The Dr. John Delony Show - Our Marriage Needs More Conflict Resolution Tools

Episode Date: February 22, 2023

On today’s show, we hear from - A woman hoping to get on the same page with her husband - A mom coping with her daughter’s mental illness amidst the sudden loss of her husband - A man wondering if he should leave a marriage he’s regretted for 13 years Lyrics of the Day: "Basket Case" - Green Day 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 Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. And even at the altar, you know, where we're getting married, I wanted to say no. I knew that it wasn't right, which has led to kind of one foot in, one foot out. Don't BS me. Like, why is she the wrong person? I've always been attracted to other women more than her. Yo, yo, this is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast that's ever existed, ever. History of time, humanity, and even before that.

So glad that you're joining us. If you want to be on this show, if you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. Fill out the form and we will get you on the show. Cannot wait. Please don't forget,

hit the subscribe button or the like button or whatever buttons are telling you to push now. So this shows up in your feed and your five-star reviews are super, super. I'm grateful for them. I'll say it that way. I'm really, really grateful. All right.

Let's go out to Anna in Queens, New York. What's up, Anna? Hello. Anna. Are you there? I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeah. What's up? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. How are you? Don't here can you hear me yeah what's up I'm sorry I'm hi how are you

don't be sorry to talk to you you're good it's it's an honor to talk to you how are you I am so nervous right now I'm like shaking are you kidding Anna seriously have you listened to this show oh my god like you wouldn't believe I watch your YouTube videos all the time so it's really weird to just hear your voice okay but listen you know I'm not very good at this. You have nothing to be nervous about at all. I think you're great at this. I assure you. So what's up?

How can I help? Okay, so I'm in preparation for this call because I know I was going to be super nervous, and I tend to ramble when I'm super nervous. I wrote everything down, so I'm just going to read off like a little script here. You're a, you are a saint. Good for you. I need to take lessons from you on how to just be a better human. So, okay, go for it. Okay. So my question is, uh, when facing arguments or disagreements in a relationship, how can I change my mindset from a me versus you mentality to an us versus the problem? So I wrote out some background.

So my boyfriend and I have been together for almost two years, and we moved in together back in June of last year. From the beginning, we were very open and honest about what we wanted out of a relationship. We shared our values and thoughts on what we wanted our futures to look like and found that we wanted the same thing. He's kind, thoughtful, a super dork, and all around hilarious, and I just love him to pieces. He's actually the reason how I became a listener of your show. He found Dave Ramsey in an attempt to help me figure out how to pay off my debt, and if my calculations are accurate, I should be debt-free by the end of this year. Way to go. Very cool.

Thank you. He has been such a rock and support system throughout this tumultuous journey, making sure to wipe my tears away when I've reached my limit, to offer me advice and words of encouragement when I need it most, and truly walking beside me every step of the way. When it comes to my part in our relationship, I truly struggle with voicing my needs, especially when it comes to arguments. What I try to say comes out entirely wrong and actually makes the argument much worse because it starts with me wanting to present why I'm feeling upset, but the way I communicate it ends up hurting him and escalating the situation. I want to stop right there. I'm going to dig in

real quick. Where does it, where does that come from? When was it communicated to you that your needs didn't matter? Oh, like essentially my entire life. Your whole life. Okay. Yeah. And so I want you, imagine you, you're in Queens, right? So imagine you left Queens and just were dropped into Mexico city.

Okay. And everyone's speaking Spanish. It would be really frustrating because you, you, you're trying to communicate. You're trying to be good human. You're trying just to get some food. You're trying to get some, like take care of your,

like leaky pipe in your apartment, but you don't speak Spanish. And so you're learning Spanish and you're practicing and you're trying, you're going to stumble through it. And then you're going to look up in two or three years later you're going to be almost fluent right because you've been practicing think of expressing your needs like that okay so just like more practice it's being very gentle with yourself and saying one of your needs out loud to your boyfriend, which is, I'm going to say this probably the wrong way. Is now a good time? And so he can go, okay. And if you tell him,

hey, I'm trying to learn how to express my needs, express what I need. And he may need to practice on hearing somebody else's needs because he may have grown up in a home where his job was to make sure everybody was okay. And if somebody has a need, then his body responds as you're failing, and mom's going to get pissed and rip the cabinets off the wall. And you see how couples do this dance together where I don't really know how to say my needs,

and I bottle them up, bottle them up, and then you just explode as a good New Yorker. And then he is a peacekeeper. I just got to make sure dad doesn't get pissed and mom doesn't drink too much, and I got to – and then all of a sudden, he gets this explosion, and he shuts down, and now we're in this loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loop. Is that fair? Yeah, that's fair. Should I continue? Yeah, of course.

Continue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. there um uh should i should i continue yeah of course continue yeah yeah um so uh the original issue gets pushed aside and then the argument is no longer about the issue i presented but more of how i'm hurtful and careless with my work uh so this has been an ongoing pattern in our arguments and in our most recent argument he said that he feels i approach issues with the mentality that it's me against him and he often feels like i'm attacking him when he's trying his best in our relationship. And when I thought about it, I realized he was right. I was gonna say, are you, do you attack him? So my perspective is like, so I never yell. I never curse. You know, I, I don't, I don't come off aggressive, but, um, when I'm upset, you can like taste it in the air.

Like I'm human, right? And I just get very quiet. And so he'll like, he'll very gently come over and be like, hey, are you okay? Or do you want to talk about it? And then I'll just very like calmly say, you know, I'm feeling this because of, you know, you're doing this or you're not doing this and i would appreciate if you did that but then he's like you don't necessarily just because you're speaking calmly to me doesn't mean that your words are oh dude that's an old yeah that

is an old uh um that's an old male trick that where you become this radioactive center. My wife calls it Sunday afternoon, dad, like this, like just sitting on the couch in this pulsing energy and anybody who's like, Hey, what's wrong? And you're like, nothing. Why are you always bothering me and hassle? And all of a sudden it's like, Whoa, right. You said something really, really important. You said, when he asks he asked you hey what's wrong you said you're making me feel dot dot dot dot and i call bullcrap on that you are choosing

to feel xyz and that's the real question why you, why is your body shutting you down? Why is it, feelings are like road signs. Why is your body telling you exit here? Why is your body telling you slow down and go one mile an hour? Because there's a wreck ahead. Why is it telling you that? That's, it's the, the gosh whenever someone says this word i roll my eyes but it's so true that's mindfulness why is my but it's being curious why is my body

so mad right now because that guy loves me we're on the same team i really wish he'd pick his socks up so stupid that he won't pick his socks up but i know he loves me why is my body responding as though we're breaking up and this is it and he slept with my best friend like you see what i'm saying like it just gears up that's where you take ownership of how your body's responding to a situation and then from that you you might have some very very very real needs you are absolutely disrespecting me you are abusing me you are in the same way you can by the way you can control the house not by yelling not by swearing but just being this this gravitational pull of all joy and happiness he can hide his frustration and and disappointment and anger and shame with a big old smiley face and i'm bringing you your cup of coffee just like you like it he can hide there too

oh my god that's actually pretty pretty funny because he he does say that um when we had this our most recent argument he did mention that like the things that you're upset about, he's like, they aggravate me too, because you do them as well. But I choose to look at the bigger picture, right? Like, I love this woman. You know, I see a future together. We're going to get married. Like, this is the one for me. And she's going through a lot right now.

Like, I work two jobs, you know, because of being on this debt-free journey and everything. So I'm constantly busy and tired. And he's like, I can overlook like if she leaves her teacup on the table, but if I do it, it's a whole thing. So he really wishes that I could just take a step back and just look at everything that we have and every like, you know, all the love that we have in this house and, you know, how much we love each other and support one another and just think like, you know, that's enough. Like he's, and not to, not to like, he's not saying that my needs are not important, you know, but he's like, and he's more than happy to help meet my needs, but he would really appreciate it if at first, I just kind of looked, took a step back and looked at everything and see how I feel after I take that.

Would you like that? That sounds like a much more peaceful way of living. A hundred percent. But it's just, I don't know, like something happens. Like I just, like I see red. Yes. And I'm not violent. I'm not violent, but I'll kill him to death.

So here's what I want you to do, okay? Two things. Is there a cultural divide here? Y'all have different racial, ethnic backgrounds? Yeah. Okay. This is super common, too, where there's a – I don't want to say a cultural mismatch because it makes it sound like

it's dysfunctional, but there is just, here's the way we talk in our house, right? I was talking to the great master therapist, Terry Real, Terrence Real. And I was asking him about yelling because I've just come to believe that yelling is abusive. And I think his example was, it is unless you're a family in New Jersey. And that's the way you talk to each other. It's just the, ah, shut up. And it's part of the culture, right? Or I grew up in Texas. And my friends who were first-gen Mexican-Americans who, very different approach to like,

hey, there's an issue here. I got real stoic and quiet, and they may get fill in the blank, right? So I think there's a call out the cultural mismatch there, or hey, I'm not, you're going to love me? What is the different ethnic backgrounds? He's Asian. Okay.

And I'm a white Jewish. Oh, fantastic. This is going to be spectacular. Spectacular, right? So I could make all the generalizations here, right? That I learned in grad school. I won't do that, but ask yourself, has he been trained to respond in way X and you've been trained to respond in way y Okay, and there may be a mix match there So you may be you may be swimming more upstream than you think it may not be that you're broken It may be that the way you were trained to engage in an issue Is was really helpful in this context

We're gonna have to create new context together in this new relationship. Okay, so that's number one. Number two, on a very practical scale, here's what I want you to do. This is going to cost you probably 79 cents. Are you ready for this investment? Yeah. Okay. You may have to work a third job to pull this one off, but we can do it. Okay. I want you to go down to a corner market like CVS or Walgreens or something like that. I want you to get a deck of, um, I want you to get a package of, uh, note cards. Okay. I've got, I've got a hard writing deadline and I've been up into the mornings for the last two weeks and my words aren't coming. So I want you to get a pack of note cards. And when you get mad, when you see a quote unquote problem,

I want you to pull out one of those note cards and write the problem down. And before you engage him, before you start picking at him or yelling or starting to see, as you're starting to see red, I want you to put that card down on a table and I want you to have the conversation about that problem with him sitting next to you on your side of the table. So you are both facing the quote unquote problem, the issue. Okay. And here's what that's going to do. You're going to see a cup that he left out overnight. He's going to have like that little bit of coffee left in the rim. It's staying in the cup and it's just gross. And it's going to be sitting on the coffee table and you're going to see it and you're going to get insta-pissed because that coffee cup means he doesn't love

you and he never listens to you and he's disgusting and he's going to raise kids who are slobs. You're off to the races. I want you to grab a note card in that moment and write it down. And write down on that note card, he left out coffee cup, comma, he doesn't love me or respect me. And I want you to set that on a table. And then I want you to call him in. And then say, hey, we need to talk about a problem. You see how absurd this is? And he's going to sit by you and you're going to be like be like you left a coffee mug out And my body feels like you hate me

And y'all can both just stare together shoulder by shoulder side by side at this problem And i'm making fun of the problem. Some of the problems may be big, right? You don't come home when you say you're going to Um, you are you you pretend to be a champion, but you really are pretty subversive about this thing. I don't feel safe around you. You pressure me to do things I don't want to do. So some of these things may be real. But if we're in this relationship together, remember this line.

If you win and he loses, you both lose. Okay? So going to war against him is not going to help the relationship solving these challenges that will pop up. And by the way, these will pop up for the rest of your relationship with him forever and ever and ever. Amen. Until the end of time, the goal is not to come up with a challenge free or disagreement free relationship. That's, that's a boring way to live. That means neither of you are trying very hard We got to come up with a way that we can always come back to the table on the same side and solve these things together

Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes perfect sense and have the courage And the strength to say i'm My wife has done this to me. Okay. I'll just give you some insight into my house She will get she'll see red on something and I'll take it so personal and she will look at me and not smile, but kind of smile. And she will say, John, not everything is about you. Not all of my smiles on all of my happiness is because of you. And not all of my anger is because of you. Not everything's about you. And he's going to have to learn

that sometimes when you see red has nothing to do with him. Right? And he's going to have to learn to not take things so personal in the same way that you might have to learn to back up 30,000 feet,

detach a little bit and realize, hey, we got it. There's a much longer game we're playing here. He's really tired. He's exhausted. He didn't leave the cup out because he hates me. He left the cup out because, man, what is going

on in his life? That's a shift from judgment to curiosity, from anger and rage to hospitality. Dude, there is a wet towel in the middle of the floor. It's because he's disgusting and gross and I hate him. Or there's a wet towel on the floor. What in the world is happening in his world where he just left it there? Something must be going on. One of those is a shift of curiosity, one of those. But again, put wet towel on that piece of paper, on that note card, put it in the desk and be like, how do we solve this one? And man, you're going to find that most of your problems most of the time dissipate like a vapor. And the real challenges, the real relational issues that pop up,

you're going to be able to look at them side by side and say, hey, let's go tackle these things together. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. So back in 2021, a woman named Ruth called from Chicago, and she called to talk about her daughter had received a schizophrenia diagnosis, and she was calling to ask about what should she do, what happens next. And she has a follow-up call here. Ruth, are you there? Yes, sir.

Okay. Every time I get a follow-up call, I always, they don't tell me what the follow-up call is. And so you can be calling to be like, oh, by the way, you completely screwed this up. My whole, like, whatever. Or it can be really positive. So tell me, tell me what's going on. Okay. Well, I was meaning to write you for a couple of months now, and I just finally decided that I needed to write that letter and give you an update.

Your advice, because our specific question was that she wanted to share her struggles and her possible diagnosis with her friends and kind of live more openly with us. She was feeling very alone. And her dad, my husband, and I were really fearful about kind of the exposure that that would give her, especially since the diagnosis wasn't formalized yet. And so your advice was to kind of work around that and give her some more trusted adults at school to talk to and some escape routes if things were bad at school. So we did that. She had, we called it the golden ticket and she could leave class if she needed to. She never even used it, but like having that ability to escape was kind of comforting.

Yeah, absolutely. And we talked to her counselor and we brought them in on it. If I remember, did Junko get some more, some additional medical testing? She'd been doing medical tests for over a year basically when we talked. Um, and we had, you know, all of it laid out in front of us, blood work and MRIs and EEGs and PET scans and the whole thing. And schizophrenia is, is a diagnosis of exclusion. You know, you check everything else and then maybe that's what you're left with. Um, and that's what we were really close to. And, um, like teenagers do sometimes we made a plan and then she just did something else.

Uh, she went and told some friends of hers. Um, and I found out about it. She kept it from us. Um, and it was a huge fight. Um, not my most composed moment as a parent. Um, and it was, it was really rough and I felt very scared for her and it came out as anger and that was bad can i hold on one second um can i give you some peace there you just said that better than i've heard it articulated by almost anyone i've ever talked to you okay thanks you were scared for your daughter and it came out as anger. For sure. Have you told her since then that you're sorry?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. We picked ourselves up and we dusted each other off and we went back at it. I never want you to beat yourself up. I can hear it on you. It makes perfect sense that a child wanted to reach out to some of their peers and say, hey, I'm unique, but I'm also just like y'all. And so that doesn't surprise me in the least. And wanting you to really protect your daughter, and we don't know what this is like, and it's unknown, and let's just be safe, stay close to the cave. That makes sense too, right?

And so, yeah, you probably said some things and yelled and screamed and kicked and what again hopefully didn't kick anybody but um you got mad and then you said i'm sorry and i think that's a that's a beautiful wave in your relationship so good for you i want you to set that brick down though man okay thank you um so there's also other good news um we were the doctor we ended up with had all this laid out in front of him. He was a neuropsychologist and he said, medically, the only thing that we're left with is schizophrenia. He said, but I'm just not comfortable with it. He says, it doesn't match enough. She's not experiencing any of the other things that should be affecting her life and her schoolwork and her relationships. Um, and he sent us to one more guy and, um and a pediatric neurologist who ran a test we'd

already had, but he ran it again and he found something small that doesn't usually have a lot of symptoms with it. He said, try this medication. And we fiddled with medication for a while and she is no longer being bothered by her symptoms at all. And I'm really, really grateful for those doctors. So was she having hallucinations? Nope. What was she having? She was solely having visual hallucinations. Okay. No auditory.

Okay. So no voices, just seeing. Yep. Okay. So a distortion of her visual field. And they didn't give up. And I don't say a schizophrenia diagnosis isn't medical professionals giving up, but your doctor didn't take the easy route,

didn't just do 15 minutes of, okay, it looks like this. Here's some medication for the rest of your life. They said, I want to keep digging because something doesn't add up. Good for you. Good for your doctors. That makes me, that gives me,

that restores my faith in the whole system, man. That's so good. And I wanted to kick that back to you because you had told me the same thing. You know, just keep asking, keep fighting. This may be where you end up, but it doesn't have to be. And you can keep working for that. So it was nice to have a little backup. And what a blessing.

I know people really thumb their nose at medication. What an incredible gift. And yes, people are way over Medicaid and all the blah, blah, blah. But what an incredible gift that we live in a sliver of history where there is a medication for this particular thing that

gives your daughter her life back. That's amazing. So good. It was really important for me to kind of just focus on the positive for a couple of minutes and write that letter to you. It's been really bad at our house on some other fronts. So I wanted to be grateful for that. Well, thank you.

Thank you. So they said you have another question. I don't know if it's really a question. I just, the reason it's been so bad and the reason I was up late at night writing this letter is that my husband was killed in a car accident two months ago. Oh, good God, Ruth. Yeah. What happened? Single vehicle, no faults, lost control vehicle on his way home from work.

I'm so sorry. Thank you. from work I'm so sorry thank you so yeah I don't know that there's a question that encapsulates that you don't need to ask

a question every day just know I'm sitting with you the next thing yeah I mean that's I mean what else are you

going to do right nothing what was his name I mean, what else are you going to do, right? Nothing. What was his name? You don't have to say it. That's okay. Will you tell me something great about him?

He was just, he was so much more than the breadwinner. He was the sole income for the house. And so that's really scary to face going forward, but it's all of the other things because everything is so much quieter. He was the one who made us laugh and he was the one who told us it would be okay when it, and we believed him and he was the one who fixed everything when it was broken. So it's just really different. I have five children, 17 down to seven. Oh, man. Wow.

It's really bizarre for me to try to navigate just myself, but I'm also navigating for other people to, you know, try to help them process that. And it's a lot. I don't know that there's a lot of processing that you can help with. Yeah. I want you to relieve yourself of that. That's a heavy, heavy burden. Right? Your focus

is being with. Does that make sense? And I know it's easy for you as a parent of five kids to get caught up in just the I gotta put that away because these kids got to eat and these kids got to get to school and these kids got to keep that air conditioner

running and the heater going or whatever. But if you haven't, honor him, honor yourself and honor your kids by letting them see you hurt too. Yeah. Yeah, we're trying. them see you hurt too. Yeah. Yeah, we're trying. And that has certainly happened. Okay. Are you back?

Or is this still a fuzzy, foggy dream and you roll over and he's still there? But he's not there. No, it's horribly real. Okay. Who's walking with you during the season? We have some good, good support from our extended family and from our church family and a lot of people looking out for us in a lot of ways. And we're just, everybody takes a piece of the puzzle and hopefully it comes together somehow. That's a very evasive answer.

Let me ask you this way. I want to protect you. Do you have two or three or four women that you can text and call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and say, I need you to come get his shoes out of the house. I need you to come over to my house right now because I just need someone to hold my hand and lay here by me. Yeah. You have that? Okay, good. Do you promise that you'll lean on them? Yes. Okay.

I'm going to tell you something hard to hear. Okay. This will get heavier before it gets lighter. Mm-hmm. Okay. There's this sense that we're over the hump. is the way this is and then we're just gonna plow through what comes next and this it happens in waves okay and there's not any contrary to popular belief there's not a lot you can do to fortify yourself for the big wave right what you can do is surround yourself

with people who will hold your arms up and hold you above water when they hit and they will hit okay and i'm not telling you that to be to be a jerk i'm telling you, I love you. No, it just is. Um, so yeah, I'm so, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Thank you. And for what it's worth, one of those nights where I stood there and just stared at the ceiling and said, I can't do this. I just decided to write about something good that turned out right. So that's where it got us here. That's awesome. Well, thank you for honoring me by telling your story. And thank you for honoring your husband.

Sounds like he's an amazing guy. Honoring his story. Say a couple of those things. So I'm thinking about just a dad driving home from work today who's kind of like, is suddenly going to be snapped back into reality that they've actually have the privilege to drive home today i hope so what are what are some things your husband brought to you sound

like he brought light and he brought joy and he brought laughter what are some give me two or three things that he brought to your home that you want to communicate to other knucklehead guys out there driving home with their dead-eyed loosened tie around their neck um he he laughed insatiably and he laughed at everything and and that sound is missing now and we miss it terribly and you know your your wife maybe rolls her eyes and says, oh, you're such a child, but you bring something when you bring laughter. And it's okay. You can tell fart jokes with your third grader.

Thank God, because otherwise I would be in a mess. I know your wife rolls her eyes, but it's okay. Almost out of the back of her head sometimes. Can I tell you this too? If no one's told you this, there's going to come a moment if it hasn't happened already, when you're going to laugh really, really hard about something. And then you're going to feel guilty about it. You're going to have a good morning when you get the kids all off to school and nobody breaks down and even some of the younger ones help with the other kids lunches and it just kind of happens and all of a sudden you're going to realize that this is life moving forward and then you're going

to feel guilty you're going to feel sick about moving forward. And I want you to know that that's a normal part of the process and you're not screwed up and you're not broken. And it's okay to feel joy again. And it's okay to laugh again. And it's okay to be laughing and then all of a sudden start crying all at the same time. And it's okay to have a bunch of people over and then five minutes in, you're like, everybody out. Everybody out. Not today. All that's okay.

Yeah. minutes in you're like everybody out everybody out not today all that's okay yeah we sat down the morning after my kids and i and we said none of us know what we're doing and so good we just wrote new rules and they're they're literally on a piece of loose leaf taped to one of the doors of our house so good and then hey once a month write them again you can be okay and you can be not okay. Either one's fine. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Do you have a, you have a group? Have you sat down with a group of, do you meet with anybody who has lost people? Lost somebody? There's a, there's a grief group through our church and then there's a family counselor that's meeting with us twice a week. You're amazing, Ruth. If I can help you in any way along the journey, let me know. Okay. I'm going to send you, stay on the line and I'm going to send you every single

deck of questions for humans I got about families and kids and all that. So that way, when it gets quiet in the house, some, there's always going to be a deck laying around that you can pull up and be like, all right. and you can pull something up. All right. I'll give it a go. I don't know if it's going to help at all. I'm just trying to think of something I can leave you with, add a little bit of joy into your home.

But it's going to be a shadow. Hey, I had a guy let himself into my house and leave casseroles in the fridge. So deck of cards, I'll take it. I mean, yeah, that's kind of creepy on top of weird. He's a good guy. We do know it. You should put a sign on your front door that's like, I like your food. Please don't break in. I'll kill you.

That'd probably be good. That's a perfect example of gosh, sometimes men try to help and what are you doing? What are you doing? It's alright. It is, but it's super help. And what are you doing? What are you doing? It's all right. It is, but it's super not.

Don't break into something. Golly. Oh, man. Hey, we love you, Ruth. And anything we can do, please don't hesitate to let us know. I'm sorry. I'm heartbroken with you. And that's all I'm going to say. We'll be right back. We did a Valentine's week last week that was about relationships and marriage and sex,

intimacy, all that. And some of the calls that we got during sex and intimacy and relationship week for Valentine's day we had hearts like flying around on the screen behind us some of the calls got really heavy they were hard calls but they were very important calls and so we didn't end up using them in the Valentine's episodes because we were going for a very specific ethos, right? A very specific tone. But I also didn't want to lose the call. I didn't want to lose the moment that I was able to share that somebody honored me with sharing with them. And man, a couple of these calls, we get questions about this stuff all the time. So they're going to help a whole lot of folks. So this is one of those calls.

You're going to see, like I said, you're going to see hearts flying around. It's going to be like, what is happening? I'm wearing a different shirt, right? If you're watching this whole episode, if you're listening to it, you won't know any different. But I really thought this was an important call. So I want you to check this out. Let's go to Ryan in Phoenix, Arizona. What's up, Ryan?

Hey, how are you? Thanks for taking my call today. You got it, man. What's up, Ryan? Hey, how are you? Thanks for taking my call today. You got it, man. What's up? So let me give you a little backstory here. Um, been married for almost 14 years, uh, married kind of young at 22. Um, so it's just kind of the culture of where we grew up and religion and the expectation is you get married young, you start having kids, right? And I tried calling off the engagement, didn't feel like it was right, still wanted to date more, and was convinced partially that maybe it was just anxiety that I should still go through with it. That led up to

kind of the wedding day. And even at the altar, you know, where we're getting married, I wanted to say no. I knew that it wasn't right. And so, you know, with these thoughts and these feelings, so I've been struggling with feelings of regret, second guessing, pretty much our entire marriage, which has led to kind of one foot in, one foot out, never really fully committed 100%, and recently led to a, I feel like this kind of led to a recent affair that I had. Um, and so I'm really struggling right now with this thought process. Do I stay, do I go, she wants to make this work. Um, why would she want to be married to somebody who has resented her for 15 years, 14 years? That is a very good question I don't know and I've asked her that so I

why is she the wrong person and I want you to articulate it very specifically and don't BS me like why is she the wrong person? I've always been attracted to other women more than her. Okay. So say that in a way that is not a circling passive aggressive way. You're not attracted to your wife. I don't know how to word that. Just yes or no, man. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's what it comes down to. Okay.

What about her do you not find attractive? She was just, or hasn't ever really just been my type, if that's even a thing. And I struggle saying this out loud i know that's why i'm that's why i'm asking you to do it because i want to i want to get out of you live your whole existence is in your feelings sure and it's the articulation of some of these things that really turns the lights on the feelings because feelings aren't are terrible gps directors they're fantastic indicators of wreck car wreck ahead you need to exit here but they're terrible um for giving directions and your whole life is run by feelings that's why i'm pushing you i want you to articulate very specifically because let's i'll just throw something out there. Okay. And I know I'm making it uncomfortable. I know it's hard what I'm asking you to do. Um, let's say your wife is,

uh, you don't find her pretty cause you think she's overweight and you have always been attracted to someone who, um, is not overweight or in your mind isn't overweight and you fixate on her weight and you lean in on, Hey, what what about this and what if we ate like this and what if we did this or whatever or there's some physical feature of hers it's just not like i just think other people are whatever that is feeling after feeling after feeling after feeling after feeling and so i want you to own here's a big shift. You need, you've got to make you you're talking with what I call distance language.

This led to this, which led to this, which led to me having an affair. I call bull crap on that. You did have somebody that you felt all along. I shouldn't be marrying. I shouldn't be marrying. And you married him.

That happens. That happens. Yeah. And then every day for 14 14 years you've chosen to be miserable that is a conscious daily choice you have made you consciously chose to sleep with somebody that wasn't your wife nothing led to another thing you chose that and i want you the reason i'm saying that directly is i want you to own it because that's the only way you can then take ownership of what happens next because you're going to be the guy that's like is going to slowly drown your wife until she finally gets the courage to leave you because you haven't had the courage to you see what i'm saying yeah or the courage to say after 14 years i've been lying to you.

I actually am not attracted to you in this way. Or I think you're beautiful and I think you're wonderful. I'm actually attracted to her too or her also or to other women too. Does that make sense? So there's something about saying things out loud and truthful even when they hurt and are awful and make you sound like a complete and total ass, which I think you can be right. So it's all of that in together, but you're living in this mushy emotive feeling world. And usually if you listen to the show, I'm having to take big tough guys and get them to sit in the emotional feeling world. You're the opposite, man. You got to get up and face reality. Yeah. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And so, okay. So you, you let's, let's, I don't think it's true, but let's, let's go with it. I'm going to trust you. You made a mistake getting married, right? Yeah. And you're married. Yep.

Why have you chosen misery for 14 years? Good question. I feel. There you go go I don't care about your feelings why have you chosen I am a people pleaser okay excellent and I don't like ruffling feathers and I do that to the detriment of myself you do that to the detriment of your kids and to the detriment of your wife. Yes. And your faith community. Does that make sense? Yes. Can you think back to moments when y'all were in sync and connected? Yeah, I think back and I've thought about this. My entire marriage hasn't been a complete sham. I've been happy.

We've had happy moments. And I have a hard time sparsing out what was different then versus now, knowing that I've always had these underlying thoughts and regrets. Isaac, this sounds so crazy, but I don't think you have. Hmm. As the great Brene Brown says, what you go looking for, you're sure to find. Sure. Tell me about this affair.

Where'd you meet this person? Work. Yeah. And how was it? Exciting. Yeah. Honestly. It how was it? Exciting. Yeah. Honestly. It was exciting and?

And it fulfilled desires that I've had for a long time. Okay. About being with somebody that I was more attracted to. What was beneath that attraction? What do you mean? Tell me if I'm off. You've been being told what to do your whole freaking life. Yeah.

And you've been riding through life on other people's train tracks your entire life. Yeah. And somebody else essentially picked out your wife for you. Somebody picked out the life for you. They picked out your church. They picked out the building. They picked out the little white picket fence around the house you were going to live in. Somebody else picked out the clothes that your kids are going to wear. They picked out the schools they're going to's rage. And you have put that on your wife. And then somebody comes along and yes, beautiful, beautiful coworker, sexy coworker, laughs at your jokes, all those things. Maybe does things in bed that your wife won't do, like all that stuff.

But beneath that is somebody looking you in the eye and saying, you're freaking Ryan. You can do anything. And for the first time in 14 years, probably 30 years, you felt alive. Am I right or wrong? Yeah. No, you're right. And are you still with that person? With the affair?

Uh-huh. No. Did the air run out of that real quick? No. I actually changed jobs. Okay. But if I'm being honest, I would love to go back. Okay. Yeah.

Have you given up on your marriage? And that's a question you've got to answer honestly. Because if you're out of your marriage, dude, have the courage to stop dragging your wife behind a moving car. It's cruel, man. I agree. I agree. I agree. And that's where I have these huge conflicting arguments in my brain every single day. It's a real, real simple argument.

There's not conflicting back and forth. I am going to never call that woman again. Yes, she's sexy. Yes, she's beautiful. Yes, we had a wild fun time and I felt alive, but it was cancer. I am going to never call her again. When pictures of her naked body pop in my mind or things we were doing together, when that pops in my mind, I'm going to intentionally choose to not think about it. I'm going to have another thought ready to go. And I will double down every inch of my, every second of my life will be committed to my wife moving forward

we're gonna make this thing work it's that or it's i'm out and both of them take bravery and you haven't displayed that yet no no because i'm afraid to yeah and you should be and i'm gonna tell you this 1000% And the people in the YouTube comments, bro Don't read them, because they're going to be mean to you Or they're going to be like You just live your own life, YOLO, or whatever Right

What's going to happen is You're going to go leave your wife, move into an apartment You got kids too? Three Okay, you're going to leave your three kids, you're going to leave your wife And you're going to move into an apartment And you're too? three okay you're gonna leave your three kids you're gonna leave your wife and you're gonna move into an apartment and you're gonna have that hollow feeling but this other girl's gonna come over

for a season and then you're gonna realize one day you're gonna roll over when she spends the night and you're gonna catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror and you're gonna realize you went with you

to that new bed yeah and you don't to realize you went with you to that new bed. Yeah. And you don't like Ryan. You never have. Yeah. And so you're trapped trying to get somebody else to make you feel worthy. And you found somebody at work, man. You found somebody that made you feel valuable and alive and excited, all those things.

I believe with all my guts, any couple, any couple can reclaim that in their marriage if they both decide to. And make no mistake, your wife's got to participate in this too. Yeah. Right. But she can't participate in something that you haven't been honest about or that you've hem-hawed about, or you've been like,

man, I just, can we like spice some things up? And she's like, I don't really know what that means. And you're like, well, you know,

I need you to do these things so that I feel alive. Yeah. Or this particular sex act makes me feel alive. Or we go away for the weekend. Or when you do this with the kids, it makes me feel dead inside. Can we try something else? And that starts with you being brave,

not blaming her for not doing stuff. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. So what are you gonna do i don't know and that's honestly that's where i'm struggling the most is knowing what to do she wants to make

it work does she know you cheated on her she knows yeah where you've been in counseling and therapy um she would not still be wanting to make it work if you've been honest in therapy and you haven't been okay have you no i i feel like i have been yeah i you've told her you're not attracted to her and why i i have told her all of the reasons um and she still wants to make this work yeah and so you know i'm filled with guilt i'm filled with shame i'm filled with regret and you know making one decision one way or the other, I'm afraid that if I make a decision, will I continue to regret and then have even more regret on top of regret if I make the wrong decision? And so we've been stuck in this holding pattern of going to therapy and talking and her knowing that I'm still on the fence of not sure what to do. And it's cruel. Um, I, I agree. I feel like I am holding her hostage. You're holding yourself hostage.

Yeah. You, here's what I, here's what what I think you tell me I'm crazy I think you love this woman that you're married to and I think like all marriages she's not perfect and you're not either yeah

and I think you think so little of yourself and saying your needs out loud and saying dreams of yours out loud and going and actually getting out of your own freaking head and doing

doing acting making moves in your life in your career as a dad as a husband as a lover like getting after it

instead of just sitting there and stewing in these in these loopty loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loops man and i think you have cast all of your feelings of depression all of your feelings of sadness and of well you know life you've dumped all of that on your wife because you were unsure of the marriage in the first place i believe you on that you're unsure of it absolutely 100 absolutely 100 but i think the question you've got to ask yourself is what choice am i going to make moving forward and dude you can't just sit there stood up man you got to make a call because you're drowning you are teaching your kids this is what love looks like this is what a a wife this is how you this is how you

value and love her this is what being a decisive dad looks like a co-parent and a co-creator of a home looks like man they're worth more than that you are too i think though until you decide that you're worth being well and you get whole You're going to continue on this loop-de-loop man And I promise you you're going to if you leave your wife and go to this other person you're going to it's going to be several months Before either she leaves you and you get into one of these loop-de-loop I don't know what we want for dinner and I don't and it's going to start looping on you or um You're going to realize ohing on you or, um, you're going to

realize, oh crap, I went with me. I hate that you're in this position, man. Um, it's, it's, it's, you've got to start taking ownership right now, right now. Here's the choices I've made up to now. I've chosen misery. I've chosen dishonesty. I've chosen infidelity. And you can also choose to completely hit control or delete and become a different person. You can choose that today. Or you can choose to be the guy that left his wife and kids for the woman at work. You could choose that too. But for God's sakes, make a choice, man. Stop dragging your family through it. 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, I don't know why I always come

back in like that, like I'm in some kind of metal band. So we're back and we wrap up today's show, one of my favorite bands of all time. I still remember back in high school when their Kerplunk record came out, followed by the smash hit album titled Dookie. You knew I was going to love this band. It's Green Day. The song is called Basket Case and it goes like this. Do you have the time to listen to me whine about nothing and everything all at once? I'm one of those melodramatic fools, neurotic to the bone, no doubt about it.

And sometimes I give myself the creeps, and sometimes my mind plays tricks on me. It all keeps adding up, and I think I'm cracking up. Am I paranoid? Or as Kelly often asks, am I just stoned? I don't know. We'll see you soon.