The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Is a Sex Addict

Episode Date: August 5, 2024

On today’s episode, we hear about:  ·      A woman whose husband is a sex addict and is saying terrible things about her to friends ·      A woman who’s recently sober and wants to manage triggers without relapsing ·      A man who’s unhappy because his wife quit her job and isn’t looking for a new one   Offers From Today's Sponsors ·      10% off your first month of therapy at BetterHelp ·      Three free months of Hallow ·      25% off Thorne orders ·      20% off Organifi with code DELONY ·     20% off + two pillows at Helix Sleep ·      $350 off Pod 4 Ultra at Eight Sleep ·      Up to 30% off Cozy Earth products with code DELONY ·     20% off DeleteMe with code DELONY Next Steps 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test   📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation  🤘🏼TDJDS T-Shirts   Listen to More From Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights    🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership     Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy 

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I found out that my husband was texting escorts. He does have an addiction to porn. It was something we thought we can fix, but that failed. I don't want to focus on healing him. I want to heal myself because I feel re-victimized, and I just don't want to live with these secrets anymore. What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show. A show about your relationships and your marriage and your mental health and your kids and a partridge in a pear tree, whatever you got going

on in your life. If you want to be on this show, it's real people going through real challenges. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message after the beep. And if you don't know what that means, you are not old enough. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. Fill out the form.

Is it a jot form? You know what a jot form is? I don't that just sounds like something from the old days you can print it out on the dot matrix printer and mail it in to us or write it on a piece of papyrus

is that a thing? we had 17 listeners and we were down to 14 and I haven't even started this show yet gosh I'm terrible at this hey look this is awesome so I haven't even started the show yet. Gosh, I'm terrible at this. Hey, look, this is awesome. So, I don't know, like a year ago when the book was coming out, we made some punk rock t-shirts. Because I still like to go to punk rock shows and I'm still getting in line and buy punk rock t-shirts. I love them.

And so we made some Deloney shirts. And then they made their way out into the wild and then i started getting um all sorts of cards and letters and internet's um stuff about hey how do i get these shirts how do i get these shirts and so we made them limited run we did not make a bunch of them i don't want to have boxes and boxes of shirts that are just deloney shirts because there's still a strong possibility this whole thing crashes and burns so So here's what we got. Multiple colors and some dope designs. So the first one is straight up shirt.

If you're watching on the YouTubes, it just says Deloney on it. It's like the old Johnny Cash shirt that says Cash except not. And it's in black. Look, I see the great Ben wearing it with his huge muscles. And we have another shirt. This is the, looks like ACDC, except it says J Lightning Bolt D. Also in black. And we got the, what do you call these, Kelly?

They're not devil horns, but people write us mean letters and say why do you have devil horns? Rock and roll. It's the universal sign of yeah, it's time to start mosh pitting and it's how you tell The lead singer of the metal band you're seeing I approve of what you're doing It's just like that or if you're like me and you take a lot of photos and you're super awkward and you don't know what to Do with your hands you just do this sign Otherwise, you have to do the hang loose sign and I don't know how to do with your hands, you just do this sign. Otherwise, you have to do the hang loose sign and I don't know how to surf and I've never been to San Diego.

So you just have to do this. So anyway, we got that shirt too. Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash store. And when these shirts are gone, they are gone. And there's not a bunch of them they said, right? No, it's a fairly limited run of each design. And then we'll just see where it goes from there. Okay.

And it's all the sizes are in there? Yep. We ordered them in all of them. All the sizes. Let's go to New York and talk to Shailene. Hey, Shailene, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. How are you?

I'm good. How are you? I've been better. I'm hoping you can help with that. Or I wouldn't be calling you, Deloney. Hey, guys, what happened? What's up? So I'll just give a little bit of background if that's okay. Yeah, do me a huge favor. Talk directly into your phone. Yes. Okay. Is this better? So good. And I know this is whatever you're about to say is probably pretty wild. Yeah. Just fully own it. Okay. Definitely. All right. I'm going to try. So I apologize if I'm nervous.

Shailene. I'm just going to say it out. No apologizing on this show. Okay. Go full New York Shailene. Go for it. Will do. All right. So my husband and I have been together for about 10 years, married six. It's been ups and downs like most people. However, this year has been so far a lot of downs. About two and a half months ago, I found out that my husband was making fun of me to a friend. Not a mutual friend, but just a friend that he had.

And not in a physical sense, but more of things that you would share with your person that shouldn't be shared elsewhere and poking fun at it. Like what? Uh, so he would tell this friend, um, some personal issues with, within our marriage. Um,

Shailene, rip the bandaid off. Just say it. Just say it. Okay. I'll, I'll give an example. One thing that was said was, well,

we struggle with infertility. This friend felt comfortable enough to say to my husband that I use my nephews as proxy children because I can't have any of my own. My husband, for some reason, not only did not defend me or stop that friend, but laughed at it. And this is all a text message and said that he wasn't even going to open those can of worms. So things along that line where this, maybe it didn't come directly out of my husband's mouth, but this friend felt comfortable enough to say these things about me, and my husband did not stop it, defend me, and sometimes laughed at it. That's one thing. And then about a few weeks ago,

I found out that my husband was texting escorts, and this has been an issue for a lot of our marriage. He does have an addiction to porn. And we didn't, as the years have gone by, really acknowledge it as an addiction. It was something we thought we can fix. Obviously, we're not professionals, so that failed. But this time around, to get to my question, I don't want to focus on healing him. I want to heal myself because I feel re-victimized, and I just don't want to live with these secrets anymore. I want to focus on my healing, but I don't know how to do it. I don't. I'm in therapy, but, like, it's just, I'm overwhelmed. I'm overwhelmed. And I don't know how to come back from it this time around.

Oh, man. So there's a lot here. This is like, like, I'm as confused as you are, I guess, is what I would say. Yeah. My wife and I went through a period of infertility. And I used my friend's kids as proxies. So that to me isn't an insult. See what I'm saying? Like I wanted to

hold a baby. So my buddy had two young, young kids and those were like, I couldn't wait to go to the house. Right. And in fact, there's a bunch of dudes and we got together every Monday night. And we always let his like, like eight month old little boy come. Cause it was like, I just wanted to hold a baby. And so, um, that in and of itself, unless you and your husband have talked about, Hey, this is super sensitive.

I don't have this conversation. So here's what, here's what I'm wondering. Right. Sometimes we get to a place relationally with people where we're done. Right. We're done either. We don't want to be in relationship with them at all

or the way we've been in relationship with them for a period of time has ended. And when we get there, we can interpret everything they say and do, every emoji they send through that lens of, I'm out of relationship with you. And because other times it may just be hilarious, right? Or it may just be funny or maybe it's just off color or maybe it's like,

that wasn't that funny. But if we have the lens, if we have the pair of glasses on that I'm done in this relationship, I'm done, then we're going to interpret everything. We're going to, we're going to interpret everything we're going to attach stories to everything right and so here's what I'm saying in a healthy

ride or die marriage finding some text messages from one of your husband's buddies that are off color insensitive and he didn't respond the way you wish he would have responded. A, hey, dude, that was super

uncool what your friend said, and my hope is that you would defend me. Yes. And we're going to have that conversation. And he might look at you and say, I think you do, like, hold on to your nephews really tight, because we don't have any kids. And I'm glad that you do. And you could say,

I don't think I'm doing it. You'll have that conversation, that debate, that discussion, that argument. Right. But you interpreted that exchange between them as yet another brick in the wall

of my husband sucks. Does that make sense? It makes sense. Not so much as that he sucks, but just another instance of not defending me, of not sticking up for me or what is being said in private as opposed to to my face. Let's get beneath that. Your husband's with ex-escorts. Let's deal with that. Your husband's with ex-escorts. Let's deal with that.

Yeah. Your husband has nuked the foundation of your marriage. So, what was no longer exists. Yes. And so, I want you to sit in the seriousness of that. Not play whack-a-mole with a bunch of texts and exchanges and this.

Your husband was communicating. Was he with them? No. No. How do you know? I don't know. Okay. So just to be safe, I, you know, get myself tested,

even though he swears up and down, he did not. But, you know, at this point, where's the trust? Right. So I got, I tried to do right by myself first. Okay. So let me ask you the most terrifying question I can ask somebody. What do you want? I don't know why I wasn't expecting that.

You're going, you're trying to fix stuff. And let me put it this way. You're trying to do a puzzle and you don't even know what the picture is. And all of the puzzle pieces are blank. And until you can begin to have an image of what you're trying to build, it's going to feel lost and chaotic. And some people, when they feel that kind of lost and chaotic, they listen to a jillion podcasts and read a bunch of books. You know what really that is?

It's a Xanax. It's a way to not feel that disorientation and that loss. Or they get really angry at everybody and they see evil everywhere. Or they withdraw and hide from the world and just sleep a lot. Or they work 500 hours a week. So what do you want? I want, I want what we promised each other.

Nope. Not a we. What do you want? I want to be happy. Okay. What does that mean? Cause that's a feeling. That's a fleeting state.

That's a cup of water on the way to finishing your marathon. What do you want? Can I give you a couple of examples? Yes, please. Okay. And I said earlier, this is the hardest question I can ask somebody because it's terrifying. I want a home that is filled with peace and laughter. Yeah.

And so here's how I had to go get that. In my house, I can't have peace if I owe somebody money. Makes me insane. So that means I drive crappier cars that means for almost our entire marriage until a few months ago we didn't live in super big nice whatever houses we did we lived in safe i mean they were nice houses but but i didn't want to be happy i wanted peace happy would be driving around in a 2024 Tundra that's all doped up and it's like, but that wouldn't have given me peace,

which means in the long haul, I would not have been happy over time. I want to feel safe in my marriage. What does that mean? That means I have to trust. That means I got to be able to tell her anything and expect that she's going to tell me that in return. Right. I want, here's something i want i want to never worry that my body's going to fail me well that means crap i got to exercise

every day that means i gotta sleep that means i gotta go to counseling that means i got to do weird mobility exercises which I hate doing I'm never happy when I'm doing it but man when my eight-year-old daughter comes in and she's like hey dad you want to wrestle and I'm like bring it on and we roll out the mat in the living room and we get on the floor and get after it I'm not worried about my knee going out or my back going out right so i think the ultimate question and we won't we won't solve it here okay the question i think you have to ask yourself is what do you want and if it is i want to not be married to a guy who feels so dead in his current life. And by the way, he's choosing this to feel dead in his current life.

Right. That he can only get excitement. He can only feel life through unknown people on the internet doing crazy sex stuff. And when that ceases to help him feel alive, he then calls professional sex workers. He didn't do anything with them yet.

He just texts them. He just calls them because that gets his heart rate up again. And you and I both know the next step because this drug will wear off too. Yeah. Right? So you're there. And so maybe what you want is, I want to feel alive in my own home.

I want to feel alive in my own marriage. I don't want my husband outsourcing life to professional sex workers. Right. I'm worth more than that. And Shailene, if you didn't know that, I'm telling you right now, you are. And he is too.

Wow. You just hit like a big, a big point there. That's like a thing in therapy that I'm working on is, you know, like, why do I allow these things? You know, like,

it's a, it'll make me feel like not worthy. Like that I don't feel worthy of. I want to challenge you. Defending myself. Can I challenge you? Yes, please. And I'm going to say this with, with love in my heart and with a smile on my face.

Okay. Yes. I don't care how you feel. Okay. I care what you know. Okay. Feelings come and go. Okay, I care what you know Okay Feelings come and go I often don't feel like working out But I do it anyway because I know what it gets gives me at the end of the day

I don't feel like doing the dishes 95 of the time, but I know it gives my wife peace I know you don't feel worthy of being loved but you are Period loved but you are period and so in those moments when you grab something to pay your amazon thing online and your husband didn't clear the search history and that feeling in your guts just drops and you go to delete it for him because you don't feel like fighting it. You don't feel like dealing with it. Or you instantly go, God, I need to go to the gym because I don't feel as beautiful as this woman who just popped up. I don't care how you feel.

I care that you know you're worth more than that. Okay? And one of the challenges with modern therapy is there's a lot of discussion on the feeling side of things and feelings are really really really important they just don't tell us the truth right okay that's not their job their job is to keep us alive and so i need you to hear me say i I've never even met you, and I know this as a fact, you're worth being loved, and you're worth being loved by somebody

who doesn't outsource part of his aliveness to sex workers, and you're worth looking at a guy and saying, okay, you got weird fantasies, tell me about them, let's go get a glass of wine and talk about them, what? Yeah, tell me,

I'm not scared of you, I'm not scared of you. That is so right, that's what I feel, let me. I'm not scared of you. I'm not scared of you. That is so right. That's what I feel. Let me scratch the ceiling. That's what I know. There you go.

Now we got it. I know we've had these discussions. I have prompted these discussions, not just now, but for years. And it's been a lot of, oh, I don't know. I don't know. And so at this point when it happened, I was like, listen, what is it? What is it that you need? Is it like a sexual thing or whatever?

And it was none of those things. And now he's in his own therapy. And I get that. That's going to take a lot of work. And I told him this time around, I can't do the work for you. Amen. Amen. And I need to do it for myself though.

You don't believe that. I do. Okay. I do. I said, I'm not going to do it. Yes, I promise. I told him and I have not, I have not done it. It's been like a month and a half.

I said, no, you're going to do it yourself. Awesome. He has to. And here's the deal. He's going to do his work and you're going to do it yourself. Awesome. He has to. And here's the deal. He's going to do his work and you're going to do your work. And if you choose and he chooses, y'all are going to build a new thing together. Yes, that's the goal. But the, I want the, I want, what do you want? I want to be ride or die with somebody who will tell me the truth. Yes.

I want someone who is willing to seek aliveness and play and desire and eroticism with me, that we co-create this together. That's not such a coward that he won't even tell the woman he said I do with the crazy thoughts he has in his head. Not that we're going to ever do any of this stuff, but I'm going to say it out loud. That I'm going to outsource that to professional sex workers. You're worth more than that. So is he. Right. Right?

Absolutely. And so he's got to do his work that you can't do for him. And you are in counseling. Cool. I really want you to start. I mean, stay in counseling, obviously,

but I want you to start practicing these things. And the practice comes from the action steps to answer the question. What do you want? I want to feel good in my own body. Cool. Then you got to exercise. You got to have friends, right? You got to sleep. You have to sleep. You have to have human connection.

I want to feel safe in my marriage. Cool. If you look at pornography again, you are choosing to leave this home because I deserve to feel safe. Yes. I deserve to feel safe in this relationship. So every single day you will show me your text messages and your phone and you can Google the way to go get the deleted text messages that happened right after you delete them. Those still exist. Way ahead of you, Dr. John. I know you are. Okay. You see what I'm saying? Like it's, it's, we could sit in these rooms and talk about it and talk about it and feel about it. Great, all that's really important, but also we have to go do different things.

And those things that we do, those action steps often stem from what's the next right move? Because often we can't answer the question, what do you want? I don't know. I don't know. Everything's too chaotic and wild. Okay, what's the next right thing?

I'm not going to drink. What's the next right thing? I'm going to get some sleep today. What's the next right thing? I'm going to go exercise. I'm going to call a friend. I'm going to tell this guy I'm sorry. I'm going to show up at work and do excellent work. Whatever the next right thing is. Over time, we have to answer the question, what do you want? Because that gives us the direction of the action steps where we're going to go. But when we ask that question, what do we want? That often means we have to answer the

question, what do we don't want? What we're not going to put up with, what we think we're worth. And we often feel, I'm not worthy of, and we often feel that I'm not, I get that. But it's not true. You are. You are. It's been the honor of my day to talk to you, Shailene, and I'm proud of you for the work you're doing. You cannot carry his bricks anymore.

You can say, here's what I want, and here's what I'm worth, and here, if you are choosing to be in this marriage with me, here's what this is going to look like. And by the way, I want to hear what yours are. You've got a long road ahead of you, Shailene, but I think it is a road that's filled with hope and optimism. Keep doing the work. Keep taking the next right step.

Call me any time. 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 take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere

so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch 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.com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to Houston, H-Tone, and talk to Dakota. Hey, Dakota, what's up? Not much. How are you, Dr. John? Awesome. What's going on in your life? Well, that's a great question. So my question is, how can I find fulfillment and manage severe trauma triggers without relapsing? So what's going on? Well, I checked myself into, actually, let me start with this. Thank you. I'm getting emotional. I don't know that I could have made the change in my life if I didn't find your show.

Wow. Well, thank you. What change did you make? Well, I went to rehab. I stopped drinking. I did a whole lot of work. I took the PCL-5 when I got there. What was your score?

I found my problem, 70. Golly. I'm laughing with you, not at you. Wow. That's what I said. I went, oh, cool. Yeah, no, hold on. Decidedly not cool. Super not cool.

So I did a lot, a lot, like seven to 10 sessions a week of CPT treatment. Okay. And I'm happier than I've ever been. I mean, I had my first drink when I was nine. I didn't know life without it. Yeah. Now, I'm so happy, but in my IOP, they are talking about triggers for drinking, and I don't miss it, except for when I get triggered. And it doesn't seem fair that my drinking triggers are just my PTSD triggers, you know what I mean? Oh, that's what drinking is for. That's what it's for. Yeah. It's the it's for. Yeah.

It's the bridge over troubled waters. Yeah. I'm just, I'm really struggling in those moments. When I do have an episode, it's the only time that my body wants to drink. Sure. And you realize your body's working perfectly in that moment, right? Yes. I have watched a lot of your show.

It's doing just what it wants to do, which is get you out of that moment and get you over the raging river to calm land. And the best way since you were nine years old, it can get you to calm land is just to turn the system off with alcohol. Exactly right. So it's working. What are some of your trauma triggers? Are they thoughts that flash into your mind? Are they memories? Are they shadows of people? Are they phone calls? What are they? A little bit of all of it. A little, like the most innocent thing, for instance, my partner, once I was like, oh, I'm going to need a ride to work in the morning.

What was said to me was, well, you know, like what was said was, you know, most people say, please, it was joking. It was, it would make me feel appreciated if you would say, please. But what I heard was, say please, or there will be consequences. Say please right now. Okay. And what has CBT taught you? Well, my ABC worksheets have taught me a lot. Okay. I do them. Hold on, but real quick, it is, okay, my body's taking off on me. Mm-hmm.

Is that true? Logically, no. Okay. So how long have you been out of rehab? I'm going on almost two months. Okay. I want you, okay, listen to me real carefully, okay? Super carefully.

I am a goofball on a podcast. I'm a dude on YouTube Reels. You are so incredibly strong. You are doing like wild. You're growing new parts of your brain, Dakota. Thank you. I am a podcaster. You're a brain grower.

Okay? There's levels to this game, and you are in a different league than me. Okay? Thank you. So I don't want you to say your changes are because of me. Your changes... I did do that, didn't I? You did, but listen, it's okay.

But your changes are because you got sick and tired of being sick and tired. Exactly. At some point you looked in the mirror and you said, I'm worth more than this. Yeah. Okay?

So listen. Can I give you a real callous example? It's going to get me in trouble on the internets, but I don't care. Of course you can. All right. I didn't take that. I'm trying to think what my score would be. It would not be close to a 70.

Okay. From what I understand, that was very severe. Well, but I had some pretty gnarly childhood stuff. Okay. And so in perspective, I'm just going to change lanes here. I had about 35 or 40 pounds to lose. Okay. Okay. You had 125 pounds to lose. Yeah. You're not going to

lose it in two months. And so I want you to hear how I can't even put into words how proud of you I am. Thank you. And I'm going to be honest with you because I love you. This is frustrating. I'm about to say, but you got a long ways to go. So be patient with Dakota. Like you have 125 pounds to lose. You lost like 40 pounds already, but you had 165 to lose. You got 125 to go. Right.

And now you're walking by. You keep going. You keep going to the gym. You keep doing the work. The weight's still coming. And now you're walking by. You keep going to the gym. You keep doing the work. The weight's still coming off, but you're still frustrated. It's like, ah. You know what I mean? So this is that settling into the grind.

That is, I'm going to keep changing. I'm going to keep changing. Now it's going to be I don't even feel like it, but I'm going to keep doing it because I know how good it feels. Right. And you've heard me say this a lot. It's one of my favorite sayings. Don't forget to remember. And because you're not going to lose 10 pounds a day,

you're going to lose half a pound a day, half a pound a day, half a pound a day. Yeah. And then what's going to happen is you are going to say to your partner, I need a ride out of nowhere. And they're going to say, I'm not doing anything for you until you

say please and you're gonna laugh yeah and you're gonna go please and then you're gonna go no way that's how that will happen just gotta keep you gotta keep catching yourself when you have the triggers and you have to when your body takes off on you, write it down and ask yourself, is this true? Yeah. And when I was first healing, I put my hand on my chest. For some reason, that stabilized me. I put my hand on my chest and I would look at the piece of paper and I'd say, is this true? Yeah, that's what the ABC worksheets are so good at.

Yeah. That's why I really enjoy them. And if you still need the worksheets, use the worksheets are so good at. Yeah. That's why I really enjoy them. But, and if you still need the worksheets, use the worksheets. Cause they work. There's no shame in that. No. Are you at?

No, no. I don't know. I just feel like I should be further. Nope. I can't believe how far you've come in two months. Thank you. It's,

it's, it's astounding. Is your partner, are you deeply loved to where you know it? Oh my gosh, yeah. Okay. Because outside of that, I wouldn't know how you're doing this. I have a great support system. Okay, amazing.

And you have the courage to use it. So give me a specific trigger that sets you off, and let's come up with a plan for that one. Okay. Um, like somebody asked you your favorite song. You suddenly can't remember one. That's okay. Um, so for instance, I, not exactly a trigger. I find myself now that I'm kind of relearning life like

difficulties in managing my emotions or like somebody saying something for instance that somebody said to me in the past

even if it's well-intentioned it it really sends me back to that really dark scary place do you have an example hmm I guess we can use the one from the other day it was a completely It really sends me back to that really dark, scary place. Do you have an example?

I guess we can use the one from the other day. It was a completely innocent comment, but it was a threat to me. Yeah. Who left you growing up? My dad wasn't around super often. Okay. And when mom was around, was she present with you? Or was she there in body but not in spirit?

She was with me. She's a great mom. Okay. But yeah, my dad, he's a card. He's a troubled guy. Yeah. That's probably the understatement of the year, wasn't it? Yeah.

He's a troubled guy. I'll leave it. All right, so was that a troubled man or was that evil? He was, he got there. Okay. All right. So a cornerstone of getting well is you be getting slowly over time to tell yourself more and more of the truth. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Trouble is a palatable way of saying scary, which is a palatable way of saying dangerous, which is a palatable way of saying I grew up surrounded by evil. Right. And you'll get there and that's okay. And there will become a season if you haven't got there already, where you will just spend a lot of time angry. And your mom's a great mom. And there will come a time when you're mad at her for not getting you out of

that. And grateful that she shield. It's just as weird both and all the time. Right. Right. shield it's just as weird both and all the time right right and so the quick catch for me has been and the people i've sat with is well you could say please here it all comes uh-huh like you feel it in your body and you and you either feel yourself starting to lash out or you withdraw you feel yourself like almost getting like sucked down a tunnel right uh-huh

exactly i'm an isolator through and through okay that's when you have to say i'm gonna from this point forward am i going to choose to step forward or backwards and that's your choice and to choose to step forward is something your body doesn't know how to do, and so you got to practice it, just like shooting free throws. Seriously, I should keep doing my worksheets. Yep. Or occasionally practice it without the worksheet. And your partner loves you deeply, say, I'm practicing this,

so I'm going to do this wrong. And so when you see me withdraw, just gently say, come back. And y'all two can come up with some codes together that would say, you just left me. That's our code in our house. You just left. And it's real gentle.

Let me know when you're back. And man, then, oh yeah, I'm out. I've got to come back. And I come back. Yeah, that's great advice. I'm not going anywhere. What just happened? But here's the deal.

Every home is going to look different. Every relationship is going to look different. With your boss, it's going to look different. With me and Kelly here, it looks different. With me and my wife. It looks different with me and my wife. It looks different. It all, it's just a negotiated back and forth together.

And Kelly has a couple of hand motions that she does off camera. You can't even see. And it's just to direct me. And it's great. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I'm practicing. And as long as you keep that word practice, that you're not broken, there's not something wrong with you.

I just have never shot free throws. You've never dealt with hard stuff without alcohol. All right, cool. We've gotten off the chemical dependency part, and now we're into the next. And the next part is scary. Nobody tells you that. It's terrible. Actually, everyone does.

In rehab, everybody tells you that. Yeah, but it's like saying, yeah, when you jump out of a plane, it's terrible actually everyone does in rehab everybody tells you that yeah but it's they don't it's like saying yeah when you jump out of a plane it's kind of scary yeah it's not like then you get ready to jump out of the plane and your whole body's like no right it's it's you can talk about it all day long it's not until you feel it that's where i love pre-negotiating things in your trauma recovery with people that you love and that you care about and let everybody coming up with a plan for when it happens because kind of like a recovery plan do it before it hits you that's exactly right because in in my marriage for the first 10 or 15 years I withd withdrew, which sent my wife withdrawing, which then set off my abandonment issues.

Right. And now we're off to the races. And so now that we've discussed it, when I leave, she gently just puts her hand on my leg or my hand or on the table and says, come back. And it's like, whew, oh, we're back. And I'll say the same thing. Hey, you just left. Swing back. And it's not an accusation.

It's not a mean thing. It's just a love you. And we already talked about it. And sometimes, occasionally, I'll say, hey, I need to be done with this right now. It's all back here. And I just need to be done. And cool, let's reset and we'll do it tomorrow. We'll have this conversation tomorrow Or we'll have this interaction tomorrow

And it's all well and good because I know she's not going anywhere and she knows i'm not going anywhere And similar with you. That's why trauma recovery has to be done with deep powerful relationships Um because you have to be anchored in And dakota, i'll say it again Two months out you are on the right path you are way ahead because you have to be anchored in. And Dakota, I'll say it again. Two months out, you are on the right path. You are way ahead, way ahead. And I'll sit with you and acknowledge,

man, you were hoping in 60 days you'd be done. You are regrowing your brain. You're practicing skills you've never done before. And I cannot describe to you how proud of you i am here's my promise to you i'll be with you every step of the way call anytime anytime and i got you we'll put you on the show and we'll talk about whatever you're going through and you're going to cycle up you're going to cycle down you'll have seasons of anger seasons of great joy seasons of peace seasons of i miss the old chaos, seasons of, okay, I need to numb out, but I can't use alcohol. What do I do?

You'll have all kinds of seasons, and I'll be with you. And as a bonus, call me when the Astros win the World Series this year. We will celebrate as fellow Houstonians. Dakota, I'm super proud of you. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right, I say this all the time.

It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to

get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour.

And you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice, and here's what I'm learning.

As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself and sometimes you do this with a group and Hallow helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet Earth, Hallow, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show get three free months when you go to hallow.com slash deloney it's amazing three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash deloney go right now and change your life all right let's roll out to lewisville or as they

say lul kentucky and talk to B-Money Brandon. Hey, Brandon, what's up, man? Hey, I'm doing all right. How are you doing today? I'm good, man. What's going on? Well, pretty much just been struggling with a couple things with my wife and hoping you could help me kind of work through parts of it. All right, go for it, man.

What's going on? I have my question kind of written down. And basically, how do I come to terms with my wife's lack of effort to find a new job? Encourage her to find something that she can enjoy, love, and go on. Pretty much December, things came to an end at her previous job. She really had been hating it for quite a while and then ended up quitting, which I was supportive of her leaving it.

But my one problem with it was not having a next step of what to go to and so on. So the last, man, six, seven, eight months, you've just been hanging out? I mean, she's done a few things. Like she's also been in the National Guard. So, I mean, she would do that on the weekends.

But, I mean, that's that's bro that's a thing right yeah yeah yeah yeah it's certainly a thing I mean that's been over for a few months now like her six years was up there so now it's really to the point where there's like nothing nothing

there it's like she was also she did a few extra classes in school while she was working to get enough credits where if she wanted to go for a CPA, they had credits where she could do that. But the follow-up of actually going for that or having an actual idea of something that will persist more than like a few more months is not quite there it's it's really my problems the like kind of future looking part

of it's like today is okay but what about another few months down the road. Does she struggle with depression? For years. You know, I don't know if I would say exactly that when she first quit her job, but it's certainly possible the last few months. We,

or I guess I wouldn't say we, but she ended up having a miscarriage the last few months, so that's possible there. Nothing diagnosed and such. She hasn't talked to anyone about it, but it's reasonable. She has been super upset, even just random times. Today, last week, last month are just pretty much random times. And so, I mean, that certainly could be part of it.

How's your marriage, man? I mean, I don't really know exactly how to answer that. I would say the day-to-day we're pretty good, but I think we have been struggling a little bit recently with a lot of things, I think. Yeah, things have just been kind of gloom for that. It's been sort of difficult as well because pretty much all that has been contained, she hasn't been comfortable to really share that with anyone.

Are you a safe person for her to share with? No, I mean, she's sharing it with me. I'm talking about it's just us with that. So it's like everything is I mean, and that's fair. i'm i'm not sharing that with anyone because i'm trying to respect x i mean obviously she uh is the main person that experienced that but uh it's pretty much just been us going through that and i want to respect that it's like her family and stuff. Are you talking about pregnancy loss? Oh, yes, yes.

Sorry, I thought you got that. All right, so Sonny, I need you to hear me very carefully, okay? Like as intently as you've listened to anybody. Both of y'all lost this pregnancy and you're struggling with how to feel because you don't feel it as deeply and as heavily. And she knows that and she feels that. And she's already on an island. And she probably feels as lonely as she's ever felt.

And I know this because, brother, I was you. I did not understand the weight of what my wife was carrying after miscarriage one or miscarriage two. And I missed it. So if you get nothing else for this call, we can talk about the job stuff, dude. If we can get nothing else for this call today, when you get home, I want you to shut the door and I want you to ask your wife, hey, will you listen directly to me for a minute? Just direct. I want to tell you something vulnerable and straight. And hopefully she'll say, sure. And I want you to hold her face in your hands and look her in the eyes and say, I love you and I'm so sorry that we lost this baby. And she'll probably get stone rigid and just begin to melt.

And I want you to say, and I'm sorry that I missed it. You've been all alone in this, and I'm sorry. Will you do that for me? Yeah, I'll do that. Okay. And that's fair. I'll do that okay that's fair I think yeah probably many many many many men try to solve miscarriages with information and that's not how you sit with a hurting person okay and I'm just telling you

could do because this is it this isn't something I learned in grad school it is but I I've done this myself. I screwed this up in my own home. Okay? Okay. Yeah, that's fair. I will do that. And I want to back all the way up.

Without talking to her, I don't know why she quit her job seven months ago and hasn't found a new job. That usually tells me there's something else going on inside your home. Now, you mentioned she is no longer a part of her military community. She's out of that. Told me she's experienced a pregnancy loss. I'm telling you that even though you're probably a good man and a good husband, she has completely folded in on herself inside her own home because she recognizes she's all by herself.

And as a newlywed that is utterly terrifying In the same way you're asking yourself Good gosh, is she just going to sit here for the rest of our marriage and just not work? She's asking herself Did I just sign up for 50 years of being completely and utterly alone in my grief and my sadness and in my hurt and in my pain? And in my grief and my sadness and in my hurt and in my pain and in my loneliness. Now, I don't know if that has anything to do with the job part. And maybe you called asking for the job, but there's much bigger issues going on here. When you ask her about the job part, what does she say?

I mean, she brings up her past full-time jobs, bad experiences with it, and wants to make sure that she gets a job that she really likes, enjoys, loves, and so on. What do you say to that? Yeah, the problem that I have with that is, to my knowledge at least, there's no actually looking for that job she loves, enjoys, go on. Whether that's right next to her home, working from home. So what does she do all day? I mean, she's at home. She'll play games, play on her phone. She'll cook and clean and such.

I mean, she's doing that now. She was here. I was certainly doing my part when she was in the house, but I work from home. So during the day, I'll be working and such. She'll be doing things in the other part of the house. Do you all need the money? No, no. That is not the problem. So what's the problem? Get me to the core problem. Cause there's something beneath this job. I mean, it's more of just her having something to do, something to like occupy some time. Will you be honest with me?

Her having some kind of purpose and such, I guess. I just see... Brandon, will you be... I'm going to ask you a hard question. Will you tell me the truth on it? Yeah. Okay. Are you losing respect for her? Because she just sits around all day, month after month after month.

I mean, I would say a little, possibly. And I think part of when I got back to December as such was when she was going to quit that job, but I sort of suspected that it would be kind of a struggle to get another job after that. More of just on her part. I don't have any real reason. It was just a suspicion on my part. Here's the... I mean, I can help your wife get a job. I work with a guy named Ken and Coleman.

He can take care of those kinds of things. That doesn't seem to be the issue here. There's deeper things going. The river is much deeper here. And so my guess is, I'm just going to put this out in the universe. Tell me if I'm wrong, but over the last seven months,

you've approached this conversation with, what jobs are you applying for? What are you thinking about doing? Or what do you think your life will look like in three years or five years or seven years or whatever? And for whatever reason, she's experiencing those conversations as accusations and as you pick in a fight. So I want you to change trajectory completely, okay? I want you to sit down with her tonight after you apologize and you ask her, how can I love you in this season of loss? Maybe ask her, will you just tell me the story?

What happened? Until I won't say anything. I just want to hear you. Let her tell the story. And then if tonight's the right night, cool. It probably won't be. So maybe in a night or two, I want you to tell her, I am at a loss for how I can best love you.

Because you tell me that you want to be working, yet you're not looking for a job. And I don't know how to say it. I don't know how I can best love you in this time. Can you teach me that? And what you're doing is you're offering her an invitation to help you. You're not forcing her to respond to an accusation. Like, you're not applying for jobs.

You're not getting a job. You're not doing anything. Do you see the difference? Yeah, I see that one's like more accusational, one's more supportive. One's more invitational. You're inviting her in to help you because you clearly are not communicating in a way that says, hey, I love you and I care about you. And just sitting at home and doing nothing for the rest of your life, playing video games on your phone is a recipe for emotional and psychological

and physical catastrophe. And I love you enough to tell you like, I miss you, I want you full, I want you whole, I want you present, I want you all those things, but I'm not doing a good job of communicating that. Can you teach me? And maybe she'll open up with you. And if she won't open up with you, if she says, no, it's fine.

Just the employers suck out there. It's hard to get a job or whatever. Then I want you to let her know that you're going to go start seeing a counselor, a therapist, because you need to learn some new skills because you're not doing a good job of communicating. And she'll say, you're doing a fine job. It's okay. Now I'm not doing a good job because I want to love you. And I want to walk alongside you as you find your purpose, whether that's in being a mom, a stay-at-home mom, or whether that's being a homemaker, or whether that's being a full-time employee or a mixture of all three of those, I'm just not doing a good job.

Because I'm watching the woman I love just slowly wither away after the last seven months. And I haven't done a good job with the grief after the miscarriage. And we haven't done a great job going to find new community after you left the military. And on and on and on, I need some more skills. And that's really the chance you have. Because for the last seven months, you've been asking her, when are you getting a job? What are you going to do? Why

did you do all day? Why aren't you doing this? And it's not working. It just doesn't work. I'm almost positive something deeper is going on in her heart and her mind or in your home. And I think until you find that, the job is just going to, like finding a job is going to be playing whack-a-mole with the bigger real issues. And maybe that sense of loneliness is just frozen and you reaching across the aisle and saying, I'm still here and I haven't done a good job, but I love you. And I want to make this right. How can I love you right now? Maybe that's a path. That's a turning the, the light on in the distance. Maybe, maybe she'll go see a marriage counselor with you,

but I can tell you this as her husband, you're watching her in pain and you're watching her hurt. I want to challenge you to be vulnerable. Go first. Tell her that you're sorry and that you love her. And that you're ready to listen and that you're ready to do things differently. And maybe she'll respond to your invitation. You haven't done anything wrong. You're not a bad guy. But we've got to heal this thing.

Somebody's got to go first. Let's let that be you, my friend. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Jelani from my friends at Helix, makers of the best mattresses in the universe. Listen, I've slept everywhere and on every type of mattress surface imaginable. You name it, and I've tried it. And my sleep on the Helix mattress has been transformed. I'm achieving newer levels of deep, deep sleep. And I've said this often, I'm going to keep saying it. Everyone in my family now sleeps on a Helix mattress. And my family, like all of you, is all different. Everybody's different. And because everyone

sleeps differently, Helix has created a number of different mattress models to choose from, each designed for specific sleep positions and feel preferences. Side sleepers, stomach sleepers, back sleepers, everyone. Helix also has enhanced cooling features to keep you from roasting at night. And if your spine needs some extra TLC, they got you also. And Helix knows there's no better way to test out a new mattress than by sleeping on it in your own home. So Helix offers a hundred night trial. Plus all Helix mattresses come with either a 10 or 15 year warranty. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to get online and take the Helix sleep quiz.

You're going to find the perfect mattress for your sleep preference, and it's going to take less than two minutes. And here's the best part. Helix offers the Dr. John Deloney Show listeners 20% off all mattress orders. Go to helixsleep.com slash deloney for 20% off. That's helixsleep.com slash deloney. With Helix, better sleep starts right now. All right, we are back with, am I the problem?

Go for it, Kelly. This is cool crap that happened. This is cool crap that happened. Yes, it is. Wow, you're producing the heck out of this show, Kelly. Well, I am. One of us is not hosting the heck out of it. See, she's mean back.

She's mean back. And you're brilliant and tough and beautiful. The trifecta. Trifecta. All right. Anyway, from Sarah. It is weird seeing you with both a tattoo of my name

and a shirt with my name on it. People, just so you know, if I had a tattoo, which I don't, it would not be of John's name. It's on her neck. Just so you're aware. All right. My husband and I and our 17-year-old daughter

and 16-year-old son were recently gifted a week-long vacation to Florida, which sounds amazing. We totally thought the kids were going to give us a peace out and take off as soon as we arrived, especially after the 18-hour drive. This is not a vacation. That's a trip. Yeah. All right. It was completely the opposite. The four of us had a lovely unplugged time just relaxing and hanging out at the beach.

My childhood was complete chaos, knowing that my growing children choose to be with me made me feel like an awesome mom. I truly see that together we have built something solid. It's a trip my husband and I will always cherish. Oh, and on our way back, we took a detour to check out Ramsey Solutions where we were treated like rock stars. So, nice job, Sarah. Way to go, Sarah. Being a great mom. Yeah, dude. Because trust me, 16. Being a great mom. Yeah, dude.

Because trust me, 16 and 17-year-olds won't hang out with you if they don't like you. They're pretty clear on that. I mean, they're not worried about your feelings. Nope. Neither, incidentally, are show producers. Don't care about your feelings either. I don't get paid to care about your feelings. Here we go. Here we go.

Here we go. No, that's awesome, dude. Hey, those are those cool moments when, like, I'm not good at being a parent. I'm not good at being a parent. I'm not good at being a parent. And then your kid just takes your hand while you're walking. And I'm not good at being a parent.

I'm not good at being a parent. And your kid's like, no, we want to hang out with you guys. And you just exhale. Like, that's awesome. Good celebration. Way to go, Kelly. I didn't do it. Sarah did. Oh, yeah, we want to hang out with you guys. And you just exhale. Like, that's awesome. Good celebration. Way to go, Kelly. I didn't do it. Sarah did.

Oh, yeah, your kids for sure would not. Just kidding. Nate, your kids love you. I have a good relationship with mine. Yeah. I said it's getting the senior pictures taken right now. A little. That's why you're taking shots the whole show.

I can see you out of the corner of my eye. Put them away. And we know what comes taking shots the whole show. I can see you at the corner of my eye. Put them away. And we know what comes after shots. More tattoos. Hey, thank you guys. Appreciate y'all. Stay in school, don't do drugs. Bye.