The Dr. John Delony Show - Mental Health Post-Election, Marriage Struggles, & Alcoholism

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So, send us your questions, leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291, or email [e-mail]. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 3:24: How do I deal with my husband's gambling and infidelity? 18:25: Teaching Segment: Check your Mental Health Post-Election 23:54: How do I navigate a dating relationship my parents don't approve of? 34:21: My husband just entered rehab for alcoholism; how do I prepare for his return home? 50:16: Lyrics of the day: "Sk8r Boi" - Avril Lavigne tags: gambling, infidelity, marriage, divorce, election, mental health, boundaries, parents, addiction, forgiveness These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

If you are listening or watching this, that means we all made it. It's the day after the election and we're all still breathing for now. Today's show is about marriages. It's about surviving infidelity, surviving addiction. It's about marrying somebody that you love, but who's of a different religion and your parents say no go. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? I'm John and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show where we take your calls about your life, your marriages, your friendships, your communities,

what's going on in your heart, in your mind, your mental health All of it And we're helping each other rethink, re-examine and reconsider our lives How we talk to ourselves How do we talk to our loved ones How we talk to our pets, our neighbors People we disagree with, people we love We're going to talk about family issues, infidelity

Finding love again We may talk about people who wake up They wake up in the morning They grab a cup of coffee Then they think to themselves You know what I need? I need my truck to be louder And then they go on the internets

And they scroll for places where they could They say, I've got a truck and it's huge. It just gotta be louder. And then they find a guy and they go to the muffler shop and they look at the guy and they say, I have a perfectly, perfectly good truck. It gets things where they need to go. It gets me where I need to go, but I need it to be louder. I need everyone in the neighborhood to know that I just backed out of my driveway and put it in D and went forward. And the guy's going to look at you and be like, hey, this is America.

I'll take your money. Why do you want it to be louder? And you're just going to be like, you'll flex and be like, cuz. And he'll go, all right, dude, by the way, cool mustache.

I will make this thing louder for you and I'll get it back to you as soon as possible. And I like your camouflage pants. And so whatever. We're going to talk about all of it. Whatever's going on in your home, your heart, your head, I'm here to stand and walk with you. Even those of you who drive loud trucks. I have camouflage pants too, by the way.

So if you're a camouflage pant-wearing person, don't send me cards and letters. I'm with you. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. You can email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. That's askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. And here's the thing. This podcast is going out the day after the election. So we may not even have a world anymore. Nobody may ever hear this, except for the cockroaches and the coyotes and the few people who have been prepping for years. If you guys hear this on a ham radio set,

congratulations, y'all made it. We're proud of you. Your, what do you call them, your shipping crates that you buried under the ground and you've got years of food stashed, outstanding way to go. Those of y'all who read Cormac McCarthy's book, The Road, or 1984, and thought that was a roadmap, that was a

suggestion for how to live, congratulations, you made it. If we're still all around, it's good to see you. And I'm glad you're listening. And hopefully we can be making more shows here. All right, so let's go to the phones. Let's go to our first call. Let's talk to Gwen in Omaha, Nebraska. Gwen, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I am good.

I'm calling because I've been struggling with my husband's infidelity and gambling for years, and I'm just at a loss. Let's get into it. So back me up and start me from the beginning. We got married in 1997 and have four kids. And then in 2010, he came home and said he was just leaving and he was going to go live with another woman in another town. And it was just over. And I didn't see any signs of this at all that I can even look back and see.

And then eventually he decided, you know, maybe we shouldn't. And we went to counseling. Wait, stop right there. Stop right there. So did you divorce him at that moment? Did you say, fine, you're out? Or did you hang in there? What was going on in your heart and mind during this time? I'm a fixer. So I was like, well, we need to do something. You know, we have four young kids here. So I encouraged, you know, I was like, well, maybe we need to go to counseling and figure some stuff out. So yeah, no, I didn't divorce him at that time. And we went to counseling until he decided this was worthless and he's different and he's changed and everything will be fine. Let's just move on and we're just going to move on. And so I thought for a while it did change, but he has a huge

sports betting addiction as well. I mean, he was ignoring us and the kids, mainly me and the kids and focused on all of that. And then I got, I was still so hurt and really didn't ever work through that because I wasn't allowed to say that I was hurt. Why weren't you allowed to say you were hurt? Because he was changed. It was done. He wasn't doing that anymore. He was a different person.

Okay, so just to recap here, and this is a common approach. You have four kids. Life is just chaotic. Were they young kids, pretty close in age? All under seven. Okay, so you have a hurricane blizzard diarrhea bomb literally dropped in the middle of your living room and he decides I'm out. I can't do this. I'm out of here. And he moves in with somebody else. You don't like that. Nobody would like that, but you don't want to let that go. And you think you can heal them because you love them.

You love them. You love them. And you don't want to be stuck with four kids by yourself. So he leaves her house Moves back in with you Goes to counseling Sees the light And no one's ever allowed to talk about what happened in the past Now it's all about moving forward And if you bring up the past or any sort of pain Or past hurt

You're the bad guy, right? Yep Okay, so now we are You're in a house where you've got four kids That are a little bit older now You've got somebody who's sharing your house that you're not fully healed from, who has his own addictions that he's dealing with, multiple addictions that he's dealing with. And you now, on top of all that, are silenced.

Yep. Your feelings don't matter. And so you went and did something dumb, huh? Yeah, I had an affair. Okay. So you have an affair. And then how long does that affair last? Oh, it was like, it was a couple months, maybe. I mean, it was not, I saw a future with anybody else.

It was just, I was mad and I just went the wrong way. Sure. But hey, let's just call it what it is. It felt good for somebody to look at you and desire you, right? Oh, definitely. Okay. Definitely. It felt good to be wanted, right?

Right, wrong, or indifferent. Affairs aren't good and all that, but it felt good to be wanted and desired and to be heard. Okay. So then tell me what happens after that. I essentially got mad again and just told him, you know, this is what I did and I'm not happy and something needs to change. And well, then things went kind of downhill from there. We just lived in the same house and pretty much ignored each other. And then we went to counseling again until he decided it was worthless and went on our way I mean we just pretty much have tolerated each other and then I got told out of the blue one day get out I can't I can't deal with

an adulteress called me a nice name and I can't do this anymore and you need to get out and I just can't deal with you anymore. And so I packed up my stuff. I moved my four kids into a home that had no furniture, no internet, no beds. And my four kids came with me. Only to find out a month after I've been living in this shame because I wrecked our marriage that he had a long-term girlfriend. Sure. And he was going to move her into our home.

So have you kicked his butt out and moved back in? No. No. I stayed away for six, eight months and lived by myself with the kids. And I just essentially, I think I just finally got to the point where I felt so battered and just beaten down by, we need to get back together. I'm not with her anymore. We need to get back together. Our kids need a family.

Our kids need a home life. We can't do this you know apart and you know after hearing that and then his parents my parents some of our friends were like you need to give him another chance he's changed he's different and and in my I mean looking back I know he hadn't changed I I knew he was the same person that he was 10, 15 years ago. But I moved back into our house and with our kids. And so now I'm sitting here going, what in the hell? I'm so mad at myself for going back to something that I know I'm not happy in.

And then I thought, oh, he had even more affairs after i moved back in then he told me more it's like i keep on finding out more and more and more and i never get the whole truth and i don't think i ever will right i just i need to figure out how how do i live like this because i don't want to leave again because what i mean the instability for my kids, I mean they're older. Right. But I just – I don't know. I'm at a loss. So – It's a never-ending hamster wheel I feel like. You're right.

And at some point an adult in this relationship has to get off the wheel. And my hope is that your call today is you finally stepping off the wheel. And when you step off a hamster wheel that's spinning real fast and it's been spinning fast for a long time, it's going to hurt when you hit the ground, you're going to roll around for a while, and then you're going to get up and you're going to dust yourself off and you're going to have people in your corner. And then you're going to start the journey of healing. But some, one of the adults in this house has to get off that wheel and forget you two for a second. You're exactly right.

You are setting up these kids. They are absorbing every second of this. So this is not something to think about in a few months from now. This is a house on fire emergency for your children, okay? This is a house on fire emergency for your sanity, your soul.

You're worth more than this. Okay. So there's a lot here and you and I could talk for the next three weeks. Distill down here. How can I help you today? I just don't know how to move out of this hole I feel like I've dug myself into without completely destroying my kids. Okay, so let's – I want to change some of your language. Okay. Did you have an affair once?

Yep, you did. Okay. There's a period at the end of that sentence. You told them you were sorry. You told them that I wish I hadn't have done that. And I'm going to try to live in a way that's going to redeem our marriage from there. And that's all you can do at the end of the day. Continuing to beat yourself up and to point back to that being the epicenter of the destruction of your marriage isn't honest. It's not being truthful. Okay. So I want you to stop beating up Gwen. Got it?

Cool. I try every day. I try every day. I know, but now I'm telling you, okay. Gwen versus Gwen is a battle that no Gwen's going to win. And that was an awesome rhyme. And if I was a rapper, I would probably write that down. But I'm not. I want you to be nice to Gwen. Number two, do you want to stay married to this guy or no? Not really. Okay.

Say it with a conviction. Yes, I would like to stay married to him. No, I do not. No, I want to be treated better than what I have been treated for 20 some years. You are still qualifying it. Do you want to stay married to this man? Yes. No, I do not. Okay. So the next step is you will not move out of that house. Period. Your four kids deserve your family home. If the person you are married to wants to have a bunch of extramarital affairs, that's their business. They're allowed to do that.

You, my friend, are worth more than that. Your kids are worth more than that. Everything about your ecosystem is worth more than that, okay? Particularly your children. And so every time you, every day you avoid this conversation moving forward, this is going to be unfair what I'm about to say to you, but it's me being as truthful, bare bones as I can. Every day you postpone contacting an attorney, contacting a couple of friends who are in your corner, not people who are going to tell you what they want you to do, but folks who are going to support your decision, every day forward, I want you to say to yourself, I am choosing to not be uncomfortable at the expense of my kid's future. Okay?

That's the either or decision you're making right now. And there isn't going to be any change that happens you know that he knows that your kids know that everybody knows it we're just waiting for an adult to hop off that wheel and i never am in the business of recommending somebody get divorced but i am in the business of telling folks if if you have made a decision, you're torturing your kids, you're torturing yourself, and you're torturing him by prolonging this. And if the story is exactly as you've laid it out to me, he has been telling you for years he's not interested in just having a relationship with you. You have been communicating you're not interested in having a relationship with him. Somebody's got to call it, right?

And so if this is what you want to do, I want to encourage you to stop the dot, dot, dot and just put a period at the end of the sentence. And when you do, it's going to hurt like nothing you've ever felt before. And you're going to have to have people in your corner who love you. You're going to have to have people around you. You're going to have people who support you. And it's going to be a tough, tough exhale. And then you're going to have to have people in your corner who love you. You're going to have to have people around you. You're going to have people who support you. And it's going to be a tough, tough exhale. And then you're going to be able to start healing. And you are exactly right.

You are worth somebody who treats you well. You're worth somebody who loves you. You're worth somebody who loves your kids. You're worth somebody who doesn't cheat on you over and over and over again. You're worth all of those things. You're worth your home being a haven of rest. You're worth a good night's sleep, but you got to do the work. Are you, Gwen, worth that work?

I believe so, yes. Okay. Do you have people who are in your corner? I have a few, and that's all I need. Okay. Your parents don't get a vote. His parents don't get a vote. He does.

He does. Sitting down and having a conversation is fair, but you're not moving out of that house. You're not moving those four kids out of that house. You got it? Agreed. Okay. Is there anything about your relationship that makes you unsafe physically? Oh, no.

Okay. No. Good. Just emotionally. Okay. That's about it. The only thing you can do at this point is do the things that help you be well. And you probably have no idea what those even are anymore.

And I cannot recommend enough that you go see a counselor, a professional in your area. I don't care if you can afford them or not. Figure out a way to get that done. Sell one of your kids. You got four of them, right? Don't sell your kids. Someone's going to send me a card and letter about that and be like, I can't believe Deloney told him to sell our kid. Don't do that. But figure out a way and let them know that after 20 years of being treated in the following ways, after 20 years of multiple affairs, 20 years of being kicked out of your own home for another woman to move in, another woman to move out,

all that, that you have made the personal decision that enough is enough and my kids deserve better and more importantly, I deserve better. And you want someone to walk alongside you, a professional to walk alongside you as you go through hell, which is where you're headed. And as you begin to rebuild a beautiful back half of your life out of the ash. Okay. All right. Thank you. Are we on the same? Are we on the same team? We are on the same team. Okay. Definitely. Gwen, I love you and I love your family. I even love that knuckleheaded husband. Who's got all kinds of demons in his closet. And I hope healing for you.

But that starts with somebody in your house, hopefully you, jumping off that wheel. Call me back. Let me know how things are going in a month, in two months. And don't miss any of this. It's going to be hard, hard, hard if this is the road that you choose to take. But you are worth more than what you've accepted and what you have allowed, what you've absorbed over the last 20 years. You're worth more than that. You're a beautiful soul, Ms. Gwynn, in Omaha, Nebraska.

You're a beautiful soul. All right. So this is the day after the election. Chances are, so I'm recording this show a few weeks before the election. Chances are there's not even a decision. Maybe. But it seems like everybody's gearing up for this thing to go for a long time. I lived through Bush, Gore, and the, golly, dude, like the neutron bomb of diarrhea that that was. And that is my second diarrhea reference of the

show, and I don't even care. So I'm hoping that's not the case. I hope there's a clear answer this morning when we all woke up, but there may not be. But here's the deal. So it's a day after the election. Everybody's going to exhale or everybody woke up and they inhaled. But here's my rules for moving forward. And you didn't ask for them, but this is you are listening to this podcast. So you can feel free to click off if you don't want to hear my rules, but here they are. Number one, if you didn't vote, you are silent for the next four years. You don't get to play. You chose to sit on the sidelines and go, yeah, get them, get them. But you didn't do anything. You never even got on the field. So for four years, you have to just be quiet. You have to write poems and plant gardens and make your truck louder.

Whatever the thing is that you want to do. If you did vote, here's a couple of choices you have You can choose to gloat and be an idiot And be like, yeah, we showed them congratulations We didn't show anybody anything You voted your one vote We all voted our one vote And your candidate won Great, we're all still on the same team Gloating is number one

Number two, if your candidate didn't win, you can take your ball and go home. I'm sad and I'm going to pout and I'm going to throw a fit and I'm going to demand this and I'm going to... Look, that's not going to solve any problems either. You can take your ball and go home. I don't like our plan, but you voted, you played, And that means we're all in it together. Okay. The third option, which is, I hope everyone does, is we can say, all right, whoever won, won, period. I'm not going to fold my business up. I'm not going to pull all my money out of the market. I'm not going to dump all my money back into the, I'm going to choose to live locally, which is the only thing I can do. I can actually get my hands on. The only people I can get my arms around to hug and to care for.

And I'm going to work really hard to make my local community better and stronger and more resilient. I don't care which side of the political aisle you're on in this thing. We all know this is out of control. And we've all been in yelling fights before or fist fights before or kickboxing matches before where we feel it getting too hot. And it's hard to back out. Well, it's the day after the election. Let's everybody just stop. Stop. And look at the person driving next to you right now. Look at the person mowing their yard in the grass in the yard next to you and recognize them as a husband or a daughter or a father or a mother.

As the owner of a cat for God's sakes, right? The owner of a dog. let's acknowledge him as people and we have to figure this out together and a executive politician is not going to solve kindness issues it's not going to solve basic humanity issues it's not going to solve the bajillions of trillions of

dollars that we all collectively owe guys it's my freaking grandkids are going to have to figure out what to do with that. It's my grandkids. It's my children. And it pisses me off. Enough with it. It's not our executive politicians

that are going to solve our nutritional issues and our movement issues and our mental health challenges. They're just not. That crap's going to get solved with us. And so it's the day after the election, everybody spit your mouthpieces out, put your gloves down on the mats, and let's look across the arena at the people we've been swinging and kicking and punching and biting and kneeing and elbowing and all of it. And let's just say, we're done. Same team, same team. Let's don't gloat.

Let's don't pick up our tennis rackets and go home. Same team. I want you to find somebody that you have not been cool to, that you've been a jerk to, that you've ignored, a family member that you told off halfway through the election cycle. I want you to call them today and say, hey, I love you and I'm sorry. I want you to swear off any sort of political nonsense for a couple of days. Recenter. I want you to send an email to your boss and say, hey, I appreciate you holding everything together. Send an email to your coworkers or a handwritten letter to your coworkers and say, hey, thanks for weathering this season with us. We got a lot of hard work to do.

Let's go get it done. No gloating. No pouting. Guys, we got to solve this together. These are our kids. These are our grandkids. These are us. Let's go make it right.

Okay? It's the day after the election. Hope we still are all here. I'm assuming we are. Hope the election has been decided. I don't know who won. That's why I it right. Okay? It's the day after the election. Hope we still are all here. I'm assuming we are. Hope the election's been decided. I don't know who won. That's why I'm doing this on the front end. But whatever happened, let's work together.

Let's work together. All right. Let's go to Amy in New York City. Amy, what is up? Amy. Hi, Dr. D. Thank you so much for taking my call. Thank you for calling.

I said your name like five times. I kind of made that a little bit weird. I'm sorry about that. So, hey, what's up? How can I help? So, basically, my family is Catholic, and my long-term boyfriend, well, technically my fiance, is Muslim and I want to get married. Sweet. This is going to be an awesome call.

All right. Yes. So is going to be an awesome call. All right. Yes. So, uh, how can I help? So he's your fiance. He asked you to marry him and you said yes. Yeah.

And, um, I mean, I, I still haven't told my family. I don't know how to tell them. Um, I've already introduced them to each other.

Um, how'd that go? How did that go? So in person person like they were like welcoming and charming and this and that and then like i visited them a couple days later and they were like what the hell was that what do you think you're doing yes bringing a muslim into this household like we thought we raised you better this this and that. And to me, I was just, like, totally blindsided. I had no idea that they would react that way.

Yeah, for sure. So are you a practicing Catholic or are you more of a Catholic in practice? In theory, I mean. You're a theoretical Catholic. Okay. Yeah. You know how to go up and down and do all the stuff in the service. Right.

Okay. Right. And so is your fiancé, is he a practicing Muslim? Are you going to have to convert? Or is he, like you are to Catholicism, is he that way to the Muslim faith? Yeah, kind of. I mean, there's no pressure, but I'm pretty sure once we settle down and have kids, we'll raise them muslim just because i don't really connect with catholicism like at all so okay um but yeah like to me religion is just like it doesn't matter that much okay so why are you giving your parents

a vote why do you care um it's not so much that i'm giving it like my, my decision is made. I'm going to marry him. But, um, at the time they were like giving me this ultimatum of like, you need to choose, like it's either us or him. Um, and I was trying to kind of take a third route. Like, Hey, I choose me. I choose what makes me happy. And they like turned it around on me. Like, Oh, so you think you can't be happy without us? So here's the deal. They put an ultimatum on you, but it's not really that. They gave the ultimatum. And so they said him or us, and you chose him. And so that's going to be uncomfortable and frustrating and gnarly and heartbreaking and sad and fill in the blank, fill in the blank. But that just isn't is. How old are you? 25.

25. Yeah, you're a grown New York woman. You're one of the most powerful people on planet Earth. I know some really extraordinary New York women and they are awesome and they are not to be reckoned with and they are brilliant and smart and kind and they know what they want. And your parents gave you an ultimatum. They said him or us and you chose him. So when I say it like that you don't like that how come um it's just the whole situation it's my whole life I've kind of been like the image of like

the perfect daughter and I hate disappointing my parents um and I don't want the ultimatum to end up like with me actually losing them um like right now we're kind of at a place of like don't want the ultimatum to end up like with me actually losing them. Like right now we're kind of at a place of like don't ask, don't tell. Like I don't tell them about him, but they don't ask me about him. Yeah, but that's you living this mirage. That's this fantasy, Amy. Right. And in many ways you're diminishing your integrity to be more blunt.

You're lying to your family. And in order to keep the peace, you're choosing to keep a massive part of you, the person you're going to spend the rest of your life with. You're already talking about kids, how you're going to raise those kids. You're being dishonest with them. And so what I don't want you to do is to take a moment where they showed their cards. They showed who they were. They showed their character. Our faith is more important than you.

Right? So you're going to be on board with our faith or you're not going to be with us. And you chose, okay, cool, I call your bluff. But I don't want you to then show your character by then lying about it. You made your decision, you made your decision. And the reality is you stood by your values, and when we stand by our values, it often hurts. It often costs us something.

The sucky part about our current ecosystem with social media is that we feel like we live our values by thumbs downing the crap out of something, right? And we forget that when Martin – Dr. King marched across the bridge, he thought he was going to die. But it was worth it to him, right? So that's an extreme example of living your values, but our values cost us something. And in this case, your parents, they showed their values, our way, our faith, or we're done with you. My guess is that they're not going to be done with you, but you've always been the perfect daughter. They think that by leaning on you in a heavy way that you'll come back around. And here's the other thing. I want to give them some grace on this. And I know this is going to cost me, people are going to send me mean emails and letters. I believe it was Penn or Teller. It was one of the famous magicians in Las Vegas.

Let's just say it was Penn, but I don't remember which one. Is a famous atheist. Is that the tall one, James? Tall, yeah. Really, the interviews I've seen with him, the things I've read, he's extraordinary. He's a brilliant man. He's a kind thinker. But he told a story about – he's a devout atheist too, by the way.

He told a story about meeting a guy backstage who was talking to him about what a great show he had just seen, what a great magic show. The guy was talking about how impressed he was. They talked shop about technique and things like that. And the guy said, hey, I've just got to put it out there. I'm a Christian, and I'd love for you to come to church with me tomorrow here in Vegas. And I just want you to know I love you. And this devout – this atheist – I don't want to say devout, but this atheist said he was so touched and moved because the guy wasn't trying to move – wasn't trying to – this wasn't a move. He didn't hand him a bunch of tracks.

He wasn't trying to beat him up with, he was just saying, hey, I love you, and I care about your future. I care about your soul, and I want you to know that you're welcome to join me. And what Penn said that stuck with me was when true believers, when people who stick by their faith and they believe it to the core of their being, it's to them like somebody's in a street and a truck is coming at them. And they push that person out of the way to save them from that truck. And Penn said, I don't believe what that guy was telling me.

I don't buy it. But I really am grateful that he saw me and thought I was going to get hit by a truck. And he thought enough of me to push me out of the way. And so I tell you that story to tell you this. Your parents may be super devout Catholics and in their heart and mind, however right, wrong, misguided, honest, true, whatever word you want to put there, they believe that if you marry somebody who's Muslim, your eternal soul is at stake. The same as your fiance's family might feel that if him as a Muslim marries a Christian, he was to convert to Catholicism, that his actual eternity would be at stake. I would hope they would speak up. I'd hope they'd speak up in love and I'd hope

they'd speak up directly and firmly and with care, but I'd hope they'd speak up because they care that much about my eternal soul. And then I hope they would continue to love me. And that's the decision all people of faith have to make when they speak up. Right? And so think of it this way, that your parents are trying to love you the best they know how. They're trying to care for their baby girl who's 25, right? You're a grownup, but in your eyes, they're always going to be seven, and they're always going to love you. But they're trying to love you the best they can, and they may just be concerned for your eternal soul, however wrong you think that is, however goofy you think that is.

And so in their way of trying to love you, they said, it's either him or us, you chose him. And so just know that all you can control is what you can control. You made your decision. Don't let your integrity sag when it comes to protecting and trying to keep the peace there. Be honest with them. Be upfront with them. And tell them that you still desire a relationship with them even though they gave that ultimatum.

And then you're going to have to live by that decision. And that's going to be hard, Amy. Is that fair? Yeah, definitely. And that's going to be hard, Amy. Is that fair? Yeah, definitely. And so you love this dude? Absolutely. He treats you right? Oh, yeah.

Okay. So I want you to remember that moment. Remember the values line that you drew. Somebody said either or, you chose or, and now we're going to all live with the consequences. Every one of us has values. Is at some point going to be called on the carpet, myself included.

Myself included. And people of faith who reach out and say, I'm terrified for X, Y, and Z, thank them because they're trying to shove you out of a truck they see coming your way. Even if you don't believe that truck's coming Trust their hearts and their motives behind that And Oh man And then people of faith Speak your heart, speak your mind

And please, please default to love Relationships and love Relationships and love Alright, let's see who's next here Let's go to Marie Oh, let's stay who's next here. Let's go to Marie. Oh, let's stay in New York. Yeah, we'll go to Marie in Rochester, New York. Marie, good morning. How are you? I'm great. How are you, Dr. John? So good. So good. How can I help this morning? Yeah. Well, thanks for taking my call. My husband

just entered a rehab program for alcohol. How do I navigate his return home? Wow. Okay. Man, these have been a bunch of just light softball tosses of calls today, man. This has been a fun show. So I'm going to assume that there is a trail of wreckage in your home before your husband decided to go to rehab. Is that fair? Absolutely. Yes. Okay. fair? Absolutely, yes. Okay, walk me, we can just take a stroll together through the wreckage and walk me through it. Sure, yeah.

So we've been married for 14 years, and I really started noticing a lot of drinking that to me wasn't really a normal type of behavior. Probably more so when our child was born and he's nine now. And it seemed to kind of go hand in hand with some stress from maybe being a new parent and just some job changes and things like that. And it really has gotten worse in the past, probably three or four years where he's gone into a detox program. He's had a lot of counseling and things like that. But this last time we really,

I really kind of gave him an ultimatum that it had to be either you need to go and get actual treatment somewhere or you need to leave. Because all the pressure really has been on me. And so, you know, schooling at home, I'm the only one that works. So he hasn't worked since our child was about three. So it's just been a lot of pressure and a lot of stress. So I feel like everything is on my shoulders. And I'm not getting really a lot of the support and help that I really need just to run day to day. Have you ever been in a situation where you're not safe?

No. Has he ever? I would say no as far as like he's made, he's done things that I feel would be unsafe, like leaving the stove on unattended and stuff like that. But I've never been physically unsafe. Has he been faithful to you? Yes. Okay.

So is this a man that you love deeply and you hurt for, or is this a man you were done with and your ultimatum was more of a bluff call. I'm feeling more towards the latter because I've just felt like I've just been really hurt and really struggling and I feel so alone. Yeah, absolutely. How have – give me some – one or two things you've tried to do over the years to reconnect with him five or six years of not working at all just laying around drunk and um how how have you tried to bridge that gap or are you just busy trying to pay the bills and make sure your your poor kids fed and etc that's how i kind of feel okay i feel like I'm trying to get through the day every single day. Okay. Oh, man. So, number one, this sucks. And I wish there was another way around it. You've been living by yourself with two kids, basically, for a long time.

Yes. Basically, for a long time. Yeah. My guess also is that your husband's got some demons in his closets that are real and gnarly and mean and ugly. And for lack of better terms, he's been tortured for the last 10 years or 15 years. Does that excuse him not working? No. Does that excuse addiction? No. But it does provide a remarkable context. So my guess is he's got some ugliness in his past. Is that fair?

I would say so. I don't know of the ugliness specifically, which is really strange, but he has to have something to explain this. So, I'm going to be real honest with you, okay?

As honest as I possibly can be. So you told him it's either us or you're going to rehab and you're getting well. And through his haze and brokenness and disconnection, he chose you guys, and he chose to go get well. And however misguided that is, however much you think this isn't going to work and this is another attempt of XYZ, you put the cards on the table and he said, you're right, and he went. And the only way people – I don't say only way. It's very hard for folks to come out of rehab. Let me back up. Addiction is a disconnection issue.

And when it stems from trauma, when addiction comes out of, an addiction is just your body's way of trying to take care of itself. It's trying to numb hurt inside. It's trying to wallpaper over fractured relationships, disconnected relationships. And it wallpapers over his fear. And alcohol does an awesome job of literally shoving that stuff back down underwater. It makes that hurt go away until it kills you, right? Until it burns everything around you. And the sucky part about chemical addiction, especially, but all addiction is that it shoves it all underwater. And the one thing that can heal people, which is connection, it makes it hard and hard to be connected, right? Because the person's an addict and they just, they end up becoming this selfish shell of themselves, right? And so to tell

somebody you got to go get well, and then you're going to come home and then to not be fully into him. And I say fully into him, not being fully on board with connecting with him is going to be torture for him. It's going to be really hard. His recovery is going to be his recovery, and you can't fix things for him. You can't make him go to meetings. You can't make him not cheat on you. You can't make him not cheat on you. You can't make him go get a job. But him doing these things to try to help himself be well from the inside out, and then you still have in the back of your mind,

I don't love you. I don't want to be with you. I don't want you in my house. You disgust me. I'm exhausted by this. He's going to feel that disconnection and it's really going to be a situation where neither of you are going to end up well out of this deal. And so you have to decide full stop when he gets out, are you going to be able to move past the last five years, the last nine years? And here's the way I talk about after infidelity. It's a very similar situation for you. You can't go back to 9-11, to the Twin Towers. We could never get all the dust and twisted metal and glass and rebuild those two towers as they were. They're gone.

But what we can do is excavate the whole thing. We had a worldwide contest to – a worldwide competition for architects and design – just savants to redesign what this thing was going to – a new building was going to look like. We built a monument to what was. We acknowledged it, but also we built a brand-new tower together. And that's what it's going to take for you. You're going to have to be all in, and you're going to have to be graceful. You're going to have to have a detailed recovery plan of what boundaries look like for you, what you're going to expect of him. And also, you're not going to be able to just beat him up throughout the entire process, right? Remember when, remember when, remember when. It's going to have to be you guys united moving forward. And if you're not ready to do that or you don't want to do that or you have thoughts in your head

about just him moving out and finally you're free and you want to see somebody else and go on down another road. You owe it to yourself. You owe it to him. You owe it to that nine-year-old child in your house to make that call now. So what do you think as I'm talking? Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I mean, I had mentioned marriage counseling in the past. Talking to your phone there. I'm sorry.

There you go. I had mentioned marriage counseling in the past, but I always felt this addiction needed to be addressed first. A thousand percent. You cannot go to marriage counseling if the person you're with is a drunk. You can't. They've got to get the addiction under control. No question, no how. And so what we're talking about is he's going to go do 30 days and let's assume, let's just go to fantasy world. He completes it with flying colors. He gets in there and about day 15, 16, he starts dealing with some old demons and he starts,

he goes to group a couple of times a day. He starts to get one-on-one counseling. He detoxes completely and he comes out with a, with a recovery plan in his hand. And he comes with a plan to go to meetings every, every day for 90 days. He gets a sponsor. He starts the process. And are you at that point going to look at him with his new clear eyes and say, there's my guy? Mm-hmm. Let's go rebuild something magical together. Or are you going to go, oh, God, here he is again? Right. I need to see proof.

I need to see a track record. I need to see that I can trust him. Okay, I'm going to challenge you, okay? Mm-hmm. All relationship, all of the price of loving somebody deeply, the price of admission for love is hurt, is pain. It's

risk. And so if he gets out, and you dangle love in front of him like a carrot, he's going to collapse. You're going to collapse. And I know that's hard, and I know that sets you up to be hurt yet again. But if you say, if you do this, then I will slowly reveal myself, re-reveal myself to you. That is like starving somebody, especially an addict who's trying to get well.

And so when he comes out, accountability means love. A recovery plan that you both agree to, that means love. I'm not saying he gets to come back in and move back right back to the couch or he's going to replace – he's going to start running marathons and still not get a job and still not be present and all those things. But I mean if you withhold love until he shows up, he will never show up because that's not how addiction – that's not how healing works. You're going to have to have some strong boundaries. You're going to have to have some entrenched things that are going to be – we are going to live like this in this house, and then you're going to have to go be reckless with your love. You're going to have to be willing to be hurt again. Okay. And if you're not, that is okay.

That's a decision you made. But I don't want you to torture yourself. I don't want you to torture that little nine-year-old, and I don't want you to torture yourself. I don't want you to torture that little nine-year-old and I don't want you to torture this, this guy coming out of rehab. Yeah. But don't use your love. Don't use your body. Don't use you, the essence of you as a carrot. You're going to have to grab his hand when he comes out and you have to walk together. Also, remember in this deal, the only thing in the world, and I say this over and over and over again, the only thing you can control is you. And so you need to make sure this is going to be a wonderful time for you to completely

reimagine what life in your home looks like. What does your wellness plan look like? What does your nutrition and workouts look like? What is your, if you're a person of faith, what does reestablishing routines around faith practices look like? Making sure you've got hobbies and friends that you go see. And you've probably neglected all that stuff for a decade now because you've just been trying to survive. Yeah, I mean, it's a disease of isolation. That's right. But it's a disease of isolation. That's right. But it's a disease of isolation for both parties, right? Yes. And if you looked around, my guess is you can also become an addict of planning, an addict of lists, an addict of routine, because that's how you've chosen to survive this. You've had to survive it this way. But sometimes those are every bit the addiction that alcohol is. It's a way that you numb yourself out. It's the way that you don't feel just so you can survive. And alcohol is the same thing.

And so that's why I'm telling you, I want you to make sure you've done this for a decade now. You've basically been a single parent with a drunk living on your couch and you're going to have to get well too. And you're going to have rage in you that you haven't felt that you have, you have, you have just stuffed down there as you had to. That's what you had to do to survive. And you're going to have pain and loneliness that you have stuffed down. You're going to have to let, have to let out. And that's why the only person you can deal with on this deal is you. And so I please, for your sake, for that little nine-year-old's sake, for his sake, go get a counselor today if you don't have one and start

making a plan together for when he gets out. What are your boundaries going to be? What's an accountability plan going to look like for the two of you? What are the things you need? And then how do you start just anchoring in so that when he does come out, you're not going to hold him hostage with love. You're not going to hold him hostage with intimacy, with physical intimacy. If you do these things, then we'll sleep together. If you do these things, then we'll go on a date. If you do these things, then I will slowly let myself. No, you can't do that. Once you set those boundaries, once you say you're welcome back in this home, we are all

in this and we're going to rebuild a new tower together for the rest of our lives. And I think you can. If he truly puts the addiction in his rearview mirror and he does the things on a daily basis to keep himself whole and well, man, I've just seen it over and over. You can. It's going to be hard, but you can. But he's going to need full you. And you can only have full you if you've got a community, if you've got your own physical and mental wellness. You're prioritizing.

You're putting on your oxygen mask first. You and that nine-year-old are spending close quality time together, not survival time, but close quality time together. And then, whew, then the sky's the limit and it can be a beautiful thing. But if you're out, you got to be out. If you are out, you got to be out. So when you hang up on this call, your first call is to a counselor. Set up an appointment and say, here's where I'm at, and I need a professional to start walking with me. I am so grateful, grateful, grateful for this call. And there's so many people whose husbands and wives head off to rehab, whose husbands and wives, they have hard conversations. They have clearing the debt conversations, and then they start over the next day, and then nobody knows what to do.

It's like, all right, we're going to step up tomorrow and then tomorrow happens. So good for you, Marie, for calling. I appreciate the call. And either be all in or all out. And either way, you're going to need somebody to walk with you. All right. That's the end of the show here. So for the first podcast after the election, the first podcast for the rest of our lives, I thought, what's the greatest song of all time? The song that, you know, people are like, that's my favorite, that's my greatest, cool.

And then they're like, no, that's the greatest. No, that's the greatest. And then in 2002, out of nowhere, you know, out of the mouth of babes, I don't know how the end of that quote goes, but I'm just going to say out of the mouth of babes comes tons of wisdom. How about that? Is that how that quote ends? I don't think so.

But sometimes we go to old people, we go to wise people, accomplished people for wisdom, and we forget the 13-year-olds, the 14-year-olds. And in 2002, on the extraordinary award-winning album just simply titled Let Go, a 14-year-old or 13-year-old, I don't know, 12, I don't remember, 12-year-old from Canada with the interesting, beautiful name of Avril Lavigne showed up. And she redefined what love is for a whole generation of us. We thought love was Romeo and Juliet. We thought love was Titanic. But no. In her extraordinary song, a song so cool there was a number in the title. Avril writes in her legendary classic, Skater Boy. She says, he was a boy and she was a girl.

Can I make it any more obvious? No, Avril, you can't. He was a punk and she did ballet. What more can I say? I don't think anything, Avril. He wanted her, she'd never tell. Secretly, she wanted him as well. And get this, folks, but all of her friends, they stuck up their nose. They had a problem with his baggy clothes. Her friends.

He was a skater boy and she said, see you later, boy. He wasn't good enough for her. She had a pretty face, but her head was up in space. She needed to come back down to earth. Now get this, five years from now, she sits at home feeding the baby. She's all alone. She turns on TV. Guess who she sees? Skater Boy. Rocking up MTV, ladies and gentlemen. Let everybody out there hear, just because they've got baggy clothes doesn't mean that you can't love them too. Oh, Avril, thanks for giving us wisdom.

This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. you