The Dr. John Delony Show - What's My Role in My Parent’s Divorce?

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A man unsure of how to navigate his parents’ divorce - A mom struggling with having her three young kids home for the summer - A man wondering whether he should fight for his relationship or leave Lyrics of the Day: "Our House" - Madness 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 Hallow 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. I've lost track now how many times we've broken up and gotten back together. I think it's three. Part of me feels like I'm sometimes split in two. Sometimes things are really great and I go, this is awesome. I'm really enjoying life and we're out doing stuff and things are a blast. And other times I'm just, what have I gotten myself into? Is your girlfriend nuts?

What up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. The show about your mental health and your families and boundaries and relationships and marriage, whatever's going on. Your kids, summertime, whatever you got, here's my promise. I'll walk alongside you. If you're new to our gang, I'm so glad that you're here. This is a real show about real people going through tough stuff, trying to figure out what to do next, tired of living the same old way and ready for something new, and then looking up and going, whoa, I don't have a roadmap. So my promise is I'll tell you the truth. And if I don't know the

answer, I'm gonna say, I don't know. And I'm going to sit with you while we try to figure out what the next right move is. I'm honored to walk alongside you. And I'm grateful for everybody who calls. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693 three 3291. It's one eight, four, four, six, nine, three, three, two, nine, one, or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And, um, please it's such a gift to your neighbors cost you nothing, but like 10 seconds of your time. If you'll just take a quick, quick second to like the show, subscribe to the show on YouTube. If that's where you're picking us up or to like, or subscribe to the show on podcast. Leave a five-star review. It's a blessing. Listen, if you're the one walking up and down your street and you're like, oh, my neighbors are nuts,

simply leaving a review helps out your neighbors because it kicks the show up into the algorithms and it puts the show right in front of their face. And maybe they can start making better choices in their life. That'd be pretty cool for all of us, right? All right, let's go out to Michigan, to the great city of Lansing, and talk to Brother John. What's up, John, with the greatest name ever? How we doing? Good. How are you doing? Thanks for having me. You got it, man. Thanks for giving me a buzz.

What's up? So I'm 26 years old, and I'm just wondering, how do I navigate my relationship with my parents who are in the process of separating? Oh man, what happened? Well, I mean, I'll try to give you the story. Let me know if I start to ramble on too much. But essentially, my parents have been married about 30 years. And there's some things I don't know all the details of because I was a kid when a lot of this happened. But I guess about 20 years ago, there was an issue where my mom had made some untrue statements about some domestic situation.

It had gone to court. I remember living separate with my mom away from my dad for a time. Then they got back together after things kind of settled. Um, and my mom had apologized to my dad about it, but hasn't ever really made kind of like, um, I guess my dad hasn't felt like she's made a kind of a public acknowledgement that he isn't, you know, this monster or this person who she had said that he was. And there's just been issues kind of stemming from that where he's never gotten over that past hurt. Um, and she's kind of, you know, just kind of put it behind her as, Oh, you know, I apologize to you like it's done. And then things kind of basically surfaced, you know, again, this past fall. Um, and my mom ended up kind of leaving the house in December around the time of her birthday,

when she would usually go on a trip, uh, down South to stay with her step-mom down there. Um, but she ended up staying down there for like 12 weeks. Um, and part of it was, she was saying that she was helping, you know, uh, this relative move cause they're in the process of moving. They're a little bit elderly. Um, but the whole time, you know, she was saying, oh, you know, your dad, he told me that I had to leave the house. Um, and then I'm not welcome back where, you know, then I've asked my dad, he's like, no, you know, I miss her.

I want her to come home. Like I can't get ahold of her. Um, and then finally she moved back into, you know, moved back to the, to Michigan, um, in like March. Um, but ended up moving into, um, a condo with a relative of hers that was sick. Let me hop in here. No, you're good, man. Dude, I'm the chief rambler, man. You can't touch me. I'm the goat at rambling. So you're good. I appreciate you walking me through that story. Quick point of clarification.

Did your mom accuse your dad of some sort of domestic violence again? No, it's never happened again. What was the dust up this summer, this fall? I think it was around the anniversary of when it had happened. So what was the accusation it seems to be a dark shadow over your parents marriage um it i don't it's hard for me to say because it's like i've never heard them both talk about it to me together where it's like they're both speaking about it together so it's hard to say because there could always be like a he said she said but so um i'm assuming the courts didn't put your dad in jail. So I'm assuming the court sided with

him. Yeah. Something along those lines were, but the accusation was something about either that he had beat her or had done something to the kids or that it wasn't a safe situation, but that, you know, that wasn't the case. I have no memory of any situation like that. So as, as, as one of your parents actually filed on the other one? No, they haven't, but it's like, it's kind of like, it could be any moment. They're kind of, you know, it could also be another 20 years because they were going to separate when she made all these accusations against him and he stuck it out so here's here's what you've got and i hate to do this not in person because um it can be pretty callous okay is it cool if i just didn't just kind of cut to the chase yeah go ahead okay um it

sounds like and again i know there's always two sides to every story, right? But it sounds like your mom did something that was pretty awful to your old man back in the day. And maybe it was 80-20, maybe it was 90-10, but then it sounds like your dad has acted like a four-year-old for the last 20 years or last 15 years of not wanting to move on, not able to move on. And when I say move on, not just forgive and

forget, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about if you're out of your marriage, leave your marriage. Give yourself and your family opportunity to heal. Or if you're all in, you got to be all in back in. It just seems like both of your parents, this has just been a weird dynamic. And so I have no evidence from the story you just laid out that they're actually going to get divorced. Sounds like yet another move that somebody's putting on somebody or somebody. And maybe they will. Maybe they get divorced tomorrow. I've got a couple.

So I say all that. What's your response to that? I've definitely seen that because I know back, you know, my, my dad used to say that he was going to, that they were going to probably separate once, you know, my little sister like went to college when she was out of the house. And then that didn't happen. But I guess what, what recently developed is when she came back into the area,

but still is not moving into the house, that relative that she was helping take care of ended up passing. And now my mom's trying to buy her condo from my cousin okay to then live in this new condo and that that's what's making me think that it's like it's becoming she's been practicing living on her own for the last three or four or five months yeah okay um have you sat down individually with each parent and talked to them um i've been able to talk with them on the phone individually. Um, and I guess what's hard is, you know, my, my mom is, you know, I love her and she's great, but she can just be kind of a manipulative and emotional. And like, if you try to, you know, give your honest opinion of like, Hey, you know, this isn't the right move. Like, I don't think you should, you know, be taking out a mortgage to buy this condo. It's not, you know, it's not, you know, you're, you're acting, you know, a little bit too, you know, irrationally, you know, she, she, you know, she can't take that feedback. It all becomes a personal attack of like, is she asking for that feedback?

What was that? Is she asking for that feedback? Yes and no. Cause the other day, you know, cause my, my my another kind of dynamic is my wife works for her she owns like a small business oh geez um and then then that's a you know there's a blurred boundary there of you know family versus employer um yeah it's definitely robin thick blurred lines there brother yeah and she calls my wife you know kind of upset almost crying saying you know i feel like you know people are talking behind my back but they won't just wife, you know, kind of upset, almost crying saying, you know, I feel like, you know, people are talking behind my back, but they won't just tell me, you know, what they're thinking. All right. So I'm going to jump in here. Here's, you're going to have to grow up real quick. Okay. And so I'm going to rattle some of these off. If one or two of them just sounds stupid or doesn't make sense or might not work in your family, push back, okay? Step number one, your wife's going to have to get a new job,

point blank, period. If you want to keep your marriage intact, you want to have some sort of relationship with your mom downstream, she's going to have to decide to get a new job. And I absolutely understand the complexity of what that will look like both interpersonally and professionally, all that. Number two, you are going to have to make space in your soul to be surprised by how sad you are if the divorce actually goes through. Especially young adults, you know, 20 to 30. I can't tell you how many I've sat with who are just stunned by how sad they are that their parents split up. Like they're grownups. They got their own family, their own house, but there was always this anchor they were anchored into. Even if their parents'

marriage was a disaster, there's always this tiny little fairy of a fantasy that things are going to work themselves back out. And there's a finality to, I just bought a house. I divorce you. And as a kid, no matter how old you are, it's an unmooring thing. The floor kind of comes out from underneath you. So I want you to be expecting that. Don't fight it. Don't run from it. But when you get real sad, be real sad. That's okay. It's nothing to be ashamed of. You're not broken. You're not weird. I would if I were you. So I'm just, all I'm doing is projecting myself

into your situation. 26, I'm married. My wife works for my mom. I've also been talking to my dad on the phone. I would set aside a weekend and I would go visit each parent individually. And here's what I would do. I would lay out my participation in this moving forward

Here's what that means dad Mom says she's buying a house that y'all it looks like y'all are moving on I here's going to be my role in this i'm going to love you. You're my dad and i'm going to love her She's my mom. I'm not picking sides And i'm going to cut off any conversation that gets negative about the other parent. I'm just not going to participate in that. And I want you to spend some time with you and your wife coming up with whatever those boundaries are going to be. The more you can get on the front

end of that and let everybody know yourself included, what you will and will not do, the better off you're going to be able to find out where they are and the better off you're going to be as this thing unravels and gets messy and silly. So there's something about just saying, hey, this is going to, I'm going to cut off negative talk and your impulse is going to be to rescue your mom, rescue your dad. You can't be their best friend. You can't be their therapist. You can't be their pastor during all this mess. You can say, I love you. Have you called your friends? I love you so much. I hate that you're hurting like this.

Have you gone to see a counselor? But you can't be their person as hard as that is, okay? And then here's the last one. I want you and, no, second to last one. I want you and your wife to preemptively imagine holidays. Preemptively imagine holidays, preemptively imagine birthdays. And I want you all to come up with a set of ground rules that you will dictate to your parents,

not the other way around. Because all of this, you get divorced in September, it becomes finalized at Christmas. Mom and dad have very clear pictures in their head of what Christmas is going to look like. And both you and your wife are involved in both of those pictures. And that's not going to be possible. And so I want you all to preemptively have that discussion and it will break your heart to do it. It will feel surreal. But I want you and your wife to say, okay, this is what Thanksgiving will look like for us. And mom and dad chose to separate.

They chose to be by themselves on the holidays. It's not our job to fix that loneliness, but here's what we can do. We can do the morning here and the afternoon here. We can just pick one this year and the next year we'll pick one because they chose to separate, not us. It's not your job to make their holiday fantasies come true

and their birthday fantasies. And when y'all start having kids, all guys, we're having one birthday party. Y'all can both be adults and come to, or y'all can decide amongst yourself who's coming or not. We're not going to play dad's house and mom's house and grandma's. I'm not going to do that. Whatever y'all decide to do. Okay. Here's the last thing. Tell your mom and dad that you love them every single time you talk to them. Every time. Even if you're pissed off and you're mad and you think they act like children, tell them you love them every step of the way. Because

they're going to need some sort of tether back to family and reality. All right, I just threw a ton at you. What do you think? I mean, that is a lot, but I think there's a lot of good things to pull from that. And I think establishing boundaries is going to be really important. I guess my one last thing regarding that is just, I feel like I so badly want to try to help. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Counsel or give feedback when they're asking for feedback. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. Because they're going to drag you into, the nerd word is they're going to triangulate

you. You're going to become the fulcrum of their relationship because you're the oldest boy. You're the 26-year-old. You've been helping and you're quote-unquote making it. And weirdly, mom gave your wife a job. You owe us two. That's why I say your wife's got to decouple from that.

She's got to go a different route. You have to withdraw from some of that entanglement so that you can put up clear boundaries and not have those things held over your head. You're going to get dragged into it. And that's why I said, you're going to want to rescue your mom and your dad from the choices they have made. And you can't do it. You can't do it. What does that sound like in real life? Honey, i'm so your mom calls you and she's crying. I can't believe your dad did this did this Whoa, whoa, whoa, mom I'm so

So sorry that you're heartbroken It breaks my heart I'm not going to talk about dad on this phone call. I've already talked to you about that. I'm not going to talk about dad But I will tell you I love you and i'm so so sorry that you're heartbroken. Have you called so-and-so and you fill in the blank? And that's going to be you putting up really firm, strong boundaries because you can't rescue them out of this. Is that going to be hard for you? It'd be hard for me.

It'd be real hard for me. Yeah, it's going to be hard, especially because it's going to be an adjustment because I feel like I've been someone who likes to, I mean, I'm someone who likes to give counsel and advice and say, hey, this isn't the smartest decision right now. Or, hey, can you step back? Can I tell you what my guess is? My guess is you've been parenting both of them for most of your life. And my guess is you have been the voice of reason for them for most of your life.

And my promise to you is that is not your job And unfortunately, it never has been Let me rephrase that it has been your whole life Unfortunately, it should not have been And so the problem with divorce is it's not never it's never between just two people it ricochets through a family it ricochets through a family system and the dynamics that have existed for 5 10 15 20 30 years like in your case even unhealthy ones everything is blown up and so everyone around this situation even when it divorce is justified and it's right and it's the right thing it's still painful to everybody and there's family systems that's the right thing, it's still painful to everybody. And there's

family systems that have to create new dynamics and new avenues and new paths out in the woods because, man, it's just different now. Things are different. So yeah, you've been the fixer and the helper and the parent, quite honestly, probably for your whole life. And you're going to have to find esteem in other places. So instead of solving every problem with a magic wand or breaking your own back to solve their problems, you're going to have to shift to, I can't solve this one. Y'all chose this, but I'll sit with you. And I love you. Not going to talk about mom, not going to talk about dad, not going to give you advice and wisdom, but I love you. And I'm grateful for you. Thank you so much for the call, Brother John. Holler back if I can help in any way. We'll be right back.

This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes, and if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life, and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist.

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I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere, so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney. All right, we're back. Hey, before we move on to the next call, during the break,

I had a good conversation with Jenna and Nathan. So Nathan, you, you, Nathan's the guy who runs all the screens. He's the YouTube guru. So, hey man, you, you, you experienced this. Tell me about it. Yeah. So I was 28, I believe when my parents divorced and it is like, it doesn't matter how old you are. It's still definitely sucks.

No matter what stage in life you were in. Did that surprise you how much it, how, how unsettling it was? Um, cause by 28, you already had 14 kids and right. Uh,

we had just had our third at that point. And so I think that the, for us in the stage that we were at in life, it was really difficult because it felt like we had lost two grandparents at the same time because my mom had to go into survival mode and my dad ended up moving further away and ended up in a different state. So we lost the support at a time where we really could have used it in life. So that became difficult.

And that, but that was every situation is different and there's a lot of different dynamics at play that, that really affects you and your story. How did you manage being both angry at one parent more than the other versus still loving them? because they're my parents um there was definitely a season where i had to just take a break because it just made me too angry and upset to um be around particularly my dad he was the one that had filed. So it was easier for me to blame him. Um, in hindsight, a place

where I came to was that eventually I saw my mom land in a much happier place in life. And so now more in a place of like, Hey, um, I'm grateful that it happened because she, her life was improved in the long haul. It was a hard season of life for her. And to see her go through that, and she's my mom and I'm her son and I protect her and want to care about her. But to see, to be happy for her, her to land in that place was really beneficial, but it took time. So your meta lesson is divorce is great in the long term, right? Good job, Nate. Just kidding. Jenna, what about you? Yeah. So for me, I was about sixth grade when my parents got divorced, and I'm the middle child.

So I've got an older brother who is in high school. So when my parents got divorced, he was able to go off and do his own things. And then I have a younger sister who she really didn't know what was going on at the time. So for me, I was that middle ground for my parents where when I'd go back and forth between their houses, your mom did this and your dad said this. And so for me, it was struggling, but I was with my mom forth between their houses. Your mom did this and your dad said this. And so for me, it was struggling, but I was with my mom more of the time. We only saw my dad every other weekend. So in my mind, I always took her side and that, I think that strained my relationship

with my dad a little bit. And it's hard because you're also in middle school. You're figuring out who you are at that time. So it definitely shaped me a lot of who I am now, but it's so, yeah, like you said, any age you struggle with it. Like my sister at the time didn't really know what was going on, but now she can talk about it and process what happened for her. And same thing with my brother. We all just coped in different ways. So if, if you are parents getting divorced please be cognizant of your kids because they just get dragged it's like chaining them to the back of a truck and taking off down the highway

they just get bounced along behind the truck and they get put in hard and tough positions and for parents know this, your kids cannot rescue you from this hurt. It's not their job. This is a choice that you made.

It's a choice you made. And it's a choice you got to sit with and a choice you got to wrestle with and a choice you got to live with. Your kids can love you and they will love you. But they can't rescue you

from the hurt of divorce, man. It's tough. Thank you. Thank you guys. I appreciate that. Can I say one more thing? Of course. In my experience,

if you feel like your marriage is on a path towards divorce and you know that's happening, don't just stick it out for the kids for a long period of time because either way, it's going to hurt them and it's better to get it over with and get to that place

where you're both laying on your feet and able to continue life in a better place than rather prolong this long agonizing relationship that causes more pain and suffering for your kids. So when you see the place where your mom landed, is there a part of you that wishes that they had just called it 20 years before instead of playing married uh yeah basically i mean uh the place where my family was at the time wasn't that wasn't really possible i think yeah but um yeah i think that's the advice that i've come to of like don't just prolong it because of kids especially if they're really little and i know and i'm for marriage don't get me wrong or I'm trying to, I'm like do everything that you can to bring healing and restore and all that great stuff. But if it is inevitable, don't prolong the pain that you're going to put on

your kids and feel guilt and waiting for that, especially if they're younger, when they're younger and they're a bundle of nerves, they're not going to remember that and remember chaos yeah so they'll feel they'll have the um the implicit memories of that but they will be able to grow from that earlier than later in life when they're really established in the relationship of knowing that mom and dad are together that's the smartest video camera guy you're ever going to see in the world ever way to go man um thanks guys i appreciate you jenna nate let's go out to my hometown in h tone go strows and talk to sarah what's up sarah hey dr john it's so great to talk to you it's super great to talk to you man how are we doing i'm good i'm hiding in my closet from my kids that's what. That's what moms do in the summer.

Kelly just raised both hands and said, preach sister. What's up? Oh, see, I know I'm not alone here. Okay. Oh, you're totally alone. I'm just kidding. What's up? What's up?

No. So my question was, I guess I phrased it. How do I better handle my anxiety and my stress in the summertime? And so to give you a little background, I am a wife and a mom of three active boys. How old? Eight, almost 10, and 12. Woo! It's rowdy over here. I bet so. Eight, almost 10, and 12. Woo!

It's rowdy over here. I bet so. So summertime for my teacher self. Oh, are you a teacher? Oh, yes. I meant to add that to the end. Yes, I am a teacher. What years? Well, I'm elementary, but I jumped into special ed this past year.

Okay. So can I just say thank you for your service? You've been deployed and you're back. So thank you. God almighty, that's a tough road. So when was school out? We got out about a week ago. Actually, it was right before Memorial Day.

So I'm kind of a week into like, okay, finding our groove as a family. No, no. There's no groove yet. Okay, okay. I'm trying to give myself grace. Mom gets two weeks to recover.

Okay. At least two weeks. That'd be awesome. My boys are like a thousand miles an hour. I know. I'll walk you through how to deal with them. But mom, all of this starts. So my guess is that anxiety is a couple of things.

Number one, your body's fried. It's cooked. You're exhausted. I've been a teacher. You're done. You get done and you collapse. And then some idiot in your life's like oh my gosh it's so great to get summers off

and it's like bro I'm in recovery like I'm not this isn't off I've been working 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the last anyway

so number one your body is trying to get your attention to be like we can go no more we can go no more number two probably

you can tell me if I'm wrong, your husband doesn't fully grasp the severity of everything? And he's just business as usual? He's amazing. He's wonderful. He helps around the house, carries the load with me. But he is, okay, so a new piece of this puzzle is he just started working from home about a year and a half ago oh fart in a box on a stick yikes

that's a lot of dudes in your house yeah it's a frat house there's pee everywhere oh geez so i think like in march literally march or April, I'll have a day where I'm like, I need to talk to you. And he's like, is it, is it, are you getting nervous again about summer? I'm like, yes. Like the groceries, I've been to the grocery store every day. Like the kids eat constantly. I try to force the schedule and they, they just, it's just feels like chaos sometimes. And I feel like as a teacher, I'm used to, and they are as well, being kids in school is like routine structure. Like this is every minute of our day is calculated. And then when we have summertime, unstructured play is so important, but it's also like the devil's playground. Like

they go nuts when there's this freedom and we, we do plan things and we have friends we go hang out with or we'll go somewhere, but we're not spending tons of money and we're trying to live within our means really well. Um, and I have, I'm jumping in because if you were here, I would ask you permission if it was cool I would just give you a hug for a second will you do me a huge favor? I want you to take as deep a breath as humanly possible I want you to hold it for an awkwardly long count

of five as deep as you can ready? one, two suck in as much air as you can and hold it one two three four five and when you exhale i want you to pull your shoulders down as low as they will go okay now you just sit there for a second okay one, you are not a bad mom for wanting space

between your boys and your husband. Got it? Yeah. The next time you tell yourself that, I want you to say, hey, Sarah, I talked to this YouTube guy.

He said that's not true. Okay? You're not a bad mom for wanting to break. You're not a bad teacher because you have three knuckleheaded boys and you're quote unquote supposed to be the expert on all this stuff. And you don't know what day it is. What happens is you get in this loop that, well, I must be terrible at my job and it must be terrible at home. And it must be terrible at my wife. And what kind of mom doesn't even want to be around her kids? I finally get time off and you get in this death spiral and you end up in your closet on the phone with a podcaster, right? Yeah. Okay.

Unstructured play is incredibly important for kids and so are ridiculously firm boundaries. So creating time and space, here's what that looks like. It looks like you calling a family meeting with the boys and saying, prefacing it with, this is a grownup conversation. And they will go, and they'll look at each other side-eyed and kind of get all tough. And you tell them, stand up tall, stand up straight. It's a grownup conversation. And they will go, and they'll look at each other side-eyed and kind of get all tough. And you tell them, stand up tall, stand up straight. It's a grown-up conversation. And they'll get all wiggly waggly. And then you tell them, beginning tomorrow,

mom is off limits until 10 a.m. Mom's off limits. What you're going to give them is an incredible gift of watching their mom rest and recharge and recoup and they're going to take this lesson into their marriages they're going to take this lesson with their girlfriends they're going to take this lesson into the workplace when they have exhausted pregnant moms working for them who are also incredible at their jobs. So I'm talking about total life change and legacy change by simply telling your boys,

mom's off limits until this time. And you've heard of your teachers, you've heard of conscious discipline, just the framework. So one of the cornerstones of that framework, one of the seven pillars or that framework one of the one of the seven pillars or whatever you call it is choices i found out once that my wife was actually doing this to me and i didn't even know it she's a teaching guru but here is your options for breakfast they get two choices and they get to own the choice. Here is the options for between the time of 7.30 and 10.

You will go outside, but also you won't leave the yard. So here's two or three things you can do in that time. If one of you violates this, all three of you fill in the blank. Here's the choice y'all have made and here's the consequence or accountability. And so what we're gonna do is're going to slowly give these boys some autonomy within some really strong fenced walls. And they're going to feel like they're pulling one over on mom.

They're going to practice autonomy. They're also going to be safe. They're also going to break stuff, but it's going to be in a place that you design things to be broken in. And mom is going to wake up slow and have coffee and read and journal and stare off into space and put her feet up outside on the front porch see what i'm saying yeah i was thinking about like you must do these things like in the morning time you get to you get to pick when you say must they go to war when you say here's your two choices they feel like they win right it's this it's what my wife did she's like um we can go to um mexican food or pizza and i'm like i'm the man of this house we're having mexican food that's what i'm talking about and And she got what she wanted. You see what I'm saying? So we're not, the moment you start

going to must and you have to, the moment those boys and you desperately want them to buck that system. Cause one day their government is going to tell them you must, and they're going to go, do we like, and that's, that's the kind of, that's the kind of men you want to raise. And so we're going to give them practice on how to give mom space, give them practice on how to honor mom and dad. And they're going to test, they're going to run their little eight and 10 and 12 year old heads up against these boundaries and see if they hold. And with a smile on your face, you'll say,

hey, you chose to interrupt me between when I woke up in 10 a.m., so you just chose for absolutely no screen time today at all. None. Zero. I hope tomorrow you don't make that choice. Yeah. And they will get that message real, real quick when mom's firm. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like I've been really rigid before where I'm like, okay, we're doing This this and this and this and this like with the schedule of our day

But do you see how you see you're you're telling them what they're going to be doing instead of inviting them in the choice That's right. Okay, and it's it is magic Inviting them along for the ride and the lessons downstream are beneficial now I'm gonna tell you this right now. There's going to be some morons on the YouTube channel who come, those boys need to be told what, whoever says that is stupid. They're dumb.

It's dumb. It's dumb. It's not good for them short term. It's not good for the middle term. It's not good for them long term. Because you are in the process of raising men. You're not in the process of curating a summer vacation for an eight and a 10 and 12 year old. Also you and your husband, who in no way am I saying he's

a bad guy, not even close. He's probably an amazing guy. I trust you that he is. I didn't know what I didn't know. And it wasn't until the school year was over that my wife started saying, okay, here's what I've just been through. Here's what I need the next 30 days to look like, that I got a picture of her world. And so it's really easy for me as husband, a guy who loves my wife, who's involved and engaged with my kids to just wake up June 1 and it's business as usual. And I've got a wife suffering from PTSD who is also now full-time stay-at-home mom and not fully recovered yet. So it's important for you and your husband to go,

okay, what is June going to look like? What's July going to look like? What are we aiming towards? What is camps? Who's going to drive? Who's going to pick up? How does this impact your work from home? All of those things. Let's just go sit down and say, okay, let's dream

together what the thing's going to actually look like. What's our picture for the summer? Because the picture might be your husband's had a pretty quiet house to work from home and now he's got three maniacs in there and a wife who listens to a lot of murder podcasts. podcasts and at some point they're not going to find your kid's body because you know what to do you see what I'm saying like he's going to expect but his picture is business as usual your picture is god I need some help and so all both of those are great

you just got to sit down and navigate that together yeah yeah can I give you one more thing yeah that time until 10 a.m. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, now. Can I see what you're saying? Can I give you one more thing? Yeah. That time until 10 a.m. Okay. If you use that time until, and by the way, I just picked that number arbitrarily.

It could be 9 o'clock. It could be noon. I don't care what it is. That's for you and your family. But there has to be some protected time for mom that your boys get to see that mom is honoring her mental health and her physical health and our family by taking, putting her oxygen mask on first. They've got to see that and it's got to be sacred time. Yeah. You can't, go ahead. Oh no. I'm one of those, um, 5am, uh, weirdos that goes to work out really early. Fantastic. So they see me come home, you know,

they know where I was, but then they're like, mom, I want this, mom, I want that. And my day just goes. It's gone. Yeah. And you wake up and it's 2.45 PM and you just start yelling inside. I just feel crazy and I don't like things. I feel crazy. I don't like that. That's okay. But, but, but I want you to take ownership of the craze. It's not these rambunctious little boys fault that they're rambunctious little boys. Thank God they are. It's the structure and the balance and not balance. I hate that word. It's the structure and the boundaries inside that house.

So I'm going to tell you something that's really hard, but I'm telling you, cause I love you. The crazy that you're feeling is crazy, crazy. You are allowing to happen. And so what I'm telling you is to just take ownership of the day and you got to have your husband's buy-in on this. So I'm glad that here you say I get up at 5 a.m. It's real easy to fall into the trap of just do nothing in that holy sacred time. And I want you to be intentional about that time, whether it's exercise, whether it's calling your mom,

whether it's writing letters, whether it's going to work out at 5 a.m. and then meeting a friend for breakfast at 6.30. That'd be awesome. Yeah, it would be. Put that on your calendar and let your kids know. Yeah. Mom has her special breakfast on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Yeah, I have a hard time relaxing.

I know you do. My husband will pipe that out. I know, I know. I'm like, he's on the couch after we've cleaned up or done something, you know, after dinner or whatever, and he just sits and I'm like, how do you just sit? He's like, it's good for you. You should try it. Okay.

Can I ask you a real hard question? This can be kind of a left turn. Oh, sure. Wait, let me try to ask this in a polite way. Where did the, I'll ask it how I asked a caller in a polite way. Where did the, I'll ask it how I asked a caller on a previous show. Where did that ticker tape that runs below, you know,

when you watch the news, that little thing that has a stock market underneath it, just running and running. Yeah. Yes. Underneath the, the, the movie that is the life of my friend,

Sarah from H town, my hometown, your ticker tape just runs and says, you suck at all of this. the movie that is the life of my friend Sarah from H-Town, my hometown. Your ticker tape just runs and says, you suck at all of this. You're not good at any of this. You're not good at any of this. Where does that come from? I don't know if I really say it to myself.

I know, but your body experiences it. And here's how I know. Okay. Because you are unable to prop your feet up and let your knuckleheaded boys run around because you think I'm quote unquote supposed to be fill in the blank. The supposed to be and the shoulds never stop in your heart and mind. Yeah. Should's not a great word. No. And it dominates your life. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like I just, I don't know. Growing up, I have amazing parents,

and my dad was always traveling. He's a pilot. And so my mom was just, she was doing everything while dad was gone. You know, and I think I just, maybe it's just like my vision of what being a mom is. It's like, you're nonstop. You're serving your family. You're like not, you know, and go, go, go, go.

Okay. You just did like a year's worth of therapy in 30 seconds. Here's your magic. Here's your magic moment. Are you ready? Sure. Yeah. I want you to take your husband out for a half day, just half day, pay for the babysitter, whatever you got to do. Don't leave those three boys. Cause they'll, they'll burn your house down. You know that. Yeah. I want you to take your husband out and I want you to explore this one question. Husband who I love, who's amazing,

what is your picture of a wife and mom? Not what do I think it is? Because both of you can talk and you're going to use the same words, but you're going to have very different pictures. And I want you to paint a picture of what you think the perfect mom is, the perfect wife is, the perfect housekeeper is, whatever words you want to throw in there. And I'm almost guarantee you that your husband is going to be like, that lady scares me. And I think you nailed it. I think your body's running an old script that it picked up from an awesome mom that you had. You got to do this.

You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. You got to do this. But the message underneath that you got to is you're nothing if you don't. And I think that message would stun you if you were honest about it, and it would stun your husband because he loves you. He knows you're incredible. I know you're incredible I know you're incredible So let's build a life

I say this all the time. Let's build an unanxious life in our home starting with mom puts her oxygen mask on first Mom takes care of mom so that she can lean in and be a maniac with these boys And of course, we're going to go to the pool. Of course, we're going to go to camp Of course, we're going to go to the zoo whatever other junk, we're going to go to camp. Of course, we're going to go to the zoo, whatever other junk you got going on. We're going to go to the Astros game or whatever. But every day starts with mom honoring mom and mom having Sabbath and rest and peace and mom and dad building a life together that's sustainable throughout the summer so that we can go back in to be a teacher in the fall. I'm so proud of you. I'm so grateful for you. Stay on the line.

I'm going to send you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future. It's got some steps on how to build this life I'm talking about. And I can't wait, man. I wish it was in the fall because I got my new book coming out. I can't wait. Oh, I need to get you a copy of it when it's out. But it's not out yet. Just to lay out the steps here.

But you are on the way, Sarah. Thank you for being brave. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go to Northern Oklahoma, or as some call it, Canada. Let's talk to Matthew. What's up, Matthew? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing today? Great. How about you, man? I'm doing phenomenal. This is unreal. It's great to be here.

Thank you so much, man. What's up? How can I help? All right, let's jump into it. Let's just jump great to be here. Thank you so much, man. What's up? How can I help? All right, let's jump into it. Let's just jump right on into it here. So really, here's the quick setup. I mean, I listen to you almost every day while I'm at work, as well as the Ramsey Show, and you've really helped me in a lot of areas of my life. I see how many people you help.

So, hey, I thought maybe you could help me too. Let's bring it on. Thank you, man. What's up? You betcha. So my goal really with this call is really just to try and get some answers and solve some of the problems here that I may be facing personally and specifically in my relationship. So I'm looking to solve problems in my relationship. How do I know I'm dating the right person? And how do I bridge this gap between myself and my partner in this relationship? So what happened that precipitated this call?

So, I mean, here's the setup, right? So I'm 28 years old. My partner's a bit older than me. She's 31. We've been dating on and off here really for the last six years. And I've lost track now how many times we've broken up and gone back together. I think it's three. Fast forward into today, we recently bought a house together. We've been living together here for the last six months. And really a part of me feels like I'm sometimes just

split in two. Sometimes things are really great and I go, wow, this is awesome. I'm really enjoying life and we're out doing stuff and things are a blast. And other times I'm just, you know, I catch myself just thinking, what have I gotten myself into? And I can start, you know, catching myself gearing up to ways to get out of this. And it's really just disorienting me and it's exhausting. And I'm trying to really, I really want things to work, I think, overall. And it's just, we've been having these, we'll have dumb arguments really about nothing that I just come home and they'll just leave me wiped out. So can I ask you some real direct, direct, like just cut to the chase questions? I'll do it. Absolutely.

If I did this in person, it would feel insulting. So I'm just going to go at it. Okay. That's fine. Let's, let's jump into it. Is your girlfriend nuts? And hey, it only works if you tell the truth. When you get home, does she start crap with you and start fights with you and tell you that you're stupid and you're dumb and you don't do this right? What's the nature of these fights? No, I'll tell you. I don't think she's nuts. And really, how do you define nuts anyways?

Oh, I've got some pretty clear. I work with Kelly. I know very... Just kidding. Very clear. What do you define nuts anyways it's oh i've got some pretty clear i work with kelly i'm i know very just kidding i'm very clear what do you think yeah i wrote down some examples because i figured this was going to come up so here's an example like i've got a great career i'm doing really well in life and i'm an athlete i'll come home um from a busy day at work um you know i get home and i'll just want to throw some i'll throw some clothes on the on the bedroom floor and i go jump in the shower and then i'm guy, sometimes I forget about them and I'll go off and do some other things, make a smoothie, go outside, sit on my patio.

And you know, then it's, Hey, you know what? You got to clean these clothes up, do this. Or, or, you know, the last fight we just had, I'll give you another example is we'll be fighting about a utility bill, for example. And it's like, she's like, Hey, the bill costs $50 more this month. Why is that? I'm just, my kind of thought with it is, hey, it's a utility bill.

It's just money, $50. Like money, money is not the issue here. We're, you know, it's not a problem, but. So here's the issue I can tell you right now. Okay. Twofold. Number one, have you heard me talk about pictures and words here?

Pictures and words? Have you heard me talk about that and words here? Pictures and words? Have you heard me talk about that on my show? No. Okay, the great William Glasser said that he could fix most marriage issues in one to two sessions. And I rolled my eyes and he said 99%, I made that number up, a significant percentage of marriage issues is a mismatch between pictures and words. What do I mean? When you and your wife or you and your girlfriend bought this house You both used the word let's buy a house together you both said let's make a home And her picture of home

Is straight out of pinterest And she grew up in a house where and i'm making something up here. So I may be way off, but just go with me, where her mom got beat up for not having a clean house or her mom cleaned the house and she saw her dad look at her mom and say, thank you so much for loving me so much. I'm really grateful. Or maybe her dad sucked and threw crap all over the place and she heard her mom whisper, I wish he just showed me enough respect to clean up his stupid underwear. And then that is wrapped into her picture of home. Forget the words, picture. And your picture of home looks like a place where you can, after being on all day, every day, you can just drop your shoulders, throw your stuff on the floor, kick your feet up because I'm here. You both love each other. You both want to make a great home. You both just have a different picture of what that

looks like. And so you find yourself in these weird fights about clothes and about TV channels and about $40 extra on a light bill. It has nothing to do with it at all. It has to do with your wife is desperately trying to create this picture of this home She has in her head and this life she has in her head and you both are using the same words The joke I use when I talk about this from stage is my wife comes out and says hey Let's go on a really hot hot date this weekend. It's going to be smoke show And I start thinking what hotel we're going to end up at in what city and what we're going to be wearing and for how long and for her hot date is the burrito barn has tacos for a dollar on this Friday

night. I love tacos and she likes romantic rendezvous, but both of us end up mad when we finally realize that we're not doing the other thing that the other person thought. Has nothing to do with what we want or what we intention has to do with how we discuss what's this world we're creating together? I'm also going to give you this picture and this is just from the data Okay, it's just from research. This isn't me preaching at you It's hard to play house and also anchor into a stable relationship. It's been off and on for six years And so some of the frenetic energy you feel in the house is a body your wife's body and your body trying to regulate the realities of living together which is hard and also trying to live together and do hard things without being fully anchored in the ground because when you buy a

house together but you're not married you don. You don't legally bind this thing together. The idea is, but I could leave. Nah, but I could leave. And that plays havoc on each other. So I'm going to tell you, my wife and I dated five years. We broke up five times. Twice it was a forever breakup.

And we'll celebrate 21 years this summer of being married. Here's what it came down to. Largely me saying, I'm going to go all in. I'm going to choose you as the woman I'm going to commit the rest of my life to. And that choice is going to be every day. And it's not out of a movie. It's not the notebook. Wasn't true. true. Titanic wasn't true. I wish it was, man, but it wasn't. And I'm going to commit to you. And I've almost blown it up a couple of times over 21 years. It's not going to be perfect and it's going to be messy.

But I choose you. And that means I'm not going to say stupid stuff like, you know, I'm just a guy, so I don't pick up my underwear. Pick up your underwear. Like the woman you love is saying, hey, this drives me crazy. Pick it up. You see what I'm saying a guy, so I don't pick up my underwear. Pick up your underwear. Like the woman you love is saying, hey, this drives me crazy. Pick it up. You see what I'm saying? Yeah, I hear you.

And you sitting down and telling her, hey, here's our financial picture. Let's do this together so that if a light bill comes in 40 bucks over, we smile about it. It doesn't wreck our life i grew up in a home matt that um forty dollars an un un like a forty dollar bill that came in unexpectedly took away took food off our table was was tragic right so i, it's extra attuned to that. Even now. It just kind of wired into me. So my wife has to constantly, John,

we have enough. We're good. We're good. We're good. I can look at the numbers. I can see the numbers. I know we're good. Intellectually.

My body still says, water bill is like, whatever it is. Right. So I just threw a lot at you. What do you think? I agree with that. And I, I, you know i i agree with that and i i you know like i said i i've heard you say i'm a long time listener and i've heard you say you know you got to be all in

and i completely agree with that i think for any relationship with you you have to be all in and i think the where i'm running into problem and where i'm running out of steam is is when we come home and i and i've you know I've said, yeah, I want this. I want to be all in with you. And I'll come home and it'll just be a fight. It'll be something. And then I can just, I can feel myself gearing up and I'm going, oh my God.

And I'm running out of this steam of just commitment to you because we just have to keep dealing with what keeps going on here. And it's driving me crazy. And I do agree with that. I'm happy to clean up the clothes. Yeah. I'm you know, life is about negotiations and I'm, I'm all good with that and I've been trying to do a better job with that.

But listen, don't, don't negotiate the details yet. Negotiate the pictures. And that starts with this question over a breakfast. And I think at some point y'all been together 60 years. So I think calling this out, we bought a house together. We are all but married. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. And I can't continue to live in a home where there's fights that escalate like these do all the time. And so here's what the question I want to ask you, honey, who I love.

What kind of home do we want to build? Because we get to choose that. What do we want our life to look like? And where this is scary is she might say, I want it to look like this. And you know, in your soul, I can't do that. Or I don't have any interest in that. And I also have friends who dated five, six, seven years that ended up breaking up and marrying other people. That's brutal and it's devastating. It's hard, but it was right. But you can only get there if you're willing to own reality, to choose reality.

I love you. We have a home together. We've been together for half, more than half a decade. And I can't take another month of these fights. Are you willing to build a new life with me? And really that's you dude is being as vulnerable as possible because she can look at you and say, no, that's scary, right? Yeah. Scary. So let me ask you this. What if I told you just break up with her dude, be done. Does that give you peace? Just be done, man. You've put in six this. What if I told you just break up with her, dude, be done. Does that give you peace?

Just be done, man. You've put in six years. It's not working. Call it. A part of me would be honest with you. I would, because I'd go,

wow, you know, fine. I can, I can breathe a little bit here. And another part of me would be absolutely crushed because i know that i do how much i feel how much i love this woman and um yeah how i feel about her i think that's the question to explore that you've got to be honest with yourself about great i also don't don't believe and

i know some of the the marriage instagram gurus going to come out of the woods on me for this, but I don't believe that it's a hundred. I just knew without a shadow of a doubt. Dude, I don't know a lot of people who had no reservations. I don't know those people. But I know that when it works, it's when people say, despite the reservations, despite the come what may, I'll be right here. The commitment is on me.

That's scary and hard, man. So are you in or out? Well, I mean. Are you in or out? In or out? Do it. Say it. Say it.

Yeah, exactly. I want to be in. I want to be in and i really want to make this work and i do want this because i see us building a really great life together okay and and but but stuff has to change that's where i'm at with it i love it stuff has to change so i want you i want you to write this those things down and i want you to spend as little time on the details as possible and when you write these down this is critical for you and anybody listening to this. When you sit down and have, take her to breakfast and it's going to be a two or three hour affair

in some little Canadian bistro. I don't even know if that's a thing, but I just made that up. Here's the conversation. It has to be all about you. What do I mean by that? If you sit down and say, I just come home and I drop my clothes and you're doing this and you're doing this and you're doing this, then she's got to go to war with you. But if you sit down and say, I have a picture of my home that is warm and safe and I'm out at work all the time and I come home and I just drop my shoulders. And then I feel like I disappoint you when you get upset that I've left underwear and I'm tired of feeling like a disappointment in my own home. Or the water bill comes in, it's $40 more expensive than we thought it was going

to be. I know how much money we make. You know how much money we make. And I feel like I'm failing you because I haven't provided a safe home for my future wife. You see how you aren't attacking. You are saying, here's how I feel. That's much more inviting. So I want you to take the time to write down on a piece of paper how you're feeling, which is like, ugh, gross. Take the things that are pissing you off. Take the things that make you mad. And I know there's a list of things that you are courteous enough not to have aired your dirty laundry on a podcast. That's fine.

But I want you to be honest about those things and don't go start throwing darts at this time together. I want you to say, here's how I'm impacted by this. Here's what makes me nervous. Here's what makes me excited about moving forward. Here are some things you do that make the house feel like this. Here's what makes me nervous. Here's what makes me excited about moving forward. Here are some things you do that make the house feel

like this. We got to own reality. We got to choose reality. Start from there. Actually, I have some pretty high hopes for this relationship because I think you love this girl. I think she probably loves you.

And I think six years is a long time to put two people in a cage and be like, make good choices without you starting to just g gnawing each other's tail off. Have this conversation. Hey, please do me a huge favor. I'm kind of invested in this now.

Reach out and let me know how that breakfast goes, how that time together goes. I want to hear how it goes. And we'll be rooting for you every step of the way, my brother. 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, we are back. And as we wrap up today's show, I want to tell you, I'm so grateful for everybody listening. So grateful for everybody listening.

A great song from the 80s, from the one-hit wonders, Madness. The madness song's called our house and it goes like this father wears his sunday best the mother's tired she needs a rest the kids are playing up downstairs sister's sighing in her sleep brother's got a date to keep he can't hang around our house in the middle of our street our our house. It has a crowd. There's always something happening, and it's usually quite loud. Our mom, she's so house proud, never ever slows her down, and a mess is not allowed. Our house.

In the middle of our street, our house. I've never taken the time to read the lyrics to this. This is basically like a dude just writing about what happened today and saying, hey, guys, you want to make an international hit? And they're all like, all right, let's do it. Way to go, Madness. Way to go. I love you guys. Bye.