The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband’s Affair Is Over. . . But He Still Talks to Her
Episode Date: April 9, 2025On today’s episode, we hear about: A woman struggling with the aftermath of her husband’s affair A husband trying to save his marriage after a recent discovery A man unsure how to tell the kids... about a new parenting arrangement Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🔴 Get 15% off with code DELONY at Bon Charge. 🌿 Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 🥤 Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi. 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🏋️ Go to Trainwell to get started! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
So she's a Little League coach?
Yes.
And he's a coach?
And he's the coach.
On the same team?
Yes.
And they had an affair and you caught them?
Yes.
And he's still coaching?
Yes.
Your husband is absolute embarrassment to husbands everywhere.
If this was a Hallmark movie, the only way to make this right is for you to call the
other husband and be like, Hey, what's up?
What's up?
What's up?
What's up?
This is John with the Dr. John Delaney show.
And for more than 20 years, I've been sitting with hurting people who, and that includes
all of us trying to do life, like just do the next right thing.
And the wheels
fall off whether it's in our marriages our mental and emotional health whether that is in our
workplace wherever you find challenge I'll show up and sit with you and man it's one of my life's
greatest honor to sit with hurting people trying to figure out hey what's the next right move
hey I think I see a light over that hill what What if we headed that way? If you would like me to sit with you and just figure out what's the next
right decision, give me a buzz 1-844-693-3291, or you can go to johndeloney.com slash ask ASK.
All right, let's go back to Texas and talk to Michelle in Corpus Christi. What's up, Michelle?
Michelle Hi, Dr. John.
How are you?
I'm doing good.
Awesome.
It is a good day.
Good, good, good. What's up? How can I help?
So my question is, how do I cope with when my husband wants to remain on the same team
as the woman that he was involved with in a fair?
So basically... What? yeah, I know.
What, what team?
It's, uh, it's a little league baseball.
God help us.
We're doomed as a culture.
We're doomed.
I know.
Unfortunately, they're both the coaches for this team.
And, um, yeah, it's, it was he with another man no no no he it
was a woman okay so she's a little league coach yes and he's a coach and he's the coach on the
same team yes and they had an affair and you caught him yes and he's still coaching yes michelle
i know you're in Corpus Christi.
They would never find his body if you took it far enough out in the bay.
I've considered it.
I know you have.
Don't do that.
No, I wouldn't.
So as ridiculous as it sounds.
This is ridiculous at a level that it's even ridiculous for my show.
And you can just look at the thumbnails on YouTube and this show gets ridiculous.
Yes.
This is insanity.
It is insanity.
And that's where I'm struggling with because,
well, to add more sprinkles on top of this dessert,
the husband is also aware of the affair and her husband.
So he's agreed to stay on this team
for this last season as well.
So it's, it's so basically on top of that, we actually had a friendship outside of this team.
Like we had three or four years, we've already been friends with this couple
in a group of couples. And so we hung out with them outside the baseball field, you know, on,
And so we hung out with him outside the baseball field, you know, on, you know, personal lives and everything.
And it was constant.
So not only did we have that, we lost a friendship,
but we also have this issue.
So now-
Hey, hold on, hold on.
It's not an issue.
You lost your marriage.
Your husband is absolute embarrassment
to husbands everywhere.
An absolute embarrassment to husbands everywhere. An absolute embarrassment.
He blew up his marriage
and he is gonna rub it in publicly.
That's astonishing to me.
The fact that he has all of his teeth
from the other husband.
If this was a Hallmark movie,
the only way to make this right
is for you to call the other husband and be like,
hey, what's up?
I can't even wrap my head around this.
Yeah, I know, John.
It's been tough.
I can say that my husband did test up to everything.
No, he got caught.
Yeah, he got caught.
Yeah, he gets no gold stars here, none, zero gold stars.
He's an embarrassment to men.
Wow, yeah.
An absolute embarrassment to married men,
to unmarried men, to all men.
The cowardice and shame it takes.
Not to cheat on your wife, it happens.
I've got, I will sit with you, okay?
But to rub your nose in it,
you sit up in the stands while me and her share a dugout.
And we're gonna bring our kids around
so that they get to see this too.
And not having the courage just to leave you, as crazy as that sounds coming from me.
It's just, it's just, it's embarrassing.
I'm sorry you have to deal with it.
Thank you.
Absolutely embarrassing.
So look, can I say this?
You're not crazy.
Because I guarantee you, we, with you, okay, we have a psychology
for when somebody stabs us in the back, right?
Like somebody that is like the snake in the grass
at work that takes your job, like it hurts
and we get mad and angry and all that.
But we intellectually understand that.
Most of us don't have a psychology
for when somebody stabs us in the front, in the face,
someone that we love and care about and we trust.
And then when that happens in the rare moments when they point at you and they say, oh yeah,
any response you, oh, you're screaming in pain, you should shh, be quiet, be quiet.
Then you start to think you're crazy.
You're not crazy.
This is insane.
This is madness.
Or let me say it this way.
You know what?
It's not madness.
It's not insanity at all.
It's just clear data that he does not want this marriage.
He does not, period, want, period, to be married to you, period.
And that was a lot of periods and I was trying to be emphatic.
Because nobody who hurts somebody like he hurt you decides decides I'm gonna go ahead and rub her face in the concrete.
And who cares if you have a nine-year-old
who's like, oh, do you wanna switch teams?
It doesn't matter, you're nine.
There's a grenade in the middle of your home.
I don't care less what you want, you're nine.
We're playing wreck ball.
We're not playing baseball this year.
How about that? We're gonna go fishing because I'm not playing baseball this year. How about that?
We're going to go fishing because I'm going to rebuild my marriage from the inside out
because I just messed it up.
Yeah.
I'm rarely speechless and you got me on this one, Michelle.
Yeah, no, it's even though I'm speaking a lot.
No, no, I mean, there's I don't know what to say because I mean, he's trying we're trying
out for another team.
So quit baseball.
Stop.
I did.
I did suggest that no suggest.
You have a voice in this, Michelle.
You've got a voice.
You're getting dragged behind a car through your community and you're like, Hey, what
if we went slower? Like, like stop. Yeah, that's true. I guess we put it like that.
I want you to take the driver's seat back in your own life. We're trying out for other other teams. Quit baseball. It's God Almighty. What is wrong with people? Okay, I'm talking
way too much even though I'm speechless, which I know sounds weird, but God help me.
That's kind of what I've shared with him too. I've told him, okay, look, get your stuff.
Stop sharing. Stop sharing. You got to just tell him. Like, I, listen, okay, how can I help?
I'm just, I'm just kind of getting out of my seat.
I mean, it's, it's, that's basically it.
Like we want to work on our marriage.
He absolutely does not.
He absolutely 1000% does not care about your marriage period.
End of story.
End of story.
I care.
Behavior is a language.
He wants to spend hours and hours and hours in a confined space on a joint mission and
purpose with the woman he cheated on you with period.
End of story.
That's it.
Okay, I guess that's me having to take.
Yeah, you got to metabolize that kind of that kind of pain
I've had people who cheat at work and who quit their jobs to save their marriage and that's noble
That people get rid of their computers because they're struggling with pornography and their spouse says enough is enough.
Like there's people who move, they go to the ends of the earth to save their marriage.
Your husband is not interested in being married to you only so far as, I mean you kind of will take anything.
Right?
Yeah, I guess I've been the one that's kind of been holding on for our kids.
For everything?
Do you have a daughter?
Yes, I do.
Imagine she's 22 and she's telling you this story.
What would you tell her to do?
Run.
I feel like a matter on your behalf than you are.
I guess, I don't know why it's just so hard for me
to stand up for myself, I guess, in
a sense.
I'm not going to, I'm not, Michelle, I'm not going to beat you up.
Let's not do that.
Yeah.
It just is.
I hate it for you.
I hate you being treated like this.
Nobody, nobody, nobody deserves to be hurt like this.
Nobody.
I'm so sorry. No, yeah. Nobody deserves to be hurt like this.
Nobody, I'm so sorry.
No, yeah, me too.
And like make no mistake, like,
I guess the picture in my head is, there was a house fire and the house burned to the ground
and you were checking out the ashes of the house and a beam that had kind of burned through
started to fall and you were holding it up.
Your arms are so tired.
You're covered in soot and ash and you're exhausted, but you don't want
to drop the beam because you don't want to acknowledge that the house fell down.
Yeah, that's exactly what it feels like.
So regardless of all the nonsense advice you're going to get, nobody can give you your
next decision, your next choice.
If somebody cheats in a relationship and the other person chooses to stay and they choose
to rebuild their marriage and rebuild trust, I applaud that.
I think that's amazing.
I'll be in their corner all day long. And if somebody cheats in a relationship and they say,
I can't, I can't come back, I'll sit with you two.
I'll be in your corner all day long too.
The one thing I can't stomach is the person who cheats
blows up everything and then looks over and says,
yeah, I'm gonna keep doing this.
I mean, help me out.
What's his justification?
I mean, he did say it was because, you know,
he felt like our marriage was already kind of crumbling,
in a sense.
I had started therapy and he refused to do any therapy.
So then when they started talking, it never was like that,
but it started becoming more emotional affair.
And then because he would vent to her
and they would talk about baseball and talk,
then they started, she started having problems
in her marriage.
And so then they started talking about each other's
marriages and that's how that started.
Okay, so let me pause there.
That's not an uncommon scenario.
And this is going to sound strange to say, like that doesn't freak me out.
Like that part isn't, I'm trying to think of the right words.
It's not rare, but what on earth post that moment that,
oh my gosh, I just changed everything.
I just slept with one of my close friends' wives.
I just slept with one of my wife's close friends.
Someone I travel with that we coach games.
Like I just, whoa.
What in the world could possibly be the justification for being like, alright, so here's the deal we're gonna continue coaching together
Well his for him it's because he doesn't want people to find out what happened
so he doesn't want to leave the team abruptly and then people start questioning why he left and
So he doesn't want to leave the team abruptly.
And then people start questioning why he left.
And I said, who cares? Since when do you care what people say or think about you?
Now all of a sudden you care.
And that's why we're trying to, we were trying to quietly exit because nobody knows.
I mean, between the four of us, not minus like with cousin of mine, nobody else knows
in our family and our friend circle.
So that's why he was trying to do a clean break.
But now that the season's about to start,
he's like, well, I don't know if I want to leave just yet.
We agreed we're just going to do this last season
and then we're done.
But I'm finding it hard to do that.
Even though they've cut off communication,
like her phone number's blocked,
like they don't interact at all. I guarantee you they figured a way around that.
Guaranteed.
My truck is not nice but I would bet the whole thing they figured it out.
I'm literally heartbroken for you, with you.
Yeah, me too.
If he cares more about his precious little imaginary reputation among the little league
community than he does about his marriage, that's about all you need to know.
Yeah, that's true.
Or let me see it like this.
You're worth more than that.
I'm just embarrassed, man.
I would get on the phone with somebody who's a trusted professional ASAP.
And I think for you going back to
the house on fire analogy you need to have somebody that can help you like
clear the smoke and the ash so you can figure out what you want to do next and
maybe sit with a counselor in your local area that can walk through like okay
this is happening and this is happening and this is happening so they can be as
hopefully as direct as I'm being.
I just I can't I can't wrap my head around it.
This is just shameful in so many different levels.
It's embarrassing.
I just keep saying embarrassing.
I'm just embarrassed.
Gosh, those calls. Michelle, there's not a happy
ending to this one. I'm just heartbroken. Maybe he comes home today and he's like, dude, I'm
out of my mind. I've been crazy. I quit the team. We're not playing baseball. I'm out.
I'm not going to answer the five texts I get from parents because I don't care. And I'm not going to answer the five texts I get from parents because I don't care and I'm saving my marriage
Ends of the earth here we go. Maybe maybe
But it could grieve. I'm sorry my sister. I'm sorry
Thank you for the call call anytime
If you get up to some big decision points, I'm at me. I'll be happy to sit with you.
We'll be right back.
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And I know many of you don't believe this to be true,
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Let's go out to Memphis, Tennessee, right down the road from where I am and talk to
Lawrence.
What up, Lawrence?
Hey, Dr. John.
Glad to be on.
A little nervous, but...
Oh, you're good, brother.
Thanks for calling in, man.
Yeah, yeah.
So, yes, I'm glad to be on.
Nervous to be on. It's a little nervous but uh oh you're good brother thanks for calling in man yeah yeah um so yes I'm glad to be on nervous nervous to be on this is a little
little different for me there you go I appreciate you having the courage to
reach out man yeah yeah so it's just you and me and a couple million people it's
all good oh yeah nobody listens Nobody, nobody listens, right? Trust me. No, nobody does.
So yeah.
So how do we, how do we jump into this and, and, and
Cannonball, cannonball is the best way.
Cannonball.
Yeah.
So, um, so a whole, whole whopping seven months ago, um, married this, uh, amazing, beautiful
woman.
Um,
we started dating approximately three years ago and moved really fast. I mean, she was the, the unicorn that, that I,
that every guy dreams of dreams of running into. Um,
she started off kind of as a,
as a client of mine through a hobby job that I was doing. And then we had both recently ended previous relationships
and kind of found confidants in each other
and quickly snowballed into the relationship.
And same hobbies, same interests, same everything.
And we got married in May.
I had brought a lot of baggage into the
relationship financially and entered this marriage not really standing on
my two feet just trying to play catch-up with life and bad decisions in
the past and everything was great up until planning the marriage.
Our relationship had kind of gotten a little rocky there
for a little bit.
And I kind of alluded it to, you know,
just the stress of planning a wedding
and planning a marriage.
And, you know, post wedding, you know,
we had that little honeymoon phase and things
just never really iron themselves out.
And so we started going to couples counseling at the beginning of June and first session
was great.
You know, I made an advent, an advent. I'm all in.
Just personal values, upbringing,
all in to work on your marriage.
And lean into it.
And so I was all in.
Our therapist gave us homework.
We came back the following week and she dropped a bombshell
that she had gone back through a money tracking app that we had started doing together to kind of
manage finances, kind of build a budget out. And she had found where I had basically pay for porn. Um,
it was something that I didn't deny it when she brought it up. Um,
I made it to it. Um, it was something that I had,
I had struggled previously with, um, years and years and years ago.
Um, it wouldn't necessarily say addicted to it, but struggled with it
I'd stopped and then kind of relapse back into it in the last year year and a half
and
About August
I've kind of had that realization of you know, I'm a married guy. I've got a wife.
What am I doing?
And stopped cold turkey.
But she went through that money app and did some digging and investigating on her own
and found it.
I tried to cover it up.
It was an app where you could change the name
of the charges and things like that.
I'd seen it on there.
I tried to cover it up out of shame and guilt.
Never admitted it to her out of shame and guilt.
I had told her that I had previously had a problem with porn
and admitted that to her later in our relationship out of a fear of being vulnerable to her and being judged for it. And I guess when she
did her whole investigating and found it, it blew up to, I can't be trusted. Um, she called me a cheater a couple of times,
um, which hurt, which hurt the most. Cause I would never, while I understand that porn,
you know, some people don't look at it as cheating. I would never act on that. Um, I
would never physically step out of my marriage. Um, yeah, but she doesn't know that.
Yeah.
She doesn't know that.
Um, but the, the, the, the trust thing is the hardest part.
Um, that she feels like she can't, she can't trust me.
And she, she, she basically said that she wanted that she needed some time to
think and our therapist suggested the one week no contact. That was the hardest, longest
week of my life, I thought at the time. And we reconvened and she walked into the therapy
session late. I noticed she didn't have her wedding band on. When I saw her walk in the
door, my heart immediately sank because that was the first thing that I noticed that she wasn't wearing her wedding band. And she sat down and said she wanted a divorce.
And my life has been basically crumbled since then. So we're a month post that last therapy
session. Our therapist suggested we each individually see therapist.
Again, I dove all in.
I've been meeting with my therapist weekly, here more recently bi-weekly.
And I'm all in, you know, trying to do better for myself, fix my problems, my vulnerability, my honesty problems, vagueness
problems, and trying to figure out how I can earn my wife. I still have heard of my wife,
although she's filed for a divorce.
So she has filed paperwork?
Yeah, she's filed paperwork. She's gotten her lawyer.
I got my lawyer just to protect myself. And we're kind of letting the lawyers do their thing.
But I'm still... Okay, but so you have to exhale that this is over?
Yeah. And you haven't yet, have you?
No, I'm still trying to, I'm still trying
to hold on. I'm still trying to fight because I do, I do love her with everything that I've
got and I'm willing to do anything to show her that I'm all in. I know, but you got to hear her say she doesn't care. Yeah, I know it's hard to hear
Yeah
So, how can I help you man, I hate that you're going through all this I
Don't know I
Understand, you know, I've got to go through the self healing process first
when we still don well, you do, but um, really just move, move, move.
I'm in a hole and I'm just trying to figure out, you know, how that light at the end of
this, at the end of the hole.
Yeah.
Stop digging.
Yeah.
Stop digging. Okay.
Here's why.
I wrote this down.
When you first started talking,
you came into this marriage
thinking you were less than her.
Sexually, financially,
probably attractive.
Like you came in thinking, oh my gosh,
look at the fish I got on this line. Yeah. And so everything,
all of your actions are from a position of I love how you just
ended it. I'm in a hole. Yeah. And until you stop working,
walking around, giving your credit card to a porn company is in the whole behavior.
That is less than. That is, I am desperately trying to feel alive in my own skin.
So much so that I'll take one of the most
one of the most
Untrustworthy groups of people on the planet and give them my account number
Yeah You said something that I want to make sure I double click on
That you kind of held some stuff back from her because you were worried about her judging you
But I got a sense that you kind of feel right,
righteous about that.
Like, yeah, see, when you find out,
you're not judging me.
Not really.
And I dove into that as,
I've always had issues with being vulnerable
to this previous life.
I lost my dad when I was in fifth grade and
I kind of was forced to grow up and had to put on this persona of being 10 foot tall
and bulletproof for family and stuff like that. And I've always had a problem of letting
myself be vulnerable to other people. And I didn't realize how much that affected me
until I dove in with my personal therapist.
So what?
So it was a scare.
I was scared of being,
and I don't blame her for the way that she acted.
Well, hold on, hold on.
It's very, very rare.
I'm not sitting in day in and day out
in marriage therapy offices, okay?
So in law offices.
But in my world, it is very, very rare
for somebody to find an old incidence of paying for
or pornography, search history, found
an old expense.
What was this?
Because that story is not super ringing true with me.
Either that or she wanted out of this thing so bad and she found a path.
Yeah.
And that's what I'm thinking.
That this was kind of a depth of a thousand cuts.
And that was the-
Yeah, but you were only together seven months.
There's not even time to have a thousand cuts
unless you're screaming at her and hitting her
and swearing and just being an all around scumbag, right?
Yeah, no, and it was actually kind of
the opposite direction.
So what did she find?
That's what she told me, you know,
and there was really nothing else.
I mean, I had tried to start,
I had tried to start a business right there when we got married, which took a lot of my time,
which probably wasn't the smartest move on my part. That's all fine and good. There's something
else here, brother. And I don't know. Was it pornography or was it like webcam girl?
Was it interactive?
No, it wasn't interactive.
It was only fans, but I was strictly paying for videos.
There was no interaction there or anything like that.
I was just paying for videos and subscriptions.
And she basically said that I lied about it.
I relapsed.
I'm cheating on her.
Well, and you say you don't have an addiction problem, but you continue to use addiction
language.
Yeah. Well, and you say you don't have an addiction problem, but you continue to use addiction language.
Yeah.
And I was never clinically diagnosed as addicted.
Sure.
I guess I am.
I mean, I don't think you are,
I'm just from what you're talking about,
but I don't work with you day in and day out,
so I don't know, but...
Yeah, I really don't know how I can help other than the faster you exhale into, I mean, she's, it's one thing if she says I want a divorce, takes her ring off and then doesn't do anything
for a month or two.
Then in my world, that's the, so you're telling me there's a chance. Yeah. This is, this is filing, here's the paperwork, the lawyers have a date and we're moving down
the road.
That's when, like, here's the deal, man, you can't go to all this therapy and do all this
stuff to try to win her back.
You got to go to the therapy and stuff because there's something not right.
And it might be that she's
not right.
And I'm not saying she can do whatever she wants.
She can divorce you for whatever reason and she feels this is infidelity.
It's infidelity.
I'm out.
Okay.
But, um, either this is just, I don't know.
I'd have to talk to both of you longer, I think,
to get a better beat on this thing.
But what I can tell you is the faster you exhale
and grieve this thing, it's heartbreaking.
You did some stuff, you weren't honest about it.
It doesn't matter what anybody else's opinion on it is.
She says that's a violation,
that's infidelity. I'm out. I can't trust you sexually. I can't trust you financially.
You hide things. You go change labels. We went to marriage counseling in June and it's August when
I found this out. And so we've been through two or three months of counseling and you didn't tell me
I'm out. I'm out. People can judge her all day long, but she's got every right to walk.
It's you that's got to exhale and go,
okay, this is happening.
What's going to be different next time?
And by the way, she's not a unicorn dude.
When you put that kind of pressure on somebody,
that somehow you've found this mystical being
that people tell you doesn't exist,
you find somebody and you choose to love them.
And you keep showing up and you to love them and you keep showing
up and you keep showing up and you keep showing up.
See, the best thing to tell you man is keep seeing a counselor, but also put yourself
in a position where you can begin to act differently in a way that you learn to trust you.
Because right now you're entering into all these relationships, the counselor, the marriage,
the everything from in a hole.
Stop digging and just stand up.
The hole's not as deep as you think it is.
Stand up.
And this one may have cost you everything.
And you have to dig down on the chin.
That's another big loss for you.
Pressure down and your marriage is tough, tough, tough, tough, tough, tough.
There is healing on the other side, man, but you got to own the reality of where you find
yourself.
Thanks for the call, man.
Best of luck to you.
Holler back if I can help in any way, man.
If you've got some directed questions I can help with, I'd be happy to walk with you.
We'll be right back.
All right, good folks.
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All right, we're back.
Let's go out to Reno, Nevada and talk to Jason.
Redeem the show, Jason.
What's up?
Good morning, sir.
How are you today?
I'm all right, brother.
What's going on in your world?
Just a quick correction.
It's Nevada, not Nevada.
The true Nevadans will catch you on that one.
You desert dweller.
Desert rat, for sure.
Okay, say it one more time.
It's Nevada? It's Nevada more time. It's Nevada?
It's Nevada.
Nevada.
It's Nevada.
We from Nevada, man.
We from Nevada.
Yeah.
All right.
Anyway.
It sounds like you're falling and just hit the ground like Nevada.
And we don't count Vegas.
Vegas is California, so whatever. We here in Texas and Tennessee, we call it Nevada, because we're a little bit perfect
with our speech.
I'm just letting you know if they're from Nevada, they're going to roll their eyes at
you.
Trust me, bro.
I've said Louisville, almost got shot for that one.
What was the one in Pittsburgh that I said, Kelly?
Lancaster.
Yeah, I said Kelly Lancaster yeah, I said land pastor and
Lancaster you would have thought anyway, okay, so I didn't know that one
Hey my world kind of blew up and
The writer died said she didn't want to be married anymore. I gave her, I did.
Yeah, it was rough. I did the turn the lights off or turn the lights on, slow down the music
conversation at breakfast. Yep. And I thought it was pretty good. And she said, Nope. And
I said, okay. So then I followed up a couple of weeks later, said, all right, well then
I wrote an email and said, well, I think these are the options. Blow it up the house, you sell it, we don't
have a place to live. You try and buy me out, I try and buy you out, you know, get the lawyers
involved with a lot of money trying to be respectful and amicable. We got two sons.
And she's like, well, what about nesting? Oh, God. So what it turned and it turned into
I was like, all right, if I can go explore that
option, we got it.
I got a family member down the road a little bit and I said, I'll go see if their extra
room is available.
And they would, they said, well, before I could even have that conversation, it was
breakfast, made some phone calls, this and that.
Then she's like, wait, no, let's not do that.
We left breakfast saying, let's try nesting.
That was kind of the, you know,
and then on my way over to like, have that, well, no,
what about just co-parenting under the same house,
knowing what we know and not telling anybody yet?
I'm like, wait, what?
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, nesting is a terrible idea.
That's kind of what I was thinking.
So on the follow-up that a week later, she's like,
can you come to my therapist appointment?
I was like, sure.
Yeah.
You got something to say?
Well, I just need to save space to talk about this.
All right, what you got?
Well, what about separation and you just leave
for a little while while I get my stuff lined out?
In my head, you're the one wanting a divorce.
I said, I want to ride or die.
I want to go, I'm fix this.
I don't think there's grounds,
like there wasn't any, you know, infidelity.
Like I'm not some drunk, you know,
I'm not a bad guy, I don't think.
And I think when I hear you,
I've been binging your show for about six months,
and I can see the failure factory.
I can see the not handling your own trauma.
I've gone through my own journey.
We had drama with my youngest, this and that.
And I don't think she processed it.
And it's turning into, I don't wanna be married.
And if I do something else and I don't know what to do.
Cause the next conversation with the therapist last night
was, well, what if you leave the house and I stay here?
I'm like, wait, what?
No. Yeah, no, what? No.
Yeah, no.
If she wants to leave you, she can leave you.
She's an adult and you can't stop her.
But coming up with these bull crap, hippie, dippy, over intellectualized ways to avoid
reality.
Reality, exactly. People listening, nesting is,
we're gonna keep the kids at the house
because supposedly it's better for the kids,
for mom and dad to get divorced,
but the kids to stay in the house.
And mom lives there a couple of days a week
and dad lives there a few days a week,
instead of them going back and forth.
The part that the intellectual goofballs leave out is,
if we had that ability to coordinate,
we'd be able to fix our marriage.
If we had that kind of resources, we could,
you know what I'm saying?
Like it's just, it's lunacy.
And the fact that kids are air filters for a home,
they absorb everything.
And so when you have
Just it's it's just madness. It's madness, dude
Anyway, I could go on I don't want to derail the conversation. It sounds like yeah, I trust you man You sound like a pretty amazing guy
It sounds like your wife is spinning out and is just trying to whack a mole with feelings and hurt and all that stuff
And you're bearing the brunt of it.
But at the end of the day,
she's choosing to dissolve your marriage and leave.
Then if she's making that choice,
that choice comes with a whole bunch of consequences.
And choosing to work on your marriage
and to recommit and build something new,
that's a choice too.
Both of those are hard.
She just has to choose her heart.
So then, okay, I told that,
she's like, I don't wanna choose that heart. Okay, fair.
So then the next conversation stepped up to like, all right, well, then what do you tell the boys?
What I want to tell the boys is like I wanted to be married. Mom didn't. Yes. I don't bet.
How old are they?
About to be 13, couple months and about to be 10. Yes, that is a fair statement.
Right and the therapist, which I think is a loon,
she's like, well, yeah, let's not, you know,
something where, you know, a villain of,
villainate vilifies one person or the other.
But one person is the villain here, right?
Well, no, she said something like that.
I'm kind of like, I told her I want to be married,
and she doesn't want, like, a nine-year-old,
that's okay for a nine-year-old, I mean, to hear that? It's like, I told her I wanna be married and she doesn't want, like a nine year old, that's okay for a nine year old, I mean, to hear that.
It's like, hey.
That mommy is struggling, like with a 13 year old,
yeah, you gotta be honest,
cause here's the deal, you can't risk them thinking
as their world is exploding, oh, my dad's a liar too.
Right, right.
That is hyper untethering.
Okay.
There is something about you guys sitting there saying,
to the ends of the earth, we love you.
We will always be there for you.
We will always figure out a way to come through for you.
All that kind of stuff that parents need to say together
to a 13 year old whose whole world is exploding.
But also I think it's fair to say,
mom is going through a lot right now
and she is choosing to not be married anymore.
Okay.
We both still love you.
She loves you forever.
And yes, a 13 year old is gonna go,
hmm, I wonder if one day she chooses
to not wanna be my mom.
That is a fair question.
Right.
And that needs to be addressed on the table
and you can't avoid this.
With a nine year old,
it does need to be a little more delicate.
Yeah, he's our special one.
And he understands, he's smart.
He has some medical stuff.
And again, there's my, like after listening to you, I can be like, hey, you didn't resolve
this grief.
Like you didn't.
Like I had people that had my back and mowed my lawn and I got cried with a lot of guys
and she didn't have to have that.
And she didn't look for it from me either.
And my guess is it's well dubbed inside of her soul, that plus everything else plus probably some resentment
that you had all the support and she didn't and yada yada.
At the end of the day, she doesn't feel safe
in her own skin.
She doesn't like the life she's co-created.
Right, and I can't do nothing about that.
That's right.
Make money and try and be around, right?
Well, I mean, the only thing you could do
is what you've done, which is say,
hey, we have co-created this life,
I wanna co-create a new one with you.
And she said no.
Yep.
There's not a way to soft land this.
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell her.
And I think you're onto something,
and this isn't every relationship, but I think in're onto something, and this isn't every relationship,
but I think in your marriage particular,
I think you love her enough and see enough,
have known her well enough to know
this is gonna be yet another Xanax.
Oh, and I wanna clarify also,
I've had my Xanax too, don't get me wrong.
No, we all do, we all do.
I did it, I messed up and We all do. I did it.
Like I messed up and you know, I look poor and I get it.
We all have, bro, we all do.
I'm saying, you know, this is her kicking the can
down the road even further.
That's what I feel like.
She'll have a reckoning at some point with the mirror.
So my dilemma now is like, all right,
well now she wants to, the nesting was the first,
now the second one.
So like, how about you move out of the house
just so I can buy some time so that I can set myself up.
And you know, my teaching credential needs to come through
and this and that and blah, blah, blah.
Big, big boy and big girl decisions come with big boy
and big girl choices and consequences, period.
How do I say that lovingly?
I think is loving, nothing you say
is gonna be received lovingly
because lovingly for her is,
I want the world to bend to how I feel
in this particular moment.
And she found some therapists that would bend that way.
She found some internet article that said,
well, here's an alternative to reality.
We'll call it nesting.
Where we're gonna live under the illusion that the kids' lives aren't disrupted
or they're minimally disrupted when it's just,
you know what I mean?
So-
To me, I want to turn it into a, like, find it,
like I make all the money, not all the money,
she makes, she has two part-time jobs.
And she's like, well, a few years ago, she put her,
started putting her, she just got into part-time jobs.
She had a teaching career for a little bit and started putting stashing all that money
in an account.
I couldn't get fine.
Whatever.
That's her savings.
I make enough money to make the house go.
Right.
So her, well, if you move out, I'll start putting my part-time paychecks in there so we can
run the house.
I'm like, it costs $4,000 a month from the house.
Like you're 80 to a hundred dollars, whatever a month. Run the house. Like you're $100,
whatever it is, and you want me to move out? That doesn't sound like I deserve that one,
but I don't know how to not, you know, like turn this into a bickering fighting blow up
grenade and do the right thing. It already is. Okay. It already is. And so, let me just tell you this, in my house,
I would heartbreakingly, and with all the grief in the world,
if my wife was having the same conversation,
I would say, hey, I love you, and if you need to go,
I won't stand at the door like you're an adult.
I'll do anything and everything that I can to help you create a world where you feel safe enough to stay.
But if you want to go, you can go.
I'm not going to leave.
This is my house and these are the kids.
And if you want to take the kids from their home,
you can take me to court.
But you can't pretend that you're,
you can't at the same time, you're blowing up this family.
You can't also pretend that everything is mostly
gonna stay the same.
And I would say that in an honorable way
and retaining her dignity, she's clearly going through hell.
But it's a disassociative,
like she does not have her feet on the ground.
And I'm heartbroken that she got in with a therapist
that didn't firmly plant her feet on the ground.
And say, I'll sit with you and walk with you
and I'll hold up a mirror as we go through this separation,
this divorce, but I'm gonna be be honest, we've got to make a budget.
And we're going to have to talk about what no fault looks like in Nevada.
And we got to go through these things and what sharing custody is because the world
you're envisioning is not a real world.
And her therapist failed her and I'm sorry.
I'm just looking for anything else I can do that could be a right move.
I think you're a pretty good man. Thank you.
I mean, it sounds like you've gone to hell and back.
Or maybe you're not back yet.
And maybe that maybe I'm getting there.
Yeah, I know.
Well, here's the thing.
The challenge is when you get back, your skin's a little bit thicker
and it's easy to wanna just mount up and go to war.
And I think for you, the challenge is gonna be exhaling.
Because pretty soon she's gonna go from this woman
I'm desperately trying to stay married to,
to a woman who's blowing up my kids' lives.
War would feel better, you're right.
It's harder to stay in it.
And it's harder to make that shift like I'm going to model for my two boys.
Yes.
What dignity and respect looks like when they're getting punched in the face.
So hard.
But this is my home, this is their home, and we're gonna stay here.
If you wanna go, I'm not gonna slash your tires.
Hey brother, I'm heartbroken for you.
Hey, how about this?
See if your wife will call in.
Okay.
I sent her one just to see if she would do it.
Like, hey, check this out.
And I told her, I called her,
I even alluded to your advice.
I said, hey, I'm talking to this guru.
She's like, oh, you're a new guru.
I'm like, I got a guru.
Hey, thank you for your time.
I really appreciate what you do.
God bless.
All right, brother.
Thanks for being in our gang, dude.
I'm so sorry this has happened to me.
Thank you.
Take care.
So, so, so sorry.
We'll be right back.
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All right, we are back.
I guess we're a month out from the last money in marriage event.
We got tons of just pretty amazing questions
that were a part of a lot of the Q and A's that we do.
The October Money in Marriage
and the February Money in Marriage for 20, 25 and 26
are already open if you wanna come join us
in Nashville, Tennessee, it's an just extraordinary weekend.
But here's a question that comes
from the Money in Marriage weekend.
We are in our late 30s and we make about 250 grand a year.
Dang Gina, maybe I'll hire him.
We both come from families that struggled financially.
We've made more disposable income
than we thought we'd ever make.
We like to spend money on things like travel.
Last year we spent 20 grand on travel.
Is that too much?
How do we think through the best way to allocate
quote unquote extra money and not feel guilty? Man, this is something that actually my buddy
Dave Ramsey has taught me about personally because I grew up with not a lot too and my
life has changed here now that I'm living in this the last great loophole of mankind called podcasting.
the last great loophole of mankind called podcasting.
Well, there's a couple of things here. Number one, if you find yourself with more money
than you ever thought you would make,
it's important to acknowledge the ratios.
Meaning if you make $30,000 a year,
you're driving a used Corolla
and you're gonna drive it till it dies, right?
Because that's X percentage of your annual salary.
If you make $500,000 a year, then
a nice used Lexus and a new Lexus, proportionally to your salary is less than that used Corolla was
to when you made 30,000 bucks. So there's something about the ratio that has given me peace, lets me exhale a little bit. The second thing here is some people who grew up
with money, very scarce, it's wired into your nervous system.
Money is something to be afraid of,
there's never gonna be enough, it's always gonna run out.
That's just your body trying to take care of you.
So don't go to war with your body.
But I always tell people when you're making on a budget
to put money
that you will give away and put that at the top of the list.
Giving is a way to enter into the world
as though I am participating in this world.
I'm a person who gives, I'm a person of generosity.
And the second one is I tell people
who are struggling with scarcity mindsets
or that guilt feeling you have,
put money away that you will spend on yourself.
You have to practice enjoyment.
You have to practice joy.
You have to practice peace.
Those are just things we've never done before.
It's great.
It's good.
And then the last thing is feeling guilty.
You might feel guilty for a while.
And so you can come up with some tips or tricks like,
I don't know, I'm gonna commit to giving away.
If I'm gonna go on a vacation that cost X,
I'm gonna give away a quarter of that money
to a charity that I love or to some friends
who wanna send their kid to college or whatever,
to a family member, whatever.
You can come up with stuff like that.
I personally like the idea of feeling a little bit guilty,
looking at the math and saying is math on my side here?
Yes.
And then go on a vacation.
And while you're on the vacation
or on these different travel experiences,
which by the way, I think the data says
spending money on experiences
turns your default setting towards joy, happiness,
if you will, more than buying stuff than things, right?
You tend to fall back to baseline more,
but go on the trip and feel it while you're there.
I never pictured myself here.
This is outside of my picture,
but here I am on this really nice vacation.
Here I am at a concert on the other side of the country here I am and
Just be present in that space and then be grateful for it
Choosing to change your default setting from panic and running all the time to gratitude just helps
But man late 30s make about 250k a year you't owe anybody any money. I'm gonna read that into this.
If you owe people money, if your brain knows
we're on a $20,000 vacation
and they're gonna take our cars from us if we get fired,
then yeah, you're not gonna sleep.
Your body would be failing if it let you sleep.
If you have a mortgage out and they know,
hey, we could lose the house.
If we don't, your body's not failing.
It's working just as it should
by giving you these feelings, these powerful emotions.
But I think there's just some honesty.
And man, I never thought I'd have a marriage this good.
It feels weird when we're just sitting on the couch at peace.
Man, I never thought I would be this healthy after I lost all this weight.
I'm just going to feel that for a minute.
I never thought we'd have money like this after growing up in a scarce environment.
I'm just going to sit in that discomfort for a minute and then I'm going to be really grateful that we got struck by lightning and we're here and I'm going to be super, super, super generous
and then we're going to book that trip because we're going to go see the world.
So hopefully that helps. Thank you for that question and it happens more than you think.
Get tons and tons of calls on the Ramsey Show,
the other show that I co-host.
People struggling with how to spend their money
when they've actually get there.
When struggling with, man, we worked really hard
and we've saved up for this car, is it okay to get it?
It's a very real thing.
So thanks for the call.
Thanks for being vulnerable and honest.
Appreciate you.
Love you guys. Bye.