Pod Insights The Dr. John Delony Show Can Our Marriage Survive My Husband’s Porn Addiction? About this episode 🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage. Download the Together app.
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A man wondering what to do after his wife’s affair
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Transcript 11,021 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:05 Dr. John Delony? This is an ad for BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and the stress you keep pushing down is showing up in your relationships and your health. If you need to talk to a licensed therapist, make today the day. Go to betterhelp.com/daloni for 10% off.
0:19 Speaker 01 On our anniversary this last year, he confessed that he has been dealing with a porn addiction, essentially over the course of our entire marriage.
0:29 Dr. John Delony? Where does he get the word "addiction" from? I hear that word thrown around a lot.
0:34 Speaker 01 I didn't really ask a whole lot of questions.
0:43 Dr. John Delony? What up? What up? What up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, comedy live from Nashville, Tennessee, taking calls from real people going through real struggles. I've been out on the road getting to meet some of you all. We did a Ramsey show live in...where were we? I was in Denver. I don't even know. I was like in four states in three days or something. Denver, speaking in California. I love being out on the road and seeing you all. And it's so great to meet you all, shake your hands, and the work y'all are doing in your homes and in your lives is so amazing. So, thank y'all for coming out to live events. Thank you for coming to the comedy shows. Thank you for staying after and telling me about all the amazing changes you're making in your lives. It's so encouraging and exciting.
1:24 Dr. John Delony? I'm proud of you to know...I'm proud to know there are real people out there making changes because at the end of the day, we can't rely on any of the madness, any of the people like elected...like, it's the changes in our society are going to come from us, in our homes and in our own neighborhoods. So, just thank y'all so much for showing up time and time again. Let's go out to...oh, let's stay here. We're not going to go anywhere. We're going to stay right here in Nashville, Tennessee and talk to Teresa. Hey Teresa, what's up?
1:52 Speaker 01 Hi, good morning.
1:54 Dr. John Delony? Good morning.
1:55 Speaker 01 Wow, suddenly so nervous.
1:56 Dr. John Delony? (laughing).
1:58 Speaker 01 I know everyone says that, but gosh.
1:59 Dr. John Delony? No, it's all good. I'm, I'm, I've got this, this Tennessee, uh, allergies, man. And I don't usually get allergies. I'm getting crushed, so, uh, we're all good.
2:10 Speaker 01 It's horrific this year.
2:11 Dr. John Delony? We're all good together. What's up?
2:13 Speaker 01 Um, okay, so, my question is, um, I guess, a little bit of backstory. Um, so, my husband and I have been married for six years. Lots of crazy stuff has happened over those six years. Um, and on our anniversary this last year, we were just talking through some things. Um, basically, like, how can we make our marriage better? Like, who do we want to be going forward? All that kind of good stuff. Um, and at that time, he confessed that he has been dealing with a porn addiction, um, essentially, over the course of our entire marriage.
2:47 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
2:48 Speaker 01 Um, and that, uh, obviously, was, like, pretty hard to hear. Um, and I realized that I don't have any tools for dealing with something like that. I don't know how to move forward and actually build trust back with him, and trust that he's taking care of what he needs to take care of, because, like, he hasn't changed anything from what I can see, if that makes sense.
3:16 Dr. John Delony? Hmm.
3:16 Speaker 01 Um, and, uh, his reasoning is that, basically, now that he's told me, and now that it's out in the open, that's going to be enough for him to, um, basically, just kick it forever. And I don't really believe that, and it's really hard for me to, kind of, just move forward and just trust, like I said, that, just trust him.
3:42 Dr. John Delony? Sure.
3:43 Speaker 01 I just have such, um, and, oh, go ahead.
3:47 Dr. John Delony? Where does he get the word "addiction" from? I hear that word thrown around a lot.
3:53 Speaker 01 I didn't really ask a whole lot of questions. I think just the fact that he just kept going back to it. And, um, and a big part, so like we are Christians. So it's like, you know, a big discrepancy in our faith for him to be doing that.
4:11 Dr. John Delony? Well, and I've got, I've got a load of friends who are not Christians, who recognize pornography is not, it's destructive in their marriages too. Right. So, I mean, it's, I, I honor that it's part of your faith too, but it's just not good, period. Right?
4:24 Speaker 01 Right.
4:24 Dr. John Delony? How, how did you, um,
4:30 Dr. John Delony? how did you respond?
4:33 Speaker 01 Um, I said, thank you for telling me that. Um, I, so I do, um, I personally have dealt with similar struggles. When I was a teenager, I was exposed relatively early.
4:50 Speaker 01 And I know that it's not something that he did. It's not something he's doing to hurt me. It's, you know, it's a bad habit that he's built up over the years. It's a stressing, like a stress coping. Um, and, and I know those things in my brain. I did ask him to make a few changes that I would be able to see and like, that would help me be able to like, see his physical like commitment.
5:21 Dr. John Delony? Like what?
5:22 Speaker 01 Unfortunately, um, so I wanted him to start spending more time with physical friends. Uh, he has a lot of friends that he games with and talks with, uh, virtually, but he does not have a community close to him.
5:41 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
5:42 Speaker 01 And
5:43 Dr. John Delony? Let's go, let's go one step further. I mean, one step, um, not further. Let's go one step, um, much more simple. Okay.
5:54 Dr. John Delony? Cause you went right to some really core issues.
5:58 Dr. John Delony? And I want to go like to some more immediate solutions. Like, I want you off the screens.
6:06 Dr. John Delony? I want us to invest in a filter for our home.
6:11 Speaker 01 Okay.
6:12 Dr. John Delony? Right, like I-
6:12 Speaker 01 I did talk to him about that.
6:14 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
6:16 Speaker 01 And so part of the issue is that he, the screen is just part of his work. He's an IT guy. So there's that. We did remove the screen time from our home. We've not got a filter set up. I guess that's part of something that I'm struggling with is that like, I just kind of have to trust him to do all of that because he's the one that handles all of the, all of the digital stuff in our home.
6:42 Dr. John Delony? Well, yes, and so what, the question you asked me originally is how do I trust him again? How do we rebuild trust?
6:52 Speaker 01 Yeah.
6:53 Dr. John Delony? And part of rebuilding trust is going to be you knowing, learning what you don't know.
7:00 Speaker 01 Okay.
7:01 Dr. John Delony? And part of rebuilding trust is not a big cathartic moment like, hey, I've been struggling with this thing that I don't want to be a part of, right?
7:10 Dr. John Delony? And then just moving on and not saying anything. And so having regular check-ins. Where are we on this?
7:18 Speaker 01 Okay.
7:19 Dr. John Delony? You being clear about what does re-establishing trust look like?
7:23 Speaker 01 Okay.
7:24 Dr. John Delony? What must be true? What do I want to have in place so that I feel comfortable? And yes, there is a part where like he works in IT, he lives on a computer screen there from eight to five, right? That's his job. Does he work from home too?
7:39 Speaker 01 Yes.
7:40 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
7:40 Speaker 01 At times.
7:41 Dr. John Delony? So it's being honest about these things and, and not being afraid of going back and having one conversation. And I mean, never having another conversation about it because the trust you're looking for is can we continue to have open dialogue about this stuff? If I tell you I'm uncomfortable, am I not safe in a physical sense, right? But am I safe enough to put something on the table and he's not going to throw a temper tantrum? He's not going to be like, dude, I'm taking care of you. He's going to honor the fact I violated our trust.
8:09 Speaker 01 Right.
8:10 Dr. John Delony? I lied to you for six years.
8:11 Speaker 01 Right.
8:12 Dr. John Delony? And so that, that's the level of trust we're looking at, not, not just is he not looking at X, Y, or Z on the computer?
8:20 Speaker 01 Right.
8:21 Dr. John Delony? It's, can I tell you that I'm sensing distance in you again? I am starting to notice you're flipping the laptop screen down or flipping your phone over more now. Do you all have the ability to have those kind of conversations, or does he shut you down?
8:37 Speaker 01 Um, he's actually, like, we have really open communication. Um, sometimes he's a little more open than I would like, honestly.
8:44 Dr. John Delony? What does that mean?
8:45 Speaker 01 But, um, well, he, now that it's out in the open, he doesn't have anything to hide. So, um, basically anytime he ends up looking at it, then he comes to me and tells me about it.
9:00 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
9:02 Speaker 01 Which is a very, I, I don't like that at all.
9:04 Dr. John Delony? No, he's just rubbing your nose in it.
9:07 Speaker 01 Yeah, that's what it feels like to me. And I'm noticing that, um, like, I don't want to talk to him about things that are bothering me because I'm waiting for him to kind of, uh,
9:22 Speaker 01 follow up on the things that we talked about before. Like I said, like, I did lay out, like, hey, these are some things that I would really like you to do. Like, it would make me feel safe for you to, uh, do X, Y, Z, you know? Um, and he just is still not doing them. So I don't want to keep adding things on to it because like I am feeling like...
9:45 Dr. John Delony? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, you put up a boundary. And by the way, boundaries are not ways to cut each other off. They're ways to make sure we stay in a relationship together.
9:56 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
9:56 Dr. John Delony? And he tested those and they didn't hold.
10:01 Speaker 01 Okay.
10:01 Dr. John Delony? They weren't real.
10:04 Speaker 01 Okay.
10:04 Dr. John Delony? And for some reason, and, and I'm sure there's, I mean, we could talk for probably hours, but you're more worried about making sure he's not bothered than you are worried about...
10:17 Dr. John Delony? How unsafe you feel in a marriage that you don't trust your spouse.
10:24 Speaker 01 I just don't want him to go back to shutting down because that's kind of been our pattern in the past is that when, when he is overwhelmed and stressed out and we are in a very stressful season, like we just moved, we have a toddler, like it's crazy, right?
10:44 Speaker 01 And I, I kind of feel like what's happening is like, I feel like the warden or something. Like, I feel like I am just constantly having to stay on top of him and I want us to be able to work together towards, um, just, I, I, I'm not going to say like fixing him, but like helping him get to the root of like what's going on so that he is, he's just like healthy and whole and not like, not in a, like, I know he was miserable for a long, long time and I don't want him to go back to that, which, and I don't have very good tools for approaching that because then what happens with me is then I get frustrated because I feel like,
11:29 Speaker 01 I feel like I've been very clear about, hey, these are some things that are important to me and I'd like you to do them and you say that you love me, so why are we not moving in that direction? Like, I want to be able to support him to be successful.
11:44 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, and man, this is the hardest thing I can, I, almost the hardest thing I ever tell somebody.
11:51 Dr. John Delony? You can't control him.
11:54 Dr. John Delony? And, and, and you're desperately trying to. And if you've listened to my show more than one call, you know, I say this with freak, with great frequency, behavior is a language. And he's telling you through his actions, I don't care what you think makes you safe.
12:13 Dr. John Delony? I don't care what you think would reconnect us. I'm not really interested in building a new marriage. I was interested in not feeling guilty, so I took all the bricks out of my backpack and dumped them on you.
12:25 Dr. John Delony? Right? And that, that's the depth. And unless you own that, you're gonna run around playing whack-a-mole with his feelings and your feelings, and you're gonna get burned out and overwhelmed and exhausted. And then, like you mentioned, it comes out and like it all gets bottled up and bottled up like shaking a two-liter bottle. You blow up on him, and then he goes, "See, I told you." And then he shuts down and goes to shame spiral, and where does he go? Right back to porn. Like, you see how this stuff just loops?
12:54 Speaker 01 Yeah.
12:55 Dr. John Delony? Yeah. And so it's you being able to say, "I can't control him. But as for me, here's what's gonna be true." And I totally get you wanna be the warden. So I would put down the warden hat, the keys, the baton, all that stuff. And ask yourself, "What am I going to do?"
13:21 Speaker 01 Okay.
13:21 Dr. John Delony? Okay? And that might be you looking at him and saying, "I don't ever wanna hear about this. Like, it's not okay for you to come just dump this on me. Because you're not doing the work that you said you were gonna do."
13:37 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
13:37 Dr. John Delony? Right? But this is you using I-statements. "I said these things. I told you it would make me feel safe. You've said through word and action, 'I don't care how you feel.'" And the story I'm making up about this is, you don't care about me at all. You care about yourself. You care about not feeling bad. You don't care about being whole. And here's, here's the thing that I'll be pissed off on your behalf, okay? You have felt his not being well for six years. And you have tried to take it on and solve it, right?
14:15 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:15 Dr. John Delony? You've tried to ask yourself, "What, like, what can I do in the bedroom to spice things up? What can I do out of the bedroom to spice things up? What can I do?" You've been trying for a long time, thinking you're the problem.
14:31 Dr. John Delony? And I'm mad for you.
14:34 Dr. John Delony? Because this is what dishonesty, this is what keeping secrets in a marriage does is the other spouse knows, you can feel your spouse isn't okay.
14:43 Speaker 01 Yeah.
14:44 Dr. John Delony? And so you go to try to solve it. And the worst feeling in the world is knowing I can only control me.
14:55 Speaker 01 Okay.
14:56 Dr. John Delony? You can only control you. And that's where a level of, you've heard me say this before, and it's really dramatic. Okay. But do you have an or what statement?
15:09 Dr. John Delony? What I mean by that is, is there, like, ask yourself, and do this by yourself, or do it with a counselor, but ask yourself, is there a point when I leave?
15:20 Dr. John Delony? And if not, I'm not gonna leave.
15:25 Dr. John Delony? Then I'm gonna stay, and so what must be true for me to stay here?
15:30 Dr. John Delony? You have kids?
15:32 Speaker 01 Yeah. Yeah, we got a two-year-old.
15:35 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
15:38 Dr. John Delony? And so have that conversation with yourself, and then be honest and be a person of, show up in your marriage who you want to be. I'm not gonna be afraid to say, I don't want this trash in my house. I'm not gonna be afraid to say, I'm not gonna be, I'm not, this isn't a jail, and I'm not the warden. I'm not gonna be afraid to, like, I see you, and I know you, and I celebrate you when I can, how do you want me to celebrate you? And I'm gonna challenge you, because I love you, and you're my spouse, you're my husband.
16:11 Speaker 01 Yeah.
16:11 Dr. John Delony? Right? And if you can't hear challenges, if you won't let me be known, and not known as in, huh, I screwed up again today, dump all the trash on the table.
16:24 Speaker 01 Right.
16:24 Dr. John Delony? Um, that's not, that's not being known. That's just rubbing your nose in it. I've seen it be really effective when people go first.
16:33 Speaker 01 Okay.
16:34 Dr. John Delony? I have handled all of this chaos by being demanding, by being mean, by trying to grab hold of everything I could grab hold of and try to be a perfectionist. I'm just putting words out there. I don't know what's actually true in your home, but, but, but.
16:48 Speaker 01 All of that.
16:48 Dr. John Delony? All, okay. So, own. I've, I, I closed, I put one of those little plastic things that you get at Lowe's or Home Depot. I, I, I put one of the plastic things in the plug.
17:00 Dr. John Delony? And then I've kind of gotten on to you for not connecting with me.
17:05 Speaker 01 Gotcha.
17:06 Dr. John Delony? Okay. So, go first. And then say, and you came to me with this big challenge. One of the ways you're dealing with stress, I'm dealing with stress is trying to be perfect and I'm blaming you for everything that's not perfect. And you've tried to seek some sort of off-ramp with pornography. Both of us have to clear the deck here.
17:25 Speaker 01 Mm-hmm.
17:26 Dr. John Delony? And by the way,
17:29 Dr. John Delony? yes, there's a context. Yes, I understand why he uses pornography just as a way to, like, anti, like, stress, right? Like, it's an easy out, right?
17:39 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:40 Dr. John Delony? But every time he clicks on a site, he's making a choice. So, it's both in.
17:43 Speaker 01 Right.
17:44 Dr. John Delony? One of the biggest challenges I see with miscarriages and couples, and I experienced this in my own house, is people grieve differently.
17:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
17:51 Dr. John Delony? And they grieve at different paces and in different ways. And then we get mad at the person for not grieving how we grieved. And one person usually grieves really big and one person just shuts up.
18:03 Speaker 01 Yeah.
18:03 Dr. John Delony? Okay?
18:06 Dr. John Delony? This is the level of depth. And then moving forward, saying, how can I love you well? And him saying, how can I love you well?
18:15 Speaker 01 Okay.
18:15 Dr. John Delony? And you being really open and clear about what that means.
18:20 Speaker 01 Okay.
18:22 Dr. John Delony? Okay?
18:24 Dr. John Delony? But if you're walking around your house with your head down, like you've messed this thing up. And you're also walking around your house with,
18:33 Dr. John Delony? I don't want this, I don't want pornography in my house. I don't want my husband using this as a default coping mechanism. And he's saying, I need some help. And also, he doesn't feel safe telling you. Like, it just becomes this big dance. And somebody has to say, I'm through dancing. I'm gonna go first. I've contributed this, and I'm sorry. I wanna, I wanna be different. How do we want this house to feel when we walk in every day? If behavior is a language, you said the words, I feel, I feel, I feel a lot. Cool, have those feelings. And then, what's the next right thing to do? I'm gonna act differently. What does that look like? Is that, I'm gonna hug you right when I walk in the door? When I walk in the door, I want you to close all the screens.
19:16 Dr. John Delony? And I want us to have a 60-second hug and then go for a 10-minute walk. And I know we have a two-year-old. Two-year-old can come with us.
19:23 Dr. John Delony? And those are very basic things, but they're just tiny little bids for connection back to each other. Hang on the line here. I'm also gonna send you the Together app for a year for free. We'll get you and your, and your husband hooked up with it. And it will give you a couple, it will give you a daily strategy for coming back together. It's not gonna solve this issue that y'all have, because y'all have really disconnected yourselves from one another. And if he wants to get serious about getting help, here in Nashville, man, there's some of the best SA programs in the country, where you can go meet with some folks. But he's gonna have to decide he wants to do that. And you can't make him do that. But what you can say is, as for me and my house, here's my or what line. And so, that's a lot. But y'all are worth that investment and that time. And if he wants to call me for some strategies, for some tips, whatever, I would love to talk to him. It'd be great.
20:08 Dr. John Delony? But we're looking for, how can we reconnect? How can we breathe life back into ourselves and in our marriage? How can we both be well, so that we can get in this little secret world that we're gonna create called marriage, and do this amazing? And see, and know, and celebrate, and challenge each other over and over again?
20:28 Dr. John Delony? Let's go to that depth. Thanks for the call, sister. I'm really, really grateful. When we come back, a man asks, should he stay in his marriage after his wife got pregnant with an affair partner? Yikes.
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23:03 Dr. John Delony? All right, let's go through Toronto, Ontario and talk to Jeff with a J, thank God. What's up Jeff?
23:11 Speaker 02 How's it going, Dr. John?
23:12 Dr. John Delony? I'm good, my brother. What's up with you?
23:15 Speaker 02 Oh, just a little nervous. I'm thankful for you taking my call. So I guess I'll get right to my question.
23:25 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, let it rip.
23:27 Speaker 02 Should I stay with my wife after she had a one-night-stand and got pregnant?
23:33 Dr. John Delony? Oh.
23:33 Speaker 02 Can we rebuild our marriage?
23:36 Dr. John Delony? Tell me about it. What happened?
23:38 Speaker 02 Um, well, I'll give you a bit of background on us. We've been together almost 20 years, married just about 18. We have a 17-year-old and a six-year-old. When she was a teenager, she has PCOS, so she was told that she would probably have difficulty having children. So we weren't very careful in the beginning. And our son was surprised, but a very good surprise.
24:08 Dr. John Delony? Right out of the gate, huh?
24:10 Speaker 02 Yeah, yeah. So we were engaged when we found out that we were pregnant. And then we tried for many years with no success. And then we ended up going through fertility treatments and doing IUI to have our six-year-old. And then when she was about a year and a half, I got a vasectomy, did everything that the doctor said, went back, got tested. He said I'm in the clear. Fast forward to...
24:46 Speaker 02 Christmas Day this year, um, my wife had some kidney pains, so we took her into the emergency room and that was when we both found out that she was pregnant.
24:57 Dr. John Delony? Oh, man. So, geez, I, I can't even wrap my head around that.
25:04 Speaker 02 It was, it was something.
25:06 Dr. John Delony? Out of body experience.
25:09 Speaker 02 At first, my first thought was where are we going to put another child? We only have a three bedroom house and then I sat there staring at the clock for a couple of minutes and then I went, wait, I had a vasectomy.
25:23 Dr. John Delony? I'm laughing with you, not at you. I, I would have done the exact same thing, gone right into problem solving mode and then been like, wait a minute.
25:32 Speaker 02 Right.
25:32 Dr. John Delony? Um, so how have the, how have the conversations been since? Does she admit to having an affair?
25:40 Speaker 02 She did. She admitted it at the hospital. She said there was one time about a month and a half before that.
25:47 Dr. John Delony? Do you believe that story?
25:51 Dr. John Delony? On the, on the roulette wheel of statistical probability?
25:56 Speaker 02 Uh huh.
25:57 Dr. John Delony? That's, I mean, that's, you're talking about like throwing a dart across a football field, blindfolded and having it hit the bullseye, right?
26:06 Speaker 02 And they used protection, apparently.
26:09 Dr. John Delony? Just probably a hundred percent they didn't, right? Like, yeah, probably.
26:13 Speaker 02 That's what I, I was told, but anyways, um, she, I do believe that it was a one time thing. She has sworn on our children that it was.
26:23 Dr. John Delony? Has she shown you all the text messages and all the?
26:27 Speaker 02 No, she got rid of all of that. She.
26:32 Dr. John Delony? So one of, one of my core things is I don't believe people who aren't believable.
26:37 Speaker 02 Right.
26:38 Dr. John Delony? If somebody violates trust in such a significant, powerful way, and I'll even go one step further, embarrasses you in a public way like this. Right? There's a room full of nurses and doctors when you find this out and y'all make eye contact and she knows that you know, and you know that she knows that you know.
26:59 Dr. John Delony? Right? Like, that, that's a level of trust violation that's hard to even metabolize. It's hard to wrap your head around it.
27:05 Speaker 02 It is.
27:06 Dr. John Delony? And so the next thing is, no, I promise, I promise. I don't care. I want to see it.
27:12 Speaker 02 Right.
27:13 Dr. John Delony? And then if her first move is to delete everything, then again, you get what I'm saying?
27:20 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm, I do.
27:21 Dr. John Delony? Yeah. So is, is she keeping this baby?
27:26 Speaker 02 Well, that's another point of contention, I guess. I, I assumed in the beginning that she would terminate the pregnancy so that we could continue with our marriage. Um, but her, she was raised in the church. Her family is religious and she had some family members who have had difficulties getting pregnant and have had to adopt. So she said that she did not want to terminate the pregnancy, but that adoption was on the table. Um, and I said that I was perfectly
28:06 Speaker 02 fine with that. Um, but we're at 23, 24 weeks now and there haven't been any adoption agencies contacted. Um, so I, I just don't know whether she can actually go through with it. And if she does, will there be too much resentment that we can move forward happily?
28:35 Dr. John Delony? So it's easy in this moment, brother, to focus on the big thing.
28:40 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
28:40 Dr. John Delony? Right? The big affair.
28:42 Speaker 02 Right.
28:43 Dr. John Delony? Um, if somebody comes and says, hey, can me and my wife, can me and my husband rebuild our marriage after an affair? My answer is 100% of the time, yes, you can.
28:54 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
28:55 Dr. John Delony? You're not just dealing with an affair.
28:58 Speaker 02 Right.
28:58 Dr. John Delony? You're not just dealing with a kid as a result of an affair.
29:03 Dr. John Delony? You're dealing with somebody who refuses to not be honest with you.
29:08 Dr. John Delony? And you cannot, under any circumstances, rebuild anything on a foundation that does not include 100% safety and trust.
29:18 Speaker 02 Right.
29:19 Dr. John Delony? And so what you have is a wife who wants to have all of it. She wants to keep her 20 year marriage to a safe, trustworthy guy.
29:30 Dr. John Delony? She wants to make up whatever stories she wants to make up. She wants to sleep with whoever she wants to sleep with. She wants to have a kid and I honor her fact, her keeping the, keeping the pregnancy. I like that. It's the choice I would have made. And, but it's not, it's not my choice to make, but I'm glad she's making that choice. But I think you know in your heart of hearts that she's never gonna get that baby up for adoption. And here's the, the harrowing thing. I just told the last caller this, I'll tell you this. You can't do anything other than control you.
30:05 Speaker 02 Right.
30:05 Dr. John Delony? And so the question you have to ask is not, what is she doing? What's she gonna do? Why is she gonna do it? The question you have to ask yourself is,
30:14 Dr. John Delony? am I gonna stay in this marriage? And if I am, here's what must be true.
30:19 Speaker 02 Okay.
30:19 Dr. John Delony? And then she gets to decide whether she does that or not.
30:22 Speaker 02 Right.
30:23 Dr. John Delony? This is the good old fashioned, not by your hand, but in your lap. I didn't want this. I didn't plan this, but boom, this tornado just knocked, it just hit down in the middle of my house and I have a choice to make now.
30:35 Dr. John Delony? Am I gonna take the insurance check and walk away? Or am I gonna rebuild this thing?
30:42 Speaker 02 Right.
30:43 Dr. John Delony? My concerns for you is there doesn't appear to be transparency and honesty. Like, like
30:50 Speaker 02 I, I wonder about that.
30:52 Dr. John Delony? I don't, but I don't think you do. I think you know, brother.
30:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
30:55 Dr. John Delony? My fear is for you, if you actually like inhaled fully the amount of dishonesty that's been in your life the last few years, it would, it would suffocate you.
31:06 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:08 Dr. John Delony? And these rarely happen in a vacuum. Where are other places she's not honest with you?
31:15 Dr. John Delony? I'm thinking of time, I'm thinking of finances, I'm thinking of where were you last night? Oh, I was with so and so like, is it one of those things where like, it's kind of like watching The Usual Suspects when suddenly you look backwards after the end of the movie?
31:28 Speaker 02 Right, right.
31:29 Dr. John Delony? And you're like, oh, my gosh, I see it everywhere?
31:31 Speaker 02 Yeah, no, she, uh, she's at home most of the time when she's not working.
31:38 Dr. John Delony? How do you know?
31:41 Speaker 02 Well, when I'm home, she's home. I guess through the day when I'm at work, I don't know 100%.
31:50 Speaker 02 Financially, I take care of everything, so there's not really any secrecy to be had there.
31:59 Dr. John Delony? Do you know that for sure?
32:03 Speaker 02 I guess not 100%, no?
32:06 Dr. John Delony? I wouldn't have a job if there wasn't a lot of people with secret credit cards and secret loans and secret bank accounts.
32:13 Speaker 02 Right.
32:15 Dr. John Delony? And that's usually how folks find out about affairs is they find text messages and they go get information, they go get data and there's hotel stays, there's restaurants, there's all sorts of expenses from this other account I didn't even know existed.
32:28 Dr. John Delony? And that's like when somebody has an affair, one of the first things I tell them to do is pull the bank records and pull each other's credit report.
32:35 Speaker 02 Right.
32:35 Dr. John Delony? I want to see what else is out, I want to see what else is out there.
32:38 Speaker 02 Okay.
32:39 Dr. John Delony? And at least in this case, the first thing your wife did is went and deleted everything.
32:44 Speaker 02 Mm hmm. Well, I don't know if she deleted it right away. Um, she kind of had a falling out with the father. They were kind of talking in the beginning just about what was going to happen with the baby and then he made a ridiculous request and she told him that she never wanted to talk to him again and deleted his number and all that, but it was...
33:10 Dr. John Delony? So brother, just as a guy who's done this a long time, that's not passing my smell test?
33:16 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:17 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
33:21 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
33:21 Speaker 02 Okay. Yeah.
33:25 Dr. John Delony? So I can't, I can't own for you whether you should, should or shouldn't stay.
33:29 Speaker 02 Right.
33:29 Dr. John Delony? That's a call you gotta make.
33:32 Dr. John Delony? Um, do you want to have a 17 or 18 year old, a six year old and a newborn? You get to decide that. Do you want to?
33:39 Speaker 02 Not at 50 years old, I don't.
33:41 Dr. John Delony? Okay. If that's the case, then I would tell you don't belabor the point. And also know this, splitting things up at 50. I don't know what the laws are in Toronto, but splitting your assets up, having to sell your house and move, getting to see your six year old once every other week or whatever. I don't know what that looks like either.
34:01 Speaker 02 Right.
34:02 Dr. John Delony? I, and, and again, a bomb has gone off in your life.
34:06 Speaker 02 Yes, it has.
34:07 Dr. John Delony? And you're like me, the first thing you want to do is look up to the clock and begin thinking, okay, how are we going to rearrange this room? I need you to fully digest everything you knew is over. And the question is, am I going to rebuild this thing? Or am I going to deal in the aftermath of walking away from this thing? But this thing as it was is over.
34:25 Speaker 02 I. Should I set a, a date that she needs to?
34:31 Dr. John Delony? Nope.
34:31 Speaker 02 Start the adoption process by, or?
34:35 Dr. John Delony? You, you decide.
34:36 Speaker 02 Officially separate?
34:37 Dr. John Delony? You decide what must be true for you.
34:38 Speaker 02 The best way?
34:40 Dr. John Delony? So have you?
34:40 Speaker 02 Handle that.
34:41 Dr. John Delony? Have you made it up in your mind? If she keeps this baby? You're gonna leave.
34:47 Speaker 02 We're starting to get down to the wire. As it is, we're over halfway.
34:52 Dr. John Delony? No, no, no, listen to me. If she says, looks at you across the table and says, I'm keeping this baby. Are you divorcing your wife?
34:59 Speaker 02 Yes.
34:59 Dr. John Delony? Okay. You need to tell her that, that clearly.
35:03 Speaker 02 And I have, and she keeps having this fantasy that she hopes it's mine and that we can keep it and raise it. And I said, it's, it's not mine, we know that.
35:18 Dr. John Delony? I don't think we know much of anything right now.
35:21 Speaker 02 No, true.
35:22 Dr. John Delony? Cause I gotta say, I mean, I gotta say, a one night stand with protection, probably statistically speaking, is about the same as if one of your guys made it through the gauntlet, the vasectomy gauntlet, right? Maybe.
35:33 Speaker 02 Right.
35:34 Dr. John Delony? Maybe you got a trooper in there that just like, made the long journey.
35:39 Speaker 02 You never know. I have offered to do a prenatal paternity test.
35:44 Dr. John Delony? Yep.
35:45 Speaker 02 To put her mind 100% at ease. And I brought that up three or four weeks ago and she's kind of dragged her feet on that.
35:52 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
35:53 Speaker 02 And she needs to find a private lab where she can have blood taken. And where we are locally, there isn't anything that we can find. So we just have to track that down. But she's dragging her feet on that.
36:08 Dr. John Delony? So.
36:09 Speaker 02 And I don't think it should be up to me to set that up.
36:12 Dr. John Delony? Well, that kind of attitude isn't helpful. What's, what's helpful here is you saying what you're gonna do next.
36:21 Speaker 02 Right, okay.
36:23 Dr. John Delony? And, and just being very clear.
36:25 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
36:26 Dr. John Delony? And I think a prenatal paternity test makes the most sense here.
36:33 Speaker 02 I think so.
36:34 Dr. John Delony? And again, the, this is gonna impact you in such a major way, emotionally, physically, financially. It's gonna, it's gonna devastate your life.
36:45 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
36:46 Dr. John Delony? Right? And so I would want to be a part of getting any and all information I could.
36:50 Speaker 02 Right.
36:51 Dr. John Delony? I know you're still hurt from the affair. I know that it's a big, all that. If you find out this baby is yours, what do you do next?
36:59 Speaker 02 Then we keep it and raise it.
37:01 Dr. John Delony? Okay. But you still have a marriage to rebuild.
37:04 Speaker 02 Yes.
37:04 Dr. John Delony? With somebody that you don't trust and has proven untrustworthy, right?
37:08 Speaker 02 Right, right.
37:09 Dr. John Delony? So if this baby happens to be yours, you're not in the clear all of a sudden.
37:15 Speaker 02 No, no.
37:16 Dr. John Delony? Right. But if you.
37:18 Speaker 02 We definitely have to rebuild that trust.
37:20 Dr. John Delony? Yes, from, from ground zero. And, and so I, I think it's you taking some time with a pen and a paper.
37:28 Dr. John Delony? What must be true here? What am I gonna do next? And then making sure she has that very clear.
37:33 Speaker 02 Okay.
37:33 Dr. John Delony? And yeah, probably dates would be helpful if that's what... Because I don't want you melting a seven and eight and nine month pregnant woman either, right?
37:43 Speaker 02 Right, yeah.
37:44 Dr. John Delony? And every day you see her and it becomes this under... Giving her clarity is kindness. Because she's still a pregnant woman, right? Forget the fact that she broke your heart. We're gonna always honor pregnant women, right? Always.
37:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, for sure.
37:56 Dr. John Delony? And so, here is as clear as I can be with you.
37:59 Speaker 02 Okay.
37:59 Dr. John Delony? And I'm gonna leave, you're welcome to stay here, you're not welcome to stay... Like, be as clear, right?
38:04 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
38:04 Dr. John Delony? So that she knows, "Man, I need to find a place to live." Or, "My husband's gonna be putting the house on the market and getting his own apartment." And, like, you get what I'm saying?
38:14 Speaker 02 Yep, yep.
38:15 Dr. John Delony? It's just you getting as clear as you can on some of these things. Man, what an absolute, total, total disaster mess. My gut tells me she wants you to see that baby and hopes she'll fall in love with that baby. And, in her mind, things can just go back to the way they were. And there's not going back to the way things were. There's building something new. And so, yeah, the most clarity and, like, if you're resolved on some issues, be really clear about those and then you can only start making your plans moving forward. And, again, treat everybody with dignity and respect and honor, even if they don't treat you with the same. At the end of the day, retribution gets... It just ends in ash.
38:57 Dr. John Delony? And, um, this... Your wife will continue to be the mother of two of your other kids. And so, we're gonna treat her with that level of dignity and respect, even if she's the one who pulled the grenade on your house. Man, I hate that you found yourself here, brother. Thanks for the call, man. Call anytime if I can help.
39:18 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, not a clear, easy path out of this one. It's a mess if you go right, and it's a mess if you go left, and it's a mess if you go straight ahead. So, blessings to you, brother. We come back, a woman asked how to know if she's ready to take out her breast implants. I seem like the logical guy to ask that question. We'll be right back.
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41:07 Dr. John Delony? Go get started being healthy. All right, Reno, Nevada, Reno 911. Let's talk to Ann. Hey, Ann, what's up?
41:16 Speaker 03 Hi, John. It's an honor and a privilege to speak with you today. Thanks for taking my call.
41:20 Dr. John Delony? It's an honor to talk to you. Thank you. What's up?
41:23 Speaker 03 So I've historically had a very demeaning and self-critical inner voice, and so I'm wondering, how do I know if I've truly silenced her with my self-improvement journey over the last two and a half years so that I can proceed with permanently removing my breast implants? Because I expect there will be aesthetic consequences from that that she would criticize.
41:44 Dr. John Delony? Ah. I... When did you get breast implants?
41:49 Speaker 03 So I got them at 22, right when I graduated college. So I only spent maybe 10 years of my adolescent and young adult life without them. And then I've spent 27 years with them. I'm 49 now.
42:02 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
42:03 Speaker 03 So as soon as I had a little bit of money graduating from college, that's when I did it.
42:08 Dr. John Delony? Yeah. Are you glad that you did it? Was it a good decision for you at 22?
42:13 Speaker 03 No, it solved the problem at 22. My inner voice was, as I said, very critical. I was relentlessly bullied in middle school and high school. Felt inadequate in intimate relationships. And rather than trying to solve the problem internally or feeling comfortable with myself, working on me, I turned to medications or alcohol or things to numb myself or my sense of inadequacies and silence that inner voice. And then as soon as I had money, I got them, solved that problem. I went ahead with my life. And looking back, I regret it. I certainly regret it for the physical consequences. They're painful.
42:57 Speaker 03 They impact my health journey. I don't think they're a good idea to have anymore. And I don't want to spend money on them anymore anyway. So I want them gone. I wish I had never gotten them. But the voice that I've quieted over the last couple of years doing all my self-improvement has really been quiet. She's been very quiet, but I don't think she's had much to criticize.
43:21 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
43:21 Speaker 03 So, um, yeah.
43:24 Dr. John Delony? What is, do you have any diagnostics?
43:26 Speaker 03 No, no.
43:28 Dr. John Delony? Okay. I have never seen somebody successfully outrun a critical inner voice.
43:34 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
43:37 Dr. John Delony? And so I've never seen anybody successfully bow to their inner voice. Or try to outwork their inner voice or try to prove their inner voice wrong.
43:51 Dr. John Delony? You get what I'm saying?
43:52 Speaker 03 Yeah.
43:53 Dr. John Delony? And so, the only way I've seen people overcome that inner voice, there's the CBT angle, which is to kind of go to war with it, to constantly write down what it's saying and challenge those things, is it true? And there's the ACT, the ACT. It's not called ACT, but that's just what I call it. Which is, hey, there's a table of voices in my life, and this voice is just gonna run their mouth all the time. And I just know that. Kind of like a boss that just kind of always has an opinion on everything. But they're otherwise, they're a good person, and they try to keep the business going, it's fine.
44:27 Dr. John Delony? But trying to move your life around to avoid that voice is, I've never seen that be successful. In fact, I've seen people like you say, "I got 20 years of regret."
44:40 Dr. John Delony? And so, if you have done really extensive work on yourself, trauma healing, taking care of being a good steward of your body, feeling good at, you say in your late 40s?
44:50 Speaker 03 I am 49.
44:52 Dr. John Delony? Okay, okay.
44:52 Speaker 03 I stopped drinking two and a half years ago.
44:54 Dr. John Delony? I'm so proud of you, dude.
44:56 Speaker 03 I've doubled down on gym, work, healthy food choices. I've strengthened my marriage. The voice that would criticize me, "Oh, you drank again, see what, you know, I shouldn't have done that. Don't let anyone know." You know, she's quiet because I don't drink anymore.
45:08 Dr. John Delony? Who is she? Who is she?
45:11 Speaker 03 She's me.
45:12 Dr. John Delony? She's not.
45:13 Speaker 03 I don't.
45:14 Dr. John Delony? She's not you.
45:14 Speaker 03 I don't, um...
45:15 Dr. John Delony? She's a conglomeration of voices you've heard over your life. Who is, who are they?
45:22 Speaker 03 I guess, possibly, um, my mother was critical of me needing to do the best, be the best, not stop the thing. Classically trained violinist, can't quit that. Um, has to go to an excellent college, can't stop that.
45:39 Dr. John Delony? Who told you you were beautiful when you were young?
45:42 Speaker 03 My father did.
45:44 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
45:44 Speaker 03 Um, and I didn't have boyfriends being critical growing up. They accepted me for the figure that I had, so they didn't criticize me. The, maybe the bullying was a little much as an adolescent.
45:57 Dr. John Delony? Who bullied you?
45:59 Speaker 03 The kids at school about, about my figure. So that specifically, um, the, so it seems like I would complain to you that my inner voice was loud about things that I, um, truly felt I wasn't doing right. I shouldn't have been drinking. I shouldn't have been neglecting my body. I shouldn't have been, um, critical of my marriage and not focusing on rebuilding with my husband after various things happened. So those things I've fixed in the last two and a half years. And so I'm just trying to, I, I do plan on removing my implants permanently and I know there will be a bit of aesthetic consequences to that, which I don't exactly expect will bother me.
46:42 Speaker 03 I'm, I don't have other plastic surgery. I'm not going to chase botox and fillers and things. That's not for me. So I'm okay to look a little bit different or age, that sort of thing. Um, so, so if the voice comes back, I just want to know how to help deal with her because that isn't a thing I can change. I, like I had changed the other things, like stopping drinking and taking better care of myself and healthier diet and, um, focusing on my marriage.
47:11 Dr. John Delony? All, all the things you're telling me, have you ever heard me, um, I've mentioned it several times over the years on the show about a conversation I had with Sal DiStefano? Have you ever, have you ever heard me talk about that?
47:24 Speaker 03 I don't recall the name.
47:25 Dr. John Delony? Okay, so he is a part of a group, Sal and Justin and Adam and Doug, a part of a group called Mind Pump and they're, they're, they're trainers out of San Jose, California that got so sick with the train, the, the workout training industry. They started a show, they're one of the first podcasts back in the day. And they're amazing husbands, dads, they're just good guys, but they're also really knowledgeable. And they've become friends of mine over the years. And I've had a personal conversation with Sal one time that literally before, I had a before and after, it changed my life. Okay? And I'll, I'll pass it along to you here. Um, I've had body dysmorphia issues my whole life. With like a wife who was like, what are you talking about?
48:10 Dr. John Delony? You're in your 40s and you have a six pack. Like, what are you talking about? I'm like, yeah, you don't understand, right? And that little voice never shut up. It never stopped. You shouldn't have eaten that. You should have worked out more. I can't believe you didn't do. Like, I could have an injury, right? And be like, well, I can't believe you wimped out, right? Like, these voices never stopped.
48:31 Dr. John Delony? And I was talking to Sal about it, and he said this. If you go to the gym every day because you think you're a piece of crap, because you think this is what you should do, this is what you have to do, this is what you get because you're overweight, you're not as healthy as you should have been, you ate this food last week, and you should have. He said 100% of the time, A, you'll quit, B, you'll ping pong back and forth, and C, those voices will never shut up.
48:57 Dr. John Delony? But if you go to the gym every morning because you believe in your guts that you're worth an hour of feeling great, that you want to be the best steward of your body so that you can be the best spouse you can be, be the best coworker, you can be the best neighbor, you can be a best parent. He said, dude, it's a posture of generosity, of stewardship. You'll do that for the rest of your life because it's awesome.
49:23 Dr. John Delony? And here's the thing that I want you to hear. The end result is, I'm still going to the gym. But the baggage I'm carrying with me into the gym is completely different.
49:35 Dr. John Delony? Now, I bust into the gym with a smile on my face because I get to.
49:40 Dr. John Delony? And if you fix your marriage, and if you, I don't even like using the word fix as though it's a broken car and we're just going to change the hoses and the oil and it's going to be fine. But if you decided, I'm going to reinvest in my marriage, and I get to choose whether this thing is awesome or it's crappy, yeah, I'm going to choose awesome. If you decided, like, man, I really want to be a good steward of my body.
50:02 Dr. John Delony? Those voices, they're still gonna be there, but they don't get a vote anymore. Because the vote that matters is you at the head of the table saying, "We get to do all this cool stuff."
50:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
50:13 Dr. John Delony? You get what I'm saying? So the actions then of themselves don't change as much. My fear is that you've done a ton of work.
50:21 Speaker 03 Yeah, I would, I'm sorry. I would say that the voice has quieted down because I did the work. I didn't do the work to quiet down the voice.
50:29 Dr. John Delony? Perfect, okay. Can I ask you-
50:31 Speaker 03 So I got function lab work. I got a whoop band.
50:33 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
50:34 Speaker 03 I focused on the metrics because I'm worth living. I want, I'm a bicentennial baby. I want to make it to 100 and they ask me, "What's my secret?" And to do that, I have to do the hard work. I'm worth it.
50:45 Dr. John Delony? I love it, okay.
50:45 Speaker 03 I raised a child who's in college now and I was hyper-focused on him and a husband who had an illness for a while and I didn't take care of me, but I'm worth it. I have a long day at work now and the last thing I want to do is go to the gym, but I know if I go, I will feel better and calmer and I'm worth that.
51:03 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
51:03 Speaker 03 So I leave, I don't make dinner for the boys if I can't and I just, I go do my thing because I have made the switch, I would say in the last two and a half years, to make myself my priority in all the things. And so the voice has quieted as a result of that.
51:21 Dr. John Delony? Okay, but-
51:21 Speaker 03 So I'm just hoping, yeah.
51:23 Dr. John Delony? I want you to take it one step further, okay? We do this stuff. We become the best version of ourselves so that, and this is controversial and this is, I think this is a curse of our age that you and I are, because I'm similar, I'm almost as old as you, okay? Similar age. We do all of this stuff not so we can become a lighthouse shining on a hill by ourselves. We do this, we become the best version of ourselves so that we can give ourselves fully away.
51:54 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
51:54 Dr. John Delony? Right? The best version of ourselves to our spouses, to our kids, to our neighbors, right? And so, we do this stuff, we go to the gym, we say no to things, we have friends, we go have a blast, we quit drinking, we do all this stuff, not in and of itself, but so that we can then reconnect all over the place as full, whole selves. And so here's a, here's a, um, uh, challenging exercise I want you to do with me real quick, okay? Close your eyes.
52:25 Dr. John Delony? And I want you to imagine you've gone back to the doctor after your surgery for the last time, and they've taken all the bandages off and you're healed. And I want you to have your eyes are closed, and you're not wearing a shirt, and you're standing in front of your husband, the man you've been with for two decades or more. What does his face say? Not his words, but what does his face say?
52:50 Speaker 03 His face says he loves me.
52:52 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
52:53 Speaker 03 He accepts me. And I can picture him sort of tilting his head like, I'm sorry that you're sorry, but I'm not sorry, and then I love you, and let's go for a walk, or plan a trip. Let's move on.
53:11 Dr. John Delony? That's pretty dismissive.
53:14 Speaker 03 Yeah, I brought this question to my husband because there's only a few people I would want their opinion on. And he initially said, well, I like the girls. I don't want you to get rid of them, but whatever you want to do, you do. I don't care. It's you. You do you. And when I asked one further time, he said, you can't ask me that because I can't give you my opinion. I don't want you to make any decision based on me. And so I thought, well, I really need a neutral party who's experienced in helping people make the next right choice for themselves.
53:52 Dr. John Delony? So I want you to circle back to him and tell him you don't get to cop out.
53:56 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
53:57 Dr. John Delony? Because, and I want you to be honest about what you want to hear or not hear, okay?
54:05 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
54:06 Dr. John Delony? Are you still going to think I'm beautiful? Are you still going to love me? Are you still going to want to sleep with me? Are you still going to be super excited to hold my hand out in public? Because those are the questions that have haunted you for years.
54:28 Dr. John Delony? Right?
54:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
54:31 Dr. John Delony? And I get the pickle he feels like he's in. Dude, I'm not, I don't, like, I, I, there's no way I could, of course, he's gonna say, "I love him," right? Of course, he's gonna say that, right? And you get to internalize that as, "Oh, that means he doesn't think I'm pretty unless," or you get to know, "He's my goofball husband," and of course, right? But the real questions that you want answered are.
54:52 Dr. John Delony? And that's why I don't ever believe in outsourcing beauty, right? Beauty comes from the inside out.
55:01 Dr. John Delony? But there is something about being married to somebody, looking across the room at them, and saying, "Is he gonna go, 'It's fine, put your shirt on, let's go out, let's go out and eat.'" Or he's gonna get that look, and you know the look I'm talking about, where he's like, "I don't care, this is happening right now." You get what I'm saying?
55:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
55:19 Dr. John Delony? And those are the questions I want you to ask him. Not that those things hinge on him, but I think those demons haunt you.
55:29 Dr. John Delony? Because I think you're worried that he's gonna wanna not look at you.
55:35 Dr. John Delony? Because you don't wanna look at you.
55:39 Speaker 03 Yeah.
55:44 Dr. John Delony? You get what I'm saying?
55:45 Speaker 03 Yeah, he's a difficult person to talk to, so I try to draw things out of him, and he, for whatever reason, has, and we've been together 25 years, and we've really focused back on each other in the last number of years. But I think that the outward things that troubled him, you know, or just choices I made, drinking bothered him.
56:07 Speaker 03 Lack of taking, being a good steward of my body, as you say, bothered him. Those, and bothered me. And so I've really made those a habit, and I've just reaped the benefits of that. And I believe myself to be a good employee, a good sister, a good friend, a good mother, a good wife. I'm very proud of myself, and I love me.
56:26 Dr. John Delony? Good.
56:27 Speaker 03 And...
56:27 Dr. John Delony? Will you let, will you let yourself be loved?
56:34 Speaker 03 That's been hard. I've always had trouble accepting help.
56:37 Dr. John Delony? I know. Everything you're telling me is you've gotten really, really good at performing on stage.
56:43 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'm a good performer.
56:46 Dr. John Delony? And there's something about seeing and knowing and celebrating. I say that all the time about your spouse, your partner, right? But there's an equally hard side to that, which is, do you let yourself be seen? Do you let yourself be known? Do you let yourself be celebrated? And if you've been married to somebody for 25 years and the answer is no to that, then he's wisely learned to put his head down.
57:07 Speaker 03 Yeah, I'd say maybe not. Nobody until this call knew that I had an inner voice that cursed at me and belittled me. Nobody knew that, so.
57:18 Dr. John Delony? So, you know what would be a blessing to him? And this is gonna sound nutty. A, you saying, "We've been working together for two and a half years to rebuild this thing, and it's pretty amazing." There's some inner stuff I want to share with you.
57:35 Dr. John Delony? Can I tell you some of the things that the inner voice stuff I have, that's been going on for a long time? And he'll probably say, "Yeah, I don't care. Go ahead." And I want you to write some of it down. You may blow his mind.
57:50 Dr. John Delony? And eventually you'll get to the questions of, "Here's the things that haunt me."
57:57 Dr. John Delony? "I'm afraid if you really see me, see me, see me, you're not gonna think I'm pretty. You're not gonna like me." "If you really knew these voices in my head, that alcohol quieted down,
58:11 Dr. John Delony? you're gonna think I'm crazy and not want to be around me."
58:16 Dr. John Delony? And if you've been critical of him for 25 years, you might have to say something like, "This is where you reach across the table and grab my hand. This is when you stand up and come around here and hug me." Right? Give him a path.
58:27 Speaker 03 He does need a path. I am working on that, trying to be... I not expect him to read my mind, which I learned from you. I figured it was like Frida Kahlo saying, "If I had to ask for it, I guess I didn't want it anyway."
58:38 Dr. John Delony? No, no, no, no.
58:39 Speaker 03 But, right, how wrong I was. So I'm working on that. So I'll continue that.
58:44 Dr. John Delony? So I think you getting to a place where you just say out loud what you just said to me, what you said to me is really powerful. "I love me now, and now I'm gonna road test that love by letting you see me and fully know me. And I'm gonna give you some clear things that you can do to celebrate me."
59:03 Dr. John Delony? And I want to practice being seen and known. Are you still gonna love me? Let him answer that. I'm not gonna answer that. No, no, no, I need you to answer that.
59:14 Speaker 03 I expect I'm gonna get the yes, of course. Of course, yes, of course I will, of course.
59:19 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
59:22 Dr. John Delony? There's something-
59:23 Speaker 03 I guess I don't know if I believe that.
59:24 Dr. John Delony? There you go.
59:27 Dr. John Delony? And if you have to, tell him, will you look me in the eye and hold my hand and say it?
59:32 Dr. John Delony? Okay. I want your body to have a lived experience of him staring into the depths of your spirit and saying,
59:43 Dr. John Delony? C cup, A cup, no cup, D cup, I love you, you're my wife.
59:50 Dr. John Delony? Scars, no scars, I love you, you're my wife.
59:56 Speaker 03 Yeah, I get it. My last comment would be that I, I hear from others that he tells them I'm more or less his ride or die, but he doesn't tell me that.
1:00:06 Dr. John Delony? Okay, and that's two, that's probably a learned experience.
1:00:10 Dr. John Delony? Either A, you can't hear it, and so he's learned to not say it. Or you dismiss him.
1:00:17 Dr. John Delony? Or he needs to roadmap. I need you to say to me that you love me.
1:00:26 Dr. John Delony? Okay?
1:00:31 Speaker 03 Well, good, this is some work for me to work on so that I can proceed with what I want to do for me.
1:00:37 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
1:00:37 Speaker 03 And my health and my future.
1:00:38 Dr. John Delony? I a hundred percent support your, um, I don't, I will never live in your skin. So it's easy for me to sit on the outside.
1:00:48 Dr. John Delony? I think you should do the next right thing for your health. So yes, take these implants out and go live your, continue living this healthy journey. But I want you to shift the focus from, I'm just living this journey so that I can be the best version of me with a period, to, I want to do this thing so I can be the best version of myself so that human beings were, are wired and designed and evolved to serve. And if you don't have the weight of other people's responsibilities on your shoulders, your body spins out. Okay?
1:01:23 Dr. John Delony? I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you.
1:01:25 Speaker 03 Thank you.
1:01:26 Dr. John Delony? Cool. You've done a ton of amazing work. And now it's time to share that work. Let yourself be seen and known fully.
1:01:36 Dr. John Delony? You're awesome, Han. It's cool. You're cool. We'll be right back.
1:01:41 Dr. John Delony? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and according to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than one in five US adults experiences mental illness every year. And this number does not include all the other millions of people who are struggling with mental and emotional challenges of all types. Nearly half of the folks experiencing mental illness never get any help. And listen, these aren't just statistics. These are our friends, our neighbors, our family members. These numbers are you and me. And we're living in this nonstop, noise-filled world full of screens and comparisons and constant notifications, and our bodies are always on high alert. We're all more connected than ever, yet we're more anxious, lonely, and overwhelmed.
1:02:25 Dr. John Delony? This stress shows up everywhere in our relationships and our health. Listen, we were never meant to carry all of this alone, and talking to someone can help. I recommend BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals and preferences. Their therapists are fully licensed in the United States, and they follow a strict code of conduct. You can message your therapist and schedule sessions right in the platform. If it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime at no additional cost. Talk to someone. Go to betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash deloney.
1:03:05 Dr. John Delony? All right, we're back. Kelly, I want to tell you something cool. Together app.
1:03:08 Speaker 04 I could use some cool news.
1:03:09 Dr. John Delony? You could use some cool news.
1:03:10 Speaker 04 Very much good.
1:03:11 Dr. John Delony? Together app, we now have an annual price that is...
1:03:16 Dr. John Delony? Significantly discounted if you buy it all at once and you get it for the whole year. And here's why I love that. I now started doing that. I only have a couple of apps that I pay for and I buy the year in and that way I've spent that money and I gotta use it. You know what I mean? Like it's, it's, I've kind of forced my hand there, but it's got a pretty significant discount. Can you look it up real quick and see what it is?
1:03:37 Speaker 04 I don't have to look it up because I know.
1:03:40 Dr. John Delony? Oh, of course you do.
1:03:40 Speaker 04 Yeah.
1:03:41 Dr. John Delony? Good job.
1:03:41 Speaker 04 So the monthly is $6.99.
1:03:43 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
1:03:43 Speaker 04 Equals up to a little over $83 a year.
1:03:46 Dr. John Delony? A year.
1:03:47 Speaker 04 If you do the yearly subscription, it is $49.99.
1:03:50 Dr. John Delony? What?
1:03:50 Speaker 04 Per year for both spouses.
1:03:53 Dr. John Delony? Good gosh, dude. I didn't know they made it that inexpensive.
1:04:00 Dr. John Delony? Real cool. Wish you'd told me that before. That's too low, man.
1:04:05 Speaker 04 No, it's a great deal and it's one time.
1:04:07 Dr. John Delony? It's for both of them.
1:04:08 Speaker 04 Yep, both spouses. And it's one time. And yeah, it's a big savings. So if you're doing, you know, if you're already doing it, just go back in and change your.
1:04:17 Dr. John Delony? If your marriage is not worth 50 bucks a year, God bless you. God bless you.
1:04:22 Speaker 04 Call into our show.
1:04:23 Dr. John Delony? Call, yeah. Call into the show. All right. Love you guys. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Be nice to each other. Bye.
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