Is This Relationship Real Or Is He a Love Bomber?

On today’s episode, we hear about: · A woman trying to determine if her relationship is real · A husband wondering how to best prepare his family in light of his prognosis · A father struggling with how to handle his young daughter’s violent behavior 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: Need to talk to someone? BetterHelp is virtual therapy when it’s convenient for you. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. These are BEST sheets and towels in the world. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Getting lots of spam calls? DeleteMe can clean up your online presence for you. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Find peace every day. Hallow is the simplest way to slow down and get your head right for the day. Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. I have Helix Midnight mattresses in EVERY bedroom in my house. Get 20% when you visit Helix Sleep and take the sleep quiz to see what you need! Get the exact same green and red powder that I take every day. Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi. I took Thorne supplements way before I worked at Ramsey. Stoked that we can work together now! Get 25% off [JR2] for LIFE at Thorne. Need a training plan? Accountability? Coaching? Trainwell has you covered. Go to Trainwell to get started! 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

  How can you determine the difference between somebody love bombing you and somebody that genuinely likes who you are and wants to be with you?

• 0:14Dr. John Delony?

  Oh dude, I've got some really firm opinions on this. Did you break up with him or did you just say, "Hey, let's slow it down a little bit"? I guess here's how I classify love bombs is...

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So grateful you're here.

• 0:37Dr. John Delony?

  We've got Andrew on the internet. We've got Ben Hill on the knobs. Kelly 2.0, just keeping this thing going. If you don't know, Kelly 2.0, her give a crap runs at 0.0. Have you ever been mad before?

• 0:57Speaker 02

  Oh, you'll find out.

• 0:58Dr. John Delony?

  Right now.

• 1:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I think Kelly 1.0, she frowns and gets angry. I feel like you smile.

• 1:08Speaker 02

  I'm still pretty new, so I'm sure it'll wear off eventually.

• 1:11Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So you're just placating me? On your drive home, I imagine there's like fingerprints in the steering wheel because you're so angry.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  Uh, me and Kelly, she got me a voodoo doll, so we have like a whole sisterhood.

• 1:24Dr. John Delony?

  You're... yeah. Kelly just says, "I'm angry at you." It's kind of all the time, but I can see you just stabbing the doll on the way home, for sure. All right, well, that makes me feel not great. All right, let's go to Springfield and talk to Nicole. What's up, Nicole?

• 1:41Speaker 00

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

• 1:42Dr. John Delony?

  Doing all right, lady. What are you doing?

• 1:45Speaker 00

  Oh, nothing, living the dream over here.

• 1:47Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, gosh. Anytime somebody says, "Living the dream," that means things aren't great. What's up?

• 1:53Speaker 00

  No, they are. Everything is totally great. But um, my question for you is, how can you determine the difference between somebody love bombing you, and somebody that genuinely likes who you are and wants to be with you?

• 2:07Dr. John Delony?

  Oh dude. I've got some really firm opinions on this, but I want to hear about your experiences. Tell me about them.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  Okay, um, so I was dating this guy for a little over a month and a half, and um, he lived an hour and forty-five minutes away from me, so we just kind of saw each other on the weekends. Uh, the biggest thing is, we, we had like six dates total. Um, nothing romantic intimate happened, um, until kind of towards the very end. But it just felt like I was being overwhelmed with, um, when we were in public, he would hold my hand, kiss me a lot, a lot of affection. And then, we kind of just got really deep, really fast, in getting to know each other. Of course, I played my part, um, I felt comfortable enough to tell him things that I honestly didn't tell people that I'd been with for months or even years.

• 2:58Speaker 00

  But then it got to a point where it was kind of like everyday reassurance of, you're basically the best thing that's happened to me, you fill my cup up, my cup is overflown, it's just, it was, it felt just like way too much. Um, and then by date four, he told me that he thinks he's falling for me. Um, would like to kind of move steps forward and be in a relationship, be together, and meet my family, and it just, it all felt very, very fast.

• 3:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Okay, so, are you still with this dude?

• 3:32Speaker 00

  No.

• 3:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so tell me about-

• 3:35Speaker 00

  But now I have the opinion that it's like-

• 3:37Dr. John Delony?

  Well, hold on-

• 3:37Speaker 00

  Is everybody doing this?

• 3:38Dr. John Delony?

  I, I could tell you, I, I, I, I, well, you can answer this with one, with one answer, or you can answer my question with one answer, and it will let me know which direction to take. What happened when it fell off a cliff?

• 3:52Speaker 00

  Um, I had a FaceTime conversation with him and told, like, what specifically happened?

• 3:57Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I want to know about, either you put a stop to it, or he got what he wanted, and I'm not even talking about sexually, I'm just talking about like,

• 4:07Dr. John Delony?

  he, he felt fulfilled and got what he needed from you, either emotionally, physically, or both, and then it was like, bofleisha, or you said like, whoa, enough, and then he just, with the same intensity that he loved you with, he cut you off.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  So I actually ended it.

• 4:28Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 4:29Speaker 00

  Um, and to me, it was just too many days in a row of the same, there were not like extravagant gifts or anything, but him just telling me how perfect I am, not perfect in a sense, but I'm perfect for him, and he's seeing a different side of himself that he's never seen before, and he's telling his family, and his family's confused because they've never seen this side of him, and it ju- it just felt like a lot of pressure on me to keep that up, but also, I don't know if you're just like a robot and fake because I didn't see a bad day from him, he was just always overjoyed.

• 5:06Dr. John Delony?

  Well, y'all, y'all weren't by each other. This is all an imagination, he's, right? He's imagining this.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:13Dr. John Delony?

  How did he respond to you? Break, did you, did you break up with him, or did you just say, hey, let's, let's slow it down a little bit?

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Well, I tried the let's slow it down, but as we kept, it was like a two-hour conversation. As we kept talking, I was just like, yeah, no, this is too much. We just don't need to go any further.

• 5:31Dr. John Delony?

  So does he still reach out to you and tell you that you're the wind beneath his wings?

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Nope.

• 5:38Speaker 00

  No, he's cut me off. Like, he, he said, once, once I say that it's over, he's like, my cutoff game is strong and you won't hear from me.

• 5:46Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, gosh.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Like, that's okay.

• 5:49Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you, appreciate that.

• 5:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:52Dr. John Delony?

  So, I guess here's how I classify love bombs is that somebody is using somebody

• 6:00Dr. John Delony?

  to feel good about themselves.

• 6:02Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 6:03Dr. John Delony?

  And whether that's sexually, whether that's emotionally, whether that's buying gifts, whether that's like what you were mentioning, like, I just need you to know you're the most perfect person. It's somebody trying to get somebody externally to make them feel better internally.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 6:19Dr. John Delony?

  And it gets out of control and it's just like a drug, but it's like, like a quick burn rate drug. So, they say like, man, I, like they hold your hand and it feels good. And it's like, I gotta put my head on your shoulder. And you're like, we just met. And then at the end of the night, they're giving you a kiss and like, oh my gosh. And then like five minutes, you get your car, they text you like, that was the most fun I've had in a long time. I've already texted my friends about it. And the next date, it's just, it's just, it's just, they're snorting you off a counter, right? And they need more and more and more and more. You get what I'm saying?

• 6:49Speaker 00

  Uh huh. Yeah.

• 6:50Dr. John Delony?

  And good for you for within date five or six being like, whoa, you're an addict. You don't see me. You're using me to feel, try to feel better about yourself.

• 7:01Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 7:02Dr. John Delony?

  And so.

• 7:03Speaker 00

  That's definitely how it felt.

• 7:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. So here's what I would tell you. Trust your intuition. Now, let's say I'm a hundred percent wrong. And you just met a guy who's just a regular old dude and he fell for you hard. Okay?

• 7:17Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 7:19Dr. John Delony?

  You feeling uncomfortable is still right. Cause your feelings are your feelings, especially when it comes to a romantic interest. So, even if he's the best guy of all time, he just felt, he just fell for you hard.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 7:33Dr. John Delony?

  That doesn't mean you have to reciprocate that.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:37Dr. John Delony?

  So either way, what you felt in that moment, go with it.

• 7:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:43Dr. John Delony?

  And I love that you were like, hey, cause let's be honest, you said you did your part too. You liked hanging out with him, right?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I played my part. I felt comfortable around him. I was telling him things and yeah, then it just got overwhelming and too much for me.

• 7:59Dr. John Delony?

  And so the fact that you said, hey, we gotta dial, take 30% off, let's dial it down a little bit. In that conversation, he couldn't hear it, wouldn't hear it, wouldn't be like, hey, I'm not telling you these things because you want to hear them. I'm telling you these things because I want to say them.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 8:17Dr. John Delony?

  And when you said, hey, you saying this all the time is a lot for me to carry right now, six dates into meeting you.

• 8:25Dr. John Delony?

  He said, my cutoff game is strong. You like you're that just you totally affirmed your feelings that what he was doing was for him, not for you.

• 8:35Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 8:36Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense?

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. No, it absolutely does.

• 8:40Dr. John Delony?

  Go with your gut. And here's the deal. If your gut is repeatedly wrong,

• 8:46Dr. John Delony?

  ask one of your friends to level with you.

• 8:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:49Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. One of the most important conversations of my life was a couple of years into dating the person who's now my wife. Uh, we got into it and I asked a buddy like, can you believe she said that? And he was like, yes, you're the worst. And he laid it out for me and I'm so glad he did because I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know that side of me. I, I didn't experience that side of me like he did, like, like my wife, like she was my girlfriend at the time, like she was experiencing it. And that was really important feedback.

• 9:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:17Dr. John Delony?

  And so I walked around feeling self-righteous for a minute, but I was way wrong. And so having a friend is always great, but man, you are, you are right on right now. And I think, I think your signal is, hey, when I sit down and say, hey, the way you are trying to love me or tell me that you have feelings for me, if I tell you that doesn't, is not feeling as good or as safe as you think it does, if you don't immediately go, oh dude, okay, sorry, sorry, sorry, I'll dial it back. Um, and instead says, no, no, no, this is what, how this is going to go. Dude, you're right on. That means you're being used as a Xanax for somebody else.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:53Dr. John Delony?

  Or cocaine for somebody else. One of those two. An upper or a downer either way, right? But good for you for figuring that out. Date six.

• 10:02Speaker 00

  Thank you. I don't normally listen to my gut. So, uh, this was a, a big moment for me and I felt proud.

• 10:08Dr. John Delony?

  Do you have some, do you have some knuckleheads in your past?

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 10:13Dr. John Delony?

  Well, good.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely.

• 10:14Dr. John Delony?

  This is, this is, this is Nicole 2.0. This is awesome. Good for you. And can we be honest about one thing before we hang up?

• 10:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:23Dr. John Delony?

  It's kind of a bummer, huh? Because those were good conversations, weren't they?

• 10:27Speaker 00

  They were. I did feel safe. For, for a little bit, it felt nice to get things off my chest to somebody other than, you know, the few people in my life that know what I've been through, so.

• 10:38Dr. John Delony?

  So take the, make sure you, um, grieve the entirety of this. Both the, "Ugh, this guy's crazy." And the, "Man, in my next relationship, I want to be able to talk to somebody with that." I like, I like having deep conversations where somebody can hold space for my feelings and stuff.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:01Dr. John Delony?

  It's a good thing you took away from this thing also, right?

• 11:04Speaker 00

  Absolutely. No, there were some great things I took away from it.

• 11:07Dr. John Delony?

  Perfect.

• 11:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, just wanted to figure out how to decipher between or if I was crazy for cutting it off.

• 11:14Dr. John Delony?

  Nope, you are, I mean, as far as I'm concerned, I think you're right on, sister. Good for you. And again, let's pretend he was still wonderful and great in the best of all time. If that's not how you feel safe and you feel loved, you're still right to cut it off. You're, you're right to want to be with who you want to be with. So, good for you either way, but yes, I share your sentiment that, whoa, whoa. We come back, a terminally ill man asks how he can leave a legacy for his family. It's a good one.

• 11:50Dr. John Delony?

  The show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Dudes, the world feels like it's falling apart. And while it's all crashing down, we're all under huge pressure to perform and look like we're keeping it all together. And we all know that getting support is good, but we're not allowed to ask for it. Women are often told that they have to be everything to everyone all the time, and somehow they just have to intuitively know how to do it all. And men are often told they're the reason for every bad thing in the world, and that asking for help means they are weak or less than. 6% of people globally agree that mental health care can help resolve personal problems, yet 6 out of 10 people still believe society discourages asking for help. Listen, real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and then doing

• 12:35Dr. John Delony?

  something about it so you can be your best for yourself and for everyone else in your life. If you're feeling the weight of the world, talk to someone, anyone, a friend, a loved one, or yes, a therapist. I talk with a therapist regularly and you might consider talking to one too. If you're thinking about trying therapy, contact my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, so it's affordable and convenient for your schedule. To get started, just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time easily and for no extra cost. Talk it out with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash deloney.

• 13:20Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's go up north to Canada and talk to Lee. What's up, Lee?

• 13:24Speaker 03

  Hey, how are you, Dr. John?

• 13:25Dr. John Delony?

  I'm all right, brother. How about you, man?

• 13:27Speaker 03

  You know what? I am good, yeah. I just, uh, yeah, just have a question here. I was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer about 10 months ago.

• 13:37Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, slow the roll, slow the roll.

• 13:39Speaker 03

  Uh huh.

• 13:41Dr. John Delony?

  How are you doing? I'm doing good, man. So, uh, I got brain cancer. Jeez, man.

• 13:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's been, it's been quite the year.

• 13:54Dr. John Delony?

  I imagine.

• 13:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 13:56Dr. John Delony?

  What's your diagnosis?

• 13:58Speaker 03

  Um, so I have, um, grade three astrocoma brain cancer, which is like a rare brain cancer, uh, that they discovered by mistake, um, this last summer, kind of in the middle, in the middle of summer. I had a, an accident in an ATV and they, my head put the windshield out of the ATV, so they thought they better scan my head to make sure I'm okay. And when they did that, all of a sudden they had all kinds of questions about something growing in my head. And so.

• 14:27Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sorry, dude.

• 14:29Speaker 03

  From there, they did an MRI and it was, uh, yeah, it's kind of been a interesting year from there. So, yeah.

• 14:36Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, it's been the worst year ever, man.

• 14:39Dr. John Delony?

  Geez.

• 14:41Speaker 03

  You know, I feel like we've been through a lot in the last five years. And so this was just something else where it's like, okay, well, now we're God's helping us deal with this. So so it's been.

• 14:50Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know, man. I I don't mind God asking me to deal with stuff. I would prefer that, not that one. Right? Geez.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't something we saw coming for sure. So it was a

• 15:02Dr. John Delony?

  Um. All right. So so take me here. Okay.

• 15:05Speaker 03

  True.

• 15:06Dr. John Delony?

  But you got kids?

• 15:09Speaker 03

  Yes. Yeah, I have three kids, so I have a boy and two girls.

• 15:12Dr. John Delony?

  How old are they?

• 15:12Speaker 03

  My son is sixteen, my daughter's fourteen, and my youngest daughter is eleven. So, yeah.

• 15:21Dr. John Delony?

  How long you been married?

• 15:22Speaker 03

  So, yeah, and um, it'll be nineteen years this September. So, yeah.

• 15:27Dr. John Delony?

  And then what what kind of timetable they give you?

• 15:31Speaker 03

  Um, five to seven years is what they've given me. So, um, so, yeah, they they ended up doing an emergency surgery, uh, November the fifth and removed. They were able to get the tumor, but the trouble is, is this brain cancer just keeps growing. So it's, uh,

• 15:46Dr. John Delony?

  Is it and just pops up?

• 15:47Speaker 03

  Getting the tumor out.

• 15:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it depends on where the next one pops up, right? Yeah. God, it's like.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, exactly. And so, uh, so, yeah, I mean, they they said kind of best case scenario medically is five to seven years. So we uh, yeah.

• 16:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 16:03Speaker 03

  Thankfully, we had thankfully, we had life insurance and everything in place already. So I'm grateful for that. But, uh, but, yeah, it's just been a lot, though. I guess more so on the side of the family has been has been a lot. I feel like honestly, I almost had the easy part of this. Uh, and it's tougher for my family, I think, to look at how this looks in that five to seven years. And, uh, yeah, so that's

• 16:29Dr. John Delony?

  So take take me to your wife's asleep.

• 16:32Speaker 03

  There.

• 16:32Dr. John Delony?

  Take me to your wife's asleep and your kids are in bed.

• 16:37Dr. John Delony?

  And you're on the couch and the TV is off and you're sitting there in the dark.

• 16:43Dr. John Delony?

  Cause dude, I admire you. I lost a close friend to this. Okay.

• 16:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 16:49Dr. John Delony?

  And I've been, I've peripherally been down the road and one of my closest, he's a brother, one of my closest friends on planet earth, lost his wife to this and.

• 17:01Speaker 03

  Yup.

• 17:02Dr. John Delony?

  It's, it's, most people that I know, especially those who are diagnosed with terminal cancer, get stuck in the position of having to make sure everybody around them is okay.

• 17:14Dr. John Delony?

  But I'll cherish some private conversations I had with her. That like, yeah, if she lets herself truly absorb it, it's a nightmare. Scary.

• 17:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I.

• 17:28Dr. John Delony?

  Take me to the dark.

• 17:29Speaker 03

  I feel like, yeah, yeah, I feel like for, for me, uh, where my, like I'm a, I'm a Christian. So it's like I, I am not, I actually don't have fear of death at all. So that's not, uh, like I can say it, my wife and I both, as we've talked this through, it's like, neither of us are mad at God at all. Uh, honestly, it's like, we live in a fallen world and I'm not shocked at, uh, why I can't get cancer just like anybody else. So, uh, there's nothing, nothing there that is, uh, that I hold against God. But I think the bigger thing that I look at, that I struggle with is just looking at my kids as,

• 18:15Speaker 03

  uh, you know, we have a few family friends that have lost, uh, lost husbands, um, while their kids are still younger. And it's just watching their families, what they went through in that, um, I guess that's where my struggle is, is just going like, how do I, how do I, uh,

• 18:36Speaker 03

  set them up for success even when I might not be here, right? So, and, and my wife and it's like, I,

• 18:45Speaker 03

  yeah, like we've, and we've been completely open with the kids on everything. Like we haven't hidden anything from them because they're too smart to.

• 18:51Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 18:53Speaker 03

  Ignore that something is going on, but, uh, and, and maybe it's been processing in different ways. Like it's, yeah, we're definitely watching them process, uh, in, in different ways. And yet I, I think that.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  They are all, I would say, in a good position in terms of just where they're,

• 19:14Speaker 03

  yeah, I think they're coping as well as they can, I guess I could say. But, uh, but yeah, it's so, so for me that, I guess that's more where my heart has been. It's just like wanting to know, like, how can I best, um, finish my time on earth in a way that blesses them? And it's like, we, we run a ministry here and it's been, uh, you know, my board and team have been amazing backing us. But, uh, um, part of this too, I think, is also looking going like, how long do I stay in that? Uh, you know, and yeah, how long do I stay in that? And, and when do, when does the point come where it's like, okay, it's, it's time for me to take a step back

• 19:58Speaker 03

  from that and just focus on family? So, so yeah, that's kind of where things are at.

• 20:02Dr. John Delony?

  Um, man, you're, you're a special guy, dude. For what it's worth, I'm mad at God on your behalf because you're, you're one of the good guys. And guys like you aren't supposed to get brain cancer and have to leave their kids, you know, before they leave the house, right?

• 20:21Speaker 03

  Right, right.

• 20:22Dr. John Delony?

  You, you don't have to. I, I told a buddy recently who just lost his, another close friend of mine just lost his, his wife. I said, he's one of the most kindest guys in the world. And I said, well, I'm gonna say a bunch, a bunch of expletives in my prayers on your behalf then. And he started laughing. He goes, well, you get to do that. You can take that up with, with God yourself. But on behalf, I mean, man, I'm, you're a special man, dude. Um, I guess the, the three things that are popping in my head right now is this. One is, okay, I'm gonna reverse engineer this for you, okay? Um, anytime I sit down with somebody who has a, who has a timeline.

• 21:00Dr. John Delony?

  And you got a five to seven year. Okay. So you and I both know that could be two and a half years, or that could be eight, right? Yeah. Who knows? Yep. And with your particular cancer, it's, it's a, it's a whack a mole cancer. The next time it pops up could be it, where a part of your brain that runs your heart and lungs, and that's it, right? Or Yeah. The next place it pops up is somewhere rather benign, and you got another year to go, you know, you get, so you, you get just the, God, dude, the cosmic sick joke this particular cancer is, I think.

• 21:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. So I'm gonna reverse engineer it for you, and then tell you the three words that are in my head, okay?

• 21:39Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Most people, most people that I sit down with

• 21:46Dr. John Delony?

  have the intellectual understanding, but the, the emotional understanding, they, they lack an emotional understanding that when somebody says five, let's say it's five years.

• 21:58Dr. John Delony?

  Mm hmm. At year four, things are pretty rough.

• 22:04Dr. John Delony?

  And then things fall fast.

• 22:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yep. Meaning, the last three months of year five are real tough.

• 22:14Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Right? Yep. And so there's, I think there's this, this understanding that, oh, I'll cross this finish line here, and I want to move up your finish line a little bit. Okay? Okay. And so the words in my head are

• 22:32Dr. John Delony?

  blessing, time, and making sure your kids aren't carrying this, slash, they get to carry part of this. Okay, so I'll start with the blessing part. Whether you can do a video journal, or that just becomes a thing that you leave them, or, which I think in this modern era would be kind of rad, or a letter of some sort, making sure that they have documentation of you giving them your blessing.

• 23:06Dr. John Delony?

  And there's something about a father's blessing for both their daughters and their sons that is, it's a puzzle piece into a soul. It's a puzzle piece into a heart. And I'm firmly convinced that all the single parent homes we have all over the world, and the absentee fathers, I think we're walking around with a wounded culture because there's so many folks who don't have their dad's blessing. Right. And many dads, like, don't say, "Hey, I want you to know you have my blessing" on the life you're living, but they may change the oil, they may like, do a side hug. It's not enough. There's gotta be, like, a passing of, "You have my blessing." "Here's what I see in you." Right.

• 23:49Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And so if you can, if you could do a video of that, or recording of that, and you do a video of like, I don't know, once a month, or once a year, there's gonna be some sort of catalog that your kids can go back to, a cornerstone they can touch, as they get older, right? And maybe you can do a funny one, and, I don't know, run down the 15 questions, make a video for their future spouse one day, and... Right, right. I mean, just some, you sound like a guy that's got, like I do, just a, a left-of-center, like a twisted sense of humor about all this, and so, man, if you did that, that'd be hilarious, man, that could be fun. Yep. The second one is time, and that is, I would set up regularly scheduled intervals with each of them.

• 24:36Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Whether that's a breakfast, whether that's a lunch, whether that's a week, a monthly, or a whatever, I want them to feel like I got laser beam time with dad. It may not be as much as they wanted, but when I got it, it was intense. It was just us.

• 24:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right, okay. And ask them regularly, "What are you most scared of right now? What are you most happy about right now?" And you go first. "Here's what I'm most scared about, here's what I'm most happy about." Okay, yep. And they're gonna get a ringside seat, a model for how to grieve well, and how to live well, and a lost art in our culture, how to die well.

• 25:16Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm, yeah, yep. We don't have that. And then the last one is, dude, I want them to see you love your wife to the freaking moon and back.

• 25:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yep.

• 25:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 25:35Dr. John Delony?

  How's she doing with all this?

• 25:38Speaker 03

  Um.

• 25:41Speaker 03

  It's, uh.

• 25:45Speaker 03

  It's day to day, like there's. Um.

• 25:50Speaker 03

  Like, we weren't sure I'd wake up the same person after brain surgery because of where the tumor was and everything. Uh, so, I mean, my memory's not what it used to be, but other than that, I would say I'm generally the same, just have to sleep more.

• 26:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 26:05Speaker 03

  Um, but, uh.

• 26:09Speaker 03

  But, yeah, like, there's, there's been a lot of just scary things through this, I guess, uh, for, for her, where it was just like she wasn't sure if I'd wake up the same. Uh, you know, kind of had to talk that through to our kids, too, just sound like, we don't know, there's a lot of risk in this. Uh, you know, going through, like, I went through six weeks of chemo and radiation together. Uh, and then I'm still on radi- or chemo for the rest of the year here. Uh, but, uh, uh, that has an effect as well on me, so, like, just kind of learning some of those, some of those things. Um, but she, I think she's, yeah, like, it's honestly scary at times, like, we've had,

• 26:53Speaker 03

  we had a, um.

• 26:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, like, I mean, I think, like, most couples, we always talked about retirement, um, as being a time that we could kind of pick what we got to do together, um, and all of a sudden, that's changed, and it's, it's like, okay, how do we, how do we start doing some of that now? And, um.

• 27:14Dr. John Delony?

  I love that. And then going back to, I, I realize, I realize I told you there was three things, and I, I gave you four. Um. I need you to say something out loud for me, okay?

• 27:27Speaker 03

  All right.

• 27:28Dr. John Delony?

  Say these words for me. You don't have to believe them, I just want you to have said them, okay?

• 27:34Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 27:35Dr. John Delony?

  I have brain cancer.

• 27:40Dr. John Delony?

  I have brain cancer. And I am not a burden on my family. And I am not a burden on my family. Okay. You're a blessing to your family. It sounds like you've modeled what living well looks like. You're modeling in an amazing way what dying well is gonna look like. You got life insurance, right? This isn't all just hocus pocus. You've done the... Your wife's gonna have a... Isn't gonna have to go to work on Monday after your funeral, right? Right, right, yeah. So you get to be sad. Y'all get to be sad. And here's the fourth thing that I mentioned earlier. You... I want you to model for your kids. Hey, this chemo sucks. This hurts. I'm nervous. I'm scared.

• 28:24Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to not let them feel like they've gotta keep you propped up. And... Right. When they go into caretaker mode, let them, because it's gonna be a great gift for them. And your wife. Okay, okay. It's a both and. All right. There will come days when you can't get out of bed. And they say, Dad, do you need anything? And I want you to be able to say, you know what I'd love to do? Borrow your nervous system for about 30 minutes. Will you cuddle up on the couch next to me? We can watch the Office reruns or something. It'll give them a job. Yeah. And more importantly, that job is like them, themself, right? Not like a... Like, can you get me a glass of water? Sure, anybody can get you a glass of water.

• 29:06Dr. John Delony?

  But when your daughter walks in and you say, dude, 30 minutes... I need 30 minutes of who... Like Susan hugs right now. That's what make me feel better than any of my medicine. And give her an opportunity to not carry all of it, but carry a little bit of it, okay? Okay, sure. And it takes away a teeny tiny little bit of the powerlessness that all your kids feel right now. Right, right. Or if you give them a job, y'all need to write me a letter once a month. Get on it, kids. Then what you're gonna do is you're gonna give them an opportunity to process this thing in real time with you. And 10 years from now, 15 years from now, that would be such a blessing. Here's what we don't want them to do.

• 29:49Dr. John Delony?

  I don't want them to feel crazy for feeling as crazy as they're gonna feel.

• 29:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right. I want mom to demonstrate, this is what I'm feeling crazy. I want you to demonstrate I'm feeling crazy. I'm feeling sad, mom's feeling, and I want you to give words and names to their feelings so that they don't feel insane. And Kate. Yeah, let them do stuff for you.

• 30:11Dr. John Delony?

  Kate.

• 30:14Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Can I just say this dad to dad? I'm sorry, man.

• 30:21Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. We, uh. What a surreal year. See this one coming? Yeah. Yep. And I hate to say it this way. Only people who are sitting in your seat understand what I'm about to say is not me being sarcastic or anything. Usually people who are not in your seat will go, oh, my gosh, I can't believe you just said that. But I'm only saying this because I've sat with too many people in your situation.

• 30:48Dr. John Delony?

  Thank God for a car wreck, huh?

• 30:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. Wild. Thank God for the ATV wreck. Thank God for the MRI. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Because these last four years are gonna have a lot more laser focus on them, huh? Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. All right, brother. Hey, listen, you call me anytime over the next, hopefully you got a decade left and man, if we could keep punting this thing a little bit further down the road, who knows what AI is gonna kick up and maybe they'll solve some of this nonsense, but, Yeah. You call me anytime, your wife call me time, your kids call me time, and I'll walk with you any way I can. Okay, brother? It sounds good. Thank you so much. All right. Blessings, good man. All right. Golly.

• 31:35Dr. John Delony?

  There are some people you talk to that just are special. And they shine a light for all of us on

• 31:44Dr. John Delony?

  the art of living well, the art of loving well, and in this man's case, the art of dying well. And, uh, man, I hope when my time comes, I have that kind of spirit. We come back, a man asks how to help stop his child's violent outbursts.

• 32:04Dr. John Delony?

  I love Cozy Earth. Just hearing the term nine to five job is a drag. It makes you think of your boss with coffee breath or just staring at a Zoom call all day, coworkers with no boundaries, ugh. And if you're not working from home, that commute. That's why Cozy Earth wants to make your five to nine the time when you get home to slowly unwind the most comfortable part of your day. And Cozy Earth is a big part of how my wife and I make our home a warm, comfortable place to be. My wife gets in her Cozy Earth pajamas as quickly as possible, and I love my after-work Cozy Earth t-shirts and pants because they're soft and breathable while I'm dominating my kids in our front yard wrestling matches. And at night,

• 32:47Dr. John Delony?

  I love my temperature-regulating Cozy Earth sheets. They naturally wick away heat and moisture from my body and help me sleep several degrees cooler. Cozy Earth is so confident that they offer a 100-night sleep trial. Try them during the hottest nights of the year, and if you don't absolutely love them, you can return them hassle-free. And of course, Cozy Earth offers a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding products for a decade of great sleep. Don't miss your chance to score Cozy Earth's biggest discount of the year during their Cozy Days Sale. From July 11th to July 13th, head to cozylearth.com and use code DOLONEY. Get this, 45% off their temperature-regulating sheets, the apparel, and more. Don't forget,

• 33:30Dr. John Delony?

  this deal ends on July 13th. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter, and stay cozy with Cozy Earth. All right, let's go to Minnesota and talk to John. Hey, John, what's up?

• 33:43Speaker 04

  Hi, John. How are you?

• 33:44Dr. John Delony?

  I'm doing all right, brother. How about you?

• 33:47Speaker 04

  I'm pretty good. Grateful to be talking to you.

• 33:49Dr. John Delony?

  You too, man. What's going on?

• 33:52Speaker 04

  I have an 11-year-old daughter, and she has these violent episodes that can last for hours. And she's grown up, she's getting bigger, and I don't know how to keep my family safe at this point, including her. And...

• 34:14Speaker 04

  I don't know what to do next. I don't know. I don't know where to, when it's too much.

• 34:21Dr. John Delony?

  Give me a picture of what the, what a regular violent outburst looks like.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, so pretty much anything or nothing can set something like this off.

• 34:33Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 34:34Speaker 04

  And like last night, we were just hanging out and um, I was getting some tea for her. And one of my little boys said something that upset her and she struck me in the back of the head a few times as I was sitting at the kitchen table.

• 34:54Speaker 04

  Um, and at this point, I'm, I'm the only one who's big enough to um, kind of keep everybody safe, but I also have a big problem with restraining her, touching her in, in any kind of physical way in these situations.

• 35:13Dr. John Delony?

  How come?

• 35:16Speaker 04

  I mean, she's my little girl and I never wanted, like I've never hurt her, never spanked her, never laid a hand on her. Um, but she, she's really aggressive and um, she's, she's hit everybody in our family, punched my wife in the face, she's tried to punch me. Um, and I, I want to keep her safe. I want to keep everybody safe, but it, it's too much for us now.

• 35:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 35:55Speaker 04

  And I, I don't know where to go from here.

• 36:01Dr. John Delony?

  So there's, I mean, this is tough for me in this situation because I'm not with her and you and I would need to do like a pretty long history, a timeline, an escalation timeline, all that to learn more about this, but I'm going to throw a few things out there, okay, just to give you some general direction. All right?

• 36:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:18Dr. John Delony?

  Um, I first, again, I've talked about this in recent shows, I always want to start from a place, and I may not stay here very long, but I always want to start from a place of.

• 36:30Dr. John Delony?

  What if my kid's body, whether they're anxious, whether they're having outbursts, whether they're highly charged and emotional, whether they're depressed, or they have depression symptoms, what if their body is working perfectly? What is their body trying to protect them from? That's always where I want to start, okay? Number two, you can't hit. There's a line that gets crossed and often, I mean, who knows the diagnostic stuff here, right? So she needs to get an evaluation, we'll talk through that in a second, but I like the second tier where Dr. My colleague, Dr.

• 37:09Dr. John Delony?

  Becky Kennedy starts, which is often emotional outbursts are really a lack of skills. It's no kid wants to be hitting their family members. But these emotions get so hypercharged and there's not a skillset to deal with them. And they just explode out. And so there's something about sitting with kids and teaching them skills, but the next part of that is, and again, anytime I ask parents this, I always want to preface it, this is hard on the phone, it's different person, but my bigger question would be, tell me about the environment of your home. Is she, is your marriage good?

• 37:52Dr. John Delony?

  Do you all squash your feelings in your house? Do you let kids just run amok? I mean, this sounds like this has been going on and on and you don't want to, you don't want to cut her off or take her on, and now you just got a kid who feels like she's out of control, and really the greatest thing she could get was some really firm boundaries from dad, from mom, but tell me about the environment in the home.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  The thing is, it's good. We have, we have a really special thing going. She's got two little brothers who are, yeah, they're little brothers and they're annoying sometimes, but they're good boys. My, my marriage with my wife is good. She's a very special woman. My daughter's a very special girl. Outside the home, she's, she's good. She's well-liked, she's well-loved. This stuff doesn't happen in other contexts. And there have been a couple of times where I've really been able to kind of like walk with

• 38:55Speaker 04

  her through one of these episodes, like two times out of a thousand. Um, where we can talk about like, what, like, where do you feel it? And like, just breathe and really, really take that long breath. And, um, I've been able to get through it with her sometimes, a couple of times. Um, but usually there's, there's no getting through there. Um, it's like, I, I guess anything's possible, but I'm 99.9% certain she's never suffered any kind of abuse.

• 39:37Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  Um.

• 39:39Dr. John Delony?

  Well, let's, let's, let's don't go even, even that serious. I mean, that's definitely a question I want to ask is, is she safe in school? Is she getting bullied a lot in school or whatever? How big's the gap between her and her brothers?

• 39:49Speaker 04

  Um, her brothers are eight and six.

• 39:52Dr. John Delony?

  How old is she?

• 39:54Speaker 04

  She's 11.

• 39:55Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Um.

• 40:00Dr. John Delony?

  So that really wouldn't fit with where I was going. Where I was, where I was going with is if she was five or she was six and she had all of you guys, you and your wife, her, herself, and then these two knuckle headed boys came along. Is she still wrestling with her place in the house?

• 40:15Speaker 04

  Um.

• 40:18Speaker 04

  I, I think there's, there's probably some of that.

• 40:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  But, um, you know, it's not easy being a kid. It's not being easy being the oldest. Um, but we, we really try to make each one of them feel special and loved.

• 40:37Dr. John Delony?

  But, but mo- one of the ways, one of the most ways you can give an older kid, um, that sense of purpose and that sense of feeling loved is giving them a job.

• 40:50Dr. John Delony?

  One of the most important things I learned in grad school was telling the oldest kid, "Hey, this is your brother."

• 40:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:59Dr. John Delony?

  And when this is your brother, you have responsibilities because your brother needs you. And there's, kids are so desperate for autonomy and for a purpose, for a job, that getting that is so powerful. And of course, they get annoyed with it and they get resentful and blah, blah, blah, but they're kids, right? Um, I guess the, the, the, the biggest question mark over my head is this is very context specific.

• 41:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:24Dr. John Delony?

  Because she's not out of control at school, she's not out of control at church, she's not out of control on sports team, she just comes home and kind of loses it?

• 41:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 41:32Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Have you taken her to see a psychologist?

• 41:36Speaker 04

  Um, we're, we're waiting on like a psych eval. She's been in therapy before, um, for a couple of years. Um, but we, we're, we're on like a six month waiting list to get an intake for like a, a real assessment.

• 41:59Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. I, what does her therapist say?

• 42:03Speaker 04

  Uh.

• 42:04Dr. John Delony?

  I don't like that she's been in therapy for two years and this thing is escalating and escalating and escalating and there's not a joint conversation happening. Like, what's the therapist say?

• 42:15Speaker 04

  She doesn't have a lot to say. Um, she's, we've sat down with her several times and asked like where, where's, like, what's going on? And her, her response is kind of like, "Some kids are like this." Um, you know, "Some kids have a lot of anxiety." Um, she's, she's worked on skills. She's described what they're working on in terms of like self-soothing and stuff.

• 42:51Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on.

• 42:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:53Dr. John Delony?

  How old is this girl?

• 42:55Speaker 04

  Eleven.

• 42:56Dr. John Delony?

  Has she brought you and your wife in to work on these skills together and run scenarios together?

• 43:03Speaker 04

  Um, not, not all of us together, no.

• 43:07Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. There's something about the matrix there. There's some kind of alchemy there that makes her body feel unsafe and out of control.

• 43:18Dr. John Delony?

  And I guess what I would tell you is after two years of just sitting here and talking about it,

• 43:24Dr. John Delony?

  if that's not improving, and in fact, it's, it's, it's, the trend line is the other way,

• 43:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:31Dr. John Delony?

  Then I want to, I want to advocate on my daughter's behalf in a really direct way.

• 43:39Dr. John Delony?

  Meaning, it's not good enough. I just, man, that just makes my skin crawl. That some kids are just like this, dude. What a defeated, hopeless sense, right?

• 43:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:52Dr. John Delony?

  Kids are kids, and they are put into multiple different environments and contexts where they've got multiple different demands and all. Like you said, it's hard, man. It's hard being a kid, especially a kid that feels like, I don't have the skills to enter into this situation.

• 44:08Dr. John Delony?

  But also, no kid wants to hit their dad a whole bunch of times. You know what I mean?

• 44:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:14Dr. John Delony?

  But you need to hear from me, you have not only every right, it's a gift to her

• 44:21Dr. John Delony?

  to protect her from getting that far out of control.

• 44:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 44:29Speaker 04

  And I, I try to like de-escalate that before it gets to that point, but it, it's just like the switch. Um, and

• 44:45Dr. John Delony?

  What, what happens after she hit you a few times? What did you do?

• 44:50Speaker 04

  Um, I said, hey, you need to take a break. Like, that's not okay. Um,

• 45:01Speaker 04

  but she, she won't, she won't take a break at that point. Like, she won't

• 45:10Speaker 04

  leave the situation, do something different.

• 45:14Dr. John Delony?

  I know, but she's 11. She needs an adult sometimes to pick her up and take her out of the situation.

• 45:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. And I guess that's like what I've been doing. I take her to her room and sit with her or have to restrain her. And like, she'll continue to try to physically attack me for hours.

• 45:42Speaker 04

  And I, I don't know what to do with that part of it.

• 45:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, this is way over my skis, man. You're gonna, you're gonna have to find a different therapist in your town because the one you have is useless.

• 45:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:57Dr. John Delony?

  Um, I get that powerlessness feeling that you have. I can't solve this one over the phone.

• 46:01Speaker 04

  Um. Okay.

• 46:03Dr. John Delony?

  I'm wondering if she's got some, uh, some severe psychiatric challenges.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:10Dr. John Delony?

  Cause I do know it's not uncommon for kids to, to hit somebody, to strike somebody. And then when a parent picks them up and takes them away and sits with them in their room for the next hour, the kid's nervous system got exactly what it needed, which was a regulated adult. Ah, now I feel safe.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:26Dr. John Delony?

  And.

• 46:29Dr. John Delony?

  But it's, it's not quote unquote, some kids are just like that. So some kids, it's not normal to hit a parent or hit a younger sibling multiple times, get forcibly carried out of a room and say, we do, you cannot hit. And they continue to try to fight you for hours. That's not normal.

• 46:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:49Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 46:51Dr. John Delony?

  So the context dependency is really important as well. So there's something going on there. And sitting down with a psychologist or a different therapist and saying, my kid is an angel over here. Kid's an angel over here and my kid is violent and unsafe and a switch flips. And there's something about our home that's setting her off. And we've got to get this under control because my house is not safe.

• 47:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:21Dr. John Delony?

  And you're confident that she has a good, safe relationship with your wife?

• 47:27Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, you're under shadow of a doubt.

• 47:30Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. And you're confident that she has a good, safe relationship with her brothers?

• 47:34Speaker 04

  I am, yeah.

• 47:36Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 47:38Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, something is not lining up for me and I can't do this one over the phone. I couldn't do this one in person. I'm not trained beyond this other than to let you know there's some, yeah, there's something pretty severe and you're not crazy and what your family needs. Cause here's what I don't want you to, I don't want you to lose your sons in the process either. And I don't want you to lose your marriage in the process either. And can I just say this? You answered all my hard questions. Yeah. I'm almost confident that you go to bed every night looking in the mirror and with tired eyes and bags under your eyes thinking I'm failing as a dad. And I want to let you know this isn't normal and you're doing the best you can and I'm proud of you. Okay?

• 48:15Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you. I appreciate it.

• 48:19Dr. John Delony?

  Every dad wants to just have a little girl that's just awesome and safe and funny and snuggly and all those and powerful and loud and tough and all those things. And this is scary. Okay? Yeah. And

• 48:35Dr. John Delony?

  even if you can, every once in a while, look in the mirror and put your fist in your chest and just say, I'm doing the best I can.

• 48:42Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you. Okay. I will. All right, man. Dude, thanks for the call, brother. That was tough, tough, tough, tough, tough. Yeah. Get on the phone today and make some more calls. And I hate that for your psyche, Val. That's just the state of mental health care in our country right now that you may, may, may, I guess school might be out, but you may be able to fast track one through the school system and get a psyche, Val, that way.

• 49:09Dr. John Delony?

  It just depends on where you live and oh, man, what a mess that is. But I hate that for you. But yeah, transfer over and you may go check out her, her primary care physician and see if there's some additional help there. They often just want to throw tranks at it or something. And so it just, I mean, it just depends. There's so much, so many variables here. But I guess the best I can tell you is, man, she's lucky to have you as a dad. Trying to love her the best you can in a really messy situation.

• 49:35Dr. John Delony?

  Call anytime, brother. Call anytime. We'll be right back.

• 49:40Dr. John Delony?

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• 50:25Dr. John Delony?

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• 51:09Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we're back. We have the money and marriage question, a question that a real person left at our money and marriage, marriage retreat back in February. The question is, what can I do to help my spouse feel safe talking about sex and intimacy?

• 51:27Dr. John Delony?

  I've got a lot, I'd have a lot of follow-up questions here. The questions on the top of my head are, what is her history with talking about sex? Was it something you just did not talk about in her home? Only bad boys or girls talked about sex? Is, was he shamed for talking about sex or making a joke when he was a kid? Just what was the, what was the atmosphere this person, I don't know if this is male or female, grew up with? That's number one. Number two, is there a sense of...

• 52:02Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not good at sex. You've had so much more experience than I have. If there's some, some level of, I feel inadequate, or I don't even know what I'm talking about. And this often happens when one partner's experienced in sex and one's not. Um, and someone just feels dumb. And so I just don't want to say anything. None of us want to feel dumb. And so I just want to talk about it. Um, the, what can I do? What I have found, and this reason I made these cards, um, is I made an intimacy deck, and it's not a sex deck. There's questions about sex in it, but there's broader questions about it too. Um, is to get something like Questions for Humans,

• 52:41Dr. John Delony?

  something like, um, some sort of external, um, uh, questioned card game, some sort of, um, here's 20 questions, here's whatever, that allows the question, the card becomes the awkward thing. The card becomes, like, you didn't ask the question, the card did, and it allows us to move over the shame or the blame and be like, oh, my gosh, I can't believe that card asked that. Here's the answer, right? And it just, it frees you. And that's, I mean, that is the reason I made those cards, is to help facilitate conversations and take

• 53:20Dr. John Delony?

  some of the pressure off. Um, I guess the last thing I would say is a modified Deloney erotic envelope system, which by the way, that doesn't exist. I just made that up. When couples are talking about how do we begin practicing desire or reestablish, we got two kids and we're thinking about a third, but we're bored with our sex life, or we don't even have sex anymore, or we have sex every once in a while, just survival sex, but we don't have any intimacy in our house. We don't have any, like, any arrows or any play or any, like, any of that kind of stuff. Um, just getting an envelope and... One partner writes down 10 things they want to try. It could be a position. It could be a conversation. It could just be anything. And the other partner writes down 10. And then, once a week, once a month, whenever,

• 54:04Dr. John Delony?

  you just put on the calendar and you draw one. And you've just got to commit to either A, trying it out, giving it a shot. And you're leading with laughter. You're leading with curiosity. You're leading with, I don't even know how this is physically possible. But, or you're leading with, alright, this doesn't even sound appealing. Tell me about why this feels appealing. Or why this sounds appealing. It just becomes a way to, again, to go, I don't know, it's in the envelope. And it just adds a little bit of diversion away from the intensity of saying, I really want to try X, Y, and Z. It's just easier to read it off a card sometimes. But, a modified version of that would be, put in 10 questions you have about sex and intimacy. Put 10 questions you have. And we're not going to actually do the thing.

• 54:47Dr. John Delony?

  We're just going to draw it out and talk about it over dinner somewhere. And for some people, this is just such a sensitive topic. And millions and millions and millions of newlyweds, young married couples, people who've been married for 20 years. There's so much shame associated with sex, so much shame with even talking about it, even discussing it, even having questions about it, that having some sort of environment where it's okay to talk about it, this is hard, man. So, having some sort of envelope game, card game. And again, all we're trying to do is divert the gaze just a little bit and make it the card's fault. Make it the envelope's question, not your question, right? Even if you know, I know you wrote that. It still, it just has a little bit of a numbing effect.

• 55:32Dr. John Delony?

  It just sands off the rough edges a little bit. And then, I guess the final, final, final thing I would say

• 55:41Dr. John Delony?

  is if you are, someone might not feel safe talking about sex and intimacy. If you have, as their partner, have made it not safe. If you make fun of them. If you mock them for what they do or don't know for their overexperience or lack of experience. If you force yourself on them or you make demands of them that they're uncomfortable with. That can just cloud the entire conversation around being erotic, around sex, around intimacy, around all that stuff. So...

• 56:16Dr. John Delony?

  Look in the mirror and say, "Am I contributing to this? Am I making it awkward? Am I throwing all this stuff at my partner that they can't hold right now?" And ask yourself that conversation too. But that's a few of my ideas on what you can do to help your spouse feel a little bit more safe talking about sex and intimacy. That's a tough one, man. Or woman. I don't even know who asked this question, but I will say this. If you can, if y'all can come up with a way that you can talk about it, laugh about it, explore it, be curious about it, man, it makes for one adventurous, playful, fun, safe marriage. Thanks for the question. Love you guys. Stay out of trouble. Bye.