The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Can Be So Condescending

Episode Date: September 21, 2022

In this episode, we talk with: - A woman wrestling with resentment toward her therapist husband. (1:44) - A wife unable to trust her financially irresponsible husband. (20:50) - A man coming to terms with the extent of his anger issues. (36:05) Lyrics of the Day: "Burning Down The House" - Talking Heads 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. I'm angry, naturally. A very angry person. What are you carrying that you don't want to carry anymore? Something was done to me at a very young age that was not okay. And you sexually abused? Yes, but it's like what good comes out from anybody knowing what happened? Freedom.

Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you joined us and you're hanging out with us. And I hope that life's treating you well. And if it's not, you've come to the right place. And if it is treating you well, you've come to the right place. Greatest podcast about mental health and parenting and marriage and schools ever, ever, ever. And we had to do this intro twice because I was like, woo, coming in and my voice cracked because hashtag just going through puberty, just saying. My doctor told me eventually what happened. And ladies and gentlemen, it's today.

Today. I'm so excited for you. So proud of you. Thank you. It's a big day. It's a big day. Actually, Ben Hill is back there on the booth. We've started an incredible metal band together.

And we're gearing up for our big show. So there's lots of... It's going to be awesome. Lots of singing and jamming. Let's be honest. It's incredible. We're going to win. I mean... There's lots of... It's going to be awesome. Lots of singing and gymming. Let's be honest. It's incredible. We're going to win. I mean...

There's not even... I don't even know why other bands are entering, actually. It should just be a 45-minute set from us. Actually, I don't even think we're that good. But for 10 minutes, we can do 45. Yeah. That'd be great. But that leads me to puberty.

So we're back, everybody. And on that note, we're going to go to talk to Jill in Grand Rapids. What's up, Jill? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? Good. Hey, you heard the first intro. Not so great, huh?

Hey. So good. Give me a look into my future with my 10-year-old. Exactly. Except he may be in his 40s. Okay, so what's up? How can I help? Well, I'll just give a little bit of backstory here. Um, I've been married for about 12 years and, um, my husband previously worked in community mental health for over a decade.

And for the last five years, he went into private practice as a trauma focused therapist, which he's amazing at. And I've never seen him so excited to go to work and come home and excited to talk about it. So I'm really thankful for that. However, I have noticed a little bit of a shift in our relationship, how we might handle situations with the kids a little bit differently. And so I was just wondering if you had any insight as to how to help support him in his job

make him feel like I'm not against his job I just would like my husband to be home when he's home and not him to come home as a therapist you did an incredible central to northern

Michigan job of painting a really messy situation in as bright a colors as you can and I know this because I've lived this exact thing it's hard isn't it

yeah tell me more about it. It's hard because sometimes I feel like you're saying really nice things. Sometimes I feel, tell me what's happening. I'm being talked to in our conversations like a client. There you go. What does that mean? It makes me feel like I'm just another person. Not supportive for who I am at times.

And as though you're a person to be fixed or a problem to be solved or a series of actions away from being the person you are supposed to be, whatever that means. Just listening to your language, it's very distancing language. Like you and I could just have a conversation and I would know you interact regularly with somebody who works in mental health.

And I've been talking to you for about 90 seconds. Because everything is distance focused. All of your language has space in it from the actual actor and what it's doing to you. You hear what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. Give me an example where you're not being supported.

Or give me a scenario. Play something out for me. Well, when we're having, particularly our oldest child, when there is a situation and I do something about it, I say something, I do something about it, I'm not always getting the backup from him. Are you getting some sort of clinical explanation or he comes over the top of you? I don't feel like we're on the same page as far as working with him on certain things. My oldest has had a lot of medical trauma. So he's really good at putting that hat on to help him

out and kind of almost back him up instead of backing me up and being a team when we're working with our kids on something. This is going to sound bananas, but your son needs a dad more than a trauma therapist that lives with him. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I know that you need a husband more so than a live-in expert who's going to guide, guard, and direct everything that happens inside that little home. Right. What does the conversation look something and it comes back to him as I'm not good enough. You don't like my job. And it's very hard because he's an internal processor and I'm outward. So I pretty much will say it and I don't always mean it to offend him.

It's just how I'm working through something. Well, he gets to choose whether he's offended or not. Yeah. That's the choice he's making. I applaud you for speaking your needs out loud now if you're rude or you're a jerk or you're trying to throw grenades at him That's another thing that doesn't sound like that at all It sounds like you're saying things like I don't i'm tired of being treated like a client here or you're coming home after dealing with kids trauma over and over and over and you're bringing that that brittleness and that edge and you want to talk about it all the time. And then that leads into every interaction with our kids is like a is a clinical interaction.

Like, I need you to come home and put that stuff down. That sounds like what you're doing more than the other. Is that right? Yeah. At least I try to. Yeah. Yeah. Occasionally I hit him, but other than that, no hitting. So here's the deal. I won't get into my specifics. I don't want to make your story about me other than to say I was him. I brought that home. And I wasn't technically a trauma counselor per se, but I spent my nights and weekends in hospitals with people over and over and over. And I spent my days sitting with people who were falling apart at the seams and who were

struggling to reconcile with tough decisions they'd made, et cetera. And then I brought it home and wanted to talk about it. And I talked to my wife like she was dumber than me. Like I had all the answers because I'd read some article. By the way, psychological articles are less than 50% reproducible, which means they're often garbage.

They're trash. They're not, anyway. That's an aside. So here's the deal. You have every right. It's, let me say it this way. It's unethical for him to wear his hat as a therapist inside of his home. It's unethical. It's wrong. It's against professional ethics. He should not treat his child like a therapist. He shouldn't treat his wife like a therapist. He shouldn't treat his son like a client or his wife like a client or his friends at work or school. I'm sorry, his friends at church or in the neighbors.

He should treat his clients like clients. It's like boxers who come out of the gym, leaving their boxing gloves on and then just deciding to punch people at home. That's just not, you can't do that. Okay. Here's the unfortunate thing. And then here's the empowering thing. The unfortunate thing is you can't make him take that hat off. Okay. That's a choice he has to make when he decides to be a little more mature in his professional ethics And when he gets a little more comfortable in differentiating his work life from his home life He needs to figure that out really quickly. Okay

You can um stop responding to it And this is where you Have the right and the opportunity to say With respect and dignity and kindness. Hey, hey, I'm not your client. And if you talk to me like your client, then I'm understanding that you're choosing to end this conversation. Okay. And then he gets to choose. And the first time you do that, your heart's going to beat really fast.

You're probably going to get sweaty. Like it's going to feel awkward and weird. And he might throw a fit up against that boundary. What is that supposed to mean? I don't even know what you're talking about. And then you're going to have to articulate it very clear. Okay. Very, very clear. When you talk to me like this, my wife told me, I hear, I said, I'm not going to make it about me, but I am. My wife said, you have a very particular tone when you talk to me or the kids. Your jaw sets in a certain way.

You have a body posture that doesn't say with, it says at, or it feels over. And she was very, very specific. And it gave me some things to work on, right? I will not be treated like a client. I'm your wife. I get equal say, we get equal insights, and we're going to do this thing, this parenting thing together.

Have you all ever gone out for lunch and just talked about what the end game is with your oldest? Oh, yeah, many times. Where's the disconnect there? I think part of it is he sees how I may want to or choose to parent him in a situation and he's seen the effects of that in his job. And so I think there's some of that. There's the fear.

So be specific. Do you get mad at your kid and you yell, and then your husband's going to work every day dealing with kids who are traumatized? Or do you hit your kid? What's the thing that your husband's responding to? No, I guess I'm a little bit more... My kid knows my buttons, and so he pushes them, and I react to it. Okay. I don't always respond to it.

No, I don't hit them, but I may talk to them. Like, I've told you how many times... Or no, you're not going to ride your bike because last time you didn't tell us where you were. And so what about that does a trauma therapist feel like they need to intervene on? I don't think he will, he doesn't say, hey, look, your mom said you can't ride your bike. He's like, if he's going to go cool off, let him go ride his bike. Yeah, that has absolutely nothing to be, nothing with being a trauma therapist.

But then he'll go into, later on when we have discussions about it, he'll go into. Here's why. Like you're destroying your relationship with him. Because of A, B, C, or D. Or. Or. You're holding him accountable to certain boundaries. To keep him safe. Right?

Yeah. Some of it too is his background his parents were hard on him that's it right there I don't know if that here's the deal there is a movement within the trauma therapy world and here's why

I'm feeling this like my if you were watching me now like my shoulders are tensed up right now I'm having to breathe through this. One, because I've done this, and I see the destructive nature this had in my home, me treating my wife and my kids like this. The second thing is there is an insidious thread of support and help through the trauma counseling movement, which I think is an incredible thing. We are identified, I'd speak all over the country on trauma. I get it.

I get it more than most. And it's a huge deal. And it affects millions more people than people think they do. And simply taking people who have been hurt, who've experienced big trauma, acute trauma, secondary trauma, and not wanting to make them any more uncomfortable is not the way forward. In fact, it makes them less resilient and it reinforces that anxious mechanism that keeps them spun up all the time. They have to be walked through hard things.

That's the whole point of trauma counseling. And so I tell you that to tell you, if there's never tension between a parent and a child, then the parent is failing miserably in their job. What you have is not a trauma counselor who's trying to be supportive. Here's another thing that I mean. I used to say certain things to my son, especially when he was younger, when it came to discipline. And my wife, who is a pedagogical expert, working with kids, and she also had a background of training with discipline

with young boys. She said, hey, if you do it like this, This is not helpful. What you're trying to get is this try this way instead And what she had was a set of skills It wasn't an undermining because she got uncomfortable or nervous during an engagement see the difference So one is Um I he feels uncomfortable and so he's going to jump in there and make this thing Make himself feel better by making you feel small Another is hey, I actually have some expertise here and i'm going to talk to you about it offline

Because I I know your heart honey And I know where you're trying to get this young boy and i'm gonna I know a better a quicker better way to get there That's a totally different proposition. Yeah. But hear me say, this is about him, not the trauma. The trauma therapy is simply he uses that to make excuses for himself. And I'm sorry for that. What you have to do is say, here's what I will accept. And that might be you sitting down

saying, no more will I accept you undermining me in front of our kids. If you have a problem with some of the things, the way I've said something, the way I've reacted to something, then I asked you to respect me enough to have that conversation offline. And I promise you that I will be willing to listen if we do it in a respectful way. Is that fair? Sometimes he's, yes. And sometimes he does say things and sometimes he's just completely silent. Okay. And just allows it to get, I don't want to say worse, but get louder. Well, and that's what, hey, hold on. And he doesn't step in.

So it's either he chooses to do that or he chooses not to step in at all. Right. And you're not off the hook either. You've got to stop responding to kids. Yeah. They don't get that from you. Is that fair? Mm-hmm.

And you might need to be humble and change a few things about how you're approaching things. Is that fair? Oh, yeah. My guess is the bigger component here, the umbrella over all of this, is your husband traffics in trauma. He deals with trauma for a living. And he comes home disconnected from himself. And he is unable to be present with his family, the people who love him the most. Because literally to do the work he does every day, he has to unhook his soul from himself.

Does that make sense? Yeah. And so what you're really asking for is a husband to come home and be present. And when husbands don't know how to come home and be present, they come home and do work. They do jobs, like fix their wives and instruct their children. See what I'm saying? Yep Here's here's what I would do moving forward I would I would come up with your boundaries and be I can't express I can't express this enough. You got to be super clear When you say these things You are choosing to end a conversation with me because I am choosing to no longer be talked to like that

If you have ways that you can teach and coach me because you've got some expertise in an area, I would love to hear it. Here's how and when I will hear that. If I am finding myself reacting, I will ask that you will just walk by. Here's what I asked my wife to do. I asked her to walk by and just put her hand on my arm,

just gently like this. And she does. She did it for a couple of years. And now I don't react anymore because she was catching me in the moment. I could feel, oh, there I am. And I was able to take a breath and stop myself. And you, Jill, have to be intentional

about stopping being so reactive with your kids and not apologizing for having accountability and boundaries. This whole thing feels like it's a mess. It feels like there's bigger relationship issues at play than just the kids. He won't go, but I think it's time for y'all to go to a marriage concert because I don't like the trajectory of this,

if I'm just being honest with you. This ends in a mess. Hopefully he'll go. And if he won't, you can say, I'm going to go. I'm going to go learn some new tools and ways to communicate. Man. Professional helpers. Your family doesn't usually need your expertise.

Occasionally in a crisis. I'm talking to police officers. I'm talking to SWAT officers. I'm talking to counselors. I'm talking to nurses. They don't, they rarely need your expertise. What they need more than anything is you. So don't hide behind your job and all your knowledge.

Just show up. Just show up. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. Just show up. We'll be right back. 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. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist. And you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp.

Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Let's go to Katie in Dayton, Ohio. What's up, Katie? Hi, how are you? Outstanding. How are you? I'm doing all right. thanks for taking my call. Of course, you got it, what's up? Well, my question is, how do I forgive my husband and somewhat my in-laws for being really irresponsible

with student debt, student loans? So I got married about a year and a half ago, and during the student loan pause, my husband and I thought we paid off all of his student loans. We went and applied for a mortgage recently and found out that he had about $14,000 in other loans that he didn't know about. $14,000 in other loans or $14,000 in another loan? $14,000 of student loans that we did not know about. Okay. And I know we grew up very separate, like differently.

I, my parents were very on top of teaching me about finances and making sure I knew what I was getting into with college debt and things like that. And his parents were a lot more hands off. And just to have these ones and not know about them is kind of beyond what I can comprehend. And so I'm really struggling with all of them just because it feels like they were very irresponsible. And now it's holding us back in ways that I wasn't expecting. And I want to forgive all of them. And I guess I'm just looking for advice on how to do that. I have so many questions that are not really related to your question. So I won't, I won't drag this whole call underwater because I know I do that sometimes. I will say this, I, you know, I worked in universities for almost two decades before I came and joined this crew.

And so it's very common for parents to take out student loans in their children's name and then use them for other things. So that may have happened. It may not even be your husband that took out a loan he just forgot about. I'll also say that it's super, super, super common for people to sign up loans to quote unquote clean off a balance sheet without ever looking at the loan amount. So what's happened in your home, it's frustratingly common.

Very, very, very common that people just take out loans to pay their rent and to get out of school and they don't look at that final number. And so for someone like you who was raised to watch what you owe very, very closely, it doesn't make any sense. Just hear me say on the other side of the ledger,

this is way, way more common than you. You're the weirdo in this one, okay? Yeah. So let me just ask you this. Are you going to leave him? Absolutely not. Are you done to leave him? Absolutely not. Are you done with him? You're just like,

you know what, forget this dude. You're in a half in. He sucks. I'm on to somebody else. Are you going to leave him? Absolutely not. Okay.

So here's what I'd recommend you do. All right, let me ask you this. Are his parents bad people? No. Are they like going to be terrible like in-laws whenever you have kids and all that? I mean, they're going to be just the worst? No. Are they like going to be terrible like in-laws whenever you have kids and all that? I mean, they're going to be just the worst?

No. Okay. So here's what I would do. I would go out to like Lowe's or Home Depot or something, okay? And I would buy a cinder block, okay? It's going to be like three bucks or five bucks or something. You may have one laying around your house somewhere. And I want you to get a piece of masking tape or duct tape and put it across the whole cinder block. And I want you to write here, terrible financial

decisions by husband and parents. Okay. And then I want you to hold that cinder block for 20 to 30 minutes without setting it down. Okay? Okay. After about 60 seconds, it's going to become so heavy, your hands and arms will go numb. And then after about four or five minutes, it's going to be unbearable. Okay? Okay. If you make 30 minutes you're stronger than than most

okay I'd prefer you to just carry it around with you until you just need to set it down right don't injure yourself until you need to set it down and then I want you to take it out in the backyard and throw it in the backyard all the way by the back fence or if you're in an apartment I want you to go set it down somewhere

in the woods and I want you to rip the tape off and never pick that up again. Be done with it. Here's what you're choosing every second you don't forgive. You're opening your eyes and you're thinking, I'm going to make the next few hours intentionally miserable. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to make my life worse

just because it'll feel good. Can I tell you what I really think? Yeah. I think you're mad at yourself. A, that you didn't, that when y'all were paying this stuff off, you didn't pull a credit report, or

y'all didn't get, you didn't look at the numbers right in the right way, right? Or you're mad because you have some dream of a timeline, like we're going to do this, then we're going to have a baby, we're going to get a house and I want this car. And now this has disrupted your timeline because there's $14,000 more to pay off, right? Unless it just got wiped away, maybe it just got wiped away. Maybe it just got wiped away with the new stuff, right? So all that to say is, I think often our anger, like you're talking about, we're mad at ourselves, man. And I'm going to lob that onto some of us.

You volunteered. You chose this marriage, Katie. Just be married, right? Yeah. Whenever I struggle with forgiving I always let me say it like this whenever I struggle with forgiving something

usually it's because I don't want to let go of the power I hold over a situation it's a way for me to lord over to feel better about myself and I just quite honestly have gotten to a place in my life the power I hold over a situation. It's a way for me to lord over, to feel better about myself. And I just quite honestly have gotten to a place in my life where I don't have that energy anymore.

And so I probably am too quick to forgive because I'm not carrying any more, I'm not giving anybody else real estate or rent-free space in my head, in my body. I don't have enough space in there, man. It's a cloudy, dark, messy place anyway. Right? You were about to say something. I think you're right, but I think I'm also very frustrated at his response to finding this out.

Somehow he had two different accounts, one in his dad's name that he used and one in his name. And I'm not sure how that can happen, but it did. And the one in his name stopped coming out of his bank when they did the pause in March of 2020, when we were engaged or not yet engaged. And then since it just stopped coming out of the account and we got married and he switched banks and he just completely forgot about it. So I guess I'm disappointed that he could be that irresponsible and then disappointed that he hasn't shown a lot of ambition since we found out last week, early last week about this, because, you know, I've been trying to straighten out things with his credit and it's a nightmare of getting this person on the phone and that person on the phone and waiting on hold. And if he doesn't get someone in five minutes, he just

wants to hang up. Okay. Listen, listen, listen. I feel like, why is this my problem to clean up? There you go. Because you're not doing it. Yes. And you know what you've become in short order?

You've become his mom. And I tell him I don't want it to be like that. I know, but you tell him you don't want it. And he doesn't either. And I know that. You tell him you don't want it to be like that. I know, but you tell him you don't want it. And he doesn't either, and I know that. You tell him you don't want it to be like that, and then you go act like it. Mm-hmm. Quit being his mom.

And here's the conversation. When you won't clean up this mess, I'm registering that as you don't care about our financial safety. You don't care about our financial safety. You don't care enough about me. I tell him that and he just shuts down and then I feel awful and he feels awful. No, he's acting like a child. That's a childish response.

That's immature. I'm just the worst husband ever and I just suck at everything. No, I'm not going to have that. Solved the problem. The problem is we found $14,000 more. He's probably really ashamed and embarrassed. I'm disappointed, but I don't want him to feel that.

You can't be his mom, Katie. You get to be disappointed. You should be. You know what else I think you are? Terrified. That you married a guy who thinks so little of you that he won't go get

the counseling that he needs, that he won't do the work that he needs to stand up and stop feeding his shame with secrets and negative self-talk and inactivity and inaction, that you've married somebody who's so undisciplined

and unwilling to learn new things. I think your body's terrified of the next 65 years is what I think. Am I right or wrong? I do sometimes feel like I can't trust him to lead our family and the man that he wants to be and that I want him to be. Yes.

Have you said that to him? Yes. Okay. Your next step, my sister, is to go see somebody. Your marriage is in more trouble than you think it is. Because here's what happens next. Shame, as the great Brene Brown says, shame eats secrets for breakfast.

The engagements between you two when you say, hey, have you dealt with your mess that you brought to this marriage that's now our mess? Have you made that call? Well, it called for five minutes and it just, and you say,

am I not worth five more minutes of your time? And then he shuts down and then that leads to a culture of secrecy where he just doesn't tell you stuff. And that leads to more video games and more time online and more Netflix and more pornography and more. Now we're down the road. Am I on the right track? Yeah.

And then. Not pornography. I'll say that. That you know of, Katie, that you know of. It's like 90 something percent of men. And then you have to create another world where you can exist, where bills actually get paid in the real world, where people have difficult conversations

with other people. And that is the breeding ground for resentment. When you wake up and you think, I'm gonna do this just because it's going to annoy him. Or he wakes up and says, she's already created her own world. What does she even care? I'm just going to do this

because she didn't even care about me. And that's resentment. And y'all are heading there faster than you know. And so the beautiful thing is, you're brilliant. I can tell. And I think he can get there with some coaching and with some compassion and some love.

He also is probably going to need a kick in the booty or two. Okay? Not literally. Don't actually kick him, but do what? Do you think you need to find like a marriage counselor? Absolutely. You need a marriage counselor ASAP.

Okay. He will probably end up in his own. He's probably got some stuff from home. If I'm a betting man, I would probably bet that dad may have used some of that money. He may have taken out a loan of his own in some shape, form, or fashion. It's very, very common that that happens. Or some sort of parent plus loan situation where mom and dad take out a loan that is supposed to go to tuition.

Who knows? Who knows? All that said, carrying around the anger about the past decisions that they made is a waste of your energy. What you need to be invested in is saying, okay, these things happened and these character traits have emerged. You, Katie, are becoming somebody you don't want to be.

You don't want to be your husband's mom. Right? Nobody wants to have sex with their son. That's gross. It's weird, right? And nobody wants to make out with their mother, right? I don't want this in my home. You are also becoming distrustful, which means you're going to start keeping things to yourself or just doing things on your own or talking to people at work. Maybe even that guy who's hilarious and he thinks you're pretty. You are becoming somebody you don't wanna be.

And you are seeing traits in him that you don't wanna be attached to, yet you said for better or worse, so here we are. And so we're gonna go to marriage counselor and we're gonna learn new ways of interacting with one another and with ourselves. And we're gonna do this a year and a half in. You could end up way decades ahead of most of the couples in your life

if y'all go do the hard work right now. Okay? Okay. He's going to have to learn to not shut down every time somebody calls him on the carpet. He's going to have to learn to do hard things. You're going to have to learn to hold your boundaries and not be responsible for how

everybody else feels because you've been a peacemaker most of your life. Okay. Okay. Think of these not as character defects. Think of these as new skills that y'all have to learn because neither of y'all have ever been married before. Right? Right. So we're learning new things moving forward. What I will tell you, as you're learning new things and you're taking off running in a new direction, carry as few bricks with you as possible. Set down the old crap, man.

Your parents weren't perfect. His weren't either. Guaranteed. Often they were less than perfect. Cool. I'm going to own it. They were. I'm not carrying their stuff anymore.

I got enough of my own to carry. And the lighter the load is when y'all take off into the woods carving a brand new path together, the easier that trip will be. And by the way, the trip's not easy. And let me go ahead and answer this because this is going to come up on the YouTube comments.

Katie, if he says I'm not going to marriage counseling with you, I refuse to go, I don't need to go You can't make him I'll be heartbroken for both of you But you can't make him At that point you've got to decide I'm going to go on my own Because you need to learn some new things Because you don't like who you're becoming

Never forget this one important thing You get to choose You get to choose You get to choose. You get to choose. You get to choose. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go to Tyrus in Goldsboro, North Carolina. What's up, Tyrus? Hey, John. How you doing? I'm good. What's up, man? I had a plan on how this conversation was going to go, the conversation with Katie. I definitely empathize with her as well as what she's going through with her husband because I was that guy and isn't that guy.

Oh, sweet. And that's what we're calling about. We're on the other side of it. Oh, awesome. Trying to get out of it. The whole time I was talking to her, I kept thinking, man, I want to talk to her husband. And then you called, so way to go, man.

Yep. So what's up? Let's do this. Okay, so actually I was referred to you. Thankfully, I've listened to your podcast and thoroughly enjoy it, but I called today about a financial question and I don't have a financial problem according to everybody. I've got a lot of other stuff going on.

All right, let's unpack it. I'm angry, naturally. A very angry person. At what? Trying to... Stuff in the past that I want to be able to get over. What? Since having kids. What? Name it. Mostly directed towards my mother and father.

What? What? I know. What is it? I don't want to, like, you know, gaslight anybody. That's why I'm trying to be careful. So I don't want to be who my father was, which was a very angry person. Whatever he was angry at, he took it out on us.

And I met my wife, God bless her. A little over two years ago, she had four children from her previous marriage and we have an eight month old of our own. So a lot of children, love them, but a lot of children. Hey, hold on. That's a million kids. Feels like it. I'm the least angry guy you're going to meet. I just think anger is like a waste of most of my energy. Yeah.

Five kids would make me probably just an angry guy. From eight months to 15, so quite a, and I'm 25, so I'm still a child myself a lot of times. You're 25? Yes. This is all, I mean, this is top five, my favorite calls ever already. Keep going. This is just getting better. Okay. All right.

All right. Boost my ego a little bit. Please break me down. So I've heard a lot, you talk a lot about secrets and how they kill you. Yep. And it kind of, not kind of, it frustrates me because I was known in my family and like braggingly, braggadociously, the steel trap of the family. If you have a secret, come to Tyrus. Nobody will ever find out. And it's listening to you say it kills you. Like I

forced myself to basically become a robot because I didn't have, I'd never made enough time to really look at myself and care about myself. It was always bringing on other people's stuff. And what are you carrying that you don't want to carry anymore? Uh, everybody's secrets, my own secrets that I'm not even like, what secrets? Something was done to me at a very young age that was not okay. And sexually abused. Yes. Okay. Listen, I'm going to be super clear. Okay. Your anger, that cloud, that swirl lives in breedses ambiguous language.

It lives and breathes these things and these feelings and these other things and these other things. One of the straightest paths through all of this BS is naming stuff. That guy sexually abused me. That woman cheated on me. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. It just shines a light on all of it. It clears that fog out.

And now we have something we can actually direct ourselves at. We don't do, our bodies don't let us do that because it's scared. Rightfully so. Well, it's messed up because I'm not even scared for people finding out what happened to me. I just don't want anybody getting in trouble because it was years ago. Like, it sounds messed up, I know. But it's like, what good comes out from anybody knowing what happened? Hey, listen.

Freedom. Sleeping all night. I don't sleep. I know you don't. Because your body's still on 24-7, 365, alert watch. And it's gotten worse with kids. That's exactly right. You know why?

Because your body remembers, hey, we remember what it's like to be that age. We remember what happens. Stay extra vigilant. And then your brain takes up every bit of emotional margin you have. So that eight-month-old does eight-month-old stuff like spit up

and you lose your damn mind. Is that right? Not so much that. She's actually perfect in my... Well, there you go. You know what I mean. No, no, no. They spill juice and I'm like, shut up. Exactly. Exactly. Yes. So, here's what I'm going to tell you, no. They spill juice and I'm like, shut up. Exactly. Exactly.

Yes. So here's what I'm going to tell you what's going to come out of it. Peace. Your body put a GPS pin in that pain. And it has continued to beep on that pin until you deal with it. Until you let your body know, I'm a 25-year-old father of five now. I'm in the driver's seat. You don't have to protect me anymore because I'm not seven anymore. I'm not 12 anymore. I'm not the family baggage keeper anymore. All anger does, man, is it points us, it's our bodies just pointing us towards something

we care about. And my guess is you really care deeply about kids being safe. Oh, 100%. And you really care deeply about people feeling loved. The challenge is you don't have the tools on how to keep kids safe because you're too busy keeping yourself safe very fair it's not a moral judgment that's a physiological judgment you want to show people deep love and you've never even seen that happen because your parents were too busy saying hey carry this for me carry this for me carry this for me and they used you like a pack mule when you should have been a little boy having a good time? So you deal with a lot of trauma. How do you know if something actually happened?

It doesn't matter. It absolutely doesn't matter. It's how is my body responding in the present? One of the things we know about memory is that it's pretty faulty. It's pretty faulty. What's important, and this is from Dr. Peter Levine's work, this is from Van der Kolk's work, what's really important is less about the specifics, the minute details of something that happened in our past. It's what do those memories do to our bodies in the present? Okay?

So here's a good example. Let's say when I first got married, my wife got in my face and screamed and yelled. That's what I remember 20 years later. She pointed her finger in my face and screamed and yelled and told me that I sucked at something, right? Let's say that we go through counseling for years. And by the way, if you know my wife, she's that would never, she would never do that. Um, she would just stab me in my sleep. She would never yell at my face. Um, so let's say

that 20 years later, our marriage is really good. And we've been through therapy together. We have two kids or three kids together. We have reconciled and we have one of the best marriages ever. And then I do something. I forget to pick up my shoes and she looks up and just that anger flashes. And my body instantly goes back to that moment. She was pointing in my face. Now I could say, remember that time you've been doing this our whole marriage. You're screaming and yelling at me. And she would say, dude, I didn't, I never even did that,

I got mad once, I never screamed and yelled, whatever happened doesn't matter, what happens is my body's responding right now, am I safe, yeah, I'm safe, I'm safe now, and I'm gonna take a big deep breath, I'm gonna hold it for a count of four or six, I'm gonna exhale it, I'm going to take a big deep breath, and I'm going to hold it for a count of four or six. I'm going to exhale it. I'm going to say these words inside my mind or out loud. My body's trying to take care of me and keep me safe. I'm good. I'm going to practice that. See what I'm saying?

Yeah, I've actually, because I'm horrible about going on tangents. Hey, quit talking crap. Hey, you're my friend. Quit talking crap about yourself. you talk about yourself so bad yeah it's self-talk's horrible it is yeah i'm trying to ask literally my number one question i've got written here how to rewire your brain to be who you want to be because it's i'd love to be in better shape i'd love to not be angry i'd love but in those moments

What I've done before Is just suppressed everything And been a doormat Like yeah Like you said You're too quick to forgive Because I didn't want to deal with it I was just like

Yeah whatever I don't care Steal from me Whatever You weren't forgiving You just opened the door Yeah Forgiveness says

I walk out on my front porch And say Y'all have stolen from me in the past. Y'all have taken the most precious thing from me, which was my innocence. Y'all did that. I'm not carrying that crap for y'all anymore. I'm setting it down. And you are not welcome in my home.

And you walk inside your house and you lock the door. What you've done is you walked down the front porch and said, hey, I'm just not going to think about y'all anymore. The front door and the back door are wide open. Yeah. Right? And you let them ransack the place. And that's not forgiveness. That's avoidance.

Yeah. Okay. So here's where we start. And let me paint you a broader picture. We live in a culture that would tell you, just set some goals. Set a weight loss goal and crush it and kill it. And set a financial goal and dominate that goal, right?

Whenever you feel angry, just flex and stop being angry. That's how we approach it. And it's stupid. It's a waste of energy and a waste of time. You being angry. That's how we approach it. And it's stupid. It's a waste of energy and a waste of time. You burn out. That's right. Your willpower is much less powerful than your systems. Okay. We're going to start with identity. So what I want you to do today is to go to like Michael's or Home Depot or someplace and either get like a really nice piece of plywood or get a nice piece of cardstock or something. And somewhere in your home, I want you to hang it up and I want you to write on it

with a permanent marker and as nice a lettering as you can do. I am a man who honors and loves my family. I am a man who is in control of his emotions. I am a man who is a good steward of my body. I am a man who will own what my parents did and never repeat it again. What we're going to do is we're going to set identity statements. This is who I am. And then we're going to go back, fill those identities with some actions that are going to make those things possible, with some systems that are going to make that possible. Okay? Right. And let me just preface this because to make that possible. Okay? Right. And let me just preface this because I know that it was not my parents.

I know that they, I just want to get that out there in case anybody hears my parents. Listen, listen. I just wanted everybody to know. Hold on, hold on, hold on. You still think you are responsible for the adults in your life. You are not. I don't care who it was. You're not responsible for how your parents feel. Not one time did you tell me that it was them.

And you're still... I know, I know. Well, I just heard you say what they did. I didn't want you to think that. No, I get that. But I also want you to know you are not responsible for the emotional regulation of the adults in your life. That's their job. Okay.

And if your parents listen to this and they go bananas, we never did. You have to say, I never said you did. They will possibly, if they don't know, be devastated that their kid was hurt like that and they didn't know. Or they did know about it and they didn't know how to respond and so they pretended it never happened. That's why I'm so angry. Hey, and you damn well should be. Because if they did know, why was it? Have you ever asked them?

That's what I asked about. How do you know? I was six at the time, seven. So it's weird that I remember stuff from four years old. It's like it happened and then black. So I don't know if they know. I don't know if they don't know. know if they don't know but so listen if they did know to be fair i don't have a relationship with them okay so it may be as i was about to be my next

question what's your relationship like with him if you don't talk to them if they're out of your life then a conversation with them is of no value yeah okay um that's you just running up and lobbing grenades at them if they're out of your life if you have to reconcile the fact that you were sexually abused and your parents may have known about it and they chose nothing I can't think of something more justified to be angry about and it's ruined all of my relationships.

No, it hasn't. No, it hasn't. You have. I have, correct. Okay. But I can't, it's been so hard to trust people and not be. Yes. I've just only become vulnerable with my wife recently.

Good, good. Hey, and I want, like, hear me honor that, man. It's so good. You are 15 years ahead of me, dude, before I learned that kind of vulnerability. You are way ahead of the game. Yeah. Okay? I'm proud of you. That's hard, man. It's real, real hard saying things out loud. But I don't want you to start blaming the anger for things because you've got choices. That's true.

Okay. Absolutely. And moving forward, I want us to practice, man. You are trying to engage in something that you've never seen done. You've had somebody describe the game of baseball to you. And then somebody handed you a bat and said,

go play. And you're like, okay, some guy on a hill is going to throw a ball at me and I got to hit it with a stick okay and then I got to run where am I running right you see what I'm saying you are figuring out what true honest vulnerable connected accountable parenting looks like in real time

and you've never seen it actually done give yourself some grace okay okay looks like in real time and you've never seen it actually done. Give yourself some grace. Okay. Okay. It's going to be hard. Oh, by the way, you're dealing with four people who've got a different dad. That's hard too. Yeah. You know what we should put on top of that? You know what we should dump on top of that? You know what we should dump on top of that? An infant. That sounds cool. And a dog that sits in the household. Why not?

Let's have a dog. Let's see if we can come up with any other thing to ruin our sex life and our intimacy and our financial life. Like, right? See what I'm saying? You're in it, dude. You are in it in your eyeballs. Yep. I heard the great Terry Real, one of the most incredible therapists

ever, I think. He said that he recommends people who are struggling with anger to carry around a picture of their mom and dad and put it in their wallet. And every time, or put it on your

phone, and every time you're about to unleash on one of your kids or on your wife, pull out your phone, look at that picture. No, no, no. No, I'm kidding. Pull out that phone and look at them and say, hey, mom and dad, this one's for you.

I'm gonna piss on my kids for you. I'm here to honor you and he reports that people stop their angry outbursts immediately and they never pick them up again what we're looking for is a gap between stimulus and response that impulse to yell

and the actual yelling itself. If you can put even a splinter of a wedge in between those two things, you got a shot. Okay? Okay. I can't recommend enough. I can't recommend enough that you need to call somebody and go talk to somebody.

Okay? Because not only do you have the abuse in the background, the potential parental involvement and all that mess, but you probably have a wake of people behind you that you've hurt over the years out of your own pain is that fair that's putting it lightly and that pain creates great guilt which turns into great shame which then eats those secrets and you see how this thing turns into a loop yep and then here's this is the important part if you don't deal with this, you are making a conscious choice to hand this off to those five kids. And that's why I'm calling.

Like, I don't want to be the father that they're scared to say. There you go. Hey, Dad, I got drunk. Can you come pick me up? Or if I messed up, can you help me? I didn't have that. That's right. And what that's going to look like ultimately is

I don't want to be that dead either. So this morning I got up before I usually get up to get my workout in so that then I could get my whatever thinking or praying or writing time, whatever nonsense I do in the mornings. So that I could have breakfast with my 12-year-old every Tuesday morning.

So that one day in four or five or six years, he's going to find himself in a mess. And he's going to know, not because I said something, but because I showed up over and over and over. I'm planting seeds and the fruit's not going to be, I'm not going to taste that for years. See what I'm saying? Yeah. I don't mind if they do the 12 year old, I hate you and stomp upstairs. But when they're 30, I want them to call me. That's right. That's right. And they're going to learn how to call you by you calling them. And they're going to learn how to reach out to you

by you reaching out to them. And they're going to learn how to treat women by how you treat their mother. And they're going to learn how to tip and honor the waitress

even when the food sucks because of how you do it. And they're going to learn how to tip and honor the waitress even when the food sucks because of how you do it. And they're going to learn how to say, hey, I'm really spun up right now. I'm going to take a walk around the house. Give me 30 minutes, and then we'll have this conversation. Okay? Yeah. Hear me say this.

You get to change everything. And I'm sick to my stomach that somebody hurt you when you were young. If you hear nothing else, brother, hear me say that shouldn't have happened and I'm sorry. And I'm sorry that there was no adults there to protect you. And I'm sorry there was no adults there to comfort you. You deserved better than that. I appreciate that. Okay.

And now everything moving forward is a choice. I'm going to give you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future, okay? My latest book. It's going to walk you through it. I'm going to send it to you for free. I'm also going to send you four or five decks of the questions for humans. Here's what those are. I know what they are. I'm a Ramsey network guy. I actually talked to my wife about

that like 10 minutes before I got on the call. You know what they are, but let me tell you what they really are. They are tools for dads to talk to their kids, to teach fathers how to have conversations with their children. Well, that's the best thing you've said or given to me, not to downplay anything else, but thank you. That's what I need. Cool. Because you're not going to have to stand there awkwardly at your kids. You're going to be able to take that 15-year-old out,

and you're going to have these cards. You're going to be like, all right, I'm going to ask you these questions. You ask me, and you're going to answer them honestly. And my son asked me this morning when we were going through math flashcards, he asked me, hey dad, how'd you do math? And you know what I told him?

When I was in middle school, son, I cheated like crazy in math. I'm ashamed of it. And I robbed myself of learning how to do math, which made high school math almost impossible, which made collegiate and doctoral statistics a nightmare. I'm glad that you have chosen to be a person of integrity. And I got to honor my son by telling him the truth about who his dad used to be. And now he knows his dad is a fanatic about cheating and telling the truth. I'm obsessive about it because I used to be a lying little thief.

You see what I'm saying? But those cards give you an opportunity to have that conversation without it being weird, right? Right. Will you use them if I send them? Absolutely. That's awesome. Awesome. So today, here's your homework.

I'm going to send you some stuff for free. Your homework is to go get a board of some sort that's going to be your identity intention. It's going to be home base for you. Here's who I'm going to become. And then you and your wife, man, y'all spend some time backfilling that. How do I get there? How do I get to be a guy that stewards his body? I need 35 minutes in the morning in the garage.

I'm going to go buy two kettlebells at Academy and I'm going to just pick up or two dumbbells. I'm going to pick up a workout online. I'm just going to go for walks for 30 minutes in the morning. I'm going to start there. And maybe two years from now, I'll have a big membership at a CrossFit gym. I'm going to start there

how do I become a guy who is less reactive and less angry I'm going to get sleep I'm going to stay off my phone I'm going to leave this toxic job I'm going to ask you just to wink when you feel me getting riled up I'm going to go tell my kids hey I'm going to ask you just to wink when you feel me getting riled up.

I'm going to go tell my kids, hey, I'm super sorry. I shouldn't have talked to you like that. And on and on and on. Tyrus, I know one thing. You can do this. And go call a counselor, brother. You deserve the healing. 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. And as we wrap up today's show, man, today's show got, it was heavier than I anticipated it being. Whew.

Man, shout out to the folks who called. We got some brave callers on the line today. Man, the band Talking Heads. The song's called Burning Down the House. I almost made a fart joke, but I'm not going to do that. The lyrics go like this. Watch out. You might get what you're after.

Cool baby. Strange, but not a stranger. I'm an ordinary guy burning down the house. Hold tight, wait till the party's over. Hold tight, we're in for nasty weather. There's gotta be a way for burning down the house. Here's your ticket, pack your bags. Time for jumping overboard.

The transportation is here. Close enough but not too far. Maybe you know where you are fighting fire with fire. We'll see you soon.