The Dr. John Delony Show - My Dad Joined a Biker Gang & Is Using Meth

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Sometimes, family hurts. Today, we hear from a man whose deadbeat stepson won’t leave his home, a woman whose father joined a biker gang and is now using meth after his messy divorce, as well as parents struggling to forgive their daughter-in-law after her affair. My adult stepson still lives with us, is a hoarder, & doesn’t pay rent My Dad joined a motorcycle gang & is using meth Email: Our son’s wife had an affair; They are reconciling but we’re struggling to forgive her Email: What do you mean by the phrase “spin out”? Lyrics of the Day: "Better Days" - Goo Goo Dolls Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Greensbury Resources: Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to a man whose new stepson is trashing his home, and he wants to know what to do next. We also talk to a woman whose parents are getting divorced, dad has gotten into drugs, and she wants to know what to do next. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up, what's up? Stay tuned. outside. So hey, we're, so new books out. Make sure you please, please, please go to johndelorey.com and pre-order this thing. It comes with a bajillion dollars worth of free counseling, a month of free counseling, better help and audio books and all kinds of stuff. I was recording the audio book the other day and I had this genius idea that gummy bears would help

coat my throat. And you just stand there for hours and you're reading and reading. And they were working great. But then James pointed out, we're reading the section in the book where we talk about what our food does to our mental health and our physical health. And James is like, this is kind of ironic that you're deceiving the audience

by reading this section about sugar and junk food while you're mainlining gummy candies. And then Chris Miller decides to kick me while I'm down and sends me this meme. And it says, I hope that when I inevitably choke to death on gummy bears, people will just say, I was killed by bears and leave it at that. And I actually love that. Way to go, man. Way to go. But hey, James, you kind me a, like a, what do you call it? Like an ethical crisis.

I quit eating gummy bears over the weekend. I just went cold turkey. I'm done. I'm off the sauce. Proud of you. I'm never having one again. As long as I live, I will never eat another one. This is the irony of you asking the journal prompts at the end of the chapter saying,

how often are you eating foods that are in packages? And right below you, right below the microphone is a bag of gummy candies. Listen. Hope this feels good, James. All right, let's go to Michael in Philadelphia. Hey, Michael, what's up, man? Hey, Dr. John, how are you today? You clearly see I'm still trying to figure out how to use this phone,

so sorry for hanging up on you just now. I'm an idiot. That's okay. I'll get it. You'll get used to it. I know, right? You'd think. How about it?

Hey, so what's up, man? How can I help? Okay. I'll give you the short story, and you take it from there. Basically, what I have is my wife and I are 57 years old. We started dating about four years ago. And about a year ago, she moved in with me and we got married last September. Now, since she moved in with me a year ago, she let her son, who's 23 years old, move into her home. We both had our own home. She moved into mine and she let her son move into her home. Now her son is a hoarder. And we're now dealing with, a year later, with we have junk cars all over the lawn.

We have car parts all over her property. The inside of the house is a mess. And my instinct is to tell her, give them an ultimatum or give them a deadline. Say, hey, you need to buy such and such a date. You got to get rid of this stuff or else. And she's got a very difficult time doing that with him. And I'm having a difficult time with her difficulty. Yeah. Because, you know, I don't want to overstep my bounds in a sense of, you know, me stepping in and dictating things to him. You know, I'm trying to do it through her.

So are you, did y'all sign a prenup of any sort? How have you divided up your finances? Well, since we got married, and I've been a Dave Ramsey baby stepper for the last five years, so we've basically combined all of our finances and everything is together. So the reason I'm asking is at the beginning of this call, you were talking about your house and her house, and I know it's different when you're getting married at 57. It can feel different,

but it would sound like when you get married, it's your house and y'all's house and y'all's house. Correct. And that's the way we're treating it. For the sake of this discussion, I just wanted to let you know, we both had our separate homes. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, what's mine is hers and what's hers is mine. There you go. So do you need this house? I mean, is it going to help pay the bills? Is it part of a retirement plan? It is part of a retirement plan. Okay.

We are in the process of planning our retirement, and we will need that home and my home to be able to do what we want to do in retirement. Okay. So a couple of things to think through, and I know you know these things. I'm just going to say them out loud just for both of us, okay? The first thing is the 23-year-old son, this didn't just crop up when he was 22. So my guess is there's a dynamic between the two of them and any other family members, his biological father, et cetera, that has led to some sort of traumatic childhood or challenges that have led to this moment, some sort of interaction. Is that fair? Yes. Okay. And often, did he have a rough childhood? He did. Okay. He did. He primarily didn't have a father figure in his life. Okay. His father, although he's been in contact with his son, was not really a, for the lack of a better term,

a disciplinarian as far as in his upbringing. And so does your wife, does his mom have a hard time? Is she still living out of, I'm going to make it up to you? She has a hard time holding him accountable? Yeah, I think that is part of it, yes. Okay. Yes. All right.

So ultimately here, I think we start with you and your wife because this is, sounds like it's the first big test of your new marriage, but y'all are on way different pages here. And I may, I know there's some, there's some, what do you call it? There's some translation issues between some of my best friends on planet earth are from the Philadelphia area. And we used to laugh about the translation issues between some of my best friends on planet Earth are from the Philadelphia area. And we used to laugh about the translation issues between Texas and Philadelphia. But I can pick up. I feel like I'm picking up.

Tell me if I'm wrong. I'm picking up. You are starting to look at her a little bit differently. Like, how are you going to let somebody do this to your stuff? And she says, well, it's just my son. And now this is leaving being about some guy's trash in your house to, oh, man, who did I marry? Am I right or wrong? Tell me I'm wrong.

To a degree, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't, here's, my frustration comes with her being, I guess the best way to put this is that what I say to her every once in a while is that, I also have two 23-year-olds also. I have twins that are 23 years old. And I, at one point, made the mistake of saying, well, I wouldn't let my kids do this. And I, I know, I know, I know, I know. And I thought about it. You learned, you said you're sorry. It's good. No, I did. And, and I also know that, um, you know, he, he's also been diagnosed with, you know, ADHD and you know, she has, uh, she's been diagnosed with, with depression. And so I try to, I look

at first, I was like, you know, what the hell is going on? Why are you letting him do this? To now I kind of sit back and I kind of try to talk it out with her and say, well, what kind of, what, how are we going to handle this? How are we going to, what are we going to do? I mean, obviously you can't just say, we're going to kick you out of your, you know, we're going to handle this? How are we going to, what are we going to do? I mean, obviously you can't just say, we're going to kick you out of your, you know, we're going to kick you out of the house, but. So, hey, what I'm telling you, Michael, Michael, that's exactly what has to happen.

And ADHD is not an excuse to trash somebody's home. ADHD is not an excuse or OCD or a clinical hoarder. That's not an excuse to destroy somebody's property or to not take care of yourself or to not be hygienic or whatever the struggles and challenges that are happening. Those are a context. That is a way you lean. That's a way that your body naturally responds to certain things, whether it's environmental or it's genetic. Well, it's actually a combination of both of those. But there's a bunch of reasons. So I want you to keep in your mind both and. Yes, my wife has a tendency to run low.

She's had a – like, man, she got left. The guy was a jerk. She's had struggles for who knows how long. Right. She struggles with depression and she's got to set up an environment

where she can be successful financially, where she's going to have food to eat, where she can help her kids be accountable. She can take care of her family. And so, and same with him.

He's got struggles of all sorts. No question about that. And he's got to have a situation that holds him accountable. And he's got to have a situation where people care about him and love about him, but aren't going to enable him to destroy something. Because here's the thing. He's just going to go to the next thing. And he's going to go to's the thing. He's just going to go to the next thing and he's going to go to the next thing and he's going to go to the next thing.

Right. And yeah. So the question I think between you and your wife is, I know that you, let me, I'm thinking about me and my wife. If somebody came in and said, somebody yelled and screamed, a grownup yelled and screamed at our daughter who's six in the parking lot. And it's the parent of one of her classmates. My tendency to respond, I mean, my default setting in that situation, I'm probably going to go to jail, right? I'm not going to handle that

well. She, on the other hand, my wife, would be able to handle that differently. And I say be able to, I could be able to, I'm just saying my tendency. And so she would say, I'm going to have this conversation first. And I would exhale really deeply and say, that's probably wise. And then in a week or so, or a couple of days, you see what I'm saying? So I want you to say to your wife and say, the reality is we have to have this house. The reality is what we're allowing to happen right now with our son, with our home is not working. So we all can agree that something different has to happen. Honey, I heard you that you can't be the one that makes this call.

Right. Can I have permission to make this call? I will sit with you on your side of the table when we have a hard conversation with your son. I will, you get what I'm saying? Yeah want you to say, how can I support you as we have to do what we have to do? Because with someone struggling with depression, she knows that he's got to get help. She knows that she can't let him just trash the house. And the fact that she's not, I want to say can't, can't act on that makes the depression worse, right? It makes that shame spiral deeper and deeper and deeper.

Oh, yeah. It could be that she writes him a letter. It could be that she, any number of ways, but I want you to reach out to her and say, okay, we all know this has to happen. And also, I don't want to put more pressure on you than you are capable of carrying right now. I'm your husband.

I agreed to partner up with this deal. What can I do? And then lean into it. And you may have to be the bad guy in this thing. And you may kick him out, and she blames you for it. And that's where you and her and the marriage counselor work. Has she already done that? Well, she has, but then, you know, he doesn't

do anything and kind of falls on deaf ears and he doesn't really, you know, okay, mom, okay, mom, I'll start cleaning everything up and I'll start getting things taken care of and then, you know, a week goes by and two weeks goes by and, you know, a month goes by and the conditions are still

the same and nothing's changed. So take him out of the equation. Take him out of the equation. If you had just a renter, would you let him destroy your home like this? Well, no, of course not. Absolutely not. No chance. Yeah.

So struggles and challenges are not excuses to destroy. So in supporting her in coming to some sort of a solution to this, I mean, or we're going to be forced to do something we don't necessarily, something we don't want to have to do. So I would sit with him and say, you son, hold all the cards. Anything that happens after this point is something that you are choosing. I have drawn the boundary. I have decided that I'm not going to have anybody trash my home. I've decided that I've looked at the math and I need this home. Your mom and I need this home to be able to eat when we're older. Everything else, you're going to choose.

You're going to choose how long you're going to live in this house. You're going to choose whether the police come and escort you out of here and all of this stuff is thrown in this house. You're going to choose to, whether the police come and escort you out of here and all of this stuff is thrown in the dump. You get to choose all of these things. But here's what is going to happen. By this date, everything will be cleaned out of the yard. Period. Full stop.

Or I'm sending the sheriff over and we're going to evict you. You can't do that. It'd be 30 days plus another 30 days. So you have to sign the eviction papers. But you hear what I'm saying? And when it's like, you're kicking me out. No, young man, you chose to not live in this particular house

because you chose to keep everything out there. And he's taken that sort of stance before, too. You know, like right away, he tries to turn it around like it's our fault that we're coming down on him yep no and hey i would stop that nonsense in the middle of a conversation like well you guys just stop we're only working forward today so effective today this house gets cleaned up and i'll pay

for three months of mental health care for you if you need to go see a counselor. I will, I don't know, I'll get a group of buddies from work and help load up the junk in one of those day trailers. I mean, those portable, I don't know, those big metal pod things. Yeah, right. And I've suggested all those things you just mentioned. And I have. But what you haven't done, you haven't, though, put a or what? And yes, we are at ultimatum time.

Okay. Because, Michael, here's what's next. You know what's next? Your marriage. Oh, I agree. I agree. I mean, it hasn't really put too much of a toll on that yet. It's coming.

It's coming. I know. I see the clouds coming. Yeah, it's coming. And, man, I don't want that for you. I don't want that for your wife. I don't want that for this 23-year-old. Yeah, and I'm trying really hard. I know you are, brother. I know you are. And I also don't want to paint him as, like, you know, like some kind of a—he's a really good kid.

Of course. He's struggling. Which doesn't take away a, he's a really good kid. Of course. Which doesn't take away from what he's doing. He's struggling. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, he'd do anything for anybody. If I mentioned I needed a shed in my backyard, he'd be there the next day, you know, with tools and building me a shed in my backyard.

But when he should be doing, taking care of that. Well, and the one person he can't care for is him. No one's ever showed him what that looks like. Yes, yes. And this may be the first time somebody says, here's what care and love looks like. And it's holding firm boundaries, holding you accountable. And for the first time when I tell you, and you need to say this in a good Philadelphia accent. You, a bunch of people in his life have said, hey you got to do this or else and they haven't held

true and he needs to walk away probably you know what put it in writing put it in writing and hand it to him he needs to walk away from the table understanding if this doesn't happen this guy's serious my mom is serious all of this though brother starts with y'all to having a conversation, you and your wife going out and saying, what's our, what's our, what's our, or what moment, what is our plan and how can I support and love you? This is your son, but it's our home. How can I support and love you? I'll be the bad guy. I'll have the conversation. I will lay out the plan. I'll type it, whatever you need to do. But this has got to happen.

It's got to happen. Be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. For too long, we've avoided the hard conversations about mental health, relationships, and the food we eat. And I don't want it to be true either, but it is. The quality and quantity of the food that we put into our body, it matters. And oftentimes we're forced to decide

between cheap food that's good for our budget or expensive food that's good for our family. But there's a company that solved the problem. Greensberry is a family-owned meat provider working with farmers and fishermen all over the country. They sell organic grass-fed beef, free-range poultry, pork, lamb, bison, and sustainable seafood. Their meat is less expensive

than what I can get at the grocery store right down the street, and they deliver it to my door. Now listen, I'm a lunatic about meat quality, and this is the stuff I feed my family. So go to greensbury.com slash deloney, and you'll get 10% off your first purchase. Check it out today. Your nutrition is worth it. Greensberry.com. That's G-R-E-E-N-S-B-U-R-Y.com. All right. Hey, we're back, Jack. Let's go to Suzanne in Cleveland, Ohio. What's up, Suzanne? Hi, Dr. John. Hey, big win for Ohio yesterday, right? Oh, yeah. You don't have any idea what I'm talking about,

do you? Nope, nope. I don't want to be on. You are awesome. Dude, the Bengals won, man. Oh. I'm really sad about that, but by the time this show is over, the Super Bowl will be long over.

But there's an Ohio team. It's a game called football. It's a whole mess. All right, so what's up, Suzanne? How can I help? Okay, so this is a lot, but bear with me. Hey, bring it on. My parents are in the middle of a very messy divorce.

It's probably an understatement. And my dad, over the past year, has been making progressively worse and worse and worse choices. And I'm just trying to figure out how to handle all of it and what my position is to, like, where to step in. Yeah, a lot of process. So you use some very eloquent distancing language. I would love, what does messy divorce mean? Well, oh, there's a lot.

Messy divorce, like they can't be in the same room together, my parents. And my dad's refusing to sign divorce papers. So it's like he's just kind of getting pushed along through all of this. What started all of this? What started all of it? Well, oh goodness, a lot. My dad growing up was kind of abusive and-

No such thing as kind of abusive. What kind of abusive was he? Verbally and physically to my mom, I would say. Okay. And financially. Yeah. Very much so financially. What was the inciting incident that she just said, enough's enough?

We found out that there is some infidelity on his part. There is infidelity on my mom's part as well. That's kind of what started the whole downfall of everything. And then he wanted to work things out. And then, yeah. And then the end was when we found out that it was him too. And your mom just said, let's just call it? My mom changed all the locks on the door.

So y'all grow up, he's abusive. He's physically abusive. He's verbally abusive. He plays power games with money. Your mom has eyes for somebody else, has an affair or two or three or four. And he finds out and says, we should, we should change. Let's figure, let's come back together. And then she says, all right,

I'm in. And then she finds out he's been cheating on her. And she says, I mean, the, the, the, we should like get back together.

That was probably like six years and of them trying to make things work. But it was a lot of counseling sessions, and nothing came out of it. My dad was very—that's when the peak abusive stuff happened. I would for sure watch this TV show, by the way, for sure. Oh, you haven't even gotten to the juicy part yet. All right, so when you say he's making increasingly worse choices, what does that mean? Okay, so in the last year, he started partying pretty hard.

Yes, how old is he? Yeah. 65. Started partying pretty hard, and then... Yes, how old is he? 65? Seems like a good time to start partying. 56, 56, or 58. 58. Okay, so he just decided, I'm going to let them... Okay, I'm going to start partying.

Then what happened? Yeah, he started partying, and then last year he joined a motorcycle gang. Dude, you're dads and sons of anarchy. Yeah. So, yeah, that's been a bit frustrating, because I can't even have a conversation with him anymore without that being all that's talked about. Just his gang? So motorcycle gang, it's got a connotation to it, but I knew some guys that were in a great, great

group. Is he looking for connection and camaraderie? Yeah. Definitely looking for connection and camaraderie, but they're getting into some not so good things. Okay. Alright. Okay. So

it's not influencing him in a good way. Like we grew up in church and stuff and there's like, I, I just, I just, the, what kicked off all of this in my call to you is that I just found out about three weeks ago, um, that he, um, pressured my little brother who about 21, into doing meth with him. Oh, God. And I'm wondering if it's a problem, and I was told this by my brother in complete confidence. What do you mean you're wondering if this is a problem? Yeah, no, I get that it's very much a problem.

Okay, good. All right, thank you. More so like an addiction problem, because he's also lost like 100 pounds in the last two months. Meth will do that to you. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So what's your question? I wasn't supposed to tell anybody about this.

And my dad has custody of my brothers on the weekend, and I'm not supposed to tell my mom about this. But then I did tell her, but now we all don't know what to do because I don't want to ruin the relationship between me and my brother because I told my mom. It has to be confronted. The kid's in the custody. There's children involved? Yeah, I have a 10-year-old brother and a 15-year-old brother that see my dad on the weekend. Oh, smokes. Yeah.

So this conversation just took a significant turn. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. So number one, I was poking some fun in all this. I know this is super hard for you. Before we get into what we need to do, have you sat down and grieved this? This is shapeshifter for you.

There's been a lot of crying. I don't know if I've fully grieved it. It definitely keeps me up at night. Yeah, exactly. There's a couple of things. I'm married out of the house. I just had my first daughter two months ago. It's definitely just overflowing into that relationship. I don't know. It's a lot. So like, like, yeah, it's definitely like just overflowing into that relationship.

So I don't know. It's a lot. Big time. Yeah. So my guess is you're going to have to spend some time, whether it's with you and a notebook, writing some letters, some imaginary letters that you're never going to send.

One of which is probably when you were a little girl to your dad, like what was so bad about me as a seven year old-old that you had to yell at me like that? And how dare you hit mommy, right? And you need to process that. You need to process when you found out that mom had cheated on dad. And like, mom, that's not how you raised us. Like, what happened? Like, what, you know what I mean? And then you're going to have to process and grieve watching your dad literally wither away in front of you.

Yeah. And then, this is a both and to this, you got to grieve that hard stuff. And there's a whole, that's a whole process. Given what you grew up with, if you haven't spent time with a counselor, you probably should. If you haven't ever sat down and told your husband some of the hard stuff, you probably should. Yeah, he's really supportive. He knows a lot of, he's probably too involved in all of it as well. Well, he loves you, right?

And he's not going to be that kind of guy. You probably married well. You didn't repeat the cycle, did you? No. That's awesome. Not at all. He's an awesome dad, and I love him. Yeah, we're great.

So what will happen is as your daughter gets older, your body will begin remembering her trajectory through this system. It will remember you at four, and it will remember you at seven. It'll remember you at 14 when your dad said this or did that, or his buddy came over and looked at you like this. Those things will begin to come up as your daughter grows up if they haven't already. And so dealing with this trauma, dealing with this grieving, this is so important for you,

for your relationship with your daughter, for your relationship with your husband, but for you, for you. Like you say, it's keeping you up at night, and I want you to have a night's sleep, okay? I want you to have peace. So here's the both end. So you got to grieve what happened.

You got to own what happened, and you got to deal with the tornado that's sitting right on top of your house right now yeah if you know somebody's sharing meth with with their child but they're 21 year old then i'm going to sit down with my younger brother and say hey i need you to know as the adult how old are you 24 yeah the older sister, I'm going to break your heart here. I'm going to make you sad. And you have to know that I really wrestled with this. I wrestled so hard I called some Yahoo on a podcast and asked what he –

you know what I mean? He needs to know that this wasn't easy, but that you have to throw a flag on this because you cannot in good conscience or without violation of the law, send your brothers back into this man's mess. You can't. Yeah. And so what has to happen is it's going to be a mess. I mean, you got to know you didn't create this mess. You're getting in the middle of it to help solve it because you've got two children involved here.

Yeah. If this was just your 60-year-old man, like, just, man, just kind of spinning off into the future here, like, I'm just going to do drugs and join a motorcycle gang. That's something to grieve. There's not a lot you can do about that.

Yeah. What you can do and you can do about that. Yeah. What you can do and you must do is get involved on behalf of these little kids because no other adult is stepping up for them. I hate, hate, hate that you have to be the one to do this because you're a big sister, but nobody else is. I'm just trying to figure out like, well, I'm like my mom is also like trying to figure it.

Like we're both in it, like trying to figure out how do I like go about, I don't even know how to begin this conversation. My dad doesn't, he likes to deny. Yeah, there is no, there is no conversation. Here's how this is going to go down. One, you have a conversation with your brother and you say, I can't keep my mouth shut about this. This is happening. Number two, your mom, not you, but your mom files a custody request with her attorney and said, I've got information that he used drugs,

using meth with one of my other kids, and I'm no longer comfortable. My kids are no longer safe going to visit with him. And that should trigger some sort of, in the state of Texas, it was CPS. Every state's got different, but Child Protective Services will services will get into an investigation. And they will show up and potentially drug test him.

They will potentially do a house visit. There's all kinds of things that once that ball gets rolling. And all of that is, I don't want a 10-year-old in that environment. Yeah. And it's not even the motorcycle stuff. I don't have a problem with that. I don't know anything about the gang, but I don't have a problem with that inherently don't know anything about the gang but I don't have a problem with that inherently I have a problem with a dad who's doing drugs to their kids

especially meth for God's sake I don't know that he's doing that in front of the younger kids and I would like to hope that he has enough integrity not to I mean he doesn't have the integrity to do see there you go

here's the thing. You and your mom have been talking in circles for a long, long, long, long time. Yeah. And somebody has to finally, finally, finally be the adult. Yeah. And I hate that it's a falling on you. Because it should be dad and it should be mom. Yeah.

But somebody's got to do it. And your little brother, your 21-year-old, he should know. He's going to get in trouble, and dad's going to call him a snitch, and there's going to be a whole bunch of things. And actually what's going to happen is he's going to end up denying it probably. He'll deny it, or dad will deny it. There'll be a big he said, she said, or he said, he said, whatever. And it'll cause drama.

And that's why you got to get the attorneys involved. Yeah. Or the court involved. And they may do nothing. Wouldn't surprise me. But you at least let dad know, hey, this kind of behavior is not cool. Even if you go as his daughter and write him a letter and say, you can't do this with my brothers and sisters. My brothers.

You can't do it. Can't do it. So like, what if he just denies it? And like, how would I know if he's actually honest about not doing it anymore? Has he ever been honest with you before? No. Has your brother ever lied to you? Or that's, that's a bad question.

Brothers lie all the time. Was he lying when he told you? Oh, no. Most definitely not. He felt horrible. He was almost crying telling me about it. There you go. So, of course,

he's going to deny it. There's no question about that. Yeah. Yeah. So, you're not doing an investigation to see if this really happened. What you're doing

is you're stepping in to protect two children. Yeah. And protecting means you're going to call the right people, whether that's the authorities, whether that is the courts, whoever. And your mom's going to be involved in that. And hopefully, hopefully, your mom steps in on behalf of those two little kids. Oh, she will. Okay. I don't have doubt in that. Yeah. I think, yeah, we just both have been so clueless on like,

I'm just scared if we take my, to be completely honest, I know that it's not fair for them to be in the middle of it, but I'm terrified of what will, what my dad will do if he loses custody of them. Just as far as I'm already concerned about his will to live, to be completely honest. So let me clear this up right now, okay? If your dad hurts himself, that will not ever be on you. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah. Do you believe me? Um, you don't, and that's okay. That's okay. That's a great way to say that. That's, that was, that was very eloquent, Suzanne. Yes. Um, you know what I'm saying is true, but you don't believe me, and I get that. Totally get that. He's had a hard row, and he's making some not healthy, good, smart choices. And it's heartbreaking to watch someone you love fall apart. Even if you reach out and tell dad, I love you,

but you can't do meth around my brothers. Can't do it. I can't have them be over there. Let's try custody for a year at mom's and we don't even have to get the courts involved and why don't you get yourself cleaned up and he'll fight and say no but at least

you can look him in the eye and say I love you or write him a letter so he can read it over and over and over and over again and maybe you don't love him and I don't want to put that on you maybe he's hurt you and your mom and your family and now your little brother so long that you're done with that part. Now it's just about, I'm going to protect my family. Is that where you are?

Yeah. No, I do really love him. I actually didn't have a relationship with him except for in the last three years we were able to build a relationship and then all of this started happening and it's will he hear you can you talk to you i don't know how to be around him i i don't know i i doubt it honestly but okay i would try so if you're safe if if you feel safe, yeah, maybe that's the breakfast meeting that I love so much. And you have a handwritten letter that you hand him at that breakfast. And you say, here it is. I'm worried about you.

You lost 100 pounds. It's clear that you're doing drugs. I can't have my brothers in this situation. I need you to know that I love you. And I so want my dad back. And also, I've got to get in the middle and protect my brothers. And so you can turn over custody for a while. You can let them come, like, miss their visits for six months, for a year while you get cleaned up.

Or mom's going, that's to go to court. That's the only option. And that's the choice he's making, not y'all. Right? Yeah. No, you're right. Yeah.

And this is so, so hard. I'm sorry. I'm heartbroken for you, Suzanne. Yeah. It's a lot. It's so, yeah, it's so much. And it's one of that old, like, not by your hand, but in your lap. You didn't ask for it, and here it is, bammo, right?

Yeah, yeah. And I keep on, and whenever this gets hard, I always want to circle back to those little kids. Yeah. And they have somebody, some, an adult has to step in for them. Has to step in for them. The, stay on the line here, Suzanne. I'm going to give you, I'm going to send you a copy of this new book. My new book is called

Own Your Past, Change Your Future. And it's exactly what we're talking about here. You got to own the stuff that's happened. You got to grieve it. And then you got to be about doing the hard, gut-wrenching, hard stuff of changing what comes next. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, October is the season for wearing costumes and

masks. And if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era because, I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever. All right, look, it's costume season. And let's be honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work, we do this in social setting, we do this around our families, we even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life

and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can learn to be honest with yourself, and you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, and you can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for your schedule. You just fill

out a short online survey, and you get matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. I'm going to try something a little bit different today. We've been getting so many emails and I feel bad. We do three shows. We're talking about expanding the number of shows we do, talking about expanding the number of emails we do. I mean, the number of calls we do each show.

We just get so many and some of these are so good. I wanted to take just a few minutes, answer a couple of these emails real fast. These are some great ones. And either the caller didn't want to decide that they didn't want to be on the show after all, or just booking folks. We got so many calls lined up.

But we got this one call here from San Antonio, from Jan. It says, my son just revealed that his wife confessed to a six-month-long affair with a co-worker. Our family is understandably angry at his wife, but my son wants to work through forgiveness and reconciliation. My question is, how do we navigate this as a family, showing love and forgiveness, yet working through the complete lack of trust we all have for her and the hurt we feel? Oh, great, great question.

This reminds me of my friend, I think it's Jennifer. She is one of the best, most wonderful people on the planet. And what makes her awesome is there's been a few times that she said, hey, I met somebody, but I think you've talked about them. Are we friends with them? And I love the way she asked that. Like, I'll burn their house down if we need to, but I kind of like them, so if it's cool.

And so I have friends that I'm so ride or die with that are, if you hurt my friends, if you hurt my family members, man, it's hard for me. It's hard. I have a loyalty issue, pathologically so. And when it comes to imagining somebody cheating on, like, you know, on my kid, the amount of hurt that would cause, the amount of devastation, all that would just be so hard. And then my son turns and says, or my daughter turns and says, I'm going to work through this. I've forgiven her. I'm asking you to forgive her. I'm going to have her a part of my life. And if y'all want to be a part of my life,

we're a package deal. So here's a couple of things that I would think through here. Number one, never, ever, ever, ever talk bad about his wife. Two reasons. Number one, you never know as much as you think you know your son. You as parents never know

what's going on behind closed doors. Same thing goes with friends. Like my friend, you never know what's going on behind closed doors. Not that there's ever an excuse to have a six month long affair, but I'm just saying you never know what's going on behind closed doors.

There's always another side to a story. So that's why number one, you don't talk bad. Number two is if you come out of the gate, I can't believe she did this. She's a this. She's a that. Oh, my. Whatever. And then they get married or they stay married.

And then she becomes the mother of your grandkids. Those words will always ring in her head. Those words will always ring in your son's head. So don't. Don't talk bad. Ask your son how he's doing. Know that she is probably struggling too. I'm going to tell you something crazy. Reach out and see how she's doing. Because it looks like she is going to be bathed in shame and guilt and heartbreak and all the mess that comes with this. So reach out to both of them and see if they're doing okay.

Let her know if she needs anything, you'll be there. You'll respond. And I know, you forget that, dude. If anyone hurts my son, what I'm telling you is finding somebody new to hate never solves anything. Forgiveness does. And I know that's hard. I know it's hard. So number one, don't ever say anything negative or bad. Number two, be very clear about your boundaries. Very clear, whatever they happen to be. Son, if you get back with her,

y'all will not be welcome in our home. That's your boundary? Be big boys and girls and draw the boundary. Draw the line. If you get back with him, I'm taking you out of the will. I just need you to know that. Cool.

If you go to that church, I will not support you. If you, whatever it happens to be, if you're going to make your boundaries, make them clear. Clear as kind. Say them out loud and hold to them. The third thing here is, man, default to hospitality. Invite them over. Give her a hug, give him a hug, and then just turn the football game on.

Because as much as you want this to be y'all's hurt, your son's the one going through this. They're the one that have to live with each other every day and get up and go to bed and get up and go to bed and make this thing work to excavate everything and build something else that's new. Get along, get on with forgiveness and reconciliation. This is their journey.

What they need is people to anchor in and love them and support them. And not to be judgmental and be like, I saw her on her phone. Do you know what the, don't do that. Don't do that. Hug them both when they come in. If he says she's back, then she's back. Or unless that violates one of your boundaries. Don't do that. Don't do that. Hug them both when they come in.

If he says she's back, then she's back. Or, unless that violates one of your boundaries. And the meta here is, man, freaking Facebook took meta from me. I got to come up with another word. Unbelievable. The big overarching balloon umbrella thing. I don't even know what to call it.

Ben, that's your job. Come up with a new meta word. I don't know what it is, but... I'll think of something. Is default to forgiveness, default to hospitality? Man. Default to hugs first. I know that makes me sound cliche and lame and cheesy But it's right

Alright, and then one more email From Andra, she says You're always using the phrase Spin out I'd never heard it before and I've always tried to gather your meaning From context But you don't have a lot of context Just kidding, she didn't say that

But I don't think my guesses have been correct Is it a metaphor or colloquial idiom? Colloquial idiom. Well played. You're somebody who uses big grown-up words. I use spin out. Yeah, dude. Is this a technical term?

Can you please clarify how you mean it? So when I say spin out, it is kind of a catch-all term for when you think, why did he leave his shoes out? He knows that I hate it because he left his shoes out. He always just does things because he knows it's going to get stuck in my skin because he knows that it makes me mad. And when I get mad, I get irrational. And he doesn't like it when I'm irrational. He likes somebody else. I knew it. I know he's cheating. And all of a sudden, he left his shoes out there.

That's what I'm talking about spinning out. When your thoughts get pushed down a hill and it's hard to catch them, hard to get them back, hard to rein them back in. You are watching the news and they have a clip of a president or a clip of a congresswoman or something like that. And you get angry and you start to think, what about my kids? My kids, if they don't deal with this, then my kids are going to be, and then all of a sudden you are selling, putting all of your retirement into Bitcoin and you're digging a hole in the backyard for you and your family to, that's what I'm talking about spinning out. You can also spin out when you're angry. You can also spin out. It's when your emotions override your critical thinking ability. It's when your emotions become

the driver of whatever's going on in your life. That is spinning out. So I wish it was some fancy diagnostic. It's not. You can't really Google spin out. You probably could. It's probably like a skateboard term or something, but that's what I mean when it comes to

spin out. So great question. I have learned throughout this podcast that I use words that only me and my high school buddies used or college buddies used and not a lot of other people in America use them. So there you go. Well, maybe we'll do a Deloneyism's definition show one day. That'd be a sad show. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point.

In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. James, what do you think? The GGDs or these guys?

We got to go with the dolls, right? No? Yeah, do it. These were both Connor's picks, so. Connor, are these your bands? You love them? Don't ever tell anybody that. You need to keep that secret to yourself.

But, Connor, the YouTube guru back here, favorite song of all time, ever. Goo Goo Dolls, song is Better Days. Is this what you think of

when you're having to work on the show? Like there's better days out there somewhere. And it goes like this. And you ask me what I want this year, a new job, and I try to make this kind and clear, just a chance that maybe we'll find better days. I'm taking this personal, Connor.

Because I don't need boxes wrapped in strings and designer love and empty things, just a chance that maybe we'll find better days, and John, we'll move on. So take these words and sing it out loud, because everyone is forgiven now, because tonight's the night the world begins again. I need someplace simple where we could live and something only you could give, and that's faith and trust and peace while we're alive. And the one poor child who saved this world. And there's 10 million more who probably could if we all just stopped and said a prayer for them. Because everyone is forgiven now.

Because tonight's the night the world begins again. And Connor gets a new job. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show.