Caller: “Should I Leave My Cheating Husband?”

📋 Get on the same page before the week begins. Download Dr. John Delony's free weekly marriage check-in. On today’s episode, we hear about: A woman wondering if she will regret leaving her cheating husband A couple grappling with the ramifications of uninviting the groom's mom to their wedding A man unsure if he should cut off his flaky friend Next Steps: 🔥 Microhabits for a Better Marriage: ⁠https://ter.li/l3b369p1⁠ ❤️Join Dr. John Delony at Money & Marriage Getaway. 📞 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. Go to Capstone Wellness to learn more. Get up to 20% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. Visit Hallow for a 90-day free trial. Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! Go to Joi + Blokes and get 65% off labs and 20% off products. Working knives for working people—go to Montana Knife Company to see what’s available now! Explore Poncho Outdoors! Get 25% off your order at Thorne. Visit Zander Insurance or call 1-800-356-4282 for your free instant quote today. Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💰 George Kamel 📈 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.

• 0:05Dr. John Delony?

  Have you filed for divorce?

• 0:07Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 0:08Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 0:09Speaker 01

  I have agonized over every decision that I've had to make because of how it will hurt him. It's just that I've, I know what he's been through as a kid.

• 0:19Dr. John Delony?

  To some degree, your kids are re-experiencing his childhood.

• 0:29Dr. John Delony?

  What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you're with us.

• 0:37Dr. John Delony?

  Taking your calls from all over the planet, real people going through real challenges. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you on the show. I don't answer personal questions on social media or anything. I only answer them right here, talking to two people who are real people talking to each other. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you. Click the link in the show notes and we will get you on. Let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona and talk to Beth. Hey Beth, what's up? Oh, hey Beth, so you're, you're a return caller, right?

• 1:08Speaker 01

  Yes. Hi, Dr. John. Thanks so much. I know you have a lot of people who want to speak with you. So thanks for taking my second call today.

• 1:15Dr. John Delony?

  No, I love it. I always ask people like, hey, call me back. I'm hoping

• 1:20Dr. John Delony?

  that you're not calling to say that I messed everything up.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:23Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, but if you are, I'll take it. Okay, so what's going on?

• 1:28Speaker 01

  Okay, here's my new question. How do I stop seeing my husband through the lens of his childhood trauma? And release myself from the guilt that I feel about drawing boundaries and moving forward with our divorce?

• 1:47Dr. John Delony?

  That, I felt like you asked like two or three questions there.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Okay, yeah, I tried to make it concise. It's a lot.

• 1:55Dr. John Delony?

  Let's start with the last question first. Have you filed for divorce?

• 2:00Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:01Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 2:03Speaker 01

  So, um, he, okay, there's a lot, but I'll try to do it in summary form because this is kind of what we talked about on the first call.

• 2:13Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 2:14Speaker 01

  He started using marijuana, peptides, testosterone, when he started doing jiu-jitsu a few years ago. Then last summer.

• 2:23Dr. John Delony?

  He went full, he went full bro, huh?

• 2:26Speaker 01

  Yes. It was really the testosterone first that really was damaging our relationship. And I was feeling really emotionally dominated.

• 2:34Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 2:35Speaker 01

  And then the weed came in, um, into play and that actually seemed to make it a lot better for a while. But then he started having episodes of paranoia accusing me of cheating on him. And I feel like that was very mentally abusive because I was constantly having to defend myself and make sure he knew where I was. I found hidden cameras and listening devices, um, spying on me and I'm a stay-at-home mom and I, a homeschool mom of four. You know, I wasn't doing anything. And so then last summer, he confessed to me that he had actually been unfaithful to me, but couldn't, he, he said he couldn't remember a lot of the details because of the weed.

• 3:20Speaker 01

  And he thought maybe he has, um, disassociative identity disorder. And at first he gave me all of these reasons and excuses and a plan, what he was going to do about it. Um, go to this brain clinic and that was going to fix all the problems and that didn't happen. And so after about three months of him not following through on that, and we were in marriage counseling. I initiated a two-month physical separation and moved in with my kids to an Airbnb. And then during that time, he had kind of some mental breakdowns and confessed to me more infidelity that had even happened during that. What should have been a restoration period.

• 4:04Speaker 01

  And so, um, at that point, I asked him to move out of the house when my Airbnb time was up. And the kids and I moved back into the house. And then I, it's just that I've, I've, I know what he's been through as a kid.

• 4:20Speaker 01

  I've made a lot of excuses for his behavior.

• 4:24Dr. John Delony?

  There you go.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  And I've, I have, um, agonized over every decision that I've had to make because of how it will hurt him.

• 4:33Dr. John Delony?

  So let me,

• 4:38Dr. John Delony?

  because we have limited time together, I'm going to sound pretty abrupt, okay? Um,

• 4:45Dr. John Delony?

  I want to reframe this conversation from you knowing what he went through as a kid, right? And the stories he's told you about his childhood. And also the pain and hurt you've experienced inside your own house. Okay.

• 5:05Dr. John Delony?

  I want to, it's going to sound strange, but I want to park that for a second.

• 5:10Dr. John Delony?

  In real time,

• 5:13Dr. John Delony?

  to some degree,

• 5:16Dr. John Delony?

  your kids are re-experiencing his childhood.

• 5:22Dr. John Delony?

  And so at some point, you have to stand up and say, this is my husband, but he is a man who is hurting my children.

• 5:33Dr. John Delony?

  He's unsafe. He's unstable.

• 5:37Dr. John Delony?

  Cause my gut tells me what you, what you just laid out is the G-rated version of what's been going on in your house for a while.

• 5:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:49Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And so they're going to, they're growing up in real time

• 5:55Dr. John Delony?

  with the electricity, with the, um, inside the house.

• 6:01Dr. John Delony?

  Two parents that can't be in the same room together because he's not safe. The instability, the infidelity. So that's their lived experience.

• 6:13Dr. John Delony?

  And so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to keep those kids safe.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:18Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 6:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 6:20Dr. John Delony?

  And so let's think through that lens first. Second,

• 6:26Dr. John Delony?

  own the reality in front of you, which is I'm married to a man who continues to cheat on me. Continues to not get well. Continues to put my health at risk.

• 6:38Dr. John Delony?

  And also continues to fill his body with all sorts of substances

• 6:45Dr. John Delony?

  that are affecting him in profoundly negative ways.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:50Dr. John Delony?

  And then own it from there. Do I want to be married in this situation?

• 6:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 6:56Dr. John Delony?

  Right? What happened to him as a, as a kid? I don't even know what that stuff is. We may have talked about it last time, but I, I don't know what that stuff is, but I will tell you as an adult,

• 7:08Dr. John Delony?

  that is a context, not an excuse.

• 7:13Dr. John Delony?

  You can't walk around and be abusive. You can't walk around and cheat. You can't walk around and dishonor. You can't walk around and punch holes in the sheet rock because you're roid-raged out because you're taking too much testosterone. You can't, you can't drag your family behind you and say, oh, but one time this happened.

• 7:32Speaker 01

  Right.

• 7:32Dr. John Delony?

  Or a bunch of times this happened.

• 7:36Dr. John Delony?

  As an adult, it's my job, it's his job, it's your job, it's our job to go do what we need to do to be well so that we can be sturdy enough for our wife, for our husband, for our kids.

• 7:52Dr. John Delony?

  And for him, that's going to probably mean some hellacious work.

• 7:58Dr. John Delony?

  But he doesn't want to do that work.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Right.

• 8:02Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And you've given him opportunity after opportunity after opportunity.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  Right. I even gave him what you say, like a pathway back to trust. And he would tell me he's working on it and my expectations are just killing him because, you know, I expected him to be completely sober from all substances. Um, to get a mentor so that someone else would hold him accountable. I wasn't holding him accountable and he wasn't like reporting to me.

• 8:33Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 8:33Speaker 01

  And I asked him to get back involved in a church. And I mean, these were things that they shouldn't have been that hard. And he would tell me they're so hard. He can't, he feels that he has no agency. And then a couple of weeks ago, he did come to me and say he's in AA, part of the steps he wanted to be, you know, more honest about something and that when he's been telling me he's sober from marijuana, actually, no, he's still been doing weed the whole time and talking to women the whole time. And I know my decisions are right.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  But he's also said that like, I'm abandoning him and that he's needed help and he's going through the darkest time in his life. And that I've just, like, his wife has abandoned him and I feel like, and that he's like, had to call the suicide hotline and all these things that I lay up at night in fear that he's going to harm himself and it will be on me, even just at least in my kids' eyes.

• 9:45Dr. John Delony?

  So let me reframe this one. Over and over and over again, he abandoned you.

• 9:53Dr. John Delony?

  And he abandoned his kids.

• 9:57Dr. John Delony?

  And he's forced your hand to go do the next right thing.

• 10:05Dr. John Delony?

  And so you get to decide every morning, not how you feel. Feelings are gonna do what feelings are gonna do. But you get to decide the pair of glasses you put on every morning to view this situation because it's a nightmare. Am I protecting my children and I'm protecting myself? And am I doing the next right thing in an impossible situation? And none of that's gonna feel good. Because, I mean, you're talking about him, but you've had this picture of a family, right?

• 10:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:47Dr. John Delony?

  You didn't blow that up.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:52Dr. John Delony?

  And you've spent the last however many years, like, think of just a family portrait. He shredded that thing and you've been trying to tape it together.

• 11:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 11:04Dr. John Delony?

  And every time you come home, it's more shredded. So if you decide finally just to put that, those shredded pieces of that photo in a dustbin and throw it in the trash, he can't sit on the sideline. I mean, he can, but can't sit there and yell at you for cleaning up a mess that he made. However heartbreaking that is, you can wear that, that, that set of glasses or you can put another set of glasses, which is, oh, poor him. I'm gonna sacrifice my kid's safety. I'm gonna sacrifice my safety. And

• 11:43Dr. John Delony?

  hopefully, um, for the 999th time, he'll do something different. And this isn't about love. This isn't about being respectful. This isn't about compassion. And I will ask you on behalf of all kids to fight like bloody hell for full custody. Especially for a season.

• 12:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, it's so hard.

• 12:08Dr. John Delony?

  I know it's hard. None of this is the way it should be. And, ugh, it is. Right? And so if you rely on your feelings to give you the next right move, you're gonna be trapped because you've been doing that a long time. Because none of this feels good.

• 12:29Speaker 01

  I'm just, I, I'm constantly like trying to talk logic to myself. I just, I wanna get to the point where I don't have this battle, like this war going on inside me.

• 12:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Where part of me is like, help him, help him. And the other part of me is like, you can't, you have to help your, you have to protect yourself and your kids. I just want it to be settled and stop being at war.

• 12:57Dr. John Delony?

  You may have to walk through it and get to the other side of it before you have any semblance of that kind of peace. Or let me, let me say it a more direct way. You can't save him. You don't have that kind of power.

• 13:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:14Dr. John Delony?

  You can appease him. You can make it to where he doesn't have to deal with the full consequences of his actions. And in turn, you take the consequences. You can do that. Your kids can take the consequences. They can do that. But you can't save him. None of us have that kind of power. And, and there's, there's a, there's a heartbreak there. I wanna save my wife. Right? I'm her husband. I wanna save her. I can make space. I can make margin. I can, I can do all sorts of things, but I can't, she's gotta make choices, right?

• 13:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 13:59Dr. John Delony?

  And so I don't know, I don't know on this side of going through a really hard season, if you're gonna have that peace. I think you have to put peace as a place you wanna get to.

• 14:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 14:11Dr. John Delony?

  And then know it's coming.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:15Dr. John Delony?

  And it's gonna be awful when you put the text messages in front of your attorney, where he's saying, if you do this, I'm gonna kill myself. If you do this, I'm gonna go smoke a bunch of weed and sleep with a bunch of people. Like, your attorney needs to see those texts. And your attorney's gonna use those texts in a court hearing.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:33Dr. John Delony?

  And you're gonna feel terrible. You're gonna feel awful. And he's gonna say things like, I can't believe you betrayed me or whatever, forgetting the fact that none of y'all would be here if he hadn't have betrayed you over and over and over again.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:46Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 14:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:48Dr. John Delony?

  And if he was calling me, I'd have so much compassion for him. I know he's sick. I know he's not, he's not well, right?

• 14:55Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:56Dr. John Delony?

  I get that. But how dare, I would tell him, how dare you drag your wife and your kids through this? Like, a man, what I would, what I, the, the image I have, and a, a true husband in this moment, a true father in this moment, dare I say, a true man in this moment, says, I need 90 days of inpatient. I'm over my head. I'm not well and everything I'm trying isn't working. But I do know this. I don't know what to do, but I do know I'm hurting y'all. And that ends here.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wish he would.

• 15:41Dr. John Delony?

  I know. And here's the thing, he won't. He's not going to. And if he goes and makes a decision to do, um, irreparable damage to himself, to somebody else, that won't, you'll feel it and you'll be devastated, of course. All of us will. But that won't, that won't be your fault. And I wanna encourage you, every time he makes a suicide threat, I call the crisis line. Every single time.

• 16:21Dr. John Delony?

  You're probably gonna have to get to a place where you block his number. All of this stuff is, is damn near impossible. It's hard. But that old saying, you've heard it a million times, you have to put your oxygen mask on first before you can help your kids and especially before you can help another adult who's self-destructing and blaming you for their self-destruction. My hope is, the next time he says, you're abandoning me,

• 16:56Dr. John Delony?

  your first impulse is to respond, no, I'm responding to how you abandoned us. But I know that's a tough, I know, I know, I know it's a tough leap. I know it's a tough leap. I don't see a path where you can do this by yourself. Do you have some women in your life that you trust who are wise, who will walk with you?

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yes. I, well, I have a really good, um, I kind of like say that they're my, my counselors, people close to me that I call and send screenshots of almost everything that happens. And I do follow their input.

• 17:36Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Um, having people that can see above the smoke when everything's on fire is really important to have in your life. It sounds wild to sometimes find yourself in a situation where you outsource your next decision. I do that regularly with folks. Right?

• 17:59Speaker 01

  I've had to.

• 18:01Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 18:01Speaker 01

  Sorry, go ahead.

• 18:01Dr. John Delony?

  I, I, I don't, I want, you might have to outsource, hey, I don't know the next right move here. And they're, and both of them or three of them are like, yeah, you gotta do this. But when you make that decision, I want you to say, I am choosing this. There's something, you, you lack ownership here. It, it's been taken from you. Agency is the nerd word. You lack agency in your own life. And part of you saying, I'm choosing this and this is hard. It's killing me. But I'm making this decision. Over time, you're, you, you will find yourself standing up taller and stronger. You'll realize you're stronger than you think you are right now.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 18:42Dr. John Delony?

  But there's something powerful about, no, I know what to do. And it's gonna be awful. But I know what to do. And I'm gonna sob my eyes out. But I know what to do. And there's gonna be a season where I can't control what this man who's really underwater is gonna say to my kids about me. And my goal is, when they turn 21, when they turn 25, that they look back and have a picture of a mom who just kept doing the impossible next right thing.

• 19:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, I want that.

• 19:26Dr. John Delony?

  How old are they?

• 19:28Speaker 01

  Nine, eight, five, and four.

• 19:34Dr. John Delony?

  I hate this for you.

• 19:37Dr. John Delony?

  I hate this for them. I hate this for everybody.

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 19:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you've heard me say this on the show before. There's a winter season and you're in it now. You're in a blizzard in the Antarctic.

• 19:53Dr. John Delony?

  It's not the time for warmth and peace. This is the time to just keep putting your head down and keep walking forward.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 20:00Dr. John Delony?

  And you get to decide what you do next. If you get off this call and you're like, you know what? I'm tearing up the divorce papers. We're gonna try to make this work. Own it. Say, this is the choice. I'm an adult. I'm not gonna tell you what to do here. I want you to have the empowerment of making your next right choice.

• 20:17Dr. John Delony?

  Thank you for the call. We come back. A couple asks how to disinvite one of the mothers to their wedding without causing yet more drama. This will be a good one. We'll be right back.

• 20:30Dr. John Delony?

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• 21:15Dr. John Delony?

  Head to ponchooutdoors.com/daloni to find your favorite school and grab your shirts. Sign up with your email for a special offer, and if you get a post-purchase survey, tell them that Daloni sent you. That's ponchooutdoors.com/daloni, or click the link in the description.

• 21:35Dr. John Delony?

  When I'm cooking at home, chopping up vegetables, trimming a venison or T-bone steak, or when I'm feeling a little bit extra dramatic and cutting up a nice fruit tray, I want to know the knives I'm using will actually do what they're supposed to do. Cut well. This is why I bought my wife the culinary kitchen knives from Montana Knife Company, and it's why I use them as much as she does. Montana Knife Company knives are razor sharp, right out of the box. They're balanced, and they do what they're supposed to do over and over again. They're knives perfected. Montana Knife Company makes their knives right here in the United States, and years of experience go into every blade. They come with a free lifetime sharpening guarantee, which I've used. I've sent them off and got all my knives right back razor sharp again.

• 22:20Dr. John Delony?

  And these knives will still be sharp when my great-grandkids are cooking with them. Head to mkc.com to see what's available right now. And one thing you should know, Montana Knife Company knives sell out fast. Sign up for email and text alerts so you can be among the first to know of new releases. That's mkc.com. All right, we're back. Let's go to Toronto, Ontario, and we're gonna talk to a couple here. I'm gonna pick up Ella first. Ella, you there?

• 22:49Speaker 01

  Hi, yes, I am.

• 22:50Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome. All right, and I'm gonna pick up Chris. Hey, Chris.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Hi, how you doing?

• 22:56Dr. John Delony?

  I'm doing great, great, great. Okay, so are y'all in the same house?

• 23:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 23:00Speaker 01

  No, we're in different cities.

• 23:01Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, great. So y'all are in different cities.

• 23:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:04Dr. John Delony?

  So, um, who wrote in?

• 23:08Speaker 01

  I was the one who wrote in, actually. We kinda did it as a joint thing, though, but I was the one to like type and submit it.

• 23:14Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so whoever wants to go first, go first. What's going on?

• 23:17Speaker 02

  Yep, so, yeah, thanks for having us on. We're big fans.

• 23:21Dr. John Delony?

  I appreciate you. I appreciate you calling.

• 23:23Speaker 02

  So, yeah, over the past year, my mother's just been creating lots of problems in our relationship. She's just always been looking for problems in Ella. And she'll come and talk to me about these random theories that she's made up about. It can be really any aspect of Ella, that she'll just rant to me about them. And I'll tell them like, no, this is, like, it's just not based in reality. It's not true. But she'll just continue to repeat these things to me like day after day. And, you know, once it gets to the point where we have to set up boundaries and say like, okay, let's distance ourselves a bit,

• 24:05Speaker 02

  that's when she has this pattern of apologizing and trying to roll things back so that she can like come closer to us again. And inevitably, every time then, let me let her closer in again, she'll just resume her old ways. And things escalated eventually where she just blew up at Ella in public and just kind of verbally attacked her for two hours. And it was at that point where we're like, okay, we just can't have her around. We don't even feel comfortable with her at our wedding, because we can't trust that she won't be causing problems on that day either.

• 24:46Dr. John Delony?

  No, you can guarantee it.

• 24:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:50Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. So, Chris, is it all right if I challenge you a little bit? Is that okay?

• 24:56Speaker 02

  Of course.

• 24:56Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:59Dr. John Delony?

  So I'm assuming y'all are getting married, so y'all are engaged now?

• 25:02Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 25:03Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's just over a month out.

• 25:04Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. This is just guy to guy, okay? I don't care who, whether it's my 10-year-old daughter, my dad, my mom, I don't care who it is. Nobody's gonna berate my wife for two hours.

• 25:23Dr. John Delony?

  Where were you in that moment? After 30 seconds or 60 seconds that you don't step in and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is over?

• 25:32Speaker 02

  So, yeah, I was there. I was trying to kind of like tone her down or get my mother like under control, but it just, like, I just was not able to. And my dad was there as well. They're not, my parents are not together, but he was there and just on the sidelines. And, yeah, I think I really just let that go on for too long.

• 26:03Dr. John Delony?

  You're gonna have to make, and Ella, I don't wanna speak for you, so tell me I'm an idiot. But, Chris, you're gonna have to

• 26:12Dr. John Delony?

  you're gonna have to make a commitment, an apologetic commitment to Ella that from here out, nobody ever again

• 26:22Dr. John Delony?

  will disrespect you. That makes sense, because right now, I'm imagining if I'm you, Ella, I'm still feeling like I'm second place to this lady.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Actually, no, just because before and after, when she like verbally attacked me, he was really good about it, and like afterwards, he promised that that would never happen again. And he's been wonderful, like, you know, like putting me first, like prioritizing me and all of this. It was just part of that conversation, like the two-hour like beratement and all that, was us trying to like get through to her in terms of like having her see the light and like trying to resolve things. But it just didn't go anywhere, because it's as if she's operating like just in a different reality.

• 27:04Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, so let's never try to get her to see the light again, because she's not interested in seeing the light, and she might not even be able to. She's interested in one thing.

• 27:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:13Dr. John Delony?

  Keeping her precious son hers, not somebody else's.

• 27:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 27:20Dr. John Delony?

  And so the heartbreak here is, for you, Chris, and you, Ella, is everybody wants their mom to, like, I mean, my mom regularly tells me that if me and my wife ever broke up, they're definitely team her, 100%. But like, everyone wants their mom to approve of the person they're gonna marry. That's like human 101, right? I get that. Y'all are gonna have to grieve the fact that it will not happen in your life.

• 27:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:48Dr. John Delony?

  Like, the fact that you're even entertaining that she's coming to this thing.

• 27:54Dr. John Delony?

  She's got one goal in mind, and that's destruction of this relationship.

• 27:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, she's basically said as much.

• 28:02Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I mean, so it's less about...

• 28:07Dr. John Delony?

  Let me say this way. I don't see any way y'all are causing drama here. You're simply responding to it.

• 28:16Dr. John Delony?

  And I would recommend not using overly therapeutic language like we have to put up more boundaries. Like, I would just say, I'm not gonna have somebody at my wedding who's trying to destroy my wedding. I'm not gonna have somebody at my wedding who hates my wife.

• 28:35Dr. John Delony?

  And so, as heartbreaking as it is, you're not welcome at the wedding. And that's not you causing drama, that is you responding to it.

• 28:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:47Dr. John Delony?

  And I hate this for both of you. I really do.

• 28:51Speaker 02

  We're just like, like practically with moving forward with this, which is what we know is the right thing to do. We're just, we're just dreading like, having to deal with, you know, like, the rest of her family who, you know, they're, they're traveling, they haven't seen them in so long. And like, we just don't know how to break that news to them of like, this is what's been going on, and this is why she's not here. And we're just afraid that, you know, we don't want her at the wedding, because we don't want it to like, crash the day and ruin the day. But now, we don't want all the family, just the whole day asking like, where is she, you know, where is your mother, what's happened?

• 29:33Dr. John Delony?

  Every family dynamic is different. And so, I'll leave that for y'all. I would send something to my mom in writing, and probably call, and say, this is on its way. And that conversation should be two minutes, max. It's not a discussion, it's not an argument, it is a statement, and then I'm gonna let you go. And then y'all decide whether you wanna send extended family email, or call each one of them, or what, I mean, y'all can, every family's different. My guess is, much of the family will be like, yeah, we totally get this. All right. But maybe not, maybe not. Maybe they'll be totally team mom, and it'll just be all kind of dominoes falling, who knows? Sorry, Ella, I cut you off, go ahead.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  No, sorry, I kept cutting you off. Um, I was just trying to add that it's tricky as well, because Chris still lives with his mom, until like, like, once we're married and all that. So, it's tricky as well, because he hears about it like, every day from her.

• 30:32Dr. John Delony?

  Chris, move out, brother. Go find a buddy's couch to crash on for a month. Go get a 30 day lease on an apartment. Get out of there, man.

• 30:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's, that's what it, that's what it seems like I'm gonna have to do.

• 30:45Dr. John Delony?

  Well, I mean, and, and by the way, this is a conversation, Chris, that you have to have with your mom.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 30:53Dr. John Delony?

  And so, since you live there, when you're packing your stuff up, you can sit down and look her in the eye and say, you're not welcome at the wedding. And I know this is hard on you, this is very hard on me. But you're not gonna be welcome at the wedding. I wish you the best. I'm gonna go marry the love of my life, Ella.

• 31:14Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it will, it will make it so much easier when it's not just in the, in the day to day.

• 31:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. But this is taking up, I mean, you open your eyes and you think about this. Before you go to bed, you think about this. The, the, what's the old saying, conflict deferred is conflict amplified. The longer you don't have this conversation, the worse it's getting.

• 31:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:41Dr. John Delony?

  And you're, you're the one paying the price for it. You're just waking up every morning, boom, take a shot of poison. Right before bed, take a shot of poison.

• 31:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's, that's really, that's really how it is. Like, it just has taken up so much of our mental space. And it's such a busy season, like, preparing for any wedding.

• 31:59Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 31:59Speaker 02

  And

• 32:00Dr. John Delony?

  And forget busy, this is an awesome time. Y'all are about to do the, I, what I, I'm biased, but what I think is the awesomest thing a person can do, and that's commit the rest of their life to another person. Y'all are about to, like, go on the grandest adventure of your life, and it's gonna have enough crap to it. You don't need this. You need someone trying to shoot holes in the boat from the inside.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, definitely.

• 32:27Dr. John Delony?

  So, for the sake of your soul, for the sake of your own emotional well-being, for the sake of getting some, I don't want you to get through this wedding. And I'm kind of on a high right now. I just came, I just went, a buddy of mine's daughter got married, and I just flew back in from Texas yesterday. I gotta tell you, man, it was incredible.

• 32:50Dr. John Delony?

  It was joy on top of joy, on top of laughter, on top of, the DJ pulled out some of the oldest OG rap songs. And we, I hope there's not a video of me dancing, because I'm terrible at dancing. But dude, I was shaking like a salt shaker. Why? Because it was awesome. I don't want you to get through this wedding. I want this to be a magical time for y'all.

• 33:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:17Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, I think as, as long as she's still, like, in, in the picture, that's really what's like, preventing us from actually looking forward to it. Because yeah, like, we want to plan and, and be joyful about it. But then there's always this, this problem in the background of like, oh, this is, this is an issue, this is not getting better.

• 33:38Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so, so

• 33:39Speaker 02

  We know the patterns.

• 33:41Dr. John Delony?

  You have to throw your shoulders back and stand up, and take charge of what you're gonna do next. And part of that is, you can't keep eating her food, and using her laundry, and using her electricity and water. You gotta go to your own place. And part of that is, I'm gonna, it's gonna cost us some money, it's gonna cost me some inconvenience, it's gonna be a pain, whatever. But, I, I, I just, I can't be around somebody for five minutes who's talking about my wife negatively. I can't imagine living with it.

• 34:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:24Dr. John Delony?

  Know what I mean? And by the way, Chris, I'm making this sound so simple, none of this is simple. This is, this is so hard. And you probably know better than I do, that the moment you do this, and you pull the trigger on, you're not welcome to come to my wedding. Um, you've done nothing but run my fiance down for the last year. We're out.

• 34:45Dr. John Delony?

  I wish you the absolute best. And I'm moving out today. Um, you, you know as well as I do, that maybe, man, she may pull every pin on every grenade, right? And then Ella, you're gonna have to be a grown up, and you might have to block her, so she's not texting you anymore. Chris, you may have to block her, so she's not texting you anymore.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:11Dr. John Delony?

  Right? I wouldn't wish this on anybody.

• 35:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, I guess it's also just, like, letting go of the

• 35:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 35:23Speaker 02

  The image we had of, of how we

• 35:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Even, even just, aside from, from her, like, that we thought we wouldn't, we wouldn't have to deal with, you know, talking to family about this, and all the other work that that's gonna cause, like.

• 35:38Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but, but you're letting the weight of the emotional experience just bury you.

• 35:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:47Dr. John Delony?

  Make a list of the four people you have to call, or the two people you have to call, and let them know. If you think other people will need to know, go ahead and reach out to them. You own what you wanna own. But it's not your job to go make sure everybody's okay, and everybody gets their side of the story. You know without a doubt, your mom's gonna say things that are not true about you and about Ella, to her family. They get to be grown ups and decide, this is just like her, or then we're not coming to the wedding either. All right? They get, they're grown ups, they get to make that choice. And you can't, you sitting here in this moment, trying to anticipate what might happen, and who might respond, and this person might like it, and this uncle's gonna get mad,

• 36:31Dr. John Delony?

  and this uncle's cousins have already got plane tickets. Dude, that is, your mom blew the thing up. And now, all you're doing is trying to clear the site.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 36:43Dr. John Delony?

  Right? And so, it's like somebody, a year ago, came and planted flowers, and you're trying to clear the site, because you don't have a house anymore. And you're worried that they're gonna be in the street, being like, don't touch my flowers. And it's like, dude, this house is gone. Right? It's gone. And your mom blew it up the moment she attacked Ella.

• 37:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. She really did.

• 37:08Dr. John Delony?

  And you can't control her pattern. The only thing you can control, is you giving into the fantasy that this conversation, she's finally gonna change.

• 37:17Speaker 02

  Right.

• 37:17Dr. John Delony?

  This apology, she's finally gonna mean it.

• 37:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, I guess the only, yeah, the only way forward is just to

• 37:30Dr. John Delony?

  Right through it.

• 37:30Speaker 03

  Well, do what we know is right.

• 37:32Dr. John Delony?

  Right, right through it.

• 37:34Speaker 03

  Yeah, and you know, yeah, we can't control my mother, but we can't control

• 37:39Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 37:39Speaker 03

  The family either.

• 37:41Dr. John Delony?

  Nope.

• 37:41Speaker 03

  You know.

• 37:42Dr. John Delony?

  And so here's what looking, moving forward looks like. Chris, you, and again, I'll put this on you because you're, it's your family. And you are the man standing up for the woman who's about to be your wife. You make a list of who you need to call and just go down that list. And keep every call as direct and like simple. And if they're like, wait, what happened? I'm not, I'm not going to talk about it. My mom is not in favor of this wedding and she's made her opinions very well known. And so we've asked her not to attend. Just wanted y'all to know, we can't wait to see y'all. And we understand that if you don't want to come now, we understand, but we hope you'll be there.

• 38:22Dr. John Delony?

  Period. We're not, I'm not going into any gossip. We're not going into drama. What happened? Tell me what happened? No, it's been, it's been an ugly year and I'm through talking about it. Just wanted to let y'all know, right? And so it's you just owning this thing. It's been very short. And with your mom, this has got to be a quick conversation.

• 38:41Dr. John Delony?

  Because you know, she'll apologize, she'll sob, she'll tell you that you're breaking her heart, all these things. You already know the script she's gonna run.

• 38:51Dr. John Delony?

  And you also know that after that script is run, there's not going to be any convincing her. There's not going to be any looping back around.

• 38:59Dr. John Delony?

  And so say what you need to say in a concise way, and then you exit her home.

• 39:06Dr. John Delony?

  None of this is joyful or fun. It's miserable.

• 39:11Dr. John Delony?

  But I want you guys to not

• 39:14Dr. John Delony?

  just get through this wedding. I want you all excited

• 39:20Dr. John Delony?

  to be doing some, this miraculous thing called

• 39:25Dr. John Delony?

  sharing your life with each other.

• 39:28Dr. John Delony?

  Wish I had, I wish I had better news for you guys. Thank y'all so much for calling and I wish y'all the best of luck. If you'll do, send us some wedding photos and

• 39:37Dr. John Delony?

  Kelly will probably get one or two of them tattooed on her some self somewhere, but we'll post them up for you. Thank you guys so much for calling. We come back, a man asks if he should try to repair a broken friendship before his wedding, or just let it go. We'll be right back.

• 39:53Dr. John Delony?

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• 40:33Dr. John Delony?

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• 41:14Dr. John Delony?

  Go to capstonewellness.com/deloney and click on Vine and Root to learn more. That's capstonewellness.com/deloney.

• 41:24Dr. John Delony?

  All right, before we go out to Phoenix, Arizona, don't forget the greatest marriage retreat on planet earth, Money and Marriage. It's October 22nd through 24th here in Nashville. It will sell out. You and your spouse, put away responsibilities for a weekend and come spend a weekend with me and my great friend, Rachel Cruz, and some amazing special guests. We're going to talk about sex. We're going to talk about communication. We're going to talk about conflict. We're going to talk about how to build the best marriage you possibly can. Come out here to Nashville. It's going to be incredible. Tickets are 749 bucks for the couple, for both of you for that price.

• 42:04Dr. John Delony?

  That's about half or a quarter of what marriage retreats cost, especially one that's as big and awesome as the one we're putting on here. Get your ticket today at ramsaysolutions.com/events or click the link in the show notes. Hope to see you there. All right, let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona and talk to A A Ron. What's up, Aaron?

• 42:24Speaker 03

  How's it going?

• 42:25Dr. John Delony?

  All right, brother. How are you, man?

• 42:28Speaker 03

  Not too bad.

• 42:29Dr. John Delony?

  What's up?

• 42:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I was just, really just curious, you know, I had this friendship for going on 22 years. Since we were really little kids, getting married, you know, coming up here in the, in 2027. And the friendship itself is kind of just been falling apart over the last few years. And, you know, it's, I think for a normal friend, it probably would be like, you know, whatever, let it go. But you know, this is almost like a brotherhood. And so just kind of wondering, you know, is it, to what lengths should I go to try and repair this? Or, you know, kind of just let it go?

• 43:14Dr. John Delony?

  You used two contradicting phrases. So dig into it. One is it's falling apart.

• 43:22Dr. John Delony?

  And one is, this is my brother. So tell me what falling apart means.

• 43:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, just to give kind of the backstory, you know, so the, the woman that I'm actually going to marry, we had a little break, you know, we had a rough patch a couple of years ago and I really needed support from the fellas. And didn't really receive it at the time, you know, this would have been a few years ago and, you know, namely him, he kind of just fell off the map for me like, you know, and, and I kind of confronted him and asked him, you know, why that was. And he said that he just didn't know, you know, I've always been someone he looks up to and he doesn't know that, you know, how to help me in that situation. So that was kind of the first strike.

• 44:11Speaker 03

  Fast forward a little bit.

• 44:13Dr. John Delony?

  Let me pause you, let me think through this for a second.

• 44:17Dr. John Delony?

  So

• 44:20Dr. John Delony?

  you had a need

• 44:23Dr. John Delony?

  and your friend that, I mean, at that time had 18 or 19 years of history with you. After you talked to him, your friend said, I don't, I don't have the skills to help in this situation. I don't know what to do.

• 44:38Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:38Dr. John Delony?

  So if I think about it, let's take it out of the, now, guys can show up and be like, dude, I don't want to talk about it, but I'll sit here and I'll play video games with you. I'll, I'll drink a beer with you. Like, like, there's that, right? But

• 44:52Dr. John Delony?

  I'm thinking of if I called a buddy for investing advice and he just quit returning my calls and finally I confronted him and he was like, dude, I don't, I don't know anything about investing. I'm not good at it. Like, I want your family to be, like, I wouldn't, my first thought wouldn't be, that's a strike.

• 45:08Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 45:08Dr. John Delony?

  That would be a, I've got friends in my life that when I have relationship issues with my wife that I go to, but I don't go to my closest friends for everything. You get what I'm saying?

• 45:18Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 45:18Dr. John Delony?

  Now, my closest friends, if I called them and said, dude, me and my wife are in a blow up right now.

• 45:25Dr. John Delony?

  They would be like, I'll come over, right? So there is that, right? But I, so anyway, keep going.

• 45:32Speaker 03

  Yeah. So, so fast forward a little bit, kind of a weird situation. And so we hadn't, I hadn't really heard from him in a while. And he kind of does this thing where when he starts dating, it really falls off the map again.

• 45:44Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 45:45Speaker 03

  I think we all know guys like that.

• 45:47Dr. John Delony?

  That's dude 101. Yeah, yeah.

• 45:49Speaker 03

  Right. But so his, his parents had actually called me and been like, hey, you know, we're, you're his, like an older brother to him. Cause I'm a little bit older, like you're like an older brother to him. He's always looked up to you. We don't like this girl. Will you get involved?

• 46:06Dr. John Delony?

  Good gosh, dude, why are they triangulating you like that?

• 46:12Speaker 03

  Right. So it was a, so that was another added weight to where it was like, I don't really want to get involved because it's not my business.

• 46:18Dr. John Delony?

  Well, and even if I do, I'm still team him. I'm not going to be team him, his parents.

• 46:24Speaker 03

  Right.

• 46:25Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean? That's, I said, all right, whatever. All right. So keep going. Sorry you got dragged into that, man.

• 46:31Speaker 03

  It's all good. And then, you know, most recently he's started dating a different girl.

• 46:38Speaker 03

  And we, you know, we've had a really tight knit group. Most of us have been friends for 20 years, 15 years. And she just doesn't jive with the group. So now, you know, essentially she's completely taken him out of where he's not even being kind of the same guy. But he still wants to, you know, call me and text me and, you know, send over, you know, Instagram, things like that. And, but for me, it's like, man, I don't even, you know, five years ago, you were the best man at my wedding. And now it's like, I don't, you know, I don't even know if you're going to be there. You know what I mean?

• 47:13Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 03

  So that's kind of the, the situation that we're in.

• 47:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. How old are you?

• 47:19Speaker 03

  27.

• 47:20Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 47:22Dr. John Delony?

  I get, here's a couple of things just rolling through my head. Okay.

• 47:26Dr. John Delony?

  Thing number one is you're in the, what I call the first window and it's the worst. And that is when childhood buddies, when we all start getting our first jobs and we all start getting serious, somebody's going to get married, somebody's going to have their first kid. And you start to realize

• 47:43Dr. John Delony?

  what was a friendship of you live next door, or we sit by each other in class that blossomed into, oh, I know that guy in middle school and then in high school. And then, as you said, it turns into a brotherhood, like we're ride or die, we go to the same college, whatever. It just starts to, people just start taking different paths. And that stinks, man.

• 48:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:05Dr. John Delony?

  It just does, right? Like one of my greatest friends on planet earth ever. And when I say ride or die, I mean literally ride or die. I haven't talked to him in years.

• 48:16Dr. John Delony?

  And it makes me sad. I miss him. It was awesome. But also, our lives just went different ways.

• 48:21Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 48:21Dr. John Delony?

  And so I don't talk about it on the show. Like, it was a magic season for me. And it's just different now. That's a bummer, right? It's heartbreaking. And so that might be the case here. The way you're, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The way you're talking about him is,

• 48:40Dr. John Delony?

  he needs to do and say what you want him to do or say. And he needs to like somebody that's gonna keep him a part of this thing. And he like, it feels like you have a lot of opinions on how he should be living his life. Instead of, no, that's my buddy.

• 49:00Dr. John Delony?

  And, he's my buddy, dot, dot, dot, and he's an idiot with that girl. Or, he's my buddy, dot, dot, dot, and yeah, he took this job. I can't believe that. What a moron. But he's still coming over to my house for nachos, right?

• 49:10Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 49:11Dr. John Delony?

  It feels like you've got a path for him lined out. And when he doesn't live up to that path, you're like, wanna blame him for not living up to your picture of what he should be doing. You get what I'm saying? That may not be the case, but that's the way I'm hearing it.

• 49:26Speaker 03

  Sure. And I think that that kind of, that, that almost reflects what we're seeing on the other side too. So it's almost like, you know, cause he, he's gone completely different from when we knew him. So it's like, you know, I can absolutely see that. We've got kinda two sides that are like, you know, we want him to go this way. She wants him to go that way. So I understand what you're saying.

• 49:48Dr. John Delony?

  But also, I mean, y'all, y'all were really tight when you were 15, 16, 17, 18. Y'all are 27. He's 25. Like, there's just, life just, like, takes us in different places.

• 50:04Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 50:05Dr. John Delony?

  And I remember, dude, I remember, I remember, oh, so and so's dating somebody. But I also remember, I had a core group of buddies. I remember one time, gosh, I think it was Paul. Paul was the, was the, one of the best people I've ever known. I haven't talked to him in years. I can't believe I even just thought of him. Um, he's the, literally the best. But I think it was him that one time, we're all sitting around just gossiping and talking trash about each other. And he said,

• 50:36Dr. John Delony?

  "Do you really not want him to go be with her instead of us? Like, of course, we want him here, but I want my friends to find girls that, like, make them not wanna be around us anymore." You know what I mean? And we were all like, "Oh, yeah, I guess that's kinda fair." You know what I mean?

• 50:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

• 50:54Dr. John Delony?

  There's something about, like, I miss the guy sitting here, and I miss his, what he brings to the table, uh, literally. And also, man, if he meets somebody that knocks his socks off, it's kinda awesome too.

• 51:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 51:10Dr. John Delony?

  And I guess in a perfect world, like, everyone all marries somebody, and all of the spouses are great friends, and we're all great friends, and this one big happy family goes on for another 50 years. That'd be awesome. It's just not, it's just not reality. You know what I mean? It's just not how the world works.

• 51:27Speaker 03

  Right.

• 51:27Dr. John Delony?

  So are you gonna invite him to your wedding or no?

• 51:30Speaker 03

  Um, I'd,

• 51:34Speaker 03

  leaning toward yes. Um, and, you know, just kinda seeing how it goes.

• 51:45Dr. John Delony?

  Do you think he's gonna go there and act a fool and ruin it?

• 51:51Speaker 03

  No, it's, it's, I mean, she doesn't, she doesn't jive with anybody. I mean, seriously, like, a constant, like, you know, there's even, one of the first meetings, my mom is trying to show her pictures of us when we were four or five years old. And she's just looking away, doesn't care. Like, you know, this is like a, that's more what we just don't, you know, you don't want somebody there on your wedding day that's gonna,

• 52:17Speaker 03

  you know, make my wife upset. You know what I mean?

• 52:21Dr. John Delony?

  I, I guess the question I would ask you and your about-to-be new wife, why in the world would you outsource your feelings to a stranger?

• 52:32Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 52:33Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean? Like, this is y'all's wedding. Dude, this is amazing. Like, my old buddy's new girlfriend doesn't get a vote on my joy that day. Now, if she's gonna like, get all drunk and trash the place, or start screaming and object or whatever, yeah, you're not welcome.

• 52:51Dr. John Delony?

  But I, she gets to be an adult, whether she wants to, A, come, and B, have a good attitude about it. And that's between, you know, you know what I'm saying?

• 53:00Speaker 03

  I do, I do.

• 53:03Dr. John Delony?

  I'll tell you this. I invited buddies, friends to my wedding that were of varying degrees, uh, that at one time, we were like, I mean,

• 53:15Dr. John Delony?

  the tight as a chain. And that had morphed and shifted over the years. And some friends were literally guys, I would pick up the phone and call if I needed help. And some folks I invited, and I wanted to be a part of that special day, almost in honor of the friendship we used to have.

• 53:31Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying? Like, it was in memoriam too, if you will. Like, we've been through enough. I want you a part of this thing. You're not somebody I call. A few of my buddies, who I love to death, I don't want them around my kids, right? Like, they, they would go to war for me, but I don't want them around my kids. Like, but I, there was just an honoring of friendship there. If you think he's gonna come and be a distraction,

• 53:57Dr. John Delony?

  then, but it sounds like he's still trying to reach out, still trying to be your friend.

• 54:02Speaker 03

  Right.

• 54:05Dr. John Delony?

  I feel like I'm missing something here. Am I missing something?

• 54:09Speaker 03

  Well, it's the, it's the degree of the change that's happened. So it's like, you know, we used to, you know, have a lot of, a lot of good times and things. And it, she, she's just come in and he's just a completely different guy.

• 54:24Dr. John Delony?

  When you say completely different guy, what does that mean?

• 54:27Speaker 03

  I mean, his, you know, sense of humor has changed. His, you know, his willingness to, you know, she, so basically, you know, not to give away too much of her information, but she obviously has a checkered past with alcohol. And so he, now by proximity, is, it's not that he cannot drink. When he's alone with us, like, I saw him for the first time recently, and it was just him and the guys. Like, we had a blast. Like, we had some beers, we had fun, all that stuff. But as soon as, you know, he, it's, he's, he knows he's being kind of watched, then it's no beers, no fun, sit quietly.

• 55:08Speaker 03

  So it's kind of, it's, it's a, kinda almost a Jekyll and Hyde situation, depending on whether she's present or not.

• 55:13Dr. John Delony?

  I guess, I guess I would, I would flip it around. And so I'm thinking about the other side of this thing. Like, you know, your buddy, a 21-year friendship, is dating a woman who used to struggle with alcohol. And he doesn't drink when she's around, which is a way of honoring her, then dude, we're gonna extra include him.

• 55:32Dr. John Delony?

  We're gonna put the, we're gonna put the drinks in the other room. We're gonna be extra hospitable. Cause we love our buddy, and he's trying to be honoring of this person. You get, like, you get what I'm saying? Like, there's, this goes both ways. I guess that's what I'm saying. And if,

• 55:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I understand.

• 55:45Dr. John Delony?

  If he's being deceitful, if, if she thinks he's just sober now too, and he gets with you guys and just, like, gets after it, then call him out on being deceitful, right? Cause you know this relationship's not gonna last, cause he's being two different people.

• 55:59Speaker 03

  Right.

• 55:59Dr. John Delony?

  But, man, there, there's just a, I don't know, there's, there's a way to look at what he's doing and be like, he's not the same guy. And there's also another way to be like, man, he loves that woman, and we're gonna help him love her well.

• 56:12Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 56:13Dr. John Delony?

  You get what I'm saying?

• 56:14Speaker 03

  I do, I do. And I appreciate that perspective.

• 56:18Dr. John Delony?

  But all that comes down to, if y'all can't sit down and have a conversation anymore, that's tough, right? Or if he feels like every time y'all sit down, he's, like you said, like the little brother, and he's getting judged by big brother. That's not ever been much of a friendship anyway. That's just been,

• 56:33Dr. John Delony?

  like, you kinda tell everybody what to do, right? You're like Johnny of Cobra Kai. Like, it's your dojo, right? Instead of, no, this is all of our dojo. We all, we play a role here. I, I just, I hold friendship sacred and, like, super sacred. And I also, because I hold them so sacred, I have to give space for, everybody changes. People have different values, and people make different life choices, and people go through addictions and divorces, and all sorts of different things that are different than my life. And so I can't walk around with expecting everybody to

• 57:15Dr. John Delony?

  live in a cookie cutter, like, you will be this kind of friend for me. I can do that, but I'm just gonna have very few friends. And I'm gonna increasingly cut people out. Or I can say, no, no, no, I value you. I like you. I like, value you as a person. Come on in. And let's hang out.

• 57:34Dr. John Delony?

  And how can I love you well, right? Like, as my buddy. And so I, I don't know, I, if it was me, I would invite him to the wedding. That's just me. And if his girlfriend wants to just fold her arms and sit grumpily in the background, she gets to, she gets to decide to have a boring night or a miserable night. But this is a wedding, dude. We're gonna cut loose and have a good time. And hopefully, you and your wife won't be, like, looking past each other to see if your old buddy's girlfriend is having a good time. That's for her. She's a grown up. Y'all gotta set the table for her. She gets to decide whether she eats or not. So that's my thought on it. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back.

• 58:13Dr. John Delony?

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• 59:25Dr. John Delony?

  All right, we're back. Kelly has been messing around on social media. What'd you find? Ah geez, I'm nervous.

• 59:31Speaker 04

  No, it's actually, I just have that I want your opinion on. And again, I take this with a grain of salt because I found it on social media.

• 59:36Dr. John Delony?

  Every, everything on social media is true.

• 59:40Speaker 04

  It's true, 100%. So it's called the 90 second theory.

• 59:43Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  Is that something you're familiar with?

• 59:44Dr. John Delony?

  Nope, but I can already tell you it's stupid.

• 59:46Speaker 04

  It might be.

• 59:47Dr. John Delony?

  But go ahead. I don't know what it is.

• 59:48Speaker 04

  I just want to know if there's any truth to it.

• 59:50Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 59:51Speaker 04

  All right. Neuroscientists say, I don't know which ones, it just says in general, they say that an emotion only stays in your body for about 90 seconds. That's how long the chemical reaction lasts. After that, if you're still feeling it, then you're the one keeping it alive. Sometimes it's not the emotion hurting you anymore, it's the way you keep reliving it. You're allowed to feel everything, but you don't have to stay there. Let it rise up, let it pass, don't keep replaying the moment that caused it, let it go. Is there any truth to, I know you're not a neuroscientist, but is there any truth to that?

• 1:00:28Dr. John Delony?

  If we, if what you, you just gave what I think is the perfect cancer of social media. Okay. So if I reverse what you read, that is wisdom as old as time. It's in all the ancient wisdom. It's in the Stoic literature, it's in proverbs, it's in, Michael Singer wrote a great book. It is, you have this thought, you have this feeling, and it is powerful. And you get to choose whether to meditate on it or let it slowly pass, right? And you get to choose what you do next. That is ancient wisdom.

• 1:01:11Dr. John Delony?

  Then what social media does is A, it layers on the current currency of our time. So I heard a talk by somebody and it was like, oh gosh, A, I got convicted because I'm guilty of this. But they said, like, for all of human history, everyone just thought gods did everything. Gods plural. So they would, the way they would enter into conversations was, the gods told me. And then it became, in the Enlightenment, science says, right? And we still have vestiges of that. The current ethos of right this now is neuroscience says. And you put that phrase in front of anything, and you can say whatever the hell you want about anything.

• 1:01:56Dr. John Delony?

  Neuroscience says, adults should drive big wheels. And like.

• 1:02:00Speaker 04

  I would actually be totally for that.

• 1:02:02Dr. John Delony?

  I think actually neuroscience should say that, actually. But like, you get what I'm saying? So then there's this, I honestly don't know enough about the biochemistry of emotions. It doesn't initially pass my smell test simply because that assumes that all emotions are, are, I'm trying to think of a non-dorky way to say this, all emotions are run by one chemical response that only has 90 seconds. And that's, I don't, come on. But like, the idea that yes, feelings are huge and heavy and/or joyful and whatever, and that you get to manufacture whether you're going to replay it, whether you're going

• 1:02:46Dr. John Delony?

  to meditate on all that, that is very true. The 90 second thing cannot confirm, can't deny, so I can't say it's stupid. It might, it might be totally true. It doesn't pass my smell test, but I do like the sentiment, which is, the feeling I have right now will pass. The action that I take next may have serious consequences, and I get to choose that next action. Is that fair?

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I just saw, and it was this, the whole gist of the post was five theories that'll change your life or something like that. And it was all these different, and I use the term theories real, like real loosely. And that was one of them. And I was like, um, I mean, again, I saw it on social media, so I'm pretty sure it was BS, but I was like, is this a theory that I've never heard of, you know, in this neuroscience-y world, 90 second, the 92nd theory? But my thought process, my thought was, this is a social media thing, and this proves that you just can't read something on social media and be like, oh, that's.

• 1:03:45Dr. John Delony?

  This is one of those things, some things I believe need the weight of, neuroscientists say this about, fill in the blank. This is one of those things that is such deep wisdom, it doesn't need that tag on the front, right? It doesn't need that prefix of neuroscience says. The idea that you can't control your feelings, but you can control what happens next, you can control whether you just keep repeating the story, you can control, that's a powerful sentiment, and it needs no five theories to, it doesn't need any of that. It just needs somebody to sit with you and say, all right, what are we going to do next? Hey, keep doing, I like this, Kelly. Find other cool stuff on the internets. This will be fun. And by the way, if I'm completely wrong, if you are a neuroscientist and there is a

• 1:04:30Dr. John Delony?

  92nd rule, and it's some sort of, ah geez, some sort of adrenaline, I'm just going to get mad now. Love you guys, bye.