The Dr. John Delony Show - Sleeping With My Husband Is Driving Me Crazy

Episode Date: September 29, 2025

On today’s episode, we hear about: A woman annoyed with her husband’s sleeping habits A man whose wife isn’t receptive to John’s relationship advice A mom conflicted about whether she should pressure her kid to play sports Next Steps:  📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message.  📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life  📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch   Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth.   Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe.  Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers!  Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne.    Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership   Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My question is about sleep and being married to someone that has problems with sleep and having lots of young kids and how do we manage that? Almost everybody. I would be willing to say 99.99% of the people, myself and clue, almost everybody in this situation. What up? on what's going on this is john the doctor john deloney show coming to you from nashville tennessee taking calls from all over the planet about your mental and emotional health physical health your relationships your marriage your kids whatever you got going on

in your life i'll sit with you and we'll figure out what's the next right move so got to boston and talked out to boston get a log in and talk to carrie what's up carrie what up dr john I should be saying, like, wicked awesome or something to... I know, you're supposed to be, like, doing equations and a halve-in-baugh. Yeah, exactly. What's up? Well, thank you for taking my call. I'm very excited to talk to you.

My question is about sleep and being married to someone that has problems with sleep and having lots of young kids and how do we manage that. Is this my wife? I feel like... Sounds like she's calling a... It might be boring, but like profoundly relatable. Yeah. No, nope, it's just Carrie from Boston.

All right. Well, I feel like my wife's putting you up to this because she may be married to a guy with sleep issues. But, all right, go ahead. Tell me what's going on your house. Yeah, so my husband is, and I just want to like from, like, I am, I'm obsessed with my husband. He's awesome. I'm not calling to, like, complain about him at all. But he has, like, the worst sleep.

He always has, even before kids. And now that we have, like, a bunch of, so we have six kids, and the oldest is seven, the youngest is eight months. So, like, we just get woken. Wait, wait, what? I know. There's a set of twins in there, but yeah. Are these bio kids? Or do you adopt some kids?

Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. Yep. Yeah, dude. It's a lot of kids. Wow. That's what everybody says. People like, no, that's not possible.

No, it's possible. You're just like, you're not semi-automatic. Like, y'all are automatic, man. Right. Wow. Okay. Hey, congratulations, man. What an adventure.

Thank you. Yeah, no, it's wild, but it's, uh, yeah. So basically, like, before we had kids, my husband even had a hard time sleeping. It's, like, he's a deep thinker. He's really smart. Like, these, like, ideas, like, something will just get in his head. And then he's, like, spun up and he can't sleep. And, uh, so that's been a thing.

We've done the whole, like, you talk to doctor about, like, sleep hygiene. and you get your hormones tested, like, you know, diet, exercise, all those things. And, like, that sort of worked when we didn't have kids. And now that we have kids, like, it's just not, it's not working at all. Like, if you have, like, an off chance where everybody sleeps at night, like the dog ends up barking at a water dish and wakes everybody up. And I guess I'm just more trying to figure out, like, I've heard you mention on the show before that you've had issues with sleep.

And I just find that you have, like, a pretty balanced perspective. on like family life marriage, all those things where like besides sleep hygiene and like setting up routines and things where like it's just not realistic given where we're at in our lives. Is this one of these things that you just have to like white knuckle through the situation or is it, are there more things that we could be doing or are there like just behaviors with my husband basically like if we knew what to do, he would absolutely do it like to fix the problem um and sorry i'd talk a lot so no no you're not talking at all i like to hear how

this plays out um man i got a lot of questions here's here's where i've landed sitting with people for a long long long time okay yeah um i'm not saying this in a clinical diagnostic sense okay so um i'm saying this in the very google it instagramy kind of way yeah almost everybody i would I would be willing to say 99.99% of the people, myself included. So this is not just sitting with people and the, sitting with the literature, but this is just me looking in the mirror, okay? Yeah. Almost everybody in this situation is dealing with some sort of underlying anxiousness

that is not related to sleep hygiene. Right. And because there is so much information out there about sleep, hygiene you need to be doing this and get the red light therapy and the eye masks and the special this and then that it allows all of us to create an amazing amount of theater around a core what i would call biological function and here's where i always want to start with this premise what if your body is right right so what if the his body recognizes if dude if you go to sleep you're not going you're not going to be able to handle the

threats that are coming your way okay and so i mean that was like my my sleep issues if you will um that was the huge alarm system that ultimately i ignored for years that ended me up in my own mental health mess okay i took i took medication for years to not not sleep but to just be unconscious yeah okay um and so ultimately it was dealing with the core anxiety underneath it all so for instance if a great great husband and a great father if his i mean i'm gonna i'm gonna oversimplified okay if his amygdala knows that y'all owe a mortgage and car payments and he's already starting to add up the tuition cost of six kids, his body would be failing him if it let him sleep all night

because that's an existential threat to his responsibility to keep a household afloat. If he has no men in his life that he regularly interacts with, not in a yo bro kind of way, but in a, I'm not doing okay kind of way. Yeah, like a brotherhood. Then his body knows you have no tribe. You have responsibilities in a wife and a bunch of kids.

you have no tribe and his body would be failing him if it let him sleep all night because that's an existential threat right and so i can go on and on and on um i'll send you two copies of building an on anxious life for both of you okay i would love for you guys to distill it down and go through that with as a roadmap and i would be willing to bet um that he would exhale and go oh crap because a lot dude sleep hygiene is for real I have an automatic light in my backyard. I don't know how to turn it off. I've tried.

I don't turn off. It comes on at 10.30 every night. If I go to bed at 9.30, 100% of the time I wake up, because it starts shining through our bedroom. I wake up at sometime mild the night. So like sleep, like darkness and cold temperature, my eight sleep is the greatest invention ever made, right? All those things are awesome.

Yeah. But if I'm anxious, and for me that is if I owe somebody money if I don't if my marriage isn't in lockstep if I don't feel like I'm showing up if my work is is is yeesh right if I'm consuming tons and tons of like news media

that's telling me it's all coming down and then my body would be failing me if it let me sleep okay and so those are where that honestly is where I start and I have now ended up dealing with sleep hygiene stuff later. Okay.

Because I've got friends, this is me being honest. I have friends that have never been to therapy, ever. They're overweight, they're hilarious. And they, like, so sleep hygiene-wise are, they're the worst. But they can fall asleep in the middle of a parking lot. Yes. Because there's that core sense of safety. I've got people in my life.

I don't owe anybody anything. My body is able to exhale. Okay. Do you get what I'm saying? So if I ride off a few of those things to you, how does that register? Yay or nay? Yay. Okay.

Several times over. Tell me about that. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, we've had, I don't know, I think it's just the whole kid thing. Like, he used to have this really core group of guy friends. And then, like, everybody had kids, everyone spread out. They're far apart. like so that he's he's lamented basically about like losing that that connection and then I think

it's hard for men to find friends it's a nightmare a nightmare yes yeah yeah and like for for me I have like I can make like girlfriends like pretty easily but for men yeah it's just it's hard so he's he's talked about that and then like it's just a it's a weird time to be alive you know so like and there's not much you can do about a lot of like the just the political and international like all these crazy things that could potentially affect our lots of children. And so he just, he thinks a lot about that stuff. And then he also, he's just, he's kind of a hard charger, like ex-marine, like really good athlete, like holds himself to this very, very high standard.

And if something that he's doing isn't perfect, he's, that consumes him, basically. So there's that where he just will think about, like, how to break something down, how to do it better. Like, and he's just always, I guess, like, got a mental motor with that kind of thing. Where with me, I'm more like, I just need to make sure I have enough milk for these kids tomorrow and, like, are the groceries good? Is everybody asleep? And then I can fall asleep. Right. So he's cursed part two with not only the basic, what I would call.

And again, I'm saying anxiousness. Anxiousness in this situation is a good thing. It's a friend. Yeah. Right? It's an alarm system saying, hey, you're not okay. Like this, your environment is okay. But on top of that, he's literally trained as a Marine to always be looking over the next hill to see what threat's coming.

Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And that is amazing. And you start to see threats everywhere. Yeah, that's a bit of a problem. So I want to point him to this. I've got a buddy named Luke Lefevre who started a journaling course that he does with you. And when you say the word journaling to a copy.

kid like me or to a marine their eyes are going to roll out the back of their head right but here here's it's called holy work and I've I've sent friends through it who are profound atheist right it's designed for people of faith but it doesn't it works great either way but here's here's what I have found if the only time your brain has the space to process the chaos going inside your heart and your mind is when you put your head on your pillow, it will take that time and it will do it till 1 a.m. Okay, yep. Or if you find, if you have to have the TV on to collapse, essentially what you're doing, you're numbing yourself, you're going unconscious, you're not going to sleep. Okay, that makes a ton of sense. And I heard one person say, like, if you take, you know,

Linesta Ambien, some of these things, it's a pharmaceutical baseball bat to your head. You are unconscious, you're not asleep. If you have to let, if the TV has to fade you out, basically distract you to sleep, you're not asleep in the terms of deep sleep, REM sleep, all that chemical processing. Yeah, they're actually like restorative good sleep. That's exactly right. So you're unconscious, you're out. But it's like, it's like being underwater and taking sips of oxygen through a straw, right? That you're not breathing deeply. Yeah. Having a practice throughout the day. And for me, I'm going to be honest with you. you i've been telling people to journal forever i've got stacks of journals it wasn't until i got

into a guided practice like here's how to do this in the right way that i actually saw restorative change in my life okay and i've got no affiliation to this at all but i'll link to it in the show notes it um it's legit and can i can i tell you a gift you can give him yes and this is going to make i'm going to ask all of the mothers listening the wives listening especially those of young kids who can't breathe, they're so busy. I'm going to ask you all to listen to what I'm about to say with compassion, not with, ugh, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm not saying this to you, I'm saying this to the other listeners.

I can tell you are dialed in and you love this guy, and he's a pretty awesome guy. Yeah, he's... If you could create some sort of calendar space, and that might mean that you're inviting over a couple of other women just to help with the chaos that is six kids under six. Yeah. and say, hey, honey, Wednesday nights, I don't want you in this house.

Oh, he would love that. Thursdays, you are not welcome in my home. I want you to go get some guy friends. I want you to go to the gym. I want you to join a stupid softball league. I want you to go, whatever. But you're not welcome here. And here's the other thing.

If you will create 30 minutes after the last kid is in the shower or in the whatever, tub, whatever's going on. And you will say, hey, I've marked this off our family calendar. I want you out of the main room and I want you to go journal and what you will give him is such a gift that you will ROI back to

his ability to be present with you present with your family and be more plugged in which is I'm going to go it's basically I'm going to go get to fill a car up with gas I'm going to go I'm going to go get the oil change in this car

so that this thing can keep going forever and it gives him some space that you've already built in so that he knows his next task, which Marines love, what's your next task? I have designated you out of here from 8 to 8.30. I want you to go spend 30 minutes intentionally going down Luke's journaling protocol. I want you to go down here and begin to write the stuff out that you're circulating. And then I'll tell your husband, social media news isn't real news.

our bodies are simply not designed to metabolize every crisis imagined not real or real from every corner of planet Earth and i know the pushback is oh what a privilege it's not a privilege it's biology we can't absorb all of the chaos coming at us through all of the news all of the insanity what we can do is the next right thing period and so um hang on the line here I'm going to hook you up with those books. And dude, if your husband ever wants to call in, he sounds like a truly amazing man. And I'd love to talk to him if he'd be willing to call in also.

But give that a shot and begin. Y'all walk through building an unanxious life together, the book, and follow those steps. There's questions at the end of every chapter that y'all can go through together and identify some of these big alarms going off inside of his chest and begin to solve for those. And I tell you what, after years of being unconscious, pharmaceutically, to sleep,

man, I can't, I can barely get my head on my pillow before I'm out now. And sleep is such a gift. But it's just dealing with the core inside out pathway. So thank you so, so much for the call. I'm really grateful as an honor to talk to you. And by the way, thanks for loving your husband and thanks for allowing him to love you all. I mean, it just sounds like you'll have an amazing, chaotic, but a number. amazing home. When we come back, a man asks how to help his wife when she finds that some of

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What up, J.P. Hey, Dr. John. How's it going? Doing great. How about you, man? Well, I've had better days, but I'll just get to the question here. All right, let's do it. So it kind of started out about a year ago or so.

I set an alarm on my phone every single day. I made a commitment to myself and to my wife. I'm going to ask you what you need for me today. every day. So my question is, is there anything I can do for you when this alarm goes off and we're normally together when it goes out? That has worked out pretty well. We were in the habit of this for about a year and then I changed it. I was like, how can I love you today? And she's like, wow, that's a really deep question. I don't know how to answer that. There's a lot of things where like I want to kind of delve real deep into, okay, you know, let's get into this. Let's figure

it out let's come up with action steps and it feels a lot like that's just really overwhelming for her and i'm not sure exactly how to handle that man thanks for loving your wife i wish i had had the same um understanding and the same desire to love my wife and i was three years into my marriage good on you man good on you um my experience has been that for millions of people feeling your feelings came at an extreme cost so possibly growing up feeling scared, feeling frustrated,

feeling angry, were things that got you hit, things that got you in trouble, things that caused raised voices in the house. And so it can feel terrifying when somebody looks at you and says, how can I love you next?

Because a similar interaction in a childhood came at a terrifying cost yeah does that ring a bell or no oh no that totally rings true okay and so it goes back to and again this is a way

gross over generalization of it often men want to know what to do next yeah and women want to certainly the case here women want to feel this situation and they're really intuitive and often brilliant in what to do next but they really want someone to sit with them and if they've been told their whole lives that their feelings don't count they're not real they don't matter your your feelings come second to making sure i'm okay that reversal can feel threatening yeah i hear that and so maybe a different approach to maybe the best way you can love her sometimes is to say, hey, can I sit with you for 20 minutes and you talk with me for five? And we're going to flip it around.

Or to put it this way, one of the most loving things my wife ever said to me was when she popped into the house one night and she said, hey, go turn on the office or Brooklyn Nine, one of those old shows that we just watched the reruns a thousand times. She said, I need to borrow your nervous system. and that was her saying I don't want to talk to you right now I just need to lean up against your presence for a while and you need to know that took us probably 17 or 18 years for her to A, be able to articulate that

and B, for me to have a safe enough healed up nervous system that it was not going to make her more anxious sitting up next to me than before so when you say hey how can I love you today tell me what her response is um well especially because i kind of rolled it into something i was already doing before

uh the responses generally um i i liked your other question come to that one i i don't i don't like this one this one it's too complicated it's too deep i it feels like the subtext almost of it is like i don't have the words to talk about that right now uh okay Hmm And what do you feel like she's missing Or what do you feel like she's holding back? Or let me ask you in a different way Does that make you feel like you don't have a purpose in your house

Or can you see a wife who's struggling And you don't know how to support her? I mean, kind of both of us Yeah, like And I've felt this way a lot You know, just a bit of context here My wife is a survivor of sexual abuse and um she grew up like home to home to home to home like she's had a really really

rough go of things up until now and now has been pretty reasonable and she is in therapy and and stuff to to heal from that um and uh are you all on therapy i i am not it's kind of a money you all together no okay here here's where you guys going together is going together is going to be really important um the thing that was weaponized basically she got poisoned with oxygen growing up or she got poisoned with water growing up right except her poison was connection yeah and so we have to have water and oxygen and connection to live yet that was the thing that took everything from her. Yeah. And so she's going to, A, have to heal from, like, from, like, her body is going to have to learn that she is safe in the present and she wasn't safe back then, which is trauma

healing is really important. But also she's going to have to learn, y'all are going to have to learn that connection is not electric. Connection's not going to get her hurt again. And so that's be a process that you all have to practice together. And if she's a survivor in the way that you demonstrated that, I mean, the way you said that, you all are going to have to get a professional to walk alongside you. Right? Because she might come out and say, okay, I can tell the story of my childhood sexual abuse and my body won't take off on me. It won't try to keep me safe in the present. I might be able to healing, I'll be able to know this is my home and it's not going to get yanked out from under me every 18 months.

But then when you pop in and say, how can I love you today? Boom, all the alarms are back on. Yeah. Because you've added that other person into this equation again. And so her being able to practice safety with you in the presence of somebody who can walk her through that and do the breathing exercises and do the appropriate touch exercise, like those kind of things, that's going to be instrumental to y'all learning to heal together. Yeah. Otherwise, it can, it can, the trauma healing can create a new wall. It's just got, it's just got bigger borders.

Yeah. That makes sense? Yeah, it does. You know, I, I tend toward, you know, when I do ask these questions and get this kind of response, it usually is something like, well, I mean, surely there must be something I can do. Because if I can't do anything for you, then that breaks my heart. Okay, can I challenge you hard on this? Sure.

You have to be careful not to use your wife to make you feel better. Yeah. Okay. So I just launched a marriage app with this very thing in mind, not trauma survivors, but tiny little steps, and I'm going to give it to you and your wife for free. Okay? Thank you. I don't even know how to do that,

but the zeros and ones nerds who made this thing, they're amazing. We'll figure it out. Here's the thing I want y'all to practice, okay? And this is,

you're going to laugh and you're going to roll your eyes. I want y'all to commit, if she's safe with this, okay, if she's okay with this. And you can ask her, not what I can do for you,

but you can ask her, hey, would you be willing to do this for me? Sure. In the morning, a 30 second hug no talking right when you or her get home from work

a 30 second hug no talking right before bed even if you all just had sex even if you all just watch the show right before you go to sleep hold hands or under the covers just touch your feet together and to distill it down

SOS getting on skin contact and here's what we're practicing I don't want anything from you I don't need anything from you you aren't trying to solve something in me and I'm not trying to solve something in you but our bodies are safe together and I'm telling you that sounds so cheesy

and it will transform your marriage or if y'all are just on the couch watching TV for God's sake don't watch a medium-sized screen while also looking at a little screen just ask, will you hold my hand? And for a sexual trauma, a sexual abuse survivor, asking is a way to begin to practice safety. Hey, will you hold my hand?

And she might tell you, stop asking, just grab my hand. Awesome. Now we're at the next level of safety. Yeah. Right? Or can I just rub your feet while we sit here? Mm-hmm. And you're going to want to solve big engine style,

Like, let's fix the pistons in this thing. Yeah, for sure. What she is probably desperately in need of is to make sure the road she's driving on is safe. Yeah. To make sure that the tires have air in them, and that is not sexy, but that is where healing begins.

Yeah. No, absolutely. Got it. And so this app is simply, you get one daily task a day. That's it. And it could be, it could be, we're going to go for a 10-minute walk.

We're going to chit-chat, 30-second hug. And it builds over time. And the more you do things in a row, it unlocks bigger and bigger things as you all walk together. These guys are amazing what they built. But I think what we have across the country is an epidemic of two people who really love each other. And they are flying past each other because one person is trying to solve the other person.

And then you get in this, well, I need to be able to solve something or I don't have any purpose. And then I'm using you. And then I need you to back off. But I need you here. Like it just creates this chaos. 30 second hug before I walk out the door 30 second hug

right when I get home no phones just fall on asleep with our feet touching each other yeah right and it's these teeny tiny little things

because I'm telling you right now this is going to sound awful okay can you just say like hey I know we're on the same team oh yeah all right you promise yeah

absolutely 100% if somebody continually used her growing up her body from a thousand miles away detect somebody who is trying to get something from her yeah and if you are trying to in any way even with the most loving intent use her so that you feel like you have purpose her body would be failing her if it didn't sound every alarm she's got oh for sure absolutely okay and so it's easy when you say what can do for you today because she can hand you a task a chore and sometimes that's i mean in my house dude

that is love language right take care of the dishes or whatever um but when you say how can i love you today whoa and then when she says nothing and then she you start to spin up like well i need to be able to man her body's like run run run run this guy needs something from you and if we're not careful he's going to take it and so um let's start really small let's just do one week and you don't even have to tell her this as a project just say it would mean a lot to me can i get a 30 second hug before we go what i'm too big 30 seconds 15 seconds okay and i want you to consciously drop your shoulders when you hug her consciously be sturdy consciously drop your shoulders when you walk in the door 30 second hug right before you go to bed can i feel your feet next

of mine your feet are too cold all right we hold my hand and then eventually yeah you roll over and go to sleep but we're going to start little by little by little baby baby steps and dude i'm telling you right now the world needs more men like you who don't want to fix their wives but want to love and support and care for them and so dude i applaud you hang on the line

and we're going to get you hooked up with this app i don't know how we're going to figure i don't know how we're if there's codes or anything but we will figure this out. When we come back, a woman wonders if she should push her son to do sports. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Most of us are guilty of oversharing with the wrong person at one time or another, or maybe you're like me and you're just a bit of an overshare all the time. Let's be honest. Our entire culture is based on oversharing and everyone is giving everyone else advice on what they should be eating and what their mental and emotional health should look like.

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Just hit the subscribe button and help change your neighbors and their neighbors and their neighbor's life too. All right, let's go out to San Francisco, California, and talk to Laura. What's up, Laura? Hi, doctor. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm well. Thank you. Excellent.

What's up? Thank you so much for taking my call. My son introduced me to you two years ago, and you're in our house daily. Uh-oh. How old your son? So he's 18 now. Excellent. So you're raising a genius, Laura.

You're raising a genius. I hope so. So what's up? So my question is, I forced my 13-year-old son to play tackle football. Okay. He's been in about three weeks. I know it's what my late husband would have wanted me to do, and his older brother is adamant or was adamant that he play as well.

And I just continue to struggle with being mom and dad and want to help on how to support him and making sure his feelings are acknowledged also. Tell me about dad. What was your husband's name? Oh, God. His name was Mark. Mark.

When did he pass away? September 2021. Pretty amazing guy. Incredible. How many little ones do you have? I guess the ones in your house are huge now. How many huge ones do you have now? Yeah, two.

And you guys all miss me. Mark, huh? Every single day. Yeah. Man. I'm both heartbroken here with you, and I want to tell you, earlier this summer, my wife left me and my daughter alone for nine days, and I didn't end up, no, a day. We ended up eating ice cream on the couch for dinner one night, so I want to tell you,

you are an absolute rock star. you're doing a job that nobody wants and you're doing it admirably and I'm proud of you okay thank you and i don't know mark from the man of the moon but i'm a husband too and if i was to pass away and i knew my wife was reaching out this many years later um asking this same question i want you to know that i would be looking down with deep love and pride okay you're honoring mark Wells. I don't want to tell you. Thank you. Okay.

As for this question, it's near and dear to my heart, okay? So I was a Texas high school football player at a Super 5A high school. That means I went to church on Friday nights and then I went to church again on Sunday mornings. Okay? The church in Texas of Texas high school football and then church of whatever religious. I was a part of right my Christian church and they kind of ran neck and neck

to be honest with you and so I get this question I also have a way more physically talented 15 year old son that is actually bigger than I am now who is a high school kid right now okay

and every single uncle Rico bone in my body wants him to be a football stud right and um he is an immensely talented

cross country runner and so I have had to step back and say what are my principals here? What are my values? And then what part of my high school life am I trying to relive through my 15 year old? Okay.

Okay. And so here is where I've landed. The data on young people participating in some sort of physical activity or sport is overwhelming. That lifetime success, lifetime support, lifetime relationships are better, lifetime health, when they participate in organized sports as kids. And I say kids all the way up to 18-year-olds. I know 18-year-olds are adults, whatever, but they're kids. And so the rule I had in my house with my nine-year-old and with my 15-year-old, and I'm just answering this as I would do in my house, okay, Laura, is I was good at football.

I could have been great, and I wasn't. I didn't work as hard as I could have. I wasn't very tough. I was just super, super fast, okay? And so I always had this thing in my head, like, my boy is just pure Uncle Rico. Like, if I got in a game, I would have won a state meet. Like, I was that guy, okay? What I've had to exhale and learn.

I actually got this from Jocko, by the way, a Navy SEAL guy. Like, my son's not me. Thank God he's not me. And so my values are this. You have to participate in some sort of sport, period. And both of my kids have to participate in some sort of the arts, theater, playing an instrument. some sort of creative act, okay? Because there's data on that too.

And so it's not an option of, can I just do nothing and play video games or I have to play football? It is you get to choose within this boundary. And what I give my kid when I do that is I give them autonomy, I give them choice, which is something they're going to practice. They get to begin to learn their own body. I actually don't like this, but I know I need to do.

I have to do something in this realm, right? And so it's kind of like when they're a little kid. I hear parents say like, where do you want to eat, honey? That's too much pressure for a kid. They can't carry the weight of the house. But when they say, do you want Chick-fil-A or do you want Burger King? Then they feel like there's a choice, but really that choice is made by you. It's bounded up, right?

And so if I had, if I was in your situation, I would want to get to the value underneath what my amazing late husband was getting at. He understands the value of hard work, of being told what to do by other men, right, having coaches, right, that are different than me, the value of teamwork, the value of thinking you've gone as hard as you can go, as far as you can go, and then a well-meaning coach pushes you further than you thought you could have gone and you grow from, right? All those things. Strength, all that.

And so let's get to the value underneath what Mark was getting at. And then we can sit down with your son. And by the way, your other boys do not get a vote, period. Okay. They don't get a vote. They're teenagers. They're not allowed to buy beer yet. Why?

Because we have a society have said, your brains aren't formed. You don't get a vote. Okay? And I want to applaud them for doing the best they could, your other son of puffing his chest out and saying, I'm going to try in my 18-year-old skin to sort of fill the vacuum of this amazing man that passed away. Yeah.

Okay? So he's doing his job. He's doing his 18-year-old job, and I love it, but he also needs to side-eye and make sure the adult in the house is the one running the show. And so you sitting down with your kid,

tell me about your son who's playing right now three weeks in. How old is he? Yes, 13. 13. Okay, so freshman, 8th grade? Eighth grade going into eighth grade Okay going into eighth grade

So he's been doing two a days in the heat Tell me about it Yeah It's in the evenings Okay For a couple hours It's in a Okay you know I definitely

He's not complaining too much about going One day refused to go He's terrified of getting hurt So his body language out there is very uninterested in being there. But he gets through it. Did he volunteer for this

or did you sign him up and say you're doing this? I signed him up and said you're doing it because I did give him the choice. As you mentioned earlier, I sat him down and I said you have to pick something and he wouldn't. Okay. So.

So maybe three weeks in, you and him go to breakfast. And I'm going to script a conversation here that may not be applicable. Take what you want from this script and make the rest of it your own, okay? Okay. Maybe lead in just like I did with you. Hey, young son, I'll call him Tim. Hey, Tim, you're three weeks into football practice. And I just want to say, I'm proud of you for sure.

showing up. I signed you up for this and I could tell you don't want to be out there. I just want to tell you I'm proud of you. And I also want to acknowledge that we both miss dad. And I want to have that exhale with him because he misses his dad like crazy. And if it's still not something that's talked about in your house, if you don't still exhale with your boys one-on-one and say, God, I miss your dad. Then, and you're trying to be tough for them, you're trying to be both parents trying to do the next right thing what will happen is they'll begin to feel crazy like they're the only ones missing and it will come out in anger it will come out in aloofness it will come out in i just want to i'm just going home it will come out in anxieties about getting

hurt or not being enough academically or whatever right and so there's something about exhaling and saying dude i miss your dad when i see you out there i miss him and then now that he's three weeks in being able to tell them, hey, it's not too late for you to choose another sport. In this house, I value you getting out and participating. You've got to do something. It can be jiu-jitsu. It can be karate.

It can be running. It can be soccer. If you hate football three weeks in, I'll tell you I'm proud of you for going out there. But you got to do something. Are you interested in choosing something else? Okay. let him exhale on that and he might say no mom now if my kid and i've um this happened with my daughter she chose soccer and then a couple weeks in she's like dad i don't and i said no no no you chose this

and you committed to your team and so when the season's over we can reevaluate but you asked us you came to us and so we said we're in right so i wanted to learn the value of sticking to it she gave her word to her team she's going to show up right and she was like seven right so it wasn't over dramatic like I'm making it now but it's like no we you send up for this if I had signed her up and said you have to do this which I did with a martial art once I was like you have to do this my kids are going to be ninjas right um I sat down and said hey I forced you into this do you still want to keep doing this right and so um I think this is a great time three weeks in to circle back and say you have to do something but I want to honor the fact I signed you up for this

you wouldn't pick i had to do something um is there another thing you want to do okay and all of this i think i mean you can tell me if i'm crazy all of this is rooted in two things one there is value in kids doing organized sports there is value in especially as they get into middle school and high school there is value in kids being a part of the arts and if you want to know the Lonely House, you got to do one thing in the arts and you got to do one thing, at least one thing physically. And you have also heard me rant about travel sports. This isn't about living vicariously through my kids. It is, I'm way more interested in them being coached by other men and women, by them learning to do hard physical things, learning to be uncomfortable in the heat or in the

cold, being outside, you know, whether it's, you know, getting kicked in a, taekwondo class they've got to learn to do those things and so um they don't have an option whether to not participate in something but they do have autonomy and picking the thing and then i demand like you commit to your team you got to go all in and when the season's over yeah i'm all about re-evaluating but you got to be the team player you told your team you would be um and that's one thing the other thing here is man as your son is 18 and he's He's either about to leave or he is on his way to college this year. Sit down with him and talk about, hey, I want to tell you some things about your dad that you never knew.

What an amazing young man he was in college. Some of the things that he did that were probably not too wise. Have those conversations with your 18-year-old and let them process. Mom's still grieving because mom, they can feel that grief on you. And if your grief turns into hardness and into rigidness and into this is the way it's going to be, They'll react accordingly. But man, letting them know you still miss Mark so much makes them feel less crazy. And then when you're a 13-year-old, same thing.

And if he's scared of getting hurt, I get that. We're going to have to do some things because life's going to hitch you upside the head. I'm not going to hit you, but life's going to hitch upside the head. We've got to do some hard things. Man, I missed dad too. So let's deal with the grief part of this and let's deal with the activity part of it. but I'm not a fan of forcing a kid to do a particular thing. I am a fan of giving bounded choices.

You have to choose something, some sort of activity, some sort of physical activity, and you got to participate. And in this house, we go all in when we say, when we give our word, when we commit. Laura, you are an absolute amazing person. You're a great mom.

You continue to be a great partner to Mark. And these kids are lucky, lucky to have you. It's been an honor talking with you. You call any, anytime. We'll be right back. School is back in action. The summer is long gone. The days are getting shorter.

The Q4 work stresses are hitting hard. And if you're like me, we're finding ourselves wanting to just numb out more and more, especially at nighttime. We have to be intentional about protecting our sleep. because here's the truth. How we sleep is a big part of how well we feel. When our bodies aren't resting, our minds can't reset. One of the most important things we do to stay mentally sharp, emotionally steady,

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It takes like two minutes, and they're going to match you with exactly the right mattress just for you. And right now, my audience can get an exclusive 25% off during their extended Labor Day sale. Go to helix sleep.com slash Deloni for 25% off site wide. that's helixsleep.com slash Deloni and tell them you heard about their great mattresses right here on this show. With Helix Better Sleep starts right now. All right, Kelly, something awesome happened.

All right, so this is from Brian who called in about a year ago with the fact that he was dating his son's best friend's mom and they were younger sons. They were, I think, elementary, middle school age. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they had started dating,

but they hadn't told the boys yet. So, Brian writes. Oh, sweet. Almost a year ago, I called it and had a conversation with you about how I should go about telling my kids that I'm dating their best friend's mom. I am super happy to say that it went amazing and we are all now living together as family.

Gross! The kids could not be happier. During our call, John said it sounded like a high school romance. I'm proud to say that my love for my girlfriend has only gotten stronger and deeper over the past year. Well, there's been some difficult times throughout the last year, we've handled them together as a team, and have come out stronger than before. I believe we are meant for each other, and I will be proposing later this year. Thank you.

Well, congratulations. You'll probably edit this part out. I have no idea what I told that guy. What did I tell him? I believe it was just, like, you know, sitting down with the kids and being honest, but not too honest. Not super honest. But being honest with them about, we're friends, and we're seeing each other and making sure to give each set of kids the place to, you know, to talk about it and things like that. So whatever you said, it worked. Good for you, Brian. And by the way, your son will always have the one up on her son. Because whenever they get into an argument, he can just be like, my dad is making a lot.

with your mom and it will always be a way to win a cut down war which is and it's a cornerstone it's an important part of being a young boy is figuring out how do i win this argument we're having don't you think kelly no never having been a young boy i'm not 100% certain but sure all the guys in the booth are nodding that's an important piece of information so well done yeah you did a good job i'll accept it i accept it brian congratulations dude send us a wedding invitation kelly's probably gonna throw hers away but i will put mine on my mirror i probably won't but dude send it love you guys bye