The Dr. John Delony Show - Talking to Young Kids About Divorce
Episode Date: September 12, 2022Here's what to expect on today's show: A woman is unsure how to tell her 6-year-old she and her husband are divorcing. (1:15) A young man's soon-to-be wife has custody of her teen sister. (22:17) ...A husband is wondering how to best support his struggling wife. (33:35) "My Two Homes" by Alejandra Pozzo Stevenson "Two Homes Filled With Love" by Steve Herman Lyrics of the Day: "Divorce Separation Blues" - The Avett Brothers Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.
Transcript
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show.
A few weeks ago, my husband came to me and said that he wants a divorce,
and I'm really struggling with how do I tell our six-year-old.
I want you to keep this equation in your mind.
A plus B equals me.
It's a bomb going off inside of her, right?
Because everything she knows is going to be different.
What up?
This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.
I hope you're doing super good.
Super good.
That sounded dumb.
I'm going to start over.
What up?
I hope you're doing great.
I hope your life is good.
I hope you are navigating the wild economic times and your family's good and if it's not that's what we're here for to walk alongside you and if you want to be on this show
give me a buzz 1-844-693-3291 the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast in the
history of again probably not true 1-844-693-3291
or go to johndeloney.com
slash ask.
Let's get right to it
because I may have gotten some feedback
that I talked too much.
Let's go to Kristen in San Diego.
What's up, Kristen?
Good morning.
Good morning.
Oh, it is before time began
out in California.
Thanks for getting up so early with me.
Absolutely. I'm really excited to talk to you. I have been a fan since day one, and I have listened to every podcast.
So I make it a priority in life to listen to you.
You are so awesome.
Thank you for choosing us.
Well, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. So what's up?
Well, just to jump right in and try to stay level and not get too emotional, but it's your child, so how do you not?
A few weeks ago, my husband came to me and said that he wants a divorce, and I'm really struggling.
I'm like, how do I tell our six-year-old?
Oh, six-year-old. Yikes. All across the board. Oh, man.
What happened? some real core values when I picked a spouse with a young and looking for the fun and he was fun and he gave me attention
and, you know,
you overlook some really,
like I said,
like the core values
because, hey,
he makes me feel good.
Maybe he's not being as
nice to others
as he should,
but he treats me good
or maybe I don't like
the choices that he made
with that.
I wouldn't do that,
but, you know,
you make excuses
and,
but recently, Hey, Kristen, talk directly into your phone for me. that he made with that. I wouldn't do that. But, you know, you make excuses. But recently...
Hey, Kristen, talk directly into your phone for me.
Okay, can you hear me?
Much better, much better.
Okay.
Recently, he's became real disconnected.
He would lay on the couch all day,
watch TV, not interact with us.
And we've never had the relationship
where we can effectively discuss problems.
It's always like a shutdown.
It's kind of, she doesn't want to talk about it.
And I kind of have to work on eggshells
and conform to his values and his wants.
And, you know, I can go back and I think it's so new
that I'm still really evaluating the relationship and all the things that went wrong.
And I think overall, I think I did choose a poor spouse.
And he loves her.
Hold on, hold on.
Kristen, we can choose.
I mean, I don't think the emphasis is so much on choice as much as two adults acting like adults and choosing as we go to be in good relationship with one another.
And it sounds like choice or not, you made the choice and he has chosen over time.
And you may or may not have participated in it, but have chosen to not invest in this relationship.
Is that fair? Very fair. Okay. not have participated in it, but have chosen to not invest in this relationship.
Is that fair?
Very fair.
Okay.
And so is he seeing somebody else?
Is he cheating on you?
Is he saying, I mean, I guess he's saying, I'm not going to cheat on you anymore because I don't want to be married to you anymore.
Why is he deciding now to leave?
I think he's a very negative person.
I think he makes rash decisions.
I think he has like grandiose I think he has grandiose ideas.
He may have some depression.
I don't fully know.
He's always made me feel
kind of disposable.
Okay.
And I'm not extremely shocked.
Okay.
Is there a tiny part of you that is kind of like, yes, or is it peace?
A big part of me, John. A big part. Okay. All right. Good.
It's kind of like someone opened up the shades and I'm just like,
Kristen, what have you been doing all these years? And I'm just like feeling some freedom and like, okay, I need help with myself.
Why I let the relationship navigate the way it did.
And that's, you know, things that I'll need to work on.
And I just, my whole concern is for my daughter,
but for myself, selfishly, like I'm excited.
Okay.
I mean, that's good to know
because that directs how we're going to talk to her.
So you have one six-year-old.
Is he the father of her?
We actually adopted her from birth.
We were in the delivery room.
So yes, we are all she knows.
Okay.
And you only have one
yes
okay
so when you're talking about a six-year-old
I want you to keep this equation in your mind
A plus B equals me
okay
and I got that from
an extraordinary child psychologist
and it stuck with me
it's just an important reminder
here's what that means
how mom feels and how dad feels doesn't really matter and it stuck with me. It's just an important reminder. Here's what that means.
How mom feels and how dad feels doesn't really matter.
All the reasons why are not gonna compute with a six-year-old.
I had one friend who's a child psychologist
who said she remembers very clearly when she was 10
and her parents told her we were getting divorced.
And her first question was, can we still go to Arby's?
Okay.
And so it's going to be very concrete at the same time her body's, it's a bomb going off inside of her, right?
Because everything she knows is going to be different.
Even though we sometimes use bombs to get rid of old buildings, right?
And to excavate sites.
Doesn't mean that over time this isn't going to be the best thing and the right thing. Your response saying, I'm married to someone who
treats me less than, who has stepped out of this marriage a long time ago, who makes us all fit,
right? So it's going to be a good thing over time, but it's going to be an explosive moment, okay?
So don't be surprised if everything is the questions that come are about her.
That's developmentally appropriate.
It should be.
If you were having this conversation with a 17 year old,
it's a totally different track.
Okay.
Here's the two things she's going to want to know.
What did she do to make this happen?
And is she going to be safe?
Meaning what happens next?
Okay. Okay. So here's a couple of rules of thumb, one to two minutes per year. So this conversation, this first one will be 10 to 12
minutes and that's about it. Okay. Okay. Not a lot of explanations, not a lot of, oh, this is and that's, and then mommy, none of that.
It will be quick. And if you can, you've heard me say this a lot, kids, we all do,
but kids especially absorb power differentials. So if you can get down on her level, look her in
the eyes, okay? This works way, way, way better if your husband acts like a mature adult and will be in there with you. Is that possible?
Yes, he will.
He will? Really?
Yeah.
Yeah, he is with her.
He really expresses his love, and he does for her.
So I know that we'll do it together.
The conversations we've had is he's been involved.
He's having ideas how to tell her.
Okay.
So we're going to sit down together on the floor with her. Okay. And we're going to let her
know this is a very serious mom and dad conversation. And the conversation will start with
mom and daddy love you. We will always love you. And mom and daddy will never leave you.
And mommy and daddy have made a grown-up decision
that we are going to get divorced.
So we are taking full,
even if you're thinking inside,
actually, I don't want to be getting divorced now.
We are going to take full ownership of this thing
and begin planting seeds now.
They're going to bloom 10 years from now,
15 years from now,
20 years from now.
This is not her fault.
Okay. So we're going to plant those seeds now. Mommy and daddy made a grownup decision
and we are going to get divorced. So that means you're going to spend one week at mommy's house
and you're going to spend one week at daddy's house. And then here's what I'm talking about,
the concrete. You're going to have a toothbrush at mommy's house and you're going to have a
toothbrush at daddy's house. And you're going to have friends at mommy's house and you're gonna have a toothbrush at daddy's house and you're gonna have friends at mom's house and friends at daddy's house and if you know the
information like you're gonna stay in this school and you're going to we're still gonna have morning
breakfast on thursdays or whatever the thing is some really concrete really quick things okay
and then check in with her how does this feel in your body? How does this
feel? Tell me the words that are coming to your heart. She may talk a lot. Well, are we still
going to have Christmas? She may ask something like that. She will probably ask why. Why? Because
it doesn't make any sense to a kid that why would adults voluntarily choose misery, right? Why would
you voluntarily choose to have to split up everything and move all that, right? So it
doesn't make sense. And that's okay. The answer is to why is this is not your fault and we both
really love you and we will never leave you. Okay. We're not going to get into with a six-year-old.
We're not going to get into, well, daddy has been this and mom, we made a grown-up
decision that this is best for us. Okay. And just know that any of your explanations are not going
to register with a six-year-old outside of we're making adult decisions. Okay. Okay.
Here's another hard one. And this is a conversation you can have with him and you can tell him, I said this directly to your husband.
My friend, Dr. Steve Jennings,
he's an expert working with men,
but he's worked with families for years.
Here's what he tells his clients and I love it.
He says, I tell a client
that right before you're about to say something negative
about your spouse who you just got divorced with, I want you to find your kid and I want you to punch him in the stomach as hard as you can.
Oh my gosh.
Okay?
And then go ahead and tell them what you're going to tell them about their dad or about their mom.
That's the level of violence, both physiologically and cognitive, a kid absorbs when they hear that
dad is the worst, or your dad's doing this, or mom just kicked me out, right? Here's why. And
you've heard me say this before on the show, and I'll say it again. Kids know that half of me is
him and half of me is her. And when we tell them, and especially in an adoptive situation,
we opted into this, right?
And so this kid's going to have even more, wait, right?
So this is going to be a dicey situation for a while with this youngster.
They need to know, I'm not talking bad about dad,
even though you might think he is the biggest scumbag ever,
or he's going to pop up in two weeks with some new girlfriend or whatever,
and you're going to think, I knew it.
That can't filter to her. That's got to be you with your adult friends, your adult counselors,
your adult grownups in your life who are walking light, doing life with you. Is that,
you see what I'm saying? Yes. And he, your husband can not, cannot avoid a hard conversation with her at the expense of you.
And what I mean by that is he cannot say, well, your mom just, man, she was tough to be married to, so I had to go.
No, he has to take ownership of his actions.
I told your mother that I no longer want to be married to her.
But even though I'm not your mom's husband, I will always be your daddy.
Okay. And we're going to always loop back after that 10 or 10 or 12, 15 minute talk.
We're going to one or two of y'all are going to take her somewhere because now she's going to
want to test it because y'all said y'all were going to stay together forever and y'all are
breaking up, but you're telling me you're going to love me forever.
Maybe.
Right.
And now the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years of testing begins.
Can I push you far enough that you're going to actually walk away from me too?
And the answer to that has to be no.
Both of you.
Right.
Okay.
So that means after that, we're going to go to ice cream.
We're going to go to the park
Um daddy's gonna take you to go get a hamburger
And we're gonna go do something
We're not just gonna drop that bomb in 12 minutes and then walk out and leave the six-year-old in her room by herself
All right, she's gonna and we're not gonna talk a lot about it in the car either
We'll answer all of her questions age appropriately, but we're not gonna bring it a lot about it in the car either. We'll answer all of her questions, age appropriately,
but we're not going to bring it up.
We're not going to go over.
We're not going to go over.
We're going to show her love by connection and attention.
We're going to put our phones away
and we are just going to go sit at a table.
And in fact, hang on the line.
I'm going to send you all of the questions for humans cards
I have for kids and parents and teens and all of those.
And that'll give you something you
can do while you're out getting ice cream together or something. Okay. That was going to be my next
question is if you had any resources or advice on something to read. So I just thank you so much for
that. Actually, I'm going to do this. This is a strange thing. Hold on. I'm pulling up something
I never do, but I'm pulling my phone out here. My friend, Dr. Jennings sent me these two
books. One is called My Two Homes by Alejandro Pozo Stevenson. It's called My Two Homes. And
there's another book called Two Homes Filled with Love by Steve Herman. And she recommended this,
those two books as great resources.
I'll link to them in the show notes.
I've never read them.
I've never opened them,
but she has this conversation all the time.
And she says they are excellent books
just to read to,
especially to a six-year-old, right?
Oh, okay.
And we'll link to them in the show notes
and you can just pick them up on Amazon.
Great.
But I think having some direct connection time. And here's one last
final thing. It is okay to tell her that I'm very, very sad. And daddy's very, very sad.
It's okay to say we had expected to be married forever and we've made grown-up decisions to not be married anymore.
But your daughter's gonna feel very, very sad,
mainly because she doesn't understand,
mainly because she's all the abandonment,
all this stuff, right?
And if she knows mom feels sad and dad feels sad,
then she's gonna feel not crazy.
And so you being honest about how
you feel when it comes to grief is going to be important. And by the way, my guess is y'all's
marriage has been a mess for a while. Is that fair? Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I just kind of hit
a lot of it and made the best of it. And I think I was honest with myself about a year ago when I
said, this is not who I would choose. This isn't the relationship I would choose. And I think I was honest with myself about a year ago when I said, this is not who I
would choose. This isn't the relationship I would choose. And knowing his inability to even have
productive conversations, he would never work on it. So I kind of knew, you know, this is
the situation I'm in and I'm going to write it out for my daughter. I'm almost thankful that he
did the hard thing and and decided you know came to
me and said no like this is over let's rip the band off now now make no mistake i i have yet to
see any sort of data or research that would suggest that had you sat with him and said hey
we are intentionally choosing a life of misery together. Let's intentionally choose something else. And that means we're gonna have to learn new skills, right? And he said, you're right.
I'm done choosing misery, choosing immaturity. So I'm going to choose maturity, which doesn't
mean I'm going to suddenly become a great communicator overnight, but that means I'm
going to commit to learning. That arc would have been much better for everybody, but it didn't
happen, right? It didn't happen. So now we're dealing with reality and your husband
says he's walking out on y'all. And so you can breathe for the first time in a long time.
There will be healing in the house, in the home. There'll be healing in your daughter's heart. No
question about it. Um, you and your husband are going to have to choose. And maybe this is the
conversation you have with him. You and I have both chosen over the last six, seven,
eight, nine years, however long we've been married,
to not communicate well.
We have chosen to be distant from one another.
We cannot do that moving forward with our child.
We're gonna have to choose to talk.
We're gonna have to choose to be open with one another.
When I say I don't want her dating and you say I do want her dating, we're gonna have have to choose to talk. We're going to have to choose to be open with one another. When I say I don't want her dating
and you say I do want her dating,
we're going to have to sit down like adults
and have that conversation
and not just fire texts off back at each other.
Right?
You see what I'm saying?
You're going to have to have a level of intentionality
with your divorced relationship
than you did with your married relationship, right?
Which sounds crazy
because we could have just done this five years ago.
We didn't.
So here we are.
Okay? To all you listening to this, Which sounds crazy because we could have just done this five years ago. We didn't. So here we are.
To all you listening to this, hear where this goes.
Hear where this goes.
To the men listening to this or watching this, don't choose misery.
And that doesn't mean leave.
That means sit down across the table or sit down on a couch next to the person you said you love,
that you said you're gonna live forever,
that you either made kids with, made humans with,
or you adopted, you created a family unit.
Say, I'm done choosing misery.
Will you be done choosing misery too?
Can we choose something way better than this?
And I'm gonna have to learn some new skills.
You're gonna have to learn some new skills.
Would you learn those with me?
I promise I'll go first.
And wives, you hear the end here.
A woman who said, I wouldn't have picked him.
And now I'm just gonna cash out the rest of my life I'm just gonna crawl under this blanket and just stay here until this thing's over
you get one shot you get one tiny little life don't live like that
the institution of marriage just gets a bad rap.
If you will put the work in and the work is hard,
it is hard, it is hard.
And it's new and it's shameful and it's embarrassing.
And it's all, it's frustrating.
It's all those things.
But I promise you compulsive spenders and you're married to somebody who's like,
why do you keep running us into the ground financially? Compulsive cheaters, what is it about you that you think you're going
to find out there? Compulsive, just sitting on the couch, grabbing five beers after work and
saying, I'm out. I'm out. Why? Why choose that life? Choose something different. and if you're married choose to do it together
choose to do it together these kids they need us we'll be right back
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All right, hey, we are back.
Just a minute ago, somebody reached out to me
on the internets, on Instagram,
and asked if I would send,
she asked me if I would send her husband
to slide into his DMs
and wish him a happy 30th birthday.
And I was like, nah,
that's how the kids do it these days.
I'll just call him like an old man.
And so she said, no way.
So she gave me a cell number.
Let's call him.
Hello?
Hey, Josh.
Hey.
This is John Deloney from The John Deloney Show.
What are you doing?
Dude, is this for real?
No, man, you're having a really weird dream right now. What are you doing? Where are you?
We are at Opry Meals right now.
Right down the street from us.
Exactly.
Are you just hanging out in Nashville?
Yeah, we were up here for the day Just to hang out
My wife's throwing a party for us
Tonight, or for me
And it's, man
Yeah, she's going all out for me today
Hey, she's went all out
She paid me $10,000 to call you just now
Just kidding
She didn't at all
She didn't at all
Hey man, happy 30th birthday, brother
Hey, thank you so much man
And thanks for being
In our weird little gang
Here
Oh man
On our show man
I love it
Oh yeah man
I appreciate all you've done
Hey well
I'll be here all day
And I've got another radio show
After this
If you want to come down
To the studios
And see us
That'd be great man
Oh dude
I might take you up on that
What else are you doing today?
I'm not doing anything.
Just kidding.
Your wife's playing this cool birthday.
Hey, man, happy birthday.
Stay in school.
Don't do drugs, all that stuff.
Is that cool?
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
All right, brother.
Hey, take care.
Make good choices today.
All right, there we go.
Way to go, Josh.
Happy birthday.
All right, let's go to, well, let's just stay here.
Let's go to AJ in Nashville.
What's up, AJ?
Hey, thanks for taking my call.
You got it, brother.
What's up?
I wrote my question down, so I didn't, you know,
blabber on too much.
I should do that.
I should do that.
I should start writing my, yes.
Okay, good job.
Yes.
All right, what's up I should do. I should start writing my. Yes. Okay. Good job. Yes. All right. What's up?
All right. Um, so I have a question about getting married and before I get married, how, uh, I can
best prepare myself for the relationship with my girlfriend's younger sister. So it's a really long
story. I was going to say this, this sounds Jerry Springer-y. No? No, not quite that bad.
Okay, good.
Good, good, good.
All right, so take me to it.
So long story short, she has custody of her teenage sister.
Okay.
And I'm 25, and her younger sister is about to turn 16, So there's not a huge gap between us.
Okay.
So I'm just kind of...
How old is your fiance?
She's about to turn 30.
Okay.
And so are her parents just out of the picture?
Yeah, pretty much.
Her dad's around, but he is not eligible for custody. Are her parents just out of the picture? Yeah, pretty much.
Her dad's around, but he is not eligible for custody, I guess is the way to put that.
Wow.
He's a mess, huh?
Yeah, it's a whole mess.
Okay.
So tell me what your concerns are. are? Um, I guess just, uh, setting proper boundaries between like friendship and also being able to support my girlfriend and like decision-making with, uh, how to help in her
sister's life. Sure. If that makes sense. Yeah, absolutely. When are you actually getting married?
So that's a thing.
I actually haven't proposed to her yet.
So I got myself on a little timer here
before this episode comes out.
That's coming up.
That's next.
Listen, here's what would be great.
The moment this episode drops,
have her be here at the studio
and you can propose here
and then we'll just do the wedding here too.
Okay, all in one day.
And then you can be like,
by the way,
on the way home,
we need to listen to this episode
that just dropped today.
That'd be fantastic.
I'll have to look into my plans
and see if that's better
than what I already have going on.
Will she?
That might be better.
Dang, this, man.
This.
I don't know.
That's like my prom date.
When I asked her to prom, she's like, I don't know.
Let me see if there's some other people that might be better than you.
I don't know if you can tell from how early I'm asking this question.
I'm a little bit of a planner in that way.
Yeah, you're a little bit overdramatic.
So here's what I would tell you.
Don't overthink this and don't underthink this.
No, let me say it this way. Don't overthink this and don't underplan this. Okay? Here's what I mean by that. And I hopefully I just made your little planner heart so happy. He's so happy. So happy. You and your new, when you get engaged,
y'all sit down and establish the boundaries
of your new home together, okay?
Here's who we are gonna be as a couple.
Sister goes to the side for just a moment.
Here's who we are going to be.
We're gonna be people of hospitality.
We're gonna be people of character.
We're gonna borrow money.
We're not gonna borrow money. We are going to both people of hospitality. We're going to be people of character. We're going to borrow money. We're not going to borrow money. We are going to both work. All those
questions, right? Set up your home. In fact, I recommend premarital counseling. I think it's wise,
wise, wise just to get with somebody who's going to help you answer questions that you don't even
know to be asking yet. Okay? So we're going to set up the boundaries of our home, and then we're going to look at the inhabitants of our home.
And this is a common mistake parents with just biological kids make.
They factor who we're going to be based on the kids, and then the kids end up being the center of the home.
Okay?
So, the second one is, you are not this young woman's dad.
Right? Right. one is you are not this young woman's dad, right? And you can never become a pseudo dad.
And you might be the first stable, mature male adult this young woman has ever, ever met.
And so you'll have a modeling responsibility. You'll have accountability responsibility. Right? But you're not dad.
See the difference there?
Right, yes. And I think with a
16-year-old, I would put that out right in
the open. I will not your dad.
I will never be your dad.
But
I'm 10 years ahead of you in this crazy
life adventure, and I got some wisdom,
and I will take care of you.
And I will honor you.
And I will be there whenever you need, however you need.
And here's the rules of this home.
Here's who we are.
Okay.
And it's much easier to have a conversation beginning with,
here's who we are, not here's what we're not going to do.
Okay. So here's a good example of that with a 16 year old. You can sit down and say, hey, we're getting married. You haven't before, but you got a midnight curfew now.
You can start there and you might as well just declare war. All right. Or you can say, hey,
in this home,
a cornerstone of this new family is
we're gonna honor our bodies.
We're gonna be good stewards of our bodies.
And that means we're gonna eat at home
more than we eat out.
We are going to go for walks as a gang.
We'd love to invite you.
And we get sleep.
We value sleep here.
That's just who we are.
And you got two years before you can leave if you want to.
But while you're here, this is how we do this.
And we're going to model this.
Okay.
You see the difference there?
One is an invitation and one is a demand.
And ultimately, as a parent, you always will get to demands at some point.
But it's so much better to start with an invitation.
Okay.
And then I think you set up relationship way upstream.
What I mean by that is to talk to your wife,
your soon to be new wife or your fiance
when she becomes your fiance
and have things like,
I challenge you to a video game once a week
or we have breakfast out on the front porch, just you
and her once a week, or I'm going to develop relationship way upstream so that when I do
have to have accountability conversations in our home, um, there's a context to them.
We actually do that now.
I, once a month we have like a, me and her hang out.
Like I take her to wherever I'm like, hey, do you want to do something fun?
Or, you know, if my girlfriend's off that weekend, she does it with us.
But if not, we keep our plans going and we'll go to a waterfall or, you know, we go to a library or have plans together.
And I like just kind of model.
I mean, model sounds weird, but I just want to be around her in like a positive influence way.
I love that.
She hasn't had that really.
You are modeling stability, okay?
But I also know how deep this modeling goes.
It's you picking up a piece of trash as you walk across a parking lot.
It's you tipping really, really well, even when the service wasn't great.
And you tell this young woman, I'm going to honor this woman with a great tip.
And you show up when you say you're going to show up, right? You see what I'm saying? Like she's absorbing everything because she's got a part of her brain that is searching for when you're
going to leave too. Because that's all she knows is at some point the men in her life pack up and
leave or they go bananas. And the court says, we're stepping in because you're not safe together.
And so you're modeling all the time, which I think is beautiful and great.
Once y'all become a family,
once y'all move in together
and this becomes a family unit here,
make that once a week.
And it can be as simple as,
this is how lame I am.
I take my own questions for humans cards.
I did it this morning.
Once a week, my son and I go to a Waffle House
and we have breakfast together and we ask questions.
This morning, we had a long discussion
about what do we want etched on our tombstone?
That's one of the questions.
In a million years, I would not have gotten there
with my 12-year-old son, okay?
But it's once a week, it's a context.
We talk about our gratitudes. We have little journals that I take with us.? But it's once a week. It's a context. We talk about our
gratitudes. We have little journals that I take with us. And so it's become more of a formal thing.
And it is a little eye-rolly. It's so early. I know. And then when we get there, it's incredible.
And I learn more about him doing those things. So hang on the line. I'm going to send you
all the questions for humans I got, okay? The whole gamut. And you can pick and choose which
ones of those you think would be great. There's parents and, the whole gamut. And you can pick and choose which ones of those
you think would be great. There's parents and teens. There are friends. There's any number of
them would work for this context. Okay. Um, but I think having some sort of tool, this is just a
thing we do together. We have breakfast once a week and I think that would be really great.
Yeah, that would be awesome because as much as I try to like connect and be around her,
she's into much different things than I am. Of course. Well, and that's a good thing, right?
And you're not coming in to shapeshift any of that stuff, but you are coming in to say,
here's what stability looks like. And there's not a thing you can do that's going to push
me and or your sister away, right?
And it may be a conversation, not maybe,
it needs to be a conversation that you have with your soon to be fiance about college planning,
about job training, about grades,
all those expectations as a 25 year old,
you're getting launched into it,
not in a parent role, but in a supportive adult role. And it's just going to be awkward and
weird and challenging for the next few years. I do think any sort of discipline is best done
in partnership, but with your going to be wife taking the lead on that because she's got the
long-term relationship. She's got custody, all that kind of stuff. Maybe down the road, you and your wife
have a conversation about you adopting this young woman. All those things are possible,
but I think heading into it is I'm not your dad and I'm not going anywhere, right? And I applaud
you, brother. I applaud you for already inviting this young woman into your life in an organic way,
in a compassionate way, in a,
I'm going to be stable. And I'm going to show you what that looks like. That's awesome, AJ.
Thank you for loving her. And dude, come down here, do your proposal. Just be fun.
It'll be awesome. Hey, we'll be right back. All right, let's take in the mosque. Let's go
out to Columbus, Ohio and talk to Arlington. What's up, Arlington?
Hey, how much, dude?
How are you?
Good.
Hey, what's your nickname?
What do people call you?
I call me Arlie.
Arlie.
Dude, I like that.
Very cool.
Okay.
My parents nailed it.
Yeah.
All right.
So what's up, man?
Hey, yeah.
So I'm kind of looking for some advice.
My wife does a very good job of beating herself up. And I sometimes don't
know what to do in the realm of maybe helping her get out of her head. And I don't know if I'm doing
something wrong. Um, I think part of it comes down to, I've always been pretty good at being
like, uh, someone that people can come to when life's getting rough. I just, for some reason, I can't get through.
That's the wrong way to word it, but I can't get to my wife.
The question I wrote down is how can I help my wife
when she gets stuck in her own head?
Does she have mental health diagnostics?
So this past year, so she is a previously has been hospitalized back when probably 20 years ago, um, for anorexia. Um, and a lot of this stems from body image issues. And more recently we've been in the trying to get, um, hormones balance came off of hormonal birth control, trying to get hormones balanced,
and that has just kind of thrown a world of unknown at her
that she maybe just doesn't have the tools to kind of handle on her own.
Say more about that.
Are you saying that as you're rebalancing hormones,
like going through hormonal rebalance is madness right the way i've
heard it described is you feel insane because your head doesn't your body's feelings don't
match what's going on in your head and it's just it's it's out of it's it's madness right and
you're trying to then just show up at work and be you know kind and approachable and it's just
insane right it feels insane. Absolutely.
Are y'all trying to get pregnant?
In the near future. It's nothing that like we're stressing out about right now,
but it's definitely something down the road where we want some kids.
What made you want to, what made her want to go get her hormones checked and rebalanced?
Honestly, I think it was just, she was kind of done with being on birth control.
Um, and kind of wanted to have the feeling of being a, a woman who has sustainable hormones that are produced by her own body and things like that.
Okay.
Yeah.
And it's, um, I mean, her and I are very, very different.
Um, but I'm, I'm always quite optimistic about things,
and a lot of hers is a negative self-talk and things like that.
I almost, after I made this call, last week was pretty tough.
This week seems to be a lot better, and it kind of just yo-yos like that.
What does pretty tough mean? Is she suicidal?
No, so I took a little leaf out of your own book and just asked her straight up because I was to the point where I didn't know. I was like,
hey man, like, are you going to kill yourself? And she's like, no, I just don't know what's going on.
And so not that far, but just kind of grasping at straws and not really holding on to anything is where we're at.
Okay.
This situation is more concerning than a traditional someone's just talking to themselves badly.
Okay.
Okay. So the way I look at these generally is I'm looking at a trend line.
Yep. And this, there's a person here with a history of disordered eating, which tells me there's a history of some sort of anxiety, OCD, some sort of control, which may mean there's a history of some sort of abuse or neglect.
Am I onto something there?
Yeah.
I don't know if I've dug far enough into the abuse or neglect, but everything else is spot on for sure.
Okay.
So, it sounds like somebody who has really been working on the symptoms, but has a body that is trying to keep her alive.
Yeah.
A body that thinks that it's at war with its environment, which ultimately becomes a war with itself. And whenever I've got a person who I care about and I love and their bodies at war with themselves,
eventually the fighting gets so exhausting.
And I don't want to die.
I don't want to do drugs, but I need this to stop.
Yes.
You see what I'm saying?
And when I, it's like someone on a skateboard or on a sidewalk,
I'm looking at a trend and just the few things you've mentioned to me,
Tom, I don't like the direction of this trend.
Okay.
Tell me I'm wrong.
No, I mean, I'd say pretty nail on the head.
So her and I met at work.
She, it was a pretty bad work environment for her.
So she stepped away and now does baking out of her house.
And it's kind of become a little bit of isolation to where—
It's a ton of isolation.
Super lonely, right?
Yes.
And so she has done some stuff recently, and she is foot on the gas going, working for it,
because she also realizes that she doesn't love the trajectory that she's going.
Okay.
I'd say it's more of like the rolling the ball uphill yep and it kind of coming back on top of her time after time that's exactly right situation that's exactly right um
so i want you to keep this in mind and then i'll give you a strategy that I would use if I was in your exact seat.
Okay.
Okay.
I want you to, from this point forward, I want you to think of being with, not fixing.
Okay.
That's been a shift that I've really tried to do.
Yes.
You can't fix her.
Yes.
What you can do is help create an environment to where she can heal with the work that she's going to do.
The creation of that environment for most of us is a set of skills we don't have.
Occasionally people have that and it's amazing.
I didn't have it.
I had to go learn it.
Okay.
Okay.
And so a great gift would be I want to be the greatest husband to you
and I want to love and support you.
Would you be willing to go to marriage counseling with me
so that I can learn some new tools to love and support you?
Okay.
And this is you not trying to fix her.
This is you inviting her into your skill development. Okay. Okay. This is about you.
Yes. And it's not that you're so crazy. I don't even know what to do anymore. It's not that at
all. It's how long have y'all been married? Uh, just over two years. Okay. So we're two years in
as we think about having a family, as we think about all, it's going to be a
broad, this knucklehead on this podcast is always telling us, hey, we get to paint a picture of
where we want to go. And then we get to live into this picture. Would you be willing to go? I'm just
a terrible painter. Would you be willing to go with me and learn how to paint? See what I'm saying?
Yeah. Yeah.
And she is going to take this, my guess is,
as an anxious person, as a person who's scanning her environment 24-7 for threats,
she's going to take this as, my husband's going to leave me. Or she's going to take this as,
I'm causing my husband to go crazy. And you're going to have to speak to her in the way that
you know her, she's your wife, in ways that she can hear you that, no, no,
this is about me. I want to go learn some new stuff. Okay. When it comes, you can draw boundaries
in a home. And my wife did this for me. So I don't, this isn't for everybody. And I can see a
way where this might be shameful. So you're going gonna have to know your wife and it may be something you talk over with your counselor.
But my wife said,
I will no longer tolerate anybody talking to my husband
in negative, ugly ways.
And that starts with you.
And that's how she couched it.
It wasn't, hey, you need to fix your negative self-talk.
It is, I'm not gonna allow somebody
to talk to my husband like this.
Okay.
Right?
And so you can set up boundaries and say,
I love you too much to let anybody talk negatively about you.
Call you unattractive, call you overweight, call you crazy, call you whatever.
I'm asking you to not talk to my wife that way.
Okay.
Okay?
And it might be one of those things that you call it out.
My wife can,
she's got a look very,
very,
very similar to Kelly,
except way less mean.
And she'll,
she can look at me and I'll know like,
Oh yeah,
I just did that thing.
Right.
Um,
and so that can be a way to lean into that,
but it's a,
again,
it's a,
it's you owning the boundary.
It's not her fixing a problem.
Yes. Yeah. See what I'm saying? Yep. Um, are her, it's you owning the boundary it's not her fixing a problem yes
see what I'm saying
is her family involved
or are they part of the problem
I'm going to say a little bit of both
it usually is man
they are the most loving
loving parents
they are awesome
but I think a lot of times
her mom has a lot of anxieties as well.
And I can see that
kind of, not stirring the pot, but
not always being the most helpful.
But I would also say that her mom
a lot of times is the most helpful
because she knows how to talk to her
sometimes a lot better than I do.
Well, or she knows
how to push her buttons a lot better than you do.
In some ways, yes, we will.
Yes.
She needs,
there's going to come a moment
when that relationship
is going to have to be minimized
in a dramatic fashion.
Okay.
That's probably best done
by a counselor
unless you find yourself
between your wife
and her mother
who's both the curse
and has made herself the
blessing too. Yeah. And that's a hard place to find yourself. You may have to get there at some
point. My hope would be that a counselor could point out some of those behaviors and which
relationships are feeding and nourishing her. I'd also recommend y'all start inviting people
over to your house. Just go first and be weird about it and be vulnerable about it and just say, hey, we're going to
have three people over. Let's just make a commitment to
twice a month, let's have people over.
Even though we can't afford it, they can all bring
cereal night, whatever. Who cares?
We'll do whatever. We'll
have game night. We'll do something, but we need to
inject people back into our lives
because this working from home thing,
I get it.
I can imagine it being wonderful.
And I can also, it's destroying people when it comes to loneliness.
For sure, 100%.
Absolutely destroying people.
So, or if she wants to, y'all want to look at her going back to an office somewhere else. healed trauma that's going to allow her body to stop just raining those alarms down on her 24-7
so that she can sleep and finally be at peace. So that her hormone regulation and all these other
things that we're trying to fix on the periphery here, and hormone regulation is actually not the
periphery. I mean, you get some hormones lined up and you're talking about life change, right?
But sometimes getting there is whoo.
And that's both for men and women.
It's just tough. But
we need to get that body,
her body, to
have peace, right?
And that's going to start with relationships and sit down and talk
to somebody. Is she seeing a counselor right now?
She is, yeah.
How's that going?
We bounce around to a couple
I don't know how much of it is
It's her
It's her
Yeah
And my guess is
Every work environment's always toxic
And you may be the one guy who's gotten through
Is that fair?
Yeah
My guess is
every relationship
at some point turns
to come after her
is the way she feels.
Am I right?
Yeah.
At some point,
she's going to have to look in the mirror
and absorb
she's the common denominator
in all of those messy relationships.
Okay.
And that is both a scary and daunting realization.
Yeah.
Ugh.
Okay.
I hate that for y'all.
Am I, I mean, is there ever a time that she's like, this person, and you think, I mean,
come on.
As far as, like, going, like, full bore full bore Like I can't believe
This person did this thing
Yes
Yeah
Okay
Or if you find yourself
In fights
You're like yeah
And you're kind of like
I mean it's not that big a deal
You know what I mean
Yeah
Yeah
Okay
So at some point
We're going to have to make peace
She's going to have to make peace
With
Maybe my body's reacting
To people in ways
That is not Consistent with reality my body's reacting to people in ways that is not consistent with reality.
And I'm going to have to relearn how to have peace in my life so that I can reenter relationship with people so that I could actually be well.
Right.
And that's when I tell you about that trend line.
Man, I just don't like the trajectory here because this trend spins, the top spins faster and faster and faster, and it
gets more tangled up and more complicated to unwind.
Right.
From a, uh, so I work at a, I work at a gym, um, and I mean, that's where we met.
And so a lot of the, and again, you may be able to speak more into this.
Um, the body image stuff seems to be quite heightened, um, at the gym of the, like, external looks that people are trying to give themselves.
Sure.
I'm, is that something that's worth, like, from my end, worth trying to move myself out of?
Quit your job?
What's that?
Like, just quit your job? what's that? like just quit your job?
I mean in a responsible
like move on
so we can both get out of that
absolutely
environment
absolutely
okay
I mean
ultimately those alarms
are our body's response
to our environment
okay
and when our
our bodies are detecting
threats in an environment
that aren't there then we're then the alarm needs some tuning, right?
Yeah.
But if I keep throwing myself back in a toxic environment that I know is not good for any of us, then yeah.
Okay.
I'm in that, like you said, I know I can't fix, but I might be able to support. And so I'm in between that.
Is me continuing down that line
kind of help lead to the environment
that becomes toxic?
Yeah, I mean,
here's a better way to frame it.
My wife is equally a part of this job
because now people take pictures of us at restaurants.
Okay.
And people send me direct messages about my wife, right?
By the way, if people do that, I just block you instantly.
I just, I mean, I'm not gonna do that.
Only my closest friends can make fun of my wife, right?
So I, she's a part of this.
And at any moment, if she said, I'm out,
I cannot be a part of this,
then I would be out.
And that's the choice I've made.
And that's super counter-cultural because the culture,
the culture is like,
no,
you,
you do you.
And if she can't hang,
then I'm not doing that.
She's my priority.
Right.
And so there,
there,
there's like,
I can't imagine being 80 and being like,
oh, I'm so glad I remained a TikTok sensation
over that dumb marriage I had for 20.
That just seems insane, right?
I agree.
It's insane.
And so if you were put on earth
to help people with their physical fitness,
that's a conversation.
I believe that my role here is to help people be a little better
off than they were before they met me. And I can do that at McDonald's and I can do that on a
YouTube show. And it's also why my boss interviewed me for 18 months. And my wife came on a lot of
those interviews too, because it was, I need you to have a full picture of what you're taking on here.
Yeah.
Right?
So that's part of it.
So it's less about, I don't want you to get in a tail chasing game where you're trying to figure out what's the next thing you could do to make this, maybe help this.
Because, dude, then you're going to be in a mess, right? there's an overall toxicity to our home because of the work I do,
because of the schedule I keep,
because I've got to be on my phone 24-7 saying yes to clients and somebody canceled,
I got to find another client
because I had these dreams of making seven figures
as a personal trainer and I'm making $41,000 a year.
Those are the contributing factors here, right?
If my wife ever came to me and said, you're not allowed to ever help another person ever again.
Well, that'd be a different conversation. But also she would be my wife at this point,
because that would be madness, right? We would have had that conversation a long time ago.
But she can tell me, hey, I need you to quit running around in the middle of the night
dealing with people who've passed away because it's impacting the way you treat the kids.
That's very fair.
In fact, that's her role in my life and vice versa.
And so, yeah, I mean, if you can change the context,
I'm all for that.
Don't do it thinking that that's gonna be
the Hail Mary pass that's gonna heal your wife
because it won't be.
But it might take some of the toxicity
out of the environment.
And for you to even be asking that question says,
A, you're a really attuned, caring husband,
and B, makes me think you want out anyway, right?
So good for you, good for you.
But she needs to go see a counselor or a psychologist,
and y'all need to stick with that for a season.
We're gonna commit to seven sessions. We're gonna commit to seven sessions.
We're gonna commit to 10 sessions with this one person
and we're going to ride out the relationship.
And so when it gets uncomfortable,
we're gonna go through the discomfort
and stay in the relationship.
We're not gonna run from it
because we run from every uncomfortable relationship.
And by the way, Arlie, don't be surprised at some point,
I'm disconnecting from this relationship
gets aimed at you, okay?
You're gonna have to decide
I'm gonna ride the rough waters.
She needs to go see somebody and be consistent.
And I would love to see you say,
hey, I wanna learn something new
and I want you to come with me.
It's awesome.
She's lucky to have you, Arlie.
We'll be right back.
Hey, what's up?
Deloney here.
Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically
stressed at some point.
In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you
can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to
better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life.
Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, as we wrap up today's show,
man, whenever I need some poetic thinking through of an issue.
One of the places I go is the Avett Brothers.
I think they are some of the greatest poets of our time.
And Kelly found this one.
Was it Kelly that found this one?
It's a beautiful song, man.
So I'm going to read the whole thing.
Stay with me on this one.
It's called The Divorce Separation Blues.
I'm going to keep on living even though I sometimes do
fantasize about disappearing down in the ocean blue
just to get some peace and quiet
from the warfare inside my heart.
Well, I've been under ear splitting fire
ever since we've been apart.
I'm gonna wash the dishes, pay the bills, watch the news.
I got the tough education.
There's no celebration.
I got the Divorce Separation Blues celebration. I got the divorce separation blues.
I'm gonna keep on waking and rising up before the sun
and lying in the dark wide awake
when everyone else is done
and sleeping in their bed so peaceful,
dreaming with the love they chose.
And I'll sign on the line beneath my name,
the road is gone, I can't go back the way we came.
Well, neither one of us really want to hit
the town. We try to keep our friends at bay, try to keep the gossip down. And some folks just want
the dirt. We don't even care if it's true. And then again, who cares who's talking? I'm worried
for myself and for you. And I'll sign on the line beneath my name, the road is gone and I can't go back the way we came.
If your marriage is sideways right now,
turn the lights on, sit down and say,
let's choose something different.
I'm in if you are.
And if somebody comes to you and says,
hey, let's do something different,
once again, say, I do.
We'll see you soon.