The Dr. John Delony Show - She Left Me for a Woman

Episode Date: November 29, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A husband whose wife has been lying and cheating for years - Exhausted parents wondering how to get their young kids to respect them - A wife unsure of how to talk with her defensive husband about money Lyrics of the Day: "Come To My Window" - Melissa Etheridge  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. Well, recently I did find out that she has had an affair with a woman, her friend. How do you go through something like this? And then what's the next step when you find out somebody that you've been with for over 23 years is throwing that all away. What up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Man, I'm so glad that you're with us. We're talking about mental health, emotional health.

We're talking about parenting, schools, what's going on at your office, whatever you got going on in your life when it comes to relationships and your mental, emotional health. I got you. I'm going to sit with you and hear what's going on at your office, whatever you got going on in your life when it comes to relationships and your mental emotional health, I got you. I'm going to sit with you and hear what's going on. These are real people going through real things, and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. Where do we go from here? If you want to be on this show, I'm a neutral third party.

I don't really have a – I've got a lot of biases, but I don't know you. And so I don't have decades with your mother-in-law coming after you. I don't know your husband or your wife. I don't have decades with your mother-in-law coming after you. I don't know your husband or your wife. I don't know your kids. And so my promise is I'm going to sit with you, and we're going to figure out what we can do next. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz, 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291.

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questions for humans, the relationship ones, the ones with your kids, grandparents and kids. I'm going to save your holiday season and give you all some tools into the new year. You're listening to this. It's a couple of days after Thanksgiving. Listen, don't coast for the rest of the year. Get a month head start on your new year's resolution. right now right now start right now what do you want next year to feel like who do you want to be next year start right now making those moves you're worth it your family's worth it your kids are worth it your neighborhood's worth it this country's worth it make your move go for it let's go out to uh the utes to the salt lake city to the

slc talk to randy what's up r, Dr. Deloney, for taking my call. Of course, man. What's up? So my wife and I have been married for over 23 years. We've got three adult children. One is married, two are off to college. And over the last several years, I've had suspicion of multiple affairs. But my wife kept telling me, oh, it's all in your head. It's in your head. Well, recently I did find out for, uh, as a fact, uh, with proof that she has had an affair, uh, with, um, with a woman, her friend, and she has decided to move out and abandon us and move out with her new girlfriend or slash wife. Okay.

What do I, I mean, talk about a shock, right? No kidding. How do you, how do you, how do you go through something like this? And then what, what's the next step when you find out that, that somebody that you've been with for over 23 years has just thrown that all away. And not just throw it away, but throw it away and go live with another woman. Yeah. I think the... I don't want to let the who or even what, I don't want that to make this more complex

than it already is. So I don't want you to get hung up on, she's with my best friend, she's with some random guy from work, or she's with another woman. I think that's a distraction from the core issue. The core issue is your wife said, I don't love you anymore.

I love somebody else. I'm out. And I think it's easy to find a bunch of other things. I'm going to be mad at my buddy. I'm going to be so angry at, you know, dating apps. I'm going to be mad that she's with a woman and now she's telling me she's

gay. I think that's a distraction from you feeling the depths of hell that you've been cast into okay and so i think healing or you're not at the healing point yet i think grieving dealing with the reality of this is step one often almost a hundred percent of the time when I have this conversation with somebody, somebody of short-term, somebody of we've been married for 10 years, we've been married for 20 years,

often there's the initial shock and awe and anger and frustration, that happens. But often the most catastrophic loss is not the person leaving. It's that, Randy, you knew for a long time something wasn't right. And now all of a sudden the person you trust less than her is you lost trust in Randy. And it makes it hard to know what to eat. It makes it hard to know what time to get out of bed. It makes it hard to know what to eat. It makes it hard to know what time to get out of bed.

It makes it hard to know what to say to your kids because suddenly the most confident person you were in the world, suddenly you don't trust that guy either. Is that true? Most of it. I trust myself. I'm a strong enough person to know what it is and I need to take care of, and I, I'm strong enough person to know, okay, what it is. And I need to take care of myself and continue if not for myself, for my kids. Nope. For you, for taking care of your kids,

just taking care of yourself. Okay. So, so taking care of myself, but losing trust in others. Yes. Yeah. It's, it's definitely hard to trust anyone at this point. Yeah. So when she said she's gone, what does that mean? Is she filing for divorce? She, yes, she, she left. So I filed, uh, she, she decided to, yeah, she had her whole family come over along with her girlfriend and pack up all personal stuff and took off. Okay.

So as hard as this is right now, from this point forward, because of her declaration, this marriage, this partnership, this best friend you thought you had, now this is a business transaction. Okay. Now this is a business transaction. Okay? And as much as you allow your, and we treat our business partners fair. I don't want to take advantage of somebody who buys one of my books. I want my book to be a gift for them

in exchange for their 20 bucks. Okay? So going into a business transaction. Doesn't mean that you dishonor her. You try to rip her off. I'm going to get the most money for I don't do that with my customers and I don't want you to do that with her. And I also don't say, oh, you know what? You don't have to pay. Like I have some, some costs in this book, right? I wrote it. I took a year of my life to do that away from my friends, away from my family,

away from other business opportunities. I got paper costs. We've got publishing costs. It costs money. It's a business, right? Sure. And so we are now in a business transaction. And I want to tell you, this is awful.

I hate it for you. I hate it for you. I hate the conversations you have to have with your kids. I hate the conversations you have to have with your kids. I hate the conversations you have to have with your friends. Everybody's going to have an opinion. Everybody's going to give you stupid advice and dumb advice. Well, it's just, it's just. And dude, at the end of the day, it's you laying in your bed in a quiet house.

Heartbroken. Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. How the conversation's been with your kids? They're angry. Yeah. To know that their mom, you know, just left.

Yeah. And not just left, but said, you know, I've got a lawyer and we're going to destroy you, is her words exactly. Yeah. What is her vitriol against you? Why does she suddenly want to destroy you? Because I found out the truth. I don't understand. It sounds like she's getting exactly what she wants.

That's, that's my thought too. That's why it's so confusing. She's, she's getting everything she wants. Um, and, and, but yet, because I find out the truth, you know,

she wanted to live both lives. Ah, so, so you, you live a double life. You pop the balloon of her little fantasy where she could have you, your security and your stability and your financial resources, but she could go have this loving sexual relationship on the side and just run a double life.

Uh-huh. Yeah. And I've seen that with her web searches, how to live a double life. Good gosh. All this, it's like, are you kidding me? She didn't even clear a search history. My goodness, dude. Oh, her, her search history is, is a mess of, of, I don't know what I should say on the, on the show.

Dude, that's just like cheating 101. Clear your search history, right? I mean, geez. Well, even if you, even if you clear your web searches there, there's ways. Oh, I know. I know. People think we're, we're searching in secret. People know. No, everybody knows. That's right.

So for her to do that, her web searches, and I've got all that documented, show that she's been searching not only just how to live a double life, but how to become more lesbian, how to address it, what do you do with other women, just on and on, and kind of really gross stuff. And then text messages between the two of them I've seen, and even more gross. So, yeah, it's really disgusting. And so here's what I would recommend you do. This is going to sound crazy.

You know there's been infidelity. You know your wife looked you in the eye and said, I want out. You know her family is with her, and they have moved. The more you go swan diving into the details, into the sorted photos, into the whatever, the more you're choosing to go mad. Have you hired an attorney? Yes. Great. This is what you pay an attorney for. Every time you think through, I wonder if at this party, and I wonder about this, and I wonder about this other woman, and this other guy.

And every time you do that, you're choosing misery. You've hired an assassin. Let your assassin do his or her job. You get about healing. And every time, if you do the cannonball back into the sewage, the sewer water, you're choosing misery. Don't do that. And dude, by the way, I know that's hard. Also, let your kids be angry and you don't fall into the trap of talking crap about their mom.

Okay? That will be very, very hard to do. But your kids know in their core that faults in all, they are half their mom and they are half their dad. And if you start trashing mom, now there's a reality. Mom chose to leave. mom made some hard decisions Kids i'm heartbroken. That's not y'all's job to fix But your old man is really really sad and confused and heartbroken They don't need to know about what was on the computer

They don't need to know about the photos and the texts and all that stuff It's okay to say yeah mom mom left she got a girlfriend and her family moved her out and i'm heartbroken that's okay to say, yeah, mom left. She got a girlfriend and her family moved her out and I'm heartbroken. That's okay. But she's a this and I can't believe it.

Don't do that to those kids. Okay? You do need to have a space for that and that's your close male buddies. I'm hoping you've got a couple. Do you have any? I do, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. I want you to make it a priority to meet with them once a week in person, if at all possible. And I want you to preface this with guys, I'm coming up on a hard season. I'm going to be sad for a while. I need you guys. And I know that sounds awkward and weird and very unmanly, but that's the path forward. Right. But if you get together and just talk crap about your wife or talk crap about what you found

or talk crap about her family or lawyer, talk crap about gay people, if you do that, you're choosing to cannonball into the sewage. That's not grief. That is wallow. Yeah. The grief is you feeling

how freaking quiet your house is at night now. And putting your hand on your chest and weeping. Or get to talking about your buddies and once your anger starts to subside a little bit, you're able to have sorrow in front of other guys and say the words, I really miss her. And I got to build something new now. I did not see this coming. That's grief. And unfortunately, that's the only path forward where you're going to be well and healthy

and whole. Does that make sense? Yeah. I'd hug you if you were here. I appreciate it. It's just something you don't, yeah, you can't see, you don't expect, right? That's right. That's right. You got hit in the mouth. Yes. And so this is a business transaction. I wouldn't talk to her anymore. She chose to leave.

I wouldn't send text messages anymore. Every message she sends to you, I would just let it go into the ether. You don't have to deal with sharing custody of kids or anything like that. Your kids are grown. Yeah. Yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah. And so you don't have to deal with that. You're going to want to know what she's doing. You're going to want to know how she's doing. You're going to want to know all that stuff's normal. You spent 25 years with her, including dating, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a quarter of a century. How old are you? 46. Okay. You spent 25 years with her, including dating, right? Yeah. Yeah. That's a quarter of a century. How old are you? 46. Okay. You've been with her longer than you haven't been, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's going to be hard to breathe once you stop being so pissed off.

And that's right, because she took one of your lungs with her. She took your hands and your legs legs because y'all were one. Y'all were a gang. So you're going to have to learn how to do everything over again. And I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Because everybody deserves somebody to come home that they can drop their shoulders and just be safe. And this, my friend, I'm being intentional here. This is grief.

This is sitting in it, the reality of it, okay? Not getting distracted by all the other stuff. But moving forward, dude, I wouldn't go down the search history anymore. You've given,

give everything over to the attorney and move on. I wouldn't go through those text messages again and again and again. I just wouldn't. I wouldn't let anybody talk bad about my wife. I wouldn't let anybody talk bad about the gay community. I wouldn't let anybody talk bad about my wife. I wouldn't let anybody talk bad about the gay community. I wouldn't let anybody talk. It just doesn't serve any purpose

at all. The truth is your wife left you. There may be some truth that when it comes out, she's like, I've been telling you for years this, or you are struggling with why or whatever. And there may be some truth to some things you need to work on moving forward in your life. Maybe not. Maybe you just got sucker punched on this one. Make sure you take care of yourself. Sleep when you can, but also honor when you're going to wake up at 2 a.m. for six months. Have a book, have a video, have something to watch And just honor your bodies. It's trying to reconcile how to breathe with only one lung for a while You'll grow another one, but right now you just got one because she took one It's gonna be hard to walk because she took one of your legs

Y'all were one for a quarter of a century Make sure you eat right when you can make Make sure you hang out with your friends. Make sure you at least walk around the neighborhood. This would be a great time to start lifting weights and get a trainer if you don't have one. Let your lawyer do their job. It's a business transaction now. I'm heartbroken for you, brother.

Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life. I don't know if you're in the mood for reading. This will be a roadmap to start building something back and to honor your body as it rattles and shakes, as it figures out what to do now. All right, go ahead and put Own Your Past on there too. What happens when life hits you in the mouth and you got to figure out what to do next. We love you, buddy. Holler if I can ever help, man. 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

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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. Alright, we are back and we've got a couple on the phone. So let's go to Megan first. What's up, Megan? Hey, is this for real? Is this actually Dr. Don Gelani that I'm talking to right now?

No, it's my brother. My brother, Dan. He is crazy. How are you? I'm amazing right at the moment. I'm on cloud nine. I can't even believe I'm talking to you This is awesome, thank you for having me

Of course, thanks for calling in Alright, let's bring in Sam, husband I just hit line three Sam, what's up? Just sitting in the office Taking a phone call, you know You know You guys sound like Letterkenny

It makes my heart feel so full right now This is so great. Okay. So y'all are not in the same house right now? No. No. Okay. So y'all can tell the truth and not have to like eyeball each other.

Yes. All right. So I don't really even know what this call is about. So Megan, you go first and you say what you want to say. Say what you need to say. And then Sam, you hop in and then we'll go from there. Okay. Sounds good.

So first, thank you. Your insight and wisdom has been life-changing in every area of my life. Awesome. Thank you. So thank you for that. So Sam actually introduced me to your show back in 2020. And so I'm just going to quickly go through. My question makes really no sense without the context. So go for it.

So ever since I started listening to your show, I've been listening to every episode to try and get tidbits about parenting. So we have four kids. We have a 10-year-old daughter and three boys that are eight, six, and three. Can I just pause? Good God. Yes. Yeah, we both come from big families. so we both knew we wanted big families,

but I don't think I was fully prepared. I wanted a Basset Hound forever, and then I got one. The smell alone was amazing, right? Oh man. Okay. Anyway, so we've been trying to do a lot of the things that you've suggested. And we've read some of the books that you suggested too. And then outside of that, we talked to a social worker to try and get some tools and insight to help. Our eight-year-old son has ADHD. And then we've also gotten him into some classes to kind of help him get some tools as well. But despite doing all that, there's still so much fighting and disrespect. Our eight-year-old continues.

Some days it seems like he wants to push back about absolutely everything. He also can be very physically and verbally aggressive. And our six-year-old has full-blown temper tantrums where he's yelling and he's stomping and he's hitting. And, you know, we want our kids to be open to talk about their feelings. We want them to feel safe, but I'm exhausted. And I just feel like I'm a garbage can. Um, I just feel like some days it's all four of them are just throwing their crap at me. And I'm just like, I, I don't know what to do. And so what my question is, what can Sam and I do? Is this an us problem?

Is there something that we're not doing or that we are doing we should stop? Or is this just a them problem? All right. Kind of set me up here. All right. So Sam, what do you think? Well, I mean, for me, the hardest part is like I grew up in a family very different from mine. I never, ever would say things to my mother that my children have said to my wife. And it kind of is very difficult to, you know, like not do the things my father did to me, to my children. Sure. If you catch my drift. And so I'm, I mean, for me, it's like, okay, I got to do better. I know I got to do better, but at the

same time, you know, if my kids don't listen to me, when I talk nicely to them, what am I supposed to do? Like, like, you know, I, I'm at a loss for that too, where it's like, you know, I, I come home from work and it's like, you know, you know, I, I really, we, we worked at it pretty good. So I, I rarely come home and then the bad guy, which is really nice as a, as a dad, but even still you hear, you hear the things and it's like, you did what? Yeah. Yeah. You know? And so then you're kind of like, now what am I supposed to even do? Like, I want to love my kids and I want to like you and I do. And I, and I do. And it's like, but I don't like when I hear these stories, you know? And so then I'm kind of at a loss for, you know, how to proceed past there. Yeah. So let's, um, to answer your question, Megan, it's a complicated answer where I like to start because it can be any number of things.

Okay. Where I like to start is, number one, kids absorb tension. They absorb chaos. And so a 10, a 8, a 6, and a 3 is by nature chaotic, right? Yes. Yes, it is. So that's in the ether already, okay? So expecting calm versus expecting your kids to lean and push on every boundary. Is this real? Is this real? Can I pet this tiger? I wonder if this dog will bite me. Let's lick a snake. Let's like, you know,

it's like, that's what kids are supposed to do. Okay. And so often there's a tension because I have this picture of my kids all like one doing a puzzle, one coloring and one, I don't, I don't want those kids. I'll just say it that way. Right. Yes. I also, I don't want my house like the way it is right now. And there's, so there's a gap. That gap is for me, the adult. Okay. That's step one. Yep. Often I will tell a mom who's staying at home with four kids. Are you homeschooling too? Are they going to school? Oh goodness. No, they're going to school. All right. Yeah. No, we, we did that COVID and I realized very quickly, no, no, no, we're not, that's not a thing in our house. Yes. I had a very similar experience in my house. So, um,

so it's very important that you mom do what you have to do during the day when the kids are gone to take care of yourself. And that is, unfortunately, you got to find some places where you can move your body. You got to find some places where you have some adult women friends. And that might mean we're going to get a sitter for the three-year-old or if the three-year-old goes to like a preschool, I don't know what y'all have in Canada, but if there's some sort of preschooling thing or a sitter of some sort, but I have to have these things built into my life. Because what I'm trying to do is take my water glass and pour out as much water as I can before those four kids get home and start trying

to test everything all at the same time. Cause they're going to be dumping water into that glass. And so I want it as empty as possible. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what that looks like for y'all. That's for you and Sam to figure out. Okay. Um, that's step one. We're going to lower the temperature in the house with what we can control. Step two, both Sam and Megan. I'm not a fan of this gentle parenting idea. Your kids don't get to hit each other, period. They don't get to be disrespectful. They don't get to scream and yell and holler and whatever. Okay. Where I do hold the kids responsible is I say, because you did X, you have chosen to separate from this team for a minute. And it's usually one minute per year. That is one of the things that we have been doing is we have

changed our language to be, if you are choosing this behavior, you are choosing whatever the consequences and then starts the explosion where it's like, okay, are you, if you're going to choose to yell at me, you're choosing to go to your room. And then it's like, no, I'm not going to my room. And it's like, I literally have to pick the child and take them to their room. Like, because now it's getting to be like, okay, now we've escalated things. You, you do need to leave the room and cool down. And it's, so in some ways it's like we have been doing that, but it, in some ways almost escalates things, especially with, um, with our eight year old, six year old.

So here's the missing, here's the missing piece there. It does require entry into the room with the kid. Yeah. And this statement or this series of statements, I know your body feels so big and on fire right now. And you look them in the eye and you say, and these feelings don't make me scared. I know that you don't want to be feeling this big. I know that.

And I'm going to be safe. More than anything in the world, I want you right by my side in this kitchen helping me cook. I want you right at the counter working on your homework so we can laugh and tell jokes. But when you have these big feelings and you choose to hit, you choose to not be in there. And we don't work as a family when you choose to not be there. Right. So for an ADHD kid, I'll speak to that one, the most terrifying thing they can experience is isolation. Right.

And unfortunately, the way they show that terror is to make themselves almost impossible to be in relationship with. Mm-hmm. they show that terror is to make themselves almost impossible to be in relationship with. And so I'm going to head directly into the middle of that chaos. And I'm going to be as calm as humanly possible. What they're desperate for is, are you still going to love me? Still going to love me. Still going to love me.

Yes. I will not abandon you, but you can choose to walk away from us. Right. love me, he's still going to love me, he's still going to love me. Yes, I will not abandon you, but you can choose to walk away from us. Right. So that is easier said than done when you have three other kids going, ah, right. I totally get that. But there is a heading into it and being very clear about, I know your body feels big. Do either one of you have ADHD symptoms or have been diagnosed with it? Yes.

Okay. Yes, that would be me. Okay. And I'm on meds for it. Okay. Sam, I will honor my kids and not use, say who I had this conversation with, but I sat down with one of my kids

when they were very young and said, you and I have very, very special brains. We have very special brains that allow us to feel really big. Sometimes feelings that aren't even real. And sometimes those feelings feel scary. And it also allows us to sit with other people when they're hurting too,

which makes us such a gift to our community and to our families. And so here's what I did. I walked through. What I did is I made sure that my kid felt not alone, and years later after that one single conversation and we also came up with a secret hand signal which is to point to my head

or to point to my chest that child refers back to that conversation you know I've got big feelings I know and they don't scare me at all and I'm so glad that you have them you cannot talk to your mom like that right and so there was this piece that allowed my kid to see okay he goes to work every day and gets a paycheck and also i'm just like him and also see what i'm saying like

it was the social norming going on inside the house. Yeah. Also, there's things like physical therapy. A lot of ADHD kids need to bang into other things. They stomp through the house really hard. They've got sensory issues. And sometimes something as simple as physical therapy can be such a gift to a kid.

Learning how to, oh, I don't have to hit the ground that hard. I don't have to squeeze my pencil that tight. And some of those things are really helpful. Y'all may have tried some of those things. What about the six-year-old? The six-year-old does not, although we're aware of, he doesn't have a lot of the similar things, at least, that we've noticed with our eight-year-old.

And our eight-year-old, we pretty much noticed it early on. It was like we hit the 2-year-old tantrums at 18 months with our 8-year-old and it just never stopped. Sure. And that's that 6-year-old... Think about this. That body feels like it's on fire. Yeah. Our 6-year-old, I'm not sure. I've noticed... I do wonder if it's just... So he's in the middle of the three boys. And, you know, we have our three-year-old who, he's three, so. Is the six-year-old a girl? No, a boy.

They're all boys? Three boys at the end. Yeah, our daughter is the oldest. Okay. Is she mean or is she nice? She's wonderful. Absolutely amazing. Okay. Can I tell you where that can be a problem? Yes. Your kids, your other three boys know that, right? They have to know that they're wonderful too. Yes. They're just wonderful. Different. Yeah. And I mean, yeah. And again, I, I feel like, again like again we've been trying like we've done things like you know the journal writing the journal and of course which is hard when the kids are still

learning oh yeah they're just they're just drawing pictures yeah yeah do you um have you all tried the weekly breakfast together no we haven't done that i that one's what we have been doing is every um so there's three days in the week. Each kid gets a turn staying up a little, a little bit later, not super late, but a little bit later with either samurai. And we do something like play games or have a tea party or, um, whatever the thing is. Um, so that they all get that little bit and they, they look forward to it every week. Like it's definitely like a thing. Um, and it's been great. Cause that, that just seems to work

best. The hard part is I also work part time and I'm a nurse in a long-term care facility. So I work evenings, um, and every other weekend. So it's challenging to sometimes scheduling wise as well. I mean, Sam has to be at work at like, he leaves at seven. So then it's hard to get, you know, all those pieces, right. It's trying to figure out what works best with our life right now. There you go. So I would recommend strongly, and y'all may do this already. I would recommend you and Sam. By the way, you said samurai, and that sounds kind of awesome.

Just have to shout out that. You and Sam, once a week, I want y'all to plan out not what works indefinitely, what works this week. I want to make sure you and Sam's marriage is ironclad. Budget-wise, sexually, connection, because managing all four kids and doing something cool, like everybody gets to stay up a little later, we get to do tea parties, we get to do something like this. Suddenly, the relationship that's going off the rails is y'all two. There is some seasonality to this.

And what I mean by seasonality is your 10-year-old is about to turn 11, 12, and 13, and she's going to change dramatically. Your 8-year-old is going to move into middle school. He's going to change dramatically Like he's just going to start turning fourth and fifth grade and then suddenly sixth grade and there's going to be a dramatic shift You're six and and on down the line. So you're about to hit some major milestones here One last thing with your eight and your six-year-old that I would recommend. I think the 10-year-old, everybody needs not just a job, but they need a role, a purpose, a gift. They need to understand what they bring to the family.

And so that's not always fun. And there's a lot of, hey, to my son, Hank, go back out and get the chickens or they dogs have to eat. And like, oh, geez, dad, come on. So it's not like it's perfect every time. But my son knows he's got a very particular, not just chores, but he's got a pillar that the house sits on. My daughter too. And that's been tough because it would be way, way, way faster for my wife to cook dinner by herself. And when my daughter feels like she's participating in making dinner,

the whole experience is magic. There's no yelling. There's no screaming. There's no fighting. There's no, none of the, ah, because she is locked in relationally and locked in with a purpose. So sit back with your husband and say, okay, what's this week? What purpose can we give each one of these kids this week? When it comes to dinner, when it comes

to this, when it comes to, all right, I'm going to be having to go to work. And so we're going to make sure we wake up and have X and Y and Z. Maybe we're going to hire a middle school kid to come over and play with the six-year-old and the three-year-old on Saturday mornings when mom's at work. We're going to pay three bucks an hour, whatever it is. We're going to begin to look at all the relational touch points. None of this is easy and every kid is different. I have seen some pretty remarkable stuff from Parenting Expert, and she goes by Dr. Becky on Instagram.

She has some really great stuff. I haven't been through her courses, but it's got rave reviews. And she has a particular level of expertise on something she calls a deeply feeling kid. That might be something worth looking into. Again, she goes by Dr. Becky, deeply feeling kids. If you have an

eight-year-old that just feels like their body's electric on fire, some really good stuff there. But let me be super clear. Your kids aren't allowed to hit. I will remove you. And yes, there is a point when I am bigger than you, I will pick you up and move you out of this room. And you have to be careful with a deeply feeling kid or a kid that is wrestling with these wild emotions because that in some ways gives them exactly what they want. Connection, time, one-on-one attention, laser focus from mom and dad. So where can I give time and attention and laser focus and connectivity? To that kid that is positive in nature not responsive in nature. That's hard when you got four of them running around It's hard And sam I know as somebody who struggles with this you walk home and you are so overwhelmed being lasered in all day

You just want to go Let's do nothing. Doing nothing for a 10, an 8, and a 6, and a 3-year-old is a recipe for chaos. It's pulling the fence down and letting them just run amok. They go crazy and they trip and fall, hit their heads. It's coming home and choosing, I'm going to laser back in. Also, with that 8-year-old, sometimes it's good just, hey, we're going to go for a long, long walk. We're going to go to the creek.

We're going to go to the park. We're going to go do a thing. Do we have time to do that? No. Do we have stuff we got to do at home? Yes. And we're going to plug in. And it still doesn't mean we're not going to have a fight at bedtime.

But we're going to do this again. And I'm going to show up again. And I'm going to show up again. And what you're going to see over time is the bedtime stuff starts to minimize. The fights start to minimize the chaos in the house slowly comes down. But here's the question, Sam and Megan, I want y'all to ask. I want y'all to ask this question every Sunday night together. I want you to ask this question. How can I love you this week? What do I need from you this week? How can we minimize chaos in the house this week?

Just ask that question and see if there's money stress. See if there's relational stress. See if there is we need to put sex on the calendar. See if there is we need to go on a date night. See if there is what do we need to do in this house? We need to go exercise. What do we need to do in this house to begin to minimize the chaos? That the kids might be touching the electric fence and getting burned?

And don't fail to use the resources at your local school. You pay for them. You'll get them. You're in it, guys. You're in it. That's a whole bunch of ideas. Every kid's going to be different. Make sure your kids know they're connected. Make sure they know they've got a part we'll be right back all right let's go out to Toledo Ohio and talk to Mary Mary what's up Mary hi what's up uh nothing nuts I am really, really nervous. I love your show, though. I do not miss an episode. Oh, you're too kind.

Thank you so, so much. What's up? So my question is, how do I communicate with my husband without him becoming quite defensive? We've only been married for about two and a half years, so still kind of new to all of this, but it's been pretty prevalent since I'd say since we were engaged. I feel like whenever I ask him a question or just kind of having difficult conversations, it just kind of goes over like a bag of bricks and I'm not really sure what I'm doing wrong or how I'm contributing to it. I've tried to ask him in the moment and outside of

those heated moments, how I could phrase my questions to make them less offensive. But he has kind of told me that he doesn't want to tell me how, because that just feels weird to tell him, to tell me how to communicate with him um the questions can range from finance whoa hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on you are being gaslit out of your mind my friend oh let me be like super clear you can't he is choosing to be offended period he's either choosing to be offended by what you say he's choosing to be offended by going back in and back in and back into the same conversations and he's choosing to or he's choosing to be offended by not giving you clues as to why what you say hurts him. I kind of have, I do have, like, I do know why.

He's got a lot of shame from his past. He's got a lot of stuff that happened when he was a kid. Don't care. Here's why. Me too. And my wife doesn't have to carry that. I do. Like your job is not to tiptoe and dance around him for the rest of your marriage. His job is, he said, I do. He says, I love you till the end of time. I find it I find myself unable to have these hard conversations to you based on childhood sexual abuse based on being poor based on any number of things that might have happened to him

and it's his responsibility to go get the help and healing and care that he needs so he can dial in to his wife that's his job and he is doing that he's been going to therapy for a few months now, I think. Okay. Probably almost half a year. And it has helped. Good. I have seen improvements.

He's not living in fight or flight mode, which I've told him, I've encouraged him from the beginning when we were engaged. I was like, you need to go deal with that stuff because you deserve, I've heard you say, you need to go deal with that stuff because you deserve kind of like you've, I've heard you say like you deserve to be well, it's not because you're defective. You just deserve that. So I've encouraged him and he, he's doing that. He's doing the work and we're actually going to go in together to talk to his therapist about this because yeah, that's this week. Um, so I read this before we decided that, but I was like, I just don't feel like we can have this conversation. We just can't find a resolution, and I need a third party or something because I just, I don't understand.

And it's just been hard because every time, his default kind of is just to say that I don't trust him. And unfortunately, yes, he has made a couple of mistakes where the trust was broken. And it was awful because he accused me of that before it happened. So when I found out and it's just and that was just finance, like a financial thing. It was misusing a credit card that we both knew we were going to get one. And I wanted to talk about how to use it. But he thought that me asking, like having that conversation of what our expectations were, he thought that that was me not trusting him and basically accusing him of overspending. And then that's kind of what happened. Hold on, hold on. Hold on, Mary. Why didn't you look him in the eye and say, honey, I don't trust you? Because.

Like after the fact? When he says, oh, you don't trust me? Why don't you say, I can't trust you because I don't know. Like I feel like I, you know, we had those conversations after all that happened, and I've really wanted, you know, I've forgiven him. Hold on. And it's not just like sitting in the back of my head. I just don't. No, it's sitting in your nervous system. It's a part of you now.

And he won't take ownership of it. And Mary, every time I try to point something out that he needs to go do, you defend him. It's a part of you now. And he won't take ownership of it. And Mary, every time I try to point something out that he needs to go do, you defend him and you protect him. What is it about, what is it about why, when did you, have you had the job of peacekeeper your whole life? No. I don't think so. I grew up with really great parents and the conversation was, anything was on the table. To this day, they're just really easy to talk to and I don't, that's why I've just been so confused because I've, you know, I've done the introspection. Like, what is it? Like, is it me?

It's not, it's not you. And it's almost like you would rather it be you because you don't want to deal with the alternative that it's him. It's absolutely absurd that a husband will not talk to his wife about finances, period. Period. It's absurd.

I would tell any grown man on planet earth that. You know why? Because I have held wives whose husbands have died who look me terrified in the eyes and say, I don't know where anything is and I don't know what to do next. They don't know where the insurance papers are. They don't know where the mortgage pay. They don't know who they even know what a mortgage is. They don't even know what it is. It's absurd. Anytime somebody in a marriage says the words, oh, you don't trust me,

I call bull crap on that. Because I feel like he doesn't trust me, like I guess with information, like knowing stuff. Does he know that though? Have you been that honest with him? I told him, yes. I said, look, this is just an observation, but I feel like you don't want me. And I've seen this with other people, but me too.

He doesn't want me to know kind of like what he's got going on in his head, his plans, when he's going to do things, why he's doing things what it is because he doesn't want he he's afraid that maybe i'll try to like control him or blackmail or judge him and i know that yeah it's probably coming from the shame-based place but it's not okay it's it just you know what it is and he's infidelity it's infidelity people get obsessive about infidelity being about who had sex with who. I think fidelity in marriage is way bigger than that. Yeah. It is somebody going elsewhere is what that is. Living an alternative life, a double life,

a life separate from their person that they said I do. And I think there's, you are so, I think you're such an introspective person and you're such a kind person. You are doing everything you can to look in the mirror and figure out what you have done to deserve this. And I'm telling you, third party, nothing. You've told me. And where I think that is scarier for you, that means you have to drop your shoulders and exhale and probably weep pretty hard because your marriage isn't what you thought it was.

Or your husband's not who you thought he was. And that's terrifying, right? Yeah. Like I said, we, you know, he is very wanting to, very much wanting to work on this. So I don't feel like, you know, it's a dead end and we're not going to, you know, get through it. I just, it's just a lot. Yeah, it is a lot. Especially for someone like you who has seen the other side. You've seen how amazing it is when people are just open and put everything on the table and talk through things and disagree and fight and laugh and carry on. That's the home you grew up in, right? Yeah.

You know what the other side feels like and you're watching somebody self-select into suffocation and think they're winning and you're like no i know what it's like when everybody's just laughing and breathing yeah and so it's extra hard some people when two people marry each other and they both come from abusive households sometimes there's this fantasy about what things could be like. It's not a fantasy to you. You've lived it. Yeah. Right? And it's terrifying that he won't participate in that. To answer your question whole,

you're doing the exact right thing, which is y'all are going to a counselor together, okay? Here's what's going to be underneath that. I want you to spend some time between now and going to see that counselor. And if it's in a couple of days, amazing. And I want you to spend some direct time, and this is going to be scary, writing down what you want and what you need. And when you talk to him, I don't want you to use words with the counselor because the counselor is going to say, what would you like to say? And I don't want you to say things like, well, I feel that you, because the moment you do that, he has to go on the defense.

I want you to have the courage and the strength to look at your husband in a safe therapist's office and say, I have to know what's going on financially in our home. I have to know what is in your mind when it comes to planning, thinking about our future, because this isn't just your future, this is our future. I want you to say, honey, I am so scared. I can't breathe because I feel like I'm alone in my own house. I sleep next to a man I love and I feel completely alone. And when you do that, what you're doing is you are talking not about him, but about you. And he has to feel and learn the impact his choices have on his wife. Not under attack. You say, I feel dumb when you tell me, don't worry about it.

I feel unsafe when I wake up every day and I don't know where the insurance papers are. I don't know how much money we have in the account. I don't know how much money you've borrowed. See what I'm saying? This makes it all about you. And what you've been doing for the last however many years is trying to make it all about him and how you can fix him. You can't.

That's the scary part. And it sounds like he's making the choices to do something different that's cool but just going to counseling isn't going to help i mean it is going to help but it's not enough he's going to have to start acting differently yeah yeah and so how can you go back to your original question how can you say things in a way that won't be offensive to him he has to have the courage to tell you here's what i need from you when we talk and he can't say oh that's just too weird okay then you are choosing offense you know what i mean you're choosing that yeah yeah it's like people who watch

Dave Chappelle stand up either hey they watch it they click on it and they just sit there and get offended the whole time yeah you turned it on or two

yeah you don't email Dave Chappelle I don't know if he's got an email and say hey when you say these three things it it's very, very hurtful. Yeah.

Right? Then you're at least saying it. And then I'm out. I'm not going to keep clicking on that. Mm-hmm. But I don't know what's going on in your sweet husband's head, but I need you to know it's not your fault. It's not your fault. And I know that's scary, but it's not your fault.

Write down what you want. Write down what you need. And when you sit down with a counselor and him, make it about what is happening to you. And it's going to feel like you're attacking him. You are not. You're telling him the truth. I'm scared. I feel dumb. I feel unloved. Let's start there. I'm proud of you. Proud of you for trying to figure out every way you can possibly love this man. It's time for him to continue his healing journey. He's got to start changing the

way he does things. Hopefully you and him and this new counselor find a path forward. We're thinking about you guys. Be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, as we wrap up today's show, from the great Melissa Etheridge, the song is Come to My Window.

It makes me think of come to butthead. Remember that from Beavis and Butthead? He used to always say that. Come. Come to my window. Crawl that from Beavis and Butthead? He used to always say that. Come. Come to my window. Crawl inside. Wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window.

I'll be home soon. I would dial the numbers just to listen to your breath. Ew. And I would stand inside my hell and hold the hand of death. I don't know how far I'd go to ease this precious ache, and you don't know how much I'd give or how much I can take just to reach you. Come to my window.

Come to button. Crawl inside. Wait by the light of the moon. Come to my window. I'll be home soon. Love that song. Love you guys. Bye.