The Dr. John Delony Show - Three Different Women, Three Different Men, 3 Difficult Situations

Episode Date: January 18, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 4:32: Should I terminate my ex-husband’s parental rights due to his life choices? 14:52: My husband says he works harder than me and is a better parent. How do I deal with this? 29:45: My husband inappropriately touched a minor and is now in rehab. Do I try to make our marriage work? tag: parenting, boundaries, divorce, kids, marriage, parenting, disagreement/conflict, counseling/therapy, abuse, addiction, counseling/therapy, marriage, sexuality/intimacy 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.

On today's show, we talk about hard adult topics, so be very careful about the little ones in the room listening to this one. This show involves three women, three wonderful moms, trying to navigate really messy situations with their husbands, their ex-husbands, or the father of their kids. For husbands and wives listening to this show,

pay close attention. Stay tuned. Yo, yo, yo, what's up? And welcome to the Dr. John Deloney Show. The show is about you, your lives, your messiness, the cleanliness, the cuts and bruises, and the big earth-shattering winds. All of it, right? I've been walking alongside folks just like you for almost two decades. Whether your life is rocking on to the break of dawn, or your life is teetering on the edge of disaster, or you are sitting in a pile of ash trying to figure out what to do next. Everything around you is burned down and you don't know what's next.

I've been there. I've seen it. And I've committed my life to walking alongside people like you, trying to figure out that dude in the mirror here. I'm trying to help people relearn how to be people again, how to live, how to interact with each other, right? How to stop the anxious, depressive, nonsense, madness, and how to be a calm okay with who we see in the mirror.

And if you're new to our band of ninjas, we talk about everything on this show, mental health challenges, family and relational IQ questions, schooling, education concerns, parenting, addiction, marriages. And we may talk about people who ride three-wheel motorcycles. Listen, here's the deal, Switzerland. This is America. And I'm not drinking the haterade. You do you. If you listen to the show, you know, I support most people most of the time, but you midlife crisis guys with your motorized tricycles, all leathered trying to be all hard here's the thing you're super not dudes pick a side i've never seen a young cool person on a motorized tricycle all

leathered out like what's up with their hair slicked back listening to social distortion that would be awesome doesn't exist i've never seen like a any woman ever if you're a woman who drives a motorized tricycle, holler back girl at me, even if you ain't no holler back girl, call me because I want to know if you exist, right? But listen, gentlemen, pick a side, car or motorcycle. And if your first thought is, I just like riding, but I don't feel comfortable on two wheels. That's the universe saying, ride a horse or get a car. That's it a side we're drawing the line 2021 pick a side so that's it all right so here's the deal whatever's going on in your life if you know

somebody who's a three-wheel motorized tricycle rider what i don't even know how to call those things motorcycle motor tricycles i don't even know. I'm sure there's a thing. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form. It goes right into Kelly's mailbox. And then we will see if we can have you on the show. That would be awesome.

Before we get on it, I got to let you know this happened. It is super funny. Crack me up. Yesterday, my family, me and my wife and my son and daughter were hiking. And we came to a fork in the road. And I was trying to be cool dad and adventure dad. My kids are all into dragons and whatever, Star Wars and shenanigans. So I got down on one knee and I had both kids on either side of

me. And I said, this is the fork in the path. Choose your next steps wisely. One of these roads leads to greatness and the other road leads to certain doom. And without missing a beat, my daughter looks up at my son with her eyes all wide and she goes, let's choose the path of certain doom because I want to watch the destruction. And I looked at my wife and I was like, dude, I didn't learn about that in counseling classes. That doesn't exist. I think my daughter is either going to be one of those people who listens to lots of serial podcasts about murderers or she will become one, right? So either way, it's awesome. So we're all today,

today on the show, we are taking the path of certain doom. I hope not. I hope we're going to take the positive path of greatness, but let's go to the phones. Let's go to Heather in Salt Lake City, Utah. Heather, good afternoon. How in the world are you? I'm good. Thank you for taking my call today. Thank you so, so much for calling. So what's going on? How can I help? I have primary custody of my nine-year-old son, and he has an unhealthy relationship with his dad. So I was wondering if it is ever morally acceptable to terminate or limit visitation between them. There are seasons, there are moments, there are situations where absolutely you've got to get between your son and somebody who's hurting them or somebody's putting them in

a bad environment and be the person who's responsible for them, right? And so, you terminate whatever relationships you've got to terminate. In fact, one of the chief mentors in my life growing up learning counseling, learning psychology, she was responsible for terminating parental rights in utero before kids were born. And so, yeah, there's absolutely a place for that. But before we go there, back me up. Tell me about this relationship with an unhealthy relationship between your son and his dad. He's had a history with, like, opioid addiction. He'll go months without, you know, seeing my son, especially, you know, in the first, like,

five, six years of his life. Like, six months at a time, sometimes son will you know call him and call him and call him and he won't he won't answer or won't return his calls that sucks and i am i've been married you know for five years now and as he gets closer to my husband, my son's dad does not like that. And it's gotten to a point where he will try telling lies, you know, about me and about my husband. And my son will say, you know, I don't believe that. And recently he started saying, well, if you don't believe it, then, you know, I'm just going to let him adopt you and I'm never going to see you again. And he did this over Christmas and went several weeks without, you know, hung up on my son after saying that and went several weeks without talking to him. So my son is devastated and, you know, he believes him when he says these things and it's just does he know that his daddy's sick and i know there's a character moral here but i'm i'm trying to use a language

that a nine-year-old can understand does he know that daddy's sick yeah um i try not to say and i don't want him to think negatively about his dad. Sure. You know, I don't want him to take that on himself. And listen, that's noble, and I think that's the right way to approach this. But there is a reality to it also, right? So you can say something like, your daddy's a piece of crap, and he's a loser, and he's a drug addict, don't listen to anything he says.

You can say that, and that's running his daddy down. And I know in your heart, that's what you want to say, right? You want to just sit down and look at your son and say, let me tell you about this, dude. The other side of it is you can tell your son, daddy's sick. And sometimes the words in his thoughts get jumbled up and they come out in ways that sound really mean. He's not trying to hurt you. He would never hurt you intentionally. But sometimes he says things that just aren't right, that just aren't true because he's not doing well. And that's a totally different approach. If you don't say something like that, you're right.

Your nine-year-old will begin. He's going to internalize it anyway, but he's going to have no fallback plan. So he's got to have somebody in his life, which that's you saying those things aren't true. Right? Yeah. And I have, I've told him, you know, he's just not, he's not healthy right now. And I said, you know, and sometimes when people aren't healthy, they don't really know how to show love in the way that they're supposed to. Oh, that's, Hey, that's beautiful.

Heather, you're doing great. You're doing great. And we,, that's beautiful, Heather. You're doing great. You're doing great. And we're getting him into counseling as well. Right now, my attorney is suggesting that we, at the very least, limit visitation. I think that's as wise as possible. It doesn't sound like your son's dad is in any place to be a parent. And if he is still a functioning addict, then your son's not safe emotionally. Your son's not safe psychologically.

Your son's not safe in person, right? Is he missing appointments? Is he keeping up with child support? Is he doing those things or no? Oh, no. He's been consistently behind on child support for our son's entire life. Our son has had a really extensive medical history, resulting in like over 20 surgeries and just, you know, he has caused him to miss really important doctor's appointments. Just out of spite, he decided to just keep him from me.

So, hey, Heather, you know the answer to this. So why are you calling, why are you not secure in your answer? In your, what you know the right thing to do is? I just, I didn't have, I, I'm sorry. No, you're good. I didn't have a relationship with my dad and my son's father also didn't. I've just tried to force this relationship. Okay, your son doesn't either. No, he doesn't. Right. And so trying to force feed one together, trying to duct tape something together is just hurting your son. And I know that you know that, right?

Tell me about this. Tell me about your husband. He's been in my son's life since he was about three. And it was a very slow process, you know, getting my son's just always a mama's boy, you know. Yeah, of course. I was the only one that he ever really had. Yeah, and you're the only stable one there. That's exactly right. So, but tell me about this guy.

Is he a good guy? He's a good husband? Oh, yeah. Yes, he is. We have, you know, three other boys now and, you know, he's an awesome dad. He loves my son as his own. He reached out

wanting to adopt him. He just said, I would like to step up. I'd like to adopt him. If you don't want that, I understand. But if you don't want that, I need you to step up. Good for him, dude. You married well. Look at you, Heather want that, I need you to step up. Good for him, dude. You married well. Look at you, Heather. Well, I mean, it really caused a lot of retaliation. At first,

he agreed to it. He's like, yes, let's go through with this adoption. We were going to start the process, and then my son's dad ended up telling my son about it, and I don't know if he gently did this or how he went about it but probably not because the guy the guy's sick man the guy is sick yeah he's he is talking through yeah he's talking through an opioid filter and he's not um he's not being the dad he's supposed to be and so here's the thing I'm gonna do something I don't normally do. I'm not going to give you an answer because you already know what to do, Heather. You already know what to do. What you've got to do is let the fantasy of your son and this magical dad go.

It's not going to exist. It's not there. Your son's dad has gone through great lengths to make sure that he's not well. He has made some significant choices in his life to make sure that he's not well. He has made some significant choices in his life to make sure that he's not going to be connected to his son. And he's using his son as a weapon and as leverage. And he is tethered to this kid in a way that the kid is drowning because dad is underwater. Do I want to give up on dad? No, but that's not something that you can solve. You're in a new marriage and a new relationship and dad has chosen to not be a father. And the fairy tale of this

particular story, Heather, is you married a stud. You married a rock star who loves you and who had enough courage to go to this boy's, I'm not going to call him a dad, go to this boy's father and say, hey, I'm about to step up and do the right thing here unless you do. And then your son's dad was like, or your son's father was like, okay, go ahead, man. Ridiculous. Dude, you are in a great situation. You actually have an opportunity for your son to have a father, to have a dad, right?

Have somebody who's connected to him, raises him as his own. Four boys running amok in your house, and you can untether yourself from this loser once and for all. My hope, my deepest hope is this dude gets connected to a rehab program, gets his head screwed on straight, does the hard, hard work of going to a group for year after year and getting sober and getting clean. And then doing the hard, humble, groveling on his face work of coming back into your son's life and saying, I screwed up. I sucked. I used you, son, as leverage and a tool to hurt your mom because I was sick,

and I'm sorry, and that's years away, and that's not going to happen now. It's not going to happen tomorrow. What can happen now, what can happen tomorrow is you do what the right thing is. You've got experts. You've got professionals in your life saying, whoa, we got to step in. You know that's the right thing to do, and you got an awesome guy ready to be a dad to your little boy. So thank you so much for the call. You are doing all the right things, Heather. You just got to kill the fantasy. Let the fantasy be absolutely gone. Let it poof like a vapor, like Frozen 2. I don't even know how Frozen 2 ended, but if it ended like a vapor, I want you to end it like that. Otherwise, go for it.

You were in the right place doing the right thing. Good for you, Heather. All right, let's go to Molly in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. Molly, what's happening? How are we doing? Hi, I'm doing all right. Thank you so much for talking with me. Thank you for calling.

Thank you for calling. Hey, before we get going, give me a weather report of Idaho. I'm down here in the south. How's Idaho? Well, we just had over a foot of snow over the weekend on New Year's, and it has slowly been melting, and we're going to get more snow next week. All right. That sounds like Idaho. Okay, very cool. All right. So what's going on, Molly? How can I help? So, yeah, I do need some help. Um, my husband, I love him. I know he loves me, but he is very vocal and feels that he works much harder than me in pretty much all aspects of our lives. Um,

he has refused to talk to a marriage counselor he's even threatened divorce because he feels that i'm not working hard enough in um again all aspects of our life um including parenting and so i don't really know what to do since i've tried talking to him and i've tried marriage like offering marriage counseling I've seen a counselor myself for this. So Molly, what does he want you to do? What's he, like when he sits down and looks at you, what does he like list out? Because this sounds like one of those idiots is a list maker. What is the list he's putting out there that you're not living up to?

The list, it's everything. So everything from just house chores to laundry, dishes, down to finances, you know, and paying bills to parenting about how we're raising our two daughters and what I'm not doing correctly, according to him. And it's difficult because you can tell that he doesn't talk about things. He waits until he's frustrated about something and then he kind of just blows everything up all at once. What is your intimate life like? It's off and on depending on these blowups. Okay. So we'll go about two weeks and everything's great. We're intimate.

We're smiling. We're laughing. And then all of a sudden there's something on his list. Like this week it's laundry. So what did you do wrong with the laundry, Molly? Like how did you? According to him, so I work 40 hours a week. Um, we have two daughters and, um, he works out of town. Okay. And so when he comes home at the end of the week,

um, I don't have all the laundry folded cause I work 40 hours a week and I'm taking care of our two daughters. It's ridiculous. That's ridiculous. I'm just kidding. Go ahead. So, but yeah, when he comes home, it's not done. done and he's he gets very vocal about how there's too many clothes that aren't clean or put away so anytime somebody whether it's a friend of mine whether it's myself whether it's um somebody in this situation like on the radio or an old counseling client my first question is always this. Is he right? He does have some grounds for some of it. Absolutely. And I do vocalize, yeah, the laundry is not folded. You know, maybe the dishes weren't done.

That's silly, right? So like the actual nuts and bolts, right? That's, I mean, those are checklist things. Those aren't roots. Those aren't virtues, right? I'm talking less about, because those type of nitpicky things are a coward's way of saying, you're not the wife that I want. Or you're not living up to this imaginary fictional human that I've got in my head, or they have delusions of grandeur, so they're off doing their job. And quite honestly, they're probably really busy. They're probably exhausted, fill in the blank,

probably not as tired as a 40-hour-a-week single mom at home with two kids, but tired nonetheless. And they come home and they get on the airplane or they get in their car and they have this fantasy of what the home's going to look like. And then that picture doesn't match the picture in their head. And then they throw a temper tantrum. And so that's, I'm talking about the virtue part here. That's, he's saying you are not the partner that I was hoping for. And you are not living up to the partnership that we agreed on or that I'm demanding. And so my first question always is, is he right?

Are you a self-sabotaging wife or are you somebody who's not interested in having a partnership with him? Are you getting home from work and just saying, I'm not doing nothing, forget all this? Is there accuracy there? No, absolutely not. All right, cool. So before I go after somebody, then I just want to get that part out of the way, because here's a great example. I was not a great boyfriend in college. And I was dating somebody who's now my wife. And we got into a tiff and I came home. I'll never forget this. I walked into my house and there was, it was this wacky apartment on top of a building downtown. And I walked in and my buddies were watching TV or whatever. And I said something along the lines of, this girl who's now my wife said I was a jerk and or I was an idiot or whatever can you believe that and then my buddy Trevor who's still to this day one of my best friends on planet earth

goes are you being serious you're like the biggest jerk I've ever met and I was like what I thought I was the kindest guy and he's like no are you being for real and so I was the kindest guy. And he's like, no, are you being for real? And so I was in that moment, right? In a moment of reflection. By the way, everybody needs honest friends like that. That's why I still love him is because he was right. You know, I had to look in the mirror and say, no, I am. I'm not handling these things right. But you have done that and it's not you, right?

Correct. Okay. So what's your ultimate question? You've got it. You're in a situation now. You can't win. You've got somebody who's got delusions of grandeur. You've got somebody who has made it their life mission to make sure you know your place and your place is going to be below me in a place where you can't win. So, and you've got two daughters who are absorbing every second of this and whether they want to or not are learning,

this is what marriage looks like. And this is what a husband who says, quote unquote, I love you and your mom treats how they treat people. And so what's your question? The biggest thing is, how do I get him to understand that marriage counseling or just counseling for himself for whatever it is that's bothering him so much would help him? You can't.

Because he does come home and he might be tired. Yeah, you can't. There's nothing you can do to make him change. He's going to have to decide, I want to have a partnership with my wife, that we are going to become one in this adventure journey, raising kids and being married and being together and having a great sex life and a great communication life and lots of laughter and as much joy as this crummy world will give us, he's got to decide that on his own. You can, and you've probably done this, and so here's a couple things I'm rattling off the top of my head. You can have a conversation with him that's pretense, right?

Pre-blow up, pre-fight, pre-frustration. You can have that conversation upstream. And you've probably heard me say a thousand times, and I'll say it a thousand times more. You can have a meal and go somewhere. You can go get a bed and breakfast one night and just get away and tell them that you want to have a retreat. My wife and I just did that recently to start the new year. We did that every year.

We have a retreat. And this year, like most years, it was teary. We laughed a lot. We had to have some hard conversations with one another, but we're just putting it out there. We're just being vulnerable and honest. You may have already done that. Have you already had those hard conversations? I've tried to. They usually don't. They're usually one-sided. Usually I'm the one talking and he walks away or changes the subject. Okay. So when you, when you said he's threatened divorce, like an idiot. Yes. Uh, I don't mean to talk bad about your husband, but people are like, no, I'm just going to be shut up, dude. So does, does he, is he serious about it? Um, he threatened it once, um, a couple of weeks ago and he seemed pretty serious about it.

Okay. And so I kind of let him play that, you know, if he wanted, if he was that unhappy, I told him, you know, I don't want him to be happy. So I let him play through with it. And then of course, he realized that he was an idiot and, um, just, uh, we had our two weeks of good relationship where he listened to me, and he apologized partially to me, you know, as best that he knows how to apologize. And we moved on from that two weeks, and then it all started over again, minus the threats of divorce. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to work. You're in counseling now. You have a therapist now. Yes. Okay. I want you to, when do you see your counselor next?

I'm not on the schedule yet, but I usually do every two weeks. Okay. So the next time you go see your counselor, I want you to show up with a list. And I want you to tell your counselor, today, I want you to help me solidify and draw firm boundaries that I'm going to communicate in a hard conversation with my husband. And what that's going to look like are things like, you will not threaten divorce in this house. You will not belittle me in front of my daughters. If you want something done a certain way, we're going to talk about it. And I'm going to let you know that I want to honor you. I want to be a great partner here. And you're going to honor me because sometimes my 40 hour a week job and one of our two daughters and or both

daughters have some struggles and life happens and you're not going to talk to me that way anymore because I deserve more. I'm worth more. Our daughters cannot watch this nonsense because I need you to hear me say kids absorb yelling. They that fight they absorb that tension and they blame themselves and your daughters are growing up in a situation where for the rest of their life they're going to try to figure out how to make sure the man in their life is doing okay and you know the road that will put them on right and this is a hard reality i understand that i'm not making light of this this is hard hard hard hard hard but the the hard conversation has to start with both of your feet firmly planted on the floor which means i want you to get with your counselor and draw these boundaries

out to a t you will not talk to me that way anymore, period. And here is the way this is going to look. And you're going to have to have an or what, right? In counseling, we always talk about you have to have an or what, because he may say, well, forget you then. And you're going to have to have those boundaries drawn and you're going to have to have your next counseling appointment already ready to rock and roll. But I want you to begin to put, not begin, I want you to firmly plant both feet on the ground. You've done the hard work of looking in the mirror and saying, is this me or not? And you said, no, it's not.

It's unreasonable. I'm being attacked every day. Every couple of weeks, the guy in my life that was a temper tantrum, the guy who swore he's going to love me and protect my daughters, chooses to go to war because he's a grown-up child. And this is going to be the season that you say no more. 2021 is going to be the season that you say, Molly, no more. You're not going to talk to me that way. You're not going to treat us that way. And so here's what I want you to do. Have that conversation with your therapist. Have the conversation with your husband. Please don't do it in the middle of a fight. Plan it. Let him know it's coming. Tell him that you are still reeling from the declaration that I want a divorce and that you want to follow up with him

about that. And that's when you are going to take a bold step and say, here's who we are going to be in this house. And I love you. And I desperately want to fight, fight, fight for this marriage, but I'm not going to fight myself. I'm not going to fight somebody who keeps turning their back on us. So Molly, let me know how those conversations go. We'll be thinking about you. Those are hard. You're in a hard, hard situation. And by the way, to everybody, when somebody comes at you with, you're not this, you're not upholding that, you are the worst, fill in the blank. You screwed this up. You're an idiot. Whatever. I learned this from a young employee of mine a decade or more ago.

And I asked him, his name is Jordan Bunch. He's an extraordinary guy. He lives in Dallas, I think, or somewhere in Central Texas. I'll never forget, I asked him just in passing. Here I was, I was his boss, right? And I ended up walking away from that conversation learning more than I'd learned that year. I said, man, you're always so peaceful. Even when you're frustrated, you're always so peaceful. How do you remain so at peace in these hard conversations, in these hard moments. And he said something that has stuck with me ever since. He said, anytime somebody comes at me with an accusation, they come at me angry.

The first thing I do is I look in the mirror and I ask myself, what am I contributing to this problem? What did I contribute to this? Is this right? And I thought, man, what a great way to approach life. And not to constantly be blaming yourself and shaming yourself and taking over blame. Like, oh, it's probably me. No, not that. But just stopping for a second and saying, am I being a jerk? Right? And make sure you've got people in your life like Trevor, who I love, who will tell you, like my buddy Todd, like my buddy John, my buddy Kevin, who will tell you, hey hey man, we don't do that. Don't be that guy. Don't act like that. Don't say that.

Everybody's got to have people in their life that will hold them accountable and say, you're not the one. This is not Molly. This is not Molly. Molly's doing right. Look in the mirror, folks, and then you got to make hard calls and draw hard, hard boundaries. All right, let's take one more call. Let's go to Amanda in Knoxville, Tennessee. Amanda, how are we doing? I'm doing all right, John. How are you? I'm doing all right, too. I'm doing better than all right. Usually when somebody says, I'm doing all right, and they're in the South, that means they're not doing very good at all. Am I on the right track? Yeah, you've hit it on the bullseye.

Oh, man. Okay, so what's going on, Amanda? How can I help? Let's see. To give you some background information, my name is Amanda. I am married. Me and my husband, we've been married for a little over three years now. We have an 11-month-old baby boy. I do have some postpartum depression and postpartum anxiety that I'm dealing with. You did have a baby in a global pandemic,

right? Yes. Oh, mercy. Yeah. That's the other most Southern thing. Oh, mercy. Hey, you've earned your postpartum. So, man, God bless you. It's a tough, tough season to have a young one. And so blessings to you. All right. So go ahead. husband had improper contact with a minor at our church, and I'm having trouble dealing with the aftermath of that with the church, with the other family involved, and just moving forward with this situation when my husband comes home. I'm just, I'm at my wits end and I feel like I just, I don't know what to do. Yeah, that's a lot. All right. So walk me through some of the particulars here. And this is a highly sensitive situation. And so you at any moment say, I don't want to talk about that part. Okay. Is that cool? Sure. Absolutely. Or here's a better way to say it. You're in a hundred percent control of this narrative. And so at any moment you can bow out.

Okay? Is that cool? Yes. Okay. So when you say inappropriate contact with a minor, what does that mean? How old? What was the inappropriate contact? Walk me through that.

Sure. The girl is 13 years old. I found out that he held hands with her at church one Wednesday night. She says no sexual contact happened. He says no sexual contact happened. So hopefully that not reduces some of this, but I guess it doesn't make it even harder. Well, holding hands with a 13-year-old is sexual contact. Oh, okay. Maybe they didn't touch it with kids.

We call it bathing suit parts, right? So, like, any part that's covered up by a bathing suit is off limits. But what was the situation where somebody would – how did that – what's the narrative of how they ended up holding hands? Sure. What happened was the girl's dad helps operate the sound booth at our church and controls the tech side. And he wanted to learn how to work it as well. So that way, not just one person is stuck doing that and there can be a rotation. And she was back there as well, um, with, with her dad. Um, and she, and of course,

this is no justification whatsoever. It's just me trying to gain a remote sense of understanding. She was kind of making moves at him where she was biting her lip. Not a thing. Not a thing at all because she's a child. Don't even go there in your head, okay? Don't even go there in your head. I know you want to protect your husband, and more importantly, you want to protect your sanity right now. Okay? Yeah.

I don't care if that 13-year-old threw herself at him, sent him a bunch of inappropriate pictures. I don't care what that child did. The adult in that situation is the adult in that situation. Right? Absolutely, 100%. Okay. So, go ahead so so she she was um i don't even know what to say she's a kid um he felt as though he was she was being provocative um in a sense and then he said that um he he was just thinking about a former void in his teenage life that was unfilled due to trauma, and he just needed words of affirmation and a kind touch.

From a kid? Yep. Yeah, dude. Man, Amanda, I don't get mad very often, and yeah, I'm pretty close. So what was the church's response here? Of course, when this was found out, we had a meeting with the deacons. There are five of them at the church, the girls' parents, and then my husband was present at the meeting.

I was on speakerphone because, you know, someone the dad was going to immediately go to the police and file a police report and have my husband go to jail, rightfully so for it. So hold on, hold on, hold on on hold on oh gosh dude man so the church didn't call the police they didn't call social worker they didn't get the authorities involved no god pisses me off so bad so bad oh man amanda i'm sorry uh i'm not sorry i know my anger is not at you my anger is at churches covering up stuff like this which is how it perpetuates and goes on and on and on and on and it communicates to teenagers that adults aren't held like responsible in the appropriate nuclear option which is what should happen in these moments. Oh

my gosh. Okay, so man. I'm singing for a second. Is that cool, Amanda? Oh, sing away. I'm sure you sang My Mercy 2, right? So long story short, my blood pressure is getting up, and I'm going to get that.

Man, I don't think I've ever gotten super pissed off on the radio. Maybe I have. I don't remember. Not like this. So what's your ultimate question? Let's just get to that. Sure. Well, since this has gone on, my husband did go to therapy.

He checked himself into a place called The Ranch. It's, you know, outside of Nashville. Yeah, I know about it. And so he's there right now. He's in the sex addiction program. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Is he a sex addict? Yes, yes. So is he a pornography addict?

Does he have lots of affairs? He has never had an affair, but pornography addiction, yes. So he's never had an affair, but he claims he's a sex addict? Yes. So I've heard the fall to my knees, save me, I'm so sorry, I'm an addict excuse often in the last decade, 20 years. The sex addicts I've known, the sex addicts I have, several of my mentors and professors were actually, like, they were trained therapists that worked with people with sexual behavior disorders and true sex addicts, man, they don't have an affair. It's a way of life. It's the way I eat gummy candies. It's pathological, right? Anyway, that's not why you called. I have a hard time believing somebody and maybe there's a medical doctor out there or a psychologist that overrides me, and they can override me all day long.

I'm not going to go to Woolworth on that, but I have a hard time signing up for somebody who's a sex addict who, instead of saying that there's somebody who made awful, terrible, disgusting decisions and needs to be criminally held liable for what they're doing, or at the very least, not around kids. Yikes. Okay, so he's in rehab now. He's in rehab because he held hands with a 13-year-old. And is he getting out soon, I guess, if this is early December? So he's coming out next whenever, right? Yeah, by the end of this month.

Okay, so can I just make a guess here? Sure. Have y'all been allowed to, usually there's a few weeks of no contact, and then there's just limited drip-by-drip contact. Have y'all started reconnecting again? Yes, he gets one 20-minute phone call every other day. Okay. So I'm just going to take a wild guess here. You are not going to believe, Amanda, how much I've changed. The things I've learned about myself in my past and my childhood are so big and so deep, and it's amazing. And I can't wait to be around you and the baby because everything is clear now.

I understand, and it's so incredible how much I've grown, and I'm better. Am I close? Yes. Like right hitting the nail on the head? Oh, yeah. You're like 99%. So what are you going to do? What do you want to do?

Let me back up. I think you know exactly what you want to do. I think you're an extraordinary good person. I think you're a – are you a Christian? Yes. Okay, so you have a Christian ethic about you. You've got a way of being. You've got a picture of what your marriage and this new little baby was going to be. How old are you? I'm 33. Okay, so you're 33. You've waited for this.

You've got a husband who was a guy who helped at the sound booth in church, right? So you had this picture, and now it's in ash, right? Yes, completely. And the temptation is to try to just pick up all this ash in a bucket and start trying to duct tape it back together. Think of it like the Twin Towers if they went and swept up all

that glass and dust and twisted metal and steel and tried to rebuild it with those materials. You can't do it. So any relationship you have with this dude moving forward is after this. Okay? And that is hard to hear.

I can't be the first person who's told you that, but it's hard to hear, I know. But moving forward, trying to reclaim this picture, it is no more. Okay? Gotcha. Your church, quite honestly, let you down. Your husband let you down. The whole thing's a mess, and I'm so, so sorry, Amanda. Oh, well, thank you. I know I didn't help you.

I know. You know what you want, what you need to do. You know what you want to do. What, just for my own sanity and for the listeners here, what do you think the next month looks like for you? I think in the next month he'll come home, and for a few days he will be a completely transformed person, but then little by little it'll revert back, and it'll just go back to where it started. You know, just, you know, any kind of progress is just unraveled because, you know, he gives me a whole list of things that he wants to change and everything and how life wants to be. And he's going to follow the 12 steps to a T.

And I have a feeling that being out in the real world that he will recognize how hard that actually is. And, um, I don't know if he's, if he's up for the challenge of making such a huge change in his life, you know, for, for such a long period of time, because it, you know, it, that would be a hard thing to even attempt to, you know, come back from. I mean, there's so much depth to it from what I'm understanding. And so I just have a feeling that he'll get out, do well for a little while, and then crash and burn. Do you have somebody who's walking alongside you through this? Yes.

Okay. So I'm just a guy on the radio, okay? So, I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to tell you what I would do in my house, okay? Nope, I'm going to tell you what I would tell my sister. I'm going to tell you what I would tell a best friend of mine who was a co-worker who was a woman in the same situation. If you've got an 11-month-old in your house, somebody getting out of rehab, whatever that's supposed to mean for this situation, after 28 days, is not coming back to my house for a season. I would tell my sister not to let that happen.

I would tell my wife, well, I'm married to her, so that'd be weird, but I would tell the close friends of mine in my life that are married women with small kids that that would not be a wise decision. I would, in my opinion, your church leadership has proven themselves to be not worth following. I wouldn't go back to that building. And I know that's hard, and I know that you probably got deep relationships there, but they let you down. They let that little girl down. They let that 13-year-old girl down. They let her family down. They let that little girl down. They let that 13-year-old girl down.

They let her family down. They let that congregation down. And it's disgusting. But at the end of the day, I would not have somebody just pop back into my house without some very serious couples counseling, without somebody walking alongside you, both a friend and a professional, if not a couple, and without a very, very clear plan on your part about what it's going to look like to be well, what it's going to look like to be welcomed back in this house, okay? Now, if you've ever listened to this show, you know that I am all about redemption. I think it's deep, and I think that there is not a lost person. I also don't mess around with people who hurt kids.

I just don't. And so can you and him reconcile, and can he change his life? I believe so. I wouldn't be sitting in this chair. I wouldn't be doing this job. Is it going to be a hard, messy, ugly, bumpy road? Yes. Can you all get a hole in, messy, ugly, bumpy road? Yes. Can y'all get a hole in that congregation? I don't think you can. Can you get a hole, just pop back

in 28 days later? I would say almost no chance. Do I know that that means that I'm telling you that I would recommend to my friend that they have to be a single parent for a season. Yeah, I know. And that really is hard. But what the most important thing you've got to do here is, number one, you've got to kill this fantasy. Right? It doesn't exist anymore as it once was. to do is you've got to get somebody to walk alongside you and make sure you have on paper what he's going to have to do to earn the privilege to be your husband, to earn the privilege to parent that child in proximity. Because what happens is you have a feeling like I'm just

going to know. And as you mentioned, it's just going to kind of slowly slip back to the way it was. Right? And you're going to feel crazy. And if he truly is an addict, which who knows, man, I'm not a psychologist, so I'm not going to say anything else about that. There is some master manipulation going on, right? And there is some extraordinary gaslighting. There's some giftedness in getting people to believe that you're the crazy one, not them, right? Right.

Any answer to why in the world were you holding hands with my 13-year-old daughter other than I screwed up bad and I just screwed up? Not, well, you know, I was trying to live through a fantasy that I had when I was a kid. Anything other than that is somebody not taking responsibility. Anyway, I could harp on that all day long. All that to say is I want you really, please, Amanda, get with somebody, get with two people, get with three people who will sit down with you and really craft almost in stone what these boundaries are going to look like. Someone who's going to be able to say to you out loud, like I am now, what was is no more. And any relationship moving forward is

something that y'all are going to have to recraft and rebuild together because it's all different after this okay okay it's different after this can it be good i think so i do but does he have a lot of work to do yes and the final thing is this isn't to you this is to anybody leading any sort of organization with kids. You can't have these tribunals where you agree to this or I'm going to tell on you. You can't. Bring in authorities every time. Bring in social workers and people to be with the kids every time. Investigate stuff. Make sure it's right.

These little side deals, this little nonsense goes on and on and on. And the forest fire of this trauma rages on for generations. Stop it. If you're a church, if you're a school, if you're a daycare, whatever you happen to be, you're a coach, you signed up to have kids in your presence, which means you signed up to protect children. And a 28-day visit to Nashville is not going to keep your kids safe. Cops will. Police officers will. Therapists will. Social workers will. Police officers will. Therapists will. Social workers will. Well, I'm sorry, Amanda. That wasn't directed at you. But here's the deal. No, that's okay. Here's the deal. To everybody listening, Amanda's in a situation where somebody has dropped a bomb in her world.

And Amanda, I'm heartbroken for you. I wish I had something else I could say. I'm heartbroken for you. And it's going to be a hard 2021 for you. I'll be thinking about you. I want you to keep us posted. Please, please circle back. Shoot me an email. Let me know how it goes.

And to her husband, if he happens to be listening to this, you're not going to weaponize this situation. You're not going to go to war with your wife. You're not going to weaponize this situation. You're not going to go to war with your wife. You're not going to be dramatic. You screwed up. You hurt a kid. You're not well, and you got a long road ahead of you. That's it, man. No song today. I'm out. Y'all, thanks for the call, Amanda. Thank you, everybody, for calling. I'm out. Y'all, thanks for the call, Amanda. Thank you, everybody, for calling. I'm out. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you so much.