The Dr. John Delony Show - Why Am I Getting So Angry at My New Wife?

Episode Date: August 25, 2023

On today’s show we hear about: - A newlywed who can’t stop snapping at his wife - A wife who wants to support her husband during law school - A mom struggling to overcome self-doubt To pre-order John's new book Building a Non-Anxious Life click here. Lyrics of the Day: "The Things We've Handed Down" - Marc Cohn Enter The Ramsey Cash Giveaway for a chance to win $3,000!  https://bit.ly/TDJDSgvwy 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: Anxiety Test 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 been a stay-at-home mom for the last 15 plus years and want to return to work so I can get out of my abusive marriage. I had a work colleague who helped me get a job and I'm just really scared that I'm going to fail. I want to let my kids down. What is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney show, a show about your marriage and your mental health and your kids and whatever else you got going on in your life.

I've been doing this for two decades, sitting with people when the wheels have fallen off. And my promise is, I may not know the answer, but I'm going to tell you the truth and I'll sit here with you. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. Still, it feels like forever now, building a non-anxious Life. My brand new book is out for presale. Go to johndeloney.com. It's 20 bucks. We'll send you all kind of shenanigans

and you can download a talk right away and audio books. If you're not a reader, it'll get you the audio book too. Some of these are autographed. I don't know how they're doing all that stuff, but I just know I got lots of books to sign. But go to johndeloney.com. Thank you so, so, so much for picking this thing up.

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I think it's going to help change your life. It's going to help change your life. Let's go out to Christian in H-Tone in Houston. Go Astros. What's up, Christian? Hey, John. How are you? Partying, man. What are you up to? Not much. Just trying to find a decent room.

Not partying. How can I help, man? What's going on? Well, my question was, how can I control my emotions so that they don't come out, I guess, in a negative way towards my wife? Tell me more. What happened? So, we just,

it's been a little over a month and we've been living together for over three years now and it's been... Hold on, hold on. What's been over a little

over a month? Our marriage, sorry. Oh, you just got married. You're newlywed. Yes, newlywed, yep. One month in. Yeah, a little over one month in. Got married June 24th. Okay, and got married June 24th, and you've been in for a month.

Y'all been living together for three years? About, well, we've been together for three years, but living together for about a year. Okay, and how are your emotions coming out on your wife in a negative way? So it got called to my attention by her a week and a half ago that sometimes I'll get a little over the top irritated and it'll come out as a yell or me talking in a louder fashion than I used to I guess and I I've noticed it now too that sometimes I get a lot of things in the back of my head and just coming out and a more it's

a more heavier tone than I have used to been talking to her. And I want, I guess, help on how can I not be like that? Because, I mean, we just started, so I just want to be a good husband. I appreciate that, man. I appreciate that. The first step here is ownership. And the way you described it out of the gate to me is your wife noticed it, not me. So I'm going to ask you, and do me a favor, speak directly into the phone. Let's just have like a mano-a-mano, Texan-to-Texan talk here.

Are you yelling at your wife? Are you raising your voice? Are you finding yourself all pissed off for reasons that even you're like, why am I so mad? Yes. Yeah. Why? How come?

It's hard. I'm not entirely sure because there's, I mean, I can't say I have much to complain about. But you are So where does that come from? Is it a sense of She should be doing something different Is it

You suddenly feel like you can't breathe Because you're married Like you're a husband Just adjusting to that role And that title Which is kind of weird Did she bait and switch you? Did she date you for three years

And all of a sudden she's all different now? Like where is that coming from? No she's She's amazing uh i just i think it's more so i guess the change there's we're doing a lot of change right now like right now i'm actually in our in my in-laws place and while she's um at blLC or NCO school because we're both in the military. So she's away for a bit, and I guess... Hey, stop real quick. You've been married for a month,

and you're living at your in-law's house, and you're wondering why you're snapping at your wife? Are you kidding me, man? I mean, we've... I've been with them a lot of times before, and they're great. It's just, it's been, I guess, a lot of change with planning. Everything between the wedding and her going to school and moving, it all happened, I guess, in a span of maybe two months. So I guess maybe that combined with this new role

might have put a higher toll on me than I realized. How have you continued to take care of yourself? And when I say take care of yourself, once a week going to meet with a group of guys just to hang out, go to shoot shoot pool or throw darts or Bible study

whatever you're into or go ride skateboards do you still exercise are you just coming home and plopping down and watching TV a lot

like how are you taking care of yourself well I used to as in I think it's been a month since I went to the gym but I regularly went to the gym. You said for the last month?

Yeah, the last month, I guess I haven't been doing the things that I normally do, like go to the gym. Or, I mean, I haven't played video games. That's something I used to take the stress out. But it's just, I mean, I was focused on, I wanted to help her out because she had to, she's also now officially a nurse. She just graduated and took her NCLEX and passed it. And I guess for that time, I just focused on trying to do, like, help her out as much as I could with whatever she needed, whether it be studying, moving, or anything, just be there. I didn't really have a group of guys to hang out with

while I was there. I was kind of more just trying to do stuff by myself. Think of it this way. What you did was pretty noble. It's pretty good. I'm proud of you. It's common, especially when you're trying to get your footing and figure out how to be the best husband you could be,

that I'm trying to think of a way I can explain it. I'll just use the analogy that everybody uses that they tell you on the plane, right? That when there's an emergency and the oxygen falls out, you're supposed to put yours on first before you start messing with your kids and your spouse, because if you suffocate and die, then everybody dies, right? And so what you've done for the last month is honorable. You just held your breath and you made sure that your wife had oxygen tank after oxygen tank after oxygen tank. And my guess is if she's just now graduating, she had to do finals. She had to go through the NCO stuff. She had to finish up all of her end of semester

projects and paperwork and all that stuff. And you're living with your in-laws and now you're a husband. And that just sounds like you look down and see that ring on your finger just feels and sounds weird right all this is changing and weird and in an effort to be the best guy you could be you made a mistake that all of us make which is i'm gonna sacrifice myself completely where i've got nothing left in the tank because i'm gonna dedicate all of my tank to her but then you're gonna realize that you got nothing left in the tank because I'm going to dedicate all of my tank to her. But then you're going to realize that you got nothing to give, right? You can't give what you don't have. And so it doesn't surprise me that you look up

and you don't have any guys to hang out with for the last month or two. You haven't been to the gym in a month. You're probably eating takeout every night. You're living with your in-laws. Like there's so much stress there and it comes out in blame. It comes out in little sharp, even if, even if you have like, if your wife's sick, right? I've been married 21 years, your wife's sick and man, just, or your husband's sick.

Nobody wants him to be sick, but after a week, it's like, oh, can you just come out of, you know, there's just that feeling. I'm not mad at anybody, but it's just kind of snappy. Right. And you have to just be conscious of it. So, um, I'm going to give you a couple of things that I think would really help you. Is that cool? Yeah, please. By the way, um, did, did you have a good role model? Was your old man a good role model? Uh, uh, well, my dad kind kinda Family comes from divorce And then my stepdad Uh he's better now But I guess

Growing up he wasn't The best role model Okay Um I want you to Start practicing Speaking with a period At the end of your sentence Okay

Okay Not like Kinda I guess Kinda You know Like you know man Like I don't

I want you to say I'm a Christian from Houston, Texas. My stepdad was not a good guy. He's gotten better as he's gotten older. You see the, like the, the declaration, the confidence, the period at the end of the sentence, not a dot, dot, dot, not a lips at the end of the sentence. Okay. And I want you to say, I'm going to, I'm going to be the best husband I can be. And what a sacrificial husband does is he makes sure he's strong and well so that he can go in there and be of service so he can help. And so I want you to make sure you're getting back in the gym. I want you to make sure you've got a group of guys you can hang out with,

even if it's going to be weird and you just invite a few guys out to get nachos or beers or whatever y'all do in town there. When do you and your wife get back into the same zip code? At the end of the month, she comes back on the 24th. Okay, she gets back at the end of the month. When she comes back, I want you to take her out. One, just privately, just y'all two. One, to celebrate.

This is awesome. It's amazing. Congratulations. Number two, to tell her, I want to be the best husband you can ever dream of. And I'm kind of flying blind here because I didn't have that growing up. And so let's do this thing together. And Christian, if you can get this down as a newlywed man, this will change the rest of your life. Okay?

If you can sit with her and say, how can I love you this week as you start your new job, as we find an apartment, as we both go back to service, as we, whatever we're doing, how can I love you best this week? And here's another gift you can give her. Here's what I need this week. You as a man, if you can come up with the courage and the bravery and the strength to say out loud what you need. I need some time to go to the gym. I need some time for us to, I need some, like, what do you need? What do you need? I want us to have a date night this week.

I want to take you out on a date. Will you make a budget with me? Like, what are these things that you need? Like, that'd be incredible. And we're just gonna do this on a weekly by weekly basis. And if you guys can begin to practice having this meeting on a weekly basis, it will change your marriage forever. Last homework assignment, my brother, is you have to find one or two men who've been married a long time and that you look up to

and ask them, hey guys, can I take you out to coffee? Can I take you out for a drink? I want to learn the secrets. I'm a new husband. I'm figuring this out live and I want to learn how to do this well. Can I pick your brain? And man, I would be so honored if somebody asked me that. Like, hey, can I go learn about how to do this? I think that would be fantastic, man. But it's your job to reach out and find some good mentors, some good coaches. Think of it this way. You just got a job in the NBA as a professional basketball player, but you've never seen a game of basketball played well. You've never seen it. You've never seen Michael Jordan play. You've never seen Hakeem Olajuwon, the greatest of all time, play. You've

never seen anybody play. How in the world can you play basketball if you've never seen it done? Same with being a husband. If you did not have a good picture of that growing up, you cannot just make it up out of thin air or off TikTok videos. You got to get some real men in your life that you sit down with on some sort of regular basis, maybe once a month, once every six months, maybe just once at one at a time. That's all the time they got.

I'm going to pick your brain. I'm going to learn from you. I'm going to implement some things. I'm going to come back to you. Dude, that'd be fantastic. So hang on the line. Here's my wedding gift to you. I'm going to give you a couple of things. Number one, I'm going to give you a copy of both Own Your Past, Change Your Future and Building a Non-Anxious

Life, my two books. I'm going to hook you guys up for free. I want you to read them together. It's going to talk about what happened when you were kids and it's going to cast a vision into the future for your marriage. The second thing I'm going to give you is Financial Peace University and a year subscription to every dollar. Okay. A year subscription. This is a budgeting app. And this sounds like I don't need budgeting app. Listen, this is simply a tool for couples to use to bring themselves to the table together once a week. And people think like budgeting, budgeting, but it's about money.

No, no, no. It's way more about that. Because if you sit down and do a budget, then you have to talk about priorities. You have to talk about needs. You have to talk about what do you want? You have to talk about, I don't like this. You have to have all those messy conversations.

That's why budgeting sucks. It's hard. Because it's not just about dollars and cents. It's about self-control and discipline and priorities. So I'm going to send that to you. It links up to your bank. I'm going to send you the premium one for a year, man. It syncs up to your bank.

That's my wedding gift to you. And Financial Peace is just going to give you guys a roadmap to getting together with money, which again, man, if couples will get together with money, it forces them to have some hard conversations and it gets them on the same page with almost everything. I'm proud of you, man. I'm proud of you, Christian.

Last thing I'll say, never, ever yell at your wife. Make that a red letter line for you. I will not yell at my wife. I'll hang up the phone. I'll walk away. I'll go for a walk. I will not yell at my wife. Make that a personhood.

It's your identity. And then go from there. Thank you, my brother. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer

and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about though is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past,

it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow, and they give you three free months to do it. You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others. And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more.

I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice, and here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning, prayer takes intentionality, practice, and showing up even when I don't feel like it

and even I don't want to. This is discipline. Sometimes you do this by yourself and sometimes you do this with a group and Halo helps you with both. Download the number one prayer app on planet earth, Halo, right now. And listen, viewers and listeners of this show

get three free months when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Shay in Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach. Hooked on Phonics worked for me. What's up, Shay? Hey, John. How are you today? I'm not speaking very clearly, but I've met. I'm doing great. What's happening? I can't either. Nothing too much. I was just hoping to pick your brain today on the mental health of law students. Not great. Not great. So it's actually not for me. As a wife of a law student,

how can I help and protect my husband's mental health? And I can give some background. Yeah, give me some background. Okay. So we got married four months ago. So we're newlyweds as well. Last week, we just moved states for the school. So this is his first time away from family and friends that he's known his whole life. So that's going to be a big adjustment. We're pretty deep. And that was like his biggest bout of anxiety and depression. And he got checked out by the doctor, went to a therapist, got a lot of tools to get better and went, continued and improved from there. And we never had issues since then. But now we're in a place where there's actual seasons. We're from Florida, so winter doesn't happen. So I'm kind of concerned about seasonal depression and first year of marriage and law school's hard. So just what are some tips and insight that you have from your experience that myself, my husband,

and us together can implement so his mental health's intact over this next couple of years. Oh, man. All right. So I got a lot of opinions. Is that okay? Okay. That's fine. Probably what I'm going to do is I'm just going to start rattling off a bunch of things, and you can just pull this clip, and y'all can watch it together, okay? Okay.

Because it'll probably be too much just to write down while you're on the phone. So you know I was a dean of students at a law school, and my research was in the mental health of attorneys. And so I spent in the academic world, whether it was professional conferences or academic conferences, I lived and breathed the mental health of lawyers and law students. That was my thing for years, okay? And so it's incredible that y'all are this much on the front end of this. Most of the time, a newlyweds waltz into the law school. Everybody's excited. I married a lawyer. It's going to be great.

And then about four months into school, everything falls apart, okay? So here's number one. He has to, this is a no ifs, ands, or buts. He has to get mental health resources before school starts. Okay. That can be through the university. That can be through a local counselor. It's worth the money, even if you don't have it. And I tell you that because law school is very, very hard. And it's hard both academically, but it's hard in a way that it's competitive too, which makes it really challenging because it's not just a matter of learning the material. It's learning the material better than the person next to you and more thoroughly.

And that just adds a level of complexity and challenge to this that is very different than any other academic endeavor. Thankfully, his law school is actually a Christian law school. And so the competitiveness is a lot lower and they're more supportive. So we're in the best situation that we can be for law school. And they do like, yeah. Well, I would tell you, even if it's a faith-based law school, I hope it's competitive.

Because here's the deal. I don't want an attorney that is not competitive taking care of me. If I get hit by a big trucking company and their attorney went to NYU and knows how to fight and claw and scratch, I don't want a nice attorney representing me. You know what I mean? Because they're going to get squashed. And so hopefully, maybe pedagogically, they're changing

like the instruction. There is some literature that suggests that competitive does not help, that competitive competition does not help people learn at all. In fact, it restricts learning. And so there is, maybe that's what they're going after. But I hope he's not going into a law school that's just like, pat you on the back. I hope it's super, super rigorous because he's going to be representing clients that need him to be an assassin.

That's what a lawyer does, right? Fights with their client. Yeah, he's got that fire, but- Yes. Totally. So the challenge, most people are caught off guard by this. They walk into law school and they were really, really smart. They were the smartest kids in their class in other areas. Not always, but often. Law school is not something you can just study for the night before Right, you start worrying studying for finals the first day of class and So as his wife you need to know that when he says he's busy. This is unlike anything you'll have ever experienced like read

The harry potter book every single night for the whole semester, right? And not only know that, but know every character and be able to know what that character was about to do when a professor calls on you and has you stand up and talk for 45 minutes on what that character was doing. So it's not even a matter of just getting through the reading like all of us did in undergrad. This is about internalizing it and knowing it, okay? So I tell you that to tell you,

many husbands and wives and girlfriends and boyfriends of law students and lawyers don't have a context for just how hard this is. And so they start to feel left out. Like they're exaggerating. Like they're kind of lying. It is that hard. Okay. It is that hard. The third thing I'll tell you is you need to get a group of friends, ASAP. I know. God, you got to have a gang. Cause if you're just sitting at home, like, where is he? Where is he? Where is he? And then he comes home and he looks like he's just gotten beaten up. And you're like, Hey, let's go do this and this. You need to paint the bedroom and do that. It's going to blow everything up. So you got to have a group of friends that gives you that

connectivity, that outlet, because there's going to be some gaps in your relationship just because his focus is going to be on law school. It's going to be hard. Yeah. Okay. And I'm also a studying actuary, so I have to study for big exams too. So I'll be studying with him, but not as much as he is. You're an actuary? I am. Oh, your, your dinner table conversations are going to be riveting. Just, just riveting. Is he going to contract law? Please say yes.

No, he wants criminal. I was going to say, yeah, I would be the single healthiest, most boring couple that has ever lived, but alas. Oh,

he's totally more exciting than I am. That's okay. He needs you in his life. Desperately. Desperately. All right. Here's the last thing I am. That's okay. He needs you in his life desperately. Desperately. All right, here's the last thing I'm going to tell you. I want y'all to, and this is going to sound awful and very not cool for first year of marriage. Okay?

Okay. I want y'all to put dates and sex on the calendar. Okay. Build it into your life. Build intimacy into your world because if you wait for it just to happen, like most newlywed couples do, they get shoved into a one-bedroom apartment and they're like, hey, you want to watch Netflix? I don't know. You want to make out? Like that won't happen in y'all's lives because every minute of y'all's lives are going to be so prescribed already. Okay. And, um, law school is an intimate, um, it's an intimate endeavor. What does that mean? That means you're

talking about murder cases and rape cases, and you're talking about, um, uh, people who are hurting. The conversations are deep and talking about ethics. It's very common for people to fall head over heels for somebody because you're talking about deep things that you never talk with anybody else in the whole wide world. It's a deep exchange of ideas. It's not a thing to be scared of. It's a thing for y'all two to know

we are going to prioritize us over all this other crap. Okay. And we're going to put stuff over all this other crap. Okay. And we're going to put stuff on the calendar. We always go to breakfast every Saturday, no matter what. We always go on a date every Saturday night, no matter what. We always, we star Tuesday nights and Thursday nights for all year, like whatever y'all do, but we're going to put it on the calendar and we're going to do our best, especially that first year to not, not budge from it. We're going to put it,

we're going to, even if it's perfunctory and we just got to get through tonight, we're going to put it on the calendar and we're going to make it a part of our lives because we're going to, we are never going to forget that the main thing in both of our lives is us. And if I got to quit law school to preserve us, I'm going to quit law school. And if I've got to stop playing with actuarial tables, I'm going to stop doing that because this is about us. You hear what I'm saying?

And then the final, final thing is, if at all possible, stay away from alcohol, both of you. Okay. Just stay away. Few things in the world get law students into more trouble than alcohol. Okay. Like when I look at all the issues, distilling down one of the key factors was that.

And it usually starts with, and again, he's gonna be at a faith-based law school. So it may be more limited there. And it's been several years since I worked in a law school. It's been five or six years since I was there. But alcohol just was at every event, everything, all the time, everywhere, globally, just across the culture. It's just pervasive in that culture.

And so having different types of outlets, different ways of having fun, different ways of connecting with other people, just keep a close, close eye on that stuff. Okay. That sound all right? That sounds amazing. Thank you so much for your input. Let me say one more thing. This is supposed to be hard and our culture needs brilliant, hard, smart lawyers. And so I tell you all this stuff to tell you

not to scare you away, to not sit down tonight and be like, I don't want you to go to law school. Not that. Because we need lawyers and I need people to clean sewers and I need people who work at funeral homes. I need police officers. We need people to do hard jobs, teachers. But that means we have to create a culture. We have to create a life so they can repel in and

do those hard jobs. And so it's not to scare you away from it. I want you guys to go do this. I want you guys to be well and whole and have a great marriage on the back end which is a hundred percent possible I I had dinner with two of my former law students the other day Jefferson and CJ two amazing men who are married to amazing women if they were with in law school great right you just got to be on top of it you got to talk it through and you got to be highly, highly intentional. Highly intentional. Amazing.

Let me know how he does for a semester. We'll be rooting for him, man. That's awesome. And Shay, he's really, really lucky to have you in his corner. Thank you for loving him and thinking through this way, way in advance. That's amazing.

We'll be right back. All right, we are back. Let's go out to Chris in Huntsville. What's up, Chris? Hey, Dr. John. How are you doing? I'm rocking on to the break of dawn. What are you doing?

Oh, just sitting, waiting for the kids to get out of school. Good times. Just. That sounds sad, Chris. Can't you be like, take disco dance lessons online or something? Come on. Yeah, I know. I need to. I need a first day back. All right. All right. All right. You get one day. All right. So what's up? How can I help? How can I overcome crushing self-doubt? I'm feeling overwhelmed with making some major life decisions. I've been a stay-at-home mom for the last 15-plus years and want to return to work so I can get out of my abusive marriage. I had a work colleague recently reach out to me to help me get a job, and I've been extended an offer, but I'm quite scared to take it because I'm not sure that I'm qualified

or I'm going to be able to do it. And I'm just really scared that I'm going to fail. I don't want to let my kids down. Tell me about this marriage. It's pretty much consists of lots of silent treatment, getting punished for, I don't even know what, not saying the right thing or not doing the right thing. Um, they'll go days or weeks without speaking to me. Um, a lot of violent outbursts, not laying hands on me, but throwing things around and kick the dogs a couple of times and, um, just, uh, it's, and he just, he just says bad things to the kids too. And I just know that I can't let him.

Have you moved out? No, we're still together. So when you say to get out of a bad marriage, or is step one getting this job and securing finances and step two moving out? Yes. Okay. Does he know that or is this just internal? Internal. He doesn't know it.

Okay. Number one, I just applaud you. Thanks. thanks and you and I could probably talk for another couple hours on this but these almost always have an escalating trend to them and something tells me that this has become something you can't do anymore yeah I think it's slowly killing me yeah my guess is it's probably fast killing you

and you've got two two big bricks in your backpack. Number one is stay-at-home moms are routinely told that they are dumb and useless and a drain on society. And if they had real worth, they would go get jobs and make real dollars. That's a global society problem we have. It's nonsense and it's insidious and it's stupid, but that's that's a global society problem we have it's nonsense and it's insidious and it's stupid but that's the way it is the second thing is you've been married to a a gigantic five-year-old child who acts like a brat and um a violent brat and who throws things and kicks things and swears at things like, like, like a child does. Yeah. And in the process you have tried for how long have y'all been married? 16 years.

You've tried for 16 years to be whatever he needed you to be. So he'd stopped doing that. Yeah. And you're just now realizing, oh, it's not me. It never has been. Yes, exactly. And so confidence is, contrary to what TikTok will tell you, confidence is not something you can just conjure.

Confidence is known inside your body when it knows it can do a thing. And your confidence has been rattled to the core because you've been trying to figure out what you're doing so wrong all these years, and you don't have that confidence. Okay. So in these initial weeks and months and years, as you are getting your footing, new firm footing on new concrete sidewalks, when you've been swimming in muck and water and goo the last 16 years, what we're going to do for a season is we're going to outsource that confidence. Okay. And I'm always telling people not to outsource their life, but in this case, it's a little bit different. Here's who you're going to outsource it to. A business is only in business if it makes money. And so a good manager will hire the best people so that the business makes money so that the business can continue.

Yeah. And they looked at you and they said, she can help us. And so where you don't have confidence, know that they're not doing you a favor. They're not hooking you up. That's not how business works. Yeah. Right? If it was a church or a nonprofit, maybe.

Maybe they're trying to help you out. Yeah. This is a business, and they picked you. And so in the moments when you think, I can't do this, remember, they do. Yeah. They think I can.

And by the way, you've been a parent to how many kids? Two. You've raised two humans, and you've protected them from a third giant child for 16 years. You can do just about any freaking thing you want to do. Yeah.

Anne, can I tell you one more thing? Yes. Oh, God, you're going to screw up so much. You're going to screw up so much. Yeah. Because you've been out of the workforce. You have to learn. Yeah, I'm really scared about setting myself up for failure. Yeah, so let me tell you this. Don't be scared about it

because it's 100% going to happen. It's going to happen, yeah. It's going to happen. So it's like if I saw some data the other day that said, I don't remember I saw this, but it's pretty powerful. People will do anything to avoid uncertainty, right? So a 50% chance that something's going to go great or a 50% chance something's going to go uncertainty, right? So a 50% chance that something's going to go great or a 50% chance something's going to go wrong,

they would rather take the percentage that 100% of things are going to go wrong than live in the ambiguity that half might go right, half might go good, which statistically is insane. That doesn't make any sense, right? That's like, I would rather it be 100% bad than this could go really

great or it could go really bad. So I'm telling you there's a hundred percent chance that you screw stuff up. And there's a hundred percent chance I have screwed things up today in my job. And that's okay. That's all right. All of us have. That's part of doing business. That's part of the great lie of people outside of business who are stay-at-home moms who are like, oh, I could never go do that because I don't have the, dude, no, we're all making it up as we go. Always. You're going to learn some incredible new skills and you're going to transform your life. And I've told this story several times. Have you heard me tell the story of my mom? Actually, I have not. Okay. She was not allowed no sorry that's okay she wasn't allowed to go to college okay for a whole host of reasons but she wasn't allowed to go so she got married to my dad who

was a homicide detective and she just settled into being a stay-at-home mom and then she transitioned to working like stay-at-home mom and then like worked a few hours a week at a local church like in the craft office, like making sure the construction paper is where it needed to be and the pipe cleaners were in the right drawer, stuff like that. Right.

And then she, my dad was always encouraging her, please go to school, please go to school, please go to school. And finally at 42, she got the courage to go back. I was a freshman, I think, or maybe a sophomore, but I think a freshman in high school. She took her first community college class and got an A. And she went the next semester and took one more class at a local, just down the street from our house community college. That was at 42. At 57, she graduated with her PhD after working at Enron and Deloitte and Touche before

those two companies imploded. And right now she's in her seventies. She just had her birthday and she had her birthday in Oxford. This is her last summer to teach at Oxford before she retires from being a professor for good. She's in her seventies. Here's why I tell you that. Amazing. You can do anything. Yeah. And there was a ton of bumps and bruises along the way. I thought my whole world had been turned upside down because my mom walked in and she said, hey, come here.

And she took me into the laundry room and she put the thing of soap on the washing machine and said, this is how this works. And from here on out, you're on your own. And I was like, no. And you know what? I lived. I lived. I had to get a job. I lived. Not only did I live, but I benefited from all that stuff. And so your life will change. It will be very different. And if you leave your husband too, it's going to be mess. It's going to be heartbreak, even though it's the right thing. All those things,

you're in a road, like you're headed down a road. It's a very, very tough road. Yeah. Okay. You got to get people in your life that you trust for those moments

when you have to outsource that confidence. Yes. You got to get people in your life that you trust for when you simply don't have the skills for what comes next. And you can learn them. Yeah. Had you before your um your oldest went to middle school had you ever been the parent of a middle schooler no no you learned how to do that right right you know

how to do that yeah yeah figured it out you ever like know how to i don't know fix a weird rash on somebody's butt crack no never did I never did. I had to figure that out. That's what happens when you have kids, right? You figured it out. You did it. Yes. Yes. You will figure this out too. Okay. Okay. I'm going to try. I'm going to try. No, no, no. Hold on. You will. Here's one of my favorite definitions of imposter syndrome. Oh, yeah. I've heard of it. It's the fear that other people are judging me

as harshly as I'm judging myself. Yeah. Can I ask you one hard, hard, hard question? Yes. Yes. And tell me if I'm wrong, okay? Okay. Do you doubt yourself because you've stayed too long?

Yeah. Yeah. That's partly the reason. Is there a reason Chris feels like Chris let Chris down? Or worse, you feel like you let your kids down? Yeah. I feel really stupid for doing, staying, and letting it get to this point. Okay.

Are we done now? Yeah, we're done. Okay. So let's say we did stupid things, not we're stupid. Yeah. Okay. Right? There's a big difference.

Guilt is, man, that was dumb. Shame is, I am dumb. And you're not dumb. You're a woman who tried to love her husband the best she could. You tried to keep your family intact. You tried to make sure your kids had a mom and a dad. And you had a husband that would not let that freaking happen. Yeah.

And he's increasingly putting you in unsafe, unsafe, unsafe situations. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That unsafe situations. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. That's heroic. That's brave. It's not stupid. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Has it gone on too long? Probably. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Yeah.

It is. I think he knows about a job, and I think he's getting nervous. Aww. Yeah. Aww, that makes me sad. Yeah, so he tries to change behavior, but I know that that doesn't ever change. I've had 16 years to see that. Listen, whenever you change the equilibrium in a home,

it always does whatever it can to drag it back to what it was, right? Right. So I'd expect the volume to get, like, if nice guy doesn't work, then loud guy will show up, then temper tantrum guy will show up. Yep. And I want you to have some people in your life that you can call when you need to go. Yeah. Yeah.

Do you have that? I do. Good. It would be difficult, but I do. Okay. Every step of the way, 100% chance it will be difficult. Yeah.

Like it's going to be difficult. So let's just get that out of the way and then we're going to go do what we got to do. Okay. Keep our kids safe. Keep ourselves safe. Keep our family safe. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very, very proud of you, Chris. I'll be with you every step of the way. I want you to hang on the line. I'm going to send you both of my books,

my brand new one, building a non-anxious life. It's, it's kind of what you're talking about. How do I just build something completely new in a way that there's peace in my house, there's warmth in my house, there's laughter back in my house. There's just not this constant pulse of electricity. I'm going to send you my first book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, which is about what do you do when it all falls apart? How do I process what happened when I was a kid, dealing with that old trauma, and then how do I cast that forward and create something completely new? I'm going to send you both of those books as my gift. Call anytime and I'll walk with you.

You got a hard, hard road ahead of you. And I am 100% sure you can do it. Proud of you, Chris. When you don't have confidence in yourself, know at least one knuckleheaded podcaster does. And I promise you there's a whole bunch of other folks too. 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. Jenna, what's the big announcement here? Yes. So first off, two things. One, last night brought home my first puppy.

Not a dog mom, but I will be- You're a pet owner. I'm a pet owner, not a dog mom. What's the dog's name? Her name is Maple. Kelly? I didn't hear you. Is it Kelly?

Kelly, yeah, that's the dog's name. Maple, she's a little wiener dog. Little maple sausage. So I'm not a dog mom, but I will be a real mom come February next year. Yes. Very cool, dude. Congratulations.

Thank you. Boy or girl, do you know? My mom knows, and my husband's mom knows, but we do not know yet. We'll find out in a month We did a blood test Oh they know like Because they've read the tea leaves

Yeah they looked at the results Oh they They got the blood test They have the results So we're gonna do a gender reveal party in a month And then we'll know Right when I thought you were gonna be all grown up And you're like no I'm still millennial

Oh absolutely We're gonna have At least for the first one Blue smoke or whatever Oh I hope it's pink But we'll see I'm still millennial. Oh, absolutely. We're going to have the, at least for the first one, blue smoke or whatever. Oh, I hope it's pink, but we'll see.

All right. I think John Taylor Swift Sears is a great name. Hashtag. Just saying. I'll have to think about that. Awesome. Well, in honor of,

um, your new baby song of the day is from this. Literally one of my favorite songwriters of all time ever in the history of the world um if you don't know his music i want you just to when this podcast is over just um get on spotify and listen to everything mark cone cohn has ever done he's the best of the best of the best he's so amazing um song i can't believe we've never done mark cone on this out like for three years. He's one of the best ever.

God, my friend Trevor Moore is the one who introduced me. And he said he saw him play, and he said it went home and bought every CD he'd ever done. That's why I picked him, because he's phenomenal. I know. You don't have this tattoo, though. Maybe I do. Mark Cohn would be a weird old English tattoo, which most of yours are. That would be weird.

All right. So the song is called The Things We've Handed Down. It goes like this. Don't know much about you. Don't know who you are. We've been fine without you, but we could only go so far. Don't know why you chose us. Were you watching from above?

Is there someone there that knows us, said would give you all our love? Will you laugh just like your mother? Will you sigh like your old man? Will something skip a generation like I've heard they often can? Are you a poet or a dancer, a devil or a clown or a strange new combination of the things we've handed

down? Congratulations, Jenna. We have another crazy in the John Deloney Show gang. I don't think you shouldn't let your kid listen to this show for a long, long time. Love you guys. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Bye.