The Dr. John Delony Show - People Think I’m Arrogant and I Don’t Know How To Change That Perception

Episode Date: December 1, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.   People tell me I come across as arrogant and I don't know why Husband is a counselor & I worry about the intimacy that comes along with opposite sex clients I want to adopt but my husband doesn't Lyrics of the Day: "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" - Kenny Chesney   Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage   Resources: Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation   Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to a woman who is dealing with arrogance and self-loathing. We talk to a woman whose husband is a counselor and she doesn't like him talking to other women about sex. We talk to an awesome young mom who's about to adopt a foster child and maybe more. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up, everybody? This is John with the Dr. John Bologna Show. Man, I'm glad you're here. This show, we talk about everything. If you want to be on this show, I'm talking about everything. We don't talk about swimming. I guess we could, I guess, if you want to call it swimming, but I don't know a lot about swimming. I'm terrible at it. But we talk about mental health, relationships, parenting, holiday season stuff, politics.

I don't care what everyone talks about. Give us a call or go to online. Go online to JohnBelloni.com slash ask, A-S-K. Fill out the form. You can call us at 1-844-693-3291 leave a message and kelly will call you back speaking of ben is on the mic yes sir that sounds good hey what was your uh childhood nickname we were talking about this before oh i was a drummer so i always tried to get people to call me ben jamming because that was cool oh no it's not—Kelly's like, no, you can't nickname yourself.

I found that out. Oh, no. So what did they morph it to? Because middle school and high school kids are evil. I don't know. I think I just blocked it all out after that, and it didn't work. It's just been a steady descent into madness, which is how you ended up on this show. So we're glad you're here.

Kelly? Well, when I was little, because kids are mean, it was Kelly with a belly full of jelly. So what people don't know was Deloney sent an email this week, and supposedly a typo was to jelly, and it brought up a lot of childhood memories. Did I write that? You did. I thought James wrote that back. No, that was you. Oh, I called you Jelly first?

I started all this? You called me Jelly. Yeah. Oh, I did not intend. Yeah. I've probably slept four hours in the last three weeks combined. So I didn't mean to call you Jelly. I'm sorry for bringing all that up.

It's okay. Dang. Well, my last name rhymes with like a processed lunch meat. It was a rough childhood too. My nickname after that was always, because my maiden name is Fletcher. So I've been – and that's – I was in middle school when Fletch came out. So I have been Fletch. Forever.

Even now, half my friends still call me Fletch. The most common nickname I have besides baloney deloney, which way to go. I can't even repeat in public. Yeah, it's not great. But I've got buddies whose parents are 70s. And when I see them still to this day, that's what they call me. And it's so great. I can't bring my kids around, but it's phenomenal.

It's just my name. And it is what it is. And I realize to everybody listening to this, A, you either don't care or B, it's like middle school. And I just came up to you and I'm like, I know somebody who likes you. And I'm not going to tell. And I ran off. It's so lame, but I just did that. I realize that it's like middle school and I just came up to you and I'm like, I know somebody who likes you and I'm not going to tell and I ran off. It's so lame, but I just did that. I realized that it's kind of lame, but all right, shake it off. All right, let's go to Shelly.

Oh my gosh. Shelly rhymes with jelly, but we won't even go there. Shelly in Atlanta. What's up, Shelly? Yeah, I rhyme with jelly. That's awesome. We're not even going there. We're not. But Shelly does rhyme with Kelly, but you already sound kinder's awesome. We're not even going there. We're not.

But Shelly does run with Kelly, but you already sound kinder than Kelly. So what's up? All right. So last summer, I was told that I am arrogant. And that was kind of a shock to me because I tend to have— You may be more like Kelly than we thought, so go ahead. So I tend to have problems with self-loathing and perfectionism. I hope Kelly does not have that problem. No, she doesn't have a problem with it.

She just knows that she is perfect, so that's good. So my negative automatic conclusion was, oh, no, I'm not hating myself enough or I wouldn't look arrogant. Exactly. Way to go. Way to go. And I know that's not a healthy way to think about it, but it's kind of been eating me alive ever since then because I don't want to be arrogant and that's the last thing I ever thought I was. I tend to really not think I'm better than other people. Wow. So who told you this?

So it was a work supervisor. I recently came out of an abusive marriage and went to interview for a new job in a new place. And I understood that, you know, when you do a job interview, you're supposed to sell yourself and, you know, sort of exaggerate how good you are. I wouldn't say exaggerate it, but you just tell the, those are one of the few moments in our culture

where we're allowed to talk about ourselves positively, which is lame, but that's where we got. So did you oversell yourself or did you think you did a great job? I felt like I did a good job. I thought I played the interview game well and I got the job. But the supervisor later was like, you know, you're kind of arrogant. Based on that interview or based on how you come into work every day and how they experience you and here's what i'm getting at two two important things when somebody

says something like that to you one is do they have credibility to speak into your life and if they don't then just like jay-z you gotta brush your shoulders off you gotta move on from that i mean people are gonna there's going to be critics everywhere. That's life. If it's somebody that either, A, you need them to experience you in the right way, someone you love, your spouse, your parents, whatever, or your supervisor, that your livelihood depends on them being in relationship with you, then that's a little bit more important. And so there has to have been a series of behaviors of actions that they experienced. What were they? Well, so it was literally just based on the interview. Um, because I am a sign language interpreter. So I often work by myself or only with people sometimes. It's not like I see this person every day or anything like that. So it was really just based on the interview. Oh, can I ask you? I thought I was a better interpreter than everybody else.

Are you? No. And I know that. And I don't think that. So can you, I'm going to, I am going to just shine my ignorance brightly. Okay. Okay. Sure. Can you be arrogant in sign language? Obviously your words are, but can you come across that way? Yes, although the interview was in English. Okay, so, hmm. Something else is going on here, because that one comment has caused you to spiral out for a year. Is that the first time somebody's told you that? Or are you really thin-skinned? Like, what is it about that

comment I think that I it really took me by surprise and um you know it was it also came on the heels of my husband leaving me because I'm a Christian and he became an atheist. Okay. So, and there was abuse going on. So did your husband, did this have, does this have ghosts of your relationship with your husband telling you things about you that you need to change, you need to fix,

that he doesn't like about you, that reasons that you're broken? Criticism. I mean, I'm'm just trying I'm fishing here yeah but I mean he would tell me things like you're just good at making people feel sorry for you I don't think he thought I was arrogant he saw me go into self-loathing a lot but I think it just hit on like that I'm a recovering perfectionist and that, um, anytime someone says something about me, I tend to think it must be right. And I have grown up as kind of the, the good child of the family. And there were others of my generation that thought I was stuck up or arrogant because I was obedient.

Okay, so this is a lifelong thing. Somebody rang one of your bells. So here's something that happened to me several years ago, a few universities back where I worked. I applied for a job that I thought I was a shoe in, at least for a finalist position. And I didn't get an interview, which in my situation was a move.

It was a statement. Like, we're not even going to talk to you about this. And so I asked, like, man, I'm missing something. And I thought I did good work. I thought I was a good guy. And so a buddy of mine said, man, I'll ask around. And then he called and said, hey, you want to go to lunch? My buddy Mark.

He called and said, hey, you want to go to lunch? I said, yeah. And he said, I'm going to be honest with you. Here's what I heard. And what came back was devastating to me. And here's why. I'm uncomfortable in certain academic settings. I've always struggled with whether you're smart enough. That's why I keep going to grad school to prove myself to myself. It's ridiculous, but that's me. And I feel uncomfortable around really

smart people because I'm intimidated, but I like being around them so much and I love good engagement, but I don't always fit in those tables. And I don't like, I'm uncomfortable in banquety kind of situations. I love them when I'm there, but just takes a season to get, I got to gear up for it. And so what I often do is I spend a lot of time in the back of those rooms, meeting with the, sitting with the students or sitting with the police officers, the security officers, or sitting with the custodial staff. That's how I grew up. My dad was a police officer.

My dad would work custodial stuff on the weekends. That's just how I grew up. And the feedback came back was you're a slick politician. You walk around the room and you glad hand everybody and you always spend your time trying to look like you're with these people. And it was the exact opposite of what I was trying to do because I wasn't trying to do anything other than be comfortable. And, but the feedback was good. And so I had to make a decision. Number one, am I going to stop being comfortable in my professional life? The answer is no.

Number two, is there some things that I took from that feedback? Like, hey, here's how you come across. Absolutely. And he was right. He was absolutely right. When he explained how I walk into a room, I was like, oh my gosh, that guy looks like an idiot. And he's like, well, that guy's you. And so I took some wisdom from that.

Here's what I think about self-loathing. I think self-loathing can be hitting the pendulum so far the other way that you end up in the exact same place just on the other side of the spectrum. You know what I mean? Like I want to follow the rules. I want to be a perfectionist. Hey, you missed a rule here. Whoa, I must be the worst person ever, which is the same thing as I must be the best person ever just on the other side of it. It's just living in these dramatic swings. And you labeled yourself

a bunch in this call. And you live by these labels. And I want to see you live a life free of labels. Like, Shelly, what do you want? What do you want in your world? What do I want?lly, what do you want? What do you want in your world? What do I want?

Yeah, what do you want? You get one. How old are you? 30. 30. So you're 33% done. 33% done. And in some statistical models,

you're about halfway. You're almost halfway done, depending. So I like to just go on the long end of that tail. You only get one of these. One. And it's tiny and it's quick and it's precious. What do you want to do with it?

I mean, I would like to make a difference in people's lives. That's external. That's you fishing. What do you want? To be happy and accepted, I guess. To be loved? Who told you you couldn't be loved besides your ex-husband? Probably myself.

Yes. probably myself yes like but i can't be loved if people think i'm arrogant or um if people think something about me that's not true it automatically is true because i thought it so here's what i want you to do when somebody drops that brick in your backpack someone tells you something about you you You're not pretty enough. You're too big. You're too skinny. You're too this. You're too Jesus-y. You're not Jesus-y enough.

You swear too much. You're such a goody-goody with your language, whatever it is. You're arrogant because of an interview where you told everybody you flexed a little bit. Good for you. You told everybody I'm an incredible sign sign language doer i don't know how you say interpreter interpreter there you go i can rock it onto the break of dawn when it comes to sign language everybody better recognize and get in line behind shelly shelly jelly and they said hey you came across as arrogant i want here's I want you to do. Keep a small journal.

Go to Walmart or Target or if you're an overbuyer, overbuy it. And have a small journal and it's just your story journal and carry it with you everywhere. I have a small one in my bag right now. And when somebody says, dude, you're arrogant or you're a jerk or you are fill in the blank or when those thoughts pop in your head about you, I want you just to write it down and extend it out arm's length physically and ask yourself, is this true? And if it's not, you have to then decide I'm going to stop dwelling on it. You don't make that decision. You let your mind control you. And I want you to take back control of your thoughts.

So how do I know if I'm arrogant? Are you? I mean, I have begun to value myself, and I don't know if valuing myself is arrogant. Do you have somebody that you trust? Do you have a friend, a community? Some, yeah. Ask them.

So I did ask my sister. What'd she say? And she said, I know that you have some insecurities, and so I know where that comes from. It can look arrogant, but I know, like, in your heart, it's not. So when she says look arrogant, what are the things that look arrogant? Like, um... Are you mean to people? Do you talk, do you cut in line?

Do you say, oh my gosh, I'm so much better than that than you. Look at my body compared to yours. My bag is nicer than your bag. I mean, here's the challenge. These thoughts swirl around and they're hard to grab onto and they spin faster and faster. And then you start looking for confirmation

of them everywhere and you'll find it. And somebody will look at you a little bit weird and you'll go, oh, it's because I'm arrogant. Or somebody will say, oh, excuse me, ma'am, and you'll go, oh, they think I'm arrogant. You'll see it everywhere. And that's why I want you to write it down and get some distance from it,

and then begin to pull it apart. What are the things? Is it how I stand? Is it how I am rude? Do I talk sharp with people? Does my voice get loud? What are the details of this thing that we can work on? Mm-hmm. Mine was I walked in and shook hands My voice get loud. What are the details of this thing that we can work on?

Mine was I walked in and shook hands in a particular order throughout a room. I looked exactly like a slick politician and it grossed me out. So one of the things I stopped doing was shaking hands. I don't like, I just stopped shaking hands. And I walked by and I'd look people in the eye and say, dude, what is up? And I stopped trying to like be a professional engager. And I just started being a human engager. And it literally went away. And so there was some behavior things that I could fix.

I didn't change who I hung out with in a room. I didn't change how I honored the president that was in that room and the custodial staff in that room. All that stayed the same. But I did stop going from person to person and shaking hands and nodding my head like a TV politician. And so there was some actual things I could do that were different. That's what I'm asking you. What are the things people point to? I don't think they've really pointed to anything. Just maybe the way I talk. That's a thing. That's a thing. That's an action. Yes. Okay. So the way you talk. That's a thing. That's a thing. That's an action. Yes. Okay.

So the way you talk. So like in the interview, you know, I would say things like, I think they talked about how they're so, so busy and don't have enough people to handle it. And I was like, so y'all need me. Or, you know, they were like, you know, I told them some of the experience that I had that was not expected. Like they wouldn't have thought I had that experience as a young interpreter. And they took that to mean that I was arrogant. Gotcha. Well, so here's the deal.

You can't control what they think. You control how you live. And so from this point forward, when you hang up the phone here, if you're not an arrogant person, we're done with the conversation. And begin being conscious about kindness and leaning into people. Now that you've got this job, love people. And by the way, if they need you, say it. You see what I'm saying? I don't hear anything arrogant here.

I hear somebody who is so, so incredibly tied to what the words that come out of other people's mouths for her own security, that you will just spin and flip and flop and do whatever it takes for the next person in front of you to value you. And what I want you to do is to get past all of that

and you begin to value you. And then you speak your truth out loud. And there will be certain people that don't want to be around that truth and that's okay. They get to choose that. And there will be certain people that gravitate towards that truth and it will be incredible.

But until you decide, I'm Shelly and I am worthy of my space. I am worthy of my jokes. I think these things are funny and I think these are not funny and I'm okay with that. And I've got these opinions and I'm willing to be wrong.

Until you can start to root yourself in the ground there, you're just gonna have what you're experiencing now. One person is going to say one thing, and it will spin you up for a year. It will take up a year's worth of thought real estate in your mind. And it will mess with your biochemistry. It will make you live less long because it will poison you. Every time you talk to this person, your heart's going to start beating a little faster.

You can dump a little bit more cortisol and adrenaline in your bloodstream. It's going to slowly eat your insides. But yeah, I mean, it's become kind of a lens of like, oh man, I want to draw a boundary here, but I can't because they'll interpret it as me being arrogant. And you can't control other people. All you can control is your thoughts and your actions. And you can draw really firm boundaries with kindness. And you can draw really firm boundaries with joy. People who don't have strong internal sense of who they are,

they often overcompensate their boundaries. They wait till it builds and builds and builds and they kind of explode on people. And then people go, whoa, instead of the slow, regular, gentle making a boundary. Hey, can you do this? Yeah, I can do that. Can you do this? Yeah, I can do that. Can you do this? No, I need a weekend. Whoa, chill out. Versus, hey, can you do this? Yeah, I can do that. Can you do this? Yeah, I can do that. Can you do this? No, I need a weekend. Whoa, chill out. Versus, hey, can you do this? I'm out this weekend, but I would love to get to it next Monday.

I'd love to. That's a boundary making one small boundary at a time. And all of that comes back to, do you think you're even worth your own boundaries? Do you think you're worth saying no? Do you think you're worth saying no? Do you think you're worth saying yes? Do you think you're a person of kindness? Sit down with somebody that you trust and say, let's look at these behaviors.

How do I interact? I want people, when they interact with me, I want them to come away feeling joyful. I want them to come away feeling like I'm a little bit happier after talking to that person. That's what I want. So let's work on those actions. And your heart may never change here because your heart's probably good, but your heart has to be plugged into you. And you got to be okay with you and you're not. And that's where I want you to start writing down on a piece of paper, what do I want? Let's backfill it.

How do we get there? Thank you so much for the call, Shelley. Be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. All right, we are back. Let's go to Samantha in Chicago. What's up, Samantha? Hey, how are you? Just rocking on to the break of dawn.

How about you? Awesome, doing great. Excellent. rocking on to the break of dawn. How about you? Awesome. Doing great. Excellent. So what's up? All right. So my husband's currently in a graduate program to become a Christian licensed professional counselor. So I wanted to call in and get your perspective.

More specifically, he'll be specializing. Hold on one second. I haven't heard of this. So is he getting his LPC? Yeah, he's getting his LPC at a Christian university with a plan to specialize in drug and alcohol recovery at a Christian facility, wherever that's going to be. So he's going to become a licensed counselor's realizing more and more while the whole world needs help, it will be difficult for him to kind of intertwine Jesus and that part into the spiritual healing of people in kind of secular institutions. So he's kind of targeting specifically drug and alcohol recovery because that's part of his testimony, how he came to Christ as well as Christian organizations. So that's kind of what he's working towards. And I'm totally supportive of that. And when we met, you know, he was, he was in his undergrad for psychology and

counseling and he was kind of focusing more towards counseling men. So he went through a Christian recovery program that was men only, and he's planning to intern at that place as well. But as we got married a year ago, and this is kind of, I've been Christian three years, he's been Christian six years, our first relationship was being Christian. So trying to apply things from the Bible and marriage and boundaries with opposite sex has been just a challenge in a lot of different areas. So when it comes to friendships and even I work in finance, so the nature of my job is not spiritually or emotionally intimate. But in any case, if I

have meetings or one-on-one with men or anything like that, it's all transparent. That's the type of stuff that we can talk about. So some of my struggles or concerns with if he does decide to also counsel women, it's just I have a lack of comfort with that because generally counseling is private. It's one-to-one, often behind closed doors and definitely confidential. You know, there's, there's a lot of intimate topics that are discussed. I myself am in counseling and so is he. So we, we know what kind of things are talked about. And while I do understand it's one way it's client to counselor, honestly, I just don't really like the idea of a woman, another woman sharing their hearts and soul with my husband and kind of believe that's reserved

for marriage. Now, I do trust him, but I do know that we're sinners at heart. And for me, it's just kind of, it just doesn't feel safe. Like we're putting in good boundaries or safeguarding when there are great options to just counsel men. And- Hold on, hold on, hold on. So let me break in here.

Let me break in here so I'm going to say this as kindly as I can but as directly as I can okay your marriage is not safe right now okay you have some very deep trust challenges with the person, either with yourself or with the person you're married to. And whether you're, I don't care what your faith persuasion is.

I don't care what your professions are. Y'all need to get together ASAP and deal with the trust issues. Whether you're bringing them to the table and you've been hurt in the past or you've made bad decisions in the past or this guy has made bad decisions in his past, et cetera. Right.

A counselor is like a surgeon, like a doctor, like a plumber. They are trained professional. And part of the training is how to remain objective, how to be honest with yourself, how to sit in consulting, how to fill in the blank. Is counseling intimate? You better believe it is. But is there a difference between that relational intimacy

that happens in a professional setting and sexual intimacy? There better be, or that person shouldn't be a therapist. Yeah, yeah. And so, and I know just trust issues. I know I have that. So I'm aware and I'm in individual counseling. So is he, and we, we are also in marriage counseling. So we're covering all the bases and ultimately it's going

to be prayers with God. So actually what I'm doing, and I've, I've thought this out with other, um, like a woman professional counselor and ask this question too, because what I want to do is to get other perspectives that are different than my own to be more objective. So I think that besides the trust issues, which for sure is ongoing. And for me, it's not just like the counseling job we just have, or myself personally, just issues when it comes to opposite sex. But the one aspect that I really struggle with, and I think it is outside of the trust issue, is understanding that it is a profession and there's ethics and standards and everything that counselors abide by. To me, it's different than being a plumber or a surgeon that is doing surgery because this is like emotional and spiritual intimacy

that another woman is sharing. But the biggest part of that is the confidential nature of counseling. So if I'm experiencing emotionally intimate conversations with another man in whatever setting, or I'm going to a male doctor. These are all meetings and meetings that I could share with my husband. It's not something that he can't know about or he can't know about. You're getting exactly, you're making my point for me. This has nothing to do with counseling at all. This has to do with the fact that your husband's going to have a part of his life that you won't have access to. And something about that makes you crazy. Yes, exactly. And so that is your challenge to work through.

And this is, you've got to be okay with it. I know, but when it comes to, you know, being a Christian and the covenant and sacredness and transparency of marriage, to me, it feels like, okay, we're supposed to be one. We're supposed to just be in each other's lives and total transparency between the two of us. And then there's this major part of his life that he'll be spending more time in because work is generally more time than with family. And it's something that I can't have access to because of the nature of the job. And to me that it feels like a violation to marriage. And so what you're conflating

in a dangerous way is open access and trust. Trust is, faith is, I'm leaning into you and you're leaning into me. And about the things that you want to share with me, I trust that you're honoring this relationship. I trust that you're honoring me. So let's imagine you have some rambunctious dream about an ex-boyfriend. Do you feel like that you're violating your husband's trust if you don't wake him up in the middle of the night

and tell him about what you just dreamt? Or is there some stuff you go, oh, I'm going to hang on to that one? And if you are using faith, you are using faith, you are using your Christian beliefs, you are using this idea of intimacy and marriage and one with somebody else as an excuse to read his diary, as an excuse to get into his client's folders. And this is, you're conflating two things that have no business being together.

It's dishonoring. It is unethical. It's wrong to get into somebody else's life if they haven't invited you in. And in the profession that your husband is choosing, they have invited him into that. And you mentioned the doctor, but you mentioned on the other side of it, meaning you do. If you go have a doctor visit with a male doctor,

you can come go around and tell everybody. He cannot. He can't go home to his family and say, well, I saw so-and-so without a shirt on today. Here's what it looked like. Here's this, here's that. He can't go home to his family and say, well, I saw so-and-so without a shirt on today. Here's what it looked like. Here's this, here's that. Can't do that. That's your privacy. And so you want one side of the teeter-totter, but you expect the other and it doesn't work like that. Yeah. And so what I'm telling you is, A, there is some wisdom. You're new at this. Your faith is young. Your faith is new.

And you are going all in on it. And I honor that. Good for you. And it sounds like you love this guy so, so much that you want to share DNA. I mean, you want to line your souls up together, right? I almost said you want to share DNA. And then I realized that's probably not the right way to say that. Well, you know, if we have a kid, I guess it's technically true. But you want to mirror at the genetic level,

and you can't. And so the piece you have to make is, what does trust look like? What does faith in somebody else look like when I can't know everything? That, my friend, is love. Yeah. And I wonder, from your perspective with counseling, probably anyone, regardless of gender, just high level, do you have some ideas of what are some good boundaries? Some counselors have told me they don't share their personal number or they don't take calls outside of work hours. But the thing I was thinking is like something that could help me

besides obviously individual counseling and continuing prayer with God is healthy boundaries. But it's hard to know what's healthy right now because of just all the other stuff that I'm dealing with. Yeah, and you are trying to make his boundaries for him, his professional boundaries for him because you're uncomfortable. Yeah. And again, you are getting into somebody else's head and thinking their thoughts for them. And then you are trying to respond to those thoughts that haven't even been thought yet. And you're wearing yourself out.

Yeah, definitely. You're exhausting yourself. And you're trying to duct tape this all together through a young new faith. And it's slowly pulling you underwater to the point that you are wondering if he should even be doing what he wants to be doing with his life. Yeah, yeah. And you come at him with verses and chapters and when he's trying to do an assignment

or doing his practicum or doing whatever. And what I'm telling you is your marriage is on really shaky ground. Yeah. And so the question is not, are there good boundaries and practices? Absolutely. Do different therapists have different roles? Yes. Some are super firm. Some are more open access. Like I am your therapist. You can reach me at this time. I think that's dangerous, but not for sexuality stuff, even though that's an issue. Let me be super clear with you. Counselors sleep with their clients. It happens.

And that is, you will get your license taken away, and you will never be able to be in somebody's intimate life again. And that should be that way. Anyone who ever sleeps with a client should immediately be stripped of their license, period. And then who kisses a client, hold hands with a client, I mean, there is no romance in that setting. Right. Right? If you tell your husband, I'm uncomfortable with these things, you're allowed to do that.

You're allowed to feel those things. And then he's going to have a choice. So I don't want to dishonor your feelings. But I want to tell you that the feelings you have are deeper than just this profession. Because what's going to happen is he's going to quit and he's going to go be a plumber. And then you're going to say, well, are you going to someone's house to fix the dishwasher? He's like, yeah, I just got some client. Her name is Susan. And you're going to say, well, is there going to be any men there? And he'll say, I don't know. I'm just going to fix the dishwasher at this address. So there's just going to be a woman there and then that's going to make him bananas. Yeah. Like there'll always be something. There'll always be something. Yeah. That's a good

point. And whether it's a lawn business or a restaurant, when you took that woman's cash, did you touch her hand? It's always going to be a thing. Yeah. And so at some point when you are married, when you love somebody somebody I have to trust that my wife had an experience today and she chose not to tell me for a reason I have to trust that it may be that whenever she tells me about some guy that was rude to her I bow up like oh I'm gonna go fight him or I'm gonna call him or I'll let him know. And she doesn't want to deal with me. Maybe I've made her unsafe or maybe she's a big grown up, grown woman. And she, she's not big, by the way, I realized I'm going to get in trouble for that. She is a grown, she's a grown woman and she can decide whether, you know what I mean? That's her choice. And there's certain things I've

said, Hey, if this happens, please let me know, and she has then said, I'm going to honor you by doing that, or that violates my boundaries, and I'm not comfortable with that, and then we negotiate those things, but somewhere in your core, honey, you have a major, major chasm with trust, and I don't know if it's from your childhood.

I don't know if it's from your childhood, I don't know if it's from your previous romantic relationships, but it is heavy. And you're trying to solve it by knowing every second of every moment of every interaction with your husband, and you're going to make yourself nuts. And you're going to burn the relationship to the ground. And so as you move forward with trust,

as you move forward, yes, he has to have professional boundaries. That's between him and his counseling supervisor. Yes, there's going to be things of comfort. If he's cheated on you, if he comes home and he's like, man, this woman was talking about sex and it kind of turned me on, he probably shouldn't be a therapist, but you are allowed to say, hey, these things make me uncomfortable right now. I'm not comfortable with you counseling X, Y, and Z. That's fair. Have those conversations.

But I want you to go deeper because you've got to deal with your trust issues. And this is about your marriage. This isn't about his job right now. The job y'all can talk about later. I want y'all to deal with the trust issues here because you're worth being able to breathe. And right now you can't breathe. Trust is so, so hard, especially when it's been broken, but you can heal it. You've got to be intentional about dealing with that. Not the peripheral issues, deal with the trust. We'll

be right back on the Dr. John Deloney Show. 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, let's take uno mas.

Let's go to Dana in St. Paul. St. Paul, what's up? Morning, Doc. Thanks for taking my call. Thanks for calling. What are you doing? Well, you know, I got a little interesting thing for you. Hey, talk directly into the phone.

I can barely hear you, and you're too smart. I'm sorry. How's that? Can you hear me now? A little bit more. How about, can you hear me? Does that work? Yeah, now we're talking.

Now we're cooking with grease. Is that what they say? I don't know how they say it in Texas. No, no, whatever. I just made everything weird. All right, so what's up? So my husband and I, we're in the process of adopting my foster son, who's been with us since he was a baby.

Congratulations. That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much. So our plan was to be traditional foster parents, but he's wonderful. We can't imagine our life without him. So, you know, we decided to adopt him, and the plan was to close our foster care license after the adoption. So we just found out that bio mama is pregnant again, and because of adopting our son, the county is going to call us for placement of this new baby.

So my husband's open to being the traditional foster parent for this baby until there's a permanent placement available. But John, he's a big softie. So I feel like no matter what, he's going to fall in love with his baby again, like we did with our son. And I'm really not sure what to do knowing that I would be so attached and our house is going to be bonkers again. And I'm really not as telling Anna about the foster care adoption system as I was when I started this. Right. Because we've, we're a little more educated at this point. That system will abuse you. Yes. It will beat the crap out of your soul and your marriage and everything.

Yes. Exactly. Yes. So knowing how isolated adoptees feel, my motivations for adopting this baby or bringing this new baby in would be so my son and this baby, his brother or sister, would have a person that they're more deeply connected to that I guess we would really never understand because my husband and I are not adopted. My bio kiddos are not adopted. So I got a two-part question for you. Yeah, okay. So just so I can repeat this

so I can make sure I haven't lost it. You're about to, you've been fostering a young child. You're about to adopt him. And then his mom is pregnant and the county is going to call you, which of course they do once they got you. And they're like, well, how about 14 more?

So they're going to call you and say, hey, would you want to adopt this, your new adopted child's sibling? And you are thinking, I'm in, and you know out the gate husband's going to be like, meh, or it's just a mess. We keep flip-flopping back and forth sure absolutely we're oscillating between excitement fear panic more fear um so that's every parent ever always yeah it just needs to happen real fast well yeah i mean when you it's a biological kid you get nine months to flip out about that when it's when an adopted kid, you get about 36 hours. Yeah, it's the ramen noodle of babies, you know?

They call you and, hey, come get them. Yeah, and you're in line at Sonic, and they're like, hey, you want a kid? Come get it right now. Come right now, right now, right now. And you're like, uh-huh. And, yeah, there's no way to win that, because then if you say no, then you torture yourself forever. And if you say yes, you're like, oh, we have a human. Yeah, totally.

Okay, so what's your question now? So what should we be asking ourselves to examine our intentions, our bandwidth about possibly taking this baby in, knowing that it is going to change the fabric of our lives either way, whether we say yes or no. Right. And how do we continue to communicate with each other as we kind of cycle through all these emotions without overanalyzing or spiraling into a death spiral of worry? Because we're the type of people that deal with things as they come. We try not to overanalyze our worry, but they're just so big.

Yeah. Do you have biological kids? By the way, great question. What a genius, man. You're awesome. And what a good soul. Good for you. I want to, yeah, never mind.

Good for you. You're awesome. Do you have your own biological kids? Yes. How old are they? I got a six and a four-year-old. Oh, so you're in it to win it Oh yeah, yeah I mean, you already went from man to man to zone

You can add another 11 kids, who cares? Yeah, that's kind of what I feel I'm totally kidding 11 is a lot So, here's the way I would frame it in the way you're starting to articulate it in just the right way, which is such a gift. And if I could get everybody on planet earth, including myself to live, as you just articulated this, the world would be a better place. There has to be pockets in our life where we just talk crap, where we just go blah.

And people don't try to race to solve those things. We can just have our feelings come out of our bodies. And then we go on about our day. Moments where we can say, I don't like you to your husband because he left his muddy shoes on the back porch again, whatever. That doesn't mean you want to leave him. That doesn't mean you should be looking for another husband. That doesn't mean, I don't like you right now. Of course I love you.

Of course I'm not going, right? We have to be able to do that. And we're so pendulum-y in our culture these days. I'm totally in love. I hate you. I need somebody else, right? Back and forth. So you have to have that moment and you have to have that moment of, we got to solve right in front of us and look five, 10, 20 years down the road. And so it's both and. So here's what I would challenge you with. Number one, commit to you and your husband. We are going to live with no secrets and. So start with no secrets. Secrets are, you know, Brene Brown says, you know, shame, eat secrets for breakfast. Shame, I mean, secrets always end up in resentment because it builds and builds.

I don't really, the more I think about this, the more I just, I cannot have another kid in this house. Or I cannot not adopt this baby. But we need to put a period at the end of a sentence because this birth mom may go on to have five other kids and we can't do this every time. So what is our cap going to be? And it makes it, when you start talking about cap, what is our capacity?

How much money do you, I mean, when you start being honest with yourself, it's less about, hey, we're holding this little baby and we're able to look at our capacity and our boundaries at arm's length. And that starts with no secrets. Where are you on this? And I would have the no secrets conversation

like maybe once a week. That's not an everyday thing because your feelings vacillate. I can't do another baby just because today was hard and I'm tired. Yeah, that was yesterday. Yes. And then you woke up today and you're like, today's great.

And your six-year-old came and got in bed with you. And your four-year-old made their own, their cereal everywhere. But they tried. You know what I mean? And suddenly you go, oh gosh, they just wiped their own butt. It's going to be okay. You know what I mean? And so it vacillates.

And so it's being able to have a place where you can say, like, plan for it. All right, let's do a heart check in. What secrets are building up? And everybody can have their secrets out. And then the other way that I want as an everyday thing is to preface a sentence with, I'm being vulnerable here. Okay. And the phrase, I'm being vulnerable here sets up a conversation that goes very one

only one way I'm being vulnerable here I don't know that I can handle a fourth baby and what that means is I'm just getting that out into the ether and the other person cannot respond all they can say is thank you for sharing that period

that's it and what they're going to do over the course of a week is they're going to listen All they can say is, thank you for sharing that, period. That's it. And what they're going to do over the course of a week is they're going to listen and kind of absorb, not kind of, I hate people say that. They're going to listen and absorb the vulnerable statements. And over the course of one week, two weeks, four weeks, if there's been multiple, I'm just being vulnerable here, I cannot wait to have a fourth baby. I want that baby. Or I'm being vulnerable here. I cannot wait to have a fourth baby. I want that baby. Or I'm being vulnerable here. I don't know if I can handle it. I feel like I'm at the end of my capacity.

Then during the secrets conversation, the once a week, and this is when y'all are gonna look at your budget. This is gonna be when you look at your calendar for the week. So it doesn't have to be a big kumbaya throwing confetti in the air. It's just a planned interaction.

Checking in, where are you? How are you? We doing okay. And that's when somebody can say, all right, I heard you say five or six times last week, this baby's, the idea of another baby is overwhelming. Walk me through where you're at. And so I may in a week say, I'm being vulnerable here. I don't have any friends. I'm

super lonely. I'm exhausted. And I don't, my, our pet's heads are falling off. I'm just going to go and go and go. And then at the end of the week, my wife's going to say, all right, you were in three different States in three different time zones and four days. You seem like you're tired. You talked to me about being lonely. Let's circle back to that. And then by then I might have slept and I'll go, yeah, I'm fine. I just miss my buddies. I'm fine. Or I can say, no, man, the more I've thought about it, the more I need to be more intentional about it. Do you hear I'm going with this? Yeah, I love it. I think it's such a a great it's such a tactic that we could just immediately implement to help

yes and then the third one and this is like an immediate thing this is I recommend this when couples are thinking about IVF when couples start thinking about IVF and they start thinking about

you know going down that road I want them to have the end in mind. How far will you go? How much money will you spend? Because that can become a bottomless well. And you can look up four years later and you can be $160,000 in the hole, have 15 fertilized embryos and zero kids. Or you can get pregnant on the first, right? So I want people to, what, how far are we willing to go on this deal? All right. So I want people to, to what, how far are we willing to go on this deal? I want you and your husband to take a half day, go do an inventory of life, get somebody to come watch your kids. Um, you've got a six-year-old, a four-year-old, a newborn, and you might get another, another newborn. I want y'all to just take an inventory.

Where are we? Do we still like each other? When's the last time we had sex that we wasn't, someone wasn't wearing like a, like a, there wasn't a diaper bag on the bed too. And when is the last time we went on a date and how are we, are we exercising? I want you to do an inventory of your life and then say, how many, we want any more biological kids? How many humans can we have in our little house? How many humans can we afford? I want you all just to map out where things are. Okay. And then plan for the end. And then if you say, we have the capacity for a kid,

now we have to ask ourselves, do we want one? Okay. What would that look like for us? And then the no secrets, be vulnerable, and hey, you should be feeling crazy. You should feel nuts. Six-year-old and a four-year-old, you should think twice about getting a goldfish.

That's just another being that might die. So yeah, everything should be chaos. That shouldn't be the litmus test. The litmus test should be much more practical and much more spiritual. And what I mean by spiritual is hopefully you're, you've got a faith community that y'all pray through with this.

And if you don't, the cosmos is bigger than this for you. This would be a big thing I'm praying about every day that I'm journaling about. I'm making sure that I am whole with the decisions I'm making. And that me and my wife are connected on this stuff. And that my kids are brought into

the conversation and all that, all that, all that, you know how that goes. Be vulnerable, give yourself places every day where you can go and just release some of the steam and the feelings, the exhaustion, the, I just need you to hear me. And then the, here's where I really am once a week or so. And then man, go get them, go get them. Good for you. That's awesome. Fabulous advice. I really appreciate it, Doc. All right, let me know how things go.

Go on that half-day retreat and set the stage for what's to come. And by the way, this will be great for your marriage just in general. And if you're listening to this and you have two kids, do it this weekend. Just take a half-day and say, whoa, where are we? And if you've got two kids that are 19 and 20, you got two kids that are six and four. And if you're thinking about adding a couple others, oh God, I'm gonna do that too. All right, as we wrap up today's show.

Hey, yesterday, Kelly, what was that guy who did his debt-free scream yesterday in the lobby? The crisis responder. Oh yeah, earlier this week. Yes, guy was amazing. And he's a crisis responder. That's what he works for, emergency response. He's an incredible guy. And we came out and he was just really complimentary. He said some kind things, which I don't get a lot from folks like y'all here. I believe he also told you that I was very said, you get to pick the song of the day. And he said, great.

So this is the song he picked off the Everywhere We Go album, Kenny Chesney. She thinks my tractor's sexy. And it goes like this. Plowing these fields in the hot summer sun, over by the gate, lordy, here she comes, with a basket full of chicken and a big cold jug of tea, sweet tea. Great song, dude. staring at me while I'm chugging along. She likes the way it's pulling while we're tilling up the land. She's even kind of crazy about my farmer's tan. She's the only one who really understands what gets me. She thinks my

tractor is sexy. I love America. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show.