The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Give My Husband an Ultimatum?

Episode Date: April 10, 2024

On this episode, we hear about: -       A wife wondering if it’s time to give her husband an ultimatum -       A woman hurt by her friend’s behavior at her bachelorette party -       A parent worried her son will face bullying because of his looks  Next Steps  📚 Check out John’s rec No, David! 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or click here. 📚 Get Building a Non-Anxious Life. 📝 Take the Anxiety Test. 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future  ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards  💭 John's Free Guided Meditation Offers From Today's Sponsors ·      10% off your first month of therapy at BetterHelp   ·      3 free months of Hallow  ·      25% off Thorne orders  ·      20% off on Organifi products[KB2]    Listen to More From Ramsey Network 🎙️ The Ramsey Show   🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy  

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Am I allowed to issue ultimatums in my marriage? You are allowed to do whatever you want. Is it advised to issue ultimatums in my marriage? All right, how have you got all the way to the edge where you're ready to shove him off the edge? I feel like I'm holding on to him as he's trying to jump off. What up, what up, what up?

This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Talking about your marriage and your emotional health and your mental health and your kids or whatever else you got going on in your life. Whether you're struggling with the loss of a loved one, trying to figure out what to do in your job, or you're struggling with the loss of a loved one, trying to figure out what to do in your job, or you're just worried to death

about your kids or your marriage, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. And man, we're taking real calls from real people from all over the planet

about what's going on in their life and we get hundreds of emails and calls a day and Kelly and the gang fill them in and create the best show that's going to help the most people. There's a lot going on out there, man. So we're so grateful for you. Let's go to Richmond, Virginia

and talk to dear Marie. What's up, Marie? What's up, Dr. John? Thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. What's happening?

Without you, we don't have a show. So what's up? So I guess my big overall question is, am I allowed to issue ultimatums in my marriage? How old are you? I am 40. I'll be 44 next month. You are allowed to do whatever you want. It might be dumb, but you can do whatever you want. Is it advised to issue ultimatums in my marriage? How have you got all the way to the edge where you're ready to

shove him off the edge? Or no, you're actually ready to allow him to jump off the edge himself, right? Well, and that's, that's, I feel like I'm holding on to actually ready to allow him to jump off the edge himself, right? Well, and that's, that's, I feel like I'm holding on to him as he's trying to jump off. And, uh, so trying to prevent that. Um, so we've been married for 12 years. Um, we have three kids, six, eight, and 10 that require a lot of attention. Um, it kind of all started in 2018. Our youngest turned one and he just kind of started to check out of parenthood and our marriage. He was on his phone all the time. He stopped working out. He slowly stopped contributing financially to our household. He didn't want to play with the kids. And he, as far as affection between us, you know, we were still connected, but it wasn't that emotional intimacy that definitely started to go away quickly. I've always had pretty demanding jobs and I still do.

But in last year, taking on the job I have now, I actually work a lot less hours. And I was able to have the opportunity to breathe and look up and look around and realize just how unhappy I was with the state of our marriage, with the state of our whole family, like how our children were being raised. Can I lob something in here real quick? Yes, sir. Don't say sir.

Is there a chance that after baby number three was born, he did the same thing? You were just too busy to hear him? I can't say 100% for sure, but I don't feel so. Again, I feel like he retreated and didn't want to talk. Like, there weren't any issues for him. Okay. Under the guy's behaviors of language, I think there were clearly issues. Yes.

He may not have the tools or more appropriately, he did not see it as important enough. He didn't see it important enough to go get those skills ASAP because his whole life as he knew it was coming to a screeching halt. But clearly there were problems too. Yes. And that's one of my ultimatums is therapy for him. He has very big abandonment issues that he'll admit to, oh, I'll go to therapy. But then when I say, well, did you talk to your therapist about this? His literal response is, well, that's none of his business. And I'm like, okay. Awesome. Therapy is going to be incredible. Okay. So I don't frown on ultimatums. Okay. But most people underestimate them.

So this is probably the worst analogy I could think of. Okay. But here's my comparison. There's been like a cool hip thing, like the cool thing in the South is is and i don't know how it is in the north but everybody's carrying or it seems right everybody's carrying a weapon for their protection right and few people have been either in an active situation or have been in active training situations or have been in aftermath situations, which are caustic. They change your life. Just see, right? And I remember my friend Sean Ryan. He's got a Sean Ryan show.

He had a guest on who was a – he's a SEAL, a former SEAL, a former CIA operative, and he had a special forces guy on there. And they were talking to each other about reentry. But how do you go from the wildest situations in the world, the most unsafe, dangerous places on earth, and then get dropped into a neighborhood, right? And they got to talking about, hey, do you carry? Do you carry? And the guy said something.

And I remember, I just heard it. I mean, I was doing something else at the time, but I remember stopping and going, yes, that's it. And the guy said, yes, I do carry. This is his guest, a former special forces operator. But I don't carry to flex. I don't carry to get into a showdown. If this gun comes out of the holster, either me or that other person will no longer be alive.

Meaning, this is not a game. This isn't like a way that I can pull it out and be like, hey bro, I'm carrying, let's calm down. If anyone sees this gun, it's because it's being used to get me and my family out of a situation to defend the helpless or somebody's about to hurt me. And so it was a great antidote to all of this, like, I'll just show them like man That's not how you do that. That's how you end up in a mess similar Ultimatums are the same to me

like you can Feel empowered. No, i'll say that you must Feel empowered to say without pause without hesitation what you need in your relationship What you will not deal with anymore, and what you want. And if you issue that in the form of an ultimatum, cool. But you have to be prepared for him to look at you and say, I'm not doing that. This is not just something where you've got a gun in your belt

and you pull your shirt up just to say like, I will, I will. If you're going to put an ultimatum on the table, you do this or I'm out. You have to be willing to go. Yeah, I guess. Does that make sense? It does. And I think maybe some of it is me trying to get my power back. Yeah. When I told him in November that I was unhappy and I wanted us to go to couples therapy, he out of very out of character, but became very verbally abusive. What does that mean?

Was he verbally abusive or is he just being an idiot? Well, maybe, maybe just being an idiot. Um, we have had several situations where he has, and I don't want to say physically trapped me, but made me feel trapped in a room and proceeded to berate me one time for two hours. Call me names, accuse me of things, sometimes things that he didn't even remember saying the next day. Yeah, he did. He did. And so it's just, I told him two weeks ago that we needed to physically

separate because the verbal altercations had started happening in front of our kids. We were trapped in a car with the three of them and he was screaming at me and accusing me of something the kids were telling him I didn't do. And at that point, I was just done. I want us to be able to come back together and be a family

and have the future that we talked about when we were dating and got married. But I need him to get help. And I just don't know how else to do that. I got that. And I, man, I totally hear you. And I don't know if you, hopefully you don't need my permission, but absolutely you need a physical separation. You and your kids need to be in one place and he needs to be in somewhere else. Preferably he is a person of character and integrity and he will go somewhere else for 30 days. You can look at,

you can Google Terry reels. We'll put it in the show notes. Terry reels rules for separation. Have to have a date, have to have a time. All that's good. But if he's not, you have to protect your kids. What I don't like about this story is the trajectory, the trend line.

It sounds like he's escalating. Yes. And he, like we're trying to, because we're in couple therapy, and so we're trying to continue our homework, which is that one night a week we just try to spend time together for an hour. And one night a week we sit down try to spend time together for an hour. And one night a week, we sit down and talk about an issue for an hour. And Sunday, we were supposed to sit down and talk about an issue. And he just could not seem to help himself from saying nasty things to me or accusing me of stuff.

You guys can get up and walk out. Yeah, I told him I'm not going to tolerate it. Good. Um, and I think, but hold on, hold on, hold on,

hold on. Did you though? No, I told him we would stop the conversation if he was going to continue down that path. Did he stop? Yes. Okay.

Good for you. Um, but then he started to spiral into, I don't know what I believe anymore. I don't know if I believe in God anymore. I'm definitely concerned about his mental health, but I know I can't. I mean, other than our couple therapy and even that, I can't force him to do anything about it. Right. That's where you want him to get well.

And the most heartbreaking thing is standing shoulder to shoulder or eyeball to eyeball to somebody that you love. And they won't. And you can't make him. But he's crossed a line where you have to take care of yourself and be safe and you got to take care of those kids and be safe. And so I don't know that ultimatum is the right word here as much as I am forcing

the issue on a separation. Because you're not safe. And he's getting worse and worse and worse. And his spirals are getting more outburst-y. They're getting close spaces. He's getting more and more physical with you. Louder and louder. I'm just not going to subject our kids to that.

And by the way, I'm worth that. Nobody in my world, nobody in my professional life talks to me that way. Nobody on the street talks to me that way. I'm not going to let the one guy who told God and his family that he would be my ride or die, I'm not going to let you talk to me like that. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I think that's just hard.

It is. There's nothing about this that's easy. But you're going to have to choose your heart. Are you going to stay in this mess? Or are you going to choose the other hard path? Which is, I'm going to be the adult here because he can't be or won't be. And I'm going to separate out. Both paths are miserable.

Both paths are brutal. One path leads to safety and to some potential for healing. The other is escalating at a pace I don't like. Being separated, how do we figure out when it's good to come back together? So with your therapist, you say this is happening, and you would like your therapist to participate in helping you come up with the ground rules. Okay. And print those off. But the important thing is it's for a very specific date.

From this day to this day, here's what has to happen in the interim. Here is the date and time and location when we'll come back together in the room okay and that way there's some boundaries to it it's not just this endless thing and you'll finally get some peace and you'll move the yardstick on him or he'll do one have one good day and be like see it's all better and that way we can say here's the boundaries to this yeah that, my fear is we'll be separated and things will feel good and comfortable because

we're not fighting with each other all the time, but then we come back together and it's just going to go back to what it was. Well, and that's what the healing process is going to be about. And if he does go and do the work and he does get down on both knees and beg for your forgiveness and you all choose to, what you had is over, but if you all choose to build something new, that's amazing.

And you're going to have to teach your body. You're going to have work to do to teach your body that, hey, he used to not be safe and he is now. Yeah, that's what I'm working on with my therapist right now is just trusting myself. But he's not. He's not. Your body's right. You're trying to override the system so you can keep this pretty picture in your head stable.

Fair? Yeah, my best friend says I'm always making excuses for him. Okay. Listen to the people who love you the most. It's so much different when you're in it i know i know i know and here's here's the important thing i want you to hear the reason your close friends are super important the reason a professional who does this for a living who's a neutral third party is important is for just this moment. When you go offline,

when your body is just trying to survive, we don't see things as they really are. It just feels like clouds and smoke and fire and getting somebody else to say, hey, I just see you becoming somebody you're not or you're always making excuses for this guy or hey, you are not safe. Then you could go, okay, I may not see it in this moment,

but I trust y'all. Yeah, I know. I have some people that would definitely want me to say that. I know, I know. I trust you over myself. Let the people around you love you. You're real, real tough in your professional life, aren't you? Unfortunately, I don't have a choice. Well choice well you do but that's the choice i mean you chose that

profession you're real tough and i just want to say this before we we depart i think a lot of the challenge here for you is you run the show what what do you do for a living? Give me a broad category. So I manage all of the engagements with high-level officials for the commanding general of an army base. There you go. You tell men what to do for a living. Right?

Yes. And so there is some cognitive dissonance that you can't make this one at home work. You have all these other people, all these multi, multi, multi-million dollar contracts. They all do what you say. And I can't get this one to work. And it makes you feel crazy. Is that fair? Yes. It's fair? Yes.

It's not on you. He has to decide he wants something different. What it is on you is to protect yourself and to protect those kids. Yes. And so if you're ready to, hey, you do these three things

or I'm filing on you, that's an ultimatum. This, it's it's if this gun comes out of the holster somebody's going to the hospital i don't think you're at ultimatum stage but i definitely think you're at separation stage because there's the house is too electric you when you when he walks in that door you walk in that door you are fight or fight there's no learning there's no being at peace his body feels that and it goes, y'all just in this weird cycle and a weird dance. We're going to back all the way out. We're going to back out. But your gut instinct is right. The friends who love you are right. Your therapist is right. And you're right. It's going to be real

hard, but you're worth the pain right now to either get to the healing in your marriage or to be able to let the smoke and fire clear and find a healthy place for you and those kids to live. I'm proud of you. This is hard, hard, hard, hard. I'm proud of you. Call anytime, Marie.

I'll walk with you. 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. You can talk with your therapist anywhere

so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month.

That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to Virginia Beach and talk to Brenna. What's up, Brenna? Hi, how are you? I'm partying, dude. What are you up to? I'm just hanging out. Thank you so much for having me.

I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today. Of course. So we'll jump right into it. I recently had my bachelorette party and saw one of my bridesmaids who I haven't seen in a couple years. And she kind of ruined it. Hold on. Kind of or she totally ruined it? Totally ruined it.

Okay. I did have some, I mean, I'm not saying the entire trip was a throwaway waste. I had some great moments with my favorite people. It's just the bad moments kind of outweighed the good. And the majority of it was due to her drinking. Now I'm all for drinking and having a good time. You live at Virginia Beach, but go ahead. I'm just, I'm totally kidding. That was too easy. That's too easy. Yeah. But the problem that I'm really resonating with is how much she was drinking. And she was putting our lives in danger because she was sneaking how much she was drinking.

And then she was offering to drive us around without telling us to the point where she would get to like a stop light or a stop sign and switch out because she couldn't drive or she couldn't do this or whatnot. So it's like to let us get in the car from the beginning without putting it out there that, hey, I can't drive because I've been drinking all day. That to me was not okay. So it just didn't sit well, and I don't know how to bring up her drinking habit because I think she was just completely oblivious to how she acted the entire trip. Um, and I have been very luckily lucky. I haven't had a lot of experience with alcoholics, but I think she's at like the beginning stages of alcoholism. Okay.

Um, I would, um, so I'll, I'll say this as directly as I can. Okay. My friend John King called me and we sat down and had a hard conversation one time about some things he saw in me that needed to be different. My friend Todd came to my house three hours away and told me I needed to go get some help. My friends Michael and Kevin have called me over the years. We've been friends for 15 years. So my closest friends in the world And they have really gotten on to me my friends trevor and craig. Um, good grief, buddy Have really challenged me over the years on what it's on The role of a friend and how I wasn't stepping up to the plate in certain seasons

Okay, I am a different husband I am a different husband. I am a husband, period. I'm a different father because those men loved me enough to say not on my watch. And I've done that for countless people as well, but I won't speak for their stories. I'll just tell you about men who have stepped up in my life. There've been women who have stepped up in my life. Melissa, Jen, I could go on and on. Jennifer King, John's wife. I mean, like people have stepped up.

My wife said, not on my watch. You are my friend and I love you. And this cannot be a part of, this isn't right. And so I tell you that to tell you, I'm only here because I had friends sit me down directly Honest and hold me accountable Okay, so if this person is close enough for you to consider them A bridesmaid if you invite them to be a part of your life as far as i'm concerned

That's enough to sit down and say hey, look. I love you I'm scared for you. What happened at my bachelorette party is not okay. And this can't happen at my wedding or I've decided it's not going to happen at my wedding. If you launch into, I think you're at the beginning stages of an alcoholic. Now you're getting into diagnostics. You're getting into judgment. I'm not doing that. But how she chose, like, and even the question, hey hey you're a different person over the last two years what happened you see i'm saying but oh i'm only here because those because people in my life love me enough to have those conversations with me and so i hold those as holy

sacred moments when i when somebody loves somebody enough to sit down and be willing to burn the relationship to the ground because she could get up and go, forget you. Who do you think you are? Screw you then. I'm going to email blast and text everybody in the wedding. Can you believe I got whatever uninvited to the wedding? Or she said, I can't drink if I'm going to come, whatever. Yep, that could all happen. thing that part of the reason I didn't necessarily call her out or bring it up when we were there was

I needed time to reflect and really process how I was feeling everything. And I didn't know how she would react. I didn't want her to hurt herself or hurt other people or this or that. So I wanted to kind of take the time, reflect on what I did. And I might've been enabling at some point, not necessarily like tipping the bottle back, but, oh, do you need help with this? Let me do this for you. Let me do this. Or continuing to get in the car with, I mean, there's all, that's, that's the other part is when you're at an event like that or a weekend like that you weren't making good choices either but your choices weren't those choices right and it's easy for somebody to feel super attacked and judged if

you call somebody out everybody's been drinking for the last 48 hours but she's been unsafely drinking it's easy to go oh y'all are doing this too and right so i get we got through the weekend the smoke is cleared but you got to do you want this person at your wedding, right? Yeah. And that's what I'm battling with back and forth because I'm not in the area. She lives 10 plus hours away from me. I can't physically go in and check on her all the time to kind of see the process that she's through. Yeah, but that's not your job unless she invites you into that, to her healing in that way.

Yep. And I mean, then you're that, to her healing in that way. Yep. And I mean, then you're getting very maternal and very in her business. Yeah. I have had guys come hours away to see me and they were my brothers essentially. Okay. So there is some, yeah, I'm getting on planning. I'm gonna go 10 hours and meet with you. And I also understand that's not, that's not everybody can do that.

Right. But it is worth the phone call. Right. And I learned from one of my most important mentors, Jean-Noel Thompson, Dr. Thompson, when it's a hard, when it's a hard decision, I'm not going to make it in that moment. And so I think it's important to say, I'm worried about you. And because of how you're, you had to get through this, those days. Um, I can't have that at my wedding.

So I'm, I'm working through whether I'm going to be able to have you at my wedding. Do you still want to come and say, I'll get back to you. I'll circle back, but I'm going to need some assurances that this can't happen. Like I, you can't,

if you're going to come, you can't drink because it got out of control. And she might call you and say, Hey, I didn't tell you. My mom't happen. Like, you can't, if you're going to come, you can't drink because it got out of control. And she might call you and say, hey, I didn't tell you. My mom passed away. My fiance dumped me and I got out of control and I'm sorry. I screwed it all up.

Right. Right, so who knows? Do you have any other friend in your circle that is saying, no, no, no, we've watched her just sort of spiraling out or she just been away 10 hours away from everybody and she just showed up and kind of went, woo, and just fell apart? 10 hours away from everybody and she just showed up and kind of went woo and just fell apart 10 hours the second one okay we the rest of us all live in this area

and i have like fairly frequent conversations with her i would say once a week leading up to this and had no indication of where she was at with that. So what leads you to jump the gun all the way to she's at the beginning stages of alcoholism? It seems like a long jump from like a bachelorette party that got someone acted, just acted the fool. Right. I would say a lot of it would be, again, like the more of the sneaking alcohol. Like one of my other bridesmaids caught her just drinking straight from the bottle in her room and hiding it. And just such a sudden change in behavior.

Like she would be fine and calm one minute and then irrational the next. Um, and one of the big things was we bought a handle of alcohol Tuesday night. Um, it was almost gone by Thursday morning. Um, and again, we weren't drinking that heavily. Like we would have maybe one beer every like three hours. It was not a overtly crazy bachelorette party it up the entire time. It was more casual. So for her to go through that much by herself in less than 48 hours is where I was kind of jumping to with that. And just the other thing was seeing her shocked me. She has lost a significant amount of weight and she just

looks sickly compared to when I have last seen her. Call your friend and tell her that you love her and you're really worried about her. Yeah. And then at the end of the day, not in an accusatory way, but to say, I can't participate. I love you enough to not put you in a situation where I'm going to feel like I'm contributing to you

not being okay. Yeah. And maybe she says, I will come. I won't drink. I'm going to feel like I'm contributing to you not being okay. Yeah. And maybe she says, I will come. I won't drink. I'm sorry. I just hadn't seen you guys in forever and I just got bananas. But you can also speak pretty directly. And those men I told you about, some of those guys, those conversations were when I was 20.

I was a kid. Yeah. Some of those when I was an adult. And I'll tell you what, they spoke real directly to me. Real directly. Like didn't mince words, right? Like I'm not going to repeat it on this show because kids are out there in the audience. Like real directly to me about a number of topics that thank God they did. And I crave that kind of feedback i like that accountability that's important to me and so if somebody has the courage to do that i might get mad in the moment but man

i walk away and i'm really i'm going to be contemplative and think through it not everybody's like that i'm not better than anybody else but that's just how i handle it some people are like well fine forget you if you're gonna judge me i out. That's a choice she will make, not you. And letting her know, I love you. I'll be here for you, but I can't, I can't, like, I'm worried about you. I lost trust in your ability to take care of yourself. And man, we were having fun and we were acting silly and you're not okay. And those are two different things.

So I'm going to implore you. She's your friend. She's somebody you care about or have cared about. Make the call. Make the call. And at least you might say you're crazy. I can't believe X, Y, or Z. At least she'll know that you know.

And that hopefully in some moment of lucidity, some moment of clarity, she'll go, I can call her. I can call her. I'm not all right. And I simply know that. I've never struggled with alcohol, but I know that because I've been on the other end of that. And thank God to my friends who've reached out over time.

Make the call, Brenna. Make the call and let me know how it goes. Let us all know how it goes and we'll be thinking about you. Best of luck to you. She's lucky to have you as a friend. We'll be right back. It's time to talk about Organifi. All right, here's one of my main life goals.

I want to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible. I want to be that old semi-balding guy in the back of the mosh pit. And I also want to be that old guy dancing with his beautiful wife into my eighties. And I want to be able to roll around with my grandkids and some WWE style wrestling match into my nineties. And that's why right now I exercise, I work on my friendships and I try to eat and drink things that only have safe, high quality, high integrity ingredients. And this is why I love Organifi. They're incredibly selective about what goes into their whole food blends. And Organifi gives you ingredients with integrity, plant-based, certified organic, vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, and glyphosate residue-free. By the way,

that's a pesticide you don't want anywhere near you. And it's simple to get the health benefits with Organifi. You just mix with water or your favorite beverage and drink it down. You can take their green juice first thing in the morning to balance stress and get ready for your day. And you can take Organifi red juice in the afternoon or before a workout for natural, sustained energy and endurance. And I love my happy drops every day for natural mood support with saffron extract. Go to Organifi.com slash Diloni right now to save 20% off at checkout with code Diloni. That's Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash Deloney. Encode Deloney for 20% off. All right, let's go out to Hershey, Pennsylvania and talk to Emily.

Hey, Emily, what's happening? Hey, Dr. John, nothing too much. An original 17 and 34, I guess, is now the number. Hey, my mom has been out of her mind. She retired from her professor job, and she has been creating so many new fake accounts and following everything. And so it's been a while, but I'm glad to know the OG17 still live. That's right.

It's awesome. So I guess I'll be brief with my question. So my question when I originally wrote into the show was, I have two boys. I have a five-year-old and a two-year-old. My five-year-old was born with, I guess you would say, unique characteristics. He was born when he started getting teeth. We noticed that two of his bottom teeth did not grow in. And then after years of going to the dentist and getting bigger, he's had x-rays and those teeth are permanently not in.

So his baby and his adult teeth are not in. And he was also born with a heterochromia. So his left eye- Oh, his eyes are different colors. Yes. His left eye is bright blue and brown because my husband has light eyes and I have dark eyes. So it's a very cool,

unique. Yeah. Uh, look, my friend Sarah has that. It's awesome. It is awesome. But if there was people off a little bit,

cause his, it's, it's bright blue. Yeah. I mean, but she looks like she's staring a hole through you. Yeah. It's amazing.

I love it. But yeah, I can be, that could be tough on a five-year-old. Yeah. So he, um, he is in school now. He's in preschool now, but he is going to what we call big school and the fall, and he's going to start T-ball and going to start doing all the fun kid things. And mine and my husband's biggest concern is, you know, how do we prepare him or have, we know obviously we want to be age appropriate, but how do we prepare him for the conversation? Like, do we have the conversation before he goes to school? Do we let him come and talk to us? Because we want to be truthful with him, obviously. We want to, you know, validate his feelings, but do we start the conversation? Because he's never really asked about it yet. So here's the biggest thing I'm going to tell you about this, and then I'll walk

you through a couple of things. Okay. He is going to get his cues for whether he belongs in the world from his mom and dad's energy. He will know that he looks different, but when you're five, everybody's different. That kid's got yellow hair. That kid's got freckles. That kid's got weird teeth.

That kid's already got braces. I don't have any teeth. They know that something's wrong when mom and dad tense up when the kids come. Or when a kid comes and asks a question, where did all your teeth go? And they feel you tense up. Then that's how he learns, oh, there's something wrong with me. Or when dad begins to go, well, you you know and starts to answer for him that's when he learns oh something's wrong with me versus something's different about me so the greatest gift you can give him is to norm the fact that that's how he's that's how he's, that's how he's made. And he didn't have as many teeth as other kid have. He has this awesome thing about his eyes that are different colors and very few other

people have that. Now with, with one of my kids, I did sit down with them and I'm going to protect which one, but I sat down with one of my kids and said, Hey, i need you to hear me very carefully you and i have very similar brains and our brains feel stuff really heavy and our brains work really really fast and our brains feel things sometimes that aren't there and that's going to make us very compassionate and able to sit with hurting people which is why my whole career, whatever job I had was about that. And it also means I have to have some people that I trust in my life because my feelings are not always right. And what I was doing in that moment was saying, hey, you're different. I am too. Big whoop-dee-doo. You and I can't walk through the world vomiting on people, being angry at people, and we can't walk through the world vomiting on people being angry at people and we can't walk through the world being scared of the world but we do need to know that it's

gonna be different for us see what i'm saying and so you sitting down with him and going hey you got part of like most kids get one of the sets of colors of eyes of their parents you got both and nobody else has that. Very few people. That makes you very unique. And so kids are going to ask questions. Why do you have this one thing? And you'll be like, I got both. And they'll go, oh, cool. They'll learn something's wrong by your reaction. Does that make sense? Yes. Yes, it does. Can I ask you a scary question? Yes. I've yet to meet a parent. And if it's you, you're the first one to call me out and be like, ah, it's not me. I've yet to meet a parent in a situation like this that doesn't have

some internalized guilt that our genetics gave our kid a tough road. I think it is that it's partly that, like I definitely have said to my husband, like, did I do, I wouldn't say it's more about like his facial, but he's had some, you know, health issues like with his breathing.

Like he has, he's asthmatic and he was born early, like earlier, like a little over under 38 weeks. And so I was like, you know, if I carried him full term, would his lungs have been fully developed? I think I've kind of worked through that part. But I think more than anything, probably is my husband and I were both bullied very badly in school. And so, you know, did it make us, you make us pretty resilient people?

Yeah, but did it hurt at the same time? Yeah, it felt really, really bad at the time. And we just don't want our baby, our kid, we know he's going to have that pain. It's going to happen. It'll happen. Yeah. It'll happen.

You can't protect him from it. What you can do is let them know that when this comes, I still love you. And I can't think of anything that a parent wants more than their kid to not have the same hurts and pains that they did. And when it comes to that, man, kids are mean. And I don't think kids are mean because they're mean. Kids are mean because different is scary or different is, hey, and for you and me, if you and me were at a grocery store

and we saw somebody that was missing a lot of their bottom teeth, we wouldn't go, hey, what happened to your face? But that's what kids do, right? And so the same words aren't malicious. They're not mean. They're literally wondering why don't you have any teeth and if your son immediately goes that's different than i don't know

they never came in right you see like and kids will go oh okay hey his teeth didn't come in and be like yeah all right we'll go get the. And then it's off to the races. Right. But if he learns over time, you duck your head, you get quiet, you don't answer, mom and dad will jump in and save you. Bullies, and at the middle school level, at the later elementary school level, bullies will smell that a mile away.

Hey, I'm going to bring Kelly in, okay? She's got a young son who's an amazing kid, but he's got some special needs and they've dealt with this son. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Hey, so we have a son that he's got CP and he walks with a limp and he's also short. And so he, and I had the same fears you did. You know, you just know, like they're going to get bullied. And I, when he was really little, I did what John talked about where I would explain him, quote unquote, before anybody had the chance to say anything. And my husband finally called me out on it. And so I stopped doing that. The one thing that's really great is when he starts kindergarten,

we found this with ours. When they're that little, I don't care. The other kids don't care. They'll ask the weird question that seems forward. Why are your eyes like that or whatever? And your son will just have to answer it. Ours was always, because this is how God made me, period. And then those same group of kids will hopefully, because they've known him since, you know, since he started, when he starts kindergarten, will follow him through, you know, since he started, when he starts kindergarten, we'll follow him through, you know, elementary and middle school. And they will also be that big protection against the bullies because it will happen in middle school is the worst. There's just no ifs, ands, or buts. My son dealt with it. We had a bad bully in middle school, a kid from another school that came in and his friends were like, well, that's just him. It's no big deal. They were that buffer. But we always,

like John talked about, we were always the safe place to land. We were always the one that let him know that this is just you and there's nothing wrong with you. You know, and we would talk about my differences or my husband's differences. And granted, he would say, well, yours, you can't see yours. Yeah, you're right. And that kind of sucks, bud. Sorry. But it's just the way it is. And this is how God made you. And there's a reason. And he was open with it. He laughed with his friends.

He still does. He jokes. He's the shortest one of all of them. All of his friends are like six, two, and he's five, four, and he's 18. But they joke about it because he's allowed that. He's allowed that. He's made that conversation okay for people to, um, he's disarming about it. And it's like, this is just how, how I am. And I'm fine with that. And then it kind of takes a

little of that. He's noticed, he said, it takes some of that sting out with it when a bully will come up and say something like, oh yeah, well you look funny. Yeah. Yeah. Congratulations. Emily, did you hear how kelly just did that she said my son has cp and he's short we live in a culture now that is like hey we're not allowed to say anything out loud even if it's empirically true because somebody will feel a certain she would be lying to her son who by the way her son is amazing i try to offer him beer every time he comes up here and kelly doesn't like that. Yes, he does try that.

He's right about that. But he's an amazing kid. But Kelly would be lying to him if he was like, I'm short, and she was like, no, you're not. Because objectively, like, if you just look at the numbers, he is shorter than all his friends. My son has, he's in middle middle school and they've got a friend Who's not as tall as the rest of them Bro they are Psychotically protective

Of that kid In an amazing way He is in their gang So I think there's something to be said for Objectively your son's got different color eyes Right? Right And is there a game in your house called laser eyes? objectively, your son's got different color eyes, right? Right. And is there a game in your house called laser eyes?

But I love it. You see what I'm saying? I love that. Like, quick. You've got, like, and there's a way to empower a kid. There's a way to, like, and I'm not making jokes at, I'm making jokes with, but we're so unafraid of the differences here that we're not even going to like we're not we're not going to hide them we're putting

everything on the table it norms it and then when that bully says the thing and kids can tell a difference between the kid asking and the kid who's just trying to hurt right and it will be so on the table that like kelly said oh yeah will you walk with a limp like well duh um i remember i had i i think i've talked about on the show i had a law student who was sight impaired she's blind and i was talking about um disability services about students with special needs and here's some resources and i asked her quietly is it okay if i mention to everybody um in this auditorium like i want to tell you i want to make sure i'm telling you what you're working through specifically can i tell them about your disability i need your permission and she goes what she said it's so smart aleck in such a perfect way she was like oh what do you mean they don't

already know like let's like and it was so like oh well duh she lives with us every day right and i was the one i was bringing shame into something that had no shame she can't see okay we're making she's in law school she's way smarter than i'll ever be stronger than i'll ever be so all i have to say is the challenge of what it sounds like here is you and your husband need to make peace with this is our boy. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think you're right. And it's like, um, so we know, we kind of know a plan, you know, from his dentist perspective, like we'll be able to fix it when he's 25. Yeah. So he has to have, you know, multiple rounds of orthodontic work.

He can get a flapper, which is basically a replacement. So people won't notice when he's about 13, 14 years old. Cool. And so nobody will ever really, quote unquote, no, unless you're close to him, you know, and he takes it out at night or whatever. But we can't really get permanence

until he's about 25. And so, kindergarten, first grade, second grade, they don't really care. Everybody's missing teeth, but then you start getting into third grade, fourth grade. And so,

we're going to have to deal with it. Emily, you're projecting your experience onto him. Don't do that anymore. Okay. Let's let third grade come. And by the time third grade comes, you're going to have read the No Davidid books have you read those they're hilarious they're amazing i forgot the author they're called no david they're just so great um but the character is like a crudely drawn drawing and

they only have like four or five teeth oh and i And I want you to show, like, not in a, you're going to look at it and be like, well, that's not, it's going to feel offensive that I just brought them two together. Your son, who I don't know, I've never seen, and this character. But that's the character that came to my mind. You could go, he's got teeth like you, and he got a book. And what we're doing is we're just norming. This is the way you look. and you are handsome to me. Yes. Right?

Yeah. And you've got laser eyes. Well, I think, I may be out to lunch here, but I think wolves sometimes have that too. And he loves wolves, so that makes a lot of sense. If you can find that, I may be crazy, but if it's wolves, but find a common, oh, be crazy, but if it's wolves, it's one of the, but find, find a comments.

Oh my goodness. Look at this. You've got these eyes. Or can you make lasers with those different color eyes? Cause if so, get dad, can you believe he just said that? And he'll be like, ah, right. So we're not going to hide from this stuff. It's out.

And we're also going to be there on those days. He just wants to be like every other kid and he's not. Those days are the worst. What's crazy is I feel like I can handle those days. Yeah. Like I can emotionally, you know, handle when he's in emotional state. It's the, when something happens, it's like like I don't want to say I freeze but I almost freeze because I don't

you do because because seven year old Emily still remembers getting called names yeah 13 year old Emily remembers the hell that was element I mean middle school

yes and all the things the kids said about you the way you didn't look right or whatever and when you make him carry that experience too,

it's too much. And where you can sit with him is, man, people used to make fun of me so bad too. It's the worst, isn't it? Can I cry with you? Is that okay? It makes me remember when I was a little girl. And join him, but don't hide him from it. You see what i'm saying?

Yes, and we're also not going to leave him out to the wolves and be like, all right go get I don't care Don't whine around here like no, it's the worst. Yeah Kids can handle almost any trauma. They just can't do it alone They can't do it alone They gotta have a safe place to land and if mom and dad are Embarrassed by it or mom and dad are trying to protect him from it or shield him from it or anxious about it, he's going to know that's not safe.

That's not a place for me to land. And so I think as you move through, I want you to keep this in your mind, both and. Yeah, he looks different. And he's our son. Kids are going to love him. Some kids are going to be awful. We want him just to smile so big in his middle school pictures,

and he won't. Ugh. And I want him to go run and play, and he's got asthma. All of it. But show him. Let him feel mom and dad aren't scared of this stuff. And you don't have to be either. Strangers might be.

Kids might be. Knuckleheads in your class as you get older might be. Mom and dad aren't scared of it. Yeah, you don't have as many teeth as other people. Thank God we live in a little sliver of history with dentists. They're amazing. Yeah, dude, your eyes are different colors. That's awesome.

Different, but awesome. He's lucky to have you, Emily. He's lucky to have you as a mom. Lucky to have your husband as a dad who cares about him, wants him to have a good experience and a good life. You're going to get some things right, you're going to get some things wrong, and that's okay.

It's part of being a parent. Just know. Yep. Both hands. This is how you look. And we love you. Now let's go get them. 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. All right, Kelly wants to talk about a social post. Go for it, Kelly. All right, so I asked Taylor to pick this one. So, yes, she picked one that

she found intriguing. I want our sons to be tough, strong, and masculine, but the road to these attributes is not found in false flexing, chest thumping, or ignoring pains and feelings. In fact, ignoring pain and feelings is often the height of cowardice. The road to toughness and strength begins with being honest about pain, acknowledging feelings, and then letting them serve as signals and signs. And only after acknowledging the hurt and the pain can we move forward and do what has to be done. Yeah, I think there's this idea that, A, masculinity is all bad.

And any masculine feature, any masculine emotion, any masculine going to do is the basis of all the ills on the planet. Nonsense, complete nonsense. And there's another path that is masculinity is if you feel you're a coward, if you have emotions or you weep or you're vulnerable or you tell your spouse that you love them deeply

or you hug your kids or you kiss your kids, that you're some kind of failure. Or if you get fired and um you're sad about losing your job like oh that's not nonsense both of them are nonsense and it was when i was doing my own work that i realized dude the hardest thing to do is to walk straight through this trauma and deal with it so that i come out on the other side, a man, a husband, a community member, a father who is able to both stand in the gap when things get sideways to participate in providing, participate in protection if that's necessary, and also roll around with my kids and dance with my daughter. And it's all of it.

One of my favorite stories in a book I've ever read is in Terry Real's book. He went and talked to a warrior tribe, one that was untouched by modern thinking on masculine infeminity. And he noticed two things. One, this was a warring tribe that had no problem just slaughtering their neighbors. And they were really, really affectionate with their sons, big time. Like holding their teenage son's hands and being very affectionate in ways that we don't do in the Western world. And as they were talking about it, he was asking the leader of this tribe you know what is masculinity is it this or is it this and he said that the guy paused and says um it's both and being a true man is knowing which one in which situation and i remember that was

a light bulb for me oh it's both it's both it is being able to take care of the people that you love if something was to if it all goes down you got to know able to take care of the people that you love if something was to if it all goes down you got to know how to take care of yourself and More often than not you got to know how to be present at your dinner table So your family feels safe so they can laugh you can be the first to laugh And I think we get it backwards and I think as dads we don't know how to teach our sons How to feel and so we just say suck it up. We don't know how to teach our sons how to feel. And so we just say, suck it up. We don't know how to teach our sons how to experience pain and be uncomfortable and then go finish the job.

And so we either holler at them for feeling or we take the job and we'll do it. We'll do it. No, that rock when you were mowing, it kicked up and it hit you and it hurt real bad. We got to finish this yard because we started the project and we committed to getting it done. I'll help you for a little bit. And then you're gonna be back on your own. I believe in you, right? It's both in, it's both in. And that's the path forward for a minute. So that's where that post came from. And it was probably based off something I did where I screwed it up on one way or the other. I told my son like, suck it up. Or I told my son like, it's all right, I'll just finish it. And I was like, no, true masculinity is both, both in. It's right up the middle there,

the new third way. Love you guys. Stay in school. Get off social media. Bye.