The Dr. John Delony Show - Sleep Anxiety, Family Boundaries, & a Husband That Won't Grow Up

Episode Date: November 20, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So send us your questions at johndelony.com/show or leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 3:53: Sister has talked about using her daughter’s identity to get a credit card. How do I talk to her about that? 14:23: My husband is 26 year old and won't grow up 26:12: Teaching Segment: Sleep Anxiety Why We Sleep by Dr. Matthew Walker 35:40: My husband does not respect me or my son 49:51: Lyrics of the Day: Damien Rice - "Cannonball" tags: identity theft, boundaries, family, responsibility, marriage, Dr. Matthew Walker, sleep anxiety, marriage These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Hey, on today's show, we're going to be talking about family and family and family. We talk to a woman who's struggling with family members who have no integrity. We're going to talk to a woman who loves her husband, but he won't get a job, and he won't quit letting his mom into their marriage. And finally, we're going to talk to a woman whose marriage is falling apart, and she doesn't know what to do. Stay tuned. Hey, what up, what up? This is John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show, a live show where we talk to you about your life, your challenges, your victories,

the things that are going well, the things that are not going well. We talk about it all in this show, anything and everything, whatever's going on in your heart, in your mind, in your neighborhood, in your country, give me a call. We're all in this together. All of us, right? And on this show, sometimes we highlight what is going right in the world. I got this email from Natalie Meyer Shira. Shira.

S-C-H-I-R-A. Natalie Meyer Shira. I think that sounds cool. I'll go with that. Natalie writes, I am a teacher of English in Iowa. Is there any more English teacher statement than I'm a teacher of English in Iowa? Well done, Natalie. She says, I so love your request for stories of people being kind and living life well.

Thank you. Appreciate the shout out. I'm a daily rideshare user, and not long ago, a driver and I had the following exchange. The rideshare driver, who has driven me several times, says, Hey, Natalie, can I say something? I don't want to offend you. At this point, I can't wait to hear what's next. Natalie responds, Of course, you're not going to offend me. To which the rideshare driver, he says,

The outfit you were wearing yesterday was really pretty. And that's the end. And Natalie writes, That was so kind and observant, not offensive. And we're living in a weird world where we train people, especially men, that they need to be worried about offering a simple platonic compliment. The pressure of knowing when to say what and how to say it can be immense. So I just want to take a moment to celebrate that driver. He not only made the effort to be kind, So I just want to take a moment to celebrate that driver. He not only made the effort to be kind, but found the courage to take a risk in order to do it.

May the blessing of his kindness return to him many fold and may we in each our own way follow his thoughtful example. Natalie, you are awesome. Rideshare driver. You leaned into the discomfort and you had to say it. And my guess is Natalie was having one of those days where she felt a little rushed. She felt like she had stuff on her mind. And you recognized, man, she looks pretty today. And she could use a compliment.

And you held out that first day, man. And then you leaned into the discomfort and said, I want to invite myself into a quick compliment. I don't want to be offensive, but you look nice. Thank you, man. Thank you for the tiny little wins of common human decency. Common human decency. I love it. Thank you so much for sharing that, Natalie.

And thanks to everyone for sending in their positive stuff Here's the deal We talk about everything on this show From relationships to mental health issues To good stuff To tough stuff To hard stuff All of it

Whatever's going on in your life Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291 That's 1-844-693-3291 You can also email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. That's askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. All right, let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Samantha in Minnesota. Samantha, what is up? Good morning, Dr. D. I'm fantastic. How are you? Exact same. Exact same. I am fortunate to be up, and it's sunny outside, and I'm talking to my friend in Minnesota. How are we doing? Well, I'm good. First, I wanted to say that I am so grateful to have you on my team at Ramsey Solutions. Well, thank you.

Thank you for taking that position. Thank you so much. I listen to the Dave show every time I'm in the car. Very cool. Very, very cool. Yeah, it's been a hoot and a total life change, so it's been fun. Yeah. So how can I help?

I'm going to get down to it here for you. All right. My sister's dog needed to have an emergency C-section. Your sister's dog? Her dog an emergency C-section. Your sister's dog? Her dog. This is already awesome. This is already awesome. Go ahead.

So she came to me and she said, I have a huge favor to ask you. She knows that I don't do debt. She did FPU with me. And she said, I have a huge favor to ask. Will you co-sign on care credit for me? I hate being in this situation because I don't do debt, but I also don't want to let her down. And I told her, okay, here's the deal. Like how much do you need i have my thousand dollar emergency fund i'm in baby step two so um i also have another thousand dollars that i was going to put towards that so i have two grand what do you need and she said to me no no i have the money to pay for it but

i want to have the payment. This blew my mind. Yeah, because why not? Okay. Yeah. And so I said, okay, fine. You know, I said yes to co-signing. Thank the Lord it did not go through. And then.

Wait, hold on. Before we go there. So the loan was denied with you as a co-signer? Correct. And I don't know why, but it was denied because somebody was looking out for me, I think. No, it sounds like, it doesn't sound like someone was looking out for you. It sounds like either her credit and your credit

are both so terrible that y'all couldn't get approved for a loan for a dog. The weird thing is that both of our credits are around the 700 so it doesn't it didn't really make any sense okay all right so we're on to the next i don't want to get distracted i can get distracted today yeah so she's on the phone with my mother after this complaining about the situation and i'm sitting there and my mom says i thought that your sister was going to help you with this and my sister says yes she tried it didn sister was going to help you with this. And my sister says, yes, she tried.

It didn't go through. And, you know, she wouldn't take out a credit card for me. And I just sat there in silence. And then my sister goes on to say, maybe I'll just try to take a card out in my daughter's name, my 11-year-old daughter's name. And I sat there and did not know what to say. And, um, I've heard this talked about on the Dave Ramsey show a little bit. Uh, I know it's illegal to do that. And yeah, it's fraud. From my perspective, I didn't really know if it was my place or what to, so I just sat in quiet, but I just, I guess my question is how do I handle, how do I handle that? It blew my

mind, the whole situation. Yeah. I, and I can see that at some point you have allowed your sister and or your mom to totally run the way you feel about you? Where did that start? Where does that even come from? How I feel about myself? About you. Yeah. Why, why do those two people, and I can understand your mom, but why do those two people have so much power over you? That is a really good question i haven't thought about it how old are you i am 29 samantha you're almost three zero yo so here's how i know i'm gonna be dead by 30 by the way yeah of course well not not now you're not if you keep cosigning for

for pet surgeries but here's the thing here's how that call would have gone in my house um and i'm i'm i am a i'm not a special guy okay it would have gone something like yeah you know deloney won't take out a credit john won't take out a credit card for me and i would have responded with yeah because i'm not an idiot idiot and then whatever brother and sister i would have had would have laughed and then i would have laughed and said are you being serious right now that you have money and you're going to choose to put a pet surgery, not even on a credit card, on a personal line of credit that you need a cosigner for, for puppies that you can't even, I guess, afford to keep, et cetera, et cetera. And it would have been a glorious moment for me to have, um, fun and ingest because my brother and sister and I are super close and we love each other, but it would have been fun making city. It would have been all over them because I don't have, I have, I've absolutely not given them that power. And if one of them decided to rat on me to my mom

about, yeah, cause you know, John won't help me. He won't take out a credit card for me. I would have been banging on pots and pans going, yes, because I'm not an idiot. And then and then. Here's the crux of the question, and I think you're getting it. brother or sister going to one of their kids and saying, I'm going to commit fraud and use their credit card, use their social security number to get a credit card to pay for anything, much less a dog surgery. Dude, I'm getting all up in everybody's business because I have made it my business to care and love for children in my home and in my community, period.

And I would be ringing the bells if I were you. Because here's the thing. They have made clear who they are character-wise, your sister has, for even entertaining that, and has made clear as to what position you play in that relationship, which is I'm going to ask you to do things that I know violate your core values. I'm going to tattle on you to my mommy if you don't do the things that I want you to do, even though they violate your core values. And then I'm going to steal from my kid. You've got all you need to know. And I know it's your

sister and I know that's hard, but dude, you've got all the information you need to know. Right? Right. It is hard because I know that going forward, the relationship there would be, it just would have been so much harder to say no, which- I know, but hear me say- It sounds stupid coming out of my mouth.

Yeah, you're giving her so much power she is a broken outlet she is an outlet with no power in it and with only one of the prong slots open and you're still trying to figure out how to get your plug into that outlet like you know what I'm saying she's a person of no character and I hate to say that about somebody's family member like that hurts to say that out loud but she's not a person of character. You are. And so you are feeling bad about a fracture in a relationship, and you're a full plug. You're the person of integrity.

And so the relationship is what I'm telling you isn't what you thought it was. And my hope is you can be free of this now. Not free of this now. Not free of your sister. I don't want you to, to, you know, hate on your sister, destroy that,

or, but you've been carrying around for a long time the weight and responsibility of peacekeeping between you and your sister. And you've been carrying around for a long time

the weight of responsibility, the triangulation of peacekeeping between you, your sister, and your mom. And your sister is not a person of integrity or character. She's going to steal from her child to pay for dog surgery. Yeah, that she could afford. It's nonsense. It's a character issue, right? And so what I want to tell you is this. You're free of it.

You are free to speak your mind. You are free to be as honest as you can. You are free to say, these are my core values. And if you are not a good person, and here's the deal. My guess is this is not the first time. My guess is this has been a pattern over the course of your relationship history with her. And you've been trying to hold this thing together for so long. You're free. You're free. You are free. And if she says, Hey, I'm taking out a credit card and my kids, and I think I'm gonna

be able to figure that out. You can tell her you are a freaking thief. what kind of human being steals from their child what kind of person does that who takes their kid's social security number and gets a credit card a line of credit an illegal line of credit on the back of a 10 year old or an 11 year old or a six yearyear-old for anything, much less a dog surgery. Ridiculous. So today, Samantha, you are free. Speak your heart, your mind. I want you to really get deep with yourself about what your core values are. I want you to begin speaking up for yourself with your mom.

And listen, if you lose, quote-unquote, lose one of them, right? If your sister says, well, if that's how you feel, I'm going to quit talking to you. Good riddance. She's already made her bed. You are a pawn in her game, right? You're a chess piece for her. You are someone to call when she doesn't want to do things the right way. You are somebody that will get her what she needs when it's convenient for her. And that's not a person of integrity.

And again, I hate saying that about somebody's sister. Oh, that sucks, sucks, sucks. Ugh, I'm so blessed with my family. Jeez Louise. Thank you so much for that call, Samantha. I hate that for you, but I'm also excited for you. You're free. You're free.

Fly like a bird. All right, let's go to Mary in Fayetteville, Arkansas. What's up, Mary? How are we doing? Hi, how are you? So good. What's going on this morning? Okay, so I am 27. My husband is 26. We've been together for a decade, but we just got married three months ago. We have a four-year-old daughter and I'm working two jobs, 65 hours a week. And he's working, he's working part-time and that's it. Um, that was, I'm not laughing at you sort of. I'm laughing with you. Yeah. But kind of at you. And the way you said that was awesome. Just, and that's it. So how can I help today?

I'm sure there's a bunch of ways I could help, but how can I help? Well, he wants to go to school for something technical so he can start a good career and be making most of the money. And I am wanting to just like get an apartment so we can like, we're living in his parents' old house rent free. Um, so. Do they live in the house too? Or is it just y'all two? No, it's just us two and our daughter. And, um, I'm just wanting to move out and get an apartment. I found one it's 25% of my take-home pay. We haven't combined incomes because he's kind of against that, which... So normally in these situations, I would walk through a series of questions that start with

your husband, your new husband of three months sounds like he is a child. Sounds like he's a teenager. And he's still living in a teenage mind. I'm going to be honest with you. When I got married, I got married really young. I still had a teenage mind. I still had an idea that I was just going to go to work and then go to the gym. And my wife was a glorified roommate.

I hadn't wrapped my head around it yet. Okay. And so I don't want to hop all over this guy yet, but you're the person I'm talking to. And so my question to you is you've known this dude for a decade. He's been the father of your daughter for four years. Certainly this isn't a surprise. No, it's not.

So you married him knowing that this was who you were getting, right? It's not like he bait and switched you, right? Mm-hmm. So what do you want me to do? He has grown up. His parents were paying most of his bills. He is slowly taking them on. But my problem is I want to get an apartment so that we can just kind of jump off the cliff and land on our own feet instead of constantly having that extra help that they give him. I refuse help from my parents, even if I need it.

Like, I'll sell stuff online. You know, like, I obviously got another job. So before you just jump off anything, you guys have to have a plan. Because one of you is going to jump and the other one is not going to. Or one of you is going to jump and you're going to grab the other one and drag them down. And that always ends up just in a pile of bodies at the bottom of a cliff. Okay. And have you ever sat down with him and and said what's your vision for this thing and i know that may sound ridiculous to some women listening to this thinking about the guys that they are with

right now and i know there are guys mowing their yards or driving right now listening to this going dude i cannot have a what is our vision conversation? My wife, she would never have that conversation. So put yourself in that, in, in that space, you and him go camping one weekend. And it's just like, dude, what are we doing? What would that conversation be like? Or maybe you've had it. I did have that this past weekend. And he, he's very optimistic. He's like, yeah, I'm going to go to college and get this career, and then you can quit your job and stay home and, you know, all that. So on Monday of this week, did he start looking up colleges and sending applications?

Because it's not Christmas. He can be in a program by January. Right. Yeah, he has, and his mom and him have talked. But that's the thing is, is like she's constantly helping him. She's like, okay, I'll pay for your college instead of letting him like think about how he could do it. Well, if a parent is going to reach out and be supportive, I don't want to just say no to that out of hand, right? If it comes with strings and it comes with expectations that mom is going to continue to run your new married life, yeah, I'm not taking that money.

And I'm going to be really vocal in my home about my spouse taking that money. But if a parent's going to help, that in and of itself isn't a bad thing. And so you have a young kid, you have a young marriage, and mom says, hey, I'll help with tuition, but son, you're going to have to work your butt off. And you're going to have to really crush it. That's the problem is she's willing to pay it. She's always paid for like everything.

I know, but here's the thing. You knew this coming in. I know. And so part of me, my heart's broken for you. I pushed away the bad qualities because I saw the good. I saw the good qualities. Are the good still there? Oh, yeah.

They're still, yeah. So at the end of the day, let's take like the work thing is a big deal for me. Everyone, like we were made to work. Not working leads to all kinds of downstream mental health issues and relational challenges and just like self worth issues. Male, female, everybody deals with this, but let's back up. Is he a good dad? Does he love you? Yes, yes, he's a great dad. He loves that little baby? Mm-hmm, yep.

And I've got two definitions I love. One that talks about it a lot and one that shows up. And shows up looks like getting a job. Shows up also looks like getting up in the middle of the night and changing diapers and being supportive when wife is off working 65 hours a week, cleaning bottles, making sure dinner's ready. So he helps with that kind of stuff? Yes, he does. That's awesome.

Okay, so what you're telling me is you've got a guy that's got integrity and character, and he doesn't have the tools. Yes. Right? And so two things. One, he needs to call me so I can talk directly to him, okay? Because you and I can't solve his problem. Right. What you and I can do is this.

Number one, at some existential level, 35,000-foot view of this, you knew the bed you were getting into, right? Mm-hmm. You knew. And so what you're asking him to do is to make a decade, a character change overnight after three months, you're asking him to become a different person. It's a fair ask and it's a right ask, but it is a tall order at this point, right? Yeah. And so what I want you to do is to set up. So you guys had the conversation this weekend. That's not a one-off shot.

So today I want you to say, I want to follow up on our conversation we had this weekend. Saturday morning, we're going to let grandma come pick up our four-year-old or we're going to let four-year-old, I don't know, play four-year-old things. Or when four-year-old takes nap number one in the morning, we're going to meet. We're going to go out on the front porch. It's not super freezing yet in Arkansas here. We're going to go out on the front porch, and we are going to talk through this. Because we're going to set up some metrics, right? We've got the dream part.

You say you want to go to school, you want to have a job, and you want me to be able to stay home. Awesome. Then we're going to start putting things in order. When are you going to first send off your applications? I'm expecting you that we're going to start school in January. So we're going to have to get some childcare issues. I want you to start putting some meat on that skeleton. Okay. Okay. And that means for the next couple of days until you have that meeting, I want you to be thinking about the things in your mind that you want answered. What's the date on this? Who's going to pay for it? What's the time expectation? Let's look at your schedule because we're going to get a schedule. And for a technical school in Fayetteville,

that's a signup sheet, right? There's a couple of giant universities there. Oh yeah. And there are some technical schools all around that area. You're going to get signed up. You could have a course list by Friday. You could have a course list by first thing next week. Literally, signed up, ready to go. And then you're going to have to figure out scheduling, right? Are you going to cut back on your job?

Are you going to keep working and you're going to need some help from the in-laws? All those kind of things. And you're going to have to get over your pride part. You're a newlywed couple. You've got a little baby. Let grandparents help you if it's healthy. Don't just say no just to say no, right? That ends up being – here's the thing.

It ends up being the same issue just on the way other side of the spectrum. Like I need all the help. I need none of your help. It's both silly, okay? Yeah. And one feels tougher than the other. They're not. They're both inaccurate.

You both need a little bit of help. You're a newlywed couple. Even though you've been together forever, you got a newborn in that house and y'all are still trying to figure out what life's going to look like. So accept the help if it doesn't come with a bunch of character and value strings to it, okay? Okay. And then I want you to ask him the following.

I want you to ask him for permission to hold him accountable. I want you to ask him the following. Hey, I'm asking a lot of you because you're going to have to be a different guy now. We're married. We have a baby. You're going to have to begin to break away from your mom. And I'm asking if I can speak into your life as your wife. I'm asking you to, when you get nervous and frustrated, to not hide with video games, to not just quit school, but come tell me and say, I'm being vulnerable here and I don't know how to do this because mom never made me. Dad didn't teach me how, but I'm kind of exhausted

right now. And then you can give him the speech. I'm working 65 hours. I'm exhausted. Y'all can do that. Y'all can have that dance together. But I want you to tell him proactively, I want to be a part of helping us come together. I want to be a part of helping you become a great, great husband, become a great man. And I know it's going to be a journey for us because you've been this way for a long time. And I'm all in if you're all in. I want him, I want you to tether into him. Okay. Okay. And then man, you be, you be firm on the accountability. Let's get some dates. Let's get some dollar amounts. Let's get some, here's what this is going to do to our schedules. Let's get some of that on paper, on the calendar, and then let's get ready to rock and roll.

And again, he sounds like a guy of integrity and character that has just simply been mothered to death. And he's got no tools. And you signed up for it. You knew what you were getting. You signed up for it. You're going to have to be about teaching him tools, and you're going to have to let him grow up, and you're going to have to hold him accountable,

and you're going to have to let him hold you accountable. Okay? Awesome. Mary, I've got high faith in you guys. I've got high faith in you, even though you jumped into a pool knowing there was no water in it. You knew there was no water in it, but you jumped anyway. All right, so it hurt when you hit, and now we're going to get up, dust our stuff off,

and we're going to get into the business of being connected. So good for you, Mary. Guys, get jobs. Go to work. Figure it out. Go to work. Go to work. Go to work. Go to work. I'll just say it again guys Go to work Go do it My friend Ken Coleman has a whole show about going to work Go to work Alright let's go to You know what

I feel like I want to talk about something for a second I want to talk about Something that is super unpopular And it's going to make me a dork But I'm experiencing this right now And I know you're experiencing it because I read the data. Number one, I take the calls. Number two, I still am taking coaching calls in the evenings with folks all across the country

that I've got connections with. Everybody's dealing with this. And it's not what you think it's going to be. The big overarching thing is we are struggling from anxiety disorders all over the place. 40 million people have some sort of anxiety disorder, and those are the counted ones. Those are not people who are just dealing with elevated heart rate all the time, elevated cortisol and adrenaline levels, elevated all kinds of things, snapping at people that they normally wouldn't snap at, just constantly like red-eyed and glued into everything. Beneath anxiety is often this. I haven't slept well in a few nights. In fact, I slept in the guest room because my diet has gone to trash for a few days. I stayed glued into the election stuff. I wanted to see what was going on, how it was all playing out. I've been checking stuff more than I normally do. And I'm always looking for ways to help people change their relationship

with anxiety. And one of the cornerstones for helping your brain calm down, right? Because anxiety is just an alarm system saying that your ecosystem is out of whack. Is you got to get sleep. The most powerful non-pharmaceutical remedy for anxiety in the world, bar none, is sleep. And think about this, 50, 60, 70, some say 100 years ago, we literally just lopped off 25 to 30% of our sleep. When it got dark a few months ago, a tornado came through my new area, my new home, and we were out of power. I live out in the country, so we had no power. I didn't have any water. We had no satellite, and my phones run through the satellite, so we had nothing. I had nothing, nothing, and it was just dark, and then I looked at my wife and said, I guess we're just

going to go to bed, and I had the greatest night of sleep. There was nothing going on. There was no satellites. There was no nothing. There was nothing. We've just lopped off sleep as though it didn't matter. We used to sleep eight, nine, 10 hours a night because it was dark. We slept with the seasons. Now we sleep five and a half, six and a half hours. I want everyone to read or find a podcast with Dr. Matthew Walker. He's the author of a book, Why We Sleep. He's a researcher and neuroscientist. He is the guru when it comes to sleep. He's the guru of what has happened over the last 100 years, 50, 60 years, where we have just increasingly cut off sleep more and more and more and more. A single night of poor sleep can impair a body's response. It can make us unable to fight off sickness.

It lets our frontal lobe stay completely untethered, right? His research reveals that a lack of sleep amplifies anxiety level and healthy amounts of sleep decrease anxiety, period. They have tracked sleep and tracked sleep and tracked sleep, and they measure the anxiety levels the next day. After a night of little or no sleep, brain scans show diminished activity of your prefrontal cortex. That's this part of your head. That's your forehead part. That is the CEO of your brain. Sleep is the boss. It's the right thing. Deep restorative sleep is like therapy. You just wake up and you can see the world better.

You can feel the world better. If you don't sleep, it impairs your blood sugar. It impairs – I don't want to get into all the physiological functions. It just begins to disrupt everything, right? And the deeper emotional centers of your brain, when your frontal lobe goes offline, they get overactive. They start pumping your body full of chemicals saying, run, freeze, fight everyone, fight everything, right? Think about this. If you normally get eight hours and one night you get only six hours, right? That's not uncommon. You have a fun Saturday night and you stay up late

and you still get up early on Sunday morning. That 25% loss of sleep equates to 80 or 90% loss of REM sleep, the good stuff, the restorative stuff. Okay. So here's a few tips from Dr. Walker on how to establish healthy sleep patterns. Number one, go to bed and wake up at the same time every day, even after a bad night of sleep or on the weekend. If you try to always over catch it the next day, right? Keep following up, following up. I only got four hours last night, so I'm going to sleep until noon today. You just live in this yo-yo, right? In this back and forth, back and forth.

Get up the same time every night. If you had bad sleep the night before, get up at 5.30 or 6.30 the next morning anyway. You will fall asleep earlier the next night and your body will begin to catch itself up. Keep your bedroom temperature cool. I have a special box that runs through a special sheet on my bed that keeps my bed super, super cool. It's awesome. But keep your room cool. Keep your room cool.

An hour before bedtime, dim the lights and turn off all the electronic screens and devices. There's a lot of research out there about melatonin response, some of it's in blue lights. Some of it is sort of shifting and turning, and it may be that we're keeping our brain engaged. The light research is still coming out, but we have so much stimulation, so much stimulation with shows and flashing lights and things. I don't know if you guys remember this, but a few years ago, I think it was back in 2017, when the CEO of Netflix said his cheap competitor was sleep. He's literally trying to take sleep away from people to get them to watch more stuff, more Tiger King.

We don't need it, good folks. We don't need it. Turn the devices off. And if you can't get sleep, if you wake up or you lay in bed and you lay bed at 10 o'clock and suddenly it's at 10, 15, 10, 30. It's not happening. You're not going to sleep. Get up. Get up. Go read a book. Get up.

Go for a walk. Get up. Do some coloring books, whatever nerd thing. Write somebody a level letter. But get up. Don't just sit there and toss and turn and toss and turn. Do something quiet and relaxing until the urge to sleep returns and then go back to sleep. Another thing is, man, we just guzzle caffeine over and over and over.

Avoid caffeine after one, and this has been a big one for me. I read this in the research a few years ago. I didn't believe it, and it's made a huge difference for me. Alcohol is a sedative. It makes you unconscious. It doesn't help your sleep. Alcohol blocks your REM dream sleep, which is the important recharge therapeutic part of sleeping. And so when you drink, you go unconscious.

It puts you down, but you never get to that deep restorative sleep. So over the last couple of years, my alcohol intake has just dramatically cut off just because I don't feel good anymore. And I started watching it closer and closer and closer. So avoid caffeine after 1 p.m. Have your coffee, have it in the morning. There's some great benefits to coffee, but don't just drink it all day, all day, all day. I can do it at night. I just have, you know, espresso at night. It doesn't even affect me. I promise it affects you. Cut back on your alcohol intake. And then there's a bunch of different supplements, and I'll leave that between you and your doctor.

One last thing I want to say about sleep. Kids and sleep. The research on what we are doing to our children's brains by making them get up at 6 o'clock in the morning to catch a bus to go to school that starts at 6.50 or 7.10 or 7.20 is criminal. We're killing our kids with the amount of sleep we are stealing from them. Be a vocal proponent of a later start time. And I know that affects work schedules and all that. That's for politicians and smarter people than me to figure out.

I know that it's not cool to make your kid go to bed early. I know that. I get cool to make your kid go to bed early. I know that. I get it. It's a fight. But, man, once your kids start being able to experience what 10, 11 hours of sleep is like, you're going to get a renewed child. You're going to get a renewed thinker, a young kid who's able to learn and process things. Golly, dude, you're talking about transforming communities from the floor up. And don't forget, teenagers do, their sleep patterns begin to shift.

And so they do naturally start to go to bed a little bit later and want to sleep in a little bit longer. That's okay. That's normal. Read the book and do your own homework on you and your family. But I want to really press on you. Be hyper freakishly attentive to how much sleep your kids are getting. Crazy amount of sleep. Add two hours to it just because, right? And then you've got to walk the walk too. You've got to start looking at how much you're on screen

right before bed, how much stimulation and excitement is going on in your house before bedtime. And I want you to just try for 30 days. Just turn the stuff off. Turn the stuff off and see if you don't begin to get some sleep. And if you don't begin to feel better, think better. And over time, be way, way less anxious. All right, so that's my thoughts on sleep, anxiety. Go to sleep.

All right, let's go to one more call. Let's go to Leslie in St. Louis, Missouri. Leslie, what's up? Good morning. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. Thanks for taking my call. And I definitely wanted to say thank you to the Ramsey team for bringing you on board. You have definitely spoken to my heart through a lot of your podcasts. So I appreciate that. Thank you so much for that kindness. I appreciate that. So how can I help you today? So my question for you is how my husband and I have really struggled in our marriage. Most recently, just within the last two and a half years after our son was born. And my husband is constantly saying, like, you know,

I just need you to respect me more. I need you to respect me more. What does that mean? Does that mean do whatever I want and what I say? No, I think he, in his eyes, he wants me to maybe put him first. Um, and I have no problem doing that. Um, but a lot of times in my eyes, he does not do anything, um, to deserve it or, um, put me first or our marriage or our son first. How long have you been married?

We've been married. It'll be four years this coming 2021. So is this new for him? Like it's emerged over the last couple of years? Did things change when you had a kid? Or has he always been pretty much women need to know their role and this is how my house is going to run? No, no, he's not like that. Um, he's not like that. Um, he is just, um, it's, it honestly, it's mostly when our, when our son was about five or four or five months old.

Um, he, my, my husband is kind of just, um, and Dave has on, had talked about the Enneagram on the show. So I got the book. My husband is an eight, like his face showed up when I read chapter eight. Like that is my son or that is my husband. And he is in law enforcement. And I think that a lot of his personality comes from the anxiety and the stress of his job, which I clearly understand. But I, too, am a full timetime working healthcare professional and I work more than full-time. And I come home and I do all the things. The only thing my husband contributes

to our marriage and parenthood is his paycheck. And it's heartbreaking. He's just not a warm and fuzzy place to come home to. Have you told him this? Yes. And how did that conversation go? You sat down, not in a fight, but in what I would call an intimate moment and said, hey, look, I know your job is really hard. And for the past couple of years, it has been super hard, both existentially, practically. It's been really tough. You're there in St. Louis.

Y'all have gotten it worse on top of worse on top of worse, right? Yeah. Brutal. All sides telling your husband both explicitly and implicitly you're kind of worthless. And he has a kid which throws a wrench in the gears of every marriage, good ones, broken marriages, all of them. Having a kid is hard. And then he's got a wife who's working full, full, full time on top of another job, right? And you're picking up your share of trauma during all the medical stuff, man. You've been living in a zoo too. So I'm hearing that. That's a lot of conflict,

a lot of storms, a lot of stuff. And you sit down and you walk this through with him and then say, I need you to be a warm person to come home to. I need to be able to fall into you. I need you to be there to catch me because I love you. And I'm going to be there to catch you. And his response is what? Well, I'm just not a touchy feely person or, you know, and that's, that's kind of what he says. Like, you know, I want to, you know, when he comes home, I want to give him a hug and show him, you know, I'm glad you're home. And he, every time I go to hug him, comes up with an excuse to not hug me. Or if I want to go to kiss him, he'll kind of roll his eyes that he has to kiss me. So is there other things going on?

No, no. You know, not that I'm aware of. I mean, he's... Do you have a strong intimate life? No, no. He thinks that I'm... He says that he's distant from me because I'm critical. Okay.

Is there some truth to that? I think there is is but it's i think that there is but it's because i'm constantly telling him like i need you to show up and help me with our son i need you to show up and help me with this and like and so here's here's what happens here's what happens you get into a dance where suddenly you sound very similar to the sergeant he works for or you sound very similar to his mom. And he suddenly becomes very similar to every stereotypical police officer. He becomes very similar to probably men that you've had in your life in the past, whether that's your dad or your brothers, this distant cycle. And your role in that is to slowly begin to point out what he needs to be doing, which turns into what something like a job performance review, which

turns very quickly into complaining, frustration. Not that it's not warranted, but it just turns into this cycle. And he turns into, because right now I guarantee you, he's thinking in his head, my home isn't a warm place for me to come home to. And now y'all, now you're locked into a figure eight that you can't get out of. Right. Right. And because he's right too. He comes home and he gets a list of job chores and he just wants to sit for a minute. And you're thinking, rightfully, you can't sit. I've been working all day. I'm exhausted.

I need help with dinner. Hey, look, you have a child over here. Why don't you go love that? And it just gets into this loop-de-loop-de-loop-de-loop, and it's heartbroken, heartbroken, heartbreaking. And one of you, if not both of you, have to turn and bravely face that dance. Otherwise, it just grinds you down, and that's when you're going to take that flirty text with somebody else one step too far. That's where he's going to end up just staying out later, right? And that's when you end up with this wedge between your marriage, or you end up 40-year roommates.

That's just the way he is. That's just the way I am. And you live a silent, burning, simmering life. And he lives a distant, hit the recliner, prop my feet up life. And both of you are worth more than that. But both of you are going to have to lean way into the discomfort. And since I'm only talking to you, the only person you can handle on this end is you. Right. And at some point, you're going to have to say, I love you more than life itself.

And I also love our baby. And I don't want to be somebody who acts like your mom. I don't want to be someone who nags you. I want to create a world that's a warm, safe haven from the world, that ugly place that your husband wades into every day on behalf of his community, on behalf of his state and his country. I want to create a safe, warm place for you when you get home. And for me to do that, here's what I need. And approach it from, here's how I want to lean into you, but I've got to have you lean in back. And that's a different approach than if you would just do these things,

then this would – does that make sense? One is a tethering in and one is a job performance. One is like a CEO review, right? And here's the thing. I've worked with police officers for a long time. No one, no one, no one will ever know what they go through. And I've also worked with healthcare professionals for a long, long time. No one will ever know what they go through. And I can't recommend strongly enough that you two – the conversation start with you because you're the only person you can control.

I wish he would do it but he won't I wish you're going to have to lean into that at the beginning and say here's what I need and you're all two are at a point now where you'll need to go see somebody right and I have I have been seeing someone

and he won't or he's open to it sort of ish okay no that's weak. Ah, okay. Hmm. I've loved, loved, loved those police officers my whole life. And it's heartbreaking. It's hard.

But I know those guys and they've got great hearts. And there comes a moment when if they open that door, there's a fear that I can never close it again. And I understand that from the stuff they've seen, the stuff they've experienced, their childhood stuff, all of it. And so at the end of the day, you can work on you and you can continue to model and lean in. What I'm going to tell you is nagging, complaining, fighting solves nothing ever. It becomes a burden that you carry. And if he will call me, I'll tell him the reverse of that. Demanding respect without earning it, demanding warmth without giving it, again, is a fool's errand. It never works.

Right. And at the end of the day, both of you, in your own weird, loving ways, are choosing the misery that y'all are both living in. And I hate that for you. Okay. Until he decides that he wants to deeply connect with you, at the end of the day, all you can work on is you. I wish I had a more optimistic thing to tell you. I can tell you this, though.

I can tell you this, Leslie. I've sat with a lot of police officers, a lot of them, who have made some extraordinary moves in their life. One of the chief mentors in my life in the crisis world, Dr. Andy Young, works almost exclusively with police officers behind closed doors and helping heal marriages and helping heal hearts and helping those guys deal with the extraordinary stress that they're under all the time, every day. And so I'm going to tell you that growth and wellness is super possible. It takes some work, but it's super possible.

And it's the furthest thing from weak. Weakness is running. Weakness is hiding. Facing those old demons, those old dragons, that's the hard stuff, right? That's bravery. And so have your husband call me. I'd love to talk to him. He won't call me, but I'd love to talk to him. He won't call me, but I'd love to talk to him.

And if not, I want you to not give up on him. Keep loving him. Keep doing the things that you know make you well. Don't give in to the temptations of somebody else outside your marriage. That's not going to heal you. Don't give in to the temptations of just completely disconnecting. That's not going to heal you. Don't give in to the temptations of just completely disconnecting. That's not going to heal you. But continue to be honest with him.

Continue to show up. Continue to tell him, I love you, and I want to make this a warm, safe place for you to come home to. And it's going to be exhausting, and it's going to take energy you probably don't have because you're a kicking butt nurse. You're a kicking butt – I just said that. You may be a surgeon. You're a kicking butt health professional, and you're a full-time mom too. And that's a lot. It's a lot.

My hope and prayer for you is that this is a season. This is a hard season and that you and your husband are going to find each other. But all you can do is take care of yourself. Keep seeing a counselor. Keep leaning into it and keep leaning into the relationship. And that's all you can do. I'm sorry, Leslie. Those conversations break my heart because here's the thing, good folks.

Men listening to this, women listening to this, single people, couples, it's a decision at the end of the day. It's a decision when your wife leans in to kiss you that you turn your face because she's not filling the blank. It's a decision when your husband gets home from a crazy day of work, even if you're tired, to not go over there and hug him. That's a choice. It's a choice to just stay at home while she's out working two jobs and you thinking, well, I just got to find the right opportunity. No, dude, go do something. That's a choice.

It's a choice to not say, hey, we haven't slept together in a month and things are really weird and I'm uncomfortable and I don't know what to do next, but I don't like this. One of you has to say it first. It sucks. But at the end of the day, it's a choice. Both people are choosing to live like this, guys, and you don't have to do it. You're worth being in a relationship. You're worth being well. You're worth being loved, man. Everybody is worth being loved. All right, that's it. I'm going to wrap it up with the song of the day. This is almost a fitting song. Almost a fitting song. This is from one of my favorite records of all time. It Came Out of Nowhere.

The guy recorded this with cheap microphones, acoustic guitar, some interesting arrangements, and it ended up taking the world by storm back in 2002. The title of the record is simply Oh by an extraordinary songwriter named Damien Rice. And the song is called Cannonball and he writes there's still a little bit of your taste in my mouth and a still a little bit of you laced with

my doubt it's still a little harder to say what's going on there's still a little bit of your ghost your witness still a little bit of your face I haven't kissed. You step a little closer each day that I can't say what's going on. Stones taught me to fly, and love taught me to lie. In life, it taught me to die, so it's not hard to fall when you float like a cannonball. Whew, stones taught me to fly, love it taught me to lie. Life taught me to die, so it's not me to lie. Life taught me to die. So it's not hard to fall when you float like a cannonball.

This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.