Sleeping With My Husband Is Driving Me Crazy

On today’s episode, we hear about: A woman annoyed with her husband’s sleeping habits A man whose wife isn’t receptive to John’s relationship advice A mom conflicted about whether she should pressure her kid to play sports Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  My question is about sleep and being married to someone that has problems with sleep and having lots of young kids and how do we manage that?

• 0:13Dr. John Delony?

  Almost everybody, I would, I would be willing to say 99.99% of the people, myself included, almost everybody in this situation. What up? What's going on? What's going on? This is John, the Dr. John Deloney Show, coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, taking calls from all over the planet about your mental and emotional health, your physical health, your relationships, your marriage, your kids, whatever you got going on in your life, I'll sit with you and we'll figure out what's the next right move. Let's go out to Boston and talked out to Boston, get a login, and talk to Carrie. What's up Carrie?

• 0:55Speaker 00

  What up Dr. John? I should be saying like wicked awesome or something to...

• 1:01Dr. John Delony?

  I know, you're supposed to be like doing equations in a harbor bar.

• 1:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:07Dr. John Delony?

  What's up?

• 1:08Speaker 00

  Well, thank you for taking my call. I'm, I'm very excited to talk to you. My question is about sleep and being married to someone that has problems with sleep and having lots of young kids and how do we manage that?

• 1:22Dr. John Delony?

  Is this my wife?

• 1:24Speaker 00

  I feel like...

• 1:26Dr. John Delony?

  Sounds like she's calling about me.

• 1:28Speaker 00

  It might be boring, but like profoundly relatable, yeah. No, nope, it's just Carrie from Boston.

• 1:34Dr. John Delony?

  All right, well, I feel like my wife's putting you up to this because she may be married to a guy with sleep issues, but all right, go ahead, go ahead. Tell me what's going on in your house.

• 1:42Speaker 00

  Um, yeah, so my husband is, uh, and I just want to like from like, I am, I'm obsessed with my husband. He's awesome. I'm not calling to like complain about him at all, but he is, he has like the worst sleep, uh, he always has, uh, even before kids and, um, now that we have like a bunch of, so we have six kids, um, and the oldest is seven, the youngest is eight months. Um, so like we just get woken up a lot anyway.

• 2:09Dr. John Delony?

  Wait, what, what?

• 2:10Speaker 00

  I know. There's a set of twins in there, but yeah.

• 2:13Dr. John Delony?

  Are these bio kids or did you adopt some kids?

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. Uh huh, yep. Yeah, dude, it's a lot of kids.

• 2:19Dr. John Delony?

  Wow.

• 2:20Speaker 00

  That's what everybody says. People like, no, that's not possible.

• 2:23Dr. John Delony?

  No, it's possible. You're just like, you're not semi-automatic. Y'all are automatic, man.

• 2:29Dr. John Delony?

  Wow, okay, hey, congratulations, man. What an adventure.

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Thank you. Yeah, no, it's wild, but it's, uh, yeah, so basically like before we had kids, my husband even had a hard time sleeping. It's he's like a, he's a deep thinker. He's really smart, like these like ideas, like something will just get in his head and then he's like spun up and he can't sleep. And, uh, so that's been a thing. We've done the whole like you talk to doctor about like sleep hygiene, you get your hormones tested, like, you know, diet, exercise, all those things. And like, it that sort of worked when we didn't have kids. And now that we have kids, like, it's just not, uh, it's not working at all. Like, if, if you have like an off chance where everybody sleeps at night, like the dog ends up barking at her water dish and wakes everybody up. And, uh, I guess I'm just more trying

• 3:16Speaker 00

  to figure out, like, I've heard you mention on the show before that you've had issues with sleep. And, uh, I just find that you have like a pretty balanced perspective on like family life, marriage, uh, all those things where like, besides sleep hygiene and like setting up routines and things where like, it's just not realistic, given where we're at in, in our lives. Um, is this one of these things that you just have to like white knuckle through the situation? Or is it, are there more things that that we could be doing? Or are there like just behaviors? My husband basically like if, if we knew what to do, he would absolutely do it, like to fix the problem. Um, and sorry, I'd talk a lot, so.

• 3:55Dr. John Delony?

  No, no, you're not talking at all. I like to hear how this plays out. Um, I got a lot of questions. Here's, here's where I've landed, sitting with people for a long, long, long time. Okay.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:07Dr. John Delony?

  Um, I'm not saying this in a clinical diagnostic sense. Okay. So, uh, I'm saying this in the very Google it Instagrammy kind of way.

• 4:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:17Dr. John Delony?

  Almost everybody, I would, I would be willing to say 99.99% of the people, myself included. So this is not just sitting with people and the, uh, sitting with the literature, but this is just me looking in the mirror. Okay.

• 4:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:32Dr. John Delony?

  Almost everybody in this situation, um, is dealing with some sort of underlying anxiousness.

• 4:42Dr. John Delony?

  That is not related to sleep hygiene. Right. And because there is so much information out there about sleep hygiene, you need to be doing this and get the red light therapy and the eye masks and the special of this and then that. Yeah. It allows all of us to create an amazing amount of theater around a core, what I would call biological function. And here's where I always want to start with this premise. What if your body is right? Right. So what if the his body recognizes if dude, if you go to sleep,

• 5:16Dr. John Delony?

  you're not gonna, you're not gonna be able to handle the threats that are coming your way. Okay. And so, I mean, that was like my, my sleep issues, if you will. That was the huge alarm system that ultimately I ignored for years that ended me up in my own mental health mess. Okay. I took, I took medication for years to not, not sleep, but to just be unconscious. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Um, and so ultimately it was dealing with the core anxiety underneath it all. So for instance, if a great, great husband and a great father,

• 6:02Dr. John Delony?

  if his, I mean, I'm gonna, I'm gonna oversimplify it, okay? If his amygdala knows that y'all owe a mortgage and car payments and he's already starting to add up the tuition cost of six kids, his body would be failing him if it let him sleep all night because that's an existential threat to his responsibility to keep a household afloat. Okay. If he has no men in his life that he regularly interacts with, not in a yo bro kinda way, but in a, I'm not doing okay kinda way. Yeah, like a brotherhood. Then his body knows you have no tribe. You have responsibilities in a wife and a bunch of kids.

• 6:42Dr. John Delony?

  You have no tribe and his body would be failing him if it let him sleep all night because that's an existential threat. Right? And so I could go on and on and on. I'll send you two copies of Building an Unexhausted Life for both of you. Okay. I would love for you guys to distill it down and go through that with, as a roadmap. And I would be willing to bet. Um, that he would exhale and go, oh crap.

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 7:09Dr. John Delony?

  Because a lot, dude, sleep hygiene is for real. Um.

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 7:13Dr. John Delony?

  I have an automatic light in my backyard. I don't know how to turn it off. I've tried. I don't know how to turn off. It comes on at 10:30 every night. If I go to bed at 9:30, 100% of the time I wake up, because it starts shining through the, through our bedroom, um, I wake up at some time middle of the night. So.

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:30Dr. John Delony?

  Like sleep, like darkness and cold temperature. My eight sleep is the greatest invention ever made. Right? All those things are awesome. Um, but if I'm anxious.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Mm hmm.

• 7:42Dr. John Delony?

  And for me, that is if I owe somebody money. If I don't, if my marriage isn't lock, in lockstep. If I don't feel like I'm showing up, if my work is, is, is yeesh. Right? Um, if I'm consuming tons and tons of access, like news media that's telling me it's all coming down. And, um, then my body would be failing me if it let me sleep.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:05Dr. John Delony?

  And so those are where, that honestly is where I start. And I've now ended up dealing with sleep hygiene stuff later.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:13Dr. John Delony?

  Cause I've got friends, this is, this is me being honest. I have friends that have never been to therapy. Ever. They're overweight. They're hilarious. And they, um, like, so sleep hygiene wise are, they're the worst. But they can fall asleep in the middle of a parking lot.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:36Dr. John Delony?

  Because there's that core sense of safety. I've got people in my life. I don't owe anybody anything. My, my body is able to exhale.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 8:46Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying? So if I, if I write off a few of those things to you, how does that register? Yay or nay?

• 8:51Speaker 00

  Y- y- yay.

• 8:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Several times over.

• 8:53Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about that.

• 8:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, yeah, I mean, we've had, uh, I don't know. I think it's it's just the whole kid thing. Like, he used to have this this really core group of guy friends, um, and then, like, everybody had kids, everyone spread out or far apart, like, so that he's he's lamented, basically, about, like, losing that that connection. And then I think it's hard for men to find friends.

• 9:15Dr. John Delony?

  It's a nightmare, a nightmare.

• 9:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 9:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:18Dr. John Delony?

  It's the worst.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  And like, for for me, I have, like, I can make, like, girlfriends, like, pretty easily. But for men, yeah, it's just it's hard. So he's he's talked about that. And then, like, it's just a it's a weird time to be alive, you know? So like, and there's not much you can do about a lot of, like, the just the political and international, like, all these crazy things that, like, could potentially affect our our lots of children. And so he just he thinks a lot about that stuff. And then he also, uh, he's just, um, he's kind of a hard charger, like, ex marine, like, really good athlete, like, holds himself to this very, very high standard. And if something that he's doing isn't perfect, he's that consumes him, basically. Uh, so there's there's that where he just will think about, like,

• 10:03Speaker 00

  how to break something down, how to do it better, like, and he's just always, I guess, like, got a mental motor with with that kind of thing. Um, where with me, I'm more like, I just need to make sure I have enough milk for these kids tomorrow. And like, are the groceries good? Is everybody asleep? And then I can fall asleep.

• 10:17Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  Um.

• 10:18Dr. John Delony?

  So he he's he's cursed part two with not only the basic, what I would call, and again, I'm saying anxiousness, anxiousness in this situation is a good thing. It's a friend.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:30Dr. John Delony?

  Right? It's it's an alarm system saying, hey, you're not okay. Like, this, your environment's not okay. But on top of that, he's literally trained as a marine to always be looking over the next hill to see what threat's coming.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

• 10:42Dr. John Delony?

  And

• 10:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:43Dr. John Delony?

  that is amazing. And

• 10:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:46Dr. John Delony?

  you start to see threats everywhere.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a, yeah, that's a bit of a problem.

• 10:51Dr. John Delony?

  So I want to point him to this. Um, I've got a buddy named Luke Lefever, who, um, started a journaling course that he does with you. And

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:01Dr. John Delony?

  when you say the word journaling to a cops kid like me, or to a marine, their eyes are gonna roll out the back of their head.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:08Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 11:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:09Dr. John Delony?

  Um, but here here's, um, it's called Holy Work, and I've I've sent friends through it who are profound atheists, right? It's designed for people of faith, but it doesn't, it works great either way. But here's here's what I have found. If the only time your brain has the space to process the chaos going inside your heart and your mind is when you put your head on your pillow, it will take that time and it will, it will do it till 1 a.m. Okay, yep. Or if you find, if you have to have the TV on to collapse. Mm-hmm. Essentially what you're doing. That's a problem. You're numbing yourself, you're, you're going unconscious, you're not going to sleep. Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

• 11:53Dr. John Delony?

  And I heard one person say, like, if you take, you know, Lannister Ambien, some of these things, it's a pharmaceutical baseball bat to your head. Mm-hmm. You are unconscious, you're not asleep. If you have to let, if the TV has to fade you out, basically distract you to sleep, you're not asleep, in, in the terms of deep sleep, REM sleep, all, all that chemical processing. Yeah, the actual, like, restorative good sleep. That's exactly right. So you're unconscious, you're out. Yeah. Um, but it's like, it's like being underwater and taking sips of oxygen through a straw, right, that you're not breathing deeply. Okay. Um. Yeah. Having a practice throughout the day. Mm-hmm. And a, and I, for me, I'm gonna be honest with you, I've been telling people to journal my, forever, I've got stacks of journals, it wasn't until I got into a guided practice,

• 12:38Dr. John Delony?

  like, here's how to do this in the right way, that I actually saw restorative change in my life, okay? And I've got no affiliation to this at all, um, but I'll link to it in the show notes, it, um, it's legit. And can I, can I tell you a gift you can give him? Yes, please. And this is gonna make, I'm gonna ask all of the mothers listening, the wives listening, um, especially those of young kids who are, can't breathe, they're so busy. I'm gonna ask you all to listen to what I'm about to say with compassion, not with, ugh, okay? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm not saying this to you, I'm saying this to the other listeners, I can tell you are dialed in and you love this guy, and he's a pretty awesome guy. Yeah, he's. If you could create some sort of calendar space, and that might mean that you're inviting

• 13:22Dr. John Delony?

  over a couple of other women just to help with the chaos that is six kids under six. Yeah. All right? And say, hey, honey, Wednesday nights, I don't want you in this house.

• 13:33Dr. John Delony?

  Thursdays, you are not welcome in my home. I want you to go get some guy friends. I want you to go to the gym. I want you to join a stupid softball league. I want you to go whatever. But you're not welcome here. And here's the other thing. If you will create 30 minutes for after the last kid is in the shower or in the whatever tub, whatever's going on. And you will say, hey, I've marked this off our family calendar. I want you out of the main room and I want you to go journal. Okay. And what you will give him is such a gift that you will ROI back to his ability to be present with you, present with your family and be more plugged in, which is I'm gonna

• 14:14Dr. John Delony?

  go, it's basically, I'm gonna go get the, fill the car up with gas. I'm gonna go, um, I'm gonna go get the oil changed in this car so that this thing can keep going forever. And it gives him some space that you've already built in so that he knows his next task, which Marines love. What's your next task? I have designated you out of here from 8 to 8:30. I want you to go spend 30 minutes intentionally going down Luke's journaling protocol. I want you to go down here and begin to write this stuff out that you're, that you're circulating. And then I'll tell your husband,

• 14:53Dr. John Delony?

  social media news isn't real news. Our bodies are simply not designed to metabolize every crisis imagined, not real or real from every corner of planet earth. And I know the pushback is, oh, what a privilege. It's not a privilege. It's biology. We can't absorb all of the chaos coming at us through all of the news, all of the insanity. What we can do is the next right thing. Period. And so, um, hang on the line here, I'm gonna hook you up with those books. Uh, and dude, if your husband ever wants to call in, he sounds like a truly amazing man. Um, and I'd love to talk to him if he'd be willing to call in also, but give that a shot.

• 15:37Dr. John Delony?

  And, um, begin, y'all walk through Building An Unconscious Life Together, the book, and follow those steps. There's questions at the end of every chapter that y'all can go through together and identify some of these big alarms going off inside of his chest and begin to solve for those. And I tell you what, after years of being unconscious pharmaceutically to sleep, man, I can't, I can, I can barely get my head on my pillow before I'm out now. And sleep is such a gift, but it's just dealing with the core inside out pathway. So, thank you so, so much for the call. I'm really grateful. It's an honor to talk to you. And by the way, thanks for loving your husband and thanks for allowing him to love you all.

• 16:22Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, it just sounds like y'all have an amazing, chaotic, but an amazing home. When we come back, a man asks how to help his wife when she finds that some of my advice is a little too complicated. I can't wait for this one.

• 16:38Dr. John Delony?

  I talk a lot on my show about boundaries, emotional boundaries, relational, financial, but there's one boundary that almost nobody talks about, your digital life. Right now, your personal information, your phone number, your address, even where your kids go to school, it's sitting on countless websites that you've never heard of and you didn't give them permission to have that data, but it's out there. Let's be honest, it's not just annoying, it's a violation. This constant exposure of our personal data, this exposure that we don't even know where it's coming from, it creates this anxiety that just hums in the background of your life. Something always feels a little bit off and that's why I use Delete Me.

• 17:18Dr. John Delony?

  Delete Me goes after the data brokers and the people finder sites that collect and resell your information without your permission. They track down your information and they remove it. And every few months, they send you a report showing you exactly what they've done. This is taking control. Of your digital boundaries. It's about peace. Go to joindelete.me/deloney and use code DELONY to get 20% off. That's joindelete.me/deloney to save 20% off. Go right now and create some digital boundaries.

• 17:54Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we're back. Let's go out to St. Louis, Missouri and talk to JP. What up JP?

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Hey, Dr. John, how's it going?

• 18:01Dr. John Delony?

  Doing great. How about you, man?

• 18:04Speaker 02

  Well, I've had better days, but I'll just get to the question here.

• 18:07Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's do it.

• 18:09Speaker 02

  So it kind of started out about a year ago or so. I set an alarm on my phone every single day. I made a commitment to myself and to my wife. I'm going to ask you what you need from me today every, every day. So my, my question is there is, is there anything I can do for you? When this alarm goes off and we're normally together when it goes off? That, that has worked out pretty well. We were in the habit of this for about a year and then I changed it. I was like, how can I love you today? And she's like, wow, that's a really deep question. I don't know how to answer that. There's a lot of things where like I, I want to kind of delve real deep into, okay, you know, let's get into this. Let's figure it out.

• 18:53Speaker 02

  Let's come up with action steps. And it feels a lot like that's just really overwhelming for her. And I'm not sure exactly how to handle that.

• 19:04Dr. John Delony?

  Man, thanks for loving your wife.

• 19:08Dr. John Delony?

  I wish I had had the same understanding and the same desire to love my wife when I was three years into my marriage. Good on you, man. Good on you. My experience has been that for millions of people, feeling your feelings came at an extreme cost. So possibly growing up feeling scared, feeling frustrated, feeling angry were things that got you hit, things that got you in trouble, things that caused raised voices in the house.

• 19:44Dr. John Delony?

  And so it can feel terrifying when somebody looks at you and says, how can I love you next? Because a similar interaction in a childhood came at a terrifying cost.

• 19:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:00Dr. John Delony?

  Does that ring a bell or no?

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Oh, no, that totally rings true. Yeah.

• 20:05Dr. John Delony?

  And so it goes back to, and again, this is a way gross overgeneralization of it. Often, men want to know what to do next.

• 20:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:18Dr. John Delony?

  And women want-

• 20:19Speaker 02

  Certainly the case here.

• 20:20Dr. John Delony?

  Women want to feel this situation and they're really intuitive and often brilliant in what to do next. But they really want someone to sit with them. And if they've been told their whole lives that their feelings don't count, they're not real, they don't matter. Your feelings come second to making sure I'm okay. That reversal can feel threatening.

• 20:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I hear that.

• 20:44Dr. John Delony?

  And so maybe a different approach to, maybe the best way you can love her sometimes

• 20:51Dr. John Delony?

  is to say, hey, um, can I sit with you for 20 minutes and you talk with me for five?

• 20:59Dr. John Delony?

  And we're gonna flip it around. Or to put it this way, one of the most loving things my wife ever said to me was when she popped into the house one night and she said, hey, um, go turn on The Office or Brooklyn Nine-Nine, one of those old shows that we just watched reruns a thousand times. She said, I need to borrow your nervous system.

• 21:20Dr. John Delony?

  And that was her saying, I don't want to talk to you right now. I just need to lean up against your presence for a while.

• 21:25Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:26Dr. John Delony?

  And you need to know that took us probably 17 or 18 years for her to A, be able to articulate that. And B, for me to have a safe enough, healed up nervous system that it was not gonna make her more anxious sitting up next to me than before.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:43Dr. John Delony?

  So when you say, hey, how can I love you today? Tell me what her response is.

• 21:49Speaker 02

  Um, well, especially because I kind of rolled it into something I was already doing before.

• 21:54Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 21:55Speaker 02

  Uh, the responses generally, um, I liked your other question, that one. I don't, I don't like this one. This one, it's, it's too complicated. It's too deep. I, I, it feels like the subtext almost of it is like, I don't have the words to talk about that right now.

• 22:13Dr. John Delony?

  Ah, okay.

• 22:17Dr. John Delony?

  And what do you feel like she's missing, or what do you feel like she's holding back?

• 22:22Dr. John Delony?

  Or let me ask it in a different way. Does that make you feel like you don't have a purpose in your house? Or can you see a wife who's struggling and you don't know how to support her?

• 22:32Speaker 02

  I mean, kind of both of us. Yeah, like, and I've felt this way a lot, you know. Just a bit of context here, my, my wife is a survivor of sexual abuse. And she grew up like home to home to home to home to home. Like she's had a really, really rough go of things up till now. And now it's been pretty reasonable and she is in therapy and, and stuff to, to heal from that. Um, and, uh.

• 23:03Dr. John Delony?

  Are y'all in therapy?

• 23:05Speaker 02

  I, I am not, it's kind of a money, a money thing.

• 23:08Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all together?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  No, no.

• 23:11Dr. John Delony?

  Here, here's where you guys going together is going to be really important. Um, the thing that was weaponized.

• 23:20Dr. John Delony?

  Basically, she got poisoned with oxygen growing up. Or she got poisoned with water growing up.

• 23:27Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:28Dr. John Delony?

  Except her poison was connection.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:32Dr. John Delony?

  And so we have to have water and oxygen and connection to live. Yet that was the thing that took everything from her.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 23:42Dr. John Delony?

  And so she's gonna, A, have to heal from. But like from, like, her body is gonna have to learn that she is safe in the present and she wasn't safe back then, which is trauma. Healing is really important. But also she's gonna have to learn, y'all are gonna have to learn that connection

• 24:04Dr. John Delony?

  is not, um, electric. Connection's not gonna get her hurt again.

• 24:09Dr. John Delony?

  And so that's gonna be a process that y'all have to practice together. And if she's a survivor in the way that you demonstrated that, I mean, the way you said that, y'all are gonna have to get a professional to walk alongside you.

• 24:21Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Because she might come out and say, okay, I can tell the story of my childhood sexual abuse. And my body won't take off on me. It won't try to keep me safe in the present. I might be able to, healing, I'll be able to know this is my home and it's not going to get yanked out from under me every 18 months. But then when you pop in and say, how can I love you today? Boom, all the alarms are back on.

• 24:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:46Dr. John Delony?

  Because you've added that other person into this equation again.

• 24:51Dr. John Delony?

  And so her being able to practice safety with you in the presence of somebody who can walk her through that and do the breathing exercises and do the appropriate touch exercise, like those kinds of things, that's going to be instrumental to y'all learning to heal together.

• 25:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:07Dr. John Delony?

  Otherwise, it can, it can, the trauma healing can create a new wall. It's just got, it's just got bigger borders.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:17Dr. John Delony?

  That make sense?

• 25:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, it does. You know, I, I, I tend toward, um, you know, when, when I do ask these questions and get this kind of response, it, it usually is something like, well, I mean, surely there must be something I can do because if I can't do anything for you, then I, like, that breaks my heart.

• 25:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, okay, can I challenge you hard on this?

• 25:43Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 25:43Dr. John Delony?

  You have to be careful not to use your wife to make you feel better.

• 25:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:49Dr. John Delony?

  Okay? So I, I just launched a marriage app with this very thing in mind, not trauma survivors, but tiny little steps, and I'm going to give it to you and your wife for free. Okay?

• 26:05Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 26:05Dr. John Delony?

  I don't even know how to do that, but the zeros and ones nerds who made this thing, they're amazing, they'll, will figure it out. Here's, here's the thing I want y'all to practice, okay?

• 26:16Dr. John Delony?

  And this is, you're going to laugh and you're going to roll your eyes.

• 26:20Dr. John Delony?

  I want y'all to commit, if, if she's safe with this, okay, if she's okay with this. And, and you can ask her, not what I can do for you, but you can ask her, hey, would you be willing to do this for me?

• 26:32Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 26:33Dr. John Delony?

  In the morning, a 30-second hug, no talking.

• 26:38Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 26:39Dr. John Delony?

  Right when you, right when you or her get home from work, a 30-second hug, no talking.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 26:45Dr. John Delony?

  Right before bed, even if y'all have just had sex, even if y'all just watched a show, right before you go to sleep, hold hands or under the covers, just touch your feet together.

• 26:55Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 26:56Dr. John Delony?

  And to distill it down, SOS, get on skin contact.

• 27:00Speaker 02

  Hmm, yeah.

• 27:00Dr. John Delony?

  And here's what we're practicing. I don't want anything from you. I don't need anything from you. You aren't trying to solve something in me and I'm not trying to solve something in you, but our bodies are safe together.

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:17Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm telling you, that sounds so cheesy. And it will transform your marriage. It'll transform your marriage. Or if y'all are just on the couch watching TV, for God's sake, don't watch a medium-sized screen while also looking at a little screen. Just ask, will you hold my hand?

• 27:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:35Dr. John Delony?

  And for a sexual, a trauma, a sexual abuse survivor, asking is a way to begin to practice safety. Hey, will you hold my hand?

• 27:45Dr. John Delony?

  And she might tell you, stop asking, just grab my hand. Awesome. Now we're, we're out, we're at the next level of safety.

• 27:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:51Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Or can I just rub your feet while we sit here?

• 27:54Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 27:55Dr. John Delony?

  And you're gonna want to solve big engine style, like let's fix the pistons in this thing.

• 28:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 28:03Dr. John Delony?

  What she is probably desperately in need of is to make sure the road she's driving on is safe.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:10Dr. John Delony?

  To make sure that the tires have air in them and that is not sexy, but that is where healing begins.

• 28:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, absolutely.

• 28:18Dr. John Delony?

  Got it. And so this app is simply, you get one daily task a day. That's it. And it could be, it could be, we're gonna go for a 10-minute walk. We're gonna chit chat, 30-second hug. And it builds over time and the more you do things in a row, it unlocks bigger and bigger things as y'all walk together. It's, it's, these guys are amazing what they built. But,

• 28:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:38Dr. John Delony?

  um, I think what we have across the country is an epidemic of two people who really love each other. And they are flying past each other because one person's trying to solve the other person. And then you get in this, well, I need to be able to solve something or I don't have any purpose and then I'm using you. And then I need you to back off, but I need you here. Like it just creates this, this chaos. 30 second hug before I walk out the door.

• 29:03Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:04Dr. John Delony?

  30 second hug right when I get home, no phones.

• 29:06Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:07Dr. John Delony?

  Just fall asleep with our feet touching each other.

• 29:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:11Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And it's these teeny tiny little things. Because I'm telling you right now, this is gonna sound awful, okay?

• 29:18Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:19Dr. John Delony?

  Can you, can you just say like, hey, I know we're on the same team?

• 29:23Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 29:23Dr. John Delony?

  All right, you promise?

• 29:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely, 100%.

• 29:27Dr. John Delony?

  If somebody continually used her growing up.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:33Dr. John Delony?

  Her body from a thousand miles away

• 29:37Dr. John Delony?

  detects somebody who is trying to get something from her.

• 29:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:42Dr. John Delony?

  And if you are trying to

• 29:45Dr. John Delony?

  in any way, even with the most loving intent, use her so that you feel like you have purpose, her body is, would be failing her if it didn't sound every alarm she's got.

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure, absolutely.

• 29:56Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, and so it's easy when you say, what can I do for you today? Cause she can hand you a task.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 30:02Dr. John Delony?

  A chore. And sometimes that's, I mean, in my house, dude, that is love language. Right? Take care of the dishes or whatever. Um, but when you say, how can I love you today? Whoa.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 30:15Dr. John Delony?

  And then when she says nothing and then she, you start to spin up like, well, I need to be able to, man, her body's like, run, run, run. This guy needs something from you. And if we're not careful, he's gonna take it. And so, um, let's start really small. Let's just do one week. And you don't even have to tell her this is a project. Just say, it would mean a lot to me. Can I get a 30 second hug before we go?

• 30:38Dr. John Delony?

  What? I'm too big. 30 seconds, 15 seconds. Okay. And I want you to consciously drop your shoulders when you hug her. Consciously. Be sturdy. Consciously drop your shoulders. When you walk in the door, 30 second hug.

• 30:55Dr. John Delony?

  Right before you go to bed, can I feel your feet next to mine? Your feet are too cold! Ah, alright, will you hold my hand?

• 31:02Dr. John Delony?

  And then eventually, yeah, you roll over, go to sleep. But, we're gonna start little by little by little, baby, baby, baby steps. And dude, I'm telling you right now, the world needs more men like you, who don't want to fix their wives, but want to love and support and care for them. And so dude, I applaud you, hang on the line, and we're gonna get you hooked up with this app. I don't know how we're gonna figure, I don't know how, if there's codes or anything, but we will figure this out. When we come back, a woman wonders if she should push her son to do sports.

• 31:34Dr. John Delony?

  This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Most of us are guilty of oversharing with the wrong person at one time or another, or maybe you're like me, and you're just a bit of an overshare all the time. Let's be honest, our entire culture is based on oversharing, and everyone is giving everyone else advice on what they should be eating, and what their mental and emotional health should look like. Some of this advice may be good, but a ton of this advice is nonsense. And as fun as it can be to talk about everyday stuff with everyone all of the time, when you need help with your relationships, with anxiety, depression, or other clinical issues, regular people, especially people just all over the internets, may not have the right answers.

• 32:18Dr. John Delony?

  You need real guidance from a licensed therapist, who follows a strict code of conduct. And that's why I recommend reaching out to my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is the largest online therapy provider in the world, and that means no matter what you're facing, chances are, BetterHelp has someone who specializes in exactly that challenge. And BetterHelp is totally online, which means it's easy to fit therapy into your busy schedule. To get started, you just answer a few simple questions, nothing weird or scary, and they will connect you with a licensed therapist who fits your needs. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. BetterHelp has been matching people with therapists for over 10 years, and their 4.9 rating shows that they usually get it right. Find the right one with BetterHelp.

• 33:04Dr. John Delony?

  Visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com, slash, deloney. Alright, this past month, we had the biggest...

• 33:18Dr. John Delony?

  Time consumed, the biggest number of people watching the Dr. John Delaney Show on YouTube ever in history, more than 100 million views, and our podcast numbers continue to go up at a rate that is hard to even calculate, both on Apple, on Spotify, and the other platforms. And very few of you are hitting the subscribe button or the download button. Please, it helps the algorithm so much. I'm not begging, but I kinda am. Costs no money. It takes two seconds just to hit the subscribe button, just to hit the, um, uh, the share button if there's an episode that you want to pass along to a friend. If you want to be really gangster, really go over the top, go leave a five-star review on whatever platform you're reviewing

• 34:00Dr. John Delony?

  this on, or listening to this on. Man, it makes such a difference for a thousand different reasons. Thank you so, so much. Just hit the subscribe button and help change your neighbors, and their neighbors, and their neighbors' life, too. All right, let's go out to San Francisco, California, and talk to Laura. What's up, Laura?

• 34:21Speaker 03

  Hi, doctor. How are you?

• 34:23Dr. John Delony?

  I'm great. How are you?

• 34:25Speaker 03

  I'm well, thank you.

• 34:26Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent. What's up?

• 34:27Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for taking my call. Um, my son introduced me to you two years ago, and you're in our house daily.

• 34:36Dr. John Delony?

  Uh-oh, how old's your son?

• 34:37Speaker 03

  So, he's 18 now.

• 34:40Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent.

• 34:41Speaker 03

  So, we admire you so very much.

• 34:44Dr. John Delony?

  You're raising a genius, Laura. You're raising a genius.

• 34:46Speaker 03

  I hope so. Thank you.

• 34:47Dr. John Delony?

  So, what's up?

• 34:48Speaker 03

  Um, so my question is, I forced my 13-year-old son to play tackle football.

• 34:53Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 34:53Speaker 03

  He's been in it about three weeks. Um, I know it's what my late husband would have wanted me to do, and his older brother is adamant, or was adamant, that he play as well. And I just continue to struggle with being mom and dad, and want to help on how to support him, and making sure his feelings are acknowledged also.

• 35:20Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about dad. What was your husband's name?

• 35:23Speaker 03

  Oh, God. His, his name was Mark.

• 35:28Dr. John Delony?

  Mark. Hmm. When did he pass away?

• 35:33Speaker 03

  September 2021.

• 35:36Dr. John Delony?

  Pretty amazing guy?

• 35:39Speaker 03

  Incredible.

• 35:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 35:44Dr. John Delony?

  How many little ones do you have? I guess the ones in your house are huge now. How many huge ones do you have now?

• 35:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, two.

• 35:49Dr. John Delony?

  Two. And you guys all miss Mark, huh?

• 35:55Speaker 03

  Every single day.

• 35:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 35:59Dr. John Delony?

  Man.

• 36:01Dr. John Delony?

  I'm both heartbroken here with you.

• 36:05Dr. John Delony?

  And I want to tell you, um, earlier this summer, my wife left me and my daughter alone for nine days. And I didn't ended up know a day. We ended up eating ice cream on the couch for dinner one night. So I want to tell you, you are an absolute rock star.

• 36:23Dr. John Delony?

  You're doing a job that nobody wants and you're doing it admirably. I'm proud of you. Okay?

• 36:30Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 36:32Dr. John Delony?

  And I don't know Mark from the man of the moon, but I'm a husband too. And if I was to pass away and I knew my wife was reaching out this many years later, um, asking the same question, I want you to know that I would be looking down with deep love and pride. Okay? You're honoring Mark Wells, what I want to tell you.

• 36:55Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 36:56Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 36:58Dr. John Delony?

  Um, as for this question, it's near and dear to my heart. Okay?

• 37:04Dr. John Delony?

  So I was a Texas high school football player at a super five A high school. That means I went to church on Friday nights and then I went to church again on Sunday mornings. Okay, the church in Texas of Texas high school football and then church of whatever religion I was a part of, right? My Christian church, um, and they kind of ran neck and neck, to be honest with you. And so I get this question. I also have a

• 37:34Dr. John Delony?

  way more physically talented 15 year old son that is actually bigger than I am now, who is a high school kid right now. Okay? And every single, um, Uncle Rico bone in my body wants him to be a football stud.

• 37:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And, um,

• 37:59Dr. John Delony?

  he is an immensely talented cross country runner.

• 38:04Dr. John Delony?

  And so I have had to step back and say, what are my principles here? What are my values? And then what part of my high school life am I trying to relive through my 15 year old? Okay? And so here is, here is where I've landed. The data on young people participating in some sort of physical activity or sport is overwhelming. That lifetime success, lifetime support, lifetime relationships are better. Lifetime health, when they participate in organized sports as kids. And I say kids all the way up to 18 year olds.

• 38:48Dr. John Delony?

  I know 18 year olds are adults, whatever, but they're kids. And so the rule I had in my house with my nine year old and with my 15 year old, and I'm just answering this as I would do in my house, okay Laura? Is I was good at football. I could have been great and I wasn't. I didn't work as hard as I could have. I wasn't very tough. I was just super, super fast. Okay? And so I always had this thing in my head like, my boy's gonna, it's just pure Uncle Rico. Like if I got in the game, I would have won the state meet. Like I was that guy, okay? What I've had to exhale and learn, I actually got this from Jaco, by the way, Navy SEAL guy. Like, my son's not me.

• 39:31Dr. John Delony?

  Thank God he's not me. And so my values are this. You have to participate in some sort of sport, period. And both of my kids have to participate in some sort of the arts. Theater, playing an instrument, some sort of creative act. Okay? Cause there's data on that too.

• 39:54Dr. John Delony?

  And so it's not an option of can I just do nothing and play video games? Or I have to play football. It is you get to choose within this boundary. And what I give my kid when I do that is I give them autonomy. I give them choice, which is something they're going to practice. They get to begin to learn their own body. I actually don't like this, but I know I need to do, I have to do something in this realm. Right? And so it's kind of like when they're a little kid, I hear parents say like, where do you want to eat? Honey, that's too much pressure for a kid. They can't carry the weight of the house. But when they say, do you want Chick-fil-A or do you want Burger King? Then they feel like there's a choice, but really that choice is made by you.

• 40:39Dr. John Delony?

  It's bounded up, right? And so if I had, if I was in your situation, I would want to get to the value underneath what my amazing late husband was getting at. He understands the value of hard work, of being told what to do by other men, right? Having coaches, right? That are different than me. The, the value of teamwork, the value of thinking you've gone as hard as you can go, as far as you can go, and then a, a well-meaning coach pushes you further than you could thought you could have gone and you grow from, right? All those things, strength, all that. And so let's get to the value underneath what Mark was getting at. And then we can sit down with your son.

• 41:23Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, your other boys do not get a vote, period.

• 41:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 41:28Dr. John Delony?

  They don't get a vote. They're teenagers. They're not allowed to buy beer yet. Why? Cause we have a society have said, your brains aren't formed. You don't get, you don't get a vote. Okay? And I want to applaud them for doing the best they could, your other, your other son of puffing his chest out and saying, I'm going to try in my 18-year-old skin to sort of fill the vacuum of this amazing man that passed away.

• 41:54Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 41:54Dr. John Delony?

  Okay? So he's doing his job. He's doing his 18-year-old job and I love it, but he also needs to side-eye and make sure the adult in the house is the one running the show.

• 42:05Dr. John Delony?

  And so you sitting down with your kid, tell me about your, your son who's playing right now, three weeks in. How old is he?

• 42:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, 13.

• 42:14Dr. John Delony?

  13, okay, so freshman, 8th grade?

• 42:16Speaker 03

  Uh, 8th grade, going into 8th grade.

• 42:18Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, going into 8th grade, so he's been doing two a days in the heat.

• 42:23Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, it, um, it's in the evenings.

• 42:28Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  For a couple of hours, um, it's in a, okay, you know, I definitely, he's not complaining too much about going, one day refused to go, um, he's terrified of getting hurt, so his body language out there is very uninterested in being there.

• 42:47Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 42:48Speaker 03

  Um, but he gets through it.

• 42:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, did he volunteer for this, or did you sign him up and say, you're doing this?

• 42:57Speaker 03

  I signed him up.

• 42:58Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 42:58Speaker 03

  And said, you're doing it, because I did give him the choice, um, as you mentioned earlier, I sat him down and I said, you have to pick something, and he wouldn't.

• 43:10Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  So.

• 43:14Dr. John Delony?

  And so maybe three weeks in, you and him go to breakfast, and I, I'm gonna script the conversation here, that may not be applicable, take what you want from this script, and make the rest of it your own, okay?

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 43:29Dr. John Delony?

  Um, maybe lead in, just like I did with you, hey, young son, I'll call him Tim, hey, Tim, we're three weeks into football practice, and I just wanna say, um, I'm proud of you for showing up, I signed you up for this, and I could tell you don't wanna be out there, just wanna tell you I'm proud of you, and I also wanna acknowledge that we both miss dad.

• 43:56Dr. John Delony?

  And I wanna have that exhale with him, cuz he misses his dad like crazy, and if it's still not something that's talked about in, in your house, if you don't still exhale with your boys one on one and say, God, I miss your dad, then, and you're trying to be tough for them, you're trying to be both parents, trying to do the next right thing, what will happen is they'll begin to feel crazy, like they're the only ones missing.

• 44:22Dr. John Delony?

  And it will come out in anger, it will come out in aloofness, it will come out in, I just wanna, I'm just going home. It will come out in anxieties about getting hurt, or not being enough academically, or whatever, right?

• 44:36Dr. John Delony?

  And so there's something about exhaling and saying, dude, I miss your dad. When I see you out there, I miss him.

• 44:42Dr. John Delony?

  And then, now that he's three weeks in,

• 44:46Dr. John Delony?

  being able to tell him, hey, it's not too late for you to choose another sport. In this house, I value you getting out and participating. You gotta do something. It can be jiu-jitsu, it can be karate, it can be running, it can be soccer. If you hate football three weeks in, I'll tell you, I'm proud of you for going out there. But you gotta do something. Are you, are you interested in choosing something else?

• 45:13Dr. John Delony?

  And let him exhale on that. And he might say, no, mom. Now, if my kid, and I've, this happened with my daughter, she chose soccer, and then a couple of weeks in, she's like, dad, I don't, and I said, no, no, no, you chose this, and you committed to your team.

• 45:30Dr. John Delony?

  And so when the season's over, we can reevaluate. But you asked us, you came to us, and so we said, we're in, right? So I want her to, to learn the value of sticking to it. She gave her word to her team, she's gonna show up, right? And she was like seven, right? So it wasn't over dramatic, like I'm making it now, but it's like, no, we're gonna, you signed up for this. If I had signed her up and said, you have to do this, which I did with a martial art once, I was like, you have to do this, my kids are gonna be ninjas, right? I sat down and said, hey, like, I forced you into this, do you still wanna keep doing this? Right? And so, um, I think this is a great time, three weeks in, to circle back and say, you have to do something.

• 46:10Dr. John Delony?

  But I wanna honor the fact, I signed you up for this, you wouldn't pick, I had to do something. Um, is there another thing you wanna do?

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 46:21Dr. John Delony?

  And all of this, I think, I mean, you can tell me if I'm crazy, all of this

• 46:28Dr. John Delony?

  is rooted in two things. One, there is value in kids doing organized sports. There is value in, especially as they get into middle school and high school, there is value in kids being a part of the arts. And if you want to know the Deloney House, you gotta do one thing in the arts and you gotta do one thing, um, at least one thing physically. And you've also heard me rant about travel sports. This isn't about living vicariously through my kids. It is, I'm way more interested in them being coached by other men and women, by them learning to do hard, physical things, learning to be uncomfortable in the heat or in the cold, being outside, um, you know, whether it's, you know, getting kicked in

• 47:12Dr. John Delony?

  a taekwondo class, but they've gotta learn to do those things. And so, um, they don't have an option whether to not participate in something, but they do have autonomy in picking the thing. And then I demand, like, you commit to your team, you gotta go all in. And when the season's over, dude, I'm all about reevaluating, but you gotta be the team player you told your team you would be. Um, and that's one thing. The other thing here is, man, as your son is 18 and he's either about to leave, or he is on his way to college this year, sit down with him and talk about, hey, I want to tell you some things about your dad that you never knew. What an amazing young man he was in college,

• 47:54Dr. John Delony?

  some of the things that he did that were probably not too wise. Have those conversations with your 18-year-old and let them process. Mom's still grieving, because moms, they can feel that grief on you. And if your grief turns into hardness and into rigidness and into, this is the way it's gonna be, um, they'll, they'll react accordingly. But man, letting them know you still miss Mark so much makes them feel less crazy. And then when your 13-year-old, same thing.

• 48:24Dr. John Delony?

  And if he's scared of getting hurt, I get that. We're gonna have to do some things because life's gonna hit you upside the head. I'm not gonna hit you, but life's gonna hit you upside the head. We gotta do some hard things.

• 48:34Dr. John Delony?

  Man, I miss Dad too. So let's deal with the grief part of this and let's deal with the activity part of it. But I'm not a fan of forcing a kid to do a particular thing. I am a fan of giving bounded choices. You have to choose something, some sort of activity, some sort of physical activity, and you gotta participate. And in this house, we go all in when we say, we give our word, we commit.

• 49:01Dr. John Delony?

  Laura, you are an absolute amazing person. You're a great mom. You continue to be a great partner to Mark. And these kids are lucky, lucky to have you. It's been an honor talking with you. You call any, anytime. We'll be right back.

• 49:19Dr. John Delony?

  School is back in action. The summer is long gone. The days are getting shorter. The Q4 work stresses are hitting hard. And if you're like me, we're finding ourselves wanting to just numb out more and more, especially at nighttime. We have to be intentional about protecting our sleep because here's the truth. How we sleep is a big part of how well we feel. When our bodies aren't resting, our minds can't reset. One of the most important things we do to stay mentally sharp, emotionally steady, and able to show up for our families, for our workplaces, and for our kids, is getting good sleep. And that's why I'm constantly telling you about Helix mattresses.

• 50:01Dr. John Delony?

  Helix builds mattresses just for you, not some generic, average sleeper. So whether you're a hot sleeper, a side sleeper, a back sleeper, or somewhere in between, Helix designs mattresses around you. You. I want you to take the Helix Sleep Quiz. I did it. It takes like two minutes and they're gonna match you with exactly the right mattress just for you. And right now, my audience can get an exclusive 25% off during their extended Labor Day sale. Go to helixsleep.com/deloney for 25% off site wide. That's helixsleep.com/deloney. And tell them you heard about their great mattresses right here on the show. With Helix, better sleep starts right now.

• 50:47Dr. John Delony?

  All right, Kelly, something awesome happened.

• 50:50Speaker 04

  All right, so this is from Brian, who called in about a year ago with the fact that he was dating his son's best friend's mom. And they were trying, like, younger sons, they were, I think, elementary, middle school age.

• 51:03Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.

• 51:04Speaker 04

  And they had started dating, but they hadn't told the boys yet. So Brian writes.

• 51:09Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, sweet.

• 51:10Speaker 04

  "Almost a year ago, I called in and had a conversation with you about how I should go about telling my kids that I'm dating their best friend's mom. I am super happy to say that it went amazing and we are all now living together as family."

• 51:22Dr. John Delony?

  Gross!

• 51:23Speaker 04

  "The kids could not be happier. During our call, John said it sounded like a high school romance. I'm proud to say that my love for my girlfriend has only gotten stronger and deeper over the past year. While there's been some difficult times throughout the last year, we've handled them together as a team and have come out stronger than before. I believe we are meant for each other and I will be proposing later this year. Thank you."

• 51:44Dr. John Delony?

  Well, congratulations. You'll probably edit this part out. I have no idea what I told that guy. What did I tell him?

• 51:52Speaker 04

  I believe it was just, like, you know, sitting down with the kids and being honest, but not too honest.

• 51:58Dr. John Delony?

  Not super honest.

• 51:59Speaker 04

  Not super honest, but being honest with them about, um, we're friends and we're seeing each other and, um, making sure to give each set of kids a place to, you know, to talk about it and things like that. So.

• 52:12Dr. John Delony?

  Well.

• 52:12Speaker 04

  Whatever you said, it worked.

• 52:14Dr. John Delony?

  Good for you, Brian. And by the way, um,

• 52:23Dr. John Delony?

  your son will always have the one-up on her son. Because whenever they get into an argument, he can just be like, "My dad is making out with your mom." And it will always be a way to win a cut-down war. Which is, and it's a cornerstone, it's an important part of being a young boy, is figuring out, how do I win this argument we're having? Don't you think, Kelly? No?

• 52:49Speaker 04

  Never having been a young boy, I'm not 100% certain, but sure.

• 52:54Dr. John Delony?

  All the guys in the booth are nodding. That's an important piece of information. So, well done.

• 52:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, you did a good job.

• 53:02Dr. John Delony?

  I'll accept it. I accept it. Brian, congratulations dude. Send us a wedding invitation.

• 53:08Dr. John Delony?

  Kelly's probably gonna throw hers away, but I will put mine on my mirror. I probably will. But dude, send it. Love you guys. Bye.