The Dr. John Delony Show - Should We Move Away From My Ex?

Episode Date: August 26, 2022

On today’s show, we talk with a woman unsure if it’s okay to move away from her kids’ father, a man struggling to support his wife as they face infertility, and a woman coming to terms with the reality of her ailing parents’ coming deaths. Lyrics of the Day: "She Thinks My Tractors Sexy" - Kenny Chesney Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Lately, all her co-workers are getting pregnant, it seems like. She's very upset. Why can't I get pregnant? I just don't know how to support her, like, emotionally going through all this. In those moments, what I've learned to do is to shut my mouth and listen and not try to solve a thing. Welcome to the No Spin Zone. This is the Dr. John Deloney. I don't think this whole show is a spin zone. It's like a washing machine in here. This is the Dr. John Deloney show. I'm so glad you're joining us talking about mental health, relationships, marriage, and parenting on the best podcast ever, really, on

all those topics. And architecture. Actually, we don't talk about architecture at all. I just thought I'd throw that in there. It sounds good. Art Vandele, import-export. Be great. Hey, we're glad that you're with us. If you want to be on the show, give us a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291.

Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. And I just have to say, dude, I'm looking in the booth right now. Jenna is straight up rocking overalls, just Boyz II Men style. Looks fantastic. Ben just got off the plane from Hawaii,

looking fantastic. And Kelly is rocking her Texas gas station shirt. Go Buc-ee's. We love Buc-ee's. And we all love some beaver nuggets. Yes. I had some actually because my husband went for the first time.

And he was like, have you ever heard of Buc-ee's? I was like, really? Seriously? And so he was, I got these things called beaver nuggets. He was so excited. It's like diabetes in a bag.

Oh, totally. Yeah. They're so good. And a Buc-ee's just opened up in Tennessee, and it's like a landmark here. Anyway, that's what the world's come to, good folks, is we really celebrate the opening of a gigantic gas station slash planet system, whatever. All right, let's go to Morgan in St. Louis. What's up, Morgan? Save us.

Hey, hey, hey. I'm still giggling about diabetes in a bag. What's happening? Oh, hi. Thanks for having me on the greatest architecture podcast ever. Yes. So tell us about your architecture challenges. And if you have some drainage issues

or some roofing, I don't know. You know, it's actually, it's a decent segue because I'm looking for some guidance navigating living situations

post-divorce. Okay, cool. Yeah. Hey, you should work in radio. That was a fantastic transition from a train wreck to an actual segment. That was good.

Yeah, I'm not sure I'm cut out for that. So my now ex-husband, we separated last October. Our divorce was final in March. And we have three little boys. They are now 10, 9, and six. Yeah. So when, when we divorced, or even when we separated, we had two homes on the property where we lived. So he moved into the old house. I stayed in the house we had remodeled with the kiddos and committed to staying here for 18 months to kind of give the kids a transition. My folks joke that it's divorce site because they see both of us every day.

They run back and forth. If we're going to leave to school and one of the boys says, hey, can I go say hi to dad? Yes, you can run on over. So it's been a good transition, I believe, for our kids, but it's not forever. And the moves that I'm contemplating moving off of the property, he's going to stay on the property. He has a business that he runs on the property. So that's what makes sense. But I don't see us living 200 yards apart as viable indefinitely. So I'm trying to evaluate

kind of what's next. And I could choose to stay local and keep the kids in the same school, live in the same community. I have a lot of reasons to not want to do that. I personally would prefer to move out of state with the kids. And the reasons that I have for that also revolve around them. My career, it materially matters. I've been the sole provider for our family for the last four years as he's doing this startup. And with really the dynamic that kind of, that probably destroyed our marriage and kind of persist is that I, he views himself as peripheral to the family. He's focused on providing. He works all the time. And I just came back from vacation with the kids.

But we've vacationed alone for the last, like the children and I, for the last seven or eight years. He's been working around the clock, but not earning anything. He's just been busy. Correct. Correct. And I, I have a lot of compassion for that. I don't think he's trying to, um, I don't think there's some bad motivation. I think he's fear driven. He's, he's terrified to fail. And so he just keeps pouring and pouring and pouring himself into his job. And it's agriculture. So it's super demanding around the clock. It is hard to get away. But when we were navigating our divorce, that was the one thing that I told him was, look, we moved to this area. We've lived here four years. We moved here to be close to your family.

We lived in Texas for 11 years because that was important for his family and his career. We moved here to be close to his family and for his career. And I don't want to be here until the kids are all graduated from high school. I'd like to move to be closer to my family and a support network for me. Um, and he agreed, he said, yes. So that's in the decree. It is written in the decree that I have the right to move out of state with our kiddos and that he intends to follow. Um, which he's not intending to anymore, is he? Exactly. Exactly. And he's not, and now you're the bad guy. Um, well, I, that's in that, that obviously, like that will, that will be the outcome kind of no matter what happens. Correct. Yes. Um, he has not said like, I can't leave. He hasn't pushed back on that and said, how dare you? He said, well, Hey, you know, you can go, but I probably can't follow right away. Or what is dad in their lives to like, should I stay and keep pulling my hair out, juggling, doing this dance?

Or is that just facilitating him being an absentee parent more or less and not being a partner and raising them? And do I need to just say this is what he agreed to and move on and allow him to fail by not following? What's best for my kids? Oh, man. This is hard. To answer that question with any sort of certainty, I would want to spend a long time with you and with him. Let me talk around it a little bit. Is that okay? Yeah, absolutely. You said he's a person who's probably deep down a good guy, he's just scared to fail.

And he's so scared to fail that his marriage has failed, his business has failed, and now he's moved to a new place and this business has failed and he just hasn't called it yet. So he's made a lot of choices that revolved around him and his needs. And your kids, your sons have got a picture of what a dad is, what a husband is, what a man is. And at this point, again, without talking to him, seeing him, the external metrics are a pretty dismal picture of what responsibility looks like, what character and integrity looks like. And character is what Eric

Thomas says. It's simply saying, you're going to do what you said you're going to do. And he hasn't done that. I would challenge you. You have not had a transition. In those boys' minds, y'all are not divorced. You're just living in other rooms. They have not experienced the weight of this transition yet. And let me roll back a little bit.

What ultimately led to the divorce? Did somebody cheat on somebody? Did you just have a, like, this just sounds like you moved to the other room. It just happens that y'all got lucky and there was two properties. I mean, two houses on the property. What led to the divorce? There was no one else. It was more or less me.

I accommodated. I enabled this dynamic for years, and it was me ultimately saying, this is too much. You're not here. I want you here, starting to actually articulate my needs and running up against the wall for several years and ultimately giving an ultimatum saying, I'm not going to continue like this. Either we want the same things and you're going to engage, you're going to start to see a therapist, you're going to start to find some help to be the kind of dad you're telling me you want to be, be the kind of husband you're telling me you want to be, or you're going to say, no, that's not really that's not really what I'm in this for. And we're going to go our separate ways because I'm not, I'm not going to do this anymore.

So there's a, there's a insidious form of manipulation. He, he left you a long time ago. Yes. He left you a long time ago and he didn't leave, which makes it worse because then it makes you feel crazy. Is that fair? Accurate. And then it's in counseling. There's a million different definitions here, but it's the one down position.

He's controlling everything from the woe is me place. We have to go move here because I have to do this thing for you. What it's for you, it's for them. And then you are left looking at the electric bill saying, somebody has to pay this. And I can't go on vacations with y'all because I'm doing this for y'all. Y'all just go without me and it's fine, right? And so it's this one down move. And it's a control mechanism. It's a cowardly control mechanism. It's pulling the boat from under the water instead of having the courage to sit up and say, I want to drive this way, right? And then you're forced, everyone in the boat knows you're pulling it under the water and they don't want to go this direction, but they

have to cut the rope. And then you're waving in the water going, what happened? What happened? You know what I mean? So this, I agree to everything in the divorce decree. And then I'm going to leave. Fine, cool. We're going to do what we said we're going to do.

And I'm going to move out of state to where I can get some support that I haven't had in five years, 10 years, 15 years. Oh, well, I can't. It's the same manipulation move. It's the same one down move. Well, you just go ahead without me. And whenever I can get done doing all this work for you and the kids, and then I'll see if I can squeeze in some, you see what I'm saying? It's a move.

It's a move. When you ask the question, do their boys need their dad? The answer is unequivocally yes. And do the boys need a model of a man who leaves his wife high and dry, abandons them and her to the tune of some job. Pick lawyer, farmer, architect, whatever. Is that a good representation? No. And what those boys are going to do,

if they haven't already, is they are going to spend their life trying to figure out what it was about that tractor that was more important than they were. And they're going to do things like you just mentioned. We need to go say hi to dad. He likes it when we, because they're trying to do things like you just mentioned. We need to go say hi to dad. He likes it when we, because they're trying to solve that relationship problem. And you're going to take him out of state and you're going to get some peace in your life for

the first time. And he's going to begin to say things like, well, your mom took you away from me and just be prepared. The moment this divorce happened, you're now playing a 20-year game. You are planting seeds for the relationship with your 30 and 29 and 26-year-old son, not your 14 and 13-year-old sons, okay? Because they're going to hate you. They're going to be pissed. Let me rephrase that.

They're not going to hate you. They're going to love you deeply. They're going to say the words, I hate you. They're going to be pissed. Let me rephrase that. They're not going to hate you. They're going to love you deeply. They're going to say the words, I hate you. They're going to be frustrated. They're going to be, what about, right? That's part of this transition. And you're going to have to say, go ahead. I can hear him saying like in my mind, because it's a reframe of things I've heard for the last decade. Well, I really want to, I really wish I could, but I have to work. But it's, you know, X, Y, Z, insert excuse here. And I know that that's how the move's going to go is, well, I really wish I could be there for such and such kiddos,

but your mom moved you to, you know, wherever. And it's just too hard for me to get there. And it's going to be the victim card. and the kids are going to be mad at me. And ultimately, I hope they don't land there indefinitely. I hope they mature through that, and it gives them perspective to see the dynamic for what it is. But that's why I need to be confident in whatever decision I make to kind of navigate those waters for myself. So let me reframe two things.

Number one, you've heard me say this all the time. Don't ever, we're never going to talk negative. We're never going to piss on some kid's dad or mom, right? So we're not going to ever talk negatively about that. And I think that's a fair conversation to have with him. It is fair to say, yeah, I thought your dad was going to come and move to the same city or the same town. And for now, he's choosing to stay here. That's not a mean statement.

That's not a dishonest statement. That's a very fair, honest statement. Okay? And it would also be fair for him to tell them uh mom yeah me and mom agreed that we were going to leave and she's choosing to leave sooner or she's choosing to leave now and i'm choosing to stay but the truth is he's choosing to stay in in not in violation but counter to the agreement y'all made right and he's he's a grown man he allowed to do that. The second thing I want to reframe is this. You've already made the decision. You divorced him.

He left you. You divorced him. The longer you hang on and pretend you haven't made that decision, the more chaos and tension and anxiety those kids are going to absorb. It sounds like you haven't come to terms with you divorced him is that true that's a tough one you know i think what i haven't come to terms with is to your point what the divorce really means for my kids for For me personally, I feel a million times more at peace. I feel like our home is more peaceful.

I feel like life, I personally feel very comfortable in terms of where I'm at. Can I be mean? For my children. You're playing both sides of the fence because you know if something happens, he's going to come over

and help. He's right there. But I don't want him here. Like, you sound like you are ready to jump. Are you ready to go?

I know the questions about the boys are all well and good, but they can't be used as a proxy for your fear too. Are you scared to go? I know the questions about the boys are all well and good, but they can't be used as a proxy for your fear too. Are you scared to go? No, 100% I'm not. Then go. And initially some of that was true.

Like pipes froze. Well, you know, I called him. Hey, can you help me with this? But that was the first couple months. I'm not leaning there at all at this point. Very cool. Then now you just got to, now you got to, I mean, you got to load the truck. Yeah.

And yes, there is not a way, let me answer this, there's not a way to do this without a lot of tears and a lot of heartbreak and a lot of second guessing. And just because something hurts and feels very painful doesn't mean it's not the right decision. Agreed. In a perfect world, when you sat down with him,

your husband, and said, I'm tired of you having an affair with your imaginary jobs. And I'm tired of being a single mom raising three young little boys. And I'm tired of being a single mom raising three young little boys. And I'm tired of having to explain to three little boys why their daddy is cheating on their family with a tractor. And I need these things from you. And he looked at you and said, I hear you and I'm all in. And so you let your needs be heard.

And he said, I prefer to divorce you. And so you're carrying a lot of guilt and a lot of shame and you got to set that stuff down and be about living your life. Is that fair? Yep. Yeah, very. Okay.

Very. This feels like a, again, I'd feel much more confident in my answer if we were sitting down, the three of us, me and you and your husband. But this feels like another move. And it's a power move. It's just not a loud, beat your chest power move. It's an aw shucks, woe is me power move. But it's still a move.

The divorce has happened. The divorce is final. You can't be roommates on the same place um or at some point he brings home somebody else or at some point you meet somebody else and that you know what i mean like you can't live like this it just becomes a strange weird arrangement um and you need community and you need support and if you don't have this here in this little town then you need to go back to your original plan and make your plan happen and yes your boys are going to be pissed and yes you're going to say things like i hate you and i can't believe you took us away from everything we knew and love we missed the farm

all this stuff's going to be true but they may also have peace for the first time in their entire life and they may hope they may have um a mom who's able to breathe for the first time in her entire life and have that ripple through. They're always going to wonder what they did. What was wrong with them? That dad wouldn't go on vacation with them. That dad was more interested in whatever than them. They're always going to wonder why dad picked this over mom. Why dad picked this over that. And they're always going to wonder why dad picked this over mom, why dad picked this over that.

And they're always going to wonder why you took them away. And hopefully, you stay invested and you stay plugged in, you stay intentional even through the storms because the storms are going to come.

You stay intentional through those things. And man, when they're 18, 19, 20, 25, 30, they're going to realize what a brave, powerful mom they have. And I'm sorry you're, sorry you've been through this. This has been a long time coming. I'm sorry.

I'm happy to walk with you through this, man. Don't hesitate to call me, Morgan, if I can ever help. All right. Best of luck. 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 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 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 better help better help is a hundred percent 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 therapist 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 to Joe in Clayton, California. What's up, Joe? Hey, John, how are you?

Good, brother. How we doing? Pretty good. Good deal. Taking my call? Yeah, man. What's's up how can i help okay so my question is how do i support my wife emotionally while we're going through her fertility treatment um so a little backstory on this about three years ago she had a early um uh can you think of the name right now i'm sorry sorry, I got a little nervous.

No, that's all good. Miscarriage? Miscarriage, yes. Sorry, I couldn't think of the word. That's good. And then, so we went through that. You know, it was a little difficult time. And then about a year in,

we started seeing some doctors because we weren't having a baby. And then she did some medication. And now, you know, going forward, we're going through this now. We did one IUI as part of the doctor, and that didn't work out. We're still waiting to hear back on that. But I just feel like lately, you know, she's talking. She works at a hospital.

So lately, all her coworkers are getting pregnant, it seems like. On social media, that's all she's seen. And I just feel like that's all we've been, she's been bringing up and talking and she's very upset. Why can't I get pregnant? Stuff like that. I just don't know how to support her

like emotionally going through all this. None of our close, close friends have any kids or have gone through this. So I don't feel like any of them have helped or can help. I just don't know. I feel like I'm overwhelmed with this. Yeah, man. Well, thank you so much. And I can tell you from personal experience, I've done this the wrong way in a pretty dramatic fashion. So I'm going to tell you things. When I'm sitting with, I've sat with couples to talk about this, and I'll tell you, I'll mix it and match with my own experience, okay?

First, I dramatically, I missed, I failed. I did not understand the scope of devastation that a miscarriage brought to my wife. I let her down, okay? miscarriage brought to my wife, a letter down. Okay. So what I would tell you is however you felt or didn't feel, multiply that by a thousand. The women I've met with over the last decade who have experienced miscarriages have said things like, I feel like my body is killing babies. I feel like my body doesn't work properly. I feel like I'm failing as a woman, like some really deep, powerful, hard things that are core to identity, right? Really tough stuff. And as a husband, I was like, I mean, it's just mother nature or it's just this or it's just that, completely missed it. Okay?

Right. So in those moments, what I've learned to do is to shut my mouth and listen and not try to solve a thing, but to just be with. Okay? Okay. The second thing is I recommend to every single couple going through some sort of infertility, having that conversation, the discussions, the, hey, this isn't happening as fast as we thought, to go spend some time together, having the conversation about

how far are we gonna go down this road? And what I mean by that is there is always a doctor or a treatment facility that will sell you any number of different ideas or tricks or opportunities to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Right. So for me and my wife, when we started, we said we will not go past line X, Y, and Z. And for us, it was we're not going to do infertility stuff.

We're not going to go through all, we'll do, you know, basic vitamins. We'll do some coaching, you know, whatever. And it ended up working out for us. But we're not going to go through all these other things. Okay. But we drew a line in the sand

and then we had to grieve the crap out of that line. Okay. And this is where a lot of husbands don't get it. That for us, again, I'm painting a broad general brush here, right? This is not everybody. This is just a big generalized

picture. I started thinking about kids after I was married for a while. Like, huh. That'd be cool to have a little dude like me running around. I had a for a while. Like, huh, that'd be cool to have like a little dude like me running around, right? I had a totally different picture. My wife had pictures of what her home would look like

and the kids running around in her home when she was teen, like very, very young little girl. And so the differences in how we grieved was dramatic and big. And she owned every inch of that. And it's my job as her husband to sit in that with her. If she'll even have me, she may have to sit in that by herself sometimes. Okay.

And you and or her, man, you walk past that empty room and you're imagining the nursery. You're imagining a little truck scattered all over the place. And you go to somebody's room and you see your friend's house and they've got like a stack of diapers somewhere, right? Every period is devastating. Have you experienced that? Well, at first, when we first got married, she didn't really want kids. So that's like the thing

that kind of threw me off. I feel like it's just recently in the past three years. I don't know if maybe because she's getting older. So let me tell you this. Whatever she said when y'all first got married, throw it out the window. It doesn't matter. Y'all are here now. Right? Right.

And the more you try to be like, yeah, but three years ago. Dude, we're here now. You know what I mean? We're here now. Yeah. Right. And now she's telling you that every time she has a period, it's that her body's failed her again.

Right. And something's wrong. And quite honestly, there's a feeling that she's failed you. And she's failed this picture and this family and all those things, right? Yeah, and that's what I've reassured her, you know, that I make a break, you know. She's always saying, like, you know, if you would have made somebody else. And I reassure her all the time, like, no, that's not the case. That's right. But, I mean, that's not the case. That's right.

But, I mean, that's one thing that she always brings up. And there's also, like, I don't know if you ever lost, like, a parent or a brother or a sister or somebody close to you, but there's always that, if I just called them, they wouldn't have gotten a car. Right? There's always this replaying of things that you can't change. Right? Right. And that's just part of grief.

And so you're doing the right thing by reassuring and saying thank you. Here's something that is not talked about very often that is very fair. You have needs too. And you are allowed to say, I want to take 30 days off of talking about babies. It's heavy in the home. I feel like I'm losing my wife and I know that you're grieving. I am too.

I want to take 30 days off from the baby conversation. It's becoming overwhelming in the house. Okay? And you're allowed to have that need also. Yeah, I think that's kind of what I was wanting to bring up but without seeming insensitive or trying to say, you know, I don't want a kid.

You know what I mean? Because I feel like she might take it to that extreme. No, no, no, no. What I'm saying is there's a difference between saying you need to shut up or you need to get over it. That's insensitive. Right. Right. Saying I'm hurting too.

And every time you come home talking about how everybody else has babies, I have to hear it. I can't hear it either. It hurts. I need a break from talking about this. Can we stop, quote unquote, trying to have a kid? Can we give it 60 days, two months,

and then we'll reset? And it may be a, here's another angle to this that I would recommend you take if you haven't already. I would ask that you and her on your own, alone, write a letter

to the baby that you lost. Okay. Did y'all name this kid? No. Okay. I have tattooed on my body three babies that we lost in miscarriage with names. Okay.

Okay? And I had to grieve them. My wife grieved them. We grieved them together as though we lost a child that we were holding. Okay? It's a part of the grief. It's a child that we were holding. Okay? It's a part of the grief cycle. And women are often told, yeah, it's cool, man.

We'll just try again. Oh, that sucks. You know what I mean? And so what they're encouraged by their community is to bury that grief. Shove it down. It's just a miscarriage. Get over yourself. And so I'd recommend having some sort of small ceremony with just you two.

Okay. Okay? And it's going to be heavy. It's going to be hard. And it's going to be liberating. Okay. Okay. Definitely try that.

If you bring that up and say this is something you want to do and you'd love her to join you, that is a totally different thing than telling her, hey, I think you're probably going through some grief and so it'd probably help if you did, you see what I'm saying? I want you to take ownership of this, okay? Okay, right, okay. Ownership of, I want to take 60 days off in the house.

I need this for me because I'm hurting too. I see, I hurt when my wife hurts. Let's take 60 days off from talking about babies. Let's take 30 days off, whatever that looks like. Let's stop trying we can keep having sex right we still do the fun part

but we're gonna stop quote unquote trying to have babies and following the clock and oh it's 3 o'clock let's you know all that kind of we're gonna stop that

for 60 days I need to get back to just being with my wife yeah I think that's that's where I feel like I'm getting overwhelmed with that too

because I work a ton of hours I usually get home, I wake up about 2 in the morning Get home about 5.30 And it's just like you said We gotta do this, we gotta do this And it seems like Like a second job Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

And at first you're like You can't tell your buddies that Because it's like, oh, oh, wah, wah You mean every day at five o'clock you have to have sex. Yeah. But it comes with a lot of pressure and a lot of expectation, a lot of you get taken out of it. Right. You become a vessel for this other picture. Right.

Right. And it's not it's not something about it's not connection. It's not something about, you know, people aren't even having fun anymore. It's about a very clinical, and it's just, yeah, everybody's just pause, control, alt, delete, let's reset. Right. Right, okay, yeah. But again, hear me say real clearly, this is about you saying, here's what I need, not here's what you should do. Okay.

Okay. It may even help if you write down, here's what I need and not here's what you should do. Okay. It may even help if you write down, here's what I need and why, because I'm hurting. I'm scared. I'm sad. And by the way, it's not,

if she's saying you should have just married somebody else, if you're sad that she's not pregnant, that you haven't had a kid yet, it's okay to say that out loud. Hiding from her or keeping that secret from her is not helping your marriage. Right, yeah. Okay?

And so be honest with her. When you have that small little ceremony for that baby, that she's still grieving, even though she thinks she's not, she's still grieving that thing, or that little boy or girl, whatever you guys decide. In that letter, say, I'm going to miss you. I'm going to miss you.

When she told me we were pregnant, I remember the day she told me. I remember how she told me. I got kind of scared and I got freaked out and I looked at our bank account and also got pretty excited. Take some kid, you know, the Dodgers game or whatever, and watch the Dodgers get beat by the Astros because the Astros are superior. And especially when they got trash cans on the side, right? All those things, right?

All those things. Yeah. And, hey, can I just tell you, I'm sorry. Thank you. I've been there, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry that your marriage is a mess I'm sorry that your wife is hurting sorry about miscarriage

sorry about there's just not a path forward right now because we thought we were going to be here and now we're not and we don't know what's next I'm sorry about all that because I've been there dude yeah it's definitely something that I did not I didn't think it was going to be this difficult you know I just when you think about babies you think it's how it's done and it's easy.

And I did not think it was going to be this difficult. So that's definitely a little. And you, dude, your wife will see every 16 year old that accidentally got pregnant and be like, are you freaking kidding me? You know what I mean? Yeah, trust me. Yeah. She'll, she'll point out every accidental pregnancy. She'll point out every, you know, moron at work that's just getting so-and-so got knocked up. It's so-and-so, right?

It's a reminder to her that she has failed. And the path through that, clearly she hasn't failed anything. But the path through that is grief. Okay. Right? It's grief. It's grief. We had a picture of what things were going to be and that picture is not happening

yet, it might and we need to come up with a very very strong thick black line as a finish line for how far we're going to go before we start having colors otherwise you're going to find yourself $200,000 in debt with

40 fertilized embryos and you don't know what to do next. Right. Right. So make a plan and spend some time grieving with her. These are your needs, not hers. And do not try to fix her, man. Just be with her.

This is a hard, hard season. Hey, and if you do get pregnant in the next two months, three months, six months, nine months, please let me know, and we will celebrate you. man. I'll be high-fiving you. And if you don't get pregnant, I'll celebrate you too. We'll be right back. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make.

This is not a good idea. So if you're a new homebuyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the homebuying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their home buyer edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillemortgage.com slash Deloney and get the home buyer

edge today. All right, we are back. Let's take one more. Let's go to Lori in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. What's up, Lori? Hey, hey, Dr. John. I feel like we're old friends. I've never missed a show. And this week I listened to your 300th episode. So congratulations on that. Thank you for that. I appreciate that. I am first in line to think we were not going to make it that far. I'm having fun. Thank you for riding in our gang, man. I'm really grateful. So what's up? So today I just have a question about guilt. So last September, my uncle died unexpectedly, and I was appointed the executor of the estate.

He lived in New Orleans. I live in Wisconsin, and my brother at the time lived in Alaska. And I was starting a new job at the end of September and time wasn't really something we had much of. So my brother flew from Alaska to St. Louis and I flew to St. Louis to his brother-in-law's house. And then we drove to New Orleans where I rented a U-Haul just to take back, you know, a few things from my uncle's house. So when we got there, you know, we just tore through the place like a tornado. And what we were basically looking for were, you know, important documents, you know, the deed to the house, were there any tax forms, his wallet, his checkbook, bills, you know, any financial documents. And I just feel very guilty that we went into this

man's house, just went through everything. You know, obviously we couldn't keep much. And I just feel really bad that we seem to just throw this man's life away. And this was right after Hurricane Ida had came through. So FEMA was still picking up all these, you know, garbage at the end of the curb. But basically, we ended up throwing out most of this man's possessions. We did work with the local church agency where we donated a bunch of stuff. But, you know, he was a police officer most of his life. And he had, you know, certificates and awards and plaques and badges. And, you know, we just couldn't keep all that, and we threw it all away.

So fast forward to this year, where I am now, and my dad is on hospice. He's probably not going to see September, and I'm going to be in the same boat. Obviously, well, my brother and I will have more time. He does live back home now. But this is the home that I grew up in as a child. And how do I just go through that home and just get rid of everything? Yeah. Number one, I'm so sorry. Thank you. You must be somebody special for both of these men, these important men in your life,

to appoint you as the person to see through things. Right. Pretty cool. And come on, man, could they have picked somebody else, right? It's both of them. So guilt is good. Let's don't try to avoid guilt, okay? I don't think guilt is the challenge here.

The challenge here is, do you have a good relationship with your uncle? Do you like him? Oh, yes. He was my best friend. Yeah. And, you know, it just was so unexpected. That was quite a shock. Yeah.

I'm thinking of my uncles, and I've got several of them, and they all have very particular ways they dress. And I got some real eccentric uncles and some straightforward uncles. I got one uncle that smells a little bit like leather, cowboy. Got an uncle that's a tech guy, kind of smells like an iPhone, I guess. I don't know, it smells like Google, I guess. Here's what I'm getting at. It was about a year ago. I was cleaning out some things in my closet, and I found a jacket, like a sports coat that my granddad used to wear.

My granddad died. One of the greatest men I've ever known, greatest man I've ever met. And I kept that jacket. It didn't fit. I always had dreams of it fitting and then getting it fixed and tailored. And I've carried it around for a long, long time. And he actually gave it to me before he died. So I've been carrying it for years.

And I was getting rid of clothes and I put it back on the rack and then I took it off. And here's the words I said to myself, my granddad is not in this jacket. And I put my hand on my chest and I said, my granddad's right here. And your uncle's not in those certificates and those badges. And he would have told you, throw all that crap away. You know what I mean? And yet there's something that tells us, no, uncle, uncle, whoever is in that stuff. And he's not.

He's with you. And then with your dad, very, very similar. Can your dad still hear you and understand you? Oh, yeah. Yep. Have you written him the letter and read it to him yet? No. You need to do that ASAP.

Okay. What he means to you, what he, what you're going to take from what he gave you and how you're going to communicate that on, how his life meant something. And then what you will have is one of the most precious moments a person can have on planet earth, which is the moment to consciously and directly

and with love say goodbye. With purpose and meaning and dignity. And then you're going to have to tell yourself, he's not in that stuff. I would also challenge you to tell your place where you work, if at all possible, dude, I need a week off because my dad died. And God help them if they don't give you a week off.

Good grief. Or two weeks for crying out loud. Right. I've known people that turn objects into people. And that's a life of misery. Okay. Yep. And all the things I'm saying

are not easy none of this is easy are there a couple of sentimental things about that you remember from your dad oh yeah he was into model trains

so you know he's got all this model train sets and stuff and my brother Norai are interested in that. Don't throw those out. There's some wackadoos who want to buy some trains, man. You want to sell those.

They'll pay for your retirement. But maybe grab one that you love, that you remember. Yeah. I had a ceramic. I don't know why. I had a ceramic. My grandmother collected ceramic birds. And every time I walked in the house, she reminded me, you're not allowed to touch those.

This is going to shock you, Lori, but I was a bit destructive as a child. I was just chaotic and like a ball of energy. Luckily, I've grown up and I've become very still and on time and right, whatever. And when she died, right before she died, she said like, anything you need, want from here. And I was like, I need that ceramic blue jay and a ceramic cardinal. And that's what I got. I got those two things. And she's not in those things. She's in my heart. She's in my raising of my kids, but I keep those two things. And whenever I see a cardinal out, when I'm hunting out in the woods or something,

I see a cardinal and I just smile. Right? And so when my dad passes away, there's two or three things. I've already told my brother and sister. I get these three things. And anything else,

then we, whatever, just give it away. But there's a couple of things that mean a lot to me that just remind me of my old man. Right?

He's not in them, but they remind me. So maybe think of a couple of things and say, these are going to be mine. A pocket knife and a badge and a train. Right?

Something like that. And then everything else, man, he's just not in that stuff. That's true. Yes. But I sure think this is way more related

to the loss, the sudden loss, and the pending loss than it is about the guilt over the homes. I think guilt is probably misplaced grief. Yeah, I think you're right now that you've explained it that way. Your life will be really rich if you write that letter and read it to him. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I need to get working on that. Today? Today, yes. Glory. Okay. After he passes, you don't have to, but I welcome if you want to send me a

draft of the letter, I'll read it over the air so people can know how great your dad was. That would be wonderful. Cool. To honor him like that. And you could tell him, there's this podcast that like 13 people listen to, dad. We're going to blow you up on it. We're going to be famous.

Dad, you're going to be famous. And he's going to say, I heard that podcast. I probably don't want to be on that one. Can you get me on Joe Rogan's podcast? It's way bigger. That'd be fantastic. Hey, can I tell you this?

Sure. Man, I can't tell you as the dad of a six-year-old little girl, I hope my baby girl loves me in my final days as much as you love your old man. She will. He's a lucky... I'm kind of a mess. But your dad, man. God almighty.

What a lucky, lucky man. What a lucky man to have Lori as his eldest, as his daughter. Incredible. Thank you so much for calling. Let us know how that reading him that letter goes. And if any way possible, read it in person. It's worth the plane ticket. Maybe if you don't have the money, it's worth the plane ticket. Go down there and make sure you see him in person. And then think of a couple of things and then get on out of there. He's not in those things. And everybody listening, people aren't in stuff.

Your worth is not in the certificates. Your worth is not in the trophies. Your worth is not in little plaques. Your worth is in the lives you changed. Your worth is in the hearts you filled up. Your worth is in your spiritual life and your worth is innate. You have worth. 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, as we wrap up today's show, Kelly, why did you hand me this song? In the first call, you made a comment about the guy having an affair with a tractor, and immediately my mind went to this song. So, enjoy.

Oh, and that's, okay. So, right above her Harry Styles tattoo on her upper shoulder, she does have a Kenny Chesney tattoo. Now I get it, Kelly. Today's song of the day is Kenny Chesney's She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy, and it goes like this. Plowing these fields in the hot summer sun over by the gate lordy here she comes with a basket full of chicken and a big cold jug of sweet tea i make a little room and she climbs on up open up the throttle and stir a little dust just see her look just look at her face she ain't fooling

me she thinks my tractor is sexy is this a song come on country singers we can do better than this she's always staring at me well I'm sure I can't even good to see you we'll see y'all soon