The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Continue Friendships That I Find Draining?

Episode Date: June 9, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   Should I continue friendships that I find draining? My 21-year-old son suffers from anxiety and depression. I feel like I am always saying/doing the wrong thing and he is starting to withdraw. What can I do? I am a military wife and the constant moving is taking a toll. I am tired of moving jobs, leaving friends and community. Lyrics of the Day: "Master of Puppets" - Metallica   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: friendship, relationships, anxiety, depression, parenting, boundaries, marriage, military   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.`

On today's show we talk about draining friendships, adult kids with anxiety and depression, and we talk to a wonderful new military wife who's already exhausted by all of the moves. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up everybody? This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm John, and I hope you're doing well. I can't get this song, how do I live without you, out of my head. And it won't leave, James. Why is it there in the first place?

I haven't heard that song probably in 15 years and all the way on the drive into work today. I didn't have any radio on. I was just listening to that song over and over. And I was in Walmart the other day because I'm a classy shopper, and I found the Master of puppets record cd for five dollars inside baseball i have a cd player in my car nothing else not even a little wire that goes to my phone and so i steal it for cds at a bargain price and there's

one store on earth that still sells them that's a phenomenal record has nothing to do with who sings how can i live without you the n rhymes also trisha yearwood but master of puppets i highly approve of that purchase i just think y'all's cool points just totally plummeted you both rattled off leon rhymes clearly because i do live in nashville and you have her name tattooed on your arm hashtag just there and i was a country DJ for seven years do I worked in the industry for 20 so yeah John thinks is the first show we've ever worked on I'm gonna go with it so welcome everybody the Dr. John Donnelly show we're so glad you're here I work with a bunch of jerks who hurt my feelings and I'm just

trying to sing along here. Oh man. Hey, if you want to be on this show, give us a call at 1-844-693-3291. If you want to talk to me, a kind human being who loves each other, how can I live without you 844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash show or you can write an email to askjohn

at ramsaysolutions.com and we would love to have you on the show to either A. be harassed and harangued

by the gang or thoughtfully um I don't know how to say that you can talk to me too that's cool man um A. it is good to see everybody and it's been a long time thoughtfully. I don't know how to say that. You can talk to me, too.

That's cool, man. Hey, it is good to see everybody, and it's been a long time since we shot some shows, so it's good to see y'all. All right, let's go to the phones. Let's go to Aaron. I guess it's not been a long time. We shot one yesterday,

so I made that weird. So let's go to Aaron in Allentown. And Aaron, you can join us on the train wreck of a show that we are rocking and rolling with today. How are you? I'm good, Dr. John. How are you? I am good. So good. So, so good.

So what's up? How are you? I'm doing well. First off, I just want to say thank you. Your words have made an impact in my life more than you know for the better. So first off, I just want to say thank you. You're so lovely. Thank you so, so much for saying that. Appreciate that. So what's up? How can I help? So I was wondering and have been wondering for a while, should I continue friendship if they are draining to me?

Out of the gate, I would just say no. Tell me more about what you're thinking. So when I hang out with certain friends, like, I'll enjoy my time, but afterwards, I'll just feel like a lot of energy just, like, got pulled from me. And I don't know whether it's the person, me personally, just how I process things, or if it is the friendship itself that needs to end. Are these long-term friends or just buddies? Does this happen with everybody? Tell me about how you feel, when you feel how you feel. It sometimes happens with everybody, and it'll usually be right after I'll stop hanging out with them

that I'll be like, okay, wow, that took a lot of energy for me to just be there and hear all their information and process everything they're going through because life is heavy and for some reason a lot of people tell me they're heavy stuff so I just feel like I have that to deal with in addition to my heavy stuff that I sometimes don't get to share. So do you have relationships in your life that you leave energetically, that you leave fulfilled?

There are few and far between, but yes, there are some. Tell me about one. It's with my mom. With your mom? Yeah. Who's somebody that's not your parent? To be really honest, I don't have one that's not a family member.

So when you go hang out with your friends, your community members, folks that aren't your family members, what do you hope to get out of that friendship, that relationship? Oftentimes, I just kind of want to leave refreshed and be encouraged. And sometimes I don't get that. And maybe that's an expectation that is unrealistic to put on someone else. So what do you get from your mom that you don't get from your friends? I'm listened to and I'm heard out. So, here's my thinking. And I'm just going to talk out loud for a second.

Is that cool? Yep. Okay. So, with our parents, they often, not everybody experiences this, but often, they'll dote on us. They will make the whole world about us, right? And that feels so good. But it can become transactional, meaning I go to them so that I get something. And I think that can ultimately drain friendships when you try to go to other people for a thing. Instead of approaching friendships in a more of a service minded um the service mindset what can i bring to these this group of people and hopefully those

people that only works if they're bringing that same thought to you right so we all have friends or community members or people that we know that are vampires. We show up with a service-minded attitude. We bring drinks every time we show up, or we bring food or snacks. We make sure if we're watching the fights, we always bring the money or whatever the thing is. We bring funny stories, and we bring our challenges and hurts, and they bring theirs, and everybody kind of puts it on the table, and that's what friendship is.

Can I tell you the good stuff? Can I tell you the bad stuff and we still love me right and man if you show up to somebody and they don't reciprocate they just drain drain drain yeah that's hard that is so hard i have experienced what you're talking about one because i'm kind of an introvert. I fall right on the line of the introversion, extroversion, if you believe any of that voodoo witchcraft, which I usually don't, but I'm more of an introvert. I like being by myself. I get lifted up by that. But I found that when I hung out with people and it was all about me, I left more drained. Why did I say that? What did I say? I can't believe I told that story. It was really, I was looking at those engagements as a performance. Did my audience respond in the right way? They didn't like that. I said that I may have exaggerated that story too much. And

when I quit doing that, and I just started showing up being fully myself, and if somebody kept droning or whining, and I just started showing up being fully myself and if somebody kept droning or whining and I would say hey dude just get over yourself quit quit whining and they would stop and then I would tell my jokes and we would have fun and we would engage and I would see how I could support you when I started just being fully myself I quit leaving interactions that way does that make sense that makes a lot of sense, yeah, and it hit home. When you show up, does it ever feel like you're performing versus you just, the people around you, your friends,

just accept you for Aaron? I definitely do leave situations, questioning why I did certain things and overthinking things. Ah, okay. I think I'm realizing. Why do you do that? Why do you think you leave giving yourself a rundown of your performance? I just feel like I always can do better.

I guess I'm worried that I'm not going to be accepted from what I lay on the table to. Ah. Tell me more about that. I don't know. It's just life is messy, so why would someone want all of my mess? So it's hard to kind of think. When sometimes, like,

I don't want even all of my mess. So, listen, Erin, 1,000% you're worth having friends and you're worth being friends with. And the cool thing about having friends and community is when you've got more mess than you can handle, they're there to pick up the other side of that couch. And when they've got more mess than they can handle, you're there to show up with pizza and tacos, right? That's what community is. And it goes seasonally, right? And sometimes your friends are really in the thick of it,

and it's awful. Sometimes you all are, and you just get together, and you're dumping all of your boxes out on the table. That's what wine was invented for, right? You sit there and you just work it out. Then there's other times when you're going to bring your positivity. Here's a great example of how I think was a signal that I've got a beautiful friendship with a guy that I've known for, gosh, 20 or 30 years now. My buddy, he's the most stable guy I know. I may have even told this on the show before. He's the most stable guy I know. He called me over a break back in the fall. And he said, dude, my bank just

got bought. I'm going to be unemployed. I think I'm going to lose my job. And that was the same day that I had gotten a call from my boss to check my job. And that was the same day that I had gotten a call from my boss to check my email. And the email had told me that I had just made the best seller list. I made number two on the best seller list with my little anxiety book. And so my buddy calls in his worst moment and he said, hey, I think I'm gonna get fired. And I responded with, I just made the best seller list. And he responded with, for your little pamphlet book? And I was like, yeah. And then I said, hey, you're the most stable friend I've got. You can't be fired. That rocks my world. And so in a quick exchange, I didn't have to hide the good stuff that was going on in my life.

He felt safe to tell me the crappy, awful stuff that was going on in his life. We made a few jokes. And then when it was over, he said, man, I'm really proud of you. You've been working for a long time to be good at that stuff. Awesome. And I said, hey, man, if I can help with anything, I'd love to have you all out at the house. We can just sit down and talk about this and share this in person. And they're actually coming to visit us in a couple of weeks. So good friends don't have to hide the good stuff, don't have to hide the bad stuff. They don't have to filter themselves in front of their friends. And so backing out of that, if you show up to a house feeling like you have to perform, I want to challenge you

to turn that off. You show up and be full Aaron because the world deserves full Aaron. Now there's parts of Aaron that may be super annoying and frustrating. Are there? Yes. Okay, see? Me too. I'm a lot. And the beautiful part about having friends is they say, hey, Deloney, how about you dial it back about 30%? You're a lot. Right? And usually they're right. And we all laugh, or I say, you're an idiot, and they say, you're an idiot. And then we get something to eat. Right? And then there's other times when, man, Aaron's going to bless that entire table, right? She is going to be the person that can, with her quiet gravity, can absorb some of the pain people are feeling, make sense out of some

of the chaos in people's lives, and it becomes a gift. That only happens when you show up, not for a transaction, not for performance, but just to be Aaron with your friends. If after a couple of times you're full Aaron and they stop inviting you out, or you can tell that you're off-putting, they don't like you, then man, yeah, that's not your gang. That's not your crew, right? You're going to want to find other people to be in community with. Or they may just roll their eyes and you stay at the table and you say a dumb joke and it lands awful. It's like a thud. And then you just say, that was stupid. That wasn't even a funny joke. And they're like, yeah, it wasn't funny. And then you all move on and you're not thinking about it at the end of the day because that's your squad, that's your gang. So yes, go be with friends who are driving you crazy, but only if you can be fully you

and you can drive them a little bit crazy. If you show up fully you, shoulders down, you bring the foods that you think are good, you're a hospitable person, you welcome people into your life and they just cut you out, so be it. They're lost, right? And you can also learn things from them too. If you're being a jerk, you're being rude, which you're not. But if you are, then you also learn things from them too. If you're being a jerk, you're being rude, which you're not.

But if you are, then you can learn some social skills too. So show up, be fully you. If they don't like that, if that's not their thing, then cool. There's going to be a group of people that love Aaron for Aaron, right? And at the end of the day, should you continue friendships that you find draining? No, you shouldn't. But only when you're fully you. If you're performing and it's draining, yeah, it's exhausting, right? Theater's exhausting. Hey, I want to take a quick break and talk about something important, your mental health. If you cannot find an in-person counselor in your area,

or you can't afford one, I've got a solution. I've partnered with BetterHelp for customized online therapy for you. Video chat, phone, or even text chat counseling with licensed therapists that are going to help you become a better version of yourself. Help you get on the road to being well. Go to BetterHelp.com slash Deloney for 10% off your first month. This is less expensive than traditional therapy and you're worth it. BetterHelp.com slash Deloney. Take care of yourself.

Start today. Let's go to Ann in Waverly. Ann, what is going on? Good morning, Dr. John. How are you? How are you today? I'm great. How are you?

I'm doing all right. Fantastic. I have this weird, I don't know, it's like allergies of some sort. I feel like I'm talking an octave lower. But anytime anybody says allergies, everyone goes, sure, COVID. Right. So whatever. I've got something going on, but it's cool.

And you, you're doing well? I'm doing all right. Yeah. Fantastic. Just got over a cold. It was not COVID. It was strictly a cold. Sure it was, Ann.

C19. We all know what you have all right so hey what's going on how can I help well so I have a 21 year old son you sound like you're going with you sound 25 well I'm not well well done well done you're keeping thank you you're keeping your voice young Ann well done well hopefully I keep the rest of me young too then. I can't even comment on that. It's the 21st century. But I will tell you, good work on the voice so far.

I sound like a 90-year-old man. Well, good. So you have a 21-year-old, and then what? He is struggling with anxiety and depression, and I feel like everything we do to try to help him is wrong. How do we know if we are actually helping him or are we enabling him? Oh, if you're helping him, he gets more anxious and more depressed, right? So what does that look like?

You know, it's, gosh, it's been a long few years here with this. It's been a roller coaster ride that we just can't seem to get off. It never ends. And he has obviously good days. He has bad days and the bad days are bad. You know, there's anger, there's holes in my walls, there's broken things around my house on those angry days. And then it turns into, I don't want to come home because I don't know who I'm going to get. Am I going to get the happy-go-lucky kid that I remember from his childhood, or am I going to get this angry, sullen monster? Yeah.

Nobody wants to be around. So when did this start? Probably it started when he was in high school. Okay. It's progressively gotten worse. And we've tried therapy. We did therapy when he was a minor and he had no choice to go because we made him go, which isn't necessarily the greatest thing either because, you know, you don't want to be there.

You're not going to do the work. Once he was old enough, he quit going when we couldn't make him go anymore um he has recently started seeing somebody again but i don't think it's very often i think it's maybe you know once once a month once every few weeks kind of a thing. I feel like he needs to be there weekly right now. He's living in our home, by the way. I think I made that clear. Is he in school or anything? He is not.

He is actually currently doing nothing and that is just maddening to my husband and I. We can't wrap our heads around that. Some days he doesn't get out of bed. And then you're like, okay, well, this is a depression thing and we can't just make him go away because we know that he can't sit in an apartment and do that. And days on end, nobody knows. So he can, and that's where this is going to get hard.

So I'm going to be honest with you as we walk through this, okay? Okay. And when you hang up, you can say, I don't like that guy, and lucky for you, this is all free, right? So this may be worth the price you pay for it. I'm going to be super honest, as transparent as I can be. And I need you to promise me as a mom that you will be able to hear this with an, with a vision for moving forward, not trying to replay the past.

Is that cool? Absolutely. Cause I know these are hard things to hear. Okay. The last thing I want to ask was get a little bit more information. Did anything set this off? Does he come from, was home chaotic? Do either you or your husband struggle with depression or anxiety?

Were you all ever medicated growing up? Was there divorce? Was he abused? Anything that set any of this off? No. His dad and I have been married for 25 years been together forever and there's you know we've in my opinion had a good home life you know they had they had a you know they the kids have had a good upbringing and it's not been you know there wasn't chaos there wasn't fighting we don't you

know my husband and I don't have knock downdown, drag-out brawl type things. You know, obviously we argue because we're a married couple and that happens. Wait, what? Just kidding. Yeah. Right? Nobody argues in marriage. Never. Never.

Especially in my house. But there's never yelling. There's never anything like that. Did he experience bullying or abuse at school? Did he have a bad breakup? Did somebody treat him awful? Yes, he had a bad breakup? Did somebody treat him awful? Yes, he had a bad breakup, but it was years ago. He's had bad breakups since then. He's had a long-term girlfriend that's been off and on and that hasn't helped matters. They butt heads and it's just not been good for either of them.

But that's up to them. They got to fix that. And I know that. And I don't get involved in that. I just stay away and say that's not my business. And you guys need to work it out. Okay. So here's what next steps look like.

He's 21. He's a grown man who has absolutely no business punching holes in the walls of your house. He doesn't get to do that. He doesn't get to live rent-free under a blanket in his room and do nothing. He's got to experience the reality of the world. To say it like my friend Henry Cloud says it, he's got to experience the reality of the world. To say it like my friend Henry Cloud says it, he's got to get some problems, and he doesn't have any. And here's where that gets really hard. If he's had years of depression, he's probably threatened suicide or talked about vaguely, I want to hurt myself, or I'm having dark thoughts or things like that.

And those often, I don't mess around with that. I call in the Calvary when people that I love threaten suicide. And I've worked with thousands of college kids and high school kids over the years. And when they want to be seen and heard, they can say the phrase, I'm having dark thoughts, and the entire institution shuts down from the president down. That's how they earn control that way. And I take it real, real serious. You will never hear me say the words, they're just faking it. Never. Right? But they can control everything. And so, at some point, he needs to know he can no longer control you. He can no longer run your home.

And he's running your home. He's running your marriage. He's running everything. And you can't give him that anymore. He's a 21-year-old man. And if he walks out the door and hurts himself, this is going to be hard to hear. That will be a choice he made. Especially if you tell him, your rent here runs out.

Your lease here runs out. And we love you. And we will always be here. We're going to have Sunday dinner on the table every Sunday. And we want you here. If you ever want to go get coffee, we're here to talk. But at this point, he's a 21-year-old man. So if you put things like, if you want to still

be on our car insurance or still want us to pay for your phone, but you have to fill in the blank, then you're using power and threats and that doesn't work. It just doesn't. You become a politician at that point. Now you transition up to we love you and support you. And here's our

boundaries. You don't punch holes in our walls. You don't. You don't lay in your bed all day at our house. If you're having a depressive episode, we understand that those are real. We expect you to go do the work, to go meet with a professional who's going to walk you through that. You get a job so you can afford the health insurance so you can get a low-dose medication while you work, whatever you need to do, right? But he's 21 and he's got to start making some hard decisions on his own. And that starts with him realizing there's not going to be people wiping his butt anymore. And there's not going to be people making his bed anymore. And not people at his beck and call who are scared to death to move the wrong way because he controls you all.

Oh, man, eggshells. Yeah. We got a lot of them around our house. And here's what happens with eggshells in your home. Do you have younger kids in the home? I have another son, yes. How old is he? He's 16.

Okay. And he's absorbing every second of this. I know. okay and he's absorbing every second of this i know that's part of our that's really part of our problem is we we know he's seeing this we've talked to him about it you know and we've told him you know this is this is going to end yeah we've my husband and i have talked about you know making a plan to get him out. And my older son, not my younger one, he has to live here until he's done with high school, about getting him out. And, you know, frankly, I mean,

we've talked to the point where we said, let's, you know, put up the money to put a deposit down in the rent, the first month rent on an apartment and tell him the rest is on him. He's moved out before. He hasn't lived here every day since high school. Sure. He has moved out before and he did live on his own. And that's where one of the nasty breakups came and he came back. Well, he never left and it's

been a while and it's time for him to go. We know this. We know this. It's just, oh my gosh. So here's a cool way to do this. Go out with your husband and y'all get off campus, off site. I call houses campus. Get out of the house and y'all go spend a half day together. And I want y'all to mourn the kid that you love with all your heart because you're still trying to hold on to that 12-year-old little boy. Or let me tell you this yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you a story that's not fair okay i was i've been out of town for a few for several days i got back home and while i was gone i missed my son's fifth grade to sixth grade like the fifth grade there's a graduation for everything now when i

was a kid we had one and now there's a million of them right there's a fifth for everything now. When I was a kid, we had one. And now there's a million of them, right? There's a fifth grade ceremony of some sort. And he won a couple of nerd awards because his parents are dorks. And he won some academic awards. And he works really hard. And I pulled up my truck and he ran outside. He just got done with his shower. He ran outside with his big poofy hairdo in his underwear, met me in my truck. So I've been gone for several days holding these certificates. And I pulled him up. He's about

eight feet tall now, even though he's 11. And I pulled him up into the truck. I didn't even have time to get out. And he told me the story of the awards and the certificates. And the nice thing that a teacher said was one of the awesomest moments of my parenting life. And you've had those. And now you looked up and it's 10 years after that. And you remember those. And that same little boy is now a grown man punching holes in your wall. And what you've got to do is you've got to put down that 11-year-old little boy that you're still trying to hang on to and deal with the 21 year old man that's terrorizing your home

yep and i know that's hard so i want you and your husband to go out i want you to mourn that talk about it laugh about it and spend some time saying remember when remember when and then move that toggle to and here's where now is And be really clear on the same page. Is it going to be 30 days? Is it going to be 45 days? Are we going to give him $500? Are we going to give him no dollars? I like sounding all tough and hard, like, yeah, you tell him.

I would do what you're doing. I would put down a deposit and say, we found you an apartment. We put down a deposit for you. We're not giving you cash. We're going to give them a deposit so that we found you an apartment. We put down a deposit for you. We're not giving you cash. We're going to give them a deposit so that we love you. And I'll even go do a mom thing and I'll put some cereal in your, in your, I don't, you know what I mean? I'll fill your fridge because I'm your mom and you got to eat.

Maybe, maybe. I'll give you a dozen eggs or something. I'm only doing it once. Yes. And then, hey, this is it. You're a grown man. And then on Sundays, you come to our house, and we're going to have lunch. And we will always answer the phone when you call, but you're not moving back in.

And we will call our friend so-and-so if you say you need a job. We'll help, but here's our boundaries. And I want you and your husband to work out those boundaries together, and then look each other in the eye and commit, this is it. Because you got a 16-year-old in that house that deserves your full attention. And you know what else deserves your full attention? You need your marriage back. Yes, we do. You lose your intimacy. Nobody wants to have sex when there's a hole in the wall, right? Nobody wants to go on dates when you're worried about what a 21-year-old person in your house who's struggling is going to do to the house, right? Everything gets messed up.

And y'all deserve your marriage back, right? Yes. So. Yes. That's the one thing that we have stayed pretty constant about. It's like this. Is that we are able to connect with each other.

We've lost it all, but we're still doing it. Good job, Ann. Good job. It's different. When there's a 21-year-old in here that you're scared of. There's going to be chaos. You're scared of, right? So, here's the thing. I'm proud of you. I know this is hard, but it ends today.

It ends today. I would give you 30 days from today. And the moment y'all make this, you're going to be nervous and you're going to be, and you're also going to start feeling relief. Your 16 year old son's going to feel relief. I want y'all to take him out, talk about what y'all did right about this. Talk about, hey, we let this go on too long and we're sorry. You're our son and double down on that one. And if your older son calls and threatens to hurt himself, call 911. Call 911, send in the Calvary. Send in the professionals to deal with a grown man making threats. Okay. And be there for him, but you got to let him go. Thank you so much for the call. And hey, and how about this? I'm going to send you a copy. I'll send you two. We're going to

stay on the line. We're going to send you two copies of my book, Redefining Anxiety. I'm going to send it to you for free. Give one to him. It's easy to read and he may throw it at you or whatever. That's fine. It's not gonna hurt my feelings. And I want you as a family to read the other one. That way you have a picture of some ways you can navigate this. You cannot fix your son. You can just love him. And you can love him by starting by holding boundaries. Right.

So hang on the line here, Kelly. We'll send you a couple of copies of that book for you and your family. Let's take one more call. Let's go to Emily in Pensacola, Florida. Emily, what is going on? Oh, hey there. How are you? I'm good. How are you? Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I love your show. Thank you. I love that you love my show. That's so great. What's going on? How can I help? So I'm a military wife and we're moving quite a bit this year, about like every four to six months.

And it's starting to just become a little stressful. So I was just wondering if you had any advice on coping with being a new place and moving jobs and all of that. You said that. So I don't think you just told me the truth, Emily. So you have to rephrase it in truthful, the way you would say it if you were hanging out with a few friends that you've known for 25 years. If you've moved a few times this year,

it's more than, quote unquote, a little bit stressful. Describe what it's like moving again. It's hard. More. It sucks. Tell the truth. There's no lying on the show. Keep going.

I don't know. I miss a lot of things. I miss my job, and I miss my friends and my family. And? More. How do you feel about it? You're giving me some great military answers. Hello, honey, what is the mission for today?

The mission is eggs and bacon. How do you feel about it? I feel pretty sad. What does that look like? Well, when you're in a new place, you know, I used to be a teacher, but I can't really teach when we're only in somewhere four to six months at a time because you need to be somewhere nine months. Um, so it looks a lot like me being alone during the day, kind of trying to find things to do. You're telling me as though you are on Real World or Real Housewives or something

and somebody's watching it. I don't want to watch it. I want you to tell me, how does it feel when you're sitting in your house by yourself in the third new city in one calendar year? It feels pretty hopeless sometimes. What does hopeless feel like? Pretty dark. Yeah.

Like I just don't know what to do. Lonely? Yes. Very lonely. Exhausted? Yes. And then you spend all the time you can on your phone trying to connect with somebody in some way and somehow. And you get these great ideas. All right, I'm going to go to the library or the coffee shop, and I'm going to – and you get there, and it's almost more lonely because you're lonely in a crowded room.

So you just go back home, and you watch something or text somebody. Am I on the right track? 100%. Yeah. room so you just go back home and you watch something or text somebody am i on the right track um a hundred percent yeah who have you told this um i talked to my husband about it a little bit okay and um i recently kind of called my parents and told them yeah how long have you been married um we got married last July, so getting to a year. Okay. And how long is this cycle going to last? Is this a season or is this for the rest of your marriage? It's a season.

It's like, I mean, we'll always move, but usually we'll be somewhere two or three years at a time, which I'm like hanging on until we get stationed. My husband, he's in training right now. Okay. So we have like six more months. Six more months. Okay. We have one more, like six more month move.

So I have four more months here, one more six more months. And then the plan is they put us somewhere for two or three years. So you have another year of having to be really flexible. Yes. Okay. Does your husband get to come home, or is he off for four weeks at a time? Is he coming home every day, 9 to 5? Yes.

Okay. Not 9 to 5. His schedule is different every day, and it's pretty very, very long days. And then he has to study for the next day too. So he has a lot on his plate right now. Yeah. But he's still home. So that's nice.

Well, so here's what I'm asking is, is there time that you can go spend a few weeks in chunks with former friends, with people that you care about, with your family? Yeah, I could for sure do that. And I'm thinking back, I spent some time with some military folks this week, and we just talked about just offline, not on stage, just talked about the military spouses are as involved, as critical to the military functioning as the actual soldiers are, right? As the actual enlisted people are. Because what y'all have to do is so, so hard. And they call it a sacrifice for a reason. It's really, really hard. And in this season that you're in right now, every two to three years for me sounds like a lot. But every four to six weeks or every four to six months sounds just like chaos, right?

Yeah, it feels a little chaotic right now. There were seasons when, I have no comparison to what you're going through, so I don't want to minimize what y'all are experiencing. But I remember when I was writing my dissertations or when I was working on dissertations or when I was working on a book or working on a big project, there was times when I was home yet completely unavailable. I would work all day, write all night, and it became so draining. It became best for my wife,

and even when we had little kids, they would go spend a week with her parents, a week with my parents. They'd go visit friends. It allowed them to go have some fun adventures, to get some community, and it allowed me to totally plug in. Because then I felt guilty too, and then all of us were just doing this weird guilt toilet bowl dance where we just, it felt like we were flushing down the commode, right? Is there some ways you can get out and go see some folks? Because here's the thing if you were moving here for two to three years i would be really insistent you gotta go

first go meet wives go get into the local community go be hyper intentional about making friends and you're a teacher you are great at helping new faces feel safe and feel connected that's your spiritual gift, right? That's like what the cosmos gave you. But, man, you're there for six months. You're going to get just enough relationship to feel sad when you have to move again, right? Yeah, and I did try to get really involved quickly when we moved here, but I know it takes about six months to kind of start to get

settled and make like real friendships and stuff. So just, and just for you, just in time to leave, right? Yeah. Yeah. You'll always have this thing hanging over you. And so there's something about you got to be around other people. And so going to have fun with other people, right? If there's things, are y'all living on base or are you living off? We're off base right now. Okay. If there's ways you can, if there's things you can do with the local church just to go have some, but we go have some fun. If there's ways you can get involved in a local YMCA, you know all these things, right? Because you've looked them up and tried to pretend you were going to do them even though

you're not. Yeah. There's some of those things that you've, you can do and look at those as opportunities to have fun, not an opportunity to make best friends. Right? Does that make sense? Yes. There's a difference there.

And I want you and your husband to have some real conversations about you going and spending some time with your parents. Go spend some time with some folks. Let him study. Let him be all in on this training. And then when y'all go move again, you can start getting settled, right? Is that making sense? Yes, that makes a lot of sense. A lot more sense than what I've tried to do.

Well, here's the other thing. It's okay to be sad right now. And I know that sounds bonkers, but you're in the middle of a hard season, right? And so you may have heard me say this often but just because winter shows up it doesn't mean that summer's broken it's just it means that it's winter this is the season right now and it's not fun it's cold it's miserable it's gray sun doesn't come out um and you just are in that season. And that's where you are right now. And so it's incumbent on you to own the sadness.

It just sucks. I hate it. I hate sitting in my house alone. And so I'm then going to make sure I've got a FaceTime group, not just a text group because it's going to make you nuts. I will never, ever check the news because those things are built to spin you out, right? I'm going to go exercise every single day. I'm going to go be around other people, not to make best friends forever, but just to have some fun.

We're going to go bowling. We're going to go do silly stuff. I'm going to get together with some of the wives and we're just going to complain and be loud and go film, whatever, whatever, right? And what you're doing is there is a little bit of passing the time there is a little bit about you growing this may be a great time for you to get an online master's degree in a thing right whatever that is how can you grow yourself so that in a year when y'all land and put some roots in man then you're ready to rock and roll does that make sense yes that makes a lot of sense so some of it it's, 100% of it's intentional.

Some of it's just owning the season. And I hate that for you. And I hope that everybody listening to this, man, we talk a lot about the sacrifices our servicemen and women make. And God Almighty, they do. Let's not forget their spouses, their wives, their husbands, the folks who are holding this thing together with string and duct tape. While they're off training, they're off on deployment, they're off learning new things, running night and day and day and night. There is somebody sitting at home trying to wrangle kids. There is somebody sitting

at home completely alone in a new town and then a new town and then a new town. So if you know of people in your community who are transitioning or transitory or moving in, be really hospitable. Invite them over. Have a dance party in your front yard. Have a barbecue out in your driveway. Be hospitable to folks who are new to the neighborhood, who are just going to be there six months. Everybody will be lifted up with those interactions. Emily, thank you for your service.

It's a winter season right now, relationally. It's going to warm up again, I promise. Do the things intentionally that are going to keep you healthy. Make sure you're plugging in. Make sure you're visiting people that you love and care about. Make sure you're being honest and open about your feelings with your husband. And then y'all hang on there. Hang on. The season is going to come to an end and there's going to be a place where you can plant deep trees that we're going to grow deep, or not deep trees, you're going to plant trees

that will grow deep roots. All right. As we wrap up today's show, let's do this one, man, in honor of my new Walmart CD off the 1986 record, The Masterpiece About Addiction. Oh, man, I gave it away. What a dork. Man, it's like when you watch a trailer of a movie and they're like, you'll never guess the twist ending. And you're like, well, now it's not a twist ending. Genius. But 1986 record, the self-titled Master of Puppets. The song is Master of Puppets and it goes like this. End of passion play. These lyrics are so dramatic. They're so great.

End of passion play, crumbling away. I'm your source of self-destruction. Veins that pump with fear. Sucking dark is clear. Leading on your death's construction. Death's construction. Death's construction? That's what's up. Taste me, you will see more is all you need.

You're dedicated to how I'm killing you. Come crawling faster. I'll be your master! Master! Master of puppets, I'm pulling your strings. I guess that's master of puppets if a Muppet was singing it, right? This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.