The Dr. John Delony Show - Why Do I Feel Like I Have To Mother Grown Men?

Episode Date: September 11, 2023

On today’s show, we hear about: - A woman who wants to know how to stop mothering her boyfriend - A husband concerned his wife’s manic episode will ruin their finances - A woman wondering how to have a boyfriend after an abusive relationship To pre-order John's new book Building a Non-Anxious Life click here. To hear Isaac’s previous call click here. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud 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. How do I have a healthy relationship after living a life for over eight years in an abusive marriage? Pretty much everything, he just never crossed the line enough for authorities to get involved. So let me back out. He crossed every single line. What's up, what's up, what's up? This is John, the Dr. John Deloney show, show about mental and emotional health, finding peace and joy in this chaos,

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It will be in pre-sale for a few more weeks. If you buy it for 20 bucks now, you can go to JohnDeloney.com. It's 20 bucks. I'm going to send you a bunch of free stuff, um, just for, to say, thank you for buying it early. Um, inside the publishing company here, it is breaking all kinds of records. It's just, it's staggering the support you all are providing for this book. And I think it's just hitting a nerve across the country. Um, Everybody wants to be less burned out and less chronically stressed and tackling those as the issue themselves or tackling anxiety as the issue itself has not got us anywhere. And this book is about what's the layer underneath. How do I just build something different? And I'm so grateful to those of you who have pre-ordered the book, thousands

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Go to ramsaysolutions.com slash studentloans and get registered. The event is completely free, 100% free. No asking you, you need to do that. None of that. None of that. This is a help. This is millions of people are asking, what do we do? What do we do? And our team said, we got you. We got you. All right, let's run out to Nicole in Kansas City, Missouri. What's up, Nicole? Hey, thank you so much for taking my call. Of course.

I actually had a question regarding relationships. Let's do it. My question is, how to not be a mom in a relationship? At the end of my last relationship, I was really like the mom and the maid, and it was very frustrating. I kind of naturally like to just take care of my partner. And my current boyfriend, he doesn't need a mom. Like, he takes care of himself. He takes care of me.

But I just like to take care of him. And I want to know, like, if there's something I should not be doing so that later on in the relationship, it doesn't turn into that, you know, same dynamic of being the mom and the maid again. Or how should I act in a relationship? I guess I don't, I didn't really see that growing up. So I don't really know how a wife or girlfriend should act well i mean i i i think asking a six foot two male that question um it's probably not i'm probably not the person to answer it um i guess my my 30 000 foot questions for you are why do you conflate being a mother with being extra caring. And here's what I mean by that. Some people are hard chargers. Some people are, I'm not going to clean up anything.

That's not who I am. That's not what I do. I'm going to, I'm a fill in the blank. I'm an attorney. I'm a go getter. I'm an architect. I am a radio,

whatever. And then some are like, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, I was put on this earth to take care of the nest. Right. I just want to be at home. I want to take care of my romantic partner. I want to take care of my kids. I want to take care of the dog. I want to make sure the house is perfect.

I like cooking. And so what about what you feel or what you're drawn to isn't working for you? Because you called because you don't like it, but I don't know why you don't like it. I think it's probably because like, I don't know. I really liked my current partner and I just, I guess I'm nervous that it's going to turn into the same thing as last time where, I don't know.

I guess I feel like I'm a lot sometimes. And like, you probably are. I am. I think my wife's exact quote is you're, you are a lot in quote. Yeah. I am. I think my wife's exact quote is, you are a lot. End quote. Yeah, I am. What's wrong with being a lot? I don't know. Some people don't like it, I guess. Well, some people can go on and move on down the road.

Yeah. I guess I just want to get to the bottom of what you don't like about Nicole. When you say you ended up being a mom, did you end up, was it because you were dating a child? Yeah, he was very selfish. Yeah, you were dating a child that was sitting before you in grown

up muscles, right? In grown up skin. Yeah. Yeah. So, I don't know. I'm probably overthinking it because like the guy I'm with now he definitely doesn't need it and he takes care of me too which should not happen describe it break it break it down be very specific what is it like he doesn't he doesn't need me to do everything for him but he appreciates that I do it like like I don't know if he's sick, I make sure to

have, uh, or he gets migraines. I make sure to have like Excedrin with me all the time. So if he gets a migraine, he has, he can take the medicine or like if we're like, I'll cook and like, I'll set him down. I'm like, do you need water? You know, but he also does that stuff for me too, I guess, which didn't happen in the previous relationship. So I guess I'm just, um, maybe you're uncomfortable because you're in a mutually affirming relationship for the first time where you are going all in on somebody and they're going all in on you. Yeah. Now I would tell a guy, if he called the show, I'd tell a woman this too.

If you suffer from migraines regularly as a grownup, you should have a Excedrin on hand. Right. And so it's different if he starts to get a migraine and he looks over at you in the car and he's like, where's, where's the Excedrin? And you're like,

I don't know. And he gets mad at you, throws a fit like a child, a temper tantrum. Oh my gosh. You said you cared about me. You don't the Excedrin? And you're like, I don't know. And he gets mad at you. Throws a fit like a child, a temper tantrum. Oh my gosh, you said you cared about me. You don't have Excedrin. If you've dated somebody like that in the past, thank God y'all aren't still together. Okay?

Because that's an immature guy that hasn't grown up yet. Right. He doesn't want a wife. He doesn't want a girlfriend. He wants a maid And you're you're worth more than that now If you love thinking ahead and caring for people

Good for you, man. We need more people like you out in the world It's this it's when you get your self-worth from taking other things off other people's plates to the point that they can't live their lives because if they live their life, you feel less than that's when it's a problem. Gotcha. So no, that's not how I feel. If he pulled et cetera out of, I don't know, of the console in the car and you instantly felt shameful, that should have been me.

Yeah. You probably need to deal with that. You need to work through that. Yeah. But if the goal here is, I just want the guy that I'm kind of falling for, I want him to not have a headache, whether he has it or you have it, that's awesome.

Yeah. And I think ultimately you got to make a list. You got to make a plan of, here's what I will and I do want to do and don't want to do. And then you need to be okay with it if somebody looks at that list and goes, I'm kind of out. Yeah. It's heartbreaking.

It's hard. And when you mentioned your ex, you almost got choked up. What's that still hanging on you? I don't know. It's so annoying. Um, it just thoughts because like I did everything for him and he cheated on me and then he said, no, I do love you and I still want to be with you. And then he kept doing it. So it's just like, I don't know, I guess it's like hard to dress like that I'm not being lied to and that it is okay for me to be how I am. Have you sat down with your new partner and said, Hey, um,

I've been cheated on before. So I'm a little extra on edge sometimes because if, if I was dating somebody and they told me that I would look them dead in the eye and say, number one, I'll never cheat on you. Number two, anytime you feel, hey, you ask and I'll tell you. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Yeah, and he's been very honest

and hasn't done anything for me to distrust him. And I even asked him if he thought I was acting like a mom because I am a lot. And he's like, no, there's a difference between caring and being a mom, like having to be a mom in a relationship. Yeah. I think this is less than being a mom and less, this is more about you try to do everything.

You thought there was a, if I do this and if I do this and if I do this and if I do this, then he'll love me. Yeah. And I need you to hear me say that's not how love works. Yeah. The problem in that. I thought I was over it, but I guess I'm not. No, because it's not about that dude.

This is about you. Yeah. For some reason reason you think way down in your core, you have to do X, Y, and Z or you're just simply not worthy of being loved and that's just not true. Yeah. Caring for caring's sake is awesome.

Caring so the people around you have a better day, that's amazing. The world needs more of that. Caring because, oh my gosh, if I don't do this and this and this and this and this, I won't be worthy of love. That's exhausting. Yeah. And I like to just do it because I like to do it. And then when it gets to the point where I have to do it because they don't do it, that's when I get frustrated get frustrated that's it that's then you become a mom yeah right so if i get home from the road and i've got a i get home from the road late like last night i got in a little bit late got home and i've got a small little duffel bag and i

dropped on the floor and i gotta be back at work doing media first thing today man my wife grabs that bag and she's like, I got this. I'll throw this in with your son's clothes and the gasoline that she uses to wash our clothes with. That's awesome. If every day I'm just walking home and dropping my clothes in a pile in the middle of the floor,

expecting her to clean up after me, then she becomes my mom. So she stops becoming a partner who's helping the whole household, helping me to, ugh, I have to. That's a totally different thing. becomes my mom so she stops becoming a partner who's helping the whole household helping helping me to have to that's a totally different thing and you know the difference between those two yeah i was nervous that i guess i was because one of my previous therapists says that we train people how to teach us so i was nervous that my over-caring would train someone to just, I guess, act like my previous relationship, which is just basically like you said, he'll just throw his stuff down and expect me to clean it for him.

Yeah, it's twofold. I mean, that's a very simplistic thing to say. There's some truth to it. but so I've, I've talked to couples before and let's say I'm just going to just, I'm just going to throw all the generalizations into a big pot. So if you're listening to this, everybody, I know I'm overgeneralizing everybody relax. Um,

but let's say she, it's a guy and a girl who are married. She does the laundry for the first one year, two years, three years. Then a baby comes along and she's keeping up and she starts doing laundry for year number four. And then she just hits a wall. Got to go back to work. We have this kid. And then husband walks in one day and there's no laundry. And he's like, what in the world?

That's usually the point where everyone goes, gosh, that dude sucks. He's the worst. I can't believe, right? And there's some truth to that. He should be helping out. And the person who's been doing the laundry for three years should say, hey, I need some help here. Because often people don't know. And it's not a pass. It's not like, oh, are you kidding me?

No, I'm not kidding you. People don't know. They don't know. In seventh grade, my mom, or sixth grade, my mom took me down to the laundry room, put the laundry soap on the washer and said, this is the last day I do laundry. This is how this machine works. May the force be with you, right? I had a mom that taught me. A lot of folks don't. A lot of folks don't. Or a lot of dudes just don't do laundry, right? Ever, ever, ever, right? So there's something to be said for speaking your needs out loud saying him out loud and then if he chooses to reveal

himself as a jerk i'm not doing that no man of mine's gonna do laundry in this house all right well this is where we part ways yeah right that's not that's, I don't see that at all here. So you do train, if you will, your partner to just expect, expect. And if things are going to change, I think it's fair to say it out loud. What you trained your boyfriend to do last time is that he could do whatever he wanted, including other people. And you were still going to be a doormat for him when he got home. That was what you trained him on until you said, no, no, no, no. I have more self-respect. I'm worth more than this.

I deserve more dignity than this by Felicia. I'm out. Yeah. See what I'm saying? So I don't think you trained him to like always, I don't know, wash his little sippy cup when he got done with it. But I do think overall he came to know she's not going to do nothing. I do whatever I want. She ain't going to do anything. And I think letting your new partner know,

no, I'm serious about the business of treating myself with dignity and respect and being around people who also treat me with respect. And I love, I was put on earth to serve. I love it. It brings me joy making your day better. That's amazing. And somebody who loves you back won't take advantage of that. Yeah. Is that fair? Okay. Yeah, definitely. Okay. I want you to do me a huge favor Well, you speak him out And I think that may be challenge number one Because you're afraid if you speak your needs out loud That somebody's just going to leave you

Yeah And you need to not be fearful of that Okay The second thing is I need you to write this old boyfriend a letter That you will never send him Don't send it, okay? Somebody recently I told to write a letter Actually read it. Okay. Somebody recently, I told her to write a

letter, actually read it aloud. And I was like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. But I want you to write him a letter that you're not going to send him. And I want you to write it from your heart this time. And I want the letter to be of such that you are recognizing I was a good person to date. I really cared about you. And I put a lot into this relationship that as the great comedian Michael Che says, is not transferable. I got to start all over with somebody else, but I worked really hard and I forgave you. I welcomed you back and I forgave you again and I welcomed you back. And you, you hurt me. And I'm not carrying your bricks anymore as though I'm somehow damaged.

I'm somehow broken. You can carry those bricks if you choose. I'm not. I'm done carrying. I'm out. And I want you to write that letter, seal it up, put it somewhere,

whether it's in a shredder and put it, set it on fire in a fire pit, whatever you want to do with it. I want you to be free of this guy. I want you to be free of how he treated you and then be fully ready to run into the next situation with open arms saying, I'm Nicole, here's what I need,

here's what I love, are you in? Give somebody a chance to fully love you back. Most of us hedge, most of us hedge, most of us hedge. Give them a shot. Give them a shot. We'll be right back. Most of us hedge, most of us hedge, most of us hedge. Give him a shot. Give him a shot. 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.

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slash Deloney. It's amazing. Three free months of the app when you go to halo.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Portland, Oregon, and talk to Rich. Hey, Rich, what's up, man? Hey, how you doing? Rocking and rolling, man. What about you?

I'm doing okay. What's up? The reason I'm calling today is my wife and I have been married for a little over a year now. We have a three-and-a three and a half, three and a half month old son. And, uh, recently she's, uh, well, she's bipolar too. And she started going through a hypomanic episode, uh, which coming into the marriage, I really had very little idea of what sort of things kind of surrounded bipolar too um but as a result of it she uh decided to kind of start her own business and then spent uh opened up some credit cards uh without my knowledge and then

uh spent about seven to eight thousand dollars uh and then was running around missing most of the day, uh, while I was home. I have fortunately I work from home, but, uh, I was home alone taking care of our three and a half month old son. Um, but I'm kind of at a point where, uh, it's, she, she's gotten a little bit better. It's kind of deescalated in the last couple of weeks. Um, but some of the financial stuff is still out there. And so I'm just kind of trying to figure out what, what I should be doing and how to be I did in the last couple of weeks, but some of the financial stuff is still out there. And so I'm just kind of trying to figure out what, what I should be doing and how to be better prepared for when this happens again, the next time.

Um, man, there's a lot here. Um, really quick for the, for the audience. Um, bipolar two is, um, – become a relatively common diagnostic, diagnosis. And it's different than bipolar 1 from something they call hypomania, which means the ups, the manic phase, the phase where people stay up for three or four days. And that goes on for weeks, and then they collapse, and they're back up at it, and they spin recklessly or they will just go um have a ton of romantic part it looks different for everybody but it's just a um hypomanic means it's not quite as high it's not quite as manic the other part that usually accompanies bipolar 2 is the depression phase is often deeper it's a darker hole right so um what you're describing

rich i have a lot of thoughts and opinions some of what you're gonna get me in trouble is it okay if i just kind of lay them all out in a row sure go ahead. Okay. I like to, this isn't always 100% accurate, but it helps me, okay? So feel free to not use this if it doesn't help you. I don't like to say anxiety caused this, or depression caused this, or bipolar made this, because that infers that we live completely robotic lives. And I know several, some of them very closely, BP1 and bipolar 1 and bipolar 2 folks who have created worlds for themselves

where they take their meds, where they do a lot of work upstream. And when they do enter into a really dark phase or a high phase, they got a plan. So what I don't want you to do is to just look at like, oh gosh, this is the next seven years of my life. This is just going to happen at some random moment. You're going to get a call like, hey, your wife bought seven cars and she started a car business. That's not necessarily deterministic that way. I would love you to say, well, my wife

has been diagnosed at some point with bipolar 2 and she recently did X, Y, or Z. Okay. See what I'm saying? And so I don't want,

that's going to empower, my hope is that empowers you and gives you some, all right, all right, let's do this. That's different than, oh, this is going to be the way this is.

Okay? So that's number one. Number two, how long did y'all date before you got married? For about two years. And there was never an episode, never any sort of anything like this?

You never experienced any of it? No, I had not. The closest we had was earlier this year. Her brother also has bipolar and he went through a similar episode. So we at least had a little bit of it, but even then I didn't really kind of know what was going on.

I was basically kind of third-party just hearing about everything. But I know she had several years ago gone through another episode and I've heard from her family what kind of precipitated from that. Was it also a reckless spending and borrowing episode as well? Spending and actions. Yeah.

There was like she got a tattoo as a result of it and decided to kind of out of nowhere just to get like a haircut, which was, you know, on, on the surface, nothing bad. It's very impulsive. Yeah, exactly. All right, so I'm going to give you a recommendation that I fight against all of the time. And 99.99% of the time, I think is the wrong move, but I think it's the right move for you right now. Okay? what your wife needs, what you need, what your household needs right now is you to be able to find footing and to drop your shoulders so that y'all can do what you got to do coming forward.

And you will not be able to do that, I don't believe, until you know y'all are safe. And so I think the smart thing to do right now is to move your money into an account where you can make sure the four walls are covered, housing is taken care of your utilities are taken care of you can get gas money and you get food Okay Yeah, fortunately i've already done that good Okay, I think um couples who split their finances. I think that's a terrible idea Except in this situation, okay Um step number two is she still burning through cars

or is the light starting to come back on? Like, oh no. Because usually that's accompanied by some pretty intense shame that then kicks in the black hole phase. No, she has the stuff that can be returned that wasn't like goods, that was services that we can't return.

But the goods, some of it has gotten returned. Some of it we've found out we we can't return, but the goods, some of it has gotten returned. Some of it we've found out we really can't return, but we are kind of in the process of getting all that. And then we're hoping kind of by the end of the month to be somewhat close to the, the other kind of shoe to drop on it was that we have, before all of this, we had been saving for a house. And so we do have about $40,000 saved up in savings for the house that we were going to basically just turn around and use that to pay on the card so that they didn't gather any sort of interest at all.

Sure. But can you get, I mean, she ran up, what, $8,000 or $9,000? So could she just pay them off? Basically, that's going to be the plan at this point, is to just pay them off before then. I would not do that unless she agrees to freeze her credit. Okay. So that if there's another impulsive moment, that it's very challenging to go forward. Okay.

And here's what we have to do moving forward. We have to create with her. You can't do this for her because you're not her dad. You're her husband. She has to be willing to create, put hurdles in her path so that if she gets, ends up acting very impulsively or ends up in hurdles also for people who are struggling with major depressive disorder, right? Or they are in a depressive episode, maybe not have any guns in the house. Maybe there is a number everywhere for somebody to call.

We have a check-in program that we've practiced, right? I'm going to put some things in place so that. I want to tell you, I don't have bipolar one or bipolar two, nothing of the sort. And I also am pretty impulsive. So there's been seasons in my life when I gave my debit card to my wife. I didn't have access to my own checking account because I needed some time to cool off. And that was just me being a responsible adult. Okay. There is most of the time I do not have junk food candy in my house because I eat all of it. And I know that I should be disciplined and I know that I should all those, I know all that.

It's often easier for me just to not have it in the house. And I've made peace with that. That's okay. And so it's about her deciding, I want to be an adult and never put myself, my family in this position again. And I've got some different challenges than other people. So I'm going to put some hurdles in front of me. Would she be willing to do that? Or is she not even a place to have that conversation yet? Probably not yet. I mean, right now she doesn't even see the stuff as debt. Her philosophy is that it's not actually debt until interest starts occurring on it. So we're still kind of fighting the whole, actually just using credit cards to begin with. But so it might be,

and considering she has started to kind of calm down, but kind of seeing just how still active she is with the idea of wanting to start her own business and whatnot. If you think she can, if, I mean, I don't know that you have the deterministic like that, but if y'all decide starting a business is right for your young family, for her, great. Let's just do it the right way.

Yeah. And we, and we have tried to tell her that between myself and her parents. And there's been pushback, but for the most part, our message has always been exactly that. It's just start off slow and scale. Yeah, absolutely. Um, but she wants to go and buy, like she wants to start a cafe is her idea. So, um, so I always recommend when somebody wants to start a restaurant or a coffee

shop or, uh, open a bar bar go spend two years working in a cafe day in and day out um sometimes where we love to go spend time together it's a totally different experience creating curating that experience for somebody else to enjoy their time because you're working right but all i can say is um that those conversations may fall on deaf ears but i think they're at least worth sitting on and having. I think ultimately you're going to have to decide, or she's going to have to decide, do I want to be well or not well? And there is pharmaceutical interventions, especially in combination with therapeutic interventions, right? Is she seeing somebody?

No, not specifically right now. In the midst of all this, we did go to the ER and they did adjust her meds. So we do have her on something that's supposed to be helping her with the hypomania specifically. I think y'all need to go spend some time with a marriage counselor. Okay. And not just a run-of-the-mill one, but I would find a psychologist or somebody who's trained working with couples, but also with mental health disorders.

Okay. Or somebody who's struggling with a very particular thing. And there are therapists that are excellent with couples in bipolar, excellent with couples in, in borderline personality disorder, which is very challenging. Couples in OCD. So there's, there's therapists that are really excellent at, at helping couples draw boundaries, helping couples draw plans so that we can move forward. What I hear in your voice, and you just may be a super chill, like make your own granola Portland kind of guy, but I hear in your voice, you almost have already given up.

Are you just tired? I think it's more of the latter. I'm just exhausted. Okay. Trying to fight and whatnot for what feels like a month now. Okay. Actually, it probably has been over a month now. It's just...

What are you fighting? Because let me tell you this. In a manic phase, there's no learning. So there's like having a conversation about, hey, you know what? You should probably go to bed. It's almost a conversation not worth having or, Hey, debt is actually this. That's not the S this isn't that moment for that conversation. It's more, Hey honey, when we, as a couple owe somebody money,

I can't breathe. When we, as a couple have to pay for a restaurant that we haven't even opened yet, we haven't done the math on how many cups of coffee we actually have to sell just to pay the light bill and that thing, much less the overhead, much less the cafe staff. I don't sleep. I don't breathe. I don't't digest my food I think that's where we start and that's different than starting with math starting with hey this is actually

the definition of debt hey you shouldn't scale this so much it is do you love me enough to not hurt me because right now your actions hurt

they're scaring me to death and if you love me if you love me just that much just that much that just that much, that's a good place where we can start. Right.

That's the only way I've seen things be effective. I've rarely, rarely ever seen somebody win with a math problem or a definition problem or something like that. But I think you guys

got to get a marriage counselor that's going to help you as she comes down. And I think once the manic phase is over, I think getting meds readjusted again is probably pretty important. Especially if she just got meds to deal with the mountaintop. Yeah, I'll leave it at that. I think you have to look at the entire picture of your marriage. I don't want you to cast this thing off as this is going to be the rest of your life,

or it has to be the rest of your life. It might be, but it doesn't have to be. She can make some choices and y'all can make some choices together where this is not deterministic. Go ahead, Kelly. I have a question. Yes. So we had a call earlier in the week about bipolar one and now bipolar two. That's why I asked you to explain it a little. But I know for most of us, it's just terms we don't get. So I just want to, I'm wanting to know. So it sounds like in one, the highs are higher and the lows are lower. Is that it? Am I hearing that correctly? Yes. My understanding is the bipolar one is the intensity is much greater. And in bipolar two, the highs aren't quite as high, but often is accompanied by a lower low.

And so that's often the diagnostic is pretty subjective, right? And with all due respect, a lot of times bipolar 2 is just something they throw. Like, I feel all over the place and I feel really excited sometimes. I feel really low sometimes. I can just put bipolar 2 on there and call it.

And so it is one of, I think it's one of the most over-diagnosed diagnostics. And I've met some folks where it's very real, right? Where it's very, very real. I... diagnostics, and I've met some folks where it's very real, right? Where it's very, very real. That's why you just got to be honest about it. If this is what you got, it's what you got. Similar, like I struggle with X, Y, and Z. I still got to be at work on time.

So I have to create a world where I can be on work on time. So it's kind of the same thing, just different degrees of the symptoms to a point? For non-nerds, yes. Okay. Yeah. So hyper means a lot, right? And hypo means like the mountaintop is curved. It's more of a hill than a mountain, right?

It is rarer than a hypomanic phase for somebody to go on a spinning burnout like this. That's what makes me wonder if there's more to it than that. Or if this is just like a very determined, very, very, like we're going forward. Or if there's a long family history here. That's why when someone's listening saying, why don't you ask this? Why don't you ask this? I think most of these questions for Rich and his wife are going to be for a counselor because there's going to be some nuance here that's going to be.

When he said that the manic had been over a month at this point, how, I mean, I guess I never thought that they lasted that long because I've not never been around anybody. Yeah, that makes me. Does that vary? That's, that's, that, that in my estimation is a long, long, long time. Okay. Because that does seem exhausting. It's a long time for a bipolar 2 hypomanic phase.

But again, I'm not an expert on it. There may be moments when they last that long. That seems like a very, very long time from my experience. But again, there's experts out there. If you are a bipolar 2, bipolar 1 expert, and you've got some opinions on that, please write in. And I'd love to read out like, hey,'s, if you're a clinician and you're a psychologist and you are navigating this and your specialty is bipolar 1 and 2, man, I would love if you want to provide some clarity. We'll read it. If you write in, I'll be happy to read that out just for folks listening.

But that's a great question. But again, here's the bigger picture for 99.9% of us. Those level of details, I think, are only important if you use them as limiting factors. What I mean by that is, I'll just use this in my house. If I took, I'm going to use my son, who has no mental health disorders whatsoever. He's an amazing young man. I'm just using him for an example. If he was really struggling and I took him to a child psychologist who then did a workup on him and said,

hey, your child has bipolar one. And then I took him to get a second opinion and that person said he has bipolar two. I wouldn't care what they have. What I would want to know is what is it about my son that he's going to struggle with on a day-to-day basis and what can we do? So I don't care if it's bipolar one and my ups are like this. Well, this guy gave me bipolar two, but this has been a month now. That doesn't matter to me as much as I felt so out of control for 30 days, for 60 days. I couldn't hear people who loved me.

I spent recklessly. I went bananas. Let's start there. The diagnostic, fine. But let's start there and let's have that conversation with the psychiatrist. Let's have that conversation with the psychologist. And then, again, there's not like one pill They can just like, oh, you have an infection. Let's give you penicillin.

That's not how that works. They're going to say, okay, let's try this and see if this works. That didn't work. Let's try this one. Let's try this one. And it's going to be a slow management until, that's why they call it med management, until we figure out what for you works. And that's why, again, I just don't put a lot.

I don't care about diagnostics hardly ever. It does. If someone says I've been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, that's a light bulb for me. Somebody says I've been diagnosed with bipolar one, that's a light bulb for me or schizophrenia. Most of the rest of them is, okay, tell me what's going on in your life. And that's just, again, I don't want to sound nonchalant, but most people are way more complex than their diagnosis and most situations are way more complex. So, but that's what Rich is dealing with, right? That's what Rich is dealing with, with a wife he loves and I'm confident she loves him. And also just kind of went rogue and went out and bought a bunch of stuff, started a business,

got mom and dad saying, hey, we love you. And husband saying, hey, we love you. This isn't safe. This isn't smart. This isn't safe. I'm just plowing ahead, plowing ahead, plowing ahead. We have to deal with that. Sometimes extra information is, hey, here's the diagnosis. Okay, cool. That's excellent. We can take that into account, but let's deal with, hey, we're not safe because we've got a partner who's just spinning recklessly. That's where I like people to start, but does that help? Yeah, that's great. Okay. Hopefully, I didn't put everybody to sleep just then.

No, I don't think so. Okay. All right. Hey, Rich, we love you, man. Call back anytime if you need something. If your wife wants to call in and I can help her create a roadmap, we'll only have a few minutes, but I'm happy to give it a shot if she wants to call in as well. Thank you so much. 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. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, 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.

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Let's go out to Phoenix and talk to Emily. Hey, Emily, what's up? Hey, John. So my question is about how do I allow myself or how do I have a healthy relationship after living a life for over eight years in an abusive marriage? I view the world through that lens, and I just don't know how to have a relationship at this point. Yeah, no kidding. Um, what kind of abuse? Tell me about it or what you feel safe telling me about. Um, there's a lot of stuff I probably can't say on the show, but, um, it was everything. You can, you can say whatever you want to say, say whatever you want to say. Financial abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse.

That was pretty much everything. He just never crossed the line enough for, you know, authorities to get involved. So let me back out. He crossed every single line. He did. I don't want you to ever think that well he didn't do it that bad he did right and you know that

you know that the courts don't see that yeah I know it's heartbreaking sometimes it's heartbreaking a lot of times so my guess is you've tried to date since then and it has not gone well

tell me about that. I am in a relationship and have been for just over a year. Okay. He's a great guy, but everything that he does, I call a red flag, even if it's not. You know, I just view everything through the lens of trauma and feel like, you know, he's going to come fight me. You know, some, like I'm missing something, you know, has he, has he bit you yet? This new guy, has he, what has he bit you yet? Not really, but you know what I mean? No, no, there, there's,

there's been nothing. There's just things that I say to myself, well, maybe that's something and I'm missing it. Okay. So trauma works by taking you away from yourself, right? Disassociating you from yourself and your body's job is to make sure that never happens again, ever, right? Your body's just doing what it's supposed to do. So your body's put, I'm trying to say this as easy as I can, your body's just doing what it's supposed to do so your body's put um i'm trying to say this as easy as i can your body put a gps pin and love your body put a gps pin in men and said this situation this this bear nearly killed us last time i'm going to get your attention every single time we're around a bear. And so the goal of trauma healing is to reconnect you with yourself and to teach your body that you weren't unsafe.

I mean, you weren't safe then, but you're safe now. And the scary part about that is in relationship, it's always vulnerable. So you're always going to be mostly safe. All right. That's the worst part of it. Um, even last night I'm talking to my wife and I said some very vulnerable things and she could have said, you're a such a baby. Oh my gosh. I thought I married a Texan. I didn't realize that she could have done that. And I would have had to deal with the hurt of that. She didn't.

All right. So it was vulnerable last night. I was nervous to say what I was going to say. So it's always going to be a part of any sort of romantic relationship. Father, daughter, father, son, parent, anything, work relationship, and especially romantic, there's always going to be that vulnerability. What you have to decide

is when that red flag comes up and your body gets your attention and says, hey, I think we're missing something here. Are you going to challenge that thought or are you going to run with it? How do you challenge it though? Because I seem to just run with it. Have you ever taken the time to write some of these red flags down on a piece of paper

and actually stare at them and say, is this true? Um, not really. It's a painful, long exercise and worth every second. Because what you're going to do is he's going to get home and he's going to be texting somebody on his phone and he's going to drop his phone face down. And your body's going to go, see, told you he's cheating. I knew it. Right there.

That's the moment. You can't help that lightning bolt. That lightning bolt is your brain's job. Or he comes in and you feel he's angry and you want to hide in the cabinets. That feeling, that lightning bolt, get out now, Emily. Go, go, go. That lightning bolt is real and true. and you can't really stop that initially over time your body learns but in the moment you can't what you do is have a choice in that moment to say is this true and when he turns his phone

over just drops it because he's a goofball and he has to go to the bathroom and he had a long commute home and you go is he cheating on me no he's not right and that's one of those moments sometimes um i used to put my hand on my chest like is my wife really hate me and i would be like no she doesn't do i wish that she had just come in and been like oh my gosh i'm so happy to see you and give me a big hug do i wish that she had just come in and been like, oh my gosh, I'm so happy to see you and give me a big hug. Do I wish that? Yes. Does she hate me though?

No. And I would literally practice dropping my shoulders. And what I would not do is I would not, I would fight it and I would fight it and I would fight it. I will not have these imaginary conversations. I'm not going to let the person who used to hurt me continue to speak into my present relationships where somebody is trying to love me. And that's just something you got to practice.

I'll also say there may be some trauma counseling that you need to go deal with and train trauma counselors. Those trained in the works of Peter Levine and Vander Kolk and some of his body work, EMDR, it's amazing what they do. It's incredible what they do. And so it's you saying, I'm gonna take some time and go be well.

And really in a strange way, I don't understand how it works. I'm sure there's some neuroscientists that can figure it out for me or some poly neuroscientists that can figure it out for me or some polyvagal scientists that can figure it out for me. Your nervous system just control deletes. It just goes whoosh. It's a peace that I can't describe other than I've been through it.

And it feels almost like a depressive state because my body's been running so hot for so long. Yeah. When you start to feel comfortable and at peace and a little bit safe, is that when the symbols start crashing the loudest? Yeah, it is. Yeah. I think that's your body's last ditch effort to keep you out of something that almost got you last time.

Yeah. Give me one example of something you'd like to be different. One story that keeps spinning up that you would like to work on. As far as my current relationship? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I feel like he's secretive. Okay.

On a lot of things. And I lived that with my ex-husband, and he was secretive for a lot of things. And I lived that with my ex-husband, and he was secretive for a reason. He was doing a lot that he shouldn't have been doing. So if I'm you, I would feel absolutely comfortable sitting down, and I'm saying that jokingly. There's no way I'd feel comfortable doing what I'm going to tell you to do.

But I would feel comfortable sitting down saying, hey, I was married before. And that guy hurt me real bad. And I really like you. And also, my body runs pretty hot. The antenna is pretty hot. And so I'm going to have to practice and learn to trust you. And it feels to me like you're being super secretive.

Can you tell me about that? And he might say, can you give me some examples of how I'm being secretive? So I'll ask you that. What are some examples of how he's being secretive? He's very secretive with his phone. Okay. Making sure I don't see passcodes and, you know, things like that. Have you sat down and said,

I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I don't know the passcode to your phone I have not why not um because again I view it through my previous relationship and I know how that went

with him so I'm just it's like I don't want to fight about it I know what if I'm wrong

what if it's what if it's nothing if it's nothing then who cares you know what I mean if it's nothing? If it's nothing, then who cares? You know what I mean? If it's nothing, who cares? Yeah.

Who cares at all? Yeah. I guess I'm afraid I'm going to push him away because of my insecurity and my trust issues. What happened to you in the past happened to you in the past and anybody who loves you is going to know this person's going to need an extra ounce of um trust displaying and that's okay this person who i'm growing to love who i want to date um and got hurt bad and i'm going to be so above board so that she can breathe and she can lean into this new relationship. I think you have to come to the place where if you said, hey, you're super secretive with your phone. And I lived this for almost a decade, a guy who would never let me see the code of his phone, who would always hide his phone. And it ended up blowing up all over me.

I'm not comfortable being in another romantic relationship where we have secrets like that. And if he said, well, screw you. If you don't trust me, I'm out of here. I'm going to tell you, Emily, it's going to hurt real bad, but you dodged another bullet. And if he laughs and says, okay, here you go. And it's a bunch of crude jokes between him

and some of the guys he works with. You can say you're gross and move on about your day. see what i'm saying i do i do but i feel like oh man this is easy for me to say i'm an old married man right but i want to tell you you're worth more than hedging what you feel i want to tell you secrets will kill you. And can I tell you something kind of hard? I feel bad saying this, but not really. You're being secretive too. I can see that.

You're not telling him the truth either. Yeah. Because the truth is you think something's freaky going on. Let me tell you one more thing about trauma. It does really finely tune your radar sometimes And sometimes it can overtune it to where you see trauma everywhere and there's not actually you're dating somebody new. That's great It also though can catch before you even realize it. Oh, that is cheating 100 cheating. I feel it And so I want to tell you part part of getting reconnected with yourself, and it sounds like such lofty, floofy language,

I get that. It's learning to trust your gut again. And the only way to learn to trust your gut again is to have gut instincts and act on them. I feel in my bones, there's something on that phone that you're hiding from me. Can I see it?

Do you love me enough? Do you trust me enough? Because if not, we've been together for a year. We probably need to have a different conversation. Or if they go, of course, here. There you go. And by the way, if

somebody's cleaning, like somebody's folding your underwear and putting it in a drawer, they should be able to see your phone. If y'all are sharing DNA and you made kids together, y'all should be able to see your phone. If y'all are sharing DNA and you made kids together, y'all should be able to share phones for God's sakes. Having this eternal

private life that is separate, having private thoughts, having private journals, all that's good. I mean, that's you working through yourself. Having this private universe, that can get real dicey, real, real fast. I know because I've been there. It can get dicey real fast. So, that's just what, let me say this private universe, I can get real dicey real, real fast. I know because I've been there. I can get dicey real fast. So that's just what I, let me say this, Emily, you're not crazy.

You're not crazy. I would probably, if I was you, if you were my mom, if you were my sister, I would tell you go spend some time with a trauma counselor who's trained because you got some healing you need to do. I think you need to be very honest with yourself about the behaviors that you are finding that are setting off all of your body's alarms in your current relationship, reminding you of the past. And I don't think you just wipe those away as, well, this happened back then because they may be happening right now again. It may be happening right now again.

I'm going to send you a copy of my brand new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life. I want you to work through all those exercises and begin to look at your life and say, no, no, no, here's the places where, without even thinking about it, I was choosing an anxious existence. I was doing this unintentionally. I was doing this unintentionally. I was doing this unintentionally,

and I've created a life of chaos, and I'm done with it. Done with it. Hang on the line. We'll get you hooked up. Call anytime. You're not crazy. I'm so sorry that somebody hurt you. You're worth so much more. 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're back at the end of the show, and I've got an awesome follow-up email here. All right, back on June 16th of 2023, Isaac from Charleston wrote in and ended up being on the show, wanted to know, could he come back from resentment? His original email said this, separated from my wife and three kids. We got here is a tornado of hurt and betrayal, want us to work things out, tries hard to be all in. Here we are several months later and she wants to try. A lot of betrayal, a lot of hurt, a lot of pain. I feel ultimately it can be worth it, but I don't know the path and I'm hurt so bad from before. I don't want to be hurt again. So we had him on the show, talked through it, and here is his reply email. And by the way, we'll put a link in the show notes

to the previous, the original show if you want to go back and check it out. Here's what he writes. It's awesome. Good afternoon, Jenna and the rest of the Dr. John Deloney show team. I just wanted to provide a little update of where we are now since I called in. After some time and seeing some actions, I made the choice that my wife was serious about wanting to heal herself in our marriage. A few weeks after my talk with Dr. John, we attended a five-day marriage therapy intensive together. Not long after that, my wife attended an addiction intensive in Nashville, Tennessee, and has been regularly attending 12-step programs and working with me in our healing journey together.

I truly believe she has seen the light and is very empathetic towards my needs, as Dr. John put it in the show. I've also reflected and put in some work on where I have contributed to our marital issues and I'm working on my own healing as well as, and to be a whole individual so that our marriage can be whole. Dude, this is awesome. This is amazing. We're still working towards moving back in together and the logistics of putting our pieces back together in a new way and all that fun jazz. Ah, dude, so great, Isaac. I real quick want to walk through what this sounds like because a lot of people hear the show and they think okay

This person can just go have this conversation in that conversation. It's all better. It's not how life works after the show for a couple of weeks Isaac stood on what I told him And then he sat down with his wife And then she agreed. All right, let's do an intensive And then probably from that intensive It came out you got to go to rehab before anybody gets better.

And she did. And that takes weeks. That takes time. And then in the intensive and at rehab, he learned he had some work he had to do. He was not perfect either. He's not on the Marvel team either. And he is.

And even after all that work, they're still navigating just moving back in together. So never forget, healing takes time. It's hard. A lot of grinding work. And healing is always worth it. You are worth it, my friends. We'll see y'all soon.