The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Has Been Lying to Me for Almost 30 Years!

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A wife devastated after learning her husband of 29 years has been hiding disturbing secrets - A follow-up call on a little girl who has made a miraculous medical recovery - A woman unsure of how to confront her new friend about her overbearing behavior Lyrics of the Day: "The Lost Art of Keeping a Secret" - Queens Of The Stone Age 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 Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. How can I heal after finding out my husband has been keeping secrets from me throughout our entire 28-year marriage? But the most disturbing to me is that he had showed to these random online people photos of me, sexualizing me. Hey, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, the greatest mental health and marriage podcast ever. Ever. So glad that you're with us.

Hope your family's well. Hope you're well. And we are going to get into the deep end of the pool today. If you want to be on this show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. Don't forget, don't forget, if you are in need of supplements,

we have a great partnership with Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E, the best supplements on the planet, in my opinion. It's what I've used. My family's used for years and years and years. And we have partnered together to give you guys 25% off everything. And it's really a gift from us to you. 25% off everything in the store.

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let's go to Rebecca in Medford, Oregon. What's up Medford? Not Medford. What's up, Rebecca? How are we doing? Hi, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call. I'm a really big fan. I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much. I'm grateful for you. What's up? I'm just wondering, I found out some very shocking things 10 months ago. I found it out all in one day. My question is, how can I heal after finding out my husband has been keeping secrets from me throughout our entire 28-year marriage? What kind of secrets? I just had a... I'm not one to check phones, babysit, as I call it, check his computer. But I had a weird feeling, and I checked his computer. And what I found out was completely overwhelming. He had reached out to an ex-girlfriend two years prior. Nothing came of it, but he had reached out. I found out he had a porn addiction, lots and lots of porn. It seemed to have escalated, it looked like, into some kinks. idea that he was into. He was reaching out to couples. He was in chat rooms. The way that he was

speaking to other people was definitely not the person I knew. We're very close. We've been best friends for so long. We just, you know, we're very close. We have each other's backs. I know him inside and out, and I feel like he knows me, except I have never once lied to him. The way he was speaking to these people was crass, graphic, but the most disturbing to me is that he had showed to these random online people photos of me, sexualizing me, describing my measurements, and a desire of me to be with another man in front of him. They weren't nude photos of me, but they were racy photos, you know, just shorts and like a low-cut tank top that, you know, I just would never, ever in a million years think that he would share that with someone. And all these things I found out were so shocking.

And I just found out more and more stuff as I read through. I started crying. I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach and that everything I knew about him was, it just switched in a moment's time. I just, I had no idea he felt this way or that he was even capable of doing something like this. So this was 10 months ago. Yeah. Tell me about the last 10 months. How's that gone? Well, I, I kicked him out. We have a trailer. So I kicked him out to get some space. I was furious.

I couldn't stand to even look at him. How did he, how did he take that? Did he say, I understand? Or did he go kicking and screaming? At first, no. At first he gaslit me and made excuses until when I approached him. I gave him a chance to be honest on his own and he was not. And it wasn't until I presented him with there in black and white what I read. And he could not deny it anymore. And then

he became, no, he left willingly. Um, he let me kick and scream. Um, he took it and then he was just, he wrote me a letter after letter, after letter while he was gone, just he's in deep shame. I'm extremely remorseful. I'm crying. Um, it's been a rough 10 months, um, very up and down. And he, I mean, he went so far as he made a list of everything he was going to do to get better and has followed through with most of it. Um, he may, you know, he became very transparent. He put locks on anything porn-related. He just quit overnight, it seems, just us in marriage counseling, if I would agree. And that has not happened. We've actually been for 10 months. He's been fighting with the insurance company and not getting a response.

Yeah, I don't care. I don't care about that. Yeah. So how can I help you? Sounds like just the whole world blew up. It blew up. I didn't know how we would go on. Right.

I felt trapped. Sure. I felt absolutely trapped, overwhelmed, and we had just moved out of state. And I thought I would, I told him I would have never made this move with you if I had known this was going on. Sure. The hardest part for me now. Yeah. How can I,

how can I help you? Yeah. From just my point of view is that I feel I don't trust myself. I don't trust him. I don't trust any other men. So I feel helpless in that. I feel disoriented. And the anger, like I do really well.

We do fine. And then all of a sudden the anger will pop up and it keeps popping up. And I want to heal from this. I want to get better. It's going to take a long time. How long? 11 months, four four days three hours um so good i got my calendar right put a star by it it'll it'll it come fully clean so that's number one yep okay yep

um number two it's very rare that this happens that somebody says i was completely blown away caught off guard that remember that movie the six The Sixth Sense with Bruce Willis? And remember the end of that movie and you're like, oh no. And they actually do a really amazing job of showing you all the places where you missed it. Yes. And it's easy to look back on your life and go, oh no, oh no, right? And that's that sense of, I think I knew this all along or parts of this or not all of it, but, oh my gosh, this makes sense. And then I remember this conversation. I remember this question. And then that's that feeling you get, which is most people don't realize that when somebody's cheating on you or unfaithful in any number of ways, the most disorienting thing is you don't trust yourself anymore. Like, man, how did I miss all of this? Right. I also think that this is a little unique

situation and here's why. It feels like you don't know this guy and you can't trust this guy and everything about him is a lie. That's not true. Okay. He is the guy that sat with you and I'm just going to make up some stuff. I don't know if any of that's not true okay he is the guy that sat with you and i'm just going to make up some stuff i don't know if any of this is true but he is the guy that sat with you when your mom got sick he was the guy that showed up on christmas morning like those things happened and those are real and you can't throw all of that out that happened okay okay um and it's real easy to be like none of this is real none of this is true that's that's a defense mechanism. It is.

The harder part is dealing with the paradox of you sat with me and held my hand while my dad passed away and then you went home and got on our computer and that's a harder thing to deal with than just swinging that thing, my husband's perfect, my husband's the devil. It's always in the middle.

Always in the middle. Okay? Here's where I think this is a little bit unique. And I hope I say this the right way in a way that comes across that makes sense. He clearly violated your trust and he violated, he kept secrets from you. Okay. Yeah. When it comes to things i'm interested in or it comes into a fantasy world um that's not uncommon okay it's heartbreaking and it makes people sad but it's not uncommon okay where he crossed a line for me is for me personally is above and beyond a normal guy got started looking at pornography and kind of got sucked down a rabbit hole and ended up you know in some chat rooms and just it becomes dungeons and dragons a pornographic dungeons and

dragons right it's a fantasy world so super separate from the real world okay that as crazy as it sounds that that doesn't bother me that is i mean it bothers me in the clearly hurting people it's not weird or crazy okay yeah what's weird and crazy is taking pictures of your wife and putting them on the internet and saying hey any any seekers here's her measurements that to me is such another layer of a violation here that um i i'd have a hard time coming back from that to be honest with you because yeah he's he dragged you into something that you don't even know you're being dragged into no idea right and so i want to validate your i want this to work but i can't seem to make it right like your hurt and violation is very very very real above and beyond what i would call

and i hate to use this word it's just the world i'm in a normal um pornography addiction or a normal um uh violation like someone's someone is you know spending time erotic time in a fantasy pornography addiction or a normal violation. Like someone is spending time, erotic time in a fantasy world. This is above and beyond. And so the question you have to ask yourself is, are you playing house or are you playing married just on your terms? Meaning you kicked him out, but I still go to dinner with him. We've still been intimate.

We're still friends. We're still hanging out all the time. But then I just get raged out. And what you're doing is you're trying to heal a wound, but you keep pulling the Band-Aid off. Yeah. Is that fair? Yes. Yes.

Okay. Absolutely. You've got, and I hate to bring his feelings into this, but they are a part of it because y'all have been married a long time and his feelings are a part of you, whether you want them to be or not. It can be cruel too. Yeah, he gets hurt. Well, it's a form of punishment.

I'm going to punish you through this, right? Yeah. And that doesn't help anybody do anything. That's a waste of energy and time. What you have to decide is, what do I need right now? And I'm telling you, just as your friend, if you need, I need to cut off contact with you for a season, feel fully empowered. And no, it is hell on the other side of that. Yeah.

It's lonely. It's sad. It's heartbreaking. And that doesn't mean it's the other side of that. Yeah. It's lonely. It's sad. It's heartbreaking. And that doesn't mean it's the wrong thing. Okay. Okay. And if everybody's telling you, you just leave him, you forget this guy's a bum, whatever. And you say, this is my husband and we're going to figure this out.

I said, till death do us part, come what may, I'm here. That's going to be a bumpy ride too. And so maybe the best gift I could give you is there is no smooth ride out of this the hard part is nobody knows that's right I have a therapist but I just needed to talk to you

to even say it out loud because nobody knows they think he's perfect and so you've heard me say this from the great David Kessler grief demands a witness. And what you're experiencing right now, that anger, that rage, that's grief. Yeah.

That is, we set this sucker up, dude, and you blew it up. Yeah. Right? It feels like grief. It is. That's exactly what it is. You are mourning the death of what was. And now what you get to choose is what is going to be.

And if you choose for what is going to be with him, great. Y'all are going to have to work really hard. And you're going to have to get a new architect to help you draw a new building. And you're going to have to get new contractors to help you build something totally new. Because what you had is over. It's gone. It is. Yeah.

And if you choose, I'm moving into a duplex. I don't want another big building. That's another avenue for you as well. But I haven't seen that very successful. Without some space. Okay. And I have never seen somebody do this successfully by themselves without without telling people out loud they're going to be um you know i mean you can probably guess my fear and that is that i don't want people to judge my husband um yeah but you want i feel isolated

i feel so isolated right and you are continuing to prop up the image of this perfect little family that you had. You have to let that go because it's not real. Yeah, you're right. You're right. And maybe the first step is calling a close friend and letting them, letting her know, I'm about to blow your mind. They will fall down in shock. I mean, I can, you know, they will go through a fraction of what I went through when I found out because I. Why are you protecting them? Why are you protecting him?

I'll tell you why. You've been protecting him your whole marriage. Yeah. Oh, I have. Yeah, I know. Your whole marriage, You've been protecting him your whole marriage. Yeah. Oh, I have. Yeah, I know. Your whole marriage, you've been protecting him. At some point, Rebecca, you have to decide that you're worth being well and you're worth being whole, even if that means the fantasy land you've kept duct taped together for 20 or 30 years is no more.

Yes. What if they say things back that actually hurt me? They will. They will say stupid things. Like, well, what did you do? Is it such a big deal? Like, you will get all that stuff.

Right. And really quickly, you will be able to determine how close these friends actually are. But let me tell you the word, like the word that we're dancing around here that I hate more than anything is vulnerability you only way forward to heal is to vulnerability literally means to

roll over and expose your belly so that another animal can come kill you and hoping that they choose not to and that's what it feels like, right? Oh, that fear. Yeah. Oh my gosh. So let me be very clear. Your friends could roast you. They could destroy you. Mm-hmm.

They can. Yeah. But if you don't find people to talk to, you will be the casualty here. Yeah, it's so isolating. Yes. I feel disoriented. It is. And when you start saying these things out loud and seeing the shock on their face, you're going to get a new perspective of what you're experiencing. So before the day is over, your homework assignment is to call two friends and invite them over and tell them everything.

All of it. Everything. Even the stuff you left out, which I guarantee you left stuff out of this call. And maybe open up to your friends and say, I'm going to need help practicing not protecting him anymore. I'm going to need help wading through all this grief, all this shame, all of this. I should have said something a long, long, long time ago.

I've had these feelings in my guts for years and I just ignored them. You're going to need help practicing trusting Rebecca again. And in many ways, it's going to feel like you're going to rehab and learning how to walk. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll be here with you every step of the way. Call anytime, email anytime, and I'd love to have you back on the show and we can figure this thing out together as we go. But you got to have two people that you call today, invite them over in person tonight, and have that conversation. That, as uncomfortable as it's going to be, is where the healing will begin.

We'll be right back. All right, we are back. I'm super jazzed about this call. No pun intended because John's calling from New Orleans. But this is a follow-up call to a call we had, it was about seven or eight months ago.

Is that right? About August? Yeah. Okay. A call that was haunting and heartbreaking. And we're going to link to the original call in the show notes. Fantastic. But then John's calling with an update.

What's up, man? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, man. How are you? We are... We're surviving. We're doing good, all things considered. Very cool, man. All right, so I've heard you've got an update call. So walk us through, well, I'm going to do a quick recap and you tell me if I've got it or not.

So your daughter got sick. It looked like it was E. coli. And in short fashion, her system started shutting down and the folks at the hospital pulled you in the side room that I've been in too many times and with families. And they said, hey, you've to transfer out of this hospital and go get a second opinion, and they fought you on it, but eventually they let you do it, and they took you to another hospital, and they were like, hey, don't give up on this little girl yet. We think she's going to be okay. Is that a good summary? Yeah.

It's pretty accurate there. Correct. And we transferred to the Children's Hospital here in New Orleans, and our whole world got flipped back upside down again, but in a better way. And Scarlett started recovering. And I think when we spoke last time, I was on like day 38 of what ended up being a 75-day hospital stay and um uh against all odds um this little girl who we were told would never walk never talk um you know have very limited life uh capabilities if if she survived legitimately walked out the front door of the hospital yeah Yeah, dude, that's incredible, man. Carrying balloons, everyone clapping and cheering for her. She made a lot of really, really smart people look dumb.

As kids usually do, right? Oh my gosh. I mean, we're still living in it. We're living in a different, uh, in a different, uh, reality now. Oh yeah. But, um, So what, what limitations does she have now? I'm sorry, say that again? What limitations does she have now? Or is she up and at it running around? Uh, she's up and at it running around. Um, she has some, uh, hyper, uh, flexation of her left knee and some, uh, she postures with her left arm. She's on a feeding tube.

We still have some stuff. She goes to about 45 different appointments a month between physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech, feeding, and seeing all the specialists. She's a very busy little two-year-old. Are you seeing some progress? Oh, yeah. Uh, she's jumping off the couch and doing all this stuff.

The two-year-old is supposed to do and, and scaring us in all the normal ways. Good. Hope she scares you all to death. Not as bad as she did the first time, but the regular, the regular way. Right. Good. Good. Good.

Correct. Well, dude, you, like, as I told you last time, as the dad of a little girl, man, you've lifted my spirits. And I'm really grateful that you called back. Is there anything I can help you with? What's going on in your world now? Oh, yeah. We had a fantastic support system while we were in the hospital. And we got home and everyone went back to their normal lives and routines.

And, you know, my wife and I, we found ourselves, you know, living in a different reality that most people don't understand. And, you know, now that we're six, seven months out of being out of the hospital, we're trying to grieve and process and move forward in our new reality. And what it sounds like, we've been seeing some counselors and what's been described is that me and my wife, we've landed in two different places in our grief and the handling of our new reality. So I'm looking for advice on how we can both work on ourselves, which has been painfully hard to do, so that we can get back to the same place all while managing those 45 appointments, all the feeding issues, running a household, and equally as important, giving proper care and attention to her big sister. Oh, man. Yeah, that's a big one. I'm going to give you a really unconventional, probably not PC answer.

Is that okay? Go for it. I'm almost positive that none of your therapists are going to give you this answer. And it's something I've just been over the last couple of years traveling the country talking to people about trauma and about coming back from some of these things. And here's a couple of really important things. Number one, you got to get rid of the just get back to language. There is no just get back to. What was is completely gone. And so often we spend so much energy trying to get back to the way things were that um and you're experiencing this and i'm trying to read between the lines here but these kind of situations often

break up couples simply because they grieve differently and one person is like how can you be moving on and laughing and carrying on and the other person is like how can you stay mired in this and continue to relive it and relive it am i on the right page yes okay and eventually somebody says i've got to go find joy in my life and eventually somebody says i've got to find somebody who understands the hell i'm in and both of them end up you know a thousand miles apart from each other and so and even though they may be sharing the same bed sitting on the same couch right And both of them end up a thousand miles apart from each other. And even though they may be sharing the same bed, sitting on the same couch, right? And so, have to get rid of any sort of comparison. Think of your old self as your neighbors.

You got a different life, man. There's no benefit to comparing what was. The only thing, and this can actually be fun and exciting in a way to bring people together, is to decide what are we going to build moving forward? What do we want this to look like? That's number one, is we have to decide we're going to build something new, not just get through the next month and the next month and the next month and try to get back to some semblance of normalcy.

Normal's over. The second thing, and this is where people are going to disagree with me and I don't care, I'm right, is I don't think that married couples, after the first, maybe a first couple of months of trauma healing, if a couple is going to make a go of creating a new life together, the healing has to be done together. So after the initial, here's how I'm processing this trauma, here's how I'm processing this trauma, and this is bringing up this stuff in my life, and this is bringing up my lack of control and all that. Great. You got to process these things alone. But the majority of the work,

the bulk of the work has to be done teaching to people, okay, I know you feel like the world's coming to an end every time you open your eyes. It's not. So you have to choose to get up and do hard things like go for a walk and exercise and have sex again and watch funny movies again. And you over here who's just trying to run and be like, it's all going to be great and pretend this never happened. You've got to spend some time grieving on a regular basis. And that might look like journaling. And that might look like a weekly breakfast where you say the words, I'm really scared about, and you answer, right?

And the goal is both people have to do hard things, creating a new tomorrow together. And I think the only way you can do that in y'all situation is to do couples counseling with the intent of we're building something new together we're letting the old thing go okay tell me how does that hit you um it it hits pretty pretty close to home here okay um i think that's something that we're maybe just starting to do with the couples counseling. We're only a couple sessions in. I've been seeing therapists, which is a challenge, and trying to see therapists, which is also a challenge. But getting us together has been difficult.

I would at this point, unless there's some psychiatric issues, meaning one of y'all's on meds now and one of y'all seeing a psychiatrist like absent that I would if I'm in your shoes and again I'm talking to you now just as a dad of a little girl and a guy who's married I would spend the bulk of my energy on how did me and my wife create something new together and not spend all these sessions like, well, he's not doing this and she keeps doing this. That's just not productive. It's just going to send you on a loop, right? And the more you stay on that loop, the more maybe your optimism and your, look how bright everything is, serves as the same defense mechanism that she might have which is this could happen again this could happen again this could happen again and you end up going nowhere right you end up going nowhere and so getting together and saying okay we're going to spend the and maybe you tell your couple's counselor here's what our goals are our goals

are to build something completely new because everything we knew blew up. We almost lost our precious daughter. And now we don't trust the world we walk in. We are catastrophizing everything. One of us can't put the news down. One of us can't quit pretending that it's all going to be rosy and great. I'm tired of driving and I don't have anyone I can say those things to. So how do we build that relationship together moving forward? I would be real intentional with your therapist. And if your therapist says, well, you know, we need to go back to, it may not be the right therapist for you right now.

All right. I'm trying to jot notes because we need to be very intentional here. Here's what we'll do. I'm going to send you a raw link to this, an unedited link to this right after the show. We'll just send it to you. It'll probably be a little bit different

that Sarah and the editing team make me sound a lot better after the show than during the show, but that way you can have some of these notes that you can take into the counselor. Also, if your wife is up for it, I think it's worth having this conversation with her. Absolutely.

I had it with my wife. I, uh, and I've told, talked about on the show, like where I told her, man, like, man, I just thought after you got pregnant, like, okay, nine months. And then I get my wife back, my crazy fun wife. And then I realized after Hank was born, like, okay, maybe nine more months and then things go back to normal. And I didn't, I never realized, Oh, things never go back to normal. Everything's different. Everything's different. And then we had Josephine everything's different we had all those miscarriages everything's different

we got a new job everything's different and so the adventure of life now is not trying to hold on to what was but it's creating a rhythm where we can create something new at the drop of a hat because that's how the world works all right and I feel like I feel like we're getting there.

You are. We're either A, extremely used to our new reality, or we've made a lot of progress with her. And we're starting to get to the point where I think that we're in a place where we might be able to try to build something new, like you're saying. That's awesome. Can I tell you this? It's okay to be really annoyed by all the appointments.

It's a lot. It's okay to be really pissed off at all those bills that start coming in. And it can be really mad when your daughter's jumping off a couch and it kind of pulls the feeding tube and then she cries and you've told her and you feel guilty for yelling at a kid that almost died. Like, all that's okay. Like, you're not a bad dad for being pissed off you're not a bad dad for your wife coming home so exhausted because she

went to seven appointments today and you're trying to work a full-time job and be a dad to your other kid and you're just exhausted and you're just mad at everybody oh that's okay man thank you okay and it's okay for her too and here's a simple thing you can do with the other daughter and i'll let you go um it's as simple as do you drive her to school how does she get to school uh we live close enough we walk okay um it may be worth having a special day once a week where you just drive her and you get some cheap, cheesy breakfast somewhere. And she has special, I mean, it can be as little as 30 to 45 minutes a week, a very

special check-in time with dad. And if mom's available, she can rotate, but just a, here's my special moment. And another thing I would do is I would put a small spiral notebook or take her out somewhere and let her buy a real fancy notebook And you put it on her bed and you write notes back and forth to one or other and when she gets done writing a note She puts it on your bed and then you read it at night and then you write back to her But it will be your secret private thing that nobody else gets to touch Nobody else gets to mess with that sister can't ruin and screw everything up um, it's just a special channel between Nobody else gets to touch. Nobody else gets to mess with that sister can't ruin and screw everything up.

It's just a special channel between dad and mom and their daughter. And it sounds very minute and very small. These are big, big things to a little six and seven-year-old. That sounds amazing. And yeah, she's six years old. She's right in it. She's right in it. Another thing is to always let her feel a part of things whenever possible.

So say things like, what are some things we can do to help your sister today? Or this baby of yours here at the house? And giving some ownership and responsibility, age appropriate, of course, can really add to, like a young kid can walk really tall. And I've loved seeing, I've worked with special needs kids for my whole career, and I love seeing their brothers and sisters because a lot of them are gangsters. They're gangsters, man, because they're used to, hey, you're going to give access to my brother. You are going to let my sister have the appropriate resources. And they become real great advocates. And it's a fine line because you don't want them doing adult work.

You don't want them responsible for their brother and sister. That's a burden they can't carry. But when they have a little bit of support and a little bit of, hey, you're in this too. This is your brother and sister, man. Man, some kids will take that and run with it. And it's a great gift. It's a great gift.

Um, but find those little moments where you can look that little girl, six-year-old in the eye and say, Oh, daddy still sees you too. Daddy sees you. And every day, I thank God that I get to be your dad. Oh man. It's awesome. That gets me. Uh, it's one of my favorite things in the world. All right, brother, John. Hey, call anytime. Keep us updated on how things are going. And I'd love to hear about how your marriage counseling works out when you come in with some notes to your therapist and say, hey, here's what we want to do. Here's where we want to go. Thank you so much for the call, my brother.

I'm so grateful your daughter's doing awesome. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go to Sarah in Louisville, Kentucky. What's up, Sarah? Hey, how are you? Good. One time I called it Louisville and that did not end well for me. Don't do that. I'm out of the hospital now and it's Louisville. Louisville. That's right. That's right. What's up? So my question is, when do you push through hard conversations with a new friend? And when do you just let that friendship go? Just let it go. Don't hold back anymore.

That's the great Elsa saying. Okay. Give me more context. So I have a neighbor who wants to be friends and she said she doesn't have very many friends. So I recently started including her in my friend group, but that has caused some issues. For example, I invited her to girls night, and she ended up talking so much that a couple people suggested I either talk to her about making sure the conversation is more equitable or not inviting her anymore.

I'm a little afraid of how that conversation would go if I did talk to her, especially because she does already seem to be aware that she dominates conversation. And as far as not inviting her goes, I've been that girl without friends before, and I really don't want to just abandon someone who's lonely.

Yeah. Um, yeah. Oh, man. Making friends as an adult is the worst. It's the worst. I know. When you were a little kid, you just had to be the same age. I know.

It's like, hey, we're playing kickball. And there was either the nerds that loved kickball or the kids that were like, I hate kickball. And they had their Hello Kitty backpack and their little trapper keepers. And they would just be ironic. But you just found your friends. And now there's neighbors. And it's like, oh, you're weird. You're weird.

How do you know that she knows that she dominates conversation? Because she'll say stuff like, sorry, I'm talking so much. Or she'll say, sorry, I talked so much tonight. I'm just really excited or things like that. So she's very aware that she's talking a lot.

But you so desperately want to be like, well, then how about you stop? How about you stop? Hey, listen. Listen, it is not your responsibility as just a human on planet Earth to take in all of the cases of loneliness in the world and make them yours to solve, okay?

So I want to relieve you of that. I also think there are some lo-fi ways to solve some of this, potentially. Okay. Okay? So I'm going to send you a whole bunch of questions for humans cards. Okay. And here's why my wife said she loves these things, and here's why.

I talk too much. A lot. I talk way too much. And I got opinions on everything, especially when we're just hanging out just with a couple friends and whatever. And she said, when you're going through these cards, everybody gets a turn. So somebody has to stop talking and it lets other people tell their story. And a good friend thing is when somebody else is telling a story and the

person who has to always be heard starts talking, someone go, hey, hold on, let her finish. And they're little things like that that aren't rude or not you being a jerk or anything like that. But they're just subtle, quiet. Like, hold on, hold on. I want to hear this story. Is a, oh yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. You see what I'm saying? And it doesn't have to be dramatic and big,

but it's just a quick like, oh, hold on. I want to hear what she has to say about this. I do that in administrative meetings. Sometimes in meetings, there's two or three people that talk all the time and there's three or four people who are really quiet, who have lots of great ideas,

but they don't say anything. I'll stop, be like, hold on, hold on. I've already heard from you. I want to hear from so-and-so. And I'm just pretty direct about it. And I don't think anybody thinks it's mean or ugly or rude.

It's just, I want other voices to be heard. And sometimes just doing a little bit of quarterbacking someone can slowly get the message and learn. Does that make sense? Yeah. wouldn't that be more for like if she was interrupting somebody though it's not so much that she's interrupting people who are already talking it's that you know anything that comes up

she has a better story for it do you know what i mean it's not like a oh no stop with that let's hear from you know what i mean yes and not like a oh no stop with that let's hear from you know what i mean yes and better story people are really tough they're really tough like oh yeah well one time i you're like all right all right um yeah yeah i mean it's hard i mean i don't know there's an easy way through it i do think with some if i'm in your situation, I would probably attempt some modeling. And if, um, and it may be that there's certain friends, like I've got certain friend groups that I hang out with.

There's, I go watch the fights with a group of guys and I play music with a different group of guys. Yeah. It's different. They're just different folks who do different things. I thought about that too. Um,

just, she said that she enjoyed the girls night so much. She was like, this was amazing. It was awesome. And she knows that she enjoyed the girls night so much. She was like, this was amazing. It was awesome. And she knows I do it regularly. So if she doesn't get invited again, again,

yeah, I haven't invited her to other functions. She's an adult and she has her, she is in control of her feelings. You are allowed to have events at your house with the people that you choose to have events with. Okay. Choose guilt over resentment every time.

So you wouldn't even try to talk to her about it? No, I would. I totally would. Okay. How would you approach that? Like I said, I would do something like, hey, we're going to play a game, a directed game, or I'm going to send you the girls' night cards

and the questions for humans' friends. I'm going to send those to you. And you can pass them out and be like, all right, everybody's going to answer one, and then we're going to go around the room. And we're going to answer another one, we're going to go around the room. The hard part is we did something very similar to that. I had everybody write down two things about themselves, and then everyone had to guess who those things were. So we did kind of go around the room. And so some people got some time to talk, just it still ended up like a one-up and then a one-up, you know.

I think that that's your job is to play quarterback and to model something new, which is after the first one-up and the second one-up, when she starts to one-up somebody else, go, hold on, hold on, we're going to go to the next card. Okay, all right. you see what I'm saying yeah yeah that's what I would do if I have

I mean yeah it's just hard I wish there was an easy way man it's just not an easy way it's just tough I can also see a scenario where this is very much like the you got a booger in your nose conversation

and um like i can't think of a more graceful honorable thing than when someone like pulls me aside it's like hey dude you got a booger in your nose i get so kind and lovely even though we're both going to be weird now like because i to be like, why are you looking up my nose? Weirdo. And B, thank God somebody told me. Right. And so it may be like, Hey, we're going to grab coffee and like,

Hey, this is gonna be weird and awkward and hard. And you're my friend now. And so I just want to tell you, um, like everybody who tells a story, you always have a one-up story and a better story to just making it, make it hard.

Okay. And that might be an awkward conversation, but it can't be any more awkward than what you're feeling right now. At least you'd have some resolution, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. At least she might tell you, you know what? You go to hell. I hate you.

And I'm going to burn your house down when you're on vacation. She might say that. And she might be like, okay, thank you so much. Finally, somebody told me, right? Yeah. Yeah, I did wonder if just nobody had the courage to have that conversation and just kind of opted out instead. And that's why she doesn't have many friends.

And it becomes self-reinforcing, right? She feels people pulling away. And so then she tries to tell more stories to keep them engaged. And then they start to pull away more. And so she gets louder and faster. I'm like, oh yeah, well, one time I, and it's just a

symptom of wanting to be a part of what's going on. And somebody doesn't feel whole enough, doesn't feel worthy enough that their presence is enough. Like the fact that you showed up and brought dip and or beers or whatever you brought, that's not enough. You have to, you're only loved because you've got another story to tell and it's communicating. No, no, I'm really glad you're here and you're making it hard to for us to want you to stay here this is tough okay yeah and the people in my life who've had that conversation with me on a number of issues i think so so highly of them so highly of them

my buddy trevor when i was in college like when me and the person who's my wife now, when we broke up, I was like, she said this and this. And he was like, dude, you're an idiot. And I was like, what do you mean? And he said it way more colorful than that, but he was right. He called me out and it literally changed. I didn't see it from my perspective when he saw it like, dude, I'm your buddy. I'm your roommate. And this is, I see how you treat people. Dude, it was eyeopening for me. I've had bosses. And this is, I see how you treat people. Dude, it was eye-opening for me. I've had bosses. Dr. Thompson did this for me.

Mike Gibson did this for me. I've had people all through my life pull me aside. Dave Ramsey's done that for me. Like, hey, here's a thing I see in you. And it can be really great. And it can also be really isolating. And so every time somebody's done that, it's hard to hear. It really is.

But what a gift, man. It's such a blessing when somebody has the courage to do that. So again, in a public forum, like with a bunch of people around, that's not the place, but a private, quiet conversation might be the place. I would do it after getting some cards and being real direct and having some time during this time, like during the event where you're like, hold on a second. I'm going to let so-and-so talk. I'm going to let Ben talk. I'm going to let Kelly talk. I'm going to let Christian talk. I want to let so-and-so talk. I want to let Ben talk. I want to let Kelly talk. I want to let Christian talk. I want to let them, I want to hear what they have to say

and give somebody a picture of what it looks like to just sit through it and not have to comment on everything. And then after that, if it keeps up and keeps up and keeps up, maybe it's worth a conversation.

Choose guilt over resentment. Choose guilt over resentment every single time. Every time. You're awesome, Sarah. Best of luck to you. Making adult friends is the worst. 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 are back. Hey, don't forget. It means a lot to me. It means a lot to the team and to folks who have never heard of us before. Please hit the subscribe button, whether you're on Apple or whether you're on Spotify, hit the subscribe button. YouTube, hit the subscribe button and leave your five-star reviews wherever you can. It's a real gift. Spread these episodes out to folks who you think would be impacted positively or negatively by them. That'd be awesome. Nothing says I love you like,

you should probably listen to this episode about what a terrible husband you are. That'd be fantastic. As we wrap up today's show, finally, a band that I love, Queens of the Stone Age. Kelly hates this band. She said, actually, right before.

That's why I picked them, because I love him, you jerk. Whatever. She doesn't have this tattoo, though. She's got all the other ones. The lost art of keeping a secret goes like this. Well, I've got a secret. I cannot say blame modern movement to give it away.

You've got something that I understand. Hold it in tightly. Call on command. Leap of faith. Do you doubt? Cut you in. I just cut you out. Whatever you do, don't tell anyone. Just kind of how Kelly lives her life. Whatever you do, don't

tell anyone. It's kind of the opposite of this whole message of this entire show. Way to go, Kelly. Hope you're happy with yourself. I love you, America. Stay in school. Don't do drugs.

We'll see you soon.