Caller: “We Don’t Have Time for Our Marriage”

📋 Stay connected all week long. Download Dr. John Delony's free Weekly Marriage Check-In Guide: On today’s episode, we hear about: A woman wondering how to connect with her busy husband A man struggling with his new life as a stay-at-home dad A wife whose husband can’t get along with their daughter Next Steps: 🔥 Microhabits for a better marriage. Download the Together app. ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway. 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John’s Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Go to Joi + Blokes and get 50% off labs and 20% off products. 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. Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today. Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 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

  So my husband has a full-time job and then we both work for our church. I'm a full-time student and I'm in my internship where we both kind of realize, wow, we've been non-stop going since we've been married.

• 0:17Dr. John Delony?

  But it feels like your life is happening to you. Everything else y'all are doing is something y'all are deciding to do.

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  What's going on? What's going on? This is John, The Dr. John Deloney Show, coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, taking your calls on your mental and emotional health, your marriages, your kids, whatever you've got going on in your life. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes wherever you're listening or watching this show and we will get you on. Let's go to Richmond, Virginia and talk to Hannah. What's up Hannah? How we doing?

• 0:53Speaker 00

  I'm so good. How are you?

• 0:54Dr. John Delony?

  I'm same. I'm so good. What's going on?

• 0:58Speaker 00

  Hey, yeah, my question is how do my husband and I stay deeply connected despite having really busy life schedules?

• 1:09Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me, will you indulge me for a second?

• 1:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:13Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, tell me, I'm gonna write it down, okay?

• 1:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:18Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me what's on your schedule right now that is, makes it hard to connect? Be as specific as you can.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  Okay, so my husband has a full-time job. That has him working all day during the day on the weekdays. And then we both work for our church and so that takes up most of our weekends.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  To think like, every Sunday is pretty much, we're churching, I like to say, all day. And on Saturdays, we sometimes have time to connect, but usually it gets filled up with other activities.

• 2:00Dr. John Delony?

  Like what?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Saturdays, most of the time, if it does get taken up, it's either by, my husband's also in the Army Reserves and so he has training once a month for that and that takes up usually a Friday, Saturday and a Sunday. And then if it's not that, usually it's something ministry related. I'm the youth director at our church and so usually we have events on Saturdays.

• 2:30Dr. John Delony?

  Do you get paid for this?

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 2:34Dr. John Delony?

  Like as a full-time job or as a quarter-time job? How does that work?

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's a part-time. To be really transparent, we get paid each individually 750 a month.

• 2:48Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, do y'all need that money?

• 2:51Speaker 00

  I would say yes, it covers our rent for where we're living and utilities and stuff.

• 2:59Dr. John Delony?

  But I mean, do you need it? Do you want it? Yes, of course. Everyone, I don't care how much money you have, everyone wants an extra $1,400, but...

• 3:08Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:09Dr. John Delony?

  Here's, let me back all the way out. Two things, one, you can't help a full-time job. You gotta, somebody's gotta work a full-time job. Do you have a full-time job during the week also?

• 3:21Speaker 00

  I don't have a job right now. I'm a full-time student. I'm in my master's program and I'm in my internship.

• 3:27Dr. John Delony?

  Well, also put that on the list, that's a full-time, that's a busy thing too.

• 3:31Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:32Dr. John Delony?

  How old are y'all?

• 3:34Speaker 00

  I'm 23 and he is 29.

• 3:38Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, that leads me to the second thing. So some of this sounds seasonal, right? He's in the reserves, working a full-time job, you're in graduate school, plus doing an internship on top of your graduate school. Like, that's a busy season. This season, this season comes to an end.

• 3:55Speaker 00

  Right.

• 3:55Dr. John Delony?

  But I also hear regularly of people ministering, it's not even a word, ministering themselves to death.

• 4:10Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:11Dr. John Delony?

  Or ministering themselves as a way to anesthetize the relationships they have at home.

• 4:22Dr. John Delony?

  And so if you back all the way out, maybe the greatest gift you could give your church community is that you and your husband have a ride or die anchored marriage.

• 4:35Dr. John Delony?

  Over the long haul.

• 4:38Dr. John Delony?

  And if y'all are in a financial season where we are scratching and clawing, every penny matters, then we have to say, okay, for this season, we are making this choice. What other choices can we make? And those may look like Saturdays are completely off limits.

• 4:56Speaker 00

  Right.

• 4:57Dr. John Delony?

  Period. Or there is no TV in our house and there's no phone in our house. Because those are gonna take up whatever precious seconds we have left during this wild season.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:09Dr. John Delony?

  But it feels like your life is happening to you. And I guess I just want to give you some agency to back all the way out of it and say, except for the full-time job and the military service, everything else y'all are doing is something y'all are deciding to do.

• 5:24Speaker 00

  Right.

• 5:25Dr. John Delony?

  And that always means, on the flip side, is y'all could decide to do other stuff.

• 5:31Dr. John Delony?

  But every one of those decisions just comes with a cost.

• 5:35Dr. John Delony?

  We may have less disposable income, but we can go on more bike rides and hikes together, or go fishing together, or whatever. Or we are gonna miss all the TV shows that everybody talks about, but we are gonna have lots of making out time. Like y'all get, y'all get to pick, right?

• 5:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:54Dr. John Delony?

  Is, do you feel like he's in?

• 5:57Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely, yeah. And it's really interesting that you, that you mentioned the hiking, because that's something that I'm really into. I love getting outdoors and hiking and we've been married for a little over three years now. And so, one of the first things that I said, like, hey, I would love to spend time with you, like going hiking, going out in nature. And he loves amusement parks, he loves going roller coasters. I do too, but most of our vacations, most of our away time has been those things as opposed to the things that I really enjoy. We've talked about it and just over this past week, he's been, he's been really, I guess, intentional in trying to see what I desire as well.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  He's noticed, he even made the statement, I think last week, he was like, man, I feel like I've really failed as a husband over the last three years, because I've really only been living my life and I've kind of just drug you along with me. And so that was a, that was a kind of a heavy moment for us, where we both kind of realized both that and like, wow, we've been non-stop going since we've been married.

• 7:05Dr. John Delony?

  So can I just tell you, congratulations?

• 7:08Speaker 00

  Oh, thank you.

• 7:09Dr. John Delony?

  Like, y'all are at level two now, right? My hope is that people figure this out in the first six months, like, oh, I didn't just marry somebody and they're now gonna be an accessory to this life I wanted to be living?

• 7:22Dr. John Delony?

  It took me, ah, gosh, 12 years maybe, 10 years to figure this out, so good on you. That's impressive for you.

• 7:32Dr. John Delony?

  You're still more than half a decade ahead of where I was, me and my wife. So what I want you to reimagine in this way, and you and your husband, and I'll announce it here, this is the, finally, after three years of working on it,

• 7:48Dr. John Delony?

  this, in the Christmas season, and it's gonna be a very limited run, but I've got a marriage kit, it's the exact rebuild that me and my wife use every year. But it's to say, okay, here was our old marriage, it's over. This is a new year, we've never been married and... Dot, dot, dot.

• 8:08Dr. John Delony?

  What I want you and your husband to do is to swipe the deck clean and say, okay, we've got this new revelation.

• 8:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:14Dr. John Delony?

  We've been running non-stop and actually we've been chasing, you've been chasing the life that your husband wants to lead and he recognized it in himself. He called it out and said, I've let you down, I've let us down. It's not just gonna be about, okay, let's go hiking instead of roller coastering. It's gonna be about swiping the whole thing off the table and saying, okay, we get to choose what our marriage looks like and feels like, what do we want to do next?

• 8:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:43Dr. John Delony?

  And if that means, I'm gonna take a semester off of grad school because I miss you, or I'm in my internship, I'm almost there, like, we're gonna have, you get what I'm saying, like that level of intentionality?

• 8:57Dr. John Delony?

  Because a lot of what y'all have on your plate is choices.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, and that's a, that's a good, really better way to look at it, because I'm done with my internship and, and next month. So that'll, that'll give us some time to really have those conversations. And I think we actually had a conversation a few days ago about ministry and he brought up the same thing that you just did, like, do we really need this? Do I really need to have, because the ministry has been something that's been kind of causing a lot of stress and tension. Usually when we come home, our conversations are about church. They're about things going on at church and that fills up our home time. And that's been, that's been a struggle.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  We've had seasons of trying to be really intentional about not talking about church at all at home. And then it kind of just slowly creeps back in.

• 9:51Dr. John Delony?

  And so what if you...

• 9:54Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all, y'all set up a dinner this week? Y'all have kids?

• 9:59Speaker 00

  We do not.

• 10:00Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, great, so set up a dinner this week and y'all go. And I want you to give each other 30 days, give each other a month, and put on the calendar, we're gonna come back together at the end of August when my internship is over. But here's the questions we want to answer. Number one, what are our family values? What are we gonna say, like, when people think of us and we're not in the room, what are they gonna say about us? We are people who, and put 3, 5, 10, 20, I don't care how many you put on there. The more you have, the more complicated it gets. But, and then the second one is, how do we want our home to feel every single day when we get home?

• 10:36Dr. John Delony?

  And we get to choose to a large degree what that looks like and feels like. And how do we make our home the shelter from the chaos that is the world outside of there? And it might mean, for the next year, once a month, you'll have the youth group over to your house, but y'all aren't, y'all aren't in any official capacity. You need to stop working at the hospital and y'all need to be patients for a season.

• 11:03Dr. John Delony?

  Or you're dedicating your husbands, serving so much, you're serving so much, plus y'all are working, you're serving yourselves into this, like, drift, into this disconnection. Let's serve ourselves and serve each other first, so that we can be of service to our greater communities.

• 11:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:27Dr. John Delony?

  But give each other a couple of weeks to think on it, get through your internship, you're gonna graduate, what are you studying?

• 11:33Speaker 00

  Um, I'm actually studying to be a marriage and family therapist.

• 11:36Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, God, help you. This ought to be fun.

• 11:41Speaker 00

  Right.

• 11:43Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent, so, you, this rebuild will be perfect.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:49Dr. John Delony?

  So, because you'll be able to speak with some authenticity to clients moving forward, and plus, I mean, you're done with your internship, but you're, now you're gonna start working for free for the next two years, right?

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:00Dr. John Delony?

  Or probably paying somebody to do clinical hours, so that you can go get your certifications and stuff, and licensure and stuff.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 12:07Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, this is a great opportunity to have, to practice, who do we want to be? And what do you want this house to feel like? And so, what must be true for our house to feel like this?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 12:18Dr. John Delony?

  And just remember, every single choice you make is gonna come with trade-offs, it's gonna come with, the dramatic word is consequences, they're gonna come with things. We're gonna miss out on TV shows, but we're not gonna have a TV, because we're gonna spend every precious moment we have, which are just a few, looking at each other's eyes, playing games, being silly, making out all over this house. Or, we're gonna do ministry all day Sunday too, and that's gonna mean, we're gonna, our time's gonna be extra precious, or we're done doing ministry stuff, our weekends are too precious, and once a month, we're gonna go to a roller coaster, and the other month, we're gonna go on a big, long hike. Y'all get to decide this, man, and you're still young and figuring it out, but, man, the fact that y'all called it, hey, three years in, we're on the wrong track, let's

• 13:02Dr. John Delony?

  swipe the deck, let's rebuild this thing from the floor up. Good on y'all, it's awesome, y'all are in the right place. Thanks so much for the call. When we come back, a man asks how to embrace becoming a stay-at-home dad without feeling like he's lost his role as the provider. We'll be right back.

• 13:21Dr. John Delony?

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• 14:06Dr. John Delony?

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• 14:25Dr. John Delony?

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• 15:48Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's go out to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and talk to T-O-double-D. What's up, Todd? How we doing?

• 15:55Speaker 02

  Good, how are you today?

• 15:56Dr. John Delony?

  I'm good, man, what's going on?

• 15:58Speaker 02

  So, I'm mid-40s, I'm married, and I have a two-year-old daughter. For the past two years, my wife has been a stay-at-home mom, and I've, I've been working a full-time job, but we have now decided to switch roles, where she's gonna take a full-time job, and she started, we're both accountants, and I'm gonna step back from full-time work and be a stay-at-home dad, for, we figure, 18 months to two years. And financially, we're on baby step seven, so I'm not so worried about the financial side, but it's the coming to grips with a sort of an abrupt change, right?

• 16:39Speaker 02

  I've been a provider, been a sort of a worker and a saver, kind of strongly identified with that my whole life, or my whole adult life, and now, I'm doing something that obviously requires work, but it's not renumerative. So, trying to think through and process that, and still feel like this is working for us, and works for me, and it doesn't challenge my sense of identity, or, you know, maybe my sense of identity needs to adapt, that is what I'm dealing with right now.

• 17:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I'm hearing three, three threads here. The thread number one is, you anchored your, your value, your worth, you answered the question, what am I worth, with a number? And that is a recipe for psychological implosion every time. The second thing is, you put a lot, you've, I don't wanna put too much stock into what I'm, I'm feeling here, ironically, but your feelings matter a lot, meaning you're led by them.

• 17:47Dr. John Delony?

  And the third thing here is, you're trying to hang on to what was in a completely new context, that doesn't exist anymore.

• 17:56Dr. John Delony?

  And so, yeah, all three of those things are gonna have to have a pretty radical transformation here.

• 18:02Dr. John Delony?

  So, here's what that looks like, you have to answer the question, who am I? Who do I want to be?

• 18:10Dr. John Delony?

  What does my role look like? What does masculinity look like? What does fatherhood look like? What does marriage look like? And you've identified that in the past with a number.

• 18:27Dr. John Delony?

  And so, you're gonna have to hold court with yourself and ask, okay, beneath the number, who am I? And it might be redefining a couple of terms, I'll walk you through that in a second. The second thing you're gonna have to do is, let your feelings be your feelings, you're gonna feel uncomfortable, you're gonna feel at a loss, you're gonna feel useless, you're gonna feel like you're not contributing, all those feelings are gonna come, let them come, man. If you try to stave those off, that's a recipe for addiction, that's a recipe for numbing out, it's a recipe for resentment, rage, all those things. Let those feelings come, and already have a pre-established, here's what my next right move is gonna be, in spite of those feelings, because of the person, this, back to this identity statement, here's who I'm gonna be. You hear what I'm saying?

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I totally understand what you're saying.

• 19:12Dr. John Delony?

  Don't avoid those feelings, they're coming, brother, like, they're probably already here, right? They're coming. And so, feel them, and then go to the next right thing.

• 19:22Dr. John Delony?

  And if they continue to show up, then they, there are signals, right? There are alarms, they may be pointing you, like, hey, we had this plan, the plan we laid out, when we, like, any good military operation, we had a plan, and right when we got in there, and we, we learned on the ground, the plan changed, the plan's gotta change, so, cool, we'll change it.

• 19:40Speaker 02

  Right.

• 19:42Dr. John Delony?

  Um, so, yeah. Tell me what you, what you think of this word, provide?

• 19:47Speaker 02

  Well, I think a lot of that stems from, I was raised in a sort of environment of, you know, son and descendant of immigrant, Italian immigrants worked really hard, just like the male, like, went out and, went out and worked really hard.

• 20:06Dr. John Delony?

  Killed it, dragged it home, yeah.

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 20:08Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 20:10Speaker 02

  And I have a very strong sense of duty and honor to my family.

• 20:16Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 20:18Speaker 02

  And there is this sense of going against changing things up a little bit, even if it's temporary, 18 months, two years, I mean, that's sort of a blip, right? Maybe in, in long, but it runs counter to a sort of ethos that I was raised with. And so, it sort of feels irresponsible, and there's this, like, level of irresponsibility.

• 20:42Dr. John Delony?

  Whose story is that?

• 20:44Speaker 02

  Uh, that's definitely my family's story.

• 20:47Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Definitely handed down to me.

• 20:49Dr. John Delony?

  So, here's what I want you to make space for, and I have one in my bag, right here, underneath this desk that I'm sitting at, but it's something I carry with me all the time. I want you to write down those stories when they pop into your head, and they will pop into your head all the time, especially at the beginning.

• 21:05Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to ask yourself, whose story is this? Or another way to say it, Michael Singer wrote an amazing book about this, but, that the voice isn't yours, isn't you, who's saying that?

• 21:23Dr. John Delony?

  And it, it, what it does is it creates psychological space between the voice and your body's reaction to that voice.

• 21:33Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:34Dr. John Delony?

  And that keeps your heart rate from taking, and by the way, this is a practice. This isn't something you're just gonna flip a switch on. You practice separating yourself from that voice, those voices.

• 21:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:44Dr. John Delony?

  What a loser, you're not a man. A whole generation of men did, like, worked really hard for you to what? Sit at home and hold a two-year-old? Like, all those voices, write those down and get them out of your body and look at them. Examine them, are they telling the truth? Is this real?

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure.

• 22:00Dr. John Delony?

  And whose voice is that? And be honest, is this voice right? Sometimes the voices are right.

• 22:09Dr. John Delony?

  And I think this word provide, um, again, we distill everything down into numbers these days. Because the days of us, at least right now, maybe not forever, but right now, we're not out slaying dragons and we're not out, like, because I have bigger arms, I'm gonna work the plow, right? And so, sometimes the greatest gift I can give my wife, in terms of provision, yes, there is a, there is a financial reality to our home. You and your wife, um, for those of you don't know, baby step seven, it's, it's a Ramsey Solutions term, that means you all are doing very well financially. Y'all are millionaires, right?

• 22:50Speaker 02

  Uh, pretty, I would say, pretty close.

• 22:53Dr. John Delony?

  Pretty, okay, so y'all have set yourselves up financially. So you, you can do this and it's not gonna be a financial burden to your family. Um, you and your wife have co-made this decision together. But that means, maybe the greatest thing you can provide is space.

• 23:11Speaker 02

  One way I frame it is, being a provider means also allowing space for my wife to pursue her career.

• 23:19Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, so if you look at it like, um, you're gonna provide, like, there is a, I'm gonna go hold back the world so that she has space to go do her thing.

• 23:31Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 23:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, that's providing. It looks different, and it doesn't, like you said, it doesn't have a number attached to it, but it's still got value.

• 23:41Speaker 02

  Doesn't have a number, doesn't have a title. And it may not have a...

• 23:45Dr. John Delony?

  Give, if you need that, give yourself a title. I am, I am co-CEO of this home, print out a certificate and frame it. You accountants love your frames on your walls, put them up there, man.

• 23:57Dr. John Delony?

  And have your wife give you a monthly, uh, performance review. And, I mean, I'm, I'm being silly, but, but not really. Y'all get to decide what this looks like for y'all. Um, tell me about this eighteen-month to two-year timeframe. Are you, are you running from something? Are you burned out? Are you sick of your job? Are you thinking of doing something else? Or...

• 24:18Speaker 02

  Actually, that is a big part of it.

• 24:19Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, tell me about that.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Uh, I'm pretty, so I've been, had a pretty much a twenty-year straight career in accounting.

• 24:26Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:27Speaker 02

  And I don't know, I would say accounting can, can wear you down after a while.

• 24:31Dr. John Delony?

  Absolutely.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Um, I've worked in various environments, but, but the theme is the same. It's sort of, you start to get, you hit a burnout period.

• 24:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  And I hit my burnout period. Um, I'm still actually working some part-time hours, you know, doing some stuff for people to, to bring in a little cash flow, but I stopped full-time work, cause I, you know, I just hit a burnout point. Um, and the thinking is, where we are financially, work after eighteen months, two years, when, say, my daughter starts preschool, um, doesn't have to look like sitting in a cubicle forty hours a week.

• 25:08Dr. John Delony?

  Correct.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Uh, and I'm trying to reimagine what it will look like in two years.

• 25:15Dr. John Delony?

  So, let me, the fact that you're asking that question tells me you're way ahead of the game. And I wanna give you a hack question to ask, okay? And I hate the word hacks with all my guts, but there's a few situations when a question can cut through years of wondering and pondering, okay? Thinking back to the accounting you've done, you've seen the inside of businesses, you've seen the inside of people's homes, you've seen the inside of people's, the way they move and manage money and what it means to them. You've seen a lot of human interaction underneath all the numbers you've been working for the last twenty years, right?

• 25:50Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm, yeah.

• 25:51Dr. John Delony?

  So when you think of all of the different types of people you've come into contact with, all the different scenarios, situations, divorces, deaths, estates, all of it.

• 26:03Dr. John Delony?

  Putting numbers aside, when you look at humanity, if you could snap your fingers and help a group of people, who would you help?

• 26:17Speaker 02

  I would help, uh, working families.

• 26:21Dr. John Delony?

  And...

• 26:21Speaker 02

  Try and find more time for their, the family members that, you know, that need it, um, guiding kids through school, all these, um, complications that, uh, you know, really get in the way. Sometimes money creates a barrier to spending time with family, you know? Uh, freedom of spending time with family. That's, that's what I would advise and guide people towards. Um, so, uh, you know...

• 26:50Dr. John Delony?

  Incredible.

• 26:51Speaker 02

  Guiding people towards keeping out of debt, because it represents freedom, um, these types of things.

• 26:57Dr. John Delony?

  So what you have is a two-year runway to, if you need to go get trained as a, um, I'm gonna, dude, I'm gonna make stuff up, okay? You can get it, you can get a graduate degree online, or in the evenings, in some sort of mental health-related field.

• 27:25Dr. John Delony?

  You can get certified as an elementary school teacher and start after-school programs. You can get, I mean, you can do anything. You could launch a small business where you help local, uh, youth sports organizations, um, create space so that families can actually, or who knows what you can do, right?

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:48Dr. John Delony?

  But keeping that picture in mind, who do I wanna help? And let that be the guiding light, that in two years, you're gonna be equipped with whatever that means, education, credentialing, servicing, business, whatever, so that I can help strapped families. That's beautiful, man.

• 28:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:07Dr. John Delony?

  Cause most people think of, what job do I wanna do? I don't know, what's my passion, yada, and you just, man, it just be, you, you end up like, trying to run a marathon in syrup. It's awful. And so hacking through all that, who do you wanna help, man? I wanna help busy people get some lunch. Cool, I'm gonna go buy a Burger King. Right, like, I wanna help people get in shape. Cool, I'm gonna go get certified as, as a, as a fitness coach with my mind pump buddies and I'm gonna go help people. Like, it's getting that picture in your head, who do you wanna help? And then what must be true, man, you got a two-year runway. And so if you look at this as a, I am providing space for my wife to get back into the workforce, which I'm, I'm hoping that means something to her, that she's been at home for eighteen,

• 28:51Dr. John Delony?

  twenty-four months and she's like, uh, I gotta, you know, all that, I, this isn't for me, it's driving me crazy, et cetera. I'm gonna create space for her and in the meantime, I'm not just sitting here doing nothing, I am retooling for the work, for the back half of my life. That's a, that's, that's a pretty cool identity to anchor into.

• 29:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I think that works for me. I mean, I, I'm in touch with my local CPA board and they have all kinds of credentials for certified counseling of, you know, financial counseling and, you know, something I've explored.

• 29:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, do, do you wanna get out of numbers altogether?

• 29:29Speaker 02

  No, I actually enjoy doing, um, especially financial counseling. I've, you know, built some tools that I can work with people on, you know, running through debts and budgets and things like that, um, but I do have other passions. I, I, I'm a licensed bus driver and I told my wife that someday I won't embarrass my daughter by being her school bus driver.

• 29:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yes, yes, that rules, dude. And I don't know a school district in America that could not use more bus drivers.

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:00Dr. John Delony?

  And so I, I, I want you to begin to keep a list, like, and, and if you cannot do it in Excel, this will be hard for you. That was my accounting joke. Um, and if you cannot, if you can put your ten key in a drawer, right? And I know a ten key can serve as kind of like a, a Xanax for accountants. Like, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna start doing numbers real fast. If you can get a pen and a pad, a piece of paper and a pen, and then begin to write down, here's what I'm providing for my wife, for my daughter, for our home, here's what I'm providing for our community, and here's what I wanna provide for our families in

• 30:45Dr. John Delony?

  my city, my neighborhood, whatever.

• 30:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:49Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to begin to keep stock of that. So when those feelings, those stories pop up, you're a loser, you're a waste, or whatever, you can say, no, no, no, I'm providing, and here's, here's the evidence of it. I keep that evidence with me.

• 31:05Dr. John Delony?

  And I also want you to have some sort of ceremony with your wife that ends the official, my identity used to be my bank account, it is no more.

• 31:16Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not doing my life in service to this bank account. I'm not worshiping at the, at the altar of some number in some account somewhere. This account is in service to the life we want to build together.

• 31:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, that works for me. And that helps that my wife helps to counterbalance my, you know, my, that sort of quantitative thinking that I sometimes fall into, my, my wife serves as a great counterbalance for that. Cause she, she, she thinks along the lines more of what you're, you're talking about this ultimate, you know, money serves as a tool, not a end goal.

• 31:55Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. And here's where this is, it's going to be a, a discipline for you. You may have to get into a practice where for 30 days, I'm not going to look at our returns.

• 32:08Dr. John Delony?

  For 30 days, I'm going to delete every single Financial Times email that I have coming into my inbox.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:17Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm going to be present in my house. And you know what you're going to find? You're going to find yourself itchy. You're going to find yourself bored. You're going to find yourself like, man, being with a two-year-old is amazing and it is very boring.

• 32:31Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 32:32Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:32Dr. John Delony?

  So allow yourself to be bored and begin to ask yourself, okay, what must, what can I read fiction for a while?

• 32:39Dr. John Delony?

  Can I write? Can I work on a business plan? Can I take my kid to the park? Can I, can I find some other parents who need two hours off to like other stay-at-home parents and they can bring their, like, I can take three two-year-olds at a time. They can bring them over and I'm just going to start from 8:00 AM till 10:00 AM, giving stay-at-home moms and dads a break in my neighborhood. Bring your kid over. I don't even charge you. I'll start giving you all space. I'm gonna start practicing this thing I want to do. And that might lead to future clients one day that might, if nothing else, it might just give, give space to people who are drowning.

• 33:22Dr. John Delony?

  But all of those things come under the heading of providing. And in our modern world, providing is bigger than a dollar amount. I will caution anybody, any stay-at-home parent, but especially stay-at-home dads, from not reforming an identity and not giving yourself a serious lists, list of things to go tackle, to go do. Staying at home and being with a kid and then knocking off some kid chores and looking around, man, that's going to get tough real quick. And if you take on all the domestic responsibilities and you are just running

• 34:04Dr. John Delony?

  and gunning from 6:00 AM or till 5:00 AM until midnight, awesome. But make sure you keep yourself a list of things that you are constantly doing to provide space for your family and provide the home that you and your wife want to co-create together. It's amazing. Good, good luck, brother. And man, I think the thing that you want to do down the line, helping other folks, I think it's beautiful. And cherish every single second you have with that little one. Every single second. They go real, real fast. We come back, a woman asks how to help her husband and their 13-year-old daughter get along better. We'll be right back.

• 34:42Dr. John Delony?

  All right. This is amazing. Montana Knife Company has launched their first folding knife, the, the Montana. I did not think this knife was going to be super rad, right? I mean, I knew it would be cool. I knew it would be awesome, but I didn't know it would be this amazing. I've been telling you about Montana Knife Company's fixed blades for hunting, for cooking, for working outside for years now. And they have taken the same 30 years of craftsmanship and precision that they have put into those fixed blades and they've brought it to the folding knife and they nailed it. This is the ultimate everyday carry knife. And here's what I really love about Montana Knife Company knives. These are working knives made by people who actually use them and they're made right here in America.

• 35:26Dr. John Delony?

  I recently was at dinner with Josh Smith, the founder, and he personally walked me through the details of his fixed blades and of this new folding knife, the Montana. This is the pocket knife perfected. And like all Montana Knife Company knives, this knife is going to be around for generations. It's something your grandkids are going to fight over years from now. If you've never shopped at Montana Knife Company before, you need to know that their knives sell out super fast because they're handmade and supplies are extremely limited with whatever drop they're doing. So head over to mkc.com to check out what's available right now. And while you're there, sign up for email and text alerts to be the first to know about upcoming product drops, restocks and new releases. That's mkc.com.

• 36:12Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's go out to South Dakota and talk to Ann. Hey, Ann, what's up?

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Hey, happy to be here.

• 36:18Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you so much for calling. How can I help?

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Yeah. So my husband and my 13-year-old daughter are at each other's throats all the time. He is a teacher. He's home in the summer with her and I'm getting phone calls from both of them, just complaining about each other all the time. And this has not been a new thing. Like even my coworkers know this is a cycle. Austin will be calling and her daughter will be calling her and they'll be fighting in the summer. Like, it's been going on for years and I just keep getting in the middle of it and I think I'm just making things worse. And now he's mad at me and it's just.

• 36:59Dr. John Delony?

  What are they fighting over?

• 37:01Speaker 03

  Um, so it's usually nothing big. Um, but he just nitpicks every little thing. And then she disrespects him because she doesn't have any respect for him at this point, which is terrible. And then they just start going back and forth. It can be over sweeping the kitchen, like little things.

• 37:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. I mean, I don't know how I can help because he's not on the phone. I, I've been there. I'll tell you the, the few things my wife told me that transformed my relationship with my daughter. But they were about me. They weren't about my kid.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  Well, and like her and I, like, we get along great. And she gravitates towards me all the time. And we end up like just going separate directions a lot of time because it's just easier. And

• 37:55Dr. John Delony?

  What does that mean? What does that mean?

• 37:57Speaker 03

  Well, it's just, it's just less tension.

• 38:00Dr. John Delony?

  You and her?

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 38:03Dr. John Delony?

  So is it that your husband is the only one in the house that will engage her?

• 38:08Speaker 03

  She, so we, her and I will get in fights too, like, and I'll, like, she, she's a very fiery. She has been since the day she was born. And I keep saying, if we get her to adulthood, she's going to be amazing, but it's rough. Um, but it's not like she's without fault, but.

• 38:24Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I know, but she's 13. That's, they're supposed to.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  Right, right. And I just, like, I've heard you talk about how your wife told you that you were like electric and your kids didn't want to be on you. And he listens to you all the time. And I've like, repeated that whole story back to him. And I feel like he's that way. Like, we're in the living room, we're watching TV and they're on me and he's on a couch all by himself.

• 38:50Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 38:51Speaker 03

  And he's like, with me, he's the most amazing husband. And he's like, so affectionate all the time, but he like, doesn't hug her.

• 39:00Dr. John Delony?

  Why?

• 39:01Speaker 03

  And I don't, I don't, I cannot, I don't know.

• 39:05Dr. John Delony?

  Will she, will she receive his hugs?

• 39:07Speaker 03

  Yes. But she doesn't initiate it.

• 39:12Dr. John Delony?

  That's not her job.

• 39:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:15Dr. John Delony?

  See, I mean, I, I don't know what to tell you. It's a dad's responsibility to engage with his daughter.

• 39:20Speaker 03

  Right. And like he, like he coaches her basketball team, takes her to school, gets her up in like, all the like textbook, like things.

• 39:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. But if you take every one of those engagements and try to turn them into a, a, a teaching moment, a learning lesson.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 39:38Dr. John Delony?

  You didn't sweep here. Are you wearing that? Fix your bag. Did you have your homework? Did you do this? Hey, make sure you block out. Hey, why didn't you? No one would want to be around anybody who lived their life that way relationally.

• 39:50Speaker 03

  Right.

• 39:51Dr. John Delony?

  And so what I had to work on was, number one, I had to go see a professional mental health therapist and figure out why am I so set off by a child?

• 40:04Dr. John Delony?

  Why am I so emotionally reactive? And what I found stunned me. And it transformed my home, my entire home. So as the, as the, I'm saying this intentionally provocatively, but as the man of my house, it was my job to go sit with a therapist and figure out what's going on with me.

• 40:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:25Dr. John Delony?

  Number two, my wife gave me this wisdom and it changed everything because I didn't mean to. But she said, what if the greatest gift you could give our kids was not lessons on every second of their lives, but if you worked on being more likeable? And I don't know why, but that light bulb switched. It was a, it was, it was a switch. And here's what I, I've talked about on the show. I sat down with my son and I was like, dude, I'm not going to complain about your clothes anymore. I'm just done. You want to wear your shirts backwards? You want to wear wrinkled up? Knock your lights out. If we're going to go out on a family thing or we're going to a funeral, we're going to somewhere important, we're all going to represent our family well. And so I'm going to have some expectations there. But when you're your buddies, you're at school, knock your lights out, man. I'm

• 41:10Dr. John Delony?

  going to turn you over to the middle school wolves was my exact line. But I'm not going to lose my relationship with you over a haircut. I'm, I'm your dad. I'm supposed to think your haircut should be different, regardless of what, what, what the style is. I'm not going to lose my relationship with you over that. And same with my daughter.

• 41:29Dr. John Delony?

  And kids, especially fiery kids, I'm saying confrontation. They don't need showdowns, but they do need parents that don't shy away from their big feelings, their big emotions.

• 41:44Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 41:45Dr. John Delony?

  I will stand firm in this. I'm not going to, I'm not going to meet your reaction with my reaction. And because I'm louder and bigger and stronger, I'm going to win. No, I'm not going to engage with you. But I'm not scared of your feelings. You're 13.

• 42:00Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying? There's a big difference there. I'll stand here in the middle of the storm because your storm doesn't scare me. And if you're mean or rude or you break my heart, I'm going to let you know you hurt my feelings.

• 42:14Speaker 03

  You make me feel so much less crazy.

• 42:18Dr. John Delony?

  But it's...

• 42:21Dr. John Delony?

  My daughter is not naturally, um, it...

• 42:27Dr. John Delony?

  It has taken a long time for her to relax in hugs. Well, now I can't keep the kid off of me, but for years it was that way. And it was still my job as dad to recognize she... I am setting the model. I am... She is gonna marry a guy like me.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  I've said that exactly.

• 42:51Dr. John Delony?

  She's gonna... And maybe not marry. She's gonna date men like me that are attractive. She's gonna be attracted to this nervous system. It's gonna feel homeostatic for her. It's gonna feel like home. And so it's my job to make sure whatever nervous system her body gravitates towards is a safe one. And what that meant is, I had years, literally years, of saying, "Hey, look at me. I'm glad you're my daughter and I love you. I'm glad of all the people on the planet. God picked me to be your dad." And I got nothing back. And my job as the dad was to stay emotionally regulated and show up again and show up again and show up again.

• 43:35Dr. John Delony?

  "Can I tuck you in tonight?" "No, I want mom." "All right. I love you. I'm so glad I get to be your dad." Even if I closed her door and I broke my heart.

• 43:44Dr. John Delony?

  And now we have these long adventure telling night... Nah, I can't. I'm like, dude, I gotta go to bed. And my wife's like, "Y'all have to go to bed."

• 43:54Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 43:55Speaker 03

  Well, and that's... I love that. And I wish, like, I want that for him and...

• 43:59Dr. John Delony?

  That's what I'm saying. I can't help because he's not on the phone. I mean, I can't...

• 44:01Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 44:02Dr. John Delony?

  I can't challenge him. He's on the phone, but, um...

• 44:06Speaker 03

  He's a teacher and he has, like, he had a group of students, female students, that called him their sub dad, their substitute dad, because he would help them work through all their problems and all this stuff. Like, he's so... And then turn around and he just, like, is a completely different person with his own daughter. And she's starting to see that.

• 44:25Dr. John Delony?

  It's not. The relationship is different.

• 44:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:30Dr. John Delony?

  I am a trained mental health professional and my daughter doesn't need a therapist. She needs a dad.

• 44:35Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:36Dr. John Delony?

  I also was a teacher for 20 years in K-5, high school and university settings. My kids didn't need a teacher. They didn't need me to teach them some things, but they needed their dad.

• 44:51Dr. John Delony?

  Uh, Jaco Willink, um, the Navy SEAL, like, who's... I have high respect for him. Um, but I remember seeing an interview with him and he said, "My Navy uniform never came in the house because my kids weren't in the military." So he kept a change of clothes in the car, like, board shorts and a T-shirt and flip flops go in my house. And it was a reminder, "I'm taking this uniform off. I'm putting this one on." And the illusion is, the sucky part, and this happens with teachers, this happens with therapists, happens with youth ministers, is all these other people think you're great, "But I only have to deal with you in doses and I get to set the rules." "You're in my world now, honey," as Ben Stiller said that one time.

• 45:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:35Dr. John Delony?

  Right? "You're in my world now." Like, like, it's not real. It's a false dynamic.

• 45:44Speaker 03

  That makes so much sense.

• 45:45Dr. John Delony?

  "But when I get to your house, it's messy. It's all the time. It's every day." We get to see each other with our makeup off and with our, with our, you know, covered in dirt and mud and under the kitchen counter cleaning. Like, we get to see the raw of each other. It's just different. It's a false, it's a false narrative. It's a false setup. And so these, these middle school girls who think, or high school girls who think he's the best ever, A, he probably is an amazing teacher.

• 46:14Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:14Dr. John Delony?

  And he probably is good in that setting, setting boundaries, holding people accountable, encouraging people in this, um, artificial environment. And they love that. But they have a false understanding of the 360-degree nature of this guy because they don't get up for him in the morning when he's grumpy and when he leaves coffee grounds and hair is all over the sink. Like, they don't live in that world, right?

• 46:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 46:47Speaker 03

  That makes sense. So how do I, like, I mean, it's obviously affecting our relationship at this point. We fight about it all the time. We, like, spend the bulk of our time talking about this.

• 46:59Dr. John Delony?

  What are the fights, though?

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Well, so it, at some point, I get tired of listening to it and I interject. And then he says that I'm undermining his parenting. And so then, then I start telling him how I think he should be parenting, which of course he does not want to hear, but I don't know what else to say to him at this point.

• 47:19Dr. John Delony?

  Is he happy with how things are?

• 47:22Speaker 03

  No.

• 47:23Dr. John Delony?

  What is his response to, "How is this working for you?" As Dr. Phil used to ask.

• 47:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Well, and that's what he keeps saying, "Well, I'm trying something different." And it'll last, like, two days and then he's back at it. And like I said, he listens to you all the time. And I'm like, "How can you listen to John all the time and not put any of this into practice?"

• 47:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but that's not helpful either.

• 47:42Speaker 03

  I know, I know.

• 47:45Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, I, I promise you, whatever narrative inside his chest he's giving himself all day, every day, doesn't need yet another, like, "See?" Right?

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Well, yeah, I know he thinks, like, he feels like he lives in a failure factory, to use your words. Like, I know that. I just, I don't know how to fix that or help him fix that for himself.

• 48:05Dr. John Delony?

  So I want you to, I want you to, to change, uh, effective immediately. You ready?

• 48:11Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 48:12Dr. John Delony?

  All you can control is you.

• 48:17Dr. John Delony?

  That's it. You can't control him. You can't, this is hard to hear, you can't control a 13-year-old. You can put some riddy... Uh, you, you know what? You still can. You can control a 13-year-old.

• 48:33Dr. John Delony?

  But I mean, that kid can, I mean, it can get pretty militant pretty fast. That kid can unlock the door at 2:00 AM and walk out the front door. I mean, you know what I'm saying? If you really get down brass tacks, what you can control is you. And that might look like, "When y'all start fighting, I am going to get up and leave."

• 48:56Dr. John Delony?

  "When y'all start fighting, I am going to get my daughter and we are gonna leave."

• 49:02Dr. John Delony?

  You, when you ask me for my parenting advice or when you want to call me on the phone, I will not take calls about your interactions with our daughter because you're not going to get the help that you need to help you be emotionally regulated, sturdy, in the midst of a 13-year-old acting like a 13-year-old.

• 49:28Speaker 03

  That's so fair.

• 49:30Dr. John Delony?

  All you can control is you.

• 49:35Dr. John Delony?

  And that's, it, it, it should be equal parts, you should feel equal parts, fully empowered, like, "Oh, hell yeah. I, I can control me." Yeah, that's right. And it should, it should feel powerless.

• 49:53Speaker 03

  That's the part that's hard. It does, it feels powerless. And like, I just want to fix it.

• 50:00Dr. John Delony?

  I know.

• 50:01Speaker 03

  And protect them both. I want her to see, like, he's amazing. And I want her to see that side of him.

• 50:09Speaker 03

  And I want her to get that side of him too and vice versa. I want him to see how amazing he is.

• 50:15Dr. John Delony?

  That's it right there. That's it right there.

• 50:18Dr. John Delony?

  You want her to see a thing that's not really there.

• 50:28Dr. John Delony?

  You hear what I'm saying?

• 50:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 50:34Dr. John Delony?

  And that's heartbreaking.

• 50:36Speaker 03

  It makes you sad.

• 50:37Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 50:42Dr. John Delony?

  It should, because I think, there's few relationships on the planet more magic than a connected father and daughter.

• 50:53Dr. John Delony?

  So I think spending some time with yourself, asking, "What am I going to do next?"

• 51:00Dr. John Delony?

  "What must be true for me to show up as the best version of myself as a wife, as a mom, as a co-creator of this house?

• 51:10Dr. John Delony?

  And can I clearly communicate in a language my husband can hear, 'Here's what I'm going to do next when the following happens. Here's what I'm asking you to do for one final time.'"

• 51:22Dr. John Delony?

  And if I get between the two of you and take our daughter out and go get her ice cream when y'all are yelling and screaming at each other, I can't control whether you feel like I undermined you or if I just protected everybody. I can't control that. You get to choose whatever story you make up. But I'm telling you right now how I'm gonna respond to these moments.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, because I feel like it's my job not to make him feel like that, too.

• 51:49Dr. John Delony?

  You can't control his feelings. He's a grown man.

• 51:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's true.

• 51:55Dr. John Delony?

  Now, I've had the undermining conversation with my wife, and what we agreed on is unless it's something that is setting her, like, if she's like, hey, I gotta call this, or if I see it, and I'm like, I'm getting in the middle of it right now, like, this is not going to be a win situation for anybody in this house. Absent those rare moments, she will, when we're out having breakfast, or we're out having coffee together, she'll say, hey, can I pitch something that I saw yesterday? I'll be like, yeah. But those were hard to hear early on. But I was sensitive to, if I'm in the middle of a hard conversation with my son, and you come in and just try to rescue him, or try to rescue me, it does, it does, it unwinds the whole thing. The tension is important.

• 52:42Dr. John Delony?

  But here's an avenue where we could have that conversation. And that takes me being an adult, and showing up and being emotionally regulated for those, to be challenged, right?

• 52:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 52:54Dr. John Delony?

  And challenge is a critical part of any marriage relationship. Knowing that those challenges are, we're both on the same team, and we're both going for the same goal, right?

• 53:04Speaker 03

  Right.

• 53:07Dr. John Delony?

  Sorry.

• 53:09Speaker 03

  Thank you.

• 53:10Dr. John Delony?

  Sorry for everybody.

• 53:11Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:12Dr. John Delony?

  And if your husband's listening, I'll tell him this, brother, there is, there is peace in humility, in saying, I'm good at my job, working with young people, but I'm struggling with my relationship with, really, the young person that matters the most to me. There's peace in going to get some professional help, whether it's skill set, whether it is your own therapy, whether it is marriage counseling, like, there's, there's peace there. And there's peace in learning how to be sturdy, how to be, how to stand strong in the middle of a 13-year-old's emotions, which 13-year-olds are supposed to have them.

• 53:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 53:55Dr. John Delony?

  And not being unanchored myself, not feeling myself unwound in my own skin. I wish you guys the best. And if he wants to call in, Anne, tell him to call. I'll get him, I'll tell him to put a note in, with Kelly, and we'll get him through. I'd love to talk to him, because I've been right where he's at. And man, I wouldn't trade my situation that I have with my daughter for anything right now. We'll be right back.

• 54:19Dr. John Delony?

  When it comes to supplements, there's one main company that I trust, Thorne. I've been telling you about Thorne supplements for years. I've been using Thorne supplements for ages. I was first introduced to Thorne by professional athletes more than a decade ago, and Thorne continues to be the main supplements I trust for me and for my family. Supplements are an unregulated industry, and that means it's flooded with garbage and nonsense. Most companies cut corners, and they lie on their labels, not Thorne. Thorne makes every product at their world-class facility in South Carolina. Thirty-five percent of their employees work in quality control, and Thorne rejects 15% of raw materials

• 54:59Dr. John Delony?

  because good enough, a good deal on, it's fine, it's not good enough for Thorne. Thorne is about excellence. It's why pro athletes, Olympic teams, and more than 60,000 doctors trust Thorne, and it's why I trust them, too. Stop guessing what's going into your body. Go to thorne.com/theletteru/daloni and get 25% off your order when you create an account. That's T-H-O-R-N-E.com/theletteru/daloni.

• 55:29Dr. John Delony?

  Kelly, what's up?

• 55:31Speaker 04

  All right, I have a cool crap that happened.

• 55:33Dr. John Delony?

  Excelente.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  Yes. This is from Kathy in Newcastle, California, and she writes, "My husband of 51 years has a brain disease, and he has significant cognitive loss. Couple of days ago, I made him a sandwich for lunch. He took a few bites and said, 'Pickles.' And I said, 'Yes, I put pickles on your sandwich.' He nodded and kept it eating. The next day, I kissed him on the forehead and said, 'How can I love you better today?' He looked at me for a bit and said, 'No more pickles.' Was the first time we had laughed in months. Thank you, John and team, for helping me get through the most difficult season of my life."

• 56:10Dr. John Delony?

  That lifted my spirits up, those little bitty moments. Cognitive decline is evil, man. It's evil. And

• 56:24Dr. John Delony?

  those little rays of light that come through during the darkness of cognitive decline are magic. And so is asking that question, how can I love you today? And sometimes it's as simple as no more pickles. And sometimes it's as simple as stop hitting me, Kelly, but that's for another show. Love you guys. Bye.