The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband Wrecked Our Family

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage. Download the Together app.   On today’s episode, we hear about: A woman grappling with the aftermath of her divorce A wife whose sobriety is ruining her sex life A young woman weighing the consequences of cutting off her dad   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

My husband started doing jiu-jitsu, peptides, testosterone, and then marijuana. He started having panic attacks and paranoia. He'd be waiting for me on our bed. Like, okay, I'm ready to listen. Basically, just try to, like, violence me out to admit to cheating. What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I hope you are doing well.

Hope you're doing better than well. doing great. And I'm grateful that you're here, pulling up a seat, trying to figure out, what's the next right move for you, for your marriage, for your family, for your kids, whatever you got going on, for your job, whatever's going on. Thanks for being here. If you want to be on this show, I would love to have you on. I don't answer personal things on social media, but you can click the link in the show notes, whether you're on YouTube or the podcasts, and it will send you to the link where you can fill out what's going on. The forum, fill out what's going on in your life and we can get you on the show.

So go to Beth in Colorado. Hey, Beth, what's going on? Hi, thank you so much. I'm really thankful that I have your time today and get to talk to you. Well, I'm grateful I get to talk to you. What's going on? My question is, after a divorce involving my husband's infidelity, how honest should I be with my young kids about what has happened? Tell me what happened. I'm going to give you a lot of contact. text, if I'm giving you too much, just tell me.

Okay. Because I want to like set this up to explain what they've seen and been through, but I don't want to, I'm an overshare. So. I love self-aware people. That's awesome. Unlike Kelly, she is not self-aware at all. All right.

So tell me about it. Okay. So I'm a homeschool mom of four. My children right now are nine, seven, five, and four. Holy smokes. Okay. I know. This isn't how I plan to think.

to go when I just, you know, agreed to have four kids. Okay. Back in like 2023, my husband started doing jih Tegytoe, peptides, testosterone, and then marijuana. Okay. He was listening to a lot of podcasts, right? Probably, yeah. Yeah. Okay. So that's all key to this, to what has happened. And then like a year and a half ago around November, December, he started having panic attacks. and paranoia. One morning, a couple days he was really upset with me, came through the kitchen in the morning

and basically said, if you ever betray me, it'll be the last thing you do. And that's kind of, it kind of set a tone for the next like seven, eight months. He would have these paranoia episodes, which now I believe was related to the marijuana use

and underlying mental health issues. he would really mistreat me in front of the kids just speaking to me kind of disrespectfully and degrading and he would get ragedful towards me for a few days while he was in this like I call it an episode

he would sleep on the couch and accuse me of cheating he would like I would come out of the shower and he'd be waiting for me on our bed like okay I'm ready to listen I'm not going to talk it's up to you to talk and like basically just try to like silence me out to admit to cheating. And I wasn't. And then in June of last year, he actually revealed to me,

like he was kind of trying to wean off of their marijuana and revealed to me that he had actually been unfaithful to me for about 18 months. But he already had like the solutions of all the things he was going to do and why it happened. and it was the mental health and it was the marijuana. And so I kind of went into a freeze state, I think. Like, I didn't really pry much. But I did start sleeping in our playroom on the futon. And we started marriage counseling.

The counselor did advise him we needed to talk to the kids and let them know why there was kind of a change going on. And so he took it on himself in just a nonchalant conversation. with three of our kids and told them that he broke mommy's trust and that we're working through things. But then I kind of was waking up to like the kids' behavior was really getting affected. I think it was always being affected by the way he was kind of treating me and what he was doing, his instability.

I just, I was starting to wake up to that. And then he started going back on the work that he would sit, he said he was going to do. he was not doing it. And so it was just like that, so then that caused me to go to my husband and say, like, I'm done with this. You're not respecting what I need. You're not keeping us safe. And the kids and I are going to be moving out for two months and I'm getting,

I'm separating from you. And so he really flipped out. And he actually said, oh, if you're doing this to me, we need to tell, I'm telling the girls. I'm telling the girls, which is my, at the time, eight and a seven-year-old. And so they're already in bed, and he goes into their room and says, Mommy has something to tell you. And so I'm, like, put on the spot, I wasn't prepared to talk to them in that setting. And I just said, well, remember how Daddy told you he broke Mommy's trust.

Daddy has not done the things that he needs to do to build Mommy's trust back. So we're going to go stay at this really cool house with a pool, and we're going to take some time away so that Daddy can work on building that trust back with Mommy. And it's just for a little while. And my husband was saying, like, this isn't what I want. Mommy planned this without me. Mommy's doing this, and I don't think it's a good idea. And we just have to pray and, like, traumatizing them. they were sitting in his lap crying with him and he's crying.

And so finally, you know, he had to work in the morning. I stayed in there until he would leave and then I just laid with them and staying to them and cried with them. Sure. And so that, that has happened. They've been through that. That's why that's important. So we went and stayed at the Airbnb while he was having these mental breakdowns still. And so he actually emailed me all this, you know, concession.

And I said, well, while you seem to be being honest, tell me about any and all other cheating that has occurred. And he said, okay, you're right. They're actually, when we were in church a week before I moved out, he left church, left the kids and I at church and said he was going to go get a protein bar at the gas station and was gone for a little while, came back. In this email, he says, well, when I left for the protein bar, I actually went to the gas station and had some stranger give me oral sex in the car. My kid's car seats were in this car and came back in Metastat Church. And so I started. All right. Let's stop here.

Let's stop here. Yeah. Okay. That's a lot. Yeah. Right. I want you to do two things for me, okay? Okay.

Thing number one is without a doubt. Without a doubt, this is having a big time impact on your kids. Yes. But in all of this telling, you haven't told me about the impact this has had on you. Okay? And what I don't want you to do, and it's very common, it happens all the time, I want you to not make these decisions, quote unquote, for your kids. because they can't carry that weight.

I want you to make this decision for you because it's right. I just think that the worst thing I could do for my kids is get divorced. That's incorrect. The best thing you could do for your kids is get them away from this maniac. Okay? Yeah. And you have to acknowledge the fact that this person blew your, your life to smithereens.

Right. You didn't do it. What you are doing is responding to a house that got hit by a tornado. Right. And if he wants to set up a tent on top of the wreckage that was your former house and yell and scream and get mad at you for not living in that tent with him, he can do that all he wants. That's exactly what's happening because I even...

Just listen to me. Okay. You don't have to justify yourself with me. Okay. And the next right moves for you are going to be plural. And not one of them is going to feel good because none of this should be how it is. No husband should treat his wife like this. No dad should treat his kids like this.

And so nothing you do is going to feel natural or good. And you don't, the last thing you need to do is to be. second-guessing every move you make. Have you reported him? In what way? As you just described it to me, he has no business with those kids. I went into our temporary orders hearing with all of this evidence.

I documented him admitting mental breakdowns, him admitting being high for three years. him admitting he wasn't putting the kids in car seats. You know, everything that I could document, I documented with an attorney and the judge gave my husband everything that he asked for. Fortunately, he only asked for every other weekend with the kids. And that was awarded, but he is in a one bedroom, so he can't keep him overnight. He basically just sees them every other Saturday from 10 to 6, and he sees them at my home. I have exclusive use of the house, but that's really the safest place because then I can come and go.

I know where they're at. All right. So the way you have access to food. The way you phrase that to me is that he somehow won something. Very rarely is a judge going to, I mean, it's got to be egregious for a judge to take away 100% custody. I want you to look back to pan back a little bit. You absolutely won everything here. Yeah.

Okay. they get to play your husband when he shows up and my guess is that will dwindle. He's failed a few times. That's right. Failed on them. Yeah. He won't show up. And when it comes to the divorce hearing, the fact that he hasn't shown up several times, that

will be strikes against him as well. Okay. But you're completely in the driver's seat. And basically, because he asked for so little, his, his, his, request to be with his kids was so absurdly, unfotherly. Right? Like, if this happened to, in my house, I'd buy the house next door. Right.

Right. Like, I'd want to be in my kid's life as much as possible. The fact, what he asked for was so ridiculously low that the judge's like, okay, good for you, dummy, right? And so, I want you to see you won that. Okay. You've got full custody with every other weekend for a few hours. at your house.

Right? He can't drive them around. He can't take them unsafe places. He gets to play house in your house. Right? And that's going to be until the divorce hearing. Most judges are very reluctant to take away the ability for their kids to at least put their eyes on a parent unless they are patently unsafe. And he's proven he's unsafe when it comes to driving.

He's proven it's unsafe in other areas. but if he threatens your life again, I want you to call the police, okay? I want that documented for you. If he threatens the safety of your kids, I want that to go to the police immediately. Okay, you're doing all the right things. As I don't know that you need to tell your kids a whole lot

because they're absorbing all of this. What I told them when I did talk to them when I decided it was going to be a divorce. And I just kind of looked up scripts online and I tried not to sound scripted. But I just said mommy and daddy haven't been able to solve their adult problems while being married. And so we're not going to be married anymore. That's called a divorce. And mommy and daddy still love you and you will still get time with both of us. And your job is just to be a kid. You don't have to fix these problems. or figure out whose fault it is.

Any question they had, I just tried to kind of say those same words in different ways. It's like I'm their source of stability and consistency and safety. And I feel like, because they do blame me. They believe that I've pushed him out of our lives by their own words.

I know, but kids are going to, kids especially that young are parents, but their bodies know. Okay. Okay. They know in their nervous system that man in their life is not safe. Yeah. And what's so awful about that is kids, their nervous system knows,

I need that other person for me to be okay. And kids will go about trying to solve it. And if a nine-year-old's nervous system thinks, that guy's unwell, I need to solve it. The way I'm going to solve it is going to try to guilt this lady into reunifying. Like they're just trying to do what works, but they know you are the safe, stable person. So let kids say dumb kid stuff. Okay.

There's going to be a, you're going to have years of this, by the way. And I'm not saying that to be like, just kick you while you're down. But there's going to be years of, mom, why won't you let us blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. okay what you're looking for now is you want your 25 year old nine year old yeah to look back and say dude my mom was an absolute gangster okay yeah and that means the only person you can control over the next five years 10 years 20 years 50 years is you how are you going to keep showing up when all four these kids are screaming and yelling and crying and upset. When dad comes over with cheeseburgers and ice cream and gets them all sugared up,

hands them all iPhones, and talks about how mean you are, can you weather that storm? Right? Right. And sometimes you can say, yep, dad's more fun than me. And I'm going on to the next right thing for my kids. Yeah. What's going to be really big for you is little bitty things. Okay, can I tell you what those are? Yes. Breakfast together in the morning with all of you all. Okay. Pile-ups.

Get a big, get a big, but you know what? Hang on the line here. I'm going to see if my friends at Cozy Earth, they're a show sponsor, if they can send you one of their big giant, it's the most amazing blanket. My 10-year-old daughter is obsessed with all of the family getting underneath it to watch an episode of a show at night. That would be awesome.

And I'll see if we can get them to send you one. and hook you up with them. Okay, I'm going to reach out to them personally, but I think they're going to send one to you guys. But getting into a routine where in the evenings, we all pile under this huge blanket. Okay. We all go out in the backyard and throw water balloons on Friday nights.

Those tiny little things, they're not big grand announcements, but they're little bitty things that will begin to re-anchor a kid. And they should be re-anchored to two of you, but they're going to only be anchored to one of you. Is this woman is safe? My mom is safe. Okay. Right.

Yeah. And when you find yourself sobbing your freaking eyes out, don't cover that up for them. I've let them see me cry, and that's one thing I think does actually help them. And they'll say, are you missing daddy? And I say yes.

Well, they may not understand that. Yeah. But you can say, I'm sad about all of it. Okay. Right? Because for them, if you're missing dad, and dad says this is your fault,

just call them, right? Right. Yeah, that makes sense. That's not an algorithm they can solve. Okay. Like if my buddy's wife cheated on him and he was crying saying, I missed my wife, I would be able to say, I get that. Yeah. Right?

A nine-year-old can't get that. A six-year-old can't get that. But they can't understand mom's sad, and it makes them feel less crazy because they're sad to. I'm sorry, all this has happening to you. I really am. I'm heartbroken for you. It's a 10-year, 15-year storm you're going to weather now. But I promise you those little moments will add up over 10 years.

time for you and for them and y'all will create new rhythms together you'll create new space for each other and y'all will settle into here's our new world it's not a world we would have chosen but it's the world we got so we're going to make the best of it and they're lucky to have you you're doing a good good job you're doing a great job it's been an honor to talk to you hang on the line here and we'll get your information and we'll see if we can get cozy earth to send you out one of their big giant giant awesome family blankets. It's pretty amazing. We come back. A woman asks how to rebuild her marriage after sobriety has changed how she feels about her husband. All right, I want to tell you about a brand new sponsor, Capstone Wellness.

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What's up, Jessica? How's it going? Just rocking on to the break of dawn. How are you? Oh, just fine. What's going on? All right. So I am 10 months sober after probably 13 years of struggling with alcohol, kind of using it to cope with my very stressful teaching job. Okay, can we pause real quick? Yeah.

Can I just celebrate you? congratulations 10 months is that's hard to do especially at the you made it through the end of the school year i made it through the whole year yeah dude hey that's awesome i'm proud of you where to go yeah and i've been a teacher um whoa that's hard good for you definitely something that helps in the short term that is for sure yes yes yes um yeah that's the secret about folks who struggle with alcohol as it works, right? It helps get the edge off of that. Yeah. All right, so 10 months in, congratulations. Yeah. So, um, kind of through those 10 months, I think a lot of things have been coming up and I, I knew going into it that I was going to be feeling a lot more emotion and everything. I also,

I'm a missionary kid as well and grew up, um, overseas. That's why we drink. In a very volatile country. So definitely have some stuff that happened as a kid. But through everything, my husband has continued to drink. And I've tried to have, you know, I had to get to the point where I did it, like, made that decision to stop for myself because he wasn't going to. And he doesn't drink to the same extent that I did. but it's also because it was such a negative thing in my life, it's made it really hard to see him continue on that path

because I just, when I look at alcohol for me, it's something that completely stole my joy for so many years. And so, you know, I've tried to have conversations about kind of how it's making me feel on the same side. I also know that everyone's on their own journey, and I'm trying not to project kind of my path onto his. But I guess to summarize, there's just a lot of communication struggles that we have.

And I feel like looking back, I would definitely get frustrated and just drink, and then we wouldn't deal with it. And so now I'm wanting to deal with it, and he's not wanting to. And I'm seeing him now not drinking excessively, but I just feel like he's going, down some following some of the same patterns I did. I don't know if that makes sense.

Let me ask you a different question. Is that okay? Yeah, yeah. Now that you have this cataract of alcohol pulled from your eyes, are you finding yourself not liking this guy or not respecting this guy? And alcohol, his drinking has become the thing that you laser in on because it gives you permission to just like, I don't like this guy. Yeah, probably. a little bit. Okay. What I want, what I want you to do is to,

and I know this is a core part of AA, but be careful of the judgment part. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And take more honest stock in, I've spent this many years with a guy that maybe I blame my drinking on my teaching job, but it may have been more for my home life, too.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. So the question you have before you is, And again, I'm making this overly simple because we have a short time together. Yeah. But really, you're going to get down to an or what question or an or what statement. I need this or I'm going to stay. I'm not going to leave you.

Or I need us to rebuild our marriage. And the way we interact with each other's got to transform. And here's what that is going to look like. Here's what I want from you. And I need you to tell me what you want from me. or I'm going to leave. Anything other than those answering those questions in that way is theater.

It's extra energy spent. It's extra stories you're making it up in your head on your drive to work, on your way home, right? It's all of those imaginary conversations you're having with him over and over again. Mm-hmm. Right? It's all a waste of time and energy and effort.

Yeah. So what do I do, though, if I do try to have those direct conversations and there's, he's like to, a lot of times it's, I don't want to deal with this right now. I'm so tired. And I'm just like, well, then when, you know? Yeah. The only way I've seen those things be successful is, or these interactions be successful, is when somebody puts a date on a calendar? and the other person agrees to show up with the understanding of we need to have some big conversations about who we are now and where we're headed.

Yeah. And I do understand that it builds for you and it builds for you and you've done a lot of white knuckling over the last 10 months. Have you been going to meetings? No, I did a different program.

Okay, okay. You've been doing a lot of work. It's been good. Yeah, yeah. So you've been doing a lot of work. Years of work to get to the point where, yeah, I'm at peace with this decision. Perfect. So you've been doing a ton of work.

It's easy to sit in the seat of judgment on somebody who hasn't gotten there yet. Yeah. Or I know lots of, usually men, but have gotten sober and their wives still have glass of wine. Like, because it doesn't make them less joyful. In fact, it makes them more fun, right? And it's annoying to my friends that quit drinking. And I've had conversations late at night with guys who are like, I wish I could have one beer and it made me fun.

Yeah, yeah. But I have one and I wake up three days later, coked out of my mind, right? So, like, some of that might be you letting that story go. But the bigger issue here is, I want to have a real conversation. You white-knuckle it. You've done your work. It builds, it builds.

And then a thing happens in your home. And you're like, I want to talk about this now. And he's like, dude, it's 8 o'clock. It's 9 o'clock. I don't want to have this conversation. And so by backing all the way out and saying, okay, Saturday, I've, and this isn't, oh, I get it, I've arranged child care. Saturday, you and I are going somewhere else. I've already set it up. And we need to have a hard conversation about the state of our marriage and where we're headed. And if he says, no, I will not have that conversation, then you have been given a path in front of you. Yeah. You're going to have to make peace with the answer to your or what statement.

Yeah, I think that's the part that's kind of holding me back a little bit. Well, it's right, because there's a reality to this. And that's why I'm saying, like, the rest of it is just theater. Yeah. It's a way to burn off a bunch of emotional energy and never solve the core problem. Mm-hmm. And what that does is it tills the soil for resentment. Mm-hmm.

And really both of you, or we're kind of complicit in avoiding the core issue, which is, I want this and this and this, or I don't want to be married to you anymore. Yeah. And if you're afraid he's going to call your bluff. And so you don't want to have that hard conversation. I mean, you're just choosing the path ahead for you then. And it might be, this is what it is. He's a good guy.

He's fine. We're just in these cycles. And I can only control me. And so when I get mad at 8 o'clock at night, I'm just going to walk away. Like if that's the world you want to have for yourself, make peace with that world and then inhabit it. Yeah. It goes back to that old, I can control. I'm powerless to this thing, but I can control it and control, and that's me.

Yeah. And that's super annoying. I know, I know. Yeah. But the ultimate path is we're going to get away. We're going to have a hard conversation. And I'll tell you this, when me and my wife had one of our big, spectacular conversations like this almost a decade ago.

It was, it was, I mean, I think I was the one who was like, no, no hysteria, no drama, no crying, I need both of us to be at the table. And by the way, I was the one who gets dramatic and gets all emotional and then I withdraw. Yeah. We both need to pull up a seat to the table and decide, do we want to stay married? Yeah. And so I think it's you calling that out. If he withdrawals, if he's like, I don't want to, like, we need to have this conversation.

Yeah. I think every time I try to really focus in on that conversation, granted, I haven't done it maybe at the best times. And it really could be as simple as that a lot of it is just he doesn't want to have the conversation because he doesn't want to hurt my feelings or things that we, I have ADHD and I work really hard. I've created some really good systems to help me not be. so like messy or disorganized,

but some of the expectations he has are just beyond what I'm capable of doing. And I've tried to be that blunt and just not to make excuses, but like, I just, that's not how my brain works. And I just don't, I don't know if that makes sense. Well, give me, give me an example. Because if you, if you were to ask Chad GPT

to draw a picture of somebody with ADHD, it would draw me. Right? So give me an example of a thing you can't do versus, and this is hard to say out last. to someone that you're trying to rebuild your marriage with. I don't want to. Yeah.

And there's probably a little bit of both. So, you know, during the summer, I'm home, obviously, with our three children. We live out in the country. So we've got cows and animals and all the things. And so we're busy. We don't do a lot of screen time. And so the kids are very creative. They play all the time.

And I do my very best to have them clean up. But then he gets home from work and it's like, what have you guys been doing all day? Just making a mess. That kind of a thing where it's like, no, we're actually like doing stuff all day. And in his perfect world, he comes home and everything is like super clean. And I'm like, we have three kids and we live in the country. And that's not really a priority for me. Well, oh, there you go.

Because here's the thing. If your teaching job said you must, you would figure it out. Yeah. And so what you're really upset with is he is an unrealistic expectation of what it's like being out in the country with three kids in the summer. Yes. And in your mind, the story you've made up is he should be pretty freaking grateful that his kids are creative, not sitting there on screens and that the house is messy because they've been doing awesome stuff all day. Yeah. Right.

And so that's the kind of conversation you're willing to have. And if you are somebody who gets your feelings hurt and then tends to ramp it up real fast. and either withdrawal or blow up, tell them that when you are setting up the meeting. I'm committed to stand present here. And I'm not going to, I need to hear the stuff that you need to say, and you need to be able to say it unfiltered, and I know it's going to be uncomfortable for me to hear it,

but you need space to do that. And I'm committed to giving you that space. All right, so what you're thinking of is, like if you think of it, like those old Western six shooter revolvers, when you say, here's the conversation, we need to have, take as many of the bullets out of the gun as you can. I know this, I know this, I know this, and I'm committed to weathering the storm, whatever you need to say.

Because we got to get this out because here's the thing, you're both living with those stories anyway. Yeah, yeah. They're just under the table. We're going to put them on the table now. Yeah. And I think the hard part is some of it, there is a lot of truth in his perspective, but there's a lot of truth to it because of how I used to be.

Sure. And that's the part where it's like I feel like I have proven myself differently. So yeah. But some of that is. I hear what you're saying though. Yeah. In a country diner out in the middle of nowhere and y'all have committed to spend a couple of three hours there together, you saying I recognize I'm still

re-earned, I'm rebuilding trust with you. I get that. Mm-hmm. And here's where I'm at now. I use this as a crutch. I'm not doing that anymore. And so it comes with some messiness. But I'm choosing to trade messiness for kids who aren't on screens and kids who are

being creative out in the country. How can we come to some sort of peace here? And you being able to say, when you walk in the door after I've been wrestling these three kids all day, plus trying to take care of the cows and the chickens, and sometimes I even try to turn the weed around. And the first question out of the first words at your mouth are not, I'm so happy I'm home, but your first words are, what have you been doing all day? Yeah. The story I make up is you don't love me, you don't appreciate the work I'm doing here.

And that makes me feel small and sad. Mm-hmm. Right? And what you're doing when you say that is you're taking full ownership of the stories you make up about his words and how your feelings are impacting you. And then he gets to respond to, no, no, no, that's not the story. No, I know you're working hard. why can't you all clean up right before I get home? And then you all have that real conversation.

Right. But honestly, this isn't all the time. But honestly, that conversation about what are you been doing all day is a bigger question about respect and love than it is about cleanliness. And if you're avoiding what he really thinks about you, you all need to put that on the table. Yeah. Because sex is going to come up, connectivity is going to come up, we never dot-da-dot anymore is going to come up.

All that is already, you're already dealing with it. You might as well put on the table and be honest about it. Yeah. Yeah. And the language of he's never been married to sober you. Yeah. And you've never been married to him sober you. So y'all have a new marriage now.

We get to decide what this marriage looks like. do we want this thing to look like? Or do we want to call it? Because our old marriage is over. You're not married to drinking Jessica anymore. And I wish it was more complicated than this, but it's not. Yeah. Yeah. It's just super frustrating and annoying. Yeah. So at the end of the day, I would say it's your move. And saying words like, I'm struggling to like you. I'm struggling to respect you when you walk in the door and that's your first thing you say to me. I'm struggling with attraction to you. Or now that I'm sober, I'm recognizing we have some not good communication patterns and that means we get to choose good ones. Are you willing to choose good ones with me?

And instead of saying, I can't say, I don't want to. Because when you say I can't, he's probably thinking, yeah, you can. You can do all these other cool things for your boss. You can do these other of things for your neighbor, for your family, but you can't do those for me. It's different when you say, I don't want to interrupt the kids' art time or their creativity time or their fort building time to make sure the house is spotless for you when you walk in the front door. And you all need to like hash that one out. But I promise there's there's things beneath that, right? But again, setting aside a time on a calendar, when we're going to do this thing, how we're going to have it. That's the way I've seen this be successful when everyone kind of wipes the deck.

And then we have a thing we co-create together that we're going to work towards rebuilding our marriage. Yeah, that's what I recommend you. Thanks for a call, sister. I wish you the absolute best in that conversation. And my hope is he shows up and he stays fully present and y'all are able to build something new. Y'all get to decide whatever this new building looks like that's called your marriage. And I hope he wants to co-create it with you. When we come back, a woman asks how to maintain a relationship with her stepmother while

staying no contact with her father. We'll be right back. All right, I started with the cozy earth towels, those big, gigantic, super absorbent towels. They're amazing. And then I got cozy earth comforters and blankets, and then I moved into cozy earth socks. And now my whole house is covered up in cozy earth gear. I even recently got a pair their everywhere pants. I didn't need another pair of pants. I wasn't looking for another pair of pants, but I got their new pants, and I'm telling you, just like all the other cozy earth gear, they are awesome. And of course, my cozy earth sheets. Listen, these are not normal sheets. They're made from viscos from bamboo. And I don't even know what that means, but I know this. My cozy

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use whatever device you're listening to this show on and hit the like, subscribe, whatever. Hit the buttons that just tells the Internet's that you're a fan of the show. Kelly, you don't like that? No. Hit the button, like, share, subscribe, comment. Any of that?

Yeah, all right. Let's go out to Wichita, Kansas, and talk to not April, but May. What's up, May? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing all right. How are you? I'm doing good. Can't complain. You could, but then you'd be like Kelly. Jeez. All right, so what's up?

So I'm just going to ask my question and not really give you any context unless whatever you need, because I don't know how to sum up 30 plus years of my life in a few sentences. So, um, awesome. So my, my question is, is how can I maintain some sort of relationship with my stepmother while also being absolutely no contact with my father? Are they still married? Yes. It's going to be very, very hard because you're asking your stepmother to divide loyalties.

Right. First with her husband and then with her stepdaughter. Um, why are you 100% no contact with your own? man? Long story short, I mean, I really don't have like an emotional attachment to him. My mom left him when I was about eight and I actually, I have no memories of my early childhood. I can only go back as far as like when we moved back to her home state.

And my mom says it's probably because of the trauma that happened in their marriage. And so I don't, and from then on, he lived halfway across the country. I saw him a few times a year. But why are you no contact with him now? I don't know how to describe it other than like he, so he has substance abuse issues in his past. He also has borderline personality disorder. So he's just a very chaotic person. And our conversations, you know, he talks to me and my siblings every day,

but it's always complaining about his life, complaining about his work, complaining about his marriage, complaining about how he's a victim in life. And then anytime we try to have like a real authentic conversation with him of like, yeah, that sucks. Let's talk about it. It turns into like we're against him and all these things. And it just like builds and builds. And I do live relatively close to him now. And every time he comes out, it's just this like, I feel like I have a stranger sitting in my room and my living room with my children. and he won't stay in my home.

He won't let me cook him a meal in my own home. Like it became a big fight and he just wanting to cook for him and have him at my table. And I just was like, why am I putting myself through all this emotional, you know, all this emotions and this drama for something that I don't necessarily want because I have no, I feel like I have no need for it, I guess. And I don't know how else to describe that. Okay. So why do you want to have a relationship with your stepmother? Well, because looking back at our childhood, I mean, she's probably one of the only reasons my dad even had some sort of an open window. She signed and sent all of my Christmas cards and birthday presents.

And when we would spend a few weeks in the summertime with him, she was the one making the memories. And like she was the one trying to have a relationship with us. And my dad wasn't. I mean, even though he'd make these grand, giant, like, I love you. and I miss you and I would I would jump in front of a bus for you. When we were around him, it wasn't like that. It was just, we were just there. And there was no like him authentically trying.

And so that was my stepmom doing that. And so I just feel bad that she's going to be punished for something she didn't do. Hmm. Can I throw some things out there that are going to be uncomfortable? And I know the internet's going to get mad at me. in one hand you're telling me that your dad's got some diagnosable personality disorder and that he calls basically what I hear you saying is he doesn't have the psychological or emotional ability to have a relationship and the other hand I'm going to punish him for that and so however awkward he is when he comes over it's not

what I want it to be. And so you don't get to be in relationship with me, which is you're an adult, you get to do that. But I'm wondering, and I'm just throwing spaghetti in the wall to see if it sticks, if she is actually your conduit to your dad. Because everyone who gets left by a parent has that question that was like, dude, what was so bad about me? Yeah, I don't, I guess I'm not fully understanding the question.

Or like what you're saying. Sorry. Let me say it this way. Don't try to be in a relationship with her to reward her for sending birthday cards back in the day. Okay. And don't punish him for his psychiatric condition that makes it awkward or weird to be in a relationship with him. Getting into the punishment and reward game, that is not a relationship. That's a basketball.

That's a transaction. Right? That's what we do with dogs. We punish them and we reward them. And so if you want to have a relationship with this woman, invite her over for coffee. And if she says, I'm not coming without my husband, A, recognized, that's probably right. And B, be really, really sad about that because you cut him off. And if she says, I'll come, but I don't want to talk about your dad, say, okay, I honor that.

I think maybe not that I'm thinking about it more. I just, I think there's this like guilt in me that I know that it's going to cause issues for her. And I know like, I just, I know that me making this decision for me is she's going to get a brunt of it. Yeah, but she doesn't get a vote.

She chose to marry him. You trying to get inside of their marriage and solve a problem for her is a fool's errand. It's a waste of your time. You can't do that. You can't even. solve your relationship with him because he doesn't do it right right yeah and so let me ask you this and again i've mentioned this 50 times on the show um this comes from my friend dr becky kennedy do you do you feel is it a violation of your core values to not be in relationship with your dad

not really no okay is it a violation of your core values to not be in relationship with her No, because I don't believe that I owe anyone a relationship with me. I don't believe just because of circumstances of my birth. Does that mean that, you know, that automatically gives you access to me? And I mean, of course, I'm always willing to, you know, I've been trying for 30 years to do whatever I can to make him happy and be enough and, and, you know, keep the peace. But at some point that comes to a cost of my own, like, health and I just because you yeah so I don't I don't think that anybody gets access to me the only person gets access to me is my children and my husband okay so since those are not violations of your core values then probably what you're feeling is not guilt because guilt is a natural response that our body gives us biochemically when we violate our own core values what you're trying to do is manage another adult's emotions for them I tend to do that.

Yeah, don't do that. All that does is creates chaos in your life and your present and your home with your husband and your kids. And so if you feel the need to cut him off completely 100%, A, I think it's respectful to let them know. That way it's not a slow suffocation on their part. But B, like make peace with that decision. If it's not a violation of your core values, don't get in their home and try to solve the emotional aftermath of a decision you've made, right? Right. It's like you drop in a bomb on somebody and then running around trying to make sure

it doesn't hit anybody. No, it doesn't make sense. Yeah. And so you drew the line, you feel it's right for you and for your marriage and for your kids, that line, all boundaries come with consequences. And then they get to be, your dad has got some psychiatric challenges, but your mother-in-law, your stepmother, I mean your stepmother, she gets to decide what she does next. You can't make those decisions for her. But I wouldn't want somebody in a relationship with me because they felt guilty

because they were trying to make me feel less bad because my wife was mean to that. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, and I guess it's just, I think, you know, the entirety of my childhood in my life, my father's never taken ownership for his own decisions and just is this like feeling of a, you know, yes, I am that piece with my decision to not speak to him because I don't need him. I've found what I've needed outside of him and I've done all the, you know, therapy and the

healing and all that stuff for that. I just, it saddens me that this, in this last interaction, I know that he's, so there's going to be aftermath that I can't. that I can't help and I can't fix because I want the people who should be affected, be affected, and the people who don't need to be, who shouldn't be affected, not affected. I mean, I want perfect, but I can't have perfect. And I would tell you, sad is right. You should be sad. You should be sad that you don't have a relationship with your dad.

You should be sad that your kids are not going to have a relationship with her granddad. You should be sad that your husband's not going to have this cool relationship with his father-in-law. That should make everybody sad. That should be grief. And that's a natural thing. But trying to avoid that, again, your body knows, man.

And I think that part of it's also, I, isn't going to sound terrible. I don't feel sad. I mean, I feel sad for my stepmom, but I, like, when I hit the block button on my dad, I felt like, like I could exhale.

for the first time in like 30 years. Like the show is over. I don't have to do this anymore. And I think... So let the show be completely over. Don't cancel the show and then go on Facebook to see how it's all playing out. If you cancel the show, cancel the show.

And that means you're going to miss how the story ends. But if that's what brings peace to you and your spirit and your home, then turn the show off. It's a hard thing to... Yeah. And there's a difference between I don't need my dad

but I still want him I don't need him anymore I've got a great husband I got kids I got my own life we're economically stable like I don't need him but damn Gina I miss him or I miss the fantasy of him

right those are two different things yeah and maybe you're past that too and I mean yeah like I don't live in I don't live in your shoes but yeah I

I wouldn't try to manufacture relationship with someone you think deserves your relationship. I think you're putting your stepmother in incredibly awkward position, which is to choose her stepdaughter over her husband. And I wouldn't put somebody I care about in that position. If I'm going to cut husband off, I know that they're going to come as a package deal because they're married and they're right or die. I might be sad for what she's going to have to deal with.

She's going to have to deal with his sadness and his misunderstanding and his borderline personality disorder on full blast because you're not taking some of the brunt of that i get that i'd be bummed about that for her but she's an adult and she gets to make her choices of what she does next but if you hit the block button you hit the block button and exhale on that and if hitting the block button gave you peace let that piece resonate throughout your whole home and that's going to take some getting used to after 30 years of being on edge but i'm not there so i'll just trust you that you're the right thing for you and for your family. And if you did, good for you.

I'm proud of you. And it's just going to come a lull, a low, a whew. Because even if you don't need them anymore, it still stinks. Still stinks. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back.

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and see what's in stock. That's montananineyf company.com. Hello farmer, Kelly. You know, I knew when I got it this morning and I decided to wear overalls, I knew. I was like, well, I'm going to get a comment from John. So there's that.

So I knew going in to expect this. I was just, I wouldn't even look at your overalls. I just know that hot pink is the new farmer color for 2026. You're so full of crap. That is true. Hey, I have a question to ask from a listener. What is it? So this is Hannah in Parker, Colorado.

And she has an interesting question. We have lots of Colorado today. Lots of Colorado today. Okay. I hear you talk a lot about sleepovers and how they are a no-go in your house, as they are in mine. But what are your thoughts on overnight sleepaway camp? My daughter's nine and wants to go to camp, but I'm feeling conflicted for the same reasons that I don't allow sleepovers. Yeah, I think that's fair.

I let my kids go to camp. They do go to camp. And by the way, each one of my kids has been to sleepover parties. I'm just super militant about checking in on making sure what my expectations are. But when it comes to camp, yeah, there's a risk. There's a risk there. And there's been things that come out.

My buddy, Sean Ryan, exposed to the whole camp. Like, there's been things that have come out on camps and things that have gone on there that are nefarious. And I had some pretty magical camp experiences growing up. I also had some incredibly abusive experiences growing up. So I do my same due diligence when it comes to camps. Who's going to be there?

What's the level of training for the counselors? Are these counselors middle schoolers that are spent the night? Or are they trained, whatever? And I dig in and ask that. Almost every camp, man, almost without exception. I know the director of that camp personally. And some of that's a privilege. I just happen to know the folks.

But yeah, I do pretty good due diligence on that. But I do let my kids go to certain camps. I don't let them go to all camps. But that same risk, 100% still there. And so I think that's going to be up to you and your family on what your risk tolerance is. What about yours? Your kids go to farming camp? Yeah.

Now, both of my kids have gone to camp, especially like my daughter, there was a number of special needs camps that we knew, but that we trusted. we knew that she had proper nursing care and, you know, all of the, um, everything in line. Again, not a bunch of middle schoolers. Um, and she went, my son wasn't a huge fan of sleepaway camps. He went to like the, the one here in Nashville, the big one is the Camp Wiggy Wagon. The, um, the YMCA camp. Yeah, that a lot of people go to, but it's nearby. Um, and he did a couple of church camps because we knew the people he was going with.

They were from our church. Um, so we trusted them, but they both went to a few. And, um, but, um, I had, I, I had a wild. Like when I say, like, had I known what I know now, it would be Camp Deloney because I would own it. My family would own it for what happened. And so it wasn't great.

But I also had so, I have the life I have now because of camp experiences. And so there's a risk either way. And there was some bad apples at a particular camp that I was at. I haven't had those same bad apples at other camps. And also, in defense, the training has gotten exponentially better. The legal requirements have gotten exponentially better. So the camps I went to, which were pretty wild west back in the day, like any college

kid that would sign up, like those days hopefully are over in a number of camps. And as Sean and those others have exposed, like, they're not risk-free. Yeah, I went to a number of camps growing up, usually church camp. or, but when I got older, Young Life Camp, and those are some of my best experiences ever was Young Life Camp. Yeah.

I love those. Not to say that, you know, parents knew everything that was going on in those camps. I made some not great decisions at church camp. 100%. Oh, man. 100%. But we'll just leave that there.

But, yeah, it is, it's one of those, it's a risk you take and. John Christ has that hilarious a bit about, about like, churches do the big,

like, or back in the day, would do the big purity ring thing, and then they'd stay up, they'd be all emotional and be like, we're never going to like have any makeouts or like whatever, no sex, whatever. All right, kids, we're going to now do a lock-in for the rest of the night. Man, I don't think they do those anymore. We're going to shut 200 hormonal teenagers in a room and no adults. Exactly.

Make good choices. It's so stupid. Man, they used to have those all the time, and I don't think they do those anymore. No, we got a lot of, we got a lot of new church members. from those lockings. Yeah, exactly. And the nursery. The nursery got pretty busy from those.

Yeah. Those were one of those. I loved, I mean, everybody loved to lock in because you stayed up all night. But now as an adult looking back, I'm like, what are you talking about? We loved them because there were no rules, none. No rules. It was like the OG Vegas. Like what happens to the lock-in?

Just stays in the lock-in. Love you guys. Bye.