The Dr. John Delony Show - We Don’t Have Much in Common Will Our Marriage Work?

Episode Date: May 12, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A woman hoping to find common interests to enjoy with her husband - A soon-to-be husband wondering how to have better work-life balance - 10 parenting questions you’ll want to hear the answers to Lyrics of the Day: Cat's In The Cradle" - Harry Chapin Enter the Ramsey Cash Giveaway here Shop the $10 Sale here 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 Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. We don't like doing a lot of the same things. Like, we're just, we're very different when it comes to our interests and trying to find ways that we can both enjoy things we like and share experiences with each other. Hasn't exactly outright said that I miss him. I knew it. I knew you hadn't said that.

What up, what up? This is John of the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad that you are with us. We're talking about relationships and your mental health and even your physical health and whatever's going on in your life. This show serves one purpose, and that is for you not to feel so alone as you're trying to figure out what happens next. What happens next? And the wheels fall off

when you're struggling with your mental health, when your partner cheats on you, whatever's going on in your world. This show is real people going through real stuff in real time. And my promise is I'm going to sit with you and we're going to figure it out. And I'm always grateful to the brave callers who call in and say, I've never told anybody this

before, but this is what I've done. This is what I'm experiencing. And also I'm really grateful for you all for your feedback and for reaching out. If you want to be on this show, if you want to be one of the callers that makes up this show, the show doesn't exist without you. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. And you leave a message, let us know what's going on and we'll give you a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 And you leave a message Let us know what's going on And we'll give you a buzz back Or go to johndeloney.com Slash ask

A-S-K All right You've got a questions for humans I do It is time for our Oh yes $10 sale still going on Don't miss this

Because they're going to go back up And we got some new decks coming out They're going to be expensive Get all the ones you can at $10 Nice Go for it Today's question So don't miss this because they're going to go back up. And we got some new decks coming out. They're going to be expensive. Get all the ones you can at $10. Nice. Go for it. Today's question.

What's something you're avoiding right now? Oh, geez. And answering this question can't be the answer. Andrew, you got to go first. There we go. Oh, thank you, Joe. Apparently, turning my mic on is what I'm avoiding right now. Excellent. I don't know. I've been thinking about this for 20 minutes. I, thank you, Joe. Apparently, turning my mic on is what I'm avoiding right now. Excellent.

I don't know. I've been thinking about this for 20 minutes. I'm not really avoiding anything. Oh, you pre-gamed them? I'm sorry. That's not cool, man. Thanks, Andrew. Sorry, Kelly.

Wow. Fun ruiner, Kelly. It happens. You guys have these eloquent, typed-out answers, and I'm up here going, uh, uh. All right, so you're not... You don't seem like a guy that avoids anything. You're a welder, for God's sake. You just like go

do what needs to be done. Yeah, I mean, there's things like we need to buy a toddler bed for my daughter. I'm avoiding that because that crap's expensive. I don't know. That's what I got.

Where's your toddler sleeping now? In our bed. Oh, I thought you were going to say like in a nice box. No, we have a mattress on the floor, but she prefers the dog bed. I don you were going to say like in a nice box. No, we have a mattress on the floor, but she prefers the dog bed. I don't know why. She has a

small bed that she's outgrown, but she prefers the dog bed. Kelly, you got to figure out how to get this team paid better. That's all I'm saying. That's all I'm saying. Christian, sitting over here in for Jenna, what do you think, man?

I think I'm avoiding speaking to a lot of people back home since I moved here. Ah, where's back home? Malawi. Malawi. That's in the southern part of Africa. Why are you avoiding them? Because it's a lot. Starting a new life in a new place.

Yeah. Because it's a lot, starting a new life in a new place. And on top of that, I've got a lot of people asking me countless questions all the time. And I'm like, let me focus on getting settled and just finding my bearings. I can't do too many things at once. Yes, you've become like a live-action Google for everybody who's ever met you, right? Yeah, exactly. Are people asking you for stuff too? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Like iPhones and like, can you buy me this? Can you buy me that? I'm like, why? I never bought you this stuff before. Why am I? You're in America now and there's iPhones on trees, right?

Yeah, exactly. Hey, if you need some cash to buy some of your friend's stuff, Andrew's got it. He's got it. He's not buying his children a bed, but he does have extra cash. He can hook you up. I'm going to hit him up. Thank you, man. Joe, what are you avoiding? Well, even though this show is going to play at a later

date, I have been avoiding paying my taxes. Joseph, pay your taxes. I owe, and I don't want to go. You owe this year? Yeah. Oh, man. I'm sorry. I'd give you a go. You owe this year? Yeah. Oh, man. I'm sorry.

I'd give you a hug. We'll hug after the show. There's no prize for you to file early if you owe. That's true. That's fair. I guess there's no prize at all. No. I guess roads and firefighters and cops are cool, so I'll go with that.

All right, Kelly, what are you avoiding uh according to my counselor um i avoid grief yes and feelings overall those are those are two things i've personally witnessed you avoiding yeah apparently i just shove it down and move along to the next you in the same way that i when something happens i instantly just come flying out. You have an awesome, it just goes off. Yeah. It's incredible.

So with everything that's happened in the last few months, you know, my mom, the house, everything, he's like, I keep expecting you to come in here and one of these days we're going to have this big breakdown, but it's just on to the next thing. On to the next thing.

So that's what I avoid. So I would say I'm avoiding – oh, man, it's quite a lot. I'll just lump it all in to I am back seeing a counselor for the first time. And just this new life that I'm leaving, leading is brought up a bunch of old stuff and it changes the dynamic between me and my wife. And so we have been, we're both pretty smart. And so we've been talking about seeing somebody together and then we called

somebody and they said, yeah, but it's going to be a while. And we're just like, cool. Like as though that was the thing we needed to do. Right. We's going to be a while. We're just like, cool. As though that was the thing we needed to do. We actually need to go do it. Now it's probably like, well, we've done that.

We need the call, so it's cool. I'm avoiding swan diving. I know it's there. I know it is. People who call the show, they know what I'm going to say. It's very much like that. I know where this is headed. I know it's going to suck.

I know it'll be great on the other end, but, man, I'm avoiding it. And I can shove it all down with gummy bears. It's incredible. Which I'm going to say I have seen you eating so much crap over the past few days. I've got eight or nine, like, every deadline is important right now. And then this. Yeah, he walks in yesterday to the studio, y'all. And he drops like five packets of gummy bears.

And every time I've seen you over the past few days, you've had candy in your hands. Yeah, I'm hanging on. And so immediately I'm like, here we are. I'm hanging on. All right, let's go. I'm hanging on, man. Hanging on.

Oh, way to go, Questions for Humans. Bringing down a room. All right, let's go to Stacy Stacy in Bryan Texas what's up Stacy hi John how are you I'm great what's going on um doing good so far um I'm just kind of ready to jump into this question and see if you can kind of give me some insight all right let's do it jump on in all right um so I will preface this with me and my husband are definitely just in a crazy season of life right now. We've had a lot of chaos going in on our work lives. We have a four-year-old who has had some developmental delays, a lot of chasing, evaluations, specialists, therapies, things like that.

And because that wasn't crazy enough, we're also due with our next one any day now. All right. All right. And so now more than ever, I really think finding time for he and I to connect is really important, but I'm having a hard time being able to felt healthy expectations and boundaries around us spending quality time because we don't like doing a lot of the same things. Like we're just, we're very different when it comes to our interest in trying to find ways that we can both enjoy things we like and share experiences with each other. When, um, like I said,

and we just don't really necessarily like doing the same things. So is your concern, this picture that you have in your head of this is what I thought this was going to look like or is it actual like I really miss my husband and you get the difference there in that question I do and it's probably the second one okay so it sounds like the question you asked, like, how do we deal with expectations and how do we, like, find things that we can do in common together, that's secondary to, I really miss this guy. Yes. Have you told him that?

I feel like I've tried okay but i also think he struggles with uh sometimes with some of the emotions involved in that and being able to really sit down and be vulnerable with me and so it's almost like to sit down and try and have that conversation and sometimes i feel like he's just a deer in the headlights. I assure you he is. 100%. 100%. He's deer in headlights. And he doesn't want to say the wrong thing.

And he doesn't want to do the wrong thing. And I can just speak to my life. When we were expecting our second, I busy my wife was busy we had a little one i knew i was good at playing guitar and i could get better at that so i just started gravitating more towards that and i knew i was good at work so i just started working more and whenever a cool crazy chaotic punk rock show would go to town i I would just go to that because I knew I would have fun there You see what i'm saying? It was never an attempt to get away from my wife ever It was always just a I know i'm good over here because i'm clearly not good over here

And that just was a matter of me not having the tools and my wife didn't have the tools And so we just were went and did the things that we knew how to do It's like my car breaking down on the side of the road and I don't know how to fix the tires. I can change the oil. And so I would just get busy changing the oil on the side of the road. And then I get done and the oil is perfectly changed and the car still can't drive because the tires are all flat. Right? That's what's happening here. When's your baby do? In a matter of about a month and a half or so. Okay, very cool.

So give me an example of a way you've tried to tell him, I miss you. You know, I really think I've tried to sit down and just say like, hey, look, I, you know, with you working so much, um, I want to be more intentional about finding time for us. Um, and you know, just trying to say like, you know, like, Hey, I want to spend time with you before, you know, we just kind of enter even more chaos. And I mean, I haven't exactly outright said that I miss him because I knew it. I knew you hadn't said that. Okay, here's a new way I want to reframe this.

And what you're doing here is you're speaking Spanish and he's speaking Italian and I'm going to teach you how to speak Italian for him, okay? Okay. When you go to a guy, a young dad dad and i'll just brian was just north of where i grew up so um or i guess it's west where i grew up when you tell a young texas dad who's working 80 hours a week and his wife is pregnant with number two um i just you're working so much and you're never here. What he hears is he's experiencing the houses on fire and you want to talk about how warm it is. And he's just trying to save everybody.

And the only way he knows to save people is by making money, being successful in his job. Okay. So here's a different way. So you do invite him out. I don't want you to have a blank sheet of paper in front of him. And what we're going to do is we're not going to use amorphous, ethereal language. Like I just feel like we're not going to do that. We're going to speak his language and we're going to say, all right, what I want to do is map out the next 60 days.

And then mapping this out, I want to map out our time together. Who's going to be taking care of our four-year-old and who's not, like what projects do you have at work coming up? Let's map this thing out because what we're going to do is we're going to start practicing building a life together. Okay. Okay. And so what he's going to be able to do is we're going to start practicing building a life together. Okay. Okay. And so what he's going to be able to do is go, cool, I can do that. I can build a thing.

I can do a task. And when you say, all right, we have mapped out childcare. We've mapped out, I'm going to be taking time off of my job. My mother-in-law's coming in or my mom's coming in. You'll be able to put all that on the calendar. And then you'll be able to say, we don't have any dates here. And by the way, you're not gonna have any dates for the first 60 days anyway, probably.

You're just, well, and I say that, let me take that back. Some of my most amazing memories of my life, my whole life is we got snowed in when my daughter was born and we had a weird, crazy snowstorm and it snowed everybody in in texas for a week and my wife and i and our new baby sat on a couch and we watched all of the series fringe because i loved pacey i love joshua what's his name joshua jackson yeah pacey because i love mcdawson's creek fan we just watched the whole thing and we had a fire going the whole time and that was some of the most

Intimate time of my life just holding my baby sitting by my wife holding her hand getting her getting up and getting coffee Whatever we needed to get and so that was an awesome Season, but we planned it too. We were pretty intentional about planning it. So instead of these Uh, it's gonna be no. No, we're gonna have date time and it could be date on the couch It could be date watching TV. I want to make sure we put that on the calendar. And what you're doing is you're building in a language between the two of you of intentionality. And then in three months or four months when the fog starts lifting a little bit and somebody can come over and keep your little one for maybe two hours for y'all just to go to dinner or something like

that, it will already be built into the way y'all are talking. And one of these things might be from this point forward, we're going to do something every Sunday night. We're going to get together and talk every Sunday night. We're going to go for a walk every Saturday morning, whatever that looks like. See what I'm saying? Yeah.

We're going to build those things in. Now I want to answer your, your original question and not just blow it off for a second. Okay. Um, I want to give you a framework just using, can I just use my life? I know that's annoying cause we're different people, but that's, that's the guy I know the best. Here's a framework, um, that I'll pass along for. How do you share experiences when one of you likes doing one thing and one of you likes doing the

other thing? Um, so I love music. I love live music. I love, I love lit laying my floor with great headphones and just closing my eyes and turning the lights off in the room and listening To all the pieces I like listening to the hi-hat and how they mix the drums. I just kind of can geek out on it I also like playing music a lot also And I love chaotic punk rock and heavy metal and I love great singer songwriters and folk singers And I love hip-hop and I love stand-up comedy. So I love the whole arc. And so if I step back and look, I like noise. And I like a little bit of chaos.

And I like art performed. And I like being in a crowded space with people who all have our eyes headed in the same direction. And we're sharing music. We're laughing, doing all this stuff together. Okay? My wife also likes music. She likes it at a reasonable volume in a car and she doesn't mind what song comes next on the radio usually and she has curated playlists i don't i wouldn't know how to make a playlist i know how to make a mixtape i was a gangster mixtape but i don't know how to

make a playlist um and so the last month I went and saw a band called White Reaper at a tiny little club. They were mayhem. It was super fun. I went and saw Under Oath at another club and they were like screaming and it was just chaos. And then my wife and I went to the Ryman Auditorium and watched a folk band, a folk rock band that we both have loved for 25 years. um i've got a show coming up like i'm playing guitar on this thing and there was a guitar part that i've been trying to learn for a long time so i'm down in the basement playing and playing and playing she would probably rather set her eyelids on fire than sit and watch me practice guitar

but i had a moment i had like a little breakthrough and like a teenager I ran upstairs and was like, hey Will you come listen to this and I played it and she smiled so big And she was not smiling because her husband was going to weedily deedily deal on the guitar She was smiling because she saw how happy I was that I accomplished something, right? Right, and she's into gardening and I like being outside. I don't understand all the gardening things She's doing and reading and she's a great. She's a way better writer than me. And she's a coach. All I have to say is this, the distance we create inside our togetherness gives us intimacy and new avenues to get to know each other. Okay. So I want you to think of you and your husband as that ring that you wear on your finger. Y'all are bound together. Where can you create pockets of,

I didn't know that about you. Tell me more. What are you learning? Wow. I didn't know you could do that inside of that circle. And so what I would tell you is have your own things and be really good at them and then share them on occasion and vice versa. And sometimes you just got to put on headphones and go to the monster truck rally or whatever the thing is. And my wife has gone to one or two punk shows and she sits up against the wall and during the chaos and she just smiles because she's like, what are these guys doing? They're just morons. And I've gone to my fair share of country music, he haul, whatever. george straight came in on a horse once that's all i know and i was there for that so sometimes you just take one for the team you

enjoy it because you're in love with the person and you and you love seeing them that happy but this idea that we all have to do the same thing together all the time that's that's just a recipe for this is going to be a disaster and my wife and i have i've been guilty especially of of being too disengaged from what she's doing. So there's a balance there. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

But you feel free to go down the rabbit hole. Part of the problem that I think that we've had, because like, I come from the background of you, at least, you know, you put the phone down and you try to participate and you try to, you know, you try to enjoy what's in front of you as best as you're able because you don't want to feel like you're dragging the other person down. Whereas sometimes I think my husband, if we go out and do something that I enjoy doing, it almost turns into like he should just get credit for going with me and if he wanted to sit on his phone during the whatever it was, that that should be acceptable.

If I'm honest, I that like that hurts me that hurts my feelings because i just want him to kind of be present with me in the moment you've got to say those words because what you're asking him to do is to be a mind reader because he would probably rather have explosive diarrhea than go to a knitting event. I'm just making something up awful. Or a 4-H event or whatever thing you're into in Bryan College Station. And so he's going to go

and he thinks he's making a great sacrifice on behalf of mankind. He's not going to be one of those husbands that just stays at home and drinks crummy beer. He's going to go with his wife and thank God for cell phones, right? And you've got to take the extra step and say, here's when we go to these things, I would love it. It means a lot to me if you're present, if you're here with me. And I don't think that the whole world is about dropping. If my wife

asked me to watch golf, like I'm huge. Like if she said, I'm a huge golf fan, all of a sudden, well, I don't know if we'd stay married if that happened, but it would be close.

But if she said, we're just going to, I just want you to spend seven hours watching golf with me. I would have to say, I can't do that. If you want me to come down, like when it gets really awesome, then I will come give you this much time. I will put my phone down and I'll plug in and you can tell me all about golf. But that'd be tough for

me because I don't like watching golf. I think it's an abomination and it's insane. All my friends are golfers. So you see what I'm saying? I think you're putting a ton of pressure on yourself and you're expecting your husband to be a mind reader. Don't do that. Okay. Okay. Let me end the call with this. Your needs are worth being spoken clearly and out loud. And it sounds like what you're doing is you're hedging your bets because you don't want to run this guy off or you don't want to be annoying or you don't want to be a burden and you don't want to be in the way. So as a husband from close to where y'all are right now with two little kids, I will implore you, almost beg you, be very clear about what you need and give him an opportunity to show up.

And he's going to mess it up. And you are too. And part of your marriage is going to be not with everything being perfect But it's as ester pearl says it's the repair part. How do we come back together after I missed it? I showed up to the event and I was on my phone the whole time and you felt completely disconnected And I thought I was being husband of the year How do we solve that problem with back to what I said earlier? We're gonna have these sunday night get-togethers We're not gonna have a fight on the way home. I'm not gonna mope and be like, oh you didn't show

I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna recognize when I wasn't clear and then on sunday night when we get together I'm gonna say hey you came to this thing. I'm really grateful you came I know you're not into heavy metal music or into calf roping or whatever's going on I know that But it would mean the world to me It was important that you came But you weren't with me when you come I want you with me I'd rather you not come then come and just sit there on your phone the whole time

And we're going to do that on the sunday night meetings when there's no there's not a lot of energy in those meetings Those are planning meetings. Those are fun meetings. We're we're dreaming about what our life's going to be We're trying to figure out how to get there. It's not going to be in the heat of the moment It's not gonna be accusations All we're trying to figure out how to get there. It's not going to be in the heat of the moment. It's not going to be accusations. All that said, good luck on having your baby. Give yourself tons of grace. Give him some clear directions. Kelly, I may need to get Sheila printed a list for me.

All the way from things I'm not allowed to say in the delivery room, questions I'm not allowed to ask, and things that were going to be cheated for me in the next week. It was so amazing. It was such a gift. So great. things that were going to be cheated from me in the next week. It was so amazing. It was such a gift. So great. I may get that and we just put that in the show notes. That is like a template for other families. I would love to see that. You would die laughing because it's exactly tailored to me. Yes, it's awesome. Hey, everybody, we'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go to Justin in Indianapolis.

What's up, Justin? Hey, how's it going, Dr. John? I'm good. Hey, you're not working at that. There's like a big fire going on there right now, huh? No, I wouldn't know anything about that. No fire here. Just in your heart. Hey, that's awesome, dude. Okay, so what's up?

Hey, so I'm 23, and I that's awesome, dude. Okay. So what's up? Hey, so, uh, I'm 23 and I'm getting married in July. Congratulations. So we are excited. And, um, we are huge Dave Ramsey people too.

So we've got all the baby steps and all that stuff lined up. And, um, so we are, I work at a CNC shop and I have unlimited overtime. So essentially I am gearing up to just absolutely grind it out and pile up as much money as I can so we can buy a house and do all that stuff the Ramsey way.

What's a CNC shop? It's computer and American control. So essentially, I use crazy machines because they bought some metal. That sounds so great. It's so much fun. I love it. You know what I am? I love my job.

I'm a podcaster. Hey, your podcast is pretty cool. Listen, dude. I listen to your podcast a lot. I know, but you can take machines and cut metal, man. That's so awesome. And Andy over here,

Andrew over here is running the board. He can take that metal and melt it together with fire. I don't know. I just, I'm embarrassed to be on the phone with you is what I'm saying. So go ahead. So you've got the opportunity to just essentially earn a ton of money by working your butt off over the next however many months. Yes.

And I love my job. So I'm perfectly willing to do that. Excellent. However, my fiance has expressed concerns that she says she understands all the Dave Ramsey stuff. She says that she gets that we need to really buckle down and really grind it out now in these next coming years so we can really get a good foundation for our family and start things off on the right track, which is great. And I'm a very blessed man for her understanding. However, she did say that she's a little bit concerned that I might be working too much and that she's concerned about me being present in the first couple months, first couple years of our marriage. So I guess my question is, what are some good ways to balance

really getting gazelle intense, really grinding things out and really working hard at my job and, you know, making the money to ensure our future, but also, you know, um, dedicating and investing in my marriage as well. It's a great question, man. I wish more people were this intentional on this side of it. Usually people come to me when their marriages are hanging on by dental floss and trying to save it. And you are being wise and intelligent and on the front end. So good for you, man. For everybody listening, if you don't know Dave Ramsey's stuff, what he's talking about is for 30 years, Dave's been teaching people how to get out of debt, to stop owing people money. And you hear me talk a lot about the psychological issues with owing people money, but also there's a wealth building component. There's a how to buy a house and how to buy cars

and how to invest and things like that. So you're way down the road there, Justin. Here's what I think is going to get y'all into trouble and here's a simple path out of it. Okay. Have you heard me talk about pictures and words before? A little bit okay here's a here's a recap of pictures and words um it was the great william glasser who's a psychiatrist back in the day who actually swore off psychiatry in a way um he he's the one who gave me this idea we think in pictures but we speak in words what i mean by that is you're about to get married and you have a picture in your mind of what the word husband means.

And in your mind, I'm guessing a husband is a guy who works really hard and he's a provider. And he looks at a goal 15 years down the road when it comes to paying for kids' college, kids that aren't even born yet, paying off a house, making sure your family's safe, providing food, all those things. Your wife has a picture of husband, of a guy who walks in at exactly 5-0-0 every day, who neatly puts his clothes away, and who is smelling so good, and who just sits down to a nice, and I'm completely gender stereotyping this thing, by the way, and sits down to a nice

dinner and smiles, and then y'all all watch TV, and she falls asleep in your arms. Now, both of you deeply love each other. Both of you are deeply committed to each other and you are going to go a hundred miles an hour towards your picture of the word husband and she is going to go a hundred miles an hour trying to make the picture of husband in her head possible and y'all are both going to go a thousand miles an hour going opposite directions from each other. And so when you come home at seven o'clock or 10 o'clock at night, having busted your butt in a hot warehouse in the summer, cutting metal, she's going to be sitting at home heartbroken that she's done something wrong. That her husband would rather hang out with machines than her. And then when you come home at five o'clock, you're going to be looking at your watch the whole time going,

it's, we are never going to get a home. So the magic here is not, how do I find the balance? Balance is an illusion. It's not real. That's a fake word. It's a,

it's a waste of time to go towards it. What I want you guys to do is to get really clear and united on these pictures. Here is what my picture, when I hear the word wife, here's what's in my head. When she hears the word wife, here's the picture in her head. What kind of house do we want to live in? And when do we think we want to buy one? How much money would it take? And just reverse engineer it. That means that if I worked 48 hours a week for the next two years, I could make this thing happen. Or if I worked 80 hours for one year, we could have a house. And now what you're doing is y'all are just weighing what kind of life you want to live. You're not weighing, that's too much

work. That's not enough work. You're never home for dinner. You're not, all those questions go away when you decide together, here's the life we want to have. And so for us, I wanted a life outside of higher education someday. I wanted a life where I wasn't on call 24, 7, 365 all the time. And so what that meant was for three or four years, I was going to go back to college I already had a phd. I was done. I'm going to go back and i'm going to get trained in something else So that I have different options And so what that meant was every couple of weeks my wife and I were meeting like this is awful I'm writing papers every saturday instead of playing with my young kid and i'm reading books into the middle of the night instead of

Going to concerts and all that we gave up that moment and now we're living a bananas life like a cartoon but we sacrificed but we did it together you see what I'm saying so those things took care of themselves and so I'd love for you and your wife to sit down and say let's just tell her exactly what I told you about pictures and words and what marriage, like when I see marriage in my head, you're probably going to default to what your parents did. She's going to default to what her home life was like, you know, I'm going to try to make this thing work.

And that's where that tension comes from. All right. So speak back. I talked at you a lot. Tell me, tell me what you're thinking. Yeah. Well, I mean, we, we, we're going, you know, marriage counseling. We're, we're going you know marriage counseling we're we're uh we both raised christians and have amazing amazing parents and we've just come from two great families so we're doing marriage counseling all that stuff so we actually have marriage counseling this evening so we're having we always have dinner before and kind of talk about our week and stuff so i was going to talk to her about about whatever it is we talked about this evening at dinner and

yeah that, that pictures and words, that really makes sense to me. I'm following you there. I am desperate to give this woman everything that she deserves because I am the luckiest man in the world and I love her more than anything in the world. I'm just trying to be prepared.

The greatest gift you could give her on the front end is extreme clarity about what you often especially husbands but wives too especially husbands we get in our head i want to give my wife everything well i may have talked about this on the show this is this is a private conversation between me and my wife so i don't know if I have or not. I really want my wife to have a handsome husband. And I can't do much

about my face. I got stuck with that one. But I can stay in the gym. Especially with how much, how bad I eat sometimes. And I really want my wife to never ever, ever worry about money. Ever. I want her to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants.

And so I'm going to work like crazy all of the time to always be earning, always be earning, always have another line in the water, another prospect, another book on the horizon. I always want to be earning. And it was during a Christmas holiday, not this year, but the previous year, when I was sick and I was down in our little home gym, lifting weights, I was lifting heavy and I can be kind of obnoxious, loud and whatever. And she came down and just said, what are you doing? I was like, I'm working

out. And she came and got really close to me and she's shorter than me. And she got real close. And she said, on a pie chart that is our life together the looks department is filled the next exercise you do is not for me it's for your ego you're welcome to stay down here but you cannot tell yourself or anyone else that you're doing this for me and she said while i'm here when it comes to money, we have enough. What I don't have enough of is you. And what I realized, Justin, is I was using what I thought she wanted and I was trying to give it to her. And I never bothered to ask her. Occasionally, I would ask her and I wouldn't believe her. Occasionally, I would be like, hey, and she'd

be like, you look great. I'd much rather you be up with us once or twice a week for breakfast instead of spending an hour and a half down in the basement. And I'd be like, yeah, she says that now, but one day, what if I just trusted my wife? Right? So it goes back to asking. And then I'm going to give you this one thing You're going to find as you in as a newly married 23 year old man. Yellow young dude You're going to find yourself Not knowing what you're doing And work is going to become a great Distraction a great drug my good friend ian simpkins says if busyness is your drug Then rest will feel like stress. If you medicate yourself with busyness and with more work and more work and more work, resting will feel anxious.

So you got to be honest with yourself about it. Whether you're using work for a season, we need to earn this much money so we can get a down payment for this house. And so I'm going to work this many hours for this long. We're gonna get this thing done. Or I miss endlessly working forever and ever and ever. Amen. Because I'm good at that. And I'm not good at being married right now. I don't know what I'm doing. Y'all are gonna have to build into your relationship conversations and ways of talking. And if y'all will connect your pictures together, if y'all will be crystal clear about what you're both aiming at, man, you will be so far ahead of every couple I talk to. Not everyone, most of them.

Be clear about your pictures. Make sure your words and pictures match and set up a plan together and then just go get it. Congratulations on getting married, man. Let me know how it goes. I'll be right back. All right, we're back. It is time for everybody's favorite lightning round. Let's do this, Kelly. When your producer was a hair metal fan in the 80s. Hi, Pot. Have you met the kettle?

There's the music. All right, let's do this. All right. First question. So we say this lightning round is about kids and parenting. And I don't know what's coming. Nope. You know, I always feel like we're going to get canceled.

Let's do this. First question. How do we decide if and when our preteen is ready for their own phone? The answer is no. Ta-da. That's my answer, man. No preteen should have a phone. It's in my opinion. I agree with you on preteen. Yes. No preteen should have a phone, period. If a teenager needs a phone, it would have to be something that is so highly restricted. There's some special phones out there and I don't know enough about the individual companies, but it would have to be something

that my kids cannot have unfettered access to AI and the internet and all these insane opinions about all this insane stuff. Everything from sexuality to religion to whatever. We complain like psychopaths about schools. What are they teaching in them schools? And then we give our kids freaking phones. Are you kidding me? What's the matter with you? I would much rather have a teacher tell my child something that I disagree with. And then my kid come home and talk to me about it, then have the internet. Millions of unfiltered opinions. No, we got some blockers on our phones. No, you don't. Your kids are smarter than you. That's my thought on phones. Ta-da.

All right, then. Back to being canceled. All right. Second question. My job causes me to work long hours. How can I make up for the lost time and connect with my kids when I am home? That's a great question. So one, I hope that there's some cyclical seasonality to this, that this isn't all the time, 24-7, 365. So my brother-in-law works on the railroad. So that means he's gone at strange hours.

That also means when he's home, he gets up a little bit early and he takes his kids to school. He drives them to school. He picks them up from school. He goes to performances when he's home. So same with me. When I'm on the road, I'm on the road. I'm on the road. When I'm writing books and I have to hole up in a hotel for a week and get something done, I miss my kids. I then do the best I can to make it up in other places. On my schedule, and again, I know I've got some privilege here, but I don't miss kids' theater performance. I'm not going to miss a play.

I'm not going to miss a choir performance. My daughter got a part as the big rooster in her upcoming something or other for first graders. I'm not going to miss that. So that's going to cost me money to show up to that, and it's worth every single penny of it. I'll also say this. Last night was one of the most extraordinary moments of my life.

At 3 a.m., about 3.15 in the morning, my daughter woke me and my wife up. She came in the bedroom, woke us up and said she couldn't sleep. And I'm so tired. I got so many deadlines. I'm just out of gas. But I heard in her voice this deep frustration. Like, I just want to be asleep and I can't and I have i've Struggled through insomnia my whole life and I knew it. I heard it. I felt it. So I got up

I'm gonna get choked up here. Hold on I got up and I went got an apple Because she told me she was hungry I can't sleep And I used our little apple slicer and I got a plate and I went and sat on her bed And we ate apples at 3 15 3 20 in the morning till about 4 And we laughed so hard and she told me about this dumb boys in her class and all It was a really precious time. And so sometimes we think how do I show up in these moments?

We gotta go to disneyland. We gotta no, dude, eat apples with your kid on her bed at 3.30 in the morning. She'll tell that story at your funeral. So, all right, Kelly, I keep going over the little dinger. Sorry. That's okay. All right. My wife left and I'm a single dad of two daughters. What do I do when they start to reach puberty? How do I approach the sensitive topics with them? I want to desensitize puberty. It's like if you're a dad and you can't talk to your daughter about her period, like that's on you. It's her body.

It's a natural thing. It's like not a weird, strange, oh, shut up, get over yourself. Have the conversations. If you don't know how to have the conversations, get with some women that you trust and ask, hey, how should I have this conversation with my daughter? What's ways that you had it in your life

that you didn't have it in your life? So number one, I want to take away any weird stuff, whether it's sons or daughters. My wife will be able to have particular experiential conversations that are different than I can have with my daughter, 100%. There's going to be conversations that they need to go just have by themselves. Awesome. But I don't need to be in my house like, oh, period. That's just, it's part of it. Or you're growing up. It's time to go get bras. Like, that's life. And so, making that as

weird as possible, as not weird as possible. Not making your daughters ever feel like they have something to apologize about their bodies or they're somehow broken or weird. That's number one. Number two, get a couple of adult women in their lives that they can trust, whether that's an aunt, whether that's a teacher,

somebody that they trust, even offer to put some money on the table. Hey, would you take my daughter to dinner? Well, I'm trying to build relationships with other women that I trust because she's going to need people to call because she's not's not always want to call her dad with stuff like that. And so have set up a curate relationships with other adults in her life in their lives that they trust. All right.

We're pregnant with our first and I'm scared it's going to change our relationship. What can we do to keep things the same between us? I know. Bless them. Bless your hearts. It's going to change 100% of everything. All of it will be different now. Every bit of it is different.

So you have two avenues ahead of you. You can know that everything's going to be different. So we're going on an adventure together, arm in arm, and we're going to reimagine sex and we're going to reimagine entertainment. We're going to reimagine time and calendars and work, all that stuff. Or you can almost guarantee the end of your relationship by constantly comparing it to what it used to be and trying to drag it backwards and make that happen again because it won't it won't everything you knew is over now the way your husband or wife looks acts but like all everything's different now everything's different so bless your sweet

little souls um you can't because it's all going to change. It's all going to change. All right. We can't get our teenager to come out of his room. What can we do to encourage him to participate in family activities like eating dinner as a family or church on Sunday? Oh, geez. Okay. Anytime somebody tells me they can't fill in the blank with their kid,

I always throw a flag on that. You can unhook the computer and throw it in the freaking garbage. You can take the door off the hinges. You can take all of the desks and chairs out of your kid's room. What you want to do is you want to have some magic hack or some magic pill so that you don't look like the bad guy. You don't look like you're intervening, but that your son will magically just follow a trail of gummy bears out of his room into the family. Whatever. It's not going to happen.

You're going to have to get your kid out of his room. That's number one. Number two, often kids don't like to play games with parents because parents aren't fun to be around. They're the worst. They're always criticizing and judging and trying to bow up and they can't lose at a board game

without getting their feelings hurt or all mad. So, be somebody that your kid wants to be around. Don't be an annoying, pain-in-the-butt adult who always has a lesson ready to go and always like be somebody that you'd want to hang out with and make some of these things. I remember when I was a kid, my dad told me, if you don't want to go to the church where we all go, faith is important to me and our family lineage go somewhere

go somewhere i'll drop you off and i didn't realize at the time what a big deal that was um but what he was saying was your faith you having deep roots in this thing called belief into something bigger than you are is more important than making than our little picture of a pretty family um on sunday mornings at some church than some olin mills photo that's that's when your kid sees you being honest and authentic not using him as a part of a performance and so if your kids won't come out of the room you can get them out it's just gonna depend on how much you love them we do the thing so we all go to church together on Sunday, but my son goes to a different church for a youth group on Wednesday night

with some friends and he loves it. That's great. Doesn't matter to me. All right. How do you explain death to young children? I mean, that's a tough question. Is there any... No.

The way David Kessler explains it that I love and what I've used repeatedly is, when I'm talking to a kid about a funeral, I will say something along the lines of, you know how when we celebrate somebody's birthday, it's our way of saying we love you and we see you and we're celebrating you? A funeral is the same way. It's us telling them that we love you We always will love you and we're gonna miss you

And so I try to contextualize that ceremony. Um I'll just give you the two examples because it's such a broad ranging question With my 13 year old when we talked about we had the had the Nashville shooting here with my 13-year-old, we went out for a walk and I talked a lot more open with him about what he had heard, about what actually happened, about the safety protocols, about how the SWAT officers responded. Because I've done SWAT trainings before

and I've had SWAT officers come get me. And so I was able to just give him a play by play. And then also I was really clear about the statistics. It's probably not going to happen. It's probably not going to happen, but it does. With my daughter, we went and got on the trampoline and I laid down on my stomach. I got eye level with her.

So she knew, her body knew this is not a, this is not dad lecturing. This is not dad being scary. This is dad being with her. And so there's something really important about body position and eye level so that her body regulates itself. It gets still and it gets slow. And I asked her, did you hear about what happened?

And I let her tell me what she knew. And I confirmed some, she knew a lot more than I thought she did. But we're just at a place now where we can't hide this stuff from kids anymore. So talking about death is really important. And here's the other important part about talking about death. Let your kids see you weep. Let your kids see you be upset. Let your kids see you be really, really sad because they have those same feelings too. And they need to see you have those experiences so they don't feel crazy. They don't learn at a young age to stuff all their feelings down and try to hide them because that's what mom and dad do. No, man, let your kids see you cry. Let your kids see you be really,

really scared. That's a gift. All right. Our son plays video games. It's where he connects with friends. Should we limit his playtime each day? Yes Absolutely 100 um I don't have any good data off the top of my head. I wish I did I don't have any data on like here's too much and here's too little um I can tell you my house. I broke down and got a nintendo switch for my son for christmas. I know I did I did.

I did. And he gets one hour a week on Saturdays when all of the other – it's purely a reward thing. So that's how I do it. Academics are important in our house. Connectivity with our family is really important in our house. And everybody participating. Like my son does chores. My daughter does chores, me and my wife do chores. And so the connectivity in our home is more important than connectivity with friends. And also he's not allowed to do it online. So that's a whole different story there. How have y'all drawn boundaries in your house? It has changed,

kind of ebbed and flowed over the years. Right now, Nathan is allowed to play until six o'clock because by the time we're usually not home. And then that's usually about the time I'm working on dinner. So he has to come and sit in the kitchen and that's where he works on homework. And if he doesn't have homework, then you just sit, he just, we talk or whatever. Yeah. Um, but he's allowed to play until, but he plays usually, you know, even cause he plays online now because he plays with, um, with other kids, you know, but I always walk in, who's that, who's that, who's that. And, um,

and there's been a couple of times where it was like, I don't know that person. And that does not sound like a kid. Of course he's 17 now. So none of them sound like kids anymore. But we know all the people that he's playing with, but we've just put a time limit on it. And that's kind of a non-negotiable.

Yeah. I think a broader conversation that families need to have is why is this more appealing than being connected with us? And that's just a helpful framing question. So as you get to be 17, there's some natural, I want to be around my friends. Right. And that's, we had to come to the understanding of, we were like, well, go outside, play with your friends, do this. That's not what they do. Yeah, exactly.

It's just not. Now, he drives now, so he and his friends, they'll go to dinner or go hang out, but it's just not where they are now. It's different. And so we had to kind of

come to that realization that this is where he hangs out with his friends. I've had to not be an idiot is what I would say. Yeah, because there's that, well, like, do you not want me to have friends?

I mean, that's the exact conversation I have. Like, I don't think you understand, Dad. Like, I'm on the outside of every conversation here. And I love that I know how to care for sick chickens. I know that I can work a lawnmower and a small tractor. And I can, I know how to harvest a deer. But man, I just want to sit at lunch and talk to my friends about Zelda. There's room for all of it as long as it's in the right place.

That's right. And the priority is right. Yes. And I think maybe that's the most important thing. Our family, we're very clear how low on the totem pole of a priority that is. That is marshmallows and gummy candy on the back end of a healthy meal. Or as a way to cope. Yeah, I was going to say, really?

That's where you're going with it? I, last night. Again. Listen, last night in, I was walking through, I was feeding the dogs and I saw a bag of miniature marshmallows and I just took a handful. I'm hanging on, man. Hanging on. All right.

Next question. We're going to get there. All right. Next question. Let's do it. As our kids get older, I've noticed our parenting styles are different.

It causes tensions between us and confusion for the kids. What do we do? Talk about it. Talk about it. Talk about it. Talk about it. And when you talk about this,

don't go with, again, offsite, get out of your house, go somewhere, plan to spend a few hours, spend the money, even if you don't have it, spend the money, and don't sit down and say, hey, you're letting those kids run all over. That's not what we're going to do because then your spouse has to fight you because you just punched first I know we both want to make amazing adults and I don't like how i'm showing up right now for the kids And i'm hearing them be really disrespectful to me and i'm seeing them be disrespectful to other people

We got to come together on our parenting stuff and i've got to put my stuff on the table first i'm struggling What are you struggling with or are you struggling with anything? we got to come together on our parenting stuff and I've got to put my stuff on the table first. I'm struggling. What are you struggling with? Or are you struggling with anything? And hopefully there's some, your, your spouse has some ability to be reflective and say like, yeah, I don't know what to do here.

I'm struggling with this, but let's reimagine this thing together. If you get into an accusation war, then your parents, parents are going to pick sides. Kids can smell that a mile away. They're going to pick sides, and it's just going to be this divided house. Don't do that.

How do you balance 30-second hugs and asking your daughter's permission to touch her? I default to her saying no. So her autonomy over her body trumps my understanding of the importance of skin-to-skin contact. I will say this. I think I talked about this on the show, but my wife called out several months ago this idea of if you weren't so hard to be around, if you weren't so electric all the time, if you weren't always lecturing all the time and saying, why are you wearing those shoes? Why you got that shirt on? What are you doing? If you would be fun to be around, that would change. And I tell you what, I've worked really hard on that.

And it has been transformative in my house. And so, again, using what happened last night, I could have said, go to bed. It's three o'clock in the morning. We'll do it in the morning. I just got up. And for those of you wondering, yes, I ended up missing my workout. I skipped my workout. I barely made it to work and I'll be chasing deadlines all day.

I spent an hour on my daughter's bed, not even an hour, 40 minutes, eating apples, chilling, listening to her. She told me stories um yeah the hugs on the back end of that will come the hugs on that will come but i'm always going to default to she is chiefly in charge of her body all right last question by the way that also is for uncles, grandparents, everybody. Everybody. Why don't you go hug granddad? No. If she says no, then she says no.

What's another way you could tell granddad that you're glad that he came? What's another way you could tell uncle whoever? Because her body is saying, that guy's not safe, and I don't want to hug him. Cool. All right, go for it. All right, last question. My daughter does competitive gymnastics. She wants to quit, but I think she should keep at it because she's talented and she could get a scholarship.

Do I make her keep competing? Cool, man. I'm going to speak my concerns out loud, okay? On its face no you should not continue to make your kids keep competing at a highly competitive level with this imaginary idea that um your kid's gonna get a scholarship especially and you've got to be really honest with yourself and most parents can't do this especially uh we used to call it we used to call it soccer mom scholarship and when I was working in higher ed. Here's why I could give a student a ten thousand dollar

um My college could give no scholarships And i'll make up a number here a fake number because clearly this isn't true And our total tuition was ten thousand dollars for the year College down the street their tuition was was $20,000, but they would give your kid a $1,000 JV soccer scholarship. So the total out of pocket is 19 grand on this school, 10 grand on this school. 95 times out of 100, we lost that student to the more expensive school so that parents could go around and tell everybody that their kid was on a soccer scholarship. 95 times out of 100, we lost that student to the more expensive school

so that parents could go around and tell everybody that their kid is on a soccer scholarship. It's all part of the enrollment game. And so, if you want to be the parent of a scholarship athlete, you need to check yourself because you're about to lose your kid. I will also say, as a youngster, I tried to quit several times. I was a big super 5A Texas high school football player, and I went to college on track scholarship. I tried to quit both, and my parents said no, but they let my brother quit quit And I remember challenging them on that as I was older and they said y'all are very different people You needed the structure

You needed other adults because you weren't listening to us to push you harder than you thought you needed to be pushed And it wasn't for scholarships was if it was my parents saw a developmental need that I needed that they couldn't provide And so they wouldn't let me. My brother, on the other hand, was amazing. He was a structured human being. He still is. He's amazing. We're very different people. And so they were able to look at him and say, he's not going to need the same structure here. And here's the catch, the kicker. I let my kid quit one sport, but he had to choose something else to do. He can't just sit at home and do nothing. So cool. You do not have to do competitive this anymore. What is the sport and what is the instrument you're going to choose? And so if they are like, oh, I thought I could just do nothing and hang out with my friends. That's not going to happen. You got to do something. It doesn't

have to be competitive, this or that, or this or that. And mom and dads, you can always – what I saw on Instagram the other day, it was every dad thinks if I just worked a little bit harder as a high schooler, I could have made the NFL. No, you couldn't. No, you couldn't. You know how I know? You couldn't. So don't put that on your kids.

If you just worked a little harder, you can go pro. They're not going pro. They're not going pro. So give them some peace there. Is that good? That was great. Cool. Nice work. Lightning round. They're not going pro. So give them some peace there. That good? That was great. Cool. Nice work.

Lightning round. 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, this song was one of my favorite songs growing up, but it was redone

by the great Ugly Kid Joe. If you don't know who Ugly Kid Joe is, man, you need to get right with yourself. But it was originally written by the great Harry Chapin, not Chafin, like I worked out in jeans and I got chafed. It's Harry

Chapin, and the song's called Cats in the Cradle and it goes like this. My child arrived just the other day and he came into the world in the usual way. He probably didn't need to say that. But there were planes to catch and bills to pay and he learned to walk while I was away. And he was talking before I knew it and as he grew, he said, I'm going to be like you, dad. You know, I'm going to be like you. My son turned 10 just the other day. He said, thanks for the ball, Dad. Come on, let's play. Can you teach me to throw?

I said, not today. I got a lot to do. And he said, that's okay. And he walked away, but a smile never dimmed. And he said, I'm going to be like him. Well, he came home from college just the other day, so much like a man. I just had to say, son, I'm proud of you.

Can you sit for a while? And he shook his head and he said with a smile what I'd really like dad is to borrow the car keys see you later can I have them please and I've long since retired and my son's moved away and I called him up just the other day I said I'd love to see you if you don't mind he said I'd love to dad if I could find the time he was going to be just like you. Your kids are watching everything you do. We'll see you soon.