The Dr. John Delony Show - She Doesn’t Trust Me Anymore

Episode Date: November 13, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A husband desperate to earn his wife’s trust back - A woman wondering if she should break off her engagement - Why physical health is key to mental health Lyrics of the Day: "Magic Man" - Heart Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Hallow Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Building a Non-Anxious Life Anxiety Test Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. About two months after we got engaged, my parents told me they were taking back the blessing and rattled off an extensive list of red flags that they saw in my fiance and our relationship. They didn't really like his career choice. He's a magician and a juggler, but he works in ministry. What is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. A show about your mental health, your emotional health,

your husband, your wife, whoever you're dating, whatever's going on in your world. Your kids. I'm here to walk alongside you. A show made up of real people going through real challenging moments. And quite honestly, all of us. It's just like a dark cloud hanging over all of us right now as we record this. And lots of ugliness out in the world.

And so if nothing else, my hope with this show is just modeling what it looks like to sit down and say, I hear you. Pull up a seat and let's figure out what we can do next. Because I know this. I know running away from problems does not help. I know yelling at each other doesn't help. And I know a bunch of pseudo so-called experts just launching Instagram posts at each other doesn't help either. What we have to do is sit with real people and say, I hear you, or can I ask this question? Or, hey man, what do you think about this? Because what we're doing is not working.

So thank you so much for joining us. If you're ready to live some sort of different life, don't forget to pick up Building a Non-Existence Life, my new book. It is out, number one bestseller, Wall Street Journal. I'm really proud of this one. And go pick it up. And don't forget, the questions for humans will save your holidays. Go to johndeloney.com. All right, let's roll out to Georgia and talk to

the great and wonderful Matt. What's up, Matt? Hey, John. Dr. John, how are you? I'm partying, man. What about you? I'm living the dream, I guess. Man, I want to wake up from my dream sometimes. What's up, man? Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

So the question I have is the current situation between my wife and I isn't great. I'm actually about to move out into an apartment. Okay. What happened? what happened? So to give you some backstory, I went through a period of time where I drank too much on the weekends, basically Friday night, Saturday, Sunday. Um, what's the period of time? I would say probably a year and a half, two years.

Just kind of out of the blue. Um, I would say it ramped up after I've got two daughters, five and three, and I would say it ramped up after I've got two daughters, five and three, and I would say it ramped up after my second daughter was born. Okay, cool. So it was something my wife had confronted me about on more than one

occasion, and it came to a head on Memorial Day. My oldest daughter, the five-year-old, came out on the deck where I was to ask me a question and actually ended up falling through a weak part in the railing about 12 feet and landed on concrete below that. You fell or she fell? She fell. My daughter fell. Okay.

So rushed to the emergency room. They did x-rays and all that. Found a small fracture in her jaw. A few days later, we took her to a specialist. He said it was the best case scenario. She'd be good to go in like three weeks to a month. No surgeries needed. Just don't let her eat hard candy, basically, and stuff.

Man, I'm so sorry. After that, I appreciate it, man. It was rough. And, um, after that, my wife had told me, she's like, listen, I don't know if I'm going to be able to bounce back from this. Um, what, what did you have to do with what happened? Well, I would say her falling could have happened with anybody being out there. Um, the problem was, is it with my drinking too much, I was letting things go around the house, becoming disconnected with my wife and my kids. And even my job during the week when I didn't drink was starting to suffer some. So I put the blame on myself as far as not fixing the railing.

I put it on the back burner. But something else, hold on, something else happened that that was a final straw for your wife. Were you not paying attention out there? Were you goofing off? I was, but I had had two beers at that point. And before we took my daughter to the emergency room, I told my wife I had not had any. And of course, all she's got to do is look in the trash can and see two beer cans. And that was what

triggered her reaction more so than anything else. Can I be honest with you? Hold on, hold on. Can I be honest with you, man? Something's not adding up to me. Yes, sir. If you and I are going to talk, you're going to have to be 100% open. Well, no. And like and I are going to talk, you're going to have to be 100% open.

Well, no, and like I said, I just wasn't honest with her about when and how much I was drinking. Yeah, but two beers is not, hey, we're done. Well, I think it was more the fact that I lied to her and told her I hadn't been drinking than the amount that I had been drinking. And the fact that it had happened on more than one occasion. That you'd had two beers? No, no, no. I mean, normally I would drink more than that, but I'm saying at the point when this happened,

it wasn't that I had been drinking necessarily. It was I lied about the fact that I had been drinking. Okay. I'm struggling with it, but go ahead. Continue. So she said, I can't come back from this. She said that at that time. So I put forth a good bit of effort.

I completely stopped drinking, really worked on being emotionally there for my kids and my wife and not just physically there. Started exercising again, losing some weight, all the good things that come along with lifestyle changes. Went on a family vacation, had a really good time, skip ahead to labor day. Um, I was kind of having an off weekend. We went out on a date Saturday. I wasn't really communicating with her. Um, I was supposed to get the girls ready for church on Sunday. I didn't have them ready when it was time to leave. I could tell something was off with my wife. That night, she actually told me that she was kind of trying to

make herself fall back in love with me, but it hadn't happened. She just couldn't let go of the things that had happened. And at that point, she said she thought it would be best if I found an apartment. So be super clear with me, man. Your daughter had an accident that you had two beers by any stretch of the imagination and you were close to intoxicated. She fell out and got hurt. Yes. From that moment your wife said, I don't think we're going to be able to come back from this.

Now, you didn't tell your wife the truth about two beers. What were you doing those other times you were drunk? Because you, here's the deal. You're speaking very evasively and you're speaking very distant from, you know, I would, I had a beer and then like, you know, like maybe I wasn't. Your wife is preferring to be a single mom with two kids than be with you. Well, the problem was, is that, say, for example, we get the kids ready for bed, put them in their bath, get them ready for bed and everything. I had already been drinking. So she felt like it wasn't safe to have the kids around me.

And I didn't do anything violent. I wasn't abusive. I didn't black out or pass out or anything. I just basically drank more than I should have. So you didn't hit anybody. You didn't cheat on your wife. You didn't swear at anybody. No. Your wife just said, I'm out. Well, things got better for a while until, like I said, the Labor Day weekend, which is when she made that decision about, I think it'd be better if you got an apartment. And what was her reasoning behind that? She didn't trust me anymore.

She didn't feel secure with me. She wasn't in love with me anymore. And to be honest, two weeks after that, when I had an apartment and I was getting ready to move out, we listened to a snippet from one of your shows that was kind of in the same vein as what I'm going through right now. And after we listened to it, she said, I don't want you to move out, but if you want this to work I need these things to happen and basically it was me being more involved in the finances me continuing to improve my relationship

with her and the girls but unfortunately after a couple more weeks things hadn't really gotten any better and the decision was made again for me to just find an apartment and that's where we're at right now okay have y'all gone and get really gotten any better. And the decision was made again for me to just find an apartment. And that's where we're at right now. Okay. Have y'all gone to get, sit down with a professional?

Yes. We're going to couples counseling and I'm also going individually. Have y'all already started that or are you're going to go? We already started the couples. Last week was my first week that I met with my therapist. Okay. And is anything coming up in couples counseling that is, is an aha moment for the both of you? No. Um, I mean, she said some things that were kind of an aha to me, but nothing that myself or the therapist is saying have really triggered anything for her. She says that nothing's changed as far as her feelings. And she basically said, there's nothing I can do, which of course, there are things I could do to make the situation worse. But as far as helping her get past what

she's holding onto, there's nothing I can do. So there's a missing piece here. Um, and I've just had this conversation too often. One of two things is true. Either your wife has been looking for an exit strategy for a season now or slowly got so far away from you that she feels that she can't come back. That's number one. Or number two, you are using language. And anybody who's hung out with people who struggle with alcohol addiction would recognize your language the way you're talking to me right you

aren't fully being up front with everything and i don't know what that means i don't know what that what that is but there's either she's got some really significant challenges or you're not being, that if I were to talk to her, I'd get a radically, a very different picture of you than what I'm getting right now. I would say if you talk to her, she would probably, I would say it's the first scenario.

The distance was created by my dishonesty, basically. Because you lied one time about having two beers? No, I lied. That's what I'm saying is I was dishonest multiple times about how much I drank. That one particular instance was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. Okay. Well, here's my rule for moving out to try to get some space to see if we're going to save this thing.

Is number one, there has to be a specific timeframe. Okay. And I usually don't wouldn't, I would never recommend unless there's physical abuse that it's over 30 days. So I'm out for 30 days and we have some agreed touch points. We will talk. I will pick the girls up.

We have to negotiate these rules ahead of time. Otherwise, it's gonna build resentment, frustration, anger, rage. It's gonna be a false piece. So be very clear on the front. And this isn't just you out so that, ah, it's not how that works. In 30 days, we're to get back together and have

a conversation i strongly recommend you'll have a marriage counselor that y'all work through this thing together and then i would ask her for a specific items not of things you got to work on because what you're going to do like any good person recovering from addiction is you're going to make her falling back in love with you your new addiction and you're going to do like any good person recovering from addiction is you're going to make her falling back in love with you your new addiction and you're going to do a bunch of things to try to make her happy and that's not the point what you want to do is say what are the things i need to do that can help you feel safe and then i'm going to challenge you man to go to aa for a season go to your counseling stuff but go to a meeting every day because i think you'm going to challenge you, man, to go to AA for a season. Go to your counseling stuff, but go to a meeting every day

because I think you're going to find out about yourself. All right. You can't lose weight for her. You can't just stop drinking for her because you're going to find alternative things to keep that distance from her, and it's going to end. You see what I'm saying? She thinks in her mind, if he'll just quit doing X, then I'll be okay.

And you quit doing X. And she's realizing, I still don't feel that same way. And here's the final thing. Y'all can't go back. What was is over. And y'all have to decide, are we going to build something new? Right. And I've laid that out to her.

I said, I'm totally in with rebuilding it with you, and she's just not in that place right now. Okay. Well, I think it sounds like you're going willingly, right? I mean, I don't want to do anything else that's going to possibly expedite us getting a divorce or anything so okay um i'm just trying to do what i need to do to hopefully get things going in the right direction all right i want you to um google it's terry real t-e-r-r-y-r-e-a-l terry real i think it's the 10 rules of a separation.

I want y'all to use that as a guidepost and I want you to bring your counselor in on it also. And that's gonna set the stage for this 30-day thing. Two, we're gonna take a break from each other. I'm gonna start getting myself well because I'm worth being well. She is going to let some of the smoke clear from her anger, from her rage, from her not feeling safe inside her own house and begin to write it like,

here's where we're headed. Here's what I need to feel safe. Y'all are going to have some regular touch points. You're going to be up front and adults about with the kids. And then in 30 days, y'all are going to circle back. And that 30-day meeting might be in a counselor's office. I can't recommend this enough that at that 30-day meeting, you each write each other a letter and read it to each other. Otherwise, it's either going to be a blubbery mess or you're going to forget stuff, but have a letter at the end of that 30-day period

that you can hold and read and hand to that person when you're done. And vice versa. She's hand to that person when you're done. And vice versa. She's got to have one for you. And maybe it's, I need another 30 days. I need 15 more days. Or I'm not coming back. I'm going to file for divorce and I want to do this amicably. Or I'm ready to build something completely new with you.

But I'm going to be super, super honest. Something in the way you're talking to me says you're not done yet And that's if there's one place where people will hold you accountable it's an aa And I would love for you to go to a meeting and it may just be that you have two little daughters And you have run out of tools I don't know how to love in my house. I don't know how to be a dad to two little girls I've got to get some more tools and so just creating space and distance which is what alcohol gives you which is what dishonesty gives you Which is what netflix gives you?

Just creating that space so you don't do something wrong ends up poisoning the whole house Maybe that's what it is and you need to learn some parenting skills, etc But you got to repair your relationship with your wife. Or she's going to have to call it. Like she is kind of circling the wagons. And it feels like it's headed that way. Terryreal.com. Pull out that checklist and go down that road.

And then holler back at me after 30 days. I mean, I'd love to see where you're going, what you're doing. If you want to read your letter to her, I would love that. But I don't want you creating a 30-day, writing a 30-day screenplay so you can act as though you're the person she needs. I want you to begin to get well for you. At the end of the day, that's the only person you can take care of and control.

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That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney Alright, let's go out to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and talk to the incredible Lily What's up, Lily? Hey, Dr. John, how are you doing? I could not be better, couldn't be better What's up, Lily? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing? I could not be better. Couldn't be better. What's up? So I'm just going to read you my original submission, if that's all right. Perfect. Just for backstory, my fiance and I got engaged back in May of this year. He had the blessing conversation, went really well.

And then about two months after we got engaged, my parents sat me down and told me they were essentially taking back the blessing and rattled off to me an extensive list of character flaws and red flags that they saw in my fiance and our relationship. Whoa, you can't triple stamp with double stamp. Yeah, it definitely caught me very off guard. It was very, very devastating to me. But ever since then, I've kind of been struggling with a lot of relationship anxiety and just kind of general anxiety and almost like depressive moods. Of course.

Of course. Yeah. Yeah. So, Lily, your body's working perfectly. Okay. As it should. Yeah. Yeah. So, Lily, your body's working perfectly. Okay. As it should. Yeah. Good grief.

There's no take backs, no Quincy's on this one. Read me the list. I would love to know what they just decided over two months that he was so terrible. Yeah. So, it's a lot. They called him lazy, irresponsible, immature. They thought that he had been mooching off of me and kind of manipulating me and rushing me into things that I wasn't ready for, didn't want to do. They didn't really like his career choice.

They don't get a vote about that. What's his career choice? So it's a little bit more on the unconventional side. They don't get a vote about that What's his career choice? So he It's a little bit more on the unconventional side He Is he a magician? He is! How did you know? I just made that up

You're joking No I just made that up dude So he's a magician And a juggler but he works in ministry so he tours the churches oh the jesus juggler yeah i mean oh my gosh he's gonna use that now he is going to i would probably sit my daughter down and be like hey listen listen um oh geez okay so how long have y'all been together we We have been together close to two years now. I'm not going to lie.

I'm amazing at this job. Can we just say that out loud? Jesus juggler magician. All right, so – all right, take that back. I'm not that amazing. So here's a couple of things. Oh, jeez. I don't know how to get into this.

Let me just say it like this. Number one, they don't get a vote. Um, I think with all of my heart, they love you. Yeah. And they would not be pulling the rip cord like they have if they didn't. Um, I also think that people who love us and think they have our best interest at heart often, um Insert themselves as a last minute last ditch effort like a truck is coming right at you

I'm gonna scream and yell and shove you out of the way and you may bang your head on the concrete But you didn't get hit by a truck and I feel like that's what they're doing right here. Okay. Yeah, um And I feel like that's what they're doing right here. Okay. Yeah. And I am very skeptical, very skeptical of unsolicited advice where somebody else, the person giving the advice does not have any skin in the game. Okay.

Yeah. What I mean by that is they do have skin in the game like it's going to affect their thanksgiving or their precious little daughter but their unsolicited advice implodes your life not theirs yeah definitely okay and so i'm always skeptical of that if you had sat down and said hey i'm feeling uncomfortable can i ask y'all some just hard questions about marriage and dating and getting together? And then like people call my show.

I got skin in the game. If I keep giving wrong answers, people are going to quit listening to the show. And I'm going to have to get another job, right? Yeah. So my question to you is, is any of the stuff they said, does any of it ring true? Has any of this stuff had a friend of yours, while y'all are just having a drink or having coffee, mentioned something similar along these lines?

Honestly, no. I haven't had anyone else in my life really express these concerns about my relationship with him or just him in general. For the most part, everyone's reacted really positively to him being around and, you know, our relationship. I'm not going to lie. There's been some things that I feel like I've almost been extra critical of since that conversation, just kind of in light of it. And that's where I kind of struggle with

whether I'm trusting myself and my intuition and trusting my parents or if I'm just looking really deeply into things that don't need to be looked really deeply into. And they're just kind of like- Give me an example. I mean, I think the biggest thing that kind of rang true with them

is I struggle with his immaturity sometimes. And he is very emotionally mature. I would say even more emotionally mature than me in a lot of cases. But just kind of his, like, sense of humor. Sometimes he's not very socially aware. And I kind of equate that to being a little bit more on the immature side. I don't have any experience with that at all. Not even a little bit more on the immature side. I don't have any experience with that at all. Not even a little bit.

Or maybe one day, like me, he'll make a living doing that. Once he moves away from Jesus juggling. Yeah. And let's be honest, if he's still doing Jesus juggling when he's in his 40s, then I mean, maybe, but here's the thing. I guess maturity is probably on a spectrum. I made a joke the other day at the dinner table and my 13-year-old looked at me and was like, dad, when are you going to grow up? Right?

So, I mean, part of me is like, yeah. But also there is a social awareness to that, right? And then there's a time and a place. And in my house at my table with my 13-year-old, I can make jokes that I'm not going to make out in public or whatever. But he is a magician and a juggler. So I would hope he's got a sense of humor that would match that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Here's what I would do.

Is there one or two things that are sitting heavy on your soul? If he thinks fart jokes are funny and butt crack jokes are funny, I mean, that can be as simple as, hey, there's a time and place and this isn't funny here. Yeah. And if he goes, hey, you know what? Forget you. This is who I am. Then your parents are right. Run from that guy.

Yeah. But if he goes, I know, dude, I need to like, just work on time and place. You're right. Then he sounds a lot like a guy I know named John and he could probably come a long way. You know, fair enough. Yeah. And he definitely, he definitely is the latter. Like, yeah, he's just been, he's honestly been an awesome partner for me. And I, I kind of feel bad going through all of this anxiety with him. He supported me so much through it and really fostered my growth through it, which has been amazing. And I just feel bad that I have all of this relationship anxiety about a person who I know is very good for me and a very healthy partner. Don't feel bad about it.

Your parents said, if you select him, you are unselecting us. We are opting out of relationship with you if you choose this yeah that's not something to shy away from you need to head directly into that because that's a very real thing and i'm not somebody who just is like screw them dismiss what they said no they love you i don't believe they would have done this and unless you tell me no they've got a history of being super overbearing and overprotective and overdramatic my whole life is that true um i would say to an extent they're also just very very critical people and i would say leaning towards judgmental people and i kind of feel like sometimes I have that perspective on people and their flip

ups and of course that's that's the that's the air you've been breathing for your whole life yeah and that's yeah I just always try and explain to my fiance like that also comes from a place where I'm very critical of myself and so as hard as i am on him sometimes i'm just as hard if not more hard on myself sure well i don't think so let me put over on one side you can get married and be in love and have a great time that's over here number two is hey if you're going to be jesus juggler if you're going to travel around churchesuggler, if you're going to travel around churches doing magic shows, I want to see a business plan. Yeah. Because I'm about to hitch my entire life to you. And if your business plan is you just sitting at home waiting for churches

to book you or for clubs to book you or birthday parties to book you, that's not good. Yeah. I love you. I'll still marry you, but I'm not signing up for this. Definitely. If he says, no, no, no, I have a very clear plan. I make this many calls a day. I send out this many press kits a day.

I also, I only want to be doing big theaters. I only want to be doing big churches for X dollars, but I also know that I got to pay bills. So I'll do birthday parties and all that kind of stuff on the side, even though it's not glamorous. Great. That's somebody who's out hustling. And will he be doing this in 10 or 15 years?

Probably not. But the experience of hustling, the experience of walking into God knows however many different situations and learning how to read a room and learning how to be kind and open to people, of hustling, the experience of walking into God knows however many different situations and learning how to read a room and learning how to be kind and open to people, learning how to deal with business. That's why I'm where I'm at right now because of those skills. Yeah. And so I, I wouldn't, those skills helped me run, be the chief student affairs officer at a university i mean those those skills are helpful anywhere you go and so um i don't have any problem with him trying to make a living as a magician

i'm worried if you think he's gonna be 36 and still trying to eke it out but that's you guys sitting down and being honest about the business plan of this whole thing yeah right yeah we've definitely yeah we've done that and i completely trust. I've seen him put in the hard work and Get I mean this was his first year going full-time with his own business and it's been more successful than Either of us anticipated because he's really just he's worked really really hard at it What does success mean? How much money will he make this calendar year? This calendar year he'll make make $50,000. Yeah, that means he's hustling.

Good for him. Yeah. Do your parents know that? I've tried to talk to them about it. They've expressed concern a couple times, not seriously, but they've just kind of asked about it. And I always have tried to explain to them how much I see him work on a day-to-day basis, the way that he really, he doesn't really take many breaks.

Hey, how much of this is your parents don't want to tell their friends at the country club that when they say, well, what does he do? And they say he's a magician. How much of this is just protecting their own fragile little identities? Because now I'm starting to get mad at them. I was on their side when this call first started, but now I'm starting to turn on your parents. Yeah, I think in retrospective, as I've moved further away from the conversation, I've kind of started to feel that way too.

I think it's probably a little bit of that, a little bit of an appearance thing. I think they're also afraid that we're just going to struggle financially and they've always just wanted me to be comfortable and well taken care of in that way. That's something that they really prioritize. So are you working to kind of work twofold? Yes, I am working. What working what do you do um it's kind of a bunch of different things uh i'm event coordinator for one business um i'm a saleswoman for another business it's just kind of like a lot of little jobs what we what would your tax return say you made this year um i believe it'll be around $45,000.

Okay. So you'll almost have a six-figure household. Yeah, at this point. I mean, this first year out. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Here's what I would do.

This is just me. Here's what I would do. I would just me. Here's what I would do. I would sit down with two of my friends that I trust. I'd call two buddies. I would say, I need to go meet with y'all for coffee or meet with y'all for a drink. And here's what just happened. Mom and dad said this, this, this, and this. And it kind of rattled me because they withdrew their blessing.

And I'm asking you all, am I crazy or are they crazy? And then please, please, please tell me the truth. Yeah. And have them speak openly into your life. And if they say, I don't see that at all. Like, yeah, he's like a professional juggler. That's not normal. But no, he loves you and takes care of you and shows up.

I wish he hadn't made those, you know, jokes about bras at the funeral. But give them an opportunity to speak into it. Okay? And so that's just friends speaking into it. The second thing is, is you're going to have to come up with some sort of circle back with your parents. Exactly. That's my biggest concern right now. Hey, here's the deal.

They have drawn their boundary. If you're into this, we are withdrawing from you. And I think you can circle up and say hey i've thought about what you said and based on this conversation let's just assume your friends say no your mom and dad are nuts they always have been um we've watched them just beat you down for all these years um or no they're actually right this isn't good um yeah then circle back with your parents and say hey uh i got some additional wisdom some additional whatever this wedding is happening on this day and if you choose to not be in relationship

with me because of that that's a choice y'all are making y'all are grown-ups y'all get to make that i want y'all to know that it will break my heart but um i respect your decision as adults and i wish y' all the best. And then you got to go make some grownup decisions because that's probably going to come with some money that they're going to put towards the wedding. It's probably going to come with all sorts of hooks and strings and your integrity and your relationships aren't worth that. However heavy it feels right now. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. But don't cash out your integrity and your relationship for a fancy wedding. Yeah. No, it's definitely not the plan. That's gross. Yeah. Yeah. And also don't just throw away wisdom from two people who love you, however misguided it might be. Double check it with somebody else. Yeah. Why does that make you nervous? It honestly, it really doesn't.

And I actually have in the aftermath of it, I have done that with a couple people that I really trust. And those are the people that are telling me that they don't see what my parents see and they don't, they're honestly, they're almost as blindsided as I am by my parents' reaction. Cool. So yeah, I've honestly already kind of gotten that confirmation from other people that I trust. And now I'm just, I'm just wondering how to come to my parents and have that conversation because I can't. As direct as possible. Okay. How old are you? I'm 24. Yeah. It's grown up time. It really is. There is no way to leave this conversation feeling good.

There is a way to leave this conversation feeling gross, and there's a way to leave this conversation feeling empowered, but you will not feel good. Yeah. And I think taking that off the table, I want you to say what you have to say truthfully and with dignity and respect. Don't go in there

bombing them like they bombed you because then you become them. Yeah. Right. But be honest. I'm marrying him. I've checked in with some other people that I hold with high value. And I actually feel in my guts that y'all are embarrassed to tell your friends that your daughter married a magician. And I hate that, but y'all made that choice and y'all are embarrassed to tell your friends that your daughter married a magician. And I hate that, but y'all made that choice. And y'all get to do that because you're grownups. Yeah. But we're getting married on this day.

I would love it if y'all are there. But y'all have made it clear they're not going to be. And so my door is always open. And then that conversation is over. And here's the other thing. Most of those conversations in that kind of moment when basically a child is asserting their adulthood, okay? It's your mom and dad will go to fight or flight and protection for their little girl and their ego and their reputation

and their how dare you do what we say, all that crap. That's not the conversation to unravel everything and talk through all of their points. Okay. There's a conversation. I need to say this, and it's going to take 15 minutes or 10 minutes, and then we can set up a time later to circle back and have the more in-depth conversation. Sure. And maybe you write them a letter.

Maybe you read the letter. Maybe you send it to them and say, mom and dad, I'm mailing you a letter that's kind of got things outlined. And then I would love to set up a time that we can have lunch or something or breakfast in the future and talk about it. But this isn't, we're not going to do a two hour he said she said up and down all around oh my gosh you're making the worst decision we're not doing that this time i'm gonna just say what i'm gonna say and i'm gonna move on and then we'll

circle back and have the harder conversation when all the smoke is cleared very similar to firing somebody the day you tell somebody the day you tell somebody, the moment you tell somebody, I'm letting you go, you're fired. That is not the time to negotiate, to go through everything and then this and then all that should have happened. And the moment somebody gets a hint that it's over, every defense mechanism they have, every fight or flight, every ego, everything is on point. So you circle back and you say, I'll meet with you next week. I'll meet with you in 10 days. defense mechanism they have every fight or flight every ego every everything is on point so you circle back you say i'll meet with you next week i'll meet with you in 10 days we'll set up a time and i'll i'll hear it all and they may come back furious and enraged as part of the grief cycle

they may come back at peace and say dude this is right i'm sorry i acted this way they may come back any number of ways but at least some of the emotion has dialed down and they can begin to think through what next steps look like. And then we'll go from there. I hate it for you. I hate it. If you have, if you're with somebody and it's wrong, I hate it for you that your mom and dad said, we're so excited for you. And then they circle back and they, they withdrew and they put down a boundary that said him or us i hate the whole thing but when you say i do that's a very grown-up decision it's forever and with grown-up decisions come grown-up consequences and grown-up responses

and this is exhibit a i wish it wasn't the case. It's not how any of us would draw it up. We want mom and dad to ride or die with us, but your mom and dad have said, we draw a line right here. And now you get to make that same choice, that same decision. Not going to feel good.

You can feel gross, or you can feel empowered. And I hope you choose empowerment. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though, is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious,

if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow, and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose.

And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day.

It's a discipline and it's a practice, and here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it, and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself, and sometimes you do this with a group, and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet earth, Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show, get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life.

All right, we're back. Hey, it's time for the next installment of the six daily choices series. These have spun up all over the internets and I'm so grateful that you're watching these and listening and showing them. Today's choice is health and healing. This idea that man, if your body's not well and whole, if you haven't dealt with that old trauma, if you haven't dealt with your metabolic challenges, your weight challenges, your movement challenges, your body's going to respond in all different kinds of ways, including this pervasive sense of anxiousness that something's not okay. And that's not popular to talk about. It's uncomfortable to talk about. Everybody skirts it and evades it and it was one of those things that I felt like I was lying if I didn't talk about the importance of taking care being a good steward of our bodies time is now the statistics are against us they're super clear and we have everything food water shelter resources and yet we are sicker than we could possibly imagine. Nobody would have predicted this. So check this out. This is one of the six daily choices.

Choose health or healing. Here we go. Please hear me on this. You can't outthink anxiety. You can't sit in a dark room and get all the right thoughts in the right order and neglect your body. So when I think back to when I was completely burned to the ground with anxiety, with burnout, with just chronic stress day after day after day, I had a whole bunch of graduate degrees. I was surrounded by some of the smartest minds in the world. And I committed myself to solving anxiety. But all along the way, I completely neglected the vessel that was carrying me all over the place. I started skipping workouts. I started eating junk food and garbage. I stopped seeing a counselor because I didn't have time. I had these feelings about things

that happened to me in the past, and I shoved them down because I had important intellectual work to do. And my body was sick. My body was overcome with past traumas. My body said, I quit. We're a culture that has information on everything, a blog post and a Wikipedia page and a YouTube channel for every thing we can imagine. For most of us, our pain won't be solved with more intellect. Our pain is solved by sitting down and exhaling

and to look at our one precious body and say, you're worth taking care of. So when I talk about healing, I'm often talking about dealing with past trauma. And we think of trauma like the big car wreck, right? The big plane crash, right? Those big before and after moments. And that is trauma. That's acute. But there's also other kinds of trauma, like secondary trauma.

If you are a nurse, you're a social worker, you're a counselor, every day people come to you and say, will you please help me? And so where an acute trauma might be like somebody dropping a cinder block in your backpack, cumulative trauma is the everyday. Somebody comes and hands you a few pebbles and the next day, a few pebbles, the next day, a few pebbles. And over time, the weight of that backpack is the exact same as the weight

of somebody with a cinder block. There's also collective trauma. What happens when a whole country goes to war? Or when, I don't know, an illness sweeps across the globe, right? That's a collective trauma that we all experience together. And then there's another kind of trauma that we don't talk about very often.

The trauma of neglect. The things you should have got when you were a kid. You should have had a safe place to come home to from school. Dad should have chosen when you were a kid. You should have had a safe place to come home to from school. Dad should have chosen you over the bottle. Mom should have chosen you over the cell phone. And what happens is our body puts a GPS pin in those moments. And 25 years later, you get married and you found the romantic partner of your dreams

and they get close to you and your body says, whoa, we remember what happens when someone gets close and it sounds the alarms. That guy's not safe. She's gonna hurt us too. How many of you feel two inches apart from someone but 2,000 miles away from them? And healing from trauma is almost always

about teaching your body, I know we weren't safe then. We got hurt badly back then, but we're going back in now. And we might get hurt again because vulnerability is the only path to friendship and love and connection, but that's the path to healing from trauma. So when I talk about health,

I'm talking about your physical body. Honest. As a country, we're way overweight. Our metabolic health is a mess. And there is no mental health without physical health. You can't build a home without first building a foundation. And a foundation to great mental and emotional health is having a healthy body.

If you have chronic pain, if you're struggling with obesity, if your joints hurt, your neck hurts, your back hurts, it's almost impossible to have good mental and emotional health. Few things are more contentious than the nutrition religion wars that are upon us. I'm keto. Well, I'm vegan.

Well, I'm carnivore. Well, I'm rational and sensible. Enough. What you're going to find is that for most people, most of the time, hold your hats. Just about any diet will do. If you make some hard choices about consumption and movement. We've created a world for ourselves. We don't have to move very much. We take escalators up the stairs. We take escalators down. We fly in planes cross-country almost overnight. We've

withdrawn movement from the human experience. It's killing us. And so if you want to choose a non-anxious life, you have to choose movement. And like nutrition, I'm not gonna get into the workout wars. It can be a 20 mile run. It can be a walk to your mailbox and back. It can be a 10 minute weight room session in your garage. I don't care.

You have to move. Most of us know the data. We should all be getting about seven to nine hours of sleep. And we also know that most of us think we're pretty hardcore and we're doing just fine on four, five, or six hours of sleep. For 99.9% of us, we're not. Our bodies aren't getting that deep wave restorative sleep. Our bodies aren't getting that deep REM sleep that takes out the garbage in our minds, that restores and heals our body and prepares us for the next day. And for many of us, sleep is hard. We have racing thoughts. We've got things to do. We've got kids running everywhere. And yet, if we don't prioritize sleep, everything else in our life will suffer.

The less sleep you get, especially over time, the more anxious you're bound to feel. Being perfect, getting it all done, accomplishing health, accomplishing healing is a fool's errand. You'll never be all the way there. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could brush our teeth once a week? We could do it so good on Monday morning that we didn't have to brush our teeth for the rest of the week.

That would be amazing. We can't. I got to do it twice a day. Similarly, when you choose health and healing, you make that choice for the rest of your life. Some days it's harder. Some days it's easier. I showed up to this shoot today. These guys, they brought a box of donuts. I chose a donut, right? But it's part of a bigger picture that's my life most of the time health and healing should be relatively simple it's hard it's a complete 180 from how most of us live our lives but if you just think my being a good steward of what I'm putting in my body am i moving am i willing to sit down across from

somebody and say I got hurt bad and here's what happened. Very, very hard things, but simple things. And if you feel yourself complicated, or if you feel yourself sitting with a professional and they're telling you this and this and this and this, maybe time to move on. Because the truest masterminds will tell you, it's just three or four or five or six buckets

over and over and over again. Just like brushing your teeth. Choosing health and healing is a choice you're going to make every day for the rest of your life. You're worth that choice. 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're back as we wrap up today's show. Dude, Nathan, Nate Dogg, you had a great joke

during the call about the daughter marrying the Jesus juggler and magician? Yeah. I had – what did I say? Oh, I said that the guy is – he should say to the parents, I got a magic trick for you. I'm going to make your blessing disappear. Good job.

Good job, Nathan. That would have been awesome if her parents had done that. Like, we give you our blessing. Hooray. We're going to take that back. Here's why. Magic, magic, magic. And it disappeared.

All right, as we wrap up today's show, it's actually not funny at all. I'm hurting for everybody on that one. Song by a band? That's a body part that Kelly doesn't have. I realize I couldn't have said that any weirder. Sorry about that. Songs by the band Heart.

It's called Magic Man, and it goes like this. Cold late night so long ago when I was not so strong. You know, a pretty man came to me. I've never seen eyes so blue. You know, I could not run away. It seemed we'd seen each other in a dream. Seemed like he knew me. He looked right through me.

Try to understand. I'm a magic man. So good. Maybe that guy should just read these lyrics to his future in-laws, and they'd be like, oh, we missed it. Maybe that's the case. Love you guys. See you soon.