I'd be losing my daughter, too. No. You won't be. It makes it very difficult for me already.

I know, and that's what a court order can help with. At least it'll clarify that halftime or three-fourths time or whatever, non-shift time. But you're trying to hold together a fantasy brother, then that it's gone. It's a ghost. And that angst, that, like, I'll say this in a harsh way. You've already lost your daughter. Your daughter right now is tangled up in like an electric fence of chaos and tension. And I don't know who's what and where.

and that's my daddy, but he doesn't live here. That's my mommy. She doesn't live here. I hate this for you, man. But it's time. You call an attorney. You find yourself a therapist that isn't delusional. So ridiculous.

I'm worried that my husband may be having an emotional affair with my best friend. And I'm having difficulties having, like, open and honest conversations with him about it. Okay. Tell me more. So I guess, I guess it all. started a month ago. I woke up one morning, just happened to see the security cam doorbell thing had a banner on my phone, and it was my husband leaving the house at midnight. And then there was another one that had him coming back at 2 a.m. And so when I asked him about it, he just said,

hold on, Hannah. Those are called regular affairs, not emotional affairs. Okay. Well, So he said he went next door, which is my best friend is my neighbor next door. And her and me and my husband and her and her husband, we hang out. We do things with the kids. So I didn't actually feel weird about that. But I asked him, how did it come to be that he went over there at midnight? And he just said that she invited him over. so that didn't really sit well

and I just asked him to see the text so I could understand and a few hours after him just refusing to let me see the phone at all he told me he deleted the text Hannah. Yeah you hear yourself as you're saying this right? Oh I know I know I know

until you decide I'm going to sit in reality I can't help you Yeah. You know, you know. Has he cheated on you before? Yes. Okay. Do you have little ones?

Do you have little ones? Yeah. Okay. We have a almost 13-year-old and an 8-year-old. And you promised yourself never again, right? Of course. And you blamed yourself for part of it last time, right? Yes, sir.

I am not minimizing what this all means. Okay. Yeah. In fact, I know that you don't want to turn around because if you turn around, you realize that the gates of hell have just been opened. Mm-hmm. And so it's easier just to keep looking forward and make up imaginary stories. Yep. But I would not be your friend and I wouldn't be someone who cares about you.

If I didn't metaphorically hold your hand and say, we've got to turn around a look because the gates are wide open. Right. it doesn't I have left my house multiple times in the middle of the night and it's just go sit with people whose family members have passed away and it's with a team of people and it's part of a job or just sit in hotels and whatever okay so I've done that so many times I can't even count I pride myself on being available for my friends 24-7 365 and for people in my community

if there ever was a moment when my wife said, let me see your phone. Well, she wouldn't have to do that because she's got my code and she can look anytime she wants. Right. And I don't have a history of cheating on my wife. I have a history of being an idiot. You see what I'm saying?

Like every variable you told me, where was your best friend's husband? Apparently from what she has told me He was upstairs with their youngest trying to get him to bed, and she just really needed a corkscrew to open a wine bottle. I know. You can't be serious. I know.

I know. I know. Oh, I wish I could laugh. I know. I'm laughing for you. I'm laughing laughter you don't have. I know. I know you don't have it.

I know you don't have it. And I know if you start laughing, you'll probably start crying. You won't be able to stop. I know. Okay. I know. So we're at that magical place. Everyone I've ever sat with.

Eventually we get to this one question. What are you going to do now? That's what I've been asking myself every day. Okay. I know what I should do, I think. No, there's not a should. There's not a should. There's not a have to.

There's just an is. Because if you, if you say I should, then you're outsourcing, you're blaming, you're outsourcing your next move on some kind of cultural pressure, social pressure, blah, blah, blah. What do you want to do? I mean, I wish I could just forget about them completely.

You can't. You can sweep another rug. You're grown up. You get to do that. I've done that for 10 years. I know you have. And this is one of those moments, if you've got a serial cheater that everything kind of stops like do, like Star Wars, right?

And all of a sudden you go, oh crap, this has been happening for a long time. Right. And by the way, there is a way to, you can just Google it, there's a way to get deleted text messages that they stay on your phone. Well, I know, I tried that and that's when he, I tried to be sneaky. Well, I asked him for it, he handed me the phone, and I started to do that. That's when I saw the amount of text messages between the two of them. Okay.

But he snatched it out of my hand before I could actually go through anything. Okay. And that's really... Listen, listen. Yeah. I'm not going to make any judgments of you. I'm not going to beat you up. I'm just going to sit here with you.

You can live with somebody who's going to lie to your face and sleep with your next-door neighbor slash best friend. Who, by the way, she's not your best friend. Stop referring to her as that. Right. She's a neighbor who is sleeping with your husband. and or let's say they're not sleeping together as being so incredibly disrespectful of you and your marriage

and your integrity. Just stupid, right? Just dumb. You can live with that life and you can raise your two kids and let them see like, this is what love looks like and this is what marriage looks like. Or you can make another choice

and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, like the thought of becoming a single mom, that phrase is terrifying, and what that means economically, and what that means decision-making. And if you have done anything dumb, every one of your texts

is going to be made public too in court. Like all that stuff, I get it, I get it, which you have to choose to live in reality. And if you can't bear the weight of reality, which I get, I've been there myself, then you've got to get somebody to sit with you and hold it with you. Right.

And that's been the difference. difficult part because he's telling me that my reality isn't the actual reality. I know. And he's, I mean. When you, when you just said the thing about the corkscrew, it's not on camera, all of the men and women in the booth,

like they all drop their heads. Like, oh God. I know. But listen. I know. If nothing else you get from this call, you're not crazy.

You do have some choices to make. You have some hard choices to me. You have some hard choices to me. make. Mm-hmm. But you're not crazy. I appreciate that. So how can I help with you?

I guess that was it. I mean, you know, I talked to her about things and it just, I realize my, you know, the part of me that said, I just want to know what was in that text, but that won't really make anything better because then they'll just be waiting for the next shoe to drop. You know what's in those texts, Hannah. You know. I know. I just wanted to be so wrong.

I know. I know. Trust me, I would love, I would love for you to call and say, I think my husband's having an affair, and you rattle it off, and then me go, I don't think that's it at all.

I would love that. And if that was the case, as a guy who would gladly in the middle of the night, go over to my friend's house and help their wife out with anything they needed. Right.

Not anything. Most things, right? I don't know. I get it. I would gladly, I would, with unthinkingly, hand my phone over to anybody. Right.

And I would also set up some pretty ridiculous guardrails, right? Right. Yeah. And if I'd ever cheated on my wife, if I'd ever slept with somebody that wasn't my wife, I would have new rules that say I don't go over to people's houses in the middle of the night. The funny thing is we had those rules They sat on our refrigerator for years

He just forgot, I guess No, he didn't, he never cared He never cared I know He never cared I know Will you just sit with me for a minute In that?

Yes Yes I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I in the same way I'm asking you to live in reality Until he decides to sit down

And be honest with you There's not a lot of co-creating what happens next, you're going to have to move on your own. Right. Right. If he decides to sit down and say, all right, here's a deal.

But until he decides to be honest, he's not going to be honest, I mean, what does he even say when he looks at you in the eye and says, you can't see my phone? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me. Here we go. You're looking for something.

You're going to be a detective. Here we go. Yes, I am. Show me your phone. Why do you back away there? I didn't physically take it from him. That's the only thing I didn't do. I mean, I did actually say the word.

If you don't show me your phone right now, we're done. Yeah, did he laugh at you? He didn't laugh, but that's when he hadn't deleted it at that point. And then after that, an hour later, he was like, well, I deleted it. Okay, you've heard me say this a million times on the show. Behavior's a language. What did he tell you? This is over.

Yep. He called your blog. Yeah. Cool. This is over. Yep. And you're the one that doesn't want to hear what he just said. By deleting the thing you said, if I don't see it, I'm out.

And he's like, cool, delete. I call. Yep. That's true. Do you have somebody you can call? Yes. You have somebody you can sit with in your local community and be completely 100% honest? Yes, I do.

I will be available. able to you every step of the way call back anytime and you know like I do the next while is going to be awful and it's it will be insane to expect someone who has no character

to has no integrity who hurt you with his dishonesty and then makes you feel crazy for it to suddenly treat you a dignity and respect as your marriage as you'll figure out what happens next right Okay. He heard you. If you don't show me this, this marriage is over. Cool. Delete.

Mm-hmm. You're right. I just didn't want to see it. Yeah. But I know it. I'm so, so sorry. That's all right. I think it is. I mean, this is what I need somebody to just say. Here's the mirror. Look at what you're saying. You know that you're not crazy. Yeah. You're not crazy. You're not crazy. And you heard it. You heard yourself when you said it. Like you're not crazy. I'm heartbroken with you.

Been married for more than 20 years. We've experienced normal marriage problems like most people, but got involved at work with somebody, a coworker. And have had a very difficult time dealing with those emotions. making probably negative emotional decisions and that's drawn me away from being the best husband and father and I don't like it. Tell me about the involvement. How long you've been, are you having an affair? Are you just, are you just, you're just like the attention from somebody? Well, I'm. Have you been sleeping with this person? Yeah.

Okay, for how long? So it's, it started out several years ago. It's been like eight years now. Eight? So the better part of a decade? Yeah. Okay, so you've been in this, having this affair with this other person for almost as long as halfway, as long as like 50% of your marriage.

You've had somebody else? Yeah, not quite, but yeah. okay how can I help you um so I've been talking to a therapist on the side um for about three months and I don't want to go through divorce never planned this um bro hold on this isn't a one-night stand this is an eight year long sexual and emotional affair you're talking about this like it just happened like you're in a work trip and you had too many drinks and you just and it happened help me with this well it definitely it definitely happened um so

we were working together for a while and a couple of years before anything transpired um and she kind of like expressed to me you know we were actually um that's the times when I came by the desk like she couldn't I couldn't do that I couldn't come

you know and I'm kind of her supervisor and and when I'd come and look at stuff. She got physically changed, I guess, warm and flustered. Maybe it's love, whatever the feeling is. And she basically told me without telling me that she was interested. It's like I can't handle it when you come by. So one of your employees eight years ago said, hey, it makes me feel uncomfortable when you come by.

I should have replaced her. And you were like, you know what? We should probably sleep together. No. Or we should go out for coffee or I have feelings for you too or whatever happened. Yes. Even the way you're telling that story, it's like it happened like two weeks ago. Right.

So why are you still married? That's the question I've wrestled with. So like I've been unhappy. And the large majority was probably just the budding heads at home. and what I felt was lack of respect at home. And kind of like when we had kids, they became the priority. And I was thrown aside, not entirely. But the feelings were lack of respect and arguing with me about parenting in front of our kids.

And so the kids start to argue with the parents. And suddenly I look like a bad guy. or the wrong guy, and we were not on the same page. And we tried to counsel around this same time that that happened, finding out your different value systems. And we started counseling back then. She had suspected just because we work in a smaller office, so she kind of like said, I bet you want to, you look at her and want to, boom.

And I'm like, no, never. I hadn't crossed my mind before. Until she said that and then... Oh, you're going to blame your wife for this too? No, no, no, no. I'm not trying... I just... I guess there's that potential in any situation.

I'm not saying she's wrong for thinking that. But that's... I was shocked when she had said that because that's not at all how I felt. I always guarded my thoughts. So I always tried to submit those to Christ and have, you know, not have to deal with that. Okay, okay. But I, but I, okay.

But you're there. You're here. We're there. And it's, hold on, hold on. Hold on. I can't help but feel there's a disassociation from reality. Okay. I don't know a marriage.

None. Zero. I don't know a marriage that when you. kids start coming along that there's not tension and that there is a need to figure out a new way to communicate new values emerge that we didn't even know we had this is a big deal to me this is not a big deal to me and there's that's that's that's that's that's that's par in course for marriage is part on course for having kids and i applaud you all for going to therapy for counseling trying to figure out a new way i'll take your word for it that your wife just said i don't care what you feel

I don't care what you think. I'm going to treat you like crap. I'm going to not care about you at all, which, by the way, I don't believe, but I'm going to take your full word for that. I'm going to treat you like crap, husband. I'm not going to care about you. I'm not going to respect you.

I'm not going to love you. I'm just going to care about these kids. And still, you chose to sleep with one of your employees for the better part of 10 years. You have agency. You've always had agency. And so we're here now on this call. Tell me about how I can help you with the call.

Are you wrestling with staying in your marriage? Are you wrestling with like what do you, how can I help you, man? Well, there's a lot, there's a lot of naturally of potential shame. I don't want to, I don't want to drag through a divorce. And my kids are super important. It's super important for me to be there with them in the mornings, taking them to school. I know, but you should have been through that eight years ago, dude.

Here's the deal. You've burned your house down and you're trying to tell me, like, I want to still want to keep the upstairs, and I want to keep the couches. All of that is gone now. It's over. The question is, how long are you going to live a life

where you can't even look yourself in the mirror? Right. Because I hear that on you, dude. I hear it. I'm trying to be compassionate. I hear it. I've driven myself to this point. And I'm,

the heaviness is just overwhelming. What got, why now? What got you here? Are you about to be found out? Are you, like, no, why here?

No, I do. By the way, your wife knows. She 100% knows. You don't think so? I don't, seemingly not. But, I mean, maybe she does. I've heard you tell that to other people as well.

And I'm just trying to minimize destruction. It's gone. It's already gone. It's gone, brother. Okay. It's gone. That's the fantasy part of this, that you are in control of this. You're not.

Right. We're not. It's gone. The only thing you can do now is the next right thing, which is for the first time, and a long time, be a person of 100% integrity. What's the next right move? Stopping what I'm doing. Okay.

By the way, that will come with multiple lines of consequences. It may end in the loss of your business. It may end in a lawsuit at work. It may end in a loss of your marriage. It may end in all of it. And that won't make it not the right thing to do. Mm-hmm. I don't see a way where these planes land,

and I know you've been trying to air traffic control them all, dude. They're going to crash. I'm telling you, man, I've just been doing this too long. Mm-hmm. That's what I feel. Aren't you tired? Aren't you tired? Yeah.

Yeah. It was amazing and exciting as it's happening, and then you just realize what you just said. It's going to crash. And I'm not trying to be a bad person. And if things don't change, I guess, and I, number one, I'm okay with ending it and moving on. But then what about my marriage? Is it too long gone?

Do people recover? Listen, brother, I'll say it one more time. The marriage you have is over. The best shot you have if you want to keep that charade going is to exhale and put everything on the table and make. Maybe your wife will choose to rebuild something new with you. But your marriage hasn't been what you project to the world for 10 years. And by the way, it started falling apart before you started sleeping with one of your employees. Right.

Right? Who is this? Tell me about this woman who's gone eight years being the other woman. Is she content in that role? Has she been asking you to leave your wife for you? years, like, even that arrangement is strange. She's married, too, and unhappy. And so talking about those things is what led to this.

And, of course. So there's two families that are going to be blown up over this. Right. And that's what I've been telling her and trying to basically get out without hurting you can't get out without hurting people but she why hasn't she

my therapist has said the same thing why hasn't she left her marriage because she's for whatever reason either just waiting on you or or she's not serious like she's not seriously in love

it's not love it's something else trying to get in her head and decide why she's doing what she's doing is a waste of your time and energy. Mm-hmm. Building a life with somebody who also lacks that much integrity is a fool's errand. It feels to me like the right thing to do is not for you to go fire somebody, but for you to leave.

And you to say, I'm starting over. Because I've burned this whole thing to the ground. How are any of your other employees going to trust you? How are your customers going to trust you? If you can keep an ongoing deception for eight years from the person you said till death due his part, no customers can trust. You know what I'm saying? I don't know.

I don't get that you get the depth of the mess you're in. Or maybe you do and it's just saying it out loud is so scary. Totally. So what does it look like? What's your next move? I don't know. That's why I'm calling. What's your counselor have been telling you?

Have you been seeing a counselor for depression or anxiety? Have you been seen the counselor for What to do? Yep. He said As quickly as I can end it To do it if it's next Monday, you know? And that's, you've been seeing this person

For multiple months, you said? Mm-hmm. So why? You haven't taken that professional's advice That you're paying. Where are you going to take mine? I'm just some Yahoo on the Internet's, man. Like, I think you need to have a conversation

with your wife today. and at some point you have to, I don't think you fire that person or you separate from that person. I think you leave your job. I think you get a close-up shop. I don't know, I don't know what your profession is. And if you're a boss or if you're just a mid-level manager,

I don't know the arrangement what you got. But I think the integrist thing is for you to leave. You've been in a power position over this employee for eight years. That's not going to read well in the deposition, my brother. Not to mention her feeling a, like, man, what am I supposed to do? Lose my job too? Forget the legal side of it.

Just like when your boss says, hey, you want to come over? Like, are you going to meet at a hotel or whatever? Those text messages in black and white don't read well, man. I go with what your therapist said. He's been working with you for months now. I think the first conversation begins with your wife. Or the first conversation begins with you submitting your resignation for wherever it is, you work. and you going home and telling your wife, here we go.

Here's everything. And she may get on the phone and call this other woman's husband. She may march down to, who knows, you can't control what happens next. And I think this illusion of control and you balancing all these spinning plates, it's made you have to detach from reality from the amount of pain you're about to go through

and more importantly, the amount of pain you put so many other people through by your choices and your actions. and the other employees in this office, the customers that you serve, everybody. But the only person you can control right now is you and doing the next right,

integris thing. The question is, how do me and my wife rebuild our marriage after I had a one-night stand or like a hook up, I guess, with her stepmother? Eric, let's just,

as they say, back that thing up. Say what? Yeah Really Just a wild situation Um It can all seriousness

What happened Um We were all drinking together Um We all killed a bottle of tequila The three of us within the hour Um And then it was just me and her step mom

In her apartment Um My life went downstairs with the kids And all that good stuff And they were swimming And basically she was asleep and I was on the couch just waiting for her I was going to wake her up for her work call she was like supervisor or whatever and had to end uh like send a closing email so I was staying there making sure she woke up to do that and when she woke up her top bell off she was wearing a bikini her top bell off and put it back on and then I kind of like pursued after that and uh so your your marriage is over you're not going to rebuild this yeah Yeah.

I mean, I can't think of a more egregious violation, man. I can't. Kids and beyond kids this. Yeah, it's definitely... Yeah, you've blown it up. I think the integrous thing to do is to treat your wife with dignity and respect as you all make... I mean, I can't think of them are, like, just... Uh...

Uh, dishonoring thing you could do to somebody, man. I agree. It was the most, my biggest, dumbest decision I've ever made, my biggest regret. How long have you been married? This year would be five years. Those kids yours? It was her, one of them is, and she was with her little brother and sister as well. Okay, so your wife has two kids by somebody else? There was three down there, one. It was just one that was our daughter, that's the only kid we have,

and then the other kids were her stepmom's kids. Okay. Her brother and sister. So obviously you know this. This is just like insanely sensational and it's going to make for good YouTube clips and all that. And you also know that what you did is like, it's just the lowest thing you could do to somebody.

So I'm not going to kick you while you're down anymore. Like what's the world been like since then? I've just been trying to figure everything out. I've been really, really hard. I mean, I've been trying hard to forgive myself and to you know, just work on myself is all I can do at this point.

I mean, I, me and my wife are co-habitating right now. We're still in the same room and stuff. We've been able to go and do things together and they've been civil and then, you know, nothing, nothing crazy. Our marriage wasn't perfect before this by any means, obviously, or this wouldn't have even been close to happening,

but, Is your wife want to stay married to you? She's in limbo right now. I mean... What's the limbo? We just need to work on ourselves. I mean, we've been attached to the hip since we were 17 and really lost ourselves in our relationship. We just got together real quick and moved out of state after that real quick and then had a baby by 18.

And so our whole life was just each other and baby. And then that's not a bad thing and that's not a reason why you. you hook up with somebody's mom? Not at all. There's never a reason why it should not have happened. There's no, I'm not trying to make any excuse. I've tried to take accountability from the, you know.

Sure. I'm saying like the, there's like this just annoying cultural narrative. Like you got to go find yourself. I mean, you don't. You make a commit with somebody and you'll figure it out. Right. You'll decide we're going to build something together.

So what do you want to do? do next. I want my family more than anything and I understand that I've blown that up and I'm just trying to, I just can't think of not coming home to my daughter every night and not come home to my wife every night. Like it just doesn't, life doesn't seem like there's, obviously there's more to go and there's, I mean, I'm, I'm 23, about to be 24, so there's, there's more to go. You're a quarter of the way done. First quarter of, I just, I just can't see life without them. I really can't. Because you'll have a child together,

unless you're going to abandon this child, you will be in each other's lives forever. Right. All right. So that's a given. I don't know unless you'll have some sort of defining, the only word I could think of right now, and this isn't accurate, this isn't right,

but this is the word that's in my head. You'll have to have some sort of line. Like I'm thinking of the word funeral, keeps coming to mind. you have to have a funeral for what was. What we had is over. And as you described it, the stumbling from 17 into 18 to,

oh my gosh, we're parents to trying to make it all work, to I got really wasted and hooked up with her mom. Like, that is all over. And you got a dropped into a coal plunge, like you're an adult, right?

And when you're 18, 19, 20, and you have a little one, it's easy to kind of still be a kid, but also be a parent. You know what I mean? Like you're a grown-up adult who may have just blown up his whole life. Definitely boop's whole life.

Right. So there has to be some sort of line drawn. This was, and now this is. And that might be you sitting down saying, okay, I have blown up our life. What we had is over. Both of us have to be adults and sit at this table

and decide what we're going to do next. Do you want to be married to me? And she's probably going to say, I don't know, because the thought of answering that question is she knows her life is different now, is blown up, but I don't know that she's metabolized it.

Right? That's definitely taken some time. It's only two months ago on the eighth. And the fact that the knife that cut her is still sleeping in the same bed, that's just really close. So it might mean you go, going saying, I'm going to take 30 days for you, and I'm going to go live with my mom,

with a friend, with whatever, and let the smoke clear. Right. And we did that for about two weeks, I would say, and then my, uh, staying at my mom's, and she lives off a dirt road, though, and a bunch of storms came through and made it pretty inaccessible to get through, especially with my car. And, uh, so then went to the couch, and then kind of went from there, went back into the bed and whatnot. It doesn't sound like she's ready

for you to be back yet. Yeah, partially. I mean, it's... Does she work? Not as of now. She's been at home with her daughter. She's going, I think she's actually starting today to get her GED. She's going to the

local schools out here and doing the testing and stuff like that. Okay. She didn't get it. So she's taking the GED today? Yeah, sure. She's like, it's starting to classes. I think she's like taking the pre-quizzes and pre-test and all that stuff to see where she's at. So I want to challenge you, okay? I know that the life of your daughter will be different without a dad in the home. Okay? I know that. I also know that a wife living in terror of her marriage will negatively impact your daughter as well. And so I can imagine your 22 or 23 year old wife hearing the most insane news ever and having to stay in the same lion's den of the lion who just mauled her present and her future because she has no money.

She has nowhere to go. Right. And so part of me thinks it would be of high integrity to you for you to say, honey, you're trapped and I know that. Is she still flinching around you? There are good days and bad days. We've been able to go to the movies, and we were just able to, you know, this last week I went to the escape room together

and went to dinner. And we're still doing things like that and able to laugh together. And, you know, I've been able to be intimate and hugging kiss her. And then other days it's not going like that. Which I can probably understand. I want to challenge you to sit down with your wife and say,

you've heard me say this before, but I want you to hear me say it again, I blew our lives to smithereens. And my ultimate dream is that you will rebuild something new with me, but I also know that you need time to breathe. So for 30 days, I'm going to go live here, and I'm going to take care of all the bills at this house. You're not going to worry about anything.

I want you to be able to breathe. And I'm going to write you a letter every day and put it in the mailbox. I would love for you to write. Maybe you present her with a nice journal, like something you go somewhere and buy a nice one today and put it on the,

like, I want you to get this stuff out of your body and write down because I never hurt your ad. But if you keep hovering, and she is legitimately trapped as a 22-year-old with a high school diploma, does she even graduate high school? No, sir.

Okay, she's got nothing. And she has to tread water. You've heard of fight or flight, right? Right. There's another one called Fawn where you have to nuzzle up next to the person who just tried to kill you or just blew up everything because you've got nowhere to go. It's the safest place for you. That's her. Okay.

Do the next dignified right thing and give her a chance to breathe and make sure she's got no worries when it comes to money for the next month. Okay. I guess I have kind of a wimpier question for you based off of that then. I just feel like we've both. establish that we're both just co-dependent on each other and that, you know, I don't know, it's just hard for me to eat, like, you don't even know what that means, dude.

That's a couple of 23-year-olds Googling what that term means. Very true. Okay, so you don't even know what that means. So don't try to give any diagnostic excuses. You've got to be a grown man. You're 23. You just blew your family up.

You have to say, okay, I'm going to do the next right thing, which is to let my wife stand back up on her own two feet because I knocked her down. And then we're going to come to the, table and I'm going to say, I'll do anything it takes. What does rebuilding trust look like? And after 30 days of the smoke-claring her, catching her breath, she may look across the table and say, nothing. You slept with my mom. Right. Or she might say, here's what it's going to take. I'm going to need this, this, this, and this. And then you, as a grown man, have to make a choice.

Does that make sense? It does. And I'm not trying to minimize the situation or make an excuse, but I didn't fully sleep with her mom. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter, doesn't matter. Ten four. Ten four. Doesn't matter. It happened. And it's, try to take accountability from the beginning and just go from there.

I thought she didn't find out or anything. I'd like sat her down and told her, which also doesn't make a difference. Right. I mean, it is what it is what it is. And you need to understand from her perspective, she lost her mom, too. Yeah. Like she's lost everything. And there's past trauma from her stepmother as well.

I would imagine so. I would imagine so. And so I think that we're doing the next compassionate right thing, which is you're going to have groceries, the rent's taken care of, the bills are taking care of, you're going to be able to breathe. Even if you want to go one step further, which I think you should,

I'm going to help with child care, whatever you got to do, and maybe 30 days. And then at the end of 30 days, I want us to go eat breakfast at such and such place. And I want us to ask the question, are we going to stay married? and I want you to tell her,

I hope we can. And I understand we've got to rebuild everything. Okay? But I want you to have a date on the calendar when you're going to come back together. Right. That makes sense. And say, text me if you need me to come get our little girl,

but we're not sleeping together. We're not hugging and kissing. We're not, we're just taking a break. Is that cool? It's going to suck, but if that's what's needed, I'll do absolutely anything to move on from this, even if it's not in the direction that I'm open for.

Okay. The thing you can do next, you can't undo what happened. The thing you can do next is be a person of high integrity and honor moving forward. And that's been eating me alive too because I've, you know, it's thrown my moral compass so off because I've always told myself I wasn't that person. I would never be able to do that. And, you know, I've looked down on others that have done that and they're like, okay, well, they can do that to the person they say that they vowed everything to. They can do that to me. That's right.

That's right. And so you are now have to reestablish trust with you. Right. And that means you have to do the next right thing. You can't will it or you can't think it into being you just have to act. You have to do the next trustworthy thing. I've often found trust rebuilding. If you have other people in your life that you've wronged, it'd be a good time to get on the phone and call them and say you're sorry. It's doing the next right thing with your wife and with your kid. It is going to do some acts of service. So twice a week, I want you to go go to a phone. a food kitchen. I want you to go do the next right thing that's bigger than you so that you can reestablish trust with yourself. If you go to the local church, I want you to go sit with a pastor and say, hey, here's what I did, man. I blew up everything. I was one of the very first things I did. Good. I went there and talked with them with therapy immediately. We've done couples therapy. We've done, try to do that stuff. And a couple's therapists didn't really seem to

help that she didn't really give any, you know, tools to use. or any kind of plan of action. Yeah, sometimes going to couples therapy right after something this big is like trying to go to PT instead of into surgery. It's like being in a car wreck and going straight to the physical therapist.

It's just not time yet, man. You've got to reset the bones and stitch somebody up and take out all the bad tissue, let those wounds heal, and then you can start going to physical therapy. Right. It's just a matter of going too fast, man.

Yeah, I think you can do the next right thing, man. and I hope more than anything that your daughter doesn't grow up without a dad. And so if your wife decides, hey, I just can't move past this such a horrific violation of our marriage covenant, I hope you will honor her and say, I get it. And I'm going to be the best dad and co-parent I can be. I'm going to be an adult. I'm going to be a grown-up, even though I'm sad and I'm heartbroken. And I hope you will do the things you've got to do to rebuild trust in yourself.

and maybe by God's grace she comes around and says, okay, I'm going to go slowly, but surely, and we're going to rebuild this marriage, and here's what trust is going to look like, reestablishing trust. You can't drink, I want to see your phone, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you're going to say, cool, I'm 100% in

because I believe in you and I believe in us and I believe in being a good dad. This is a big one, man. It's a big one. Go slow, go slow. You will not fix this in two months, three months, six months, one year. It's going to take a long time to rebuild this.

constantly focus on doing the next right thing for you, for your daughter, for your wife, and for your marriage. I found my wife in an emotional affair with my neighbor for over a year now. I found out a couple weeks ago, I looked through the call logs on the phone. I knew something was going on between the two of them. I confronted him three times,

and I confronted her, I'm being honest with you. It was probably two to three times a day. We would consecutively argue about it. He would buy my son clothing for school and just stuff for his room. And he would cook my wife dinner a lot. And in front of me, they had nicknames and everybody denied it. And I'm having a hard time believing her in anything she says.

Her mother passed away about two years ago. and she was swearing on her deceased mother and our son that nothing was going on. And then when I confronted her, it was my, it was the blame was on my end and things weren't good. And it's been going on for about a year. We were in couples therapy starting this January. I was unaware of everything, but I knew something was off in the marriage and I was trying to make it better. and I can't even get away because he is at my home. He's next to me at home and he is there when I go to the gym,

at the same gym. So I can't even have an escape that way. And I'm not sure where to begin. I'm not even sure where my head is at. I can't trust anybody. And this is where I'm stuck at right now. Yeah, dude, that's a terrifying place to be, man. I'm sorry.

That's okay. Hey, it's not okay, man. It's not. You don't got to make me feel better. I'll just sit here with you. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Do you have little ones?

I do. I have one three-year-old son. Oh, man. Yeah. I'm not even, I don't want to come home. Yeah. I literally can't get away. And she said that she broke it off with him.

And our houses are so close. If I, you know, put a hammer through the wall, you can probably see his living room. That's how, you know, we're right next door. But, and, you know, she said that she broke it off. And then about two weeks ago, I asked her, we were just talking, and I asked her what she had for dinner, and she said that she didn't eat, and this is something little, but it's just the fact that it happened. She said that she didn't have dinner because she wasn't hungry because of everything going on. And then I got home. I work late, and I got home that morning, and there was food, and that was not ours. And how I know is because it was on a paper plate that was not ours in the garbage. And she wasn't honest with me again. And he keeps talking to her and saying hi. And they both said that it was nothing sexual, but I don't believe the two of them

because, like I said, I confronted him three times about it. And my wife twice a day for two, three times a day for the last year. There's not a good, there's not like a, it's not written in a textbook somewhere what the next move is. Yeah. Okay. I understand. So I'm going to give you

with all of my the time I've spent sitting with people who've had emotional affairs and full-blown sexual affairs and all I'm like my personal experience, all of it. Okay.

I would probably leave for 30 days. Okay. Because here's the thing, your wife is just lying to you and lying to you and you're going crazy. Mm-hmm. And it's hard to stay clear

because every time you go to the safest, what should be the safest place in the world, which is your home, you're in fire, flight, the entire time. Correct. And every time you go to work, you're in firefly. And the other option would be, I'm going to go stay in an apartment for 30 days,

and we're going to put the house in the market. And I'm going to sell this house because that's the only way you're going to save your marriage. Yeah. And if she says, I think that's a great idea. Let's do that. Cool. And if she says, absolutely not.

This is where we live, yada, yada. Then she gets to make a choice. Do you want to fight me for this home? or we're going to sell this home when we're the other. We're going to sell it through when the judge forces the sale of the home and we split the assets up, the equity up, or we can sell it now and try to save our marriage. I don't mean to throw another curveball at you. Throw them all, man. Throw them all.

So this past February of this year, we jointly filed bankruptcy. So we could sell it, but as far as buying, I'm pretty sure we can't buy it. You're past all that. Yeah. Joe, your wife is sleeping with your neighbor. Period. End of story. You know that.

I know that. They both know that. Yeah, and they would FaceTime, too. I forgot to mention that. Joe. If you're done with this marriage, be done with this marriage. An important family death.

Bankruptcy. Those are two of the most powerful stressors on a marriage. Yes, sir. An affair? I mean, you've got like, you're, it's the trifecta. Yeah. But now you're at a place where you keep coming back to drink more poison and more poison and more poison. And I don't even, I haven't heard you once say, I am desperately in love with this woman and I want to try to save this marriage.

I hear you pissed. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I thought I was past the anger stage and no, dude, your wife's cheating on you right and your neighbor waves at you. Yeah. I'm afraid you're going to end up in jail. You know why? I would. I don't have the strength to go through what you're doing every day. I thought I made the right.

Honestly, I thought I made the right call for staying for my son and try to work it out. But I'm just, I'm angry. I can't even look at her. It's like she, you know, she's trying in that aspect. But when I first found out, it was like the end of June. And I just said a divorce probably, I'm going to say like two weeks ago. Then that's when she started her change. And I'm like, well, you know, why did it take me to say a divorce?

and, you know, I don't want to come home. I don't want to be around anybody. I'm angry. I'm upset. I can't believe anybody. I don't believe a word that she's saying, you know what I mean? Even though she could be telling the truth very well. Here's the deal.

Here's the work you have to do. Yes, sir. What does the path to trust look like for you? Because let's say we can't sell the house. We are stuck here in this house. It's against the law for us to sell, which is not true, but let's just make up something, okay? Yeah, yeah.

What does trust look like? trust looks like a no contact order. Trust looks like you saying you are forbidden from coming on my property. And if you come on my property, you call my house again, you're on notice now. I'm going to file a harassment complaint. Okay. And your wife cuts off everything. She throws her phone in the sink and loses all contacts and starts completely over.

Yeah. But here's the deal, bro. She did all this stuff and he made her dinner and they had dinner together last night. You know what I mean? Yeah, I understand. You've heard me say this a thousand times, behavior is a language. She's being very clear with you. No, I understand.

And right now she's got a gravy train, which is you, going off to work and then coming home. Does she work too? Yeah, she works during the day, and then I work second shift from three to midnight. Okay. So you all effectively never see each other, and she has eight hours a day when she gets to spend with a man next door. That is correct. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes, sir. Yeah, like the minute I leave for work, I leave the house around two, and then that's when the calls would happen. Of course. Yeah. Of course they would. I guess I'm just still processing this, and I don't even know. Yeah.

But here's the deal. I'm afraid you're about to do something stupid. Will you promise me that you're not going to go to jail? Of course. Yeah, I have a three-year-old and I can't. Excellent. Excellent. I don't want to.

Okay. I don't want to make it worse for anybody. And for whatever it's worth during a divorce proceeding, every one of her text messages will be subpoenaed. Everyone of her emails will be subpoenaed, even the deleted ones. Everything is on the table. Okay? Yours too.

Yes, sir. And so there's a chance you end up of full custody here because she doesn't want to be married to you. I mean, yeah, she's, I mean, she's a great mom, and I, you know, I couldn't ask her a better mother that way. Joe. Yeah. A great mom doesn't bring another man to the house every night. Yes, sir.

and our son, like, just to bring one more incident up, like, you know, we were painting our son's room and we were in the middle of it and him and I started it and nothing was done. And she got the next, the following day, she got out of work at two. I left and I called her around my 6.30 break time. And she said that the room was finished and done. And I didn't believe her because I know how much that takes, especially, you with a three-year-old by herself. And then, you know, I get home that next day because I get home at night and I look at the room and it's beautiful. Everything was cut in at all the corners. And I look on the tarp and there was paint brushes and rollers that I don't have. And our son consecutively says that I don't want to say names about her, but the neighbor, mommy and him were all painting the room. And she obviously denies it, but this is.

Joe. Joe. Yeah. I'm just, you can hear it as you're saying it out loud, can't you? Yeah.

Listen. Like if we were in person, if I was sitting in Connecticut right now with you in New Haven, I was just there a few weeks ago. If I was there with you right now, I would stop the conversation, I'd give you a hug.

Because I know the path that's in front of you is gnarly. Yeah. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. My miracles happen, but this sounds like your marriage is over and it sounds like now we're just waiting for somebody to be the adult and have the courage to do the next thing.

Yeah. I guess that's what I was afraid of. I know. I'm sorry. I hate it for you too. It's just, you know, loves a funny thing. It's like, no matter how bad somebody hurts, you just don't stop them.

No, of course not. Of course not. I guess that's what I'm holding on to. And, dude, if she was ready to fight and go to war for this marriage, dude, I'd be a thousand percent. you don't you'll save this marriage. Yeah. No question about it.

I have no question about it. But everything starts with, I'm going to tell you the truth. And she can't do that, and she won't do that. And now we're at a place where she is teaching her son that we lie. Yeah.

She's teaching our son that multiple men stay in this home. And by the way, dude, Joe, just so you can see this from an outsider's perspective because I'm just a random dude in Nashville, Tennessee. Yes, sir.

She's trying to send you a message. She's leaving trash in the trash. She's leaving rollers in the house. Yeah. She's not even trying. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's a good point. Yeah.

Like there's a lot of what I would call infidelity gymnastics that people go through. Lots. Yeah. She's almost rubbing your nose in it. Or less like less aggressively, like letting you know this is happening, ta-da, right?

Yeah. And maybe you tell her, I want you out of this house in the next week. She's got to move out. Yeah. Y'all figure that stuff out. But I mean,

you can't continue to allow another man to come spend eight hours a day in your home with your wife and your child. Yeah. And that can be that you leave and then serve the papers or sit with an attorney or y'all go to mediation or whatever.

It happens in Connecticut. Every state's different. Or she packs up and goes. although I think your fear is she's just going to go 20 yards next door. Yeah. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's, you know, it's what's going to happen. And she told him that, you know, she wants nothing to do with him. But, you know, yesterday, they were outside.

And she took my son and herself and my son and the dog for a walk. And when she went down the street, you know, he was staring at her. And when he got back, you know, he said, hey, how are you guys? And she's like, you know, good, how were you? And that's something little. it's the fact that we're going through all this. And it's like, I, you know, my expectation is no, no context. And I shouldn't even have to say that if you're willing to work with somebody.

And her defense was, we're neighbors. You know, what am I going to say? We're going to say hi. And I'm like, okay, but our marriage is on the line. Not a neighbor that you're having an affair with. Yeah. Right. Has she shown you the messages that she sent him that said,

we are never going to be in contact ever again. Stop contacting me, effective immediately? No, sir, apparently this is a lot. all verbal on the back deck. Exactly. I want it in writing. Yeah. I want it in writing so that when you file a harassment complaint that this man won't

leave your wife alone. Yeah. He keeps coming over to the property line and staring at her. He keeps yelling at her trying to say hello to her when she's trying to walk your child and the dog. I want it all in writing. I used to tell my college students you have to put in writing through text message or email. Do not contact me anymore, period.

And once that line is crossed, then it's harassment. Now we can get involved. Yeah, that's a good point. Okay. But I don't think she's going to do it, Joe. I'm going to have to agree with you there. Okay. So let's start, let's get a group of people in your corner, whether that's a couple of close friends, whether that's a minister from your local church, whether that is an attorney that you're going to sit with, a mental health professional,

everybody. Maybe the path right now is to go sit with an attorney because you've got a lot to untangle, whether with the, with the bankruptcy, with child with home equity. I don't know how any of that stuff works in Connecticut. So having a professional just to know what you're looking at here. And the whole time, I want you to spend some time with yourself in a local coffee shop or on your breaks at work

or in the morning when your son has taken a nap, figuring out what is a path back to trust so that you can lay it down in front of her and say this is what this looks like. We sell the house and we rent. Because I would rather be married to you, you and rebuild this marriage, then own a house. Or you have to sever all contact forever and partridge and a pear tree on and on and on and on.

And I'm going to put cameras up in the house. And if this man steps on my property, I'm going to have him a no trespass. I don't want his plates in our home and I don't want his paint rollers in our home. And I don't want his love and affection for you and our kid in our home. It's our home, not his. But Joe, you got to stop. I mean, I know you hear it, and it's hard to even wrap your head around.

Oh, this is it. My wife is choosing him. She's choosing dishonesty. She's choosing lying, and I'm so sorry. Call back anytime, brother. You got a long, hard road ahead of you. And listen to me, just because it's painful, doesn't mean it's not right.

This time last year, my wife asked me for an open relationship. And I can see that she was. was struggling really bad and had been for a while. And I felt like I didn't want to just say no to her. So basically I said, I'll give you a month, not do anything, nothing physical. I said, I'll let you collect information. Give me some data. Tell me a reason why you think this would help us.

She was already with somebody, wasn't she? She had been already a year and a half before that for a year. Yep, almost every time. and she already had a plan. Like, we laid out all these ground rules, what would happen if we got there. And she was with somebody, like, almost right away somebody different than this other person.

And both of them were from work. And then, so I am struggling with this because I just, it wasn't, after the first month, I was like, this is not something I want to have anything to do with, which I knew before. I even agreed to any of it. Right. If I would admit it to myself.

But then it all, like I asked her to stop and she said no. And even though she told me she hadn't been with anyone, there was nothing there. She was still sleeping with me. And then I find out later that she wasn't using protection with these people. Have you ever heard the analogy about the rattlesnake in the paper bag? I think so, but you might have to refresh my memory. So a guy is walking down the street and he stumbles on a plastic bag and he opens it up and there's a rattlesnake inside, buzzing. And that rattlesnake says, hey, will you help me get out his bag?

I'm stuck in here. I can't get out. And the guy goes, dude, I'm not going to pick you up here, a rattlesnake. You'll bite me. And the rattlesnake goes, no, I'm not. I need help. Like, I'm not going to bite you this time. I need you to help me. And the guy's like, ugh, okay.

And he sticks his hand in and the rattlesnake just bites the crap out of him. and the guy goes, why'd you do that? You said you weren't going to. And he's like, I'm a rattlesnake. That's what I do. And then he goes, will you help me, though? Help me out of this bag.

And goes, no, you just bit me. And he goes, I know, I had to get that out of my system. I'm a rattlesnake. It's hard for me not to. I won't do it again. The guy's like, no, you bit me. And he goes, oh, come on. And he goes, all right.

So he puts his hand back in the bag to grab the snake, and the snake bites him again. That's you. Your wife was cheating on you for a year and a half. How long have y'all been married? We've been married for six years, but we've been together since we were teenagers, so we've been together for almost 16 years. Okay, it's been happening before that. Statistically speaking, it's happened before that.

Hold on. She's cheating on you. Then she came up with a plan to get you to go along with it. And when somebody's cheating on you for over a year, that means she didn't just have a one-night stand or a weekend fling or a two or three week like, what am I doing? She was with somebody for a year. And so that marriage disconnection you felt that even entertained the idea that I know

will make my marriage better, my wife goes and knocks around with some other dude. That'll help. The fact you even entertained that was not because your marriage is falling apart because of something you were doing. It's because your wife's already in relationship

with somebody else. And then you set up ground rules and you're stunned that she goes and sleeps with somebody else right away. Yeah, she broke every rule the first time. She's not a person of integrity. And I'm only telling you that because I love you, man. She's a person that lies and cheats to her husband of,

and her ride or die for 16 years. I would like to say that since, so we went on a family vacation, and she, on this vacation, we were driving through the middle of night because we have young children, and I wanted them to sleep. And her phone was still lit up because,

everything was locked on it, obviously. There was still litups I grabbed it, and I found a bunch of stuff. She was sending videos and pictures and all sorts of stuff to many, many people. And from that day, we started working to try to fix this. And then I found out everything, maybe a month and a half after that in July. And since the day that she has come clean and told me everything, she has done every single thing I've asked. She has gone to counseling.

I've gone to counseling. We're about to start couples therapy. We've taken trips together. We've really tried to reconnect on all levels and become better parents and just do things together. And to be honest, I've found nothing since then that says there was more. And trust me, I became a person who was searching phone logs and doing all this stuff that I had never done over the first 15 years.

I'd never even been through a song. You find yourself like Liam Nesam real fast. like, I was fine. Yeah, it was wild. Yeah, you just like become one of those murder podcast people, for sure. I got to solve this, right? So what's your question? Let's get right to it. What's your question? Um, I cannot stop thinking about her with these other people. That's right. I, um, I, I, I start visualizing and then I ruminate and then I spiral and then I make up scenarios in my head and I make everything even worse than it probably was. And then I ask her about it. And and I can see the guilt is crushing her

because now that she's in a healthier place and knows what she is doing to me currently. And for us, for my children, for her, I need to start feeling better and not being so crushed day to day and not having these two or three days spans where I just cannot function because the weight of this is killing me.

And I just am not sure how to move forward with it. Often what happens in these situations is you are, are so empowered is not the right word you're so brought back to life you're enlivened that's not really i don't know if that's the right word you you're just given life again by seeing your partner try to connect with you by seeing her do the things that you wish to have been happening for 15 years and inject some life some light back into a dark dark dark dark room and what often happens is what you're running into right now so want you to know you're not

crazy, you're not nuts, you're not alone, you're not on an island by yourself. This happens all the time, okay? That's exactly how it feels. I know it does. It's super isolating. And you start to feel crazy because she's doing all these things that seems that she's all in. And it really feels that way. I know it does. You're not crazy. Okay.

What you haven't done is a couple of things. You have not grieved this yet. I don't know that you fully metabolized what actually happened. You've been too busy searching and playing Matlock and trying to solve this thing and then trying to get her to not wreck this whole car because it's flying down the highway and it's got kids in it and it's a thing and it's my marriage. And you haven't sat on the back porch by yourself and stared off at the sunset and said out loud, my wife was cheating on me for years.

My wife was sleeping with other guys. My wife was sending nude videos and photos of herself all over the place. People have my wife's naked body on their phones. Who knows? Who knows how many? Who knows who they've shared that with? Uploaded it too. And the only way, and I'm being really direct with you because the only way to heal,

it's the same as if I'm looking at somebody and I'm holding both of their hands and I look at them in the eye and say, your husband was in a car wreck and he has died. There is something about, you have to, facts of your friends, have to be told this is what happened, and you have to sit in that and own it.

And what you're going to find is that you've been trying to keep your marriage together. Brother, the marriage you had is over. Yeah, I can definitely feel that. Y'all can. No question about it. Decide to build something new. And we have.

I think that's where we're at right now. If I can move forward, I think she's starting to. Do you see how this is turned on you? And you're making yourself the best of it. bad guy. Yeah, I'm good at that. I know. It's one of your spiritual gifts. Stop. Quit it. Quit it. It doesn't help the situation.

The reality is the person who is the mother of your kids didn't stab you in the back. She stabbed you right in the face. And then try to concoct a plan to get you to go along with doing it in the future. And you being a guy that always goes to the mirror and is convinced that you're the biggest piece of crap on planet Earth. You can't believe a woman like her would even be with in the first place, much less have kids and be your wife. Went along with it.

Yeah, that's a hard thing to face. I know it is. I know. Here's what she really needs. She needs you to stand up on two feet, tall. Put your shoulders back. Y'all are keeping the car going. You are.

But you have to ask yourself a question. You haven't asked yet. What do you want, moving forward? Make it work with her for our children and for me and for her. I don't think it was ever about. leaving me or any of that. These were both married men. I gave one of them 24 hours to tell his wife.

He lived locally, and then I made sure she knew the details. The other one wouldn't even meant to knowing her, so I got his wife's phone number, and I made sure she had all the details. And did that make you feel any better? No. Not really. I was angry at the time. It's pure anger and rate.

I had nowhere to take it, but to my, basically what you called, like the Sherlock Holmes thing. Like, I was just searching and I was digging, and I couldn't stop. and I felt like that's what needed to be done. And I would golf clap if I was here. She wasn't trying to destroy your marriage because she thought she was bigger than the whole thing.

She did, though. She destroyed what y'all had. And you went along with it for a while. So both of you have to look at the parts of your marriage that you love and want to hang on to. And you both have to look at the pieces that have to be gone. Then you have to decide, will you be a part of this new thing?

and then to answer your question at some point you are going to have to do the hard work of deciding i trust her enough to tell myself to stop ruminating and i'm going to practice that and it's going to take about a year or two if not longer and then 10 years from now you're going to have a lightning bolt image pop into your head of your wife with somebody else and you're going to have to say out loud, stop it or no or not today. You're going to have to have some sort of mantra. Yeah, they kill me. Here's what it kills you.

And this is when you have a choice. You don't have a choice right now because you haven't grieved this thing and your body is taking over because it knows you're not driving. What it's trying to do is to keep you safe. And this woman who destroyed you and your marriage and your family unit and you went along with it is still living in your home and y'all are having good moments

and your brain is screaming at you Jeff going she's the bear she's the tiger that just tried to kill us and so it has taken over what grief allows you to do is to own what happened feel it

write the letters you need to write have the conversations you need to have slowly begin to come out of this thing begin exercising, begin moving, begin standing up on your own two feet, building something new, and then your body will stop trying to drive for you. Sort of.

But it will still, man, it'll still drop some lightning bolts in there. That's when you have a choice. When those lightning bolts come, you can't stop those, you can't predict those, they just happen. It happens if you see your kid and you're in a tragic car wreck and your kid passes away

and you get that image in your mind. or if you are at a funeral and a loved one, a husband, a wife, a child is in a casket in that picture, or if there's so many cheats on you, right, those images flash into your mind and it's your brain's way of trying to protect you. You have a choice after that from the second after that. Am I going to sit here and worship that image?

Am I going to ruminate on it? Am I going to create stories about it? Am I going to let it fill my body? Am I going to feel it? or am I going to stop it? Nope, I will not. And here's the magic. You have to have a couple of pictures in your mind ready to replace it.

That's a good idea. So get two or three photos of you and your wife together laughing. And if you don't have those photos, go get them taken. Cracking up, doing something funny back when you all were in high school together, at a concert you love together. And when that picture of her with some other dude pops into your head, you say out loud, no. and then you close your eyes and you concentrate on that photo.

I can tell you were definitely right. She was, there was stuff before all this too. It was mostly all emotional, but I found that too. And it just tells your whole memories so I can see where you're coming from. Like my memories for the last 15 years feel destroyed.

Yes. Because the tiger is still in your home. So what you have to teach your body is that tiger tried to kill us before, but I believe she's not going to try to kill us again. Okay. And give yourself some grace. You're not crazy.

You're not nuts. You're just going from one thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing to the next thing. And it sounds a lot, my brother, like you're getting dragged. You got dragged into this idea that, man, maybe if my wife just hooks up with other dudes, then things under my marriage will get some spark back. Madness. Maybe I'll do a whole thing on open marriages. My God.

But, um, geez, it. I'm all distracted. Or now we're going to go to this. Now we're going to go to this. It sounds like you're getting dragged through this recovery. Your recovery is something that you have to own. You have to take the leadership on. Okay?

It's got to be you. It's got to be you. I've been with my wife for we've been together since we were for, for 14 years. I'm 32. I met her when I was 19. We had a child at 20. And I've always just kind of been. a butthead to her, to be honest, every now and then I would demeanor or make little comments. And

I would say it started a really getting bad about six weeks ago. We were doing some work in the yard and I really just blew up on her over the stupidest little thing. And then about a week later, we're just constantly arguing and dividing from each other. And then about a week or two later, she told me that she thought she was falling out of love with me. And it just really crush me. I never would have thought that those words could come out of her mouth, and she told me that the way I treat her is I'm not treating her the right way. And I completely owned it. I mean, I said everything you said is absolutely correct. You know, and I said, I don't want my son, our son, growing up thinking that this is how you're supposed to treat women. And I mean, since that day, I have treated her like an angel. I mean, I've done everything and just constantly telling her I love her, giving her hugs, kisses. Um, I mean, and I mean, I've done everything. Um, But that was a Saturday night. And then Monday night, she ended up telling me that she was in communication with a guy she met on TikTok. And she told me she broke it off with him.

And I asked her, what was the subject about? And she said it was just somebody to talk to about what I'm going through, my mental health. And she said it was never anything flirtatious or anything like that. She said it was just a stranger that I could talk to. But she said, I broke it off with him. and I'm going to focus on us. And I said, I'm all in with you. Let's rebuild this.

And we went about two weeks, and it was just absolute honeymoon phase. I mean, we were just never, it was great. And then I went through her phone two weeks after that and found that she was on Snapchat with the guy, and I confronted her about it. And she said, okay, well, I didn't think you were really going to change. And I wanted to keep this friendship with the guy. And she said, I'll break it off with him. and I'm like, okay, I guess I'll give you a second chance.

I'm kind of heartbroken again that you would keep this from me. And then about a week and a half later, which was just yesterday, I went through the call logs on AT&T.com, which I feel bad because I'm constantly digging at all this, but every time I dig, I find something. And I confronted her yesterday that she's been talking to this guy for 30, 40, 50 minutes a day. the last week and a half after she told me a third time that she was breaking it off with him. And I'm just super confused. I don't really know how to handle this.

Now she's saying that she's all done talking to him. And I'm like, well, how do I trust you now? You've been lying to me for the past three weeks about this. So that's really all I got. So for 14 years, you belittled your wife. She got the clear message she was been. you. You're the smart one. You're the fast one. You're the quick one. You are the provider. You're all this stuff. I always thought she was beneath me. Yeah, you did. And she's got that message for

a decade and a half. And then five weeks ago, you decide, it's all going to be different. Yeah. And four, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Four weeks into this, you're pissed off that she's not just like, oh, all right. Dude, you're belittling her again. Is she lie to you? Yes, no question about that. She's not on the phone to defend herself. Just you.

Okay. Bro. As you were talking, here's the words that kept coming to my mouth. Dude, who do you think you are, man? That's how I feel. I know. I don't, I feel like I'm two inches tall that I've treated her like this the last 14 years.

And I wish I could fast forward 14 years from now and show her that I can treat her well. But look, here's what you tried to do. do. You tried to fix this by doing things that you like doing or that you think that she would like. I'm going to buy her flowers and hug her and kiss her. Yeah. You didn't get down on both knees and say, my God, will you forgive me? How can I love you? And so when you decided to fix this thing by showing her more affection and loving her, you did it how you wanted to do it, which is again, belittling. I pushed her away by being so close to her.

I mean, I can't believe she's put up with you for this long, man. I can't either. I told her that. I said, I don't know why you're still with me after 14 years. She's created a fantasy where somebody that she's never met, now she's talked to on the phone. Is she on a dangerous trajectory? No question about it. There's no question about that.

But at least that guy will listen to her, right? At least that guy makes her feel alive again. That guy feels it makes her voice feel. like it matters because her own husband sure doesn't. Right. That guy asked her how her day at work went. Yeah, I never did that. So, I mean, I'm, yes, I get being hurt like,

oh gosh, my wife's going to leave me. That can be a rattling moment. Or my wife has feelings for somebody else. By the way, just to say this at the outset, the phrase fall out of love is just nonsense. It's just a dumb thing to say. It's a, you don't fall in love. You don't fall

out of love. She stopped. She just threw her hands up because there was no connecting with you. You were too important and powerful and wonderful and great and she was too stupid and dumb. Yeah, and she never thought she could come and talk to me because my arrogance, I would just blow her off. Right.

Bro, if you want to save this sucker, it starts with you begging for forgiveness and saying, how can I love you? And let her speak into that. And when you go, well, I don't, you got to stop all that. Okay.

Quit saying hi so much. Well, it's not even saying hi. What are you talking about saying hi? No, I. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. It's we. It's us.

Okay. Because here's the deal. You felt bad. Like, you felt bad. You decided to change. You started doing new things. And nowhere do I hear we decided to redesign our marriage. And so again,

all of the things you're doing to save this thing, you're continuing to leave her out bobbing in the middle ocean while you were sitting on the island. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah. Bro, what does this arrogance? Like, where does that come from, man?

What are you scared of? I don't know. I don't know. I grew up. I mean, my dad married, remarried when I was about eight, and he was in a very toxic relationship with his now ex-wife again. So is your wife? She's in a toxic relationship.

I know, absolutely. And I don't know. I just, I never knew, I was, and it's not an excuse. I was just never shown, like, how to treat a woman and love her and just accept her for who she is and everything. And don't just accept her, honor her, cherish her. Like, wake up every day, so excited that you get to provide for this amazing person who gave you children, who takes care of your home, right? It contributes to the house, like contributes to the finances of the house,

all that stuff. But do your friends, do you act like this with your buddies or at work too? Is this kind of the way you enter into the world, or do you just dump all this on your wife? A little bit. I mean, I do have a level of arrogance at work,

and I do feel entitled, and I don't know, I just feel, I feel like it's all gone now, and I'm trying to let it come back. I'm trying to be a better person. I am. It's hard. I'm going to my first therapy session at 3 o'clock today to talk to another therapist locally here. Yeah, I mean, I'm doing everything I can.

I got you. I got you. For whatever reason, whatever went on at your house, whatever went on in high school and whatnot, you've developed this tough guy exterior. Mm-hmm. And, man, it's going to cost you everything. This bravado. It's going to cost you everything, dude. Is that worth it?

right and like it in an effort to not take imaginary punches or more importantly to punch first everywhere all the time right do you have a big truck no i don't okay i have a company truck but it's just a little truck but i mean she drives a grand cherokee but it's bigger i guess i was just fishing there i was just seeing if you were gonna complete the stereotype for me, but all right, good. All right, so, and here's the thing. I actually honor that. I get that you don't have a picture or model what this looks like. And I

also know what it's like to be trapped, and I know this isn't working, and this is hurting me and it's trying everybody I love, and I don't know the next right step. Do you have some men in your life you could talk to? Yeah, I've been going out. I've got a great buddy since middle school, and he's been keeping in touch and checking in with me every day.

That's not the right guy. Okay. I'm talking about a couple of men who are 10 years older than you. That you can say I'm a complete ass to my wife and I've got to stop. I'm going to lose my family and I've got this built up arrogance inside of me where I think I'm better than everybody and I know I'm not, but I can't stop. Can you help me? Yeah.

There's a couple of guys at work I could talk to. They're a little older than me. Yeah. If you talk to him, can you be honest with him? Can you take him out to lunch and say, I'm going to buy lunch, but I've got to be totally straight up honest with you. I'm not okay. Oh, absolutely, yeah, definitely.

I have nothing to hide. Here's going to be the scariest part. Actually, your situation, like people call with borderline personality disorder, all these different things, your situation, I think, is one of the hardest things to heal from. And here's why. Because all, the way you interact with the world

is to protect yourself from one thing, and that is ever, ever being vulnerable. Yeah, yeah. In a position where somebody can roll over on you. and I don't know when that happened in your childhood, but it did and it did bad. Up with a big brother who was a tough guy and everybody feared him and everybody,

he would beat everybody up. Nobody messed with him. And I always thought I had to put that shield on as well. That's right. And that shield is made it impossible to be married to and it's made it impossible for your kids to love and connect with their dad. Yeah.

And you know what they're going to have to do? They're going to have to go out in the world and be tough guys. because they don't know how to feel because they've never hugged their dad for real. And this whole cycle is going to start over. They came from your granddad to your dad to your brother and it's just going to go through your family line

unless you stop and turn and say enough. And the scariest part for you is the only path forward is risking getting hurt. And I'm going to tell you, your wife may leave you. Yeah. She may take your kid and go because you've been awful to her for a decade and a half.

I hope she doesn't. But I want you to see her, yes, she's not being right. And yes, if she's on the phone, I'd be letting her have it too. Because that's not the way to solve this problem. And I didn't yell at her. I just asked her very calmly,

can you explain this? Like, I don't have the energy, I can't argue with her anymore. Sure. Yeah. But even, like, explain, explain what? That I haven't felt safe in my own home for a decade and a half,

that I've never felt loved. I've just felt like a child. child in my own home. Like what I know. And this guy actually asked me how I day went, for God's sake. Yeah. Yeah. I own every, I own all of it. I do. And it's so hard for me to admit it. I know. I know it is. I know it is. And you are, you are bucking family tradition right now in this call and I honor you for that. But ownership has two parts to it. One is choosing reality admitting it. And the second part of ownership is to go do differently.

Okay. You got to act differently. Yeah. You got to say, I don't know. And so here's what I would love for you to do. How many kids you got? Just one boy, 12 years old. Awesome.

Here's your homework for this week. I want you to ask your wife, would you go to a nice dinner with just us? I have some things I want to tell you. Okay. And then if she says yes, say we're not going to talk about the other person. We're not talking about any of that stuff.

I just need to talk to you about some things. If she says yes, I want you to spend some time alone writing a letter that you're going to read to her. Okay. And that letter is going to be, start with love of my life,

I'm so sorry. Okay. And then if you want to work through, like, I didn't have a picture of what treating a woman look like and I have done it all wrong for 15 years.

Yeah, I sent her a text like that. Text message is bull crap on a stick with a pony. Okay. Let on fire. Okay. Text message is how my 14-year-old son talks to his friends in text messages. That's not it.

You have to look at her and say these words, okay? Okay. You have to feel that discomfort. That's vulnerability. And she might look at you and go, I'm done. And vulnerable means I'm risking, looking at somebody and saying, this is all of me. Do you still love me? And that's what you're going to be doing.

And that's terrifying for you. Yeah. She told me she wants to work it out that she sees me making changes, and she wants to make this work. But I want you to tell her in that letter, I immediately tried to solve me, my 15 years of being an ass to you by doing a bunch of stuff that I thought, and I never bothered to ask you. And she's probably going to look at you and say, I don't even know what I need. I don't even know what I want. I just know I can't do this anymore. Do what?

I bought her flowers a week ago, and she was like mad at me because she was like, you've never. bought me forward, you're trying too hard. I was like, I was like, you're absolutely correct. Just ask her. I was like, I feel bad. Ask her, how can I love you today? Okay, start that way. And tell her, I'm going to start asking you every morning and every evening.

How can I love you today? Okay. And when I ask, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm sorry. Can I ask a question? Yeah, go ahead. Go for it.

How do I, like, I'm afraid of investing all this. and then I find out that she is still communicating with this guy. Like, I feel like there's some trust gone that I take responsibility for. I know I caused this, but I'm having a hard time, too, like, starting to trust her and rebuild this once again. After you have told her that you're going to begin asking her every day how you can love her better, it's fair to say, I can't breathe knowing that some other person is your goal. go to. Okay.

And I can't breathe. And see, what you're doing is you're starting with the word I. You're not saying, you can't do this and you need to get off to. I can't breathe knowing I've put you in a position where you have to go to somebody else just to get the words, how is your day? Absolutely. I've put you in a position to have nobody to talk about what's going on during your day because I just come home and I'm a bulldog in my own house.

Yeah. Now, is this 100% you? No. but this is just I'm gonna take all it's if you've ever watched Jocko's original TED talk all these things went bad

he was the guy in charge and he said it's on me and you for 15 years I've said I'm the head honcho all right well then own it all okay is that fair no it's not fair but let's just take it all and then at the very end

you can say I can't move forward without a commitment to you that we've got no outside people speaking to this it's just going to be you and it's just going to be me okay

yep and I think it's fair to say I'm not going to sneak around and go through your crap anymore I don't want to live like that okay okay and also as you get two

three five weeks into this two months into this six months into this it's fair to say hey I want to circle back how am I doing are you feeling loved and she might she's going to uncover different ways

right this thing's got 15 years of the layers on top of it And she met you really young and she got a kid right out of the gate. She doesn't even know what she doesn't know. Yeah. Right? She's never felt safe and fully wrapped up in love with somebody who's like, my mission in life is to make sure you're whole.

She's never experienced that. All this is going to be new. You never felt whole. No. All this is going to be new. And so it's fair to say, are you communicating with that guy? All right? And this is after you'll get some rapport, you start building some trust back.

And then if you feel that anchoring in your soul, you can say, would you be willing to show me your text messages or your whatever? Okay. That's not for right now. It's not for right now. No, no. Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah, I'll wait six weeks. Okay. I'm proud of you. Thank you. It's hard. Dude, I know it's your, you're changing your entire family tree right now. Yeah, I'm changing my whole personality. Yes. I am. Yes. And sometimes change that personality means we have to change all of our actions. So do something ridiculous.

Like, wake up early. Go get a cold plunge or get some ice, take a cold shower in the morning. Start exercising in the morning. I have been, yeah. I've been eating way better. I've been drinking a lot more water. I've been going for walks. Good.

You have to start doing different things if you want different results. That's right. That's right. So change it all. Change the whole thing up, man. And when you find yourself, you're going to get angry. You're going to get, you're going to lose a job. You're going to miss a sale. Something's going to happen.

And you're going to find old you coming out swinging. You have to be willing to say, oh, here he is, here is, here he is. I'm going to go for a walk. I need to step out. I need to do dinner by myself tonight. I love you with all I got. And I got to go do something else. Right.

This is going to be a long-term practice. You have to unwind 30 years of you. of you not liking yourself and taking it out on other people. Pride of you for all the steps you're making, man. Be in this for the long haul. You're worth it, she's worth it, and that 12-year-old little boy is worth it too.

His kids are going to be so grateful that granddad put a stick in the rock and said no more. I wanted to ask how I should go about dealing with finding messages from my husband to his ex, promising that one day he will be with her, but just not now. Tell me, are you okay?

Yeah. Okay, is this to feel weird to say that out loud? It's just weird to be talking on the show? No, it's hard to say out loud, honestly. Okay, tell me more about it. Like, how X and how. Tell me everything. Okay, so we've been together for 12 years, and we've only been married for two.

Y'all dated for a decade? Yeah. We have four kids together. Cool. And this was his, okay, so I found messages to his ex that is his high school sweetheart. I guess she broke his heart, broke up with him, and he never was quite over it. Hold on.

How old are y'all now? We're 35, both of us. Yeah, so all this time is, it's kind of like weird for me that, okay, so over the years, he's kind of gotten in touch with her every once in a while, and they kind of do this, how have you been thing? And I would always say, hey, you know, I'm not comfortable with that. and have him block her or whatever, but then at some point a year later, so she would get unblocked, and then I would see, but from what I could tell, it wasn't anything past, you know, a quick high.

And then I was pregnant with my third child, so two years ago, and I saw messages back and forth with them that were more than just talking. It was quite a bit of complimenting each other and a lot of, I don't know, him giving details of our kids and just kind of more intimate talking, I guess. That turned into an issue, but I got over it, I guess, because he told me that he was just going to stop talking to her and as far as I know he did. but then I was pregnant with my fourth child who I just had him a month ago this was like back in January or February and I found messages that he

they're talking back and forth like they love each other and he at some point he told her that they can't be together now, but one day he'll show up on her doorstep like a stranger and they can start all over. I guess

he's making it sound like he needs to stay with me and be this good guy to help raise our children together and then I guess do something for him later in life which would be with who he really

is supposed to be with. Which I know this all sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he is, he is in a fantasy world. I'm not excusing it. So let me just back out. Like, I still am friends with several people that I dated back in high school.

I also met people back in high school and I had my heartbroken regularly in high school. One, I was an idiot. A bona fide idiot. And, like, when you're in love in high school, it just feels, it's the best, right? And so still being friends, that's number one. Number two, this idea that like, the whole thing is a fantasy. Right? Yeah.

And he can gallop around in this fantasy world because he knows he's not doing this. You see what I'm saying? Like none of this is real. At the same time, A, don't do that. And B, because it's dangerous, right? because she might show up somewhere or he might show up somewhere, right? And so you're playing with fire, but bigger than all of that is 10 years ago you asked him not to talk to this woman because you didn't have a good feeling about it. Right.

And he's continually rubbed your nose in your request for fidelity. Yeah, it's kind of haunting me. Yeah. Yeah. And almost always, this isn't the only point. place that somebody like that does this? Where else does he completely ignore what you need or what you want? Pretty much on every level. He breaks up with me all the time, which is the craziest thing. He'll actually stop speaking to me for a week, and then he'll say, you know, he doesn't want to be

together. He wants to, he will never say divorce. He calls a relationship. He doesn't even call it a marriage. I just feel so degraded all the time, kind of. Well, you dated him for a decade,

and you had children with him before you're married, so this is what you signed up for. Yeah, I know. My guess is he's been the same. He's been pretty consistent for 12 years, right? Yeah.

Yeah, and you got married thinking is what all switched. I did, because I wanted to be married before we. had children. But you had children before you were married? Yeah. Yeah.

So somewhere along the way, you just started accepting, I don't know, it sounds like he's been pretty consistent this whole time. Well, I never thought that he would ever cheat on me or talk about cheating on me or go in that direction. He just ignores you for a week and breaks up with you regularly and won't even refer to you as his wife? Yeah. I mean, I guess since I had my third child, that's kind of been the thing for him to do.

So that's been about two years now. I guess since we got married, that was the trigger, I guess. But then you made another human with him. Yeah. It's so much to unpack. But, well, what he'll do is he'll take back all of the negative things that he says to me. and he will make me think he just said it

because he was in a bad mood both of those things can be true it doesn't make it right yeah I'm often not who I want to be when I'm in bad mood but if I act like an idiot then I'm still an idiot

you know what I mean yeah it's not like a universal past I know but he so I don't let me ask you how can I help you well

I could stay and just let him continue doing this this way because my, well, for one, I feel like I have, I'm pretty isolated. I have no family here, and he says that I can't leave because I would be taking the kids out of state to go live with my parents. And I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I don't, I don't. have any money myself. So that would be my solution to leaving and or I could stay and the Ashley, are you safe? You don't sound safe. I've talked to people who are not safe my whole life, my whole career. It's very, um, I'm emotionally, I guess. Um, and you have a one month old, right? Yeah, so what happened was my entire pregnancy. He was telling me that he didn't want to be with me, but he was going to let me stay at home.

And so I was very depressed the entire time, and he didn't care, and he was very cold to me. But then just about three weeks ago, he completely switched and has been telling me he wants everything to be better, and he wants to stay together. and he wants to stay together and he's been very nice and kind and I'm so confused by it it really just throws me up and down sure it sounds like he's the kite and you're the tail of that kite

just getting dragged all over the place and the only way of marriage especially marriage with four kids the only way marriage works is if two people sit down and say here's what we both need here's what we both want and here's what we're going to build

together. Yeah. It can't be you living outside on the front lawn and the tent and just some guy coming out the front door at random intervals saying, you can come on in. Where are you been? Come on in. You can't live like that. And your four kids can't live like that.

No. The challenge you have before you is this has been your relational dynamic for 12 years. This is a bed that you'll co-created together. Yeah. And if he was on the phone, I would talk man to man to him, and the way he's treating you is wrong, and it's disrespectful, and it's shameful, all that. And you've had four kids with a guy who's been the same way for more than a decade. He's never changed. And so you've been with a rattlesnake, and you've dated a rattlesnake, and you created people with a rattlesnake, and now you've suddenly got upset that it keeps biting you.

Yeah. And now there's a lot at stake. There's four new lives at stake here. Yes. And so I don't see a path forward without professional intervention. Okay? Really? Yeah, of course.

You have to get a marriage therapist of some sort to sit down and sort this out. Because he is going to have to decide I am a different human starting now. And I've seen that done and it's hard. And you are going to have to decide I'm going to be a different. human starting now. He is going to have to honor and respect you and be a present father and a present husband and y'all are going to have to learn how to be friends for the first time in a decade and you are going to have to learn to say what you want and what you need and stand by those

boundaries, right? But y'all can't do that by yourself. You've proven that for over a decade. And by the way, I'm Dr. Deloney. My wife is Dr. Deloney. We're pretty smart. We're not very smart. She's smart.

We went to a bunch of classes. I went to a bunch of school. we have sat at the feet of great therapist over the course of our 21 years because I've almost blown it up a few times okay doesn't mean you're broken or wrong but y'all have reached a point

where you need to get a professional or think of it this way your husband has been plunging and plunging and plunging a toilet and it keeps clogging up you gotta call a plumber yeah okay and if he says I won't do that

behavior is a language he is telling you I'm not I'm not interested in thing working out. Right, because that's what I kind of feel like it's going to happen. He's not going to be for that. He really won't have a conversation very deep with me. That's right.

And listen, nothing changes if nothing changes. That's it. Nothing changes if nothing changes. And if he cracked the door open and said, I want this thing to work. You're my wife. These are our four kids. I want things to be better around here.

That is an invitation, or you could take it as an invitation. for you to say, okay, cool. I've made us an appointment with a marriage therapist. I've got somebody who's going to come watch the kids, and we're going to go sort this thing out, and we have to build something completely new. Neither of us have ever been married with four children.

That's a new world. That's one player away from a basketball team. We're going to have to learn how to be friends. We're going to have to learn how to date. We're going to have to learn how to run this household. We're going to have to learn how to be lovers. We have to learn how to do all this over again. Are you all the way in?

Because I am. I am. and we're going to go from there. And if he says, screw you, I'm not doing any of that. This is what you always do, yada, yada, then your next call should probably be to an attorney to find out what the rules are and what the regulations are and what your rights are.

I don't know what they are in Arkansas. You and only you can make the decision as to whether this is the life you want for you and your kids. I'm not going to make that call for you, but I will call out this has been the way it's always been and you opted into this thing for 12 years. So one of y'all has to make a call. This is going to be different starting now.

My wife works as a nurse at a large hospital, and I work from home in a tech company. And some of her interests have kind of changed. She came home and kind of let me know that she had interest towards a coworker and kind of caused a little bit of a tough between us. And then I found out she was hanging out with some of her male doctors at their house. And she said that she was actually hanging out with some of her other coworkers who were different in a more social scene.

So I've just been trying to kind of work through that and get on the same. same page and see what's going on. I was kind of wondering what your thoughts and opinions were. I mean, I guess my first thing, my first gut reaction, and again, this one's a little more challenging because you're not sitting in front of me, I can't see you. But it feels like one of two things. One, you don't fully want to metabolize the seriousness of this, or you've just come up with some safer, more generic, um, unflavored oatmeal language

to describe the fact that your wife is having an affair. She's cheating on you. Right. Which one of those is true? Is one of just nervous you're on the show and you don't want to like fully dive in? Or is it just, is it hit differently when you're like, no, my wife's having a fair.

She's cheating on me. And I think my life as I knew it is now over and different now. Um, I think I'm just trying to come to the sense of reality of it. you go okay that makes sense yeah totally i mean your whole world got blown up how long have you i've been married we've been together for 12 years now okay and uh we got married a little bit before covid okay so just you all been married for five years yes sir ish okay um hmm my gut tells me this didn't just start how long as she had one foot out of the boat of

this marriage? I kind of just started to find out about this towards the middle of end of last year. Okay. Was it a shock to you or did you go, I know it. I was a little frustrated to say the least. Yeah, but that's not what I asked.

Were you stunned by this? Did it catch you completely off guard or did it confirm some fears you've had for a while. Yeah, definitely. I didn't know where this came from. Okay. Did she ever cheat on you when you were dating? You'll date it for seven years, huh?

Yes. And no, she did not shoot on me during that time that I know. Okay. Yeah, I guess, I mean, I guess the bigger questions are, what are you going to do now? What do you want to do now? It's a good question. We're trying to go to therapy at the moment to try. and get an understanding.

She indicated that she didn't cheat on me. She needed a father figure or another person who's more of a superiority individual to, like, talk about stuff with because what she does as a nurse is very traumatic. She works in an OR room. Then they do a lot of, you know, they are saving life and death. I guess. And I don't know. She just kind of indicated that she never really cheated on me.

She went to somebody else. It was more like an emotional type thing. I don't know if that helped to provide any context, but my... I don't buy it. Yeah. At all. You go to lunch with an emotional affair. You send inappropriate texts with an emotional affair.

you over disclose. That person becomes your safe place and you begin dreaming about life with them as opposed to the person you're with. You don't go to their house over and over and over again. Yeah. Dude, I've been in those rooms and I'm not in those rooms.

I've never been in those rooms day in and day out minute after minute, hour after hour. She's exactly right. It's a traumatic job. It's hard. and you go talk to with those about those challenges with a counselor you go talk about those challenges with a group you tell you you're her husband hey i i i'm struggling carrying the way to this thing i need to go talk to somebody you don't sneak around for a year going over to you know what i mean

and that like forget going over to doctor and surgeon's houses um she told you she's got feelings for somebody else. I mean, am I wrong? No. Okay. So what are you going to therapy for? Because you can go with two different mindsets here. If you're going to understand what happened,

if you're going to just poke around in the drawers, this will happen again, this will happen again, this will happen again. if you're going to save your marriage, then you'll have a different track to take. Do you what I'm saying? Okay. Because she's still going to work in the same place

with these same people, right? The individual no longer works there is what she told me after some time. Yeah, but I don't trust her as far as I can see her. Does she show you her text every day and have her location turned on? Um, she actually turned her location off and said it was overarching and overpowering. Yet she wants a father figure? I'm sorry, man.

Yeah. You love this woman, huh? Yes, sir. You'll have kids? No. Okay. My, um, associate producer of the show, let me know that she never even changed. her name on her driver's license, is that right?

Eventually she did. After some time. How long? But it took a while. How many years? So just from the outside looking in, man, it sounds like somebody who, for whatever reason, it took y'all the better part of a decade to even get married. And even after that, she didn't want to give up her independence or her way of navigating the world.

and maybe she didn't mind writing co-pilot or her driving and you writing co-pilot but she wasn't going to become one with the person she married. And let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Let's say she's exactly right. She never slept with anybody. High five. But she doesn't trust you enough to say I'm struggling.

She doesn't honor you enough when she says, hey, I've got feeling for somebody else and you say, okay, let's rebuild trust. no, no, no, no, I can't rebuild trust like that. Like, you need it. Like, let me see your text and let me know where you are because you're telling me you're going over these guys' houses late at night.

And she says, whoa, whoa, slow down. That's too much. I mean, if behavior's a language, she's telling you, I want you there. I want you at home working the IT job so I can know that direct deposit's going to keep happening, but I want to go live my life. I want to deal with my stuff

the way I want to deal with it. I want to involve other men in our circle of emotional and physical trust and you just have a grown-up decision to make my brother. Yeah. And I hate that.

I hate that for you. We do split everything, which is, you know, nice and have separate bank accounts and things. No, that's terrible. That's terrible. That means you all are roommates, dude. And I say terrible,

like, not as a judgment call, but as like, you can't make your marriage work that way. I mean, you have split emotions, you have split physical lives, you have split financial lives. It sounds like the only thing that's different is you went and got a government stamp

on a piece of paper, but your lives are still as though you're dating. Yeah, I can see that. Does that make sense? Yeah. I guess the only, the path you got moving forward, brother, is to truly, honestly, and as painfully as this would be,

write down the questions you actually have. Not the hem haw, not the, like, put your head down and she just kind of tells these tales about, I'm struggling and then this, and then I had to go over their house over and over and over again. And you say, will you go over there anymore? How dare you ask that? It's too much.

It's just too overbearing. You need to write down the questions you actually want to know the answers to. And then you're going to have to ask yourself, A, do I trust this person? B, do I want to stay married to this person and see what must be true for me to remain married? And no one can really make that decision for you.

I can just tell you if I was to switch places with you, it would be real, real thin ice. Do you feel like you got the full story? I feel like there might be a few areas of the painting that still needs to be drawn out. Yeah. But it's mostly there. Okay. Well, I can't make, I can't, I mean, I can't tell you what to do next, brother.

All I can do is just say from the outside looking in, your right to feel completely bewildered. Because the actions of both of you aren't the actions of a married couple that's going to be right or die until the wheels fall off. It's going to be standing there at the castle gate. It's like just saying, bring it on a world. It's us too versus y'all. your marriage is built on we have two different lives that we just happen to share a house and a marriage certificate that's what we all run it do you can run it that way the data tells me it's not it's not going to work and i think a lot of people race off to marriage counseling after there's some sort of infidelity and they just want to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it

and maybe you don't even know if you want to save this marriage you want to find out some more information you want to get to the bottom of some stuff but it's a lot of it's a lot of going to always land on what do you need to feel like I can reestablish and she can re-earn my trust and what things are we going to do differently so that we create a life where one plus one equals one and that's the choice you can have to make man and again if it's me all the notifications are turned on um probably she's getting another job she's working at a different hospital. She's committing to letting you know I'm struggling in these areas and so I'm going to go talk to this professional or this person and I'm not going over to other rock star surgeons

and doctors' houses late at night and lying to you about it. I'm not going to continue working with people that I've got that I want to have a relationship with, an intimate or romantic relationship with, or that I have feelings for, if you will. We're going to share finances. All those things like And then you're going to have to do a bunch of different stuff that y'all haven't done in, what, 10, 12 years of being together. And you'll have to build a completely new marriage. And you just, it's going to start with you asking yourself, do I still want to do that? And then asking her, do you want in on that? And that's two big question marks in my mind.

And then from there, man, I believe y'all can build whatever you want to build. I just have a belief in people. And redemption, I have a belief in people. If they've chosen a miserable life, they can choose an amazing one. But it all comes down to that choice. And both of you have to have both feet in the boat. Both of you have to be all the way in. So my husband and I, we've been married for 12 years.

We have two kids. We got married pretty quickly. It was a pretty brief courtship. So a lot of things you would find out about your partner before you get married. We kind of found out after we were already married. So it was kind of rough. Awesome. For a couple of years.

You said that, you said that so eloquently. Some of the things you find out beforehand, we found out after. But I know what that probably means, and the way you said that so gently. So you're a delight. Okay, keep going. It's been 12 years. I trust me, I get it right out. So our main problem, or my main issue has been with infidelity with him, mostly just internet issues and texting.

in messaging and Facebook and Instagram and so forth. We've been to counseling quite a few times, three, four times on and off. He's also done individual counseling a couple times, and then things seem to be pretty good for a while, a few years, and then, you know, things happen, and we kind of end up back here. So a few months ago, he started acting a little bit differently, going out more, staying out a little bit longer, dirty protective with his phone and accusing me of cheating.

So the light bulb kind of went off and I was like, okay, something's going on here. So about a couple weeks ago, I decided to do some investigation. So I went on his computer and I saw that he was on a dating site. Ooh. Yeah. So I catfished him. No way. I sure.

Yeah, way. You did? Did he fall for it? Oh, he sure did. Oh, this is my favorite call ever, ever. Yeah. Hey, can we call him right now? And I'm going to pretend to be the husband of the person.

Please, please. Oh, my gosh. The thing was, I knew it was probably going to happen because I know my husband is been 12 years. So I created a fake profile. I was messaging him. He was all for it. Oh, you're the worst and incredible.

All the same. He got to dinner and lunch, and he was divorced. He did say he had two kids, though, so at least, you know, that was something. So then I started, I was going along with it, and I was going to, you know, meet up with him. Yeah. I was going to say, make a date with him, man, and record it, and we'll put it on the show. But this is what happened. I kept looking, and I came across to credit card receipts, and I said,

saw like two hotel receipts. Ah, yeah. Not funny anymore. Not funny anymore. Yeah. And I kind of lost it. Yeah. Not funny anymore.

And I confronted him. And he lied and said the first one that was in our city, he got it for a friend. Don't buy it. And the other one that was not in our city, it was when he went out of town to visit family and he said he didn't want to stay at their house. So he got a hotel. I didn't buy that either because he just told me about it. He didn't.

He had me thinking he was staying at his family's house and he wasn't. So I didn't buy any of that. So my husband has a tendency. So the counseling has been going through over the years, we've kind of figured out. And he would admit that he has an issue with attention and validation. And it's like when I'm not- Hold on, hold on, Janelle, Janelle, Janelle. Your husband cheats on you.

Period. period. Yeah. I have problems with validation. I don't get meet women in hotel rooms across the country. Yeah. I know. I like to, for my wife, to tell me nice things.

I like for my wife to tell me she's proud of me. I like to fill in the blank. Yeah. You're right. So you can go to counseling and learn all these neat things and all that kind of stuff. All of that is a complete and utter wash. It means nothing. If your husband is meeting other women in hotel rooms across the United States and then lying to you about it.

Period. I mean, just period. End of discussion. And here's what I think is unfortunate is that you are so kind. And you are so, there's something inside of you that has told you that you don't have equal value to him. that you have come up with some really complicated narrative as to why this is mostly your fault. And I'm telling you as a husband,

that is not a true story that you tell yourself. You're married to a serial cheater, period. Yeah. He's a guy who steps out on his wife repeatedly. And I've said on this show, I'll say it again. I have a ton of sympathy for a business trip one night stand. I have a ton of sympathy for. I met somebody.

I'm saying it's right. I'm saying if somebody sits down and goes, dude, this thing happened. Things happen. Or I was working on a project with somebody for a year at work and I just fell head over heels.

I get that. This is persistent and ongoing. He's spitting in his wife's face telling her she's stupid. You're so dumb you can't even find out. And when you're looking at receipts, he's like, you're an idiot.

And you, for some reason, Janelle, believe yeah, you're probably right. even as you described you know listening to you even as you described the story about him going to see family but staying in a hotel when I promise you when he was there

he was telling you that I'm at mama's house and she's whatever you should the way you told that story if you go back and listen you don't fully you're not 100% that you're right you're about 85% I'm telling you're 100% right I know

and you probably don't want to be a you probably have done whatever you could do for the last decade to keep his family together and you're married to someone who's doing everything he can to unwind it true or false yeah you're right you are right and i've got like a like a knot in my stomach talking to you right now you're right like i'm sick right now did you tell him that you uh were catfishing him did you tell him Did you tell him? Or does he even know that yet? Yeah, he knows.

When I confronted him, it all came out. He knew. Then he apologized and, you know, acting remorseful and saying he wasn't going to go and yada, yeah, yeah, yeah, which is a lie. Of course. That's a lie. So the real question is less about him. The question is about you. Is my marriage fixable?

I think any marriage is. fixable, quite honestly, but I, you can't fix it alone, period. And quite honestly, you've tried for 10 years. You have to have a man that will tell you the truth. You have to have a man that will tell you, I'm sorry, and you have to have a man that will not end up in a hotel room with a bunch of other women he's not married to. Are you perfect in this marriage? No. I don't even know, and I'm telling you no. Of course you're not. No. Great. And as a U.S. any imperfection to give him liberty and license to do whatever he wants to? Yeah, absolutely. And you're worth more than that. And so are those two little kids. Let me say it this way.

I'm going to take back my answer. Ask me your question again. Is my marriage fixable? I will answer it this way. No. Your marriage as it was is over. Can you and your husband build something completely new? Yes. Have you heard my husband? twin towers analogy? Oh yeah. Same thing. What y'all had is over. Those towers have fallen down.

They are in rubble and in ash and smoke and there's dust everywhere. The choice you have to make, and I think right now it's, it's, the initial choice is you, alone. Are you going to walk away from the towers and let nature take them back? or are you going to sit down with him and say from this point forward we build something new and here's my stipulations here's what I need to move forward and then you'll go get some professionals to help you rebuild something completely new and that might mean new jobs that might mean moving that might mean everything is different because everything is different oh I mean you see what I'm saying yeah I do I My guess is you've had some dark moments like where you're just sitting in the shower when you finally by yourself and you weep so hard you can't catch your breath. Fair?

Yeah, that's fair. That is so true. I'm just wondering why, you know, why me, why this? What is it that I did? You can't. You can't. Your husband made some bad choices over and over and over and over and over and over again. and at this point, if I'm being super frank, I'm worried about your health and safety.

I'm worried about him bringing something home from some women that you don't know about or multiple women that you don't know about. Right. And I'm as concerned for your safety right this second as I am for your marriage. We have to definitely go get tested because I don't feel, I don't feel safe. Wait, Jebel Sweetheart, where does this come from? Who taught you that what you

feel in your guts is so wrong? Because you've known he was cheating on you for a long time. I knew. And even the way you just said just now, like, yeah, I told him about there's an uncertainty instead of a proclamation at your front door.

You don't come in this home until you go get tested, period. and you showed, put the, you hand me the results. Like, who told you that, that you're worth so little, that what you feel and what you think and what you need is of, of secondary importance? Again, it didn't help that I see myself in my parents' relationship, where they're still together, but, I mean, my dad practically cheering on my mom the entire 45 years that's been married.

So it's what your body knows, right? Yeah, yeah. Except the rules have changed and the game has changed. And Janelle, my friend Janelle, is not going to take this crap anymore. Here's why. Because your two kids aren't going to repeat this thing. Right. They're going to have a very clear picture in their head of what either a strong boundary and self-worth looks like.

And a single mom who cannot be stopped come help. or high water, or they're going to have a ringside seat to a couple fight and scratch and claw their way to something so remarkable and strong and beautiful moving forward. But they're not going to learn... This is what marriage looks like.

Yeah, you're right. Fair? Fair. You're absolutely right. Now, this is the part of the story where, like, in the movie, when the music swells and then, like, the montage scene happens. This isn't, but that's not reality. Reality is this.

Do you work? Not right now. I got laid off a couple months ago and I'm looking for work now. Okay. This kind of self-proclamation has very real economic consequences, right? It sounds easy for me sitting in Nashville, Tennessee, with a good job to say, you should just, and that's why I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to tell you to run out today.

Because there's a real question of where do you go and how do you feed your kids? How do you eat, right? Right. That's a very real thing. And you know, as well as I do, the court processes are so jacked up, it takes so freaking long to gain thing done. Right. And so I would, here's my, I mean, I just love talking to you. You're funny, you're, like, you have such a great personality. Thank you, Dr. John. And I'm heartbroken in my guts for you.

Yes. And I don't think I've told you anything you didn't already know. I'm heartbroken in my guts because I've sat with women as they've walked what the next two years of your life is going to be and it's not going to be pleasant. And staying in this is not going to be pleasant. You're right. And so the path you have to choose is not one of ease and least resistance and one of really hard. You have two incredibly difficult paths ahead of you. And so I always want someone to choose the difficult path that's going to lead to freedom, not love.

lead to repeating a cycle of abuse and you're just going to take it and this is just the way things are over and over again. Dude, I would, I'd love to talk to your husband if he wants to call me. He won't, he won't, but I'd love to. He probably won't. He won't. Oh, I know he won't. He won't.

Here's, I think, your next steps are. Number one, I'd go get a counselor today. In fact, I'll hook you up with three months of free better help. If you don't have a counselor in your area, stay on the line here. and we'll get you a code, and you can call somebody and be on the phone or talking to them via Zoom

within the next 24 hours. Thank you. And here's what we're talking about. You need to get somebody, and I want you to be very specific when you ask, I need a game plan to begin to identify my next steps.

I've been married to somebody for a decade who cheats on me and cheats on me and cheats on me, and now he's spending money out of our family account. Now he's increased an uptick in lying. He's now traveling distances, and I need to

figure out what my next steps are. And what they'll do is they'll help you think through boundaries, think through, do you have a mom or dad's house, you can go stay up for six months with the kids? Do you have an attorney? Do you get like some of those hard questions you're going to have to face?

Also, here's a testing site. I mean, they're going to walk you through all those questions. The second thing is, is I want you to get a couple of girlfriends. Do you have two or three women in your life that you trust a lot? I do. I want you to take them out to coffee sometime this week. I don't want you to tell them the truth because you have never told them, have you?

No. It's time. You need some real people in your corner, in your local community that knows the truth about what you're experiencing and dealing with. And this is part of the rising. This is when Janelle begins to come out of the water like on her own two feet. And this is my life. When am I doing this anymore? Tell me why that scares you to death.

I have to come out of my. Yes. Everything's okay, Shell. Yeah. Yep. You have created the most beautiful. It's all great. And I'm hilarious facade.

Yeah. You're so good. You're so good. Yeah. That is, you have, you're going to say you have no idea, but you probably do. Because we're the couple that everyone looks at. Oh my God, you guys are so perfect and it's all great and all that. Yeah.

Yeah. And so you're going to lose your identity. the identity as the perfect married woman. And we're going to change that identity for the woman who tells the truth and the woman who is stronger than iron. Over the years, I've just gotten less. So the more it's happened, it's just the braver and braver I'm getting as far as I need to leave. I need to leave.

Yeah, but it's very, very, very hard to leave by yourself. It is. It is. That's why I want you to talk to these three women. and there's something surreal about saying it out loud. Even you started this call with me like, well, and this is going on and he's got some needs so bad that I, I mean, I feel bad I interrupted you.

I would love for you to sit down with these three women over coffee or tea or whatever you like to drink and sit down and go, my husband's been cheating on me for a decade. And now he's moved on to multiple women in multiple cities and it ends now. And their jaws will hit the floor. And you can smile and say, I didn't mean to drop it on you like that, but I for sure meant to drop it on you like that.

I need your help. And there's something empowering about it, because you don't want to say it out loud because you don't want it to be true. And I love you enough to tell you, it is true. Yeah. You're the, this is the first I've actually said it. I know.

I know. I can hear it on you. I know. I know. Do you trust me that there is, I know there's nothing easy that comes next. Nothing. But you have a great picture of your mom that hollowed out shell.

that distant look that dad who walks in and out of that house like he owns planet earth that's you that's the trajectory and that's if your husband chooses not just a bail or doesn't get somebody pregnant

I'd call those women ASAP like I'd call them today or shoot him a text message and say we need to meet tomorrow morning for breakfast we need to talk gosh I'm sick to my guts I hate this for you I hate this for you I hate this for you

when this call first started out I thought we were gonna have some fun in the catfishing thing and this got real real real fast here's the deal Janelle hang on the line we're going to hook you up with that counseling and I'll be here every step of the way and you've got Jenna's contact info I want you to reach out anytime you want to be back on the show you want to talk I got you okay man what a mess

somebody threw a grenade in the middle of your home and it was not you but what comes next is going to be largely what you decide not by your hand but in your lap and here we are and here we go you didn't cause it but you're part of the cleanup crew and you're part of the what's next crew

and I'll be here with you