The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Confront My Father About His Infidelity?

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

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My mom had found out that he was living a double life, dating another woman. She found a couple other cell phones and such. How do you go forth with forgiving somebody to that extent where, you know, this is my father, you know, my role model? I hope to God he's not your role model. What's up? What's going on? This is John. The Dr. John Deloney's show coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee.

I'm glad that you are here. Talking with real people about real challenges, your mental and emotional. health, your marriages, your relationships, whatever you got going on, kids, parents, all of it. You want to be on the show, go to johndeloni.com slash ask or click the link in the show notes and it will take you right to the ask page. Let's go out to Philadelphia and talk to B-I-Double L. What's up, Bill? How are you, Dr. John? I'm good, brother.

How are you, ma'am? Good, good. Appreciate you having me on. Thank you. Of course. What's up? So I have a question about forgiveness and I guess in a sense confrontation and how to confront a family situation with my father. So it has to do with infidelity eight years ago in 2018. My mom had found out that he was living a double life. He was having a affair and in a sense, you know, I guess dating another woman. She found a couple other cell phones and such

on a family vacation And they went through a quick divorce It was about two, three months I had to move out of my childhood home There was a lot of lies And my mom found out in the process I tried to stay out of it I didn't talk to my dad for two years

I started talking to him again in 2021 And we have a It's an on and off relationship You know, I still don't really trust him After all that But back in 2021 my wife and I had to move into my dad's home for about a year. We were displaced.

Our home got destroyed in a storm out here on the East Coast. And I found a bunch of pictures and such with him and this other woman he was living the double life with dating back to about 10 years prior to when he was apparently honest and told my mom he had started seeing this woman. So he was living a double life for almost close to a decade from those dates. So my question for you is how do you go forth with forgiving somebody? to that extent where, you know, this is, you know, my father, you know, my role model, a male figure who's been in my life for, you know, all these years.

And how would I go about confronting him and asking him why he did what he did? I think you have to get to the motivation behind what you're seeking. So I hope to God he's not your role model. Well, it used to be. Well, there you go. And that's my point is often we have this feeling, this sense that we're going to have this big confrontation. You've probably dressed or hers for this conversation a thousand times, probably 10,000 times. I'm going to say this.

He's going to bow his head and be like, I'm so sorry. And you're going to be heard and be said. There's going to be this cathartic moment for both of you. And then it will clear the deck for this future relationship. Almost zero percent chance that happens. Yeah. And so then you have to ask yourself, have I grieved the fact that I anchored into a man who was not who he said he was and deal with the onion that is layer by layer what I anchored into was never real in the first place. Or parts of it were real. He did show up to work every day and provide for our family. He did give me school tuition. He did buy me shoes. I mean, he did stuff like that. And. He also lied and cheat, cheated, and then lied more and was deceptive. Like both and, the complexity of it all.

But if you want to figure out how to forgive so that everything moves forward, Rosie, that's not an honest picture of forgiveness. If you want to have a big fight just to make sure that this man knows how you feel, you can do that. You're a grown man, you can do whatever you want. I've never heard somebody have that confrontation and say it felt as good as they thought it was going to and didn't walk away feeling more small than before the conversation.

I've not met that person. Right, right, yep. And so I think you have to ask yourself, what are you hoping to accomplish? Are you trying to, do you want to have a relationship with him moving forward? Like I said, we have a relationship in the sense of, if we talk a couple times a week, he, you know, he'll stop over. He sees obviously his grandkids.

He sees my daughters. We don't really have those like in-depth, you know, long talks that we used to have, obviously, you know, prior to all of this coming out eight years ago because there's obviously mistrust there. So I'm assuming he's taking responsibility or I wouldn't let this man around my daughters. Yeah, in a sense, right? Now, but the thing is I don't really know how, I don't really know what I believe, if that makes sense. Because, you know, we, I guess you still have that, that whole, is he still lying, right?

Is he cheating on the woman he's with now, right? Which it is what it is, right? Yeah, that's my other other side of this for me. This is a strange question. Why does it matter to you? So if he's cheating on the females with now that he was cheating on my mother with, I don't care about that, right? What I...

I mean, you do, and that's okay, and you should, but I get your sentiment, like, he's going to do what he's going to do. You can't control any of that. Right. I think it's more or less, the truth thing I care about is, number one, it's, you know,

how do you go about, like I said, forgiving those actions on my mom. I watch my mom go three years of depression, having to move her out of, you know, even, like I said, a home she built and my father built for me and my sisters and things of that sort. And, you know,

how do you go about just, I guess, forgiving or even retrusting? I don't know. I guess in a situation like this might go hand in hand. And then, like I said, how do you really ask somebody like that? Hey, why did you do this? Right? Were there marital issues, you know, growing up, you know, that, you know, what was the motivation or the motive behind it?

That's, I guess, what I want to try to figure out. All right. So, dude, you laid that out perfectly. So kudos to you. Okay. So I do think you have three different. things going on. So let me parse them apart for you. And I'm going to be overly reductive and I'm going to make it sound super simple. I know each thing I'm about to say is insanely complicated, okay?

Yeah. First and foremost, forgiveness is for you. Yep. Forgiveness is for, is you waking up saying, I'm not going to have the first thought of my day and the last thought of my evening about this man that blew up my family. I'm going to stop carrying around the sins of my father. because I didn't do anything wrong. And you carrying around the sins of your dad impacts your relationship with your wife, with your daughters, with your kids, with your mom, with everybody.

And so forgiveness is the active action of saying out loud, you don't get a vote in my life anymore. And it is a daily practice of stopping the stories when they start, stopping the imaginary conversations when they start, and trusting that over time your body will stop defaulting to them so much. but it's saying you don't get a spot in my backpack anymore. I got too much other important stuff to carry. Yep. That's fair. So that's number one.

Number two, um, let me answer the third one first. You're never going to get a satisfactory answer to why. You might approach it from this. Um, you might approach it from this way, which is,

hey, dad, this is a hard conversation I want to have with you. But half of me is you. And I love my wife. I love my kids. I can't wrap my head around how this could possibly happen. I would love to hear your side of the story. And maybe he'll give it to you.

And maybe you'll find out your mom wasn't who you thought she was. And you'll further just melt your picture of your childhood. I mean, that's what you wanted to do. And my guess is you're grasping at how can this guy that I lionized as a young kid actually be so cruel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But do you realize that's ultimately a trust question you're asking yourself? How was I so wrong?

Right, right. It's, yeah. And if I was so wrong here, then am I wrong with my wife? Am I wrong with my boss? Am I wrong with my, like, it sets a stage for I can't trust myself, which is unmooring, right? Right. Yeah. And I think at some level you have to, you have to, you,

hear me say this all the time, you have to write that 14-year-old you a letter and let that kid off the hook. He was a kid. And kids and sons are supposed to trust their dads. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it's, you're still holding that kid accountable. Yeah. For how you feel as an adult. Let that kid go, man. He was a kid. He got burned. And, and by the way, he had to watch a man who's half him destroy his mom. Yep. Displace his children. because you wanted to sleep with somebody else. Like the selfishness inherent in that act is so profound and so deep.

It's hard to wrap your head around, right? Yeah, it's bad, and there was really no remorse. It was, you know, it was so, it was quick. It was, hey, this is what's going on. I'm buying a new house and you guys are adults. See you later. Yeah, exactly. So all I have to say is you can approach it that way.

I mean, you can approach it in what you want. but I mean, that might be a path to take. I just want you to be honest about what revelation you're looking for. Yep. And then this last thing, this thing in the middle here, so you've got forgiveness on one side and you've got, how do I build trust again? Here's how.

You have to give a path as to what trust reestablishment would look like and he is to choose whether to follow it or not. And I'm going to tell you right now, he will not. No, I kind of assume that. I think a lot of, part of that and you know um is i guess there's there is denial in a situation like this to some extent yeah and it's painful ignorant to that fact it sucks yeah it does it's terrible and uh because you want the person that you want the person that hurt you to take to come running back yeah

yeah yeah but in the in the strange paradox is somebody with the character to do what your dad did to your mom to you your siblings is often not the person with the character that wants to go pair. Right. Right. They put that burden on the person that they hurt.

All right, well, you have to give me a path. That's the most common feedback, like frustration I get from people when I say, you have to establish trust.

Like, you have to give them a path back, which, and it's like, oh, so I have another thing I have to do? And I get that criticism. I make sense.

Totally get it. But, but you're going to have to have a line of, or what? Right. Which that's hard, man, because it might be,

your daughters don't get their granddad. Right. It's very tough and it sucks because it's, hey, why do we have to go through, you know, I talk about me and my sisters and even my mom, why do we have to go through, you know, years of, you know, sadness and confusion off of, you know, somebody else's, you know, choices that obviously were extremely selfish, right? Right. And I get that life.

Is he a guy that would, and I feel like I'm just piling up on your old man today? is he a guy that if you put this line out and said, Dad, here's what I'm looking for. We have to reestablish full trust here because you're going to be around my daughters. And he's going to go, me, what are you talking about? I would never, be like, hold on, it's bigger than that. It's not just that you cheated on mom. It's that you left your ex with nothing.

That you were so selfish that you piled your kids out of their own childhood home. Like you forced them out. mom had to go back to work. Mom went through a mental health crisis, which meant all of us as your kids went through that. That kind of person who would do that to those closest to him, I don't know what that person does with my daughters. Not in a sexual way, but in a trustworthy way.

Right. And so I want to reestablish this. Is he the kind of guy that would then blame you? My son won't even let me see his girls because you're some kind of bad guy. So I don't think it would be that. I just think he's, my dad's a very, he's an immigrant from Greece. He's just very old school in a sense of there isn't much conversation to have that's really in depth with him.

Yeah. It's more or less just very black and white. Gotcha. Well, then I think, I don't have time. You have to approach it that way then. Maybe another lie on top of that. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally.

You have to approach it that way then, which is I know this is uncomfortable for you and it's uncomfortable for me. Yeah. Just put that discomfort on the table. Because you have to acknowledge it black or white, right? Yeah. And, you know, you made a point five, ten minutes ago in the conversation where you said, you know, you're a grown man, you can do what you want.

You have a conversation with him. And, you know, sometimes it leads to arguments. We've been there. You know, it hasn't been in the last five, six years. But eight, eight, seven years ago, and this all came forward and emotions were at the tip of the iceberg. There was arguments. And there's no, obviously good, settled in conversation. then it's all screaming and arguments and you know almost fighting and it's like i'm not going to i'm not

going to fight my dad i'm not going to physically harm him or anybody it's it's it's uh you know it's like talking to a wall and i feel like we're like halfway still talking to a wall in a sense where we don't know what's the truth or not when i say we i mean my sisters and i right there's me and my two sisters so you know nobody has a legit answer i you know i also don't even know if my mom cares at this point to have an answer. I know obviously, you know, after 35 years of marriage and you find this out, it's, you know, it's a what the heck type thing. But, you know, it's, it's, uh, the, the, the confusing part is, you know, even if I do confront him, you know, I guess my original question is how do you learn to trust again? It's a, how do I know what he's even saying is truthful? Yeah.

You know, here's a deal. You don't. Right. And my challenge to you is to you is to to not do a bunch of psychological and emotional and mental gymnastics to avoid grief. That gap between what you so desperately want to be true is that somewhere underneath it all, your dad's a good man, and the reality that is he might not be. And the human body requires time spent in that gap if it's true, and it requires sharing that with other people. That's why, like, man, I recommend writing letters so often. it's so important to speak that out, to acknowledge, I wanted this to be true, and this is actually what is in reality.

It's hard, man. But it may be that you are making peace with, I'm never going to know my old man. And I hate that. I'm going to be sad about that for a long time because I would love to get to know him. And it might be that he'll indulge a deep, hard conversation. Probably not, but he might. But know that forgiveness is different than real. establishing trust is different than wanting this to all go back to the way it was or to have

some magical ending. All those are different things and that makes it really complicated when you just want to look at your old man and give him a hug and have him be on your side and he won't let that happen. Hate this for you my brother. Thanks for the call though. Thanks for walking it through with me. I'm really grateful dude. We come back. A woman asks how to navigate differences with her anti-vax mom without alienating her. Hey, what's up? It's Deloni. We are in the last week of Lent. And whether you grew up with that tradition or you're just trying to get your head and your heart back on straight this season, there's something I want you to check out. It's called Hallow. It's the number one Christian

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How are you? I'm doing all right. How are you? I'm doing very well. Thank you for asking. It's a pleasure to be on the show. Yes, ma'am. It's a pleasure to be with you.

What's up? Yeah, I just wanted to throw my question out. there. How can I set boundaries with my anti-vex mom without alienating her? Oh, you can't. You can't. I hate to tell you that. That's not how boundaries work. Okay. Interesting. Boundaries simply say, I'm establishing what is mine and what is yours. And in this situation, I'm assuming you are not anti-vaxing or you're not. an anti-vaxxer or you know there's more nuance to this conversation, right? That's exactly it. Yeah, I was, I obviously grew up in her house. I believe I was vaccine

injured as a kid and it's a conversation my husband and I have. Vaccine injured? That's a new one. Okay. All right. I'm out of the loop on it. Okay, so you grew up in a home and you believe like you've had some medical tolls based on getting vaccinated as a kid? I believe I had an adverse reaction. Gotcha. Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Okay. But, I also know that, yeah, there's more to it than the science that my mom believes in. And, you know, my husband is very, he's very pro modern medicine and it's a conversation we have. And I just take up my mom thinking she's part of the conversation essentially. Okay.

So a boundary simply says, as for me and my house. And then how you communicate that boundary with integrity and respect and kindness. and also whether communicating the boundary can be heard, right? I have a rule that I only speak if someone will listen. If I could be heard, if no one's going to, if I can't be heard on a topic, it's why I don't talk about my political stances because it can't be heard. I will, I will in with important people behind closed doors. I will with like people who are making decisions,

but I'm not just going to put out statements because they're not heard. Right? And so, like, you get to decide what's your boundary, and then the hard part is your mom can react however she wants. And so she wants to choose alienation

over a relationship, she gets to make that choice, and that's heartbreaking. Yeah. But it might look like something like, hey, mom, I've come to believe that there's, is a more complicated issue.

And I fully know your stance. And so as of today, I want us to stop talking about vaccinations. I'm asking that of you. And then she gets to choose whether I want to say this is my grandkid. I get a vote and all that kind of stuff. And then she can opt out with her language and or her behavior. I don't get to interact with my grandkids.

I don't get to interact with my son. son-in-law because I'm making the choice to violate my daughter's boundaries. That's what I was scared of. The other side of this is, what is the true impact? Because we also have what I would call an epidemic of young 20s and 30-year-olds cutting off their parents. Exactly. That's something I do not want to do.

It's something that one of my siblings has done already. Okay. So some of it is just choosing to tolerate, like, parents, let me put it this way, maybe your mom really, really in her guts believe she's right. Oh, 100%. I can totally guarantee you that. Okay, I would hope that if she saw her daughter and her grandkid in harm's way, if a truck was coming at them, that she would do everything she could to get y'all's attention.

And so it may be, Mom, I got it. I don't want to talk about this anymore. And then having three or four other things for you all to talk about. And knowing there is sometimes when you're dealing with your aging parents, they're going to give you advice and wisdom that A, you didn't ask for and B, may sound like nonsense to you. And sometimes the nonsense is correct.

Like, live on lesson you make. And we're all like, no, that's stupid, mom. You're so old school. And she's right. and then maybe, you know, there's miniature robots and the vaccines that are taking over our, like, right, there could be that too. Right. And so some of it can be nonsense. But I guess it depends on how much you want to internalize what she's saying.

Yeah. I mean, kind of the reason I wanted to call to is because I wasn't sure how much about this was just about the, actual issue at hand or how much of this was just her behavior in general? Like, I don't know if it could have been, if it was any other issue that she disagreed on that my husband were to adopt. For example, like, you know, obviously my mom's Christian and my husband and I are Christians too, but if my husband wasn't a Christian and I married him, would she have the same behavior where she's like sending videos to me, like being like, this is how you should think. And she takes my husband out of the equation, which is the hard part. And she doesn't, like, confront him directly. She'll just

like, you know, text me and I don't know what she assumes I should do, like convert him to her side. Like, I don't. Well, A, she's probably not thinking about him at all. That's what. Or B, she's trying to divide y'all up. Either way is insulting. 100%. Right?

But also, can you just delete her text when she sends in videos? Yeah, she'll report. She'll ask me to report on what I learned and stuff. And I'm like, I didn't watch it. Yeah, but yeah. Or no. Or no, thank you. Like, you don't, you'll have a, like, you're not my college professor.

Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to report back to you because I don't watch them. Mm-hmm. How old are you? Probably 23. Okay. A lot of this is age and wisdom-related, meaning your skin gets thicker as you get older.

what I don't want to have happen is there be a line crossed where you snap and you make a reactive decision to something that could have been a more controlled burn. Does that make sense? 100%. Like she's going to send a video or send you an email or text you, your husband is a bad person or he's trying to, you know, impregnate your kids with aliens via, you know, polio vaccine or what, like, who knows what that guy is going to say? like what she's going to send. But they'll come a line that you can't come back from that may have been avoided with some pretty clear boundaries up front. Hey, Mom, I'm tired of these conversations. Yeah, that's good to know.

Because I'm going on a trip with her. We're in college. At the end of the semester, she's taking me to, on a trip. And I noticed that when she kind of gets me without my husband's not going, obviously. And so that's what I was wanting to call to Because I was like, I need to Well, there will come a firm boundary Firm boundary

On Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're not talking negative About my husband Yes, he's amazing 100% And you could put an end to that And I would expect you to practice Putting it into that one

You're not going to change your mind On conspiracy theories or anti-thisis or You're not going to change your mind on that But I draw a hard line like, hey, I'm not participating in running down my husband period. That conversation's over. Yes, sir. And that's a hard one.

You know what I'm saying? Like, that's a hard one. Because that gets real personal, real fast. Does he not, does she not like him? I thought she did. But yeah, pretty early on in our relationship, she would like, she said, read this book by this guy. You know, it was like, Andrew Wakefield wrote it or something.

Sure, sure. And, yeah, I mean, he did it. Like, that's why I love him so much because he, you know, know, he's like, I believe what I believe, and I don't think that anything your mom's going to send me is going to change that, so I'll humor her. And like, I don't know if that's leading her on. I don't know if she's like, oh, perfect. Then he'll be on my side or something. But I just really appreciate that he doesn't get defensive and just like, no, get that crap away from me. But it's, obviously he read it and was like, this is. Sure. And I regularly,

regularly engage with opposing opinions for what I believe. That's a way of life for me. Well, obviously, because I went into my relationship not quite aligned with him. Yeah. Like, we hashed it out. We've had these conversations a bitillions of time. I want to learn new things. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And I want to stress test what I believe to be true. I like that. And so, but that's not common. And I thought it was. I just, I was naive and dumb. But all that time, to say is, yeah, I mean, I'll have differing opinions with people. I'll have differing beliefs with people. I've got close friends that I argue with vehemently on different issues.

But anyone who's going to run down my wife will not be in my life period. They're not going to be in my circle. They're not going to be around me. And I'm not going to be around them. And so I hope you can see the difference there. There's some, there's some significant differences there. And and that goes for anybody. And I'm really anti-cutting everybody off just because they disagree with you or because they're annoying or whatever. But I'm not going to be around people,

anybody who's going to run my wife down. She's too important to me and too awesome. And my family's made it very clear that if there was ever a rift between me and my wife, their team her all the way. And I would be out on my own. Kelly has even told me that too. So there's that.

So, man, best of luck to you, Renee. Boundaries are yours. and you can't control how other people are going to react to them. And that's what makes them so challenging. We come back. A man asks how to step boundaries with his mother-in-law and her boyfriend. Yikes. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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Better Help therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and they are fully licensed in the United States. You can message your therapist in schedule sessions right in the platform. And if the first therapist isn't the right fit, you can switch at any time for no additional cost. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloni to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloni. All right, Phoenix, Arizona. Let's talk to Colin.

Hey, Colin, what's up, dude? Doing well. How are you, John? I'm good, brother. What's going on, man? Yeah, I was just, I'm calling because it's more specifically relating to my kids than anything, but just how to set boundaries with, like, my butt and have the conversation of my mother-in-law regarding when she comes into town to visit with her boyfriend.

what's the what do you want to communicate to her? I mean, just like when it comes to things like so like it, she's had a couple, a long-term boyfriend as well before that they broke up. And now she's got another boyfriend that she's mentioned about coming to visit town. Not around my kids. Like when it.

Nope. Nope. Yeah. I agree. And it's other things like it's not just it's not, I mean, Yeah, we live thousands of miles apart, so it's hard to say you can't, like, do we say you can't visit at all? Do you say if they visit, you have to be in a separate hotel room?

How, like, how do, what do we do about that? One, I think this is a conversation for your wife to have with her mom. Yeah. Well, and we're both in agreement on that. Yeah, but I mean, I would start there. You trying to step over your wife to talk to her mom causes all kinds of other issues, I think. But being aligned with her is important. I think it's as clear as we're very careful who our kids are around.

And I know that you're dating somebody new. I'm not going to have strange men in my home with my kids. We'd love for you to come visit. If you want to come visit and stay with us, that's awesome. If you all want to come stay in a hotel, that's great. And you can come over. But I don't know this guy. You haven't known him very long.

And I am drawn a line on this one. And then that conversation ends. at what point though i mean it can't just end there forever though right like if they're like at what point when it comes to with with the way i understand boyfriend data um step-parent data and childhood abuse if that was to be if that was in my situation if my dad passed away and my mom started dating somebody new a that would be crazy because she's 75 or 76 but if Let's say she did. Nobody's coming around my daughter, around my son, until I've met with him.

Probably had lunch with him several times by myself. Before I've looked him in the eye and asked them pretty hard questions. Like, I just don't give a crap about that kind of stuff. Like, I have no qualms. And any man worth his salt, worth his character, would fully respect me as a dad of a young kid asking hard, probing questions. to a strange man who I'm giving access to my house. Okay. And any man who throws a temper tantrum, how dare you?

You don't, bro, you just prove to me while I don't want you're on my kids. And I guess my other follow-up to that would be then what happens because we live literally thousands of miles apart? I don't understand the question. So how do I, so like having like these conversations, which again, I think my wife and I are both in a lot. which we are both in alignment on it, but we're, we see, we only see each other,

like we only, we don't really see them on a regular basis enough to like have the, have that type of conversation. Yeah, I mean, ideally it's in person, but you all have to have this over, over the phone or via Zoom.

And again, it's needed to be a daughter calls her mom conversation. Okay. And one of two things will have, one of three things will happen. One, they'll fully respect it. And her mom will be like, dude, I totally understand. Awesome. I appreciate y'all taking care of my grandkids in that way.

That probably isn't going to happen or you wouldn't be calling me. The second one is she'll say, screw you, that I'm not coming. And y'all will have to deal with that reality, which will be heartbreaking. And that will blow up your picture of your kids having an awesome. some grandma, or they will bomb you. They'll show up anyway. And I've personally had this happen. People will show up at your door and be like,

I dare you to hold your own boundary. What are you going to do? Send us away? And the answer is, yep. And so, I mean, that's one of three things that's going to happen. My hope is, with all my guts, my hope is that it's number one. Okay. And then can I ask like a further along question?

Sure. Which is kind of more what we're trying to, like, would be another thing would follow up. What about when it comes to, like, let's say, let's say one happens and we have the conversations, everything's going great, going good. But, and it's probably just a similar conversation where you said, but more relating to, like,

just how they, like, interact with each other in our house. Like, like, basically, I mean, like, we, my wife and I didn't live with each other until we were married, but, like, them just sharing the room and stuff like that. I mean, y'all get to make... I mean, y'all get to make... I mean, you get to choose what you want.

Okay. And I think the challenge here is having the courage to treat your values with dignity and respect. The same dignity and respect, you're hoping other people treat them, which is, I'm going to clearly communicate these, and I'm going to accept any ramifications for these. But these are important. And so, if grandma and her boyfriend... the idea of them coming out of a shared bedroom in front of your children is something that makes you uncomfortable, then on behalf of your children and behalf of your values, say that clearly. Hey, y'all aren't married, and that's a big deal to us that we model that for the kids.

And so we've got y'all hotel room over here at this place, or we can set up the couch for Bill the boyfriend. but even then I don't I don't want him staying the night at my house anyway yeah okay and I know all of this is hard especially when there is an un what I would call an uncaring aging parent here who is forcing this type of stuff on their on her children and her grandchildren that makes that breaks my heart for you because in a perfect world let's just play this out in a perfect world mother-in-law would say I'm bringing boyfriend in we're going to stay at a hotel

I'm going to come take you guys to dinner I know y'all don't know him I'd love y'all to meet him but I'm going to be with the grandkids on my own and she wouldn't put y'all in these kind of situations that'd be ideal but if ideal worked out

I wouldn't have a job so there's that right a lot of it is going to be you and your wife grieving the fact that you'll have a picture that your kids would have this amazing grandparent experience that's probably not going to happen. Yeah, and I think the other tough thing is just us having, like, if, and it's a weird situation of being, but it's easy to have the conversation with your kids saying you're

not going to share a bedroom with your boyfriend. The harder conversation is tell your parent, tell your parent the opposite thing, too. It is, except my pushback to that would be as A, I acknowledge you're right. It's easier to tell a kid that has to do what you say, what to do. But if your value can't be expressed to somebody who it's going to have a cost to it, then it's not really a value worth expressing. True. Yeah, that makes all that sense. And so it becomes a stress test for your value.

Do you all really care that much? Or is it just like a platitude? And if it's just a platitude, like laughingly own that. Oh, man, this is like a big hill to die on, but it's like not really that big. do. Yeah. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. No, it makes sense.

So I, or no, no, no, we're dying on this hill. I don't want this in my kids' head. And I'll tell you, like, as I've gotten older, those hills have gotten far fewer. And, in fact, I've shifted many of, much of my thinking to, I want my kids to actually see stuff with their own eyes while they live in my house so that we can talk about. it while they're here. I don't want them to encounter this their first time when they're on their own and all they have is some AI companion to ask is this like what do you think about this or they have a lived experience in with 21 year old wisdom or 20 year old wisdom or 25 year old wisdom

which doesn't have context to it. And so like there's a parade of characters in my house all the time. And I want them to see and meet people and be like, oh, my dad and my mom are hospitable and my dad and mom have all kinds of wacky friends. And dad says that this, I heard dad tell one of his buddies, like, I don't like X, Y, or Z. Dad, tell me about that. I want him to ask those questions while I'm there. I want my daughter to ask those questions while I'm there.

I meet while she's there. That makes sense. So, I mean, but all to say is my beliefs about those kind of things have changed and morphed over time. And so you might draw a line and die on this hill and then change it in five years. That's great. That's all good. What matters is we felt it was important today. And we knew the cost associated with that value. Okay. Yes. But none of this is easy, man. None of it, dude. I'm sorry. I hate it for you. No, it's something we've talked about to discuss. And it's just, I mean, it's sometimes nice living far away from family, and this is, in other times,

it makes things more difficult. This is one of the situations where it's much more difficult and just send them away or anything like that. Right. They're in town, they're in town. Yeah. And vice versa. It's tough. Going to see family members and getting hotels instead of staying with them. Yep. Right? That's hard too. Yep. Yep. And they can be experienced. and it can be all those things. And I'm not going to put my young daughters or my young sons in a home with a strange man that I don't know. And that's a hard place to find yourself.

Okay. All right. Well, I thank you for taking the time. Of course, man. I hope I haven't made things worse for you, brother. No, definitely not. Just we've, like I said, my wife and I are pretty aligned on this. And we just kind of wanted to talk it through and get it just an outside opinion on it.

Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to discuss walking through Mordor. It's another thing to be heading off into it. So, yeah, the journey ahead of you is hard. And holding up boundaries is hard, especially when it's going to cost you things like relationships. And my hope is that everybody's mature and understands. But that's just not always the case. We'll be right back. If you come over to my house, you're going to find that it's filled with all kinds of amazing stuff.

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