My Husband Says He Needs Sex Everyday (I’m Exhausted)

On today’s episode, we hear about: · A wife struggling to come to an agreement with her husband about their sex life · A husband frustrated that his wife doesn’t contribute financially · A woman trying to find friends in her same stage of life 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

  How can my husband and I resolve our conflict over sex frequency with our busy lives? We were arguing about this issue, right? And my husband was like, "Just call Dr. John."

• 0:17Dr. John Delony?

  He has to grow. I'm not gonna swear on the show. He's gotta grow up. What in the world is going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking calls from real people from all over the planet. We're trying to figure out what's the next right move in their relationships and their mental and emotional health with their kids, with their marriages, wherever people find themselves. That's what this show's about. For two decades, I've been sitting with hurting people. I've got two PhDs. I've been doing this academically and, more importantly, I've been doing it with real people for years and years and years. People who, I think, mostly are trying to do the best they can with the tools they

• 1:02Dr. John Delony?

  got, and they have found themselves in a messy, messy situation. And they just wanna know, "Hey, will you listen? Will you sit with me? Will you help me figure out what to do next?" That's what this show is all about. If you wanna join me on the show, I'd love to have you. 1-844-693-3291. If you wanna call and leave a voice message, and Kelly and her overlords will go through the calls, and it's actually Kelly and Taylor. I just, I don't know. Y'all sound like overlords. But call into the show, leave a message, and they will give you a buzz back if they wanna have you on the show, or go to johndeloney.com/ask. And yes, we do take calls from all over the planet, all kinds of different countries, people writing in and calling in and being on the show. I'd love to have all of you.

• 1:46Dr. John Delony?

  So, thank you so, so, so, so, so much. All right, let's go out to my hometown, H-Town, and talk to B-R-E. What's up, Bree?

• 1:57Speaker 00

  Hi John, how are you?

• 1:58Dr. John Delony?

  I'm a mess this morning, how are you?

• 2:00Speaker 00

  Um, I'm doing alright, I'm doing alright, so... I'm feeling a little nervous, honestly, I didn't think I would feel that way.

• 2:08Dr. John Delony?

  I...

• 2:10Dr. John Delony?

  I hear that a lot from people in real life, so... I think it's just, I think I'm a bit of a, like, a chaotic ball of chaos and it makes people feel like, "Ah!", so sorry about that, it's me, not you.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  Yeah... No, I think it's both of us, um...

• 2:26Dr. John Delony?

  Alright, good, it's all you, it's all you, Bree. What's up, how can I help?

• 2:30Speaker 00

  I'll take it, I'll take it. So my question is, um, how can my husband and I resolve our conflict over sex frequency with our busy life?

• 2:42Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about your busy life.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Okay, so, I have a two and a three-year-old.

• 2:51Dr. John Delony?

  You don't have a busy life, you have a bomb that went off in your living room.

• 2:56Speaker 00

  A constant bomb, a constant bomb, I mean, it's a, it's a beautiful bomb, but...

• 3:01Dr. John Delony?

  But it's still a bomb.

• 3:03Speaker 00

  It's still a bomb, and

• 3:05Dr. John Delony?

  Alright, you have a three and a two-year-old, do you work?

• 3:08Speaker 00

  Yes, I'm a first-grade teacher.

• 3:10Dr. John Delony?

  Oh god almighty, so... Holy dude! Wow, that's a lot of little humans in your life, isn't it?

• 3:18Speaker 00

  It's a lot of little people, yeah, and it's wonderful, and my husband's wonderful. So it's not like, it's not necessarily a quote "relationship issue", necessarily, it's just a... It's a time and I guess like a time-management thing, and a... I'm overwhelmed, touched out,

• 3:45Speaker 00

  feelings out, I don't even know how to express it. And I want my husband, but there's moments that I don't want anything, if that makes any sense.

• 3:55Dr. John Delony?

  Hey, Bree, do me a huge favor. Will you stop apologizing for reality?

• 4:02Dr. John Delony?

  There's not something wrong with you.

• 4:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:05Dr. John Delony?

  There's just not.

• 4:08Dr. John Delony?

  Like for real, like you, you, you, I can tell by the questions you're asking and the way you're phrasing these statements that you are trying to get to the root of how you have screwed this whole thing up.

• 4:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:21Dr. John Delony?

  And you do, I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but you do have a relationship issue, probably a pretty significant one. Tell me, tell me about the sex conflict.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  Well, we, we listen to you a lot, so to be perfectly frank, so this, me even calling in to you, it all stemmed from, we were arguing about, about this issue, right? And my husband was like, just, just call Dr. John. And I didn't, he, he was joking, right? And I, so what I did is what I, I called you, right? And I told him, I said, hey, I'm gonna talk to Dr. John. And he's like, are you serious? I'm like, yes, I am. And so here we are.

• 5:07Dr. John Delony?

  Here we are.

• 5:08Speaker 00

  Um, here we are, yeah. And so we've tried the whole scheduling it out, and he doesn't like that because it feels inorganic and it's not sexy or anything, right? Um, he feels guilty when he tries to initiate it because he knows that I'm tired, or that, um, he doesn't want to get rejected, okay? There's times that maybe I want sex, but I don't want it to be a wham bam, thank you ma'am type of situation. I want love, you know?

• 5:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, totally.

• 5:50Speaker 00

  Um, but then there's also times where I'm like, hey, let's, it's gotta be quick. I'm tired, because I want to please him.

• 5:59Speaker 00

  So we can't come to this solution. I mean, the poor man, I mean, he wants it every day.

• 6:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  And I don't, I tell him, like, in this season that we're in, I don't, I don't have the capacity to give that.

• 6:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 6:18Speaker 00

  And I feel wrong for saying that.

• 6:20Dr. John Delony?

  You gotta let that go, because, I mean, so, sex is the, um, sex is the gas gauge here. It's not the problem. This isn't about, like, about sexual appetite, or the, the phrase, "I don't like sex drive", like, a mismatched sex drive. That's not the challenge here.

• 6:41Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 6:41Dr. John Delony?

  Um, yes, it, practically speaking, it is, but there's some root issues here that we gotta get to the, to the, get to. Otherwise, it's gonna, you're gonna keep having all these wars out on the fringes and not ever get to the actual solution. Um,

• 7:02Dr. John Delony?

  here's a couple of, of just high-level things. And I'm gonna speak in broad generalities. This may not apply to you two, but I'm, I'm, I'm willing to bet it does. Um, but I know this doesn't apply to every couple, okay? Often, men find the status, the sa- the status of their relationship, the barometer of how we're doing, to be vulnerable, to be close, to speak socially, to say, "Here's how I feel, here's what I want, here's me", um, that'll get a man killed in the workplace.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 7:33Dr. John Delony?

  And so the whole game for men is to shut your mouth and just go do your work.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 7:38Dr. John Delony?

  And the only way they can feel connection is shoulder to shoulder, doing a hard thing, or sex. It has to be physical, has to be with your body.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 7:51Dr. John Delony?

  And then, conversely, for all of human history, sex could get a woman pregnant, which might get her killed, right? Because the birth rates, uh, or the death in childbirth was so high for so many millions of years. Um, and so there's this built-in, "I have to know you're okay before, literally, I let you in my body."

• 8:12Dr. John Delony?

  And you see there just becomes a dance. And you throw two kids on there and the reality that is two kids, which is they take up a lot of caretaking. Like you said, your body's a human jungle gym right now.

• 8:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:23Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And there's only so much diarrhea and throw up and oh my gosh, and parent emails and administrative emails and then get home and your own kids are maniacs and they have meals and snacks and that when you know that this guy in my house has a need, it just gets put on a chore sheet.

• 8:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:42Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And when he says, "I need this," and it gets put on a chore sheet. But below all of that, he's asking his wife in his new role, "Hey, I'm not the center of your world anymore. Do you still love me? Am I still here?"

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 8:58Dr. John Delony?

  And you are saying, "Hey, man, I have a lot of jobs every day. I want to be wanted. I want to be seen and known and loved all the way." Meaning some days, you just gotta go to bed.

• 9:12Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 9:13Dr. John Delony?

  And then some days, yes, dude, I just want to disappear into like an erotic evening. And yes, if you're just using me to get off so you can go to sleep, I don't want to be a part of that. Do you get what I'm saying? There's a deeper thing here and I don't think y'all have reconciled the fact that your old marriage is so totally over. And that can be an awesome thing. But you have to do the work of saying, "Okay, what is it now?" I don't hear a guy asking for tons and tons of sex. I hear a guy asking, "Do you still love me?"

• 9:47Speaker 00

  Well, yeah, I mean, even just yesterday, you know, while I'm making dinner, he just looks at me and he tells me, you know, "I miss you."

• 9:55Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 9:56Speaker 00

  You know, it's...

• 9:57Dr. John Delony?

  That's it.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  It's... And then it's the mom guilt of like, "Okay, yeah, I miss you too, but I only have this part of my kids for so long and then they grow up."

• 10:09Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 10:10Speaker 00

  You know?

• 10:11Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and that's scarcity thinking. It's real, but it's also scarcity thinking. But that, again, you've got two people tugging at two different ends of the spectrum here. And sex just becomes the gas gauge for whether we're succeeding or not.

• 10:27Dr. John Delony?

  And so the deeper question is, how can he find some sort of security? Let me think of it, say it this way. It's like y'all are at the beach in Galveston there, an hour from Houston, and the water's three feet deep and he thinks he's drowning.

• 10:45Dr. John Delony?

  And he's just screaming at you, "Throw me a raft, throw me a raft, throw me a raft." And you're like, "Dude, I don't have enough arms and legs." And really, it's like, "Dude, just stand up."

• 10:54Dr. John Delony?

  She loves you, it just looks different now. And by the way, she still wants you, it just looks different now.

• 11:00Speaker 00

  How do I say that? How do you?

• 11:03Dr. John Delony?

  Well, it takes both of you having a pretty high level of emotional intelligence.

• 11:09Dr. John Delony?

  And being able to say, in this three-month span, because by the way, a three-year-old and a two-year-old, they change so much. Your marriage changes every three to six months when they're that young. Right? You're about to cross a magic threshold where both of your kids can go to the bathroom by themselves.

• 11:27Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, one of them has already and it's great.

• 11:29Dr. John Delony?

  You'll feel like, yeah, you'll feel like you got like half your life back. And then just wait in a year and a half, uh, maybe not with a three, with a two-year-old. Two years from now, they'll both be able to go to bed.

• 11:41Dr. John Delony?

  Or they'll be able to get in the shower themselves. Can you imagine? Right?

• 11:46Speaker 00

  Foreign concept, yeah.

• 11:47Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly, exactly. And so it's all about, it's winter right now, and so you gotta wear coats. And he's over there going, "Well, I know she wants me when she dresses sexy." And you're like, "Yeah, it's freezing right now, I gotta put a coat on." And then you feel guilty, and then he feels rejected. So here's a couple of big pictures. Big Picture Rocks. Number one, he has to grow. I'm not gonna swear on this show.

• 12:12Dr. John Delony?

  He's gotta grow up.

• 12:15Dr. John Delony?

  You saying, "I'm exhausted," is not some sort of existential rejection. Because I know that he reaches out to his buddies to play golf and, or go fishing or whatever, and they go, "Hey, I can't this weekend." And he doesn't sit in his house and go, "What's happening to our friendship? Why don't they like?" He doesn't do that. And so he can choose to believe you when you say, "Dude, I love you so much, I am out of gas." And then he can go, "Okay, cool. How do I then honor and love my wife tonight?"

• 12:44Speaker 00

  Can I add something and maybe you can help me there?

• 12:46Dr. John Delony?

  Absolutely.

• 12:47Speaker 00

  He, he doesn't have friends.

• 12:51Dr. John Delony?

  And so you are holding his, the entirety.

• 12:56Dr. John Delony?

  Of his universe, and you can't carry that. No one can.

• 12:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:02Dr. John Delony?

  No one can.

• 13:03Speaker 00

  He doesn't have family.

• 13:06Dr. John Delony?

  Then he's got work to do, to go make friends. He's got work to do to go hang out.

• 13:15Dr. John Delony?

  A buddy texted me yesterday and said, "Hey, I have an extra ticket to go, I live right by the comedy club here, and Theo Von's doing a pop-up show. Hey, you wanna run over there and see Theo again?" "Sure, I'd love to run over there." It would be, my wife's evening, her singular evening would be, um, easier if I stayed home that night.

• 13:36Dr. John Delony?

  Her life will be better. If I go catch up with Theo, if I go make, laugh, and I go roll my eyes, and I'm like, "Ooh, that was in, that was too far."

• 13:45Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 13:46Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And then I come home after hanging out with my buddies for a night.

• 13:50Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying? Like, it's the work you have to do.

• 13:53Speaker 00

  But it's so hard, like, being his age, or I guess you can say our age.

• 13:58Dr. John Delony?

  It's a nightmare. It's a nightmare, Bree. How old are you?

• 14:03Speaker 00

  I'm thirty-seven, he's forty-five.

• 14:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it's a nightmare.

• 14:09Dr. John Delony?

  So, the question you'll have to ask yourself is, what things, other than intercourse, what things give him purpose inside his own home? And that's a question I'll always put back on new moms. Is your husband suddenly living in a failure factory?

• 14:27Dr. John Delony?

  Where he doesn't know how the house works. And when he does try to wash the bottles, like, "You're not doing that right," or, "The diaper has to go like this," and then, "I need this," if he has understood over the last three years, "I don't know what I'm doing here," then you get the implicit message, or the explicit message, "I don't, the best thing I can do for my family is to back up."

• 14:51Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm not saying that's your family, I just hear that a lot.

• 14:54Speaker 00

  Ah, he's a freaking rock star at home. Like, he, like, he does, I have to tell him to not do, you know what I mean?

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Like, I have to tell, I have to force him to sit down. Um, I, I don't know.

• 15:12Dr. John Delony?

  Let me ask, let me ask you another, a deeper question.

• 15:14Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 15:15Dr. John Delony?

  What about you? Do you feel like you live in a failure factory?

• 15:18Speaker 00

  Oh, man.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess so.

• 15:28Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  I don't know. I don't know. I mean, I guess I just...

• 15:38Dr. John Delony?

  Just start, just start vomiting for a second. Start rattling it off. Where do you think you're failing?

• 15:47Speaker 00

  I feel like I'm failing him because this seems to be such an important part of his universe. You know?

• 16:01Speaker 00

  I feel like

• 16:05Speaker 00

  there's not peace in my extended family and I feel like I'm the peacemaker for everywhere and I'm not able to make that happen.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  But that's a whole nother can of worms.

• 16:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but it's not.

• 16:20Dr. John Delony?

  Because you trying to keep him happy is killing you. And he doesn't know how to, how to reach out and save you. And so the only connection tool he has is more sex and more sex and more sex and more sex.

• 16:36Dr. John Delony?

  And he doesn't have a group of guys to help carry his burdens, which every man needs a tribe. And so you gotta carry that too. And if you're like most women your age, you've been carrying your parents crap, your brothers and sisters crap, your cousins junk for, I mean, for years, right?

• 16:53Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:54Dr. John Delony?

  There just gets to be a moment where it's too much. The strangest thing I can tell you is the greatest gift you could give him and your kids is for you to say out loud and begin to enact and practice with his support and love. What do you need to be well?

• 17:11Dr. John Delony?

  And when I, I don't, I don't do a good enough job on the show describing, when I say your marriage is over, like who y'all once were no longer exists. And it can be fun to reminisce. It can be even nostalgic to think back to the times y'all could just make out whenever you wanted to and you could get up on a table and dance and he could come home and be like, it's a, and it would, like, those times were so fun and great. And it's just different now.

• 17:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:40Dr. John Delony?

  And there's still, there's still windows of time. There's still pockets of those things that emerge and fun. It's just different now. And so when I say rebuild your marriage, this is when you ask, do I still want to be a first grade teacher?

• 17:53Dr. John Delony?

  Financially, can we do that? This is when you ask, how do I want to feel when I come in my house every day? Not what jobs need to be done, but how do I want to feel? And then let's reverse engineer that. I remember one time I sent a group of employees over. We were doing service projects and a buddy of mine was having a kid and I sent the team over and we just annihilated his yard. We made it look perfect. And he was so grateful, but he said, dude, that's my one thing. Like, that is when the house is chaotic, when I need some time just to think, I put on my headphones and I go mow for a couple of hours. And I was like, oh, man, I took your thing, right?

• 18:36Dr. John Delony?

  So maybe, and this is going to sound counterintuitive, maybe the greatest gift for you is 30 minutes just doing the dishes with headphones on. And your husband comes home and he's taking that from you. But I don't know you've ever stopped and said, what do I actually want?

• 18:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 18:53Dr. John Delony?

  Because when you ask that question, then you can give him a map to how do I, how do I love you?

• 19:00Speaker 00

  But I feel so guilty asking because he's already doing so much.

• 19:03Dr. John Delony?

  I know, but you have to get over that. You can choose guilt or you can downstream choose resentment and you're going to start hating him and that's not fair to him. He doesn't sound like a bad guy, right?

• 19:17Speaker 00

  No.

• 19:18Dr. John Delony?

  And so you have to say, here's what I want. And I'm telling you right now, he's gonna, yes, he's gonna have to grow up and put on his big boy undies and stop having his feelings hurt every time you can't meet every need of his. And also, you're going to have to start telling the truth inside your own house. It's both and. And sex is just not going to be as often right now. You have a two and a three year old, it just is not. And if you have a particular kind of sex you would like to have, he's got to just flat get over the fact that the old, the old marriage counseling trope is you can put on the calendar or you cannot have it. That's your choices.

• 20:04Dr. John Delony?

  That's it. And is it Hollywood? Nope. And Hollywood's a lie. It's all a lie. It's testosterone and Ozempic and makeup and lighting. It's not real.

• 20:16Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Somebody else writes the words that come out of their mouths. It's not real. And so you can have sex, you can have sex two, three, four times a week. It's got, we gotta schedule it so that you can wrap your head around,

• 20:29Dr. John Delony?

  I'm gonna get to drop my shoulders and maybe I'll set up a thread like, hey, here's the kind of sex I'd like tonight.

• 20:36Dr. John Delony?

  Or he can be honest.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Like, is it awful of me that like, you know, say it's scheduled, right? And I get home and I'm like, it's on the calendar or whatever. And then I get home, I'm like, you know what? I changed my mind. It was a really bad day. Is that awful?

• 20:53Dr. John Delony?

  No, no, no. It's the same as, hey, we put a date on the calendar and then one of you gets rocket diarrhea and having the date. It doesn't make anybody an ass. The only person who's an ass here is the one who throws a temper tantrum like a child and doesn't see their spouse, either him or you, as a human being,

• 21:13Dr. John Delony?

  who's trying to hold it all together.

• 21:18Dr. John Delony?

  But both of y'all are leading feelings first and your kids, your marriage, both of you need to stop leading feelings first and to start doing the next right thing. And for you, that's telling the truth.

• 21:36Dr. John Delony?

  And for him, it's asking, how can I love you today? Not, are we banging today?

• 21:43Speaker 00

  I hear you say that all the time. And I'm like, that's a good idea. I was never done that.

• 21:48Dr. John Delony?

  Try it for 30 days. Because here's the thing, I think, deep down, A, it's awesome to have a 45-year-old husband that still desires you like mad. Is that fair?

• 21:57Speaker 00

  Oh, my gosh, yes.

• 21:59Dr. John Delony?

  And, hold on, and you can feel the desperation sometimes, can't you?

• 22:07Dr. John Delony?

  And that's a guy hanging on, do I still have a purpose here in this house now that there's two kids, now that you're so busy?

• 22:14Dr. John Delony?

  And I promise you, I'd be willing to bet money in his head, he's asking himself or has asked himself, while you're grading papers or responding to parent emails at 8 o'clock at night,

• 22:26Dr. John Delony?

  why does she love them more than me?

• 22:31Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And everything becomes egocentric when you're drowning.

• 22:40Dr. John Delony?

  Is that fair?

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 22:43Dr. John Delony?

  Can I tell you this? You're not failing. You're doing a really good job.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 22:52Dr. John Delony?

  You don't believe me, do you?

• 22:56Speaker 00

  I'm trying to convince myself.

• 22:58Dr. John Delony?

  No, don't do that. Don't try to convince yourself because you'll go mad.

• 23:06Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to do this. I want you to write down today. Will you do this one homework assignment for me?

• 23:14Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to write down 10 things that you are really good at as a wife, as a mom, as a teacher.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:23Dr. John Delony?

  I don't want you to exhale on them and drop your shoulders and look at them.

• 23:27Dr. John Delony?

  And then I want you to write out five or 10 things that you think you're not good at. And then tonight, and probably one of the most intimate exchanges y'all have had since your kids were born, I want you to read both of those to him. And I want you to ask him to write the same things. 10 things he's good at as a husband, 10 things he's not good at as a husband.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 23:47Dr. John Delony?

  And I want y'all together to challenge those negative stories.

• 23:55Dr. John Delony?

  And that's the way you can lift each other up instead of just piling more dirt on each other.

• 24:01Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 24:03Dr. John Delony?

  And from there, you gotta commit to asking each other for the next 60 days, "How can I love you today?" And it might be, he says, "You gotta put the computer away."

• 24:15Dr. John Delony?

  And you're gonna have to exhale and say, "Okay, I'm gonna have to respond to those parent emails tomorrow." Or he might say, "It's time to get a nanny." Or you might say, "I don't want to teach anymore." Or you might say, "I want to put these kids in daycare and I know I'm gonna feel guilty." Or, "I want to stay at home and I know I'm gonna feel guilty. And I'm gonna feel guilty, then I'm gonna go do the next right thing for me and for my husband and for my family." Because I've been feeling guilty my whole freaking life. I'm tired of it. I'm gonna set guilt down, unless it's called for, of course.

• 24:48Dr. John Delony?

  And then, husband, listen, man. The fact that you are trying to honor your wife and you're doing so much, she tells you to stop. Kudos to you, brother. Kudos to you. For the husbands out there who have no other connectivity other than sex to say, "I'm still alive, I'm still a person, I still have excitement, I still have value." The work you have to do is not to outsource that to other women, and so that's nonsense. But you have to find purpose in your home outside of sex. You have to find purpose in your marriage outside of just release. You've gotta find friends to go hang out with and have a beer with, or laugh with, or exercise with, or go fishing with, or something. And it sucks in your mid-40s. I'm there, I know.

• 25:33Dr. John Delony?

  And you gotta do it anyway. Because neither of you can bear the weight of each other's entire world. Thanks for the call, Bree. And for everybody out there, sex on the calendar is still sex. You can put on the calendar, or you can not have it. We'll be right back. All right, let's talk about Delete Me, my go-to provider for online safety, security, and peace of mind. Please don't skip past this. Listen, we all live on the internets these days. And I wish this wasn't the case, but it doesn't matter what I wish, it's just happening. Everything in my life and everything in your life takes place over the internet. Our work, our personal messages and communications, we buy most of our things on the internet now.

• 26:18Dr. John Delony?

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• 27:01Dr. John Delony?

  from where I want you to have this kind of piece too. We can't really avoid the internet, but we can help make our personal data personal again with Delete Me. Get protected with Delete Me today and get 20% off all Delete Me plans. This comes out to less than nine bucks a month. Go to joindelete.me/daloney to check them out. That's J O I N joindelete.me/daloney.

• 27:29Dr. John Delony?

  All right, 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. And 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. And throughout the way, you'll get to hear some incredible stories from people like Jonathan Rumi of The Chosen, Chris Pratt, and Mark Wahlberg, and you'll be invited to participate in experiencing life change yourself. Plus, you can check out Hallow's Lent Challenge for Kids. It's

• 28:12Dr. John Delony?

  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/daloney, you'll get three months for free, so you're covered all through Lent and beyond. Go check out Hallow at hallow.com/daloney for three months for free.

• 28:43Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we are back. Hey, if you love this show, I'm taking it on the road and I'm bringing my friend, actually, he's bringing me. Me and my friend Dave Ramsey are going on the road and we're taking our shows live. We're gonna be doing question, answers, talking about like money, relationships, everything in between, and it's gonna be unfiltered and unapologetic. And dude, if you wonder what gets edited out of this show, it's a lot. The guy who edits is just nodding right there.

• 29:14Dr. John Delony?

  There's gonna be no filter on this one, so we're gonna let it rip. And for those of you who don't know, I also co-host another show, The Ramsey Show. It's been in existence for 30 years, helping people get out of debt and get their finances squared away. We're bringing, both of us, we're doing these shows, we're gonna mix match them together. We're doing the shows live and I cannot wait. We're gonna be in Louisville on April 21st, Durham, April 23rd, Atlanta, April 25th, Phoenix, May 5th, Fort Worth, May 7th, and Kansas City, May 9th. You're gonna learn something, you're gonna laugh, maybe a tear or two, and dude, it's just gonna be a great, great night. These shows, live. Come check us out. And don't forget to subscribe and hit the like button, for real. It makes a massive, massive difference.

• 29:58Dr. John Delony?

  Let's go out to Van Horn, Texas, and talk to Corvin, with a K. What's up, Corvin?

• 30:04Speaker 02

  Hey, John, thanks for taking my call.

• 30:05Dr. John Delony?

  You got it, homie. What's up?

• 30:08Speaker 02

  So, uh, my question here is, um, how can I get my wife to contribute financially and see the importance of working together as a team in that regard?

• 30:20Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, man. You're close to the edge, aren't you?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  I'm at it.

• 30:26Dr. John Delony?

  You're at it, huh?

• 30:27Speaker 02

  I'm ready. Yeah.

• 30:30Dr. John Delony?

  Do me a huge favor.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  It's years.

• 30:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I know.

• 30:33Speaker 02

  I'm listening.

• 30:33Dr. John Delony?

  I know. Do me a huge favor. Take a huge deep breath. And hold it. Three, two, exhale it out, and I want you to pull your shoulders all the way to the floor.

• 30:45Dr. John Delony?

  Okay?

• 30:46Speaker 02

  Pulling, pulling. Okay.

• 30:49Dr. John Delony?

  Exhale for a second. I can hear it, man.

• 30:53Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about the last few years.

• 30:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, uh, it's been, it's been wild. I mean, we've been together for about six years now. And, um, the first five years, she, she didn't work, right? Um, mind you, she's fully capable, no limitations, she doesn't have any restrictions to be able to work. She's, she's capable. And she's, she's bright, too. She's, um, you know, she's, she's pretty sharp, um... And around year two, I recognized that, you know, we gotta work together financially. Part of our relationship is not just the commitment and the loyalty. I mean, finances is part of our livelihood. We gotta work together. So somewhere around year two, I told her, um, you gotta start working on something,

• 31:40Speaker 02

  whether you wanna start a new career or start a new education process, something. And, uh, for the, the three or four years thereafter, it was just excuses as to why I couldn't. Why I, I can't do it because of this, I can't do it because of that. And about six months ago, I roughly just kinda threw in the towel. Just emotionally, I was like, you know what? I mean, I can't, I can't argue with this about you anymore. I can't, I, I try to be nice, I try to be rude, I try to, um, different ways. Like, hey, I'm gonna change our, our phone plan to a, a more cheaper plan and maybe you'll get the message that way. Just nothing, nothing really processed to, through to her. And so now our relationship, um, I mean, we don't argue anymore, which is a good thing, but I think it's

• 32:25Dr. John Delony?

  No, bro, you gave up.

• 32:26Speaker 02

  Talk anymore.

• 32:27Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you're out.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I mean, our relationship is stale, very neutral.

• 32:32Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, what, what's beneath this, man? I remember, I remember the old football coach telling me, um, I was just getting yelled at and yelled at and yelled at and yelled at. And this is back in the day when football coaches could yell. They didn't have to hug everybody and just let me have it. And he caught a glimpse of my face and he came real close and he's a guy that I still hold in high, high respect. And he said, hey, it's when I stop getting on to you, cause I can see, I see you can be better, that you can do, you can do more than you think you can. It's when I quit staying on you, that's when you know I'm out. That's when you have given up on you. And I remember that, like, okay, cool. Um, and so I, I could hear you've given, you've given up and I can hear it, it's, it's, the anger's so close at the top. Are, are, are y'all broke?

• 33:16Dr. John Delony?

  Are you struggling financially?

• 33:18Speaker 02

  No, we're doing okay. I mean, we're, we're covering all of our bills.

• 33:21Dr. John Delony?

  What's the deeper thing? This, I, I don't think this is about money. I think it's, is your house a mess? Is she, i- i- is she just not doing anything? Uh, let me ask you this way. Is she a woman you no longer respect?

• 33:34Speaker 02

  I think it's getting there.

• 33:36Dr. John Delony?

  I think you're there.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  I think so.

• 33:38Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not hating on you.

• 33:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, that would be, that would be, that would be fair.

• 33:40Dr. John Delony?

  If you have a person who just is no interest in building something with her husband.

• 33:49Dr. John Delony?

  Like no interest in building a life together. But who just puts the car in park and just sits in the driveway? I'm not hating on you. I want you to hear the futility of what you've tried, the way you've tried to do it. Cause you do what most of us do. You went through the ends of the earth, all the tools in your toolkit. You've been trying, right?

• 34:10Speaker 02

  I have to do everything but the kitchen sink.

• 34:12Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, don't do that because you'll go to jail. So the bigger question is, why has she? I guess she never even opted into this deal.

• 34:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's funny too, because when I was talking to her dad about a blessing for us to get married, he looked me right in the eyes and he says, you know, she needs a lot of support, right? And I didn't, I mean, I understood what he meant to an extent, but I didn't know that he meant this. And for her, I think it's just always the expectation that somebody else is supposed to take care of my finances. And then, you know, it took me this many years to realize that she meant that, like you take care of it. And I just feel like, I feel abandoned.

• 34:49Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  You know?

• 34:51Dr. John Delony?

  But this, what else besides finances? Where else is she, is she not with you?

• 34:56Speaker 02

  No, besides that, I mean, the place is clean. We're, we're not struggling financially. I, I do well enough to take care of us, but the thing is we're getting older. I mean, retirement's coming up. What are we going to do?

• 35:07Dr. John Delony?

  Have you sat down with a, as a math problem? And said, here's what we need every month?

• 35:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, I tried that and she, she, she, uh, she shuts down, she'll start crying or she'll get frustrated and just be like, I can't have this conversation with you. And so like, mind you, she's working now.

• 35:23Dr. John Delony?

  That's a move. Yeah, that's a total move.

• 35:26Speaker 02

  She, she's working now, but you know, she's almost 40 years old and she makes, if I had to guess, because she won't really let me into her finances, if I had to guess, she probably makes 10,000 a year.

• 35:35Dr. John Delony?

  All right.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  And I'm looking at her like, you can do better than this.

• 35:39Dr. John Delony?

  And here's the thing, you see value in her where she doesn't. And that's, that's the altruistic view, right? The spoiled brat view that her dad tried to pass along to you that he helped create is, hey, bro, she ain't, she doesn't do nothing. Best of luck to you.

• 35:54Speaker 02

  Pretty much. Yeah.

• 35:57Dr. John Delony?

  So the real question is this, man, um, you have to make a choice, not her.

• 36:04Dr. John Delony?

  Your choice is, I'm in, this is who I'm married. Um, I'm gonna have to build a life. Working on Saturdays, side hustle. If I have a number that I think we need to hit for us to be safe in our, in our older age. Got 20, 25, 30 years of working left. Um, I'm gonna get on it and here's the number and um, we're gonna go. And then you make decide that I'm gonna make peace among house. The other side of it is, um, um, it, it, it, here's like a silly version of that, okay? I would love for my wife to want to be front row at punk rock shows with me. I would love that. I've always wanted that.

• 36:48Dr. John Delony?

  And a couple of times she came and she smiled and was like, oh my gosh, this is madness. And I would love that. I went and saw some buddies the other night. It was a blast, man. And she didn't come. But I also know who I'm married. And so I've chosen to not get my feelings hurt because it's not about me. I've chosen to not sit there all day and meditate on she won't go, I can't believe that, what does that mean about our relationship? She just doesn't like it, it's fine. And I don't like tons of country music shows, except for Aaron Watson, right? So other than that, like, I have to make peace with that. I know that's not even close to the same ballpark of what you're dealing with, but it's, the principle is the same. The other side of it is, leave. Leave.

• 37:30Dr. John Delony?

  But you're, you are, you are drinking poison every day, hoping that it, that she gets sick and it's just not.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:37Dr. John Delony?

  Right? She's been almost, almost radically clear. This is who I am.

• 37:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

• 37:47Dr. John Delony?

  And so you can make peace with that. Um, and if she was on the phone with me, you know, I mean, you better believe I challenged the heck out of her, right?

• 37:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:57Dr. John Delony?

  Um, but the whole, I just can't have this conversation now and shut down, that's nonsense. After six years of being together, that's a choice, that's a move to manipulate any sort of accountability or responsibility.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 38:12Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, you can't be her dad.

• 38:19Dr. John Delony?

  When you start telling her what to do and how to do it and when to do it, you become her father all over again.

• 38:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's just, you know, the golden opportunities. I mean, we're a little older now, but many moons ago, her dad was like, you know what? Your education, just pick somewhere to go that you like and, you know, I'll fund it. And we gotta get you prepared for the, you know, for the workplace.

• 38:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but you realize how stupid that logic is?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, as far as just being trained on something.

• 38:50Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I know, but I'm saying like, if you want to prepare your kid for the real world, they have to have some skin in the game.

• 38:56Dr. John Delony?

  And that's like your dad, her dad saying, all right, here's the deal. I'm gonna go in that weight room and I'm gonna work out really, really hard. So that you can lift, like, deal with life struggles when they come. It doesn't make any sense, right? I get it, I get his sentiment, I get what he's trying to do. And I also get, I'm dealing with it right now. I want to just give my kid, I have an old truck, I just want to give it to my son. I had to work so freaking hard for my thousand dollar car when I was a kid. My own law, I hated it. And I also know if I do this, I'm actually setting him up to fail.

• 39:32Dr. John Delony?

  And that's what happened. He gave her everything. And now she's like, cool. You're up, Corvin, you give me everything.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's the thing, when we got together, I kinda gave her the same thing, like, I'll take care of the bills, you just apply yourself somewhere. I don't really care where, just show me that, even if it's something that doesn't make you money, but it's good for you, like, show me something, some kind of application that you're willing to put in the effort somewhere. And it's always just, I'm in first gear, I'll get there when I get there. You worry about it. And I just, it's, I've had it, I don't, I don't know.

• 40:03Dr. John Delony?

  And that's why, that's why I don't think this is about money. I think this is about, I don't respect you as a person.

• 40:11Speaker 02

  It feels like.

• 40:12Dr. John Delony?

  No hobbies, no joys, no friends, no connectivity. Just like a great insight into the Real Housewives catalog.

• 40:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, and the next thing you know, she's over there watching The Real Housewives of whoever, and I'm like, I think you see yourself in that show, and it's not your life. I mean, I don't play for the NBA.

• 40:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. So, I think, I think you need to spend some time with you.

• 40:42Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, the fact that you said, I don't even know how much money she makes, that tells me your marriage has deeper cracks in it than just she doesn't make any money.

• 40:52Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all are living parallel lives.

• 40:56Dr. John Delony?

  She has a roommate who lives in your house.

• 41:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:00Dr. John Delony?

  Or, to be gross about it, she's a teenage kid, living in your house. And you come home from work and she hasn't done her homework, done anything, you're like, get up and do something, like, huh huh, and they don't ever move.

• 41:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, and then, to be fair, I mean, she does plenty around the house, and so she takes care of herself, she's not a slob by any means, she's, you know, spends a lot of time in front of the mirror, but I could catch her on a Tuesday afternoon, and I'm like, are you gonna do something today? She said, it's my day off, and I'm like, you make X amount, you shouldn't have a day off, where is this day off coming from?

• 41:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 41:37Speaker 02

  Focus on something, please, and she's just like, no, I can't, that's your job to worry about the finances, and I'm just, I...

• 41:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, here's the thing, I want you to spend some honest to goodness time with you, and you're in your head now, and you're angry, and that clouds it, and this might go against everything you've ever thought to do, but I want you to spend some time, even if it's just 30 minutes a day, 15 minutes a day, for a couple of weeks. But I want you to be honest and actually write down what you're thinking. Because I'm willing to bet this is not about finances.

• 42:11Speaker 02

  Ultimately, no, I mean, but as part of it, I think that's kind of the end result, you know?

• 42:16Dr. John Delony?

  Sure, I mean, that's an easy, that's an easy scorecard, right? It's an easy, it's an easy metric to look up and say, look, you're not even contributing. But I hear a guy who desperately wants his wife to enjoy being alive, and she looks like she's dead in her own skin.

• 42:34Dr. John Delony?

  And I don't know any man that doesn't want to marry somebody who's vibrant.

• 42:40Dr. John Delony?

  Or be married to somebody who actually likes being alive and has purpose and a sense of like autonomy, yet connectivity like.

• 42:50Dr. John Delony?

  But unfortunately, you can't do anything about that. You've tried for a long time. The only thing you can deal with is you. So you can make peace in your house. That's just how she rolls. I'm gonna princess her up. And I'm gonna stop walking around all day being angry because it's just ruining my day.

• 43:09Dr. John Delony?

  Or I'm gonna, I'm gonna have an or what conversation. This has to change or I'm out. We have to share a checking account. We have to share bills. We have to go to marriage counselor and rebuild this thing from the floor up.

• 43:25Dr. John Delony?

  And if she starts crying and says, I don't want that. I don't want to be put then, okay, I need you to be an adult and have an adult conversation here and quit diving out of the conversation.

• 43:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:34Dr. John Delony?

  And I'll have it with a marriage counselor. If I'm, if I'm not saying it right, if I'm frustrating or whatever, if I scare, if I scare you, then I'm gonna, I don't want to do that. I'll have it with a marriage counselor, but um, we gotta have this conversation. Because I want you participating in the lifeblood of this home.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  Yep. And I think that's what it is. Is you know, she was just, she knows that dad's gonna be there for whatever, you know, if this whole thing falls apart. And it's like, that's fine for you.

• 44:02Dr. John Delony?

  I know, brother.

• 44:02Speaker 02

  We're supposed to be working together at this.

• 44:04Dr. John Delony?

  And that to me is the thing. You all got married. You got in the boat and you started heading off down the river and she never got in. She's never been in. She's like, no, no, no, no, no. Boat is for you. I'm gonna sit on, on the, on the side. On the, on the bank of the river and I'm gonna do whatever I want to do. And if you don't want to keep doing that, that's fine. My dad's boat will be here in a little bit.

• 44:30Dr. John Delony?

  That's a tough pill to swallow, man. When you look up six years later, three years later, after being married, working as hard as you do and find out, oh, she never got in the boat to begin with.

• 44:43Dr. John Delony?

  I hate that for you, man.

• 44:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it's, it's, I can hear it in your voice. It's about to become rage and it's about to become resentment. And at the end of the day, that just poisons you. So let's have some time. What do you actually want? Cause I think she could go get a job today and still it wouldn't, it wouldn't fix the hole in your heart. What do you actually want? And it sounds like you want her to get in the boat with you. Ride or die. Let's go over the falls together. And she won't.

• 45:13Dr. John Delony?

  Or you need to have that or what conversation. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back.

• 45:20Dr. John Delony?

  All right, you've heard the rumors and they are true. The modern world exposes us to things that were unheard of until just a few decades ago. Listen, I'm talking about screens in our homes, screens in our offices, fluorescent lights, EMFs. All of these things 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 I think you're gonna love them too. Studies show that red light therapy can help boost your mood, reduce stress and help with sleep. And it can help your recovery from aches and pains, transform your skin and even help with cellulite and stretch marks.

• 46:02Dr. John Delony?

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• 46:37Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we are back. Hit that subscribe button and the five star reviews and tell the algorithms and the computer overlords, we love this show. Thank you. Let's go out to Sioux Falls, South Dakota and talk to Catherine. What's up Catherine?

• 46:53Speaker 03

  Hey John, how's it going?

• 46:55Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, rocking on to the break of dawn. What are you up to?

• 46:57Speaker 03

  Just hanging out.

• 46:58Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent. What's up?

• 47:01Speaker 03

  So, I, to preface, I'm thirty, I'm married, I own a business, and my husband also owns a business with me. And I am struggling to make friends with women who are in a similar situation as me.

• 47:13Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm. Alright, tell me something more interesting about you than you own a business.

• 47:19Speaker 03

  I really am into fitness and have been since I was sixteen. I got into lifting and I just, I love it. It's a huge part of my life.

• 47:26Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 47:28Speaker 03

  Um, I just, I guess one of the businesses we own is fitness-related and I built up a lot of confidence from lifting at an early age. So it's kind of like been, I guess, a huge part of my identity.

• 47:46Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about your husband.

• 47:48Speaker 03

  Um, he is also really into fitness, which is awesome. You know, that was kind of one of the things actually that we connected on when we first met. And, um, he's very ambitious, hard worker. He motivates me every day and takes really good care of me. I'm just really, really blessed to have him as a husband.

• 48:07Dr. John Delony?

  How much protein have you both had combined so far this morning?

• 48:12Speaker 03

  All of it.

• 48:16Dr. John Delony?

  That's such a great answer. We don't measure in grams, we measure in all of it. That's excellent.

• 48:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:22Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  More.

• 48:24Dr. John Delony?

  So dude, tell me about the nightmare of being thirty and trying to find friends.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Oh my gosh, it's impossible. I don't drink, so it's not like I'm gonna meet, you know, Stacy at a bar and be best friends with her.

• 48:37Dr. John Delony?

  Her mom has got it going on. Alright, so what else?

• 48:40Speaker 03

  She does. Um, I don't know, I guess, I just, I'm looking, I have girlfriends. I mean, they're great, but there's not that like deep introspective conversation that I'm just dying for, you know?

• 48:53Dr. John Delony?

  And why do you think something's wrong with you that you're not dying for that?

• 49:02Speaker 03

  Um...

• 49:08Speaker 03

  I guess, I don't know. What do you mean?

• 49:10Dr. John Delony?

  Well, either you're recognizing, like, I'm not whole. There's some things I, there's places I want to go where I don't have to count macros and I just want to drop my shoulders and I don't want my goofball husband around who I love to the moon and back. I just want some girlfriends that I can just shoot the crap with. That you recognize that. Or you're reading a lot of self-help books and you're like, I've turned your life into a GCI, like, glucose intake and proteins and macros and like sleep tracker. Like, you've just optimized your life and you are looking at a checkmark being like, oh, I need friends that I crave this with. I need that. Which one of it is?

• 49:52Speaker 03

  Wow.

• 49:52Dr. John Delony?

  It's one of them's a story and one of them is a hole in your heart.

• 49:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you nailed it.

• 49:59Dr. John Delony?

  Which one?

• 50:03Speaker 03

  I mean, probably both. I guess I've always been very goal-oriented, so it's really, I, I, funny, I never thought I was looking at getting a friend as like a checklist, but I do feel like, oh, this girl, I like her, but she only has this, this, and this. She does not have like, you know, this. And I just, maybe I can't really be friends with her because of that, I guess, if that makes sense.

• 50:27Dr. John Delony?

  Totally. And I would just tell you, um, my two closest friends, actually, one, two, three, four, five, my six closest friends on the planet do not exercise with any regularity at all. None.

• 50:46Dr. John Delony?

  And they laugh at me because they're all fairly certain I'll be the first one to have a heart attack because I work out so much.

• 50:53Dr. John Delony?

  And they're some of my closest best friends on the planet. And over time, what I've come to learn, when you're kids and they self-select you, even all the way through college, like, they put you in groups by shared interests. I think as adults, you move into different levels of friendship through shared values.

• 51:15Dr. John Delony?

  And I have grown to love the fact that um I consider Ben here a great friend. We've done bands together, we've gone to see punk rock show together. And he is the president of the Dungeons and Dragons Club or whatever. I don't know what they do. They talk about elves and ghosts and stuff. I've played Dungeons and Dragons approximately zero times in my life, ever. Not one time. And I love that about him. You know what I mean?

• 51:43Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 51:44Dr. John Delony?

  And so it's become this thing like um can I can I ask you a mean question? But I don't mean it to be mean, just to mean it to be reflective. Um. Many of my friends in the fitness, not the fitness industry, the like the true, honest, great people. Like the mind pump guys and Jordan side, not those guys. But what I would call the beefcakes right beneath them. The we're the crush it and kill it guys. There tends to be a sense of look at all the work I've done. I'm kind of better than y'all. And it makes it hard to make friends because you're always sizing people up.

• 52:24Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 52:24Dr. John Delony?

  Or the the books say you should be friends with people who are aspirational. So you're always looking at interactions as like an like a friends are some sort of 401k. That if I'm friends with these five people, then my I'll be better at fill in the blank. And I think that's a catastrophic way that we have optimized human interaction in a really disgusting way.

• 52:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, wow.

• 52:52Dr. John Delony?

  Friends should be a group of people that yes, hold you accountable. And yes, iron sharpens iron. And it's a place where you can drop your shoulders and just tell that joke. It's super inappropriate, but it's kind of funny.

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, I guess, and I do do that. I I do have fun with, you know, those friends and I do have those friends. I guess I just also would like to be friends with somebody who does have, you know, big goals and aspirations, but also that can be a goofball with.

• 53:18Dr. John Delony?

  And do you not think your friends have goals and aspirations that are deep and profound? Are they just different than yours?

• 53:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're right.

• 53:28Dr. John Delony?

  One of my closest, closest friends is literally counting down the days to retirement.

• 53:34Dr. John Delony?

  And we mock each other mercilessly. I have no retirement, I have no interest in retiring. I would like to just be at work one day and then just be dead. I like, I like work. I like showing up and doing stuff. And we're just different that way. But his vow, the fact that he has a plan and the fact that he deeply believes in it and he's working towards it, that's where we align. And the destination just makes for great fodder for us giving each other a hard time. So do you have a friend who might be as dedicated to as you are to working out and starting businesses as dedicated to being the best freaking mom that's ever existed?

• 54:13Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 54:14Dr. John Delony?

  Or to helping change a local school? Or, you know, running a restaurant that's just top notch? You get what I'm saying?

• 54:21Speaker 03

  Yep. I, I feel super humbled. I never thought that I was thinking about being better than people, but now that you say that, I just feel, I feel so horrible about it.

• 54:34Dr. John Delony?

  Why? Why?

• 54:36Speaker 03

  Well, you know, you never want to be thought of as like, oh, I'm actually kind of arrogant looking at this. But that's kind of what it is. It's like, I knew I could always learn something from them and like different outside of what I value and my goals, but like you said, they're more than just a checklist.

• 54:59Dr. John Delony?

  I, I wish more than anything in the world, I could hold, I would not be as anxious about money as my friend Todd and John are. And the fact that I save the way I do and I scratch and claw the way I do isn't, um, doesn't make me better, even though I might have a spreadsheet that says this metric is above theirs. You know what they have that I don't? An ability to laugh so loud the room shakes. An ability to be like, I'll have two more pieces of cheesecake and I'm going to feel terrible tomorrow. And I think, you know what I mean? I don't, I can't do that.

• 55:39Dr. John Delony?

  And I, I long for that level of, ah. And also, I know that at least one of them, probably both of them, would love to just be able to get up at five o'clock in the morning, go work out, and then sit in a cold plunge for, until their brains freeze. Like, they would love that.

• 55:57Dr. John Delony?

  And so, it's, it's about, like, man, yeah, I, let me put it this way.

• 56:03Dr. John Delony?

  There will come a humbling moment, a reckoning.

• 56:07Dr. John Delony?

  It's much better for everybody if you land that plane before it crashes.

• 56:14Dr. John Delony?

  Do you get what I'm saying?

• 56:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:17Dr. John Delony?

  You'll blow out an ACL and not be able to exercise for a while, and

• 56:24Dr. John Delony?

  when that identity goes, or one of your businesses will fail, or one of your, your, your husband won't be as great as you think, like, something will happen, things will happen. Um, and when you learn at a young age to hold things really loosely, and yet work really hard, my gosh, that's the recipe for peace.

• 56:43Dr. John Delony?

  And so, let me ask you probably the hardest question I've asked you.

• 56:48Dr. John Delony?

  Deep beneath all of the workouts, beneath the amazing husband, beneath all, are you cool with you?

• 56:58Speaker 03

  I mean...

• 57:00Dr. John Delony?

  Let me say it this way, that sounds kind of woo-woo. Are you afraid that people are gonna judge you as harshly as you judge them?

• 57:10Speaker 03

  Maybe. I don't...

• 57:16Speaker 03

  I mean, I don't know, I, I've done a lot of work, but I do find it hard to, I guess, yeah, be truly authentic with people.

• 57:30Dr. John Delony?

  How come?

• 57:31Speaker 03

  I feel like I, I don't know, I feel like I have to have a, a mask for some reason.

• 57:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 57:37Dr. John Delony?

  Or maybe three or four inches of muscle you can hide behind?

• 57:41Speaker 03

  Six or seven.

• 57:48Dr. John Delony?

  The fact that you could rip that joke off just like that tells me you'd be a lot of fun to hang around if you would let yourself actually be hung around with.

• 58:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fair.

• 58:04Dr. John Delony?

  I wonder what it would be like, what kind of freedom you could experience if you could just be fully you. And it will cost you some hanger-ons and it will cost you some peripheral friends.

• 58:16Dr. John Delony?

  But you'll have some deep, deep relationships that will form over time.

• 58:25Dr. John Delony?

  And sometimes a simple question is, "Hey, will you teach me something?"

• 58:30Dr. John Delony?

  Or, "I've got to know, how can you ingest that much beer?" I don't see how that's physiologically possible.

• 58:40Dr. John Delony?

  I remember one time I brought my, this is the kind of dork I am, I brought a foam roller to watch the fights with some guys. And these are guys that had never, never go to a gym. And they were like, I was trying to show them how it worked and they were like, "This is so dumb." And then one by one, they'd find a hotspot and be like, "Ah, ah!" And it was weird laughing. And also, I had all these like, "This is why!" And they're like, "Dude, it's not doing anything. I think you're kind of making this..." Alright, so it just became fun. It just became, it's a place where I can just drop my shoulders. And yes, if there's a problem in my marriage, those are the guys I call. If there's a problem with finances, those are the guys I call. If there's a problem with my spiritual life, those are the guys I call.

• 59:28Dr. John Delony?

  And I think that started when I was able to fully be okay with, "They love me just for showing up."

• 59:38Speaker 03

  So I guess where would you start if you're I guess working on quote unquote unmasking?

• 59:45Dr. John Delony?

  I would take three or four of my closest friends, the ones that you consider closest, and put something regular on the calendar.

• 59:54Dr. John Delony?

  And even go as far to say is I need a couple of three or four ride or die women in my life.

• 1:00:01Dr. John Delony?

  And I have some hilarious jokes that my husband don't think are funny.

• 1:00:07Dr. John Delony?

  Or I want to learn about like, okay, Ted, teach you, tell me about like your job job. Like, what do you do every day?

• 1:00:14Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah.

• 1:00:15Dr. John Delony?

  Not you, but like them, be genuinely interested in their lives, not in, are they meeting the checklist that you've given yourself that you feel like gives you permission to even exist?

• 1:00:29Dr. John Delony?

  And for you, as body fat percentage, insulin, and right, whatever other things you're measuring, your APOB and your like, what, like, those are things are all important and good. And I like deal, dealing with that stuff. But I kind of like that some of my friends don't.

• 1:00:53Dr. John Delony?

  So I guess I'll say this, you're worth being a friend with Catherine, all of you.

• 1:01:02Dr. John Delony?

  Even the parts that you've hidden.

• 1:01:09Dr. John Delony?

  And the only way I know to make friends in your 30s and 40s and 50s, I've said that before, is just go first and be weird.

• 1:01:17Dr. John Delony?

  Put your intentions on the table. I need four or five ride or die women in my life. I need four or five ride or die men in my life. They're gonna be my friends. I'm gonna call you all in the middle of the night with weird conspiracy theories and I need you just to laugh at me. And I'm gonna call you when I am struggling with infertility and you're on baby number three, I'm gonna call you and just be sad. Will you be sad with me? And I'll cheer and be so happy too. Can we do all that together? Can we put some of these things out on the table? And then I'm sure they're dying to ask you questions about.

• 1:01:45Dr. John Delony?

  How you ingest so much protein on a daily basis and while you're snorting creatine off the counter, whatever else is going on, right? And starting businesses, I'm sure they have interests too. It's just allowing yourself to be fully known. But the only way to do that is to go first. And there will be costs associated with it. You'll lose some people in your life and that's okay. And by the way, thanks for being brave. This is a question that is plaguing especially the Western world right now. Thank you for being a guinea pig and sitting with me, allowing me to sit with you. I think a lot of people are going to benefit from the conversation. So thank you so much for being brave. Go get them.

• 1:02:21Dr. John Delony?

  Put the dumbbells down. I'm just kidding. Keep lifting, but also start laughing some too. We'll be right back.

• 1:02:30Dr. John Delony?

  This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, you've heard me say it a thousand times and I'm gonna keep saying it. You're worth being well. And I know many of you don't believe this to be true, but it is. And being well is hard work, but you're worth the work and therapy can help. I see a therapist and many of you should see one too. But let's be real, taking that first step to see a therapist can feel overwhelming and exposing. Maybe it's time, maybe you have some preconceived notions about whether it will even work or not, or maybe it's cost, or maybe you're just not sure where to start. I know because I've been there. We spend money on gym memberships, organic groceries. Some of you are essential oil people. Some of you use special shampoos and creams and tracker watches, but when it comes to our mental and emotional health, we hesitate.

• 1:03:14Dr. John Delony?

  Listen, your mental and emotional health are just as important as your physical health. And the good news, therapy is now more accessible than ever and BetterHelp makes therapy more affordable and convenient. Since it's online, you can talk with your therapist when it works for your schedule. No waiting rooms, no long commutes and no six-month waiting lists. Just fill out a short online survey to get matched with a licensed therapist. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch at any time for no extra cost. Your well-being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get started. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash deloney.

• 1:03:53Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we're back. I'm telling you, that's gotta be the show. All the stuff y'all don't hear

• 1:03:58Dr. John Delony?

  one day.

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:00Dr. John Delony?

  We'd get cancelled so fast.

• 1:04:01Speaker 04

  Exactly. If that stuff went out on the air, we wouldn't have a show.

• 1:04:04Dr. John Delony?

  That's the good stuff. Here's the thing, I think people assume and they kinda know, I guess it's just good to confirm it. Yes, that's, yes, you're right. It is. There's a line that HR does not cross. All right, so what's up, sister?

• 1:04:18Speaker 04

  All right, so a couple of shows ago.

• 1:04:20Dr. John Delony?

  Uh oh.

• 1:04:21Speaker 04

  Oh, it's good. We were joking about what would we call our gang kinda thing and what would we call, what would be the collective noun of Deloney listeners? So we got a ton of responses from people that had ideas and I'd forgotten about it and then over the past couple of days at home going through emails, I was like, what are people coming up? What is this? And then I remembered. But we, I picked a winner for what they should be called and what the collective noun would be, a group of listeners. I thought this was pretty good. A Deloney groupie would be called the Jeanterage.

• 1:04:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yes!

• 1:04:58Speaker 04

  Isn't that great?

• 1:04:59Dr. John Delony?

  That's amazing. Find that person, send them everything I got.

• 1:05:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is from Krista in Thompson, Ohio. The Jeanterage. Which I thought was brilliant.

• 1:05:08Dr. John Delony?

  I, that's it. That's the magic moment. The Jeanterage?

• 1:05:12Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:05:12Dr. John Delony?

  Oh my gosh!

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  And then our collective noun.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Really?

• 1:05:18Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sorry. You smell fantastic. Right now you smell like, just like slathered up in Vicks and...

• 1:05:24Speaker 04

  And cough drops. Yeah, that's probably real.

• 1:05:26Dr. John Delony?

  I smell so good.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  I can't smell, so sure. But then somebody, Steven from Fowler, California, said that the collective noun for a group of Deloney listeners would be a mosh of Delonies. Which I like that. Because I think that, that fits you. A mosh.

• 1:05:46Dr. John Delony?

  I'll have to think on that one.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:05:48Dr. John Delony?

  The mosh.

• 1:05:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, like you have like a pack or a herd or...

• 1:05:52Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, we just got a mosh.

• 1:05:53Speaker 04

  We got a mosh.

• 1:05:54Dr. John Delony?

  I can handle that.

• 1:05:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:05:56Dr. John Delony?

  I'm in, okay, it's growing on me.

• 1:05:58Speaker 04

  Like, because it's a mosh pit, it's a mosh of listeners.

• 1:06:01Dr. John Delony?

  If we have a mosh and then we have, when we have live events going out, then we could have like special, instead of VIP seating, it could be in the mosh pit. That would be kinda dope.

• 1:06:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, alright, so before we wrap up the show, I have something I want to read, it's gonna make you a little uncomfortable, but you're gonna have to sit there and listen to it.

• 1:06:18Dr. John Delony?

  Is it your diary, again?

• 1:06:21Speaker 04

  Dear John and crew, on a recent call, you encouraged the wife of a man who was suffering from PTSD due to horrendous childhood trauma that occurred in a terrorist-run country. As a nurse who lives and volunteers among refugees for a similar sociocultural background, I was so moved by your response. You gave words to indescribable grief, both hers and his. The daily, complicated trauma within this small, hidden sector of society often goes unnoticed, misunderstood, and unaddressed. Thank you for taking the time to highlight their hurt and offer true hope with practical advice. You not only help individuals on your show, you also equip friends, family, and neighbors to step up and speak lives into others' lives.

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  God bless you and your team for all of you do. It really does make an impact.

• 1:07:11Dr. John Delony?

  I'll, I'll accept that, thank you for that. I'm working on just receiving. So, thank you for those kind, kind, kind words. And more importantly, who is that that wrote in?

• 1:07:21Speaker 04

  This is Betsy from Boise, Idaho.

• 1:07:23Dr. John Delony?

  Betsy, thank you for showing up every day. It's, I don't say this lightly, it's easy for me to sit with somebody and then hang up the phone and then go about my day. And this is your life. And so for those of you who work with refugees, who've just seen unfathomable trauma, and work with marginalized populations, and work in nursing homes, and in hospitals, and police departments, and fire departments, y'all do this every single day. Thank you. Thanks to all of you. And thanks for honoring me by letting me...

• 1:07:58Dr. John Delony?

  Pipe in through your headphones every now and then. It's a true, true, true honor. And thanks to you, crew. Shout out. Even you, Kelly. Especially you. Love you guys, bye.