The Dr. John Delony Show - Should I Want to Have Sex With My Wife?

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

On today’s episode, we hear about: A husband conflicted between religious convictions and his sexual desire A woman wondering if she should break off her engagement because of her future mother-in-law A man concerned about the safety of his brother’s kids Next Steps: ❤️ Get away with your spouse today! 🔥 Reconnect every day. Download the Together app. 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Head to Beam and use code DELONY for an exclusive discount—because better sleep, energy and focus start tonight. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Get an exclusive offer with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.  Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Go to Dutch Pet and use code DELONY to get $50 off a year of vet care. Go love your pets! Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne.     Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the strict Christian religion, I hold to, I try to hold to the values, which is every time you come together in communion of marriage, that's to create a baby. You read about the sin of Onon, filling the seed. What are you talking about? I've never, ever, ever heard what you're saying. Hey, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney's show. I'm glad that you are here. Talking about your mental and emotional health, your marriage, your kids, your.

your sex and intimacy life, whatever you got going on. That's what this show is. Pull up a seat and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. Let's go to Raleigh, North Carolina and talk to Andrew. What's up, brother? How are you, Andrew? Good. How are you doing, John?

I'm good, my man. What's going on, dude? Yeah, so brief history here. I've been married about 10 years now. We have three beautiful kids, another on the way, me and my wife. and yeah I've the entirety of really my

whole life but my married life as well I've always kind of had these questions in my head that I have a real deep love and attraction of my wife nothing held between us we both desire each other

like in every way we're each other's first you know so we've always talking about sex sex yeah exactly I guess I'd start with that. But, yeah, we're each other's first and only sexual partners, and we have always never held anything back desire-wise.

But in my... Yeah, right, yeah. But in the strict Christian religion, I hold to, I try to hold to the values, which is every time you come together in community, union of marriage, that's to create a baby. Now, me being a guy who's also very much, yeah. So it's, the point is, we don't, they don't, my, my Christian values hold, or not my Christian

values, my religion that I follow is Roman Catholicism. So it's very much, the approach is if you are going to. you know, come together in union. You have to be open to the possibility of children every, every time you do. So are you like four for four? Right. Yeah, well, no, no, not four for four. Okay.

But my question is more, how do I personally handle the feeling of guilt when I, it's guilt, but it's not really my guilt. It feels more like I should feel guilty that every time we do, I just sometimes want to enjoy my wife. And she sometimes just wants to enjoy me. I don't want to be, you know, too descriptive. But, you know, I don't think I have to go into it in detail for you to understand what I mean is sometimes I just love to be intimate with my wife and, you know, just please her. and make her feel good. Sometimes? Every time.

Okay. Here's the thing. I've got friends that are, I'm not Catholic. Right, right. Okay, my son goes to a Catholic high school. I've got loads of friends that are Catholic. Right. What you're telling me is something I don't, I don't know,

and I've never, ever, ever heard. Right. I do have friends who their religious belief is anti-birth control. yeah well that that is a that is definitely something which is like knock your lights out we raze each other we make fun of each other but like i'm not gonna like that is what that is for for them right i have never in my whole life ever ever ever and dude the comments will tell me where i'm wrong here i've never heard a secular a christian a mormon a muslin a muslin a muslin a muslin I've never heard any faith traditions say that you're not supposed to enjoy sex with your wife ever.

Right. Well, no, I wouldn't think that anyone would say that. That's what you're telling me, that you feel guilty that sometimes you don't want to make a baby. And hopefully it's all the time. You just want to have sex and have it be awesome. Yeah, yeah. I want it to be awesome. Okay, stop.

Why do you think it's not okay for that to be the case? Because the, and this is something that, again, I have a lot of mixed feelings about is they, in a lot of the teachings, you read about the sin of Onon. Onon is like spilling the seed, right? What are you talking about? I've never, I've literally, I've been around faith traditions, I've spoke at, butillions of faith traditions, I've worked at ecumenical faith. universities with kids, I've never, ever, ever heard what you're saying. That doesn't mean it's not true. No, no, no.

I know. So what they go off in teaching about the theology of the body and human sexuality is that every time you come together, you know, to have sex as a couple, you must not, you must not spill your seed as in it must go in the correct place to be able to make a child. If you are to orgasm and it does not, you know, come to the possible creation of a child, that would, you know, that would be a sin. Okay. So let's do this.

Yeah. I can't speak to that. I've never heard that. That if you orgasm in the wrong way or in the wrong plate, like I don't know what to tell you about that. Right. What I can tell you, what I can address here is this. You are participating in a belief structure or in an organization or a sect of an organization that has given you a script for how you're supposed to do your life.

And you are coming up against that script and saying, A, I don't believe it. B, it is causing a rift between me enjoying a fun, amazing life with one partner, ride, or die. Right. And so at the end of the day, you have a choice to make. Mm-hmm. And it's just that simple. It's that complicated and hard, but it's that simple. Right.

And I think that's, you know, I think that's where I'm. I believe that God gave us, you know, man and woman to enjoy each other and to not be in your head worried about all these rules and things. And I personally just between me and you, I think you're right. Right. And I'm not asking, obviously, anyone's opinions on any religion, because I don't think that's a fair thing to ask you. I guess for me that was more of, I feel like there's something wrong if I'm going in my head when this is the person I've committed my life to. I think you're right. I'm always focused on her.

As long as your focus is, how can I love her in the best possible way that she and has told me she wants to be loved? Right. And vice versa at the same time. And there's navigation there. There is. for a lack of better words is a bad word to use here but there's compromise there

there's feelings and emotions and all that stuff is there yeah but I think you are 1,000% right well so I yeah that was I cannot help you in any shape or form or fashion with

a belief structure a what you're the way the particular religion you as subscribed to has read these ancient text and said this is what this means in the 21st inch, I can't help you with that. Right.

That's a choice between you and your wife and your faith tradition. Right. But yeah, and that's a good point that it's, you know, I think that it's one of those things that some, you have a million different people and they all have a different opinion on it, you know, and it's like, oh, this was taught here, this was taught here. And, you know, at the end of the day, I do really feel when ever since even before we got married, although no one would suggest that you, you know, before marriage is, it's best to probably not have sex. But even though we had been together before it, I had chosen this is the person I'm going to love forever. You know, we've been together 15 years almost.

and I just, I completely loved her, and it always felt like, for a lack of a better term, it did feel holy. Although it's like, it's romantic and it's like, it's awesome and it's amazing. It's the person I love forever. Yeah, but again, hold on, hold on. You're creating a bunch of narratives around things. Mm-hmm. Okay. And so let's take sex off the table.

Let's take religion off the table. Those are two really electric topics, okay? Mm-hmm. if you purchase a workout program and you say, I am going to do this workout program, and then you get into it and you're like, well, I don't really want to do this part of it. I don't do this part of it.

You, as an autonomous being, are allowed to do that. But you can't walk around saying, I do this workout because you don't. Right. And if every time you do that workout, but you do something different, you feel guilty and you hate yourself for it

and you beat yourself up for it. And it doesn't ring true to you. Let's say you bought one of those crazy Looney Tune Influencer workout programs. Not one, like from my buddies at Mind Pump. That's like legit and good or my buddy Jordan Sight, like a real science-backed program

by people who have trained people for years. Right. Let's say that's not what you got. You got one of these dorky influencer like, yeah, like whatever, right? Yeah. Let's say you bought one of those. And when you do the workout, it hurts.

You feel terrible. It injures you. Then I would suggest stop doing that thing. That doesn't make sense. Right. Now, if you do a mind pump workout, you do Jordan's workout, you do Laine's workout, you do Lane's workout, you do, like, knees over toes workout, all those are great programs. If you do those, they're going to be really hard.

And there's going to be days you don't want to do it. But you're a part of this community. You're part of this system for a bad. for a long-term good, right? Mm-hmm. So I'm not saying you'd stop doing things just because it's hard or it's uncomfortable or you don't like it

or doesn't quote-unquote feel good in the moment. Yeah. Right? In nobody who follows a faith tradition or a religion, it doesn't ever feel good all the time, period. Right. Right?

Even if you're a Christian, Jesus was in the garden before he died and said, hey, is there no way we can do this? Yeah. He was sobbing in front of his father, right? And so it's not always going to feel good, and that's part of life. That's part of being a part of a tribe. Exactly.

But if you're walking away injured, you're walking away hurt, you're walking away knowing this is doing more damage to me, then A, I would suggest you back up and stop doing that thing, or at least be really thoughtful about it, and B, you can't walk around and tell everybody that's what I do. Because you're not doing that anymore. Exactly. That's, yeah. And I think that's probably where the conflict is, is that I need to, I need to, you know, make sure, is this something that I, you know, like to, A, believe in. And is this also something that.

Is a net good for me and my family? Right. And, you know, I think me and my wife do. We talk about everything. We talk about this exact thing as well because we ultimately trust each other and everything. And I do want to be a good father and a good, you know, spiritual head of the house. And that also goes with, you know, in my life with my wife opening up everything, every door with her, you know, not keeping any door closed. All that's good.

but you're talking in really lofty, distracy language. And until you can let this center in the middle of your chest, I think you're going to struggle with the connection to the problem, to the issue, to your wife, to your faith. Yeah. Right? Yeah.

Because what you're running up against is I consider, I consider part of my identity as a member of a particular religion. And at this point, I don't believe what this religion has taught me and is teaching me, and I don't believe it's a net good for me and my family, much less anyone else in that community. Yeah. And now I have some really hard decisions to make that I want you to start at the identity level. Do I still believe in God? Yes or no.

do I still believe in the daily practice of prayer and meditation to this do I believe in taking a need of something bigger than me do I believe that I need to be part of a community that worships in somewhat the same way yes but can I continue to go to this particular building with this particular set of leaders who have taught me this particular thing that is a net negative I've never honestly again I've got to circle back I've never heard of what you're saying. It doesn't mean I'm right. It just means I've been around all different types of faith for decades and decades and decades. And I've never heard this one. It doesn't mean anything other than I've never heard this. But I want you to not use like big lofty, distancy language as though you're trying to sound smart and sound elevated and like i want you to be

honest about where this is going to impact you it's going to impact you in your spirit right in the middle of your chest it's going to change the question it's going to change the answer of who am i and when you change who am i that impacts the actions you take to build into that identity that you've created for yourself that you've that you've stated publicly and so that's what that's is. But to answer your original question, I would hope you and your wife are having the time of your life. Life is hard. Life is tough. And sex and intimacy is sometimes one of the only places where we have human connection and play and the arrows and where you get to kind of step out, where you get to fully be seen and known and experienced.

And where things get messy and things get confusing, like all that, man, it's all good stuff. But yeah, dude, entering into that moment with your wife of a decade or more or whatever, you've got four kids and trying to follow like a roadmap or a chart. Yeah, that's a recipe for not ever being fully present with somebody. in fact that's a recipe for using somebody and that never ever leads to a good connected marriage

a good sex life or ultimately peace so that's what I gotta say about that best luck to you brother you got some hard decisions to make but it sounds like you're already there and you want my permission I can't give that to you that's between you and your faith tradition and your wife

but that's just my opinion on that one I don't know how to end it, but best of luck to you, brother. That's best I can say. When we come back, a woman asks, should she break off her engagement with her fiancé? Because he won't set boundaries with his mom. Yikes. All right, it's February, and it's dark and it's cold outside,

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Hey, Dr. John, grateful to be here. I'm grateful that you called. What's up? So my question is, should I break off my engagement if my fiancé cannot put boundaries with his mother-in-law or with my future mother-in-law? Ooh, yikes. It doesn't sound like your future mother-in-law is super great, huh? Not at all.

All right. So what happened that precipitated this phone call? Well, it's kind of been like cumulative. So it's just little things that are adding up over time until I became like an explosive bomb and just that I can't take it anymore. Okay. But there's just a lot of micromanaging, controlling. From her? Yes.

She texts or calls my fiancé sometimes daily. She wants to know a lot of, it's just very invasive. And the way she treats him and me is like, we're her child under her roof kind of thing. Like I don't think she understands the concept of leave and cleave very well. Well, it sounds like he doesn't understand that. Yeah, that's true. She sounds like she's a mom that overly is overly enmeshed with her son.

Yeah. But she's just doing what he allows. Yes. He doesn't understand leave and cleat. Or let me put it this way. She's just filling a relational vacuum. Yes. So the bigger thing is twofold here.

One, let's take her completely off the table, okay? What you're really asking me, tell me if I'm wrong here, is number one, is being in this relationship nudging you to become a person that you don't like or want to be. Number two, have you been clear with your fiancé that this is important to me? And he has looked at you and said, I know, but she's more important than you. Because if behavior is a language, that seems to be what he's telling you. Right. But like if you nickel and dime it, like a mom who calls her son every day or text

every day. That's different than me and my mom, but I don't, I wouldn't necessarily that automatically mean something's bad. It seems like a lot, but isn't it, but like you said, it's cumulative. But if you have set your default setting to every call, I mean, every, I think she's invasive.

And so, you'll see everything she does as invasive. But if it's, if it's specific, she says we're not allowed to eat it at this restaurant. She says we have to be at this place or she's going to cut off her son. She says that she doesn't like the clothes I wear. Then now we're getting into invasive.

She says we're not, he's not allowed to buy this particular house in this particular town. And he said, my mom said, I can't do that. Now we have a problem. Do you what I'm saying? Yeah. I guess what bothers me more than the invasive is like the manipulation. And can I give you an example? I would love that.

Yeah. Okay. So she called me and said it's urgent. I called her thinking it was urgent. And she said that her and her husband checked the phone records, and my fiancé hasn't called them since May, which is not true. And she asked me if I know why he's not calling her as much. And she said, we noticed a change about two years ago.

Do you know what that could be from? Well, that's when we started dating. Nice. Okay, so this thing happened. And she said, can you figure out what his problem is, but don't tell him, I asked. And I said, well, if you have a problem with him or your communication, like, you need to go to him directly. I'm not, I don't do like the triangulation thing. So it's just that's not healthy.

And you would need to go to him directly. Perfect. And she's like, well, I just don't understand why you can't talk to him for me and just don't tell him that I asked you. And I said, because I don't, I don't do that. So that's the no. Okay, so somebody asked you to do something that was against your character, which I applaud you. Bravo. Bravo for not getting triangulated. Bravo for not holding secrets in your marriage. Awesome. What did he say in response to that? That he immediately say, I'm going to call my mom, dude, I'm sorry. I'm going to pick this. And tell his mom, mom, don't ever call my fiance again like that. Yeah, no, he didn't. So he agreed with me and said, yeah, that was that was wrong. I don't know why she did that, but his pattern is avoiding confrontation with his parents.

And I kind of watch as his nervous system shuts down, and he kind of just goes into this blank space kind of thing. And so back to your original thing about he doesn't understand leaving cleave. I think the resentment that I have is less about his mother and more about him because I feel a lack of emotional safety and protection when I feel like I'm left to, you know, defend myself because his coping mechanism is to just avoid and not answer and just become kind of like stoic. Okay, but let me push back on that. What if he has learned over 25 or 30 years that it's a complete and utter waste of time? And that it's a fight not worth fighting because it's unwinnable. and if he told you

hey if she texts you just don't respond don't call her back because she's not mentally stable she's not well what you're seeing what you're calling resignation might be deep wisdom wow

you get what I'm saying if she's going to call you and say that kind of crap I can only imagine what she has said to him over the years right and so what you see is shutting down might be him just putting the car into neutral because he's in the mud. I'm not just going to keep hitting the gas here. That's a good point. And for me, I think in the beginning,

when I would confront him and say, hey, like, that was really hurtful or the way your parents, like, treated us was wrong or it didn't feel right. Can we talk about it? He would get really defensive and say, like, oh, they're just joking or you just don't like my family. And then we would get in argument and now I think we listen to your show a lot and we've done couples counseling and so he's becoming more aware I'm becoming more aware of what I bring to the table and so recently we've had some good conversations um where he is less defensive and he's more more so like yeah I avoid it because like the best way to win is to not even play the game so I do I do see that there's wisdom in that so I'm a big lifelong for before it became super famous I was obsessed with

MMA, right? Even when it was like over in Japan, it was pride fighting. Like I've been obsessed with mixed martial arts for a long time. And one of the keys of mixed martial arts is know your thing really well, your discipline. The thing you're the best at, if you're a wrestler

or you're a jih Tzu person or you're a kickboxer or a Muay guy. Like know your thing the best and try to get your opponent to play that game. And where I see fighters over the years get in a lot of trouble is their ego gets in the way and they're a world-class wrestler,

but they're fighting a great boxer and they decide to box with him. And they get their head knocked off. And so I wonder if, like, it's, by the way, it's very, very common, super common, especially in young relationships, but especially over time. Like, I don't want you talking bad about my family. Great. Cool. And so you as somebody who loves him needs to know the best way, to communicate with him isn't to bad mouth his mom.

That doesn't make him weird. And you figuring out a way you can tell him in a language he can hear, which is what romantic communication is all about. It is, hey, I'm uncomfortable when your mom calls. What's a path that you have seen work over the years? And he would say, dude, don't return that call. Which is what I would coach a fighter to say, hey, this guy keeps trying to take me down. should I just wrestle with him?

And I'd be like, no, he's going to kill you. You try to keep this fight standing as long as possible and try to sucker him into a boxing match. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. So the deeper question for me is, and this is a hard question, when you see him as a man

that you're considering becoming a unified team member with, ride or die, us two forever, is he a person you want to be with forever? Still there? Yeah. Because here's what I'm hearing the subtext, okay? Okay. And you tell me I'm out to lunch and I'm a moron and I shouldn't even have a show.

I'm so dumb. Feel free to say that, okay? What I hear is you don't know if he's the right guy for you. And so you've put on a pair of glasses, which is I'm going to find reasons why it's somebody else's fault that this close to marrying him, ride or die us to till death to us part. I don't think I want to do this. Or maybe it's not even that dramatic. It's just I got really cool feet. Yeah.

Because I know loving him means I'm going to have a crazy mother-in-law forever. And that's really what it boils down to, I think, because they live in another state. So when it's just us, too, and we have a great group of friends, like, I see him as that person that I want to marry. And then when we communicate with his family, we start getting, into this cycle of arguing and we're both triggered. And so that's kind of my- Okay, so here's my rule on triggers. You get two.

You get to be triggered about the same thing two times and then you have a responsibility to go make a change. Either I've got to go deal with my personal trauma history or I've got to deal with this relational pattern or I just have to stop picking up the phone. And it might cost me an inheritance. It might cost me my cell phone plan. but just choosing to constantly be triggered over and over and over again is indeed that.

It's a choice. You can't help it when your body, a trigger is your body acting before you even know it to try to keep you safe. So at this point, it's in my control to say no to the phone call. It's your responsibility to. Otherwise, you're choosing, every time you pick up the phone, you're choosing misery. You're choosing, because you know how the pattern goes. You're choosing to have a fight with your husband, with your fiancé. Yeah.

Now, the real relational work is, every time I answer the phone, the phone, I choose to become somebody I don't want to be. I get angry, I get bitter, I get frustrated. So the thing I can control here is to stop picking up the phone. And to your fiance, when I come at you and I blame my discontent on your mom, and I call her this, and I say she's making me do all these things, I realize that I put you in a position to let somebody,

just bad mouth your mom, however crazy she is, or defend me. And that puts you in an awkward position. I'm going to quit doing that. Like, a lot of the critique I get on this particular show is I don't, I just have it ingrained in me since recess and fourth grade. I don't like talking about other guys' wives. I don't like talking about other guys' girlfriends in a negative light. Mm-hmm. Right? And so, but it's you say, because it puts people on a defensive in a pretty profound way. But I want you to come back and own this. And the question I would pose for you is, are you going to let this woman get between you and the person you want to spend the rest of your life with or not? And if he is telling you through his actions, she's going to be an integral part

of our life, then you have a really hard choice to make. Or if he's constantly telling you, stop answering the phone. She's not well. Or we have to do once every two years, we have to do, Thanksgiving with them. That's just the polite, kind thing to do. And we're going to do it and it's going to be miserable. And so on the front end, we're going to do some things and we're going to plan a thing on the back end because it's just we got to go touch the electric fence once every two years. Then you get to decide don't want to be part of that. Yeah. I need to reflect on it because I wonder how that, I'm just curious how flash forward, you know, having kids and then being around their grandparents, like, I don't know if I could

handle that and I guess it would come down to how much exposure we have and if it's once a year then fine but if it's more common then I I don't want to do that so yeah I guess it would I need to think about that so here's here's my challenge to you as you as you work through it okay okay use eye statements as much as possible those are words of ownership instead of your mother keeps doing this. I want you to use eye statements, which are, I don't like being disrespected. I don't like being triangulated. I am uncomfortable with X, Y, or Z. And so it stops a, the way to Instagram say this is victim mindset. There's actual real victims in the world. So that blanket statement isn't always helpful. But there does come a point when I want you to

begin using eye statements. I no longer want to have my body take off and try to solve me and keep me safe every time this other person calls. So I am deciding for this season, maybe not forever, but for right now, I'm going to quit taking those calls. And once a year, once every two years,

if I have to see this person and she starts off with, man, my son used to call me all the time until you came along and you never take my call, you can just smile and say, yep, I don't pick up the phone very often. And go on about your day. And if that continues to hang on you,

like an old wet t-shirt, you have to ask yourself, what is it about me that needs other people to like me so bad? Maybe that's where I need, maybe I've been a people pleaser my whole life. Maybe I've been a peacemaker my whole life. And I'm tired of that job.

Absolutely. Yeah, that sounds I'm going to let this affect my day. Yeah, oh my gosh, yes. Tadda! Now you're on it. Because what you just said there is, I get to choose what happens next.

Yes. And when I say what I'm choosing, when you say what I'm choosing next, here's where that's vulnerable and scary. He gets to choose whether he wants to be with you. Mm-hmm. And when he says, here's what I'm choosing.

I will go see my mom once a year. You get to choose to let him go alone and you not say that's the end of our relationship. You recognize the pickle he's in, which is he's got a mom who's not well

and who's super manipulative and it's still his mother and he wants to honor and respect her. And he gets to choose. You know what? I'm going to love my new wife with all of my guts and I'm going to protect her

from this trip. I love that. And in a perfect fantasy world, yes, it would be awesome if both of you all snuggled up and you had two in-laws that were like, oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're here, we got your favorite food. We got everything for you. It's going to be amazing.

You all want to go out to dinner? No, cool, great. That would be awesome. That's not the life you'll have. By no fault of your own. Not by your hand, but it's in your lap. So you get to choose X, Y, Z, and then he gets to choose whether he chooses you. Yeah.

And that's scary. Mm-hmm. That's hard. and it's also hard to constantly be being whipped around by other people's feelings and emotions and manipulations, et cetera. So what I'm asking you to do is choose your hard. Choose the path. Both the paths are hard. Choose the path that is going to give you empowerment, strength, and peace. So your move, sister. Thanks for the call. Call anytime. And if y'all want to call before you get married, I'd love to take that call too. When we come back, a man asks how to tell his sister-in-law that their filthy home is a danger to

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and the cook in your life a knife that they'll love and actually use forever. Go to montanananifecompanic.com to see what's available right now. You will not be disappointed. That's montananivecompany.com. right we're back hey take two seconds two seconds and just hit the like or subscribe button this is one of the most shared shows in the world last year i'm super grateful for you all sharing the show i want you to take two seconds and hit the subscribe button because it just kicks the show up into the algorithms and puts it in front of more people who need a sensible just wise approach to see what bravery looks like when you'll call and what doing the next right thing it looks like so take two seconds hit the subscribe button and I'm super

grateful. Let's go out to Utah and talk to Parker. What's up, Parker? Thanks going well. Love the show and happy to be here. Appreciate you, homie. What's up? Well, we want to know how the best talk to our sister-in-law about

the filthiness of their home and how it's an danger to their kids in their marriage. Okay, that that raises two flags for me, one of which is I'm, if you've listened to this show for any period of time,

I'm hyper protective of children. And so let's go to the marriage part first, and then we'll loop back to some duties and responsibilities when it comes to hurting kids. So tell me about your brother and what he says about his home. Well, it's actually my wife's brother, but my wife's brother and his wife,

they're both almost 40. They've been married for 10 years. this is technically their third place that they lived in and frankly they can't seem to keep it clean and she's a stay-at-home mom for like a better phrase and he's the sole breadwinner so he's working all day

sometimes he has to travel for work and he unfortunately admitted to his mom that he dreads going home because it's filthy and chaotic and he doesn't rush home after work. And so where do y'all come in on this? Because it doesn't sound like he's asked for y'all's help. They've asked in the past they've asked our help to help clean their home. And when we would help them move, we would spend more time cleaning than actually moving.

Yeah. And especially when they're leaving apartments, they have to, of course, keep them. We have to have them clean of all stuff. And that takes longer. And we've actually had to put, we've had to set healthy boundaries saying that after the fourth time of them cleaning it, it's not to do anything that we can't come over and clean their home anymore. Okay. And so how did they respond to the boundaries?

Kind of indifferent, like they said, oh, we'll get on it, but they don't do anything. and then because of the level of fills in their home, it definitely contributes to how they get sick fairly often, like more often than my wife and my son do. And then with that, they have no discretion of coming to family gatherings when any of them are under the weather. And then that gets us sick. and

especially last Thanksgiving we actually missed we were supposed to go to my family for Thanksgiving but we couldn't because my son had a bad flu because he caught it from one of my nephews All right you're attaching a ton of causality to a group of people you don't like

okay like like I think the honest move here is you're grossed out by him. Is that fair? Yeah, that's pretty fair to say. How old your kid? How old your son? My son is eight. Okay. I guarantee you there's kids in his classroom looking the floor and passing donuts around. So who knows where he got the flu?

True. Okay. And it's gross when people show up and they're under the weather and they're coughing all over everything and they're not using, like, I get it. Okay. but what I don't want you to do is use your kid, use moving, using y'all's previous lack of boundaries as an excuse for saying, I don't want to go around to family gatherings where they're there anymore. I don't like them and they gross me out. I'd rather you take ownership of what you're going to do next because what's been made super clear in your life, if behavior as a language is, they don't care. Now, if there's rodent feces all around, if there's dog crap all over the house, if there's dog p.l over the house, then I'm going to call social services because those kids are in danger.

If those kids are coming to school with open sores and unwashed clothes and et cetera, that tells me that their mom is probably struggling mightily with some sort of challenges, emotional, psychological, or otherwise. And D.C. is, I mean, she has been diagnosed. with OCD and depression, and it seems like she has no motivation to clean. And so thankfully they don't have any pets. And as far as we know, any kind of road refuses or whatnot to be the science. But we're talking about like moldy food and... Just gross. Just gross, yeah.

I get it. I get it. gross. And it's not how you and your wife do life. And it's not how you would wish anyone live or grow up. I get that. But it sounds like if you want to help her, if she's been diagnosed, that means she's been under the care of a professional. So the big question is, how can we get her the support services we need? And how can we either get invited to be at the table and help with support there, or look at her

at your wife's brother and say, until you invite us in to be a part of how we can be supportive, we're going to choose to back out. Because here's the deal, what's the alternative? You're now finding yourself angry in October about two months away of family stuff.

To the point where we second guess going to family gathering because we'll know that they'll be there. Okay. I mean, they're the sweetest people, but yeah. living in the situation that they have is we would never want to go over to their place.

It's always gathering at grandmas. Okay. And so if that is what y'all need to grieve is, man, we wish we could go to each other's houses and we just can't. Or we're just not going to. Then let's be sad about that and let's get on with our lives.

Or if the story is, I wish my brother had never married her, I wish she would just leave her, I wish she would take the... Here's a deal. He's not going to, at least not now, and he's not asked for that input. And so just sitting there

and basing in that, that story over and over is a choice to be miserable. It's like screaming at somebody who just cut you off in the car in front of you. All that does is raise your blood pressure. That person can even hear you. Yeah, exactly. So it's a choice for you to die younger in your car. Or you can exhale and open your hands on the wheel just a little bit to relieve some of the

pressure and you can just say a quick prayer. God, I hope that dude gets to the hospital before his wife dies. I get to make up whatever store I want. So I can sit at home and be like this disgusting, that's gross. that's sick. I can't believe she's like that. She's lazy. She's a so-called stay-at-home mom. You can do crap. I wish my brother would leave her. I wish my brother-in-law would leave her. You can do that and all you're doing is making yourself insane and your wife do. Or you can exhale and say, my God almighty, I can't imagine being trapped in her body

where she's that depressed and that clinically OCD, where she's frozen in time. I'm going to compassionately reach out to my brother and say, hey, if there's, Everything we can do to help with her depression. If you only help with medication, with doctor bills, with psychiatricks, like, we'll help anyway we can't. We're not going to come over to clean your house anymore because that's just a symptom of a bigger issue. Yeah.

You get what I'm saying. Either and because she's not well, because the whole family ecosystem, because we're just uiged out and grossed at whatever, we are going to choose to not do X, Y, or Z. Right, it's our choice. Minus the story. Because the story just makes you all miserable.

It doesn't solve any problems. And it's probably partially true. Right. We could theoretically talk to her all to live long day, but it's their choice. And it's also our choice on what we do going forward. That's right. It's you getting out of the back seat of your own car and getting back into the driver's seat. I'm definitely up with that.

I prefer driving. Yeah, exactly. I do too. I do too. I'm kind of a control freak, so I do too. My wife says I'm a terrible, terrible driver, but I like to drive. But it might be, you all bring. invite your brother-in-law over and say,

hey, you've asked us for this before. We just want to put this out there. We know your wife struggles with depression. We know she struggles with OCD. We're worried about y'all. And anything we can do to help with the funding, I don't know what kind of resources y'all have, but when it comes to help,

this is y'all putting this on the table and saying, here's where we're willing to help moving forward. And y'all choosing to say, hey, us being angry all the time or frustrated all the time or mad all the, it solves nothing other than to create an anxious, chaotic home environment for our kids. And as for our house, we're going to solve for peace, which means we've got to be sad because we're going to go do Christmas somewhere else. We're going to go get a log cabin during Thanksgiving or we're going to have our small family Thanksgiving. We're going to have a rando Thanksgiving where I'm going to invite

a bunch of random people from my office and my wife's going to invite people from her office and we're just going to get together and do Thanksgiving. Whatever y'all want to do, but y'all get to choose what happens next. I'm just telling you choosing misery and anger and rage all the time about a problem that nobody's asking you to solve is a recipe for burnout for just bleh. And it's not being uncompassionate at all because it sounds like y'all are super compassionate. It's the futility of trying to help somebody who's not asking for does not want your help, which is heartbreaking. But that's the reality that you live in. Thanks for calling, my brother.

I appreciate you. You got the next move, dude. Take care. We'll be right back. I love my three dogs, but I don't always love dealing with all of the cost and drama of being a pet owner. Every pet needs good veterinarian care, but getting to the vet and being able to afford the local vet can be a nightmare. And that's why I love Dutch. Dutch gives you 24-7 access to licensed veterinarians.

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So Sarah from New York says, I work with kids on their social and emotional skills in both school and at home. I've been using the questions for humans kids edition deck during my sessions and the kids absolutely love it. Yes. The combination between serious and funny is perfect.

Questions like, where do you feel safe? What are you most proud of? Where are you most calm? are amazing for kids who struggle with self-esteem or feelings of safety. Please come out with decks for teachers and kids or kids to kids. These are amazing. You know what? I've never thought of kids to kids.

That's a great idea. And we do have some teachers and student decks for elementary school and for middle school. I don't know if we have them for high school. And can I say this? I appreciate her note because I know they look silly, but I work really hard for them to be developmentally appropriate. and sometimes there's silly ones, like what color is a dragon's,

boogers, or like, there's silly stuff. But I do work hard to focus on kids learning about their social, emotional needs, and that's awesome.

I'm glad she caught that. That's pretty cool. That means she's pretty sophisticated. That's awesome. So, questions for humans, pick them up. They are a tool.

They actually are a tool to help people put their phones down and look eye to eye and chest to chest and heart to heart and actually have a human interaction. which everyone I know is craving these days. Love you guys. Bye.