The Dr. John Delony Show - My Husband’s Ex Is a Threat to Our Kids . . .

Episode Date: August 8, 2025

On today’s episode, we hear about: -          A new wife struggling with her husband’s inaction  -          A woman who wants to learn how to handle conflict better -          A new dad struggling with anxiety Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📚The Dance of Anger 📝 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: Need to talk to someone? BetterHelp is virtual therapy when it’s convenient for you. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. These are the BEST sheets and towels in the world. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.   Getting lots of spam calls? DeleteMe can clean up your online presence for you. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  Find peace every day. Hallow is the simplest way to slow down and get your head right for the day. Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial.  I have Helix Midnight mattresses in EVERY bedroom in my house. Get 20% off when you visit Helix Sleep and take the sleep quiz to see what you need!  I took Thorne supplements way before I worked at Ramsey. Stoked that we can work together now! Get 25% off for LIFE at Thorne.    Head over to Poncho Outdoors to try the best outdoor performance shirt for yourself!   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

I've gotten along with his ex-wife great. She actually lives in the house next door to us. That's not weird. That's not weird. You're finding out 18 months into this relationship that your husband is a coward and he's not a man to be respected. At some point, you have to sit down and say, What up, what up. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show.

Coming to you live, but not live. From Nashville, Tennessee, taking your calls, real calls from real people going through all kind of challenging times. And it is a wild time to be alive. And I'm grateful that you're with us. There's a billion podcast you could be checking out, and you're spending your time with us. And I'm really grateful.

Thank you so, so much. Let's go out to Oklahoma City and talk to Elizabeth. What's up, Elizabeth? Hi, Dr. Don. Oh, this is wild. Hi. It's wild for me, too. I don't talk to Oklahomans very often,

so this is a big deal for me. Oh, well, you know, potential NBA champion. If that's what it takes for y'all to feel good about yourselves, then so be it. You know what? Between that and the tornadoes, we take what we can get. You know what? Very fair, very fair. So what's up?

Oh, gosh. I really don't, honestly, even know where to start. Belly flop. I also wasn't nervous. best until you answered. No, it's all good. Just swan dive in. Yeah, so I guess I'll kind of start with my question. I just really need some wisdom and guidance and advice about how I can be the best wife and stepmom I can be as my new little family is going through a situation that's really hard and really scary and honestly just kind of traumatic. Okay. And one that my husband is

really struggling with, but is also one where we need to be making very quick and very decisive decisions and taking action to keep our kids out of danger. So can I cut through all of this before you even tell me what's going on? Yeah. You have a super simple, not easy, but a super simple path forward, and that is making sure children are safe, period. End of story. Yeah, that's where I am coming from, from all of it.

Okay. But I am also, it's all to do with his ex-wife and his kind of family, so I'm relatively new to the equation. Oh, okay. All right, so tell me what's going on. So we've only been married for about six months together for a little over a year before that. He has two kids who are 10 and 3, and I don't have any.

This is our second marriage for both of us. We're in our 30s. And we have gotten along with his ex-wife great. She actually lives in the house next door to us. That's not weird. That's not weird. Oh, man. I won't make an Oklahoma joke, but I want to.

You are free, too. It's probably nothing I haven't thought. I'm just playing. All right, so go ahead. So, honestly, like, she and I have always gotten along really, really well. She's been super friendly and welcoming to me. And I just, I adore these kids. They're just the coolest little humans, and I'm so blessed to be in their life.

I'm just so excited to get to have this new little family, and it's been a challenge for sure, but it's just been beautiful. My husband and her have a very complicated relationship, and their divorce was not friendly, not friendly at all, and it's only recently that they've been able to be on good terms. But because of that, he somehow has just become convinced that if he does anything to make her upset, that she can just up and decide to take the kids away from him. We have 50-50 custody. So where are the kids not safe? With her, because she's a meth addict who we caught using meth when we got a call from the hospital that she had been using meth in front of the kids had left it out and our three-year-old had gotten into it. so i'm i'm struggling here that there is any sort of hesitation on anybody's part for anything yeah that's what i say i to be honest i had been seeing red flags um from her the entire time

no no no hold on hold on let's take her completely out of the equation yeah she is a single mom struggling with meth okay yeah that is what that is there's a period at the end of that sentence you can do nothing about her so i don't want to think about her i don't want to talk about her red flags yeah because it allows you to avoid the most significant red flag and it is draped across the person sleeping next to you in your bed no and that's what i'm trying to call about because i have been bringing these things to him no there's no oh man yeah i'm sorry i get all yeah okay go ahead go ahead go ahead I'll quit interrupting you. Oh, no.

I've been the one who's been sitting here saying we need to be doing something now. We took immediate possession of the kids, and she has not gotten them back. And have you all fired a court, filed a court injunction? Or not you, but dad, has you filed a court injunction to terminate parental rights immediately? No. Okay, that has to happen today. That has happened today. That is what I am telling him, and I am just baffled.

I see him. So he has a lot of trauma And I'm not making excuses for him But he like I can see the fear and the anxiety and the stress He is terrified that if he does anything that she And I don't understand where his fear comes from But I see him having a mental breakdown in front of me Over the thought of it

We have met with a lawyer Over the thought of what He is just genuinely convinced That if he says anything that she will just take the kids away and that he'll never see them again and the court will side with her and he'll lose them forever.

And I have no idea why. Yeah. And I have no idea why. Does he have, does he have demons in his closet that you don't know about? Not that I know of. Is there a chance he's actively using meth with her? No, he's not. I know a thousand percent he's not. Okay, so what he's, what he is afraid of is irrational

Yes. But here's a thing. The irrational fear he has is endangering children. Yeah. Yes. 100%. You have to be the next rational adult on behalf of these children. Yeah. And that's what I have been trying everything that I, and honestly, like, I haven't towed the line of legality, but I have been doing everything that I physically can. I've called DHS. on her. She has a boyfriend who's a felon. I've been talking to his probation officer almost every single day. I track, like, where she is in relation to the kids, so the kids are safe. And I've been doing everything I can to keep the kids' schedules normal, to keep them happy, to keep them focused, to make sure that they feel safe and protected and loved and valued. And I, like, I'm just doing

everything I can, but it is just so limited, and I just see him breaking, but I see all of this potential danger around us, and I just, I don't understand why he's not moving or why he's not doing things or why he's so afraid, but I don't know what else I can do. Oh, man. I mean, if he's, I mean, if he's. I mean, there's, there's several different things happening here. If he's having a mental breakdown, then you and him, but especially him, but he won't go by himself. Y'all are going to have to go get psychiatric care now.

Yeah, I don't think it's to that level. Okay, so here's the only play you have. And I'm saying this, not just because you're a wife, I'm saying this because you're a citizen, you're a human being. and you're clearly a good person. It is saying, by the end of today, I will file an injunction to terminate her rights as a parent. And honestly, Elizabeth, I don't even know if you can do that. I don't know the laws in the state of Oklahoma,

but that's what you need to put on the table in front of him. Because here's the deal. You have this issue with these kids, and you've known them for 18 months, You love them. They're fun to be around. It's been nice, this idea that y'all are all going to be this happy little co-family. All that makes sense. And I get the sentiment and how cool it would be if it all worked out. It's not. It won't. And it's not, it's actively not working out. The bigger deal is you are finding out 18 months into this relationship, six months into this marriage that your husband is a coward and he's not a man to be respected. And that's where I'm starting to find myself If I'm losing respect for him Oh, it's gone

It's gone I can hear it in your voice Yeah And that's the unspooling Because we all know the right thing to do Is to take care of these kids Yeah And I'm not gonna

I am not in a position here To beat up on somebody who's struggling with meth She's clearly got demons What I am in the business of doing is I will protect these kids Yeah And that means at some point your husband is blocking you from taking care of these kids. Or more importantly, he's not burning the next door neighbor's house down to defend his children.

Yeah. And I have told him that it blows my mind that I have to be asking him if he's going to protect his kids. What does he say to that? He, like I can tell that he genuinely truly wants to. And I don't know if it's just. like the crowd of fear or whatever else it is that he's key he's literally legitimately a fear afraid that with a hospital report that said a third three-year-old got into math so part of that that and this is just i guess information um so whenever we were not present obviously when it happened

so when he went to the hospital she didn't put my husband's name on any of the release forms or like hippo forms. So I am 99% sure that that's what the hospital reports does. Um, but we don't know for sure because we can't access it. But she, your husband, your husband can go there to the hospital with a court order. It's easy. So that's, yes. So that's what we did meet with a lawyer to do. You don't need to meet with a lawyer. You just need to take the divorce decree into the hospital and say that's my child. They told us we couldn't. With the divorce decree? Yes.

And they told us that if his name wasn't on the form, they couldn't release the file. But then they also didn't call the HS on the whole thing, which that blew my mind. Yeah, this hospital's in, they're in dangerous ground right now. That's what I, like, it's secondary, but there's just so many pieces that I'm now seeing that are, like, all kind of coming together, but nobody's doing anything. And I feel like I'm the only one that can. cares. But I am still just kind of just struggling with A, like, how do we move forward and how do I kind of help keep, help him keep that momentum and help us keep that momentum? I even know the lawyer is going to be working on stuff, so that will also help. But like, how do I keep

the support and kind of help him come back and refocus? At some point, you have to sit down and say, I have completely lost respect for you as a man, as the man I married. Yeah. And here is the path you're going to have to walk to regain that respect for me. Yeah. Because I don't respect a man that doesn't go do whatever it takes to get his kids. Yeah. Period.

And we don't tiptoe around it. We don't, we swing first and then we ask questions later when it. comes to the health of my safety of my children yeah i would be banging on the door of the hospital i can't i can't wrap my head around y'all showing up with a divorce decree and i don't know if that's just an ill and i mean i can't i mean hippa training is it's just 101 but that you show up with a decree and a mother who has methamphetamine in her system didn't put me on the list and then looking at the divorce decree going yeah for sure this is your kid that's a madness to me Yeah, the whole thing, how that whole situation played out.

They didn't let her leave with their son. They let his grandparents come and take him home. But yeah, just all of that and how they didn't know the five authorities or anything like that. I'll still, like, I just can't comprehend that. Well, it might be named the Elizabeth and your husband Memorial Hospital there and wherever the kids were. But that's a, listen, that's a secondary issue. issue number one is making sure those kids are safe.

Yeah. And they're in your house right now. And that's all I want, yes. Okay. Issue number two is the marriage you had is over. Yeah. The guy you thought you were married to is not who you thought he was. Yeah.

Okay. And I'll give him the tiniest shred of grace I can give. Because I have a hard time with kids of people who don't take action with helping children. but he's frozen in time here we are cool here is your path husband and then at the end of the day you have to ask yourself question number one did i do all i can to keep these two children who are not mine safe and my hope is and i listening to you i would assume that if there was if you lived on some random street and you were still single and you heard this happening three houses down you do the same thing you're doing right now which is why you're a good citizen i wish every citizen

someone like you but you're looking at your husband now and saying okay here is the path forward i have lost respect for you period i would expect the man i'm married to to go to the ends of the earth for his children you have not so to earn this back this is what must be true we don't sleep until there's a temporary injunction we have a court date on the books asap to terminate parental rights period if there's any secrets that he hasn't told you now's the time because the only thing i can think of that he is scared of is that she's got dirt on him that you don't know about i mean and that could it's the only thing that makes sense to me right now is that she's going to say oh yeah

well the first person who gave me meth was this guy or have you seen his checked his search history like that's what's going through my head right now um yeah and then if it's like this isn't um you've heard me use this line on the show not by your hand but in your lap we're moving yeah and we shouldn't have to move we shouldn't be the one but we are getting out of this mess the house goes on the market next week yeah because this little happy fantasy family it's over yeah it just is what it is yeah i had the locks changed on the house and everything yeah but they're next door. I mean, the kids are going to go outside to check the mail and boyfriend is going to say, hey, mama, I mean, who knows? Yeah, well, I don't let them outside if I'm not there.

And they don't, that's not a childhood, right? That's not a childhood. No, no. That's a prison. We don't want them growing up like that. And so I think you, I think you lay out very clearly. Here's what must be true. And you have to be able to exhale with, not be angry, not be enraged, not be heartbroken, but you have to exhale through. He I might look at you and say, I'm not doing any of that stuff. Yeah. And then you have to live in that reality. Yeah.

And by the way, you're living in that reality now. You're just not putting it on the table. Yeah, because it seems like after a little while he will take a step, and then after a little while longer, he will take another step. I'm just kind of constantly just gently pushing and waiting for that next step. Is that the guy you want to be married to? No. No, it's not.

Forget the marriage part. Does that the guy you want raising kids next door to you? No. No. No. And I hope mom goes to rehab and I hope mom gets well and I hope mom does all the work she needs to do to be able to see her kids

because kids need to see their mothers. And I hope she goes to rehab and stops letting felons come around that, all that stuff. I hope that to be true. right to second we have an emergency thanks for the call sister I'm so sorry there's a heartbreaking moment

you're the adult in the room right now and I wish that wasn't the case but you're the one and so let's go full steam ahead thank you so so so much for the call we come back a woman wonders how to remain calm during conflict it's cozy earth

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That's cozyEarth.com slash Deloni and code Deloney to say 40% off your entire order. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, stay cozy. All right, we're back. Hey, take two seconds, two seconds, and hit the subscribe button. If you're watching this on YouTube, hit the subscribe button. And if you were listening to this on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, if you'll just subscribe to the show, it makes such a huge difference. Thank you so, so much. We go to Columbus, Ohio, and talk to Lindsay. What's up, Lindsay? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you?

I'm good. Thank you. Awesome. I wanted to thank you for just everything. I listen to your podcast a lot and I use your conversation cards. So I really appreciate you. Well, you're awesome. I appreciate you. Thank you. My question is, how do I keep my cool when faced with conflict? Ever since I could remember, I have struggled with conflict, people getting mad at me, raising their voice. It makes me feel so anxious and uncomfortable. Sometimes I run from a problem. because I'm worried about what other people are going to say and stuff like that. It's been going on most of your life, huh? Yes. Do you have a parent who struggle with substance abuse? No. My mom struggles with depression.

Okay. All right. Have you pretty much been a caretaker your whole life? Yeah. Where's dad? He's in the picture, very much so. loving guy. Um, I think sometimes he doesn't know how to help either. Ah, okay. So are you married? You got kids? No, I'm single. How old are you? 30. 30. Okay. So give me an example of a recent

situation. The one that you were like, dude, I got to call this show. Um, I would say the most recent one that I had um gosh I mean there's so much but I think one of them was um

I am a retail manager of a store and I was on a call with a bunch of other managers and we were just kind of having like a um like a day to

learn about stuff and talk with everybody and learn something from each other um And it was about emotional intelligence, and I had brought up what you say on the show a lot. The calm is contagious and facts are kind or something like that. And this other manager just kind of butted into my conversation and was like, well, you, that is silly advice. And you have no idea what I'm going through and just started raising his voice.

and I just kind of started going in a loop in my brain, and I couldn't stop. What was the loop? So I usually fall back to like, did I say something wrong? Am I a bad person? It usually gets to there, but usually there's something else on loop that I can't quite remember at the moment, but that's usually what it falls to.

How honest can you be with me on this call? I think pretty honest. Okay. When I asked you about your dad, you immediately jumped to his defense. And that often is a signal for me. It's less the people that we can be honest about or probably over dramatic about. it's the people that we jump to defend real fast that often may hold a key or two.

So dad was a loving guy, a always there guy. What was underneath that? I don't know. I guess... How did dad show you he was mad? You know what? it was usually, well, it was both parents. Both parents had an effect on me. Okay.

But let's stay with dad for a second. Okay. When dad got mad, what did he do? Well, sometimes there was yelling. Okay. But it never got physical and never got it. No, don't care about that. Nobody's hitting you right now.

Tell me about when he, like a yelling incident. there was one time where I was a kid I spilled something on the carpet and he was like you know mom is going to be so mad at you like what you did stuff like that yeah exhale for me way down okay two important things there number one you know what kids do they spill stuff why because they're kids yeah the second thing is most importantly it was never your job to the be to be the emotional centerpiece of your home when you're a kid you're a kid

yeah your mom and dad aren't supposed to anchor into you it's supposed to be the other way around right yeah and it doesn't surprise me that on a work conference call that some guy listens to what you're saying and immediately runs over you and immediately tells you you're stupid and that immediately the boss the supervisor over all you managers on that call becomes your mom again and you got to make sure she doesn't hear see or what's going to happen am i going to i can just replays itself yeah so i'm telling you that to let you know there's not something wrong with you your body's just running the machine back okay thanks it's what it's trained to do the real question i have for you is and it's a lot of work And it's not fun, but are you interested in not shutting down, moving forward?

Yeah, absolutely. Or this idea of I'm going to stand up on my own two feet. Yeah. Or your coworker can have a perspective. I don't know what he's going through, but I'm not going to own whatever he's going through. And if he runs over me and says what I just said is stupid, if he says calm and is contagious as stupid and facts are your friends is stupid, okay, you know what I mean? Right.

It's like, it's just like, the sky's not blue. You're like, you know what? Okay. I'm not like you have a good day. But at some point, it's you making the choice because the problem is not with your coworker. The problem is that somehow you've attached your well-being, your intelligence, your overall emotional health to what anyone else in your sphere is going to say. Yeah. That's the way your nervous system's programmed because you had to since you were a little kid.

Right. And it's just choosing that when your body feet, and by the way, I'm making it sound so insanely simple, it's not. But when somebody runs over you like that and says, oh, you have no idea. Oh, it must be nice. You don't even have any kids. You're just a, that you feel your body shrink a little bit. And you feel like get anxious from that separation. And you take a big deep breath and you exhale.

And then you force yourself to smile and drop your shoulders. And you whisper to yourself, he doesn't get a vote. Yeah. Right? Right. And then choose to lean back in. Sounds like you have a lot going on. yeah right yes yeah and when you when you when you take a breath and let somebody just rant and rave

that's his move hmm i he will enter into every room with i'm so busy you have no idea what that's cool that's not going to impact me because i got a pretty good life and so when you lean back in or step not i'm going to say lean back i don't say step back in and say it sounds like you got a lot going on. Yeah. Then you kind of take all the bullets out of the gun. Because what you're saying in that moment is, I see you, I hear you. I don't care.

Or maybe I care. I can't do anything about it. Right? But my question for you, ultimately for you as an adult, clearly you're good at what you do professionally, right? I hope so. No, no. That's an answer to a mom who struggles with depression. I'm asking you. Just two adults. You're pretty good at what you do?

Yes. What's your growth opportunity in your current job? Honestly, I think it's really just letting these problems not get to me. No, no, no. Is there a chance you're going to run this whole operation someday? Probably not. Do you want to? No. Okay.

All right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to pick up a book by Harriet Lerner. L-E-R-N-E-R. Okay. And the book is called The Dance of Anger. And it's written specifically to women who, by the way, just socially are trained, your job is to make sure everything is peaceful socially. Yeah.

And then you have an extra focus on, no, I had to do this so my house wouldn't explode. Yeah. And then over time, that book will teach you to do it, walk you through some it's got a lot of cool like uh case studies in it but you kind of just walk through it and you're going to have to at some point decide i'm going to sit with a counselor and begin to practice some of these things so that when they happen and i feel them in my body i can exhale and then take the next right step which is yeah i hear you but we need to like being calm is is contagious i just heard you not be calm and that was contagious too yeah right

yes right and i promise you there will be ramifications to that that guy will talk about you when you're not in the room yeah and other people will begin to gently tilt their head your way because you become a sturdy presence um you can get the audiobook of the dance of anger it's great um and i want you to listen to it and read it anybody um it's written for women i took i took a lot of it um but anybody who has been forced into this this role and you have found yourself as a 25 year old a 35 year old or 55 year old it's my job to take care of everybody else and it's my job to get in these loops of fights and anxiousness and i find myself blaming everybody else for my situation whether at work whether at home or whether in your marriage check out this book and walk through it step by step

it's one of the old school masterpieces it's an old old book but it is good but i think it would address exactly where you're at right now and then you're going to have to go to a counselor and you have to sit down and say i want to break this cycle and i want you to give me some tools i don't want to rehash my past my past is my past i want to get some tools to break these cycles so that when mom goes to play one and then play two and then play 42 of i'm making you feel guilty it's your fault oh you hate me oh, I'll just be here by myself then with your dad. You know, it's going to give you a step-by-step play. And I want you to practice that with your therapist with a counselor.

And it will over time set you free. And then you're going to deal with a real existential anxiety because then what comes next in your life is going to be up to you. You get to choose. You get to choose. Thank you so, so much for the call, Lindsay. Hey, your bravery right now will help a whole bunch of people because this is a very pervasive issue.

And for everybody listening, if you will go through this healing process, it might take one month, it might take two years of standing up on your own two feet. And when your mom says, you should not give your kid that kind of bottle because I'd, and you say, hey, I'm, I need to practice standing on my own two feet as a mother or as a father.

And so this is what I'm going to do. and I'm not asking you for your advice. I'm just asking you for your love and your care. Oh, you think I'm stupid? You think... And you learn to wade into that? Then we don't have to cut off everybody in our world. We don't have to end every relationship

and break up with our parents and not see each other because that's how family systems change. When one person says, I'm going to start standing on my own two feet. Thank you so much for the call, Lindsay. I appreciate you being brave. We come back, a man asks how to cope with his anxiety after the birth of a baby.

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All right, let's go up north and talk to Stephen in Toronto, Ontario. What's up, Stephen? Hi, Dr. John. It's an honor to talk to you. It's an honor to talk to you, brother. What's up? Hey, so we just welcomed our second daughter into this world three weeks ago today. Congratulations, man. Thank you, thank you. And what I wasn't expecting was a freight train of anxiety. So I'm just wondering, like, I'm looking for tools, some ways to maybe cope with it or maybe get to the bottom of what's causing it just so I can be more present with my family and with my two girls and with my wife.

I love this, man. Great question. How old is your first? Our first is only a year and a half. Oh, so two kids under two. That's easy. Good call, Steve. There's just like poop and pee everywhere.

Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere. So tell me about, one thing I want to take off the table. We're not going to cope with anxiety, okay? Okay.

And you've probably heard me talk about this. I'll reiterate it for people who are new to the show. I like to think of anxiety, not pathological anxiety, but I like to think of anxiety as simply a smoke detector. It's just letting us know something in our life is off or several things in our life is off. Or as the great Dr. Wendy Suzuki from NYU says,

anxiety is really a friend. It can be an annoying, loud, obnoxious friend, but it's a friend just trying to get your attention because your body's identified some things in the environment that are not okay, that might not be safe, okay? So if I was to ask you, as you're panning your world right now,

what is your body trying to get your attention about? Um, it's definitely like, I feel like the tension, like, especially when I'm, when I'm holding our new daughter or, um, just kind of being around her has been, been kind of tense for me. Um, not, like that, it wasn't like that at all with our first. Like, with our first was kind of like an immediate, like, I love you. Like, this is amazing. Uh, but this, this one's been different. and it's kind of throwing me off quite a bit. Let's back out of that one. Okay, let's back out of your actual daughter because she's not the issue. Okay. What about having a second kid,

how has that impacted your marriage over the last three years? Because essentially your wife has been pregnant for pretty much three years. Yeah. Yeah. Pregnant or nursing for three years. How's your marriage?

Right. Honestly, like really great. Okay. We kids were something that we were really passionate about going into this and something we like really worked on and like part of our vision was like we really want a big family um i want a lot of things yeah sometimes getting them reveals like oh wow right yeah yeah but your marriage is good like y'all are communicating well you're able to talk to each other about what you need all that stuff oh absolutely yeah great yeah my wife's

incredible yeah well people can be incredible but still not communicate well you can be a great great person and not good at the skill of being married those are two different things but but i trust you i mean if it's going good as good as it can be with two kids under two right it's just chaos right um yeah yeah how is your finances um yeah that's a tough it's a tough spot it's a for sure no no no you just tried to go around it let's go right through it i'm with you Let's walk right through the middle of it. What state of your finances? We got some savings, but in terms of like end of the month.

I don't care about that. Tell me about your finances. Okay. We got debt. We got lots of debt. Okay. We are not making maybe as much income as we'd like, or I'm not making as much income as I'd like. Ooh, very good.

And, yeah. And, yeah, and, yeah, of the month comes up and like the margins are pretty thin okay how much do you owe yeah oh man oh there's like 15 grand and like consumer debt and a car and then there's like a mountain of student loans if you were to take a yellow pad and just a pen and i don't know how old you are but that's an ancient technology if you just took a pen and a piece of paper and wrote down here's how much me and my wife, oh, other people. How much is that? Yeah. Probably around $65,000, something like that. Okay. And do you all have a house, or you renting? We're renting. Okay. How much is your rent every month?

It's about $15.50, all included. Good grief. That's pretty cheap for a Toronto apartment, huh? Yeah, yeah. We're really blessed. It was, it was, it was. are good fine. Yeah. So how much do you make a year? About, like household income

is around 65. Okay. So right now, you're 100% leveraged. Yeah. The annual income you bring home. Is that total

or is that take home? That's take home. Okay. Yeah. So you owe exactly what you bring home on a yearly basis. yeah yeah and you're in a rent situation that's good now that might go up so let me just say this

your body would be failing you if it let you sleep all night right now okay because it is recognizing we have an emergency here we just added another human to a scary financial situation yeah okay so hear me say this your body's not broken there's nothing wrong with you it's doing exactly what it should be which is to ring every alarm it has and says hey we got a problem how big is your apartment uh it's two bedrooms um it's it's a nice size uh but but there's four of you now it's gonna be challenging yeah all right and if you're like most modern families do you have car seats and diapers and strollers shoved inside this apartment everywhere are you surrounded by stuff?

Oh, yeah. Okay. For sure. All right. So your body would be failing you, surrounded by all of these material possessions and clutter and shenanigans and chaos. If it let you sleep all night, knowing there's stuff everywhere, okay? Yeah.

What's the state of your physical health? Are you exercising? You getting out? You're sleeping? Well, sleep's a limited resource at the moment. But luckily, like, our second's been sleeping pretty well, so we're trying to get that where it can. Okay, you did a great job avoiding my question. Completely avoided it, but I'm well played.

That's a good dad, right? What is the state of your sleep and your physical health? I would say definitely needs to improve it. Okay. Not good. Yeah. No. Okay.

And listen to me. I'm not judging you. I'm just, here's what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to put some things on the table. yeah what's the state of your friendships when's the last time you hung out with the guys um probably like the week before we had her our daughter i think yeah we've had some people over to visit and here and like a couple buddies of mine so that's that's been good i mean but they came over inside your chaotic full two-bedroom apartment with four people and they had to move

diapers and wet wipes out of the way right yeah yeah yeah so that's that's that is you performed for some friends and that's cool but i'm talking about guys you can get away with and you can drop your shoulders and you can go whoa yeah right yeah well there's two of you taking care of one that's different when now it's man to man that's a different game it's not a bad game it's just a different game right so here's all the things i'm telling you you have a built-in of a couple of things. I've heard you say, okay? You have somehow equated putting the truth on the table with something is wrong. Or I'm going to put something on the, like, I'm going to put truth on the table and there has to be somebody to blame. Okay? Mm-hmm. You're supposed to be

tired if you have two kids under two inside of a two-bedroom apartment. You're supposed to be. And we're not blaming any kids we're not blaming our wife I'm not blaming anybody it just is and yeah one of y'all needs to get some sleep and we don't have time to even breathe

much less hold hands much less sit by each other on the couch and your body needs some exercise I'm not saying you have to go to the gym and start taking protein I'm not so I'm saying it all but there's got to be some time

when you put one of those kids in a stroller and head on down the street for 30 or 45 minutes right? Or you do some body weights out on the you do some push-ups and sit-ups out on the porch and people look at you funny. All I have to say is this I want you to develop a posture of not letting a life happen

to Stephen but I want this be the moment that you stand up and throw back your shoulders as the father of two tiny little girls and as the husband of a great amazing wife and say, I'm going to not go around these things that I'm scared about. I'm going to begin walking right freaking through the middle of them.

Yeah, that's good. That's good. And so I want you to be honest about what is my body trying to protect me from? We have a messy, scary, fragile financial situation. so honey this is going to be nuts but i want us to go bananas over the next 24 months and pay off as much of this debt as we owe as we can so that nobody owns our family right that's good yeah yeah yeah i know it is cool and hip and modern for if one person's up feeding in the middle of the night we're both up And that's just nuts because somebody has to have a clear head and a night of sleep. Yeah.

You being a supportive, loving partner for your wife is incredible. You holding those girls whenever you can and you're feeding those girls whenever you can. All that's amazing. And if you put your body on a path towards peace, your body's not going to be anxious in the moment. Your body is anxious as trying to get your attention. When you get on a path and you show your body on back in the drive, receipt and somehow you scrounge together 2,000 extra dollars and all suddenly that debt next month is 63 and the month after that is 61 and then three months from now there's a five in front

of that number your body stops being so anxious because it knows you're driving again you get what I'm saying yeah yeah I hear you we can you might be nervous you might be scared but you're not going to be anxious because you're driving again. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. I'm going to send you a copy of building a non-anxious life as my gift to you, okay? Thank you.

And I want you and your wife to use that as a roadmap. Let's build a non-anxious life for our home. That doesn't mean we're never going to be anxious. That just means when we do get anxious, it's going to be our body trying to get our attention, and that's a good thing. But it's going to give you a step-by-step guide. Here's the things we need to look at for our home. And by the way, if you can get on this path, and I've been here too, anxiety medications save my life.

There's a season I needed to do it. But it wasn't to avoid the realities of our finances, of our clutter, of my relationships, of my physical health. It just turned the alarm system volume down some so that I could go do those things. But if you find yourself, you're on the path, you're doing these things and you're still anxious, anxious, dude go talk to somebody man what an amazing time in history we get to do talk to people but there's a series of action steps and i we've just all been taught to go around the anxiousness and do the only way to heal from that anxiousness is to go right through the middle of it building a non-anxious life it's it's my number one best link book i'm going to you for free dude i'm so grateful that you

called i'm also going to send you questions for humans decks all three couples decks because i don't want you to lose touch with your wife and so maybe while she's feeding one of the kids and the first kid is asleep and the second kid's eating you all can pull out these cards and just do two or three of them just for fun just to remind yourselves we're still together on the same team you're going to learn about each other while you're doing all this stuff last thing is get one or two men in your life who are four or five years down the road they have a five year old and a seven year old or a 10 year old and an eight year old or whatever and tell them dudes I'm going to text y'all 24-7-365 when something comes up a weird rash a problem with my marriage a weird thing that pops up

I'm going to text you guys and I'm counting on you two to be my light in the darkness I need a couple of men in my life just a little bit ahead of me that's your job is to find those guys it could be at work it could be a local church it could be just down the street and neighbors whatever if you have an older brother even if you trust your dad like I'm going to text you and I just need you to be like yeah you're on the right path it's totally normal or when you need to give us a call. But dude, I'm proud of you, Stephen. Congratulations on this new baby. It sounds to me like your body's working pretty dang well. It's trying to get your attention.

And so instead of running from that alarm, let's head right through the middle of it and begin looking for where those fires are. And we're going to start putting the fires out. We'll be right back. Have you ever hit a stretch where you're just off? Like you're showing up for everyone else, but inside you feel disconnected and anxious

and overwhelmed. You can't catch your breath. You can't think straight. You can't shake that feeling that something's not right. If that's where you are right now, number one, you're not alone. And number two, I want you to dig into the 40-day challenge starting August 13th on the Hallow app. It's called the St. Michael's Lent. Now, don't let the name throw you. It's not about a bunch of religious rules. It's about newfound freedom. It's about reclaiming peace in a world that's constantly pulling us towards chaos and about learning to fight back, not with noise, and not with hustle, but with quiet, with truth, and with prayer. Over these 40 days, you're going to learn how to reflect.

You're going to learn from people like St. Francis of Assisi, who's a guy who walked away from success, comfort, and control to chase something real. And you'll walk through topics like pride and lust and envy and anger, not with judgment, but in a way that helps you see these things clearly and finally let them go. If you're ready to stop chasing and start listening and learn how to reflect, Join me in this 40-day challenge. Right now you get three months for free at hallow.com slash deloni. I want you to go check it out.

That's Hallow, H-A-L-L-O-W dot com slash Deloni. All right, Kelly, something cool happened. What is it? Dude, look at you. Hold on. You, like, earlier this morning you had long sleeves on. I could tell you flex because you've been working out, and the sleeves just shot off your sweatery thing.

That's amazing. You're on Beefcake 2000. Thank you. There you see. Is that not a good thing? Yeah. I thought women want good arms. We do.

There you go. Yeah. Yours just blew the sleeves off your shirt. That's amazing. Right off. Yep. It's incredible. Good for you.

Anyway, so this is from Sarah in Maryland. And so this is one's a little different. This is more some praise for some advice you gave and that she was, she's praising you for the good advice. Okay. That is different here that. That people praise you. Yeah. There you go.

All right. Hey, John and team. And team. Just like to reiterate. You always put that in there, but whatever. I just finished the May 23rd episode where John suggested to a dad to start a journal as a gift to his daughter on her 16th birthday. Now is a 30-year-old daughter of a great man who journaled for the majority of his life way before Deloney. I cannot cheer you on enough in this advice.

After his passing when I was 21, my mother handed me a few journals from the months leading up to and after my birth. What a cherished moment. I was able to see the vulnerable side of my father that I had never experienced in my life. There was exhaustion, love, fear, and anticipation in his words. They have been something I have returned to over and over in the last decade of hardships fought and celebrations enjoyed all without him. I could not stress to listeners enough. Take it from me firsthand. John is right.

Your children don't want things they want you. Thank you. Wow, that's awesome. So, that's so good. I have not done that enough for my daughter and I need to take my own advice on that So Hank, he's 14 now, he's 15 now My son, he's become obsessed with this show

He listens to it all the time Like every time a new A new episode pops in he's like Ooh there's a new it And at first I thought he was making fun of me And now I realized no he's kind of into it But we were walking the other day Him and I were just walking out in the wood somewhere

And he said Hey dad How do you know all that stuff and I looked at him I was like, what are you talking about? And he's like, all that stuff that you, like on your show, how do you know all that? And I was like, well, you know I've got doctors.

Like, you know that's what I do for a living. Here's what I saw him like slowly like, oh, my dad's not an idiot. And my dad has like an inner life that I don't know about. And you know what I mean? Like, I thought you were the stupidest guy I know. And, huh. And I realized one day he's going to see all the journals that I've written in. and get to know his old man,

but I realized I have kept a separate world in a weird way and how much cooler would it have been to begin to let him know who his dad is, the things I'm scared about, things I'm happy about as we're going. And then I've got a nine-year-old so I can make this one right with her. She's a little bit younger, but anyway, I love that idea of kids seeing that their parents were a real 360-degree people and they had a great inner life. Those journals are amazing.

this was for a much shorter time but we had somebody bought this before us before we went to Ukraine to adopt our son our first one and our first child and it was a every day during while we were we were there for six weeks so like I said it was shorter but it was every day while we were there we did a journal about like what we did that day how we felt about it what was happening in the process how we were feeling as things were like the day we met him is in there You know, the day we decided, the day of court, the day we brought him home. But we wrote, both of us wrote every day. And some of it's just about like, hey, we went to visit this today or whatever.

Or, you know, we went to this weird restaurant and had weird food or whatever. But he loves that. We've given it to him in the past year or so of seeing kind of what we were going through and about how terrified we were. One of our forums was messed up and we didn't think we were going to bring him home and how that felt and all that. And he loves reading that. So having that for years at a time.

would just be just like I lost my dad at the same age she did at 21 and what a joy that would have been to have known that stuff so that's that's fantastic I love it good call thank you so much for sharing that and man good on you guys let's let's give our kids a legacy not only of like a checking account life insurance but possibly of our inner world too because I think it's going to make our kids feel a little bit more loved and a lot less alone. Love you guys. Bye.