The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Divorce My Wife?

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So, send us your questions, leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291, or email [e-mail]. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   My wife and I have rough marriage; should we get a divorce? My husband has been hiding debt Lyrics of the day: "I Am The Highway" - Audioslave   tags: divorce, veteran, PTSD, counseling, therapist, financial infidelity, debt, finance   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.

Hey, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. On today's show, we're talking about trauma and the lie that men are only worth what they accomplish and achieve. We'll also be talking to a woman who's dealing with a lying husband who kind of treats her like his mom. Stay tuned.

Hey, good folks, I'm John And once again, this is the Dr. John Deloney show A caller-driven show About you, for you, by you Where we're talking about life We're talking about relationships We're talking about relational IQ Mental health, parenting, moving, or the family member who way, way over shares on social media about their pets, nobody cares, about, I don't know, what kind of carpet to get, nobody cares.

Oh my gosh, about this funny thing that they saw. Nobody cares. Here's the deal. Some things we've got to learn to keep to ourselves, right? And I guess all we have in our power in those moments is the thumbs down. So everybody thumbs down it, right? Don't do that because then people are going to be calling the show talking about, what do I do? And everyone thumbs down my cat poster, whatever. So anyway, if you want somebody to hear you, if you want a second opinion, you want advice worth

the price you are paying for it, give me a call. I'm here to walk with you. My number is 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or you can email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com I tell you what, we are getting emails by the truckload. I guess they're coming digitally so there's no trucks, but they're coming from all over the world. I'm getting instant messages from all over

planet Earth. It's been wild and it's been exciting. I want to thank everybody for subscribing to the show and for joining us both on the show and just listening in your car or while you're mowing the lawn or whatever. So it's exciting times. Appreciate it. Give me a call. 1-844-693-3291. Let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Josh in Montana. Brother Josh, what is going on? How can I help, man? Hello, Dr. D. Happy to be getting your guidance here. To start, my question is, at what point, and I know you're not going to endorse it,

but at what point does divorce become viable or how hard should you work in a marriage? Oh, that's a great question. So one, I would tell you, there are times when I endorse it. They're rare. I'm pretty high on marriage, there are times when I endorse it. They're rare. I'm pretty high on marriage, but there are moments I endorse it. So, walk me through. What's going on in your particular world? So, I disagree with divorce, too.

I was married once before. In 2009, August of 2009, I actually got struck by an IED in Afghanistan. Took some major damage to my back. And during my deployment, my year in the hospital and about a year after, I found out that that spouse had been cheating on me the whole time. So we got divorced. I got custody of my kids. I moved out to Wyoming and I ended up getting married in 2018. And I know that from my time in the service and my healing process, I became a very strongly independent, proud person who wasn't really emotionally extremely available. So I know I wasn't there for my current wife as much as I should have been in her depressive

states. And the drinking took hold on her. She's just very aggressive drinker and gets very mean. And, uh, it went to the point where in February, my three kids were sleeping in the back and our child that is about five months old at the time I was holding him. And she ended up grabbing a pistol out of my room and chambering around. And I had relieved her of the pistol. And honestly, I called the police. Um, but it was just, I don't know if I can go back to trusting her or seeing her in my heart or my mind the way I did. And I do recognize that I personally

was not man enough to break down with and for her. Man, so there's a lot there, brother. Let me back up and start with you. What has your healing journey been like? I went through quite a bit of counseling due to anger because I was an infantryman. That was my dream job. That was my world. And I lost everything. I was retired at 21. And I was just angry at the world. I went through many counselors, none that seemed to click, and I didn't want to be on any medication. Right.

So that's where the independence strength came from. I just kind of wanted, I tried to heal myself. Okay. And so I kind of just fed it into my family and myself and just became a very singular person. So walk everybody listening through the back end of that, right? And your response, dude, is honorable. I get it. I understand it, particularly when you're coming from a rigorous military training that says there is a solution to

every problem if you will follow these steps. And when you're going to see a counselor, it tends to be amorphous and tell me what's going on and how you're feeling. And if there's not a plan or steps, right, it's easy to say this sucks, this isn't effective, I'm just tired of talking about the things, nothing's getting better. And then to really take the bull by the horns, right? And I will solve this problem and I will do it through grit and determination and work and power and strength. So you're on the other side of that now. I can hear in your voice, both directly and auditory, right? That you're

feeling some cracks in that solution. Tell me about that. I just, I'm still not really sure how to become that man that I should have been this entire time, been more emotionally available instead of just, you know, Hey, toughen up kind of guy. Okay. Um, and I know that I need to personally get help anyways, even if it's a marriage does not work out. I know I need help just so that I can still be more available for, for everybody around me, my kids and everything. Cause like I said, I got custody of my kids. Right.

And so I want to be more available for everybody, but I'm not really sure. Like I said, I don't know if I can see her that way or if we should try marriage counseling or. So I want to acknowledge, and if no counselor has done this, shame on them. But number one, I want to acknowledge you and your service. Okay. But I also want to acknowledge when people say that out loud, that that comes as a mixed blessing for someone in your situation. Okay. And I know that you are trained to blessing for someone in your situation. Okay. And I know that you are trained to say, thank you very much.

I appreciate that. And I also want you to know that I understand that comes with a burden, that idea of service. Number two, you've got trauma everywhere around you. And what that means is your brain has been trained because somebody blew you up, right? You were trained as an infantryman, right? You were trained on how to disarm and how to hurt and kill other people. That's what you were trained to do. You have trained your brain to be scanning your environment at all times. And then you gave your heart to somebody and she cheated on you in really a super,

super vulnerable moment for you, right? So that's a relational trauma. So I want you to back up 30,000 feet and exhale for a second. And I want you to look at what your brain is doing on your behalf. Every person around you has been weaponized. Those who love you, those who are against you, those who even put things underground that you're just going to be walking along on the sidewalk and we'll get you right and that's what your brain has been trained to do because of life circumstances and i want you to know that that sucks and i hate

that for you because the only way the only way you find peace and you find the ability to exhale deeply and walk through life with a little bit lighter load and a little bit more joy is through connecting with other people. And right now your brain has weaponized that for you. Understandably so, right? And then that brings you to number two, you find somebody else to fall in love with. You probably went into that guarded, appropriately so, understandably so, right? That's not a blame statement. That's just an is statement. And you went into that situation unguarded. She probably has her own challenges and own frustrations and own baggage with that as well. And then, dude, so one of the moments I would tell you, you got to really be careful, and I'm glad you are, is when people are not safe.

And when they're chambering guns, for those of you who don't know, that's somebody put a bullet in a gun. Was she going to take your life, her life, somebody else's life? What was her intentions there? She was back to me. Her back was to me. She was facing the other direction when I had heard it and turned around. It was pointed up in the air. She stated that she had no intention of harming anybody. It was a suicidal showing to grab my attention. Okay. All right. And so, dude, you did the right thing by calling the police. I will say it all the time. My friends and family, the closest people to me, the ones I love the most, I do not mess around with suicidal ideation, suicide intention, suicidal threats, whatever you want to call them. I've just done too many funerals.

I've been to too many funerals. I've officiated too many memorial services. I'm done with that, right? So good for you for calling the Calvary. And now the smoke is clearing and you're wondering what to do next. So my first question to you is do you love this woman and do you want to spend the rest of your life with her? I absolutely love her. Obviously, my intention was to spend the rest of my life with her.

I'm just having a hard time inside my heart and in my mind with trusting her, you know, like leaving her alone with my kids. And I don't know if I can get past all that. Right. Do you understand where that lack of trust is coming from? Number one, she pulled a gun out in home, right? So that's number one. And she loaded it up. Number two, your brain has been, for lack of better terms, I hate using mechanized metaphors here or computer metaphors. But your brain is now wired to think that everybody's out to get everybody.

You got that? Yes. Okay. And so I can hear her situation as she is so desperate to connect with you, so desperate to connect with you, that she is willing to go out to the edge of the earth to try to get your attention. So desperate to hear a vulnerable, connected, I want to get to know the Josh beneath the alarm systems that are going off 24-7, 365. Now, the way she chose to do that, dude, is dangerous. It's not safe. And if my kids are in that house, I'd be freaked out and worried too. If you love this woman and she is otherwise stable, she is otherwise

not, doesn't threaten violence, doesn't commit violence, doesn't hurt anybody. I would double down, triple down, quadruple down, both on marriage counseling, yes, and on your own healing. And I hate the fact, I hate the fact that you have not found somebody that works with you. What you need desperately is both trauma counseling, because you've been through it all over the place. And more importantly, dude, you need a group of men, not soldiers. You know what? They could be soldiers. I take that back. They could be. You need a group of men you can be vulnerable with because you've got to learn the skills. The same as you learn to shoot a rifle, the same as you learn to do pull-ups, you have to learn the skills of being vulnerable.

And I'm telling you, Josh, from a guy who loves you, that is the only way to stop the alarms is with other people. That's it. And you can muscle and grit your way to six-pack abs. You can muscle and grit your way to being successful at a job. You can dope yourself up so you sleep. You can muscle and grit your way through the quote-unquote right things to be in a relationship with somebody, to be a job. You can dope yourself up so you sleep. You can muscle and grit your way through the quote unquote right things to be in a relationship with somebody, to be a dad, but they will always feel that gap between you because you're not able to be fully vulnerable. And I'm going to tell you, dude, I'm not a combat veteran in any way. I am no way, I am in no way a, uh, have been through anything like you've been through.

Um, but I will tell you, I had to learn how to be vulnerable. I had to learn how to connect. So when you hear the word vulnerability and connection, what do you hear? Be honest with everybody listening. What do you hear? Weak? Weakness. Yeah.

Where does that, where does that definition come from? Actually, that's rooted back to my childhood. Okay. Men are tough. They don't cry. They don't talk about being sad or anything like that, that they're supposed to be the rock for the family. It shows no stressful or strainful emotion in front of the family. And so, Josh, I'm just now meeting you for the first time today. We've talked for 10 or 15 minutes. There is no greater lie on planet Earth than what you just said. That is an out and out, disturbing, disgusting, damaging, evil lie.

Which I've kind of, you know, I'm not exactly like that anymore. I was for a very long time, and I've been working on this on my own. And it's been a long, slow process. I mean, it's been since 2009 that all this went down, but it's slow progress. And I just, every time that we would have an issue, you know, the guards went back up and I was, it was like a regress. That's well, brother, that mean your brain's doing what it's designed to do, which is to protect you and get you to tomorrow. Right. And it's almost lost you a few times, right? I mean, it's doing what it's supposed to do.

And so there's going to be some moments during the day, probably every day for a season. Do yourself a favor when you feel that guard go up, when you feel your shoulders tense up and you feel your hands clench, just smile and say, hey, brain, thanks. I got this. Thank you. Because it's just trying to love you, man. It's just trying to love you and get you to the next day and get you the next day. Because the sidewalk underneath your feet blew up. You know what I mean? You got to understand that trauma in your brain, there is no calendar and no clock. And so the woman you pledged yourself to that you had kids with, she betrayed you. So boom, people who love me are enemies. You were raised as a young boy to understand that connection is weakness. And so everything that keeps a human being well was taken from you as a young boy. And by the way, that definition of masculinity is nonsense and

trash, and it hurts millions and millions and millions of people across the world. It's a cancer on our society because you've got feelings and you've got emotions and we are trained to shove them down. You know what another word for shove down is? Depress. To cram it down. That's what that is, brother. And I hate the fact that all of us, I'm the same boat, man, that that's the way we were trained to get through life. It sucks. So back to your wife, man. If you love her and you want to spend the rest of your life with her, and you think in your heart, this is worth doubling down on,

then I say 100% go for it. Now, that doesn't mean that you're not smart and you're not safe. If she threatens your kids, if she threatens her life, if she threatens you, yeah, dude, I'm taking my kids out and we can do our work at a distance, but I'm going to keep my kids safe. No question about that. If she had a bad night and she didn't threaten anybody and she was just trying to do whatever she could to get your attention, then I think you're real safe about the guns and you're real safe about the ammunition and you're real safe about the ammunition. And you are really direct with her about her role in guns and ammunition moving forward. And again, hear me say I'm a Texan.

I grew up around guns. I grew up around ammunition. There may be some people in other parts of the country listening to this podcast that are just, their mouths are open thinking I'm crazy. They're more of a part of my life growing up. My dad was a homicide detector. They were just around, and so they weren't a big taboo thing. So you are going to know that best for anybody in your heart and mind. I tend to be more, like you said, I tend to be more relational. I want

to make things work, but I want to make them work safe. And here's the other thing, dude. Do you hear me, Josh? I want you to hear this directly, okay? Yes, dude. Do you hear me, Josh? I want you to hear this directly, okay? Yes, sir. Here's what I want you to start doing today. Back up. How old are your kids? I got a, well, now 11-year-old, 9-year-old, and a year old. Oh, man, dude.

So you are back in it, right? Yes. You got one of those joyful gifts a decade later, right? Yeah. Very cool. He's my little buddy. That's awesome. So do me this favor and I want you to, I'm going to give you a pass for your family, okay? I want you to tell them that you talked to some quack on the radio, just some knuckleheaded dude that you found on a podcast, and he told you to do this thing. I want you to mark the day on the calendar, whatever day you decide to start this. I'm going to recommend today. And every morning, I want you to go find each one of your kids, and I want you

to hold one of their hands and put the other hand on their face. Okay. And I want you to look them in the eye. I want you to tell them I'm your dad and I love you. And I'm so glad that the God of the universe gave you to me as your kid. And I want you just to sit there for a beat of a second. And then I want you to go find the next kid and do that. Okay. I want you to do that every day in the morning and every day in the evening before bedtime. Under no circumstances do you miss that time. The second thing I want you to do is I want you to get with your wife and every morning I want you to hold both of her hands and look her in the eye and say, what does our picture of today look like? And when she tells you, well, I got to do this and I got to

do this, I got to do this. I want you to say, thank you for sharing me that. And at the end of every day, I want you to look her in the eye and hold both of her hands and say, dude, I know this is ridiculous. Some knuckleheaded guy on the radio made me do this. I want you to say, how was today? And the first few days she'll say, fine. And you say, nope, fine's not a good answer. You got to actually tell me. And if she says, well, that guy at work sucks. And this thing, I want you to not try to solve the problem, not try to fix the problem. I want you to look her in the eye and say, thank you so much for sharing with me. That sucked or that was awesome. I love you. And that's it. Because here's the deal. The way you have been trained since you were zero years old, through high school, through an excellent military career, through rehab, through relational distress, the way you have

been trained, Josh, is that you are only valuable when you accomplish and achieve. And I'm calling them BS times 100 on that. You are valuable and you are worthy because you exist. You have dignity because you are just a human being. You have value and intrinsic worth because you are you. And you've done some awesome stuff on top of that stuff. You gave part of your body for me and our country, and I'm grateful for that. But that doesn't define you. What defines you is that you're worthy of love.

And you've got to learn to not try to solve your wife's problems, not try to, I just got to cram all this advice into my kids. No, no, no, no, man. Those are folks to be with. Those are folks to love. And then the third and final thing I want you to do, Josh, is I want you to go not give up. I want you to find a trauma counselor. I want you to find someone who is an expert in trauma counseling, whether that's EMDR or brain spotting or somebody who can modify a trauma-focused cognitive behavioral TF-CBT for an adult, somebody who is skilled. And that may be outside the VA. That may mean you got to go take another job and earn some extra money, but I want you to go do the sessions to heal from a lifelong trauma challenge, but especially the stuff that you dealt with in the military,

especially the stuff you dealt with, with a wife who betrayed you. Josh, I love you, man. And I'm so grateful for your call. If you are safe and your kids are safe, don't give up on this marriage.

You're worth it. Your kids are worth it. And my guess is you love her enough that she's worth it. So man, thank you so much for the call. What a saint. After a couple of weeks of doing this, I want you to call me back. I want you to email me back.

And I want you to say, hey, dude, you're a quack. I held my kids' hands and I told them I loved them every day and all your nonsense. And I told my wife that. And that was stupid. It didn't work. Give me two or three weeks and then call me back. And if it's lame, I will announce it over the air. My friend Josh that I met, the veteran,

he did what I asked him to do, and he said it was stupid and it had no value. I promise I will commit to that, but I'm almost 99.9% guaranteed that it will work. Thanks, brother. Man, thanks for spending a little extra time on that call. Let's go to Lynn in Brownsville, Texas. Lynn, how we doing? Oh, good, sir. How are you? I'm all right. Well, my question is, my husband continues to hide debt from me. And the huge debt I found out recently, I confronted him, and he didn't really say anything. And he doesn't want to pay it off quickly like I do. And then I found out he was hiding other debt, a credit card debt, and he still hasn't come clean about it, and I haven't confronted him yet,

so I'm wondering how I should respond. Wow. So it's less about hiding. He's just lying to you. What's the debt? The first one was a student loan, and he asked me if it was okay if he got a student loan for about $7,000. And I didn't really want him to do it, but then I was like, okay, that's fine. You can just do it, but you have to put in your name.

I'm not co-signing. And then it just built up from there. I later found out it was $24,000 by the time he graduated. And then I found out about that because I got an inheritance and I wanted to use that to pay off the debt. And then he kept going around it, not admitting. And finally, by the end of the day, he admitted it was $24,000. It was way over the inheritance amount. And then the second one, I found out he put about $500 on a credit card to enroll in a master's program. And he went behind my back on that because he asked if he could enroll in a master's. And I said, no, I think we need to pay off this other student loan first. And I guess he enrolled in the master's, charged it to the credit card, but then backed out because he couldn't handle it.

And he hasn't told me about that one yet. What's the state of your marriage outside of this? I work for Dave Ramsey, as you probably know, and they call it financial infidelity. What's the state of your marriage outside of this financial infidelity? It's okay. We're a blended family. So we have no children together, but we've been married 10 years. And emotionally, it's pretty well.

I'm actually the one that suppresses my feelings, like you're talking about. But he doesn't. He's very open with his feelings for the most part. He always wants to talk about things but we're just not on the same page on debt it sounds very maternal like you are the adult mom in the family and he's the kid because i my alarm systems go off anytime somebody says my husband came and asked me if he could buy this and And my response was, well, I'm not going to co-sign for you. The reality is y'all got a 10-year marriage. His debt's your debt's your

debt's his debt, right? So you're already in on this, but are you more the mom or his wife? Yeah, it feels kind of like that, but we agreed to come to each other if we want to spend over $50 on anything. And we discussed the budget, but he kind of is passive about it. He goes along with it, but I've always been listening to Dave Ramsey even before we got married, and my husband doesn't agree with all of that, like paying off debt quickly and all that. Is he cheat on you in other ways too um i've found out over the years he's lied about other things and i wasn't aware of it in the beginning of our marriage i guess it just wasn't

i i've tried to look all the good things about him so i just kind of i didn't look into it i wasn't skeptical and then then recently, yes, there's things, other things he's lied to me about in the past. Has he cheated on you with other women? No, no. Okay. So he just lies to you and, and about certain things and then spends money that y'all agreed you wouldn't spend. Okay. So here's the deal. It sounds like you've got a super immature husband. And at some point, I'm going to say you're being immature too, because at some point, you've got to draw these boundaries and you've got to say either, this is just the guy I married. I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. I want to be like this, but he doesn't want to. So,

so be it. Or at some point you're going to have to draw hard boundaries and sit down and say, here's who we, I want to be in our house. I want to vision together and dream together. And then you have to have, and this is really uncomfortable. You have to have an, or what? An or what? Or you're going to have this hard conversation and put these boundaries in place and he's going to say no i'm not doing that dude i want to go to grad school again and i'm not paying off debt i think dave ramsey's an idiot i think deloney's an idiot i don't want to do any of those things and you just you're going to call it are you going to leave what are you going to do and so this clearly is a situation that you can't handle by yourself. And I don't say that negatively. It means you need a third party.

You need a counselor of some sort. And so what I'm going to strongly recommend is that you tell him, hey, you need to see somebody on your end. I'm going to go see somebody because I've got to get some practice building boundaries. I've got to get some practice standing up to a husband who's lying to me all the time. And the more you find out about dishonesty after a decade, I'm telling you right now, there's going to be more there and more there and more there. Because where a guy's lying about money, yeah, yeah, sure, same budget, cool. And then they go spend it and no, just 7,000. And no, it wasn't actually that. It was three times plus that. It was $25,000, $24,000.

Oh, and by the way, this, and you find it about more lives. I promise you there's more there. And what you need is a third party. And my gut tells me you know that. My gut tells me that deep inside, you know something isn't right. Something is a little bit wishy-washy. And I want you to go get some professional help and care. My hope is he'll go with you.

If he won't, if he won't go with you, then that's a bigger red flag, and you're going to need to sit with a therapist, with a pastor, with somebody you trust to walk out, to kind of iron out what next steps are going to be. And you are a blended family, so my guess is this isn't your first time down this road. My guess is that your heart is breaking because, oh gosh, I've been down this train tracks before and I know where this leads. And so it's on you to stick a flag in the ground and say, not this time. I'm going to double down on myself. I'm going to double down on my marriage. And you just got to be able to call it

on yourself and say, I don't have the strength or the skill set to do this on my own. I got to be a professional. So that's my recommendation to you, Lynn. Let me know how that conversation goes. I want to know what happens when you sit down and you look at him and say, this stops. You've been lying to me for a decade. We're going to see somebody and we're getting all the truth, all the crap out on the table. And then we're going to work together. I'm not your mom. I am your wife. I am your partner. I am your lover. No lover mom mixes, right Lynn? No lover mom mixes. I am your wife, not your mom. We do things together. No more permission giving, no more of that nonsense. Yeah. And let's get it on the table. Let me know how that goes. I'm going to be fascinated to find out if he steps up or if he goes, I just want to play.

I just want to play Fortnite. I just want to play Fortnite and go away. So, all right. Man, we took some extra time with the first call today with Josh, and I'm glad we did. That guy is awesome. And our thoughts and prayers with him, with Lynn. We're going to wrap up today's show with the song of the day. One of the greatest songs.

No, I'm not going to say one of. The greatest band ever. It's a super group. There was one band that was awesome. Easily the greatest front man of all time. No question. Shape, form, or fashion. You took the core group, although I'm a big Zack De La Roca fan, you took the core

group, the instrument gurus of Rage Against the Machine. You bring Chris Cornell, he comes down from on high in his greatest front man of all time spaceship, and they form a super group, Audio Slave. Their 2003 record, actually the 2002 record, the 2003 song. Oh my goodness. Here we go. Here's the lyrics to I Am The Highway. Pearls and swine bereft of me, long and weary my road has been. I was lost in the cities, alone in the hills, no sorrow or pity for leaving. I feel, yeah. I am not your rolling wheels. I am the highway. I am not your carpet ride. Get this. I am the sky. Chris Cornell bringing the truth. I am not your carpet ride. I am the sky. And this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. on your show.