The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Feel Less Than Because I Don’t Want To Have Kids?

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

In this episode, we hear about: - A woman who challenges Delony on his comments about being a parent - Delony’s perspective on dating in 2023 - A mom unsure if wanting to vacation without her husband and kids is selfish Lyrics of the Day: "Escape (The Pina Colada Song) - Rupert Holmes Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Feel selfish for wanting to take a trip without them and some comments my husband has made. He's like, I don't really understand why you would want to spend money on a trip for yourself when we should be spending the money on a trip for all of us as a family. Absolutely not. In no way are you selfish. Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting and whatever else is going on in your life podcast ever. Man, I'm so glad that you're with us. I've been out of town for a few days, and it is awesome to be back with the gang. And by the gang, I mean everybody in the booth and, most importantly, you guys.

If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz, 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. And if you're going to be in Nashville, in the Nashville-Franklin area, love for you to come visit and watch the show live. We've got some chairs out here and free coffee and snacks that'll give you some of the diabetes and you can come hang out and it would be awesome to see you. All right. So, uh, before we go to my new friend, Sammy. So I recently had a show and on the show I was talking to somebody um about with with a newborn with a kid and no no I was someone who was about to have a kid or was considering having a kid

was that what it was yeah it was the guy that um was nervous about having a kid there you go okay okay and I made the statement um you will never truly know the depths of your ability to love until you hold your first child. And usually Instagram, like social media is one of two things. It's like, yeah, bro, you go girl. Or it's, you're the worst person ever. And I would like to set you on fire Um, and then occasionally I get really thoughtful um What I would say thoughtful good engagement like pushback like I disagree with that occasionally my friends like dr Norton will call me and be like, hey you botched that one big time. Here's the reality um, but I sometimes will get some thoughtful pushback and

this particular time Um was someone i've never met, never talked to, I'm about to hear, but it was Sammy from Indiana. And she reached out and was super kind. And so, Sammy, I'm going to bring you in here. Sammy, you there? Yeah, I'm here. Dude, number one, thank you so much for even agreeing to be on the show and to talk this through um i want to tell you out of the gate i'm so grateful that you had the courage to write in and say i think i disagree with what you're saying and i i like that meant the world to me how you did it why you did it and you gave some great rationales like you i could tell that you were uh not just throwing

grenades and so on behalf of humanity who's all stuck in this Instagrammy world, thank you for being a good human. How are you? Yeah, no problem. I'm good. How are you doing? Good. Good, good.

Okay, so I reached out back to you and said, hey, I would love to talk about this on the show because I know this particular conversation is being had all over the place. And it's a part of a broader conversation I've been struggling with as I'm trying to write a new book and try to dig into some of the scholarship around this stuff. So for everybody listening, walk us back through, I make the statement on the show, you'll never truly know the depth of your ability to love the depths of love until you hold your first kid and you heard that and you're in our gang and tell me how that hit

you what you felt what you thought walk me through that and yeah don't spare my feelings by the way let it rip okay okay yeah so i've been listening to every episode you've come out with, and it's just been a great place for me to connect on different topics in my life that I've been going through. And so I really respect you and what all you have to say. And I really take everything that you say to heart. So when you said that, it kind of broke my heart a little bit, just because I hear a lot of that talk in the world saying like, you'll never know love until you have a kid. And I think it just puts a lot of other people who don't have

kids into this weird situation where we're less than. Ah, so tell me, so my wife and I struggled with infertility for years, years and years. Um, and so I, I get that impulse. Tell me where, um, tell me why it makes you feel less than, um, cause it feels like people think you're only important if you have kids and you won't contribute anything else into the world unless you have kids. Where does that story come from? Um, I think I mostly hear it from parents. Okay. Um, yeah. So a little backstory, me and my husband have been married for almost seven years and we

always like nonchalantly would say that we would have kids, but that always just got pushed back and back and back. And then my sister, I have an identical twin sister. She had her first kid in 2020. And so that's when everyone started bombarding me with know, really thinking like, is this something we actually want to do? Because it's a huge major decision that I think a lot of people just don't take the time to think about a lot. So that's just what we've been thinking about for the past couple of years and trying to make that decision. So how has that is as y'all land on the decision of, are we going to do this? Are we going not how is that how are you feeling pulled in a less than position um just the way that like some parents and some other people talk to people who don't have kids

it's like oh well you think you're tired well try being up with a newborn. And always trying to one-up people who don't have kids or think that, oh, you're not going through anything hard in your life. Or you don't, yeah, I'll give you something to cry about, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. So a couple of thoughts here. I absolutely remember that and i remember i remember walking past a room in our house and we had made the decision to have kids and we couldn't right so um but we also didn't want to announce that to the world i remember having a hard hard conversation with a family member

and who said hey we've made some decisions because y'all clearly don't want kids and it was like a knife to the soul, dude. You know what I mean? Cause it was like, well, hold on. Like just cause you know what I mean?

You made all these suppositions about me and my faith, my wife and our family. And so, yeah, that's brutal. And I, I want you to hear me say like loud and clear there, there is no less than right.

It's just simply different. different and but i will say this my wife and i were talking and she said something once when she was first pregnant with hank and it stuck with me and then i circled back to it when she was uh it went another several years and had a couple of wild surgeries and wildness um one life-saving surgery and then we ended up with josephine She said I feel sorry for you. This is her talking to me. I said why? And she said you will never know how close I am To our son

I was like, yes you i'm his dad And she goes no dude. He's been in my body for nine months You'll never know you'll never know what how close I am breastfeeding kid in the middle of the night Just us two you're snoozing like an old man like and I had to There was a moment of Yeah, you're exactly right. I'm never going to know that. And it doesn't mean that I was less than or that I was dysfunctional or broken, but it was all, it was just, it was just, it just was a was right. And so what I'm wrestling with,

and you can, you can, I'm hoping you can teach me. I'm wrestling with how do I absorb truth in my life, dude, I had her name was Molly she was a bastard hound she was my hound dog she slept on my pillow with me um the joke in my house was she was in my bed long before my wife was like a dead dog was my ride or die I brought her to meetings I brought that dog everywhere and um like I loved that dog I loved that dog. I loved that dog. I loved my friends dearly. And then I held my first kid. And so I don't feel like I'm in a place where I can honestly say I understood what that meant until. And at the same time, how do I communicate that without inferring that it's somehow better than?

It's just an is right like some pools are three feet deep some pools are 20 feet deep um depending on what you want to do with your life pools are going to be different but i can't deny that that pool's 20 feet deep so how how do i is it something that you have to own that i'm not going to let people make me feel less than is it something that i need to own when i'm communicating just something we need to do it together? How do we, how do we have that conversation? I think it's both parties. Um, the one side who is the child-free couple, you know, like being firm in their stance and saying like, this is what we want. Um, like we won't feel bad for it. But then I think on the other side, it's for people to accept that and to not, you know, feel bad for them

or think they're less than, or, um, like when you said, you won't know, you won't truly know love until you hold your kid. There are other ways to love people. Um, like that's not the only form of love. Like I understand it's a different love. So I think just for people who have kids, not totally summarizing something and equating that to kids. Ah, so maybe a better way to say it was you won't ever know the depth of your capacity to love until you hold your first kid. But that doesn't mean you're not going to

love deeply and wildly and recklessly. And like, so there's different. Yeah. So I, I can see where I said that incorrectly because i made a blanket statement about love you'll never know love until you've done this that's not true yeah right huh okay that makes sense so on behalf of myself i apologize for saying it that way because i made a blanket statement about the nature of love that just simply was inaccurate um and i think i should have said it differently and said, and you guys listening, I'm processing this in real time. I should have said, there's a depth and a capacity to love that you won't understand until you're responsible for,

or until you hold somebody. But that doesn't mean you're not ever going to love, right? You're going to have your spouse, you're going to have your friends, you're going to have your pets, you're going to have whatever, you're going to love all sorts of people. Yeah, that makes sense. I love that. Okay. So how do you, on your side, how do you create a world where other people don't get a vote or very select few people get a vote? I have just learned to have really tough skin over the past couple years and is that a sustainable is that a sustainable way to live it seems like an exhausting way to live no i think it was more exhausting letting other people have the freedom to my emotions

and so over the years i've like the past couple years because I've gone through a lot of hard things in my life um I've learned to um what emotions do I allow to each person and so and that the whole kid subject is one of them because I know that some people will say dumb stuff because they just don't know yeah you. You know, they don't know the situation I'm in. So I let that slide. But then, you know, when someone does know my stance and you keep, you know, saying the same stuff, then I think that's where the education comes in. Hmm. Could I recommend instead of looking to form calluses, looking to,

because here's what I think. When I think I'm forming calluses, the image in my head is of a tightening fist. I'm becoming hard and strong to this. Instead of opening my hands even wider and letting that kind of stuff pass through me like air, like a spirit, right? I'm going to make my way through life not trying to be calloused as much as letting that kind of stuff pass through me like air, like a spirit, right? I'm going to make my way through life not trying to be calloused as much as I'm going to let that pass through me like wind.

Like that's not even a thing. You can say whatever you want and that's not going to affect my mood or my body's not going to feel like it has to respond in some sort of – does that make sense? One of those feels like a lot of work and the other feels like a infinitely less anxious way to live. Yeah, I don't think I'm necessarily like callousing myself off to people, but I have like grew up as a kid who it was very emotional and was, you know, let my parents really control those emotions. And so as an adult, I've had to learn what do I allow people into? Well, good for you. And how do I respond to those? Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Did you, have you ever, did you read that Own Your Past, Change Your Future, that book I wrote?

I started to, and then my husband took it and he started reading it and gave me some cliff notes. Good job. So I want you to hang on the line. I want you to read it. There's a, there's a story in that book, um, about my friend, Lisa, who was in my, one of my counseling cohorts. And, um, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll end this call this way. Um, we were sitting in a circle and I've told the story on the show before we were sitting in a circle as, as counseling classes do. And we're talking about, you know, different scenarios, different case studies. And one of my great mentors and friends and professor, Dr. Brett Hendricks, he laid out a case study. And the

case study was, what happens if you've been working with a client for like six months and the client walks in and looks at you and says, hey, you suck at this. You've taken my money for six months. I paid you thousands of dollars. I did your little exercise with my With my romantic partner and she left me I did your little how to ask for a raise exercise and my boss and not only didn't give me the raise but gave me Like a like a reprimand You're not good at what you and I was new to it, right? I was just seeing clients in my practicum and I remember Saying out loud that would kill me. That would

decimate me. And Lisa, who's one of the most wise, she's just awesome. She's brilliant. She's been a therapist for years and years and years. She looked at me and said, John, they don't get that. And I rolled my eyes and I was like, oh gosh, is that when the dumb counselor speak? And she said, magic words, you get to choose who hurts your feelings. And I was like, no, that's not right. And she goes, yeah, other people can take away your livelihood. And, or actually on the way home, I was thinking about this. Other people can take away your livelihood. They can take away, they can wreck your car. They can take your job away. They can take your life away. But I get to choose who I give access to my heart in order to hurt me. And I asked her,

I was like, oh, so how many people do you give access to your heart? You know, I was just rolling my eyes. And she said like five, four or five or six, something like that. A very small number. And so on my bike ride home, I'll never forget this. It was a hot West Texas afternoon. The wind was blowing. It was hot and I was riding my bike and I was frustrated and I was trying to think who would I allow in this little magical box? And I realized I was allowing everybody. I was allowing all my students, all my students' parents, all these administrators, all these people at other universities I didn't know who are colleagues. I was letting internet people, I was letting all kinds. So I just started whittling it down. I took my parents out and who I love, I love my parents, but I took them out of the box. I took

my in-laws out. I took all these different people and I got down to four or five or six people. And I remember calling a couple of them and said, Hey, I just want you to know i've given you access To my innermost being use it wisely, please Because if you tell me like hey, you're being an idiot or you're being foolish or you've made a terrible mistake I'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna respond in kind because I trust you And i'll tell you this it was the single most freeing exercise i've done in years um, I felt like uh, like I was free If my wife tells me something, if my buddy Todd tells me, like very select group of people, if they tell me something, I'm in, right? Other than that, people just don't get a vote. And I'll tell you, it's like I was describing, it's like opening

your hand up to the world and letting it just be. So I want to thank you for being so thoughtful and kind in your response and for calling me out and saying, hey, I experience love all over the place and I don't have kids. And so what you said isn't accurate. It doesn't hold true. And the way I said that, I still hold to my belief that the capacity for love deepens when you hold your kid. But it's just simply dishonest to say you will never know love, right? That's just not true. And so I want to thank you for calling me out in such a dignified and respectable way.

And I really appreciate you, Sammy. Yeah, thanks for being able to listen to all that. I know some people don't, but thanks for being open to it. Of course, man. And hang on the line here and we're going to get you a copy of the book. And that way your husband won't steal your crap anymore.

He can get his own. How kind will that be? Awesome. Sammy, you're the best. Hey, everybody, hang on. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes.

And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself,

where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy.

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All right, we are back. Get ready, everybody. This is everybody's favorite segment. Facts are your friends. Here come the tunes. This is so great. Get your bandanas and climb into the Camaros with this rock tunes. This is like straight Marlboro Reds. Nothing else. Just OG and a camo hat.

Joe's rocking a camo hat. It's perfect. All right, facts of your friends 2023 dating trends revealed now it's important for me to note I haven't dated in a long long time um several years ago I was back in Texas and a buddy of mine was divorced and was dating again. And so we were out to lunch having a burger. And I was like, all right, dude, I kind of live in vicariously. Like, what's it like, man? You're like back out there.

What's it like? I'll never forget, man. He leaned across the table and his eyes got kind of narrow, like lasered in. And he said, I don't care what's happening in your marriage figure it out It's terrible out here and I started laughing. I was like, what are you talking about? and he's like remember back in college when you would see somebody like You know out somewhere at some event or you're like all hanging out whatever And you saw somebody you thought they're cute and you went up to them you're like hey i'm john and uh like what's your name and can i buy you a drink

or you know come sit with our buddies you and your friends want to come over he's like if you do that now it's stalking they will call somebody on you or they will like like cut eyes at security and they'll ask you to leave you can't't do that anymore. You got to go get somebody's social information and then stalk them for days or weeks online. And you just bypass the first one through nine dates by, I don't need to ask you what your favorite music is. I just look through your, your Instagram reel and look at all the concerts you've been to and all the shirts you wear. Like all that. I get all your fashion. I get all the things you're into, all your friends.

And then after that, you go on your first date and then you just make out. And so he was like, dude, the whole thing, the whole thing's crazy. It's all different now. And so I decided I was going to work on my marriage.

And so here we are, 2023, years later. Dating Trends Revealed. This is from dating.com. That sounds like a reliable says this data says resolution dating inflation and metaverse dating oh god almighty will define online dating in 2023 the article says um there's not there's not an author here. It just says Yahoo Finance. Singles are looking for partners who help them stay true to their own New Year's resolutions. Singles are continuing to rely on technology to make new connections and to build relationships. So I can see that. Like if you are

somebody, you know, we talked about I'm going to create some new identities and then I'm going to backfill my new identity with actions that lead me towards it, right? So I'm a fit person. I'm going to create some new identities and then I'm going to backfill my new identity with actions that lead me towards it. So I'm a fit person. I'm a person who takes care of my body. I'm going to date somebody that maybe wants to go work out with me or go hiking with me or go for walks. Or somebody that if I say, hey, I'm going to get a burger without the bun. They're not like, oh my gosh, are you kidding? I'm going to date somebody that's going to lead me towards my goals.

That makes sense to me. And singles are continuing to rely on technology to make new connections and to build relationships. I call bull crap on a stick in a box on the back of a pony riding through the desert on that one. I think that's not true. We'll get to that later. It goes on to say in doing so the goal is to find a partner that aligns with and supports your own personal goals, whether they're related to your career, fitness, hobby, or new skills that you want to learn. Here's what makes me uncomfortable about this. Anytime you are making changes, you're working towards goals. Let's say you want to run a marathon. Training for a marathon Awful. It's just long

runs, right? Sometimes it's cold. Sometimes it's hot. Sometimes the runs are awesome and they feel great, but it's training's hard, right? Getting out of debt is hard. I have to say no to everything and put all this money I'm making and I'm working side hustles and extra jobs. All that money is going to pay a credit card off for something I bought a year ago or five years ago or a college class I took 10 years ago, right? So accomplishing a goal is hard. And when you meet somebody and their current version of themselves aligns and supports your own personal goals, it becomes utilitarian. I'm going to align with you because you are going to help me get to where I want to go. And as I'm going there, it's going

to be uncomfortable. And my fear here is I'm going to project my discomfort onto you. And so I know it's a balance, right? You don't want to meet somebody, you don't want to date somebody whose vision for their life doesn't align with you at all. But this is a lot of pressure to put on a new person that you're just meeting. And the chances of you getting frustrated along the way as you become somebody who, I'm a vice president kind of guy. So I'm going to start doing vice president kind of things. That's awkward and hard as you make that transition. And it's real easy if you are leaning on somebody that they get the brunt of the discomfort they become a source of blame or frustration um 55 percent of respondents rate

common goals and values is more important than physical appearance and attraction looks like we're growing up okay then we went to a resolution dating 60 percent noted that they would pump the brakes on a relationship if the partner's behaviors or habits were hindering them from reaching fitness and wellness goals. I don't understand that. Mainly, I guess I do. I guess I do.

I guess if every time I worked out, my wife was like, you're the worst. I hate you. That probably wouldn't bode well. Or if I wanted to eat healthy and she was like, more marshmallows, that probably wouldn't go well either. Here's my concern. So when I started grad school, my wife and I were both in graduate school at the same time. And let me back up. When I was a kid, my mom went back to college late in life and she is a mythologist. So she was studying mythology and she learned old English and she is a mythologist so she was studying mythology and she was she learned old

english and she was reading some of these original shakespearean texts in their old original language all this stuff so my mom was all into this and i was like 16 17 and i'd be watching like the astros and my mom would get in front of the tv and mute it and be like you guys got to listen to this and she would read us something in old shakespearean old English or middle English. I don't know what Shakespeare is written in. And she was dying laughing. Like it was some great inside joke in King Lear that I didn't get as a 16 year old. And I remember being like, oh my gosh, this is ridiculous. And I also very clearly remember my mom was in heaven. She loved it. So fast forward, my wife and I are in grad school. I remember like one day we were out to dinner and I was like, Hey, listen, I'm studying student development theory and how

colleges operate. You are studying reading literacy and how children's brains learn to read. I will never ever care about that. And you are never going to care about what I'm studying. Can we just make a deal now that we will never talk about what the other person's studying? Could that, would that be amazing? And I thought she was going to weep with joy. She was so excited. She's like, oh God, yes. I hate talking to you about whatever this nonsense you want to talk about. And so we made an agreement there. Like, let's just not ever talk about it. And then over the years, like we shared a laptop for a long time before everybody had their own laptop.

And I would open up the laptop and she'd be working on an academic paper. She was sending for publication. And I would read a page or two. And I remember being like, who are you? How do you know all this stuff? She's amazing. And over the years, I've realized,

I think that was a mistake. I think I screwed that up. Then fast forward to now I'm in a totally new industry. I'm learning about mental health issues. I'm talking to hundreds, if not thousands of people every week. And, um, or for show listeners, dozens, right? There's only like 18 of you out there. Um, and so I just had a conversation with her, uh, about a few weeks ago.

I said, Hey, we made this deal a long time ago. I want to be able to talk to you about my work. And I want to hear about what you're working on and the things you're experiencing. And so we are having to learn how to meet different needs as we've moved our relationship on. So why am I telling you all that? It's if you're dating somebody,

if you say like this person is going to help me meet my goals and needs, what happens over time if those goals and needs change? And so I want you to obviously focus on somebody who's going to help you with your goals and needs and not lean on them too much

like we talked about earlier. But also be willing to be with somebody look for somebody who is holds the world very loosely has some very strong core values convictions but holds beliefs and other things very loosely man i was a vegan at one time and then i was full keto at one time and now i've got got more, I've developed a different protocol that works better for me. And don't come after me vegan and keto people. But I'm a person that likes to say I was wrong. And I like to find out when I was wrong. I like to change my mind and my wife is too. And so more important than being with somebody who helped me meet my immediate goals,

I'm with somebody who supports me wherever I head off into the woods and who's walking alongside me. And I do the same. And our religious beliefs have diverged over time. Our political beliefs have diverged over time. We've changed. We've become different people in multiple different arenas. And so if you're looking for someone like, I'm a fitness person and I only will date a fitness person, that's cool. But there may come a day when going to CrossFit seven times a week turns into, I've got two little kids and a full-time job and I've got a small little home gym where I crank out 40 minutes four or five times a week. That's what I can get done. And if those people, I only, i only were crossfit people then you're

gonna have some real problems and so i want people to resolution dating cool um it seems very short-sighted um tight budget means monogamy i love this 61 of singles are opting to date one person at a time versus meeting multiple potential partners simply to save money on first dates way to go america um transitional dating 33 of singles plan to date in the okay listen listen this is the one that gives me hemorrhoids 33 of singles plan to date in the metaverse in the metaverse that's not real. That's not a thing. Here's the thing about the metaverse.

It's not real. Using avatars to put a bigger emphasis on communication. And I love this. Digital intimacy before in-person discovery. Few things in the world give me the heebie-jeebies more than the phrase digital intimacy. I can't recommend against this enough. So I want you to go on a thought experiment with me. Up until all of human history, up until the invention of the radio

And then fast forward to podcast I talk to callers live callers on this show and we have back and forth We talk about intimate things and deep things and we're having a human interaction Up until all human history until just recently like a snapshot 100 years 200 years You had to be in the room with a group of people to have this level of insight into these intimate conversations. Someone could relay them to you, but you couldn't hear them live. podcast and earbuds and you can be vacuuming having a ringside seat to a conversation that in all of human history you would not have been able to have access to up until just now similarly like think of photographs our brains are not wired to see pictures of ourselves when we were five That is brand stinking new. And so we have the illusion of intimacy.

And I know this because I talk to people out in airports and at live events, and people will come up and tell me things about their husbands or their spouses or their sex life. And I often will go, whoa, I don't know you. Like, you're telling me a lot. And we're in a public place. I was peeing at an airport, in an airport bathroom. And a dude came to the stall next to me. I'm peeing. I'm just looking at the tile ahead of me like you're supposed to. No eye contact. Don't be weird. Just look at the tile. And the guy, I guess, looked over and was like hey John Deloney and I was like yeah man I'm peeing and he goes dude I love your show

still peeing and then he goes hey man so my wife and I just stopped I stopped him and I was like hey man it's not a good time and he goes oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and here's the thing his body knows was like has his body understands that we are friends that we have a connection because he listens to the show he knows about my kids he knows what makes me laugh he knows our my jokes he knows how how stupid I can be and how not good at radio I am and not good at podcasting. He knows all those things because he's internalized them. And his body has this false sense of connection. It's not real. It's not real. It is real, but it's not real. So I tell you this to tell you, don't date in the metaverse because you can transmit information digitally. I can transmit the words I love you. I can transmit pictures of my naked body. I can transmit pictures of my home and my childhood. I can send you info, but our bodies are co-regulated. I only know where I am in space because there's another living being in my

presence. And so it creates this mass illusion that's not real. And different parts of your body think it's connected and other parts don't. And we are, dude, we are dancing on the nuclear buttons when it comes to our physiology combined with technology combined with our neurology and psychology it's madness so i cannot tell you i can't tell you enough don't date on the metaverse if you play legends of zelda dude the game's rad it's cool play zelda get out of the metaverse and find ways even if if you've got to use an app, swipe right, swipe left, whatever. Connect with real people in the real world. You owe it to your body.

I'll say it this way. There's no such thing as digital intimacy. It's not real. It's not real. Have human intimacy. So that's the 2023 dating trends. Oh gosh. Kelly, this just makes me sad. Good luck, everybody. We'll be right back.

All right. So we're back. Hey, John. Yes. So you were talking about somebody coming up while you were peeing. Yes. I've got a little similar story. So quite a few years ago when I worked on Dave's show, my former OB-GYN, and I say former. So I'm in the office, in the stirrups, exam is happening, and he realizes where I work. So he starts asking me 401K questions. Oh, my gosh so I had to say that um hey can we have this conversation when I can see your eyes yeah not now so some people aren't that aware oh my gosh no metaverse dating no meta dating. And no talking about sensitive topics and sensitive moments.

Is that the way to say that? That's fair. Trying to be sensitive because some people let their kids watch the show. Listen, you don't let your kids listen to the show. All right, let's go to Leanna. Leanna in Virginia. What's up, Leanna? Hi, how's it going?

So good. How about you? I'm doing well. Trying to keep my kids from listening to the show a little bit Good for you, you're a good parent They enjoy the peeing stories though, so that's always fun My wife tells me my humor capped out at about 11, so perfect You're not dating in the metaverse, are you? No, no, happily married Good, in the real world, you're married dating in the metaverse, are you? No, no. Happily married.

Good. In the real world, you're married to like a human? Yes. Yes. Married to a human, a mechanic. So he's very real world. Very real world. Excellent.

Excellent. Okay. So what's up, Leanna? How can I help? So I, uh, my question was, um, am I selfish for wanting to take a trip by myself without my wonderful husband and my kids? A little backstory. So I have two kids. I have a four-year-old and an almost two-year-old.

So I'm kind of in the middle of it all. I am a part-time realtor and a part-time MLM consultant, and I'm in school full-time taking 17 credits right now online. So there's not really a whole lot of downtime for me. I feel like really the only time I can get away is during the very short deer hunting season that we have here in Minnesota. Your deer hunting season is absurd, by the way. It is, it is. But I try and milk it for all it's worth because as soon as I come out of the deer stand, I'm back to being mom.

So, you know, I feel selfish for wanting to take a trip without them. And some comments my husband has made sometimes makes me feel even more so. Tell me what those comments are. Well, it's mainly like he does this dirt bike trip where he goes across the state with a couple of his buddies and he's like, oh, it costs like hardly nothing, just the gas for the dirt bike and maybe some food. So he's like, I don't really understand why you would want to spend money on a trip for yourself when we should be spending the money

on a trip for all of us as a family. And so then I'm like, okay. Why is it either or? That's what I don't understand either. Before his knowledge or thoughts where he couldn't keep me safe and i grew up in a military family i can keep myself plenty safe um yeah yeah um yes the deer need to be worried about you so let me i'll just answer this directly absolutely not in no way are you selfish i just listen i just finished um i just finished three months of what i would call

hell of of right book writing hard it's just like getting up at 5 a.m going to work and then heading off into a dark hole by yourself and getting done at 10 or 11 at night it's been month after month on the road writing in hotel rooms it's been chaos i just hit send on the road, writing in hotel rooms. It's been chaos. I just hit send on the manuscript last week. And that weekend, I got in a plane, I mean, on Wednesday, I got in a plane and flew to Utah to meet up two great guys, Dustin and Steve. And I went with a buddy here that I work with at Ramsey. And we went on a hunting trip in the middle of nowhere Utah. And on the surface, it could be – I felt what you're feeling. It felt a little bit selfish.

It was the most important thing I could do because I had to go clear the cobwebs so that I could come back and be present. Otherwise, my kids and my wife become another task, right? They become just another thing in order. I got to do my classwork. I got to do this. I got to go hug my kid. I got to go show up to the school thing. I got to make sure my wife's happy.

And they deserve more than to be part of my checklist, right? And so it's critical that we get away and separate. And I absolutely love, love, love when my wife goes to hang out with her friends. She comes back renewed and refreshed and she's got new thoughts and new ideas. I love it, love it, love it. And it sucks because I got to do bedtimes and morning times and breakfast and make sure people are putting on deodorant and making lunches. I got to do all that. I don't like doing that. And, um, but it's part of being in a partnership, right? It's part of being married. Um, I, I, I think going down the road of, but my trip costs this and why does your trip, that's dangerous ground. That's comparison, man.

And that's just, that's just going to's just going to melt some marriage every time. Marriage can't be 50-50 like that. Well, you spent this much, so I get to spend this much. It can't be like that. Otherwise, it just becomes this tit for tat nest forever. And man, you can't build a relationship on that. Right. Well, and I feel like that's what he saw growing up.

His mom would take trips and now she does trips with her daughter-in-law. And then my father-in-law would go on a canoe trip in the boundary waters with the boys. And it'd be very, you know, less costly than what hers were, but they'd be arguing about it. And that's just what he saw. Yeah, I think it's important to call that out. This is what we both, this is what you saw growing up. This isn't how we're going to do this. Because the thing that brings you joy is, I don't know what trip you want to go on, a cruise.

Like getting away, getting out on the open water, that's a thing. And the thing that brings you joy is riding motorbikes across the country, I mean across the state. By the way, motorbikes across the country i mean across the state by the way motorbikes are expensive and so maybe the trip itself isn't expensive but all in like i can do that i can have this really fancy sitka gear that i got good grief it's like an armani suit and i can have really fancy like hunting equipment and then i can be like hey my trip don't cost nothing i'm just going out to sit in the woods for a few few hours that's ridiculous right all right so my cost is just all on the front end and my wife may spend nothing ever ever ever and then want to go on a cruise or

go hang out with her friends but that's dude i think that's amazing it goes back to putting your oxygen mask on first here's the only time i'll call you out. Okay. Is if you are going on this trip to run away. Okay. If you are out of capacity and you feel like you have to escape them, one is running from a thing. One is running towards a thing and it can look very similar, but here's what happens. If you run from a thing, you're going to get a cabin somewhere with a couple of girlfriends and you are going to end up doing nothing. Right. And you're going to get frustrated that you didn't feel that you showed up with you.

You went with you back to your house. Right. So I'm going to go on a vacation for a very specific reason. I'm going to go and take five books and sit in a cabin for three days and do absolutely nothing And my goal is restoration or I came back from my trip more exhausted than when I left I read it was eight degrees outside. It was freezing. We were hiking through snow up mountains. It was madness um hiking through snow up mountains it was madness um so i came back more exhausted but my goal wasn't to go get restoration my goal was to go hit control delete right right so i planned that

going into it okay yeah and i feel like restoration is definitely needed maybe there's a little bit of the escape idea, but more so just because 2022 was a terrible year. And I just need a break. Basically what I do is I wake up in the morning and immediately start going, going, going, doing real estate things, handling kids and, and making sure everything is good in the house. And then when everybody goes to bed, I'm up for three or four hours doing school. Yeah. Yeah. So some of that is, some of that is, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And some of that seasonal, right. You are going to graduate. Right.

The real estate market is a dumpster fire right now and it will come back. Right. Right. So you're in a, you're in a wild season right now. More broadly speaking i'm more concerned that once those things level back out you're going to find more stuff just to fill them um my friend ian simpkins he's a pastor here in nashville he said a line recently that just melted me he said if busyness is your drug, rest will feel like stress. Okay. And if you're creating a world that is super busy all of the time on top of the busyness of just being a mother of a few young kids, you're going to cross the line, the graduation stage, and you're going to immediately fill that void with more crap.

Yeah. I want you to build a life you don't have to run away from yeah and go away and have fun and enjoy your life right go go on a trip and um i'm not gonna lie my wife says i don't vacation well with you sometimes i need to go away by myself for three or four days with some friends there's a little piece of me that hurts my feelings. Like I wish she was like, you make me calm and you bring me restoration, but I'm a little bit not like that. I'm a little bit more chaotic, right? And so I wish I wasn't. I do, I do.

I just am. And so the next best thing is I can honor her and be super excited that she's going to take care of herself and she's getting restoration and all that kind of stuff. Does that make sense? Yeah, that totally makes sense. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. You got it.

So here's your homework assignment, okay? Homework assignment is I want you to get by yourself, go get coffee. And I know this is a tall order. Even if you got to get up half an hour early, okay? You can be super tired. Have an extra coffee this one particular morning. And I want you to write down your needs. Okay. Here's what I need in my house. And usually for a mom in your situation, I need help with the kids. And I know my husband's working really hard, but it's just not me in school when I go to school

We're both in school and It's not just I have three kids. We have three kids and I know he's working hard and I still need some help And I need to get three days so that I can go just laugh and cut up with my girlfriends I need three days so I can just go stare off into space and whatever awesome, and if he comes back with, well, then I get my three day. Your response needs to be, honey, I'm not in competition with you. Yeah.

I'm not competing with you. We're not going to go back and forth. We're not on a teeter-totter here. Right. What you need, you need. And what I need, I need. And I want to learn how to say my needs out loud and us together to figure out how we can both meet those. Does that make sense?

Yeah, that makes sense completely. And I know that can be a pipe dream for some folks I know, because I know that some husbands or wives or whatever, just, I ain't doing that. I'll tell you, if you're listening and your romantic partner your spouse comes to you and says look I I need this or I really want to take a trip with my girlfriends. I want to take a trip with the guys Try it just once and say that's amazing Can we plan the, can we plan the exit? Like what the, a couple of days before you go, can we plan the re-entry a couple of days after you get back? Can we plan what that will

look like so that we're all on the same page and I can best love and honor you as you come back, as you go, right? Can we do that together? That'd be amazing. Try. It's practice. Just try it once. And if it's a disaster, that's on me. Try once. Been excited. Even if you got to fake it. I'm all in. I'm all in. Go have your trip. Go have fun. Get away. You deserve it. You've been working really hard. I'll pick up some slack. When you get back, I'll be excited to see you. Try that instead of, what about me? That's expansive. Man, give the gifts of support. Try that.

We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings

and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we're back. And as we wrap up today's show, today's show is a little bit rambly, huh? Got all over the place.

This is Kelly's favorite breakfast song. She sings it every morning at breakfast with a big smile on her face. It's her happiest time of the day. Song's by the great Rupert Holmes. I don't know if he's great. He may be a human i don't know by rupert holmes the song's called escape the pina colada song rupert writes and kelly sings i was tired of my lady we've been together too long like a worn-out recording of a favorite song so while she's laying there sleeping i read the paper in bed in the personal

columns there was a letter i read if you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain if you're not into yoga if you have half a brain if you like making love at midnight in the dunes of the cape then i'm the love you've looked for write to me and escape and that that's when Kelly goes running out the house every single morning. I love you all. See you soon. Don't date the metaverse. God almighty.