The Dr. John Delony Show - My Wife Says She Hates Sex

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A husband whose wife loves him but hates sex - A woman upset that her son spends more time with his in-laws than her - A man and his wife who were hurt by their closest friends To order Dr. Emily Nagoski's "Come As You Are" here. 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 Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Building a Non-Anxious Life Anxiety Test Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. You're struggling with, like, erections, or she is not interested in sex? She's not interested in sex at all. All right. She says there are more than one way to express making love. You know, you don't need to have sex to make love. And I'm like, well, you kind of do. Well, good morning, good afternoon, and good night.

I'm John Deloney with the Dr. John Deloney Show, a show about your mental health, your emotional health, your marriage, your kids, whatever's going on in your world. You may not know the answer, but I promise I'll sit with you, and we will figure it out. For two decades, I've been sitting with people. I got a couple of PhDs and I'll be the first to tell you, I don't know. But I know this. I know how to sit with hurting people and figure out what's the next right move or scared people or people who are just out of options or clueless. And if you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you. Go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K, or go give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291.

We're heading into the Christmas season. So if you have not got your Questions for Humans Christmas edition, they sold out like instantly last year. We've ordered a whole bunch more, and they're already leaving the shop. Like, who let the dogs out? Who, who? Kelly, let's do one. All right. This is a good one to start the season.

Okay. When should you put Christmas decorations up, and when should you take them down? Oh, geez. When do you think? I like to have mine up. I usually put them up the week before Thanksgiving because we travel for Thanksgiving. And I like them when we come home from Thanksgiving, it's on. Christmas is on. And then I usually take them down the week after New Year's. Okay. Jenna, you're all back. Listen, if I wasn't moving houses in a week,

my Christmas decorations would already be up. November 1st. Listen, Halloween's over. I take down the Halloween decorations. I put up the Christmas, and I'll leave them up probably until maybe mid-January to end of January. By February, they're down. But I'd like a good couple months. Listen, Christmas is a season. It makes me happy.

I love the lights. Boo on your happiness. There's rules to this, Jenna. There are no rules. There are rules. My happiness is a season. It makes me happy. I love the lights. Boo on your happiness. There's rules to this, Jenna. There are no rules. There are rules. My happiness is what matters. I like to put my Christmas decorations up whenever my wife says, we're going to put these up now.

And I say, that sounds incredible. That's pretty much my rule. Do y'all do it before Thanksgiving or is it after? I'm going to put this in my husband of the year application. I have no idea. I don't know that there's a set thing. I think it's just like, hey, there's a weekend. And my wife's like, yeah, we're doing that this weekend. And I'll say, that sounds awesome. Yeah. Ours ends up that way. And sometimes it might be two weeks before Thanksgiving because the week before we have something to do. And also I will say, because we had such a crap year last year, Christmas sucked from beginning

to end. So even my husband's like, this year, we're going early. And yeah, we're Christmas-ing. All the way through it. Yeah. So we're actually,

I've talked about doing on this coming weekend. And Jenna, when's your baby due? February. So is it just, your kids just gonna be born into Christmas

even though it's... I said they'll be down before February. A nine-month pregnant. I'm not taking them down. We don't take them down. Are you kidding me? No, no, no. I will tell him.

There's the box. Put them in there. Put them in the garage. I don't say this very often, but I think with all of my heart, men should not have a vote on this. Just move on. I know that's not kosher, but why would you care? Because it's your house and your family. That's where you care? Because it's your house and your family.

That's where you're wrong. It is your house and your family. No, but I mean. We just work here. You come from your own traditions of your own house, of your own family that make the holiday season. I have one weird thing about it. This is one weird thing. I don't like Christmas ornaments and stuff going up on the tree without everybody there.

I have a weird thing about that. We're big about that. Everybody. I mean. One year, my wife did it with the two kids. She was helping out. I was doing something. I was out of town.

I came in, and I was devastated. She felt so bad. Yeah. Everybody has to do the tree. I like everybody in there. And then my kids all put all the decorations in one area. So then when they go to bed, I redo the tree. I like everybody in there. And then my kids all put all the decorations in one area. So then when they go to bed, I redo the tree. I just grit. Everybody has to be there to do the tree.

No question. I love that. We have a certain movie we watch while we do it. We're very... That's one of the things. Regimented? About that. There's certain things that have to happen. Hey, by the way, huge news. Totally unrelated to what we're talking about.

This weekend, I was getting some more tattoos done. And the woman who does my tattoos said she would come up to the studio and we'll do it live. Do what live? Your tattoo. And I'll pay for it. Ta-da! Big fat nope on that. I have the yes card.

It's going to be a yes. So that's questions for humans. Go to johndeloney.com. No yes cards for that. Go to johndeloney.com, and you'll be entered into a drawing to get to pick what Kelly's tattoo is going to be, and we're going to record it here in the office, and it's going to be incredible.

All right, let's go out to Idaho and talk to Mike. Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike. What's up, dude? Howdy. Not much. Just taking a break from work to talk to you guys. Very cool, man. I'm glad you called, dude. What's up? Yeah, well, I, so I want to start this off with, I love my family and I love my wife. I know she loves me, but I'm going to, I'm going to kind of just dump some stuff on you and then we'll see where we go from there. Um, so we have a, we have a 15 month old son and another one on the way. And, um, you know, we, we've been together for gosh, going on six years now. And, um, you know, we're, we're pretty passionate about each other.

We're, we're very aligned value wise, very faithful people. But, um, you know, the one area where we, we have some issues is, uh, the bedroom and, you know, even when she's not pregnant, like I'm struggling to be intimate with my wife and, And, you know, she says... Be more specific. Struggling to be intimate. You're struggling with, like, erections, or she is not interested in sex? No, no, no, no. She's not interested in sex at all.

Okay, all right. She says there are more than one way to express making love, and, you know, you don't need to have sex to make love. And I'm like, well, you kind of do. You know, and she says, if you did more romantic things for me, you know, it would, it would make a difference with regards to how often we have sex. And like, I try and make advances on her and she like swats me away. And there's more to it than that. Like, you know, I know she's become kind of insecure since we've been together, and there's some stuff going on with her childhood and her parents.

So be specific. You threw a little piece out that I've got some opinions on, but it sounds like there's a bigger picture. Well, actually, let's do this. Let's approach step one, and then I want'll dig into the other stuff. So step one, I think the idea that women have a lower sex drive than men is an absolute myth. It's not real. It's not true. Or that women have something called a sex drive, which is a myth that, and it is just male sex drive light, right? None of that is true. If you look at the literature and you look at the studies done, what is true is sex and desire, how those things are all woven together. Think of it as, and this comes straight from Dr. Emily Nagatsuki's work. I recommend your wife read a book called Come As You Are.

It is incredible. I probably wouldn't have made that cover, but the book is extraordinary. It's just a master class of all the things that millions and millions of women didn't get. I also think it's a good read for men too, but it's written to women about women's health and women's sexual health. But here's what she describes. She kind of pulls apart the myth of sex drive and instead paints a picture that sex is a series or desire is a series of brakes and gas pedals. And if you think of it that way, for you, gas pedals might be a wink. It might be just thinking of your wife. It might be somebody attractive walks by you at work and suddenly you're like,

oh, this is happening tonight, right? Your whole life is gas pedals. For other people, their environment might be a bunch of breaks Got to make sure the kid is doing this. I've got to make sure Um, this kid is fed. I got to make sure i'm healthy. I got to go for my walk I gotta make sure the dishes set up because I want to be a good Wife and I have this picture of what wife looks like and my husband i've never talked about it And then you come home and you start pawing at her or doing you bring home a flower you might think you are being romantic here's your gesture and that might have nothing to do

with her brakes and gas pedals and so where i see people miss each other all the time is she says i need you to be more affectionate. If you were more affectionate, then I would want to have sex more. And you go into your toolbox of affectionate that is probably a mix of, and I'm just not pointing at you, I'm speaking to you as males in general, okay? A mix of pornography, a mix of conversations you've had, maybe a couple of old girlfriends, and just some imagination.

And you dip into that toolkit, and you're like, all right, affection, here we come. And maybe your mom made you watch a Hallmark movie once, and that guy brought flowers, and you're like, all right, that sounds cool. And what you do is you miss the whole boat. And what I've seen couples dramatically turn their sex lives around by simply having the conversation about gas pedals and brakes. And I'll just give you a story from my own house. I really took it personally that my wife had to have the kitchen clean before anything could happen.

And I put the math in my head that she thought a clean kitchen was more valuable than Smoke Show McGee over here. Come to find out, she had some stories in her head about what a good wife was and what a homemaker is supposed to do and all this this baggage she was carrying around i had no idea she was carrying around and so once we sat down and talked it through dude you know what i love doing now the dishes right i like things that i never would have assumed are about affection or about you see me and or help with bedtimes or take care of the dogs or whatever the things are. Right. So there's that's a whole thing that is worthy of a conversation that you only sit on and have.

What does affection mean to you? And you're going to be probably shocked that it has very little to do with touching and looking and all that stuff. It has to do with an environment. Right. We've definitely had those conversations and her ideas of romance are like, romance are like us taking the truck out and looking at the stars. Yep. Have you tried that? You know, it's funny. She's told me that since day one. We've never done it. For whatever reason, I don't want to do it.

Bro, she gave you the roadmap. I know, I know. That one's totally on me i've definitely made mistakes you're like one of the few that know what to do unbelievable i can't believe you're calling me all right so tell me about the other stuff about family stuff and childhood trauma well so the other thing is she she she's told me this repeatedly she knew i was making this this call and um she said i can't keep a secret for my life. And she's like, uh, she says she hates sex, like vehemently, even when we were having sex a lot, uh, before we were married. Um, you know, she mean, I'm the only sexual partner she's ever had. I've had more than one prior to us being married. And then, you know, also her parents, very, I mean, they're divorced.

They had a lot of issues. And you want me to be specific? They did things that parents shouldn't do with their children, like take them to bars at 2 a.m. and have the six-year-old drive them home. That's probably the most blatant example. And just a lot of irresponsibility and vilification of a relationship. And I think that's affected her greatly and we we've seen a counselor and that came up, but you know, she wasn't able to really delve into it. Um, for whatever reason, she doesn't like talking about herself or her own problems. Um, so that's kind of where we're at. Like, I don't, I, you know, I've told her like, we need to be, I agree. I need to be stepping up in the romance

department, but you know, there needs to be some give and take on your end. And she's like, I just don't enjoy it. I don't want to be touched down there, and I don't wish to. It hurts, and I don't enjoy it at all. I get nothing out of it. I was like, geez, well, that sucks. Well, and so here's a couple of things that happen. Number one, men almost always take that very personally.

Yeah. And they forecast it into the next 20 years. Oh, cause, cause I don't know any guy who wants to hurt his wife. Right. But also I don't know any guy who wants to be married for 20 years and not have sex. I don't know any, I don't know women who, I mean, I know they're there. I know there's, there's all kinds of different, um, sexual appetites. Right. But very few people don't want to be intimate for 20 years, right? And so your challenge is to, A, not take this personally. It's not about like if you are hotter or whatever, or it's an insult to you. This is somebody saying, hey, it hurts.

This is somebody saying there's a lot of psychological baggage potentially here. I also can't imagine that in this particular, and let's just be super clear. If I sat down with her, my guess is it wouldn't only be going out in the truck and looking at the stars, which is a proxy for,

I just want to be with you. And you're like, that's cool. Let's do it. And suddenly this act of sex might become the thing that she grows to hate because she feels like you don't listen to her you don't you don't care about her you you care about taking care of your needs and she is the vehicle by which you do that right who knows but i think it's really important for her to go see a doctor and figure out the pain.

Cause I started thinking about PCOS. I started thinking about, uh, endometriosis, uh, fibroids. There's all kinds of stuff going on. Has she done that?

Um, I don't think so. Like we, she, she got checked. She had a bunch of concussions in high school and she got checked like up and down, but I don't know that she got checked for that. Dude, here's how this, here's how the conversation goes. She goes to her doctor and says,

I hate sex. Okay. And the doctor says, give me some more information. And I promise you, she's going to be more open with her doctor than with you. A, you sound like your head's filled with cement. B, they have a relationship, especially with an OBGYN. Doctors delivered her babies. Doctors walked her along through one pregnancy, now into the second one.

And so they're going to have a different conversation, but it has to be that blunt. She has to tell the truth to her doctor. Gotcha. And honestly, if this is my wife, this is my sister, this is my friend,

this is where I would recommend you start. Start with your doctor. Okay. The challenge is she might look at you and say, I don't want to.

And that's hard. That'll be a hard, scary conversation to have. Well, she said to have. Well, she said that before. I mean, when we went to counseling, she,

she didn't want to go cause she doesn't like talking about her feelings and, you know, it's not a priority. I mean, we've got another kid on the way, so there's that. Yeah. It's,

it's super, super big time, a priority. Sounds like there, honestly, it sounds like there is a lot going on and sex is one of the lights on the dashboard telling you that things aren't okay. Well, I mean, overall, we're pretty happy. I mean, we have a pretty nice home.

We have good jobs. Dude, bro, you are missing it like by a hundred miles. Oh, okay. Like by a long shot. There's a couple of women listening to this right now, and they're both, they're nodding their heads. Oh, well, I mean, what do you mean? I mean, you are, have a picture in your head of we're doing fine, which means what's a dollar amount? What's a square footage amount? What is a safety amount?

What is a, how many times a week I exercise? And she's going to tell you doing okay is, do you hear me? Yeah. And you're going to go, ah, look how nice our house is. Hey, can we do this and this and this and this please? Let's just do it Hey this hurts Like I don't like it. I hate it. It hurts. I don't want to talk about my feelings

Yeah, you're gonna go talk about your feelings. We got to do this That sounds like somebody who's screaming for somebody to give them a safe space to talk If you if you were like my close buddy buddy here's what i would tell you to do i would tell you to take a knee and what i mean by that is i would take my wife out in the truck in front of some stars and i would hold her hand and I would say after I talked to this podcaster I realized I've missed the boat and I haven't heard you

or seen you for all of our marriage and I thought about getting great jobs and I thought about mechanics and I thought about needs and for some reason I didn't hear you. I'm sorry.

I want to have sex with you. I want to be intimate with you. I want that to be an important part of our relationship. But beneath that, I want you to know I hear you and I see you and I love you anyway. And my brother, that's where you got to start. Because at some point, when are you going to lose your job? At some point, one of you or both of you is going to quit working and you're going to do something else. And you got to have a way stronger foundation than that.

But try that. And if it doesn't go well, call me back and say, you're an idiot. I took a knee in front of my wife, told her I was sorry, asked her what does she need, what does she want, and I started not doing any of the things in my toolkit. I started doing exactly what she said. Started helping with the home. I started helping with relationship stuff. I started holding her home. I started helping with the relationship stuff.

I started holding her hand. I started doing these things. And then I asked her on behalf of you, behalf of our kids, but on behalf of me, would you go to the doctor and tell him that you hate sex and that pain, it's painful, it hurts. Would you do that, please? I love you that much. And I'm asking you to love me that much. Let's see what happens there. Take a knee, brother. I have a sneaking suspicion that the whole concept around intimacy

is way, way bigger than what's going on in your bedroom right now. And let me add this. If she won't go to counseling, you can still go. Because what you're doing is not working. Let's try to find some new tools. Check out that book. I'll link to it in the show notes. Come As You Are by Dr. Emily Nagoski. It is phenomenal. It's a great way to start a conversation in your marriage. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own 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 behind costumes and masks, 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

be honest with yourself and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic 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. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and 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.com slash Deloney.

All right, let's go out to Louisville, Kentucky, or as America says, Louisville, and talk to Terica. What's up, Terica? Hey, how are you? Good, how are you? I'm okay. I'm at work. I hope that's good. Sounds fantastic. It's good. It's fun. All right. So what's up?

I was calling about our relationship with our son and his wife. My question was, how can we best communicate with our son and his wife that we feel hurt and left out by them always choosing her side of the family over us? We miss out on seeing our granddaughter, especially during the holidays, because they spend more time with our daughter-in-law's family and the multiple branches of her extended family. I hate that our son feels pulled both ways, and I would never ask him to choose us over his wife,

but I feel that they don't divide the holidays equally or fairly between our families. How has that conversation gone in the past? Well, it's been only with our son, generally. Sure. Because she doesn't like confrontation. Oh, boy. This just sounds gross.

Let me ask you this. Yeah. Has your husband taken your son out for coffee or a drink or whatever, however they communicate and they may not communicate at all, but say, Hey ma'am, I miss you. Miss my granddaughter. Is there something I've done? Is there something that we're doing to make people feel uncomfortable? Cause I miss you guys. Yeah, there's been conversations.

Both me and him have had conversations with him. We do get to see them some. It just seems like the holidays are a little one-sided. You know, we do, we do, they live close. So it's not like we don't see them at all. We do. She has divorced parents and divorced grandparents as well as a robust step family through her stepmom. And so there is a lot going on with her, you know, especially during the holidays.

But just this past Halloween, we got kind of left out in the cold and it really hurts. And that's not the first holiday it's happened. And I don't look forward to the rest of the holidays because of it. So have you guys thrown a holiday party and invited them and they just have shunned you and said, no, they've never completely not tried to come until Halloween this past Halloween. Um, usually we get five, 10 minutes here or there, or we maybe get an hour or we can squeeze you in for 30 minutes, you know, and they never have time to do like the full event because they've got three other things to do before the day's over with. What do you think it is? You're smart. I think she, I know.

Are y'all a lot? Are we a lot? I don't're smart. I think she, are y'all, are y'all a lot? Are we a lot? I don't think so. I don't think she agrees with everything we believe in politically or religiously. Okay. Um, but we don't force those things on her while she's at her house. Um, but she, you know, she has opinions and we respect them. Okay. We don't try to, you know, over, you know, parent, you know, she has opinions and we respect them. Okay. We don't try to, you know, over, you know, parent, you know, try to tell them how to

parent their child or anything like that. Um, I'm just worried. I'm getting kind of resentful, you know, that I have to beg for time with, for that, with them, both of them and her and my granddaughter as well. So you probably heard me say this on the show and it's one of the most heartbreaking things I can say, but behavior is a language. So if behavior is a language, what are they telling you? That they don't enjoy being with us.

Correct. Yeah. That they'd rather be with other people. No, no, no, that's you adding your part to the story yeah that's you adding that's adding your little dig the facts that you know is that they have repeatedly told you through their actions we would rather not be here and anything else you add to that is you making up more to the story. And so with what you have, it's not your son's job or your daughter-in-law's job

to fulfill your invented picture about what grandparenthood was going to look like. It is, I think, especially your son, his responsibility to be an adult and to have a hard conversation with his mom and dad, which he has refused to do. And I think it's fair to say, I'm assuming not. Now, you can tell me, no, you're wrong, John.

But I'm assuming not now you can tell me no you're wrong John but I'm assuming the conversation has not taken place with your husband and him off somewhere just them two over a steak

or whatever hey like I just need to know for my own soul do we do something do we believe in something do we make y'all upset do we make you mad Do we believe in something? Do we make you all upset?

Do we make you mad? Do we hurt your wife? What happened? And your husband tell your son, my expectation, dude, is just be honest with me. Just tell me the truth. Yeah. And I know you want to pitch in there

and you never let us do this. And I miss my granddaughter and I want, I get all that but I think that's what's led to this and maybe he has a very very immature wife maybe

but my wife has 5,872,000,000 cousins and all kinds of family and we alternate. Just how we do it. We both love being with both crews. Does that make sense?

Yeah, I agree. The husband and the son have not probably sat down face-to-face alone, but there has been phone conversations. Phone conversations aren't going to cut it. Not going gonna cut it and y'all live in the same community because here's what usually happens you get upset and your husband feels like he needs to take care of you and he calls and says hey man what's up can't come for 10 minutes and your son goes all right yeah we'll be there for 10 minutes oh we'll swing by and they swing by for 10 minutes. Oh, we'll swing by. And they swing by for 10 minutes and they leave. Is that about

what happens? Yeah, probably. Probably. I think your grownup husband needs to have a grownup conversation with his grownup son. I mean, I guess if boundaries are needed, I don't, I'm blind to those issues if that's the case, but I'd like to know them. Probably. That may be why they're creating pretty firm ones. Yeah. And you may have said something four years ago that you don't even remember saying that set off something in your daughter-in-law's heart and mind and body that she experienced when her family got divorced and she made a commitment that I'm not gonna be a part of X, Y, or Z.

And you might not even know. That's why I like the invitation. I'm gonna be weird and I'm gonna go first. And if he says, your son looks your husband in the eye and says, dad, there's nothing. We got a lot of family to see. And so this is kind of how we do it. Then you and your husband have to grieve the ever loving crap out of this.

Cause that just stinks. And it is. And then y'all can choose, um, to just extract every second of those 10 minutes you get. You can choose to send little videos and write letters and have a once a month or once every two weeks, we're going to send a book to the grandkids. We are going to, behavior is a language,

we're going to act into this little sliver of space we have to let you know that we love you. We love you. We love you. And if your mom and dad don't want us to see you, you're never going to not know that we don't love, love you to the moon and back. See what I'm saying? I mean,

you can do what you can with what you got. Yeah. We've been doing that. That's awesome. Until now. Yes. Awesome. So what happened in this particular Thanksgiving I mean

Halloween that made you upset um I asked ahead of time if they would just stop by because I knew they did probably already have plans to go somewhere and he said yeah we'll stop by for a few minutes I had a little goodie bag and a little coloring book I had bought for her and I wanted to see her in her costume um you know, and the evening just, you know, flew by and they never showed up and, you know, he texted me to say that she was cold and they went ahead and went home, you know, and never stopped by. So. I don't see a problem with you taking your son out for coffee saying, Hey,

that, that hurt. Your mom's at least worth a phone call to say that you're not coming. But I had stuff. He tried to call, he tried to call, but I was already crying and upset. And so I wasn't ready to talk about everything. Why'd you go there? Um, because this isn't the first time. And I mean, there's always an excuse, you know, there's always, it's never the truth. I don't guess, guess you know and why is that a story you've made up potentially made up you think your son

lies to you every time no I don't I just don't think he talks for her you know and I think he tries to not hurt our feelings okay

does he have does he have permission to hurt your feelings for me has he ever had permission to hurt your feelings? For me? Has he ever had permission to hurt your feelings as long as he's been alive? I guess he needed permission. He can do it if he wants. And he has. Not really. Here's what I'm saying. Was it his job to make like, hey, don't do that or your dad's gonna get mad or hey pick that up your

mother's coming home no i don't think so okay and it sounds like it sounds like the adults in his life need to have adult conversations hey honey i would love to take you out for dinner just you and me and you can do that And you can do that. His dad can do that. But I think this dancing around the topic, can you come by for 10 minutes? Sure, we'll be there. You didn't come. I'm weeping. Hey, mom, I'm trying to call. I can't take your

call. Then Thanksgiving comes around. Hey, can y'all swing by for a little bit just to have some pie? Sure. And then this whole, man, just cut all that out. Just sit down across the table adult to adult and say hey i love you and i had this picture in my mind that when you start having kids we'd have this big time together i know your wife has a huge family what have we done what have we done? What have I done? Have I made it hard? And I'm a big girl and you can tell me the hard truth,

but it's not adding up. Or say the thing I always say, behavior is a language and it's coming through loud and clear. You don't want to be around us. And you're allowed to do that. You're an adult, but it breaks my heart.

And like, what happened? I think you have to be that clear and that direct. And if he looks you in the eye and lies to you, then that's your answer. And I 100% know that's scarier than just playing at the 10 minutes by 10 minutes every couple of months. Because there's a finality to that potentially. There's a vulnerability to it. And he might say, my wife is simply uncomfortable with you and your politics and your religious stuff. She's uncomfortable.

And then you get to decide. I'm afraid. Go ahead. I'm afraid to completely lose them. Yeah, but now you're in resentment. You have lost them. You have lost them because you're not grieving it. You're just getting madder and madder. You're just simmering and simmering and simmering. And your son would say, mom, I tried to call. This thing happened. My kid was sick. I went to go home and you wouldn't take my call. That would be if he called my show right

now, that's what he would say. I tried to call my mom and let her know she wouldn't even take my call see how this just goes round and round and round until somebody flips all the lights on and says I'm done with this just let's sit down and talk yeah I agree we need come Jesus

meeting I guess is what you call it yeah but it's not a come to Jesus because when I think of come to Jesus I think of hey, this is the way it's going to be. And I don't think that needs to be this meeting. This is a truth-telling meeting. This is a vulnerable, you could really hurt me right now. And I'd rather be hurt and know the truth than just continue to do this silly little dance.

Because the silly little dance is just burning us both up. He's getting anxious every holiday season because he feels like he has to display his kid on a trophy. However, everybody in the world wants to see his kid. And you have expectations. His wife has expectations. His in-laws have expectations. And enough's enough's enough. That's why me and my wife started sending an email out.

Actually, I'm behind on that. I need to get that out. We started sending an email out to all of our family. Here's what we're doing this holiday season. We'd love for you to be a part of it. It might only be 24 hours this year. It might be a week next year, whatever that looks like. But here's what we're doing. And then the adults in our lives get to choose. Are they going to be upset? Are they going to be happy? Are they going to be overjoyed? Are they going to join us? Are they going to not join us? That's the choices they're making. Or my dad calls and says, hey, we really mean a lot to us if you did this.

Awesome. We're going to try to figure that out. But it's grown-up time talking to grown-up time. No more dancing. And by the way, I'm going to strongly suggest you and your husband don't do this together. Because it's going to throw your kid's body back into when he was nine years old and he got in trouble for something and mom and dad sat on either one of the chairs in the living room kind of thing. Don't do that. One of you at a time, probably preferably dad, but if dad just

won't do it, then mom can do it too. And it's not attack. It is not, hey, why have you been? That's not what we're doing here. It is, man, I had a different picture in my head and I've clearly done something and I'm sorry, but I miss you guys. What happened? I'm a grown up. I can take it, but please tell me the truth. Let's all choose reality and start from there. I hate this for you, Terica. I hate it, hate it, hate it. But maybe if you go in with a posture of humility and vulnerability, you might learn, yeah, mom, whenever we mention this, you say this, and we're just not going to be around that anymore.

Or, yeah, you make it real uncomfortable with this, this, and this. Maybe you'll hear that. Then you'll have an opportunity to change or an opportunity to say, well, that's just the way I am. And that's my hope for you guys. Let's start with calling it what it is. Let me know how that conversation goes. I'm going to be fascinated to hear how this one wraps up. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by

yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though, is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even

share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice. And here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it, and even I don't want to. This is

discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself and sometimes you do this with a group and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet earth, Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. go right now and change your life all right let's go out to as texans call it southern canada let's go out to oklahoma and talk to tyler what's up tyler hey how are you just dancing like it's 1999. What's up? That's awesome. Well, yeah, I wrote my question down. Can I just read it?

Of course. Awesome. So, yeah, so there's a group of parents. There's about five families from our kids' school, and we spend a lot of time with them. We do a lot of baseball games, you know, baseball practices, school events. And we started hanging out with everyone outside of that on, like, weekend trips, birthday dinners, random outings and the girls do dinner outings.

And, the guys, we all play in like a softball league together. And, uh, you know, we thought we were in the group and we did all these events together and we were,

we were close with everyone, but we found out that, uh, the rest of the group celebrated someone's birthday in the group, uh, without us. And that stung pretty good. And when we asked about their evening,

the next day at one of the kids games, uh, the group wasn't quite honest with us, which hurt. And, uh asked about their evening the next day at one of the kids' games, the group wasn't quite honest with us, which hurt. And, you know, we found out that night on social media what was going on. And we thought we were close with all these families, but the omission made us really question it. And so my question is, how do we build meaningful relationships with these families

that goes beyond just, you know, doing these random things that turns into a real friendship? You know, we see a lot of potential in them. And ever since this event, it really, I don't know, started making us question everything. Yeah, that stinks, man. It feel like to be left out, huh? Yeah, it did. It hurt pretty good. Do you have a guess? Well, we have a little bit of an update. I don't know if this is a guest. We started thinking about our relationship with all of them and noticed that we, there's a little bit of a socioeconomic gap between us and them. And so I think we were embarrassed by that. And so we weren't inviting them to our house, even though it's real small compared to things like that. And we started to notice that's actually helped a little bit. And just when we're around everyone, like leaning in and being extra relational about what's going on with their life.

I think that what you just said is really, really important. And I think that type of reflection is hard these days, but I'm proud of y'all for doing that. So if I hear you right, they do pretty well. Y'all aren't at the same level as they are. And y'all have some self-consciousness about it. Yeah, there's that. And we were burned by some friends in the past

and I think there's a little bit of that too. How were you burned in the past? We had some real close friends that just started getting really weird with the man in the friend group and then started just acting

like not great to one another, a little bit of backstabbing. We removed ourselves from that friend group, uh, through some time and space. And we actually moved cities too. So how'd you get burned by it? Um, I think we were hurt with, uh, so one of them, um, rented one of our houses, which was probably not the smartest decision. Correct. And, um, they, they came in, you know, we, if we thought it would be like wonderful and, you know, maintain the friendship and then they split up one day at dinner, but a list of demands on updates to the house that they expected us to make.

And then just started, you know, demanding different things as tenants, which yeah, hindsight is 2020. We probably wouldn't do that again. Um, yeah, you made a friend, you allowed a friendship to turn into a business transaction. Yeah. That's tough. I often push back. Sometimes I get a lot of flack for it, and that's fine. I think it's not wise to be best buddies with the person who writes your paycheck.

Yeah, I think we learned that. We won't do that again. Right. Here's what I'm hearing a pattern of. You guys wade into something, and then you just get hurt. Hurts our feelings. Hurts our feelings. Hurts our feelings.

And it sounds like you guys made probably not the wisest move by allowing some friends to move into a house that needed some work done on it and maybe your friends were a little over the top with their requests um but my guess is once they made those requests you were like yeah that's for sure my that that friend of ours like of course they would do that to anybody we knew that like now that we see it we're like oh yeah that's how they would do that to any landlord it wasn't just personal and they probably were they probably were like dude like the they got to do these of course they got to do these things you see i'm saying and then you have new friends that you're like well i'm we're kind of embarrassed because our house is small like i i and they might have all got together and been like hey let's just

we're we're just we're trying. We're trying to help you all out. We don't embarrass y'all because they clearly see what I'm saying. Yeah, totally. I think there's something about a going reckless all in. And reckless all in. Who cares how big your house is? And then I've got some kind of where we're at now.

We're just we don't know how to take it to that next step after that. Like if we go all reckless, like what does that look like? It feels like dating without a guidebook. Only if you're doing this for ROI purposes, I hang out with my friends cause I like my friends. Like I don't, I don't have a reference point for like how many times and are they doing this

without us? And what about this? I expect my friends to have other friends and i'm not dating them so like if i when i was exclusive with my wife if she was going out with other boys i would be like hey what's the deal but she didn't do that i don't have that same expectation for my adult friends i just firmly expect my adult friends especially my new ones to have friends with other adults. Oh, totally. Yeah. And I think we acknowledge that. And I think, yeah, I think we just want to know just how to build meaningful relationships, not for an ROI.

Invite people over. Yeah. And just keep getting over it. Just continue to lean into that. Yeah. I mean, nothing you've told me sounds weird. It sounds like a group of people of means said, hey, we want to do birthday party X. We don't want them to feel weird because they clearly don't want us around. They don't even have us to their house. They don't come to things whenever we're going on double dates, whatever.

Let's just do this together. And it sounds like they might have been trying to do it to help you all out because they don't want to make you all feel awkward. Yeah, sure. I think that's what we started telling ourselves the positive narrative, how you spun it. And then in inviting them in, it's gotten a lot like, we feel like the relationships are even better. And like, we're closer with people and enjoy, like they enjoyed being at our house. You know, we enjoy being around them and we've even done more stuff on

the weekend since leaning in. I think that initial hurt and just not being honest with us, you know, just hurt, you know, it hurts finding stuff out like that. Yeah. I mean, I get, I mean, I get, I get, I guess I get that. Um, I think y'all have some pretty firm expectations, some high expectations, especially being a new group to a new town with some potentially established friendships. Um, and also holding it with an open hand.

We all came together at the same time. Okay. And we've been hanging out for about three years right at the start of COVID. Okay. Yeah, I mean,

I just, dude, I wouldn't overthink it. And I've I've got some new friends that I made here in my town in my rural community. They're amazing.

David, Ricky, some of these guys are incredible. They're awesome. And they get together once a month or something to play, like, is it Dungeons and Dragons? Some game, right? They've never one time asked, hey, would you like to come over and play this game with us? I think they just kind of know. It's not really my jam. They get together, dude.

They get snacks. They stay up all night. It's this whole thing they're inviting their boys in. Not one time have I ever been invited. And would I like to be invited? That'd be awesome. Would I ever go? Never, right?

And they know that and so I'm so excited that my friends have this weird thing they do and I've never invited them to heavy metal band practice I don't even know if they can play instruments see what I'm saying I would take the hurt

and the dating language kind of out of it. I mean, it's cool to be like, man, honey, I wish we got invited to the birthday party. Yeah. We need to make sure we invite everybody when we do it. I'm kind of moving on with my day. I'm not going to give them that. You know what I mean? Totally.

That makes total sense. Yeah. And then, like you mentioned, when you start opening up, that's what people always ask me. How do I make friends? I always say you go first and you be weird. Because waiting for somebody else to go first or waiting for somebody else to invite you, waiting for somebody else to be vulnerable first, then it's just this weird, you know, do-si-do, here we go. Like promenade your partner on the old oak tree kind of thing. Everyone's just dancing around the reality.

And so it's something else when you invite somebody over like this is my house. This is how we roll. And yeah, that makes total sense. I think, yeah, I think that we've realized that we were closed off and potentially it was

on our shoulders or not, uh, being open first. And so, so yeah, we need to keep leaning in. I would just keep being weird, dude. I'd keep being weird. I And so, yeah. We need to keep leaning in. I would just keep being weird, dude. I'd keep being weird. I'd keep being weird.

And if a group of friends decides quietly they don't want you around, you can do one of two things. You can say, hey, man, I know there's a lot of stuff going on. You don't invite me. Have I made this weird? Or am I awkward or something? And they might say,

yeah, dude. Here's the X and the Y and the Z. Or they might say, no, dude, we just want to be like, we know every time we go out, you guys either don't eat or we don't want to make it weird. Or our kids have more in common with X or with Y. I see that happen a lot too, that the kids say, hey, our kid doesn't want to hang out with these kids. And so the parents kind of drift that way too. It could be any number of things.

At the end of the day, of course, grieve it. Man, we thought these were our friends and they're not. Or we thought these were our friends and they lied to us. That sucks. And then we're going to be about grieving it and then moving on to what's next. But it sounds like you guys have a pattern of having expectations about a relationship that

the other party doesn't have, and then getting, as you say, hurt when those expectations aren't met across the board. And so I'd either be super clear about my expectations or dude, just kind of loosen your grip on it a little bit. Y'all aren't dating. These are just grown up friends navigating a whole, like, work and family and kids, all of it, all the sports, all of it all together. Hold it with some empty hands. My guess is you're going to start spending more and more time with people,

fewer and fewer people, and those relationships are going to get tighter and tighter and tighter. It'll be awesome. Hang in there, brother. Appreciate you. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney 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, we are back and it's time for this week's, Am I the Problem? It's Me. Or is it? The name of the segment changes every time. Yeah. We haven't quite landed that plane just yet. We crash planes on this show.

All right. Let's do it. Here we go. My mother-in-law has never liked me and treats me very different than her other daughter-in-law. I put up with it

for about two years and played nice. Four years in now and I'm at the point where I'm done playing nice. Now she just like beats the crap out of her. two years and played nice. Four years in now, and I'm at the point where I'm done playing nice. Now she just beats the crap out of her. I'm not playing nice. It's like,

I'm Joanna Wick. I don't go over to see her. I don't strike up conversations at family gatherings. I just pretend she's not there. Well, she seems to feel guilty now and is pretending to be nice to me, coming over and bringing me treats and trying to pretend we're friends. Am I the problem for not trusting her and letting her in? I think this person is the problem for

even sending this email. Yes, she's the problem. I think she's the problem. Here's why. Here's why. If somebody's, in your opinion, is acting like a child, and your response is to act like double the child, then you have brought your immaturity to an immature situation. And then the narrative you're making up about this other person, and then I guess because she feels bad Now she's bringing these treats to pretend that you have no idea Have no idea I would love to unpack like how do you know that she was treating like be very specific about how she was

Clearly treating this other sister-in-law better than you How you clearly know she loves her more than you and How you showed her i'm just gonna pretend you're not there that is a sixth grader that's like a mature adult would say hey can we go to coffee have i made you upset like i have this picture of how this was gonna be and i at least give her an opportunity to to lie to your face or to get mad or whatever. I almost never see that happening.

I almost always see it like, oh, God, I had no clue. I wanted to protect your space. I wanted to love you the best way I can. Oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. And it sounds like mother-in-law is like, oh, crap. My daughter-in-law doesn't even like me. I'm going to use the tools I got in my toolkit. Gifts, showing up, being extra kind.

And then it's just, as Brene Brown says, what you go looking for in the world, you're going to find. That mother-in-law cannot win. She can continue to ignore, and she'll go see. She can be really kind, and she'll go see. She can bring her gifts, and she'll go see. Mother-in-law, there's nothing she can do. So I'm team mother-in-law on this one.

You disagree. So what do you think? No, I don't disagree. I think that it's possibly that it's just two immature people, that maybe they both are the problem. I can see that. But we don't know that because we don't know the mother-in-laws. We don't know the, like you said, there was no specifics, but I think there needs to be a conversation. Yes.

Yes. Maybe she is. Maybe it's like, oh, well, I've known other sister, you know, they, they've been dating since middle school or whatever.

And I've just known them forever. And I don't like you. Or she's a nurse. And I've been struggling with hemorrhoids. You didn't even know it. And we talk about, sorry, I know I didn't mean to.

I have a struggle with, with hurt toenails. And she helps me out with like, you never know, right? But like, if somebody calls and says, I did a really immature thing in the face of another immature thing, am I the problem?

I'm always gonna say yes. Right, because instead of bringing maturity, you came down to it. Correct. Yeah. So bring maturity to immature situations. Let somebody clearly state, and I'll say this a thousand times,

and I've said a thousand times, I'll say a thousand times more, get out of other people's heads. You don't know why they're doing what they're doing. If you have to live in that world where you're creating stories about other people, at least give them the opportunity by you acting like a mature adult,

putting it on the table and saying, you tell me is this true like really do you not like me i don't know i just don't think that's weird or hard no but it's rarely done but as my wife says john you're very awkward and you always have been so maybe that's just it i don't know who do you think's the problem? I think it's definitely the daughter-in-law, but I think there just needs to be a conversation that neither of them are willing to have or going to have.

The big question is, why did you send this in? No. Everybody thinks their mother-in-law is a narcissist based on the emails that we get on this show. Every mother-in-law ever of all time, except mine. Mine's awesome. But alas. Yours is too, Kelly? My mother-in-law ever of all time, except mine. Mine's awesome. But alas.

Yours is too, Kelly? My mother-in-law was phenomenal. Yeah, it's amazing. All right, we love you all. Stay in school. Don't bring immaturity to an immature world. We've got plenty of it. Bring grown-upness.

Bye.