He’s Perfect, but He Doesn’t Turn Me On

On today’s episode, we hear about: · A woman unsure why she doesn’t feel a spark with the “perfect” man · A man struggling with a new job he hates · A wife desperate to get her screen time under control 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

  In a relationship that's based on similar values, but there is no physical attraction coming from one party, is that something that can grow over time? On paper, this guy is wonderful.

• 0:18Dr. John Delony?

  Except for his face. What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking calls from real people going through real challenging times, man, trying to figure out what's the next right move for their life with their relationships, their mental and emotional health, whatever you've got going on in your world. Hey, if you're a regular, please take 10 seconds to subscribe, hit the like button, the five-star review thing, whatever you have to do to tell your little digital device that you're in our gang. It makes such a humongous difference, big time, big time.

• 0:59Dr. John Delony?

  We have some extraordinary shows coming your way this year, and I'm so excited, about to burst on some of them, but we'll just have to let them be secrets. If you want to be on the show, if you've got something you want to sit with you and we'll figure it out, 1-844-693-3291. Do you even have to dial 1 anymore? Is that a thing?

• 1:22Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah. If you dial outside of your area code, you still have to do that.

• 1:27Dr. John Delony?

  Do you?

• 1:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. I thought they're gonna put people on the moon, they already figured that out, but...

• 1:32Speaker 02

  No, I think you still do.

• 1:33Dr. John Delony?

  All right. So, 844-693-3291. I don't know, put a 1 in front if you have to, I don't know if you do anymore, or go to johndeloney.com/ask, A-S-K. All right, let's go out to Knoxville, K-Noxville, Tennessee, and talk to Hannah. What's up, Hannah?

• 1:50Speaker 00

  Hi.

• 1:51Dr. John Delony?

  How's it going?

• 1:52Speaker 00

  I'm doing well, how are you?

• 1:54Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome. What's up?

• 1:56Speaker 00

  All right, well, I'm just kinda wanting to get your input on something, and I guess, as you say, ask you what the next right move is.

• 2:04Dr. John Delony?

  All right.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  So, can, in a relationship that's based on similar values, you know, good, healthy relationship, but there is no physical attraction coming from one party, is that something that can grow over time?

• 2:24Dr. John Delony?

  Uh, man. Why are you trying to get me canceled? We've had a good run so far, Hannah.

• 2:31Speaker 00

  Um, so, kinda what's going on is, um, there's a guy. And, uh, we did actually meet on an online dating app.

• 2:41Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yeah, swipe right.

• 2:44Speaker 00

  And, at my age, I am forty-three.

• 2:47Dr. John Delony?

  You said, "At my age," like you're like as old as Kelly. You're not that old, you're forty-three. You're like, "At my age."

• 2:56Dr. John Delony?

  What was, what was the app? Please say it was Tinder, please say it was Tinder.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  It wasn't Tinder, unfortunately.

• 3:02Dr. John Delony?

  Alright.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yeah, not my, not my speed.

• 3:04Dr. John Delony?

  Alright, so, so forty-three, um, you, did you see him and you swiped right?

• 3:09Speaker 00

  Yep. So, um, we had a really good bio, and it was funny and intelligent, and I was like, huh, okay. And, so we started talking. You know, we, we matched, we started talking, um, over about the course of a week. And we should really get together for coffee, and just kinda go from there. And, this on paper, this guy is wonderful. He is successful in his career, um, he has some passions, you know, that he kinda pursues. He's funny, he's compassionate, um, all, this whole checklist that I have, right?

• 3:44Dr. John Delony?

  Except for his face.

• 3:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, okay.

• 3:50Speaker 00

  I, I would be a little nicer than that.

• 3:52Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I'm just, I'm just being ridiculous. And, by the way, if this was flipped, I couldn't do this. Cause it would be like the internet people would be, would be murdery. Um, but, okay, so you, tell me about it. Yeah, I'm, I'm being ridiculous, but, go ahead.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Oh, you're good. Uh, so, um, you know, so we, we started dating, and, um, you know, as things progressed, um, I kinda realized, I, I'm just not feeling that chemistry. I'm not feeling that connection. And, I, as so much told him that, hey, I'm, I'm struggling a little bit. Uh, this is the first time that I've really tried to date since my divorce, which was almost six years ago.

• 4:31Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 4:31Speaker 00

  And so, I've done some therapy, done some-

• 4:33Dr. John Delony?

  Dang dude, you sound on the sidelines, Hannah.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  I needed to do some healing.

• 4:38Dr. John Delony?

  Fair.

• 4:38Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 4:39Dr. John Delony?

  Good for you.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  And feel like, all right, I'm ready to get back out there. And so maybe I'm just intimidated. Maybe that has something to do with it. And I just kind of told him, hey, this is how I'm feeling. And I don't mean to be offensive, but this is just kind of where I'm at. And so he came back with, I want to stay friends. I really care about you. I like you. Um, I think it could change. And I'm just not really sure what to do with that. I don't want to lead him on and I enjoy still having him as a friend. But past that, I just, I don't know what to do.

• 5:11Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so I'm going to free you from everything, okay?

• 5:15Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 5:16Dr. John Delony?

  Um, just because somebody has a good resume doesn't mean you have to hire them.

• 5:21Speaker 00

  Hmm, okay.

• 5:24Dr. John Delony?

  And just because you made some artificial checklist that he matched nine out of 10. Let me tell you something crazy. When I was 18 years old, and by the way, this is not apples for apples because you're experienced and you've been through pain and so and you've you've been down the aisle before. Like you've done all that. So it's not quite apples to apples. But when I was 18, I made a list because some goofball told me like, the world's going to take everything. You better make a list of what your non-negotiables are. I made a list of my future spouse, like 10 things. My wife had two of 10. My wife of 23 years had two of them and one of them was be a beautiful woman. That was the like, there was one trait that she had that I thought I had to have on this magical list. Now, like I said, your list will be different than mine because you've been there.

• 6:07Dr. John Delony?

  Um, but yes, attraction is a huge part of it. And yes, attraction grows over time. I don't know if attraction grows over time, but its importance in

• 6:19Dr. John Delony?

  i- it's importance like fades in in my experience, not my personal experience, but just in talking to people. Um, but yes, I, I, I think the the quote unquote, looking right, like or not handsome. Is he overweight a little bit? Is that the problem?

• 6:35Speaker 00

  Well, it's, excuse me, a little.

• 6:39Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  Um, which he's actually, that was one of the things that we kind of bonded over. He's, um, towards the beginning of his fitness journey, which I've been on for the last few years.

• 6:50Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  And I've lost a significant amount of weight and we've actually talked about, I'm like, oh, it took me almost four years to get to where I wanted to be. And this is what I did. And so.

• 7:00Dr. John Delony?

  I don't think this has anything to do with traction, Hannah. I really don't.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:04Dr. John Delony?

  I think the vibe's just not there and that's okay.

• 7:07Speaker 00

  Hmm, okay.

• 7:09Dr. John Delony?

  Can I go one layer deeper?

• 7:11Speaker 00

  Of course.

• 7:12Dr. John Delony?

  That's heartbreaking, isn't it?

• 7:15Speaker 00

  It really is.

• 7:16Dr. John Delony?

  You waited so long, so careful, you found someone that you like talking to, you've bought into the lie that nobody out there has my values. All guys want is 27-year-old women who look like... And by the way, all that is nonsense. Nonsense. It's just algorithmic nonsense. Okay? But you put yourself out there and then you met somebody who's kinda cool, but just not your guy. And I bet you've spent hours agonizing over, what is it, the thing that he's missing that doesn't make him the guy?

• 7:48Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  And I can't put my finger on it. And I have one semi-unique circumstance. I do have a special needs child.

• 7:59Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  And that's, you know, something that has just been really hard with kinda getting back out there. I like to be very upfront with potential people. Hey, if this turns into a thing, I have a child that... Here's the situation.

• 8:13Dr. John Delony?

  Hannah!

• 8:14Speaker 00

  And a lot of people go running.

• 8:16Dr. John Delony?

  Hannah.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:18Dr. John Delony?

  You don't have to lead with...

• 8:21Dr. John Delony?

  That's not... Having a special needs child makes you freaking amazing. It's not a liability.

• 8:28Speaker 00

  Well, thank you. It doesn't feel that way sometimes.

• 8:31Dr. John Delony?

  I know, because some people aren't...

• 8:35Dr. John Delony?

  It's not about it being a liability. It's the same as in their world. Like, when they say, hey, here's what I'm looking for, for the next 10, 15, 20, 30 years of my life,

• 8:45Dr. John Delony?

  caretaking isn't on that list. Now, if somebody says, I think special needs kids are, and they have this whole list of evil things, then I would like to take you to some of my friends who still are professional MMA fighters. And I'd like you to spend a couple of afternoons with them, right? That's one thing. But if somebody says, hey, um, I think you're amazing. My mother is 82 and she's gonna be moving in with us.

• 9:12Dr. John Delony?

  And that's not what somebody wants for the next 30 years of their life. I'm not gonna begrudge them that. And Hollywood said, "Love will find a way and it's, I'll get on a boat and I'll just meet you and we'll hook up in the back of a car and I'll die for you." That's just not reality. But here's what is reality. Here's what is reality. A bunch of people getting back out there and settling and then resenting the person they're with because they didn't have the courage to say, "This isn't really the life that I want to sign up for." Right, and that's what I don't want to happen, for me or for him. Yeah, that's why I think you're amazing. That's why I think you're amazing. So, he did a good move. He's a good salesman. So, it's like you test drove a car and he was like, and you're like, "Ah, I'm gonna,

• 9:57Dr. John Delony?

  this isn't really the one for me." And he's like, "How about this? Just take it for the weekend, take it home." Like, he's good, right? He's like, "I just want to stay friends. I just want to stay friends." And I think, like, he's like old dumb and dumber, like, "So, you're telling me there's a chance, right? That's fine, cool. But as long as you keep your integrity about you and you don't hide the fact that you're going out again and maybe you get to a point where you're like, "Hey, if you want to be my friend, I'm gonna talk to you about people I'm dating." Right. And if he's like, "Oh, he opts out of that," then he can opt out of that. But I think this may have been the most perfect situation for you to get back out there. A really wonderful guy, a kind guy.

• 10:38Dr. John Delony?

  You got to kind of, um, I almost said something that if I was listening to my own show, I would have been like, "Whoa." It's not what I meant. You got to, you got to go out and hopefully hold hands with somebody and hopefully kiss somebody and hopefully like feel, you haven't felt somebody else in six years, right? And so hopefully you got to go do that and exhale and so now kind of the stars and the sparkliness has kind of wore off and you are remembering, "Oh, there's a reality to this. There's a day in, there's a day out, there's a picking up somebody's underwear, there's a fight about the this and you got the extra complexity. I've got a child that needs some extra caretaking." And so, cool, this is not gonna be this one. And so it sounds amazing.

• 11:22Dr. John Delony?

  At least you didn't go back out and fall head over heels for some smoke show and find out he's a serial cheater or you didn't go out and find another jerk, right? Yeah, I mean, that's always the concern. Of course. But here we are. But here, but here we are. I, I, I think everybody who's dating needs permission to say, "You're awesome and this just isn't for me."

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:46Dr. John Delony?

  And that's okay. You don't need to apologize for that.

• 11:52Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 11:52Dr. John Delony?

  Is that fair?

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that is absolutely fair.

• 11:56Dr. John Delony?

  And also, I challenge everybody to be open to, um,

• 12:04Dr. John Delony?

  completely falling head over heels for somebody that doesn't fit your picture of, um, what you think beauty is, or you, what you think masculine attraction is.

• 12:19Dr. John Delony?

  And I just, I just tell you that the, one of the funniest moments of my adult life was being 19 years old. My wife's brother introducing us, he was a friend of mine, and he's very, very awesome. He's very pragmatic and he said, "You're probably gonna marry my sister. We can't be friends anymore, but y'all should date." And she had jeans pulled up way too high, a brown braided belt. I had, either I had really long hair, or I'd shaved my head completely off, or maybe I even had a mohawk at the time. I probably hadn't bathed in two weeks and we both looked at each other and we're like, "Yeah, no, no." And, um, I think she's stunning.

• 13:04Dr. John Delony?

  After a quarter century together, I think she's stunning.

• 13:08Dr. John Delony?

  And, um, she tells everybody that she bought really low and I'm a stock that finally matured, right? So, like, um, she just bought low and the, the stock rose in value. So, all I have to say is, um, I also want people to be open to, because I know it's easy in the swipe right world, just keep swiping, swiping, swiping. Dude, if somebody, I love what you did, they meet all these criteria, I'm gonna go hang out.

• 13:31Dr. John Delony?

  And I think that just adds to the fun. Can I, can I challenge you to enter into this new season with your hands, um, not clenched tight?

• 13:41Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:42Dr. John Delony?

  You've done a ton of work, you lost a lot of weight, you did a lot of healing. You know what I want you to have? Have some freaking fun.

• 13:49Dr. John Delony?

  You're a special needs mom, you have no fun in your life. Have fun, have fun. Does that make sense?

• 13:54Speaker 00

  It does, and I appreciate that very much.

• 13:58Dr. John Delony?

  Go have a good time. Go have a good time, hold hands, kiss boys. Like, fun, fun, we don't have enough, like, the world's on fire, literally.

• 14:08Dr. John Delony?

  Let's find joy where we can, let's find fun where we can. And I know, I'm overstating it, and I don't even know what I would do if something happened to my wife. I can't even wrap my head around that psychologically, but, um, yeah, I'm kind of glad this is the guy you got. Your first rodeo, um, back on the circuit. Sounds like he was a pretty cool guy, treated you well, and there was not a spark there. It's all great, it's cool.

• 14:35Dr. John Delony?

  Swipe right! Thanks for the call, Hannah, you're awesome. Go get them, we'll be right back.

• 14:42Dr. John Delony?

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• 15:25Dr. John Delony?

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• 16:10Dr. John Delony?

  Joindelete.me/deloney.

• 16:15Dr. John Delony?

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• 16:59Dr. John Delony?

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• 17:40Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we are back. Kelly was just singing "To the Window, To the Wall." Is that your favorite song?

• 17:47Speaker 03

  That was you singing it, not me, but...

• 17:50Dr. John Delony?

  I don't think that's, that's true. All right, let's go out to Philadelphia and talk to Jimmy. What's up, Jimmy?

• 17:56Speaker 04

  Hi John, how are you doing today?

• 17:57Dr. John Delony?

  I'm doing great, brother. What's up, man?

• 17:59Speaker 04

  So, my question is, I um, I'm trying to figure out how to navigate a job that I really hate while trying to find other opportunities and uh, support my family, so um...

• 18:10Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it, man.

• 18:12Speaker 04

  So, to get a little backstory on that, like, the, kind of, towards the end of last year, I had a job I really loved. I was doing uh, work I enjoyed in engineering, um, and the company had a downturn. A lot of people were laid off, um, and then also, I, I was envisioning that soon, uh, most of the company was laid off and I was, I was at the point where I would be laid off soon, or expecting to be laid off any day now. So, going to work, I was expecting to be out, so I was scrambling, trying to find a job, uh, interviewing at places. Um, I never really got an offer until this one company that I knew, kind of, after the interview, I didn't, I really wasn't thrilled with, the commute wasn't very good, um, and so, without anything else,

• 18:52Speaker 04

  I ended up having to take that job, um, and once I got here, I, I just, I've realized I, I have no passion to do, do the job, I don't want to really be there, I'm not really liking any of the people I work with, or, and it's just, and the commute sucks, and it's just, I, at this point, it's kind of dragging my life down to the point where I, I, I mean, I'm not wanting to do things or something, it's just really, oh, like, I would want to quit the job, but uh, obviously, you're always told never to quit a job unless you got another one lined up, so that's where I'm at.

• 19:24Dr. John Delony?

  The way you uh, you made me smile, the way you said it, you were like, "And then this, and then this", and I just thought, like, "My pet's heads are falling off", like, it was like, all the commute and the people and the, everything. Um, can I just take a second, just to shout you out?

• 19:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:39Dr. John Delony?

  Um, Jimmy from Philadelphia, just like, fist in my chest, I'm, I'm proud to be talking to you.

• 19:48Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 19:49Dr. John Delony?

  Um, there's millions of men who just go home.

• 19:53Dr. John Delony?

  And they sit on their couch and they play video games and I take their call, their calls of their exhausted frustrated wives. And there's also millions of men out there working jobs that they hate. Because they have integrity and they're putting food on the table and they're taking care of their kids and taking care of their families. And you're one of those men and I just want to shout you out.

• 20:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the way I feel often. It's like, or at least right now, that's all I'm doing is just, just trying to take care of my family and it's.

• 20:20Dr. John Delony?

  How old are your kids, man?

• 20:22Speaker 04

  I've got, I've got a daughter who's 11 and a son who's eight, so.

• 20:26Dr. John Delony?

  Um, how long have y'all, have y'all been where you are?

• 20:31Speaker 04

  So we just recently moved to a new house in a couple of years, about three years back with, so, um, so we're in a new place and we kind of took on a bigger mortgage and stuff like that, so. It's a, it's a lot of kind of weight carrying on my shoulders to make sure that we, we can stay there and, and, and my kids are able to grow up in a nice area, so.

• 20:56Dr. John Delony?

  Um, home safety is important, right? Um, neighborhood safety is important, so I don't want to undermine that. Um, but besides basic safety and besides like a good community, one of the greatest gifts dads can give their kids is stability. Or the other way I would say that is, uh, not stability and we never move and not stability is, is in they don't ever know that there's challenges, but stability as in, um, there's not an inferno raging inside my chest at all times.

• 21:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:29Dr. John Delony?

  Um, my daughter was making fun of me last night. She was like, why are you so stern when you get home? And I'm like, I'm not stern. She goes, your face, and she rattled off and my wife started dying laughing. She's like, she's totally right. And I was like, really? And she's like, yes. And, and bro, I'm running a scam here. I'm a YouTuber for God's sakes, man. So I have no reason to be stern when I get home.

• 21:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:49Dr. John Delony?

  So I guess, I guess there's two things here. Number one, you know this, I know this, I just want to say it. This is just a season, man.

• 21:58Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 21:58Dr. John Delony?

  It's winter and it's cold.

• 22:02Dr. John Delony?

  I promise you spring's coming.

• 22:04Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:05Dr. John Delony?

  You're a good man.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  It's hard to look at it that way. I find myself negatively thinking about this. Like I've really screwed up my life this one. I keep thinking that I'm going to be stuck here and there's...

• 22:16Dr. John Delony?

  So you know that, but I'll reiterate, it's not true.

• 22:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 22:19Dr. John Delony?

  You're one of the good ones.

• 22:22Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, and for all of human history, men went off to war and they didn't go for seven month deployments. They just went for years until the war was over or until they were dead.

• 22:34Dr. John Delony?

  And so for some reason, we've got this weird illness in our culture called passion disease, where it's like, it's not my passion. Like, I don't care, man. Like, at some point, we have to take care of our families. And that's just the season you find yourself in. So you have, you have two choices, not two choices, two things that I think can really help here, three things, three things. Number one, keep applying.

• 22:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, okay. I'm really doing that.

• 22:58Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, but I want you to, I want you to bound it. Here's what I mean. If you're like me, and I've had a couple of jobs where I got to a point where I had to go. I knew I couldn't be there anymore. I applied for jobs in the morning. I was looking at the trades, trying to find new places to go during lunchtime, at nighttime, while my kids were watching TV. I was sitting next to them scrolling. My wife would go to bed, I'd be up all night, and I would make myself insane.

• 23:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, I feel you there, because I'm similar.

• 23:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, think of that like a pornography addict who keeps going to the next scene.

• 23:35Dr. John Delony?

  Or think of that as somebody who's always looking for another hit. You're not actually looking for a job at that point. You are, you've activated a fight or flight response, and your body's saying, we have to do something right now.

• 23:47Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly.

• 23:48Dr. John Delony?

  Here's how you bind it. Here's how you, you, you put a boundary on it. You say, I'm gonna apply for five jobs a week. Period.

• 23:56Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 23:56Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm not gonna scroll through them like pornography. I'm going to find five jobs, and I'm, or, and I may not apply for five, I may apply for three, but I'm gonna have two cups of coffee, so I'm gonna count that as my five. Or 10, or whatever your number is, okay? And when that's over, your discipline is, I'm gonna close this laptop until the next Monday. Okay. Okay, here's the second thing. And this is gonna sound so woo woo and cheesy, but I want you just to go with me on it, okay? You're from the northeast, I'm from Texas, you and I both don't have any room for woo woo, but I want you to do this for me, okay? I want you to take a note card, like go to Walmart or Walgreens, they're 99 cents for like 150 of them or something, I want you to get a note card.

• 24:39Dr. John Delony?

  And when you get to work, and when you leave work, for 30 days, one month from today, I want you to have written down three things that you've never noticed before. I've never noticed before? Yep, not even a gratitude list, just three things you've never noticed before. I've not noticed how many curly phone cords we have in this place. I have not noticed how stained up the carpet is. I've noticed how good it smells in here. And here's what I'm, here's what that does, like so, and I'm gonna give you like a really horrific analogy, but I'll bring it back. Whenever I would show up to a house and somebody had just walked inside and a loved one had passed away, or they had just experienced a shooting, and there's like a real tragic,

• 25:22Dr. John Delony?

  wild situation where their bodies are spinning out like mad. I would literally hold their hand, and it got grown men, anybody, hold their hand, and we'd walk down the street and we would count cracks in the sidewalk. Or we would count leaves on the curb. And all I was trying to do was get somebody from this state of, I won't go through the parasympathetic, but get somebody from their body is taking over for them because they're dying, there's a threat, to, no, I'm here now, I'm okay, I'm alright. Okay. And what that does is it takes you from, I hate this, I hate this, I hate this, and then you become somebody that you're not. Oh, yeah.

• 26:05Dr. John Delony?

  Instead of, look how nasty that carpet is, and then you just kinda chuckle and go on about your job. Okay, just observance of things I haven't known, okay? I just want you to write down those, and what it will do is, it will increasingly make you more present, more mindful of the world that you exist in, and it's easier to exhale when you're on your own feet. Okay. Okay, here's the third thing. I want you and your wife to sit down and be honest about, we just moved to this new house and it was cool.

• 26:39Dr. John Delony?

  One of the hardest conversations I've ever had with my wife, and I've had some doozies, was when I said, after living in a home for maybe six months, I said, "We've made a terrible mistake. We've got to sell this house."

• 26:50Dr. John Delony?

  And my wife sobbed. "I was wrong. I should have never bought the house. I did." And it was a whole thing. And within five more months, we had put on the market and we sold it. And looking back, that was the spark that changed our entire financial lives. It changed my mental and emotional life. It changed everything for us. But that was one of the hardest conversations of, "We thought this was the next right step for successful people, and we bought into a lie. We've got to sell this house."

• 27:16Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 27:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay? And so I want you all to sit down and create, okay, forget the job, forget the home we just bought, forget the imaginary quote-unquote "good neighborhoods" that you always told yourself you were going to give your kids because you didn't have that growing, all that. Forget all that.

• 27:31Dr. John Delony?

  Where do we want to live? What do we want to do? What do you want this house to feel like when I get home?

• 27:37Dr. John Delony?

  And let's start working towards that, because my fear is, you're going to get a new job, and it's still not going to be the job that, it would be the two jobs ago that you had that was a good job that then went under. And so you haven't grieved that one yet. And then you're going to be on to the next one. And then what you're going to find is, every job you get, you go with you.

• 27:57Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, that's my fear is that, just that, this is going to be the next one, same thing.

• 28:05Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. So find, find the life that you and your wife want to create. And maybe she's dying to tell you, "Yeah, dude, this is way too much workage."

• 28:14Dr. John Delony?

  Like, "It was cool. It's cool. We did it. But let's sell this house while the market's still, I'll sell this house and sell the market, and let's move to a smaller place, or let's move to Kansas, or let's..." We've always wanted to go to Arizona. Let's just go to Arizona. Like, whatever it is you all want to do, begin to have that conversation, and then the job will be in service to that life, not just the next thing. Because I want you to go to something, not from something.

• 28:36Speaker 04

  Okay. That makes sense.

• 28:38Dr. John Delony?

  And, by the way, if this job is killing you, if there's, like, unethical practices, if there is, they're demanding, like, if they're being abusive...

• 28:52Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, walk out the door. Okay. It's not that bad yet, but it's, I mean, it's not good. Yeah. Um, but if it's just annoying and that your coworkers are, are TPS report people. Um, literally on my show team, one of the guys is the president of the, uh, chess club where we work. That's the truth. Another guy is like the, one of the leaders in the Dungeons and Dragons club. That's a hundred percent true. And the producer of my show is a hundred and seven years old. Literally. Like you don't always get to pick the people you talk to, dude. People I work with are amazing. They're awesome. Um, but like, if it's just annoying, then there comes a moment where you're like, yeah, whatever, dude. I'm not going to give you all hate. Suck it up and.

• 29:37Dr. John Delony?

  It's not even about that. It's, it's not suck it up and hold it. Right? Like, so even the idea of like, I'm just gonna suck this up. No, I'm not gonna give you all that. Hmm. It, it like Michael Singer calls it detachment. Jaco calls it good. Like either what, whether you're a Navy SEAL or you're like an existentialist, like you're a, you're a, like a mindfulness practitioner. The practice is I'm not gonna give you all my hate. Y'all aren't worth that. Okay, okay. If you hurt my kid, I'll give you my hate, right? But if you're just an annoying place to work, but y'all are putting food on my table, I'm gonna show up here and what I will give you is my, my excellence and my dignity. Cause y'all don't get my character either. Okay. Like the whole quiet quitting thing was not a middle finger to the bosses. It was a middle finger to the mirror. It was a bunch of people who cashed out their integrity.

• 30:22Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Right? And so I'm just not gonna, I'm not gonna give you all that. And I'm off and the commute's awful. Commute sucks. All right, cool. I'm gonna listen to more books on marriage or more books on architecture or more like, I'm gonna become a book listening guy. Okay. Right? Or I'm gonna call five of my old college roommates, one, one every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And I'm, we're just gonna talk on the way. Like, you get to pick, but if you can find play and find goofy and find absurdity in annoying moments, you win life. Okay. Does that make sense? Yep, yeah, it does. I know this is kind of a beating dude, cause it's kind of like, dude, my job's just awful. I get that, man. I don't wanna like, I don't wanna paint it to a picture that it's not. Um.

• 31:05Dr. John Delony?

  But what the research says over and over and over again is those that find joy and happiness from the inside out, not the outside in, they win, man. They win. They just win. And that's what I want for you. Most of the people who go from job I hate to job I hate to job I hate really are running for themselves. That's not you, obviously, but man, I just want to applaud you again. You saw that your current job was a sinking ship. You jumped off the lifeboat. You got into the next safe boat. And man, I don't like this boat. It's not, it doesn't smell good in here. People are mean on this boat. But this boat is putting food on my family's table. And maybe this is a good moment for us to rethink how we're doing everything.

• 31:45Dr. John Delony?

  But all of these things puts you back in the driver's seat of your life, instead of you feeling like you're being drug around by a job you hate. Get back in the driver's seat, brother. Appreciate the call, Jimmy. We'll be right back.

• 31:58Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's talk about TrainWell. Listen, 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 sort of wholeness to your entire life, check out TrainWell. TrainWell offers tailored workouts with step-by-step guidance from real people. And that means it's not just an app, and it's not just a personal trainer. It's the best of both. To get started, you just need to answer a few questions about your fitness journey. You hop on a chat with an expert trainer to discuss your goals and make a personalized plan.

• 32:39Dr. John Delony?

  And then it's time for you to go get to work. As you complete workouts, your trainer will keep tweaking them to help you get better. And I love the workouts. My wife loves them. We both love how they adapt to our travel schedules. TrainWell is awesome. TrainWell takes away our excuses and makes exercise 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/doloney today. Right now, they have a special offer just for my audience. $69 a month when you lock in your plan. That's almost 50% off their regular monthly rate, plus 14 days of free training. Go to TrainWell, T-R-A-I-N, trainwell.net/doloney right now. That's trainwell.net/doloney.

• 33:26Dr. John Delony?

  We are back. Let's go out to Norfolk, Virginia and talk to Anna. Not Hannah or Banana.

• 33:34Dr. John Delony?

  What's another one? Manna? Fanta?

• 33:39Dr. John Delony?

  Santa?

• 33:41Dr. John Delony?

  Let's go out to Anna. What's up, Anna?

• 33:44Speaker 05

  Hi, John. Thank you so much for talking with me. I feel like I've heard all those nicknames and more.

• 33:49Dr. John Delony?

  Oh dude, my last name rhymes with a processed lunch meat. I'm with you, sister. I'm with you. It's a rough childhood.

• 33:56Dr. John Delony?

  What's up?

• 33:56Speaker 05

  Um, okay, so my question is, how can my husband and I rebuild trust around my phone use? While I balance maintaining autonomy with our concerns about addiction? Or another way to say is, at what point does phone addiction need to be treated as a serious addiction?

• 34:18Dr. John Delony?

  That was a lot of...

• 34:21Dr. John Delony?

  If you were not calling about, if you weren't calling about, uh, phone usage, I would say, man, you are somebody who scrolls a lot. You've got all the right, uh, word salad-y things. What's, like, get, get me to the...

• 34:33Speaker 05

  Well, I've been overthinking this for a long time and I listen to you and...

• 34:37Dr. John Delony?

  I can tell. You're a, a, a great over thinker and over thinkers love over scrolling. Alright, so get me beneath it. What's happening in your house? What, what, what, what happened that you decided to call?

• 34:48Speaker 05

  Um, this is the main issue that my husband and I really struggle to communicate on. Everything else, finances, parenting, I mean, we disagree sometimes, but we can talk through it. And neither of us like to argue, um, we, we just talk with each other really well about everything else. But this is the thing that we really struggle with and we keep coming back to it and, um, yeah, I don't know, I just, we kinda came back to it and I was just like, oh, let me just see what John's advice could be that we could just take into consideration.

• 35:22Dr. John Delony?

  Your husband keeps saying, hey, you're on the phone all the time?

• 35:25Speaker 05

  Okay, so...

• 35:29Speaker 05

  The low point as an adult with coping and escaping was a few years ago. So we have three kids. When my oldest was a baby, I was a stay at home mom. We also lived overseas and so I was very isolated. And I started seeing that my screen time averaged each day was seven to nine hours a day. And I just realized that's basically a full time job. My full time job is supposed to be loving and serving and taking care of my baby. And I love him so much and I'm not doing that as my full time job well if I'm on my phone. So it was very humbling and very sobering.

• 36:10Speaker 05

  And I went to my husband and asked him to help me with that and put restrictions on my phone. And so we set my phone up as you have to set it up as if you're a child so that the restriction is not just a reminder that pops up on the screen. It actually shuts the app out and we put restrictions on everything. And then since then, that was about five and a half years ago. Since then, we have just made it more and more strict to the point where I feel like, okay, I understand we need to restrict this some because I consistently do not control myself with it.

• 36:53Speaker 05

  But also I'm an adult and I, it is still a tool for certain things that I'm just struggling to use it. I don't use it in a helpful ways.

• 37:06Dr. John Delony?

  Let's flip this whole thing around, okay?

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 37:12Dr. John Delony?

  Seven to nine hours on the phone overseas by yourself.

• 37:18Dr. John Delony?

  That phone was an amazing gift from the, from the technocratic gods. Why was it a gift?

• 37:31Speaker 05

  Well, it felt like connection with everyone back home, but also I did have friends there and it's false connection. It's really not, not the greatest connection.

• 37:40Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, hold on, no, no, no, no, no. You're just like, you're, you're just repeating Jonathan Haidt clips.

• 37:46Dr. John Delony?

  Why was that phone a gift to you?

• 37:49Speaker 05

  I was so lonely.

• 37:51Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. It kept you from running out into the ocean and not coming back, right?

• 37:59Speaker 05

  Yes, but also I was always lonely until very recently. I have wonderful friends now in the past year or two. Now I have so many amazing people in my life all the time consistently, week to week. But up until the last year or two, I had no one.

• 38:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. So let's just call it what it is. The phone saved your life. Stop going to, stop going to war with it. Okay? Because here's what, here's what you did. You had two broken ankles and a blown out ACL. And you went to your husband and you said, "I'm using these crutches way too much." And instead of going to see a physician, see a surgeon to get your, your ankles fixed and your knee fixed, you just had your husband lock up your crutches. The phone was never the problem. It's, it becomes the problem because those bastards are so good at, at, at, uh, their addictive nature to them. But that's not the problem.

• 39:00Dr. John Delony?

  The problem was, "I'm so desperately lonely, I can't breathe and I'm stuck in this house with this child that everyone says you're supposed to love, you're supposed to be so grateful for and, uh..." And no human is ever supposed to be locked in this house with a screaming child alone. That has never happened in human history until like a few years ago. It's madness.

• 39:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:20Dr. John Delony?

  And so the phone worked.

• 39:22Speaker 05

  I hear what you're saying. So, so now I have connection with friends and it's not nearly as addictive as it used to be.

• 39:29Dr. John Delony?

  Now it's a habit.

• 39:30Speaker 05

  But still.

• 39:30Dr. John Delony?

  Now it's a habit. It's, it's an automation.

• 39:36Speaker 05

  So how can I practice?

• 39:40Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, can we go beneath that for a second?

• 39:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 39:43Dr. John Delony?

  I think you're surrounded by people, but I think you're still dreadfully lonely. And I think you've told yourself, "I'm not lonely because look at all these people."

• 39:53Speaker 05

  I don't know. I have, I, I can really be my true self with several people, which is a huge gift. I didn't used to have that.

• 40:03Dr. John Delony?

  Do you think, do you think you're worth it?

• 40:09Dr. John Delony?

  Do you think their life is better because they get to be friends with you?

• 40:13Speaker 05

  You know, lately I've had a lot of feedback from, I'm so sorry.

• 40:19Dr. John Delony?

  Don't be sorry. Take a breath. You're good.

• 40:25Speaker 05

  I have had a lot of feedback from my friends, um,

• 40:31Speaker 05

  about

• 40:34Speaker 05

  just the encouragement that I've been to them and they really enjoy being around me and I'm doing some uh, very part-time, like helping a friend out with something work-ish related and she's just so positive about how I'm doing with that and she's just so, so appreciative and so kind. And uh, I'm really, I'm really not used to that.

• 40:55Dr. John Delony?

  There you go.

• 40:56Speaker 05

  Um, so I'm trying to-

• 40:58Dr. John Delony?

  Don't stop. You keep shooting and trying and I have to. Just be for a second.

• 41:05Dr. John Delony?

  You've never had somebody tell you, "God, I'm so glad that you're my life."

• 41:12Dr. John Delony?

  And so, give yourself a moment. You get to practice sitting in that seat. You've never been in that seat.

• 41:19Dr. John Delony?

  And it's kinda like when I stare at my nine-year-old and I'm like, "Hey, look at me." And she goes, "Eh," and she looks at me and I said, "You are the most beautiful woman I've, uh, the beautiful girl I've ever seen." And she goes, "Eh, Dad, eh," but look, she has to look away because the laser of how much I love her, it burns too bright for her right now. And that's okay.

• 41:40Dr. John Delony?

  And so, the, the, the, the ray of light that is true friendship, somebody that truly sees you and says, "God almighty, dude, I need to tell you this. My day is better because you're my life." It, it burns because you, you just, like, you haven't been out in the sun in a long time.

• 41:57Dr. John Delony?

  So, just, you just give yourself some grace while you practice what it feels like to be seen and loved anyway.

• 42:08Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 42:09Dr. John Delony?

  How much are you on your phone seven to nine hours? What are you or what are you at now? Two hours a day?

• 42:14Speaker 05

  Uh, it varies. I have been on it more recently. It's more like maybe three, three and a half hours every day.

• 42:22Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so you have a 60% reduction.

• 42:27Dr. John Delony?

  If you were trying to lose 100 pounds and you lost 60 of those, would people be cheering you on? Yes.

• 42:34Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 42:34Dr. John Delony?

  They'd be screaming and yelling, "Yay!"

• 42:39Speaker 05

  I don't know how to communicate with my husband about it because we're trying to parent together. This affects my parenting. We're trying to live life together and this affects my ability to function and, and think clearly and all that, right?

• 42:50Dr. John Delony?

  No, no, no, no, stop, stop.

• 42:54Dr. John Delony?

  Listen.

• 42:55Speaker 05

  But I'm not getting enough feedback from him. It's not enough. It is not good enough because I am not at the ideal.

• 43:01Dr. John Delony?

  That, uh, the right there.

• 43:05Dr. John Delony?

  You just said it.

• 43:05Speaker 05

  I know. I know. What am I doing about that?

• 43:09Dr. John Delony?

  You have put him, and maybe he act, asked this of you.

• 43:15Dr. John Delony?

  But he is not your husband. He's your dad.

• 43:18Speaker 05

  I, yes, absolutely.

• 43:21Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know how y'all got in that role, but he's your father. And I don't know what your home life was growing up, but I can almost guarantee you that you were never enough for him either.

• 43:31Speaker 05

  No. No, my mom was never enough.

• 43:34Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. And dad didn't show up and protect you and say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, you're my daughter. You're the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. I love you. You're awesome." That didn't happen.

• 43:43Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's happened recently with him, but...

• 43:46Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. And so we're gonna forgive and we're gonna let that stuff heal, but you're chasing a ghost with your husband. He's not your dad.

• 43:54Speaker 05

  Well, he, he, he says, when I bring this up with him, before I've said, "I feel like I'm being treated like a child here. I'm an adult." I know he, and he says, "Well, you've acted like a child."

• 44:07Dr. John Delony?

  Oh.

• 44:07Speaker 05

  But then in later conversations, he says he doesn't want to be parenting me. But it's almost like, "I don't want to be, but you're making me." That's how it feels. I know he would disagree with what I'm saying.

• 44:20Dr. John Delony?

  Gaslights burn brightly, Anna. They burn bright.

• 44:25Speaker 05

  But once...

• 44:26Dr. John Delony?

  Go ahead.

• 44:28Speaker 05

  Once he and I both recognize that this is very addictive, then I feel that I've been labeled as an addict. So then it's like my perspective on this whole issue doesn't matter at all because I'm an addict.

• 44:41Dr. John Delony?

  That's just, it's just, that's just bonkers language.

• 44:44Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 44:45Dr. John Delony?

  Can you get addicted to phones? Yes. But it's not like cocaine. You just throw your phone away.

• 44:53Speaker 05

  Well, he would love to if I did that.

• 44:55Dr. John Delony?

  I know, but listen, let the phone be the same. And I'd be having this conversation with someone who's drinking, who suddenly finds themselves in a really robust, amazing community, and they only have to drink when they go home.

• 45:10Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:11Dr. John Delony?

  They only have to drink when they're around their parents. I would not, the drink isn't the problem there. The drink is the flashing light on the dashboard saying this part of your life is not safe, is not okay.

• 45:24Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm.

• 45:25Dr. John Delony?

  And you started this call telling me how wonderful everything is with your husband, except for this one thing I call bull crap on a stick. It's not. It's not.

• 45:36Dr. John Delony?

  You have to believe that for yourself because that's what keeps you safe. Fair or not, a fair or unfair? True or false?

• 45:46Speaker 05

  I hope you're wrong. It really does feel like it's true that we communicate and we agree on everything else.

• 45:54Dr. John Delony?

  Do you agree on everything he wants you to agree on?

• 45:58Speaker 05

  He, he has very strong opinions about few things. He's a very easygoing person when he, when he is. I don't know. I'm so sorry.

• 46:11Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, I feel like your, like, whole sweater is just unraveling and you're just holding a ball of yarn. You're like, no, no, it's a sweater. It's a sweater.

• 46:20Dr. John Delony?

  All right, here's the hard truth. Here's the hard reality, the hard truth.

• 46:28Dr. John Delony?

  You can't have a good marriage if you're married to your dad. And you can't have a good marriage if you're married to someone that says, "Well, I wouldn't want to be your dad, but you just keep acting like a child, so I got it." That's not, that's not a marriage.

• 46:41Dr. John Delony?

  You're trapped.

• 46:44Speaker 05

  So what can I do?

• 46:46Dr. John Delony?

  You can, you can, you'll have to have a, a, a level set, a, a, a change. You've got to be honest about, "Why is my home the least safe place that I inhabit?"

• 46:59Dr. John Delony?

  Is it the way he talks to you, the way he demands of you, the way he says, "No, this is what we believe."

• 47:06Dr. John Delony?

  Or if you say, "Hey, this food at the restaurant's not very good. I don't like this." And the waitress comes over and says everything good, and he goes, "We're fine, we're good." I don't, I don't know what it is.

• 47:17Speaker 05

  I, I, I think it's because home was always, I, I don't, I never felt like I had a home growing up. I don't, I don't know how to feel safe in my home.

• 47:26Dr. John Delony?

  And maybe that's, that maybe-

• 47:27Speaker 05

  It's not him.

• 47:28Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, perfect. I love that you said that, because I want to like this guy, right? I really do.

• 47:33Speaker 05

  He would. He's amazing. He's just driving me crazy about this.

• 47:37Dr. John Delony?

  Maybe, maybe that's the thing. Maybe he feels like you put it, the first time you said, "Hey, I'm an addict. I need you to put these restrictions on." He said, "Okay, I'm a lover, and I've listened to, I need to listen to my wife, and, and the best way to be a lover is to do whatever she asks me. I'm gonna do this." And so he's just trying to, he's trying to do what you ask him to do. And he don't want to be doing it. You don't want to be, maybe that's the case. I don't think you're, I, I think walking around with a label that "I'm an addict", it's not helping you.

• 48:04Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:06Dr. John Delony?

  And I don't think it's intellectually honest.

• 48:09Dr. John Delony?

  I think underneath it, I want you just to look at the places in your life where you find yourself reaching for your phone. And if you have the self-awareness, what you just said is really powerful. It, it, to me, it's the, it's the, it's the little dotted light in the dark on the path that is where you need to walk. And that is sitting down with your husband saying, "Okay, I lived my whole life terrified to walk in my front door because of my dad and my mom." And I'm so sorry, but I, because of my nervous system, home is still a place I'm not comfortable and I'm dedicating 2025 and 2026 to learning and practicing being comfortable in this house.

• 48:54Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 48:55Dr. John Delony?

  So every week, you and him are gonna hold hands and do something really schmoozy like, ask each other, how can I love you this week? What's the most loving thing I could do for you this week?

• 49:08Dr. John Delony?

  What does safety feel like this week? And you are gonna have to do the hard work of saying, this is what makes me feel seen, this is what makes me feel safe.

• 49:17Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm almost gonna promise you that phone usage will go away.

• 49:23Dr. John Delony?

  It just will, it will fade out.

• 49:27Speaker 05

  So do, to practice this, do I take the restrictions off my phone? And stop treating it like that, or?

• 49:35Dr. John Delony?

  I, yeah, I, I think you, A, take all the restrictions off your phone. And people listening are like, whoa, take them all off, take them all off. You're a grown up. You made humans.

• 49:46Dr. John Delony?

  And then number two, make some really firm, put some hurdles in your way, as they say. Uh, James Clear says, put, make some friction.

• 49:56Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 49:56Dr. John Delony?

  So when I walk in my house, um,

• 50:00Dr. John Delony?

  in fact, if you and your husband wanna do something kinda cheesy, go to Home Depot and get some wood and y'all create like a really fancy box together and get a YouTube video and y'all make a birdhouse but kinda convert it. It'll be awful and janky unless-

• 50:11Speaker 05

  He'd love that, he's so good at woodworking.

• 50:12Dr. John Delony?

  Of course he is, cuz he's freaking awesome guy. Now, I was talking bad about him, I think he's great.

• 50:17Dr. John Delony?

  Make an amazing box that when you walk in the door, the phone goes in the box.

• 50:22Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 50:23Dr. John Delony?

  I don't need to get all of these rigamaroo's and all these special apps and time, no, I'm putting it in the box, just goes in there. And that way, the only time you get it is when you need it, when I have to make a call.

• 50:35Dr. John Delony?

  We need to check on a map and then it goes back in the box and you being present with yourself every time you want to go check it, ask yourself, just stop for a second. You're looking for a millisecond between I want to grab the phone and I'm going to grab the phone. Just a millisecond and all you're going to ask is, alright, what's going on right now that I started to grab for that?

• 50:56Dr. John Delony?

  What is it here that's making me feel unsafe? Is it because there's dishes in the sink and I'm going to think that I think my husband's not going to like me? Because that's not true. That's dumb.

• 51:06Dr. John Delony?

  Is it because the laundry's not done and because I've been wrangling these kids all day? And I'm going to assume that my husband's going to think I'm gross and not a good wife? That's dumb.

• 51:15Dr. John Delony?

  And you can challenge those thoughts without holding your phone.

• 51:21Dr. John Delony?

  And so the second one is carrying something with you. Look, you can't see this, you can't see it unless you're watching this on YouTube. I literally on my desk have the thing that I carry with me at all times. I've got a bunch of stickers on it. I try to make it all tough and hard because I'm insecure. But like I have it right here and you can doll yours up however you want to. But it's like nine bucks I got at Walmart.

• 51:43Dr. John Delony?

  But I just carry it and when that little voice pops up like, oh, you suck at being a dad. Or I can't believe you. I just write it down. Get out of my head. It's not true.

• 51:54Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense? And then like, here's the other thing. Last night, um, last night, my wife and I were having kind of an argument disagreement. And I just got back in town from a quick trip up north to Michigan and there's all this awesome candy up in Traverse City, like with cherries and all like, I bought a whole thing of like sour cherries. And I looked at my wife and said, I'm going to eat my feelings for a few minutes. And she rolled her eyes and laughed, but I was mindful about, I'm going to go do something that's going to make me feel not that great, but it's going to, and she goes, what are you really doing? And I go, these things make sadness go away. We both died laughing and I had about half of what I normally would have had if I'd mindlessly ate them. And then we went on about our, right?

• 52:34Speaker 05

  If I did the same, my husband would never laugh with me. He would say, that's a really childish decision. You can't, you can't be allowed to just make these unadult decisions.

• 52:45Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, listen, part of your, part of your, part of your feeling safe in your own house is you look at your husband and say, I need you to stop calling me a kid because I'm not a kid.

• 52:55Speaker 05

  Even if I act like a kid?

• 52:56Dr. John Delony?

  We all act like kids. That's the best part. That's the best part of being an adult. I can go to Taco Bell whenever I want to. The best part of being an adult is when somebody's chair makes a fart noise in a meeting, that I get to laugh really... It's the best. It's the best.

• 53:17Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all have drawn this artificial boundary inside your own home between this is what grownups... Grownups take care of their responsibilities. Grownups pay their bills on time. Grownups don't owe other grownups money. Grownups don't wear jerseys with teenage names on the back of them and cheer for college. They don't do that, right? That's what grownups do.

• 53:35Dr. John Delony?

  But dude, when it comes to like, like laughing and having joy and being silly and being intentional...

• 53:44Dr. John Delony?

  But in your house, it's the labels and the name-calling. And my guess is you got labeled as a troublemaker. You got labeled as that kind of girl by your mom. You've been called names your whole life and you're just used to it. And I think part of you feeling safe in your own house is saying, "Hey, stop calling me names." If you see me doing something, I don't want you labeling it. "That's a childish behavior." I don't want to hear that.

• 54:05Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to get beneath it and say, "Hey, um, he needs to say..." Not, "Whenever you act like a child, get on your phone." Say, "Hey, I miss you. Me and the kids miss you. I feel like you're tuning us out." That's the adult way to answer that.

• 54:24Dr. John Delony?

  Not just, "I'm taking your ball and I'm going home." That's a child acting on a child. But I have a feeling that you've brought these labels. "I'm an addict. I'm a this. I'm a this. I'm a child. Help me, help me, help me." And I think your husband's probably done the best he can with what he's got. And so, let's reset this whole thing. Here's the things that make me feel not safe in my own house.

• 54:47Dr. John Delony?

  And he gets permission to say his, right? Well, it makes me feel unsafe. Let's make a box together, make a commitment. When I'm in the house, the phone goes in the box. Phone doesn't come in our bedroom. When a child walks in the room, the phone goes down no matter what I'm doing. I always make eye contact with kids. And let's start with some of those basic things. Ask at yourself, what is this phone trying to protect me from? Don't just run around kicking out your crutches because they serve a role. Let's get to the root here. And I think you're on to something. I think the root is, I want to feel safe in my own house. And you just got to give yourself some grace and learn how to do that because you've never felt safe in your own house. And by the way, in your house, not everybody's house, but in your house, the name calling's got to stop. The labeling's got to stop.

• 55:31Dr. John Delony?

  We got to get to the root causes. Thanks for the call, Anna. Thanks for the call. Thanks for the call. I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life, the book I wrote. I think it's going to be a pretty great roadmap for you and your husband. In fact, I'm going to send you two copies. I want you all to read them together and do kind of a little husband wife book study with it. I think it's going to help with the labeling challenges. I think it's going to help with all these actions moving forward. Thanks for the call, sister. We'll be right back. All right, all right, let's talk about Helix. All right, do me a favor. Close your eyes and think about your mattress, the one you have at home. Be honest, is it lumpy and gross and full of weird stains? And do you think about how comfortable your home mattress is every time you're out of town or staying in some hotel? You know it and I know it.

• 56:16Dr. John Delony?

  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. And let me tell you this, my Helix mattress has helped me start to get to sleep faster and sleep deeper, so I wake up more refreshed. Helix has mattresses for everybody, no matter how you sleep. If you run hot, if you've got spine concerns, if you lie on your back, your side or your stomach, or whatever. Helix offers a 100 night trial and every Helix mattress comes with a 10 or 15 year warranty. So right now, I want you to stop, take two minutes, I want you to get online and take the Helix Sleep Quiz. I did it, you can do it too.

• 56:57Dr. John Delony?

  It will help you find the perfect mattress and you can buy it right now and they'll even ship it straight to your door. Right now, Helix has a special March sale that's tied into that big basketball tournament. So 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. That's Helix, H E L I X, helixsleep.com. With Helix, better sleep starts right now.

• 57:27Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we're back. Am I the problem, Kelly? Let it rip.

• 57:29Speaker 03

  All right, this is from Andrew in Connecticut. Says, "Hey John, I recently won a two-ticket package to an event in another city. I told my friend that lived in that city about it and asked him if he wanted to come with me to the event. He said he would love to and offered me a place to stay at his house for the weekend and offered to pick up the tickets since they were, that's where they were located. Upon picking up the tickets, he opened the package that they came in. The tickets came with some cool goodies like a signed photo, a formal invite to the event, a program, etc. He then texted me saying that he felt like we should split the contents of the package. I said I would like all the stuff in the packet, but that I would still love to give him the extra ticket.

• 58:12Speaker 03

  He then called me a jerk and said I was being mean and selfish for wanting him to come to pick it up, but then I got to choose what I keep. Am I the problem for wanting to keep the contents of the package that I won?"

• 58:27Dr. John Delony?

  Every once in a while, Kelly, I think as a species, we're gonna make it. I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna, I think we're gonna turn the corner.

• 58:35Dr. John Delony?

  And then I remember, there's guys like this in the world.

• 58:42Dr. John Delony?

  Is this for, this can't be real.

• 58:45Speaker 03

  I have no reason to believe it's not.

• 58:47Dr. John Delony?

  I wanna split with you. Oh my gosh.

• 58:53Dr. John Delony?

  This, um, this segment is actually brought to you by Preparation H, because I now have hemorrhoids. After hearing that. They just happened, just now.

• 59:01Dr. John Delony?

  They just did. Like this.

• 59:04Speaker 03

  Stop. Enough of that.

• 59:06Dr. John Delony?

  Just happened.

• 59:06Speaker 03

  Stop.

• 59:08Dr. John Delony?

  No, he is not the problem.

• 59:10Speaker 03

  No, he's not.

• 59:11Dr. John Delony?

  I think he, is his friend in kindergarten?

• 59:14Speaker 03

  I don't think I'd take the friend anymore.

• 59:15Dr. John Delony?

  No. I'm gonna, yeah, I'm taking my ball and going home.

• 59:18Speaker 03

  I'm gonna take him by the going home. Yeah.

• 59:20Dr. John Delony?

  Like, what, this can't be real, but, I don't think it's fair. Wait, shut up.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  First of all, he shouldn't have opened it. It wasn't his to open.

• 59:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. And second of all, shut up. And then his third, this is kind of a twist.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Shut up.

• 59:33Dr. John Delony?

  Shut up! Like, your friend asked you to pick up some tickets, you're gonna go to a game. And by the way, here's the other thing. If he was your friend, I'm thinking of my friend Trevor right now in Dallas. I just picked a random friend. I said, "Hey Trevor, I got two front row seats to the Mavericks game." I'd rather set myself on fire than do that, but, let's say I did.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  It's still too

• 59:52Dr. John Delony?

  I know.

• 59:53Speaker 03

  Soon to talk about the Mavericks right now, because I'm still real angry.

• 59:55Dr. John Delony?

  I'm, I gotcha. Um, so if I called Trevor and said, "Hey, I got two seats, me and my wife are flying in. We're gonna go sit courtside at this game. Would you go grab those tickets for me?" He'd be like, "Of course I will." He's not even going. You know why? Because he's my friend. And the fact that a friend would be like, "If you're really my friend, you'd give me part of the handkerchief, whatever, goody-bye." How, what is happening? We're doomed, everybody. If you're listening to this show, like and subscribe, and it might be the last thing you do. We're doomed.

• 1:00:31Dr. John Delony?

  God help us. See you guys next time.