How Do We Close Our Open Marriage?

On today’s episode, we hear about: A wife wanting to close her open marriage A mom wondering how to tell her daughter about a family secret A woman whose job gives her nightmares Next Steps: ❤️ Get away with your spouse today! 🔥 Reconnect every day. Download the Together app. 📞 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: Head to Beam and use code DELONY for an exclusive discount—because better sleep, energy and focus start tonight. Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Keep your home safe and under control. Go to Cove Smart and use code DELONY for up to 80% off your first order. Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Go to Dutch Pet and use code DELONY to get $50 off a year of vet care. Go love your pets! Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:05Speaker 00

  For the last 10 years of our marriage, we've been open or swinging. I've always had a, just kind of a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it was wrong. We're both born and grown Christians. We both grew up very conservative, met at Bible college.

• 0:17Dr. John Delony?

  Who brought it up?

• 0:19Speaker 00

  He brought it up, of course.

• 0:21Dr. John Delony?

  No way, really?

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, shocking.

• 0:30Dr. John Delony?

  Hello, everybody. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee. I'm a real person, not a robot. I'm a real person, talking to real people who are going through real challenges, whether with their relationships, their mental and emotional health, their kids, their marriages, dating, whatever they got going on in their life. They pull up a seat and we figure out what's the next right move. And that's what this show is about. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you. John Deloney, D E L O N Y. JohnDeloney.com/ask, A S K. Fill out the form and we will holler back or let you and get you on the show. And yes, I get DMs from all over the planet.

• 1:12Dr. John Delony?

  We do take calls from the UK, from Australia, from Canada, from all over the place, right? Wherever you're calling in from, we'll figure out a way to get you on and love to talk to you about what's going on in your life.

• 1:26Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's talk about your marriage. Right now, we have February and October weekends on sale for the Money in Marriage Getaway. It's the best marriage retreat on the planet. Tickets start at $749 a couple. Get yours at RamseySolutions.com/getaway.

• 1:46Dr. John Delony?

  Let's go to Baltimore, Maryland and talk to Catherine. Hey Catherine, what's going on?

• 1:51Speaker 00

  Oh, hi, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call.

• 1:53Dr. John Delony?

  Of course, what's going on?

• 1:56Speaker 00

  Uh, not much. I, I had a kind of a question that I wanted to bounce off of someone and um, I'm a big fan and I thought maybe you could give me some, some good advice.

• 2:07Dr. John Delony?

  I would love it. Let's go.

• 2:09Speaker 00

  Uh, so my husband and I have been married for 20 years. We've got four kids. We're very happily married. Um, and you know, have, you know, we've got issues, but nothing uh, earth shattering or out of the ordinary, I guess. Um, we do have, for the last 10 years of our marriage, we've been open or swinging.

• 2:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  And since that started, I've always had a, it was just kind of a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it was wrong.

• 2:37Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  And we're both born and again Christians. We both grew up very conservative, met at Bible college. We were virgins when we got married. So this is obviously a huge step, not in that lineup.

• 2:48Dr. John Delony?

  (laughing).

• 2:49Speaker 00

  For us, and it was.

• 2:50Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, we, we bit out of the norm.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Back then, it was a, a series of conversations over months and months and months, um, before we even got to the place where we were willing to even try something. So, um.

• 3:01Dr. John Delony?

  Who brought it up?

• 3:02Speaker 00

  It has, uh, he brought it up, of course.

• 3:04Dr. John Delony?

  No way, really?

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know, shocking. Um, he was, uh, he's a big researcher. He loves to read. He loves to study. He keeps a very, um, early study time, like he did in college. And so, he loves to read and loves to learn. And in his learning and reading, after we had kind of gotten out of a very strict legalistic conservative background, um, he was reading about how sex is maybe a little bit different in the Bible than what we were taught, which is basically, it's bad unless you're married and, and then that's basically the end of it. So, um, it, it took him on a really wild journey of studying just everywhere in the Bible that talked about sex. And he was like, I don't think sex is as cut and dry as we've

• 3:49Speaker 00

  been led to believe it is. So that led to a lot of questions on his part and maybe a pendulum swing to the other direction where he thought, um, was thinking that we could open our marriage as long as we were both consenting adults and there was no lying and everything was upfront. And I wasn't so excited about that. I, I definitely felt that I had everything I needed in the marriage and that I wasn't interested in exploring anything. Um, and he, basically over several months, kind of convinced me that maybe this was a good idea. And as the conversations continued, I realized two things. I think he was going to do something anyway and maybe, um, maybe he needed to, or, or

• 4:33Speaker 00

  felt like he needed to have some experiences outside of me that he was very curious about. Um, and he didn't want to do it without my knowledge or consent. So this was maybe a way to do that. I don't know. Um, it's, it's been very, uh, we've talked a lot about it in a lot of circles. Anyway.

• 4:51Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sure you have. By, by the way, I want to pause here. If he was on the phone, we'd be having a radically different conversation about.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm trying to give him very, a lot of, a lot of benefit of the doubt.

• 5:02Dr. John Delony?

  You, you are, you, I don't know whether you're delusional or you are, are honoring, right? I, I, I don't want to talk about somebody when they're not sitting here.

• 5:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm sure.

• 5:13Dr. John Delony?

  E- either way, awesome, cool, and we won't talk about, get into his.

• 5:16Speaker 00

  Well, let me stick with my own.

• 5:18Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. Awesome. His deconstruction.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Anyway, I, I was not convinced that it was a good idea.

• 5:23Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, but you went along with it.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  And eventually I, I decided to kind of go along with it and see what happened, basically.

• 5:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Hold on. When you say go, when you say go along with it.

• 5:32Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 5:33Dr. John Delony?

  Was that you finding people to be with too? Or is it letting him do his thing and still come home?

• 5:40Speaker 00

  So it was very much a two-way street. He did not want it to be one and not the other.

• 5:45Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 5:46Speaker 00

  Um, uh, he wanted, he actually said he kind of felt bad for me that I was his only experience, or that he was my only experience ever with anything in, in intimacy wise. And I, I told him I was just really happy with that and I, I wasn't really curious. And he was like, yeah, but I think you might be. I'm like, okay, yeah, maybe a little bit, but not enough to go do something about it. I was curious.

• 6:08Dr. John Delony?

  But, but for him, for, he wanted to go sleep with other people and for it to be okay for him, he needed you to sleep with other people so that he could sleep at night.

• 6:16Speaker 00

  I think so.

• 6:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  And we were, we were in a place in our marriage where he was traveling a lot for work every week. I was home alone with the kids. He would come home very sexually frustrated after being gone for so long. We would always fight, um, you know, because the tension was just ridiculous and.

• 6:33Dr. John Delony?

  And the solution was if we just both slept with other people, then that tension would be gone.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  It, it didn't start that way, but it ended up being that.

• 6:42Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 6:42Speaker 00

  And it actually, I think, really helped us a lot. And he didn't, he was very fair. He didn't want to be going out having fun without me having something at home. Um, so he worked very hard to make sure I was comfortable and like knew what was going on. He didn't sneak around. Um, our communication improved because we were talking a lot about sex and what we wanted and trying to be very honest with each other. Um, and in that honesty, I did realize that I was just having all this, these nagging feelings of doubt and guilt about all of this. And I brought that up to him and he, um, we talked, we've talked about it many times. And he was always kind of like, are you sure you're guilty? Because you seem like you have a lot of fun in the moment.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  I was like, I do have a lot of fun in the moment, but then I feel empty like trying to survive off Twinkies. Like it's just not fulfilling in the long run. It's fun, but it's not, it's not a need, I guess. It's just fun. And that's what it's become. And, um, just through my own personal study of scripture, I've just, I'm really at the point where I, I feel like it's wrong and I don't see it as being God's prescription for a healthy marriage. Um, and I want to be done like myself. And I think he would be honoring of that if I, when I bring it up to him, which I will be eventually, um, he'd honor me not, not participating. But of course I would prefer him not to participate either.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  And I think that is where I come up to a problem because all this time I've had this, this nagging feeling about it being wrong, but I've agreed to it anyway. So.

• 8:22Dr. John Delony?

  Let, let me ask you this.

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Why am I like standing up for it now, I guess?

• 8:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, gosh, um.

• 8:30Dr. John Delony?

  The gaslights are burning so brightly in your home.

• 8:35Dr. John Delony?

  It's blinding.

• 8:38Dr. John Delony?

  Um, and, and, and let me. Let's, let's take, let's take sleeping with other people off the table, right? Because consensual non-monogamy is this big thing and it's, people rationalize it in a million different ways and we're just two grownups and we can do whatever we want. All that stuff.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 8:56Dr. John Delony?

  Give me another example in your house. Where you feel strongly about a thing.

• 9:04Dr. John Delony?

  Raising kids, how you spend your money, going on vacation, dealing with in-laws, whatever. Where you have a very strong feeling about it. And he, because he's quote unquote, studying, or he is quote unquote, um, smarter than, or he's a great wordsmith. Has convinced you that the way you see this thing is inaccurate.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  Um, okay, uh, we've been going to a church our whole life and we've moved from church to church to church more times than I, I care to remember and usually because, um, something has been taught or handled in a way that he doesn't think is healthy, which I agree with, but I don't agree that it's a reason to leave. And so.

• 9:56Dr. John Delony?

  Give me something not faith related.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  What's that?

• 9:59Dr. John Delony?

  Give me something not faith related.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Okay, um, that's really hard to find, um.

• 10:05Dr. John Delony?

  Really, y'all are in total alignment on everything else?

• 10:08Speaker 00

  Oh, no, no, no, no, but just kind of faith is like the line through everything for both of us, not that we are in agreement, but, um.

• 10:15Dr. John Delony?

  Cause here's what I'm hearing.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Kids and just, kids and discipline.

• 10:19Dr. John Delony?

  Great, there's another one.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  We'll talk about that.

• 10:21Dr. John Delony?

  So you have a thing in your guts. When he yells at your kids, or he spanks your kids, or he like walks away from your kids, whatever, and there's a nagging sense as a mother, this is not right. Or I don't like it like this. And he then throws a Bible verse at you, or a, I've been studying this and this is the way they, whatever.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  There are a few things like that. Um, I, I believe it's our job to be the parents and the children are the children and we should be the ones making the big decisions in our our household and it is not the responsibility of the children. And, um, on certain issues, he will say, okay, the kids, what do you think? And let's pull the ideas, which for some things is okay. Like what game do we want to play tonight or what movie should we watch? That's fine. But I mean, we're talking big decisions, like moving to another state or things like this. And I'm like, this is not their decision.

• 11:16Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right, right.

• 11:17Speaker 00

  And he was like, well, I just want to see what they think. I said, yeah, but now our daughter is upset because she thinks because she agreed to move and she's moving away from her friends, it was her fault for agreeing. Like that's not,

• 11:26Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly, yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  That's not her responsibility. We shouldn't be putting that on them. And he kind of disagrees and I don't know if it's because of the way he was brought up or whatever. He usually doesn't throw a Bible verse in it. He's just like, I want to know what they think.

• 11:39Dr. John Delony?

  So here's what I'm hearing.

• 11:40Speaker 00

  So it seems to be very much a preference.

• 11:41Dr. John Delony?

  And I would say this if he was here and not, actually not even in a judgy way, but just in a fact way. He has an allergy to maturity. He has an allergy to, um, discomfort. And what he will do is use any tool at his disposal, children, the Bible, um, anything that will justify him not doing a thing that he finds not pleasurable or uncomfortable.

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Cost.

• 12:21Dr. John Delony?

  Of course, sleeping with people is, feels good in the moment. It's sex.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:27Dr. John Delony?

  And when I look at you and say, till death do us part, I do, I'm, I am anchoring into bedrock, into concrete, that you are my person.

• 12:41Dr. John Delony?

  And my pushback is you don't have to have sex with other people to work hard on your communication.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:48Dr. John Delony?

  You don't have to have sex with other people to deal with the root of the issue, which is you work a lot when you're gone and you're not present in the home and I'm stuck here in the house with these kids when you're off. And by the way, my life is very similar to that. I'm on the road all the time. I get that. I get being frustrated. I get being lonely. I get coming home and to the rhythm of a household that is moving on without me because I'm gone. And we have to figure out ways to come back together and you don't have to go bang other people for that. You get what I'm saying? And

• 13:21Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 13:22Dr. John Delony?

  It is hard. It was hard looking at my two kids saying, hey, y'all have a community, y'all have friends and I am got a new job. I am moving y'all across the country and watching them cry, watching them be sad, watching them struggle, meeting new friends at a new school.

• 13:38Dr. John Delony?

  Watching my wife have to figure out, cause I'm right on the road again, like how to like internet service and light bills and why is this company?

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Right.

• 13:47Dr. John Delony?

  But that's mine to own. Not to put it on them too. So they have to carry a little bit also, right? See what I'm saying? Like it's my job as a husband and as a dad to co-create a world with my wife. Where my life isn't, in fact, it's the opposite of comfortable all the time. I have little glimpses of comfort amidst great discomfort. Because that's what I took on.

• 14:13Speaker 00

  Right.

• 14:14Dr. John Delony?

  And this is a person, and by the way, this is the pot talking to the kettle on this one. I bounce from church to church to church because at some point in a faith community, faith requires accountability. And when the pastor would say something or the Sunday school teacher said something that might have, might be in the Bible, but I don't like it. Then I can, I'm a good wordsmith. I went to a lot of grad school classes. I can work my way around it. And so when I got to Nashville, you know what? This was the big moment for me. When my daughter was born, after multiple miscarriages, years of us trying, I reached out to a couple of men. That were kind of paternal figures for me in my church growing up when I was a little kid.

• 15:00Dr. John Delony?

  And I realized in that moment, oh, my arrogance and my not wanting to be held accountable by the community, by the way, I signed up for, I signed up for this faith community. I've robbed my son of these relationships because I keep moving every six months to a new building, to a new building, to a new building. Right. Not trying to find truth and not trying to find growth, but trying to find comfort. Hmm. Right? All that to say is, you can't change any of that for him. Right. What you have to do for the first time in your marriage is say, "I am finished." And here's what "I am finished" means.

• 15:45Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not sleeping with anybody else. The marriage we had is over. I want to build a new one where fidelity and integrity means something. Where we are the adults in our house and we work hard together, doing hard things, feeling uncomfortable for a greater good. Hmm. And that also means I'm not going to be married to somebody who is having sex with other people, whether you tell me about it or not. Hmm. Because I am selfish and I want you for me, just like we promised ourselves at the altar. When we're going to make big decisions about moving across the country, or taking new

• 16:27Dr. John Delony?

  jobs, or changing schools, or what, going on Christmas vacation, we as the adults are going to own that and we are going to tell our children what we're doing. I'm not going to make them carry a piece of that because their little backs and legs can't carry that kind of weight. Yes. Right? And you know as well as I do, that's 55 different things. Being a part of a faith community means purposely putting yourself in a position to be uncomfortable because that's the only way you get stronger and grow. Hmm. It's like going to the weight room and taking all the weight off the bar.

• 17:07Dr. John Delony?

  Right? You can do 500 reps in a gym if you don't have any weight on the bar. But you're not gonna get any stronger. And there's academic ways around everything these days.

• 17:20Dr. John Delony?

  Look at our government right now. It's still shut down as of this recording because one side is saying this is true and the other side is saying this is true.

• 17:29Dr. John Delony?

  Right? You get what I'm saying?

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 17:32Dr. John Delony?

  So I want to, I want to free you of, this is the way we've done this stuff. This is what I agreed to. And I appreciate you being like a grown up saying, I didn't like it, but I said, okay. And not only did I say, okay, I went and slept with other guys.

• 17:49Dr. John Delony?

  I've done, I've participated in this and it ends today.

• 17:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:58Dr. John Delony?

  And you have to hold true that he may walk out the door on you because his sexual appetite with other people is more important to him than fidelity in your marriage.

• 18:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:12Dr. John Delony?

  He might.

• 18:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a hard one to swallow.

• 18:14Dr. John Delony?

  I know. He might. And so it's you saying, okay, I'm an adult. And by the way, I'm so proud of you for owning your choices. Like owning them, not just being like, he made me. You're saying, nope, I did that. I went to another dude's house on multiple occasions and slept with other dudes. Cool.

• 18:30Dr. John Delony?

  And as of now, that's over.

• 18:41Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me what scares you to death about making that stand for yourself and for your marriage, for your kids, for honesty.

• 18:49Speaker 00

  Um, I'm afraid it would end everything.

• 18:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. If that's the case, I want to tell you that the marriage you think you're holding on to is already over.

• 19:00Dr. John Delony?

  It's over.

• 19:03Dr. John Delony?

  You're just getting dragged behind it.

• 19:10Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 19:12Dr. John Delony?

  I tell you, man, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Proud of you for owning it. I'm proud of you for standing tall as an adult, and I'm proud of you for saying, "I want things to be different going now." The marriage you had is over, and by the way, it's been over for a long time. The question is, can you sit down and say, "Moving forward, I'm done with this world. I'm done with this life that we've been leading, and here's what I want for us going forward. I hope you will rebuild the marriage with me."

• 19:40Dr. John Delony?

  And standing in the hurricane of whatever the response is gonna be.

• 19:47Dr. John Delony?

  My hope is, he says, "I'm with you. We're gonna figure this out." I get by your silence that he probably won't, but you're worth that. You're worth standing on the truth, and finally, for the first time since you were a little bitty girl, saying, "I'm gonna do what's right for me," which I think ultimately will be what's right for y'all. Thank you so, so much for the call. Appreciate it. You're a brave, brave woman. We come back, a woman asks how to tell her daughter about her mom's past affair without hurting everybody's relationship.

• 20:22Dr. John Delony?

  This time of year, we're giving our time, our money, and sometimes without meaning to, we're giving away something way more personal: our data. That's why I recommend Delete Me. I like a good deal as much as the next guy, but I want you to remember that every email click, every newsletter you sign up for, every time you put your personal information on the internets, it's another chance that somebody else behind the scenes is gonna get your personal information. And your personal information doesn't just stay there. Shady data brokers grab it, bundle it, and they sell it, like your name, your phone number, your address, where your kids go to school, all of this stuff just floating around out there in the digital wilderness. That's how you end up with all these spam calls and weird texts

• 21:05Dr. John Delony?

  that make you feel like someone's watching over your shoulder and stealing your digital life. If you wanna take back your privacy and your peace, you need Delete Me. They're like a digital cleaning crew. They find your information on these data broker websites and they get it removed and they keep it gone. Peace doesn't just come from turning off notifications, it comes from knowing that your data is not up for sale. Right now, you can get 20% off your annual Delete Me plan when you go to joindelete.me/deloney. That's join, J-O-I-N, joindelete.me/deloney. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, the holidays are a time of traditions.

• 21:48Dr. John Delony?

  Some traditions are great and some traditions have run their course. It's a great time to reflect on those traditions and what they really mean to you and to ask yourself, is it time to begin to create new traditions on your own? Therapy can give you space to create new traditions, reflect on the old ones, and most importantly, take time for yourself. If you're thinking about therapy, I recommend BetterHelp. They've served over 5 million people globally with an average rating of 4.9 stars out of 5. BetterHelp is totally online, so it's easy to fit into your busy holiday schedule. To get started, just answer a few simple questions and they'll connect you with a licensed therapist who fits your needs. And if it happens to not be the right fit, you can change therapists at any time for no extra cost.

• 22:33Dr. John Delony?

  This month, start a new tradition by taking care of you. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash deloney. Okay, let's go up north to Toronto, Ontario and talk to Elizabeth. Hey Elizabeth, what's going on?

• 22:52Speaker 02

  Hey, thanks for having me today. I really appreciate your help.

• 22:57Dr. John Delony?

  You got it. What's going on?

• 22:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so my daughter is 15 and she's very perceptive about people and relationships. She's a really intelligent kid. And I recently learned from my husband that she overheard a conversation between some family members about some sort of quote unquote mistake that my mom made in the past. That was an affair, but she's not aware of that yet. So I know that she doesn't know all the details, she didn't hear all the details. But she went to my husband and basically asked, did grandma make some sort of mistake

• 23:43Speaker 02

  in the past? Um, so my husband came to me, um, he said to her that it wasn't a story that for him to tell, but he would talk to me about it. So, um, but that kind of brings us to present day and we haven't gone back to her to say anything because I just feel really puzzled about, first of all, what would be appropriate? Um, and I'm also just concerned about, um, her relationship with her grandmother, um, and yeah.

• 24:18Dr. John Delony?

  I love this question. Um, I'm going to talk at a 30,000 foot view real quick and give you a landscape of how important this is and then give you some tactics, okay?

• 24:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:30Dr. John Delony?

  Here is the 30,000 foot umbrella that we need to make sure we tackle ASAP. Okay?

• 24:39Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 24:40Dr. John Delony?

  This amazing 15 year old girl that you have, um, overheard a family secret. Every family has them.

• 24:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:51Dr. John Delony?

  And she did an amazing thing, which tells me that you have, you and your husband have done a really fantastic job of creating a relationship with, with your daughter. Bravo.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 25:04Dr. John Delony?

  Cause this 15 year old came to one of you and said, hey, I heard this thing. Is this true?

• 25:08Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 25:09Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So the meta, the, the umbrella concern I have right this second is every minute y'all don't respond back to this 15 year old, she's getting the message that some things are not okay to ask mom and dad.

• 25:24Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:25Dr. John Delony?

  And then what happens next year when her boyfriend pushes her a little bit too far? Or when she's heading off to college and she maybe doesn't want to go to college, she wants to take a gap year, she knows in her nervous system, there are some things, the bigger they are, the, the more I cannot go to mom and dad.

• 25:46Dr. John Delony?

  And so we want to do is go directly through the middle of this. And so when you and your husband sit down and talk to her, and I think it's important that y'all go unified on this one because she went to him, is y'all say, we want to take back what just how this played out.

• 26:06Dr. John Delony?

  You can always come to us and I want your husband to have the courage to say, and by the way, I have said these exact words in my house, by the way, is to look at, and I have a 15 year old too, look directly at your 15 year old and say, you came to me with a big thing and I kind of wimped out. I'm sorry. I froze. You can always come to us and this is us making this right. Okay. And I would, I would, I'd add on the things I just said. And you can hop in and say, there's going to be a boyfriend and you're going to have a bad experience with him. And I want you to know, you can always come to us. You're going to learn other family secrets and you can always come to us. One day you might accidentally stumble on text messages, flirty gross ones that your dad sent me and you're going to freak out and I want you to

• 26:51Dr. John Delony?

  be able to come to us.

• 26:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:55Dr. John Delony?

  And so it's starting there. The second part of this is, is the tactical part. And that is this, you can't protect your mom from her past decisions. What you can do is protect your daughter and your relationship. And you can do that in an honoring and dignified way.

• 27:18Dr. John Delony?

  And the only way to this is take these, take these words with you and put them, etch them into stone. Facts are your friends and calm is contagious.

• 27:31Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 27:33Dr. John Delony?

  It's as simple as, so you overheard about the big secrets about grandma, what'd you hear? I don't know. I just heard that grandma made a big mistake one time and this and this. And actually probably based on your husband's reaction, she's probably going to say something like, it's, it's no big deal, mom. I don't need to know. And it's for you to say, actually, yeah, you do. You're 15. It's time you learn.

• 27:55Dr. John Delony?

  Grandma.

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of, I figured, I mean, we're kind of at the point where she, I feel that she does kind of need to know.

• 28:05Dr. John Delony?

  She does.

• 28:05Speaker 02

  Some of what the fabric of our family.

• 28:07Dr. John Delony?

  That's it, that's it. And so what we're gonna say is, we're gonna say facts of your friends. And what do, what do we mean? Grandma, I, I don't know what the story is. I'll make up one just for fun. We lived in a small town and there was a really handsome farmer that came over and cut hay for us. And grandma had eyes for another farmer and she had an affair in our little town and it caused a big ol' stir. And your daughter's eyes will get huge and say, grandma made a mistake. Now, when I say facts of your friends, we're gonna say grandma had an affair. Grandma made a mistake. We're not gonna say grandma was, and we're gonna throw in a bunch of character assassination terms.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:47Dr. John Delony?

  And what you're gonna get, and you're also gonna be able to say, and grandma, I don't know, she, did she make it right? Did she say she was sorry? Did, did she bury it? I don't know if you were in a huge city or in a small, like, how, what was the, what was the, the jet blast after, or the, the blast radius of all of this?

• 29:04Speaker 02

  Well, it was pretty far reaching because it was the pastor of our church.

• 29:09Dr. John Delony?

  Gosh, nice, nice, okay.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:15Speaker 02

  So, I mean, if she didn't hear it through one of us.

• 29:19Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  It might come some other way to her.

• 29:22Dr. John Delony?

  It will. And in addition to it coming to her, she's also gonna have the added burden of, I have no one to talk to about this.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:33Dr. John Delony?

  And in this day and age, you know what she's gonna do? She's gonna go to chat GPT on how to deal with it.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:42Dr. John Delony?

  Or worse, she's gonna say, oh, my parents think I'm stupid. My parents think I don't understand these things. My parents think I don't know anything about, fill in the sex, fill in the blank. And, I mean, she's listened to enough Taylor Swift songs, she gets it, right?

• 29:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:55Dr. John Delony?

  And so.

• 29:56Speaker 02

  She's really smart. And like I said, like, she, and maybe.

• 30:01Speaker 02

  In a 15 year old kinda way, she is, like I said, pretty perceptive about relationships. But also in a 15 year old way, I feel like she's kind of in her era of um thinking she knows everything and a little bit judgy about everything.

• 30:18Dr. John Delony?

  She's supposed to.

• 30:18Speaker 02

  So I can't, yeah, but I kind of worry about like her getting this information right now, like what it's going to do to strain the relationship with my mom.

• 30:29Dr. John Delony?

  She has, here's what she has to work through. Oh, my gosh, this person did a thing one time and this person is really amazing to me when I show up every, every time I see her.

• 30:43Dr. John Delony?

  This person made a huge mistake one time. And also, this is a great opportunity to talk about power dynamics.

• 30:52Dr. John Delony?

  And this might be when your husband leaves the table.

• 30:57Dr. John Delony?

  And you're able to say, hey, there's gonna be men who want things from you and you're not gonna see it coming until it's, until it might be close to too late.

• 31:07Dr. John Delony?

  And if you wanna be a real gangster, this is a time when you tell about a thing that happened to you once, not in graphic detail.

• 31:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:15Dr. John Delony?

  But maybe you dated the quarterback in high school, or maybe you dated the coolest guy in the band in college, I don't know. But suddenly you found yourself on a date and this guy wanted more.

• 31:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:28Dr. John Delony?

  And this is when your daughter's eyes will get real big, but she'll begin to see you as a person. And then she gets to see you, what have you done? You did the next right thing.

• 31:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:40Dr. John Delony?

  And so you telling her, yep, grandma did this thing with a, with the minister of the church and maybe he got fired, maybe he didn't, maybe you get to see, sometimes men in powerful positions get to keep their jobs and it's the women who get shamed. And it shouldn't be that way, but that's the way it is sometimes.

• 32:00Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, that's a little bit how it played out.

• 32:02Dr. John Delony?

  It usually does that way. Yeah.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:05Dr. John Delony?

  Unfortunately.

• 32:05Speaker 02

  He was not able to continue as a pastor. But then my mom was the one who carried the weight of apologizing to the entire church community.

• 32:16Dr. John Delony?

  That's exactly right. Hester Prince. She's, she's the one that seduced the poor pastor.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:22Dr. John Delony?

  It's evil. It's evil.

• 32:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:24Dr. John Delony?

  Right? It's evil. But that's, but that's, that's the role. And good God almighty, there's not a more important conversation for you to have with your daughter right now.

• 32:33Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, I mean, unfortunately, we've also seen it play out in our own church.

• 32:40Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 32:41Speaker 02

  With another fa- another family.

• 32:43Dr. John Delony?

  And so maybe telling her, there are really great people and great, amazing leaders at churches. And also, there's some not good ones.

• 32:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:57Dr. John Delony?

  And I want a 15 year old to immediately default to her judgment.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 33:03Dr. John Delony?

  That's, that's what 15 year olds are supposed to do, right? They're supposed to be all balls of emotion, right? Just fireballs of, oh, my gosh, you're the worst, you're the best. They're supposed to all be like, that's the way it is. But I want you to be able to say, grandma made this huge mistake. And I don't know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago.

• 33:23Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 33:23Dr. John Delony?

  And she's been an amazing woman of character since then.

• 33:28Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 33:29Dr. John Delony?

  And she's right now, the best mom I could ever have. She's the best grandma I could ever have. Or best grandma you could ever have.

• 33:38Dr. John Delony?

  But that's why we're going to say facts to your friends and calm is contagious. So when she goes, oh, my gosh, oh my. You'll be able to say, hey, she's an amazing woman. She, she screwed up.

• 33:49Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 33:50Dr. John Delony?

  And when the whole community turned on her.

• 33:54Dr. John Delony?

  She held her head up high and she did not even the next right thing, just the thing that the unsupportive community demanded of her.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 34:03Dr. John Delony?

  And then it might be a good time to talk about, maybe your dad was an amazing guy who stuck by her.

• 34:08Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. He was.

• 34:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 34:12Dr. John Delony?

  So she gets a context of, everybody screws up. Sometimes screw-ups become very public, and sometimes screw-ups, the consequences of the mess-up, one person carries disproportionately, often in faith communities, the woman carries it more than a man does.

• 34:31Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

• 34:34Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, if you haven't processed this, you need to do that too.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:43Dr. John Delony?

  Were you a little girl when this happened?

• 34:46Speaker 02

  I was 19.

• 34:49Dr. John Delony?

  Oh geez.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  And I watched it happen for a couple of years.

• 34:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:55Dr. John Delony?

  And so you telling your 15-year-old daughter, "I was about your age when this all happened. And I learned at a young age to not say anything. I kept quiet. I didn't question things. And I watched my poor mother get dragged through the wringer."

• 35:14Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:16Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to know right now, never, don't ask the question.

• 35:20Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:21Dr. John Delony?

  But I think you can be, I'm trying to think if I was in the exact same situation here, other than very graphic, they would sneak behind in the pastor's office, by the way, I've had that conversation with people before, or when dad was out of town, the pastor would come over for a quote-unquote "church" visit, and they would, like, outside of very graphic specifics, a 15-year-old is old enough to know about everything.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 35:53Dr. John Delony?

  But more important, you are 19, you're about this, her age.

• 35:57Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 36:03Dr. John Delony?

  And if you learned anything from about sexual fidelity, about I'm never gonna see something in my life and not say something, if any of those kind of things, that this is a great moment to teach her right now.

• 36:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:18Dr. John Delony?

  And telling her.

• 36:19Speaker 02

  That's true. I did learn. I learned a lot.

• 36:21Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And what an amazing opportunity to not let that anything be wasted with that thing that happened when you were 19.

• 36:33Dr. John Delony?

  This is a way to continue to make all things new. This is changing your family tree.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Right. Right.

• 36:40Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 36:43Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 36:43Dr. John Delony?

  If you want to be a gangster, a super gangster, tonight, ask your husband to take care of bedtime and you go to a coffee shop and you write 19-year-old you a letter

• 36:59Dr. John Delony?

  about what that poor girl experienced, how if you could go back and if you could see her right now, you would give her a huge hug and tell her that none of this was her fault and all that embarrassment and shame that was on the family, that was on you, that you had to go to church with your head held low.

• 37:17Dr. John Delony?

  Put all that in writing and if you want to be a real gangster, read it to your daughter.

• 37:22Dr. John Delony?

  Here's a letter I wrote to myself.

• 37:29Dr. John Delony?

  Because teenage girls often carry a ton that nobody knows is going on.

• 37:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:34Dr. John Delony?

  And it's Tuesday. Y'all need to have this conversation this week.

• 37:39Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:39Dr. John Delony?

  Don't let any more time go by.

• 37:42Speaker 02

  It'll be good to get it off my chest.

• 37:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. But don't get it off your chest and hand it to your daughter for her to carry. It's you saying, I've been carrying this big secret and we need you to know, you can always come to us. And sometimes the thing you ask is real big and we're not going to handle it super right out of the gate. And your husband can be like, yeah, that was on me.

• 38:07Dr. John Delony?

  But also you come to us with anything, we're going to tell it all to you. And it's okay for you to think back to 25-year-old grandma and go, oh, my gosh, how could she do that? But don't forget grandma's amazing and she loves you.

• 38:20Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:21Dr. John Delony?

  It's both and. And you could tell her part of being an adult is carrying the both and the and.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. That's true.

• 38:29Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 38:30Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:31Dr. John Delony?

  You're a pretty awesome mom. And your husband's pretty awesome, too.

• 38:35Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 38:36Dr. John Delony?

  And this, this doesn't come in any of the parenting manuals, which I'm, I hate for us all. But yeah, we're gonna go right through this one with a 15 year old. If you have a seven year old, and they're asking the same question, we're not gonna give near the level of detail. We're gonna say something like, yeah, 25 years ago, grandma made a mistake. We're not, we all make mistakes. Hey, what do you want for dinner? Right? And we're gonna acknowledge it, we're gonna own it, and we're gonna go on to the next thing. And we're gonna let their questions guide our responses. Unless we know they know something and they're just not asking questions, then we're gonna approach them, and we're gonna put on the table. Because we're adults, and that's what we do. We can handle that. They can't.

• 39:17Dr. John Delony?

  But 15 years old, having heard some things, yeah, she's old enough. And by the way, she's experiencing some of this on the periphery. Sexualization, weird boys, internet, all that stuff. And as we're increasingly moving to a world where you can just get any answer in any response, digital relationships, we're gonna teach her right now. I'm always a safe place for you to come ask hard questions. I'm gonna tell you the truth, even when it's hard. Even when it's hard. You're awesome. Best of luck to you. I would love to know how this conversation goes. So if you would do me a huge favor and write us back, and we don't have to read the response online, but I just want to walk alongside you guys as y'all, as y'all have this conversation.

• 40:01Dr. John Delony?

  And the ones that will follow, by the way, this will be conversation one. I'm sure there'll be more questions coming. And if y'all ever need anything, feel free to holler. I'm really honored to talk to you all. We come back, a woman asks how to cope with her death-related nightmares. We'll be right back.

• 40:19Dr. John Delony?

  The holidays are here, and it's my favorite time of year. And it can be a challenge to just slow down and be present with all that's going on. And with everything going on, I want you to ask yourself, who on your list deserves a gift that will help them relax in this holiday season and into the new year? I want you to think about that person, and then I want you to get them. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets. These sheets keep you cozy without overheating and without getting you too cold. They help you sleep several degrees cooler, which is perfect for snuggling on winter nights and waking up refreshed. Cozy Earth also has something that's incredible. Listen, it's called the Bubble Cuddle Blanket. Things like a giant teddy bear. It's great for a family movie night, or for cuddling by the fire, or for just hogging

• 41:04Dr. John Delony?

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• 41:38Dr. John Delony?

  Let's go out to Memphis and talk to Sarah. What's up, Sarah?

• 41:42Speaker 03

  Hi, thank you so much for speaking with me today. I really appreciate your time.

• 41:46Dr. John Delony?

  Of course, thanks for calling. I appreciate your time. What's up?

• 41:50Speaker 03

  So, I'm just having a lot of death-related nightmares pretty much every night, and it's kind of progressed to during the day, death-related anxiety and basically like thinking that I'm about to die during the day. And my previous coping mechanisms that I used last time that this happened were no longer an option for me, so I'm calling to get your insight on how I might be able to work through it, especially as my work caseload increases, because it is definitely because of my job that I have any of these issues.

• 42:27Dr. John Delony?

  What's your job?

• 42:29Speaker 03

  I'm a death investigator for the medical examiner.

• 42:33Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, you work at the Emmys office. Very cool.

• 42:36Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 42:36Dr. John Delony?

  The medical examiner, sorry. Geez. Yeah, so there's that.

• 42:45Dr. John Delony?

  I will, I will tell you, Sarah, um, having shown up, I can't count how many homes I showed up to where people had passed away or died, um, natural causes, self-inflicted, violence, whatever, car wrecks, whatever. The job I never understood how people could do was the ME.

• 43:02Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it's like, it makes it compounded and it's probably gonna sound morbid to say, but this is actually my dream job that I worked for.

• 43:12Dr. John Delony?

  Totally. Absolutely.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  For my whole life. So, that also adds to it.

• 43:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. So, for people who don't know, here's how this works. Let's say, um, somebody calls 911 and they walked home and their 80-year-old husband has just had a, um, a cardiac event. They've had a heart attack and they've died in their home. Or they got home or they got a call from a roommate that a 22-year-old has died by suicide. Or you get a call from a screaming mother that her four-year-old is choking and has just passed away. Like, the whole gamut, right? The police show up. Hopefully, if you're in a well-resourced community, folks like me would show up, like those who are here to help with the psychosocial part of this, like the,

• 44:01Dr. John Delony?

  here's what you do next, and the, the, the crisis counselors, right? The, the victim services unit, which I was a part of, will show up and sit with you. And then the white van shows up. Do y'all have a white van in Memphis, Sarah?

• 44:18Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So, the white van shows up, and here's what the white van does. The white van has usually two people in it, and their job is to get the actual body out of the house after all the photographs are taken, after all of the investigation part is done. And by the way, police show up at these scenes, no matter what it is, and they work it homicide back, right?

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:38Dr. John Delony?

  And so, they want to make sure there's no foul play, they work it back. Sometimes it's really easy to tell, and sometimes it's a little more complicated. But you, Sarah, and your team show up in the middle of the night, 2:00 AM, 4:00 AM, Christmas Day, whenever, and y'all get the body out of the house and into the van and down to the morgue, or to a holding place, right?

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:03Dr. John Delony?

  Ugh.

• 45:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, and for my job, it's I'm not simply just removal. I'm the one who takes the pictures. I'm the one who interviews the witnesses about what happened. I'm the one who writes the report. If there's a video of the death happening, I have to watch the video and write it down for the doctor to read. So, yeah, I'm intimately involved. They call us like last responders because we're the last ones to show up.

• 45:29Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. And can I, if you are particularly sensitive and you're listening to this,

• 45:36Dr. John Delony?

  just hit the little 15 or 30 second pass button on this. And I'm going to ask you this, Sarah, directly.

• 45:45Dr. John Delony?

  You've got experiences where you're taking photographs of really graphic images, right?

• 45:55Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:55Dr. John Delony?

  You've had to photograph children, right?

• 45:58Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:01Dr. John Delony?

  You've had to photograph really grisly scenes, right?

• 46:04Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 46:07Dr. John Delony?

  And those will burn a hole in your spirit, right?

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Honestly, that's the part about this that confuses me because it doesn't bother me in the moment. That's what makes me feel bad.

• 46:22Dr. John Delony?

  No, no, no, no, no.

• 46:23Speaker 03

  I think that makes me good at my job.

• 46:25Dr. John Delony?

  It makes you amazing at your job.

• 46:26Speaker 03

  It doesn't bother me in the moment. And it is my dream to help figure out what happened to these people and write the last chapter of their story. But even though it doesn't bother me in the moment and I don't struggle to do my job, I guess when I come home,

• 46:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  my brain holds on to the things I see and then I dream about them at night.

• 46:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, the title of the book says everything. By Dr. Vanderkolk, "The Body Keeps the Score."

• 46:57Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm with you. I don't know why. If I go buy a house, when I sit down and I'm signing the paperwork to buy a house, I'm in full fight or flight, total panic mode. I come up with every scenario about how I'm gonna not be able to pay off this house and my kids are gonna be starving in the street. I go bananas. But if I walk into a house and there's four people who've just been shot and killed, like, I can do that just fine. Some of the, and this is awful to say, some of the hardest laughing I've ever done in my life, to the point that I had to go outside because I was laughing so hard I was gonna throw up, was in those homes. And it makes you feel insane, right?

• 47:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:37Dr. John Delony?

  Because you have to have a really dark, black, whole sense of humor to get through those situations. Or some people get really stoic and really clinical, right?

• 47:47Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 47:49Dr. John Delony?

  And you have to have defense mechanisms, and that's what makes you really awesome at your job. That's what made me good at my job. And our bodies keep the score. And I don't know about you, but I've gone to some crazy, grotesque, violent situations, just out of body experience situations. And it's all good, fine, talking, laughing with the cops, helping move bodies, taking pictures, cleaning up scenes. And it's when I get home and I lay in bed that my heart starts racing.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:23Dr. John Delony?

  Or I crash dead asleep and it's when you wake up and you're like, there's no way that just happened, right? And for you, it's nightmares.

• 48:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, pretty much. Very vivid ones. I have a vivid imagination.

• 48:37Dr. John Delony?

  Correct. That's right. That's right. Alright, so here, I'm gonna give you a couple of things to do. And I want to tell you at the outset, okay? I want more people like you being willing to do this kind of job. The way you just said that was so poetic and beautiful. I want to be the person who will write an honorable last chapter for a person. What an amazing heart you have.

• 49:04Speaker 03

  Oh, thank you.

• 49:05Dr. John Delony?

  And my fear for somebody like you is that sense of, I'm gonna find beauty in the ugliest.

• 49:15Dr. John Delony?

  If you're not careful, you will burn out like a flame, right? Like, like, like a flash. And you'll have to go do a dumb desk job and then you'll die slowly inside because you were put on earth to sit in people's ugly mess, right?

• 49:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I, I work with people who are like past that point.

• 49:33Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  And I, I see like what I could become.

• 49:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 49:37Speaker 03

  And I just don't want to end up like losing my soul to this job.

• 49:42Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 49:43Speaker 03

  But I also love this job.

• 49:44Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, awesome. All right, so here's one thing that I want you, here, the, the big picture is you have to have an unflinchable, don't care how tired you are, I don't care how awful the scene you just came from, or honestly, how benign the scene just came from, right? Because you've also shown up to houses, the person was 65, they were 300 pounds overweight. It, it's like a natural cause and effect here, right?

• 50:10Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:10Dr. John Delony?

  You've been to those too.

• 50:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, those happen all the time, yeah.

• 50:12Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to honor those the same as when you're photographing the kid who just died from SIDS, who's two, and the mom is screaming in the next room.

• 50:23Dr. John Delony?

  Both of them, okay?

• 50:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I always try to do that.

• 50:27Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to have a unflinchable, unshakable routine or practice for what happens after you hit send on that final report.

• 50:40Dr. John Delony?

  This is a thing I do every time, because here's what's hap- will happen. Your body will, will attenuate to, we can cycle this trauma through. Because I don't care how good you are at showing up to your job. And by the way, this happens for surgeons, this happens for preachers, this happens for attorneys, this happens for nurses, anybody who works in the messy pain, therapists of other people.

• 51:05Dr. John Delony?

  Okay? You have to have a process that you do every single time. Every time. And it's annoying, but it's a part of the job. It's an essential part of the job, okay?

• 51:18Dr. John Delony?

  Here's what that might look like for you. This has been a great help to me, is writing, it can be 10 sentences, it can be three pages, writing a letter to the person who just died.

• 51:37Dr. John Delony?

  And it can be on a yellow, I would recommend it not be typed out. I'd recommend you handwrite it. And there's a whole bunch of research about why that's important. But I want to connect your physiology, your body, to the processing of this thing. Because you're good at shutting off your mind, right? You're good at burying emotions, but bringing those emotions back through your body, through just a simple act of writing. Dear Susan, I just finished writing the last chapter of your life. It was such an honor that I got to be a part of the last bit of your story.

• 52:21Dr. John Delony?

  Here's what I want you to know. I saw six people tattooed up bald headed dudes crying in your living room, which tells me you are a person people they could count on. Dear Timmy, two year old, I was just a part of your last chapter. And I made sure your mom had somebody to hug. She's gonna miss you so much. Okay?

• 52:54Speaker 03

  Okay, I could do that.

• 52:56Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I know it's gonna be, just hearing that is hard, right? Because here's what you're doing. You are consciously letting your body feel this thing and use its own innate processes to metabolize what you just experienced. Okay?

• 53:15Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 53:15Dr. John Delony?

  You can keep these in a secret folder that's only yours. And by the way, I think legally speaking, I would write at the top of that folder, private notes, that way they're not subpoenaable or anything like that. But I would write them by hand, so they're not on a computer anywhere. And this is you processing. I used to set mine in a fire, but I was always having fires in my house. Like I always had a fireplace, it was awesome. And so I would always put them in there. That was part of my little ritual, but I'd let them go.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 53:48Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, here's the second part. You have to have a yoga practice, a walking practice, an exercise practice of some sort.

• 53:58Dr. John Delony?

  And when you go, when you go on this, I want you to be very intentional about the following. I see the trees. That tree has seventeen branches low. I'm counting cracks on the sidewalk. Look at that sunset and the colors are orange and red and pink and purple and, or it is pitch black outside, I'm gonna count streetlights. And what you're doing when you do that is you're bringing your body back from what it's starting to spin out and plan for your future death and reverse engineer it to, I'm okay right here, right now.

• 54:38Dr. John Delony?

  This is done best with skin-to-skin contact. Are you married?

• 54:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 54:44Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. If you just got up in the morning, because also, how about this? Have you ever gone to do a thing at 2:00 AM? You come home at 4:30 and you get back in bed for forty-five minutes? And then your husband gets up and he's like, "What's up?" And you're like-

• 54:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, that happens every day.

• 54:58Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly. Mine too. I used to be having coffee and my wife would be like, "Hey, can you get so-and-so?" And I would look up at her and be like, I would never say anything.

• 55:08Dr. John Delony?

  You have no idea what I just did last night. None. In fact, I would get home and get back in bed and my wife hadn't even moved.

• 55:15Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 55:16Dr. John Delony?

  Okay? So here's the thing. You probably learned like I did, I can't just use my wife, you can't use your husband as a trash bin to dump all of this on.

• 55:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I don't wanna do that.

• 55:28Dr. John Delony?

  But if you keep secrets, you're gonna put a huge wedge in your marriage. I did that. And it almost cost me my marriage. Because I realized I created a whole life that my wife wasn't a part of, which meant my need for connection began to not involve her. And I did that, I started out as a way to protect her.

• 55:49Dr. John Delony?

  But saying, "Hey, I was out last night. I need you to take a ten-minute walk with me. And we're gonna hold hands. And we're gonna point out five beautiful things on the walk."

• 56:03Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 56:03Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, and here's the third thing.

• 56:07Dr. John Delony?

  When you wake up in the morning, or right before you go to bed in the morning.

• 56:12Dr. John Delony?

  There's research on nightmares.

• 56:15Dr. John Delony?

  Where right when you wake up after a nightmare, you have a small journal by your bed and you write six or seven sentences. But you take that nightmare and you end it well.

• 56:27Dr. John Delony?

  And so what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna honor my body. Your body's just trying to get your attention. And you're at the early stages, if you're not there already, of a pretty anxious-y life.

• 56:42Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to honor that anxiousness by going directly through it. On a plane, sometimes that's breathing exercises. Most people listen to podcasts on planes. You know what I listen to? Um, binaural beats.

• 56:58Dr. John Delony?

  Because I have a meditation practice.

• 57:01Dr. John Delony?

  Because I don't like flying. Occasionally, I'll watch John Wick or whatever on the, on a movie, like, right? That's fine. But like, most of the time, I'm pretty spun up. And I have big headphones on, the signal to the world, "Don't talk to me." And I exhale and breathe through it, and it usually takes me about three minutes now, because I do it all the time. And I'm through it now. I let my body know, "We're okay right now here."

• 57:24Dr. John Delony?

  And I chose to go on this plane. If it goes down, there's nothing I can do about it.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, nothing at all.

• 57:30Dr. John Delony?

  That's the bargain I made, and it's probably not gonna go down.

• 57:35Dr. John Delony?

  But you can only critically think like that when your body's not spinning out in fight or flight. When your body's not trying to get your attention about a threat right now! And it's having a process. It is honoring those people. Not only you honoring them, but think of writing them a letter as a way of them honoring you.

• 57:54Dr. John Delony?

  It's them saying, "Thank you for being there for the last chapter of my life."

• 57:59Speaker 03

  I don't know why, but that makes me feel uncomfortable.

• 58:02Dr. John Delony?

  It does, because, because you have worked really hard to divorce your emotions from the person in front of you. And when you're on scene, you have to do that. A surgeon cannot be thinking while they're cutting, "This is a four-year-old little boy." They can't. They have to think, "Trachea, trachea, trachea, heart." That's the only way they can get through it.

• 58:23Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 58:24Dr. John Delony?

  And then the surgeon needs to exhale if the kid makes it and say, "Write themself a quick note. Dear Tom, it was an honor that I got to work on you today. I've given you a new lease on life. My hope is you use that new lease on life." Or, "Timmy, I did my absolute best today and you didn't make it. I'm gonna live my life 5% more adventurous because I got another life to live now, and that's yours too.

• 58:53Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to know I hugged your mom and I held your dad while he wept."

• 58:59Dr. John Delony?

  If you don't break that wall, your body will break it for you.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 59:07Dr. John Delony?

  Or you'll be like some, you'll be like some of your ME colleagues who are way overweight, who are completely burned out. They have no emotion for themselves, their kids, their spouses, life.

• 59:22Dr. John Delony?

  And you know those guys who get three double cheeseburgers on the way to a scene and they stop at Taco Bell on the way home and they watch Netflix till they pass out?

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 59:33Dr. John Delony?

  And that's not the life I want. I want you, can I be honest? I want you to be the person that shows up when I die.

• 59:41Speaker 03

  Oh, thanks.

• 59:42Dr. John Delony?

  Because I can tell by your heart and spirit, you will honor my wife and my kids.

• 59:46Speaker 03

  Oh yeah, I always try to do that.

• 59:48Dr. John Delony?

  And I can tell by your spirit, you're gonna make sure that if I was doing something stupid, nobody knows about it. I'm just kidding. I know you gotta write down the report.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  Well, I gotta write it down.

• 59:57Dr. John Delony?

  I know, you gotta write it down. Alright.

• 59:59Speaker 03

  I'll be tactful about it.

• 1:00:00Dr. John Delony?

  There you go, there you go.

• 1:00:04Dr. John Delony?

  But your body is keeping track of all of this, whether you consciously are or not.

• 1:00:12Dr. John Delony?

  And I want to say, "Thank God that your body loves you enough to try to keep you safe, too."

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  That's true.

• 1:00:20Dr. John Delony?

  And when you bust open in the middle of the night, and this is for anybody suffering from nightmares, if you bust awake in the middle of the night, "I was falling," or "I was about to drown," I'm gonna finish that story right there. And then the guy from EMS showed up, unhooked my husband, or he unhooked me. I reached over and unhooked my husband. My husband grabbed me and we swam to surface. And we got big gulps of air and we smiled because we made it. Thank you, body and mind and spirit, for trying to keep me safe. I'm good now. And I'm gonna put my foot under the covers and I'm gonna touch my husband's foot, skin-to-skin contact. I'm gonna go right back to sleep. And the research tells me

• 1:01:03Dr. John Delony?

  that nightmares begin to slowly dissipate. They don't go away forever, but they slowly lose their power over you because your body knows, oh, she's in control. You are a modern-day saint, Sarah. People who walk into messy to bring light and define beauty. My God, we need more of you in the world. I'm grateful for you. My prayer for you is you do the things to take care of you and your marriage so that you can do this long-term because we need people like you. Thank you so, so much for the call and thank you for the work you're doing. We'll be right back.

• 1:01:48Dr. John Delony?

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• 1:02:32Dr. John Delony?

  trying to sell you extra stuff that cost you a ton more that you'll never use. Cove setup is simple. You can do it yourself. It usually takes about 30 minutes and every system comes with a 60 day risk-free trial. December is the perfect time to protect your home with Cove. Right now Cove is offering an exclusive holiday sale for my audience. Visit covesmart.com and use code DELONY at checkout for up to 80% off your first order. 80%. It's the easiest decision you're gonna make this year. Go to Cove, C-O-V-E, covesmart.com and use code DELONY.

• 1:03:12Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we're back. Let it rip. Kelly, what's up?

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  All right, so we got an email, follow-up email from a caller that I wanted to read. So back in March of 2022, so.

• 1:03:21Dr. John Delony?

  Dang Gina.

• 1:03:22Speaker 04

  It has been a minute. We had a woman that was considering, she was single and she was considering using a sperm donor to have a baby.

• 1:03:31Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  Okay. And in the conversation, a lot of it came through talking about her getting some counseling, kind of, there was a lot of kind of what, what was causing her to want to go into this without a partner, you know, just looking at the, at the reasonings behind it and kind of what was she trying to fill with some trauma and stuff like that. So we got an email from her.

• 1:03:53Dr. John Delony?

  Did I give her a good answer?

• 1:03:54Speaker 04

  You did. Okay. She's, yes.

• 1:03:55Dr. John Delony?

  Phew, okay, good.

• 1:03:56Speaker 04

  Especially back then, because it was only a couple of years in. So things, you know, it was rougher back then. All right. So she said, "My segment was, was single and considering a sperm donor. At the end of the call, John said, 'When I actually have a baby, do please send him the photo,' and I said that I would. During the call, John made me promise to call a new counselor following our call, which I did. In March of 2022, I began working with a new counselor that walked me through healing my past relationship traumas. Then I met my husband in August of 2022."

• 1:04:26Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:04:27Speaker 04

  We got married in May of 2024 and now are parents to a sweet baby girl, which we are putting a picture of. So if you're listening or watching, you can see this. I truly believe calling into the show was the stepping stone to healing that I needed, and I wanted to thank John. It honestly changed the direction my life was going. So little baby Sloan Alice was born on July 24th.

• 1:04:49Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, dude.

• 1:04:51Speaker 04

  And I told her, so whenever she sent me the email, was the show after you and I had a conversation about the name Sloan and what a cool girl name that was.

• 1:04:59Dr. John Delony?

  I do have a, like,

• 1:05:00Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:05:01Dr. John Delony?

  I have a thing.

• 1:05:01Speaker 04

  And I told her that, I said, "You're not gonna believe this, but literally yesterday, John and I had a conversation about what a cool girl name that was."

• 1:05:07Dr. John Delony?

  It's the coolest.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:08Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know why, I just think if you're a girl named Sloan, you are awesome.

• 1:05:11Speaker 04

  You're automatically cool.

• 1:05:12Dr. John Delony?

  And you're gonna have a cool sleeve tattoo, and you're gonna drink beer out of a bottle, and you're gonna be the coolest ever.

• 1:05:15Speaker 04

  Well, she's only a few months old, so maybe not yet.

• 1:05:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, fair.

• 1:05:18Speaker 04

  But, but she's obviously going to be a cool girl.

• 1:05:22Dr. John Delony?

  That's so awesome.

• 1:05:24Speaker 04

  So we are posting a picture of Sarah, Chris, and Sloan, and just so very happy for them all.

• 1:05:30Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, look at, look at us. Look at that. I, I don't, I don't wanna take credit for anything, but like, good on you for doing the healing work, good on you for getting back out there, good on you for meeting that guy, dang Gina, and good for little baby Sloan. Oh my gosh, that's awesome. I'm gonna smile all day because of that.

• 1:05:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was one of the, my favorite ones that I've gotten. It was just so great to see that, and I was so happy to be able to, I asked her, I do have her permission, by the way, to share the photos, I did ask.

• 1:06:06Dr. John Delony?

  I am gonna be happy all day about that.

• 1:06:08Speaker 04

  Love that.

• 1:06:09Dr. John Delony?

  I, I, I don't know anybody who doesn't have the tension, whatever it is, the conflict, and turn and face it, especially when you need, get with the right professionals to walk through it, that isn't glad they took that journey. Amazing, amazing, amazing. Well, Kelly, you just made my whole day.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  Uh, that's probably never been said by you, so I think we should end on that note.

• 1:06:29Dr. John Delony?

  I will stop talking and just let this one be a first, a first. Love you guys, bye.