The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband and His Brother Got in a Fistfight Over Me
Episode Date: December 20, 2024🇺🇸 Watch United States of Anxiety Exclusively on the Free Ramsey Network App! On today’s episode, we hear about: · A wife struggling to navigate the holidays after a family brawl... · A woman processing feelings of disappointment in her boyfriend · A son dealing with his estranged father’s expectations Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🌿 Get up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🥤 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY. · 🏔️ Head to Poncho Outdoors to check out all their styles! Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy
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MUSIC
His brother said some very rude things about me.
My husband punched him.
We've unfortunately had four miscarriages,
and he threw that in my face and said we didn't lose anything.
We didn't lose any babies.
And when he said that, I thought my husband was really going to murder him.
MUSIC And when he said that, I thought my husband was really going to murder him.
Whoa, what's up? This is John with Dr. John Delaney's show.
Ben is behind the board.
So I was trying to redline it for him, so I'll have to spend extra time in editing.
There you go, Ben.
Hey, I'm so glad that you are with us talking about your mental
and emotional health and
your relationships and whatever you got going on in your life.
You want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or you can go to johndeloney.com
slash ask ASK.
Okay.
I don't know why I'm singing.
I'm just in a good mood today.
All right, let's go.
Let's just go to the phones to maybe it's an eight
mile Detroit rock city and talk to Ray. What's up, Ray?
Um, so my question for you is how do I go about the holidays when my husband and his
brother, um, physically fought over me last holiday?
Like they did a duel?
Like for your heart or affection? What happened?
No, so the backstory is this.
My husband and I have been together 10 years, married five.
Roughly about five or six years ago,
his brother started to act like I didn't exist in the world.
In the beginning when it happened,
I kind of thought, well, maybe he was having a bad day,
but then it continued to happen.
And...
Did something happen to precipitate this or did he just start ignoring you?
He just started ignoring me. Nothing happened pre this, in the years before this happened.
And I would bring it up to my husband as like, hey, did you see that too? And he's not a
confrontational person, so sometimes he'd be like, well, he didn't say hi to me either.
Um, but it started to get where it was more obvious and obvious.
Um, years would go by, I would say something and then I got to my threshold
and, um, basically like told my husband, he needs to say something
cause it's his brother.
And so they did it at Thanksgiving last year.
And when my husband confronted him,
his brother said some very rude things about me.
And so my husband punched him.
And then that turned into a verbal argument
for about 30 minutes that I too also engaged with
because his wife jumped in and started to attack my husband. Um, and I wasn't going to let that happen.
Yeah, pretty much. That's how it felt. Um, and then since that,
like we left, um, his brother said some very mean things about me.
He called me a lot of names. Um, he threw the,
we've unfortunately missed carriages and he threw that in my face.
Oh, God.
And said we didn't lose anything.
We didn't lose any babies.
And when he said that, I thought my husband was really going to murder him.
Yeah, fair enough, dude.
Because my husband went into complete anger rage.
My husband is a very laid back person.
I've never seen him like that ever.
Was it kind of hot?
Yeah. I told them afterwards, I was like, geez, it's nice to see the flight in you.
I knew it. I knew it.
But since then, you know, obviously we left and everybody's emotions were very
high. Um, we, a week or two later when, and went back to my,
cause it's happened in my ambulance house, we went there and had a later went and went back to my, because it's happened at my in-laws house.
We went there and had a conversation with them and apologize to them about like
what happened because it's still their home.
Um, and you know, we, we kind of just told them then, like, we don't want to be
around him.
We don't, we don't want to see him.
Um, we don't want to be around their family and you know, everybody.
Meaning meeting my in-laws and my sister-in-law who was also there they all wanted to have this big conversation this big meeting and have a family
meeting but it never happened and this literally got swept under the rug and no one since then has
brought it up. Yes this is simple your husband calls your brother I mean your husband calls his brother.
Your husband calls your brother. I mean your husband calls his brother. Okay.
It's two grown men. They got into it. And there can be a thousand different reasons,
like different opinions or whatever. He calls his brother and says, are we cool?
And are you going to honor and respect my wife or no?
And if not, then the family is choosing and the family chooses to have him over, they're
choosing to not have you guys over.
Okay.
It's that simple.
I'm not going to go be around a situation that I know is going to provoke violence and
it's not going to do it.
When somebody makes a comment like about miscarriages, stuff like that, I've been open about our
story too.
We've had a number of those too.
That is not somebody who's making a comment about miscarriages. That is somebody just
grabbing knives and trying to stab you.
Right.
They're trying to hurt you with the deepest possible way. And I've got about as much use.
I have no interest in being in their presence.
Okay.
And I'm a grown up. And what that means is, y'all might have to grieve a picture y'all had of what Thanksgiving was going to look like.
Right. And that sucks. You and your husband might have a fight. You might
have a deep disagreement because he might feel this pull to honor his mom
and dad and his head means going and sucking it up and he's going to do this.
Yeah, he, I mean we're, that's kind of like where we're at.
We're both on the fence.
I mean, we both want to go in the aspect of seeing, you know, his family, meaning his
sister and his mom and dad and our daughter and their kids playing.
But then we're on the, like, majority of our feelings are we don't want to be around him.
Think of this in a different way.
If his parents have not called this to a head
and are trying to pretend it never happened
or trying to avoid a confrontation,
behavior is a language.
They are telling you, we'd rather y'all not come this year
because y'all were very clear about, I'm not gonna go in a situation was gonna be violence
I don't want my daughter seeing me fly off the handle like that and I don't want my daughter seeing somebody talk to their mom
That way
Right not gonna do that
right and so
Mom dad if y'all don't want to deal with this in the home cool. We get the message. I don't want us here and that's fine
It breaks our heart makes us sad. We're gonna grieve in the home, cool. We get the message, y'all don't want us here, and that's fine.
It breaks our heart, makes us sad, we're gonna grieve it, all those things.
But we get the message.
And there is the two male grownups
acting like two male grownups.
Right.
And calling each other on the phone.
And if the brother doesn't wanna ask,
you got all the answers you want.
You got answers that you need.
The thing that you guys can turn this and be really mature about it real fast is
Considering a one and a loss
That he gets to go that he wins and if you don't get to go y'all lost and
If you start keeping score like that, then it's not going to be about healing a
family.
It's not going to be about people respecting and treating each other with dignity.
It's going to be about winning and losing and no relationship survives that.
And so take the one loss nonsense off the table.
You're just going to get a real clear picture of everybody's revealed character and fire
does that.
It reveals. picture of everybody's revealed character and fire does that it reveals yeah yeah
then that makes a lot of sense because it's kind of I mean that's kind of how
I how I feel it's kind of like you know he thinks he did nothing wrong so he's
gonna just go and we have to sit with this like this happened and nothing's
been said about it or talked about and it's still very real for me. So listen, everybody lost, nobody won.
So if he shows up all like, hell yeah, he shows up to this thing and y'all are gone,
everybody lost.
He lost, your parents lost, the cousins lost, everybody lost.
And if you all show up and there's no brother and it's like like yeah, he doesn't get to come here anymore because of what he said
Everybody lost
So take the one loss off
Okay, what I want you guys you and your husband to do is to a be real sad about this
and
You guys reverse engineer. What's a great Thanksgiving look like and it might be inviting some people from your office who don't have anywhere to go.
It might be what we do in my house.
We do it at Easter.
It's Easter of randos.
I got the wildest eclectic group of people, songwriters, lawn people, bankers, university
executives, my tattoo artist and her family.
I mean, it's just random people.
It's so great.
Okay.
But in a perfect world, our family's world be here.
They can't travel as far.
So we're sad about that.
And then we go to the next right thing.
Now, would you, if we decided as a family to to go how would you say we should approach?
Like I would not walk into that situation unless your husband has called your brother his brother and they unsettled it
And had a conversation that is taking a lit match and a can of gasoline to a situation. That's stupid. Somebody's gonna get shot
Yeah, unfortunately, I don't think that conversation's ever going to happen because his brother is
not willing to have that.
I know, but I want your husband to be a person of character and integrity, somebody who stands
up for his wife and also somebody who tries to heal important relationships.
I want him going to bed at night knowing I made three phone calls and he didn't respond.
I don't want him going to bed going, well, if I even call, he's not even going to answer
it because nobody knows to make that call.
But yeah, I would absolutely 1000% you are inviting trouble.
And what do you do for a living?
I am a 911 operator.
Okay.
I thought they had mentioned something about that.
So you know, 1016, you know,
domestics is where most people die.
Right.
Not doing that, am I setting that up?
Right.
And that's kind of how I felt.
I didn't, I've, with the way that I was raised
and the, what I saw, I told my husband
before we even had our daughter,
I never want her to be in that type of environment.
And so that means we have to cut people out.
We cut people out.
Can I tell you one more weird thing?
And I'll get some grief about this on the internet.
There may come a time when you make peace with him going and you not.
And him saying, I want to go see my mom and dad.
And I know it's chaotic and wild and it's not giving in and it's not what I, but I want
to see my mom and dad. And you go, yeah, absolutely. Go see your mom and dad. It's it's chaotic and wild and it's not giving in and it's not what I but I want to see mom and dad and you go yeah absolutely go see your mom and dad it's important
for you to see them as bad as they've treated as bad as they fumbled this whole situation
and imagine they're a broken hearts they got their two boys in the living room fighting
and saying vile evil things to each other and being powerless and like just overcome
like fine.
There may be a season when, not this year,
but there may be a season when you say,
go see your mom and your dad, I'm not gonna go.
They've made it clear what they think about me,
that's fine.
Go see your mom and your dad.
And then when we come home, we'll do X, Y, and Z.
I think that's fair too.
If y'all agree on that and y'all wanna set that,
he may say, no, forget that,
I'm not going on anything without you. Great, y'all want to set that, he may say, no, forget that. I'm not going on anything without you.
Great.
Y'all get to decide that, but that's for the future.
This year we're going to be sad.
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Alright, let's go out to Louisville, Kentucky and talk to sweet Alyssa.
What's up Alyssa?
My question is, how can I process my feelings about my partner's reaction after one particular
significant life event?
Wow, I can't wait to hear this one.
Tell me what happened.
Yeah, so we live nearby,
I'm sorry, we traveled nearby to a festival
and this happened about a month ago
and there was a shooting, unfortunately.
Oh God, I'm sorry.
I think it's important to note too,
we had a couple of our best friends from Illinois down
and they have two kids.
So the shooting was particularly sensitive because of course we're worried about our
own lives, but the lives of the children because they definitely don't deserve it, right? So
after the event, I'm sorry, during the shooting, our reaction, everyone's reaction,
except for his reaction,
was to run in the opposite direction.
Very similar to how everyone else appeared to react as well.
When we got to a place of kind of calming down,
we're no longer running,
we're at a place where we feel like we're removed
from the shooting or the shooter.
Um, he walks, casually walks up to us and has a little bit of a grin on his face.
Um, and he was really calm about the situation, uh, which made me very uncomfortable, made
me upset.
Um, and it was not, you know, he, he felt as if it was a joke, like it was some
kids goofing off and, and, you know, just trying to cause a scene. Um, whereas our reaction
is if it's a joke or not, let's get out of here. Um, and that is what it seemed to be.
Everyone's reaction. So I tried to reason with them. Um, and I can't tell if I'm being
unreasonable, um, or if my gut feeling about this whole situation
is accurate.
Yeah.
I don't think it's an either or situation.
I have been in enough wild situations that I have just made peace.
I don't judge people's initial reactions to terrible events.
Everybody reacts differently.
And I have acted very foolishly running into situations that I had no business doing that.
And that's just, and it makes for good theater.
It is terrible in real life.
And I have seen people think the whole thing's a joke and start laughing.
I've seen people curl up in a ball and start screaming.
I've seen everybody run.
I've seen people all of a sudden grab a stapler and a brick and run. I mean, everybody
does something different. And so I don't judge anybody's instant reaction. The only people's
instant reaction I judged are those who have trained and trained and trained for specific
events. But when it comes to average people who duck or who run or who laugh, I just don't,
I don't hold judgment there because everybody's body reacts differently in those situations.
On the back end though, y'all are at home.
It's two weeks later.
It's three weeks later.
If y'all sit down and did you find out it was a real shooting or not a real shooting?
It was a real shooting.
Some folks passed away. Okay.
So, have y'all circled back up now that the smoke has cleared and sat down and said, hey,
let's talk about that?
Yes, we have.
How is that going?
He still feels the same way that we reacted.
He felt like we were dramatic, where we just wanted to treat it the same as 99% of
everyone who was running treated seriously whether or not it's a joke or
not in today's world. Yeah, I don't mess around at all anymore.
Yeah, not even a little bit. Can I share something else too Dr. Jones? Share anything of
course. I feel like I have felt in the past that he shows cowardly behavior in some situations
like with his family, like he's non-confrontational.
And I think that that is also stemming from how I'm feeling about this particular situation.
You've watched him and watched him and be cowardly in day-to-day interactions and now
all of a sudden he's mocking you because of how you protected yourself.
Correct.
Oh gosh, yeah.
Are you married to this person?
No, engaged for five years.
We've been together for eight.
What's the holdup, yo?
We both say, well, you know, we can do it tomorrow if we want to, but we
just, I guess neither one of us has made it a priority.
Yeah.
I would ask your nervous system about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sometimes our bodies know.
Here's the thing.
I don't have any use for, I say I always have use for people.
I don't have any use for people who belittle other people during scary moments.
That's honestly one of the reasons why I hate civilian tape review of situations, people running out of a building or that kind of like,
I don't like that because it's just not fair.
Yeah.
And your instinct was right, was to run.
His instinct was silly and foolish.
It could have got him killed and instead of acknowledging that and yeah so for him to not be able to say
in a similar fashion dude I just thought it was a joke man thank God we're all
right yeah y'all got out of there good for you but to turn and mock you guys
it's just very immature yeah and that's how I felt like he's not just immature
about this he's immature about a lot of stuff, isn't he? Yes. Give me an example.
When we go to, or earlier on in our relationship,
when we would go to family gatherings,
a family member might say something a little bit sideways.
And I'm not one to cause a scene.
I would never do that.
I feel like that doesn't achieve anything.
So my reaction is to talk to him after the fact.
And he has said everything in order to avoid
going to that family member to say,
hey, you know, you can't talk to her that way,
or you can't, you shouldn't say that,
or whatever it might be.
You know, one thing that he said was,
I was drunk, I didn't hear it.
Or the next time was, or she didn't mean it that way.
Or like it's at the expense of how I feel.
That's right, it's called gaslighting.
Is how I think, yeah.
Your feelings are always wrong.
There's always an explanation for your feelings.
But when he has feelings, they're right.
And if you disagree with him, you're wrong for feeling
that his feelings are right.
Yeah.
It's a very immature way of go through the world.
So here's what I want you to do.
I want you to consider
that this is a very revealing situation.
A straw that breaks the camel's back.
And I'm not saying your relationship's over,
but I'm saying it's time to set some things on the table
because here's what's happening.
I can feel it, it's festering inside of you.
And you are sweet, Alyssa.
You just, you don't wanna fight. You like doing doing the next right thing I could get married tomorrow if I
wanted to I just I got I'm gonna I'm gonna watch the new season of Dexter and
just call it and go to the next thing go to the next thing you can just make your
way through but what's happening inside of you is that you're inside just trying to catch fire. And
before you burn up, because that's what's gonna happen, your secrets will kill you,
not him. I think there's a truth telling. There is a, hey, for five years we've
been engaged and you don't honor my feelings, you don't honor my fears. When I
get scared, you make fun of me. When you get scared, you're like, Oh, I was drunk. I didn't even pay attention. There's just
a general sense of immaturity or a general sense of his world is all about him and feeling
powerful and strong. If he can't feel powerful and strong, he dismisses you. And it's just
not a partnership. That's not not two people creating something amazing together moving forward.
And anytime somebody tells me like, oh, we've been engaged for three years, four years,
five years, seven years, we just haven't got around to it.
There's almost always a reason we haven't got around to it.
There's not a reason we've done it.
There's a reason we haven't done it.
And I think that's worth exploring in your own heart Maybe go sit with a with a therapist and talk about it or sit down with him and say hey, we needed to talk
You thought it was a joke and you were just walking around thinking the kids were goofing off
Fine, I'm gonna judge you on that
But people got killed. It was scary. It scared me to death.
And the fact that you care less about how scared your fiancé was and more about mocking
me and being like, oh my gosh, I wasn't even that big.
It tells me a lot about your character.
And I think that's what's gnawing at your insides, Alyssa.
I may be wrong, but I think that's what's gnawing at your insides.
And I think that is worthy of exploring.
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All right, let's go out to, sorry, Ms. Jackson, Mississippi, and talk to Sean.
What's up, Sean?
My father, who I haven't been super close with, is getting on in years. He's run into a lot of health problems. I'd have
a lot more sympathy if it wasn't of his own doing. He hasn't taken care of himself from
even the time when I was a kid. I can remember maybe like two times that I saw my father
run. But the really hard thing is he's getting on in years
and he's kind of reached out to me and kind of made it known. He expects me to take care
of him and I'm still trying to build a life and build a family for myself. But the thing
that makes it really hard is that his past. So my father is a convicted pedophile.
Um, he's registered sex offender and, um, I just, I just see me taking care of him in
the future, just blowing up this life that I've worked so hard to build. I mean, I've
got a girlfriend right now and really happy. And everything looks like it's like going to be the best thing in the world. And I just,
only two people in the world know about this. Like my two best friends that I like look
at as brothers. And my brother, unfortunately is in and out of jail. And my mom is currently
taking care of his newly born son. So she's wrapped up and she's doing great.
She's really, really great woman, saying honestly, to deal with my dad for so long.
They're divorced now and she's remarried, but it, it's just so hard to like look at
this man and see nothing that I can look up to or nothing I can admire.
And I look at my friends' relationships
with their fathers and brothers,
and I'm so jealous.
And I just don't know what my,
taking care of someone who in society
is looked at as the lowest of the low,
it's hard for me to imagine.
I don't know, What do you think?
Well, one, man, I feel honored that you called in.
Like that was the first time you said a lot of that out loud, didn't it?
Yeah.
I could hear it.
And so whatever you've done today or whatever you'll do tomorrow
This is the bravest thing you've done in a long time and I'm proud of you and I'm honored that you called me
Thanks, sir, okay, here's step number one
You have to decide
To stop carrying his shame and his secrets around as though it's your burden.
This is killing you.
The more you keep this a secret and you tell yourself that this is somehow a reflection of you.
It's like you drinking poison and hope he gets sick.
The secrets and the shame are killing you.
I can hear it on you, man.
And you can't buy houses out from under that.
You can't out earn that.
You can't out discipline yourself in the Navy out of that.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Does that resonate?
Yeah.
You've been carrying this for a long ass time, haven't you?
I have and it started when I was younger, like protecting it from my friends. And then I would make these good friends.
And then one day, Hey, large, um, Robbie isn't going to be able to come over
anymore.
And it wasn't until I was a little bit older that I found out why I felt like I
worked so hard and every step he's taken away things from me that I, out of my
control.
And the one thing I can control is who I tell.
Yeah. That I out of my control and the one thing I can control is who I tell Yeah
Did your dad hurt your friends too I
Don't think so, I think it's just they found out he was on the registry and
it's like I really want to believe for like everything in my body that it was a one time
or whenever that went down before I was born and it ended there.
But his actions, he's like done other weird things.
Like when I've had girlfriends, he like stalks them like social media and stuff.
But it's just like hard to find anything.
Like if I were to have to defend this man in court, I would not have a good case.
Right.
And so you can hope and wish this was a one time thing years ago, but your gut tells you
differently.
Yeah.
And I want to challenge a core belief you have in the center of your chest.
Is that all right?
Yeah.
Okay. You have more than one thing you can control, which is not telling anybody this.
Another thing you can control is letting him carry all his crap and you stop carrying it.
You can say, my dad was a very sick man. He continues to be a sick man.
And has never shown retribution,
has never gone through the behavioral stuff to get well,
to like, we've never talked about it.
He's never wept in front of me
and talked about what he's taken from our whole family,
blowing up the whole world,
hurting all these kids.
None of that has ever happened.
And that is a cornerstone of redemption.
And so I'm not going to not do these things because of what society says.
I could care less.
And you can lie to yourself, brother.
You don't not like him because he's overweight and doesn't jog
he grosses you out because he's a person who's chosen disgust as his as his essence
fair
yes okay very fair own that Because I'm watching I'm listening to somebody and I've got a picture in my head of a guy
Who is not gonna redeem a family tree, but you have been tilling the soil and you've planted a new one
That's what I've always wanted I I know, but that's what you're doing. My biggest dream since I've been a man is to change my last name. Then go change it,
brother. There's no disgrace in that. And if you've listened to this show for one year,
two year, five years, you know I'm all about redemption and I'm all about people freeing themselves
from being haunted from their past.
I wrote a whole book on it.
And how dare you not deal with anything,
not confront anything, not say anything
and then call your son who's trying to build a new life
that you destroyed and demand he take
care of you?
No.
Somewhere in your guts, brother, you either think you've got a fault here.
Somewhere in your guts, you think you did something wrong or you think you can fix this
and dude, I want to free you from that.
You cannot. you did something wrong or you think you can fix this and dude I want to free you from that you cannot
you don't have that kind of power
here's the more damning thing he could have and he has chosen not to
and that means he's left one more victim in his wake and that's you
and for that dude that breaks my heart and I'm sorry.
If you were sitting right here, I'd hug you.
I can't tell you the way you just left it off me.
Is that fair?
Yes.
We're not going to swear at people.
We're not going to curse at people.
We're going to keep our dignity and our character about us.
You're working too hard to change, I mean to plant a new family tree and to tend to
this young tree as it's growing.
So you're not going to resort to the world and throw in rocks and sticks and grenades
at your old man.
He's cashed himself out of your life.
And for that, that in and of itself is a tragedy I wouldn't
wish that on any young man in the world to have their father cash them out
thank you
you're gonna have a season of being real sad, Sean, okay?
I just want to tell you what's common. You're going to be real sad.
But if you will engage in that sadness and not try to flex and work out and discipline and whatever,
Xanax it away,
you will be free on the other side of this thing.
Okay.
Okay.
Thank you.
Tell me what you're feeling.
It's mixed.
It's hard because one of the people I trust the most in the world, my friend,
he's a similar family situation to me, but just different vices.
Like, and I look at him like a brother and he's someone I look up to.
And when I talked to him, he had a very different reaction, but he's a single guy.
He's not a father like you. I, but he's a single guy. He's not a father
like you. I feel like it's a different perspective than I think when you're a father, you kind
of see the danger more clearly than anything else. And I, I feel at the same time that you've given me, given me the tools I need to move forward and not feel accountable
for my father's sins.
And that's it.
Yeah.
And can I tell you, if this is lingering around back there, if you brought some friends over
and your dad may have hurt one of your friends or you don't know, that's not on you, dude.
You're a kid inviting buddies over to play.
It's not on you.
And if you brought girlfriends to your house and your dad was creepy and you tried to defend
him and you tried, it's not on you. Okay?
Be free of that. You're a kid.
I've kept all of the women away from him since I've been a man on purpose. I
I can see the way he looks at him and I just know I don't.
You know what that, you know, I call that something hasn't changed. You know what I
call that? Wise. I call that an outstanding young man. I call that a great boyfriend.
I don't call that a bad son.
Thank you.
Okay.
That's what good men do is they take their girlfriends into a situation and when they
get sick at the way another man is looking at them, they get them out of that situation.
Good on you.
Yeah.
I don't.
Can I tell you this?
I don't know.
I don't. Can I tell you this?
I'm not, I'm not worried about the present, the future danger.
I'm not.
You're a 26 year old.
Are you still enlisted?
I'm active media.
Yeah.
I wouldn't fight you.
You'd knock my head off.
Right. An outshape old man. Like I'm not worried about what happens next
The reason I don't want you around this man is he has never had a reckoning with you about what he did to you
To those young kids to the family to the ecosystem to his neighborhood, he's never had a reckoning.
And when a dad doesn't atone for his sins with his sons,
his sons carry them and it buries them.
And I'm sick of it.
That's the thing, he's never been accountable.
He never will be.
He got away with it, my mom stayed with him.
Coward.
He didn't go to jail, the family
basically washed it all away for him and he's just, he's never had to deal with the consequences of his actions.
And I,
Oh, he has, he has dude. Not in the ways that society wants him to, but he's dealt with
it. You know how I know he lost his son
And he's too much of a coward to reckon with it
So what does he do?
He tries to get you back by dumping a whole dump truck full of responsibilities in your front yard
The yard that you have worked really hard to make because he gave you nothing
How dare he show up with a dump truck and pull that in your front yard.
Thanks. Okay. I never had this conversation before I don't know. Here's
the exercise I want you to do. But I'm thankful. No, here's the exercise. Okay, listen to the exercise
I've
Recommended people do this before and I'm gonna probably recommend this a thousand more times for the shows over but here's what I want you
to do, okay, I
Want you to go to a Lowe's or Home Depot when you get off shift?
And I want you to get a roll of duct tape and I want you to go to a Lowe's or Home Depot when you get off shift. And I want you to get a roll of duct tape
and I want you to get three cinder blocks, okay?
Okay.
And I want you to tear off a piece of duct tape
on each one of those cinder blocks
and I want you to get a Sharpie,
I want you to write on them.
Never told me the truth in my house.
Hurt and abuse children.
And will you write whatever you know to be true.
And I know you're soft peddling what I, you know, the stories that you grew up with.
I know that.
And I know that mom got out of there.
I know brother has been through some kind of hell too, because he wouldn't be living
his life if his nervous system wasn't haywire also.
Right? Yeah.
Okay.
I want you to write them on that cinder block and I want you to carry them around your yard.
Are you on base or are you off?
I'm off base.
Okay.
I want you to carry them around in your backyard until your arms burn and I want you to throw it on the ground and
Say the words out loud. I'm not carrying this anymore
And I want you to tear off that tape and throw it away, and I want you to pick up the next one and go again
I
Want there to be a physical memory of I set this down and I don't carry it anymore. This is my dad's sins
I'm not carrying them because
they're not mine. You'll have your own. You'll screw stuff up. You'll have your own stuff
to carry, but I'm not carrying that anymore. I'm not carrying his secrets. I'm not carrying
his dirtiness. I'm not carrying it. Okay. I will.
And here's one last thing I want to caution you about, okay?
I think I've told this a thousand times on the show.
I was doing a practicum during my grad school and I'll just cut to the chase.
One of the psychologists I was working with, he gave me a really important piece of wisdom.
We looked at a young kid and I said, hey, this one's going to be all right.
And he goes, why do you think that kid is going to be all right?
Kid had gone through hell.
And I said, well, he's got straight A's.
He's doing great.
And he looked at me and said, John, straight A's can be a trauma response too. Your need for control and for perfection and for external validation for medals and for
acknowledgments and for a home and then another home and you're probably saving up to get
a down payment to buy another home.
That won't fill that gap you have in the center of your chest. Okay? That will heal from the
inside out when you're ready.
My promise to you is it can heal and it will be way harder than running 20 miles
but you can and you will bring peace to great great grandkids that you will never meet
If you heal that from the inside out
Thank you dog, is that fair
Yes, sir, all right
Brother you call me anytime. I'm gonna send you both my books here. Just as a gift
I know it's just a small token, but I want you to read through them Okay, and I'll hook you up with him for free. You called me anytime and I'm gonna send you both my books here just as a gift. I know it's just a small token, but I want you to read through them, okay? And I'll hook you up with them for free. You call me
anytime and I'll walk with you. Nothing breaks my heart more than somebody who hurts kids
followed only by somebody who abandons their kids. And this happened to both of us happened to you.
And I'm sorry. And at the same time, I'm overcome with how proud I am of you
and the steps you're taking to plant and tend to a new family tree.
Generations from now, kids will bask in the shade of this new family tree
because you did this work.
You're going to get burned, you're going to have scars,
and you will bring peace to future generations.
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All right, we're back.
Kelly, ah, that last call.
Yeah, that was pretty heavy
Dad's man
I know all the research is focused on moms, but dad's man
Dad's are important extremely important and dad's are important and I'm glad that most dads aren't like that.
Let's sing a song.
You go first.
I don't think anyone needs that.
You are correct.
Half of the listeners of this show just clicked off.
They're like, oh, God.
Whatever.
Yeah, I don't know this in Kelly's office.
She has this immaculate huge corner office
She has a karaoke machine set up there and on Thursday and Friday afternoons
she's like one whole walls all mirrors as you as you can imagine and she sings karaoke mostly Nickelback and Creed and
She lets it our IP. She lets it rip
She lets it R.I.P. She lets it rip.
She puts on these awkward tight jeans and she puts her feet up on like a monitor wedge
and she gets it in front of these mirrors.
It's not bad.
It's the moves I learned from you watching you in Battle of the Bands.
I do a lot of hip thrusting.
I do.
I don't mean to.
It comes from way deep inside.
It's all the 80s metal.
It's just, it's just kind of in there.
But listen, you, you're not a bad singer as you think you are.
We all hear it all across the second floor, but you let it rip.
All right, hey, listen, it's the last day for you six people who are still here.
Last day of the Atomic Christmas Sale.
Questions for humans building a nonyxist life. It's it's like this is a chance to get
To get your friends great gifts get your family great gifts that can actually help them in the new year and
Isn't gonna break your bank. So go to ranzysolutions.com
Store last day of the sale make it count. Go be a good gift giver this year and
day of the sale, make it count, go be a good gift giver this year and God help you dude. If you have someone on your team at work that's got a karaoke
machine, just unplug it. Love you guys, bye, stay in school, don't do drugs, peace!