Pod Insights The Dr. John Delony Show My Wife Brags to Friends About Her Past Sex Life About this episode On today’s episode, we hear about:
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· A woman seeking advice on how to create boundaries with a friend
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Transcript 10,891 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:05 Speaker 00 I've recently stumbled across some messages where my wife has been talking to some coworkers of hers and how she had lots to love in college, you know, kind of glorifying the glory days, so to speak, and they don't need to be talking about that stuff.
0:20 Dr. John Delony? Okay, that's it right there.
0:21 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
0:22 Dr. John Delony? That's the issue.
0:29 Dr. John Delony? What in the world is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so, so grateful that you're with us. Wherever you happen to be, I hope you're doing well, hope life's going okay, and I hope you are making good choices. I'm looking at a couple of folks behind the glass that don't make good choices.
0:45 Speaker 02 And that's how we ended up on this show.
0:48 Dr. John Delony? I know, somewhere your careers took a tragic turn. But for everybody listening, I'm glad y'all are here. It's good to talk to you all and good to be with you. If you want to be on the show, real people going through real challenges, mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you've got going on, dealing with grief, dealing with, I hope things, I wish things were going to be a certain way, they're not anymore. Whatever you've got going on, I'll sit with you. 1-844-693-3291. You can leave a message and we'll holler back or we'll let you, or you can go to johndeloney.com/ask, A-S-K. All right, let's go to Auburn, Alabama, and talk to Jesse. Hey Jesse, what's up?
1:23 Speaker 00 Hey, Dr. John.
1:26 Dr. John Delony? What's up, man?
1:27 Speaker 00 Hey, man. Um, I'm just calling to see if you can help me work through something. Um, I've been married for about 20 years and had what I thought was a great relationship and hopefully still do.
1:43 Dr. John Delony? What happened?
1:45 Speaker 00 I've recently stumbled across some messages, um, where my wife...
1:53 Speaker 00 Has been talking to some coworkers of hers, they're, they're close friends, coworkers. Um, they do go on work retreats together and spend a little time together and I have found, um, about some, I stumbled across some threads where she had been referencing some conversations she had with them about some, um, previous partners she had had back in college and sort of, um, talked about them, kind of braggingly so, um, you know, kind of glorifying the glory days, so to speak, and, and it really, uh, really hit me
2:33 Speaker 00 pretty hard. Um, and I am just trying to figure out how to, how to handle this information.
2:41 Dr. John Delony? Hmm. So I hear the hurt in your voice, okay?
2:47 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
2:48 Dr. John Delony? Let me ask you a few questions.
2:50 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
2:51 Dr. John Delony? So you say the glory days. Did your wife have multiple sexual partners back in college?
3:01 Speaker 00 That's another big difference between the two of us. Um,
3:05 Dr. John Delony? Well, hold on, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on. Let me just answer that question. Did she have multiple partners back in college?
3:11 Speaker 00 She did.
3:12 Dr. John Delony? Okay, she did. Um,
3:14 Speaker 00 Yeah.
3:15 Dr. John Delony? And so y'all have been married 20 years and you found some text messages that she was texting some coworkers, male or female coworkers?
3:24 Speaker 00 It's actually a, a group account, social media, um, that she has, um, where there's a, a little clique of four of them.
3:34 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
3:35 Speaker 00 Uh, two, two women and a man.
3:37 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
3:38 Speaker 00 Um,
3:39 Dr. John Delony? So when she was talking about the, the quote unquote glory days.
3:41 Speaker 00 Mm-hmm.
3:42 Dr. John Delony? Gi- give me some examples.
3:47 Speaker 00 She would say things like, um, you know, in the context, she'd be talking about, you know, former relationships and how she had lots of love in college. That was a quote and how the ages nineteen to twenty-three were like heaven, or she hopes that's what heaven's like. And, um, she would reference a few of the, of the men, um, and about the story that accompanied that and when they talked about it at the last trip they were on and.
4:20 Dr. John Delony? The story about, so she went into detail about having sex with one of these dudes or a couple of these dudes and what she liked about it, didn't like about it and all that?
4:26 Speaker 00 Fortunately, not, um, not a lot of detail, but I'm just seeing the tip of the iceberg. I'm just seeing the reference on when, you know, this story was associated with this person or that person.
4:39 Dr. John Delony? How do you know it's the tip of the iceberg?
4:41 Speaker 00 Well, the, the, what I stumbled upon was her text threads where she referenced those stories.
4:50 Dr. John Delony? Uh huh.
4:51 Speaker 00 Where when they were together, you know, she talked about this guy and that's when, you know, we were at this resort when I was telling you all about this guy and that's, those are the, the threads that I'm seeing. So I'm now sort of discovering that she's talked about these former sexcapades that she's, you know, when they're together and then while they're chatting on the text thread, um, social media text threads, you know, when they're talking, you know, referencing more about it and making more jokes or, or
5:26 Speaker 00 or just whatever she's just talked about. I, it's just, I just can't believe she said these things and it's just.
5:33 Dr. John Delony? So is her past a surprise to you?
5:36 Speaker 00 No.
5:37 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
5:38 Speaker 00 That's kind of my twofold question is obviously finding out that she is, you know, when I married her twenty years ago, you know, I, I put her past behind me and it took me some time to get over that, but I, I did and I, I don't want to shame her about her past, you know, we, you know, we're moving forward and I thought we were moving forward and now she's got this new group of work friends she's been with the last six or eight years, people she didn't know in college and they don't need to be talking about that stuff.
6:11 Dr. John Delony? Okay, that's it right there.
6:13 Speaker 00 Uh huh.
6:14 Dr. John Delony? That's the issue.
6:16 Speaker 00 Yeah, she's brought her past into our marriage and into our current life.
6:21 Dr. John Delony? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You and her brought her past into your marriage. You signed up for it.
6:28 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:29 Dr. John Delony? Right? And I think in your mind, putting it behind us means we're gonna pretend this never happened.
6:35 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:37 Dr. John Delony? And that's, that is like, it's, that's not a reality. Like, it did happen. All of it happened. And now that she's had 20 years with somebody who's safe and stable and predictable, she can look back on some of the stuff that happened and be like, "Yeah, that was actually a good time." "It was stupid, and we're young and dumb and whatever." But I'm just thinking of, um, I don't know. Every time I get with old friends, we tell old stories. But, and again, to your point, they were there, right?
7:14 Speaker 00 Hmm.
7:15 Dr. John Delony? Um, did you all have an agreement that we're not talking about this? This is, I, I guess...
7:24 Speaker 00 No, no, we didn't have an agreement. When we, when we did get together and I did find out her past, it was hard for me to accept.
7:35 Dr. John Delony? Um... But, bro, that was 20 years ago, and it's like you're finding out today. Where is that coming from?
7:43 Speaker 00 It's been something that's been hard for me to deal with ever since.
7:49 Dr. John Delony? Why?
7:51 Speaker 00 I mean, I, I actually saved myself from marriage and, and she didn't.
7:57 Dr. John Delony? Okay, okay, let's pause right there. You had a value, and you held on to that value. She did not have that value.
8:08 Dr. John Delony? She didn't hang on to that value. And then y'all found each other and you decided to have new values together. And then create a life together, which you have for two decades.
8:19 Speaker 00 That's right.
8:21 Dr. John Delony? So regardless of her past, you going back and trying to retroactively suggests that you're somehow better than she was. Like it's an unfair standard because y'all didn't agree on something that then you both went and one of you did, you, you agree, you, you kept with the agreement, one of you violated the agreement.
8:42 Dr. John Delony? I guess my question is for you, like these things happened. Y'all met, you found love, you decided to build a life together. And we'll, we'll get to the appropriate sharing or inappropriate sharing, we'll get there.
8:58 Dr. John Delony? But.
9:01 Speaker 00 I, I agree with everything you're saying and I, and I knew about these relationships going into it and I, I've tried my best not to shame her and I don't think I have. And I, and I have put all this in my past. Uh, excuse me, but what's just bothering me so much now is that she's brought it up to these friends. And not so much as in a, uh, you know, these types of things happened and that, you know, this is, you know, my life. But just in such a, in such a glorified way that she's just bragging about,
9:44 Speaker 00 you know, these things that she's done and sharing it with these individuals that weren't there. And it, it's just, it's just rocked me.
9:54 Speaker 00 And I don't know how to handle it. I don't know if I'm just completely insecure and that's something I've got to deal with on my own, or should I talk to her more about it, or should I just move on? Um, I, I don't even know what I, what to do next.
10:19 Dr. John Delony? It sounds like there's multiple things going on here. I think that... You stop me at any time and tell me that I'm wrong, I'm out to lunch. But...
10:29 Dr. John Delony? You say you quote-unquote "put these in your past", you absolutely have not. They haunt you.
10:36 Speaker 00 You're right.
10:37 Dr. John Delony? Even calling them sexcapades. Like, you've got a picture and a story in your head of what happened. Do you know what happened back in college? Or is it all just rumor and conjecture and story?
10:49 Speaker 00 Um, she told me what I believe to be a semi-watered-down version of a handful of people. I don't know a number, and I don't know names, and I can't look these people up on social media. Things that I don't want to do and haven't tried.
11:09 Speaker 00 In the text thread that I found from her recently, I found out more information about these... about her past that I didn't know to that detail or level of interest.
11:23 Dr. John Delony? Have you ever asked?
11:26 Speaker 00 No.
11:27 Dr. John Delony? Okay. So, number one, you want to pretend this never happened, and you've pretended that for 20 years.
11:34 Speaker 00 Yes.
11:37 Dr. John Delony? And you can say, "I don't want to know a number, I don't want to know names, I don't want to know dates, I don't want to know."
11:44 Dr. John Delony? And I know people like that. Cool.
11:48 Dr. John Delony? But that's a choice you're making to not be invested. And when you find out a piece of that information,
11:55 Dr. John Delony? to then say, "Well, I didn't even know that hap-" Well, you never asked.
11:59 Speaker 00 You're right.
12:00 Dr. John Delony? Right?
12:03 Dr. John Delony? And yes, I totally get, like, there are parts of her story that you want to remain private. But it sounds like... And again, tell me if I'm wrong, brother, it sounds like you're embarrassed that other people might find out that the woman you married had consensual sex with multiple people back in college.
12:25 Speaker 00 Yes, that is completely right.
12:27 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
12:36 Dr. John Delony? That's a tough pill to swallow, man.
12:40 Speaker 00 Yeah, I don't know how to handle it.
12:45 Dr. John Delony? So until you can move past this idea that you're better than her,
12:51 Dr. John Delony? and you can move past this idea that somehow she is tainted and something's gross and wrong about her,
13:00 Dr. John Delony? you're always gonna have shadows in your marriage, my brother.
13:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:04 Dr. John Delony? You haven't made peace with this. And I'll say make peace like wish it never happened, right? I don't know anybody who wishes their partner had had a whole bunch of previous people before them, right? I get that.
13:19 Dr. John Delony? But you're choosing to pick and choose parts of her that you deem acceptable,
13:29 Dr. John Delony? which tells her, "Hey, part of you is not welcome in this house. Part of your story is not welcome here. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to see about it. We're gonna pretend it never happened. And we're gonna go on and pretend with a charade that we have this family."
13:45 Dr. John Delony? Do you hear what I'm saying?
13:46 Speaker 00 I hear you.
13:51 Speaker 00 I've never had anybody say it to me before.
13:55 Speaker 00 Then again, I've never really talked to anybody about this before either.
13:58 Dr. John Delony? That's fair, and I appreciate it. That's why I say, like, I can hear it on you, how bad the hurt is. But I don't know that it's hurt as much as you're embarrassed that somebody's gonna find out that somebody else slept with your wife back in college. 20 years ago.
14:15 Speaker 00 What am I supposed to do? Um, like...
14:20 Dr. John Delony? I would sit down with my wife and say, "For 20 years, I've walked around with the story that I'm somehow better than you, and I'm not, and I'm so sorry that I put that on you."
14:29 Speaker 00 I didn't even think that I thought that until you're saying those words out loud.
14:33 Dr. John Delony? I know. That's okay. And then the next level is it makes me super uncomfortable for you to be out talking about these things from your past as though they were wonderful and exciting and great. Makes me feel less than. Makes me feel small. That the last 20 years weren't as fun or exciting or whatever. Makes me feel less than.
14:56 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:58 Dr. John Delony? I don't know how much, I don't know how much of what you think she was telling them how great it was and all these fun sexcapades and, or if she was just telling a story, like one person says, "Oh yeah, one time in college I did this." She's like, "Oh God, one time in college I did this."
15:12 Speaker 00 Hmm.
15:13 Dr. John Delony? And it may not be as sensational or wild as you, in your head are telling yourself that it was. Maybe it actually was. Maybe it actually was.
15:23 Speaker 00 Yeah.
15:26 Dr. John Delony? But then, all of this starts with I statements.
15:31 Dr. John Delony? "I married you knowing this about you and I loved you. I still love you." And man, I've been walking around thinking I somehow was better than you because at 18, 19, and 20, I made different choices than you.
15:45 Speaker 00 Right.
15:47 Dr. John Delony? And, I'm uncomfortable
15:52 Dr. John Delony? when you roll out the laundry list to some people that I don't even know, that are somewhat strangers to me. Because it makes me, I feel less than. That somehow I haven't been fun, I haven't been exciting, that your life you have now wasn't as great as
16:08 Dr. John Delony? the wild adventurous life you had when you were 20, 21, 22.
16:13 Speaker 00 Yeah.
16:19 Dr. John Delony? And she might look at you and say, "You're right dude, it's just been downhill for 20 years."
16:25 Dr. John Delony? I doubt it though. She's probably gonna say, "This is the life I dreamed of and I love having, doing life with you and you knew this about me. And yes, I got caught up with some friends telling stories, blowing things out of proportion, exaggerating, you know, like, oh, you know what I mean?"
16:41 Speaker 00 Right.
16:45 Dr. John Delony? And hopefully she would say, "I realize that me talking about that impacts us and I won't do that." That would be my hope. It sounds like the kind of woman she is. Am I wrong?
16:57 Speaker 00 She's a wonderful woman.
17:02 Speaker 00 I've always been insecure about this.
17:05 Dr. John Delony? That's, there it is, right there.
17:07 Speaker 00 I mean, I really thought I had put it behind me, though.
17:10 Dr. John Delony? I know. I think, I think my guts, A, mate, I get it. Your wife told some stuff that you thought we weren't talking about.
17:19 Speaker 00 Yeah.
17:20 Dr. John Delony? And I always caution people to be careful when they tell somebody else you, they can't tell their story.
17:28 Speaker 00 Right.
17:28 Dr. John Delony? Okay? But I think that, I don't know how to move forward, is you are finding out you're someone that you don't recognize.
17:39 Dr. John Delony? Cause you thought you were in a different place.
17:44 Dr. John Delony? And that's where, anytime I find myself, "Oh, I thought I was super in self, like, I, I had great self-control here." And something happens and I snap, or I get mad, or I get angry, whatever, I need to go say, "Dude, I'm so sorry. I thought I was in a different place. I'm not." And that's what I say, like, I think this is one of those moments where you go and say, "I'm so sorry. For 20 years, I didn't even realize this. I thought I was better than you. I've been pretending that a chunk of you didn't exist."
18:13 Dr. John Delony? And then you get to decide, "I want to hear some of these stories. Tell me about them. We've been together 20 years. We've made humans together. I can hear the stories." Or you can say, "I don't, I don't want to hear the details. I don't need that in my head. I don't want to picture you with other, I don't want, I don't want that. I don't want that." But it sounds to me like the, like, again, I don't want to reiterate myself over and over, but it sounds like the problem you're, the challenge that stuck you feel is that, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't think it, I didn't think it was gonna, I thought I was past it." You, my friend, are not. You're still right back where you were.
18:54 Dr. John Delony? So as much as you feel comfortable, it's put on the table. And every conversation starts with an "I" statement.
19:02 Dr. John Delony? I think your marriage is gonna be good, man. I think it's gonna be good. But I think you've got some work to do.
19:10 Dr. John Delony? Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back.
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22:02 Dr. John Delony? Trainwell.net/deloney. Check it out. Let's go out to Los Angeles, California, and talk to Nikki, not Nikki Sixx, but just regular Nikki. What's up, Nikki?
22:13 Speaker 03 Hi, John.
22:14 Dr. John Delony? How's it going?
22:17 Speaker 03 It's going good. Just happy to be here.
22:19 Dr. John Delony? Excellent. I'm glad you're here. What's up?
22:21 Speaker 03 Okay, so here's my question. How do I support my alcoholic best friend while maintaining healthy boundaries?
22:31 Dr. John Delony? I don't know. Tell me more. Tell me more.
22:33 Speaker 03 Okay. So this is one of my very best friends of about 25 years. We've been friends since we were about 13, and she's like a sister to me. She was a big part of my life growing up and into adulthood, except she lives on the other side of the country. I live close to where we grew up, but we've always been really good at staying connected, and she does visit California often because her family is here, too. She is single. She doesn't have any kids. She owns a house by herself. She's really dedicated to her work. That's why she lives there. But essentially, she's there alone. And so 25 years of friendship, there's obviously a lot of history there, and there were many
23:16 Speaker 03 incidents over the years kind of leading up to where we're at today. But the point of this call is that about nine months ago, she confessed to me that she is an alcoholic and that she's been lying to everyone around her for years. And so in this confession, I learned that the extent of that addiction is really bad. And so I did anything I could from afar to be as best of a friend as I could and just encouraged her to take steps in the right direction. Also worth noting that I believe I am kind of her main source of emotional support and the only person she
23:58 Speaker 03 has talked to about this. And on top of that, she literally asked me to just kind of keep this a secret from everyone who basically is on the other side of this double life that she's been living.
24:08 Dr. John Delony? Who would be on the other side? She's not married, she doesn't have kids.
24:12 Speaker 03 Her family, her job, our friends, even my fam- like my husband, she just doesn't want me talking about it to anybody and kind of also expects me to go out of my way to cover it up with any mutual contacts we have, which I'm pretty close with her family. We have a lot of the same best friends, all of that kind of stuff.
24:34 Dr. John Delony? Do you see this escalating in a certain trend direction? Is it getting worse?
24:39 Speaker 03 So since all of that, it's been just a mess. It kind of turned into this draining cycle that was becoming a lot for me to handle and just be a part of on my own. So I did make the decision a few months ago to kind of distance myself from all of it and created some boundaries for myself. And which in a nutshell was basically that she will only have access to me in the way that she's used to if she can commit to pursuing long-term sobriety. And at the time, she didn't want that. She wasn't ready for it. So I took a step back. I still don't know if it was the right thing to do or not. But
25:23 Speaker 03 fast forward to today, to kind of catch you up to speed, she now tells me that she hasn't had a drink in about two months. She says now she's going to AA on a weekly basis and that her mindset in general is just kind of shifting and she is starting to understand now that she does need long-term sobriety from alcohol. So basically telling me, you know, all the things that we want to hear and I hope that's all true. My main issue, I suppose, is a whether I should even be believing her and letting my walls down again.
25:57 Speaker 03 And even if she is telling the truth and she is making that progress, I'm so happy. But there are still just some views for me that haven't really changed and has just led me to still feel kind of conflicted and resentful.
26:10 Dr. John Delony? What does that mean? Some views that haven't changed?
26:15 Speaker 03 Yeah, so I think it is, you know, the fact that she still isn't being fully honest with the people around her and wants me to kind of cover this up for her when she, when we are together. And she's still refusing to tell anyone else or admit to anyone else about her alcoholism and wants me to keep it a secret and uses me as kind of like excuses around things.
26:45 Dr. John Delony? Give me an example of that.
26:47 Speaker 03 Yeah, so say when she is in town visiting family in California and she's going to an AA meeting, she tells them that she's, you know, she's going to, to see me or make plans with me. Or if she's bringing in non-alcoholic products, she says they're mine. So it's not even the fact that she, how bad her alcoholism is, it's even that she's in recovery. She doesn't want anybody to know about.
27:16 Dr. John Delony? Is her family behind closed doors? People who could metabolize the fact that she's in recovery?
27:26 Speaker 03 Um, I'm, I, so her, she has a interesting kind of relationship with her family. She only recently is rebuilding a relationship with them after being kind of estranged for the last couple of years as a result of her alcohol use. Um, so they, it wouldn't be a surprise, but I think it would strain things with them.
27:49 Dr. John Delony? Okay. So tell me if I'm, I'm out to lunch here, here's what I'm picking up. Number one, you've been super close, totally vulnerable, 100% open to a person for a quarter century, and you found out that they kept a huge secret from you for a long time, and you're really hurt by that?
28:14 Speaker 03 100% true.
28:16 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
28:18 Dr. John Delony? Um, I wrestle with the disease, um,
28:25 Dr. John Delony? that's a whole other conversation. But I'll just use this language. Your friend's been sick for a long, long, long time. And a function of the sickness is secrecy.
28:38 Dr. John Delony? As a matter of survival.
28:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
28:42 Dr. John Delony? And so you can, you can choose to say you lied to me for 25 years or 23 years.
28:53 Dr. John Delony? Or you can say, after 23 years, I'm so deep in my bones grateful that you found me the only safe person you could tell.
29:03 Dr. John Delony? Because as well as you know her, I can almost guarantee you, you don't know the ins and outs of what she grew up with in her house.
29:11 Speaker 03 Yeah, I mean, I know some of it, which is bad enough.
29:13 Dr. John Delony? Okay. So the second part of that is anytime somebody's in recovery, recovery 101 is you gotta be honest with people.
29:24 Dr. John Delony? But you gotta be honest with people who can accept your honesty.
29:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:30 Dr. John Delony? And if her family cannot accept her honesty, then it makes sense that she doesn't just come home and say, hey, everybody, here you go.
29:38 Speaker 03 Right.
29:38 Dr. John Delony? Because there's a chicken and egg to addiction, right?
29:46 Speaker 03 Yeah.
29:46 Dr. John Delony? Like, you don't just become somebody who struggles with alcohol in a vacuum.
29:52 Dr. John Delony? Usually those seeds are planted along the way. And we drink, people who struggle with alcoholism, they drink because it works.
30:03 Speaker 03 Yeah.
30:04 Dr. John Delony? It's a powerful, powerful numbing tool to make whatever pain is in there, whether that's from mom, whether it's from dad, whether that's from abuse, whether that's from assault, and who knows why.
30:15 Dr. John Delony? Um, but it works.
30:18 Speaker 03 Yeah, and I think that, you know, while I am surprised at the extent of how bad it was today, like how much she was using on a regular basis and affecting her day to day, there's still, you know, the fact that she abuses alcohol is not a surprise to me. As I had mentioned, just so many things that have happened throughout the years and I knew that there was, you know, it was a coping mechanism for her, for sure. I just didn't know the extent of how bad it was now.
30:48 Dr. John Delony? So what I can't tell is, are you burdened by,
30:53 Dr. John Delony? are you burdened by, I guess I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes. If I had a friend who's been a friend for 25 years and I've got several friends who've been friends that long. If one of them said, hey dude, I've been, I'm a long-term alcoholic, I've been struggling for a long, long time. And I'm coming to visit my family and I'm gonna need to go to a couple of meetings and I'm not telling them. And so I'm gonna tell them at your, at your place.
31:20 Dr. John Delony? I, I mean, if that, I would gladly take that. I wouldn't lie for you. You can tell people whatever you want to tell them.
31:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:28 Dr. John Delony? Right?
31:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
31:29 Dr. John Delony? I can't tell if the burden is the problem or, if I can be really honest, Nikki, and this isn't, this is me with you at the table, okay? It sounds like
31:41 Dr. John Delony? when she disclosed this, you went, like you rose above her in who's righteous and who's not.
31:50 Speaker 03 Oh, yeah, I mean, I hope that's not the case. I don't think that that's the case at all. I actually, you know, I felt that in my immediate response when she first came clean to me was like, I will do anything I can to support you. Let me know what you need. You know, did a lot of work with her and just tried to get her in the right direction and was absolutely, you know, open to being her kind of point of contact for support.
32:14 Dr. John Delony? Okay, awesome.
32:14 Speaker 03 Um, I think it was In the period between then and now, there was a lot of the, you know, it just turned into kind of this exhausting cycle of celebrating each day together without drinking to then a relapse would come and I would find out by getting a drunken call out of nowhere, being completely belligerent and then lying and gaslighting me and then the next day full of shame and regret and asking me forgiveness and support again and then that just kind of repeating itself over and over again, that became really hard for me.
32:46 Dr. John Delony? This is, this, you're, yes, any of us who have ever have friends or loved ones who've struggled with addiction know exactly what you just experienced, yes.
32:55 Speaker 03 Yeah, yeah.
32:56 Dr. John Delony? And it's exhausting and it's frustrating. And so let me tell you this, you have permission to set strong boundaries.
33:02 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:03 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
33:04 Speaker 03 I, okay. Um, I think that what I struggle with now is I still want to be that person for her. I really do. I just don't, during that, that, um, that phase and seeing that cycle and how real that addiction was for her, um, I don't know what I can believe now. I feel like I don't, when she does tell me that she hasn't had a drink in two months, and do I just say like, okay, great, like, you know, and just continue to?
33:34 Dr. John Delony? What's the other option? Like, you get to pick in that moment when she says, hey, I've not had a drink for two months and was calling you to celebrate. You get to pick one of two things. A story that she's lying to you yet again, or a story that, oh my gosh, she is on the path.
33:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
33:51 Dr. John Delony? Either one of those stories have no impact on her. The only person the impact is you.
33:58 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
33:59 Dr. John Delony? And so you can pick, yeah, right, my, you lied to me for 25 years, you're still lying to me, or, yeah dude, anytime, anytime, outside of a TV show that somebody says, it's time, there's always fits and stops and starts.
34:16 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:16 Dr. John Delony? And falling off the wagon, getting back up, falling off the wagon. You hear me say on the show, I took it from the recovery community, the day one language, is day one. And lots of people who go to recovery have lots of day ones.
34:29 Dr. John Delony? Because you're learning how to feel that hurt that alcohol has been working so well to take away for so long.
34:37 Speaker 03 Right.
34:37 Dr. John Delony? And it's exhausting. Both are true.
34:42 Speaker 03 Yeah.
34:42 Dr. John Delony? And what you want right now is both and. You want to be her person, but you don't want the weight of being her person.
34:51 Speaker 03 Yeah, I think it's just I'm up for being the person. It's just it's hard being the only person.
34:59 Dr. John Delony? That's fair. And I think that's where you can come in and say, I can't be your only anymore.
35:05 Dr. John Delony? And by the way, I'm not going to do things that violate my core value, which is like, keep secrets from my husband. Not going to do that.
35:13 Speaker 03 Yeah.
35:13 Dr. John Delony? If you want help from me, of course, I'm going to bring him along.
35:17 Speaker 03 Mm hmm.
35:18 Dr. John Delony? How dare you? You broke my truck. Okay, then then you're asking me to violate one of my core core values. I'm not going to lie to your family. You can tell them you're over at my house. Fine, I'm not going to go out of my way to lie for you.
35:32 Speaker 03 Yeah.
35:32 Dr. John Delony? I'll go with you to meetings or I need to know why they're suddenly so unsafe that they you have to lie to them, that you're bringing me into this.
35:42 Dr. John Delony? But what you're not establishing, I think, that's important is like wipe the table clean and just have you just spend a minute with you. It's probably good to journal about this a little bit. Write it down.
35:55 Speaker 03 Okay.
35:55 Dr. John Delony? What are my values? Or in another way to say it more directly, who am I? I'm a woman who never keeps secrets from her husband. Period.
36:07 Speaker 03 Yeah. I will say that one of the things and I have, I feel like I have tried to do a lot of that type of reflection around this situation. One of the things that does bother me that might be a me issue is kind of like when she does come into town and we are with our friends and she is kind of pitching her life as something I know that it's absolutely not. And so it becomes uncomfortable for I mean, I think that's the problem I have with her not being honest with other people because it's like uncomfortable for me to just sit by and listen to what I know is lies, what in front of people I know could help her and support her.
36:46 Dr. John Delony? Then you need to tell her that directly.
36:50 Speaker 03 Yeah.
36:50 Dr. John Delony? When you come here, I can't just sit by and have you lie to all of our friends. Because that violates one of my core values, which is I don't lie to my friends.
36:57 Speaker 03 Okay.
36:58 Dr. John Delony? And so if y'all want to get together and we all hang out, that's fine. But you can't go on these tirades about how wonderful everything is when you're drowning. And I'm the only one who knows it. It's not fair to me.
37:08 Dr. John Delony? Especially because all these other women love you as much as I do.
37:11 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
37:14 Dr. John Delony? But you see how it comes back to not something she's doing, but it's one of your values that's being violated. I'm not gonna lie to my friends. And when you come here and do that, I feel like I'm put in a position to either support you or lie to them, and I'm not gonna lie to my friends.
37:30 Speaker 03 Yeah. That's helpful, because I think that that is the part I was struggling with. If I should be putting my own values over, you know, pushing or forcing my friend to do something she wasn't ready to do.
37:46 Speaker 03 I guess it's not doing that.
37:47 Dr. John Delony? She brought you into it.
37:49 Speaker 03 Yeah.
37:51 Dr. John Delony? Right? And so one of my things I've done multiple times is tell people, hey, you got 48 hours, and then I'm gonna get some other people involved in this. So you can control the story for 48 hours. You go make the phone calls you need to make, you send the text message, whatever you need to do. I am gonna bring other people into this in 48 hours, 72 hours.
38:12 Dr. John Delony? Because I can't carry the weight of this anymore.
38:16 Dr. John Delony? If you tell anybody, you're total... No, no, no, no, you brought this to me.
38:21 Dr. John Delony? And I love you enough for you to not like me right now, so that 10 years from now, we are able to laugh, and I'm not at your funeral.
38:35 Speaker 03 Yeah, I've had to kind of reiterate that a couple of times to her, that when she gets really angry with me, I just, I'm like, I love you, but your safety and health are more important to me than our friendship right now.
38:48 Dr. John Delony? All day, every day.
38:49 Speaker 03 It's okay if you're mad at me.
38:50 Dr. John Delony? All day, every day.
38:53 Dr. John Delony? That's probably one of the most common things I've said over my career is, I'd much rather you hate me right now and be alive to hate me 10 years from now than the other way around. Than you to like me now and not be here in 10 years.
39:06 Speaker 03 And I do think it really is at the point of being afraid for, you know, that she'll stay alive and with this.
39:14 Dr. John Delony? So I think if possible, is there an opportunity for you all to see each other in person soon?
39:20 Speaker 03 Um, in the next month or so, yes.
39:23 Dr. John Delony? Okay. I would tell her, we need to have a hard conversation in next month. Give her some time.
39:28 Speaker 03 Okay.
39:28 Dr. John Delony? And I think it's worth you writing down your bullet points of that conversation so that it doesn't get, because she'll, people who struggle with addiction are amazing at shifting the conversation. Part of the illness is honesty and ability to see reality as it is, right? All that's part, it's baked into it. And so the best you can do to not take it all personal, right? As it's, as her dishonesty is a personal attack on you versus her dishonesty is a way her body's telling her, this is what we have to do to stay alive.
39:58 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
39:59 Dr. John Delony? Right? That's why the amends, making amends is so important. Circling back and saying, I lied to you for this many years and I'm sorry.
40:07 Dr. John Delony? But that comes after. That's not, that's not step one, right?
40:11 Speaker 03 Right.
40:12 Dr. John Delony? And so you backing up and saying, hey, here's, here's how this is going to go from here on out. You came to me and told me this. I'm taking the reins on my life now. Here's how this is going to go.
40:24 Speaker 03 Okay.
40:24 Dr. John Delony? I'm bringing in these four people in 48 hours. You can get everybody together and we can have a conversation. And we'll rally around you. We'll pray for you. We'll get you whatever, we'll pool our money. If you need to go to rehab, go to 30 day, whatever. But I can't carry this by myself anymore. Screw you. I can't believe I trusted you. Yeah, I'm sorry.
40:46 Dr. John Delony? But she deserves to hear that from you directly, I think.
40:50 Speaker 03 Yeah. Yeah. I'm comfortable saying that to her.
40:52 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Expect that to not go well.
40:57 Dr. John Delony? Don't be surprised if it doesn't go well. And again, this is so easy for me to do, but to say it from over here. But do your best to not take it personally. Even though it will, it will hit you right in the middle of the chest. And she'll probably say some things about like, I know you struggled with this and you did that. I didn't. You're right. You're right. Cool. Great. Grand.
41:19 Dr. John Delony? In 48 hours, I'm telling our four friends. 48 hours, I'm calling your sister. 48 hours, I'm calling your big brother.
41:26 Dr. John Delony? Unless you can tell me why that person's not safe.
41:29 Dr. John Delony? But I can't carry this anymore. I'm worried you're going to die.
41:33 Dr. John Delony? I'd get pretty direct with it. And generally, those conversations, it's great to have a phone number or two for somebody to call. I've even done research right here. Here's an area, a place in your area. We'll get you in. We'll get you in.
41:49 Dr. John Delony? But yeah, your boundaries are right. I think y'all have strung this thing along now that so far now that you're still holding on to this trust violation. Let that go. You have a friend who's just deeply, deeply hurting. Let that stuff go for right now. Y'all can circle back on that later. What we're worried about now is I'm worried about her not being here anymore. And that means as a friend, I gotta risk being hated, being not liked, being called names. Cause I'm over my head and I need some help and we're not keeping this secret anymore. Thanks for the call, Nikki. Go do the next right thing. Holler back at us and let us know how that conversation goes. And if your friend wants to call in the show, I'd love to talk to her. It's awesome. We'll be right back.
42:31 Dr. John Delony? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. You've probably heard people talk about different kinds of flags and friendships and romantic relationships. You got red flags and green flags and beige flags. Listen, yes, it can be helpful to look for relationship patterns or unsafe behaviors. But if you ask me, all these flag labels can distract from what's really important when you're trying to find a lasting relationship. What's really important are your values and your potential romantic partner's values. And whether both of you are willing to wake up every day and choose to honor each other's values. But when you grow up in challenging environments or given how we are all bombarded with everyone else's values all day, every day, it can be tough to even know what are my values?
43:16 Dr. John Delony? What is important to me in a relationship and how will I show up to honor myself and love my partner? Forget all the different flags on someone else. Instead, ask yourself, how can I learn what I value? Therapy can help you figure out your values, help you learn for what you're looking for in relationships, and then help you decide your boundaries and non-negotiables. If you're thinking about starting therapy, try BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy that works with your schedule. To get started, you just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapists at any time for no extra cost. So whether you're dating, you're married, or you're building a friendship, or you're just working on yourself, give it a shot with BetterHelp.
44:01 Dr. John Delony? Visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash deloney. All right, let's go back out to California and talk to dear Marie. What's up, Marie?
44:16 Speaker 04 Hi, how's it going?
44:19 Dr. John Delony? Just remarkable. What's up in your world?
44:21 Speaker 04 I'm not sitting in my car and can't believe I'm doing this.
44:26 Dr. John Delony? Well, I'm glad you're here. Can them all in. What's up?
44:30 Speaker 04 Okay, so it's kind of changed since I originally wrote my question.
44:36 Dr. John Delony? Awesome.
44:37 Speaker 04 A little bit.
44:38 Dr. John Delony? I don't even know what your original question is, all the way, so go for it.
44:41 Speaker 04 Excellent, all right. Okay, so, starting in like mid-December, it was like a week and a half before Christmas, I suddenly just stopped sleeping, basically. I would go to bed, fall asleep totally normally, and then pop up like three hours later and just not be able to go back to sleep.
45:03 Dr. John Delony? Ugh.
45:04 Speaker 04 At all.
45:05 Dr. John Delony? Did you have big life changes?
45:07 Speaker 04 I did not. It felt like it was so out of nowhere.
45:11 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
45:12 Speaker 04 And I have a one, a three, and a four-year-old, and so it...
45:16 Dr. John Delony? Hold on. Those are big life changes, Marie. Good God.
45:21 Speaker 04 Yeah, well, I've been around for a year, a little more.
45:28 Dr. John Delony? No, nothing's changed. I just have three humans I created in the last four years.
45:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, you know, pretty quickly. Um, and yeah, it felt like it was pretty out of nowhere. Um,
45:38 Dr. John Delony? Okay, I wanna, I wanna do a thing with you. Is that cool? I'm sorry to interrupt you. I'm gonna do a thing with you.
45:43 Speaker 04 No, totally.
45:44 Dr. John Delony? Okay, close your eyes.
45:46 Speaker 04 Okay.
45:47 Dr. John Delony? And then on the count of three, on the count of three, I want you to snap them open.
45:52 Speaker 04 Okay.
45:52 Dr. John Delony? Over exaggerated. You're in your car, nobody's watching. And if they are, they're gonna think you're weird already. So, three,
45:58 Speaker 04 Alright.
45:58 Dr. John Delony? two, one, snap them open.
46:02 Dr. John Delony? Okay, you're wide-eyed right now.
46:04 Speaker 04 Yeah.
46:06 Dr. John Delony? Pretend it's 3 a.m.
46:09 Speaker 04 Okay.
46:09 Dr. John Delony? What is your body desperately trying to get your attention for?
46:14 Speaker 04 Well, the, the thought spiral that would happen is, was usually like, first I would start to panic knowing that I was probably not going to fall back asleep.
46:28 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
46:29 Speaker 04 And then I would immediately start thinking about everything that I had to get done the next day that was about to be ruined.
46:37 Dr. John Delony? Right.
46:38 Speaker 04 And everything, because it's the holidays, that is about to get ruined. And it, I'm gonna make myself sound like a crazy person, but, the, you know, then the, the thought spiral continues. And then it goes into, oh my gosh, if I am this level of sleep deprived, then I have a hard time not being impatient with my three very small children. And then I'm gonna be a terrible mom that day, and my kids are getting subpar childhood. And it just goes and goes and goes. And I would find, I just find myself spending so much energy trying to actively stop my thought snowball.
47:22 Dr. John Delony? There you go. That's it, that's it.
47:24 Speaker 04 That, yeah.
47:25 Dr. John Delony? That's it. Are you still married?
47:28 Speaker 04 I am, yes.
47:30 Dr. John Delony? In some of these thought spinouts, do you look over and see your husband just peacefully dead asleep next to you and you just wanna punch him?
47:36 Speaker 04 Uh, actually, yes. Yes and no.
47:40 Dr. John Delony? I know, I know.
47:40 Speaker 04 Yes, because I wish I was sleeping. No, because he's been like a rock star through all of it.
47:46 Dr. John Delony? Okay, I'm gonna rattle some things off to you, okay?
47:49 Speaker 04 Okay.
47:51 Dr. John Delony? Number one, I like to start with the idea that my body's not broken.
47:57 Speaker 04 Okay.
47:58 Dr. John Delony? I want to start with the idea that it's, my body's doing the best it can. Okay, that's not always the case, but most of the time it is.
48:09 Speaker 04 Yeah.
48:09 Dr. John Delony? So, if you have three young kids.
48:13 Speaker 04 I do.
48:14 Dr. John Delony? And you, I'm gonna rattle off four or five things, okay, see if any of these hit home. If you don't have active, engaged relationships with other women on or about your age, or some help with those kids, your body would be failing you if it let you sleep all night.
48:35 Dr. John Delony? If you and your husband owe a bunch of money, and your amygdala knows, "I've got three kids, and if one thing happens during this Christmas season, and we don't make this sale, or we don't get this thing, or his raise doesn't come through, they're gonna take our house and our cars and our food."
48:54 Dr. John Delony? If any of that is true, even if it's bananas, that's the way down the road, your body would be failing you if it let you sleep all night.
49:02 Dr. John Delony? If you can't think of the last time
49:06 Dr. John Delony? you wrote things down, or you felt like you were doing anything, you ever been skiing before, water skiing?
49:13 Speaker 04 I failed, but yes, I tried.
49:15 Dr. John Delony? Okay, but when, okay, so you know what I'm about to say, whenever you're water skiing, and you're behind the boat, and you wave like, "All right, go", for the first thirty yards, you're just getting blasted in the face with water, until you can get up on top of the water. When you have a one-year-old, God help you, much less a four-year-old and a three-year-old on top of it, most of your day feels like, "I'm getting dragged behind the boat, and I can't get on top of the water."
49:41 Speaker 04 Yes, that's accurate.
49:43 Dr. John Delony? And if you, your body knows any one thing that doesn't get done, the whole day falls over. It would be failing you if it let you sleep.
49:54 Dr. John Delony? So what happens is, you go and you go and you go and you go and you go, and you tell yourself a story. "I don't have time to sit down and journal. I don't have time to go have a cup of coffee with somebody. I don't have time to go talk to a counselor. My husband, I don't have time or any money to get somebody to come watch the kids for half a day, so we can reimagine our marriage, because our marriage is completely different than it was four years ago."
50:16 Dr. John Delony? Then your body's gonna crash for three hours, take the minimum amount of sleep it can get by on, and it's gonna spring you back awake because it is under threat.
50:29 Dr. John Delony? Loneliness, clutter, debt, existential angst.
50:39 Dr. John Delony? And what I mean by that is lots of scrolling, lots of news watching, lots of people making predictions about the future, and they're trying to get you to buy stuff because by terrifying you, and you got three little kids, your body is not wired to absorb all of that.
50:58 Dr. John Delony? So it may be that you're not broken as much as, there's just some things you gotta do differently during the day.
51:08 Dr. John Delony? Does that make sense?
51:10 Speaker 04 Yes, definitely the not having it in my head that there's zero time to sit down, and that if one thing goes off the rails, then everything is toast.
51:25 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
51:25 Speaker 04 I just don't know how to get out of that thought pattern.
51:31 Speaker 04 It's so hard. I don't know how to make my brain stop doing that.
51:37 Dr. John Delony? So in counseling, one of the terms we use is leakage. It's just a gross word, I know, but it is what it is.
51:45 Dr. John Delony? Those fears and those thoughts and those to-dos, they will find their way out of your body. You can take the time throughout the day and write them down,
51:59 Dr. John Delony? or they will wake you up in the middle of the night to get out, but they will come out.
52:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
52:04 Dr. John Delony? And I understand that what I'm asking a mother of three, are you working or are you staying at home?
52:10 Speaker 04 I am staying at home right now.
52:12 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Can you honestly look me in the face, even though we're on the phone, and tell me you aren't dreadfully lonely?
52:21 Speaker 04 I actually am not. I have like the best friends ever. I'm so blessed. I feel like I have an army of people.
52:29 Dr. John Delony? Do you see them in person? Do y'all hang out?
52:32 Speaker 04 Yes.
52:32 Dr. John Delony? Okay, do y'all talk about-
52:33 Speaker 04 Not as much as I'd like, but yeah.
52:35 Dr. John Delony? You talk about real stuff?
52:37 Speaker 04 Yeah, we do. We do.
52:39 Dr. John Delony? Excellent. Will y'all commit to writing things down?
52:44 Speaker 04 Yeah, I will.
52:46 Dr. John Delony? And commit to saying, "Okay, um, I need somebody to come over twice a week so I can go for a walk by myself."
52:53 Speaker 04 Yeah.
52:55 Dr. John Delony? "I need a nap during the day." Or, for you right now, "I need to stay up during the day and I'm gonna use that time to write even though all I wanna do is lay down and go to sleep, so I'm so tired I can't even see straight."
53:07 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:07 Dr. John Delony? How's your marriage?
53:10 Speaker 04 Great. My, my husband's wonderful.
53:12 Dr. John Delony? Well, he can be wonderful and you can be wonderful. Yeah, but y'all can both be great, but you both may be operating on old software.
53:20 Speaker 04 Oh, no, he's, we, we honestly, we've, uh, we actually, we've been, both been listening to your show for like a year and we've, uh, put into practice a lot of things that we've heard you talk about and we did a little year-end meeting-
53:37 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, dude, look at you!
53:38 Speaker 04 We were like, "This is, I just feel like the best, we've been married 11 years" and I was like, "Year 11 was just the best year for us, even though I stopped sleeping."
53:48 Dr. John Delony? Awesome. So, a couple of just tricks of the trade. If you bust wide awake at 3 o'clock in the morning-
53:57 Speaker 04 Yeah.
53:58 Dr. John Delony? After 10 minutes, get up.
54:00 Speaker 04 Okay.
54:02 Dr. John Delony? After 10 minutes, get up. And I want you to smile, and it's gonna be so hard to do because you're gonna be pissed off.
54:09 Speaker 04 Yes.
54:10 Dr. John Delony? I want you to smile and say, "Well, I guess it's time to get up." And then I want you to go into another room and get out a notebook, a journal of some sort, and write down, "All right, you woke me up. What do we gotta do?"
54:25 Dr. John Delony? And here's all I want you to do. I want you to write on a list all the stuff that's in your head, just get it out of your head and onto a piece of paper.
54:35 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
54:36 Speaker 04 Okay.
54:37 Dr. John Delony? And then I want you to take that list and really quickly at 3 a.m. divide it up. What are these, can I do tomorrow? What of this is existential and I can't do anything about it?
54:46 Dr. John Delony? You can't do anything personally about the fires in California. You can't personally do anything about, um, the state of the world, economy and the rise of AI. You can't do anything about that.
55:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
55:02 Dr. John Delony? You can say, "I've got five amazing friends.
55:08 Dr. John Delony? Once a week, everybody's coming over for dinner. Husband, I love you. You're out."
55:16 Dr. John Delony? I can say, "Hey, husband, you and I need to get on budget because we're gonna stop being in debt because I'm tired of my body waking me up at 3 a.m. because we're under existential threat because we owe all this money."
55:26 Speaker 04 Yeah.
55:28 Dr. John Delony? Do you get what I'm saying?
55:31 Speaker 04 Yeah, I do. I hear you.
55:32 Dr. John Delony? Okay. If a couple of weeks of that doesn't stop... Oh, by the way, after that, go get a book and a light, a low, like a low glow light, a non-blue light, and just read some fiction in the living room until your eyes start to really droop and then go back and get in bed.
55:53 Dr. John Delony? But here's what we need to do. We need to retrain our bodies that are, they don't go to war in that bed.
56:01 Dr. John Delony? So if we go to war, we get up because I don't want my body to begin to tense up and anticipate going to bed and then sleep, sleep, sleep, and then it crashes and it wakes up like, "Oh, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep." And then it just, you're training your body that that's where we fight.
56:20 Speaker 04 All right. Yeah, I can definitely, I can definitely relate to that.
56:24 Dr. John Delony? After a few weeks, if this is not getting any better, I want you to call your OB-GYN and say, "I'm really struggling."
56:35 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
56:37 Speaker 04 Yeah.
56:38 Dr. John Delony? And I won't give brand names. I'm very weary of sleep meds, especially, I won't give brand names, but sleep hypnotics, they don't put you to sleep, they make you unconscious.
56:54 Speaker 04 Yeah.
56:55 Dr. John Delony? But they also, in the very short term, can help retrain yourself. Like, this is a place where we go to sleep.
57:03 Speaker 04 Yeah.
57:05 Dr. John Delony? So carefully and thoughtfully, I would sit down with a doctor.
57:09 Speaker 04 Okay.
57:11 Dr. John Delony? But hear me say, "Commit today, I'm gonna stop going to war with my body. If it's waking me up at 3, it probably is trying to get my attention about something. I just need to figure out what that is."
57:23 Dr. John Delony? And for some people, just shifting the posture of, "Go to sleep!" with, instead of, "Whew, I'm glad you woke me up, what's up?"
57:32 Dr. John Delony? Sometimes that's enough just to drop your whole body posture.
57:36 Speaker 04 Yeah.
57:36 Dr. John Delony? Sometimes creating time at 9:00 a.m. in the morning to write down, "All right, here's what I need to get done today. Here's what must get done, here's what I'd love to get done, and here's end of time if I don't, right?" All that.
57:48 Speaker 04 Yeah.
57:49 Dr. John Delony? And, but I'm gonna get those things out, maybe at 2 o'clock in the afternoon, which, again, I'm making stuff up. I'm talking to a mom of three kids under four. That's lots of booties to wipe and lots of baths to get. I get it, I get it, I get it.
58:05 Dr. John Delony? If you've got 10 minutes, 5 minutes, where you can just exhale,
58:10 Dr. John Delony? and say, "I'm really grateful for my husband, I'm really grateful for these three crazy kids, I'm really grateful for this house." Like, "I'm just gonna take a minute to see how I feel, I'm gonna check in with myself. And if I'm not doing okay, I'm gonna have that text thread of those four or five women that I just love, because I'm so blessed by them, I'm gonna send out a note. Not doing okay, everybody think about me tonight. If y'all wanna come have a cup of hot tea on the back porch, come over to my house. But everyone has to leave at 8:45, because I'm going to bed at 9."
58:38 Dr. John Delony? Let's begin to try to let some of that stuff out during the day and try to get some actual solution plans. The body is amazing at dealing with stressful things when it knows you're driving. It will wake you up every three hours if it thinks there's no driver and the car is just careening off the edge of a cliff. You can be in the driver's seat, driving off the cliff, and you won't be anxious. You'll be nervous, you'll be frustrated, you'll be exhausted, you'll be annoyed, but you're not anxious. Your body's waking you up because it doesn't think anybody's driving. So we're going to find teeny tiny pockets of digging in and finding out, "Okay, why do you keep waking me up? I need to let you know I'm driving. I know, I know. I know I want to get all these bottles washed, and I know it's not the end of time if I don't.
59:23 Dr. John Delony? I know I want to get these diapers purchased. It will be fine. It'll be annoying tomorrow, but it'll be fine." Let's get all that on paper before nine o'clock, before we go to bed. And again, a couple of weeks of some really intentional, "I'm not going to fight you. I'm going to get up, go to the other room, call your doctor. Today, I'm really, really struggling with sleep." Can we talk about it? You aren't broken, Marie. You're not broken. You're doing good. Those three little kids, they're lucky, lucky, lucky to have you as their mama. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back. All right, let's talk about DeleteMe, my go-to provider for online safety, security, and peace of mind. Listen, we all know that we live on the internets these days.
1:00:08 Dr. John Delony? I wish this was not the case, but it doesn't matter if I don't like it. Everything in my life and in your life takes place over the internets now. Our work, our personal messages and communications, we buy most of our things, everything's on the internet now. So much of our lives exist there, and because so much of our lives take place on the internet, it's become normal to give away our email addresses to random companies who then turn around and sell them to other companies. And this is why I'm happy to use and recommend DeleteMe. I looked at my reports that my friends at DeleteMe sent me. They've reviewed over 35,000 different data brokers with my personal information, and they've removed my personal info from hundreds of scammy data broker sites. DeleteMe has saved me countless hours, days even, and they've sent me detailed reports
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1:01:25 Dr. John Delony? All right, we are back. Oh, by the way, during the break, I gave that last caller Building an Anxious Life. I think that'd be a good roadmap for them, her and her husband, to walk through. Dude, Kelly, there's nothing worse. I just have PTSD, not diagnosed, but just imaginary PTSD from those years when I couldn't sleep. Oh, my gosh. Getting wicked 3 a.m., 3 a.m., 3 a.m., 3 a.m. All right, so something cool happened. Go for it.
1:01:49 Speaker 02 All right, and I've never had a problem with sleep, but I'm married to someone who struggles big time with sleep. So I have a lot of compassion for her because I see what it does to him. He struggled with sleep for 20 years, so it's a lot. All right, this is from...
1:02:03 Dr. John Delony? I almost made the best joke about rolling over and seeing you, but I didn't.
1:02:07 Speaker 02 Wow.
1:02:08 Dr. John Delony? I didn't make it. I didn't make the joke.
1:02:10 Speaker 02 But if you say the joke you didn't make...
1:02:12 Dr. John Delony? It doesn't count.
1:02:15 Speaker 02 Anywho.
1:02:15 Dr. John Delony? You can't triple stamp and double stamp.
1:02:17 Speaker 02 All right, this is from Dawn, and she says, "Over the holidays, I got behind on a few episodes, and I started listening to two episodes in one day for like a week." That's a lot. "John mentioned a few different times about stating what you want in your relationships. I gathered my courage, and because we were both at work, I had to send him a text, but I texted my husband about some things I want in the bedroom."
1:02:40 Dr. John Delony? Ayo.
1:02:41 Speaker 02 Not need, because he responds to my needs very well. This was a want, which is very scary for me to state. He texted back almost immediately, saying that he understands, and he's happy to go along with it, and he's really glad that I told him. "Thank you for encouraging me to handle this quickly. We've only been married for two months, and instead of letting it go unsaid and feeling the certain type of way for years."
1:03:05 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
1:03:06 Speaker 02 "Thanks for the show." What is the name for a Daloney groupie?
1:03:14 Speaker 02 We may have to workshop that one.
1:03:16 Dr. John Delony? A doopy.
1:03:23 Dr. John Delony? I don't know.
1:03:24 Speaker 02 We need like a collective noun. You know how like you have a like a murder of crows or a you know that one, come on.
1:03:30 Dr. John Delony? I know murder of crows, but I'm just thinking like a murder of.
1:03:33 Speaker 02 But we need a, we need a collective noun for our gang.
1:03:35 Dr. John Delony? For the gang.
1:03:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
1:03:37 Dr. John Delony? I'm in on that. Uh, if somebody wants to write in to johndeloney.com/ask and put, put name of gang in the byline. If we pick your name, we'll send you a bunch of Deloney gear. That would be awesome. We do felonies. The felonies? That's how it always autocorrects us to felony.
1:03:56 Speaker 02 To that or baloney?
1:03:57 Dr. John Delony? To, or yeah, or to baloney. Um, hey. High five. What was it? Who was that? Dawn? D A W N?
1:04:03 Speaker 02 Her name was Dawn. She has to go by Dawn.
1:04:05 Dr. John Delony? Excellent. I am so proud of you. I don't love that you texted it, but hey, you know what? I'm super happy that it happened. And in case you're wondering.
1:04:16 Dr. John Delony? I, ah, there's outliers everywhere. Most husbands I know would love to get a text message from their wife saying things that she wants to do in the bedroom.
1:04:30 Dr. John Delony? Hashtag just saying.
1:04:34 Dr. John Delony? Probably be awesome if you said it, but man, the text, good place to start. Doesn't surprise me that he immediately responded with, awesome, cool, great, I'm in.
1:04:43 Dr. John Delony? Yes, not a surprise. Awesome, everybody. Thank you all for joining us on the show.
1:04:48 Dr. John Delony? I, I think like a theme of the show today, Kelly was like, um,
1:04:54 Dr. John Delony? if your friends or loved ones do something and it sets something off inside of you,
1:04:59 Dr. John Delony? you gotta look in the mirror first.
1:05:03 Dr. John Delony? Let's be with each other. Love you guys. Bye.
Previous Dad Slept With My Wife’s Mom (It Ruined Everything) Next My Wife Had an Affair Because She Doesn’t Find Me Attractive Page updated November 4, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated