The Dr. John Delony Show - Unfaithful Husband Gave Me an STD & Struggling with Long-distance Learning

Episode Date: March 3, 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 My husband had an affair and gave me an STD. I am 6 months pregnant. How do I move on? My 11-year-old is really struggling with distance learning. How can I help him navigate this? My wife is pregnant with what will be my 2nd child but first biological. My 12-year-old son is adopted. My wife thinks we should tell him. Lyrics of the Day: "Low Down Rolling Stone" - Gary Clark Jr. tags: infidelity, marriage, sickness/illness, anger/resentment/bitterness, kids, trauma/PTSD, suicide/self-harm, parenting 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 talked to a woman who's pregnant and she just found out her husband cheated on her and gave her an STD. We also talked to a mom who's been struggling with working from home and homeschooling and her kids have had enough. And we talked to a kind father who's wondering how to tell his 12-year-old son

that he was adopted many years ago. Stay tuned. Hey, what up, what up? This is Deloney with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thanks for joining us today. Hope you're doing well. Hope you're healthy. Hope you're laughing a lot. Hope your life's filled with joy.

And if it's not, I hope you've got something, some plans today to turn that around. On this show, we take your calls about life. We talk about your mental health. We talk about education. We talk about relational IQ, family, everything. Anything that's going on in your heart, in your mind. We take calls from all over the world. And I tell you what, these emails are coming in, and they're coming in, and they're coming in, and I love it. Keep sending them. If you want to get on the show, if you want to join us for these conversations,

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 to Kelly The associate producer of the show The skull call

The skull screener The call screener extraordinaire She's a ninja She's one of the OG ninjas And she will see if we can get you on the show So every time we start this show, we either have some positive news, some negative news, things that drive me crazy about the world. I got one.

Okay. It's a little bit of an intervention slash annoying thing. You keep doing this like horse noise on the show, and I think you did it the last show like 27 times approximately. It's the – Nay! I don't do that. No, not that. it's the no not that it's the so i do that a lot you do we have to clean up the desk all the spit off the desk afterwards it's kind of a covid thing and it

sounds gross yeah so that's annoying try to stop doing that so give me an example of when i do that um anytime all the time idiot whatever yeah whenever you get when you get stumped or perplexed about a call let's clear this up i never get stumped i get stumped every show and then i go nay see you're gonna do it today and then you're gonna realize it or i'll point at you and then you'll realize it and it's okay you're never gonna unhear it now i'm never gonna unhear it there's a lot of things I can't unhear. Okay, so when I do that noise today, you've got to just stop. Intervene no matter what's going on and be like, hold on.

You did it again. I get it. I just think that the level of animal noises you make should be disproportionate to the amount of doctorate degrees you have. And so, as with the diarrhea jokes, that too. So, just work on it. Enough. Fix it. Enough.

Fix it. All right, everybody. There So, just work on it. Enough. Fix it. Enough. Fix it. All right, everybody. There you go, America and Earth. The producer is producing the animal noises out of this show that I didn't even know I was making. I'm going to start oinking or something weird. I wish turtles made noises. I'd make that noise. Man.

That's what feedback sounds like, good folks. Hey, I want to be a personality. I want to have a podcast. I'd love to work with a great team. And then they take your tics and the things you don't even know you do, and they're like, hmm, that's embarrassing and weird. Please shut up and stop doing that. It's annoying.

But, you know, there are some people out there that are going to be like, no, I love when he does that. They're going to send you hate mail. Be like, oh, first Unity and now horse noises, James? What are you taking from us? And then there's going to be others that are just going to send you hate mail. Be like, oh, first Unity and now horse noises, James? What are you taking from us? And then there's going to be others that are just going to send you gift cards. Be like, thanks, man. Podcast is okay, but he kept sounding like a horse. He's an idiot. All right, we're done with horse noises. I was going to make one more, but I'm not even going to. All right, let's go to the phones. I don't even know where to start.

You screwed up my mojo, man. All right, let's go to Samantha in Austin, Texas. What's up, Samantha? How are we doing? Hi, Dr. John. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. How's the 512? It's really cold. It's really cold. I don't think I've ever heard those words before. That's pretty cool. We've got record low temperatures here. It's crazy. Very cool. Very cool. All right, So what's going on? How can I help? Well, I am six months pregnant with my third child. How old are the other ones? I have a two and a half year old and a one year old. Oh my. Two and a half and one and a six month in the oven. Yeah. I would just like on behalf of humanity to say, God bless you.

I don't even, I don't even know what to say after that other than, okay, go forward. Go ahead. Got our hands full. Yes. Well, my husband came to me recently and he told me that he was with someone else and that he probably contracted an STD and that I most likely have it as well. And so I've gone and been tested and that is the case. And I just don't really know where to go. Yeah, you're confirmed positive? So I've gone and been tested, and that is the case. And I just kind of don't really know where to go.

Yeah, you're confirmed positive? Mm-hmm. Holy crap, I'm so sorry. That sucks. What's the STI? It's chlamydia, so it's something that's treatable, basically. Golly, I'm so sorry. So have you gone to your OB-GYN to talk through any implications with your pregnancy?

Yeah, yes, I have. Walk me through that. Basically, I'll just do the treatment, and it should clear up, and we just have to do some follow-up just to make sure that everything is normal and healthy, and then it should not – it'll be like it never happened. Oh, man. I'm so sorry. Yeah, but it did happen, right? Yeah.

Yeah. So I'm going to ask you to do something weird as we talk through this, okay? I want to take the STI part, and I want to set that off to the side for a second, okay? And I want to take the overjoyed, exhausted, haven't slept in what, four years now, when you add in all the pregnancies, completely exhausted at a psychological and spiritual and physical level, right? And then to get this news. Because what I don't want to do as we walk through this, I don't want the consequence of what happened to be the focus just yet.

I don't want to get back to this conversation y'all had. Tell me how the conversation went. Basically, he just came and he told me like this happened and now um like i'm having symptoms and it was just kind of all just very surreal um i i didn't see it coming at all okay total total shock to you oh yeah I mean I would have never guessed in a million years that okay he would have done something like that and so how can I help there's so much here how can I help I mean it just my I know like my family is like well, obviously, you just leave, and of course. And I mean, that's not necessarily the thing that I want. I mean, I came from a very broken family, and I didn't want my kids to be raised in that.

I didn't want them to ever feel that and um so now I've just got a very big decision of where I go from here yeah what do you want to do forget what your parents and your family and all the people telling you what you're going to tell you you're going to have people that will sit you down and buy you a cup of coffee and look you in the eye and say um I know this is heartbreaking but you and your husband have a future together. You're going to get through this if y'all both want to, and you can do the hard work. And then you're going to have somebody call you and be like, oh, you're just going to be a cookhold for the rest of your life. You're just going to let him do that. You know

what I mean? So forget all those voices. And also forget the, and this is going to sound ridiculous, forget the fantasy that you had about, I want my kids to have this because I had another picture, right? I had another experience in my life, so I painted this picture that's going to happen no matter what, because that might encourage you to drag yourself through mud that you don't need to go through, right? What do you want to do? Put all those things down and just talk to me directly. What do you want to do put all those things down and just talk to me directly what do you want to do I mean I do want to work things out like you know I still love him and I he said it was a one-time thing, and I genuinely believe that it was. Have you all gone to see anybody?

No, I've got some events coming up scheduled. Okay. Is he, when you say he told you it was a one-time thing and he came to you with this, is he still all in? Does he say, I screwed up, I'm so sorry, I'm going to make this right, here's all my phones, here's all my computer stuff, I want you to know I am, this is an accident that happened and I'm going to do anything it takes to repair this, not even repair, to rebuild. You've got to rebuild something new now, right? What's his heart and space on this? I mean, he's just apologizing to me about like 5,000 million times a day. He called a marriage counselor and just tried to get everything hooked up.

And he's trying. And he's like, you can track me. Here's all my passwords. Here's all my everything. And, um, so you believe him as much as you can. Right. I mean, after that's like, you've had like the deepest violation hurt. Right. And so I know that sounds trite be like, all right, cool, you're ready to get back on that horse and ride again. I get that. But your gut tells you. But I genuinely just, I mean, I hope, I mean, you know, in my gut, I feel like it really was just a single incident. Okay. So here's the thing.

You owe nobody an explanation for choosing to stay with them. You owe nobody an explanation for choosing to give it a shot to try. grieve. And when you have time to process this and to like let the, you know, the fight or flight response, right, that shock wear off and you actually can look him in the eye and say, dude, you could have hurt us both bad because you violated us and you were stupid when you did it. And you choose, you know what, I gave it six months, I'm out. I gave it 10 months, and I can't. You don't owe anybody an explanation then. And if you choose to bail tomorrow, you don't owe anybody an explanation for that, okay? I want you to feel free from that,

and everybody's going to have an opinion. Remember when you first got pregnant the first time? How many stupid advice droplets, that sounds like a sneeze, but it's basically what it is. It's just snot. Everyone's stopping, like, okay, but it's basically what it is. It's just not everyone stopping like, okay, make sure you've got somebody to text and make sure this, and you should use this route.

Remember those days? Oh yeah. That's what's coming except 10 times worse because everyone feels on moral high ground on this one. So they're all going to give you their girl. You need, it's all, it's common dude.

So, um, I mean, I always thought it would be a no-brainer for me and i would just like that's an obvious like i'm out like yeah you just it would just of course you leave but and i was just i was just talking to somebody recently and they said the opposite they were like i just knew that if that ever happened we'd work through it and we'd move on and then they said it happened and he's like, I'm out. Like, I just

knew in my guts that was that, that was that, right? So, here's a couple of things I'll recommend. Number one is you've got to have somebody privately that you can grieve this with, okay? I can hear it in you. Like, this is an existential thing. This is a thing you swore would never happen. This is a thing you've probably leaned really hard into making sure that your family stayed together this is a a what i call like a grave soul injury and not in a overly spiritual kind of way but this is something that rocks people to their absolute core okay so yes you need to go to marriage counseling y'all got to work on that immediately but you need somebody that you can talk to privately as well. Okay. The second thing is this, you can't recreate what was now. You've got to build something completely new. The language that they use that I love,

the metaphor that I use all the time is this. When the Twin Towers fell down, they couldn't sweep up all that glass and steel and metal and tape it and glue it all back together and recreate those towers. They had to excavate the whole site, throw that stuff in the dump, and build something completely new. And what they built new is beautiful and stunning and extraordinary and strong and will last for hundreds of years. But you had to do the hard work of getting architecture designs and engineering and redo the whole thing, okay? And so you're on a journey now to build something completely new. And what I see happens with couples a lot when they're trying to recover from some sort of violation like this is they try to get what was back,

and you can't. And so you end up feeling like you're failing instead of saying, okay, that's over. We are now starting again, and we're going to have to rebuild something completely new. And I know that's exhausting and hard. Not the thing you want to do with three kids under three, right? And then the other thing, man, is you're going to have to, have to, have to. And this is going to sound like I'm flipping sides here.

Please hear my heart on this, okay? If you are making a go of it, you got to choose grace and not to weaponize everything around around you around your husband around your ecosystem okay because at the end of the day you're going to just poison yourself hoping he dies and that's not going to be how that works okay okay i'm heartbroken for you um So I just gave you some things that, like, here's what it's going to look like to rebuild. And you're talking years, okay? You're talking months and years. This is a big deal.

Not to mention the consequence of it all. Are you in? Yeah. You're pretty awesome, Samantha. You're pretty awesome, Samantha. You're pretty awesome. I know this sucks and I know this hurts. I'm so, so sorry for you. Call somebody today.

Somebody that's not going to give you advice, that's not going to overwhelm you with, well, you know what, you should. Somebody's just going to be with you and listen. And if that's a professional, great. If you've got that friend, great. I'm so sorry. I wish I could end this call on a positive note.

Everybody go get them. Rock and roll and fireworks. But this just sucks folks remember man your actions my dad used to say it's like throwing a brick throwing a rock in the lake and those ripple effects you know they end up on shore is way far away you threw that rock right over there man but it ends up affecting the shoreline way across the other side. And I know being married with young kids is really hard, and I know being married with young kids is lonely. I know being, I mean, I can't even imagine,

I can't wrap my head around three kids under the age of three. That's Disney World in a circus in a really small space. But man, stay true. Don't cheat. Stay true. Stay true, man. Don't cheat. Stay true. Stay true, man. Don't cheat. Stay true.

All right, let's go to Leanne in San Francisco. Leanne, what's going on? Yes, sir. Dr. John, thanks for taking my call. How are you? I'm so, so good. How are you? Well'm so, so good. How are you? Well, blessed and highly favored. Very cool. Very cool. How's San Francisco today?

Beautiful. Sun's out, but rain's coming tomorrow, so I'm trying to soak it in today. Very cool. So what's up? How can I help? All right. All right. So I i'm a mom working mom full-time uh three kids but two are school age my 11 year old son is having an especially difficult time yeah we're not going back to school anytime soon so my boy normally happy-go-lucky kid, very creative, hilarious, but he's having a tough time. He's tried to run away a couple times, two times he's tried to run away. The get away from it all is how he put it. And he's made mention of suicide. So, my question is, when do I say,

that's it, I need to seek the help of a professional? The second you get off this phone call? Okay. Okay. This work from home, this school from home for kids is, this is going to be a generational trauma that we don't fully understand for years and years and years and years and years.

It's devastating. Kids are so hyper co-regulated. That's just nerd speak for their hearts beat and their eyes widen and their faces move based on the heartbeats and eye movement and face movements and body movements of other people in their area.

It's how they interact with space. It's how they interact with themselves. It's how their brain regulates itself through other people. And this has been an absolute physiological and psychological nightmare for them. And you throw on top of that, mom, my safe space is being forced to have a dual role, right? And I don't know that side of mom. I don't know work mom. I don't know teacher mom. And you're being forced into roles that you didn't sign up for and that you're not equipped to do, right? But then you feel guilty because I'm mom. I'm supposed to be able to care for my son. And then all of a sudden, you know

what I mean? It just turns into a mess. And I'm so, so sorry, Leanne. I hate that for you, and I hate that for your family. I hate that for every kid in the country. Anytime a kid mentions suicide, it stopped the presses. We're seeing, I read an article recently, talked about it on the show, where a kid as young as nine took his life in Las Vegas. And we're seeing suicide rates among children really ratchet up. They're just so, so, so lonely. And they're losing those safe spaces, which has been home. And they're losing those, what I call

accidental community where you just, that teacher winks at you in the hallway or pat you on the shoulder. They're missing all that stuff and their bodies are just in their hearts and minds about haywire. Tell me what it's like homeschooling your kid, kid that you love, little boy that you love. Man, it's tough. I mean, I'm, I'm barely hanging on on myself like literally by the skin of my teeth just and then you go to bed and gotta do it again the next day um walk me through it walk me through what a day is like so i get up i try to get up at 5 a.m so i get a little bit of undisturbed work time on

my computer i work at a hospital i'm at a a hospital administration, so it's crazy at work as well. I was going to say, yeah, that's a barrel of roses this year too, right? Right. You're in California too. Just one barrel of monkeys after another. Right. And I want to be a good team member, help the clinical folks that are really putting the work in as well

so um so get them up about so he likes to get up early so he can also prepare for the day and um then we jump right on the computers and i'm bouncing between my two kids and my my work and um it's it's chaos and then the grind after they get off the computers to get the work done, because it's not just in classwork, it's once they get off, you have this laundry list of assignments that have to get done by a certain hour.

It's nonsense. The pedagogy there is garbage. School administrators across the country, I'm calling you out. It's trash, dude. It's ridiculous. Because here's what's happening, and I'm not mad at you. I'm so frustrated with how some of these schools are handling this.

They are getting these reports of learning decreases, and instead of doing what the science says, which is get these kids off these screens and let them go walk around the neighborhood and let them go play and let them go wrestle, they're doubling down on the other side. Well, after you get off, you've got to do more problems and more math and more this. And we're embedding in these kids not only this just failure factory, this disaster factory,

but we're also embedding in these kids a distaste for learning. And it's just a gross mess. I'm so sorry that you're pushing my buttons here. I'm half the country away from you. No, don't be sorry. It's, man. And so then your kids get done with their homework, and then what? You're back in it.

Now you have to toggle back to mom. Right. And after a frustrating exhausting day yeah why then i turn the shuttle mom because i'm trying to keep them active thank god there's my daughter is doing gymnastics i have him in an exercise class because i just need them to move their bodies and good for you good for you and um you know when he first tried to run run away i called it i said screw it i called his buddy's mom i said can chris play because i need to get my kid out of the house we're gonna risk

our physical health for his mental health so he has some buddies in the neighborhood that he'll ride bikes with etc hey that is that is mom of the year right now. Good for you. Good for you. Good for you. And I know that's a risk. I know that's a risk. I'm going to get my show canceled, all that stuff. I don't care. No, I feel like there's a lot of parents that are just,

you've got to draw the line somewhere. I mean, the kids are going crazy. Yeah. So I won't I won't divulge too much my wife and I are still negotiating

not really negotiating we're still working through which parts of my family life I disclose for all these people on the show and which parts

that I keep to myself what I'll tell you is I have heard the heartbreak firsthand that you just expressed, okay? And here's what I want to, not, we haven't experienced the mental health challenges and the suicide challenges, but I have, I've got a memory in my heart that will be there forever with an encounter of my son and weeping in a way that I've never seen him weep before. And just saying, Dad, when is this going to stop? And listening to him and my wife and my daughter negotiate homeschooling and work from home and all those things. So, here's what I want to give

you permission to do. At some point, your ROI on your work world begins to diminish because home world is hard, right? And not only hard, but it's taking your core out from under you, right? The core of who you are, which is an extraordinary mom. Are you married? You got somebody else there helping out or is it just you? Yeah, my husband, he has to go in. So he's home till about 10 o'clock and then we don't school. Dad and the kids are going for a walk. Dad and the kids are setting up a WWE wrestling tournament in the living room, and we're just going for it for a while. We will get to the classroom assignments when we get to them. And at some point, you guys have to double down on that parent connection

and even saying, I'm going to be homeschool mom for this period of time. And I'm going to make you, I want you to call me by another name because I want to have a moment when I can be your mommy. And right now I'm going to be your teacher. So call me Miss Jo, whatever, dude. But here's what I'm trying to do. Set up some boundaries between those roles because it's really confusing for a kid. And you as a hospital administrator, you are used to toggling so fast

between all these different things all the time, right? And an 11-year-old just sees mom and sees mom working at a pace and saying things to her clients and to her coworkers. Like, whoa, I didn't know she talked like that. I didn't know she knew what a TPS report is and all that stuff, right? His mind's getting blown. And his picture of mom is morphing in front of him in a way that his little 11-year-old brain can't comprehend right now. And you throw on that how frustrated you are when he's like, I don't get the word problem. And you're like, do the word problem, right? All of that. And so set up some, some boundaries like that. And they can be silly and fun. Like when I put on the big yellow crown

that him and you know, your other kid can cut and paste and make a hat for you for teacher hat, whatever, but we're're gonna set up some fun silly things that are gonna let them have some boundaries between the roles and then i don't i can't believe i'm saying these things i said it in a in a speech the other day like get in front of the tv and just hold your kids right yeah like just turn the stupid screens on i hate screens i'm i'm overly loud about how much i hate them but at some point you just got to hold your kids right and sit down and color with them it's worth you know that's gonna heal your heart it's gonna help heal their heart whatever

that looks like we played zoom pictionary a couple of nights ago with my grand with their grandparents my parents and i gotta say this shout out to my 70-year-old mom who had to act out quicksand via Zoom on a webcam. It did not end pretty, and it was awesome, though. She went all in. And then my dad, who's 70, he had got sumo wrestling as one of the charade cards. And that image will never, it burned a hole in my rods

and cones in my eyes like in my retina so all i have to say is figure out what those weird crazy fun things you can do and double down on them but let your kids know that you love and cherish them and at this point after a year of being home man loving and cherishing letting those kids know they've got value and letting those kids know that they are still tethered into you is more important than whatever they're going to pick up in social studies or math class. At this point across the country, it's so uneven. It's so wonky. Some schools have never shut down. Some schools have not gone back. It's just going to be such unequal mess that I'm way more concerned about the connection and the love and the peace in these kids' hearts.

All the way back to your original question, an 11-year-old runs away because he's frustrated. Man, I'm not going to – not every alarm is going to go off there. I'm going to talk to my kid. I'm going to make sure he knows he's loved. I'm going to go for a walk with him, those kind of things. I'm going to let him ride bikes in the neighborhood with his kids. My kid says, I'm thinking about not being here. Everything in my world stops.

Work can wait until later. Friendships can wait until later. All that stops. I'm calling a professional right now. And I'm going to do my best, my best, best to get an in-person meeting with that person because just going on another Zoom call for your poor kid. Hopefully they would let you do that. I don't know what the rules are there.

I know they are having some in-person allowances here in Tennessee here. We'll be thinking about you, and you're doing the right thing. Set up those boundaries. Set up those moments of high, high touch, high, high physical contact, high, high let them cook dinner. Those things where they get to contribute and be a part of the family household, where they get to see you being silly, where they get to have work with mom for a minute, whatever those things are, let them feel a part of the home, let they've got value, and let them ride bikes with their friends, man. And geez Louise, I'm so, so sorry. Yeah,

I'm sorry, Liam. I wish I could wrap this up and make it so great too, the second call in a row that I want to just put a bow on this one and it's hard because we're right in the middle of a massive, massive trauma. School administrators, I know, I know I'm being a jerk here, man, because I know you too. I've got close friends all over the country, school administrators. Pedagogically speaking, you know this. Eight hours for a 10-year-old in front of a screen followed by three more hours in front of a screen is not learning. Stop. Come up with something else.

And I know you've got to get your test scores. I know that. I know there's funding on top of those. I know all those things. Figure it out. There's too much I know there's funding on top of those. I know all those things. Figure it out. There's too much science out there. There's too much. There's too much.

And I also want to be safe. I'm not saying everyone should go back to schools. Y'all figure that out locally. I'm not getting in the middle of that mess. But I'm telling you, pedagogically speaking, you know that these kids cut off at a certain point. Stop piling it on. Stop piling it on these 11-year-olds, these 9-year-olds, these 14-year-olds, these 17-year-olds. Man, let's let them remember this moment not as the make or break moment when

I started hating learning. When I started hating learning. Let's give them project-based learning. I'm not going to get into that, dude. I'm going to make myself crazy. All right, let's go to Jonathan in Pensacola, Florida. I'm going to sing my way to this next call. What's up, Jonathan? How are we doing? Doing good, Dr. John. How are you doing? I'm doing all right, man. So what's going on, brother? First, I just want to thank you for taking my call. Long time listener since you started the podcast. Thank you, man. I'm in a predicament. So I have two kids, a 12-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl.

And the 12-year-old boy, I adopted him, actually got with his mother when she was a couple months pregnant, actually. And I've been there ever since. I was there for the birth. I was there for it all. And she recently passed away a couple years ago and uh I'm sorry man my life has moved my life has moved on now and I've met a great woman and we uh actually come up pregnant a month or so ago or a couple months ago and um wasn't planned but you know how that goes um you said yeah i know how that goes i know that all works yeah but um well i'm gonna

tell you congratulations anyway congratulations brother well thank you i'm i'm excited now it was shocking but i can't even wrap my head around what that conversation would be like in my house if my wife was like, well, I got to tell you something when you get home. Yeah, so, man, congratulations, brother. Thank you. Well, it's going to be a boy. Okay. And my wife's point is it's going to be my first biological boy,

and she don't want to – my son don't know that he's adopted yeah i heard the phone call the other morning uh of the the guy that found out he was adopted and how it affected him and i didn't know if i ever planned on telling him in the first place you know i i don't know i just feel like i'm his dad you know i've been there um but yeah but my wife my wife thinks that i shouldn't hide that from him and i shouldn't hide it from the new son i just don't know how to go about that i don't know how to he's 12 i'm not a i've already had to tell him that his mom wouldn't come off in the hospital and now i gotta tell him that you know that i'm not his biological dad. I just don't know how to go about it. Yeah.

So, number one, man, I appreciate your heart on this deal. Yeah, you said it right. You're in a predicament. Yeah, first and foremost, no secrets, man. No secrets ever. No secrets, no secrets, no secrets. They destroy families. They're a fire that burns a family to a crisp from the inside out it just turns the whole thing to ash the second thing is

you're right on man get rid of this biological language you're about to have your second son that is what it is with the period at the end of that sentence the moment you start saying well you're that son but this is my dude when you do that you are creating chaos that you can never you're creating trauma brother that will burn through generations of your family and that's not your heart i know that don't do that and um you have to be pretty direct with your new wife that there is not going to be a that son and this son, right? These boys are going to be your boys. Your daughter is going to be your daughter. These kids are going to be y'all's kids, and that's going to be that.

Everybody's going to be treated equally and loved and engaged and all that stuff, right? Don't get that language even in your head. Okay? So when it comes to telling your son, I can't recommend enough that you've got to get with a professional at this point that's going to walk you through. And there's all kinds of ways to do that in very gentle ways. There's just some gentle ways

that a good counselor, and you're talking two or three sessions. This isn't a monumental thing. And if he hasn't, has he gone to counseling for trauma? Was his mom lost? You know, I probably should have got it done, but no, I haven't yet. And I planned on doing it this year because me and my wife talked about it at the end of last year. Probably something I should have done that time, but my life was kind of chaotic at that point.

Hey, there's no judgment here, man. We're going to take tomorrow as a new day, and then we're going to go from there, okay? And so here's what I want you to do. I want you to reach out to a reputable counselor who works with kids in your area. Let them know the situation, that you adopted this son with his birth mom, and then she passed away a few years ago. He's 12. As he starts to hit puberty, trauma is, the way I explain it is like taking a bouncy ball and just humming it into a kitchen. Everybody can throw that bouncy ball, and it's going to bounce in a million different directions. But the hormones, the connection,

the desire to have deeper relationship with friends, romantic relationships, all that stuff starts happening now in a much more accelerated fashion. And so trauma is going to emerge in some wonky ways for him. It's normal. It's natural. You should expect it. Your new wife should expect it, but you can start preempting some of that now if you're not already seeing it. I'd be surprised if you weren't already seeing it, but maybe you're not. Get with a counselor. Let them know that you want to start talking through some of those things and that you want some guidance and some support as y'all begin to tell them, hey, I'm not your biological dad, but I'm daddy. I'm not your biological father is a better way to say that, but I'm your dad.

I chose you. Of all the kids in the world, I chose you. I will always love you. You're my oldest son. We're about to have a new son. And here's an awesome way that one of my professors, Dr. Marbley, taught me. And it worked like a champ man was when my wife got pregnant with our second she said start referring to the

second baby to the baby in utero as their baby so you're gonna start telling your son hey man when you're when your brother comes you going to have a lot of responsibility. You and me, we're going to raise a good young man here. We're going to really help him be compassionate and empathetic and kind. We're going to, man, me and you, man, your brother, your brother, and he's going to take ownership and he's going to be excited and he's going to have a participation role and own this big brother stuff instead of seeing it as an intrusion, right? Someone who's taking something from me.

Right. Well, I heard you talk about that a couple episodes ago, and that's the first thing I did when we found out. Yeah, look at you, man. Is your brother and like that. And I want to say that my wife wasn't like, I don't want her to seem like she's a bad guy and this or nothing. She wasn't going to say, you know, this is your son, this is your biological son.

She works in social work, and she's just trying, I guess, trying to point me in the right direction, and she might not know everything. Oh, sure, man. And hey, no, I appreciate you standing up for your wife, man. You're a good guy. And I'm not trying to badmouth your wife, but I do want everyone to be cognizant of is everything becomes different when you hold, in a blended family like this,

that kid, that new kid that comes along, usually it's two or three or five in your case, I don't know, 12 or 13 years later, right? That new kid can have a bonding effect, can be the shiny new toy, leaving these new teenagers who desperately, desperately need their parents' attention feeling like they're outside the loop. And it can be really easy for a new couple who gets together to want to really super bond over this new baby that we share together. And then the older kids can feel that, right?

So it's not drinking the haterade or anything, just something to be cognizant of, to think through. And you got a good wife, man. There are some out there. Not so much, brother. So I'm talking to you as much as I'm talking to our listeners out there. If you've adopted a kid, your kids are your kids. If you've married into a family and you are co-raising those kids, they are your kids. They are your kids. They are your kids. Not, well, that's my biological kid. That's my stepkid. Nope. They're your kids. They are worthy of love. They're worthy of being connected to. You hug them,

love them, hold them accountable, discipline them, do all of the things that you got to do. But all that back to your original question, get with a professional that's going to walk you through, that's going to gently unveil this to your kid in a way that he can hear it, that he can digest it. He can ask the questions and more importantly, he's probably not going to have a lot of questions to ask up front, but he is going to, over time, ask more and more questions, and you want to set up an environment that he leaves that exchange with you and a counselor. He leaves that exchange knowing, man, my dad, Jonathan, is a safe guy for me to talk to. He loves me. He chose me.

He walked alongside my mama when she passed away. He's asking me to help raise this my mama when she passed away. He's asking me to help raise this new baby, my little brother. All that, you want him super tethered in. As he gets older, he's going to feel more and more untethered. Mom's gone. Who's my real dad? You'll walk through those kind of questions as the years go on.

But right now, yeah, he's 12 years old. You want to begin to have that conversation ASAP and do it with a professional. This is not something you just plop down and be like, well, hey, I got something to tell you, son. You will set off a chain reaction inside of him that will rage like a California forest fire. It'll take years to put out. So man, I appreciate your heart. To all you parents out there who've got a young kid that you say that you've adopted and you think man, this is just going to stay between us. I'm his dad. I don't even need to tell him because I'm always going to be there for him. Man.

Secrets destroy families. Secrets destroy families. Kelly can't tell you how many calls we get, how many emails we're getting about. I'm 24 and I just did 23 andMe, and dot, dot, dot. The gig's up on those kind of private things. If you've got a kid out of wedlock, and you know that they are down the street

or in the neighborhood or across the country, and they don't know about you, they're going to find you. They're going to find you. You've got to have that conversation sooner rather than later. It's much better coming from you on your terms and you getting with the old baby mama or baby daddy and figuring out how you're going to do that because it's not going to stay secret for long. And the longer the deception, the longer the lies go on, the hotter and louder that forest fire is. Great question, Jonathan. Thank you so much for joining us. All right. So as we wrap up today's show, if you are not, I'm just going to get right to it. If you're not listening to Gary Clark Jr., stop what you're doing. He is, he's not as,

I was going to say he is Hendrix reincarnated. He is my favorite guitar player out there right now. He's my favorite singer out right now. He is writing music that just is smoke as it leaves your speakers man he's so good so good I could pick any number of songs of Gary Clark Jr. man he's out of Austin Texas the song I picked here it's just reminds me of Hendrix so much and it makes my heart glow I don't even know what I don't know what heart glow means. Like I'm E.T. or something. That was a weird stupid analogy. I gotta put that in the stupid analogy jar. I'm just gonna start finding myself from this

point forward. Well, I'll go out to eat one day when we do that. Alright, so this is from the This Land album out in 2019. The song is Lowdown Rolling Stone. He writes, Something's going on with me. I'm not who I used to be.

No. Reached the point where darkness is my compo-sant. Oh my gosh, I'm French. I know, I think that's French. I hope that was French. I know it's not what you came here for. So fly like an eagle. Go be beautiful and free, girl.

Because I'm better off on my own. Go save your soul. You don't want to go where I go. I'm just a low-down rolling stone, barely hanging on. I'm just a low-down rolling stone. Whose help may ease my mind? Gary Clark, if she doesn't love you, I do. You're awesome, brother.

Keep writing great tunes, man. This has been The Dr. John Deloney Show.