My Husband Loses It After 10 Minutes With The Kids

On today’s episode, we hear about: · A wife trying to help her husband learn to handle their kids on his own · A father unsure how to improve his relationship with his young daughter · A woman resentful of her dad’s hypocritical behavior 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 I help my husband better manage our kids? He's not that awful with like the babies, but once they hit the toddler age.

• 0:15Dr. John Delony?

  He's not that awful. He's only medium, he's medium awful with the babies. He's full awful with the.

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls on your relationships and your marriages and your mental and emotional health, whatever you've got going on in your life, the good stuff, the challenging stuff, the dark stuff. Here's my promise, I'll sit with you. For the last two decades plus, I've been sitting with hurting people, trying to figure out what's the next right move, and I'll sit with you. I'd love to have you on the show, and the show goes out all over the world. We've got gajillions and gajillions of listeners and watchers. I'd love to have you. That sounds gross, like I'm a watcher. People who view the show, who listen to the show, consume the show. I'd love to have you on the show.

• 1:14Dr. John Delony?

  Sometimes just a moment of bravery, reach out, ends up helping a whole lot of people. Go to John Deloney, D E L O N Y, JohnDeloney.com/ask, A S K, and fill out the form, and it will go to Kelly and Taylor, and they'll see if they can pick you for the show. All right, let's go out to Kansas City, Moe, and talk to Kate. Hey Kate, what's up lady?

• 1:39Speaker 00

  Hi, Dr. John.

• 1:40Dr. John Delony?

  How we doing?

• 1:42Speaker 00

  I'm all right. How are you?

• 1:43Dr. John Delony?

  I am doing good, doing good. Recovering, but I'm coming back. What's up?

• 1:48Speaker 00

  Um, my question is, how can I help my husband better manage our kids?

• 1:53Dr. John Delony?

  Oh man, I don't have any idea. Help me, help me. I probably need to, I need to call you. What's going on?

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Um, so we have a three-year-old and a four-month-old. Um, and he has some anxiety, and he's pretty impatient. Um, and he kind of just gets frustrated after like 10 minutes, and then just needs to go take a break.

• 2:27Speaker 00

  And I don't get any breaks.

• 2:29Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 2:37Dr. John Delony?

  How long has this been going on?

• 2:39Speaker 00

  Um, he's not that awful with like the babies, but once they hit the toddler age.

• 2:48Dr. John Delony?

  He's not that awful.

• 2:52Speaker 00

  Once they hit the toddler.

• 2:54Dr. John Delony?

  He's medium awful with the babies. He's full awful with the, with the older one?

• 3:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. So the older one is a little bit worse just because, you know, toddlers are little mini teenagers.

• 3:09Dr. John Delony?

  But, but also taught like, all right, so I am with the, I remember the exasperated.

• 3:20Dr. John Delony?

  When, um, my son, my daughter didn't do it so much, but my son, when he was just like a, like a ball, I just remember he's a ball of human. Right? And it was a newborn, my wife was back teaching and he would just scream. In this harrowing scream, I didn't know what to do. And I would just like try everything, screaming, screaming. I didn't know what to do. And I used to get so frustrated, I would just get exasperated. Like, I don't know what to do here. Um, but my wife wasn't there, so I had to do something, right? And sometimes I would just take him out, put him in a stroller and just be walking down the street screaming, I know what to do, right? Um, and so I get that.

• 4:03Dr. John Delony?

  The three or four year old, now we're getting into like adult, grown up temper tantrum-y kinda world. Tell me about that.

• 4:14Speaker 00

  So.

• 4:15Dr. John Delony?

  I, I, let me say, so I have a ton of compassion for mom or dad. Like, I need a break for a second. I gotta go outside because my nerves are fried. I get that. I get that. And also get the other side of it, like, hey, one of us doesn't get a break, right? One of us has to be here for the screaming human being. Get that. But tell me about the three, two, three, four, five year old.

• 4:36Speaker 00

  I don't know, like, she is very independent and likes to do her own thing. Um, and she doesn't listen to him because I feel like he, like, just starts yelling and, like, puffs and puffs, um, whenever she's, like, reacting to anything. Um, and like, I am able to, like, talk to her and, like, validate her feelings and, like, work her through it and kind of use it as, like, a teaching moment. Um, but he just kind of freaks out, so then now she doesn't listen to him. And then I think he, like, is scared that he doesn't want to cause a tantrum by, like,

• 5:20Speaker 00

  getting her to follow through with, like, non-negotiable things, like brushing your hair after the bath, um, because he doesn't want her to cry because he doesn't know how to handle it and then stresses it out.

• 5:37Dr. John Delony?

  Gosh, this is the most, like, dude, you're, like, talking about every house USA right now. Um, I guess this is as direct as I would put this. The stake of his relationship with his daughter and his wife are on the line right now.

• 5:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:57Dr. John Delony?

  And if this was not about relationships, but this was about feeding his family at work, hey, we are no longer writing things on paper and putting them in an envelope. We have this new thing called email. You learn how to do it or you're fired. You know what everybody did? They learned how to do email.

• 6:15Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 6:16Dr. John Delony?

  And so, but I know we can do it.

• 6:22Dr. John Delony?

  But we have to step over our egos. And by the way, it's a big step, and I'm, this is, this is the pot talking to the kettle here.

• 6:32Dr. John Delony?

  When, um, you look in your tool bag to help solve a problem with your kids and there's no tools in there, or there's just one, yell. Or just another tool, just hide, or another tool, just shut down and play video, like, it's scary. So I get that. Um, but he has got to put on his big boy pants and decide, I'm going to learn how to connect with my daughter and do this right because the stakes are way too high.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:07Dr. John Delony?

  If you approach him as a skills issue, at least in my house, I will tell you it's one of the greatest gifts my wife gave me. Besides psychological stability, which I needed desperately. She approached me learning things about my kids as skills, not as character defects.

• 7:31Dr. John Delony?

  Do you get the difference? It made all the world to me. Because when I would do something wrong, when I would try to take on my daughter when she was four, and there's now I've got a 40-year-old trying to take on a four-year-old, which is a recipe for an inferno, right?

• 7:46Dr. John Delony?

  She didn't come at me and say, "You're stupid, you're dumb, I can't believe you're doing this." She would never do that. But she'd say, "Hey, this particular approach isn't effective, try this one." And then I had to be a grown-up and go talk to Becky Kennedy. I had to be a grown-up and go talk to Sissy Golf here in Nashville. I had to be a grown-up and go learn a whole bunch of skills. Talk to my friend Lynn Jennings back in Lubbock, Texas. I had to get on the phone and learn some skills. Because the stakes were too high.

• 8:17Dr. John Delony?

  Do you hear what I'm saying? I'm pretty passionate about this, just because it was my house, right?

• 8:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I try, I try to give him like tips on things that he can do. And then I kind of like explain like why I do the things that I do. And I know that he feels really bad because he like can't figure it out.

• 8:38Dr. John Delony?

  He can, he can, he can.

• 8:41Dr. John Delony?

  Because he can figure out his truck, and he can figure out sports, he can figure out what he wants to figure out.

• 8:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:46Dr. John Delony?

  It just takes a lot of patience, and it's really boring. And it's really revealing. And I ended up in counseling, some pretty heavy, heavy counseling. Because I had some stuff I had to get right with me.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, I, um, I forced him to start therapy, so he did.

• 9:05Dr. John Delony?

  That's always good.

• 9:09Dr. John Delony?

  So, you get what I'm saying?

• 9:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:19Dr. John Delony?

  How did his mom treat him?

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Oh, she just let him do whatever he wanted. He was an only child and she's still the same way today.

• 9:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 9:31Dr. John Delony?

  What about his dad?

• 9:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, he wasn't really in the picture.

• 9:35Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 9:39Dr. John Delony?

  Does he like the way his mom raised him?

• 9:42Speaker 00

  Um, I think yes and no.

• 9:45Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 9:46Speaker 00

  I think he's starting to realize that it wasn't always the best.

• 9:53Speaker 00

  But she did the best that she could being like a single mom.

• 9:56Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Have you two aligned on parenting strategies?

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Um.

• 10:05Speaker 00

  I mean, I know for sure.

• 10:07Dr. John Delony?

  I know you do.

• 10:08Speaker 00

  He, I tell him like what I want and like he agrees with it most of the time.

• 10:16Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Um.

• 10:18Dr. John Delony?

  Here's a helpful exercise.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:21Dr. John Delony?

  I want you all to get away for a breakfast, okay?

• 10:26Dr. John Delony?

  And I know that sounds insane right now.

• 10:30Dr. John Delony?

  Can you, um, can you pump or something? I don't know the mechanic. Can you get away where it's just y'all two for one breakfast for two hours? Is that possible?

• 10:38Speaker 00

  Uh huh.

• 10:39Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. I want you to do that.

• 10:43Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to hold both of his hands across the table and say, "I see a husband who loves me and our two kids more than life itself and I'm so grateful." Do you believe that? Is that a true statement? I don't want to put words in your mouth.

• 10:54Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:55Dr. John Delony?

  Do you believe he's a good man inside?

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:58Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 11:01Dr. John Delony?

  I also want you to tell him

• 11:04Dr. John Delony?

  whatever is true in your heart about how he has talked to you about how he was raised.

• 11:12Dr. John Delony?

  And that I don't want to duplicate that here.

• 11:16Dr. John Delony?

  And maybe that frustration and that smoke and that anger he's feeling is dead left.

• 11:25Dr. John Delony?

  He's a good deal with that smoke and anger and rage, right? Or that powerlessness, that's the feeling, it's that powerlessness. I can't even get a four-year-old, a 10-pound four-year-old to put her clothes away, right? I can't, I feel so weak and powerless. And then, men especially, take that personally. It becomes existential.

• 11:48Dr. John Delony?

  And then it gets loud.

• 11:53Dr. John Delony?

  And then I think you'd be real clear, hey, the stakes are too high here. What was your relationship like with your dad?

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Uh, he wasn't around.

• 12:02Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 12:04Dr. John Delony?

  So are you both kind of flying blind here on what a good dad looks like?

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 12:08Dr. John Delony?

  Can we put that on the table?

• 12:14Dr. John Delony?

  And you can look at him and say, here's, now that I'm a mom, here's what I wish I'd had.

• 12:20Dr. John Delony?

  And then here's a real fun exercise.

• 12:24Dr. John Delony?

  Let's say your daughter's name is Julie.

• 12:28Dr. John Delony?

  What do we want Julie, who do we want Julie to be the night she walks across that graduation stage in high school?

• 12:38Dr. John Delony?

  We want her to be a person of character, we want her to be hilarious, we want her to be strong, we want her to be independent, we want her to be able to follow instructions, like all those things. Write all those down and let's distill those all the way back to, okay, then as of right now, she's got to know that we love her no matter what.

• 12:58Dr. John Delony?

  As for our house, no more yelling.

• 13:02Dr. John Delony?

  As for our house, no more disappearing.

• 13:07Dr. John Delony?

  And let's put some of those things on paper, because I think both of you are, have you heard me talk about pictures and words?

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 13:13Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, I think you have a picture of what you want him to be like, and he's got a picture of what he wants his kids to be like, and y'all are talking past each other. So let's go paint those pictures really clearly.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:28Dr. John Delony?

  And then he's gonna have to just be a grown man and get some new skills, because he doesn't have a skill set. And you're gonna have to be a grown woman and get some, get some skills on communicating directly and clearly, and go from there. Does that make sense? I don't know if this is helpful or not, but...

• 13:43Speaker 00

  No, yeah, that makes sense.

• 13:49Dr. John Delony?

  I ache for him. It's like, it's like I want to hug him and also be like, "Bro, it's time." Yeah, like hug him and shake him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's shake and then pat, pat, and then shake and then pat, pat. Because I've been him. I've been him. And I want him to know what it's like on the other side of this.

• 14:09Dr. John Delony?

  When your nine-year-old daughter like brings you this hilarious story that she's written in a secret card that says, "You're my favorite, you're like, I love you daddy," or "My favorite," and curls up next to you on the couch when you're sick and says, "Um, I want to watch whatever show you want to..." Like, like, I want him to know what it feels like to be at peace with your kids. And that means you're at peace with yourself. I want him to know what that feels like, and you can't. You just gotta tell somebody, "Trust me, walk through that, that gauntlet." You know what I mean?

• 14:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:37Dr. John Delony?

  But I'll also tell you that it's become mu... It was, it's a much easier process when I know my wife isn't sitting next to me judging every step I take. She's with me, encouraging me, and receiving feedback too, because it's not like she's perfect, right? Um, but we're doing this thing together.

• 14:54Dr. John Delony?

  You're on the right path, man. You're on the right path. You can't change him, but man, you can sure encourage the heck out of him. And on the actual tasks, you can be very, very clear about some tasks. But let's get away, let's swipe the thing clear. Both of you are trying to have a picture of a dad that you've never experienced in real life.

• 15:20Dr. John Delony?

  Let's get aligned on that picture, and let's go try to make that picture real. I believe in you guys. We'll be right back.

• 15:29Dr. John Delony?

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• 16:12Dr. John Delony?

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• 16:59Dr. John Delony?

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• 17:43Dr. John Delony?

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• 18:25Speaker 02

  How you doing, Dr. John?

• 18:27Dr. John Delony?

  I'm doing great, brother. How are you, man?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  I'm doing okay. It's a little bit warmer here today, finally, so it's nice to have a break from the cold.

• 18:34Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent, man. What's going on, brother?

• 18:36Speaker 02

  Um, okay, so my question, long, like, windy, twisty question, so I'm just gonna jump into it. How much of my past and my struggles do I need to, like, tell my daughter later in life, or does that, like, cause problems for her growing up?

• 18:54Dr. John Delony?

  Hmm. What brings that question up right now?

• 19:01Speaker 02

  So, um, my, my daughter and I are kind of butting heads. She's three and, uh...

• 19:08Dr. John Delony?

  How old are you?

• 19:11Speaker 02

  I'm 27.

• 19:13Dr. John Delony?

  All right, let's just pause right there. It's, you're right where you need to be, dude.

• 19:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 19:18Dr. John Delony?

  Three-year-olds run around and bang their head on every boundary possible to see if it will hold.

• 19:24Speaker 02

  Which is what I've heard, and we've coming, come up with the, uh, phrase, "She's a three-nager," and it's wonderful.

• 19:31Dr. John Delony?

  Correct. You're not a bad dad. I mean, you might be a terrible dad, I don't know, but like, just because she's doing that, doesn't mean your marriage is bad, doesn't mean you're bad, doesn't mean your past is bad, doesn't mean anything other than she is three years old, and developmentally, she's doing exactly what she should be, and she's saying, "Oh yeah, you say that stove is hot? I'm gonna find out." And this is just a critical developmental time, and that's why when people call me, they're like, "My marriage is messy, or this is happening, and my kid's three," I always just stop and be like, "All right, call me back in two years, and we'll square up again." It's just, it's just that, it's just that season, man. Uh, all right, so y'all are butting heads. And by the way...

• 20:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 20:08Dr. John Delony?

  You ever seen those cram videos? I forgot the name of the comedian, they're the best. Like, the, the goat videos, they're like, "Cram! Don't get into a, uh, like, a head-butting competition with a three-year-old. Everybody loses that one."

• 20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I'm I'm learning through that, especially with like what I've been working through the past couple of years. Um, so if you're good with it, I'll just kind of do like tiny story. Okay. Um, struggling with addiction, um, came to a head two years ago, well, two and a half years ago with an affair. Um, and

• 20:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yours or hers?

• 20:44Speaker 02

  My wife in January, mine.

• 20:45Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 20:47Speaker 02

  Uh, told my wife two years ago in January, and we've been on the recovery journey. She's been through a lot of intensive counseling. So have I like, and we separated for two months in 2023, then separated for six months last year because we were just Band-Aid fixing and not actually fixing the root issues. Um, we got back together summer of last year and realizing like my daughters and my relationship is like, it's okay, it's good. But like there are times where it's like, I'm getting frustrated with her. She wants mom more than me. She wants like, she won't listen to anything I say, even if I'm saying it calmly and kindly. She won't listen to me until my wife says, hey, what did dad say and listen to dad? And then she'll listen. Um, so I don't know if like

• 21:32Dr. John Delony?

  Totally developmental.

• 21:34Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:34Dr. John Delony?

  There's nothing wrong with your daughter.

• 21:37Speaker 02

  Okay. So that's not like I haven't like really screwed her up

• 21:39Dr. John Delony?

  No.

• 21:40Speaker 02

  with the separation?

• 21:41Dr. John Delony?

  No.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 21:43Dr. John Delony?

  Your daughter's being three. What my my bigger concern is, is that you're at a place, you're at a fragile emotional state to such a degree that a three year old is um, threatening the axis upon which your world spins. Let me put it another way. That sounded really dramatic. You're you're giving a three year old a vote. Like a three year old doesn't get a vote. They're three.

• 22:16Dr. John Delony?

  Like, I'm not gonna give a three-year-old my bad day. I'm not gonna give you my feel, like, you're three.

• 22:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:24Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean? Like, there's a reason they can't vote. They don't, they don't have, a three-year-old does not have the cogni- They, they can be manipulative, and a three-year-old can, like, I mean, you're- I don't wanna get through all P S A and all that. Three-year-olds are smart, and they can be manipulative, but they are not as cognitively complex as adults put upon them.

• 22:47Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:48Dr. John Delony?

  And so, she just wants to check in with her mom, let, just, that means you and your wife need to be connected there. Or, you and your wife need to come up with, she doesn't check in with mom.

• 23:01Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:02Dr. John Delony?

  But that, that will go away over time. What won't go away is, she will very quickly, if she has, I guarantee she already has, she knows how to control dad.

• 23:14Dr. John Delony?

  "I can get dad to leave the room if I push one inch past this one line." "He'll leave." "I can finally get him to give me that candy if I just push past this one line." Or, "I'm uncomfortable, 'cause daddy's uncomfortable, and he'll, I can do this one thing, he'll get mad, he'll spank me, he'll yell at me, and then I can cry, and then I'll feel better."

• 23:37Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 23:37Dr. John Delony?

  But what she's learning is, it's her job to make sure dad's emotionally okay. And dude, that cannot be your daughter's job.

• 23:45Speaker 02

  Right.

• 23:46Dr. John Delony?

  That was alcohol's job, that was your affairs' job, and now you've given it to your daughter, that can't be her job. That has to be your job.

• 23:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 23:55Dr. John Delony?

  Is that fair?

• 23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, very. Um...

• 24:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, I, there's been other stressors that I've been, like, really letting affect me, and my wife has noticed, like, "Hey, you're really stressed about work, and it's affecting our home, so, like..."

• 24:10Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 24:11Speaker 02

  My wife was very clear. "Work is just really stressful." Um, getting pulled thirty different directions to do everyone's job, and covering incompetency from lack of effort from where I work. Um, and, I work really hard, and I have a different buy-in, because if I don't work, my family doesn't eat. Um-

• 24:32Speaker 02

  And I've worked really hard to develop that work ethic over the last two years. And even my wife said, hey, you're not allowed to bring work home because like of everything that we've been through, we've had very long conversations. We've had boundary talks. We've had rules put in place to keep us both safe. And there are times when the tension of work and just not like really high emotions spill over. And I do tend to get frustrated with my daughter, not because it's my daughter, it's because it's like I haven't processed other stressors.

• 25:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. Make that commitment right now, today. Make today day one.

• 25:11Dr. John Delony?

  Day one that that never happens again. Don't make her carry work too, man. She's three.

• 25:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Here's the other side of that.

• 25:24Dr. John Delony?

  I keep hearing in your language that you're trying to put yourself in a position where um

• 25:32Dr. John Delony?

  either you're the only one doing it right, or you're the victim of a thing.

• 25:39Dr. John Delony?

  And if you're going to work and you're working really hard, even if you have to clean up other people's mess, but it's paying your bills and it's what you want to be doing every day, then exhale and make peace. You work with a bunch of people who don't do their job. Okay.

• 25:55Dr. John Delony?

  But if you show up every day expecting that thing to fulfill you too, or um

• 26:03Dr. John Delony?

  I'm trying, I don't want to be like a Beautiful Mind here where I'm pulling this piece of data and this piece of data and trying to create a whole new story.

• 26:11Dr. John Delony?

  But of all the different things you're telling me, everything is leading to a guy that is desperately seeking something external to tell him he's got value and he's okay.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, definitely fallen into, that's where I used to be, like, that was my biggest, like-

• 26:36Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, that's you right now. That's you right now. That's you right now. You just moved it to something that's not gonna get you arrested or get you divorced, which is work. And that's where most sophisticated men move their addictions.

• 26:54Dr. John Delony?

  Do you have any friends?

• 26:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, actually, I've worked really hard to develop really good, close friendships the past couple of years.

• 27:01Dr. John Delony?

  Are those guys you can call and just whine about work with for a minute?

• 27:06Speaker 02

  A hundred percent.

• 27:07Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 27:10Dr. John Delony?

  Do you have an exercise routine to burn some of this off?

• 27:14Speaker 02

  Not lately, we just moved, but definitely need to get back into that.

• 27:18Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Not as a place to escape, but a place to channel some of this energy.

• 27:24Dr. John Delony?

  I'm, and kudos to you, my brother, for getting a group of friends. That's awesome. That is amazing.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 27:30Dr. John Delony?

  Often I hear in these situations, wives just become trash bins for their whole day 'cause they're the only person their husband has, right?

• 27:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:39Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about your addiction. What were you struggling with?

• 27:42Speaker 02

  Uh, it was pornography.

• 27:43Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Yeah, that even tells me more, like, like-

• 27:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:48Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, searching for somebody out there to tell you, to feel, help you feel alive.

• 27:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 27:54Dr. John Delony?

  Where's that come from, man?

• 27:56Speaker 02

  Um, that's the house I grew up in, um, and worked really hard with my counselor to kinda address some of that. Um, but no, it was like, I was homeschooled for all 12 years, and so it's like more of a student-teacher relationship than a parent relationship.

• 28:13Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you've been singing and dancing your whole life, huh?

• 28:16Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 28:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 28:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, uh, can I just like, I don't know if you've ever come across this, but this is just something crazy in my life. Um, I got a letter grade for how I cleaned a bathroom.

• 28:29Dr. John Delony?

  Doesn't surprise me.

• 28:30Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:31Dr. John Delony?

  Doesn't surprise me. Wow.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  I can't imagine that much would at this point, but like-

• 28:36Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 28:38Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and I'm trying to, I'm just trying to quickly reverse engineered as a parent like, "All right, great. Like, you don't need to know about chlorophyll, boraphyll, but you do need to know about how to clean the bathroom. So I'm gonna shift grades to..." I, I can see the logic there, but I can also see a kid being like, "Dude, I'm seven." "I just got sea in bathroom. Like, what are we doing?" Right? I can see that too.

• 29:01Dr. John Delony?

  And so it's, it's like one of those things that like, as you get older, you'll start to get compassionate because your parents are probably trying to do the best they could. And they were reading a lot of internet and they were like, "Yeah, we're gonna do it different." And then they ended up giving their kid a grade on bathroom counter cleaning.

• 29:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 29:17Dr. John Delony?

  Like, so it's like one of those like, "Oh, gosh, this is insane." And also, I've been dead in my own skin for 12 years. And now I'm finally free. And then all of a sudden, the world hands me this box with every act of depravity known to, you know, in human history. And now I'm married, now I got a kid that won't listen to me, now I got people at work that won't do... And it just kinda unspools. So what if I flipped it all over, dude, and said this?

• 29:52Dr. John Delony?

  Are you still fighting on a day-to-day basis to, uh, put away pornography?

• 29:58Speaker 02

  No. Actually, that, um, with a lot of hard work and accountability group, I've been able to find good chunks of sobriety. I had a relapse in January, but since that point, there's been no problem.

• 30:09Dr. John Delony?

  Cool.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  And before that, it was nine months. Before that, it was six or seven months.

• 30:14Dr. John Delony?

  But what I'm asking is, I, I asked it in too dramatic of a way, but you're staying vigilant, right? You're still working?

• 30:20Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 30:20Dr. John Delony?

  Good. Um, are you done cheating on your wife?

• 30:25Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 30:26Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Have you and your wife sat down and begun to the healing process to get to the root of all this stuff?

• 30:32Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. Yeah. We've worked really hard to get there. We, um, we actually had our dreaming vision for this upcoming year, meeting like last December and like, a lot of your, your tips and tools have really helped us.

• 30:48Dr. John Delony?

  That's awesome. The next gift you can give your family? And this is a tough one. Is to deal with the nuclear reactor that's sitting in the middle of your chest.

• 31:06Dr. John Delony?

  The one that's always hot, always looking for the next person, always trying to get out of the next thing, always worried about what you just said, always trying to make sure you're impressing the person over there, over there. The one whose head's always on a swivel, the eyes are always moving. Situational awareness 24/7/365.

• 31:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:35Dr. John Delony?

  It's exhausting.

• 31:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm trying not to care so much what people think, but...

• 31:37Dr. John Delony?

  I know, but that kept you alive growing up. You had to, because you were getting graded. And listen, your daughter's teeny tiny little body, think of her just as a walking nervous system. I promise you, that little girl wants more than anything on planet Earth to run and hug her dad. And her teeny tiny little body is saying, "Do not do that, he's electric." And I know this, brother, from personal experience.

• 32:13Dr. John Delony?

  And when I freed myself, I freed her. Now I'm getting all choked up on the radio, man, hold on.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  No, having a daughter is the wildest adventure I thought I could ever be on.

• 32:34Dr. John Delony?

  I know. My daughter, dude, she is a human hurricane, and she's still... She, dude, she fights me every single day, literally and vigorously. And I love it, but it's not from a place of nervous system fear anymore. It's from normal developmental... I've got a really tough, amazing, beautiful little girl. Who's gonna grow up to run some stuff someday. It's not me versus her anymore, it's me with her. But I had to go do my work so that I could show up okay.

• 33:19Dr. John Delony?

  And I had to get my head off the swivel.

• 33:29Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, um, like, okay, I hear what you're saying. Now, my brain is like trying to think of like practical next steps for how to do that. Is that through counseling? Is that through reading, exercise routine, like?

• 33:43Dr. John Delony?

  Probably both and.

• 33:45Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 33:47Dr. John Delony?

  Probably all the above.

• 33:50Dr. John Delony?

  When you met with a counselor, were you totally honest about what you grew up with?

• 33:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh, yeah, there, I still see my counselor every other week just because there's a lot of stuff I have to work through.

• 34:00Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 34:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's the one place that like I've dumped every little thing.

• 34:09Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so I want you to go ask for some very specific practices, not just tools, but practices on reactivity.

• 34:17Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 34:19Dr. John Delony?

  The nerd word is mindfulness. It's, it's the gap between stimulus and response. We're gonna start to lengthen that gap.

• 34:30Dr. John Delony?

  Between when your daughter goes, "No daddy",

• 34:34Dr. John Delony?

  and the rage that fires up without you even realizing it. And the rage comes from a perceived lack of control, out of, out of power, out of balance.

• 34:45Speaker 02

  That's exactly what it is.

• 34:47Dr. John Delony?

  And that came from when you were a little bitty kid because you never had any autonomy in your house. You were getting graded on toilet cleaning.

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Huh, I've never thought to equate like

• 34:59Speaker 02

  that with how I react to my kids.

• 35:02Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, you got a grade on how to pee.

• 35:07Dr. John Delony?

  You've never, you got a grade on wiping your

• 35:12Dr. John Delony?

  deuces.

• 35:14Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, you've never had autonomy, not for a second.

• 35:19Dr. John Delony?

  That's what pornography gives you. It gives you, it gives you the sense of aliveness.

• 35:26Dr. John Delony?

  And it's not even the pornography, it's the urge, it's the, the, the dopamine buildup. People think dopamine is after you click, it's before you click.

• 35:39Dr. John Delony?

  It's the build, it's the feeling of.

• 35:43Dr. John Delony?

  That's the rebellion of a life that has no autonomy.

• 35:49Dr. John Delony?

  And a three-year-old little girl just reflects it back to you.

• 35:56Dr. John Delony?

  And so for the sake of our entire family's souls, dude, you don't get a vote into whether I'm in a bad mood or not.

• 36:07Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not giving you that. You're three, for crying out loud. You are gonna stop hitting, or you're choosing to, fill in the blank. But, um, okay, cool. Go check with mom.

• 36:21Dr. John Delony?

  And then when you come back, you're gonna do X, Y, and Z.

• 36:26Dr. John Delony?

  Like, I'm not gonna let her make me mad. She's three. And then what she's gonna learn is, oh, mom and dad are united and everything. And then shortly, you need to go check with mom so those things stop.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 36:39Dr. John Delony?

  But you get what I'm saying? I want you to ask your counselor for some very specific tools. Sometimes it's breathing exercises, sometimes it's journaling, sometimes it's catching yourself being mad and forcing yourself to walk back and get down on your daughter's level and look her in the eye and put both hands on her face and say, daddy got too mad and that was not your fault, that was daddy's fault.

• 36:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that I have done. There have been times where I have walked away, took a breath, and then apologized to her.

• 37:05Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Have you forgiven yourself for cheating on your wife?

• 37:09Speaker 02

  I'd like to say yes, but I don't 100% believe that I have.

• 37:12Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Commit to that. Stop carrying it around. If your wife says she's not carrying it around, you stop carrying it. Stay vigilant, but stop carrying it. Go be the next best husband you can be in the next minute, and the minute after that, and the minute after that. Okay?

• 37:26Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 37:26Dr. John Delony?

  It's game on now, my brother.

• 37:29Dr. John Delony?

  Good call?

• 37:29Speaker 02

  All right. Absolutely.

• 37:31Dr. John Delony?

  All right. Grateful for you, brother. Thanks for calling, JT. Stay out of trouble. Appreciate you. We'll be right back.

• 37:38Dr. John Delony?

  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 know that we live on the internets all day, every day. And I wish this wasn't the case, but it doesn't matter. It's here and it's happening. Everything in my life and everything in your life takes place over the internets. Our work, our health portals, our personal messages and communications, where we live, we buy most of our things on the internets now. It's where so much of our life exists. And because so much of our life takes place on the internet now, somehow it just became normal over time to just give away our address, or our email addresses, or our phone numbers to random companies who then turn around and sell them to other companies.

• 38:23Dr. John Delony?

  Ugh. This is why I'm happy to use and recommend Delete Me. I looked at the reports that my friends at Delete Me have sent me. They reviewed over 35,000 different data brokers that potentially had access to my information, and they've removed my personal info from hundreds of scammy data broker sites. Delete Me has saved me countless hours, days even, and they've sent detailed reports to me showing me exactly what they've removed and from where. I want you to have this kind of peace, too. We can't really avoid the internet, but we can make our personal data personal again with Delete Me. Get protected with Delete Me today and get 20% off all Delete Me plans. That comes out to less than nine bucks a month.

• 39:05Dr. John Delony?

  Go to join, J-O-I-N, joindelete.me/deloney right now. That's joindelete.me/deloney and save.

• 39:17Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we are back. Hey, don't forget to subscribe, like, and review the show with all the stars you can punch into the internet boxes. That was my, uh... Was that a good song, Kelly? You don't think you'll like that song?

• 39:31Speaker 03

  No, I don't think I'll be downloading that one on my playlist anytime soon.

• 39:34Dr. John Delony?

  Well, fine. All right, let's go out to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and talk to Turn the Page. Hey, Paige, what's up?

• 39:43Speaker 04

  Hi, how are you doing?

• 39:44Dr. John Delony?

  I'm doing great. How about you?

• 39:46Speaker 04

  Oh, you know, sitting on the floor throwing treats to my dogs to try to keep them quiet.

• 39:50Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, one of those days, huh?

• 39:53Dr. John Delony?

  So what's happening?

• 39:55Speaker 04

  Um, I'm gonna read my question because I tend to fumble.

• 39:59Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 40:00Speaker 04

  "How do I metabolize anger and resentment towards my father, who is a therapist, while I also pursue my own career in therapy?"

• 40:14Dr. John Delony?

  Why are you angry with your dad?

• 40:16Speaker 04

  Um, I mean, obviously, it kind of goes back to being a kid, but the big thing is, is I just see a big disconnect between his work life and his family life, and, um...

• 40:33Dr. John Delony?

  You didn't practice what he preaches?

• 40:36Speaker 04

  No. Um, but the thing is, is he's an amazing therapist, so it's kind of like, there's like confusion on my side, too, on how those don't connect, um...

• 40:49Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, let me ask you this: is he your therapist?

• 40:51Speaker 04

  No.

• 40:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so let's, let's, um, hold him accountable to the role with which he's assigned in your life.

• 41:02Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 41:02Dr. John Delony?

  Forget what he does for a living.

• 41:06Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 41:08Dr. John Delony?

  What are you mad at that he did or didn't do for you as your dad?

• 41:13Speaker 04

  Um, well, I'd probably just say, like, he wasn't always a therapist. He became a therapist within the, like, the last eight years. Um, but he, he kind of like self-diagnoses himself as a workaholic, and he, he knows it. Um, so like, as a kid, I just kind of always felt abandoned by him. Um, but a lot of what my anger comes from is recent stuff between him and my mom, and I know it's not my place to, to get in the middle of that, and, um...

• 41:54Dr. John Delony?

  It might be. What is it?

• 41:57Speaker 04

  Um, so, they, they had a really rocky start. Um, they did not...

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Start off their marriage in the best way. Um, and there was a lot of really bad stuff that kind of happened between them in the first couple of years and they've been married for over thirty years now, um, but now they're empty nesters. And my dad is kind of using his, his therapy knowledge kind of against my mom.

• 42:35Dr. John Delony?

  Mm-hmm.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  And it's, uh, it's really frustrating for me because I'm going to school to become a trauma therapist and what I learned, I've applied to my life and my dad is such a smart guy, like he's, he's really smart. And I just kinda, I'm really frustrated with his behavior and how he treats my mom. And some of the stuff that's coming out that I'm learning is just, it's really, really bad and I don't know where my place is to step in or not because I'm the youngest child of five. Um.

• 43:09Dr. John Delony?

  Are you still, are you in graduate school right now?

• 43:11Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, I'm in undergraduate. Um, I'm kind of taking it slow so that, you know, no debt.

• 43:17Dr. John Delony?

  Sure, sure.

• 43:18Speaker 04

  But, um, I do a lot of my own, my own studying off, off the course as well.

• 43:24Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Um, so there's a couple of things here that are, are kind of blinking lights at me, okay? And so I'm, I'm, I'm always okay to be wrong. I'm, I'm, I'm often wrong, okay? Um, but there's a few big blinking lights that are relatively common. Um, and so, uh, are you, are you in your twenties, early twenties?

• 43:51Speaker 04

  Uh, yeah, yeah, I'm like mid twenties.

• 43:54Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, all right. Um, so big blinking light number one is, um, there's actually some words for it. I won't, I won't nerd out, but, um, students who study psychology, students who are in the first couple of years especially of graduate school for psychology, LMFT, LPC, um, social work, whatever, um, begin to pathologize and diagnose everything and everyone around them, about everything.

• 44:23Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, no.

• 44:24Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense? Everything, everything, and I, and it's a, it's a, it's, it makes sense, but as one colleague I used to, I used to, she used to say, no unauthorized practice of magic outside of Hogwarts. And so, um, if you're not in school, close the book. Now, school's always fun to be reflective and to like, ask yourself questions, but it's not until, you know, it's like when you, you think you have every diagnosis until you do one of your practicums in a psych ward and you go, "Oh, that's what that is."

• 44:58Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 44:59Dr. John Delony?

  Right? I was uncomfortable. That is not, that is what we call, fill in the blank, diagnosis, right?

• 45:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 45:08Dr. John Delony?

  So that's number one, which is, don't look to counteract your dad's, you know, wizardry with your own undergraduate wizardry. It's a fool's errand, okay?

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I'm, I'm very, very aware of that, because I actually, a lot of it started before I even got into school, and I've been listening to your show forever, and I actually pull a lot of, I actually learned a lot from you, which is kinda, kinda fun.

• 45:35Dr. John Delony?

  I appreciate it. But, uh, I actively try to- One of my big things is no diagn- don't, don't, don't diagnose your friends and your neighbors and your whatever.

• 45:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, yeah, I've, I quickly understood that in, in, in the beginning, and I'm like, "Okay, this is not a good idea."

• 45:51Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  So I, I actively try to close the book on myself, this is all what I'm about.

• 45:55Dr. John Delony?

  Perfect. So I, I intentionally don't ever use the words narcissist around my friends. I don't use the words, there, there's just words like that, that are, that are diagnostics, I don't use them. I just don't use them. Um, I say, "That guy's a jerk." And I'll leave it to his clinical psychologist to diagnose him. But what I can say is, and this is the part two, focus on the behaviors.

• 46:16Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:17Dr. John Delony?

  I don't care what your job is, I don't care what you're, how smart or how not smart I think you are, don't talk to somebody like that.

• 46:26Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:29Dr. John Delony?

  And so, I don't care what the diagnosis is, that's a context, not an excuse, you can't treat people a certain way.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:34Dr. John Delony?

  I don't care how, I don't care what your IQ is, you can't treat people a certain way.

• 46:40Dr. John Delony?

  Have some dignity and some decorum for crying out loud, right? The third thing is, um, I get involved when somebody's getting hurt.

• 46:50Dr. John Delony?

  I don't care if that's my role or not my role or my place or not my place, I could care less. If somebody's getting hurt, I'm getting involved.

• 46:57Dr. John Delony?

  And so if your mom's getting hurt, um, then, and you can't sleep at night without saying something, then say something. Know this, you've probably got a part of a conversation.

• 47:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, it's a, it's weirdly enough, even though I'm the youngest, um, and I know this isn't healthy and I've tried to back off on it, but, um, both of them do kinda come to me to talk about stuff, or at least,

• 47:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but you get,

• 47:26Speaker 04

  at least my dad does sometimes because he knows I'm interested in therapy, but then I get his side of the story and then my mom's side and it's like they're two different things and.

• 47:34Dr. John Delony?

  Have you studied triangulation yet?

• 47:36Speaker 04

  A little bit, yeah.

• 47:38Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, Google that one because it's happening to you.

• 47:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:41Dr. John Delony?

  And it always collapses the relationship between everybody.

• 47:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:46Dr. John Delony?

  And so you're getting triangulated into this, what do you think about this? What do you think about this? Did you hear what she said? She told me that you said that, "I'm out, I am not playing that game." Um, one of the most successful things I've heard from multiple peers, people my ages, they tell their parents, "Well, well, stop, stop, stop, stop, that's my dad. I don't hear you talk bad about my dad." Or "That's my mom, I can't be your safe place for that."

• 48:11Speaker 04

  That's actually one thing that I learned from your show that I actually kinda did with my dad.

• 48:15Dr. John Delony?

  Good.

• 48:16Speaker 04

  Cause he, he would try to like badmouth my mom and I'm like, "Hey, I'm not here to talk about my mom."

• 48:22Dr. John Delony?

  Good.

• 48:22Speaker 04

  Like this is, this is a different conversation, like.

• 48:25Dr. John Delony?

  But one step further, I, I'm not gonna listen to you talk bad about my mom. If you need to talk bad about mom, you need to get yourself a therapist.

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:33Dr. John Delony?

  Right. So that's one thing like, like one is, I'm not gonna talk about mom. The next layer of boundary is, I'm not gonna sit here and listen to you do it.

• 48:41Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 48:41Dr. John Delony?

  So if you keep talking bad about mom, you are asking me to leave by your actions.

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 48:47Dr. John Delony?

  And that's a different level of grown upness of putting up boundaries, but you're not gonna, and I'll tell the same thing about mom, about mom. I'm not gonna sit here and let you talk bad about dad.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  She doesn't, no, she doesn't.

• 48:58Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I know, I'm just, I'm just putting it out there. It's just not picking on dad.

• 49:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:03Dr. John Delony?

  And I would back all the way out. And as it comes for resentment, I wouldn't give him that kind of power.

• 49:10Speaker 04

  Hmm.

• 49:11Dr. John Delony?

  Like, go study and be the best therapist that you can possibly be. There's tons of hurting people out there that need somebody to sit with them.

• 49:18Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:19Dr. John Delony?

  And if you notice, he is not being congruent in the things that he learns versus how he's weaponizing some of these things. And, um, how he is, like honoring his patients more than he honors his own kids, or honoring his patients more than he honors his wife, or what, then make a firm commitment. As for me and my house, I won't do that.

• 49:43Dr. John Delony?

  The best way to navigate resentment is to commit and then live out, step by step by step by step, a different kind of life.

• 49:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 49:51Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not gonna be that kind of person.

• 49:54Dr. John Delony?

  The path forward as two adults navigating how to move forward is, one person has to turn the lights on and say, here's the boundaries, and I'd love to have you in it. Here's my picture of what us together looks like. Are you in? And as another adult, whether it's your dad, it's your mom, it's your spouse, it's whoever, they can say, I'm not in. And avoiding that reality, I mean, you can kick the can down the road, but that reality's eventually gonna catch up with you, and it's heartbreaking at any point, so I'd rather catch it earlier than later.

• 50:26Dr. John Delony?

  Ugh. But Paige, go be a great therapist. Go be the best counselor you could possibly be. The world needs you. The world needs you. We'll be right back.

• 50:38Dr. John Delony?

  Hey everybody, Easter is just around the corner and it's one of the most important days of the Christian calendar. Easter is a season of spring, which means new life and freedom that goes beyond feeling good in any one moment. It's about real lasting freedom that comes from being intentional, choosing peace, and finding and trusting God. And that's why I love what Hallow is doing this Easter. They're offering a special prayer series focused on finding interior freedom, letting go of the stress, worry, and that constant need to try to control everything. Their prayer series is about finding peace by trusting in God's love and grace and mercy. These short prayers and reflections are designed to help you keep building on those daily habits

• 51:21Dr. John Delony?

  you started during Lent, so that you can carry that sense of peace into Easter and beyond. And that's just one of thousands of songs, prayers, and meditations on Hallow's amazing app, and they help you stay grounded and connected every single day. So download Hallow right now and get three months free at Hallow, H-A-L-L-O-W, hallow.com/duloni. Again, that's Hallow, H-A-L-L-O-W, dot com slash duloni for three months for free. All right, we are back. Kelly, my voice is fading.

• 51:55Speaker 03

  Yes, I know, I can tell.

• 51:56Dr. John Delony?

  I kind of feel like this is how the metal singer I always wanted to sound like.

• 52:00Speaker 03

  Just not sound like Sebastian Bach, just so we're aware.

• 52:04Dr. John Delony?

  Guys, that's so good. All right, so am I the problem? Go for it.

• 52:07Speaker 03

  All right, so this is from Jessica, and she says, "I read a lot. I'd say 40% romance books. Many have explicit scenes. I recently got into a discussion with a friend, and I'm wondering if I'm the problem. A friend said I was reading porn, and it is the same as watching porn. I disagree for two major reasons." One, no real person is being harmed, trafficked, taken advantage of. Regardless of where you stand on sex work, there's actually none of that happening in books. Two, if my book is 300 pages, maybe 30 or 40 pages is quote unquote porn. The rest is enjoyable, that's fine because of the other 80 to 90% that's actually character development and plot.

• 52:52Speaker 03

  Even in the quote unquote smut books that are 50% explicit, I'm still reading 150 pages of plot. What do you think? Are explicit romance books just as bad for our minds and bodies as videos? And by ruining my chances for healthy relationships? Or is mixing in a little romance between real books, okay now and then?

• 53:13Dr. John Delony?

  Ugh, this question. You wrote this question, I know you did.

• 53:20Speaker 03

  No, I did not, but I was, never had really thought of it this way. And I was very, very curious to hear your thoughts on it.

• 53:28Dr. John Delony?

  So I was with her 100,000% on point one. I think she's really reaching on her point two, mainly because there's no plot in those books, come on. It's not like, she's like reading literature that just happened to have some nudity in it, right? Like I was walking through a museum and I saw, shut, and the David was standing there, right? Not real. And I actually just did a big event and this question came up. I don't have any data, so the, the best generalizable data, or I would say non-generalizable data, but we'll generalize it here. And by the way, generalize, I say that all the time. All that means is I can make a point about men and cast that upon all men.

• 54:11Dr. John Delony?

  And when you say non-generalizable, that just means I can't say this about everybody, right? But I think I'm pretty close here that in some, you're like, still don't know what you're talking about. I'll stop speaking nerd. On the whole, women read pornography, men watch it.

• 54:31Dr. John Delony?

  And I can't, I've never read a study on this, I've never, whatever. And that doesn't hold true for everybody. Some women watch pornography, some men. I, what's that, what's the fairy porno porn book?

• 54:43Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:44Dr. John Delony?

  I read a couple of them. First was-

• 54:45Speaker 03

  I tried to read the first one of those and could not even get into the book, but the game of, uh, A Court of Roses and Thorns, or whatever.

• 54:53Dr. John Delony?

  Whatever.

• 54:53Speaker 03

  But there's a whole, I think, I mean, that's a whole genre now, fantasy.

• 54:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it's like Hogwarts After Dark.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 55:00Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. Yeah, it's Hogwarts After Dark. But like, I, I, like, I read the first, that first book on the airplane. Like, I read it, whatever, fine. Um, I can't, for, for the life of me, I've never seen a study on this. It cannot be as, quote unquote, damaging neurochemically as watching hardcore pornography. I can't imagine that, okay? Um, to the dopamine system, to the whole dopage genetic system. I can't imagine that, okay? At the same time, um, Anna Lemke writes really eloquently. Like, she studies addiction at Stanford School of Medicine.

• 55:41Dr. John Delony?

  She talks about her addiction, literal addiction to romance novels. They became a place where she went to and they got increasingly sexualized and they got increasingly out there. And she had them on her Kindle, she could hit another one, and another one, and another one, and another one. And it was like a morphine drip, right? And so, when any type of sexual, um, content, if you will, becomes a way to escape the life that you have, you're in a big problem. You're in a problem. Um, I will say, the visual stimulating stuff, it just, I, I, I just think it's worse. I think it's not good. It's just not good. Um, and I think it has to do different stuff.

• 56:26Dr. John Delony?

  I need to talk to Huberman about it. Like, it has to do different stuff to you. Maybe I'm, I'm wrong, and I'm okay being wrong there. Um, I'm not saying that I want to be the, the police on nudity in movies. I'm not going to be the police on, like, what's a good book and what's not a good book, whatever. I think anytime you get into banning books, you get into, it's never gone well in history, ever, ever, ever. Um, so, all that to say is-

• 56:54Dr. John Delony?

  You know. You know, and I know that's not a helpful thing, but you know, you know, if. Um, here's a good example with one of the, the fairy porn books.

• 57:07Dr. John Delony?

  I told, I asked my wife to read one. I was like, read this. This is like going through like it's wildfire and I don't get it. She texts me, this is actually kind of hilarious. She texts me, hey, I'm reading this book. I just read the hottest scene I've ever read. I bookmarked it for you. Bro town in Motown. You want to say I got home early that day? I got home. Clear the decks. Hey dad, shut up kids, everybody, not really, but like I read this. Quote unquote scene. I mean, I went and thumbed through it to find out. Like, dude, am I gonna have to like get on Amazon and get some wings? Like, what are we doing here? Like, I'm down, but like, I need to know.

• 57:50Dr. John Delony?

  It was. The most boring scene. In human history. It was so. I didn't get it. It was like. We were like, no, it was nothing. There was nothing explicit. In fact, I asked my wife, like, when did they start hooking up? And she's like, that's not the, that's not, what are you talking about? That's not the point. I was like, that's pretty much always the point. She's like, no, it was about anticipation and build and nobody knew, but they knew, but maybe one person knew. And nobody was watching, but maybe. And I was like, oh my gosh, I don't know you. We've been together for a quarter century. I don't know. But so that led to a hilarious, fun, amazing conversation. I learned stuff about my, so all I have to say is this.

• 58:35Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not going to police all that stuff, like especially when it comes to literature and whatever.

• 58:40Dr. John Delony?

  I will say, you know, if you're hiding from your own marriage, you know, if dude, I can't stop doing this or. I'm increasingly becoming more aroused by these books, sending about my own life. Or I'm skipping sex or intimacy or hookups with my husband or my wife. So that I can get under the covers and read these books. Then you got a problem, right? And I guess we can, if you want to get super moral about it, if you're gonna say, "I don't want to have eyes for anybody else," then yeah, clear the deck, man. If you can clear the deck, clear the deck all the way. But as for, so that's me just spinning off the top of my head here, but I don't know if that answers the original question, I don't even remember. What do you think?

• 59:25Speaker 03

  I think I agree with you pretty much 100% on this. I would love to see like a brain scan, because we've seen brain scans of when men watch porn.

• 59:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, it lights up like a Christmas tree, yeah.

• 59:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would love to see a woman reading one of these books, what it does. Is it the same? Because I'm like you, I don't think it would be, but I don't know. They're not the type of books I read.

• 59:49Dr. John Delony?

  I know, because nobody gets beheaded. There's not true crime books.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  Right. I read three kinds: murder, history, or biographies. That's pretty much all I read.

• 59:55Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 59:56Speaker 03

  But I did try the, because I knew the whatever court of, whatever it was called, the fairy porn. I tried, and I was like, "I can't. I mean, they're not even human." Whatever.

• 1:00:07Dr. John Delony?

  Hogwarts Gone Wild?

• 1:00:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, Hogwarts has kids in it, so let's not. That's a children's thing.

• 1:00:12Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, sorry.

• 1:00:13Speaker 03

  So let's not besmirch that.

• 1:00:16Dr. John Delony?

  Let's don't use besmirch on this show. Gosh.

• 1:00:19Speaker 03

  But I agree with you that I can't think it's the same, but I think it's all about the escaping. If you are escaping something, and this is your real life.

• 1:00:30Dr. John Delony?

  Escaping? And I'll say this, there's times to escape.

• 1:00:32Speaker 03

  Oh yeah. Sometimes I just want to read a book.

• 1:00:34Dr. John Delony?

  But it's being intentional. I'm intentionally escaping.

• 1:00:36Speaker 03

  I'm intentionally, "I don't want to deal with this. I'm gonna just get to live in this world."

• 1:00:39Dr. John Delony?

  Escaping versus numbing, I think. Maybe that's it.

• 1:00:42Speaker 03

  Have a life outside of this world, then we've got a problem.

• 1:00:44Dr. John Delony?

  There you go.

• 1:00:45Speaker 03

  But it is a thing now. It is a huge, huge money-making genre now.

• 1:00:55Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and AI do just print them.

• 1:00:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:00:57Dr. John Delony?

  Like you can just hit a button, because there's... Plot!

• 1:01:02Speaker 03

  I think the first one, I mean Fifty Shades of Grey started, all of it, I think that was the first one.

• 1:01:06Dr. John Delony?

  Which one was?

• 1:01:07Speaker 03

  Fifty Shades of Grey.

• 1:01:09Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, I don't know.

• 1:01:10Speaker 03

  I think that was the first one I remember hearing about, like...

• 1:01:13Dr. John Delony?

  That's when it crossed over to like BDSM, like some...

• 1:01:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, but that was the first one I remember hearing from even my friends, like, "Oh my gosh, I read this book." And I'm sure it was out there before, but not that explicit.

• 1:01:24Dr. John Delony?

  Gotcha.

• 1:01:24Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:01:29Dr. John Delony?

  Still don't know that it beats the real thing.

• 1:01:34Speaker 03

  Hope not for people. That's not good if it does.

• 1:01:36Dr. John Delony?

  So they say. That wraps it up another educational episode. I don't know if we helped anybody on that one.

• 1:01:48Dr. John Delony?

  Stay in school, don't do drugs. Bye.