I’m Tired of Supporting My Husband and His Daughter

On today’s episode, we hear about: · A woman frustrated by her husband’s choice to stay unemployed · A young man unsure how to stop watching porn for good · A husband struggling to help his wife, who’s dealing with mental illness Next Steps: 📞 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. 🔴 Get 15% off with code DELONY at BON CHARGE. 🌿 Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 🥤 Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi. 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🏋️ Go to trainwell to get started! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

• 0:05Speaker 00

  I'm wanting to get help to understand if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband financially until he gets a job.

• 0:14Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm, I imagine there's a lot here, huh?

• 0:18Speaker 00

  I have every confidence in him that...

• 0:21Dr. John Delony?

  You shouldn't have any confidence in him. Good morning, good afternoon, good night. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so grateful that you're joining us. On this show, we talk about your mental and emotional health, your marriage, your kids, local schools, whatever you've got going on in your life. My promise is I'm gonna sit with you and we're gonna figure out what's the next right move for you, for your family, whatever y'all are working with. If you want to be on this show, this is real people going through hard stuff. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message and we'll holler back at you or go to johndeloney.com/ask, A-S-K.

• 1:03Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's go right down the street here in Nashville, Tennessee and talk to Christine. Hey Christine, what's up?

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Hey, good morning, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call.

• 1:13Dr. John Delony?

  Of course, thanks for calling. Thanks for getting up early with us. What's up?

• 1:16Speaker 00

  Absolutely. So I am hoping to get some help with making the next right move. I'm quickly getting into my question. I'm wanting to get help to understand if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband financially until he gets a job.

• 1:33Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm, I imagine there's a lot here, huh?

• 1:38Speaker 00

  There's a ton.

• 1:39Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, let it rip, let it rip.

• 1:41Speaker 00

  Okay, so, um, by trade, he's an accountant. Um, and a couple of years ago, he transitioned into the mortgage industry and became a branch manager.

• 1:53Dr. John Delony?

  Well, it's been a rough couple of years, huh?

• 1:55Speaker 00

  Oh, it was, it was, yeah. Um, and in August of 22, decided that it was no longer a healthy place to be. So, um, exited the mortgage industry and he spent the last couple of years trying to figure out what the next great job is for him. And unfortunately, there just hasn't been a lot of progress.

• 2:18Dr. John Delony?

  So as an accountant over the last three years...

• 2:25Dr. John Delony?

  In one of the most bananas job markets in the history of the United States.

• 2:31Dr. John Delony?

  Where in many places it was a signup sheet, right? It was like, um, to get a job. And I know that's not, that's not the case across the board, but for a licensed accountant, for somebody who knows how to manage numbers, um, good, good God almighty. And he quit, I was gonna say, the last two years or so, it's been a bloodbath in the mortgage industry, but 22, it was still raining mortgages. Alright, so he quit when this thing was hot to trot, right?

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Well, it started slowing down in June and by August, things had really just, for him, dried up.

• 3:03Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 3:04Speaker 00

  Um, but more than that, it was just sucking the life out of him.

• 3:07Dr. John Delony?

  Sure.

• 3:07Speaker 00

  And he was miserable, so we agreed it was time for Plan B.

• 3:10Dr. John Delony?

  But he jumped off the boat without, just into the lake. He didn't have another boat to jump into, right?

• 3:16Speaker 00

  Correct. Yep, he tried the e-commerce world for about six or seven months, actually more like a year.

• 3:24Dr. John Delony?

  What does that mean? Like buying and selling, reselling eBay stuff?

• 3:27Speaker 00

  Uh, kind of, yeah, yeah.

• 3:30Dr. John Delony?

  So he just watches a lot of Instagram reels?

• 3:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 3:35Speaker 00

  A lot of YouTube stuff.

• 3:36Dr. John Delony?

  Have you sat down and told him, "I no longer respect you"?

• 3:42Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 3:43Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, how'd that go?

• 3:45Speaker 00

  Um, he understood.

• 3:48Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  He apologized, uh, recognized, you know, the, the failure in providing for the family and, you know, needing to find a job and turn things around.

• 4:02Dr. John Delony?

  How have y'all paid the bills the last three years?

• 4:05Speaker 00

  Uh, me.

• 4:06Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 4:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, so I am the sole income for our family. Um, he has a daughter and, uh, we are not receiving any child support from his ex-wife. So everything is sitting on me financially from end to end.

• 4:26Dr. John Delony?

  Is she not your daughter also?

• 4:28Speaker 00

  No, I mean, she's my stepdaughter, but no, she's not my daughter biologically.

• 4:34Dr. John Delony?

  How long have y'all been married?

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Uh, a little over 10 years.

• 4:41Dr. John Delony?

  So you've had a youngster living with you for 10 years and you don't consider her your daughter?

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I do. The relationship is really strange. She's got a lot of trauma with her mom, so she doesn't trust women. And her dad is the end-all be-all. And so we're more like friends than she's my daughter. Not for lack of trying. It's just the circumstance.

• 5:11Dr. John Delony?

  We'll let that be another call. There'll be another call someday. You're going for that.

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's a whole nother thing.

• 5:17Dr. John Delony?

  So, go back to your question again. What are you asking?

• 5:23Speaker 00

  I'm trying to figure out if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband, to cut up the credit card, to cut up the debit card, and, you know, almost force him to go get a job at Home Depot or something like that to help bring in income, so he'll actually support himself as well.

• 5:52Dr. John Delony?

  So, the answer is you can do whatever you want. You're an adult. You're grown up, right?

• 6:00Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:01Dr. John Delony?

  I would suggest that that is essentially an in-home divorce.

• 6:06Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 6:07Dr. John Delony?

  That is you choosing to formalize the separation that has already taken place. And it wouldn't be a legal formalization, but it would be a financial formalization. These are your bills. That is your kid. This is my house.

• 6:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. And I don't want to do that.

• 6:27Dr. John Delony?

  But then the next step is, he won't, right? He's not, like, forcing him is not going to work. It hasn't yet. You've tried all sorts of ways, I can almost guarantee it. And I don't know any married couple in this situation where the wife has lost the amount of respect you've lost. And I'm trusting you that it's not about a dollar amount. It's about, like, this is three years, and like you said...

• 6:54Dr. John Delony?

  Fine, you don't have your dream job, but like you haven't been working at Home Depot and then going to throw boxes at Walmart until midnight and then getting up at 5 a.m. to drive Uber to make and then getting up the next day. Just as I know men across the country get up and grind it out on behalf of their families. Forget their dream job, forget their person, purpose and passion, or whatever other BS that is on Instagram. Like, they get up and they make things happen. They mow lawns, then they go clean up the church. I remember my dad being a policeman who made hardly anything and then would clean the church on the weekends and then we'd go mow lawns and even like, you do what you gotta do. And I've never met a couple in your situation where your sex life is great, where y'all are exercising together, going for walks or hikes, or your dating life is

• 7:39Dr. John Delony?

  great. You get what I'm saying? So it's just like, the whole relationship's an ash.

• 7:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:44Dr. John Delony?

  And so, I, it sounds like you're at an "or what" moment, so I guess I'll ask you, are you done being married to him?

• 7:51Speaker 00

  Not at all.

• 7:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  I have every confidence in him that...

• 7:57Dr. John Delony?

  You shouldn't have any confidence in him.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Well, I was gonna say that when he does something, you know, he does it well, I just...

• 8:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, like what he's doing right now is nothing and he's doing that remarkably well.

• 8:12Speaker 00

  Well, that is true. That is true.

• 8:14Dr. John Delony?

  Here's, here's what happens. People in your situation often want to own part of reality. They wanna hold on tight to this image that this is a good man, he's a good guy. It's just been three or four years since he's had a job, he just plays a lot of video games and lets his wife get up and go to work while he's still in bed every day. And then come home and make dinner three nights a week or four nights a week and like, whatever. So there's, and then always has a scheme, right? You wanna hold like, no, he's a good man, he loves me, whatever. And on the other hand, he completely abdicated his responsibility to provide for his daughter, provide for his wife, to do anything remotely contributing

• 8:58Dr. John Delony?

  to the household. And what I wanna tell you is that you only holding part of reality. The reality is, behavior's a language. Your husband said, "I'm out."

• 9:11Speaker 00

  I was afraid you were gonna tell me that.

• 9:13Dr. John Delony?

  Until you rest in that, because now you have impetus to act. You have to do something. Actually, you don't have to do anything. You can live like millions of couples do,

• 9:26Dr. John Delony?

  which is a completely lifeless, bloodless marriage.

• 9:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah.

• 9:33Dr. John Delony?

  Where you watch TV and scroll and he watches TV and pornography and he's just waiting to get the girl out of the house and he finds somebody to pay the bills. Because, by the way, he probably doesn't want to be in his skin right now either, does he?

• 9:45Speaker 00

  No, not at all. I don't think so.

• 9:47Dr. John Delony?

  Is he struggling from depression? Has he gone to see, I'm assuming he hadn't gone to see somebody, right?

• 9:52Speaker 00

  No, he hasn't.

• 9:53Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  I think there's an element of it there.

• 9:56Dr. John Delony?

  What does he do all day?

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Um, well, it's really weird. So, I guess technically, he has a job, but he hasn't been paid for anything that he's done. And so, I'm in my office.

• 10:13Dr. John Delony?

  He has a hobby?

• 10:15Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. I'm in my office upstairs. He's in his makeshift office in the bonus room, door's closed. I don't know what he does. I don't hear him on the phone. If I, you know, walk in to ask him a question or whatever, he's sitting at his computer, but I don't know what he's doing. There's no tangible evidence. When I ask him about, you know, this deal that closed, you know, what's it look like getting paid?

• 10:42Dr. John Delony?

  Christine, there's no deal. You know there's no deal.

• 10:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:46Dr. John Delony?

  You know that.

• 10:48Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:49Dr. John Delony?

  And I think in some ways, you're letting the closed door keep you from the conversations that you know you need to have.

• 10:58Speaker 00

  And I just don't know how to have the conversation a different way. It's like I've had many of them.

• 11:03Dr. John Delony?

  So, I heard, man, she really challenged me on this. I heard Dr. Becky Kennedy say recently, "A boundary is something

• 11:11Dr. John Delony?

  that requires nobody else to do anything."

• 11:16Dr. John Delony?

  A boundary is for you. It's a declaration of what you're going to do. And I think that you're at an either-or moment. Either, I love him, I'm not getting divorced. I'm married to a guy that won't work. I'm married to a guy that is giving a yet another troubled picture to his daughter of what marriage looks like. But this is a guy married, partridge in a pear tree. I'm gonna make the best of it. I'm gonna go on about my life. That's option A. Option B is, I've tried every conversation statement. I've tried dressing in sexy things. I've tried these, these kind of pseudo never again conversations.

• 12:00Dr. John Delony?

  I've tried everything. And so I'm at the end of my line here. So you get a job by this date, and by job, I mean, there's a direct deposit happening in our joint checking account. Or you are choosing to leave. I don't know, I don't know another option, because right now, you're choosing misery by sitting in the middle.

• 12:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:26Dr. John Delony?

  And you're worth more than being miserable all the time. He is too, by the way.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

• 12:32Dr. John Delony?

  Have you ever asked him, hey, do you want to be married to me?

• 12:36Speaker 00

  Uh, that was actually a conversation I was planning on having this weekend.

• 12:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And here's what I would do. I would write down your conversation points.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 12:47Dr. John Delony?

  And be very clear about using I statements.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:52Dr. John Delony?

  And you've probably heard me say that a million times, and I know it gets hard when something's like this.

• 12:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:57Dr. John Delony?

  But if you say, I'm tired, and I'm getting the message loud and clear, you don't want to be married to me anymore.

• 13:06Dr. John Delony?

  I'm ready to go, like, if that's what you want, I'm ready to have that next step conversation, it's gonna break my heart, but I'm not gonna hold you here anymore. And I have to have something different in my home. I have to have a husband that contributes, that I can anchor into also.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 13:29Dr. John Delony?

  And, for whatever it's worth, um...

• 13:35Dr. John Delony?

  I know, often, women know this intellectually, but just from, just speaking from my guts, I don't know that...

• 13:47Dr. John Delony?

  It can be overstated, how much dull-eyed men walking around have been told explicitly, implicitly, it's the air we breathe, that you... I mean, the question is, what are you worth? That's the question. And men answer that with a number. "I am worth this much. I make this much." Not, "I make furniture." Not, "I make people, um, have more peaceful lives." "I make this many dollars." And, so, I'm not defending him, but I'm providing a context, that sometimes, when a wife grabs her husband and says, "I don't care about the number, I care about watching

• 14:30Dr. John Delony?

  the man I love have no purpose," and ultimately, the house is, is, the life is leaving this home. Because the life has left you. So, I don't care what the number is right now, I don't know what your financial situation is, that can be a whole other call, but, I don't care what the number is right now, I'm assuming you'll have money for groceries. But you gotta do something. You have to go regain purpose. And, for most people, regain purpose is done in tiny steps, tiny wins. I'm gonna go get a job at Home Depot, and I'm gonna show up on time, and I'm gonna wash my clothes and put on my uniform, and I'm gonna help other people have better days.

• 15:09Dr. John Delony?

  I'm gonna go work at Walmart from 8:00 PM till 2:00 AM, I'm gonna put on headphones, and I'm gonna listen to podcasts, and I'm gonna throw boxes, I'm gonna stock shelves, so that some exhausted mother comes in off her night shift at 6:00 AM and she can get the food she needs, and she can get back to her kids. I'm gonna go do that. I'm gonna go put, provide some value somewhere. The money will follow.

• 15:34Dr. John Delony?

  But maybe sitting down and say, "I know you're not making what you used to, and I know you feel trapped and yada, yada, yada, but forget the money. I'm watching my husband lose purpose, and this has to happen." But at the end of the day, here's, you're boxed in, Christine, and I want you to unbox yourself. And that's either accepting what it is, making peace with it, and deciding I'm not going to complain and whine about it. This is what it is, what it is. Or here's my line. And then your husband gets to make a terrifying choice. Is he in or is he out? And if he's going to be in, here's what that means very clearly. Let me know how that conversation goes, Christine. And if y'all have that conversation and he wants to give me a call and ask for next steps, I'm happy to walk alongside him, too.

• 16:17Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you so much. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks, let's talk about Helix. All right, do me a favor. Close your eyes and think about your mattress, the one at your house. Be honest. Is it lumpy and gross and full of weird stains? And do you think about how comfortable your mattress is at home every time you're out of town or staying in some hotel? You know it, and I know it. Your entire life would be better if you had an amazing, comfortable mattress that let you fall into deep, refreshing sleep. It's time for you to check out the mattress that I sleep on and that my entire family sleeps on, Helix mattresses. I'll tell you this. My Helix mattress has helped me get to sleep faster and sleep deeper, so I wake up more refreshed. And Helix mattresses has mattresses for everybody, no matter how you sleep.

• 17:02Dr. John Delony?

  If you run hot, if you've got spine concerns, if you lie on your back or your side of your stomach, whatever. Plus, Helix offers a 100-night trial, and every Helix mattress comes with a 10- or 15-year warranty. Right now, I want you to stop for two minutes, get online and take the Helix Sleep Quiz, just like I did. You'll find your perfect mattress, and you can buy it right now, and they'll ship it right to your door. And this is incredible. Right now, Helix has a special March sale that's tied into that big basketball tournament. To celebrate all the brackets and buzzer beaters and Cinderellas, you can get 20% off site-wide. Go to helixsleep.com/deloney today for 20% off everything. That's Helix, H-E-L-I-X, helixsleep.com/deloney. With Helix, better sleep starts right now.

• 17:49Dr. John Delony?

  Let's talk about Hallow, the number one prayer and meditation app in the world. It's officially Lent, which are the 40 days leading up to Good Friday and Easter. Lent is when Christians all over the world commit to a season of fasting from all sorts of things, and they commit themselves to reconnection and remembering prayer and meditation. Right now, Hallow has a challenge going on called "The Way." It's meant to reflect living the way of Jesus, and that means doing hard things that lead to peace, joy, and healing. Throughout "The Way," you'll get to hear some incredible stories from people like Jonathan Rumi of The Chosen, Chris Pratt, Mark Wahlberg, and more. And you'll be invited to participate in experiencing life change yourself.

• 18:30Dr. John Delony?

  Plus, you can check out Hallow's Lent Challenge for Kids called "The Little Way." It's a fun, meaningful adventure for the whole family, as y'all will follow along with two kids learning to live out gratitude every day. And this is just a tiny bit of what Hallow offers. Hallow has a huge catalog of music, guided prayers, meditations, and more. And when you sign up at hallow.com/deloney, you'll get three months for free, so you're covered all through Lent and beyond. Go check out hallow.com/deloney for three free months. That's Hallow, H-A-L-L-O-W dot com slash deloney. All right, we are back. Hey, don't forget to subscribe, hit subscribe and leave five-star reviews, and just otherwise click the thumbs up.

• 19:15Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know how the internets work, but just let the algorithms know you're in on the show. And if something we talked about today, you're like, "Oh, man, my friend needs to hear this," or "My mother-in-law needs to hear this," please send the show their way. It makes such a huge difference with all the internets and the computers and the algorithms. And by the way, it just helps people. And here's another cool thing, big announcement. We just had our Money Marriage Getaway here, and it was off the chain like always. We're running it back like we do every fall. Every marriage needs intentional time, a way to disconnect from life, so busyness, reconnect, and build a life they love together. Here's what we're doing. It's, uh, we're running the Money and Marriage Getaway. It's gonna be in November 6th through 8th, 2025.

• 19:57Dr. John Delony?

  Three days here in Nashville with me and my good friend Rachel Cruz and a couple of other um, super special guests. You're in, we're in Nashville, so you never know who's gonna show up. Three days of laughter, hard conversations, maybe some tears, intentional time together, and lots of practical teaching. We talk about money, we talk about sex, we talk about communication. It's kinda like if you listen to the show and you wanna be like, "Yeah, but, but, but, but", that's what this retreat is, is us getting into the details. And my favorite part is, um, we, we, we intentionally keep this small. We intentionally don't put it in four or five thousand seat places because we want people who show up to have access to ask their questions, get their questions answered. So if you come to this and you leave without your question answered, that's on you.

• 20:40Dr. John Delony?

  We try to get to every single question that we can and make sure people are heard and seen. Early bird tickets for the entire weekend, and by the way, we keep it intentionally below market value because I want, I know people are struggling financially. It's 750 bucks, 749 dollars for three full days. And every time we launch this event, tickets sell out fast, so hurry up, get on it, ramsysolutions.com/events, or you can click the link in the description if you're listening on the tubes or on podcast. Alright, let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Fletcher. Hey Fletcher, what's up?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Hey, how's it going?

• 21:14Dr. John Delony?

  Doing great, brother. How are you, man?

• 21:16Speaker 02

  Good, good. Can I give you some context?

• 21:19Dr. John Delony?

  You can do whatever you want, man. Cannonball.

• 21:22Speaker 02

  So when I was, uh, from the time I was maybe 13 to, uh, 18 or 19, I struggled with porn, um, about like most guys do, I guess. And, uh, was able to get on top of that and fast forward till now, I'm 23, and, uh, my girlfriend and I of, uh, of three years are, I'm, I'm wanting to get engaged to her by the end of the year and get married next year.

• 21:51Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome.

• 21:52Speaker 02

  And, um, I've had a couple times of, uh, struggling with that again in the relationship. And I've been super transparent and honest with her about all that, and we talk about everything and, um, she tends to be more of the...

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Insecure person anyway, and that's not made her feel super safe. And, uh, you know, I just want to make sure that everything is as it should be as we go into a marriage and we're not gonna, I don't want to bring any issues into the marriage, if that makes sense.

• 22:31Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, you're gonna bring plenty, dude. You'll, you'll bring tons of issues, most of which you don't even know about yet, and she will too.

• 22:40Dr. John Delony?

  And so, I want you to exhale on that one. Marriage is two people agreeing, come what may, we'll be right here.

• 22:49Dr. John Delony?

  And when you, we turn this corner together and you realize

• 22:54Dr. John Delony?

  your dad wasn't who you thought he was, or her mom wasn't who she thought she was, or whatever. Like, I'll be right here.

• 23:02Dr. John Delony?

  And when you get sick, and when you go through challenges, and when you struggle with addictions, I'll be right here. So, how can I help you today?

• 23:10Speaker 02

  I just, I just don't want to bring that particular issue. I mean, I know we're gonna keep growing up and everything, but I just, I can't afford to make her feel like that. I don't want her to, to settle for, for, uh, for someone who would still deal with that, you know? Which I don't feel like I do, but, um, I just want her to feel safe and, uh, and heal, heal that, that trust that's, that's been damaged before.

• 23:44Dr. John Delony?

  Um, I feel like there's a question beneath this question.

• 23:50Dr. John Delony?

  Cause I mean, cutting to it, you struggled with pornography as a teenager, and you were a teenager during the years when it was the Wild West. When moms and dads just gave their kids cell phones. Like, gave them open access to the world wide web, and then one of the most insane parenting shifts in the history of humanity. And me growing up, you had to find somebody's who had a dad who had a Playboy or a penthouse, and now every, every pornographic, everything of all time ever is in a cellphone. And parents just hand them to their thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen year old kids. It's madness. It's insanity.

• 24:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:25Dr. John Delony?

  But, listen.

• 24:27Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, you're a child from thirteen to eighteen. Let yourself off the hook. Relax, okay? Don't go to war against your teenage self, your kid.

• 24:38Dr. John Delony?

  Alright. You bringing in self hatred, I'm more concerned about that, let me put it that way.

• 24:45Dr. John Delony?

  I'm more concerned with you going into your marriage thinking you're gross or something's wrong with you.

• 24:50Dr. John Delony?

  The second thing is, let's just be honest. Is that cool? Just you and me and a couple of million people listening?

• 24:57Dr. John Delony?

  You're always gonna be interested in seeing beautiful naked people. Always.

• 25:05Dr. John Delony?

  And so, beating yourself up about that is ma- is- it's madness. Don't do that. There are beautiful, attractive people, everywhere, all over. It just isn't is. It's that next step dude, when you

• 25:22Dr. John Delony?

  decide to log in and click on it.

• 25:26Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 25:26Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 25:28Dr. John Delony?

  And you can set up systems, you can set up accountability, whatever the things you gotta do, you can do- set those things up. So that you don't do that thing.

• 25:41Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 25:42Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying? So, that part-

• 25:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:48Dr. John Delony?

  That part is something we can work through. You're not a bad guy. I don't think you're evil. I don't think you're a terrible person.

• 25:56Dr. John Delony?

  But what's beneath this is something I wanna dig into more. What's the thing beneath the thing?

• 26:04Dr. John Delony?

  Is she having doubts about marrying you because you looked at pornography before?

• 26:08Speaker 02

  No, she's- she's all on board. We're both on the same page, but just looking back on, you know, those times, I know really really hurt her, you know. And I just don't wanna do that again.

• 26:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, then I'm gonna tell you something crazy, alright?

• 26:26Dr. John Delony?

  You have a pen and paper? Write this down.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 26:29Dr. John Delony?

  Don't.

• 26:33Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean?

• 26:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 26:36Dr. John Delony?

  If she truly forgives you, then you need to do the hard work of forgiving yourself.

• 26:42Dr. John Delony?

  You messed up. You violated y'all's shared trust.

• 26:47Dr. John Delony?

  She said pornography is infidelity as far as I'm concerned, and it makes me feel less than. And you said, "I hear you," and it sounds like a couple of times, you broke that trust.

• 26:58Dr. John Delony?

  And you're a courageous 23-year-old. Most 23-year-olds are just a ball of hormones and cowardice. You're not that.

• 27:07Dr. John Delony?

  You went and told her, "Hey, I messed up, and I'm sorry." And you had to deal with the consequences, which is her telling you, "That breaks my heart. It makes me feel less than. It makes me feel not beautiful," whatever else she said.

• 27:18Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:20Dr. John Delony?

  And if she says, "I forgive you. I still want to marry you," then you need to stop carrying those bricks around.

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's been nothing but what she should be. She's been nothing but loving and supportive.

• 27:37Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so why do you hate Fletcher?

• 27:44Speaker 02

  I think when I was younger, you know, like you're saying, there wasn't a lot of talking about all that, you know, with parents and everything, and definitely didn't feel like,

• 28:00Speaker 02

  guys were dealing with that anyway, so...

• 28:03Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the thing. You also grew up in a generation where 99% of sex ed came from pornography.

• 28:13Dr. John Delony?

  It's how, it's because parents sure as hell weren't having that conversation because they were raging cowards.

• 28:21Dr. John Delony?

  And they either didn't know how to do it, or they refused to go get the tools to do it. So they had this awkward super talk one day, and then called it good, or they never had that talk. They put a pamphlet on, you know, in your backpack and said, "Going about your day." Or they outsourced it to some 25-year-old youth minister who...

• 28:43Dr. John Delony?

  Don't get me started, dude. So here's the thing. You were set up to fail as a 13-year-old.

• 28:49Dr. John Delony?

  And your parents may be amazing and wonderful, but most parents handled this terribly. Okay, it is what it is what it is, but here we are. Now, your adventure moving forward is to learn how to not blush when you hear the word penis. To be able to stand in front of your wife and say, "This is all of me. Do you still love me? Because I love you." And to be able to have frank and fun and erotic and hilarious and awkward conversations with your wife about sex. And nobody taught you about that, and so you're gonna have to fumble through it.

• 29:30Dr. John Delony?

  But keep committing, "I'm gonna mess this up. We're gonna screw this up. Let's try it again. Let's try it again. Let's try it again." Do you get what I'm saying?

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. I like it.

• 29:41Dr. John Delony?

  But man, I don't think you're a bad guy, Fletcher. In fact, I think you're one of the good guys.

• 29:46Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 29:49Dr. John Delony?

  And you're gonna struggle with the idea of pornography probably for the rest of your life. And so you, I mean, you'll get old and you don't care. But when I say struggle is you're always, I mean, it's like being an alcoholic and they just, not alcoholic, but it's like having, struggling with alcohol. Then all of a sudden, a couple of computing companies give you an endless stream of a super insane alcohol and put it in your pocket and say, "You have to have this at work. You have to have this for your social life. You have to have this for everything." And by the way, don't drink, right? It's madness. It's madness.

• 30:29Dr. John Delony?

  Um, so it might be you're not gonna have a personal computer. You're just gonna have your work laptop. That's all you're gonna have at the house. It might be that you get one of those accountability software programs and you give it to one of your buddies. You give it to your wife. It might be that the next time you get, you, you find yourself like starting to scroll and wanting to go down.

• 30:56Dr. John Delony?

  To find some pornography on your phone or on your, on your computer, you stop and you say, "Okay, what's going on in my life? Do I feel lonely? Do I feel tired? Do I feel bored? Do I need to release? Do I feel, um, super horny? Like, what am I feeling right now?" And let that be, uh, be curious about it. When you go into judgment, then you go into just that dark shame, and then your body has to do what it's gotta do to, uh, try to feel better real quick, right?

• 31:21Speaker 02

  Hmm. Yeah, that's, that's true.

• 31:25Dr. John Delony?

  So the thing that has helped me, eating junk food, which is one of my great vices, is right when I'm about to grab yet another handful of cookies, is to ask, "Am I actually hungry?" What else is going on in my life? Almost always when I'm just grabbing junk food, I've got some sort of relationship challenge, whether it's with my wife, my kids, my parents, my work colleagues. I've got something relational going on. And it was such a revelation to figure that out.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 31:56Dr. John Delony?

  Do you get what I'm saying?

• 31:57Speaker 02

  Yes, sir.

• 31:58Dr. John Delony?

  So track it back. Track it back.

• 32:02Dr. John Delony?

  Every time you're about to click on something, just stop and go, "Okay, what's going on in my life?"

• 32:08Dr. John Delony?

  But I'll tell you this, no one has ever gotten permanently better by hating themselves into behavior change.

• 32:18Dr. John Delony?

  You have to decide you're worth not poisoning your mind and blowing out the hedonic parts of your brain and supercharging your sexual appetite in a way that no human on the planet can satisfy.

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 32:40Dr. John Delony?

  Is that fair?

• 32:42Speaker 02

  Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

• 32:44Dr. John Delony?

  Do you trust that girl that you're about to marry?

• 32:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:48Dr. John Delony?

  Does she say she loves you?

• 32:50Speaker 02

  So much, yeah.

• 32:51Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Then if she's someone who tells you the truth, I want you to believe that.

• 32:59Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to be sad for a minute. Maybe you write 13-year-old you a letter and say you're about to go through six years of unfettered access to the most vile, crazy, supercharged, bananas things in human history.

• 33:17Dr. John Delony?

  And you're a kid and you shouldn't have gotten access to that and I'm sorry that the world did this to you. But now that I'm an adult, I'm gonna take control of this thing.

• 33:27Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 33:28Dr. John Delony?

  Is that fair? Let that little kid off the hook, man. He's a kid. He's 14 years old, 16 years old. Right? As a society, we don't let those kids smoke cigarettes and drink beer because they're kids. And so, it doesn't help anybody to get to be 23 years old and turn on and yell and scream at them.

• 33:46Dr. John Delony?

  Because there was a lack of adult supervision in their life. And there was some really supercharged algorithms that targeted them and took their souls from them. And I'm not gonna blame a 16-year-old for wanting to see naked girls. I'm not gonna blame a 16-year-old for being curious about sex because nobody else in their world's talking about it. And I'm not gonna be upset with a 16-year-old who wants to see what naked men look. I'm not gonna get mad at that. They're 16. I expect adults to be adults. And right now, they're not.

• 34:14Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, adults are like, "I don't care, dude, I just give my kids a phone, it's fine, it's just like..." It's not. This is what we get. We get 23 and 24-year-olds who want to get married and they hate themselves for things they did when they were 13, 14, 15, 16, and 18, and whatever.

• 34:32Dr. John Delony?

  Because nobody helped with boundaries. This is what we get.

• 34:38Dr. John Delony?

  As adults, man, we gotta do better. We just do. Fletcher, thanks for the call, brother. Let me know when y'all get engaged. We'll be rooting for you. I think your future fiance, your future wife, is marrying one of the good guys. Blessings to you, brother. We'll be right back.

• 34:56Dr. John Delony?

  All right, here's the deal. The modern world exposes us to things that were unheard of until just a few decades ago. And I don't mean the lame cat videos and endless streams of AI influencers. I'm talking about screens in our homes and offices, fluorescent lights, EMFs. These things that can affect our mood, our sleep, our anxiety, and more. And that's why I'm so excited to partner with Bond Charge, a world leader in red light therapy and EMF-blocking gear. I use Bond Charge products all of The time, literally every single day, and I love them. And here's why you'll love them too. Studies show red light therapy can help boost your mood, reduce stress, and help with sleep. It can help you recover from aches and pains. I used it on my foot this morning.

• 35:39Dr. John Delony?

  Transform your skin and even help with cellulite and stretch marks. My red light therapy panels, the infrared sauna blanket, the EMF mat and more have become a cornerstone of my health and wellness routine. Like I said, I use them every day. And check out Bond Charge's other amazing products like blue light glasses, EMF protection products, infrared sauna blankets, and 100% blackout sleep masks. Go to bondcharge.com/deloney and use coupon code deloney to save 15% site wide. That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E.com/deloney and use coupon code deloney to save 15%. All right, let's go to Charlotte, North Carolina and talk to Rick, Rick, Rick, Rick. What's up, Rick?

• 36:23Speaker 03

  Hey, hey, how you doing, Dr. John?

• 36:25Dr. John Delony?

  I'm doing all right, man. What's up?

• 36:27Speaker 03

  Hey, um, my reason for my call is, um, I'm, want to know how I can get professional help for my wife, um, who's struggling with mental illness without having to get, uh, law enforcement involved.

• 36:38Dr. John Delony?

  Ooh. Uh, paint me a picture here.

• 36:42Speaker 03

  Um, so over the last couple of years, there's a lot of behaviors, um, that my wife has experienced in the house and with me that causes cause for concern. Uh, some of them are, she's had a lot of weight loss and no appetite. Um, I have witnessed her, um, like hitting at herself, like in her arm, like she's in pain, um, something's bothering her. I've seen her hit her face, um, I've seen bruising on her. Um, she locks the house continuously. There's tape over closet doors, uh, she puts barricades up inside the pantry.

• 37:19Dr. John Delony?

  Um, is she using?

• 37:22Speaker 03

  Not to my knowledge, no.

• 37:24Dr. John Delony?

  She on any sort of prescription medication?

• 37:28Speaker 03

  The only prescription medication that I recall, and this was about a year ago, is she took some, she was taking Topamax for migraines.

• 37:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 37:35Speaker 03

  Um, and there was lots of calls for concern because of some of her behaviors. Uh, my daughter, um, confronted her with it, and I did too as well, and I don't know that, I don't believe she's still taking that. But I do believe it had some impact on her.

• 37:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, um, if, based on what you're telling me, um, how, how old are you guys? How old are you? How old is she?

• 37:59Speaker 03

  I'm fifty-three, she's fifty-six.

• 38:02Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. And this is all sudden and new? This isn't, this isn't been going on for twenty-three years?

• 38:09Speaker 03

  Not for twenty-three years. I've, me and my daughter have talked about it. Um, she's brought up things in the past growing up that kind of, like, small indicators, um, that some of this, with some tendencies were there with the paranoia, um, and the concern that, you know, that other people were doing things to her, or she's always walked around, you know, scared to death of what other people think about her. Um, but here the last two to three years, it's gotten worse, and then here recently, it's progressed that I was out of town one weekend, um, for work, and my, I had my son come and stay out of concern for her safety, for her, and while he was there, he witnessed

• 38:50Speaker 03

  it firsthand, and he confronted me about calling the police because he felt like he needed to call the police with some of the behaviors.

• 38:57Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 38:57Speaker 03

  Um, and one of the example was is there were some lights outside, and she swore up and down, it was people stalking the house.

• 39:03Dr. John Delony?

  Sure, okay. So, so there's, um, and the nerd word is decompensating. So, it's, it's you're just watching somebody, um, essentially turn to ash or a pillar of salt right in front of you, right? The, they're becoming a shell of who they were and descending into, um, I guess the crass way to say it is descending into madness. They're, they're experiencing a world that objectively doesn't exist, but to them is very, very real.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 39:30Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. And I have tremendous, I've sat with those folks, and I've sat with people...

• 39:36Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, holding their hand with them clinching me as though there is somebody with a hatchet coming at us and there's nothing there. And so my compassion for folks in her situation run very, very deep. Okay. I also, um, understand that the perception of, um, let me say it this way. You as a husband, how long you been married? 20, 30 years?

• 40:02Speaker 03

  30.

• 40:03Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, 30 years. There's a sense that, um, and this isn't to call you out, this is to give you peace. There's a sense that, um, A, these things sometimes happen by degrees.

• 40:16Dr. John Delony?

  And it's kind of like seeing an old friend from high school that suddenly gained 100 pounds. They don't recognize it, but when you see them, you're like, oh my gosh, right? Or the opposite, they've lost 100 pounds. For them, it was just a couple ounces a month for the last 30 years. And so this might be happening by degrees and you're just, you're just picking up extra weight because it's kind of your life. But your son shows up for a week and he's like, whoa, dad, mom is not safe.

• 40:40Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:41Dr. John Delony?

  So there's that, but there's also, here's the other side. You're not a bad guy, you're not an unattentive husband if your wife is using and you don't know.

• 40:55Dr. John Delony?

  So I want you to, I want you to, I want you to free yourself from, no, I'm confident that's not true. And I want you to put everything on the table right now as a possibility. Okay?

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Right. Okay.

• 41:05Dr. John Delony?

  So give yourself some peace. If, if she's somehow got a hold of some medication, some drugs and she's using and you don't know it, that doesn't make you a bad or unattentive guy. Okay. Sometimes people who struggle with deep, deep, profound paranoia, um, are extraordinary at hiding. Because in their souls, they have to, because nobody else knows what's going on.

• 41:30Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 41:30Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So I tell you that to tell you, you are at a place now, I'm just telling you professionally, you, she desperately needs you, the man who loves her, to intervene on her behalf.

• 41:42Dr. John Delony?

  And what that looks like is a direct conversation, this ends today. You're gonna go, you can come with me, or someone's gonna come pick you up. You get to choose, but you're going today for a psyche vow.

• 41:56Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 41:57Dr. John Delony?

  And that's an, that's an end of a conversation. And it has to be done in a way, and sometimes people can do it by themselves. So I've done it for people, right? When they think, you know, no, I can manipulate my husband, I can manipulate my wife. And I show up to the house, I'm like, yeah, yeah, manipulating me, because I don't care. I'm mistaken this, but you are going. Um, or sometimes people get their family together. You've probably seen some of those intervention kind of shows. But it's basically a declaration, this ends today.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:24Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the, um, depending on what state you're in, and depending on any number of other factors, sometimes people can walk in and, um, the, the standard, the, the, the standard for a state to take away somebody's civil rights, to say, you have, you are no longer in control of your life, we are. That standard should be and is very, very high.

• 42:50Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 42:51Dr. John Delony?

  So sometimes adults will get, like, like committed, they'll be in an institution for three or four days, and then it will occur to them, I can just leave, I'm an adult. And often they're right.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  So what, what does that look like when she's still holding a job?

• 43:09Speaker 03

  And has for the last couple of years without incident?

• 43:13Dr. John Delony?

  I can almost...

• 43:14Speaker 03

  And that's the confusing part, that's the confusing part.

• 43:18Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I, I, I mean, you don't know what they're dealing with at work either.

• 43:24Speaker 03

  Well, I know she's a healthcare professional.

• 43:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 43:27Speaker 03

  Um, so she helps other, other, others, um, at a, um, assisted living nursing home caretaker, um, and has for her entire career. And that's the confu- and my daughter is also a healthcare professional as well, and we've had the same conversation is, she still holds a job, she still goes to work every day, and everything seems fine. But as soon as she comes home, it's like, she does all the things that I'm describing. And that's the, where I struggle.

• 43:58Dr. John Delony?

  Well, I would say, I would say two things. Number one, that's yet one more data point that she may be, uh, to put it nicely, borrowing from a pharmaceutical cabinet.

• 44:10Dr. John Delony?

  If she's got access to other people's pharmaceutical drugs,

• 44:16Dr. John Delony?

  and she's just, you're watching her rapidly change in front of you.

• 44:20Dr. John Delony?

  Because one of the things I want to know, and if I'm doing an assessment on somebody is, do they have access? And if they're a healthcare professional, the answer is undoubtedly yes.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  Yes, correct.

• 44:29Dr. John Delony?

  That's number one. Number two, people who struggle from extreme paranoia sometimes are experts in compartmentalization because they think they're running a game on everybody else. Not a game, but they're running a, they're having to survive. So think of it like a Sherlock Holmes episode where he has to dress up and go and play a part.

• 44:51Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:52Dr. John Delony?

  And so it can go on for years.

• 44:56Dr. John Delony?

  And here's the other thing I would tell you. Without a proper clinical assessment, you at home trying to armchair quarterback it, you're watching her get worse in front of you.

• 45:07Speaker 03

  That's my fear is it's getting worse. And in all honesty, I believe she thinks I'm the, I'm the enemy.

• 45:14Dr. John Delony?

  That's great. That is okay. And when you tell her, you have to go see somebody, you've got to go get a clinical assessment because I'm losing my wife, you will be the devil incarnate. And you have to love her enough to walk through those hot coals.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  That's my fear.

• 45:32Dr. John Delony?

  What's the, I mean, here's the other thing, brother. What's the other side of it?

• 45:38Speaker 03

  Well, that scares me too.

• 45:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 03

  I mean, it's almost a no win because it's what's worse. I mean,

• 45:47Dr. John Delony?

  Choose your heart. Can I be real crass with you?

• 45:51Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 45:51Dr. John Delony?

  Or not crass, just real direct. You've got to choose your heart. You're going to choose for a season to have your wife, who is not well, think she hates you. She doesn't.

• 46:04Dr. John Delony?

  But to confirm, when you think everyone's out to get you and you find out somebody else is noticing your behaviors, it just confirms it. It makes it worse. It's like gasoline on a fire.

• 46:13Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:14Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Except et tu brute, like not you too, right? Not like you're my husband. You don't see this? And so yes, expect an amplification of this a hundredfold and it all to be channeled on you.

• 46:28Dr. John Delony?

  The other side of it is

• 46:31Dr. John Delony?

  often when somebody is unspooling like this, they know it. They feel it.

• 46:39Dr. John Delony?

  And it often ends with loved ones planning a funeral.

• 46:43Speaker 03

  That's, that's the scary part, but I do know that living like, living like this now is not sustainable.

• 46:50Dr. John Delony?

  Correct. And so any times I'm talking to somebody, I'm always looking at trend lines. Everybody has bad weekends, bad days, bad whatever, that's fine. This is something that is, is on a negative trend line. You stepped out and had a third party show up and your son went, oh my Lord, we gotta get her some help.

• 47:11Dr. John Delony?

  So unless your son is a hypochondriac and, and I say that in a funny way, not in the clinical way, but like he's overdramatic and, you know, your kid. But it sounds like when he said it, you were like, you're, I know, you're right.

• 47:25Speaker 03

  Well, I know he's right and I think, and he did convert her with that. And she immediately replied, I don't have any mental problem. I don't need mental help.

• 47:35Speaker 03

  But we all, me, him and my daughter all believe that she needs something.

• 47:39Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So I would not use the word mental help.

• 47:43Dr. John Delony?

  I would, I would have all three of you, if, if they're, are they adult kids?

• 47:47Speaker 03

  Adult kids, they don't live at home, but we all live in different areas.

• 47:50Dr. John Delony?

  Perfect. I think all three sit down and say, we love you.

• 47:55Dr. John Delony?

  And we know that you're not well. And everything about you tells us that you're terrified and you're scared of, of your own home and your own skin. We want you to go talk to somebody. I'm fine. I'm not gonna do that. Well, here's the deal. Today you go.

• 48:11Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm willing to risk you being upset with me and have you involuntarily committed, or I'll go with you and we'll get you checked in.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  So what does that look like? Do I just take her to the hospital?

• 48:23Dr. John Delony?

  If you, well, if you, yeah.

• 48:24Speaker 03

  Pre-arrange it?

• 48:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you pre-arrange it and you can go to a inpatient where they can do a 48 hour, a 72 hour hold. Um, if she signs up for it, then that's a whole other track. But you'll have to wait, unfortunately, you'll have to wait until something bad happens. If you're gonna, if you're gonna have her involuntarily committed. You have to wait till she flies off the handle or starts banging on stuff or hitting herself or stuff like that. Cause that, again, that threshold is very, very high.

• 48:53Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:53Dr. John Delony?

  Cause they don't want old grouchy husbands who's thinks their wife is annoying in the middle of a football game to get committed. Right? So that lot, that line is very high.

• 49:03Speaker 03

  And I've struggled with that too, because even my, and I've told my son, if she ever pulls off one of these again, that I would do that. And she disappears into the back room or to the bathroom and starts crying and screaming and yelling and like she's in pain or something. Um, and I don't know if that's the right time to do it, because 20 minutes later, she's back to normal, it seems like for a little bit. And then she'll lay on the couch for 30, 45 minutes and

• 49:30Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. It's exhausting.

• 49:31Speaker 03

  Something happens or yeah.

• 49:33Dr. John Delony?

  It's exhausting.

• 49:33Speaker 03

  And correct. Um, and it just wears me out. And it, and I know, and I probably should have mentioned this earlier, is she does been diagnosed with fibromyalgia. And I don't know if that's tied to it or not, but I think sometimes that causes some pain. And that pain, she, in her mind, it's being caused by someone.

• 49:55Dr. John Delony?

  Right. But fibromyalgia is often a, uh, almost, I'll say almost universally. It's been a minute since I read the latest, but it's almost universally, um, it's rarely diagnosed in somebody that doesn't have existing mental health disorders.

• 50:12Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:12Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense? And I, I'm sure there's a chicken or egg component to it, but chronic pain often is, is highly comorbid with other more significant challenges. It's your body's way of saying, I'm trying to get your attention. We're not okay.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:27Dr. John Delony?

  We're not safe.

• 50:27Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 50:29Dr. John Delony?

  And it could be relationship challenges. It could be work challenges. It could be any number of things going on.

• 50:34Speaker 03

  Right.

• 50:35Dr. John Delony?

  Um, but I think it's sitting down saying, the time has come. I love you enough to risk you not liking me, being mad at me, hating me, whatever you think you're going to say, but you gotta go get some help. Do you have any, um, and I say this very delicately, do you have anybody at, know anybody at her workplace where you could sit down and talk?

• 50:54Speaker 03

  I do not.

• 50:55Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. I would be stunned if they don't know something's up.

• 51:04Speaker 03

  She's done well with this one. Now, I know previous to this one, there was a couple instances in previous work where, and she wouldn't tell me everything, where she left the work. Um, she actually got in a leadership position and then something, it seemed like it was going south, a lot of the paranoia stuff that she would bring up, but then all of a sudden she left with another position. And then within a month, she was at home for a couple of weeks. And then she came back and told me she, there were some differences. And then she left and then got this one, and she's had this one for about a year and a half.

• 51:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. My guess is it's unspooling fast too.

• 51:46Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 51:47Dr. John Delony?

  That's, I mean, I mean, all, and again, all we're doing is following patterns and trends here.

• 51:57Dr. John Delony?

  I think you want to validate her lived experience. I don't want you to say, I don't think you're hurting. I don't think you're scared. All those are very, very real. I think you use I words a lot. I can't sit here as your husband of 30 years and listen to you go in the bathroom and scream and then collapse. I, as your husband of 30 years, I, as your son, cannot listen to you hitting yourself in the face, hitting yourself on the arms, screaming, yelling. I can't, I can't be here to watch you falling apart like this and hurting like this. I'm gonna call, and sometimes it's threatening. I'm gonna call somebody and they're gonna come pick you up, or we're gonna get in the car, we're gonna go down and get you, get the help you need.

• 52:41Dr. John Delony?

  I don't think you're crazy, but I think you are hurting so bad, it's cruel of me to let this, this continue to go on like this. I'm just telling you, Rick, um, once you get on that roller coaster, it is indeed a roller coaster. And we are playing a two-year, five-year, 10-year game even. You're gonna risk not being liked. You're gonna risk her saying evil and awful things to you. You're gonna risk her writhing and having no place for that pain to go. And so you, you're the, you're, it gets dumped on you. That's for sickness and health, for better and worse. I hate that, but it is.

• 53:16Dr. John Delony?

  But I promise you, I promise you, it's better than planning a funeral.

• 53:27Dr. John Delony?

  I promise you. Thanks for the call, my brother. Thanks for the call. You call anytime and happy to talk to her too. Like it'd be an encouragement to her. We'll be right back. All right, listen, folks, there's no such thing as mental health separate from physical health, separate from emotional health. There's just health. It all works together and everything's connected. It's almost impossible to be whole in one area and struggling in another. So if you're ready to make positive physical changes that can help restore some balance to your whole self, check out TrainWell. TrainWell offers tailored workouts with step-by-step guidance from real people. Meaning it's not just an app and it's not just a personal trainer. It's the best of both.

• 54:08Dr. John Delony?

  To get started, you just answer a few questions about your fitness journey, hop on a chat with an expert trainer to discuss your goals and make a personalized plan. And then it's time for you to get to work. As you complete workouts, your trainer will keep tweaking them to help you get better. I love the workouts, my wife loves them, and we both love how they adapt to our travel schedules. TrainWell takes away our excuses and makes it easy and they can do it for you. If you're ready to start taking control of your health, take the quiz to find your perfect trainer at trainwell.net/deloney today. And they still have a special offer for my audience. Just $69 a month when you lock in your plan, that's almost 50% off their regular monthly rate, plus 14 days of free training.

• 54:52Dr. John Delony?

  Go to trainwell.net, that's T-R-A-I-N-W-E-L-L. TrainWell.net/deloney. TrainWell.net/deloney. Go. All right, we are back. I want to read some questions from recent money and marriage event. These are questions that people can drop in an anonymous box. An anonymous box. Yeah, I'm great at talking. Um, here's a couple of questions. How do I tell my wife of over 10 years that I still feel inferior and compare myself to her former husband and boyfriend? But she still makes me feel special. I just don't know how to get over those other men. Here's another one. How do I rebuild trust after an affair?

• 55:35Dr. John Delony?

  I would love some steps to learn to trust again. Here's another one. I am broken and not feeling like I deserve.

• 55:43Dr. John Delony?

  Or can be fixed. I cope by trying to give to everyone else, which helps me feel a little better. But I still feel depressed at times and can get angry with myself and others. Is there even one thing I can do to help me? Here's one more. What do you do when you've both been married before? How do you make yourself stop feeling like you're Plan B or Plan C? And this is strange for me personally, just because I get questions all the time on Instagram. By the way, I don't answer social media questions ever like this. You get tons of comments and things like that. And for whatever reason, there's a, there's a distance in those questions. I don't know if a person wrote them or if a computer wrote them. They come just across in the same font. There's something about reading these note cards. People's, um, I'm thumbing through them if you're just listening here,

• 56:28Dr. John Delony?

  but it's written in people's handwriting. And some of this handwriting looks clean and some of this handwriting looks desperate. And I know I'm reading into that, but it's just heavy. And so if you're asking yourself questions like this, um, this is gonna sound bananas, but I want you to turn off the podcasts. And I want you to have a spark from a YouTube show. I want you to put down the books. By the way, I have a podcast. I've got a YouTube show. I write books. Those are good for awareness. They're good for step-by-step plans. But when you're asking yourself, "I'm feeling broken and I don't feel like I can or deserve to be fixed." "I had an affair and I don't know how to rebuild trust in myself and my partner.

• 57:13Dr. John Delony?

  And I need some, like, someone to walk with us, step by step by step." How do you stop feeling like Plan B or Plan C? Because if both of us, if both of our lives had worked out as we'd originally planned, then we wouldn't know each other. We'd still be married to our original people. Like, if you're there, can I recommend, please, go see a counselor?

• 57:34Dr. John Delony?

  Especially men, we all go see a therapist, please. And if the therapist is terrible, go a couple of sessions and go somewhere else and ask for action steps. And I know as well as anybody does, that sometimes it's cost prohibitive.

• 57:50Dr. John Delony?

  Two hundred and fifty bucks an hour cash, one hundred and seventy-five dollars an hour cash, and you're trying to figure out how to pay your light bill these days. I get it. Or, it's, yeah, I would love to see you, our next available appointment is in seven months, and you live in some rural community, and that's all you got. You got no access. Or you can go into a local church and sit with somebody who's completely untrained, they don't know what they're doing, and they beat you over the head with kind of out of context Bible verses, and you just walk, you stumble out into the light thinking something, you're even worse off than you, I get it, I get it. There, this is one of the reasons why I support a program like BetterHelp, where you, within 24 hours, they're gonna talk to you, and they're gonna see you. And they can do couples counseling and all that

• 58:32Dr. John Delony?

  kind of stuff. If you can't get into a local therapy place in your, in your local community and in your town, if you can't afford it, please call my friends at BetterHelp. They'll answer the phone, and if you don't like the therapist, if it's not gonna work for both of you, then you can switch. But please make a commitment to yourself. If this is you, if you're walking around feeling like you're not, you can't be fixed, if you're walking around thinking, I'm always gonna be a Plan B, I'm always gonna be a Plan C, I don't know how to flip that, please, please, go see somebody.

• 59:04Dr. John Delony?

  Please go see somebody. Whether it's a local therapist, whether it's a local trained pastor, whether it's my friends at BetterHelp, please, reach out. You are worth being well, and you're worth waking up full of joy in the skin you're born in. Thank you so much for being with us on this show. You are worth being well. Make the call. Love you guys. Bye.