The Dr. John Delony Show - My Daughter Is Cheating on Her Fiancé

Episode Date: July 4, 2022

In today’s show, we hear from a mom whose daughter is cheating on her fiancé, a man terrified to speak up for himself in any and all situations, and a wife whose husband thinks she shouldn’t have single friends. Lyrics of the Day: "Song of Good Hope" - Glen Hansard 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 Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. She started hanging out with a gentleman from work and began cheating on her fiancé. She wants to be with him, and I think ultimately he would be her choice. In order to be with him, she has to marry him, choose the military life for the next three years. She doesn't want to be with him. She wants to be with the idea of him. What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. We are here. We're rocking on. So glad that you've joined us. If you want to be on this show, give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. A-S-K.

I just got back in town from a trip, speaking at a university and teachers, people who, teachers who have been one to five years, I think, and They come back in the summer for an institute and it was extraordinary. It was so fun. We'll talk about that some other time. I have to tell you this story. I fly Southwest whenever I can. They're great. And all the airlines I've worked with except for one, it's pretty great. So I rented a car when I landed

in Dallas to drive to the city a couple hours away. And I rented a car with budget. I just got online, rented it, did all the stuff. So I get there to get the car. And I don't have a credit card. So I just don't roll with credit cards. And so I have a debit card. And so I've got plenty of money on my debit card. And my bank knows I'm traveling, all that stuff. Just simple phone call. And it just works fine. So I get there. And they're like, well, we don't really take these.

I was like, what do you mean you don't take them? I'm like, well, you have to do this and then sign this and then do this and do this. And basically, it's going to double the cost of the rental. And I didn't understand. I said, well, we have to hold this much money. That's fine. I know that they got to hold some money. That's great. But then it became, well, we also have to do this thing and we have to do this thing. I didn't have another option. So I said, okay, cool. We'll just run it. And it runs and declines it. Well, what in the world? So they say, hey, we can't run this anymore. You get, or if we run it one more time, hey, we can't run this anymore.

You get, or if we run it one more time, you only get two declines a day, then you have to wait 24 hours. I said, number one, let me call my banks. I called the bank and they were like, what are you talking about? You have plenty of money and we know you're traveling, you're fine.

So then I put on speakerphone and I said, we all say that again. And they said, yeah, you got plenty of money here. Just tell them to run it again. We're looking at the decline and it's clearly on their side. It's not on our side. So I said, and they, and they heard this and I said, great. So they run it again, declined and they have another machine over here. And they said, we've been having trouble with machine, but anyway, um, they run it declines. And they said,

sorry, you got to wait 24 hours. I was like, okay, that's cool. But I need a car now because I got somewhere I got to be. And they're like, well, we have a policy that says you can only get declined twice. And I said, I know, but you heard the banks.

It was your fault. And they go, yeah. So can you just try that computer over there? And then the manager comes over and he's like, sorry, man, it's the policy that, uh, and we got to a point where I said, Hey, listen, can we find a way for me to give you my money? I just, I just want to give you my money. Can we figure this out? I said, 24 hours. We're happy to... So they just canceled everything. And then I didn't know what to do. I thought I guess I could call a buddy or I could try to get

a flight from Dallas to this other city. And that's always a mess. So I just walked outside and got on a shuttle. And I went on the Enterprise shuttle. And if I tell you I got to the Enterprise place, I have no product placement with them. This isn't an advertisement for them. I have no nothing. I have nothing. I paid them full everything. I walked in and everything was bright and welcoming. And this woman named Devri, she said, hey, will y'all take my debit card and me rent a car and she's like for sure come up here within four minutes she was walking me out the door to a car and sent me on my way and she was so kind and everyone in the enterprise place was they were laughing it was just a different

environment and i said it feels like you'll want to take my money in this business and she was like yeah that's kind of what business does is we take our customers' money and then we give them a car. All I have to say is this. Thank you, Enterprise. Thank you, Devery. Thank you all for showing up at a time of need for me. And I won't badmouth budget.

God help them. I'm not going to use them ever again. But if you're going to have a business that's let me let me put it this way i feel like there's a a swath of businesses these days that is trying to tank itself so that it can sell and i mean that's me that's a complete hypothesis but there's a group of people that i i've done business with across the country they wake up every day deciding, like, I want to serve people, whether they're working in hotels, whether they're working in rental cars, whether they're working in the airport, whatever. We want to make our customers' lives a little bit easier, a little bit better. And we're going to figure out how to take your money from you too for that service,

which I think is great. That's a great transaction. There's other companies that are trying to figure out ways to just do less and less and less and less and still call it the same service. And to those companies, stop doing business. Because I was fortunate. I'm a privileged guy. I had money in my account.

I know how to travel. I travel a lot. If that had been a family of four without a lot of margin who needed to get to a funeral, man, they would have been in a mess, an absolute mess. And by the way,

my deal at Enterprise is about $300 cheaper. I don't understand how any of that works, man. All I have to say is, if you're running a business, let's lean into that old Zig Ziglar quote. If you help enough people, money will always take care of itself. And if you have a business that's struggling right now,

business is not going well right now, reimagine, okay, let's stop focusing on we're hemorrhaging money, because that's important. You got it, that's a business. Focus on, man, let's help as many people as we can. Let's go back to the people that use our products and let's help as many people as we can. Let's go back to the people that use our products and let's help as many people as we can.

And the money stuff will take care of itself. That's just my wisdom. Thank you, Devery. Shout out to you. Thank you to the Enterprise Gang there in Dallas, at Dallas Love. Stepped up big for me and my family and those group of teachers.

Thank y'all so, so much. All right, let's go to Lynn in Boston. Hey, Lynn, what's up? Thanks, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. All right. Thank you so much for calling. What's happening? So I got to tell you, after that story, these pretzels are making me really thirsty. The pretzels are making me... Well done. Well done. So my situation. So I have a 19-year daughter. Um, she met a really nice young man

last summer. Uh, great qualities, great family values, just overall really nice young man. Um, he enlisted in the military at the end of last summer. So the relationship was short to begin with. Um, they continued their relationship. We attended his military graduation with his family. Um, he came home at Christmas time, asked her to marry him. So they're currently engaged. Okay. Um, a couple weeks ago, uh, she started hanging out with a gentleman from work and began cheating on her fiance. Um, yeah, so I confronted her. We had a long talk. Um, I let her know that I didn't agree with what she was doing and I couldn't support it. Um, I told her that I understand that she's in a very difficult situation and I don't agree with her choices, but I did offer to walk alongside

her if she were to do the right thing. So, you know, I suggested that she pause the relationship with the new person and speak with her fiance and let him know exactly what was going on. And I also suggested that potentially because it was such a sticky and hairy situation that she get a counselor to walk alongside her with, with her and agree that, you know, I offered to pay for it. And she scheduled an appointment with a counselor, stated that what she was doing was wrong and that she wanted to speak to her fiance about everything. But I found out last week that she didn't stop cheating,

didn't pause anything, hasn't spoken with her fiance. And to make things worse worse she's planning on going to see him with his family at the end of this week oh wow does she live with you? she does yes does she work?

she does she works full time during the summer and then goes to college and works part time when she's in college man i am going so before i just start answering questions i want to make sure i don't answer questions you're not asking um okay because i have a visceral response across the board on this as i know you do too um so how can I help? Let me start there.

Well, I guess I just have this guilt that I owe him the truth or I owe his family the truth. You know, and I'm trying to get her to do the right thing and come clean with him. And, you know, I think she's having a hard time with it because she wants to be with him. And I think ultimately he would be her choice. But in order to be with him because she wants to be with him and i think that ultimately he would be her choice but in order to be with him she has to marry him now move with him choose the military life for the next three years and being 19 i honestly don't know if she's ready to make that obviously we know she's not ready to make that choice but i just think that yeah she doesn't want to be with him she wants to be with the idea of him because being with him is is it comes with all those things you just mentioned right my wife wants to be with me and i'm a lunatic right i'm a lot and we live out in the woods and also i work

in media and so we get stopped at every dinner we have now. But she wants to be with all of me, not an idea, a romanticized picture of what part of you. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And so, yeah, she doesn't want to be with him, not by a long shot. She wants to be with this idea of him. And that's a huge difference. Yeah. Um, so man, I'm going to probably end up giving you a recommendation that I don't normally recommend. Um, first and foremost, you seem to like this guy more than she does.

And that's pretty common and it would be cool. Um, I think you're going to have to keep that to yourself. Okay. Okay. Yeah. You like this guy and you, it's, I can just, by your description of him, you, if, if we fast forwarded four or five years, you'd, you would love for your daughter to have ended up with this guy. Right.

Totally. So there's that. Before I, before I start running my mouth here did she learn this at home anywhere or is there any sort of deceptive we kind of just keep things quiet just put your head down did she pick that up anywhere I would say communication

hasn't always been key so maybe actually yeah tell me a little bit more you said that very in a very flowery communication hasn't always been key maybe actually yeah tell me a little bit more you said that very in a very uh flower communication hasn't always been key i mean that's you know i've had relationships where it's like like i'm in a relationship where i could totally communicate better you know so but the cheating like i know there's been no never been deception as far as that. I've been cheated on in my life.

I was with someone that had a fiance that I didn't know about it. Did you tell her that? Yes. I've explained to her that I've been on the other end and it sucks. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Here's the thing. When it comes to addiction, I often buck the system.

And if it's safe, I always want people to have a place to come home. And the conventional wisdom in some circles is you kick their butt out of there. When they get their life back, then they can move out. And I know that addiction is a connection issue, right? Now, if someone's not being safe or whatever, then they have to go stay somewhere else. But in this situation, it's different because they are actively hurting somebody other than themselves. And I know addiction hurts everybody. I know all that. But what I would tell her, I'm just thinking if this is my child, you are not welcome to

use my home base as something, as a platform for you to actively hurt somebody in the way that you are. And the important thing here is, is that she is making this choice, not you. Right. So you are not kicking her out as much as she is choosing to leave. And I think it would be really important

for you to sit down and say, hey, one of the cornerstones, I've thought about this more. Number one, I haven't been great at communicating things and I'm gonna start working on that getting better. Like when I have to have a hard conversation, I'm gonna start taking proactive steps

to get better at that. And I didn't model that for you, Will, and I'm sorry. But the more I've thought about what's happening here and remembering being on the other end of this, one of my core values is to always tell the truth and to never cheat or deceive somebody, even when it's hard. And I can't allow, I am choosing to not allow that to happen here. I want you to live with me. I want you to be here. But if you're going to continue to actively enter into the destruction of somebody else's life, long tail destruction on the steel,

then you're choosing to go live somewhere else. And I hope you'll make a different choice. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. We've had, I mean, we've kind of been leading down that road where I've, you know, given her not really the ultimatum, but I've said like, you know, you need to tell him that you, or if you don't, then I will be forced to have that conversation either with him or his parents. And I don't think that's the right move for you. I think that would be such a violation of her trust over time. I don't know that that's the right move. I think that she needs to bear the weight of this as she's an adult making adult decisions. And I really think it's important

that she understands she is choosing this. There hasn't been a line in the sand whereby mom has to, is weaponizing our relationship. That's not what's happening here. Mom has a set of values that I'm choosing to not live into. So I'm choosing to leave. And that sounds subtle, but that's a huge difference because then every phone call you have when she's moving is, I hope you'll stay here.

I really hope you'll stay here. How do you think this ends? I hope you'll choose to stay here and not choose to leave. But this is one of the values that you have to have to live in my house, right? And I would say this, this is hard, but she's welcome to break up with her fiance. And I hope you'll still love her if she breaks up with this dream. I said, I don't care what you choose. That's your choice.

I just want you to do the right thing. Yeah, be a person of integrity. Make a choice. Yeah, that's your choice. I just want you to do the right thing. Yeah. Be a person of integrity. Make a choice. Yeah. Make a choice. And it doesn't even have to be either or it can be you, you can, you can make, choose you and, you know, put the time and effort into you and figuring out what you want, you

know, that what's going to benefit you in the long run. But just remember 19 year olds are still, they're not listening as much as they're watching. And that's where you're walking through a very clear, hard conversation is going to provide a model for her to have a very clear and hard conversation. Using words like, you know, kind of, we've been thinking, or communication's kind of key. It's got to be very, very clear. I spent some time this last week writing down my values, and should have done this a long time ago and I didn't. One of them is we tell the truth and we are people of integrity.

And right now you're not being a person of integrity. You're willingly, intentionally trying to hurt somebody. Yeah, and I think that's what bothers me the most. It is. And it should, right? It should. Yeah, totally. And this would what bothers me the most. It is. And it should, right? It should. Yeah, totally. And this would be if this dude wasn't as,

he's a great guy and that makes this example easier. Even if he was an idiot, he's a scumbag. You still don't do that. You know what I mean? Absolutely not. You still put that out there. So I would spend some time with my values and I would spend some time being honest with her about,

I haven't been good at communication and that's gonna change. And so here's where we are. Here's our values. And maybe she'll join you. She probably won't, but maybe she'll join you in a values exercise and say, who are we gonna be? Here's who I'm gonna be.

I wanna know who you are planning on being because right now, every minute, every hour, every day, the actions you take or don't take is contributing to the person you're going to become. And let's be intentional about that. Let's just don't wake up somewhere on an island and be like, how did we get here? No, let's be intentional about who we're going to become.

And one of those core values and virtues is I'm going to be a person of integrity. And then you have to have the hard conversation about here's a boundary of mine. And I hope, hope, hope you'll choose. I'll hold your hand while you make the call. I'll fly with you out there if you want to do it in person, whatever that looks like. But yeah, and for God almighty, don't go on a trip with his parents. That's just, oh, geez, that's just gross, man. That's gross. Hey, thank you for loving her.

And sometimes love comes with hard moments of boundaries and accountability, and it's hard. It's hard. She's lucky to have you. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes.

And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families.

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

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Visit betterhelp.com slash Diloni to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Diloni. All right, we're back. Let's go to Daniel in Rockford. What's up, Daniel? Not much. How are you doing, Dr. John?

We're partying, brother. Good. Thank you for taking my call. I appreciate it. Absolutely, man. What's up? Well, I've got this thing I've dealt with for as long as I can remember and I've been thinking about

when in preparation to make the call and I'm trying to describe it as clearly as possible but basically whenever I need to speak up for myself or perhaps correct someone I usually have a severe anxiety

and get like a fight a fight or flight, like, or freeze response. And I usually don't, and I'll just kind of exit the situation without speaking up for myself or even for others. And it's led to some really disappointing situations and just really silly things like that shouldn't have to happen. I don't know why I can't do it. So give me an example of a situation that you, um, struggle with your response.

Um, like it ranges from very basic interactions with people. Like, um, like if I'm sometimes like I've, it's been as bad as if I've been at a restaurant It ranges from very basic interactions with people. Sometimes it's been as bad as if I've been at a restaurant and I've ordered something and they give me the wrong food. Instead of even speaking up and saying, hey, I didn't order this or something like that. I'll just eat it to deal with it. And so I backed down, which she's been gracious with me about, but it's not something I want to. What did she, what did she ask you to do? Fight some dude in a parking lot or call somebody and say that was offensive? No, just address something that was inappropriate that someone, uh, I'm trying not to go into details, but basically, uh, there was a, how do you say it? Something one of my family members did

made her very uncomfortable. Ah, okay. And I should have addressed it. And I was nervous because it made me uncomfortable as well. And I was trying to figure out how to address it and deal with it. Who told you that how you feel doesn't matter or is a burden?

Somebody put that in your head or in your body. Who gave you that? I guess it has come from my parents sometimes. I know when I was younger, sometimes I had issues with making decisions or I would basically be discouraged from liking something or like, hey, I like this. And like,

no, you don't really like that. Like, just think you do. And so I can hear you right now, Daniel, trying to defend them. And you're defending them because you still think you're wrong.

Even though like, Hey, I really want to play, um, basketball, basketball, stupid. You should play football. Any idiot plays basketball I really want to play basketball. Basketball is stupid. You should play football.

Any idiot plays basketball. Only real men play football. And in your head, your six-year-old little head, you think, no, I want to play basketball. But that guy's big or she's really smart. I guess I'm the crazy one. Does that ring true? Yeah. And you find yourself out in a football field with pads on,

doing something you don't want to be doing, and now you're getting hit and hurt and whatever, because it's not something you're interested in. And were you responsible for the emotional well-being of the adults in your home? Were there things you didn't say because dad would get mad or mom would fly off the handle? Not quite, but looking back on it,

there was, I did see, how do I say this? I did see that, I would say like my mom had a strong emotional response to like, she was like really kind of overprotective of my brother and I. And so like, if like, I don't know how to say this right,

but like if my, if my father is like overcorrected us in her opinion, she would like really defend us. Or sometimes it was just like a... I would see that there was a strong emotional conflict between the two of them. And so I would try to smooth things out. And also my mom was kind of one of those kind of buffering kind of personalities where she likes to keep the peace with everyone

and try to keep calm. So I kind of inherited some of that from her as well. Well, you didn't inherit as much as you just absorbed it, right? It was the air you breathe. Your job is to make sure everybody else is okay. And somewhere along the way that became

you value the feelings of others more than your own. And in fact, you see yourself in the world as a burden, as a bother. And what's strange about that is, or what's unfortunate about that is, is you know what a restaurant really, really wants? To get things right. And if they mess something up and somebody tells them with dignity and integrity and respect, hey, man, you guys brought me the chicken salad. I actually ordered the ribeye. And like, oh my gosh, let me make that right. You're actually

helping them out because they want you to leave really happy. See what I'm saying? And so it's actually taking from them. Same as your wife, right? A family member, one of your family members does something or says something that crosses a line in her minds. And she says, I can't be a part of this. I need you to help. And you're unable to help because well I that person's feelings are more important than my feelings and now since I'm married that person's feelings are more important than me and my wife's feelings

I want you to stop beating yourself up over this first okay this isn't a moral failure it's not a character failure okay I want you to start thinking of this as a skills challenge Okay. This isn't a moral failure, and it's not a character failure. Okay? I want you to start thinking of this as a skills challenge.

Okay? Okay. If you're bad at basketball, it's not because you're a bad person. It's because you haven't shot a lot of shots. And so moving forward, you know where this comes from. You have a peacekeeping mom who also fought all your battles for you, and you have an overcorrecting dad. You know where this comes from. You have a peacekeeping mom who also fought all your battles for you, and you have an overcorrecting dad. You know where this comes from. Now the word I want you to keep in your mind over and over and over

is this word called practice. That's it. Practice, okay? I want you to identify that discomfort when you have to have a, excuse me, I give you a 20, not a 10. I want you to feel that real quick and then practice saying something. And here's what we're doing. We're just teaching our body because your body has a, put a GPS pin in. If you push back, it's a nuclear response and you need to teach your body that that's an inaccurate

pin. The place that it has pinned is no longer there. It's actually moved to another place. See what I'm saying? Yeah, that makes sense because it's a very visceral response. But then that visceral response turns into inaction which turns into shame

which then heightens your body's detection system for any other awkward situation, which then you freeze again, right? And you feel this thing just spinning and it starts spinning faster and faster and faster, right? Exactly. And then your wife says, will you help me out with one of your disgusting family members? And you're like, I can't. To which your wife responds frustratingly. And then you feel shame because you know you should say something because it's your family and you're like, I can't, to which your wife responds frustratingly

and then you feel shame because you know you should say something because it's your family and you don't. And then all of a sudden the next situation, you start getting anxious about being anxious because you're going to another family thing, right? You know what I'm saying? Yeah.

Let's pull the string on all that. All that. I'm just gonna practice. And it might be as silly as getting one or two buddies who know you and love you. And you say, hey, what I need, this can be ridiculous. But uncle so-and-so said this to my wife and I got to say something and I've never done this. I'm going to practice this. Okay. It may be practicing this with your wife. And spoiler alert, I do this with my wife sometimes.

Hey, I'm about to have a hard conversation at work or with a colleague or something. I'm thinking about saying these three things, four things, and she'll say, absolutely not. Don't say that second thing. You'll sound like an idiot or trying to fight or something. And I'll be like, oh, good. So why don't you just practice? Practice, okay? Take the shame of I'm a failure and I'm a loser and I'm always going to be a wimp. Take that off. Okay. And practice this. Here's another thing that's very unpopular.

Okay. It's unpopular by certain members of different media ecosystems. Okay. But I want you to start exercising. Do you exercise regularly? No, I don't. Okay. Whether that's going to a gym and signing up for like a local YMCA and getting one of the personal trainers for 14 bucks a shot or going to a local jujitsu gym or getting a pair of running shoes and just committing to doing a 5k or something. Here's what we're looking for. Global confidence in Daniel.

Okay. I'm not, I don't want you to like go, you're not going to go take Krav Maga so you can fight everybody in your neighborhood. That's not what I'm saying. But what I am saying is you desperately lack physical confidence. And I often tell young men especially, you work and train and get in shape and lift weights so that you never have to do anything with it. That's why. You know what I mean? Yeah. So that you walk a little bit taller,

and you inst somebody, one of your family members, and by the way, if you're walking on the street and somebody disrespects you, bro, just walk to the other side, right? I'm not talking about getting in street fights, acting like an idiot, but there is, hey, we will not be a part of this family get together because uncle so-and-so continues to disrespect my wife. And I've mentioned it to him, continues to do it. We are opting out. We're going to the beach. So y'all have fun. It's developing that confidence. And unfortunately, I have not seen anywhere where confidence is gained by just talking more and more and more

and more and more. I've only seen true confidence gained in doing hard things, step by step by step by step, and continuing to push that boundary more and more and more. It may be a yoga practice for you, but finding something that's hard with your body and leaning into that. Okay. So we got two things. One, I want you to set up scenarios where you have to practice. Okay. Excuse me. I ordered a large or excuse me. I, whatever. And I want you to begin to move in your body. If you will do that for 60 days, I want you to loop back on me and tell me how things are going.

Will you do that? Yes. Will you commit to those two things? I will. Do not, under any circumstances, walk into a gym and try to beefcake it out, dude. Don't do that. I definitely won't be able to do that anyways. Yeah.

I mean, I have a buddy he did that once, he went to the gym and tried Arnold Schwarzenegger and he couldn't wipe properly for three weeks because he's just so sore get with somebody who knows what they're doing or just knock on the door of a local jiu-jitsu gym and say hey I want to learn

this art and teach me this and we're going to go slow and you're going to invest that money. And that investment is going to be in developing confidence in Daniel. And that confidence, I'm telling you right now, that confidence will ripple

through your work life, through your marriage, through parenting, through your families, through how you walk through your community. Man, you will end up being such a radiant gift

to those in your life. Is that fair? Yes, I appreciate it. Thank you so much. You got it, man. All right, you got 60 days. And by the way, anybody listening to this, whether you're 75 or 65 or 35 or 15,

I wish there was a way we could talk ourself into confidence. But our bodies know. Our bodies know. And we end up just being chihuahuas just barking. I cannot recommend enough having some sort of practice on the daily where you move your body, especially lifting weights, especially engaging in some sort of

physical competition with other people, especially doing hard things. You will see confidence grow in every other area of your life and not idiotic confidence, not, oh yeah, bro. Not that kind of confidence, but yes, sir, no, sir kind of confidence. Strength and commitment kind of confidence.

Get good with a bow and arrow. Get good with a weed eater. Get good with things outside. And often those things can be used for service too. And then just practice and feel your body the whole way through when you're practicing. Good for you, my brother Daniel. Let this be the day that it all changes. Let this be the day that it all changes. We'll be right back. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how

powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new homebuyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the homebuying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey-trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their Homebuyer Edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works.

Apply to become a Churchill Certified Home Buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillmortgage.com slash Deloney and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back. Let's go to Brianna in Lexington, Kentucky. What's up, Brianna? Hey, how are you? Hey, good. What's up? So my question is, I'm married and we have two kids. We have been having this discussion on if we should have single friends or not. And I just wanted to ask you what your thoughts were.

Tell me more. Well, if I go way back, there's been some infidelity in the past and I think that's kind of where it's stemming from infidelity on my part. Um, so we had split up for a year and a half and we just got back together, um, and decided to work on things. We both have kind of changed and gotten therapy and medication to help with our anxiety and depression. And then an issue came up the other day, and it was, should we even be hanging out with single people? Because, you know, they might influence me, which I don't think they would.

Like, my single girlfriends could influence me to make a bad choice. That's just where he's coming from. So, yeah. So this is a complex question. So walk me back to the infidelity. What happened? Well, I met up with, we weren't married. We were really young.

That still doesn't, you know, obviously, um, make my choice. Right. Really, really young, 16 or really young, 22. Really young. I was 19. Okay. All right. Yeah. Um, my ex had reached out to me. My ex from when I was like 15, 16 reached out to me. He had just gotten back from a Navy. Like he did four years in the Navy. He reached out to me and said he wanted to go out to eat. And I said, yes. And that's how that was. And my now husband found the messages, you know, and all that.

Wait, you skipped over and that's how that was. So it started with dinner and ended with. Well, no, we, no, no, but it, I wanted it to, that's what the messages were about. Okay. Okay. And he had enough in tech. So this was an emotional affair. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, and I guess this guy was of character and he said, no, not doing that. Okay. And so then y'all split up for a year and a half. Tell me about that. Okay. And so then y'all split up for a year and a half. Tell me about that. Yeah. Well, we were, we had just, we were just newly married. He was, you know, we were stationed on an army base in Louisiana and he started drinking heavily. The trust issues never got solved. We just, we isolated from everyone. I didn't feel like I could make friends, just a lot of toxicness and depression. And so I left. I had mentioned to

him a few times like, hey, I'm not happy. You know, I, shoot, this is heavy. Yeah, that's okay. It's all right. I just, you know, the kids deserve better. I just had my daughter. She was three months old, our daughter. She was three months old. And he was not there. He just wasn't there.

So I just picked up the kids one day and just left like out of the, with no questions asked because I had felt like I told him and he wasn't hearing me. And I'd offered all these other suggestions like, hey, you know, I'll just move out of the house and go get a house off of base, you know, so you can still be around the kids until you get out of the army. And he just wasn't having it. So are you, are you in? Are you enlisted? No. Okay. No. And so then what brought you back together a year and a half later?

We went on like this, a little vacation together as a family. And he had mentioned to me that, you know, he just, he loves me. He doesn't, he doesn't, he wants to be the husband and dad that he knows he can be. And I felt the same way. I'd been in church for the past year and a half and I had been talking to him about it, like when he would call and talk to the kids. All right. You know, I felt like God was bringing us back together. Sometimes I hesitate because some of the faith community will be mean to me on the internet when I say this, but sometimes we attribute God's calling us into a thing, but we are not fully in it. And it can get us in a mess.

Okay. So God very may well be calling you into things. Great. But I still want you to go in there fully ready to rock and roll with what comes your way. Okay. Here's how I would answer that question before you gave me the backstory. Okay.

I've got our, I've been married, we'll celebrate 20 years here in a few weeks. Been married a long time and we got friends all over the place of all different

shapes and sizes and marital statuses. Any kind of friend you can imagine, right? I've got friends that would make Bernie Sanders be like, whoa, let's walk this one

back to the middle some. And I got friends who would make Trump be like, all right, that's too far even for me. So I've got, we've got friends that would make Bernie Sanders be like, whoa, let's walk this one back to the middle some. And I got friends who would make Trump be like, all right, that's too far even for me. So I've got – we've got friends everywhere, okay? Yeah. If you were to say, is it wise for somebody who's newlywed – is it wise for anybody who's married to go hang out and go do stuff and go grab drinks or whatever with somebody who's of the opposite gender than you and they're not married, that's not wise. Just not. And I know that has a whole bunch of implications down the road with gender equity and all that. I get all that. It's not wise. It's not been wise in my life. It's just not wise, right? Yeah. It doesn't even, it wouldn't even enter my mind if you went and hung out with a bunch of girlfriends who are all hanging out, right?

And some of them aren't married. That isn't weird to me. Unless you've got a friend who's like, dude, cheat on your husband. Do it. Do it. And I don't know anybody. Maybe those friends exist. None of my friends are like that.

In fact, I know friends like that exist somewhere. Your situation's a little bit different. It sounds like y'all still have not had the conversation you need to have about trust. And here's what y'all need, the conversation you need to have. What do you need from me to help you meet your needs

so that you can help me meet my needs? And what that means is both of you have to sit down and say, here's what I need. I need you to be home when you're here. I need you to be off your phone. I need to have sex with you three times or five times a week or one time a week. I need to go for walks with you. I need an hour of gym time. I need it to be quiet in the morning when we get up. I need it to

be laughing and hugging in the morning when we wake up. What do you need? And then how can I dedicate my life to helping you meet those needs? And you vice versa. You see how that works? Okay, yeah. That's a totally different approach to can I do this or can I do that? Yeah.

See what I'm saying? I like that, yeah. And any sort of can I do this or I wanna do that, but I can't do that, that's never getting to the surface of, here's what I need from you. And man, you will see your entire relationship roll over when you say, I need you in your home to be fully present.

Those needs, they do inform behaviors. And that means I need you off your phone. That means you can't come home and drink three beers and then expect to play with the kids because you're not gonna be present with them. That means they need you to your phone. That means you can't come home and drink three beers and then expect to play with the kids because you're not going to be present with them. That means they need you to turn the TV off and turn Halo off and go outside and kick a soccer ball with their little one, right? I need help at bedtime. It's sitting down and this could be a lot of fun for the two of you. If you have this spirit, it could be a whining and complaining and grenade throwing

fest, or it could be a blast depending on the attitude y'all both take going into this. And so I would recommend this. You've heard me recommend this a million times and I'll keep doing it. I think y'all should have somebody watch your kids and y'all go have a day retreat and have something cool at the end of the day, some sort of romantic rendezvous that y'all are both into and start at square one and say, all right, we're going to rebuild this thing from the floor up. What is this? What do we want this thing to look like? And what do I need? And by the way, needs change a lot throughout a marriage. And so you're going to do this again next year. You're going to do it the year after that and

the year after that. And man, it's so great. It's so great. You know what I mean? Yeah, it sounds, it sounds good. Um, it's just, uh, what is it? I don't know. Um, what is it? I, I struggle sometimes. I think like I've, which I get offended a lot, which I'm working on. But, um, I feel like in a way he's trying to control me, but he,

he tells me, you know, he probably is on you. He probably is. Yeah. Because he doesn't want you to cheat on him again. Yeah. He's really,

he's really hurt by it. Yeah. And most of the time we default to our, um, our, we default to our default setting, right? When something bad happens and some people detach, some people start swinging fists,

some people tighten up even tighter, right? Everybody has a default setting. And so in an effort to keep you from leaving him or cheating on him again, he's gonna suffocate you. Yeah. In an effort for you to on him again, he's going to suffocate you. Yeah. And in an effort for you to keep him happy, you're going to slowly drown yourself. You see, they never work that way.

Yeah. And so let's do this. Let's look at the last two, three, four years of your relationship and say, okay, what we've tried so far isn't working. Let's try something different. Let's try taking our hands off the wheel and let's try looking at each other. Because here try something different. Let's try taking our hands off the wheel and let's try

looking at each other. Cause here's the thing. When you were trying to cheat on him, you didn't like yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I really didn't. There's something about you that you were trying to a whole, you were trying to like, I mean, there was a thing missing that you were trying to wrap your heart around and man, I want you to find that with him. And that starts with you saying, here's what I need. And that starts with him saying, here's what I need. And you quit being offended. If he says, hey, I don't like it when you do this. I love when you do this. Say, yes, I've got new data. I'll tell you something embarrassing. Can I tell you something embarrassing? Yeah. It was, we've been married 16 years i think our marriage was hanging on by a a string of dental floss okay and we said

basically we were at this very same like we have to just be honest and say what it is what it is what it is like here's what i need here and here's what i need here and i said the words now remember Now, remember, I'm a 6'2", 195-pound Texas male, right? Mm-hmm. And I said the words, I have been chasing you. I have been chasing the words, I'm proud of you, from you for 25 years. We dated a long time. Yeah. It would really mean the world to me if you would say the words, I'm proud of you. And dude, I felt like such a weakling,

such a coward and such a baby for saying that out loud. But it was the truth. And she dropped her shoulders and said, if I had known that 25 years ago, I would say that every day. And it was something I needed that I had, it was a tool that I had kept from her, right? And so now that sort of conversation happens

on the regular at my house. Hey, what do you need? What do you need for today? What does today look like for you? How can I be a part of that? I already can tell you I'm gonna need help with bedtime on it. Consider bedtime done with the kids. I'll go take care of the dogs and the chickens,

whatever the thing is, right? And so it's sitting down saying, I need this. And he may say, I need total fidelity from you. I need to be able to go off and do my thing and not wonder for one second, is she texting some other dude? And so for you, that might mean like, I'm not gonna hang out with people who aren't married.

I'm gonna hang out with couples only because that is gonna be a gift to him. And hey, honey, here might mean like, I'm not going to hang out with people who aren't married. I'm going to hang out with couples only because that is going to be a gift to him. And hey, honey, here's what I need from you. I need you to show up at home. See what I'm saying? Yeah. And we're going to do that sucker together. And for 99% of the world, that's entering into territory they've never seen done that way.

They've never seen relationships or marriages work like that. And so it feels like you're giving up power. It feels like you are becoming less than because you're taking a knee in front of somebody else and saying, you could really hurt me bad, but I'm going to spend my days trying to meet your needs with the understanding that you're trying to meet mine and let's get through life together. And it sounds transactional. It's not. It sounds like there's an ROI here.

There's not. There's simply, I want to love you better so that you can love me better so that I can love you better. And then you're talking about roots on a tree that go to the center of the earth. And then questions like, can I hang out with unmarried? Those questions just go away. They just go away. They're just not. Or when they do pop up, you shoot, you give your husband a call like, hey,

so-and-so's in town. Would it be weird if I, and he may say, yeah, I don't care at all. That makes me feel that. And you're like, sweet, cool. No problem. And you're onto the next. You're onto the next. So for whatever that's worth, that'd be my recommendation. And please go into it with a spirit of this can be a lot of fun and go into it with a spirit of I refuse to be offended because my husband's going to give me some data on how I can love him better. And I'm going to give him some data on how he can love me better. And we're going to make this thing special.

We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we're back as we wrap up today's show.

Man, we're going with the great Glenn Hansard. Actually, this guy's one of the greatest songwriters on the planet. Song is Song of Good Hope, and it goes like this. If we're gonna make it cross this river alive we need to think like a boat and go with the tide and i know where you've been it's really left you in doubt of ever finding a harbor or figuring this out and you're gonna need all the help you can get so lift up your arms now and reach for it may the song of good hope walk with you through everything. We're here to walk with you.

We'll see you soon. Coming up on the next episode. No, do you know if you have hemorrhoids? I don't think I've had them. Right before the show we were talking about a segment that Sarah has edited. I just said you were like, you were this show's preparation age. And I meant that as a great

compliment. What about the situation that makes you feel unsafe? This person stabbed someone. That's it? I wasn't sticking to the AA meetings that she asked me to do. Normally, it's not the alcohol. It's the person you become when you drink.