The Dr. John Delony Show - My Ex Was Abusive & Now His New Girlfriend Is Asking for Help

Episode Date: November 24, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode My ex was abusive & now his new girlfriend has reached out to me for help My brother is a sex offender; should I let him around my kids? Foster child is struggling to connect with me or with other males Lyrics of the Day: "Ticks" - Brad Paisley   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp dreamcloudsleep.com/delony Conversation Starters Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: abuse, relationships, parenting, sexuality/intimacy, boundaries, adoption, kids   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 have some hard conversations, so watch out for the little ears in the room. We talked to a woman who is really struggling with an abusive ex. We talked to a woman who's trying to navigate her brother who's a sex offender. We talked to a foster parent of a young little boy who's trying to connect. Stay tuned. Hola, me llamo Juan. Como estas? who's trying to connect. Stay tuned. Hola! Me llamo Juan. Como estas?

Hope you're doing well. Welcome to the John Deloney Podcast. Radio show, internets, whatever it is we're doing, the YouTubes, all of it. James, why are you laughing?

It's from a previous conversation we had. Oh, gotcha. Still got me. I can see James through the glass. I thought he a previous conversation we had. Oh, gotcha. Still got me. I can see James through the glass. I thought he was making fun of me. No. See, I make everything about me. It has nothing to do with me. My wife tells me that all the time, too.

And Kelly. It's not about me. Even though the show's got my face on it. Whatever, dude. It kind of is. Is it? It's not No Look right behind you Oh my gosh, that was awesome

I like how you just did that Look behind me Hey, thank you so much If you want to be on the show 1-844-693-3291 Go to johndeloney.com Slash ask And by the way

Conversation cards are out You can go to johndeloney.com and order them. There's three different packs. Cards for how to talk to someone you're on a date with, how to talk to your kids, and, man, conversation cards for all generations. You can sit around a table at Christmas or at Thanksgiving. No politics questions, no COVID questions.

Just like, man, how are you growing up? And questions like that. They're pretty rad. I'm getting some incredible feedback. Get on the internets and get them ordered so they can get delivered to your house ASAP. Let's go to Kayla in Denver, Colorado. Hey, Kayla, what's going on? Hey, it's good to talk to you. It is even better to talk to you. What's up? Okay. So, um.

Oh, that was a big deep breath. That was a big breath. It's been a lot. What's up? So, oh, I'm already going to start crying. That's okay. That's okay. Welcome to the gang.

Thanks. Um, I was in a very abusive relationship I got out and away and safe About eight and a half years ago Can I stop you right there for a second? Yeah That is still fresh on you Yeah

We share a child So he's not completely gone. So your body has to re-experience that bear, that tiger, every day. Yeah. And once a week or whenever drop-off is. Man, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Thank you. What type of abuse? Everything.

It started off mental and emotional. It turned into physical. I mean, he would take my money, so there was financial there, too. Jeez, man. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I finally got away when he tried to kill me while I was holding our daughter. Wow. I left.

Unbelievable. Good for you. Good for you. Wow. Yeah. Thank you. So eight years ago, and here we are. How can I help today?

Well, so he's done it again to somebody else. Big shock, huh? Yeah. Shocking. Yeah. so he's done it again to somebody else big shock huh yeah shocking yeah so the assault on me when I left was a strangulation and he strangled this lady too and she's come to me for help

she also shares a child with him. And so it's caused a whole bunch of, you know, upheaval. I had filed with the courts to restrict his parenting time with my daughter. So one of my questions is how to talk to her about that because she's confused and misses her brother and this other mom. And then the other question I had was, how do I help this mom without re-traumatizing myself? Oh, what a mess. This guy sucks, huh? He does. I'm sorry, man.

Wow. Hmm. So, man. Unfortunately, I'll answer your second question first. Unfortunately, I'd stay away from this mess. And it sounds like you're a person whose heart is beating in sync with this other woman. You know what she's been through. You know what the last eight years of your life have been, and nobody walked alongside them with you. And you want to reach out because you're a good person. You're an empathetic person.

You love people. And what I'm going to tell you is you're going to get covered in other people's crap. And there is not a good, winnable solution. There's no reason to participate in this chaos. Okay. Because you found out somebody else that your husband is not a safe person, that he's got a pattern of physical violence, you did the right thing by filing with the courts.

I don't want my daughter around that because it's just a matter of time before she gets teed up to be the next victim. Right. So good for you. But I would draw a pretty strong, hard boundary between you and what they've got going on in their crazy world.

Okay. She needs to obviously get support. She needs to reach out. She needs to get away from that lunatic and she needs to file the right restraints so that she can protect her son. But that's her responsibility, not yours. Okay.

And I know that's hard. And there's something about. And there's something about purpose, and there's something about, I don't want to say revenge, but kind of, and there's something about finally I'm strong enough eight years later, and now I'm coming back for you. And what I'll tell you is that whole scenario

ends up in everybody in Ash. Okay. Am I right? Yeah. I mean, it kind of feels that way she um she's trying to get away and she's you know contacting me help me help me I don't know what to do

and call 911 anytime I would let her know every time you call me I'm gonna call 911 okay and every time you call me I'm gonna call 911 every time you call me i'm gonna call 9-1-1 okay and every time you call me i'm gonna call 9-1-1 every time you call me because they are the folks who can help you i cannot i'm not going to put myself and my baby girl in his position of either me being killed which he

tried before and my daughter not having a mom anymore and a dad in prison, I'm not going to put myself in a situation where I don't belong. And the right thing to do when somebody calls and says I'm being abused and I'm not safe is I'm going to call 911 every single time. I'll call all my friends. If one of my buddy's wives called me and said, hey, so-and-so is beating me up, I'm calling 911. I'm getting the police involved because that's their job. Okay. And life is not a John Wick movie. Right. Right. As it relates to talking to your daughter, how old is she now? Eight,

nine? Yeah, she'll be nine in January. Okay. Does she know anything about your past or your history or about dad? No. So when I left, he stayed gone until she was four. Okay. And then had weekends with him, but no overnights because he was a flight risk. And then, um, now she's down to one hour a week at a supervised facility. Yeah. So, I mean, she, she has a context for my interaction with my dad is different than my friend's interaction is with their dads, right? Yeah. Have you ever had the conversation with her that dad is sick? We've been teetering on it here lately.

Yeah. But I don't know how to get It's time for that conversation. Yeah, it's time for that conversation. And whether you all have a family counselor that you work with or you've got another family friend. Here's what I want.

Sometimes when we have a hard conversation with our kids, they immediately shift into fight or flight because they're kids. Grownups do it too. But we shift into, they shift into, am I going to be okay? And what did I do? And so often we can have a hard conversation with our kids and they will never circle back to us and ask the follow-up questions. And that's why I love to have either a counselor or a friend or somebody that, not a nine-year-old friend, but an adult friend, a grown-up friend, an aunt, an uncle, a cousin, somebody that your daughter trusts that will loop back and be able

to ask questions. Or you plan for the next two months, every Saturday morning, I'm going to do breakfast with her. I'm going to move work around. We're going to figure something out, but I'm going to set up a context so that we regularly interact with one another. We regularly talk about stuff together. And eventually those questions will come up. Does she feel safe talking with you about things like that? Or is it a little bit weird? I think it's a little bit of both. Last night, she came into my room. I need to talk to you. And I've really been working with her,

especially here lately, on you have to tell me a thing. You have to come talk to me. It's important that you feel like it's safe to come talk to me. Okay. Even if we're running out the door. Stop right there.

Stop right there. That's a really important distinction. Okay. Okay. Your job as mom is to create the safe environment. Forcing a nine-year-old to talk to you about something where she doesn't feel safe is akin to violence. Okay. It can feel abusive. So when I look at my tenure or my son's 11, if I look at him and say, you must come talk to me. And then I don't create a safe world for him to come talk to me, or I'm going to give him five hours of lectures, or I'm going to ground him for talking to me, or I'm going to make fun of him for whatever. I am forcing him into an abusive situation. So instead of saying, you have to come talk to me, I want you to say, I want to be a safe place

for you. Maybe I haven't been in the past. Maybe I'm going to continue to work on that. But you have to tell somebody. And here are two or three people that are safe for you to talk to. Your school counselor, Aunt Jane, and me. And I want to give my kids an option. I want them telling somebody. But if their option is telling an unsafe person, which is happens to be me or nobody, they'll pick nobody and their bodies will respond for the rest of their lives. Okay. Okay. So the best way to do this is to start a regular breakfast club with your daughter.

Breakfast dates. Y'all can get dressed up. You can get dressed down. You can only wear pajamas. Make it a little bit wonky and a little bit unique for just y'all. Okay. It can be you're going to get her one piece of fancy chocolate or just something where it's a little bit special. And commit on your calendar

for the next two months, I'm going to not miss a Saturday. We're going to do this. I'm not going to miss a Sunday. We're going to do this every single week. And we're just going to chit chat. What's going on in your world? What's going on in my world? What are three great things? I'm going to bring some coloring books. We may just sit at Cracker Barrel and color together and not say much in anything. But she will begin to feel connected to you and you will hopefully feel not, not say, but feel safer. Okay. And it is time to have the conversation. The reason your daddy doesn't need to go into the abuse, but daddy is sick and daddy can be unsafe. That's why these arrangements are the way they are.

And little brother, little half brother, he's going to be entering into the same situation soon as well. He is going to also be moving away because his mommy is not safe either. Not that dad's a bad guy. Because your daughter is half dad. And if dad's a bad guy, then half of her is a bad person. It is about dad's actions and dad's behaviors. Dad is not well.

And sometimes daddy is unsafe. And my one job is making sure you're safe. And you still love daddy, and daddy still loves you. He just finds himself unable to control his behavior, or choosing to not control his behavior, and he's unsafe. And any question after that, like, why? How come it? I don't know, honey. All I can do is love you and create a safe space for you. Let's get a cinnamon roll, right? Or maybe not eat cinnamon rolls, but whatever it happens to be. Don't force your daughter to talk about things she doesn't feel safe about. Give her options and create safe environments for her. Create safety.

It might be that you have an opportunity to model for her and give her a great gift and teach her how to grieve, teach her how to be sad. I'm sad that daddy's not safe. I would love more than anything for you to be able to run and play with daddy. And it makes me sad.

And it's okay to feel sad. And when you teach her that and you give her permission to feel and you model for her what feeling feels like, what it looks like, wow, what a gift. What a gift. She's lucky to have you, Kayla. But get out of that other mess. Not your circus.

Not your circus. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. 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 home buyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control,

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We are back, Cracker Jack. Let's go to Ann in Colorado Springs. What's up, Ann? Hi, John, how are you? Remarkable, how are you? I'm doing well. Outstanding, what's up? My brother Hi, John. How are you? Remarkable. How are you? I'm doing well. Outstanding. What's up?

My brother is a registered sex offender. Do I let him see my children at family events? What do you think? No. Ta-da! So, I have a very large, very close-knit family. I am one of six children. All of my siblings are married.

We all have children. And we get together and see my family, my parents, at least once a month. And what did your brother do? He... To join this illustrious list. Okay, so he was arrested when I was still in seventh grade. So long time ago for statutory rape on a minor. Okay. Uh, he was charged and he spent a couple of years in prison and then he fled and then he got rearrested and extradited back to Colorado and spent a couple more years in prison.

So we haven't seen him in a very long time. But my parents have seen him. A couple of my siblings have seen him. And my parents are really pressing because he just got to the point in his recovery where he is allowed to see children if the parents of the child approves it. So my parents are really pressing so that he can come to family events. What are your brothers and sisters views on this? It's about half and half. A couple of us can't do it because of our professional jobs won't allow it. A couple of us just don't want to because of personal reasons. What do you mean your professional

jobs won't allow it? One of my brothers is a parole officer, not a parole officer, a prison guard. So he can't be in the presence of a sex offender? Correct. I did not know that. Look at you teaching me things, Ann.

So when I first hear the word statutory rape, I think of an 18-year-old dating a 16-year-old. This is not that. He was 21 or 22 and she was 12. There you go. That's a child. That is a child. So statutory rape sounds different than that. That to me is sexual abuse of a child. Yep. Um, and the fact that he's been

in jail for this long and is still on a recovery plan tells me that things aren't, haven't gone well. Yeah. He, uh, he had a lot of trouble at the beginning of it. I wasn't fully around because I was also 12 when this all happened. So I wasn't really involved until I was an adult. I didn't know what happened. I just knew my brother disappeared for a while. Yeah. Was it one of your friends? No, but she went to school with me.

I didn't actually know her, but she went to school with me and was in the same grade. Okay. So here's the honest truth. You have a, you know. And so your question is less about, well, now I sound like an idiot, being some guy telling you what you feel and think. So I don't want to be that guy. Here's what it sounds like to me.

Tell me if I'm right or wrong. It sounds like your question is not about whether your brother, who has a proclivity for sex with children, should be around your children, or your brothers and sisters, your nieces and nephews. It sounds like you're struggling with trying to participate in fulfilling your parents' fantasy that everything is going to be back the way they had always dreamed it would be. Yes. That seems like what's on your mind, not whether your brother should be around your kids. Yeah. And breaking it to my parents that it's not the right thing to do for all of us.

Right. So if there's consensus among the brothers and sisters, then you can appoint a spokesperson. You can all have this meeting together. You can write a joint letter, et cetera. That's the best way to do it. If you have brothers and sisters that don't believe, like I think, brother's all better. It's going to be great. I'd love for my kids to see their uncle.

And then there's two or three or four of you who are like, you're crazy. You all can circle up that way I would recommend If there's a break in rank Meaning there's some brothers and sisters who are in Some who are out I would speak for me and my family Okay

And This is going to require hard conversations But I want you to remember this Your responsibility Is to keep your kids safe. Your responsibility is not to make your brother feel better or your responsibility is not to make mom and dad feel better. And your responsibility is to not to make this fantasy of the full family come true.

Your one job on planet earth is to keep your kids safe. And if two years, five years, 10 years from now, you decide, I will, sister, I will re-engage my brother on my terms. And then after five, 10, 15 years, I determine, or one year, it's up to you, he's safe, then maybe. But given what you just told me,

not around my kids, no. I have an 11-year-old, I have a five-year-old, no chance, zero chance. And I actually would put it back on mom and dad. If you are choosing to allow your son to come into these things, you are also choosing to not have your grandkids around because they will not be. And so really this choice here is not yours. It's your parents.

Yeah. And they need to bear the full weight of this and not pawn this choice off onto their daughter. Okay. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I know that

I want you to shift, like, thank you for handing me this brick. I'm handing it right back to you. This is not mine to carry. This is y'all's choice. Here's my boundary. And hopefully

your brothers and sisters will join you in that. And then your parents will have a hard conversation, have a hard choice to make. Yeah. And I don't, I can't even imagine what they're going through. It's probably a nightmare. Yeah. A nightmare for many many years Yes And the nightmare is going to continue Because there's no more Now there's not a jail holding it back It's going to have to be them Or they're going to say come on back

Lost prodigal son And then they're going to lose four of their other children And all their grandkids Yeah And so this thing is a mess. It will stay a mess. Your job is to make sure your kids are safe. Okay.

And to make sure when you do have the conversation with your parents, however hard it would be, treat them with dignity and respect and honor. They are in a hard spot, but this is a simple, simple, simple call for me. If I'm your mom and dad,

I would talk to my son and say, we're so glad you're continuing your program. Can't wait till you get out. We do have a family full of 50 or 60 little munchkins running around here. Bunch of grandkids everywhere. And as the senior mom, senior dad of this family, we are not going to put you in a position to compromise our family, to make kids unsafe, and have any sort of question about you come into play. We're going to keep everybody safe, including you, brother, just getting out of jail. And so we may have an adults-only dinner.

Sounds great. Or we may do a special, you know, Christmas morning or Christmas afternoon with just the three of us. But we are not going to put our grandkids in that position. We're not going to put our other sibling, other children in that position. We're not gonna put you in that position. That's what I would do. But again, who knows? Thank knows thank you so so much for a call go with your gut you know and oh you know your kids are lucky to have you we'll be right back on the dr john deloney show this show is sponsored by better help 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

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to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Diloni. All right, let's take Unamas. Let's go to Alan in Sioux Falls. What's up, Alan? How are we doing, my brother? I'm doing well. Outstanding.

What's up? I... And why am I yelling? I don't know why I'm yelling. I'm just kind of excited. I had too much coffee today. I'm just going to dial it back out 40%. Ready?

Hey, Alan, what's going on, man? You doing all right? Yeah. Excellent. There's no reason for me to be yelling. Jeez Louise. My wife and I are foster parents, and we have a seven-year, just about

seven-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl. Wow. Y'all are-old girl. Wow. Y'all are awesome, Alan. Awesome. Thank you. The seven-year-old boy is struggling to, well, connect with males. Okay. Or even boys his age. His friends at school are all girls,

and I haven't been able to connect with them. I also struggle with connecting with males, but I do have a couple real close friends, but he seems to not be able to really connect with them at all. Okay. I was wondering how I could help him to be able to do that. Man. Well, number one, again, you and your wife are awesome,

and this little boy is lucky to have you stepping into his world. When you say he's unable to connect with males, what do you mean? Is he uncomfortable around them? Has he been abused before? Has he gotten beaten up in another home? Is he just think things other places are funnier? I mean, where is he? so there's been nothing actually confirmed but there's suspected that there's been some abuse in the past um he's also never had a male in the house generally he grew up with a single mom

who's made poor choices with men and stuff like that. Other things too. So without talking to him, I can only conjecture. I can make something up. Okay. Right. My gut tells me that in his seven-year-old brain, men are not safe. Men are scary.

And men disappear. They go away. They go, they go away. Men hurt my mom. Men make me scared. And so I, his little brain is telling him 24, seven,

three 65 to stay away from that tiger. Cause that tiger bites and maybe his mom was a place of peace maybe he had sisters maybe he had a babysitter maybe he had an aunt who knows but women are safe and so first out of the gate when it caught if he's connecting with somebody i want to i want to be happy about that okay um Sometimes it's as simple as getting kids involved in Little League or in activities kind of things where he's going to have to be around other little boys, like soccer or whatever, and make connections that way. I wouldn't so much force that or think there's some sort of problem

unless he starts saying, I'm scared. Or I just, you know what I mean? Does he do any sort of activities? Does he play sports, anything like that? We did soccer and we do church soccer kind of. It was all right. In church, he does have a couple older boys that he plays with, but generally it couple older boys that he plays with,

but generally it's their sisters that he plays with. Okay. Have you invited some folks over for some just silliness and fun? Not for a while. Okay. Any reason or just because the world's busy? The world's busy. Okay. Okay. Any reason or just because the world's busy? The world's busy. Okay, okay.

So what does he love? What does he love to do? He loves playing. He loves kicking the soccer ball and running around and all that kind of stuff. He, he, so we have a 18 month old daughter and his four year old little sister. And he doesn't know when to stop and tend to hurt people. Not out of like malicious. He just, he's bigger than them

and so we have to bring him back a lot when he's playing and doing stuff like that and some of that's just him learning his own body and making sure he can he responds to other people's

personal autonomy and every parent tells their son, hey, that's their body. And when they say stop, then you stop, right? So that's a lot of that's common stuff. So here's a couple of things I would pass along to you. Number one, I'll tell you what just happened in my house. I got to a point where I could tell

that my five-year-old daughter tensed up every time I came into her presence. And I hated it because she's five, and that means I'm the problem. Something about the way I was entering into her world, not her into mine, but me into hers, caused her to flinch. And I'm loud, especially early in the morning. I like getting up early and I'm excited about the day and blah, blah, blah. I'm a lot. That's what my wife says. I also like really loud music.

I like dancing around in the mornings and I like going to bed early. All those things. So here's an adjustment I made. Well, I would come, I'd see my daughter in the morning and I'd say, good morning. And she would just put her head down to which I would say, you have to say good morning back. We were respectful in this house. And she would say, good morning. Or I would force her into a situation where it was me versus her. And she will double down and double down and double down because she's her mom. And so she'll just go down with that ship. And then I find myself acting like

an idiot. So I just completely switched tactics because I know my daughter loves me and I love my daughter. So she loves to color in the morning quietly. She knew what I did. I just got some markers and I sat down and I got my own coloring book and I just started sitting down in the mornings and coloring and not saying anything other than good morning. And wouldn't you know it, five minutes later, we are laughing, carrying on, being silly, making jokes. She just needed five minutes of quiet, stress-free, dad, can you dial it back 30% connection. I entered into her space gently. And so here's what I would tell you Find things that your son loves

Kicking a soccer ball Playing chicken with a tennis ball Out on the side of the house Running around in the woods Going hiking, whatever it is And you enter into that space Find connection with him What does he like?

What does he love? What does he enjoy? And meet him there. Because what you're doing there is you're establishing safety. And every time you want to connect, what parents often do, especially dads,

is we ask our kids to come to our world. And for a kid who's been in his situation, that's not safe. His brain is telling him it's not safe. And so he may be with you in doing whatever it is you want to be doing anyway, but he is not connected because his brain is trying to fight or flee or freeze. When you enter into his space, it's safe there. And so find spaces where you can enter in. And then here's another one that my friend Nate taught me. He's an expert working with kids.

He's a children author. He's just awesome. The greatest gift you can give your young child is to bring them with you when you hang out with other grownups so they have a picture in their head of what friendship looks like. And so the rule is with most of my friends is wherever you go, unless we're going to like a bar to watch the fights, wherever you go, our kids are coming too. Going hunting, kids are coming.

Going fishing, kids are coming. Going to do some work at your house, kids are coming. And they're going to get a real life picture of what friendship looks like. And your foster child should have got that from his dad and he didn't. And he should have got that from his dad and he didn't. And he should have got that from his mom and he didn't. And so the great gift you can give him is to hang out with your male friends and to bring him along.

And that puts all of this, I hope you hear me saying this, all of this comes back to Alan, not to this little boy. Does that make sense? Yeah. Does that sound crazy or is that something you can do? That's something I can do. It's a lot of what I've been kind of trying to do, except I've been bringing him into my world instead of entering into his.

Love it. Love it. Bring him into your world when you're hanging out with your friends. Right. Because he needs to see that. Even if it's unsafe for him, slowly over time, he'll see it. He'll see y'all laughing. He'll see y'all carrying on. He'll see you throw and nail one of your friends with a racquetball. He'll see y'all throwing water balloons at each other, or he'll see y'all fixing each other's cars together.

He needs to see that. And over time, his brain will go, oh, these are safe interactions. These are okay. And then when it's just y'all two, you enter into his space. I love that, love that, love that. And going back to the busiest of the world, the world is busy, man. I'll tell you, it is so busy. I'm tired. I got too much going on. I'm tired. I know you're tired too. I had to have a reset this weekend. I got back in from a trip,

man. In one week, I was in Florida and I was in Nashville, then in Florida, and then back in Nashville. Then I was in Salt Lake City and then I had to stop in Texas and I'm back. And then I leave tomorrow to go to San Antonio. If I got one more trip for the next month, I think I got book deadlines. Dude, I'm so tired. And my kids didn't sign up for this I signed him up for it so I got to be intentional about my connection I got to be intentional into entering their spaces making sure they know they're loved that they're safe and I got to be intentional about saying hey I got to leave town or I'm gonna go work on this thing and you just have to go find stuff to do you got to be bored that's fine but I got to reach into their world.

I got to be intentional about it. That means I have not watched a single NFL football game this year. Not one. Not one. I've not watched a college football game this year. I've missed some fights and I never miss fights.

Ever. I haven't been to a concert. It's killing me. Because I've got limited time. I'm making sure I'm intentional about what they get next. And your kids are worth more than a football game, whatever other stuff we got going on. Kids are lucky to have you, Alan.

Man, they're lucky to have you. Blessings to you on this adventure. Thank you so much for the call. As we wrap up today, man, trying to lean in like we were just talking about. Enter into our kid's world. I think I've talked about this on this show. My son is obsessed with 90s and early 2000s country music. You know who's incredible, guys? Brad Paisley. And that dude can smoke a

Telecaster. And he's a great songwriter. So I was just driving by myself Listening to my Brad Paisley CDs This is off the 2007 album Fifth Gear It's so great It's called Ticks And it goes like this Every time you take a sip

In this smoky atmosphere You press that bottle to your lips And I wish I was your beer And in the small there of your back, your jeans are playing peekaboo. I'd like to see the other half of your butterfly tattoo. Hey, that gives me an idea. Let's get out of this bar and drive out into the country and find a place to park. Because I'd like to see you out in the moonlight.

I'd like to kiss you way back in the sticks. I'd like to walk you through a field of wildflowers. I'd like to check you for ticks. Is that not a redneck? Man, Brad Paisley makes my heart so happy. Brad, I don't want to check you for ticks, but I kind of feel like that's what we do on this show. Check each other for ticks right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show.