The Dr. John Delony Show - My Marriage Only Lasted 3 Months

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

🔥 Microhabits for a better marriage. Download the Together app.   On today’s episode, we hear about: A man whose wife left him after three months of marriage A woman who feels uncomfortable sitting in silence A wife questioning her work relationship with her husband   Next Steps: 🎉 Enter the Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance at $500 weekly prizes and a $10,000 grand prize! Daily entries increase chances of winning. ❤️ Get away with your spouse today! 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.   Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers!  Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Head to Shady Rays and use code DELONY for 40% off two or more polarized sunglasses.  Get 25% off your order at Thorne.   Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today.   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is an ad for BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we're all surrounded by non-stop noise and it keeps our bodies on high alert, but you don't have to carry it all alone. Go to betterhelp.com slash Deloney for 10% off. I am a mom that will judge you hardcore if you bring out an iPad,

but I noticed recently I spend almost everything that I do with a podcast playing. I am so uncomfortable in the silence. Am I just as bad as the iPad kid? Yes. What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Thanks for being with us talking about your mental and emotional health and your relationships and your marriages and your kids and whatever you got going on in your life. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you. Click the link in the show notes. If you know how to do that, if you don't like me, just mail in a letter and just say, Kelly, I want to be on the show.

Oh, sorry. Kelly's eyesight is fading along with her age. And so she can't read letters. You can read letters. She's getting mad now. Let's go to San Antonio, Texas. One of my favorite places on the planet

and talk to not so plain. Shane. What's up, Shane? I owe nothing much. Another day in paradise. Another day in paradise. What's up? I was just calling to ask

as you know my wife decided she wanted divorce three months into our marriage and I just feel like I've lost like purpose yeah like what do I do how old are you I'm 19 19 my wife is 18 wow y'all got married real real young huh I did tell me about the yeah tell me about the courtship how did it all work out courtship like we're in 1401. I have no idea what that means. I know because you were born in this century. Tell me about getting together. So we met at a feed store because I used to work at a ranch. I was a ranch manager for a while.

All good romance starts at a feed store. I love how this story is starting. And I noticed I went in there all the time. I noticed that she was new there, and then we would talk a lot because I would be in there getting feet all the time. And then we started going out, and we dated for about a year and a half, and then we got engaged and then married. And we got married January 2nd of this year. January 2nd. And so three months in, she just bailed?

Three months in, she said, I'm not happy. she said, you've changed and kicked me out. How did she say you changed? I asked her, how have I changed, I don't understand. And she can't give me an example. And she just says she's not happy anymore. Has she filed on you? Has she got an attorney and drawn up the papers and everything?

She hasn't drawn out the papers, but she said she talked to a lawyer. and I haven't, it's been no contact for almost a month. She kicked me out of it. She said, so me and her parents live next to each other in houses right beside each other. And whenever she said she wasn't happening, one of a divorce, she moved over there. And then a couple days later, she said she wasn't even coming home to their house until after I moved out. and then I grabbed all my stuff and moved in on my family's place. Is your name on the lease or on this mortgage?

No, it was just between me and her father. I was renting from him. Okay. All right. Did he cancel the lease for you? There wasn't any paperwork. It was just like a handshake deal. Okay.

Have you talked to him? Yeah, me and him are just fine. I mean him are good. He's like, I'm not, he's like, I know I'm just as confused as you are of what's going on. He's like, I'm not going to block your number. He's like, you can call me anytime. Okay. Well, you'll have a legal binding agreement called a marriage certificate, right?

Yes, sir. Okay, so at some point, well, she's acting like a teenager, right? Yes, sir. She's not acting like an adult married woman. She's acting like a teenager and wants to pretend this whole thing didn't happen. and she's treating us like a high school breakup. And the problem is she signed like a marriage license. And so you'll have a legal arrangement to unwind.

She blocked your number. She just won't talk to you? Yes, sir. She blocked me on everything. Messager, Snapchat, Instagram, everything. The only way I can talk to her is like through her dad. and she's not even really talking to her parents either. Okay.

Is she with somebody else? Not that, I don't think so. I asked her parents, like, where she's staying at, whenever she wasn't at her parents' house either. And she just said, they said she was staying with a friend. And I don't think she's the type of person to cheat or anything like that. Well, she's the type of person to leave you three months in. So, I mean, it sounds like you don't know her well either.

So here's your choices, and I can't make the choice for you, okay? Yes, sir. Choice number one is to honor her wishes. And since she's not going to be a grown-up about this, you be the grown-up, and you get an attorney, and you file for divorce, and you move on. She's moved out and blocked your number and done all that kind of stuff, wants to pretend this whole thing didn't happen.

you choose to say no I want to be married to you I don't know what happened but I want to be married to you and so I'm going to keep being a person of character I mean keep being the person I want to be and and so I'm going to keep showing up keep going to work keep working hard

keep saving money keep like I'm going to live my life as though she's on deployment somewhere and she's going to come back someday. I mean, those are your two choices. That's what I'm doing now. I've kind of just tried to stay busy in my work. There's not a lot of other options because she's completely cut you out and cut you off.

You don't even know where she is. Yes, sir. It sounds like you... I've moved. You have a relationship. Yeah, I mean, you're living with your parents now or your family? Yes, sir.

Okay. Um, I honestly, since you have a good relationship with him and you're 19, she's 18, I would sit down with her father and say, I need to know what, what, I'm thinking about filing here. I don't want to, but she's disappeared on me. She's just put on all of us. Yes, sir. If you think he will give you wise counsel. And he has so far, like whenever we first, um, we were just taking a break for a little bit. And he's like, just give her space. like don't like come over here asking to talk to her anything like that i was like okay i didn't talk to her for a little bit and then she just said she wanted divorce but he's given he's never been

you know what i don't ask his opinion i'm wrong on that i'm wrong on that um i take that back um i'm trying to put myself in if you were my son i would tell you she's moved she's she's left you she's told you she wants to get divorced and i would trust that she's 18 doesn't even know what that means. And so I would probably tell you to go ahead and to handle your end of the business. I should file. I can't tell you what to do. I'm just telling you what I would, if you were my son, it would be just, I'm going to deal with reality. If y'all were 27 and 28, there is a, I would hold a 27 year old to a higher standard of emotional maturity. Yes, sir. And the way that this has gone down the way her parents are

being cordial, they're being respectful of you, but they're not being helpful here. Yes, sir. And so that, yeah, but again, I can't tell you, I don't want you to look up in six months and she showed back up at your doorstep and be like, I was wrong, I just had a little bit of a spaz out.

But then I don't know if I could trust her. Yeah, I mean, you can rebuild trust. Yeah, of course. But you can't rebuild trust when somebody's treating you like, y'all are 14 years old. Yes, sir. Right?

And so, yeah, if you were my son and he was 19 and he found himself in a similar situation, the thing I would keep pointing back to is you've got to choose reality here. And you have a very young, emotionally immature person who has divorced you in every way possible except for legally. And I would probably chalk that up to. to you're so immature and young, you don't even know what that means. Yes, sir.

It's crazy. She didn't, I feel like she's changed, if anything. She never acted this way before. And before we got married, she was like, well, marriage is like forever, so I want to make sure. I know, but listen. Every, my wife has been married to like seven or eight versions of me by now. The one thing about people is they change.

That's what's awesome about being married to somebody. is they're constantly becoming somebody new. And that's the adventure of being married. Right? And how do you love somebody and how do you all continue to honor this marriage and at the same time continue to grow and be autonomous and be amazing?

And then you'll show up on the field that is marriage and do this amazing thing together, right? And you don't just cash out and leave. So of course she's changed. Of course you've changed. Yes, sir. Right? And there's a ton of change

that happens between 18 and 25 years. ton of just physiological changes much less maturity age changes i mean all kind of changes that's awesome it's awesome but it's not awesome if one of you weaponizes that change and bales without a conversation it's just it's just it's just super super super immature yeah that's what and i'll just tell you i'm sorry you're there um being heartbroken is right not feeling like you are hungry and want to eat is right, not feeling like you want to get up and go to work, all that is right. Your body's grieving. It's sad.

Because you had this future rolled out in front of you and somebody hopped off the wagon and said, I'm out. You're right to be sad. You're right to grieve. You're right to be weary of trusting others for a while. All that is normal and right. You're not broken. The thing I want to encourage you to do to the best of your ability is get wise men in your

life who will walk with you and always focus not on the feeling but on what's the next right move that's how you practice and develop emotional maturity what is the next right thing I'm always going to be respectful even when I'm mad I'm always going to be um like treat people with dignity even if you don't treat me with dignity and I'm going to do the next right thing and it sounds like for you right now the next right thing is some really hard decisions in your future um And I'm sorry that happened, my brother. Thanks for the call, man. Call anytime.

And if she shows back up tomorrow and wants to talk, I'd love to talk to her too. But yeah, you got some hard decisions in front of your brother, and we wish you the best. All right, I'm super excited to tell you about a brand new sponsor, Capstone Wellness. I've spent the vast majority of my career working with teenagers and young adults and their families.

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That's capstone wellness.com slash deloni. All right, winter is finally over. That means no more going outside to your car and it's covered in ice and snow and shenanigans. It's time for the heat. And that also means it's time to rotate the old closet. My poncho flannels and denims are going in the back, and poncho originals and ultralights are moving to the front. That's right. No matter what time of the year, I still love my poncho shirts. I've been wearing poncho shirts for years because they're the best. The original poncho shirt is that go anywhere performance shirt.

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Hi. How's it going? Good. Better than I deserve. Very good, very good. What's up? Okay. So first, I feel like I'm going to ask this question,

and you might think there's people with serious problems going on. If you think that, I'm sorry. Don't prejudge me. Okay. All right. So go for it. So first off, I am a mom that will judge you hardcore if you bring out an iPad in a Mexican restaurant.

If you tell me your kid is obsessed with a TV show, me and my husband are judging you, you know, at the table beside. But I say that, and I notice recently, I spend almost everything that I do. do with a podcast playing, whether it's taking a shower, washing dishes, doing laundry. I started to realize I am so uncomfortable in the silence. It's like nails on the chalkboard to me. Am I, is the call coming from inside the house? Am I just as bad as the iPad kid? And how neurologically damaging is that to my nine-month-old daughter?

Oh, man, such a great. That's a great question. Okay. So I live by a medium. It's not always accurate, but it's usually pretty dang close. Okay. The things that I am most judgmental about other people are because they are holding up a mirror to me. Yes.

And so one of the practices I implemented in myself is when I get real judgmental about somebody, the first thing I do is I get curious about why I'm reacting in that way. that's kind of exactly what I started doing, which my daughter doesn't watch TV, but I'm like, well, she's playing in her pen, and I'm listening to either John Deloney or Sean Ryan. Yes, both great guys. So keep doing that.

You're putting food on all of our tables. So all of my answers are going to be after those two shows are over. But Sean's shows are like 18 hours long, right? They are. Yeah. It takes a few days to get through them. My shows are about two hours, but Kelly edits him down to like seven minutes

because she says, and I quote, you talk too much, but whatever. So here's the, I've got a couple of hypotheses about this, okay? And then I'll get to your real question.

What I think has happened, especially when it comes to podcast mediums, is think about it this way. For all of human history, if you wanted to, up until like 10 or 15 years ago, if you wanted to hear Sean Ryan, my friend Sean, talking to one of the wild guests he has on his show,

and you wanted to hear them talk about their experiences, their conspiracy theories, you know, all that stuff. You had to be in the room at the table. Mm-hmm. Right? And so... Right. I have to believe that like when you have your headphones in and you listen and those guys,

like they drink coffee, they talk, they shift in their chair, your body, you can hear all of that stuff. I have to believe that at some level it taps into a circuit that, it's a stream of circuits, and I don't know neuroanatomy enough to be able to point these all out. I'm sure Andy Huberman could do it. But it taps into what I would call a circuit that says you're known. There's a level of familiarity and comfort that says, I know them. And I experience this, like if I'm out at a restaurant, somebody will come up and they will approach me as though they know me.

Okay. They'll say my kids' names. And I'll see a look of familiarity as though they're a form. friend of mine. And usually it's, it usually happens really quick, but there's an interaction where they realize, oh, I don't know you. Right. And so I think by listening to these conversations over and over and over and over again, A, they're, they're, they are insightful. You can learn from them, right? All that stuff is, is really good. But when there's a constant stream of you listening in on other people's conversations.

Here's my hypothesis. That it becomes a substitute for having real people in your real life actually know you. Okay. And so my question would be twofold. One is, who are people that just come plop down at your house

and drink a cup of coffee while you're doing laundry and your little one is in their bassinet or in their playpen or whatever? Do you have those kind of relationships? And if you don't, I consider that a five-alarm fire, and you need to get those ASAP. Okay. So honestly, I have a very close family. We are just a barge in the door anytime.

I'm with my family all the time. My sister is always over. It's more so just when I'm alone. Yeah, that's number two. That's second. Okay. What is it about you? That silence with you, just being with yourself, is it?

nails on a chalkboard, as you say. I think maybe it might be like a lifestyle adjustment because before I got pregnant and had a baby, I was very used to just me and my husband, we're going whitewater kayaking Friday, hiking Saturday, back again whitewater kayaking, just kind of go, go, go. My brain was always stimulated, always doing something fun to get my heart rate going. And then I do love being a stay-at-home mom. It's very fun, very rewarding. but sometimes it just gets boring.

Okay, right there. That's it. That's it. Okay. And that feels so bad to say it's boring. No, no, no, no, no, no. That is the big secret that nobody tells young parents. Yeah.

It's incredibly rewarding and there's moments of awesome and there's really long periods of straight up set me on fire boredom. It's boring. It just is. Mm-hmm. And we have a cultural allergy to boredom. Yes, that's exactly what it is. Because I never really cared about, well, I mean, I would watch it, you know, sometimes

at night, but now it's just, God has also blessed me with the perfect, quietest baby. And I'm like, scream, be loud, make the house feral, something. The universe is funny this way. I just started about a month ago. I'm working on a writing project. I've got a big headlining comedy gig I've got coming up. I got a huge 60-minute talk that I'm giving at this Cornerstone event that I do every year. I got all this stuff and I was finding myself struggling to dial in.

And I stumbled on some literature about silence. I wasn't giving my brain room to breathe to think about things. And so I started doing this. This is not safe. I know that. Let the DMs come. But I put a note card, a blank note card, and a pen in my truck right on the console, like right on my little armrest here in the console.

Yeah. And I just stopped listening to music all the time when I drove. Just drove in silence. Okay. Now, my, I have a 10-year-old and a 16-year-old now. My house is, and I got three idiotic dogs. Like my house is never quiet ever, ever, ever. But my car is.

And I realized I'm getting, going from a chaotic house into my truck. The music automatically turns on. It's connected to my phone. And then I drive all the way to work. And then I sit here and I'm on air for six to eight hours a day. And then I get back in the truck, music's blaring. I get home, chaos, noise. And I realized, oh, I give my brain no time.

Yes, that's how I feel. And so I want to tell you, the first day I did this, I thought about just driving my car into oncoming traffic to stop the silence, right? Right. And now, 30 days later after, and I hate to use this word, because it's such a, like a boring word, after practicing, now I find myself wincing when the radio blasts on. Okay. This is me.

This is a dude who has something going 24-7, 365. and I wince now. And I got to tell you, I was able to rewrite a chapter in less than a day. I've almost completed my comedy set coming up. I've got my whole outline and it was just 30 days of silence. Okay. So I want to tell you this. If you keep a notepad by you, write down fun things that you think of.

Okay. If you find yourself getting itchy, be curious about the itchiness. Okay. And yes, there is something to be said for, if you've got a gang of people, people who come over, you've got close friends, there's just going to be seasons of boredom. And having world shape-shifting podcasts like mine, of course, which is like, it's the best mental health podcast on the planet. And like, Sean's like, that's good stuff. Right? Right.

And I'll even tell you, listening, mainlining my show 24-7, that's probably not good for you all the time. Sean's got some shows that I'm like, I'm probably going to go on to the next one because I'm going to get too anxious listening to this one, right? So, like, be willing to

be in tune enough with your body to know I'm going to have some silence in here. I'm going to put some music on instead of podcast. Okay. Right? But I want you to practice. This is what I'm doing in my house, in my own body,

this minute. Practice. It doesn't make me feel better. I'm not alone. No, no, no, no. I think all of us, Kelly's, like all of us are just noise, noise, noise, noise, noise,

noise, noise, noise. Kelly listens to murder podcast all the time. Ooh. Murder. Right? At least me and Sean talk to murderers. She's like, how do I do this? She's game planning, right?

But I do think all of us need to give our poor brains a break from inputs. Okay. And for you, like for me, I was able to schedule it. I'm just going to do it while I'm in the car. For you, set a timer for 30 minutes, for 45 minutes. Okay, that's about my drive home.

I have a little part-time job. Cool. Just commit to. I do 40 minutes home. Just commit to, I'm going to make that drive in silence three days a week. Okay. Or I'm going to turn on music, but I'm going to turn it on to where it's just barely in the background.

Okay. But only after you've listened to my show all the way through and like and subscribed and shared. Of course. But yeah, this isn't a crazy question. I think all of us are suffering from input fatigue. Okay. And I think all of us would be well to do. This is why people love hunting and golf and hiking because it forces you to turn off the audio and visual inputs and

just be in nature. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like, well, before pregnancy, if I'm not a craft girl, I can't sit down at a table. I used to not be able to even sit down through a whole show. I have to have something to get my heart rate, going fast, be scared, something. And I would ask you, like,

I spent a long time with folks who meditated, like, monk kind of guys, like, there's something really important about being able to be still with yourself. Yeah. Otherwise, all of this heart rate stuff, all of this, I got to go, go, go, go. That is you running from being with yourself. Okay. And that scary question is what's so bad about me that I don't even want to spend time with me.

Yeah. And, man, a great gift you could give your kid, yourself, your husband, your family is. Can I be anchored in my own skin? Right. Or do I have to constantly be escaping myself? Yeah. Yeah, because, well, I don't know if this happened to you, but before kids, I was like, yeah, I'm decent. And then after kids, it's like, wait, maybe I'm not.

Well, I didn't like myself. Yeah. I didn't like me. Okay. And so I avoided dealing with me by, yeah, constant stimulation all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time, all the time. Okay. And now I've got to a place where I like me, as the great John Candy once said, I like me. And I'm not scared of me anymore. Okay. And I don't mind hanging out with myself because myself has funny ideas and some pretty insightful things and some things I need to remember and work on. Yeah. Right. But that took years, sister. It took a while to get there, right? And so great, great question. I think all of us should.

practice taking a noise fast, all of us. And all of us should be just cognizant of inputs, inputs, always noise, always noise. My buddy Michael Easter talked about, he wrote a great, he's got the, I think, the best substack out. It's called 2%. Everyone should subscribe to it. But he talked about in one of his articles about,

for all human history, loud noise was a sign of danger. It was a sign of look out. It's a tree falling. It's a bear coming out of the woods, right? And so constant noise all the time. Now, you're not talking about conversations like on my show and with Sean show and others, but constant noise all the time, amped, amped, amped, amped, man, that just frazzles our nervous system. It's not designed for that.

And so, anyway, all I have to say is you're good. Good job. I want to applaud you for being curious about yourself. That's awesome. And you, like all, first-time parents, suddenly realize, oh, my kid is a mirror to me. And I don't like myself that much. Or maybe I don't like myself, I don't like certain things about me. And so let's be curious about those things.

Let's dig into them. Let's don't keep avoiding them. And again, only after you've listened to every one of my episodes, like, subscribe, shared, and all that, and Shons too. Thank you so much for the call, sister. We come back. A woman asks if she should stay in business. with her husband when he is mean to her at work. Ooh, I got some opinions on this.

We'll be right back. Hey, it's summertime. That means it's time to grab your shorts, your towels, your water bottle, and of course, your dope, shady rays sunglasses. Look, the people on the beach or at the lake will not be able to handle how rad you're going to look in these glasses. But you will be able to handle how comfortable these glasses are, how low their prices are, and you're going to love Shady Ray's amazing lost or broken replacement program.

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I'm just kidding. Of course. Like you're going to go, oh, okay, cool. I'm glad you're here. What's up? Um, so I just want to preface, it's more frustration than mean. Okay. He's a, he's just, um, doing his best with a really busy business that we started.

Um, I'll try not to sound too scripted, but, uh, it's an automotive. So, it's an automotive shop. Um, I've been here for a year and help before on top of my full-time job. I really enjoy working with him, location of flexibility. But I have really bad phone anxiety, and it's hard for me to talk to customers about issues that I don't understand with their vehicles. He does get frustrated if he's under a car and I can't handle a phone call that I don't really know how to go back and forth with a person. And, you know, just wondering, should I stick it out or could this be a long-term issue for us? marriage is more important to us than working together, but we're hoping to have both. It was an agreement that we wouldn't work together if it affected our marriage negatively.

Well, I'm guessing it is negatively impacting your marriage. You wouldn't have called. It sounds like you're really wallpapering over frustration. What does frustration mean? So I guess I got an example is, you know, someone's calling and they just have an issue. and I don't really feel comfortable doing the back and forth banter. Tell me about that. I've never heard of phone anxiety. I mean, I can context clue it, but what does that mean? So it's almost like every, and I can, I totally own that this is probably a lot of me having issues too.

But like every time the phone rings, I just, my heartbeat's faster. I'm just worried that it's going to be someone being unkind, asking questions I can't answer. You're in the wrong job. Why'd you take this job? We started the business together, and I was working as an accountant before, and we're hoping, or like one year plan is to have him doing all the phone stuff and just have me on the, on the business and the accounting, the HR, the back behind the scene, but he just at this time

needs help with me on the phone. And it's been such a struggle for me in my whole career. Just talking on the phone. I get so nervous. And so somebody calls and they're like, hey, my car is doing this. And the rolling girder fell off. And we need a catalytic automatron. And you're just like, what?

And then he's under the car trying to fix something. And you're like, hey, do we have a rolling converter thing? And he rolls out. and then what does he do? He's just like, he just says, can you handle it? Like,

I've told you, you know, we've taken the time talking about. All right, you're being too nice. Have other people in the shop commented, dang,

why does he talk to you like that? One employee just mentioned, like, he does get frustrated with you easily. Like, you know, have, you know,

just like, why is he get so frustrated with you easily? and I, it's like my brain just shuts off when I'm, and then it's like, you know, it's the answer is that I do know. That's a really frustrating part is I do know the answer to a lot of these people's questions, but my brain just shuts off. Okay, then you're in the wrong job. Customer service is not my. Great, you're an accountant.

Yeah. Go make sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet love to those spreadsheets and don't get on the phone. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, like, for 20 years, a big part of my job was sitting with people of all kinds, students who were in trouble with housing planning with employee issues, with parent issues, with medical stuff, like all that, hospitals, all that. Yeah. But another huge part of my job was multi-million dollar budgets. And I would rather set myself on fire than sit there and do budgets all day.

but that was part of the job. Yeah. And in some places, I would hire somebody to do that part of the job. Or I would move somebody who was really good at that, who loved it. I would move them to where that was one of their chief responsibilities. And because it took my soul from me. I could do it. But man, I'd get anxious about it every month when the budget roll-ups would come out.

I've got five million employees. I don't know where they're spending money on what. It just would make me anxious. not in the clinical sense. And so don't say I have phone anxiety. Like you don't have that. But like you don't like being on the phone. No, I don't.

Right. I can do fine when I'm face to face with people. Yeah, of course. Okay, so own that and say, hey, I'm in the wrong job. We're going to hire somebody to answer phones. And there are people who were put on planet Earth to navigate phones. Which is what they do so well. Kelly did that for like years.

She's awesome at it. She's the goat at it. Yeah. Right. Alex, who is the associate producer right now, he's not very good at him. But he'll get there. He has a cool beard. Right.

So like, I'm totally kidding. He says great. But like, here's what I don't like. Number one, I don't think you're being fully honest about how your husband treats you. And two, I'm concerned for your marriage in that you can't both say, yeah, that's not a good idea. he so yeah he does acknowledge that i am not great on the phone we're just trying to get to a point where we can hire some more people financially but i don't i don't know if it's worth just moving that up and maybe sacrificing some profit yes okay over your marriage or over

watching my wife just like dwindle down into nothing yeah turned to ash yeah just a I don't know, it seems silly that I'm best bad on the phone, but... Why? Well, but you're turning this into like a moral failure or a character issue. I don't know. I guess I just feel like I should be able... I've, like, always been okay with my jobs and getting good at certain things, but this one, it's just hit a brick wall.

Cool. Call it. You learn something new about yourself. Yeah. To-da! You know what I mean? Like, it's a finding. It's a data point.

It's not a judgment call. Yeah, that makes sense. It's a data point. And so if you sit down with your husband and you all say, you say, hey, I love you and I love how the business is crushing, I'm not good at this. And I've tried. I'm not good at it. I'm costing this business.

I'm costing our marriage and relationship. Now I do something, you get frustrated. I get more anxious about it. People in the shop are noticing it. I love you. And I quit. Yeah, I'd rather, I'm fine with every other part of the job except for the phone. I know, but the phone is the thing.

You're the chief phone answering officer right now. And so it's like, man, I'm so good with our marriage except when he gets wasted and breaks all the window. Like, that's a big part of it, right? Yeah. And so let's just call it. And it's, but I want you to call it with your head held high. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like Nate Dogg back here who runs all of the monitors and the videos switching and stuff, I would last 8.3 seconds at that job. And that in seven and a half of those seconds would be me sitting down in the chair. Right? Yeah. And I don't think I'm a bad guy. And I don't think Nate would love to be up on stage in front of 3,000 people trying to tell jokes and having them judge him and his family and all of his education, right?

He would be like, no, I'm good. I like all the videos, right? Yeah. And so that's cool. That's great. It's awesome. Don't beat yourself up. Okay.

Trying not to. Right? And hopefully your husband will smile and you'll be like, yeah, we gave it a shot, and that's just not the right. It's just not right. And it's good. We're all good. Yeah.

Yeah, we need to, it sounds like we just need to find a way to get me off the phone. No, no, you need to quit. All the way? Well, I mean, if you're the chief phone officer who also does books, then the main part of the job that you took is, is it. And so if they can hire you part-time, you know the owner, so maybe he can overpay you for doing books for a while, right? But like, I was going to say you're sleeping with the owner, but that was going to sound, that was going to sound bad. But like, but I mean, you all can navigate all that kind of stuff. Yeah. And maybe, hey, we're going to go back to a season where I'm going to work my full-time job

and I'm going to do books in the evening. We're just starting a new business and it's just going to be a busy season for a while. Yeah, definitely is. And we tried another way, but we traded busy for really high, high stress and now it's impacting our marriage and this is not worth it. Yeah. All right. And that's it. Listen to me.

So we said we didn't want to happen. You're not a failure. Thank you. Okay. I appreciate that. I'll go one step further. You will be a failure if you keep banging your head against this wall. Yeah.

And you'll lose business. And you and your husband don't speak to each other when you get home. And everyone in the shop quits because your husband made it weird because he gets mad at his white. Like, right? Like, then we'll start getting into failure territory. You're not a failure just because this particular part of a job takes your soul from you. That's life. That's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's,

everybody. If you had three kids and he had left you, and this is the only job on the planet you had to feed your kids, yes, I would be having a different conversation. I would say right now what your family needs is. This is a tough season, right? Yeah. Y'all aren't there. Yeah, we have options for sure. You got options. You got margin. That's right. And so, yes, hold your head up high, smile, tell him you love him, and tell him I quit. Right? Tell him, you got to find a phone person. We'll find a high school kid who, well, actually, no,

they don't know how to talk to humans on the phone. We'll find a Jen Exer who's just gifted at phone gab. And we'll pay them and we'll get our marriage back and we'll get this shop up in cooking in no time. But that's, I think you should quit for so many reasons. We'll be right back. I went into a local corner store the other day just to buy a few things and at checkout. They wanted my address and my phone number.

They might as well have asked for my social security number. I just wanted some paper plates and some cups and they wanted my soul. Every time you give out your cell number, your email address, or you buy something online, data brokers are grabbing your information and they're selling it to the highest bidder, leaving you vulnerable to spam and scams. This is a big part of why I use and recommendations. recommend delete me. Your phone number, your home address, your family's information, pictures of your kids, all of this stuff is just floating around online sitting on data broker sites that

you've never heard of. Delete me finds your personal information online and they remove it for you. Not just once, they keep monitoring it and cleaning it up month after month. So you can close the gap between what you think is private and what actually is. You can't build a peaceful life if parts of your life are still being bought and sold online without your permission. Go to join deleteme.com slash deloney and get 20% off an annual plan. That's join delete me.com slash deloney. All right, Kelly, let it rip. What you got?

All right, so James from Fargo, North Dakota. Every accent I try to make ends up sounding like a pirate. The only accent I can do is the Midwest. It makes Keeler laugh. I don't know why. But I have to watch myself because if I get around somebody that has it, I mimic it without, like, without trying to. And then I start to sound like I'm making fun. So I really have to watch it.

But it also helps that Fargo is one of my absolute favorite movies. There you go. Fantastic movie. There's a lot of murder in that movie. There is, but there's also humor. It's just a great movie. It is a great movie. It really is.

Dave Bishimi is one of the goats. Oh, it's, but Francis McDormin. in that movie is just what sells it for me. She's great. All right. So he says, James asks, this is not a question about a personal situation. It is a request for elaboration or clarification. I was listening to the April 13th episode and Dr. John was talking to a caller and used the term blame fair. That expression bored right into my head and I'd love to hear a slight elaboration perhaps at the end of an episode. Here we are. The jury is still out on whether or not is a good

thing or a bad thing, but I happen to be one of those individuals that anchors into and asks for advice. Little nuggets like that often get re-gifted. Thank you a little bit to Dr. John, but mostly to Kelly, both 1.0 and 2.0. Well, James can A, screw off, and B, I'll answer your question. All right, so here's what blame fare is. Let's say your father didn't show. up like he should have. And the more, and then you have your own kid. And your father would work all the time and then would go spend time at the bar and would kind of run around on your mom and dad just was never around.

And then you're holding your kid. And you can't fathom missing five minutes of that kid's life. It kills you to go to work every day. and suddenly you're overcome with anger and frustration and that terrifying question what was so bad about me right that you left all the time you never showed up and i'm going to be this kind of dad who and i can't believe you did right and it's real easy on on the scale to begin to pile up on one side of that scale you did wrong here and here and here and sit in judgment And I had a therapist one time, say this to me,

I want you to make a list of the other side of the scale. This person you're in here really upset about, who you said has caused a lot of problems in your life, I want you to begin rattling off for me. What are some things they brought good to your life? The ability to talk, to speak well, the ability to get yourself in and out of troublesome situations, the ability to smooth things over,

the ability to, like, or a roadmap for who you did not want to be. And what that does is, is it, A, levels, it humanizes somebody. It gives them a 360, you a 365 degree picture of somebody, not just a caricature of all the bad stuff. But it also often, and I think compassion is important, even when it's hard, it gives you a sense of, oh, that was a person. Maybe they were wrestling with their own demons. Maybe their dad disappeared on them or beat the holy crap out of them.

And so their gift to you was, I don't know how to deal with my anger, so I'm just not going to be here. Maybe in their mind that was the greatest thing they could have ever done. Maybe every time they were driving off to the bar, your father was sobbing. It humanizes everything. It doesn't give an excuse to what happened, but it gives a context for what happened. Why is that important? carrying around all of those bricks of anger and rage against one person, weighs you down.

It doesn't weigh them down. And by leveling that scale and trying to humanize the other person, it gives you a context for it, and it gives your body permission to set that crap down and move on. And it's just a more honest way to do healing. Now, if you were sexually abused or something like, I'm not into blaming fair, right? but blaming fair for um she left me she broke up with me she broke my heart she cheated on me

cool all that's true and real an important exercise is asking yourself did you bring anything to the other side of that equation well yeah i worked 24-7 yeah i was pretty rude yeah i would make a budget and get really pissed off if she didn't follow it exactly through the letter that i put down the table, right? Blaming Fair is a way, when it's you on the block, is a way of you being able to process, what did you bring to this equation? Maybe nothing, but maybe something, maybe a whole bunch, right? And so blaming fair is just saying, I want to take a look at the entire picture here and be honest about all of it. I'm going to be really honest about all the negative. I've got to be honest about the positive. If I'm going to be really honest about what they did to me, I need to be

honest and reflective and curious about, did I do anything to them? All of that is a way for us to set down these bricks that we're carrying and get on about moving on with our life moving forward, which is the only thing we can actually change. That's it. And so that's an elaboration on blaming fair. You think that made James and his terrible judgment about who's more important in this show? I don't know. No. I don't think his judgment's changed about who's more important because I think that part's clear. Gotcha. But I think you answered that very well. Awesome. Do you blame fair? I'd like to say that I do. Can I say this? I think that's something you've gotten incredibly good at the last half decade. We've worked together. How so? What have I blamed you for?

Everything. But it's fair that I do that. But over the last few years I've been like, I've heard you be like, and I brought this. Yeah, I think that's, you know, therapy. That's something I've gotten better at. I've gotten better at as I've learned, you know, and sadly that's just something that comes along with life experience. You know, that you figure out that like, oh, maybe I had a part to play in this too. Yeah.

there's something free about learning. I played a role too. It still hurts. It still doesn't give everybody a pass on the choices they made. Exactly. I played a role here. Right. And so moving forward, all I can change is the role I'm going to continue to play in other things.

And I think for me personally, that came along from, okay, me blaming the other person, there's a specific situation I'm thinking of. Clearly it's not changing anything. It solves no problem. Nothing's changed. And I keep doing this. So let's try this and see if that helps. And it may not have helped the situation, but it helped me grow.

It helped you show up as the person you want to be, and that's all we can control. Blame fair, America. Blame fair. Love you guys. Bye.