The Dr. John Delony Show - My Sister Has a Different Father & My Mom Wants To Keep It a Secret

Episode Date: December 17, 2021

In this episode, we talk to a man who thinks the problem in his marriage is strictly money-related (spoiler alert: it’s not). After that, we dive into overcoming the fear of marriage after a messy divorce and talk through some major drama around a mother who’s lying to her daughter about who her real father is. My wife and I are fighting about money Previously divorced and now I'm scared to get married again My sister has a different father & my mom wants to keep it a secret Lyrics of the Day: "Them Bones" - Alice in Chains Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Resources: Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to a man who's having money fights with his wife that may not be about money. We talk to a man who was married for 30 years, got divorced, and he's found his true love, and he's nervous to get remarried. We talk to a woman who's sitting on a giant family secret, and she doesn't know what to do. Stay tuned. What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Man, I'm so glad you're with us. Talking about mental health, relationships, family, pets, pet parents. We're talking about everything and everybody. We're so glad you're here. If you want to be on the show, give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And James, hey, real quick before we talk about this. Austin is sitting in for Kelly today, which is so great.

My hope is that when you call and they're expecting Kelly and you're like, hello, this is Austin, that they don't hear that part. And they just think, wow, Kelly does not sound like I thought she was going to sound. That would be really fantastic. And her beard looks different than yours. That's fantastic. Okay. So the questions for humans cards, these cards, they have lost their minds. And if you listen to this podcast, you know I hate selling stuff. I just don't like selling stuff. These have gone bananas.

And the feedback has been so great that I just, please help us be able to talk to our families. Okay, so real quick, James, I'm going to pull a card out. This is the one for couples since we're basically married. And I'm just going to pull out a random one and you're going to answer it. This is questions for one for couples since we're basically married. And I'm just going to pull out a random one.

And you're going to answer it. This is questions for humans for couples. Huh. Didn't expect this one. James, what's your favorite rap song and what are some of the lyrics? You've asked me this before and I'm terrible at this question. You answer that like a true spouse. So I'll go to the next one.

No, no, that's fine. Um, I mean, the first one that comes to mind is lose yourself. Eminem, because it's kind of, I guess as a dad,

it's kind of like, there's a clean version of this one. And it kind of like is a good hype song for, you know, going to like the basketball game to listen to with my 8 year old do you look at your 8 year old and say

you only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow opportunity knocks once I kind of say that as like the beat is fading in of the real song

but no I mean Eminem is incredible not only his writing but like his flow and so I'll go with that it's a little pedestrian but I'll own that alright alright

um would you rather have to sing everything you say out loud that. It's a little pedestrian, but I'll own that. Alright, alright. Would you rather have to sing everything you say out loud or always speak in rhymes if you had one or the other? Both of those things, I think, give you hemorrhoids. That's so great. No, actually, being kind of a closet songwriter, I think the rhyming

thing would be fun. Just to speak in rhymes all the time? Yeah. Give us an example. Well, I don't love answering these questions. You kind of botched yourself into a corner with that one. I may as well have just said orange. I'll get back to you on that. Wow. So now you all know what it's like being married to James.

Just a real, real box of farts. All right, let's go to Johnny in Chicago. Just a real, real box of farts. All right, let's go to Johnny in Chicago. What's up, brother? Johnny, how we doing? Good. Thank you for taking my call. You got it, man. Thanks for calling. What's up? How can I help? Well, my wife and I are not entirely on the same page financially. We started following the baby steps last year in November. It's causing a lot of fights. She's very dave-ish.

It's hard to discuss anything with money. She gets irritated very quickly. I know we need marriage counseling. We've been married 22 years. There are some issues that have to be addressed. But as far as these baby steps, I just don't feel willing to take on any more debt. We're about $169,000 in debt, mostly student loans. And I'm not worried that we can't pay this off. We can be done with this in two to three years easy. We make really good money. But she's not fully on board, and she wants to try to buy a house soon.

And I'm not getting into that kind of debt. Yeah. So for people listening, Baby Steps talking about Dave Ramsey, who's my friend. He's my boss, too. The get-out-of-debt plan. And Johnny, you and your wife have been married 22 years. What made you look in the mirror and go, whoa, we owe $169,000.

We got to get out of this thing. When did you discover that? Well, I'm almost 50. Okay. And I have a chronic health issue. Nothing that seems that's going to take my life early, but it's an expensive medication. And, you know, I have children and, you know, I just want to leave things in order. What do you do for a living?

I'm in health care. I'll leave it at that. I don't want to say too much. That's all good. My wife is also in health care. We combine make about just under $200,000 a year. Okay. This has nothing to do with money.

You know that? Yes, I do. Okay. I do. The main thing I wanted to ask is, I know we need a marriage counselor, but my question is, if most people are normal, a marriage counselor might be normal too. Right. And I don't want him pacifying some of the things we're trying to accomplish financially, you know? Yeah, it's not about money, dude.

Yeah. There's a power problem in your marriage. Mm-hmm. There's a strength, a lack of connection. There's a lack problem in your marriage. There's a strength, a lack of connection. There's a lack of common purpose. Y'all are at war and money is the battleground right now. But a counselor shouldn't care what your goals are. They should care that you know what your goals are

and I'm going to help you connect with one another as y'all achieve these goals, whatever they happen to be. And your wife, there's a lack of vision here. There's a, you have different fears than she does. And often I hear, and I don't want to over gender this, but often I hear men try to solve a problem. Like, here's a debt problem.

We need to have a plan to get out of that problem, and you need to, whoever you is, kids, spouse, whoever, you need to follow this plan. And I got somebody else on the other side of that thing saying, I want to be safe. I am scared of you. I'm tired of you walking in and telling me how I'm going to do my life because I'm smart too. And I'll end up putting my heels in the ground over this issue because it's not about the money. It's about,

I'm sick of you just dragging us around with whatever new plan, new idea, new whatever. I may be way out to lunch here, man, but this has nothing to do with money. This has to do with common shared vision. I agree. What you said, you want to leave your family with things in order that you have a chronic

health issue. That's expensive. And so you feel this pressure to set up your family. So far, you've told me your wife, she wants a home. So y'all got two competing things here. You want safety, and

for you safety looks like X, and she wants safety and safety looks like Y. And what you got to do here, brother, is stop flexing and stop being like, this is the way it's got to be. And more say, like, what are we going to,

I'm almost, you're 50, almost 50? Yeah. Like, what's it going to look like when we're 60? And let's reverse engineer that back. And you telling her, not, we got to get out of debt. We got to, it's, this debt scares me. That I'm going to leave you, I'm going to die and I'm going to leave you with this.

And I can't be a part of that. Yeah. You know, John, the difficulty I have is I, I'm a very, um, I'm the type of person that I like to talk. I like to get into details. I'm always inviting her to have these conversations, these deep conversations, because that's just my personality. That's right. Okay. I never tell her what to do at all. I say, let's, let's get together and talk about it. Let's unwrap this. But this is just my own opinion here. I believe she has very low emotional IQ and she has anger issues. So if I even broach any topic of anything to try to better either our relationships, money,

whatever it is, she gets very defensive and very upset. And if I don't let it go after a minute or two, she'll resort to name calling things of this nature. Okay. That's fair. So it's very hard to even to, to bring up like the last few days I've been struggling thinking, how am I going to suggest we go see a marriage counselor? She's going to say nothing's wrong or you're the problem or, you know, so I even have a problem with that. So you got to control what you can control. You're the only person, you go see a counselor. And here's, if I'm you, here's exactly what I would say to my wife. I would say,

I have, for some reason, I have created a world where you don't feel safe having a deep conversation with me. I have not created a world where my wife feels safe planning for the future together. And I am not able to fully articulate how terrified and scared I am of all this debt. And I'm going to go see a counselor so I can learn some new language because I'm not doing a good job communicating how much I love you and how terrified I am for our future and the future of our kids. And here's the thing,

brother, that's going to feel like you're caving in. Like I'm submitting, I'm tapping out. Yeah, dude, you got to get over that. It's ego crap talking. And otherwise you're going to try to force your, like, what's the right thing to say to her? You've already answered that question. There's nothing you can say to her. You already know what that, what's going to happen. And so you can make yourself stone crazy Both psychologically And biochemically

I feel that Yeah, your blood pressure's gonna go up You're gonna have just adrenaline And cortisol pulsing through your veins All day, every day Your brain's gonna be anxious and anxious Until it finally shuts off And you're gonna go into a season of depressing

And then you're gonna go back up to anxiety Over and over again You can do all that Or or you can make peace with, I know what she's going to say, period. Now what? Now what do I do? Now I'm going to take care of me. And I'm going to make sure that when I'm ready to have this hard conversation,

I'm going to be all in. Okay. And it is fair to say we're not taking on any more debt right now. And that becomes a boundary issue. Yeah, yeah, that's going to be hard. It is, it is. And your house may become hell over it. But at some point you've got to say—

She already drew the line in the sand. She said if come next year we don't get a house, that she would leave and buy a house on her own. Okay, so you listen. This has nothing to do with money. Yeah. And how long have y'all been married? 22 years together, 25. Man, I'm telling you, there's something else here big.

Yeah. And my guess is she has told you over and over for year after year after year of a thing she wants, of a thing she's interested in, of a, and she finally says enough's enough. And here's the deal, man. You got to lean up. She just put a boundary down. Yeah. And either she's bluffing, you're going to call that bluff?

Because what I heard her say is, I'm leaving you. Yeah. You know, we had a house, but because of my health issue, I had to change careers, make adjustments for it. So we sold our house,

and we downgraded. And that was hard because we were there for about 15 years. Yeah, she lost her home, she lost her community. And she said for better or worse, now she's getting to find out what worse is like. And here's where this is getting really hard, man.

Sometimes people leave people with chronic health conditions. Yeah. Is that happening to you? sometimes people leave people with chronic health conditions. Yeah. Yeah. Is that happening to you? Um, no, I don't,

the, the, the, the health issue is in such that, that she would leave over that. No, no, it's not,

it may not be the health issue, but it's the peripheral life that we all lead. Now we can't go on this vacation. Cause I got to have this medication or I got to sleep this much, or we got to sell this house and live in an apartment. And it may be that I don't want that life. Yeah, we've been renting for about three years and she knew that it was going to just be for about five years until our son finished high school. And, you know, we would just slowly save.

But then that's in that process. I discovered Dave. I learned a faster way to get at that. So, you know, I try to invite her into it, try to share with her. I don't make her do it. I say, you know, we got to do this together. And so she's willing to only do so much. So I want you to not just focus on doing this plan together.

Yeah. I want you all to focus on doing the rest of your life together. And what is our new reality? Who are we going to be when our son goes to college? Is living in Chicago our place for the rest of our lives? Could we go do health care in another city that's got a better cost of living, that the pace is different, that we can get a house sooner, or here's a path to a home. If we work like crazy and work overtime like bonkers, we can be out of debt in 18 months, and then we got one more year of saving, saving, saving,

and then we're going to go buy a house. But here's the path to where we want to go, and here's the right smart way to do it. And by the way, buying a house right now where we're $170,000 in debt in the most bonkers housing market of our lifetimes is clinically insane. Clinically insane.

Don't do it. But hear me say, brother, it's not about the plan. This isn't about money. This is about a wife that says, I'm about had enough of you for whatever reason. I've about had enough of this interaction. And I'm drawing a big line right here. And you can only control you.

So I want you to tell her, dude, I'm sorry. For some reason, I haven't made you safe. I've made you feel safe. I've made you feel loved. I haven't made you feel heard. I'm going to go see a counselor. I would love it if you join me. I would love it if you join me. Because we got 10, 15, 20, 30 years left together, 40 years left together, and I want them to be amazing. And something I'm bringing to the table isn't working.

And she says, forget you, nothing wrong. Great. Cool. Awesome cool awesome i'm gonna go for me i'm gonna go for us it's the best you can do my brother control your thoughts and your behaviors and your actions that's about it we're rooting for you my man hey uh austin stay on the line johnny we're gonna give you a free year subscription to ramsey plus that's all the financial peace classes. That is all of the videos. It's the EveryDollar app. I'm going to give it to you for free for a year. This is an expensive gift. Merry Christmas.

It's going to give you all the stuff, but by taking this, you promise you will go call a counselor for you. He'll go deal with you. Merry Christmas. We're rooting for you, brother. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Deloney show. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right. October is the season for wearing costumes and masks. And if you haven't started

planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era, because I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever. All right, look, it's costume season. And let's be honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work, we do this in social setting, we do this around our families,

we even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can learn to be honest with yourself, and you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100%

online therapy, and you can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey and you get matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, we are back in black. That's a great song, James. Great song.

Played with Gibson. Let's go to Ken in Spokane. What's up great song, James. Great song. Played with Gibson. Let's go to Ken in Spokane. What's up, Ken? How we doing? Hey, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate you and your team's work that you guys do. Thank you so much.

I appreciate me, not so much my team, but just kidding. They're awesome. They're incredible, man. Hey, thank you so much. I'm glad you're in our gang, Ken. What's up, man? How can I help? Well, I'm in an undecisive part of life.

Me too, man. Let's do this. Okay. So I recently divorced. Well, about three years ago now, my divorce was final for almost 30 years of marriage to the day of the divorce, actually. Hey, let's just stop for a second. Okay. That's a lot. That's a death. Yeah. That's a death.

I mean, that's a heavy loss. What happened after 30 years? Well, it got real crazy towards the end. And basically, my ex struggled with things in her life. She hid for years that she was bisexual and hid that. I just thought she was a farm girl, you know, and that sort of thing. And she hid that for years. And then about five years before the divorce, she developed breast cancer. So we went through that. She made it out of the other end. Uh, we did, um,

good there. Uh, things really changed with the medications for treatment, you know, and radiation and, and I don't know if near death experience brought the, uh, the hidden, uh, thing with her out after that, you know, and like a life change deal, it made her switch to wanting to come out and, and go that direction. Yeah. So there was a lot of, uh, Maybe she got to the end and just said, I'm not hiding anymore. This is going to be the way this is like life's too short or whatever. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So did she leave you for a woman? Did she leave you and say, Hey, this is going to be who I am. And you can be in or out. I mean, how did that end? Yes. So, yes.

She was secretive and started seeing a couple, actually. So she was cheating. So this is less about sexuality. This is infidelity. She's cheating on you. Right. And her rationale was it's not cheating because it's with a lady and not a guy. You know, all kinds of different things.

Okay, gotcha. Cheating is cheating is cheating. So, okay, I gotcha. Okay, so. And I'm a, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. I'm a fixer. So I was doing everything to save my marriage.

You know, I got married in front of God and it was for better, for worse. So I battled and tried to save for a long time. And I think I sacrificed myself along the process. Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like there was two hurting people trying to heal each other and themselves at the same time. That's a hard situation, man. And so 30 years, you get to the end, and all of a sudden, whoa.

And then you met somebody new. Yeah, I actually went to kindergarten together when we were young. So you're telling me there's a chance. All right. So you went to kindergarten together. Wow. Okay. How'd y'all reconnect? The internets?

Yeah. So I was finalizing the divorce and selling the house. The ex had moved away and took a different position, a different job. And I was left with selling the property and dividing the assets and that sort of thing and going through it,

which she never wanted me to do. She wanted to have a kind of a double life, so to speak. And that wasn't going to work for me or her. But yeah, so she reached out to me and I think she could kind of see that I may have been going through some, she got an indication or a feeling. Um, she was volunteering at a, uh, a boys camp as a nurse. And, um, she reached out and said, Hey, is this the guy that we went to school together, live next door to me? And, and I said, I said, yeah. And then we just

started connecting and next door neighbors it's like dawson's creek man this is incredible okay so fast forward it's been a couple years now you say three years yeah we're just we're approaching three years now we've been dating for about two that's so fun good for you you know the whole divorce with the ex took five years to kind of process wow everything out it was a slow trudge. But yeah, so we're dating. But now I'm like, this gal's amazing. And we've done some things together,

traveled with some friends and things like that. And she is divorced years prior, quite a few years prior than me. And of course, all of our kids are gone out of the house. So I'm like, I've, I've had some of, some of our friends said, gosh, you're going to marry this gal. You're going to put a ring on her finger and all this stuff, you know? And yeah, she's amazing. And then I tiny little silly things, you know, and everyone has those glitches, you know, and myself included.

And it's like in the back of my head, I'm like, is this a red flag? Because I think I didn't see so many in my first marriage. And I'm having a hard time putting that baggage down and looking at this new. And it's starting to come up in the back of my head. And I'm like, what am I waiting for? But I'm so cautious of messing it up, I guess. And I'm undecisive. I've talked about this. I talked about this about a year ago a lot when we had several calls and similar calls about infidelity. I think one of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing, when somebody cheats on you, there is the obvious breach.

You brought somebody else into this relationship. You violated a core covenant that we agreed we were in this together. That's huge. That's a major, like the ground you're walking on is fractured. It's huge. That's a major, like the ground you're walking on is fractured. It's unstable. But I think equal, maybe if not worse, long-term damage is what you're experiencing, which is you lose trust in Ken. How in the world did I miss this for so long? Or most of the time,

I knew something was up and I didn't say anything. And people will heal from the violation. They can outsource it. This person made those choices to cheat on me with somebody else and I gotta live with that. And they made choices. I can be at peace with the fact that somebody else made choices that hurt me.

But what's really hard to heal from is I don't trust me anymore. And your brain, when you are out of trust, your brain takes over. And here's what your sweet brain is doing for you because it loves you, Ken. It is looking for every possible threat because it's not doing that again. It's not going through five years of hell because that almost killed us last time. I'm not doing that again. So this is just your body, your biology, remembering trauma and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, what are you doing? What are you doing? You know what I mean? It feels you getting back on the same roller coaster that almost killed you last time.

It doesn't mean every roller coaster is unsafe. In fact, the opposite. Most roller coasters are great. But it almost killed you once and your body remembers. And so I want you to hear me say again, you're not crazy. Your body is doing exactly what it should be doing, which is trying to look out for you. The real question you got to get to is, is she the right,

is she right for me? Have you been on, have you been healing? Do you trust Ken? And more importantly, do you trust her? So answer that for me. Is this right?

I definitely trust her. Okay. Does she know that you have, that your body's, Does she know that you have That your body Does she know that you've got apprehension Does she know how bad you felt burned Yeah I think so I think she does

Let's own this You walked through cancer with somebody You walked through somebody who almost died You wept with her. You held her throughout the night. You went to appointments with her. You figured out insurance and bills and all this stuff. Y'all went through stuff together. And then on the other side, she said, you're not my guy. Have you fully grieved that because that sucks yeah it was it was tough and then to turn around and go through years of

her infidelity thinking that okay this is a phase and she's going to come back around yeah and be that same person she never was. And then I had to, had had to file the divorce for me. And she had a great setup, man. She's got somebody who's going to ride out cancer with her and then she can go have her romantic flings with other places. She had a perfect setup going. Yeah.

I mean, even her own mother told me, what are you doing? You know, she's having her cake and eating it too. And you're sitting here while she's doing things that are wrong. Yeah. And yeah, and I went to a counselor.

I did do that. Okay. And I walked through that process with a counselor. She was amazing. Good, good, good, good. I'm proud of you, really. That's good. And so here, I just want you to respect your body.

And so when I'm in a situation, and I haven't been through what you've been through, what you've been through is brutal. I don't want you to underestimate the trauma. And sometimes we live things and because we're living them, it's not a headline. It's not sensational.

It's not quote unquote over there. It's us in the middle of it. And we don't fully recognize the trauma that our body took on for us. And your body's been through a lot. And now your heart found love and your brain is going, oh, I know this script. I know this story. And so bringing that into acknowledging it, oh, there's my body pointing out a flaw and you being able to go, thank you for trying to take care of me, but I'm good now because this one's awesome. She's awesome. And you begin to let your brain know I'm in control. I'm good. I'm getting back on this rollercoaster on purpose because it's super fun and it's going to be amazing. And we're going to

get whipped around a little bit like all rollercoasters, but it's going to be a blast. And then eventually your body goes, cool, you're driving. We're back. But you got to practice that. So I'm smiling here. Do you love this woman? I do. Yeah.

So let yourself say it out loud. Do you want to marry her? I do. Is that scary to death? In my head, it seems like. Yes, absolutely, because I'm afraid of messing it up. Because you think you messed up the last one. Well, I couldn't fix it.

I think that's what I can't get out of my head. And I, you know, I'm being a fixer. It was totally against who I am, you know. Well, Ken, you didn't break your last marriage. You didn't break it. And the fact that you couldn't, quote unquote, save something that you couldn't save anyway, doesn't mean you're a failure, doesn't mean you screwed up.

I need you to let that go.'t save anyway. Doesn't mean you're a failure. Doesn't mean you screwed up. I need you to let that go. Put that down. Because you're carrying this narrative that if you had just said the right thing or done the right thing, that maybe she would have stayed attracted to you. Maybe she... It wasn't going to happen.

And you got to set that down because you've got too much life left and you've got an amazing woman on the other side of this thing waiting for full ken and what i want you to do is love ken as much as this new woman loves ken does she love you yes absolutely tells me constantly shows me constantly too dude can I tell you something you're worth being loved and you're worth laughing

I have a great friend she she's about probably 15 or 20 years older than me she had a long term relationship and

kids were grown and found out there was some infidelity they got divorced and then it was a brutal divorce. And then shortly thereafter, her ex got sick and passed away. And then she got remarried years later.

And I was asking her about the process. And she said, I built a life with somebody. We raised kids, created a home. I got remarried because I loved this person and we were going to have as much fun as humanly possible until my days are over. And that subtle shift was such a powerful statement for me. And how old are you? Almost 55. Dude, you're a little over halfway. And you've got somebody that's going to get old and wrinkly and ride or die with you, man. And y'all can slide into the end of this thing with no tread left on your tires.

I need you to hear that you're worth that. Do you believe me? I do, yeah. All right. Say these words. Ken's worth loving again. Ken's worth loving again. You just said that all weird,

like I was telling you about taxes. Say Ken's worth loving again. just said that all weird Like I was telling you about taxes Say Ken's worth loving again I want you to mean it Ken's worth loving again Hell yeah dude Yeah Ken Now you don't have to marry this girl But I think you should I think it'd be awesome

I think you're going to man And it should be weird And it should be uncomfortable And it's all still alright The only thing I'm going to man And it should be weird and it should be uncomfortable and it's all still all right The only thing I can't i'm gonna ask you to not do is don't keep secrets from your new wife When you feel uncomfortable y'all come up with a signal like ah, i'm trying to get nervous Ah But I love you

And here's what I want you to do when you get engaged. I want you to send me a picture Of that ring on her finger. I want you to send me a picture of the wedding. Y'all are probably going to get some weird doodle dog or something. Send me a picture of that. Do not get one of those motorcycle tricycles. You're 55, but you're not walking dead. And dude, I'm excited for you, Ken. I'm excited for you, brother. I'm excited for you. Everything in your body is trying to do is just love you and take care of you, man. You got to tell your body, thank you, thank you, thank you. Maybe do this.

I say this every single show almost. I want you to write yourself a letter. Dear Ken. Dear Ken. Go back and walk through. Here's what it was like loving somebody through cancer. Here's what it's like finding out that she was cheating on me. Here's what it was like trying to hold everything together.

Here's what it's like the heartbreak of divorce, of it when it was all over. Here's what that grief was like. And then there's a period at the end of that sentence. And then I want you to turn the page and I want you to then write, and now what? And here's what my life's going to be. I found a great girl that I've known since we were next door neighbors, Dawson's Creek. I don't want to wait.

And we're going forward with whatever minutes and hours we got left. We're going to have the most fun and we're going to do it together. You deserve it, Ken. You're worth it. Thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back on the Dr. John Delaney Show. Hey, what's up? Delaney here.

Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, let's take one more

call. Let's go to Marie in Cleveland, Ohio. What's up, Marie? How we doing? I'm great. Thank you so much for taking my call. Are you a Baker Mayfield fan? A what? A Baker Mayfield fan. I don't know what that is. Listen, I'm married, but I kind of love you.

I'm glad you don't know who that is. That's the quarterback of the Cleveland Browns. Not a huge fan. So good for you. Shout out. Shout out. Way to go, Marie. I don't know any sports references at all.

And that makes you a great person. All right, so what's up? How can I help? Go ask her. Thank you. It's amazing to be able to talk to you. So thank you so much. It is more amazing to be talking to you.

So what's up? The past month and a half I've been listening to your show, and it's just been mind-blowing how amazing it's been for me. Well, thank you so much. So my sister, we are the two oldest of five kids, and she is two years older than me, and she is not my biological sister. Ruh-roh.

Yeah, we have different dads, And she does not know it. How? How does she not know? So my mom met my dad, and I think she was only maybe a month or two pregnant. And then they got married that next summer,

a month after my sister was born. And I've known for about 10 years. My mom told me when I was in my early 20s. And she just, she never told her. And family knows, even some close friends know. God, why would your mom do that to you? I don't, I don't know.

I think that she felt that I was probably mature enough to be able to handle it. Oh, my gosh. That's the worst. Gosh. That's the meanest thing. That's so mean. Does your dad know that? Yes. So your sweet sister is just bebopping through life, hugging on dad, and everybody knows.

But her? Yes. My mom told me I cried, and she's like, why are you crying? And I said, I'm just thinking that if it's for you telling me about this, about me, I would be heartbroken. Yes. Did you do it? My first question would have been, was dad my dad? Yeah.

And then she would have said, well, of course, honey. And then you would have said, how do I, how do I, how do I trust anything? Is Santa Claus real? Are you going to tell me that too? God almighty, what an evil thing to do to a young 20 year old sister. So you've, are you close with your older sister? No. It's getting a little bit better, but I've recently been in counseling,

and counseling has basically unveiled my childhood when I was actually, as my counselor calls it, a parentified child. And my sister was defiant and she was hard and it was really, really it was really really difficult okay can i give you some context for that yes i would be willing to bet my truck and let's be clear it's not nice so it's not a huge win if anybody picks up the other side of that bet your sister was not wanted in this new marriage. She was a daily reminder to a newlywed couple that mom slept with some other dude and got knocked up. And your dad, as part of the deal, had to raise somebody else's daughter

and all of that stress and all of that stuff. And your sister absorbed every second of it. I, is that fair? It's hard. It's hard for me to have a compassion, a clear understanding because I obviously did not understand my childhood very well while I was

going through it. And so I saw my dad as a wonderful dad and somebody who took care of his family and loved my mom and loved my sister. So I don't want to think of them as being malicious towards my sister in any kind of way. I don't think malicious is the right way. Okay. The research on ADHD right now says a lot of that begins in utero with maternal stress. stress just finding out I'm pregnant and I had a one night stand with somebody and I love this new guy and is he going to love me and how am I going to have this baby

all that stuff just pulses through this human being and even if your description of your dad is I'm assuming I'm not wanting to talk bad about him. I'm just talking reality. Yeah.

You were his baby. You were the one. You were his firstborn. And I'm not saying he's worse. He did a noble thing. He's probably an incredible dad, loved. But there is a gap. There is a difference. It's kind of like I walk into a room. I'm a big thing. He's probably an incredible dad loved, but there is a gap. There is a difference.

It's kind of like I walk into a room. I'm a big guy. I'm 6'2", 195. I'm a big guy. I walk into a room and I'm like, everybody's cool here. And then my friend George is like, I don't know, how big is George? 4'11", 102 pounds. He's a little guy. He experiences that room differently than me. And I can be like, no, dude, it's just like this. Can you not see? And he's like, yeah, you're two feet taller. Your view is different. Both of our realities are true.

But I want to always lean over and say, lean in. Lean over, that's funny. He is short. But I want to lean into, like, what is your reality? Here's mine. All I have to say is I don't want to get into your sister situation. Other than I'm glad, glad, glad you're seeing somebody. And let that be about illumination, not about blame.

Is that fair? Yes. Okay, cool. Okay, so. I just don't know if I should. I've known for, like, I think it's been at least 10 years and my, and now my younger brothers, they know. And I just don't, okay.

This makes it a little more complicated. So she had three children and my parents are raising two of them. And my husband and I are raising her third child. We've had him from the moment he was born. We brought him home from the hospital. We were there for his birth. And the reason the whole, should I tell her comes up is because my son will know I'm going to be a hundred percent honest with him. And we're going to have trust and we're going to have, you know, clarity about who he is. And I just can see him one day telling my sister, well, no, you know, he's not actually my biological grandfather

and it blowing up my sister's world. So let me be super clear. Your sister's world has been blown up. It has been blown up since the day she came home and was told that somebody else was her dad. Yeah. Every bit of it has been blown up since the day she came home and was told that somebody else was her dad. Yeah. Every bit of it has been blown up. And so the only thing left to do is to help with the healing process.

Let me put it this way. This conversation is happening. Whether it happens today or in five years or in 10 years, it's happening. Yes. And let me just tell you personally, I will not keep immediate secrets for family. So if anybody in my family were to call and say, hey, I just got to tell you this, don't tell,

I was to stop them and say, I'm not going to hear that. I don't know what you're about to say, but I'm not keeping secrets for my family. I'm not going to be the big secret keeper because it kills me. It puts my integrity on the line. You hand me one of your bricks and expect me to carry it forever. You've been carrying this for 10 years.

And every time your relationship gets a little bit closer with your sister, this big looming thing is there. And here's the thing. She feels that. Yeah. She doesn't know what it is. And so what she does, she blames herself or she blames you she either says I'm still not enough

she's still the golden child, she's still the great because there's that little gap and kids feel it you've heard that saying like when you're driving and you can just turn your wheel one degree and the whole car eventually turns in a circle just that one little feeling as a young kid

that dad likes her more than me. What is it about me? Do I not look right? Do I not smell right? Do I not hug right? What is it? And I just feel like telling you that's going to confirm those things to her. And that's, but here's the thing. She's been running for how old is she? 35, 40. Yeah. She's 35. For 35 years. She thought it was her. She thought she was the defect. Yeah, yeah. And what you may give, yes, this thing's going to go nuclear.

Make no mistake. Has she been an addict? No. As far as like drugs go, she's tried to, she doesn't like the way they make her feel. I think she has some, maybe some, she's on the autism spectrum. Why are you keeping her kid? Motherhood didn't work. And I'm not, it was, it feels like forever ago.

My son is eight now. But she tried to raise her two oldest girls. and she had a very hard time with it. All three kids are from three different men, and she didn't commit to any kind of relationship with any of the men. And then when she found out she was pregnant again, my mom and my dad encouraged her to let them raise her girls. And then she asked my husband and I, we had a two-year-old at the time, and they asked us if we would raise him. And we were more than happy to do that.

So imagine a place you would have to be to call somebody who you've lived in their shadow your whole life and said, will you take my baby? Can you even imagine that? I can't even wrap my head around that. Yeah. And that's what she's had to do.

So you've got this woman who lives in 24, she bathes in shame and is reaching out for connection. All I have to say, we talked about your sister all day long. Here's what I think as just basic human dignity, she deserves the truth. Yeah. And I will tell you, the conversation will be had.

It will be which person is going to have the courage to do it and where is this nuclear bomb going to go off? Do I need to tell my mom that I'm telling her? If I'm you, I would tell my mom, I cannot keep her or if I'm you I would tell my mom I cannot keep your lie a secret anymore I refuse to I won't even say I can't because that makes it sound like it's out of my control nope I am making a grown-up choice I refuse to keep your lie anymore and what mom's gonna say is oh you're gonna blow up everything and response is no, you blew it up 35 years ago. Yeah. And I'm not doing this anymore because I'm a liar and I refuse to lie on your behalf any longer. I'm not going to do it. I'm teaching young kids about integrity and doing what's right. And

we don't keep secrets in this family. And I love you. This is how family treats each other. But by the way, I'm over here with mom. Yeah. And I just, it's no more. And there will be a nuclear fallout here and you will sleep better than you've slept in 10 years. Is that fair? Yeah. So I would tell my mom, you've got 20 days. You've got two 14 days.

You've got two weeks to have this conversation. And by the way, you will not do this over text. You'll do an in-person conversation. Well, we all live in different states. Hey, this is a conversation you get on an airplane. Yeah. To say 35 years of your life has been a lie. Yeah, I agree.

Your inability to hold a relationship, your inability to feel like you are worth anything. Maybe because we lied to you from the day you were born. Yeah. Yeah, that's a get on an airplane. I don't have the money. Figure it out. We're going to do this one in person. And you're going to show up with pictures.

Here is your real dad. Here's his name. Here's where he lives. It tells me that she doesn't know that. Not true. When she told me. Totally not true. I got the kind of indication and feeling that that wasn't true.

We found Osama bin Laden. He can be found. He can be found. I think that's what my mom has always been worried about, that she would just go searching for her actual family. She should. When we were her family. She should. She should go find her dad.

Yes. Yes. She's 35. Who are we protecting? What has our protection got us? Yeah. We've been trying to protect and look at the life that's just in ash. She's got three beautiful kids that don't even live with her anymore.

Yeah. She's got no close relationships and nobody's drawn the line back to day one when we lied to her the day she was born. Yeah. And so all this, if you were protecting her and she had a wonderful four kids and a great partner

and an awesome job as a surgeon or she was running a small business and life was great. And you were like, man, we got to tell her the truth. I get, I get how hard that would be. You still got to do the right thing,

but I get like, we're about to take a Norman Rockwell painting and set it on fire. I get that. Yeah. But y'all are protected. It's like, her life isn't like that at all. No,

it's like y'all are trying to protect her from a fire and you put her in the middle of the fire pit. It's like, all right, no more fight. Nobody tell her that there's fire. She's burned to a crisp. She gets it.

And so I'm telling you what you already know. I secrets destroy families. And by the way, your relationship with your mom is fractured over this. Yes. Your relationship with your dad is fractured over this. Yes. Your relationship with your dad is fractured over this. Because there's a little girl in you that doesn't trust them either. Yeah.

And you have probably made some commitments to your kids that I will never, but you got this big one hovering over and you got to deal with it. So I give mom, you got two weeks to do an in-person conversation, or I'm getting on an airplane and I'm going to fly to be with my sister, and I'm going to have a hard conversation. Real hard. Okay. I can do that.

Okay. Now, hear me say, this goes bad. It goes bad. Yeah. And you can send me an email on the flight home and be like, that son of a, I hate Deloney. I'm telling you, it goes bad. In your soul, you know this is right. Yes, I do.

Yes. Is your husband with you? Yes. Well, he's not here with me in this room. I know, but is he all in? Yes. And so do my brothers. They understand.

They feel like I'm about to, why am I about to blow up her world? But I agree with you. It's already a mess. It's over. Yeah. You are going to possibly give her the first glimpse of light through the cracks of her life that she's ever seen. Yeah. And being able to look her in the eye and say, I need you to hear me say, I, you're not crazy.

Yeah. And she has a right to be enraged. Because for the last 35 years, this has been her fault, her problems. And they are. She's made bad choices, let's be clear. But my guess is, my gut

tells me she has been in search for true connections since the day she was born. And she's been looking over and over and over and over for it. This might be the first real conversation she's ever had in her life, Marie. Ever, ever, ever. And God bless you for having it. But yeah, no more secrets. No more secrets, no more secrets.

Mom, you got seven days, and then I'm getting on a plane. That one's going to be tough. That one's going to be tough. I'm glad you're there, Marie. Go make that call. All right, as we wrap up today's show, man, this is a— I found an old 80s— No, this is like a—

Not 80s metal. This is like metal metal. No, this is like a, not 80s metal. This is like metal metal. No, it's grunge metal. Grunge metal. Off the Alice in Chains Dirt record. I liked that record. Did you like that record, James? I've never listened to a single Alice in Chains record.

Wow. Austin, how would you like a producing job? Could be awesome. Songs off the Dirt record. It's called Them Bones and it goes like this. It's not really a happy song. I believe them bones are me. And some say we're born into the grave.

And I feel so alone. Gonna end up a big old pile of them bones. Yeah, as I'm reading this, it's not a happy song. Dust rise right on over my time. Empty fossil of the new scene. I feel so alone. I'm gonna end up a big old pile of them bones.

Told dude, bad dream come true. I lie dead gone under a red sky. I feel so alone. I'm gonna end up a big old pile of them bones. I wonder why all the grunge guys were so sad. Boy, I really wish I'd listened

to Alice in Chains now. You're more than a pile of them bones. I wonder why all the grunge guys were so sad. I really wish I'd listened to Alison Chambers now. You're more than a pile of bones, America. Talk to you soon on the Dr. John Deloney Show.