The Dr. John Delony Show - Why Do I Still Care About My Abuser?

Episode Date: September 26, 2022

On today’s show, we hear from: - A woman who’s cut her abusive father out of her life but still thinks of him often (1:48) - A combat veteran wondering how to cope with his trauma as he returns to civilian life (17:53) - A wife whose husband’s alcoholism has reached an all-time low (38:52) Lyrics of the Day: "Blue Worse Than I Ever Had" - Marcus King 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 Churchill Mortgage Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I have this issue where I have cut out my dad for being very toxic. It's been over a year. I find myself looking at the settings on my phones and I'll look and be like, has he contacted me? You are not alone, Sister Jackie. What up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Greatest mental health podcast ever.

Says nobody. So glad that you're with us. If you want to be on this show, we talk about marriage, we talk about relationships, we talk about marriage, talk about relationships, we talk about trauma, we talk about whatever's going on in your life, right? If you wanna be on the show,

give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message and we'll holler back girl at you, even if you ain't no holler back girl, and we'll give you a call and see if we can get you on the show. Or you can go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. We are heading, I guess this will be out as we're into the fall, this episode.

So start thinking about Thanksgiving now. Start thinking about Christmas now and your travel plans. If you're not going to travel, let people know. Just say, hey, this isn't going to be the year we're going to do that. Don't forget to go pick up some questions for humans cards for those of you who are going to be traveling. I've actually started using the cards, my own cards, with my Tuesday morning breakfast with my son, and it's been incredible. It's so good. And we'll use them when we're traveling around on our hunting adventures this fall. So don't forget to pick those up at johndloney.com.

All right, let's go to Gainesville, Florida and talk to Jackie. What's up, Jackie? Hi, John. How are you? Good. What are you doing? Not much.

Just sitting on my lunch break. Your lunch break? I guess we've got some hours differences. Yeah, just one hour. Very cool. All right. So what's up? So my question for you is how do you move on from toxic family members that you've cut out of your life? I have this issue where I have cut out my dad for being very toxic and it's been over a year, but I still find myself going on Facebook and looking through like my grandma's profile, his mom, to see what he's up to. I find myself looking at the settings on my phone, because you can see your blocked messages, and I'll look, be like, has he contacted me?

And so I've done some self-reflection about it, and I think I've gotten to the point where I feel like I need to be validated in my decision to do that. But I don't think that's the right way to find that validation. And I don't know if you would be able to help me out with that. Yeah, I think I can. And thank you for sharing that. You are not alone, Sister Jackie. That's such a common response to the hard, brave thing you did, which is to set down boundaries. What happened?

Like there was some moment when you said enough is enough. You've been dealing with this your whole life. And it escalated. What happened? Why did you finally say no more? I got pregnant with my first. Okay. And so we live in different states, and most of our communication is through text.

When I was growing up, I watched him be sort of abusive towards my ex step mom. And, uh, he was emotionally abusive, manipulative. And, um, so I went through all that and I see him, he's kind of like my bear, like he, I'm uncomfortable around him talking to him and stuff. And as I got older and started a family of my own, I realized like the negativity that he brings into my life was just too much. And when I was pregnant, I realized it kind of escalated. And then I got pregnant with my second and I just realized he's not the type of person I wanted around my kids if I'm so uncomfortable around him. Absolutely. And so, oh, sorry. So did a thing finally happen? Did he say the wrong thing? Did he swear at you? Or did he

make a comment about your husband? Like what happened? So, um, we would text back and forth all the time. Um, well, not all the time. It'd be like months in between, but every time we would text, he eventually would get to the point. Like, I wish we were better. I wish you would get over what happened in the past. And I would tell him, um, I'm sorry, that's something that I'm working on. I'm in therapy. And, um, he would blame me for not contacting him more. And he would even blame my mom, which he divorced 20 years ago that she like, um, put me against him and everything. He's the one that would bad mouth my mom while I was growing up and still does. So let me tell you this, your, your, your dad is a child and your dad's a. And he cares more about his,

him propping up his own ego to himself than he does about his relationship with his daughter and his new grandkids. And those are things you have felt for a long, long time. Probably no one's ever said them like that. And I know it's hard to hear, but it's the truth. And if you don't hear that, you're going to continue to think you're crazy for protecting yourself and your little kids and you're not. Because that man's going to use you

and now he's going to use your grandkids to prop up his own ego like he's tried to do for so long. You know what matters 20 years ago? Not a lot. I'm way more concerned that he hasn't gotten in his car and driven to your house and knocked on your door with tears in his eyes and said, I'm so sorry, I'm your dad. And more so than any of my stupid arguments or blaming you, I should have shown up and been your dad and I wasn't, I'm your dad. And more so than any of my stupid arguments or blaming you,

I should have shown up and been your dad and I wasn't, I'm sorry. He doesn't do that. He launches text grenades at you every once in a while and they burrow into your heart and then you feel crazy. Right?

So what you did was the right thing. And I wanna, just for all the people listening, you did something that was so wise. And I want to just call it out. You don't like who you become when you're around him. And often that impacts our children more so than any dumb comment or anything like that. They know that walking into this house, mom begins to feel like X or act like X or she becomes Y and then these kids get unmoored by that.

And so you saying, I don't like who I become around you. I'm stepping out of this thing. Good for you. I'm proud of you, Jackie. It's hard what you did and I'm proud of you. Now here's the next part.

I could ask you this question, but we'll just cut to the chase. You spent a lifetime being told that what you believe is not trustworthy. What you feel is not trustworthy. Oh, isn't that the truth? Okay.

Especially by him. There you go. So it makes 100% sense that you finally acted and you don't trust yourself. That you did the right thing. Okay. So recognizing that is part one. Part two is acting differently now. Okay. So I don't want to overthink this. Get off social media or block your grandmother too. And start having human to human conversations. Make it to where you,

there was a season when I was out of control with my spending. I was just a maniac, man. We finally make, I was finally getting a real paycheck for the first time in my life and I was just bonkers. And at some point I took my debit card

out of my wallet and gave it to my wife. I had that little self-control and I had to show up to a few places where I'd already eaten and I realized afterwards I didn't have my, you know what I mean? Because it was just, I had learned the hard way, but that was how drastic I got.

I think that's where you are because here's what you have to do. You have to practice trusting yourself and you've never done that before. And your kids need you to do that. Your husband needs you to do that. You need to do that. But if you've got that prop, that crutch to fall back on,

to see, does he screwing something up? Is he being a knucklehead? Is he still with that woman? Whatever the thing is that you keep going back, you're going to keep doing it. You got to practice. Is that fair? Yeah.

Let me ask you this. Well, I'll just say it this way. Brene Brown calls it rehearsing tragedy. Do you sit, and I love that. It's just a dress rehearsal for a tragedy. How often do you sit and just have imaginary conversations with this guy? All the time. How often do you have imaginary conversations with your mom? Like she's finally going to just ask you that one right question and you're going to unload. Never.

Never? She's like my best friend. She already knows everything. Okay, she already does. So rumination, just spinning out, thinking about it, thinking about it, thinking about it. That feels like good, helpful thinking. It feels like there's a potential threat down the road and we're going to think through how we're going to respond ahead of time. The idea of it sounds good. Hear me say this as boldly as I can. Rumination and worry is a complete and utter waste of your

time. In fact, it steals from your children. It steals from your partner. It steals from you. Because it takes you from the present and it spins your body up. Your body actually goes to war for you. It's like, oh, there's not even a bear here, but we can conjure one up in our brains

and then we can respond to it. It does. You see what I'm saying? And you get out of the shower and you've been sitting in there having these imaginary conversations in the shower. For some reason, I hear all over the country,

people have these in the shower. I think usually that's finally when people get still enough in a day where they can just, and that water's relaxing a little bit and then they can, the machine just kicks up, right? Me too.

So listen, Jackie, I wish it was more complicated than this. Quit. Quit. Stop having an imaginary conversations with your dad that you are never going to have in real life. As my friend Todd says, he doesn't have a meteorite plan. So if a meteorite comes, we will, you will deal with the economic fallout of that when it happens. And I'll tell you, your dad's probably not going to knock on your door and say, I'm so sorry.

Do you forgive me? He's probably not. And so feel free to deal with that if it ever happens. It probably won't. And stop giving him rent-free space in the middle of your chest. Stop giving him rent-free space in the middle of your marriage,

in the middle of your kids, in the middle of your heart and head. Is that fair? Yeah, it is. You're entering into the holiday season, right? We're gonna get into October, November, December. This is gonna be extra hard, is it? Yeah, especially if I'm thinking about visiting the family in that state.

Don't. Why would you do that? Because I love everybody else. Do you get anxious when you're around them? Mainly him. Okay. If he's there them? Mainly him. Okay. If he's there, don't go. Okay. Because then you're just, you know what I mean?

You're trying to have your cake and eat it too. You drew a boundary. Maybe at some point you let them know, I've chosen to not be around him because he's gaslighting and manipulative and abusive and he still won't take any ownership of the way he treated me and my family. And if y'all choose to invite him,

then y'all are choosing for us to not come, and that's totally cool. You can do that. You can put the ball in their court, but I don't see anything wrong with you taking a year off and just deciding, opting for, solving for peace this holiday season. And that means you're gonna have to grieve it, and you're gonna be sad, and you're gonna miss out on the this and the decide, opting for, solving for peace this holiday season. And that means you're going to have to grieve it.

You're going to be sad. You're going to miss out on all the this and the that. And you can't just do nothing. You got to backfill it with, then we're going to go here. We're going to go do this thing, or we're going to go try this thing, but do something else. Give your heart and mind and soul and home a rest. Is that possible?

Okay. Yeah, it is. Does that sound like, ah, or what are you feeling when I'm saying this? It does sound like, ah. It sounds like, ah, like scared or, ah, like peaceful. I guess that wasn't really specific, but peaceful. Definitely peaceful. Oh, dude. Solve for freedom. Solve for peace. Solve for sleep, which you probably don't have enough of with two little ones, right?

Oh, absolutely not. What about just having a peaceful holiday season? And all you have to do is just send an email to your family that says, hey, we're not traveling this year. I have a very different situation with my family. Like, I love my family. I like hanging out with them. And I sent the email yesterday to all of them that said, I let myself get out of control last fall with all my travel and I had a book deadline due. It just got chaotic.

And then hosting the holidays, I became someone I didn't like. I wasn't the dad I wanted to be, the family member, the friend, the husband. I wasn't the guy I wanted to be. So this year we're not hosting. And so I'm letting y'all know way up, way in advance, three or four months, y' Y'all need to buy plane tickets and come out here

We're not gonna do a big old thing Um, we're gonna come to your house on this day if y'all can make it great If you don't if it's not a good time for y'all we won't come But we just decided or I decided man. I need I need To recalibrate I need peace And then i'm gonna figure out how I can best honor my family on the back end of that. See what I'm saying? So maybe this year you write your family letters

and tell them you love them and you miss them and wish them well and send them a note that says we're not going to travel this year and then just relax, right? Right. Does that sound good? It does. I guess it can be a little heartbreaking not being able to see everybody else.

And do you get that a heartbreak is okay? I guess, yeah. It's not fun. It's not pleasant, but it's right. It makes sense that you're heartbroken. Most of the time when we put up a boundary with somebody who's blown up our lives. We don't recognize the impact of that boundary

until people start banging their head up against it. And what I mean by that is we like, we think that we can put up a boundary around one person, one friend, one community member, one husband or ex-wife or one, you know, somebody struggling with addiction, whatever that is. But we don't realize that you can't, very rarely can you put up a boundary around somebody in isolation.

It usually impacts an entire system. And your body's going to have to get used to the fact that your dad blew up everything. Right? Right. And blaming him and sitting there wallowing in that and getting mad at it, that doesn't solve any of your issues. What solves your issues is saying, cool, I'm not going to be around that. I'm not going to have my kids around that. I'm going to create something new. And that's annoying and hard. And I don't want to, but that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do something new. I'm going to solve for freedom. Not like

freedom, not like political, not. I'm going to solve for peace. I'm going to solve for sleep. I'm going to solve for rest. I'm going to solve for laughter. I'm going to solve for kindness and patience. I'm going to solve for, whew. Yeah, we could all use a little bit more of that. Thanks for the call, Jackie. 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. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks

with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, cool. Let's go to uh dustin in sanford florida what's up dustin hey what's up brother just hanging out how are you doing today dude i'm doing the exact same thing i'm running this this scam over here called a uh youtube show it's awesome well it's working it's working man appreciate everything you do brother thank you man you, man. So what's up, brother? How can I help? So I've got like 50 million different changes going on in life right now. Sweet. And I'm just trying to, I guess that's just the everything is with the current transition, transitioning out of the military

into civilian life and How long have you been in? I did eight and a half years. What was your role? For those years I was infantry and then the last half of that was, uh,

aviation, uh, worked on, uh, helicopters. Oh, so you've seen it, huh? Yeah, man. Yeah. Uh, all the nitty gritty stuff. Yeah. And it's like, I'm at this, um, turning point in my life where for the first time, I'm really getting to make my own decisions. And I's like, I'm at this, um, turning point in my life where for the first time I'm really getting to make my own decisions. or whatever, or do I just put it all behind me and just completely isolate, not isolate, but leave that military community behind? What's the impetus? What's that? You've boxed yourself into an either or. Why do you feel the need to make that call?

I think a lot of it for me is like, we've just moved, moved it. You know, we just moved into a new house and, you know, for the first time, like I don't have to put on the uniform every day. And so like, I've got a tough box in the middle of my living room right now like filling up with you know uniforms and stuff and I look

at that and like every time I open it like my heart starts racing why does it start racing it, like, my heart starts racing. Why does it start racing? I think a lot of it for me is just

a lot of, like, the mental things, I guess, I just haven't like processed. Can I tell you what I think it is? Yeah. You've seen a lot of stuff, right? You've seen a lot of the worst of the worst and you've seen the word good wrapped up in some pretty messy evil

and you've seen the word evil wrapped up in, like that's not so bad, right? You've seen it all. And when we say see it all, people, most people have watched the movies and you've seen it and experienced it and felt it. I don't necessarily think that's what it is. For the last eight years,

so let's just say decade, you've had a purpose and a mission and a role and you've had people who manicured every moment of your day and more importantly, you fixed a helicopter surrounded by sand and smoke and other people had guns and they were laying their life on the line so you could do your job. You have an insight into what tribe and community and friendship and loyalty looks like that most people will never understand. And I think this is completely me, okay? I think a big part of the PTSD crisis that we have from people returning is we drop them off and say, go make good choices. And here's some pamphlets, go get them. And it's unmooring. Yes, they've seen hard things, but if you look at the trauma literature, people who experience hard things in the context of loving adult relationships do okay over time. And I think your body knows more than I will ever know. We're about to be real, real lonely.

We're about to find ourselves out in the middle of a battlefield and our team left us and we know what that means, right? That's my guess, is that you're losing or you are opting out of everything. And that doesn't mean it's the wrong thing. It's actually the right thing for you, man. You've put in your decade, it's't mean it's the wrong thing it's actually the right thing for you man you've put in you put in your decade it's time it's cool i think your body knows that is that fair i mean i'm i'm i haven't come home from combat veteran world so you could tell me

i'm off no no i mean and that's it i think a lot of it is like you know we we've, well, like I said, we just, we just, uh, I got out, um, while living in Hawaii. And so we're transitioning from Hawaii and now we're living all the way completely on the other, this is moved to the other side of the country. We're down in Florida now. And so it's like adjusting to that. It's, you know, adjusting to a new work environment, a new work community and like,

you know, trying to make all these new adjustments into things and trying to. Can I, can I, like your language is that of a car mechanic. I need to make an, or a helicopter mechanic, right? I've got to make an adjustment here. I've got to tighten this rolling girder spring thing over here. And the, right? Let me challenge you to not look at what's before you as a series of knobs to turn and wrenches to crank.

For the first time in a long time, you are going to have to feel stuff. And feeling stuff in many ways would have got you killed the last decade. And now it's the thing that's going to keep you alive. And it's a set of skills that you don't have. And so you're going to have to practice it. Is that fair? Definitely. And I mean, I'm trying. Of course you are. Of course, dude, you're awesome.

Yeah, of course you are, man. Don't hear me clowning on you. I just want to give you a different, like you're going to, you are naturally going to try to solve problems with the way that you've solved problems before. And you have had the try to solve problems with the way that you've solved problems before. And you have had the opportunity to solve problems with bullets flying at you and with other people, with people's like dying or dead next to you,

like you've had to solve problems. And so it's natural that man, all this change, all this chaos, all this, ah, I'm going to go back to what I know, what I've been trained to do,

which is to break this thing down and to adjust. Right. Right. And like, you know, I'm going to go back to what I know, what I've been trained to do, which is to break this thing down and to adjust. Right? Right. And like, you know, we just like last night had our first night of like small groups and like trying to get plugged in with that. And hey, that's the worst, man. Right? It is the worst. Because the last time they sent you to basic and y'all did pushups and PT.

Y'all did all this crap together and you looked up six months later and you were one. And now you're sitting around with a bunch of suburban dads like, hey, man, you know what's really tough? The air conditioning. And you're like, nope, not tough. Not tough. And my lawnmower wouldn't start. It's Obama's fault. And you're like, nope, nope, not a thing.

Right, so you've got this ringside seat and the challenge for you is to choose. It's gonna be hard. Is to choose to find community in new places. And dude, it's so... How old are you? 30? 31?

30, yeah. Okay. It's the worst. It's the worst. Making friends as a 30 and four-year-old, it's the worst. But you have to have people in your tribe, in your gang,

and you are gonna have to, all veterans are, have to understand that it won't be like it was. And dude, you and I both know veterans who are 55, and whenever they get together, they go back and tell stories back from they were 19. The same as you and I both have like, yeah, bros, who are high school football heroes, and they get together and they tell the same football stories. And here's why.

Because that's the last time they were a part of something bigger than themselves. And the military gives you that in an extraordinary way. And the mission before you now is you are going to have to opt into that. It's not going to be presented for you. And that's just a set of skills, man. Is that fair? Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Um,

what's your new, what's your new, what's your new mission? Um, so currently like job wise or well played? No. What's your new mission? Your job will feed your mission. What's your objective? I don't know. Right now, I'm just trying to... That's it. Boo-yah. I don't even know what your answer is.

You're going to feel aimless and purposeless. And when your body's untethered, then your body will ring the anxiety alarms. And when you don't have people in your life, you don't have a gang in your corner, your body will ring the anxiety alarms. And it's going to be hard to get out of bed. You're going to snap at your wife. You're going to just roll your eyes at some dude who's wearing loafers and no socks. And he's like, let me tell you what's going on in the world. And you'd be like shut up you don't know and all that is going to feel like the problem that that box full of your gear in the middle of your living room is going to feel like the problem and it's just just trying to get

like reconnected like my wife kids like community around me and everything it's just what's your mission

because I mean because I think it's a lot of it's just been like being yeah just being lonely right now like that sucks to say that out loud doesn't it yeah yeah because it's just like i feel like at times like you know that person in a room and i'm like hey like let's you know

talk about whatever and everybody's you know i work bunch of, um, veteran guys and it's like, they just, it's like constantly like, Oh yeah. Back when I was in the army too, I'm like, dude, I don't want to talk about that. Like it's, it's exhausting. It's like, I just want like people. And that's like where, where it all boils down to. It's like, I feel like in one direction, like I want to put it all like the military and everything like behind me and, and move on. But I'm constantly surrounded by other people that have been in that community.

And it's like, I don't necessarily know if I want to be there, you know? Yeah, totally. And you find yourself in the odd man out, right? You're in no man's land. Right. Which is a really lonely, unmooring place to be. So I did, Jenna and Kelly, they let me know this call was coming.

So I reached out to two different people. One is a friend of mine, and she's actually on deployment right now. She's wrapping up like in two months. And then another one is a close buddy of mine who's a SEAL who's just rolling off. Okay? And the roll-off process for him has been quite a season. And I just asked them that question. Because I get that question you're asking makes sense.

Is this just a chapter of my life, and now I move on, and I got to start wearing really short khaki shorts? Like, is this what's next? Or do I have to just keep talking about military stuff for the rest of my life? Is that forever, right? And do I cut this group out? Do I cut off? And so I'm going to read you directly what they wrote me. Is that cool? keep like talking about military stuff for the rest of my life is that forever right and do i cut this group out do i cut off and so i'm gonna read you directly what they wrote me is that cool

yeah man they have a better they get to i've sat with a bajillion vets they're living it and i have it and i want to honor their voice okay here's what one of them wrote i think happiness in life is achieved through balance so going all in or cutting it all off probably isn't the answer I recommend keeping in touch with veterans and being part of a community But don't allow it to be your identity You're a time the military is part of your story, but it's not your complete identity as you move into the next chapter Offer yourself a grace if you find yourself struggling in certain aspects. Wherever you'll go, you'll always be.

So take the most loving version of yourself. Live a life of balance, compassion, and love. And he writes, everything on the planet is meant to serve something other than itself. And humans aren't the exception. Focus on loving and serving others over being self-centered and things will work out. When I ask you what your mission is,

getting connected to your wife, getting connected to your kids, getting connected, making new friends, all of those things are actions in service of a bigger picture. You do those things because they're right and they're holy and they're good, but those are the only way

you can be a light in your community. You can do good work. You can pave new sidewalks for my kids that are coming up behind yours, right? Whatever the bigger mission is. And what you've got in your head is a whole bunch of tasks. And we've got to come up with a mission, right? Where are we going to serve?

What's that going to look like? We're all in service to something. What are we going to serve? What's that going to look like? We're all in service to something. What are we going to serve? And then how are we going to get to that service? The other buddy, she says, if you stay connected, you'll have so many resources available to you that you can explore.

She mentioned Military OneSource. It set her up with a great civilian counselor. Start unpacking stuff and repack all that in a way that's healing to you. I would take advantage of the resources. I would also tell those guys, hey, we're going out. I'm buying the first round. No military talk. Call it out.

And two or three of them are going to go, oh, thank God. And one or two will be like, no, bro, are you giving up? And you'd be like, that's cool. And then you just know, hey, that's not gonna be one of my guys. That's fine.

It's fine. How does that sound? It sounds good. I mean, it... You sound wholly unconvinced, bro. No, it's just... I don't know. I guess I got to get to that part

of going out with the guys type thing. I'm just... Dustin, Dustin, you don't got to do anything right now. You've been going for a decade. You've had your minute by minute planned out for 10 years. People have shot

at you. And now you're just going to work. Give yourself a minute. My buddy Ian Simpkins says, if busyness is a drug, rest will feel like torture. Does it ever. Right? And you've been busy to keep you alive. You've been busy doing what other people told you to do for 10 years. You just got to learn a new thing, man. That's it. You've been

a running back forever and they just stuck you out wide receiver. You just got to learn a new thing, man. That's it. You've been a running back forever, and they just stuck you out wide receiver. You got to give yourself some grace. You don't run pass routes before. Just new. You're not broken or damaged or ruined or an idiot or whatever. None of those things. Bad guy. You got to learn new stuff. It's cool, man. You're going to trip and fall, hit in the head with a ball. You're going to drop a few passes. It's fine. Has there ever been one thing that you've had laid in front of you that you just said, walked away from and said,

I can't do this? Never really been an option. There you go. This one's not either. So all of this starts with one big scary proposition. Sitting down with your wife and letting her know,

hey, honey, for the first time in my life, I'm scared, like in a real way. Not scared someone's gonna shoot me. I'm scared that I don't know what comes next and that I don't have the skills to move forward. Can we do this thing together? Because we're gonna have to build something totally new. And I'm almost guaranteed she'll probably weep with you and say,

I'm all in. Is that, you think so? Yeah, I'd imagine. Yeah. Okay. Take a big, deep breath, as deep as you can, in those big, dusting lungs, and hold it.

Five, four, three. Exhale and drop your shoulders all the way down. You deserve sleep. Rent bunch of sex with your wife, laughter with your kids, paycheck, a safe home. And you're just going to learn new skills. Are you in?

Definitely, 100%. Yeah. My kids have their life because of guys like you. So from guy to guy, thank you. Appreciate that. And that's not a platitude

and that's just that's not some little thing I'm gonna put on a sign and post it on Instagram that's me telling my brother Dustin thank you and I'll walk with you as much as I can

you can call me every show if you want we'll just have Dustin's section every show as you figure this thing out because listen you're you're

you're one of the brave few because there's millions walking through this just like you. And they think they're crazy. They think it's their wife's gone mad. They think that their husband's an idiot. They think that their kids are... And their bodies are screaming at them.

Hey, we're alone. We're not safe. Their bodies are screaming at them saying, we've got no mission. Where are we going to serve next? And then we're going to backfill that. Cool? Definitely.

I love you, man. And I'm grateful for you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Homework assignment number one, ask those knuckleheads that you work with, we're going out.

We're all going out in not one military conversation. In fact, I'm going to make it so weird for you. Oh, I can't, this is, I can't even think of this. I'm going to make it super weird. I'm going to send you a few questions for humans packs. And I know, I know when you pull them out, those guys are going to look at you as though you've just gotten a fourth head. As though you were like, Hey, you mind if I like kiss all y'all's wives? That's how they're going

to look at you. And you're going to say, nope, we're doing this. And it's going to give you some avenue, however much grief you're going to take for this avenue.

We may come up with a pack for veterans, man, just to give them something to talk about other than, hey, remember the time? Practice new skills, how to have conversations,

how to look into the future instead of living that past. Stay on the line here. Jenna's going to hook you up. We'll give you, I'll give you a big, a bunch of them. And I'll give you all something to talk about. I'm proud of you. And I'm grateful for you, my brother. We'll be right back.

It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new homebuyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey-trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades,

and their Home Buyer Edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillemortgage.com slash D'Loni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, let's go north of the border to Ontario and talk to Cindy. What's up, Cindy? Hey, Cindy. You're Cindy. Sorry, I'm a little nervous. Hi, Dr. John. Hey, I'll go by Cindy. I'll go by Cindy in this call. You go by John, I'll go by Cindy. Let's do this. This will be hyper confusing.

All right. So what's up? Well, thank you for taking my call. I'm a huge fan of yours. And I listen to your show every day. I'm a little bit obsessed. Hey, there's only about 22 of us now. So thank you for being one of the few.

It's awesome. You're welcome. The reason for my call today is about my husband's alcohol addiction. I have two questions. One, my family and I want to know how to deal with my husband's drinking at family functions and parties. And two, is limiting his access to funds considered financial abuse if I'm protecting our finances from his addiction. So let me unpack that a bit so that you can get some background on what's happening. I'm a bit nervous and I don't want to forget anything. So I hope you don't mind me reading

from my notes. No, that's great. Okay, great. I feel like my children and I are being gaslighted by my husband about his addiction. We ask him ahead of family functions or parties to either not drink or to limit his drinking. And he'll promise, but he rarely keeps it. And especially if he has access to unlimited beer like a wedding or a special occasion. So at parties, he'll help himself to other people's beer after he's finished his own, which angers me so much because they're not his to take. His timetable basically revolves around work and drinking after work. He works in the evenings most nights.

So on those nights, he drinks his five tall cans and goes to bed. If he's off work for the day, he usually starts drinking by three in the afternoon. Cindy, how old are your kids? Um, they're adults. They're both close to 30. Cindy, Cindy, Cindy, how old are your kids? They're adults. They're both close to 30. How long have you been living with this? Probably about that long.

Are you done? No, I'm not. I'm not done. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? You lived with this for so long. Mm- done. Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?

You lived with this for so long. Why? I love him. And he's such a good person. And I don't want to split up the family. We both came from broken homes. And I don't want to ever. I just don't want to go through having the two families. Cindy, you are living in a fantasy. You didn't break this family up. Your husband chose to not heal from his addiction, not get

the help he needed. And for 30 years, he's told you that you have to do this and you're the reason for this and you've had to manage that and you had two kids grow up in this mess with an alcoholic father. Yep. And you've got guilt over that.

And you've got guilt over all of it. Enough. You're not breaking this family up, Cindy. You're staying safe. And I think he can be a... I don't want to attach a morality to it, but the good men in my life do hard things on behalf of their wives and kids. The men in my life, the good men in my life, the people I would say that's a good man,

looks in a mirror and says, I've got to be different starting now. I've screwed up and I have to make major changes. I know good, good men who've cheated on their spouses and they've taken a knee and said, I screwed this thing up. I know good men who've stolen and who've lied and said, here's what I'm going to be on the back end of that car wreck. And your husband has chosen

not to remain an addict, but he has chosen to not get help. He one time said that he was going to go into rehab and I was crying tears of happiness and it then COVID hit and he ended up talking to an addiction counselor over the phone and then it just stopped and he went back to his drinking and you went back to your fantasy yeah i guess so i'm not in the business of telling people to get divorced that's not what i do i am in the business of telling people that they deserve to be loved and they deserve to be well. You deserve to have a night of sleep.

And you deserve to go to a party and laugh and have joy and not worry that the person you brought is going to make a drunken fool of themselves and hurt people. Yeah. You deserve to tell your kids, I'm so sorry that I didn't stand up for y'all earlier in this mess. And from this point forward, we're going to do different things. You can do that. Or you can make peace with the fact that I'm choosing to stay with an alcoholic

and this is what that comes with. Yeah. That's the choice you can make too. But what you're doing is you're trying to have one thing while doing the other thing and you're making yourself crazy. Yeah. Right? Yes.

Gotta own the reality. Nothing you have tried in 30 years would give you any data, any sort of indication that he's going to quit drinking. Is that fair? Yes, that's true. Okay. So let's just take that as a given. He has chosen alcohol as his way of coping with the hard stuff in his past and in his present and potentially in his future.

So the only thing you can control is your thoughts and your actions. Yeah. We came up with an agreement a few years ago because I told him I'm sick of his drinking and I told him that... What does his drinking do to you? Does he hit you? No. Oh God, no. He's wonderful in every other way. He is a happy drunk. He doesn't get abusive in any way at all. Why do you want him to quit drinking then? It's the drunkenness. It's the behavior.

You said he's wonderful. You can't have a conversation. You said he's lovely, wonderful. He's a happy guy. Outside of his drinking. When he's drinking? When he's not under the influence, okay. Yeah, when he's under the influence, he basically just sits usually with his head down and just kind of, you can't really have a normal conversation with him.

He just, he gets this look in his face that just, it's just not. How many days a week, how many days a week does he drink? Seven. So when is he this happy-go-lucky guy? He drinks every day. It's in the evening. During the day, he doesn't. He doesn't drink at work.

He doesn't drink at home when we're off. If he's off during the day, he'll start around three o'clock in the afternoon and he'll usually be in bed by eight or nine. And during the week when he comes home from work, because he works nights a lot. Cindy, you're not being honest with yourself. You're not being honest with yourself.

You're telling yourself things that are simply not true. This has to be incredibly expensive. It is. He was spending before about $500 or $600 a month, and we got it down to $300 now. But he will... What I've actually done is I opened up a bank account in my own name, and I put all the bills through that account.

And he agreed to this. I transfer over $10 a day, which will get him five tall cans. And then he'll call me and say, can you top it up? I need a bit of gas or I need lunch money. And then he'll spend some of that on more beer. And if I say that to him, he'll say, it's my money.

I worked for it. It's my money. Just transfer it over. And then he's going out, driving around on recycling days, looking for empty beer cans and liquor bottles so he can take them back for the deposit. And he'll use that to top up his drinking. It's just ridiculous.

But you contribute. You participate. You're giving him an alcohol allowance, Cindy. And he's right. You... I know. I know. I know. I know. I know.

If I give him free reign, he'll go back to spending between $16 and $24 a day. You cannot control what another adult chooses to do. You can only control you. You are not his mother. This is our finances. I know. These are our finances. You aren't safe, Cindy.

Do you work? Yes, I do. Would you be able to support yourself? Probably, yes. If you reached out to your two 30 year old kids and said it's time, would they weep tears of joy and come help you? Or would they say how? They would? Yeah. They have a lot of issues with him.

Yeah, I imagine so. Why do you think so little of yourself? Um. And that's a mean, unfair question. I know. But why? Because the person I'm hearing on the phone is a person who's had enough. And you're not dumb. You're real smart. I don't know. I just don't. I guess because we both came from broken families, I don't want to be that person. I want to make things work.

I keep trying to make it work. I know your heart's so good. It's already broken. What you have is a home on the inside of it that's completely burned out and you keep repainting the exterior. And you can stand out in the front yard and be like, look at this home. Look how nice it is. Yeah.

It's not, and you know that. Yeah. I am tired. I know you are I can hear it on you in the ultimate form of I guess you can call it gaslighting you've now become your marriage has been weaponized

now now it's your fault if he does or doesn't drink now you're stealing his your marriage has been weaponized now. Now it's your fault if he does or doesn't drink. Now you're stealing his money. You see how you've become the villain in this by trying to keep him alive? Yeah. You're not the bad guy. You are participating.

Make no mistake. And I know you feel stuck. I get that. But at the end of the day, he's a grown-up and he's an alcoholic and he's choosing to drink his, to hide. What should I do in terms of finances? I think you need to sit down with one of your older kids and be very, very clear on a spreadsheet or on a yellow pad for crying out loud. Possibly get with a financial planner and get a very clear reality of where you live. How much debt do you owe, what does rent in the area cost, all those hard questions.

But at some point, you walk in and you say, I'm not going to be your mom anymore. I've tried to keep you alive for 30 years and in the process, I've about darn near killed myself. Oh, you don't love me anymore you're not gonna no i i love you so much that i'm not gonna carry this anymore

not yeah right i'm not your social worker i'm not your mom i'm your wife yeah and i'm not going to go down on the ship with you and these are And these are, these are, I can think of very few boundaries that are harder. When somebody that you love is actively struggling with addiction, actively hurting themselves. And at some point you say, I love you,

but you can't do that here. And if you do that here, you are by your actions, because behavior is a language. you are asking me to leave. Because I'm worth more than this. And you know if I leave, he's going to drink himself sideways. Yeah, he is. And that is a choice a grown-up is going to make.

You can call the police and have them do a welfare check. You can call social services and see if they'll reach out. You can walk with him, hold his hand into rehab or into a counseling. You can go, but you can't make him stop drinking. No. I can take my 12-year-old and lock him in the house. I can do that. You can-old and lock him in the house. I can do that. You can't do that with him.

No. And Cindy, I'm heartbroken for you. I can hear it on you. You love this man. I think that you love the idea of this man. I think you love the story about this man that you've told yourself for a long, long time. Mm-hmm. And I think this man's redeemable.

I think everybody is. I really do. But he's going to have to choose redemption. You can't push him into it. No, I realize that. And that's so hard. Yep. push him into it. No, I realize that. And that's so hard. Yeah.

If I'm you, if you're my wife, if you're my, well, you wouldn't be my wife, but if you were my mom, if you were my sister, I would tell you to call your two kids and y'all go have an in-person meeting, if at all possible. And say, I'm exploring taking care of myself for the first time in 30 years. I'm exploring being safe for the first time in 30 years. I need some help with finances. I need some help with what comes next. I need some help talking to dad. I'm going to need to get a alcohol

counselor and see if we can get over here and do one last intervention and put some very strong boundaries in place. And I'm gonna have to do the nitty gritty of finding out what a one bedroom apartment costs. And then man, you're gonna have to grieve it because you've been propping up this picture of a perfect family for a long time because you didn't want this to happen. And it did. And we have to own what happened. And I've said this before, I'll say it again. The world is begging you, Cindy, and everybody listening,

not to keep replaying and propping up these old pictures, but to ask ourselves in that mirror, what are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do now? That's the question all of us are asking. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings

and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, as we wrap up today's show, today's song of the day, it's called Blue's Worse Than I Ever Had by the great Marcus King.

The song goes like this. I got them blues and it's worse than I've ever had. When I get out of my job, when I'm at home in my bed, I can't turn off my mind, I can't seem to unwind. I've got them blues and it's worse than I've ever had. Oh, just like a cannonball, feel I'm headed for a fall. I got them blues and it's worse than I ever had. And that's why we're here.

That's why we're here. We'll see you soon.