The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Spanks Our Kids (I Don’t Like It)

Episode Date: March 13, 2026

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I'm home along with the kids all day long and he's at work. And then he comes in and then something tiny goes on and he's like, okay, it just goes out to the wind. How do I get to the thing beneath the thing? And that is I've got an angry husband who is taking it out on a five-year-old. Hey, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show, taking your calls from all over the planet about whatever you're going through. your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your kids, your marriages, whatever you got, your in-laws for the last 20-plus years now.

I've been sitting with hurting people trying to figure out what's the next right move in their lives and the lives of those they love and what can they control, what can they cannot control, and where do we go from here? So, glad that you're with us. If you want to be on the show, go to john doloney.com slash ask ASK, fill out the form, and we'll get you hooked up. Let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Paige. What's up, Paige?

Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm okay. Okay, okay. What's going on? So how do I tell my husband that I don't want to raise our kids the same way he was raised? Husband, I don't want to raise our kids the same way he raised. I'm sure that that probably hasn't worked.

Tell me what's going on. So we have three kids. ranging from five to almost nine months. And I was raised with the new year, I was kind of reflecting on how I wanted to parent and what I wanted to change and everything. And I was raised in a split household. Both of them were abusive in their own ways. And my husband was raised in a single household.

But there was some things that I see as abusive, but he is. just oblivious. Okay, tell me about them. Well, let me start it this way. If you start, if you head into this challenge as I have a better view than he does or my view is right and his is wrong

or I've got clarity and he's oblivious, he'll feel that. Okay. And then the conversation won't be about kids. It'll be about right and wrong, who's winning and who's losing. Okay. You get what I'm saying?

And so there's something about I want to be enter into something, unless it's just outright, you know, like over the top abusive, right? Or even under the, like any sort of abuse, obviously, I'm not going to be curious. I'm going to walk right in there and try to be a, like stop it, right? But if it comes to, I want to do this, but he wants to do this, or he values that or I value this, walking into it like, well, he's clearly oblivious to X, Y, or Z is, it's not a way to solve a problem. And so get underneath it with me. What are some things that your body says, whoa, I don't like this, that he says, this is the way I want to do it?

The main one is any time that my kids, like, or that our kids do something that's like, okay, well, let's redirect them. He just automatically goes to thinking. Ah, okay. And that's the big one. And I'm home along with the kids all day long. and he's at work. So it's kind of like I've managed the kids the way that I have all day,

and then he comes in, and then something tiny goes on, and he's like, okay, it just goes out to the wind. Gotcha. And so you have a physical reaction when you see your husband hit your kids? I tell him to stop,

but he does not. No, but tell me about what's going on inside your chest. Oh. Um, like, it just, it throws me back to whenever I was a kid. Sure. And, um, both, both of my dads were just one less than the other. Um, but like, it just throws me back to that. And I thought I had managed it, but there's like triggers.

And I know those are my triggers. I don't need to put them on my husband, but. Yeah, but. there, but you also have a lived experience too that's real. And you can also, you have a radar for swat and a kid and you have a radar for a frustrated, angry, just coming home from work, dad, who's taking it out on a five-year-old. Yes. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And that's a very, those are two very different things. And so I, I've got my own very entrenched. firm positions on spanking.

I won't talk about those here. What I want to talk about with you is, how do I get to the thing beneath the thing? And that is, I've got an angry husband who is taking it out on a five-year-old, on a three-year-old. And that can't happen.

Yeah. Okay. And so it's less about this big, the third rail issue here is, I'm going to spank my kids or whatever or no one's ever going to correct my children whatever right

the bigger issue here is I'm guessing you can tell me if I'm wrong is you see a guy that's taking stuff out on children and that's not right yes and my husband when we were dating

because we had talked a little bit I had my daughter we started dating at when she was about eight months so I had my daughter before we did gotten together. And we had talked like a little bit about parenting, but and like at that time, we were on the same page. But like with every single kid, it's kind of changed. And, but his view on it hasn't changed. And whenever we talked about it when we were dating, I thought he was over exaggerating. And he was like, well, my dad dropped kicked me and I'm fine. And I was like,

I reacted to it. I was like, that's not okay, but all right. Here's how I know he's not fine. He allows a five-year-old to enrage him to the point of hitting, right?

That tells me he's not okay. If a five-year-old can emotionally disregulate an adult, you're not okay. Yes. If a five-year-olds will annoy you until the end of time, that's what five-year-olds do

and three-year-olds. And eight-month-old cry. Eight-month-old scream and cry. Like, that's being their children. And drop-kicking a kid because I got drop-kicked is, it's unacceptable. It's madness. Yes. Right?

And, I mean, at that point, I would have drawn the line and something would have had to happen. Oh, of course. I get that. I get that. But here's the deeper issue is. You drawing a line and saying. the point of any sort of discipline or I would say correction is a behavior change. And adults navigate what is the best path for behavior change, right?

Yes. We don't go into every situation with our hammer because every situation's a nail. And that's emotional maturity. So let me ask you this. Does he have anger issues in other places? Sometimes, yes, whenever he's frustrated. But he's not, like, it doesn't really get aggressive in that way. It just goes towards like cussing and verbal.

But it's never towards me. It hasn't ever been towards me. But does your body begin to withdraw or shut down because it remembers? Sometimes. Okay. That's what I want to work through. I want y'all to work through. Okay.

Okay. Almost without fail, and I'm going to use his words, kids that were drop kicked, and then also patted on the head and told they were loved, and this is for you, and this is what you get. They grow up with a sense of inner rage and anger that is hard to describe. You know what I'm saying? Yes. And so it doesn't surprise me that your body feels it. it goes whoa and it backs out okay okay and i usually just shut down because of course that's what kept

you safe growing up and so the hardest thing for you is to enter into this conversation of course i'm trusting you that he's safe and he's not abusive and he's not knocking holes in the sheetrock and stuff like that no but if you sit down and tell him hey i love you and i sense inside of you in anger and a rage that's coming out on our kids and I can't have that. Okay. And I honor that you don't,

I mean, I honestly, I honor you because nobody, I mean, it's kind of like, like that you're like you're not supposed to hit things, right? So I'm not going to like celebrate you for not hitting things, right? But I think

him not having peace in his own chest inside of his own house is going to recreate the, dynamic he grew up with. It's going to recreate the dynamic you grew up with. Just it's going to look a little bit different. Okay. Is that fair? Yes, that's fair.

Okay. So the approach, though, is how can we connect here? And if his response is, I'm not mad, I'm not angry about anything, then you can, like, I mean, smile and say there it is, right? If you sat down and looked him in the eye and held his hand and said, I need you to hear me say,

this, I love you, and when your frustration builds, it scares me. What do you say? I honestly have no idea. Okay. A, that's telling to me. That's either telling that you've kept parts of yourself from him just to stay safe. And either because you have to, I love that, I love that noise, either because you have to or because you haven't opened up yet. I think some of it is that I don't remember it as well. There have, like my past was, I've experienced probably almost every form of abuse in my childhood between my two households. And like just a few years ago, one of the really big things just came up and I just remembered it. and so I think it might be that I don't remember everything that I've been through so I can't

she knows what I remember him or what I remember telling him but like every once in a while something will happen and I'm like oh my gosh I can't believe I forgot about that happening and then I would tell him yeah but he's actually the first one that I told okay well and that's that's awesome that's amazing I I deeply care. So I'm saying, hear me say that I deeply, deeply,

but also in the present, what matters most to me is your body is going into fight or flight or shut down. And so something that's happening in your present is signaling your body, uh-oh, here we go again. And so the specific details

of what happened in the past between, like those will emerge. Your body actually, does a good job of like, hey, we don't need to rethink all that stuff because we got to get up and get on with our day, right? And so, like, sometimes forgetting is, like, the body keeps the score, as Van der Kolk says, but if your mind thought about that 24-7, 365, all of those scary, terrifying, awful memories, it would be incapacitating, right? Right. What matters is, hey, when you come in the door and you're in a bad mood, and our five-year-old, he says, pick that up. And our five-year-old goes, no, Daddy.

And you just walk up and wallop him. I can't have that. Because that's not about discipline. It's not about correction. It's about you're pissed off. Yes. It's not about you redirecting behavior. And I can't have that.

And my hope is, my deep, deep hope is he hears that. And if you say, I've been through this in my home, I can't have it again. I won't recreate it. I won't let it be recreated. my hope is my God, dude, my deepest hope and prayer is that he goes, oh God, I don't want to be like that. And if there's some way that he will hear you,

not over him, not I see something you don't, but hey, I love you so much, I need you to see this. You say that the way you were beat up as a kid didn't affect you, I'm telling you, I feel it. It did. It did. kids need emotionally regulated adults in their house never never never hit a kid when you're angry or mad ever ever ever ever ever ever i would say don't hit kids that's a different conversation

if you're frustrated walk away if you're mad walk away if you're angry heartbrook up if you're embarrassed if you're humiliated walk away when we come back a woman asks if her fiance sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious. My God, we'll be right back. All right, over the last week, I went to church, I did a set at a comedy club, I spoke at a corporate live event,

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So a situation happened a couple months ago that I haven't told anyone about and I don't know how to feel about it or how to proceed or I just don't know. So hold on, hold on. Am I the right person to be the first person you tell? I would love the most unbiased of perspectives. Absolutely. Okay. Do you have a safe person that you're like a friend, a counselor or something in your area that you? that you can talk to also?

Yeah, absolutely. Okay. I just really don't understand, like, how to confront the situation with my partner or even how to feel about it. Okay. What happened? I don't feel in a safe in this situation. I just don't know what to do or don't have to think about it. But so I had an outpatient surgery, and upon leaving, my family picked me up from the surgery

Center. We go home. He gives me medication that was prescribed. I was very out of it from the anesthesia. But I guess he had misread what medicine was supposed to go first. So I ended up taking like a double dose of pain medication. And so I was out of it. Like I have no recollection, completely asleep. And I woke up to my fiance performing like a sexual act on me. And I'm so sorry. I like immediately like like like jump back. I'm like what are you doing? And he just was like I was, you know, trying to, I'm trying to think of the best ways to phrase this right now. Just just say it.

I was trying to, you know, pleasure you right now. And I'm like, what? I'm like I was like unconscious. Like I have no recollection of how that even occurred. And his response was, well, you know, your body seemed to be, he seemed like you were enjoying it. And I'm like. Oh, God.

Okay, here's the deal. That's rape. Agreed. That's what that is. Okay. I try to explain to him. I'm like, you know, your body. Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop.

I'm done talking about him. Okay? For now. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry that happened. Yeah. And I know that he has blown up your entire world. He's changed everything.

Everything from the inside out. I'm so mad at him. Yes. Yes. I don't know. Like, what do I even do? What do I even say? Like, I don't even know the person.

I don't even know him. Like, who are you? Yes. Yes. Yes. Gady, I'm so sorry. I don't know. Like, how to, what to even do?

Like, I, I, there's just an order of things here. And order, step number, one is get to a place where you're safe. Do y'all live together? Oh, yeah. Okay. That he needs to go.

And if you're economically unstable, if it's his place, then priority number one is you need to find a safe place to go ASAP. Because you might think in your mind, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm not scared of him or whatever, but your body knows, I can't even sleep. Everything is just been fun. Yes. Yes. And yes.

your body would be failing you if it let you go to sleep at night. It's like I'm living with a stranger. It's like who even, like, I... And it's been a few weeks now, so you would, like, I feel like I... No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Is this the first time this has happened to you? It is. Okay.

I need you to hear me say these words and I want you to metabolize them as best you can, okay? Mm-hmm. You're not crazy. and if you start saying things like I should by now and I have to and it's all I want you to catch yourself

in those moments okay and this is this is huge huge on 50 different levels and that's why I feel so overwhelming and so big it's more like

I feel just incredibly angry that I he's just destroyed our entire life Yes. He's destroyed yours. And I'm mad that I feel guilty. I'm mad that I'm questioning like anything. I didn't do anything wrong. And I just, it's not fair. And I just don't know. Yes. So I'll say this as boldly as I can. Everything in your relationship is over now. You're right. It's not that it's different now. It's over now. And I'll run through some of the layers if we're

We were sitting together, I would do this way, way slower, okay? But I'm going to run through some of the layers here. Layer number one, the disbelief, you call it guilt, I have a different word for it, but I get the sentiment that you feel, how in the world did I get to a place where I would consider sharing my life with a guy like that? Right. And it makes you feel crazy. You're not crazy.

How in the world does a person do this to somebody else? What else do I not know about him? Right. There's no way that person, I'm going to anchor into that person for the rest of our life and marry them. They're a rapist. I both want to call the cops and have this guy go to jail. And I also want to hug him and say,

what's a matter with you? And I also want to hit him as hard as I can all at the same time. Me too. I'm saying, I'm pretending I'm you right now, right? Like all of it. Right? And so I could go on and on and on. It's all of these layers. And it will come over you and over you and over you. It's like being in an ocean. And it just waves and waves and waves. But yeah, you're not crazy. Here's where you would be crazy. If you haven't had the thought, what else has happened that I didn't know about? Constantly. Constantly. Yeah. How would this even enter a person's head? Right. And so, I, if you've listened to them, my show ever, you know, you will know how rare this is. But I would say you need to get out.

Yeah, I think that's what I've been telling myself, but I'm also like, you know, I, you lose, I don't know why I feel this way, but it's almost like I'm telling myself that you lose like a certain level of autonomy when you're in, you know, a committed relationship. And then I'm also like, that's absolutely nuts, like, to even think that way. You explain that to me? Like, I, in a marriage, we're living together. We're sleeping together every day. Like, you know, maybe that's just okay in a relationship. Like, but then I'm also like, that's absolutely insane. Yeah.

Yeah. Giving up autonomy is not rape. Co-creating a world together with somebody, choosing to put both feet in the boat is trust. this is in my opinion the grossest violation of trust there is so yeah i i give up autonomy you're right like when i chose to get married i chose to say i'm not just going to make every decision in my life for the rest of my life i'm going to share that decision making and co-create a world together with somebody you're right but the only way that works is if i implicitly with everything i am trust that not just with my physical body,

but with my mind, with my spirit, with my dreams, with my values, with my, when I fail. And that's why this is such a mind-altering, like a life-altering event is,

it takes all of that away at the same time. It just severs the cord. I'm pretty sure I've felt that way since then, and it's like our relationship has not been the same since. No, because he blew it to smithereens. every decision you make from this point forward will be because he did what he did.

You're right. You deciding to seek safety does not make you a bad person. I can't believe you. Give me another. You blew this thing up. Let me say this. This is critically, critically important

that you get some people in your corner. You cannot navigate this by yourself. It's too big. Okay. Do you have a couple of friends you can call today? Yeah, absolutely. You sit with them in person, not text? Yeah, I need to do that.

I'm asking you, will you? I'm going to do this. Thank you. I need to do that. I've been just like holding on to this for so long, like just alone. I know. You don't want it to be true. Right.

I'm so disgusted. On behalf of husbands and fiancés and men who love, the women in their lives, just know I'm disgusted, and I'm heartbroken, and I'm sick, and I'm pissed off on your behalf. I appreciate that.

Thank you, thank you for taking my call. Like I said, I've just been holding on to this alone for so long. Yeah. And there will be times when it feels like a dam

has broken and you can't hold it all back, and that's why you've got to have other people with you because you can't hold it all back. Right. Okay. I hate this for you.

Me too. You have an army of people with you, okay? I appreciate that a lot. And make no mistake, your steps forward are very, very hard. Finding a place to live, finding bills, moving the couch out, taking your clothes, all of that stuff. There's a reality to that that people don't think through sometimes, and it's all hard, all of it. Okay? You're right.

And I'm ready to do that. And staying will kill you from the inside out. you're right about that it's been horrible a few weeks and I think I've been ready to make that decision I just need a validation in that regard I just want to walk away like I don't even want to tell him

I just want to be done with the situation okay today and that's good do what's right today right and then tomorrow you'll do what's right tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that that's good advice

and there'll be days you don't want to get out of bed, and there's going to be days that you feel great, and there's going to be days that you are so overwhelmed with rage and anger, there's going to be days that you second guess yourself, and you're like, I'm crazy, it wasn't that, but all of that is completely normal. You're going to feel nuts, and that's what I'm telling you, you're not crazy. And for those moments when your body's just ping pong and all over the place, trying to make sense of a new world that you now live in,

where somebody you were going to marry would hurt you and take advantage of you in that way. in such an amazingly vulnerable moment. That's why you've got to have other people with you so they can see clearly when you can't. Okay? You're right. With all my heart and all my spirit and all my guts, I hate this happen to you.

You call anytime. Thanks for trusting me. Today's day one. We come back. A woman asks how to talk to her kids about her weight loss journey in a healthy way. Love this question. Be right back.

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That's zander.com. All right, let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona, and talk to Lauren. Lauren. Hey, Dr. John. I am so excited to be here talking to you today. I'm excited. Oh, thank you. I'm excited to be talking to you.

What's going on? So I am currently on a health journey and a byproduct of that health journey is going to be a pretty significant amount of weight loss plus or minus like 130 pounds. Yeah, dude. Okay, so what sparked this journey? I'm just done. I need longevity in my life. I have lots of genetic risk factors for diabetes, heart conditions, cancers, and the path on mine now is just, it won't get me to that goal.

Can I tell you? I'm so proud of you. Thanks. It's been a long time coming. But you get to that sick and tired of being sick and tired moment, right? Yeah, it has to happen. And I've worked through a lot of stuff that has brought the fear of losing it up. And I'm just ready. to like get past those feelings and take them head on and do the work, you know? Yes, I'm so proud of you. All right, so how can I help? So my question today is, how do I talk to my kids about the impending body changes in a way that's positive and constructive, but doesn't make them feel like they have to change anything

about themselves? Gotcha. So, man, it's such a great question. Thanks. And good on you for asking that question. That's amazing. I'm so worried that I'm going to screw them up, John. Oh, we're all going to screw up our kids.

It's all good. As long as they know that we love them for all the and who they are is awesome. All right. So are your kids overweight? Well, I guess they're not. No, my kids are very healthy. My son has a higher BMI, but he is kind of a. on the shorter side, but he's really stocky.

His dad is six-foot-six. So they have tall jeans in them. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So, and BMI is great at the epidemiological level, at the society level, but there's so much nuance. My BMI is technically puts me in the not ideal category, but I'm a muscular guy, I'm a big guy.

And so, but over, but people who feel, throw it out and like, it's stupid. It's not if you look at like a population level. And it doesn't tell a full story. So all I'd say is, um, here's the, the greatest gift you can give your kids right now is to let their mom, see their mom celebrate wins, see their mom be sad, and see their mom keep going. Where this could get sideways is, is if you pledge your allegiance to, the number on a scale. Right. If you pledge your allegiance to address size.

Now, you and I, I am working towards a target number right now for weight. Okay? Right. I'm not losing any, I'm near anywhere the courage you have right now. Okay, I don't, right? But you and I both know it would be unreasonable for us to not say, hey, there's a number we'd like to hit. Right.

I don't announce that number to my kids. Okay. I do make sure, well, I mean, we have a gym in our garage. So I make sure that I'm working out. Both of my kids, as they walked out the door today to go to school, saw their dad lifting weights. Okay. That's what's important. Both of my kids see me eat relatively healthy.

And last night, I took my daughter on a date and we got a milkshake and she saw that too. What she didn't know is it was I was keeping a ballpark. of my caloric intake for the day. She didn't know that. Right. Right. But she saw her dad smiling. We laughed and then we went, tried on dress.

I didn't try on dresses, but she did. All right. So, but like, so it's seeing a healthy picture of what life looks like. Okay. So I have a lot of cognitive dissonance around this because I have felt the need to be smaller, like the should of. I should, since I was in sixth grade, I can remember the first time I became aware of my body. and I've always been told I should be smaller.

And so for a majority of my life, a lot of it was internalized because of the ways that other people talked about their own bodies and their own weight. And there were something specifically, like in eighth grade, I went on Weight Watchers. When I was 16,

I went to the pediatrician for a sports physical and was told that I was obese, and I was full-time sports. So I've always known that I've kind of always been, quote-unquote, bigger. Sure. But I did a lot of untangling, worked with somebody, and peeled back the layers of that, and then went, oh, I don't have to listen to anything. I can do whatever I want.

And I did do whatever I want for a couple of years. And now I'm in this position where I had no self-control. I had no moderation. I didn't have any of that and went off the wagon. And, you know, this is the stupid tax for it, right? I have a couple of buddies that helped me with a couple of phrases. Can I pop them in there for you? Absolutely.

And these are world-renowned health and fitness guys. And little sayings that I've caught myself saying over the last few years and that have, I mean, my whole life that I've changed over the last few years, there's no bad foods. There's unhealthy amounts. Right. Right. And so I don't ever want to demonize something with my kids like that. Like this is bad for you. Like we call like I, if you listen to the show, you know, I love gummy candies. Like I call them garbage. Like like dad, are you going to get some garbage tonight at the movies? I'm like, yep, I'm eating garbage. Right. I want them to know that's not good, but I'm making a choice too, right? And what I'm teaching them in the moment is I'm in control of what I'm doing next, even if I'm making a bad decision. decision. Right. I don't ever want them to feel powerless to food like I have for a lot of my life.

Yeah. Right. And so we're never going to say like, we don't eat cake in this house. We might say, I'm going to make a smaller birthday cake and we're just going to have one, one, we're going to have it tonight. And I don't have a small piece. And they don't need to know that that hit your, your calorie goal and you had to, and you didn't eat X, Y, or Z for breakfast or whatever. Like, they don't need to know all the details of that kind of stuff. Right. They're going to watch what you do. And so when my body's changing, because 130 pounds is losing like an entire person. Yeah, exactly.

It's going, and my husband's also on this journey with me. He's, he started a few months prior to me, and I talked to him about my fears, and he was the one who really grounded me in, like, you're letting your fear of your kids feeling, possibly feeling a certain way about themselves. Amen. You know, my feelings were being my barometer. My husband talked to me clearly and kindly and said, This is not a good excuse.

No. He's exactly right. He's exactly right. He's a wonderful man. He's really loved the charge on this and doing it together helps. But like how do I talk like if they ask a question like mom, why is your belly getting smaller? Mom, what like how do I say that plainly and factually without I don't, I don't want it to be a big deal. But they're going, my five year old son is so intuitive.

Of course. This is everything. I want to be able to talk to him plainly. and also not make it a big deal, you know? It is very important that you never lie to him. So, Mommy, why is your belly getting so much smaller? Because I'm exercising and I'm eating really healthy foods. I'm taking care of myself.

Mm-hmm. Period. And he'll go, oh. Okay. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, and he'll go on about his day. Okay.

and in it will this like your marriage will change your sense of yourself and the world will change and i don't know how to just how to say this in a right as i was about to say it i was like that's probably not the best way to say that cannonball it um yeah thank you using my words against me there is a um just no for i'm making up a number here totally making this up but for every 10 to 25 pounds you lose you'll unearth things. Yeah. Right? And you'll feel empowered some days.

You'll feel shameful some days. You'll feel embarrassed some days. You'll feel frustrated some days. It's just part of it. And so it's less about, I want to avoid all that stuff. And there's just power and knowing it's coming. Yeah. All right.

And then you're going to start sleeping so much better. I already have. Yeah. And your knees aren't going to hurt as much and your back won't hurt as much. And then you'll start to say things like, I can't believe I. And then you're going to really. really grieve the last few years.

Yeah. And then you'll look at your husband, who, by the way, he will lose weight 100x faster than you. Oh, yeah. I already know that. And it will make you hate everything. And that's normal, right? And then he'll start saying things like, why don't you just? And you'd be like, why don't you just, right?

All that's coming. And so it's less about trying to avoid all that and having a good model, a good system for when it does. Okay. And so here's what I'd recommend. you and him have a five-minute check-in every week. Okay. All right, how are we feeling? What were your wins this week?

What were your losses this week? Yeah. All right. And hopefully people have told you this, and if you haven't, this can be nightmarish. Your weight loss journey will be like a stock market ticker. Just the wrong way. And what I mean by that is there will be weeks that you do everything perfectly.

And for some unknown reason, your body will hang on to, It will retain fluid or what, and your weight will go up one week. And you'll be like, oh, that sucks. And you're right to go, all that sucks. And you're right to go, that's disappointing. And then you have a choice. Are you going to go bury that in old habits? Or are you going to be like, all right, I'm going to stay on the path?

Right. My buddy Jordan Satt calls it the whoosh, which is staying the same on the scale, stay in the same, stay in the same, goes up two pounds, stay in the same. then boom down seven. And so it's just, it's hanging in there for that. I'm trying really hard not to focus as much on the weight because I know when I'm making the right choices, my body's going to do what it needs to do. There you go.

So I've made some like really explicit goals that don't have to do with weight, like getting my A1C lower or getting, like I want to be able to do, I've been working out consistently, my body feels good, I want to be able to do a push up again. Yes. You know? Like there's certain things like that that I'm like, these are markers of success that have nothing to do with the scale. Yes.

But I also want to celebrate like the scale number. So I appreciate the advice to not talk to them about the number. And that's nothing that needs to be their concern. Because when I was little, a lot of that was stuff that I internalized. Somebody would say, oh, you know, if I could just lose the last 10 pounds. And then I'd see that I was 30 pounds more than them. So I said, oh, I probably should lose 40 pounds. Exactly.

Right. It was a lot of those shoulds. Yes. So I've been trying really hard to use markers like that as like my goal for the years to be able to do full pushups again or sit-ups or stuff like that. That, I mean, you are so far ahead. Amazing. And I don't want to put my bricks in your backpack, but that number will be back there in the back of your mind. Of course.

And there's a piece of it that it is a marker, right? It's just like BMI where it's. But it's not as a piece of the whole picture. Or you've got your head screwed on straight kind of way I wish I had of a long time ago, which is if I can run a mile, if I can do three pushups, if I can do these things, the weight will take care of itself. Right. And that's awesome. Okay. Amazing.

But yeah, the Sal the stuff I know with the mind pump guys, I've talked about this a lot on the show, but when he told me if you're doing this stuff, If you're trying to change your body composition, if you're trying to lose weight, you're trying to get bigger, if you're trying to get muscles, whatever, if you're doing this because you think you're gross, or you're doing this because you don't want to die, you'll quit every time.

Right. If you wake up every day and say, I'm worth an hour. Right. If you wake up every day and say, I want to feel the best I possibly can today. And so I'm a sleep. tonight, which means I got to turn YouTube off, I'm going to eat right.

I'm going to eat healthy and I want to feel good. Then you'll do that the rest of your life because it's about it just, even the habits are the same, but it changes your motivation. So when your kids ask, mommy, why is your tummy getting smaller? Because I want to feel great. And I've been exercising. I've been taking care of eating really delicious healthy foods. Oh, okay.

On to the next. And that's amazing. And yeah, I'll leave it at that. I'm proud of you, Lauren. Hey, do me a favor and keep us up to date with your journey. We'd love to celebrate you as you hit your milestones. And when you hit that first push-up, send us a note. We'll cheer for you.

And when you get that magic number that you want, we'll celebrate you too. I'm grateful for you. We'll be right back. I just got back home from an amazing elk hunting trip in the mountains of New Mexico. I was with my son and some other men and their sons, and all of us were using Montana Knife Company Knives for the duration of our trip. Why? Because Montana Knife Company Knives rule.

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go to Montanaknifecom.com and see what's available right now. That's montananknife company.com. All right, Kelly, what do we got? All right, we have an am I the problem from Sarah in Fondulac, Wisconsin. Sounds fancy. Fondue. I wonder if they eat lots of... I like fondue.

Pottered cheese. Is that how you say that? I don't think potted cheese is a thing. I think fondue is French for potted cheese. No, it's when you take the cheese and you put it in the oil or the cheese or the chocolate. All right, fancy, sophisticated. Can't hide money, can we kill your cheese? Golly.

Whatever. Anywho. All right. Sarah writes, our son, who's almost 21, is getting married to his fiancé next year. They've been together for a bit more than a year and have been together. living together for at least the last eight months. I hate it, but it's his choice to make. They also have a new house, or their house hunting, with no down payment. Both employed full-time, he has a very good job and an apprenticeship. So I believe that our son should be paying his own

insurance. The plan is the same coverage as it would be under us, and since they are now grown enough to have to marry, buy a house, and to live together, he's grown enough to pay all of his own expenses, especially by the time they get married. My husband disagrees. He thinks it's not worthy, quote-unquote, confrontation and that we should just let it go because he's a good kid. Am I being unrealistic or too harsh? No, you're being exactly realistic. Good for you. Awesome. So there's two things that play here. One, yes, when your kid becomes an adult, they need to pay for adult things. It blows my mind to this day when I have a buddy who's 30 and he's still on his family's cell phone plan. Like, that's madness to me. But that's the world we're in right now. Or that your dad still pays your

your mom still pays your car insurance and your 29 years. Like, that's nuts to me. And here's the bigger picture. Moms and dads get to have their values. They do. And if you raise your kids to be independent thinkers and contributors and questioners and doers and they have permission to fail and succeed, they're going to end up with values that are different than yours. And if you're funding any part of their life, you get to make whatever rules you want to make because it's your money. And I don't know how this got controversial,

but there's a whole swath of the world that's like, hey, I want to do whatever I want to do, but you still need to pay for this. And so I reject that wholeheartedly. If my, by the way, if your husband says, hey, this is a good kid, I remember struggling super, super hard. I want to help him launch out. Then let's sit down and have that direct conversation. We're going to pay this much for this long to help you get started and then this is over.

Otherwise, it becomes this kind of entitlement drip forever. And then it just gets gross and weird and all the lines get blurry. But also you get to say, here's what we're going to do. And here's what we're going to do. And here's my rules. and you can make up whatever rules you want. And they can be outlandish and crazy. It's your money.

And then the person receiving the money gets to make a choice. Don't want to live by those rules and accept this gift or don't want to walk away from this gift. And there's times in my life. And by the way, this works with employers too. Like there's times in my life when I have said, I don't like this, but I want that money or I want that gas card or I want the whatever. And so I'll live by this. Here we go. and I was begrudging.

All I did was made myself miserable. And so here's the key here. Clarity. Clarity is kindness here. So you and your husband sit down and say, okay, how long are we going to support him? And in what ways? And he can be a good kid, a great kid, an awesome young man, and still have different values at us that we don't want to support.

Both things are true. And so if you're thinking, I don't want to pay for anything because I want to punish him because he's doing things I don't agree with, have that conversation with your husband. And if your husband is having flashbacks to being broke when y'all first got married and he doesn't want his son to go through that stuff, I get that. Have that conversation. But let's get to the thing beneath the thing, beneath the thing. But no, I think if you're old enough to get married by a house, you're for sure old enough to pay for your own insurance.

Jesus will be easy. Love you guys. Bye.