The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Fell in Love With His Therapist

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

On this episode, we hear about: -       A woman dealing with the aftermath of her husband’s relationship with his therapist -       A wife wondering how to help her husband forgive himself -       A cancer survivor reentering the dating scene Next Steps 📞 Ask John a Question! Call 844.693.3291 or click here! 📚 Get Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Take the Anxiety Test  📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation   Offers From Today's Sponsors ·      10% off your first month of Therapy at BetterHelp!   ·      3 Free Months of Hallow  ·      25% Off Thorne Orders  ·      20% off Organifi with code DELONY   Listen to More From Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. My husband was diagnosed with CPTSD. He went to therapy. He fell in love with his therapist. She fell in love with him. Hold on. How did this happen? What happened?

He went to therapy, and over time, they both had a connection. There was no therapy actually done in the four months we were seeing her. What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. A show talking about your marriage, your mental health, your relationships, your interaction with other human beings. And if you're like most of us,

that has gotten harder and harder and harder, the more we are being asked to interface with shiny digital boxes instead of real people. And that makes learning and remembering how to do relationships hard, scary, and fraught with all kinds of pitfalls. And that's what this show is about. I'll sit with real people going through real challenges and we'll figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K. And real quick, it is the solar eclipse today. And so this is being recorded like a month from,

like you'll hear this a month after the eclipse. So if we don't make it, if all the conspiracy theorists are correct, this will be the last beacon sent out into space. But I have a feeling

that we're going to be just fine. All right, let's go out to New Haven, Connecticut and talk to Kathleen. What's up, Kathleen? Hi, John. Thank you for taking my call. Of course.

Thank you for calling. My husband was diagnosed with CPTSD. He went to therapy and he fell in love with his therapist. She fell in love with him and then it was pulled

from underneath her because they got too, you know, in relationship. You can't do that with a therapist. No. Hold on. How'd this happen?

What happened? He went to therapy and over time they both just had a connection. There was no therapy actually done in the four months he was seeing her. So how do I cope with his CPTSD

that he was diagnosed with years ago? And the fact that he fell in love with his therapist and he had to this day head over heels. Like it was like a bad breakup. Like he talks about her in his sleep. Like, Oh man, what a mess on several fronts.

Um, how did, how did this relationship come to light? Um, it was like, he wasn't a fully licensed. She had a supervisor. How did this relationship come to light? It was She wasn't fully licensed She had a supervisor So the supervisor caught it? Yeah

And she had feelings for him There was flirting going on And there was joking Once you look back on it There was really no therapy But he fell hard for her. Have you talked with the supervisor? I have not.

I don't believe his story. I do believe, like, the number one no-no in all of therapy is you can never, don't have intimate or physical or really any kind of relationship. The therapist I see now, if I was to see her in a grocery store, and we talked about this at the first meeting, I would have to say hi to her first. She'll walk right by me. Oh, yeah. Because the anonymity is the cornerstone.

You can't do it without that level of trust. And therapy is intimate and vulnerable. And you say things out loud that you've never told anybody else. And if somebody is a good listener and a warm, receptive person, then, yeah, it's easy to get all tangled up in feelings. But that's the therapist's job, right, to hold that distance. Clearly, that may not have happened here. But there's something that's not ringing true with the story.

And what I would do, there's a part two to this, which is how to deal with his infatuation with her. But I would request a meeting with, tell him he wants to meet with the supervisor and request that you come along. Okay. And ask to hear the whole story from the supervisor and request that you come along. Okay. And ask to hear the whole story from the supervisor's perspective because there's something in the – I'm not buying it. Do clients sleep with their therapist? Absolutely. The therapist lose their license all the time for that?

Absolutely. So does it happen? Yes. But this idea that there was no therapy and she was just, there's something I'm not buying. Okay. It sounds like he is, well, I'm completely making up a story here, okay? Yeah. It feels like that he may have had a great relationship or great interaction with her or felt comfortable talking to her in a way that he does not feel comfortable talking to you. And depending on what his CP, um, TSD is or what it roots from, he might take the

feeling of comfort as a feeling of intimacy and love that he does not have with you. So a good therapist would say, Hey, the way, will I practice that, that interaction so he can take that home to you. And then if you can't, if you are cold or hard or mean to him or whatever or exhausted or tired or then y'all go to therapy together to practice that interaction together.

Okay. Yep. But I almost wonder if he is coming up with a story to give him the ability to create distance with you because he doesn't have the courage to say he's not okay in this relationship right now. Is that plausible? Yeah, I never thought of it like that.

I can't imagine that the supervisor would not have called him in for a meeting, talked through all the things that happened, sent him directly to another therapist, gone through all the – he would have all that stuff. Yeah. And for him just to say like, no, we called it – I'm not – there's something – it's just fishy. Yeah. all that I'm not something there's it's just fishy yeah one of my supervisors on the on the board of one of the licensure agencies it's just not how I hear it work I could

be completely wrong Kathleen okay and that but yeah it's something fishy I would you have to go through him but I would get in touch with the supervisor and so you can hear the story get the full picture of what's going on here part two is none of that really matters. What matters is your husband has told you

he's infatuated in love, has feelings for somebody else. That's what you have to deal with. All this other stuff is a distraction. Yeah. How, why, was it at work? Was it my therapist? Was it the lifeguard?

Was it somebody at a restaurant? Like, it doesn't matter. Your husband's looked at you and said, I have feelings for somebody else, not you. Yeah. Talk to me about that. That's tough. I mean, we've been together 16 years married 13

um he said if it was outside of therapy it wouldn't have happened because he went in looking for help and he became vulnerable because therapy um i don't know how to deal with that well make no mistake it's a both and here. He's a grown man who makes choices. And if his story is 100% true, which it might be, he was absolutely taken advantage of. So both things are true. And you can find yourself talking to a therapist and like so one of the things I would teach my grad students is you may have to ask about like a common question we're talking about marriage issues how often are y'all intimate how often do y'all sleep together I asked that question on this show right but I'm asking

for data I'm asking for a data point I don't't take the next question, which is, so how is it? See what I'm saying? Yeah. What's your, what's your favorite positions? What's your favorite moves? What's your favorite, like what are things she doesn't like?

Oh, I would love that. See what I'm saying? Now we're in a totally different relationship. Oh yeah. Okay. And so I can imagine a guy with complex ptsd who is um trying to figure out how did his body his nervous system to feel safe enough to do relationships i can imagine him

just answering the questions before him and you get a voyeuristic grad student who just drags him underwater i could i could see that happening yeah and also the moment he says i'm in love with her is the moment as a grown man he has to say, I don't know what kind of relationship this is, but it's too far. So it's both and, right? What I'm more concerned about is the aftermath. Because he has continued. He doesn't see her anymore. Is that correct?

Correct. Does he not text her, call her, email her? Nothing. Are you certain? As far as I know, yes. What does that mean? I mean, he says he's not, but... Yeah, that works out good.

And he's talking to another therapist about it. Okay. So, do you want to stay married to this guy? I do. Does he know that? Yes. Does he want to stay married to you? Not sure. Okay. You need want to stay married to you? Not sure.

Okay. You need to get an answer to that question. I've asked him and he said he's not sure. Because he doesn't know who he is. Because he's trying to figure out who he is. Yeah, that's nonsense. That's nonsense. We only find out who we actually are in relationship.

That other stuff is postmodern nonsense. Like, I've got to find me and you just wait here patiently while I find me. That other stuff is postmodern nonsense. Like, I gotta find me and you just wait here patiently while I find me. That's stupid. He can only truly find himself when he's anchored into you. Y'all been married for 15 or 16, I mean, y'all been together for 16 years.

Yeah. Right? Yep. We have a daughter together. Of course. So, I... Let me say this. He may be all twisted up. What's his PTSD from? His mom, his dad wasn't really around. And when he did see his dad, there was a lot of drug paraphernalia around.

His mother was here, but not really here. He had to fend for himself and do things on his own, even from a young age. Okay, but that's not sexual abuse. I mean, that's trauma. That's not good, but that's not... I'm just going to be honest with you, Kathleen. There's a part of the story that just doesn't... The puzzle pieces aren't fitting together.

Okay. I don't know that he's telling you the truth. Okay. And beyond that, you have to own reality, right? You have to choose reality. You can want to stay married to him. You can want to love him. And if he doesn't want to stay married to you, he can do that.

Yeah. And that's not the world you chose not the world you want but if you want to heal this marriage you have to get in the mud with him and help him rebuild because y'all got to build something new yep but you have to take both

it takes both of you to do it okay here's how I would start that conversation I would actually take him out and maybe you want to go on the expedition with talking to his original therapist and yada, yada, yada. That seems to be a secondary matter here. The real issue is you don't trust him,

but you do love him. And you want to be sensitive to his, whatever diagnostics he has. But also he needs to be a grown man and treat you with dignity and respect. You're his wife for God's sakes and any anger

or rage you have that comes out on him that makes the house cold you gotta deal with that from you right? yep do you get angry?

do you get frustrated? do you get mad? um sometimes yeah sometimes sometimes sometimes um Um, sometimes, yeah. But I'm just... Eh, sometimes. Sometimes.

Um, we had, like... We've been together, but we really haven't been together because for the last 10 years we've been, like, together, but, like, he's been so cold and put walls up because when he gets close to somebody, he puts walls up. And that's a whole nother intro of our marriage. Have y'all gone to marriage counseling together? No.

Okay. Y'all need to do that ASAP. Okay. I think your marriage is on life support and you don't even know it. I actually wonder if your marriage is over and y'all just haven't called it yet. Okay.

It sounds like he left you a long time ago. He just sleeps in the same bed still. Yep. And as a part of the healing process, the regaining trust process, when somebody says, I've been unfaithful to you, I have stepped out on you, et cetera,

it's very common to say, okay, part of the rebuilding trust is, hand me your phone. I want to see your emails. I want to see your emails. I want to see your phone. Okay. And if there's no text messages to this person, he's not back and forth,

still in relationship with this person, yada, yada, yada, then great. Yeah. And if he says, you can't ever see my phone, no chance, then you need to let him know if that's one of your stipulations, then you're not interested in saving this marriage

he's opting out yeah okay is that scary to death yes 100 i wonder how long you've been avoiding that fear and at the same time you've kind of buried a big chunk of yourself yeah over the last 10 years yeah i say this all the time on the show, probably too much, but behavior is a language. What's he telling you for the last decade? Yeah. What is it? That you're not here, that you don't want this. No, use his words.

What is he telling you through his actions over the last 10 years? Nothing, because he puts up walls and he just get up, we go to work. Nothing. Okay. Are you done living like that? Yeah. Let him know. I want to see you fight for your marriage.

And it might be a fight that you get knocked out. You might lose the fight, but I want to at least see you get in there in the ring and go for it. Take him out and say, hey, not for the last 10 years, you've been cold. No, no, no. I'm not going to do that because he's just going to build those walls back up and he's going to be gone. You'll never be able to touch him. But if you sit down and say, I want more for my life. I love you. I want you to be my husband. And I want to be together.

But I can't keep doing this. I want to build something brand new. I want to start dating again. I want to fall back in love with each other. Are you in? And he might look at you and say no. But the whole, I don't know, I just go to find myself, bull crap on a stick with a pony and a box of farts. It's just not a thing. And he's getting thing. And whatever.

Whatever. As somebody who watched way too much Dawson's Creek, and I loved Dawson's Creek back in the day, but it's too much. Turn the lights off, turn the music off, stop the dance, and just say, hey, we got to talk. We got to figure out what next steps are. And hopefully he'll be a person of courage and integrity and tell you the truth either way. I wish you guys the best, Kathleen. We'll be a person of courage and integrity and tell you the truth either way. I wish you guys the best, Kathleen. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks, let's talk about hallow.

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Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, we're back. Hey, real quick, my favorite health and fitness podcast is by far my buddies, Doug, Justin, Adam, and even Sal, the great guys at Mind Pump. The hosts communicate fitness, health, and fat loss, all the things that we've wondered about, and all of the nonsense we've been told for years and years and years and years and years. These are guys I call personally. I pick up my cell phone and call them personally

when I'm working through a particular issue or I have a negative mindset around health, fitness, nutrition, or I just can't figure out the answer. These guys are the best. They've been working with people for well over two decades. They're former personal trainers who built businesses, who then got sick of the industry and said, this is hurting people more than it's helping people. We're changing everything. And

by the way, they're hilarious. They're fun to listen to. They got some good conspiracy. They're just, it's a great listen. And as Kelly will say, they're all smoke shows, right? So go check out Mind Pump at mindpumppodcast.com. All right, let's roll out to Amanda in Fort Worth, Texas. What's up, Amanda? Yeehaw. Hello, Dr. John. How are you? Partying. What are you up to? Oh, I'm just kind of taking a break from the work day, waiting on the solar cooks about to happen. It's not real. The big foots are coming out and the earth's going to get reflatters. I don't know what's happening. Jeez Louise. I did. Nevermind. I could go down a rabbit hole. All right. So what's up? What's up? So a little over a year ago, my husband and I had a pretty unfortunate accident.

I'm totally a freak thing that happened. My dogs happened to be wrestling in our utility room and my husband was outside the house and he heard that and he barged through the door as i was leaning down to grab a dog and ended up i had a very large laceration to my head from the doorknob handle oh what if he hit you in the face? It was in my face. It was across my forehead, 12 stitches, and it went down to the skull, severed nerves, severed muscles. It was very traumatic. I have since healed mostly.

It did leave me with quite a bit of nerve damage, though, and that comes in the form of several nerve shocks a day. Most of them happen towards the end of several nerve shocks a day. Most of them happen towards the end of the day. And so my big concern is my husband, you know, who I absolutely have never laid a single ounce of blame on this situation. Obviously though, he is a man has taken on a lot of responsibility from that incident. And how can I help him work through that? Because, you know, these nerve pains, they're kind of a part of my life now. And I can see when he sees me in pain, like how, you know, just wrought with guilt he is. What a wild situation, man.

So wild. By the way, this is just totally an aside, but is there any chance you want to produce a podcast because someone who is as kind, as forgiving as you versus Kelly would be amazing. I love him unconditionally.

No, we're very simple people. All right. Well, I tried. Okay, so you're not going to like my answer. Here's my answer. You can't help him. He has to decide that he is not going to carry this around as some sort of entry point into intimacy and relationship with you. And so that's super frustrating for you. Can I be kind of gross about it? He is taking your pain and making it his now as a way to try to level the field. That's how I feel like the situation is.

Like when it all happened and he's not a good person in, in with blood and he really was such a trooper. And I know, you know, we live in, you know, kind of a smaller rural area. And I know if we didn't go to our rural, uh, hospital that I'm sure there would have been police involved and that would have just caused even more trauma to the situation. I mean, he obviously is very regretful over it. You know, again, we couldn't have staged it to happen any more perfectly, you know, as terrible of a word as that is for the situation, but we couldn't have made it happen that way

as bad as it ended up. So I think you said that. I thought of a couple of jokes I'm not going to make, but yeah, I can imagine you going to a rural, him driving you to a rural hospital. Be a very different experience than if you were to not. It really was, yeah. Jeez. All right, here's what I would say with you. How long ago was this? A little over a year ago.

Okay. So in January of last year. All right, so we are past the one year anniversary of the great door in the face incident. I think you should name it. That'd be incredible. Y'all should have like a thing for it every year where he has to for one day,

put like a laceration makeup on his forehead and we'll just walk around town. That'd be awesome. Here's the deal. I would tell him, I would take him out and say, we're going to talk about the time you hit me in the face with a doorknob. And then I want you to be pretty direct with him and say, rather wallow in shame than accept my forgiveness and you and i continue building an amazing marriage together because that's what he's doing

yeah he's choosing to say woe is me look at me too and there's not a look at him i mean yeah of course he feels guilt i would feel terrible do. Do you have a big scar on your forehead? I do. And most people are like, oh, I don't see it. But, you know, of course, when I look in the mirror, I see it every day. But, again, none of it is a resent towards him. It's just, oh, man, that stinks. You know, that's really how I choose to live my life.

And, you know, even with the nerve shocks, you know, they just, you know, it's a quick, like, two seconds across my head, sitting on the couch, watching TV, you know, I'll twinge my face for a second. And then I just continue on with my conversations. Like I just don't even miss a beat anymore because it's such a, can they, yeah, is it ablation? Can they do an ablation on them to burn off the end? It's a trigeminal nerve in my face. So they couldn't do it. You'd look, you'd get a stroke all the time. Yeah, geez Louise, what a mess. Okay, so I would hand him a journal and say this is the last discussion we're going to have about this.

And I want him to write down in the journal whenever he feels guilty, when he sees you from across the room and he gets that feeling in his gut. And you come out, you don't have any makeup on and you got a big scar across your he gets that feeling in his gut. And you come out, you don't have any makeup on, and you got a big scar across your head, and it's in the morning sunlight,

and he just feels that, and it reminds him of all the blood, and you screaming, and the dogs barking, all that stuff. And then driving to the ER, and him thinking he's going to get arrested, all the stuff.

His job is to pull out that journal and write down the thought or feeling he has and then to write on the other side is this true i'm a terrible husband that i did this to my wife no i'm not i'm not yeah we had an accident and she's forgiving me my wife is always going to hate me for this she's not my wife looks like frankenstein no she doesn't like my wife is always going to be in pain because i'm such a terrible no that's not true did you hit her with a door yes it is you know the difference between guilt and shame um it's this like this idea of i was talking about

bricks in a backpack so when he hit you in the face with a door, imagine you handed him a cinder block and said, you have to carry this for a minute because you hit me in the face with a door. That's guilt. That's good. It's not a bad thing. He'll come indoors slower next time, right?

You learn from guilt. Guilt is a good teacher. But then somewhere along the way, you forgave him and said, it's a freak accident. They happen I was on the end of the receiving end of this thing. I'm, so sorry. I love you. You're my husband We're gonna get through this together Thank you for whatever and then he decided to take that brick and stick it in his backpack and carry it around forever

That's shame It's not I did something stupid or I did something accidental or I hurt my wife on accident It is i'm somebody who hurts their wife I'm somebody who Disfigured his like that's who I am. That's my personality. That's my that's my identity now and it's bullcrap and he's choosing to carry that Even though you've said stop carrying that so I want you to a call them out This is not your pain to carry and make this all about you. This isn't your story. This is my story

I'm the one that got hit in the face with a doorknob And I forgive you and your refusal to accept my forgiveness hurts I'd like us to be I'd like you to end that now and You are gonna have to deal with your feelings for a season, for a year or two, three more years, the guilt. That's fine. That's part of life.

But I want you to carry this journal around and write these things down. And I want you to challenge those thoughts about I don't love you, about how this is always going to be this way, about how you're a bad guy because you're not. And any choice to dwell on the negative stuff is a choice to be miserable.

It's a choice to call me a liar. And here's my promise. If you will practice working on those automatic thoughts, those automatic pictures of like, he's just sitting there. He sees you. He sees that scar. His body remembers all the blood. He can pull that notebook out, write it down.

I almost killed my wife. Is that true? No, that's not true. I'm a terrible husband. No, I'm not terrible. He can pull that notebook out, write it down. Almost killed my wife. Is that true? No, that's not true. I'm a terrible husband. No, I'm not terrible. And over time, you'll change your body's default setting to where you don't instantly default to the thing. You'll default to joy, optimism, happiness, the thing that you practice.

Look how beautiful she is. Can you imagine having a wife so amazing that she forgives like that? That holds no anger, rage, or anything like that? And then I do like the idea of every year on the anniversary of the great, I hit my wife in the face with a doorknob incident. I would love him to put some makeup on and just go to Walmart. That'd be awesome. But at the end of the day, he's the one who's got to decide, I'm not going to carry this anymore.

You can't free him from it. You've tried. You can't free him from it. He's making it a part of his identity and he has to stop. I'm going to send you a copy of my number one bestselling book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. It talks about those stories, how they happen, how people tell us events happen like this, trauma happens, and a step-by-step process on how to change those thoughts from constant negative, constant worry, constant shame to something that is more productive,

something that's more relational, something that's more vulnerable, something that is more productive moving down the road. So hang on the line here. I'm going to hook you up, and that'll be my gift. Appreciate you. I'm glad. Man, you're an amazing sport. I hope that if somebody does that to me one day, hurts me someday, that I will have the attitude you have. You're pretty amazing. Thanks for the call, Amanda.

We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work.

We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist.

Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself and where you can 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 Better Help. Better Help 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 therapists 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 dot com slash Deloney. All right, we're back. Let's go out to Des Moines, Des Moines, Iowa and talk to Frances. What's up, Frances? I'm glad you got the name right in a second. Of course. How are you? I'm good. I'm super nervous. Oh, don't be nervous. You're good.

You're good. Yeah. I just want to let you know it's truly a pleasure to watch you help people. I really appreciate what it is that you do. If you could send me a quick email that actually tells me what it is that I do because I'm still trying to figure that part out. I feel like I talk on the phone for a living. No, hey, thank you so much. That means the world to me. Appreciate that. All right. So how can I help you? What's up? Okay. So I have a couple of questions. One is, when is a good time to tell someone that you're dating, you have cancer, had cancer. And then two, what steps should I avoid in the future, dating-wise, to avoid the mistakes that I've made in the past?

Those seem like two really disparate, like very different answers. I mean, I'm sorry, different questions. Tell me about cancer. So I was diagnosed in 2022. I ended up with six months of chemo, double mastectomy, radiation, more chemo. Finished the chemo last year and did reconstructive surgery last winter. Have you exhaled yet?

I exhaled after I had my first follow-up appointment. That was a big exhale and everything was clear. Are you at three months still or are you up to six months now? Six months. Okay. Yep. Everything looks good? Everybody's optimistic? Yep. months. Okay. Yep. Everything looks good? Everybody's optimistic?

Yep. That's amazing. Yep. Now, how long have you believed that you were the problem? A long time. A long time. And I had anxiety before I got cancer, but then cancer was like, No, no, no, of course you did.

My beard. Well, I mean, it's just what your body will do. I mean, have you thought you were something wrong with you your whole life? Yeah. How deep-seated is that? Pretty deep. yeah how deep-seated is that pretty deep like it's bedrock for you who in the world told you that nonsense i think it was more my parents weren't around okay like at all did you experience any sort of abuse as a kid i don't think abuse, but my dad left to work out of state, and I had a really hard time with that.

Sure. He would go away for months, and then my mom took second shift job, so my siblings and I were all alone. Okay. And then my older sister that took care of us, she was also bulimic, and she would take us out on her binge runs and then purge. So it was almost like I didn't want to bother anybody, if that makes sense. Exactly, and you bottled every bit of that up.

Yep. Now, people who are listening want to know how I got there so fast. The first question you asked me is, when I'm dating somebody, when do I tell them I had cancer? For your whole life,

you've been leading with the worst thing. You feel like you have to get it out, all out on the table, all the bad stuff about you because you're so unlovable. No one would ever want to be around you. And then your second question was, how do I keep making the same mistakes over again? My guess is you self-sabotage and burn relationships as they're going,

just so they don't crash. Is that true? I'm either super anxious with somebody I'm really into, or I'm not super into somebody somebody. Um, and it's more calm if that makes sense. But yeah, totally. I also was reading a book about attachment styles and obviously I'm anxious, but, um, you know, I had that, I had that happen with my dad and he was never really there for me. When I asked him his opinion, he said he wouldn't give it to me. He wanted to make my own.

He wanted me to make my own decisions. He didn't want to influence them. So I just stopped going to him with anything because he wouldn't help. So I got married really young because my husband was super in a secure family. His dad was like my dad. He was awesome. I could go to him with anything. But things changed so much. He ended up switching personalities almost

and started talking about killing people. And I asked him to stop. He said it was normal. All of his friends did it. And then I was like, I went to a counselor, and she's like, that is not normal. You need to get out of there. Yeah, good for you. How long ago was that?

I left in 2006. Okay. How long did you blame yourself for it? Your bad judgment? How long did you blame yourself for that? Oh. Well, I always feel like I could have done something

different. I could have reacted stronger. Exactly. Somehow you made that your fault too. A guy talking about murdering people. You figured out a way to make that about that you screwed something up. So I'm coming to this and this is going to be a sensitive conversation. Is that okay

if we go here? Yeah. Okay. Breast cancer is the C word scary. It is. The double mastectomy is disfiguring. And I know I've sat with multiple women who've experienced that and there's such a profound loss, not just of the actual body part, but of this identity,

this feminine, like all this stuff that feels like it just left. Right. And then you've got scars. Nobody talks about scars, right? Yeah. There's so many scars. That's right. And you know, you already have lumps and bumps.

You had scars on top of it and numbness. Right. You're not the same person. You're not. You are, but it feels different. Yeah. And in a twisted, weird way, this cancer confirmed the things you've thought about yourself since you were a little girl. And it's not true.

And now you're terrified of having a great dinner, falling in love, and feeling like you have some big, deep, dark secret to share. Like there's somehow, like something's broken in you and there's not you beat cancer yeah is that fair yeah do you make a lot of jokes about it and lead with it all the time yeah yeah yeah yeah you don't have to pull chin hairs out when you're doing chemo. That's a great joke, actually. I know. That's a good joke. Yeah.

I'm going to do mentoring. Okay. Of fellow breast cancer survivors. For people going through breast cancer as well. You can find meaning on the back end of the grief. That's beautiful. It's amazing. But you have to give your body some grace.

Your dad took off. His job was more important than you. And that's not a, there are veterans who go away for a year and come back and their daughters know that they are loved because daddy never unplugged, right? Yeah. They got a letter in the mailbox once or twice a week. They got FaceTime. They got lectures, like just dumb dad lectures because dads can't shut up like me. And like they knew they were loved.

So it's not about dad had to go work. It's about dad chose job over you. Yeah. Mom had to keep everything together. There was a lot of fighting. Yes, of course it's chaos of course like divorced and i promise you you don't know the extent of that interaction with him and your mom oh i'm sure yeah lots of stuff went on behind closed doors all i have to say is this

um if you follow anything on social media about attachment there's a guy named adam lane smith who's kind of the emerged as one of the the leading voices on attachment theories um and i called him recently and was just like hey man walk me through this long story short attachment attachment um styles are not in concrete or stone okay Okay. They're just, they're just like, you know, like the left lane is for those going faster and the right lane

is for those driving slower. Mm-hmm. I mean, you don't have to. You can drive slower in the left-hand lane. And so, you can identify,

oh, my body's got an anxious attachment because two of the most important people in my whole world left me when I was a kid. I've got an anxious attachment because my maternal figure, my sister, was really struggling with some dangerous mental health challenges. And I was terrified at the back of that car.

And so, now you meet somebody and your body starts to sound the alarms because you kind of like them. Just be cognizant of it. Your body's just keeping you safe.

It's doing the, it's doing the job right. It's letting you know, hey, Francis, love gets us killed, remember? And you're like trying to grab his hand

or something. And it's going to make you as anxious as possible to get you out of that situation. All the things I'm telling you is this. You won't have peace until you decide to stop fighting Francis. Francis is good. Francis is amazing.

Francis has survived childhood. Francis survived a psychotic divorce Francis survived cancer and now Francis is trying to survive dating in the 21st century yeah right so when is the right time to tell somebody

you have cancer or had cancer whenever you freaking want to when's the time to hold back and not? Whenever you freaking want to. When's the time to hold back and not tell them? Whenever you want to. There's no rules. Okay. And does the idea of somebody seeing you in an intimate moment with the scars and all,

does that freak you out? Does that make you nervous or scared? Oh, yeah. Yep. Can I do something kind of weird? Kelly is also a breast cancer survivor. She's been down the road. You were talking about.

Kelly, can you come on for a sec? Yeah. Hey, Frances. Hey. Hey. So I'm a little, I'm a few years farther down the road than you. Just a few. She's so much older than you, Frances.

That's not what I meant. I meant in the breast cancer road I'm about three years farther down the road than you but you sound a lot like me in the fact that there's a lot of jokes because if you're like me then it's like if I come out front with the jokes then it lets everybody know I'm okay

and like I'll say the joke before anybody else can, kind of thing. And then it kind of, I feel like it disarms people and then it probably kind of covers any issue that I have with it. Put it this way, because of scars, like you have, I get that. In my house, we call them Franken boobies.

So jokes abound. And I'm married and, you know, and I know that it's a little different, but I even had issues with it with my husband. I mean, God knows he never said anything. He never would. But I understand the idea of, because it's a femininity thing. I don't look like I thought I would or like I used to. Something in me. Did you have reconstruction?

Yeah. Okay. But it looks different because there are scars. First of all, I'll tell you, they fade a lot. In the past couple years, it might have really faded a lot. So just know that, that it does fade a lot. And also, I just, my idea is if somebody has a problem with it, they're not who I want to be with. Yeah. Clearly. I know that, you know, that doesn't help with that idea. But I also look at the idea that, you know what, they're never going to sag. And they're going to look great.

You know, no matter what, they're going to look great. It's the silver lining. That's true. Yeah, it's the silver lining. And so I think your attitude about the jokes and stuff is great because, you know, you have to. Can I ask you about, can I ask, Frances, I want to ask Kelly about the jokes on your behalf. And Kelly, you and I have talked about this. Every friend I've ever had that had cancer, went through cancer treatment, always finds himself in a position of making sure everyone else in their life is okay. So much.

Your job is to make sure all the friends are okay and the coworkers are, oh my gosh. And so I almost feel like jokes become this, it's like chapstick for chapped lips just to make sure all social situations are cool. Right. And I just want to tell like you, I want to tell Francis, that's not your job. But it becomes this because it's everybody else's emotions are exhausting. Taking care of everybody else's emotions. So if I make the joke, we all know that I'm okay. And so they can all relax too.

So it's, okay. Yeah. Because otherwise people don't know what to say. What do we do? What do we say? We don't know how to handle this. Okay. I'll make a joke.

You'll know I'm okay. We can all go back to our lives. Ah, gotcha. Yeah. And then it's like, oh, she's cool. She made jokes. That's exactly true. Yeah, she's cool.

She's fine. She made jokes. We're all good. And when that one idiot makes the wrong joke, you can say, that's too far. These are my jokes to make. Yeah, and it'll be like, really? Yeah.

All right. Yeah. As Kelly does frequently, she calls HR. So there we go. If I did that, it would just be a constant conversation. Kelly's never called HR. She can't. She's not allowed in the building.

All right. So Francis. Yeah. What things should I be working on with a counselor? Most of the people I've met with over the years who either had cancer or about to pass from cancer, there's a sense of being betrayed by their own body. Like I'm like, we're an embodied experience and my body did this to me. And so it, it, it, it on, um, it pulls the tether on just walking through life because you can't trust the one person that you should be able to trust, which is you.

And so I think with a counselor, I think being able to talk through learning to, like practice, learning to trust yourself again. Second thing is, is not catastrophizing and worst case scenario relationships, romantic relationships, dating, it's a mess.

Right? It's the worst. And so... And it takes a long time Right? It's the worst. And so... And it takes a long time when you're online dating. Ah, geez. Can I tell you something? I actually figure people out. I would love you just to go meet people in real life. Yeah, I know. So, you've probably heard me talk about anxiety

and I'll just give you a two-second quick primer. When you avoid social situations because they make you anxious, your body wins and it actually reinforces the anxiety response. It doesn't want you being around people because you're around your dad and he left. You're around your mom and she went to work. You're around your sister and she wasn't well. You're around a husband and he tried to kill people. Your body knows people aren't okay And so when you go to be in a public setting you go to a local church you go to a meetup

You go to a small concert a singer-songwriter thing. You ask a group of colleagues at work. Hey, let's go out Whatever weird thing you're into um You join a bowling league. I don't I don't know what you're into but you do Your body will try to get your attention and say don't do this Look at all the other evidence we have in our life of how this has gone wrong. And if you don't go, your body relaxes and goes, all right, we got her. We know how to keep her from getting hurt again. We just sound these

anxiety alarms. And so the only way to get that social anxiety to stop beating your door down is to head right out through it. Sometimes that's putting it on the calendar and getting a close friend. We are going to go to ex honky tonk and we're going to dance. We are going to what a karaoke night and I will sing two songs and I will go home and throw up in my bed, but I'm going to do it. Right. But you're practicing putting yourself out there, feeling that anxiety and letting your body know this following statement that's so important. I wasn't okay then, but I'm okay now. I wasn't safe then, but I'm safe now.

And that's the other thing you work on with your counselor is exposure. It's the slowly walking towards the anxiety, not from it. I don't think you're broken, Frances. I think you're pretty freaking amazing. I do some of that. When I do the go-to charity fundraisers, I talk to random people. Do you say, hey, let's go get coffee sometime, then actually call them and actually go get that coffee?

No, I don't go that far. Yeah, you should do that. Otherwise, you're going to keep talking to random people, and you're going to pass that off as social connection, and it's not. Okay. It's a high five. It's a game that people play at those events to feel like we were with people. You can be lonely in a crowded room.

That's been most of your life. That's true. Can I ask you one more ugly question? Sure. What has that got you? Turtling up and choosing loneliness, what has that got you? Being alone. There you go.

There you go. Let's choose. We can agree that that doesn't work. That's not bringing us peace. That's not bringing us laughter. That's not bringing us warmth, joy, intimacy. It's not bringing us any of those things. Yep.

So let's go choose to be weird. Let's go choose to be weird. Let's go choose connection. Let's go choose. Hey, we're getting cups of coffee. Three of us. Let's go.

And one doesn't show up. And so there's just two of you. And you say, well, this got real weird. No, any good cancer jokes. Don't,

don't, don't do that. You'll freak out. But you're worth, you're worth connecting with. Fair. Yeah. All right.

Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of a building a non-anxious life and it's walking through. I want you to begin to follow those six, six steps. So six daily choices. I want you to make them a part of your life, tattoo them on your heart and make them a part of the way you live. Interact with you. And man, you're gonna make somebody real

happy. Somebody who's not into murder. You're gonna make them real happy one day. I'm proud of you, Francis. You're a survivor. You're not a survivor. You're a butt kicker, dude. Good job. 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. Kelly, you said you wanted to spring something on me.

Yeah, I'm calling a bit of an audible today. So for those that don't know, I go through all the emails that we get to the show and we get about 150 a day. So y'all got things to say. Probably 40 to 50% of those mention a term, whether it be about their spouse, half the time it's about their mother-in-law, their own parent or something that I wonder if people are using correctly. Do

they understand it? So on. So I wanted to ask you about it. What is a narcissist? Have you ever looked in a mirror? I'm playing you're not a narcissist you're pretty wonderful um i actually love bernie brown's definition the shame-based fear of being ordinary um at the end of the day it's a pathology a narcissist is somebody who has no regard for anybody's feelings, concerns, wants, needs, and everything is a, everyone, everything, every interaction is fuel in their engine to get them where they want to go. They will run over people, they will crush people, they will hurt people,

and they won't feel bad about it. That is one of the most obnoxiously overused words. Most people have never been around a true narcissist. They are terrifying. Because it's an actual diagnosis, correct? It is a clinical diagnosis. And it's not just a jerk. Most people use narcissists on people they don't like,

want them to do things that they don't like, or that someone's just a jerk. And they're like, no, your mother-in-law's probably, probably not a narcissist. She just whines a lot. Or she's had to, that's how she's had to get power in her own house because her husband was an idiot or whatever. Like, you can be an idiot or whatever.

Like, you can be an idiot. You can be a jerk. You can be a moron and not a clinical narcissist. Narcissists care about nothing. They are so terrified, deep, deep, deep, deep in their core that they're like everybody else. And they will burn up everybody in that path. And so there is some narcissism that people who give gifts as a means of control. Look what I did for you. So you're going to, right?

But it's all about, they'll even do nice things, but all that is part of the game to get whatever I want and the control of everybody. And I don't care about any. So all I have to say is just for 99.9% of the time, swap out the word narcissist and just say jerk. And interestingly, I think Kelly, that's harder to deal with. It's easier to say my mother-in-law is just a narcissist. It's easier to write her off as some sort of clinical pathology we do with our kids. Well, my kid just got ADHD. No, maybe, maybe not, right? And so it's easier just to toss a label at them, a clinical diagnostic, and then move on.

It's way harder to deal with my mother-in-law's a jerk because now I got to deal with that. Now I got to wade into that, right? Most of the time, almost all the time, people are not clinical narcissists. So there you go. If you want more, you can go to JohnDeLorey.com. I think I've got a journal article up about it or something like that.

But they're probably not a narcissist. They're probably just an idiot. Or maybe they told you something you didn't like. Or maybe they asked you to do things you don't want to do and you just don't like saying no because you don't have any boundaries. You're in control of you. Love you guys. Bye.