Caller: “My Wife Discovered My Secret Porn Addiction”

📋 Stay connected all week long. Download Dr. John Delony's free Weekly Marriage Check-In Guide: On today’s episode, we hear about: A husband struggling to earn his wife’s trust back A woman who disagrees with her husband about screen time for their kids A man wondering how to support his family after his dad’s mental break 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.

• 0:05Dr. John Delony?

  Brought to you by my friends at Churchill Mortgage. If you're looking to buy or refinance, check them out. I've used Churchill and they are great. Go to churchillmortgage.com.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  We've been together 11 years. She made it clear at the beginning that she was not okay with pornography and, you know, wouldn't use for quite a while. And then from time to time when I felt rejected or lonely, she finally called me about a year ago and it blew our world to pieces.

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  So what if pornography, this sounds counterintuitive, what if it wasn't the issue?

• 0:40Dr. John Delony?

  What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, taking real calls from real people on all kinds of things going on in your life, your mental and emotional health, your marriages, your kids, your relationships, whatever you got going on. I'd love to have you on the show, pull up a seat and we'll figure out what's your next right move. Click the link in the show notes wherever you're watching this or listening to this and a form will pop up and you can fill out what's going on in your life in that form and it will go to Kelly. And speaking of Kelly.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  This is super embarrassing. We are wearing the same shirt.

• 1:16Dr. John Delony?

  So shout out to show listener Josh, we got busted. Kelly and I don't hate each other in real life and we were at this concert together, me and Kelly and a couple of the other folks that we work with. And by the way, it's this band called The Strike. Now, I'm a punk rock kid. I'm an OG metalhead and I love the Avet Brothers and Frank Turner. But this band, The Strike is, how would you describe them, Kelly?

• 1:43Speaker 02

  To me, they sound like they could have been in the eighties. You said that it reminded of Stranger Things and to me, they sound like they could be in any John Hughes film, especially when they, with the sax, I could put them in St. Almost Fire in a heartbeat. And it just warms my cold, black, dead heart.

• 2:05Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I didn't know you had a heart until I saw you singing along with all of your guts.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Every word and dancing. I mean, I danced my backside off for an hour and a half and it was fantastic.

• 2:13Dr. John Delony?

  Even, even I started dancing.

• 2:15Speaker 02

  You totally were dancing.

• 2:17Dr. John Delony?

  My shirt almost took itself off.

• 2:18Speaker 02

  I know, I had to. Luckily, I was right there. The producer, just so people know, the producer duties never end.

• 2:24Dr. John Delony?

  My shirt started taking itself off. They were so good.

• 2:26Speaker 02

  But I stopped it.

• 2:27Dr. John Delony?

  And somebody in the, uh, somebody leaned over and was like, are you getting Adam Levine vibes from this lead singer? And I instantly was like, no, because I think Adam Levine is faking. This singer of The Strike believes what he's saying. And if you listen to him, I want everyone after the show, just go to wherever you get music and put in The Strike and just stream it. And you're gonna be like, Deloney likes this band? Yes, they rule. They do feel like a bit, like they're from Stranger Things, like a soundtrack to Stranger Things, but also all the music I listened to growing up. But they are so great.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  They are, they're getting ready. So this was the last show on their kind of East Coast tour and then they're taking, I think, a couple of weeks off and then it's the West Coast. So if you were on the West Coast, do yourself a favor, go see them because I will tell you, I had seen them before and so I knew how great they were live. John had not and you were convinced that they weren't gonna be very good.

• 3:21Dr. John Delony?

  Well, in the first two songs, I was like, alright. And then by the time that show was over, I was, my inner middle school girl just broke free and man, my hips were not lying. They were lying, but they were giving it their best shot to tell the truth. That's what I'll say. They, I, I just smile. But here's the thing, this guy busted us like, I don't know, I think by the time I walked in from the door to the merch table, I took five pictures of people who just love our show and one guy was like, is that Kelly? And I was like, dude, if you tell anybody that we hang out outside of work because we're supposed to hate each other, that's our whole thing. He's like, alright, I won't tell anybody, I won't tell anybody. So shout out, we got busted, but.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, shout out to Josh, he was super sweet and great.

• 4:04Dr. John Delony?

  It was a great, yeah, great show. It was good for my soul.

• 4:08Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 4:09Dr. John Delony?

  Now, back to way to wear the same shirt as me.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  So embarrassing.

• 4:13Dr. John Delony?

  Genius. Alright, let's go out to Austin, Texas and talk to Martin. What's up, Martin?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  What's up, Dr. John?

• 4:19Dr. John Delony?

  How are you, brother?

• 4:21Speaker 01

  I'm doing alright.

• 4:22Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent. What's going on, dude?

• 4:25Speaker 01

  Well, I wrote in, um, asking how I can create a better environment for my partner to heal from my secret pornography use.

• 4:32Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Tell me about it, man.

• 4:36Speaker 01

  Well, I'll try to give you a short rundown. We've been together 11 years. She's a little older than me, got more experience than me.

• 4:43Dr. John Delony?

  Are you married?

• 4:44Speaker 01

  Two small children. We're married, we've only been married for a year and a half.

• 4:48Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 4:49Speaker 01

  But there's a story behind that, but we do have two small children. She made it clear at the beginning that she was not okay with pornography and chose to minimize that, downplay it, ignore it. You know, wouldn't use for quite a while and then from time to time when I felt rejected or lonely or all these other, you know, lame excuses, I would make bad choices. She finally called me about a year ago and it blew our world to pieces. And, uh, yeah, you know, we've both done a lot of work to heal from it and I've got a list of all that stuff, uh, if you want to hear it, but, you know, try to rebuild trust and work on our marriage and I think we made progress, but there's still just a lot of anger, resentment and I think, I think I wonder if, you know, our marriage is forever tainted.

• 5:36Speaker 01

  I can just see the way she looks at me, you know, the way that, somewhere like this, it's just, it's just different now.

• 5:41Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 5:41Speaker 01

  And so, yeah, I'm looking for ways to, I think more like, a lot of stuff I hear is more early on after this kind of stuff, but you know, a year later, we're obviously still dealing with it. I've been very careful not to put a timeframe on this and just be here and sit with her in it. But looking for ways to step my game up a year later and do the right things.

• 6:04Dr. John Delony?

  So dude, I, I want to shout you out, man.

• 6:08Dr. John Delony?

  The finding yourself over your head, getting caught, getting busted, whatever, not only with pornography, but just the deception and like, I love the word you used, just minimizing a thing that mattered to your wife, right? And this, this type of stuff always comes with lying and hiding and secrets. And probably in addition to like whatever disgust she has, whatever, or like hurt she has because, because she felt like you lied to her, whatever. Often what happens with affairs, with pornography, with all sorts of secrets, if you will, inside of a marriage is, or inside of a romantic relationship, y'all guys been together for years, is a person can look back and in this case, it's your wife, she can have felt that

• 6:52Dr. John Delony?

  gap, that she felt there was a distance between you for a long time and often partners spend years trying to figure out what they're doing wrong.

• 7:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 7:04Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And so there's a, there's an anger, a frustration, a rage sometimes. I thought all these years, the problem was me and I've been trying to figure out what's so wrong with me, why am I not likable, why am I not desirable? And it turns out, my partner was keeping the secret, right? So there's a lot built up there that's not just pornography or not just the dishonesty, but there's a, what kind of person am I that I missed that for all these years, right? So there's a lot of identity and she may not feel shame, but it's very, I mean, she may not say out loud, I feel ashamed too, but there's, it's very common that the person has to look in the mirror and say, what about me missed this? Or what about me didn't ask these questions, et cetera, right?

• 7:48Dr. John Delony?

  So there's a lot here. And there's two paths I think are important here. Number one, there's obviously, if you have any behavior you want to stop, right? Then there is the, I'm gonna stop this behavior, right? I'm gonna stop this action, I'm gonna stop drinking, I'm gonna stop looking at pornography, I'm gonna stop, fill in the blank of any number of maladaptive behaviors, right? That was a dorky way of just saying, anything, any behavior that's not serving me well or serving my relationship well.

• 8:18Dr. John Delony?

  But often with pornography especially, there's this, there is a feeling dead in your own skin. This is a cheap, easy hack to get some sort of alive feeling for just a second.

• 8:35Dr. John Delony?

  And so my question for you is, okay, you're working to rebuild trust, you're working to become a person who doesn't, doesn't default to pornography. All that's great, what are you doing to create a sense of aliveness inside your own skin?

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Sure. Um, well, that's definitely like a topic I, I was hoping we would touch on. I will say I haven't used since that day and honestly, it has not been difficult for me. To me, it really feels more like a choice that I was making. Um, and you know, my mindset has changed since then, things like that. So I don't think I really struggled with, I guess, the addiction side of it or, or whatever, maybe that's just my personality, kind of able to say, yeah, this is, I'm done with this, I don't need this in my life and walk away from it. I think for me, like.

• 9:26Speaker 01

  The question that kind of comes up, and I think for her, like she wants to see me working on myself, you know, and it's kind of touching on what you're saying. And then I've been to therapy, done things, and I guess it's like, well, what childhood trauma do you have? And I have childhood trauma, so does she, you know, it's all who doesn't in these days, it seems like, but you know, what trauma have you dealt with that caused you to do this? And to me, it's felt more surface level and more of our day to day. And I think what I've, at least the way I've understood it, and I'm totally open to something different, is that I just carry around resentment and for saying, not speaking up in our relationship, not speaking how I feel about things, kind of just rather not bring things up and, you know, make a scene about something. And I just bottle things up and just walk around with resentment and anger and chose to deal with it in that way.

• 10:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, yeah. So, so, so this is a strange question to ask, but what if pornography worked?

• 10:19Dr. John Delony?

  Right? So what if pornography wasn't, this sounds counterintuitive, what if it wasn't the issue, it was a solution?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that feels more accurate to me. Obviously, a terrible solution and it

• 10:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but yeah, but stay out of the pile on for pornography for a second.

• 10:38Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:39Dr. John Delony?

  It sounds nutty what I'm about to say. What if we could say thank you to pornography? For however deranged or unhealthy or unhelpful or destructive it's been in your relationship and in your own mind and in your body, all that. What if we said, thank you for being an outlet, a very unhealthy outlet, but an outlet?

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 10:56Dr. John Delony?

  And then we had to reverse engineer. And dude, yeah, like, man, I wrote a whole book on it. Going through childhood trauma is important. Figuring out where these stories, like, originated from can be very helpful. But often, it just is, it's like a cauldron, like a witch's cauldron. And if you just spend all of your energy on those conversations and on those going backwards and trying to mine for the past and all that, it's just like, it's just stirring a cauldron endlessly.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:29Dr. John Delony?

  And nothing, nothing really ever changes. You, your, your body heals, you transform yourself through the next right actions. And sometimes digging into the past, freeing yourself, doing body work, doing all those things are important. But you have to ask yourself, okay, what are the next steps I'm going to take?

• 11:49Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 11:50Dr. John Delony?

  And so, working on yourself doesn't, is often not endless therapy forever and ever and ever. Amen. It's not more podcasts and more books, although those are helpful. It is taking those things and then choosing minute by minute to live a different life.

• 12:06Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:07Dr. John Delony?

  And that's what I mean about finding a liveness in your own skin. Have you decided, I am a person who will speak up? I'm a person who hangs out with a group of guys once a week and I go, and fill in the blank, I don't care what activity, pickleball, golf, for God's sakes, fishing, comedy club, movie club, I don't care what it is, or fence building, y'all just go to each other's houses once a month and build stuff. Do you have a sense of a liveness in your own skin?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  I do, I do. I feel like I'm, I'm a active person, hobbies, you know, lately, like the last year, I've gotten more and more into guitar, which I've been playing my whole life.

• 12:47Dr. John Delony?

  Are you playing by yourself, though?

• 12:50Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, yeah, but I might learn to play.

• 12:53Dr. John Delony?

  A liveness can't be found alone.

• 12:56Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 12:57Dr. John Delony?

  Rest and restoration and reflection can be.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Okay, sure.

• 13:01Dr. John Delony?

  But you have to bring these things to other people. And if you, if you go play guitar by yourself in your, in your basement for two hours, that's awesome. I actually love doing that myself. But it has to be in service to, when I show up to jam with a group of guys, I got the song down.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 13:18Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Or that will become your new pornography, a way to numb out from, y'all, y'all have young kids, you said?

• 13:26Speaker 01

  Correct, yeah, four and six.

• 13:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so if you have a four and six year old, and a wife who's consistently frustrated and angry with you, or who leans on you enough that you don't speak your own mind, it's just easier to not say anything in your house, then you're just taking yet another numbing avenue, instead of heading into the boredom and the frustration and the failure factory that many men feel in their own homes, right? It's, it just becomes another numbing agent. So, what I want you to consider is, what does a living a non-numb life look like?

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, John, it wouldn't be fair if I didn't mention that, you know, I've just historically smoked too much weed and used that as a numbing agent as well. And it has definitely been a lot better in the last year. And I think my wife's noticed some differences there.

• 14:13Dr. John Delony?

  So what if you could, what if, what if we looked at weed the same as porn? It works. And as of today, it's over. I'm gonna choose to live in the, for a season, and let my body truly talk to me.

• 14:27Speaker 01

  Sure. Yeah, well, I'll be honest with you and the listeners, that's a hard one for me. But I hear what you're saying.

• 14:34Dr. John Delony?

  But here's the thing, you're walking through life with a winter coat on, and you don't ever get to feel the crispness of the cold air, you don't ever get to feel the heat of the sun, you're just walking through life with all these layers on. And my guess is, yes, you haven't looked at pornography great. I can almost guarantee you've moved on to other hiding numbing behaviors, whether it's silence.

• 15:01Speaker 01

  No, I, I haven't.

• 15:04Speaker 01

  No, I haven't. And I feel like, you know, to your point earlier, like the secrecy was a really big problem here. And that was, it's really, the lying is something that's really been hard for her and like, that I've had to come to terms with, you know, and I think a lot of that's related to my childhood. But I will say, like, you know, I've gotten rid of all secrets and really try to focus on transparency. But I'd have found myself struggling to still speak up, struggling to sit down and say, hey, I want to have a difficult conversation with you today. You're right, we're having a good day, last thing I want to do is ruin it. And then find myself struggling to bring those things up or bring something up. But I've not resorted to any, secrecy is the last thing that I'm involved in at the moment. And will never be, I don't want to be, you know?

• 15:44Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  I think that's something that our relationship just cannot afford anymore of.

• 15:48Dr. John Delony?

  Sure. And it's honorable to hear that. And sometimes it's as simple, what you're bringing up is, we're gonna go ahead and put on the calendar once a week, we're gonna just do a check in. And so it's already on the calendar for any big conversations y'all are gonna have. Y'all both, it's already on there, it's part of your rhythm for a season, for three months, for six months, for a year, that once a week, we get together, we go for a long, long walk. We, and if you listen to my show, you know, people are gonna go, what, huh? You just turn on a show for your kids and you give them chicken nuggets and y'all go on the back porch, because that's the time we have, and we can't afford a babysitter, we can't afford going out to eat right now, great. But we're gonna sit with each other.

• 16:31Dr. John Delony?

  And what you're doing is practicing transparency. If you look at it as a skill set, instead of a moral failure, it's much easier to dig into.

• 16:43Speaker 01

  Sure. Well, I will say, we do that weekly. We try to do it more daily or every other day, and it's a struggle, but I would say we definitely accomplish that weekly. We have a weekly date night. You know, we bring her cards, or we sit down and talk about, yeah, some serious stuff. I just know that I can, feel like I can, I can step my game up on that regard, on bringing difficult conversations up, or even past frustrations that I've still not brought up, you know, things that I've kept bottling up for years.

• 17:08Dr. John Delony?

  And if you think of the things you kept bottled up as further dishonesty, part of becoming a person who's honest is a person who tells the truth, when I'm struggling, when I'm not doing well, when I'm frustrated. Now, let me, let me, let me give you the other, other component here. And this is a huge component that, your wife's not on the phone, but she's gonna have to own. Have you learned over time that she's not a person who can hear hard things?

• 17:38Speaker 01

  After being with her for a Definitely how it feels to me sometimes. Sometimes I struggle to feel heard and seen, you know, feel like she's defensive and, hey, I'm sure I do the same thing, right? We all kind of do that.

• 17:48Dr. John Delony?

  No, no, don't defend her right now. I'm just asking you, if you've learned over the last 11 years, when I'm frustrated about something, when I feel lonely, she beats me up for it, she's mean about it, she dismisses me, the same way you dismissed her, then she's gonna have to take ownership that she's not a safe person to sit down and talk to. So she can blame you all day long for not connecting with her, but if she's not able to receive and also give connection to, that, the finish line you're trying to achieve, this thing called connection, the finish line will just keep moving on you.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 18:26Dr. John Delony?

  So she's gonna have to also practice hearing hard things. She's gonna have to practice the discomfort of, my husband isn't doing whatever I want him to do, and more importantly, he's not feeling the way I think he should be feeling all of the time. That's her job, that's her work.

• 18:45Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah, I think it's felt to me like I don't really, you know, I don't live in a house that I, it's okay for me to express anger. You know, I think that's something that I've learned in therapy and, um, you know, I want to take accountability on my end of that as much as I can, but I do think there's some truth in what you're saying there.

• 19:03Dr. John Delony?

  There's probably a ton of truth to what I'm saying. And until you're honest with yourself about it, and then honest with her about it, and you say it in a language she can hear, right? Um, and until she's able to receive it, your body's going to be doing exactly what it's supposed to be doing, which is protecting you.

• 19:21Speaker 01

  Sure. And I, yeah, and I agree with you. And I think what I, what I, what I see at least is there's just a lot of anger and resentment around the deception and what I've done, that it's really hard for her. I see her trying, but it's hard for her to hear me.

• 19:33Dr. John Delony?

  So, so what she's gonna have to do, and she's not on the phone here, so you can play this episode for her when it comes out. When anyone has been, is the aggrieved spouse, somebody broke trust, somebody lied, somebody had a secret gambling account, somebody had an affair, somebody had a pornography, like, issues, right? Um, and then the partner says, I'm in, I'm gonna stay, and I'm gonna work on this. And you look up and it's a year later. They have to make choices that when that image of you hunched over the computer screen in the dark pops into their mind, they don't meditate on that. When they're wondering, is he telling the truth now? They can exhale, and their body starts to defend,

• 20:16Dr. John Delony?

  her body starts to defend her. And she says, he's actually doing exactly what we, he's following the roadmap to rebuild trust that I gave him. Clear as kind. I have all his passcodes. He, we're honest. We meet once a week. We talk, we hang out. We're redeveloping our friendship. I was deceived before, but I'm not being deceived now. She can't keep, she can, but it's gonna be destructive to your, to your rebuilding your marriage together. She, it's fruitless for her to keep the ace of spades in her back pocket of, yeah, but one time you hurt me.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 20:55Dr. John Delony?

  Part of rebuilding is she tears that ace of spades up, and she risks getting hurt again by putting both feet back in the same boat that you're in. She can't just stand on the shore with their arms crossed and say, keep rowing, keep rowing, and expect you all to reconnect.

• 21:13Speaker 01

  Sure. I think for me, it's like it's coming to a head, and we kind of come to that crossroads. And it's gotta be that or, or separate. Like, it doesn't, you know, at some point, we can't stay in this limbo. Um,

• 21:25Dr. John Delony?

  So, so here, here's the framework. I'm gonna give it to you, okay? You ready?

• 21:30Speaker 01

  I got a pen.

• 21:32Dr. John Delony?

  It is, number one, it's been a year, and here's the progress that I feel like I've made. And here's the roadmap you gave me, and here's the things I've done. And here's still where I'm struggling. And I continue to feel ashamed in my own house. I continue to feel small in my own house. And the story I'm making up is, fill in the blank. You're never going to be all in with me again. The story I'm choosing to make up is, you can't

• 22:13Dr. John Delony?

  hear my frustrations. You can't hear my anger. You can't hear my wants inside our own house that we're co-creating together. And that makes me feel hopeless. That makes me feel apprehensive. That makes me feel nervous, to be honest with you, because you keep asking me, be more honest, be more transparent. And when I am, the story I'm making up is, it's always met with defensiveness. It's always met with anger. It's always met with, yeah, but one time you. And so, and then the next one is, so here's what I would like to be different. I would like to be able to communicate with you in a way where I can be open and honest and transparent, and you can hear it and feel it, even if factually

• 22:57Dr. John Delony?

  it's incorrect. You will honor my feelings, not dismiss them. And so, here's what I'm going to do next. That's the last step. I'm gonna begin to be more transparent, more honest. I want to be a member of this house. I don't want to feel like a failure in my own house. And when you meet me with defensiveness, when you meet me with contempt, when you play that ace of spades, yeah, one time you, one year ago, two years ago, five years ago, one time you did it, I'm gonna, I'm gonna point it out. I'm gonna do it respectfully and with honor, but I'm gonna point it out. And put that framework in front of her. Tell her the stories you're making up, and let her respond to those stories. Thanks for

• 23:42Dr. John Delony?

  the call, brother. We come back, a woman asks how she and her husband can find common ground on screen time for the kids. We'll be right back.

• 23:51Dr. John Delony?

  Hey, it's Deloney for Joy and Blokes, a new partner I'm excited to have on this show. The modern healthcare environment tells us to focus on one thing, symptoms, what feels wrong. But staying at the surface and focusing on how you feel often does not get to the root of the challenges you're actually facing inside your body. This is why I'm a big fan of getting your blood tested on a regular basis, and I've become a huge fan of Joy and Blokes. I've had my blood work done by all the major platforms, and Joy and Blokes is incredible. They start you with a comprehensive blood test. It's really extensive, and it gives you real data about what's going on inside your body. But it doesn't in there, because a comprehensive blood panel doesn't mean much of anything unless you can talk

• 24:36Dr. John Delony?

  to someone who can tell you what it means, and what you can do to start living better. Joy and Blokes pairs you with a clinician who reviews your results, helps you create a personalized plan, and helps you take action. Whether the answer is a few lifestyle changes, a few supplements, or a more comprehensive treatment plan, everything can be prescribed and managed through Joy and Blokes. Joy and Blokes is for women and men who want to be proactive with their health. Go to joyandblokes.com/deloney and get 50% off, I can't believe that, 50% off labs, and 20% off all of their products. That's J-O-I and B-L-O-K-E-S.com/deloney.

• 25:19Dr. John Delony?

  Here's something I've learned over the years, sitting in the trenches with young men who are struggling with trauma, addiction, mental health challenges, or other destructive behaviors. When I would send them to therapy, I found that one 50-minute session a week might not be enough to turn things around. I saw them struggling, and I saw their families struggling. This is where my friends at Capstone can help. To make real progress and practice actually living differently, sometimes young men need a totally new environment. Capstone Treatment Center is a long-term residential program for struggling young men ages 14 to 28. It's a structured environment with trained, licensed clinicians who follow a strict code of ethics. Healing at Capstone isn't something that just happens in a room. It's woven into every

• 26:03Dr. John Delony?

  part of every day. Young men need to practice responsibility. They need to practice care, and they need to practice being loved. And that's why every young man who's enrolled is paired with a Labrador Retriever puppy. Together, they grow, they learn from each other, and when the young man graduates, the dog goes home with him and his family. Learn more at capstonewellness.com/deloney. That's capstonewellness.com/deloney.

• 26:29Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's go out to the first Noel in Portland. Hey Noel, what's up?

• 26:34Speaker 03

  Hi, I'm doing all right. I'm running on the grace of God and too much caffeine. How are you?

• 26:39Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent. That sounds like a, like a, a good way to start a day out there on the West Coast. What's going on?

• 26:47Speaker 03

  So, my husband and I are disagreeing on how much screen time is suitable for our kids.

• 26:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 26:53Speaker 03

  And I'm wondering, number one, if this is a big deal, and if I should speak up more, or if this is something I should just focus on my own time with the kids with.

• 27:04Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about the disagreement.

• 27:06Speaker 03

  Uh, so, we have screen time in our house. Um, it's present throughout the day. But the rub is that I am working in the evenings and on the weekends sometimes. And often when I'm gone, they'll do screen time, um, pretty much most of the time I'm gone. And that can be two or three hours in the evenings, and up to six hours on Saturdays. And I feel like that's a little more excessive than I'm comfortable with.

• 27:38Dr. John Delony?

  So, what's beneath the screen time?

• 27:42Dr. John Delony?

  I think I know, but I want to see if you can tell me.

• 27:47Speaker 03

  Um, well, I think I would like my husband to spend more time with the kids.

• 27:53Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. That's the fight. That's the fight.

• 27:58Dr. John Delony?

  Is not being present, not playing games, not rolling around on the floor. Right now, as I'm, as I'm recording this show, my toenails are painted all sorts of different colors, because my 10-year-old wanted to have a spa day or something. And I was like, yep, we're doing it. She fixed my hair with clips, and we're, we're doing it, right? Last night, we played karate something or other with Lego figure. I don't know, I don't, honestly, I have no idea what game we were doing, but we were doing it. Um, and then the dog would come through as a big monster and destroy. Like, you're talking about connectivity.

• 28:38Dr. John Delony?

  And your husband being an active participant in the lives of his kids, and that can be very boring. That can be very silly. That can be eye-rolly. And that's a part of being a connected parent, getting into the world of your kids. Or doing cool things and bringing your kids along with you, right?

• 28:56Dr. John Delony?

  But that, to me, is the, like, screen time is the proxy, is the proxy fight. The real fight is, you're not connecting with the kids.

• 29:09Dr. John Delony?

  How does that conversation go?

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Well, that definitely makes sense. I haven't phrased it in that way to him. Like you said, I think it's been the screen time as the proxy.

• 29:23Speaker 03

  I don't really know how to, how to tell him that without feeling like, or sounding like I'm micromanaging his, his time with the kids, or how he parents.

• 29:34Dr. John Delony?

  I, I'll give you the same framework I just gave the last caller and that I've given a whole bunch of people over the last few months.

• 29:41Dr. John Delony?

  It's you and him sitting down and you telling him, hey, I want to have a, kind of a big picture conversation about our kids. And he might be a guy who rolls his eyes like, oh, here we go again. Or he might be like, sweet, I'm all in. But you giving him a heads up and then saying, the screen time is hours in the evenings, hours on the weekends. And then here's the magic. The story I'm choosing to make up is,

• 30:08Dr. John Delony?

  you would rather just outsource your time with the kids and not be engaged with them.

• 30:15Dr. John Delony?

  The story I'm choosing to make up is, I work harder here trying to connect with those kids than you do. The story I'm choosing to make up is, fill in the blank. And that way, instead of you lobbing grenades at him, it's you taking ownership of the stories you're telling yourself.

• 30:35Dr. John Delony?

  And then he gets to respond and say, that makes me feel sad for the kids that they're missing out on this great guy that I married. That makes me sad for the kids that, makes me sad for you that you don't, they're going to look back and at your funeral, they're going to be like, yeah, me and dad watched a lot of TV together.

• 30:56Dr. John Delony?

  Right. So it's you taking ownership of the stories, you taking ownership of how you feel, and then you taking ownership of, here's what I'd like to see next.

• 31:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's good.

• 31:06Dr. John Delony?

  I'd like screen time to be something that's special for all of us. I would like screen time to be a last resort.

• 31:19Speaker 03

  That's, that's a good, good shift for it.

• 31:24Speaker 03

  Would it be helpful, do you think, or I guess, I don't know if we could talk about it together, me and him, if I should be leaving activities for them to do?

• 31:32Dr. John Delony?

  No, he's a grown, good God, he's a grown man. How, how old are your kids?

• 31:36Speaker 03

  Ten and three.

• 31:38Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. I mean, you're talking a stick and a drill and some screws.

• 31:46Dr. John Delony?

  And some paints in the backyard. You know what I mean? Like, it's not,

• 31:53Dr. John Delony?

  it's not rocket science.

• 31:57Dr. John Delony?

  If he looks at you and says, I feel like a failure in my own house. I don't know how to connect with them. I get bored really easily.

• 32:06Dr. John Delony?

  I'll tell you as a husband, I've been there. I had no experience being around young kids like this, like especially real, real young kids. I had zero experience. I didn't know what I was doing. I just knew that my kids got bored. They got annoyed. I got bored. I didn't know what to do.

• 32:23Dr. John Delony?

  And I'll also tell you this, uh, it's underneath the um, screen time thing. Can I tell you one of the things I need sometimes after, or not need, that I want after a long, exhausting day of recording and writing and interviews and all that? You know, one of the things that makes me feel whole is my 10-year-old daughter curling up in a ball next to me while we watch some stupid show together. It makes me go, all's right with the world.

• 32:57Dr. John Delony?

  And so I have found myself repeatedly falling into the pattern of I can connect with her in a way that's, in a weird way, healing. And it was the big light bulb for me. That's not her job to heal me.

• 33:13Dr. John Delony?

  And in fact, she's going to learn over time, I have the power to heal or not heal my dad. And no kid should have that sort of responsibility placed on their shoulders because they're kids.

• 33:26Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And so it may not even be that he's being lazy or whatever. It may be that he feels a sense of connectivity with his 10-year-old.

• 33:36Dr. John Delony?

  Or it's really hard to find things for a three, I have a big gap between my kids. It's hard to find things for a three-year-old and a 10-year-old to stay engaged with. Right?

• 33:45Speaker 03

  Definitely.

• 33:46Dr. John Delony?

  And so that, all that's hard, all that's messy.

• 33:51Dr. John Delony?

  And if y'all want to work together on, here's a few things that you've done that helps with success, right? That's always super helpful, but no, you, you leaving him a curriculum.

• 34:03Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, that's, that's a bit much.

• 34:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I'll, I'll leave it there, but I, I think it's, it's the screen time thing. It's a contentious conversation. Every couple I know has tension there. The tension's to be expected, right?

• 34:22Dr. John Delony?

  The, usually the conversations beneath that are what's important. And by the way, in my house, when my wife's out of town, my kids know we're going to watch more TV and we're going to eat more silly foods.

• 34:35Dr. John Delony?

  They know that. And my wife and I have had conversations about making sure I don't tip the balance to where I become the real fun parent and she becomes the, the fun ruin her parent. And there's a lot of fair, that's a fair critique for her, right?

• 34:52Dr. John Delony?

  Cause I'm like, dude, let's go spray each other with a water hose and let's watch four movies in a row. And she's like, hey, somebody, you have to eat dinner and you have to bathe. And I'm like, ah, boo, right? So there's that balance there, but that's beneath the screen time. Best of luck to y'all. I, I would have this hard conversation beneath, talk about the thing beneath the thing. And be honest about the stories you're making up. And hopefully he'll respond, not with defensiveness and not with contempt, but with, yeah, you're right. I feel powerless. I feel like I don't know how to connect with these kids. I feel like I'm bored to death. I feel like they just want to do silly things. And sometimes dads need to be invited into their kids' world or given permission, hey,

• 35:34Dr. John Delony?

  enter into your kid's world for a few hours and you'll find great boredom for sure, but also great connectivity and deep, deep relationships there. We come back, a man asks how to support his parents when his dad refuses to get help for his mental illness.

• 35:51Dr. John Delony?

  Nobody wants to talk about dying. I get it. And that's why so many of us avoid talking about life insurance because it forces us to imagine a world where we're not here anymore. But here's what you need to remember. Life insurance is not really for you. It's protection for the people you love and who love and count on you. I recommend term life insurance from Zander Insurance. I've been using Zander Insurance for most of my adult life. I trust them and I love them. When a family loses someone they depend on, the last thing they need is the financial chaos on top of the deep grief. Worrying about, how am I going to keep the lights on? How am I going to keep the mortgage up?

• 36:32Dr. John Delony?

  Term life insurance takes care of all of this for your family so they can focus on grief instead of focusing on fear. Xander makes this process simple. Their team shops top-rated companies for you. Xander works for you, not the insurance companies. And they will help you understand your options in plain language and they will help you find coverage that fits your family and your budget without pressure, gimmicks, or confusion. You don't need another slimy sales pitch. You need protection for your loved ones. Xander's got you. Go to xander.com today to get a quote. That's Xander, Z A N D E R dot com.

• 37:15Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's go to Rochester, Minnesota and talk to James. Hey, James, what's up, man?

• 37:20Speaker 01

  Hey, man. Thanks for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

• 37:23Dr. John Delony?

  You got it, brother. What's going on?

• 37:25Speaker 01

  So yeah, I guess, uh, my question is, how can I best support my mom? Uh, while my dad is going through a severe mental health crisis and how can I best manage my own kind of frustrations and emotions around the situation? Uh, while living two hours away.

• 37:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yikes. What's he, what's he experiencing? What's going on?

• 37:44Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I can give you just a little bit of background here. So growing up, um, he was always a bit of a drinker. Uh, most nights was four to six ish drinks, kind of zone out and not be very present. Um, up through high school, we were, I mean, we were

• 37:56Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on. I'm gonna, I want to interrupt and break the story a little bit. Okay. Is that cool?

• 38:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 38:02Dr. John Delony?

  And here's two, two reasons. One, or one main reason, often when I ask somebody to tell the story, there's a, there's a, you've, you've told this story a lot, especially in your own mind. And there, if you think of a railway state, a railway station, there's a train that just leaves a track and it just goes down that road. And so I want to interrupt that track every once in a while. Is that okay?

• 38:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 38:23Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So your dad was not a bit of a drinker. He was an alcoholic.

• 38:27Speaker 01

  Yes, yes, he was an alcoholic.

• 38:28Dr. John Delony?

  And that's, that's a hard, hard life for a family. It's really hard for a spouse. It's really, really hard for a kid trying to connect with their dad.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 38:38Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Okay.

• 38:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was. And I think we were definitely closer while I lived at home in high school. I'm graduating college into the real world now. I'm 24. Um, you know, we were relatively close. He was my soccer coach. We fished a lot, had a relatively good relationship. Aside from that, um, fast forward to now, you know, we've definitely grown apart and now they live two hours away. It's, I think it's fine when we see each other, but I would go, it wouldn't be uncommon to go two weeks without hearing from him. Um, talked to my mom every other other day, but um, I wouldn't hear from him very often. Um, so kind of always had an odd kind of feeling about him. Looking back, probably stems from alcoholism. Um, he's always pretty socially awkward. I think he dimmed my mom's

• 39:21Speaker 01

  light socially quite a bit. Um, fast forward to today, um, started back on Mother's Day this year. All of us kids were back in town, uh, celebrating Mother's Day. I'm all just the three siblings. My sister's out of school. Um, and my brother just graduated high school, but we were all, we were all home, um, for the first time in a while. My dad kind of sat us all down after church and brunch, um, and he got really emotional. He apologized for his drinking during our childhood, uh, basically said that he was three weeks sober and plan to start his sobriety journey. Uh, later that week, I got a phone call from my mom saying that wasn't necessarily the truth. Um, and he'd left a lot out. Um, he had been to the hospital earlier that week and been diagnosed with severe anxiety and

• 40:01Speaker 01

  depression. Um, and that further action needed to be taken medically. Um, from that point, a pretty wild and sudden spiral took place. Um, he really started saying like he sucks at his job and he was going to get fired, which we know was not true from people where he worked. Um, he was really paranoid about the IRS coming to kick it, kick us out of the house and arrest them for some like back taxes stuff. He claimed he mishandled estates of grandparents and that he was going to get arrested and stuff like that. Uh, my mom convinced him that he needed to go on FMLA so he could speak, um, so he could go to like more intensive treatment without necessarily permanently losing his job. The doctor he went to wasn't very familiar with his case. Um, it was six months or so to see his normal

• 40:44Speaker 01

  doctor. Went in there. He didn't sign the paperwork. Um, he then went into his HR department at work. We don't really know what was said in the meeting, um, but he walked out of there having, having resigned from his job and that really kicked off kind of the rest of the spiral. Um, the next week or so after that, uh, suicidal self-harm talks started. Um, he kept saying he's done irreversible things with family. There's no way out. There's no hope, no solution. I myself went home, kind of emergency on a Sunday and had a four hour talk with him and it just pretty much talked in circles for four hours. It was really sad and really frustrating. Um, crisis team was at the house at least twice along when I was there. I was responsible for getting firearms out of the house. That's

• 41:27Speaker 01

  kind of where things were at that point. Um, psychotic stuff kind of started after that psychotic kind of talk. Um, my sister went on a trip overseas, um, while this was all going down and he was telling people like our friends and stuff that she wasn't actually overseas and he doesn't know where she is, but he's going to find out. Um, he claimed that my girlfriend and my sister boyfriend were FBI spies for the IRS. Um, stuff like the wifi routers recording him, asking about where the cameras were, et cetera.

• 41:56Dr. John Delony?

  So, so he's, he's decompensating rapidly.

• 42:00Speaker 01

  Yeah. Uh, on my, and I mean, other than the alcoholism, which he had actually over the past couple of years had really done a really, he, he noticeably done a really good job of getting treatment and getting help for it. And he was really down to, I mean, he was very rarely drinking, if at all. Um, and he, he had done a really good job. And I think he had maybe a bad night, make kind of like a relapse that might've triggered all this. And that's what triggered that first conversation.

• 42:28Dr. John Delony?

  Well, so let me, let me jump in here. Here's what's important. Okay. Becoming a junior detective is, it's, it's a misuse of energy right now.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:41Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. And I, I say this with all due respect, only because I've sat in these homes, I was on those crisis teams that showed up to your family's house. Okay. Um, you have no idea how he tried to self-medicate. If he

• 42:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:57Dr. John Delony?

  got something from a coworker, if he bought something online, if he, like, who knows what's happened?

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 43:05Dr. John Delony?

  And what I would do is not spend energy on trying to reverse engineer how we got here. You have a very acute situation on your hands.

• 43:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:16Dr. John Delony?

  And so we're gonna, we're gonna not worry about what happened in the climate 150 years ago that may have changed the weather patterns. We're going to deal with the fact that a hurricane just blew this house down right now.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:31Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And so when, when, whenever I'm sitting with somebody and they're painting a picture for me on what to do with a, a loved one, a parent, a spouse, et cetera, a kid, I'm always looking for trend lines.

• 43:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:46Dr. John Delony?

  And the way you're explaining the story and how rapid it is, it's, it's accelerating fast.

• 43:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:54Dr. John Delony?

  And so because of the psychosis that you've talked about, because he's, um, talked about self-harm, because you've had professionals show up to the house, um, long conversations aren't the problem here. This isn't a matter of getting all the thoughts in the right order. This is a person who's in the throes of psychosis. And so what I would petition for at this point is your, and your mom's gonna have to do this.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:19Dr. John Delony?

  I would petition for, um, I don't know how it works in Minnesota, but long, he's, he is psychologically incompetent of making safe decisions for himself. So she's got to get control of her money, of, of the family money. She's got to get the house in her name. She's got to get the cars in her name. Right? But it, it, there's a, she needs to sit with an attorney because there's a legal framework for how to do this. And rightfully so, the courts are slow to take away somebody's civil rights with what's the, what they'll be doing in your dad's case. They'll be saying,

• 44:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:55Dr. John Delony?

  you can't make decisions for yourself anymore as an adult. There's a pretty high threshold, thank God, but also there's millions of people experiencing some degree of this across the country and they feel trapped. Right?

• 45:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:09Dr. John Delony?

  But that's what we're going to begin to do, um, move forward that way. And I think telling your mom, I'm not interested in, I can't, I can't support you, your mom's mental and emotional health. She's gonna have to get her own counselor to talk through.

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:25Dr. John Delony?

  And advocate.

• 45:25Speaker 01

  And she does. She, she's been working with someone

• 45:28Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 45:28Speaker 01

  throughout this whole thing, which has been really good.

• 45:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  And he did, um, so we did, we were able to get him admitted. We live relatively close to the Mayo Clinic. It's about an hour away. So we, luckily we have a really good resource nearby and he was admitted into their, um, I guess I'm not exactly sure what the wing was called, but their, you know, psych ward, I guess for lack of a better term.

• 45:49Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  Um, and he was there for three weeks, um, refused medication to begin with. I'm not too familiar with how the court stuff works, but there were two court hearings, stuff like that. And I believe, um, he, since he was refusing medication, it become court mandated that he take it.

• 46:05Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 46:05Speaker 01

  Um, started medication, started getting better.

• 46:08Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  Um, and then they ended up releasing him. And that's kind of where we are today. He was good for a couple of days at home. Um, and then pretty much started to go back down the spiral about five days ago. And I think if he misses one more online counseling appointment, the county is at that point has to step in and they will come get him. And I think at that point he goes on what's called a full commitment, is my understanding.

• 46:32Dr. John Delony?

  Correct. Yeah. He's, he's committed against his will. So you, so you and your family already passed what I suggested, right? So they, they've gone through the court hearings. The court has declared him, um, unable to make decisions for himself. And so they're stepping in. The challenge for you is, is to recognize your own grief in this deal because you're watching your dad dissolve in front of you. And it's heartbreaking.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:55Dr. John Delony?

  It's painful, right?

• 46:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:56Dr. John Delony?

  And what all of us want when we see a loved one, um, falling apart in front of us, and I'm saying this in a crass, unclinical way, right? But when we're watching a loved one just unspool in front of us, it's hard not to constantly be judging where they are right now with where they used to be.

• 47:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:19Dr. John Delony?

  And we spend a lot of energy toggling back and forth and, but yeah, but it used to. And if this thing hadn't have happened, and the challenge for you will be staying present and the man before me is very, very sick and nobody in our home has the ability to care for him with the, with the care and support he needs. And so nobody in the world would want a father on full commitment, right? Placed against his will in a psych hospital. And that's the best thing for him right now. Cause he's going to hurt himself. He's going to hurt somebody else. He's going to do irreversible damage.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:01Dr. John Delony?

  And it's heartbreaking.

• 48:02Speaker 01

  It is. Yeah.

• 48:05Dr. John Delony?

  And if you go visit him and he's screaming at you or he's numbed out of, they give him too much meds and he's just kind of staring catatonic off into space. It's, it will break your, it'll break your spirit. It'll break your, break your heart. And I want to give you permission to have your heart broken. Be sad.

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:20Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:20Dr. John Delony?

  Um, and if it's hard to go see him in that state, I get that. I get that. It's, it's sitting with your mom and constantly checking in on her, how can, how can I care for you today? What do you need from me? And, and you having the courage to say that, mom, that exceeds my ability to help. I can't help here, but I can do this.

• 48:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:43Dr. John Delony?

  Right? It's just a heartbreaking, I mean, think, take the psychosis away. This is a guy that just got diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and they just said he can't leave the hospital.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:57Dr. John Delony?

  It's devastating. Everything is different now.

• 49:02Dr. John Delony?

  And I really, really hate this for you.

• 49:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, I think one thing me and my mom say back and forth to each other a lot is it's unlike anything that we thought would ever, you know, our family would be, have to deal with or have, you know, be a part of or any, any way to phrase it.

• 49:21Dr. John Delony?

  Absolutely. But he's clearly had a psychotic break and, um, I mean, like you say, he's at the Mayo Clinic. He's got some of the best care on the planet and they're saying here's the next right move for him.

• 49:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:33Dr. John Delony?

  And one of the hardest things for someone who's had a psychotic break is simple mood stabilization. Will you just please keep taking your meds? And there's some

• 49:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:40Dr. John Delony?

  amazing transformations that happen when people who've had psychotic breaks, people with schizophrenia, people with like bipolar one, like true severe bipolar one, when they take their meds, they're just a different person.

• 49:53Dr. John Delony?

  And when they don't, they're a very, very different person.

• 49:58Dr. John Delony?

  And it's heartbreaking. Med management becomes a really important thing. And if somebody won't,

• 50:04Dr. John Delony?

  or is unable to, or won't, or whatever word you want to use, but I'd have as much grace for his actions and behaviors. Nobody would, he wouldn't wish himself in the situation he's in, right?

• 50:13Speaker 01

  No, yeah.

• 50:14Dr. John Delony?

  And so it's just, it's a exhale. The, the one thing I would challenge you with is to write him a letter.

• 50:24Dr. John Delony?

  And the next time you see him, read it to him. And in many ways, this letter is way more for you than it is for him. But it's you, whether it's the last moments of lucidity he's going to have in his lifetime, or if he can't hear you at all when you read it, I want you to be able to go to his funeral one day. I want you to be able to visit him and he has no idea who you are. I want you to be able to know, I said the things I wanted to say.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 50:56Dr. John Delony?

  All right.

• 50:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can do, I can do that.

• 50:59Dr. John Delony?

  And recognize he's, he's a prisoner trapped in his own mind, his own body. And that just, it's, it stinks, man.

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think that's the hardest part for me is getting to a place where I can, I don't know if I'll ever accept it, but getting to a place where I can understand this isn't, this isn't him necessarily doing this. This is a sickness and like, it's, it's funny because when he, when we have these conversations, he actually seems very with it. And it's just eerie to like,

• 51:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  know I'm talking to him, but I'm not really talking to him. And it, it makes it, it's almost like he's doing it in a way, like in my mind, like, oh, he's being, you know, a jerk or whatever. And I, I know that's not true, but in my mind, it's just like, oh, man, like this is really, this is not my dad.

• 51:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And, and, and for those of us who grew up watching movies and TV, it's, um, it's unmooring. It is, for lack of better terms, it can be terrifying to sit there and talk with somebody who's amidst a true psychotic break.

• 52:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:04Dr. John Delony?

  And they're not playing. Like you can, you can have a conversation and you can see, oh, in your bones, you think there's cameras in the doorknobs.

• 52:14Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean?

• 52:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:15Dr. John Delony?

  And, and if you're like me, I've left multiple of those conversations with a tiny little inkling that maybe I'm bonkers.

• 52:25Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean?

• 52:26Speaker 01

  I think my mom did check the Wi-Fi router twice.

• 52:29Dr. John Delony?

  You're right, right? So I, I mean, I sat with folks who I know are delusional. They are out of their minds. And I've left and gone to my car and been like, dude, I'm gonna turn the Bluetooth off. Or you know what I mean? Like, because they're so convincing. And when it's your,

• 52:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:44Dr. John Delony?

  I can't, I can't even wrap my head around how hard that would be if it was my dad. Cause my dad's not perfect, but I love my dad. And I've created a world, a picture in my head of how his last few years on earth are gonna go.

• 52:59Dr. John Delony?

  And this isn't in that picture. And so reestablishing a new picture, oh, I've got to grieve the fact that I painted this picture of how this was gonna, gonna play out. And that's not how it's gonna play out. It's actually gonna play out very, very differently. And I did not have on my bingo card, or I did not have on this picture, I painted my dad in a white gown in an institution. I didn't have on my bingo card, 45 pill bottles across my mom's kitchen counter.

• 53:27Dr. John Delony?

  And here's where we are. And so make sure you got a group of guys that you can talk to, you can be honest with. Make sure you're connected with your girlfriend, that y'all have regularly scheduled times where you can just say, hey, I need 15 minutes just to say that I'm sad.

• 53:43Dr. John Delony?

  Write your dad a letter and, and be honest in the letter about the stuff, about your childhood stuff. Be honest about the good times y'all had. And then be honest about saying, dad, I'm not carrying any of that old stuff with us. I see, I see my dad, a shell of himself. I see him hurting. I want you to know that I love you. I forgive you. I love you. And, um, I'm heartbroken with you. And free yourself from carrying around, you don't want to go to his funeral one day. You don't want to go visit him one day and have that nagging feeling, I should have told him. Let's write that letter and let's read it to him and let's tell him. And it may be an exercise where you and your siblings and your mom get together and y'all read each, y'all all write letters and y'all read them to each other, just as a way to grieve the

• 54:25Dr. John Delony?

  man that we knew is no longer here, or is not here in this season. Maybe with some, some medical intervention and some psychiatric intervention, we'll get him back. But right now he's gone. And it helps metabolize. It helps share that grief with, with other people who are going through it too. And it helps everybody be honest. I hate you're going through this, brother, but he's lucky to have you as his son, somebody who's still caring for him. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back.

• 54:51Dr. John Delony?

  This makes me bonkers, but our culture has made being exhausted, something to be proud of, like a badge of honor. People brag about how busy they are. They brag about how little sleep they get. And they're always talking about how exhausted they feel. Being exhausted is not a flex. You know what's a flex? Getting good sleep, making it a priority. And that priority starts with a great mattress. That's why I love mattresses from Helix Sleep. Helix is not just a show sponsor for me. It's where I sleep. I love Helix. My kids sleep on Helix. Even my extended family members and friends sleep on Helix mattresses. You know why? Cause I won't shut up about them. Every time they say, hey, what's that, what's that mattress

• 55:35Dr. John Delony?

  you love? I always say, Helix, Helix, Helix, Helix. Helix builds mattresses just for you and how you sleep. It's why they're so amazing. It's not just some generic mattress. It's a mattress for how you sleep. I want you to get online and take their sleep quiz. It takes like two minutes and they're gonna match you with just the right mattress for more than 20 different models, designed for all sorts of different sleep styles. And if you're like me and you're a hot sleeper during these wild, hot summer months, they've got cooling upgrades too. Their best savings of the season are happening right now. Go to helixsleep.com/deloney and save 30% off mattresses site wide for their Helix Labor

• 56:14Dr. John Delony?

  Day Sale. That's helixsleep.com/deloney. With Helix, better sleep starts right now. All right, we're back and Kelly has an, am I the problem? And whenever she has an, am I the problem? And she's smiling, I know it's a doozy.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  All right. So I am very curious to get your take on this one.

• 56:34Dr. John Delony?

  That, the way you smile right now. I know it's not gonna be good.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  All right. So this is from Becca in Columbus, Ohio, and she writes, am I the problem? I am a Christian and I find it hard to interact with my coworkers when I know them to be in actively involved in ungodly relationships. They claim I am unapproachable because I am blunt and honest about my different beliefs. I find it hard to fake my approval or look past situations with people who intentionally hurt others by cheating or using others for selfish reasons and then laugh about it. They claim I am judgmental.

• 57:16Dr. John Delony?

  There's, there, she lumped several problems into one problem, into that statement. So I'll pull them apart. Number one, if you're a person of any sort of faith and you work with people who are not of that faith, they didn't opt into that. And so to hold them to the worship practices, to hold them to some belief standard that they didn't opt into, isn't fair. They didn't ask for that, right? If they ask you, if y'all go to the same church and y'all have the same agreement, that if they're part of the same faith as you and they're living outside, then they've opted into this, this club, into this gang. And part of opting in is, is iron sharpens iron. We're gonna hold each other accountable. That's part of that deal. They didn't opt into that, then you, um, trying to get them

• 58:01Dr. John Delony?

  to, you walking around approving of them is no bueno. And that's separate and apart from indecent human behavior, like not being a good person. So I'm a, I have my particular faith beliefs. I've got my particular faith practices and I don't hang out with guys that cheat on their wives. Like it, whether, I don't care what they believe. I don't, I just don't hang out with dudes who the core promise they made, they're not gonna keep up that one, then of course they're not gonna keep the promises they make to me. That's just the way that is. Whenever I'm out on the road with, and I bring comedians with me to, for comic shows, I hang out with comics who talk good about their wives when their wives aren't in the room. Those are the guys I want to

• 58:45Dr. John Delony?

  be around. Some of these guys tell jokes that make my, I'm like, ah, gosh, that's even, that's too far for me. But they talk great about their wives. And those are the kind of guys I like to surround myself with. So if you're hanging out with people who are cheating on their spouses and they're hurting people affirmatively, forget what faith, yeah, I'm not gonna be around folks like that. Does that make sense?

• 59:05Speaker 02

  It does. But what about the situation in this case where they're coworkers? So she's not hanging out with them.

• 59:12Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not, I'm not gonna work at a place where the, I'm not gonna be in a joint mission of running a business, working in a business towards an, an external goal, where with people who celebrate in hurting other people or deceiving other people. Because if you're gonna cheat on your spouse, you're gonna cheat in the business, period. There's data that proves that. If you're going to laugh about hurting somebody else over here in a, in a hotel room somewhere, you're gonna laugh about hurting a client or taking advantage of another business that you're doing work with. I'm just not gonna be a part of, I'm gonna find another place to work, right? And she gets to choose that. But going back into the same place every day and with her nose up, being like, y'all are not, y'all are not, y'all are not.

• 59:58Dr. John Delony?

  All, she's drinking poison and expecting them to get sick with it, right? Am I crazy? I find another place to work.

• 1:00:05Speaker 02

  No, I don't think you're crazy. Um, I think that that's.

• 1:00:11Speaker 02

  Like the whole idea of finding another place to work, that's, I mean, that's a big deal. That's

• 1:00:14Dr. John Delony?

  It's a huge deal.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Because most places you're going to work with people that you don't agree with what they're doing, or whatever. I mean, that's just

• 1:00:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but there's a difference between, uh, let's say you are married and you believe deeply in fidelity. And like, I believe in being with one person for, in her case, forever. And you have coworkers that have multiple partners. They have, they go on lots of dates. They hook up with a lot of people. That's different than somebody who's like, "Ooh, dude, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go catfish this person. I'm gonna go, who, she's dating somebody? I'm gonna go blow up their relationship. I just wanna see if I can." Which is what it sounds like is going on here. That's, there's a difference there.

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  That's not what it sounds like to me. To me, it sounds like this person is a extremely judgmental

• 1:01:04Dr. John Delony?

  Jerk.

• 1:01:05Speaker 02

  Like, yeah, no wonder no one wants to be around you. Yes, you have your faiths and your beliefs, and yes, you do. And you can say, "I don't want to be a part of that." But it sounds like she says, when she says, "I can't, I'm blunt and I'm gonna be honest about my beliefs. I find it hard to look past these situations." They didn't ask for your opinion.

• 1:01:23Dr. John Delony?

  Right. So the, the, the, the situations are, if they're dating a bunch of different people, yeah, that's a, that's a you problem. Because they didn't sign up for your same set of values. And if you don't want to work, there, leave. If they're hurting people, if they're cheating on people, if they're taking advantage of people, then you are in a mission with them to go serve some sort of customer somewhere, and I'm not gonna be in, I'm not gonna join that mission with somebody who's deceitful.

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  And if they're doing things that are, could potentially be bad at work, then you need to go talk to somebody.

• 1:01:55Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:56Speaker 02

  But to just sit there and like wag your finger and judge people, they didn't ask

• 1:01:59Dr. John Delony?

  They didn't sign up for it.

• 1:02:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. If they're, you know, like you said, dating a bunch of people, sleeping around, whatever, they probably didn't ask

• 1:02:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And we're not, we don't live in a theocracy. It's not, it's not, Jesus himself says, "Give to Caesar what's his. I'm not playing that game." Like, the goal isn't to make everyone around us follow our same rules. Um, that's not the, that's not, that's not the point.

• 1:02:22Speaker 02

  And also, nobody ever converted anyone by beating them over the head.

• 1:02:26Dr. John Delony?

  Or wagging their finger in their face.

• 1:02:28Speaker 02

  Right. Maybe, you know, do what we're taught as Christians in love.

• 1:02:32Dr. John Delony?

  Give her a cup of cold water. Love you guys. Bye.