The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Refuses to Get a Job

Episode Date: June 3, 2026

🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage. Download the Together app.   On today’s episode: A wife whose husband refuses to get a job A mother scared to leave her kids with her parents A man struggling with his son’s transition   Next Steps: ❤️ Get away with your spouse today! 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.   Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers!  Working knives for working people—Go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne.   Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today.   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is an ad for BetterHelp. If you've ever said, I'm not in a crisis, I don't need therapy. I want you to reconsider. The time to take care of your mental health is before things fall apart. Talking to someone can help. Get started at betterhelp.com slash deloney and save 10%. For the last year and a half, he's not been bringing in an income. So we've kind of blown through all our savings.

Why isn't he working? His goals are just so high. He's looking for like the perfect solution, the job. or the business that he can finally like live out his dreams. What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show. I'm so glad that you're here.

Pull up a seat. Whatever you happen to be doing, going for a walk, running through the airport, vacuum in the house, cleaning the car, whatever you're doing. I'm glad you're here. We're talking about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your marriages, your kids. Anything you got going on, pull up a seat,

and we'll figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you on. I don't answer long personal questions on social media, but I do answer them right here on the show. So click the link in the show notes, and we will have you on. It's got to Vancouver, British Columbia, and talk to a girl named Sue. What's up, Sue? Hi, Dr. Deloney.

How are we doing? I'm hanging in there. Hanging in there. Good. Well, I'm glad you called. Hanging in there. Pull up a seat. What's up?

I've got a situation with my husband and I guess my family. We're in a bit of a financial crisis. For the last year and a half, he's not been bringing in an income. And he just doesn't seem to have an urgency to helping solve this problem. So we've kind of blown through all our savings. Why? Why? Why isn't he working for a year and a half?

I don't know. I feel like he, he, um, this is going to be a crazy request. Hold on, this will be a crazy request. Don't feel like it. Tell me, tell me, like, use the words, the story I've made up is, and then tell me what you really think. Not what you feel.

Tell me what you think is going on here. I think two things. I think, um, he knows that. I will figure it all out and get food on the table and take care of all the financial problems. And I also think he has, his goals are just so high. He's looking for like the perfect solution to be the job or the business that he can finally like live out his dreams and be that success. He's just been trying to be.

Well, he hasn't been trying to be a success because success begins with grinding at low levels of positions where you have no skills and you have to figure it out. Right? That's how success happens. So he's not interested in that. It sounds like he's living his dream life, which is, does he just sit around and play video games? Does he do nothing?

No, it's not. it's just like he spends, like, I mean, he listens to podcasts, he does his devotions. He spends time, like, researching and writing about what he wants to do or his business ideas, but there's no follow through. Yeah. So he is actively avoiding. He's using his spiritual life and his podcast life and his journaling life. He needs to get his head out of his journal and get a job or three jobs.

because here's what's crazy. But when I tell him that, she says I'm being selfish. How long have y'all been married? Almost seven years. Okay. Both of us, it's our second marriage. Okay. And when did this start?

Did he get laid off? He had a business with a friend, and it went sour. But I feel like I gave him a lot of grace initially. like you need to work through this. But now it's weird and dire straits here. And I'm exhausted. So paint me a picture of your financial situation. Well, our savings are all gone as a few months ago.

And are you blown through savings keeping the lights on and the mortgage paid? Are you blown through savings like, is he buying new journals? and things like that. No, no, it is, you know, keeping the lights on, gas, groceries, paying the mortgage. But that savings is gone. I pay the credit cards every month just enough to put the new bills on. The last few months I've had to borrow money from family. Oh, God.

And he just still sitting at home? Yeah. Yeah, I got to tell you, I have so little use for men like this. I get grieving the loss of a close friendship, grieving the loss of a business. Like there's some psychology. Like that's a big weight. I get that.

And you don't grieve it by spending 18 months or two years sitting like crisscross applesauce in the middle of a field listening to podcast. Like you have to go to work. You got to go, you got to start grinding it out again. Because if he had gone to work two weeks after his business implore, he would already be the manager of whatever business he already would have found his

like a path towards something right most importantly he would have found confidence again he has no he that's all gone now but that like talking about him does you and I know good right because he's not here no I yeah

but I felt desperate does he know that you feel desperate he does so you sat down him and said, here's our situation. We're broke. Yep. We're broke.

I've said, like, I need him to get a job because I need to not spend my entire being worrying about food and, like, and a shelter, right? That I need my basic needs, Matt, without it all being on me. And what does he say to that? I thought I was being selfish because he was doing the best that he could. Well, I don't hate to say. this, but the best he can do right now is not good enough. And I don't think he's being honest. This isn't the best he can do. Because I know too many dads who get up at 5 a.m. and drive a bus

and then they go work a really crappy job and they swing home at dinner for 30 minutes with their kids and then they go back to a third job. Those men are doing the best they can. Yeah. And so my question for you is a scary question. What are you going to do now? Because you've run to the end of this roller coaster. It's out of track. Mm-hmm. It is. So you're going to put the house up for sale

and move in with your family? What are you going to do? Here's the thing. Your husband has effectively left you. He just hasn't moved out. He's just journaling about it. This isn't even about meeting emotional needs or sexual needs

like a lot of the calls on the show are. This is a guy that's watching his wife starve and he's like, yeah, I don't care. You're being selfish. I guess I want to shine a light here because A, you're not crazy. B, I'm wondering if you're the last, especially six months, five months, four months, as savings have dwindled to nothing and you're now playing a shell game of credit cards just to eat and keep the lights on. When we get in desperation mode, right, we get in desperate situations, we stop being able to see the big picture because we don't have the luxury of looking at the big picture because we're trying to.

to survive today. Like there's some great sociology on a poverty mindset versus somebody who has a wealth mindset. And sometimes it's as simple as if you've been worrying about how I'm going to get through today for long enough, you stop being able to consider you at 40, right? Even when you start getting money, you blow through it because I'm just, I'm just worried about today. And then tomorrow, I'll worry about tomorrow. But I don't have the luxury of thinking about next week or next year or two decades from now. And so I want to tell you, this is desperate, desperate times and this man has left you. He just hasn't had the, he doesn't even have the gumption to move out.

And you can probably hear my frustration. I'm not angry. It's not my situation, but I'm pretty frustrated on your behalf. Because I have no use for men like this. But I don't, I can't tell you what to do now. No. You're not crazy. No, I think, no, I just, I think I knew that.

use the words that you would say. Yeah. Yeah. I know, but I know it's hard to hear. Just on the car ride over to the studios this morning, I was talking to a mom who recently lost somebody precious to her and she knew what I was going to say, but saying it was really hard to hear.

And I know that's, you're in the same boat. Like, it's hard to hear that. But if you can find the space to just zoom out, not 30,000 feet, 2,000 feet, you're on an unsustainable trajectory, and this is not about Yolo and living our best life, and he doesn't meet my emotional, it's not that. You have an active parasite in your house that gets mad at you for wanting to keep the lights on. That's madness. Husband 101 is make sure your wife has food and a roof, right? Yeah, and I guess that's always been my rule. Well, it shouldn't be a rule. I mean, If that's how low the bar is, being married to you would be awesome because it would be pretty easy, right?

Yeah. Yeah. You're not asking for the moon here. You're asking for lunch. Do you all own your home? We have a mortgage. Sure. Do you have the equity in your house?

Yeah. Yeah, we do. Okay. I have about 300. Okay. Yeah. Do you have family members you could move in with? No, my family lives across the country.

Okay. Yeah. Do you have such an amazing job that you can't move? A pretty good job. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So I don't want to put words in your mouth or in your, we have two. Yeah, like he has two kids that live with us full time and I have one that's still at home with us too. How old are they? Mine is 20 and his are 16 and 17. Okay. So you're 20-year-old. It may be time for you and him to have a hard conversation. Are you and her to have a hard conversation?

Right. It's adult time. And maybe they can start paying rent. And as for his 16 and 17 year old, have you adopted them? No. Are you their stepmom? I'm a stepmom, yeah. Okay.

He needs to give you a plan in writing for how he's going to feed his kids. Okay. I hate to, man, I sound like I lack compassion here. And I kind of, I do for him. I don't for your marriage. I'm compassionate for your marriage. I hate it for both of you all. I always say if somebody files for divorce,

the day you get those papers, you are no longer in a marriage. You are now in a business transaction. And you don't have divorce papers in hand, but you have a divorce spouse continuing to sit in your house. And I always, my rule number one when somebody gets married is get a job, joint checking account, those days need to be over for you. You've got to, you've got to begin to

think, how am I going to be okay? Because the person you pledged your life to is not interested in whether you're okay or not. Am I being unfair? Like everything you're saying, I, I think I know from a logical place, right? It's just, yeah, and he's a nice guy. You know what? He's not. Yeah. Because even jerks take care of their families. It's not nice to watch your spouse turn to ash because they're so exhausted and to blame them for getting dust on things, right? That's not nice. I'm heartbroken for you.

I'm sorry. I'm even more mad because he's got kids. He's got kids watching this play out. He's got kids that you're having to put food on the table for. So if you don't mind me asking, what are you going to do? Don't know. My part of me just wants to go back and plead with him again. How many times have you done that?

To do something. Well, a lot, you know. So let's just chalk that up. Before the mortgages do, it happens. Let's chalk that up to that doesn't work. That plan doesn't work. We're going to stop doing the same thing, expecting different results. Yeah.

I guess what I want you to spend time doing is, is asking yourself your or what statement. And by the way, if the thought of getting divorced again, if the thought of breaking up again, if all that madness that you remember still, like, clearly is lodged in your body from last time this happened a decade ago, and you're just like, I'm not doing that again.

Great. I will support you. But I want you to free yourself from walking in every day and looking at him and wishing he would be different. He's not going to be. Then it's a choice to ask. existential weight to an already unbearable weight situation, right? Right. It's like walking into the weight room and you know the weight you're about to lift or about

your max, max, max, and you're already really sore and you're like, let's put some more weight on that bar. Like, don't do that to yourself. But you got to come up with your or what line. Is it 30 days? Is it 60 days? Is it I'm putting the house up for sale? And I'm going to go rent us a place.

I'm going to go rent me and my son a place or me and my daughter a place. and if you want to contribute financially to this new rental house, then you can. And I'll give you your 150 grand of equity in the house and then I'm out. And if you want to move in, here's going to be my rules for moving in. But, I mean, y'all are in a dire situation.

Yeah. In dire situations, require decisive action. Sorry, you're in this situation. Thanks for calling Sue. I'm really grateful. this is a tough, tough, tough set of decisions you have ahead of you. Call anytime. If he wants to call, I'd love to talk to him.

Love to talk to him. When we come back, a woman asks how to relax and trust her parents with her kids so she and her husband can enjoy their anniversary trip. Be right back. So I went into a local store the other day, and I just wanted to buy a few things. And at checkout, here's what they wanted. They wanted my address, my phone number. They might as well have asked for my social security number, my fingerprints.

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off an annual plan. That's join deleteme.com slash deloney. All right, so I started with cozy earth towels. They're amazing. And then I moved on to the cozy earth comforters in these big, giant, awesome blankets. And now, right now, I'm wearing cozy earth socks. I have cozy earth gear in every nook and cranny of my house and on my BODY, right? They are awesome. And recently, I got a pair of cozy earth's everywhere pants. I didn't need another pair of pants, but I got them. And like all other Cozy Earth gear, they're amazing. I want to tell you about these Cozy Earth sheets.

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What's up, Gene? Oh, not much, just trying to raise babies and homestead and do all the things. Oh, sweet. And find a trip for my husband. You're a YouTuber, huh? You love the twos. Well, I wouldn't say YouTuber, but I did recently start a TikTok. Yes, you did.

It's one of the new rules of homesteading. You have to have a social media account to document it. Oh, yeah. Trying to do it all. Oh, man. How long have y'all been given the old homestead a run? Well, I would say off and on since we got married. My husband has always been a country guy, you know, all that. He's, you know, had dogs, horses, all the things.

And now, you know, we still have our dogs, our hunting dogs. And I'm getting into baking bread and doing honeybees and making soap and all that. I was going to say, are you making soaps? Yeah. Sweet. Doing it all. One of our children has ex-ma, so using the ghost milk soap has worked wonders for her. So that's really why we do it.

I don't really sell a lot of it, but it's more just as a hobby and gives me something to do, you know. I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay, so how can I help? What's up? So I'm planning a trip for my husband and I. We've been married. This summer will be 10 years. And this will be the, thank you. It's our, my longest-est-standing relationship. Do you still like him? I do. I like him a lot. Does he still like you a lot? I hope so. But last year, if you'd ask me last year, I'd have said, no, I don't like him very much right now. We did through a very hard time last year, and we really need to get away.

Awesome. Both of us had to have emergency surgeries, and it just kind of told us who was in our corner during that time. Yeah. But that's a call for another day. Okay. Because whenever I wrote out my question and sent it in, I read it to my husband on Monday, he was like, you're adding too much information for this question. So you need to focus just on keeping, you know, doing with the children. All right. But anyways, long story short, my husband and I, we've been married for 10 years this summer,

and I want to plan a trip. I've already got the room booked. I've got it all written out. I've got our places to eat all written out. And I'm very organized when it comes to that. My problem is my parents. This is the first time we've left our children in six years. for more than a night.

Is that because you're an anxious person? Yes and no. Yes, because I'm an foster adopted child and I had a very traumatic childhood. Okay. Up until the time I was adopted. And so when I was writing this out, I told myself I wasn't going to cry. I had to write everything down. I've got like three pages in my notebook in front of me with a pen so I can write down what you have to say.

Awesome. But my children are the ages that I was when my life turned upside down. Okay. How old are they? I feel six and three. Okay, six and three. Okay. And you wanted to stay with your parents?

Yes, sir, because my husband's family, they work or live out of state. Okay. And my family lives 20 minutes down the road, and we try to do as much as possible with them. And my parents are great when it comes to. You know, I know my kids are going to be safe. I know my kids are going to be taking care of. It's not that at all, but there are some boundaries that I put in place. Like what?

Okay. Okay. And I want you to hear what I'm doing because I want you to begin practicing this with yourself. Okay. Okay. You have a thing you need to do and you wrap that thing in so many layers of stories and emotions and it makes the next thing you need to do really hard. It's like you need to walk over 20 feet from you and you put on your muck boots and you keep stepping in deeper and deeper mud,

which makes just that 20 feet to walk. And so I'm interrupting you on purpose because I want to get to the action step, okay? Because you've got so many layers around each one of these actions. So what are the boundaries you put in place that your parents just throw away or ignore and run right through. So two of them are just things that just daily practices that we try to do at home that I try to keep up there. And one of them is with food, you know, we try not do a lot of sugary sweets. Sure.

You try to cut out the food dye. And I have learned that when they go to the grandparents, that's not always the case. You know, they go to grandparents' house. They only go over there like maybe once a week. So I can deal with that when they come back home. You know, one of our children has eczema and it is food-related. and I'm like, I'll just give her, you know, oatmeal bath, do all the extra things if she has a flare-up. Okay.

You know, I won't die on that heel of the food. You know, the other one is the tablet time and what they're watching on the tablet. And I've given a list of like mom-approved stuff and it's been like, oh, you know, they just click from one video to the other. And I don't want to sit there and, you know, sit beside them while they're on the tablet. and monitor what they're doing. And I'm like, well, that's part of what I'm asking you to do because you can't just walk away if they're just click, click, click. Or download this app, you know, PBS Kids or whatever,

and don't put them on YouTube. Sure. So if you write this stuff out, and by the way, whether it's with family or with friends, my wife leaves a pretty detailed list. Right. And I do that too with most of, of the people.

Okay. But this is where it comes to. So like, and the last one is like, I'm going to die. The last one is the heel I'm dying on, you know, that is a major boundary for me. And whenever I mention the last one, which I'll get to in just the second. And even with the other ones, oh, you're just being too sensitive. You're, you know, you're thinking too much. Okay.

So what's the third thing? What's the third thing? The third thing is, all right, so because of things that's happened to me in the past, I'm very protective when it comes to my children and who they're around and all of that. And my parents are not bringing people over that they're not supposed to or anything like that. So it's not that at all. It's just a few times that I've been over there and they've had all the grandkids. So I have two little girls and the rest are boys.

The boys are very comfortable with themselves and they will strip down to their underwear and run around the house like little boys do. And that bothers me. Okay. Mostly because if we're comfortable with that now because they're little and it's innocent and there's nothing wrong with it, you know, because they're their cousins and they're just children. If we're comfortable with it now when they're little, when they're older, we'll still be comfortable with it.

So I want to draw the line. That's not a real leap. Okay. Like you will find, I've spent my career sitting with people who are sexually abused, okay? and so I'm insane about it with my own kids. And to assume that a three-year-old or a four-year-old little boy running around his underwear is going to turn into a predator, that's not an honest leap.

That's you taking... Well, I don't feel that. Like, I don't look at the kids and be like, oh, you're trouble, you know, but it's in my head and my nervous system is like, okay, I experience things that I should not have at that mind. I know I'm overreacting, but I don't know how to tell my... body to be like, okay, you need to calm down. Yeah.

You know, I don't know how to do that. And then whenever I bring it up and I try to talk through it with my mother, because I don't talk about this stuff with my dad, but when I talk about it with my mom, it's, well, you know, you're overthinking it. You're overreacting. This is, you know, you're just, you're just putting too much emotion and too much thought into this. But I'm like, these are my children and I have to. protect them. And, you know, that's the way that I look at it. And I'm like, I know it's not

normal and I know it's not okay. And I feel it so like, I feel it down in my chest that I want my kids to have a good time when they go over there and enjoy the cousins and enjoy being with my mom. But I'm having to leave them for four days. Is she just going to abandon every, every expectation, every boundary that I put in place and just let the kids just run Buck Wild. And whenever I get home have to do damage control. Well, there's damage control because they went to grandma's house and had a bunch of junk food. I'm okay with that. That's what grandmas are for.

I can deal with that one. I can handle that one. One of my kids has a severe peanut allergy. I don't play with that. Right. And so if they were to go to my parents or my in-laws, and by the way, this would never happen. So if they were and they were like, oh, it's just peanut butter. Get over yourself.

I can't because you're going to kill my kid. right yeah and so if your kid gets has food related exima stuff's got allergies to certain foods if i'm going to send my kid to some place that has a health related concern and by the way i don't hear you saying this as some sort of internety health concern right like if he has if your kids have nine skittles that they're going to suddenly i don't hear that at all like if my kid eats this kind of food then they have a skin rash breakout yeah please don't give them this food you If the person says, oh, you're being ridiculous, then you can't see, I can't leave my kids there. Right.

All right. That's easy. And for you, it's an either or. When it comes to, and I don't want to put things out into the world, but I want to be honest with you, cousins, extended family are prime abusers. So you're not crazy. Right. And going to war with your body. When you say things like, I know this is irrational,

I know this is dumb, it's not. You've been there. You've experienced it. Yeah. What I can't get to on this call is, and I want you to dig into it, either way it's going to be hard. Right.

Which hard do you want to choose? Do you want to sit down and say, when we've gone through this list, my parents are going to completely dismiss the things that we write down and give them a piece of paper that say, here's what we're asking for. Okay. And by the way, this is going to sound cruel, they get to do that.

It's their house. It's their time. Right. And then you can say, I can never go on a trip with my husband because, fill in the blank. And or I'm not going to go on this trip and I'm going to be really sad that I don't have two parents who are willing to love my kids in a way and respect me and my husband. Yeah. Be sad about it. Or they're going to be fine over here.

it's appropriate that kids, six-year-old girls don't change with boys. Of course. And if they think that's weird, then my kids are not going over there. Yeah. Right? But if you think, you know what,

they're going to give them skittles and twizzlers, but they're going to honor this stuff. They're not going to have little boys running around being inappropriate. Yeah. And the kids are going to change. Like,

if you think that's going to be true, then feel uncomfortable. When you feel uncomfortable, have a code word with your husband that says like, ah, I'm feeling anxious. Ask your mom to text pictures of them a couple times a day. Yeah. Right? Yeah. But either path is going to be uncomfortable.

Right. Which path do you want to take? I'd like for them to have that relationship with my family because, you know, I no longer have a relationship with my biological family. And then my brothers and my sisters, we're all biologic, you know, we were all adopted together and I'm extremely grateful for the sacrifices. This is where the other emotions come in that my husband was like, you're adding too much into it, you know, just leave it as just how do you get over being anxious leaving the kids?

And this is the reason. I'm really grateful for the sacrifices that my, when I say my parents, my adoptive parents, gave to us. Like I'm extremely grateful for that. And I don't want, you know, this is out there in the world and I don't want my mom to hear this and think that I'm ungrateful or I think that she's putting my children in terrible situations because that's not it at all. But when I bring these concerns to her and I say, look, I'm feeling this away or I don't like that, you know, the boys are just being boys and their. their boys. You know, my kids have been raised with these

little boys, their entire life. They spent every day together for several years. You know, my oldest one was basically like a twin with the other cousin there, six weeks apart, inseparable, you know. Okay, so it sounds like this is inside of you. How do I fix that?

You don't fix it. You don't fix it. You walk right through it. You're not broken. I feel very broken. You're not. Your body's doing what it should. It's trying to keep you safe. It's been down this road before. Yeah, I told my husband yesterday, I was like, I feel like I want to just light myself on fire than to deal with this because it would just be easier just to cancel the whole trip altogether. And just take them with us. Maybe. But are you going to bubble wrap them forever? Or more importantly, you're going to bubble wrap yourself forever? And is there a night between now and that trip that y'all can.

spend one night apart and begin to practice? Well, we do that not very often because my mom wants the kids when it fits into her schedule. And my husband's family, they work full time. But we did. Sunday, she had both of my girls. They went and spent all day Sunday and spent the night. And then the boy cousins came over and they spent all day together. So it's kind of like a trial run of having all four kids.

they had a blast. Okay. So you get to make a choice. Do you want to keep going to war with your body? Or do you want to have a season where I'm going to practice healing? And healing will not mean that what happened to you as a kid didn't happen. And healing will not mean that you and your parents, your adoptive parents, aren't going to not see eye to eye on everything.

Yeah. Healing means I can feel this way and I can go do the next right thing. I'm going to take ownership of my life. The good stuff, the bad stuff, the scary stuff. But I refuse to stay a victim inside of this thing forever. And healing is, yes, terrible things happen to me as a kid. And healing is there are good people in the world. And healing is things could go wrong again.

And healing is, I've done my due diligence. and in this situation they probably won't. And probably is important because they might. That's the world. But probably not. And if I feel good about the probably not, then I'm going to make the next right move for me and my husband. And ask yourself this, by the way,

you have this big idea about a trip, this big idea about us getting away, do you want to get away with him for four days? Is your marriage in a place that y'all want to go spend time together for four days? Is that going to be good for y'all? You're all going to have fun. You're all going to look at each other in the eyes.

You're all going to hold hands. You're going to laugh. You're going to make out. Make sweet, sweet, sweet, no kid around love all. I'm just being ridiculous. But do you want to do that? Is there some anxiousness about what if this trip doesn't go well? Write this stuff down in your lists.

Be honest with yourself. And come to a decision. I'm going to stay at home from this trip. Or I'm going to feel uncomfortable. I've done all my due diligence. The kids are going to be fine. and the anxiousness is inside of me. And so I'm going to walk right through the middle of it.

That's your choice. Both paths are going to be hard. I want to choose the path that's going to lead me to where I want to be. And where I want to be one day is I feel anxious about it. I make sure I cover all the variables I can. And then I want my kids to go have the time of their life with friends, with family, and safe situations. And safe situations don't mean a hundred,

100%. They never do. They never do. Thanks for a call. I'll be rooting for you, whatever you decide to do. But personally, I hope you go on the trip. We come back. A man asks how to keep a relationship with his transgender son despite his personal beliefs. We'll be right back. I love talking about Helix mattresses. I have two people in my family who are getting married this summer. What did they ask me for? Helix mattresses. Why? Because my whole family sleeps on them and we won't shut up about how great they are because Helix mattresses rule. They don't just build one mattress for every human being on the planet. They build a number of different mattresses just for you. Whether you're a side sleeper, a back sleeper, a hot sleeper, they build

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It doesn't cost anything just to click on the things matters. Thank you so much. Let's go out to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Get some cheese and talk to Daniel. Hey, Daniel, what's up, brother? Hey, Dr. John. How are you? I'm good, my man.

What are you up? I'm sorry, what are you up to? I didn't even finish that sentence. That was weird. What's up? Well, I guess it starts with about two months ago. My son came out to me as transgender. Okay. How old your son?

And 18. Okay. And I want to know how to be able to keep a relationship with him despite my biblical worldview. Okay. And how that fits in. What does your biblical worldview say about being in relationship with somebody you disagree with? Well, I still love it. That's not what I asked.

That's not what I asked. Yeah. What does your biblical worldview say about being in relationship with people you disagree with? You don't run away. Okay. You face it head on. And what is facing it head on mean? It means still enjoying quality time with him and mutual respect despite our disagreements.

That's what my biblical worldview says. And you and I both know that if you have a child that you have a child that you disdise with and who's living a life that you disagree with. And you choose hospitality and respect and love and staying in relationship with. And by the way, all relationships come with boundaries. That's not a free-for-all. You know that that's going to cost you certain people you interact with. That's going to cost you looks. It's going to cost you, right? It's going to cost you because not everybody holds your same worldview, right? Right.

Yeah. Did your child give you a new name they want to go by? Yeah. Okay. So having had this conversation with multiple parents over the years, I'll tell you what I've told everybody and that I've seen it navigate well, okay? Okay.

Did your child say that they've been thinking about this for a long time, and it's been weighing on them, et cetera, et cetera? Yep. Okay. You haven't been thinking about this for a long time. You're 60 days out, right? Right. Were you pretty caught off guard by the conversation?

Yeah. Yeah, he basically had a midnight confession because he couldn't hold on to it any longer. Okay. So, yeah, he told me at midnight. Okay. I want to first honor you for being a safe place for your child. Okay.

Okay. That means you're doing dad well. He says I am. Okay. So I want to honor you in that. Okay. For an 18 year old to come out and say that to their dad, they're risking, I might not ever be able to have Thanksgiving dinner with my family again.

I may be getting cut off forever. And so I want you to acknowledge that your child trusted you enough. And that's a pretty cool thing. Yeah, I've been learning that. Okay. So that's number one. Number two, I've looked at countless 18 to 25-year-olds and said, hey, your parents get a minute. If you walk in this door and decide you're a different gender and a different name and a different whatever,

your parents had a picture that every parent has when they have a child. And it includes Thanksgiving dinners 30 years from now. It includes Christmases 30 years from now. It includes hunting and fishing trips or bowling trips or art projects or whatever. And you 18 to 25 real just change that. They get a minute. They get to mess up and say the wrong things if they're doing it out of love and respect. They get to really struggle with the name they gave their kid suddenly not being allowed to be uttered in their own home anymore.

That's hard. Okay. So I'll tell you, dad, you get a minute. and a minute is not a minute, it's a season. Okay. And then you get to decide what you think respect, kindness, hospitality means. Does that mean I will go along with the new name you want me to call you?

Does that mean I'm going to refer to you as my daughter or as my, I'm going to keep calling you son because that's what you will always be. Like, you get to decide those things. and then your child gets to decide I want to be in relationship with that, with you. Okay? Yeah.

And it's going to come down to hopefully, let me put it this way. In this particular conversation, over the last, especially 10 years, it gets all or nothing real, real quick. And I just reject that on its face. Because no relationship on planet Earth is all or nothing. Right?

Yeah. None, zero. Not with spouses, not with kids, not with pets, not with anything. There is no all or nothing relationship. And 18 to 25 year olds, their frontal lobes aren't fully developed yet, right? So that can be a hard thing for them to stomach. Mm-hmm. Right?

Yeah. So walk me through, walk all of us through, what's the last 60 days been like for you? Just kind of start from the beginning. No, no, no, I'm just interested in, and, like, your child's not on the phone. And so, this is going to sound crazy. I'm less interested in their story. I'm interested in yours. Okay.

Well, I guess I will say he did, when he came out, he was, like, this is how it's going to be. And I think the wisest thing I did is not say too much. Excellent. Because, again, he dropped a bomb on me. And I've been praying every single day because I don't know what to do. And I didn't even tell a single person for two weeks. I do have my friend and his wife who've been very supportive. They've helped me a lot, just someone to talk to.

We have not told my family yet. So you're like the fourth person I've told. Just me and you and a couple million people, dude. We're good. Right. You know, I knew what I was getting into, and I was okay with that. It's got to happen anyway.

But, yeah, you know, when it's like a loss, I feel like when I held them in my arms and he was born. all of that's gone. It's like, this isn't how it's supposed to be. Yeah. You're supposed to raise you up as well as I can. You meet a nice girl. You get married and have some babies.

It's like, I don't even know if I'm going to get grandkids. Yeah. And I have one child. Okay, and do you hear you, what you're experiencing is what I was, you just put skin and bone on what I was saying earlier, which is you had a, you're holding this baby. and kids don't understand this. I didn't understand this until I held my first kid.

It's amazing how you hold this kid and a boom, a 60-year story shoots out from you. And by the way, our stories as parents, that's not fair to that kids, but it happens. It just isn't it is, right? Yeah. And you're allowed to grieve that like crazy. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

That's what I've been doing. for the last two months. And I don't want you to hold on to this particular story as forever either. Yeah. Right? Because it's easy to go, well, now I'm never going to have grandkids and now

my family lineage stops with me. I'm it. I'm the last male with my name. Like all those stories now they're going to shoot out from you. Those are as made up and fragile as the one that you had when you first held your son. That's not nice to hear.

I know, I know, I know. But here's a thing. It's truthful. Every single parent on planet Earth creates a story the moment they hold their first kid. Yeah. And it's hard when our kid comes in and says this story is different now. And by the way, to a much lesser degree than what you're experiencing, it's different when you instantly think, my kid's going to become a doctor.

My kid's going to change the world. my kid's going to be a star athlete. Parents just come up with stories. It just happens. And then your kid says, I'm not going to law school. I'm going to puppetry camp. I'm not going to, right, right? And then you're, you get frustrated at your kid,

but what you're really doing is you're grieving the story. And also, if you're a good parent, you begin projecting out, life's going to be really hard for you. And again, taking off the transgender conversation, if you think I want my kid to be a physician so that they don't have to worry about money like I did growing up and then they tell you, hey, I want to go be a forest ranger

and make $41,000 bucks a year. If you're a parent and you're like, no, I want to tell all my friends that my kid's a doctor, well then you're a jerk. But if you think, oh, I wanted you to have a $300,000 salary, now you're going to have a $41, your life's going to be hard. You're, of course you're going to grieve that for your kid.

and then we have a choice. Do I want to then walk alongside you and say, okay, then you're going to be the best freaking four stranger that ever lived. You're going to honor that job. You're going to work hard. I'm going to teach you out of budget, man, because things are going to be tight. Maybe I'm going to make a little bit of extra money on the side

so that I can pitch into the college fund for your kid. Right? So you start saying, okay, how am I going to walk alongside you? And for you, your kid comes out and says, I'm changing genders, I'm changing names. You automatically know your life's going to be hard. And then you also realize, oh, your life has been really hard and you've kept it all inside your chest. I'm sorry you had to do that alone.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. But I, I, you get to, you get to, let me say it like this. You get to determine the boundaries you want to place on this relationship. And then your kid gets to decide that they want to be in relationship with you. And by the way, I would, I would refrain from making forever statements. I would say for the next 30 days, I'm going to really wrestle with the name change because I gave you this name and it's hard for you to come back and say, nope, here's my new one. It's hard. It's hard when I've bought you jeans and T-shirts for every Christmas for the last whatever, and now you want me to buy you a dress. Like, that's hard for me. And that's you not keeping secrets. That's you being honest in this conversation. Right?

and honesty and giving somebody a path to relationship with you I think that's noble and that's good they get to decide whether they walk it or not I think I've kind of been doing that without really thinking without having that in my mind

I think that's how I've been going about it after having this conversation with so many parents over the years I'd almost guarantee it because you were safe enough for your son to come talk to but it sounds like you're walking alongside an 18 year old making some big life choices some big announcements as well as you possibly could and even the parents I've met with over

the years that are celebrating their kids coming out as transgender they still they still weep because the picture is different now they still grieve because I had this thing I got to change my picture now. Even if we're celebrating and throwing a party, it's still a big shift and big change. But it sounds like you and your child are handling this about as good as you can. And so you get to decide what biblical worldview means to you. You get to decide what action steps I'm going to take. And you get to decide the boundaries of what I'm going to allow in my house. And then your kid gets to decide whether we're in on that. I will tell you, I've never heard a parent in all my years of sitting with teenagers and with young adults and their families.

I've never heard a parent say, I wish I had cut off the relationship sooner. I have heard over and over again. I would do anything to have that first conversation back. I've heard that over and over again. And it sounds like you chose, it's going to be quiet and listen, which is always the best approach for any big announcements from kids, especially one as challenging as I want to change my name and my gender. And here's my rules for being my parent now. Sounds like you handle it perfectly. Call anytime as you head into this. Sounds like you're doing a pretty, pretty great job.

And for all parents experiencing this, you get a minute. You get a minute. Thanks for a call, brother. We'll be right back. I'm excited to tell you about a brand new sponsor on the Dr. John Deloney show, Capstone Wellness. I've spent the vast majority of my career working with teenagers and young adults and their families. I know from personal experience how hard it is to find help and care for a teenager or young adult. It can be a nightmare. If you're a parent and your teenage or young adult son, age 14 to 28, is struggling with trauma,

addiction, mental health challenges or other destructive behaviors, and you're running out of options, I want you to consider residential treatment care. Capstone Treatment Center is a residential treatment program for young men. In this live-in therapeutic setting, your son can fully step away from the chaos of the world for a few months or longer and into a structured environment with trained licensed clinicians. This is daily intensive work that has the power to transform your son's life and your family's life. And listen, I know the folks at Capstone. It is Christ-centered, but they care for all types of people in all walks of life. If somebody close to me had a son who needed that level of help, or if my own son needed this level of help, Capstone would be my very

first call. Residential treatment is a very serious investment in money, time, and energy, because the level of care is completely different than anything you've ever seen or experienced. financial aid and other support is available. Go to Capstone Wellness.com slash Deloney to learn more. That's capstonewellness.com slash Deloney. All right, we're back, Kelly. What's up? All right, so I have a question about the Together app.

And this is one that I haven't, this is a question for me too, because I'm not really clear on what's meant by this. I'm always very clear, Kelly. Oh, yeah. Clear as mud. that's you. As a what?

Mud. Oh, I thought you said a bud. And I was like, dude, don't bring your weed smoking stuff in here. That's not what I said. That's not the saying. Nobody says that. Clear as bud. Yeah.

When you get high, that's what you say. You just don't remember. Okay, go ahead. Anywho. All right. You say tension is the door to connection. Yes. What does that mean in this sense of like a marriage?

Yeah, so tension is the door to connection. That is, that's not only, I know I'm restating the, I'm just restating it. You said, God, the worst. Tension is the doorway. Not only applies to marriage, as it applies to relationships with kids, your boss, yourself, your body, exercise, any of that. The thing that feels hard. Can I give you a sideways example? Please do.

I'm going to be clear as mud. Yes. I was backstage at an event that I was speaking at, that Jocko, that's, the Navy SEAL was also speaking at. And somehow we got to talking about pull-ups. As one does. As two dudes do. And I said something along the line,

this is probably six years ago now, I said, I can't do that many pull-ups. And in very jaco way, he said, you can do one. And I was like, oh yeah.

And it started with doing one. and I had this tension that was I can't do that thing I can't do 10 pull-ups I can't do 20 pull-ups whatever you can do one and so I literally got home from that trip and I went down to my basement gym and I just did one and then the next day I did one and the next day after that I did two and it was it was a the tension like me going around it with a story that I can't do that thing

was not the solution there to getting stronger to navigating that problem it was going right through it. And so in your marriage, tension is the doorway. I can't talk to him about that. He never, she always, that is the place is the path to walk directly into. And that's why, like, sitting down and saying, I've made up a story that you will never help me with the laundry, because you think it, you're beneath, you're above it. You think this is a beneath you task. You think this is not your, quote unquote, your job in the house. The story I've made up is, we don't have as much sex as I would like to have

because you don't think I'm attractive. You don't, like, that tension is, it puts everything on the table and that's the path towards bringing people together. The more you avoid the tension, the more, let me put it this way. Conflict deferred is conflict amplified. The more you go around tension,

the more tense it gets. The bigger the tension gets and it eventually explodes. And so, tension's the doorway in the Together app, sometimes the thing that pops up is, write a note and leave it on your spouse's pillow. About two or three things you're grateful for. I'm not doing that.

They're not going to read it. They will roll their eyes. I don't even have three things I could say. Boom, there's a tension. I'm going to walk right through it. I'm going to put the note down. And that's where we're going to find connection. And so that's what I mean by that.

Is that clear as mud for you? That was clear as mud. So tension is our doorway. Kelly, you're mean to me. The story I'm telling myself is it's because I'm handsome and really smart and you just feel like less than when you're around me. And that makes me feel sad. Yeah, that's the reason. See, tension gone. Yeah, just foof. Love you guys. Bye. Whoa, that was a good noise. Woof.