The Dr. John Delony Show - Why Our Relationships Suck w/ Family Therapist Terry Real

Episode Date: May 27, 2022

Today, Dr. John Delony is joined by leading family therapist and author Terry Real. The two discuss why marriage and romantic relationships are so hard, the toxic culture of individualism, and whether a couple’s therapist should take sides. You don’t want to miss this! https://terryreal.com/10-commandments-of-time-outs/ Lyrics of the Day: "The Rising" - Bruce Springsteen 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, what are you seeing as the state of relationships? Yeah, they're a mess. Our non-relational, patriarchal, individualistic culture does not teach men and women the skills we need to pull this off. I love that you call them skills. Yo, yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

I hope you're doing well. Hope your families are good. Even your pet families. Today only. Today only, even your pet families today only today only even your pet families how about that on this show

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This is just awesome. And I'm kind of even tongue-tied about it. Right after I graduated with my counseling degree and I had moved to Nashville. My life was in a mess. Things were just sideways. I had finished my research. I was trying to figure out how to be married in this new town. I was figuring out a new job. I was trying to figure out how to be a dad. Everything was just a wreck. And I stumbled on a podcast. It was Dr. Peter Atiyah. And he was ranting and raving about this book by the one and only Terrence Real, Terry Real. And the book is called I Don't Want to Talk About It. So I picked up the book and I finished it in a single season, single reading season. And I remember closing the book at my kitchen table and I put my head down on the table and wept in a way that I haven't probably ever or maybe just a few times.

And it was a before and after moment. Things have to be different now. And I've given that book out, Good Grief. And y'all have heard me talk about this book. I've told people they need to go get that book and read it. Wives read it, husbands read it, everybody needs to read it.

And I'm excited to say on today's show, we have the one and only Terry Real as my guest. And as you listen to the show, you'll think, uh, Deloney says that a lot, a lot of it. I got from him.

He's the guru. Um, you've heard me talk about Esther Perel. He is who she calls when she needs some support. He is who people call all, all, all over the world. People reach out to him for his expertise in relationships.

Um, on the show, we talk about trauma a little bit. We talk about what's wrong with modern therapy and some things that he is a vocal proponent of changing when it comes to therapy. We talk about loneliness. We talk about relationships, marriage. We talk about what can that husband do when his wife is struggling, what that wife can do when her husband's struggling. We talk about everything. Talk about his new book called Us, everything in between. As all interviews with me go, there's going to be some stuff you

disagree with. Great. There's going to be some stuff that you're like, whoa, I never thought about that. Anything deeper than that? Fantastic. Some of it you're going to think all in all the time. Great. What I like to do is to bring people who have moved me and motivated me and challenged me and made me think deeply. People I vehemently disagree with, and people who check all those boxes and have a conversation with them and bring that conversation to you. So here's my conversation with Terry Real. All right, so Terry Real. So I was telling you off air how important this opportunity to speak to you is. And when we first sat down and started the podcast a couple years ago, and it's taken off when we started discussing interviews,

it was always, hey, give us a list, Alona, give us a list. All of those lists, you were number one. And for a number of reasons, here's the main reason. I graduated with my fancy pants counseling PhD. I thought I was the smartest idiot in the room. And then I stumble across, I was really interested in how nutrition interacted with mental health. And so I was an early student, if you will, from via the internet of Dr. Atiyah, who then said, hey, there's this one book.

And so here I am this fancy graduate and I go pick up, I don't wanna talk about it. And I bet I've given that book out 200 times in the past few years. It is easily the number one most important nonfiction book I've ever read. And I remember being so deflated, thinking, how did I get through an entire program

and nobody told me this? And it was a paradigm shapeshifter, especially my focus, my research, was on working with people who had, quote-unquote, made it, and then found themselves isolated and alone, and they melt everybody around them. And then here was this masterpiece that you wrote. So on behalf of all, especially of us men,

but of the spouses and everybody, thank you for putting that into the world. All right, so here's question number one. This is a conversation about the current state of relationships and coming out of COVID, relationships in general, whether they're work relationships, dating relationships,

marriage relationships, parenting, everything feels like a mess. Where are you seeing the state of relationships? I know that's a broad question. Answer it as you will. What are you seeing as the state of relationships?

Yeah, they're a mess. Yeah. They're a mess for a couple of reasons. One is, I've written about this pretty extensively, things are changing, and we're not completely caught up with ourselves. In heterosexual relationships,

I believe that women across the board, north, south, east, west, whatever, are asking for new levels of emotional connection and intimacy from us men. Then we raise boys and men to deliver. What it means to be a man traditionally is to be invulnerable. The more invulnerable you are, the more manly you are, the more vulnerable you are, the more girl you are. And that is true to this day. You may raise your son differently in your little hothouse nuclear family, but trust me that kid knows the score once he hits the playground that's right women girls and women have changed dramatically over the last 50 years and us guys have not and there's a role this juncture

women want men to be vulnerable they want men to share vulnerable. They want men to share their feelings, to be compassionate to the woman's feelings, to be more, you know, we've never wanted more from our relationships than we want right now. In our grandparents' generation, you know, you got along, nobody beat anybody, nobody cheated or drank too much,

you were okay. Nowadays, we want long walks on the beach, holding hands and heart-to-heart talks and great sex. We really want to be lifelong lovers. But our non-relational, patriarchal, individualistic culture does not teach men and women

the skills we need to pull this off. And people have outsized ambition about wanting to be close for life, but we just don't know how to do it. We don't know how to stand up for ourselves and be loving at the same time. We don't know how to listen to our partners and not get defensive. We don't know how to repair when the wheels come off. We don't know how to negotiate. We don't know how to repair when the wheels come off. We don't know how to negotiate. We don't know how to cherish a lot of us guys. And I would like basic relationship skills

taught in elementary school and junior high and high, but we don't do that. I love that you call them skills. When I encourage couples to practice things, they look at me like I'm nuts. And if we can distill these things down into a series of skills that we just don't have. Okay, so help me with this. I'm a lifelong Texan. I was born and raised in Texas before I came here. And 99% of the stereotypes are accurate, right? So what do I do with sitting by the man who says, all right, I sat down and told my wife how I felt and she has bought into the, I don't want some vulnerable man either.

Like she's contributing too, right? It's also funny, John. That is the first thing I hear from guys every time I talk about cheap. Well, I want to, but my chick doesn't really want me to. So is that nonsense? Is it just nonsense? Well, it's a mixed bag. Look, when I talk about the culture of patriarchy, women participate in that culture just like men do.

But women are giving us guys mixed messages. On the one hand, I want you to be strong and I want you to be, you know, a wimp. On the other hand, I want you to be able to share your feelings. And then when you do, I might get uncomfortable when you do so okay like be a man like say to your gal excuse me wasn't that you just telling me now that i do like you're already putting paper on me give me a break like you got me coming and going. Confront the issue of the mixed message because that is true. But don't take that as an excuse to lay down and not listen to the other half of the message.

Look, what we know from research is that we human beings connect through vulnerability. That's how we that's how we share uh emotionally and uh being vulnerable is news to a lot of men certainly texas guys hey boston guys too boston guys too different way of doing it. That's right. And gals too. Speaking of Boston, I had a gal, blue-collar Boston Irish, you know, Boston Southie, kind of

Matt Damon plays in the movies. And I said to her, how are you doing? And she said, good. And I said, can you give me two syllables? And she said, good. And I said, can you give me two syllables? And she said, good. Exactly, exactly. All right, hey, let's talk about

something that's become an obsession of mine over the last decade. If you were to ask me what are, if I was to distill down a cornerstone issue, the word I would give you is pathological loneliness. I think we have an incredibly lonely culture. And I was so grateful that you touched on that. I mean, that's kind of the theme of this book

when I read through it is this idea of loneliness. Talk to me about that. Am I crazy? Or are we just crossed this threshold of loneliness? I feel like we're asking our bodies to do things that no bodies have been asked to do in human history, which is do everything alone. We do have an episode of loneliness, and we're lonely even when we're with each other. Right. Somebody asked me in an interview, why do I think that American college kids anyway

get drunk all the time every time they go out with each other? I mean, shit-faced drunk. And I say, well, because they don't know how to be with each other. There you go. They don't know how to have a conversation with each other. So, no, we're lonely by ourselves and we're lonely when we're with other people too. And the book Us is a critique of what I call the toxic culture of individualism. Me, mine. And we have to wake up to understand that we humans are not built to be alone.

I start with our brains. We neurobiologically do not self-regulate. Our brains interact with other brains all day long, and we need to, or we go nuts. If you want to look at a so-called free, rugged, freestanding individual, look at somebody in solitary confinement. They go crazy yes our brains need other brains to communicate or we go haywire so we need each other what i say john is our relationships are our biosphere we are in it we are we breathe uh those so you can choose in your marriage for example to pollute your biosphere by having a temper tantrum over here but you're going to breathe in that pollution in your partner's withdrawal or lack of sexuality you're connected the culture of individualism teaches us we're not in it we're apart from it we're individuals And that goes along with patriarchy, which you know I've been writing about for 30 years. It says we're not only apart from nature, we dominate it.

We're above it and we control it. Whether we control our wives or our kids or our bodies, I've got to lose 10 pounds, or our heads, I've got to be less negative, is control, control, control. And what I say in the book is that the model of dominance and control is lethal. It will make a mess of our relationships. It screws up our self-esteem, our relationship with ourself. It will screw up our planet if we're not careful. We must trade in this delusion of being above our relationships and lording it over them for what I call ecological humility. We're in the damn thing. We breathe it. You know, I got these big burly guys and they say to me, Hey,

why should I have to work so hard to make my wife happy? And I go, knock, knock. You live with them. Okay. Oh my goodness. So talk to me about friendship then. Going back to the skillset, one of the most, probably the number one common question I get is, I'm 41 and I don't have any friends, or I'm 37 and I don't know how to make friends. And we, you know, we grew up in elementary school, middle school, high school, college. It's all, everything's communally oriented, right? And then they dump you out into the real world and say kill or be killed how important is having friends outside of a romantic relationship oh my god it's critical and it takes

a lot of the burden off of the romantic relationship oh it's so good to hear you say that okay tell me more about that for guys so many guys put all their eggs in one basket you know the only one who sues them the only one who listens to them, the only one who cheerleads them is their romantic partner. Go get some friends, for Christ's sake. Yes, dude, it makes my heart feel good. But you have to break that membrane. And I teach guys this you have to

you know yeah okay sports and politics that's good talking about your kids is a little better but you know what actually you know uh my wife and i had a fight the other week and it really rattled me. Or I'm having a health scare and I'm a little scared. Or I just looked in the mirror. Damn, I'm old. Take the thing a little deeper. Dare to be a little more personal. And this is what I say. Do that, you know, look, you may not have friends, but you damn well have acquaintances. So drive those acquaintance relationships a little deeper. And if you do that with four people, two of them will let you know that they're not interested at all. One of them will change the subject and one of them will go, oh man,

that's terrible. Tell me more about it. Or, oh yeah, I've been looking kind of old myself. And that is your new friend. Do that and dare to drive things a little deeper. But it's that same thing. You have to risk vulnerability, whether it's with your romantic partner or with a pal. It has to go a little deeper than, you know, what iron are you going to use? Oh, man. Oh, it makes me feel so good. It makes me feel like I'm not crazy. Thank you so, so much. So let's talk trauma for just a second before we get into something I've been wanting to talk to you about since I read this first book. How would you define trauma?

Injury, hurt, but it's hurt that lands on you in a way that freezes you. You don't get over it. You cauterize it. You corral it. And it stays there. And then you adapt to it. We're very resilient creatures. So it may be,

I talk about fight, flight freeze or fix and maybe when you were hurt my dad was as you know from the first book was a depressed angry violent guy

and I'm a fighter and so Belinda criticized, my wife criticizes me and I'm a fighter. And so Belinda criticized, my wife criticizes me. The immediate thing that happens is that little three, four-year-old in me gets activated and I'm that little boy and she's my screaming critical father.

I'm right back there. The thing to know about trauma is you don't remember it, you relive it. Yeah. Back there. It's in your body, right? Body, right. So I'm back being that three-year-old. I have, like a lot of people,

about two seconds worth of tolerance for that young, wounded place. And I click right into action. And I go into the adaption that I created at that early age. I fight into action and I go into the adaption that I created. At that early age, I fight. So I had some good disagreements recently on this topic.

How would you classify yelling? Is yelling, I'll just spill the beans. I think yelling is abuse. I think yelling can be traumatic, particularly when there's power differential there. But I'm willing to be corrected here. Am I overselling yelling? It seems to be one of those things that goes unnoticed in homes that just has ripple effects through family generations there. You know, it depends on the energy of it. You could be a big

Italian family. Hey, come on, get your ass down here. Come on. And then everybody's laughing five minutes later and the volume isn't what's so important. If yelling is connected to a personal attack,

you're an asshole. You've always been a fucking asshole. That's a whole different story. There we go. Okay. So it's not necessarily the volume itself. It's what's it about, what's going on in the interaction. Excellent.

Okay. So I want to turn right here for a minute and talk about the state of therapists today um one of my as a as a somebody who's trained to train counselors i love you you don't mind shaking up the snow globe on traditional psychotherapy and in fact almost demand that it'd be done differently if we want to continue to help people yeah so when i look at modern therapy in some ways that it's been really helpful in some ways it's failed us um here's a couple of things i've noticed over your work that i'd love to talk through one is this idea of talk versus action um we come from this world that we can just talk about it and talk about it and talk about it and if you just have this

the right thoughts about something, it magically is different. You take a different approach. You give people, you have to do this stuff differently. Talk to me about that. Well, it's in the doing. You know, my dad weighed about 250 pounds. He had a giant pot belly, but he was an expert on exercise. He'd read every exercise book in the world. We used to say in the family,

we had the best exercise eyeballs in town. You got to do this stuff. You can't just sit around and think about it. Where do we get sideways there? Where, where, where do we get, where did the,

where did the field jump the tracks there? I don't know. And I don't care. This is my message to you. I love that. Good for you. That's awesome. I don't care.

People always tell you that relationships take work, but nobody tells you what it is. Yeah. And here's what I want to tell you and your listener. The work of relationships is not even day to day, it's minute to minute. In this minute right now, when I'm triggered, and I want to talk about that in a minute, when I'm triggered, when the automatic response, that adaptation comes over me, fight, flight, freeze, or fix. What am I going to do?

Am I just going to roll with it and start screaming it my way? Or am I going to stonewall and shut the conversation down the way I always do? Am I going to do the same damn thing I always do? And, by the way, get the same result I always do and by the way get the same result I always get well in this moment right now am I going to take a breath reach for a different part of me it's literally a different part of your brain do some breathing we do a lot of breathing in relational work you can walk around the block take a take a break we talk a lot about taking. Get re-centered in the part of me that has my head on straight. And then come back into the fray. I talk, John, about what I call remembering love. someone you love and the reason why you're speaking is to make things better somebody said wait why am i talking if that's why you're talking you're good if that's not why you're talking

i have great advice for you you ready go for it oh man so you can walk around the block and get yourself re-centered until you do remember what this is about. It's literally a different part of your brain that you have to get into. I feel like our culture has told a generation or two or three of people that you can't control that. Yeah, right. That's the news of my book. Like you can't control that. Yeah, right. That's the news of my book. Like you can't control, like, sorry, man, it's just how I am. I'm just being me.

My feelings are valid. So I'm deciding I'm going to vomit them all over you. I'm just calling bull crap on the whole thing. We have to look at people and say, right, and say, no, no, no, you have to. Somebody called recently and said, how do I stop yelling? I said, stop yelling, right? I don't want to overcomplicate this. Stop yelling.

Decide. I'm a person who never yells, right? Terry, how do we fix the, it's a cultural disempowerment that you have no control over you. And I don't know, I don't even know where to start other than just to launch in and say, no, you can. You can do something different. When it comes to these hot moments, you may need to take a break. Right.

You should go to my website if I can. Of course. My name, terryreel.com, T-R-R-Y-R-E-E-L. I have a one-pager on the Ten Commandments on how to take a timeout. Take a timeout if you need to a formal time out you can stay out all day long if you need i'll tell you a story i was working with a gal a little little slip of a thing but she was a rager man yelling screaming throwing plates i mean the whole thing and she'd been raised by a rager and we talked about ending the legacy of violence for her

her husband and her kids and i taught her how to take a time out you have to check it it's all written down you have to check in at 15 minutes an hour three hours a half a day a whole day and overnight all right she started the rage she locked herself in her bedroom. This is an absolute true story. She said, I'm not getting out and inflicting this on my family. I'm done with this rage. She gave herself a timeout. She did breathing. She had a little chance with her little girl who was so angry.

She did all this stuff. She'd feel great. Walk over to the bedroom door, grab the handle of the door to open the door, and whoosh, the rage would come back. She was in that bedroom for a day and a half.

Every 15, 20 minutes she'd walk to the door, think she had a knock, and whoosh, that rage would come back. Her husband, bless his heart, gave her a little plate with a sandwich and potatoes. Slid it under the door like Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shut the door. Anyway, she came out the next morning, and it was over.

All control. And she never raged again and so what i tell people is if you stand there you may not be able to control what comes out of your mouth but you do have control you can turn around if you agree to it in advance your partner knows what's going on now you go you turn heel and you get the hell out. That's called a timeout. What you have to understand, if you're one of these people who spills all this crap out, your children are watching.

This is probably how you grew up. You don't want to hand this down. There's an old saying, pass this back or pass it on. There's nothing. This is what i tell my clients and i'm a rager i'm a rager in recovery in that moment i don't care what the damn point is there is nothing more important than breaking the chain of this legacy of violence stop the violence the emotional violence and everything else is everything else.

Concentrate on that. Keep your mouth shut and get the hell out until you can control yourself. I love that. There's something so profound about a never again moment, even if it takes a day and a half or two days. That's incredible. 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 therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. One more thing that sets you apart from other therapists, there's many, many things. One of them is, and this made me smile the first time I read it, and I just have come to love it. You take sides. Let's talk about that in a therapy session. So for the listener, therapists are trained and not trained. This is cast in stone and etched on your soul.

You are simply a neutral third party, and you let people have their interactions. You let people bring in a singular session. They bring their own level of X, Y, Z to you. And if you take sides, it can be considered unethical. And what I have found is it's unethical to let somebody sit there and drown in a session with this hope that truth somehow materializes in the room. And you have said no more, right?

Talk to me about that. No more. Listen, you can have a alcoholic, rager, bipolar, untreated person with no medication, no treatment for their alcoholism, no treatment for their rage. And the other person's quote unquote contribution is guess what? They're there. I mean, this is bullshit. Not all problems are 50 50 and in the work i do and i train therapists all over the country if you're a therapist listening come to my website and train with us we have a two-year training program it's great and not only

me but all relational life therapists the method i've created, take sides. We're perfectly happy to say, Bill, you're a nut. Sylvia, you're an even bigger nut. And here's why. Bill, when your wife confronts you, you pull down the shade, you stop, you break connection. You're you're take no responsibility for anything. Of course she goes out of her mind. Oh, and by the way, Jill, you go out of your mind and scream and throw things. Now look, I'll help you with, with Bill's distance, but anybody's going to be distant if you're standing there

screaming at them. So you go first. Let's calm you down and stop your verbal abuse, and then I'll work with your husband. And yes, we take turns. We call it like we see it. And this nonsense of, well, what do you think? Well, what do you think? No, no, no, this is a revolutionary way of working. And I go around the country telling therapists that it's a huge design flaw in therapy.

And, you know, partner A brings partner B into see me to render them more livable, more relational. And most couples there would say, oh, we don't take that on. That's for individuals.

No, we're in the personality transplant business. Ooh, I like that. I want to turn your partner into a connected, sensitive, responsive, relational human being. You bring them to me and I'll take care of it. And it's often a woman bringing in a

man but not always but when they do you know i you know this john i specialize in couples on the brink of divorce that no one else has been able to help and when i take on the difficult partner and i say here's what I say. Listen, if I'm building, let's do it straight up. It's not always this way, but let's do a heterosexual couple where the woman is the unhappy one and the guy is taking liberties. A womanizer, a drinker, irresponsible, a rager, whatever. And I say to the woman, you've been heard today. And the woman is often angry.

I say to the guy, an angry woman is a woman who hasn't been heard. Then I'll turn to the woman. You've been heard today. I got him. Everything you're saying about him is true. I get it now, but you are not going to get through to him. I will. You give it to me. Your job is to relax, breathe, and see if you can enjoy the sound of a gun a little bit. But I will take him on and I'll teach him how to do this. I got to tell you, it's not like whatever, but 99 out of 100 times, the other partner, man or woman, who's brought the person in, it cries from relief. And they say, we brought this person to six other therapists

and not one of them has taken them on. It's almost like you're restoring the parental role that should have been there 25 or 35 years ago that looked at that little kid and said, hey, I've got this. You're okay. Yeah, that's right. And also the parental role that says to the jerk. Don't do that. Yeah.

Don't do that. Yeah, it's both. Oh, man, I love it. All right, let's spend the last few minutes we got. Tell me about this new book. Obviously, it was written during a time of chaos. Can I make one observation about this? Yeah.

I can edit it out if you don't want me to put it in here. One phenomenal work here. This has a, there was a sense of optimism in your first couple of books. This one felt more like a sense of realism. Like some of these things, like I had, as I was going through it,

I thought, I wonder if Terry is looking and saying, okay, this thing is just, in the 90s, we thought we could stop the thing from running. It's running now. So here's how to live with it running the way it is. Am I out to lunch there?

Is that there's an underlying sentiment there that just felt this book was different than your other ones? I don't think it's pessimistic, John. Here's what I think. To be perfectly honest, I think that we're in the middle of a society at war with itself. Yeah. I think that the dominance individualistic power over model that we all grew up with, part of masculinity and it's regional. But I think that that dominance model, it plays havoc with our relationship with ourselves. You know, I got to lose 10 pounds.

I got to stop thinking like this. In our relationship to those who love us, we try and control our kids, our partners, our planet. And we're either going to trade in that model for a model of interdependence. We live with each other. We live with nature, not above it and in control of it and i think that there are the two factions uh one heading uh toward a different view of our relationship to nature and one very much reasserting a very old traditional view are are fighting with each other right now i love it uh i think that uh which side wins a collaborative model versus a dominus model uh will have a lot to do with the kind of society we're all living in uh a hundred years from now and the planet we're on a hundred from now. Just nothing of how we feel

between our ears and how we feel with others. You know, I'm proud to say that none other than Bruce Springsteen wrote the foreword. I know, man. I saw that. It's incredible. Congratulations, man. He starts the foreword with a quote from the book,

which I think in some ways summarizes the book. The quote he picked was this, this world does not belong to us. We belong to one another. And we're either going to figure that out or the consequences are going to be dire. Yeah.

And to the listener, that sounds in in some ways like oh okay or subtle it is a 180 degree transformative way of experiencing everything right and living into everything it's a it's such a radical shift i think it's so radical it's hard to even see it sometimes i'm proud about is that I give you the map, how to live as if you're inside the relationship, not outside of it. And I also give you tools, very concrete tools. That's the beauty. Yes. You give me, you give us a, a, a play by play, right? This is the, um,

it's as though you and I are sitting down together. Like we can't all have you as our personal relationship therapist, but this is pretty dang close, right? It's just right there together, man. What do you tell the woman whose husband is busy and he's kind and she quote unquote, I love him, but he's just separate.

Give her a word of encouragement and then we'll flip the script here stand up to the son of a gun assert yourself i want for women more uh i want women to be more proactive on the front end and less resentful on the back end. But you have to know how to do it with love. In our patriarchal individualistic culture, you either stand up for yourself or you love the guy and the relationship, but you don't do both at the same time.

I said I'd give you tools. Here's a tool. It's called standing up for yourself with love. I love you, honey. I'm beginning to build up a bunch of resentment. I'm feeling turned off sexually. I'm not feeling close to you. I want to be close to you. I want to be your lover. I need more from you so that the juices can continue to flow between us. Don't you want that too? What can I do to help you come through for me? Try that one. This is the brave new world.

What can I do to help you come through for me? Who sounds like that? Unless they've learned how to. Ah, that's incredible. So let's flip it to the husband whose wife has gotten really busy and she's running around from thing to thing to thing and he can feel her losing confidence in herself. Give that guy a piece of encouragement. Listen to her.

Let her be the lead. Don't be her professor. Don't be her daddy. And, you know, if the issue really is that you think she's losing confidence in herself, tell her that that's what you're saying and that's the story you're telling yourself. But with humility, not like the expert,

you know, God's gift. On the other hand, I hate to tell you, but with humility, not like the expert, you know, God's gift. On the other hand, I hate to tell you, but what you might be really saying underneath that is, honey, I miss you. There you go. Yes, there it is. You're so busy with this, that, and the other thing. You're so buried in the kids. How about a little lost time? And I do believe that American culture is way too child-centric take some time off get a babysitter go to a hotel you know you want to improve your sex life take her someplace sexy for a weekend and treat her like a queen in this business we give too much away to everybody else. And our romantic relationship is last in the time creditor line.

Give it some air to breathe and give it some cherishing. Oh, my gosh. Well, this is a personal highlight. You're an absolute treasure and a gift. And I'm grateful for your time and for um everybody listening to this um you will think to yourself i thought deloney you've been saying that i know i got it from from terry that's where i came from so uh man what a gift so where can people pick up this book it's it's in pre-sale now right yeah you can order you can go to amazon and pre-order okay it's coming out when is this going to be uh air can i

say um they're they're the producer's looking at me may 27th okay it's coming out the following week, June 7th. Very good. But pre-order it now. And this is a good time to order it. Yes. Well, hey, I am super grateful for you. Thank you for your time. And I wish you all the best. And I hope you sell several million copies of this book, man. Fantastic.

I think it deserves it. And thank you for your work. I really appreciate it. Oh, hey, real quick. Before we wrap up every show, always end with the song of the day. What is your favorite song ever? Do you have a favorite song ever?

My favorite song ever has got to be Bruce Springsteen's The Rising oh gosh what an that whole record is incredible

man you just became I didn't think you could get cooler man you roll in here with a really cool necklace and then you drop Springsteen

good grief alright that's how we'll wrap up today's show man hey thank you my brother I'm grateful for you and take care and good health and lots of laughter and joy. Thank you. It goes both ways. You keep doing well.

Take care. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life.

Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we are back. And as we wrap up the show with the one and only Terry Real, man, he picked a doozy. What an extraordinary song. This one's by the boss, Bruce Springsteen, and the song is called The Rising. And it goes like this. Can't see nothing in front of me. Can't see nothing coming up behind. Make my way through this darkness. I can't feel nothing, but this chain that binds me. Lost track of how far I've gone, how far

I've gone, how high I've climbed on my back. It's a 60-pound stone on my shoulder, a half-mile line. Come on up for the rising. Come on up. Lay your hands in mine. Come on up for the rising tonight. There are spirits above and behind me, faces gone black, eyes burning bright. May their precious blood bind me.

Lord, as I stand before your fiery light, come on up for the rising. Lay your hands in mine. We'll see you soon. Coming up on the next episode. The topic of my question is on gun ownership. Oh, cool. We're just going to come out, we're going to come out, we're going to slow roll this one out of the gate. Way to go.

Alright, let's talk guns. I didn't tell anyone for about a year after it happened and when I did tell my mom, she didn't believe me. You know, she asked me the typical questions like, what were you wearing? So you have the initial trauma, which is wrong. It's evil.

And then you turn to the one remaining adult in your life and say, help. And she says, what were you wearing?