Masterclass: How to Deal With a Cheating Spouse

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

• 0:05Speaker 00

  My wife, one of my best friends, had over a year-long affair.

• 0:08Speaker 01

  I'm worried that my husband may be having an emotional affair with my best friend.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  I had a one-night stand or a hookup, I guess, with her stepmother.

• 0:18Speaker 01

  And I saw that he was on a dating site, so I catfished him.

• 0:22Dr. John Delony?

  No way.

• 0:28Dr. John Delony?

  Welcome to the Deloney Mixtape. This is a new show that I've put together because you asked for it. Here's what it is. It's topic-based episodes that we compile calls about a specific issue that you're facing in your life that will help you develop a roadmap, not feel so alone, right? And give you some steps that you can take in your own life. And so whether it's about infidelity, whether it's about exercise and nutrition, whether it's about family members cutting each other off, or any number of countless topic-based issues, we're compiling a group of calls into a specific episode just for you.

• 1:12Dr. John Delony?

  This is not designed for you to gawk and ooh and ah. It's designed for you, if you're struggling with a particular thing, or you have someone in your life who's struggling with a particular thing, to listen to other people's experiences and to get the next right steps for you and your family. So, the first episode of the Deloney Mixtape is about infidelity. So many folks reach out who've got spouses who are cheating on them, husbands, wives. This first episode is about what to do in the aftermath of finding out your spouse has cheated on you. Check it out.

• 1:47Speaker 00

  How do I forgive and move forward after my wife and one of my best friends had over a year-long affair behind my back?

• 1:53Dr. John Delony?

  Whoa.

• 1:54Speaker 00

  And the second part of that is, is it even possible for me to move forward?

• 2:00Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about it.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  Well, feel free to stop or interrupt me because I can get, there's so much that goes into this, you know, I can get ranting, but uh...

• 2:09Dr. John Delony?

  Do this for me, because uh...

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Long story short.

• 2:11Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, hold on. Based on what you just said, I'm all about the rant. I get it. I want to rant for you.

• 2:16Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:19Dr. John Delony?

  It's easy to get dragged down in the mud on these deals.

• 2:24Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to practice just with me, stand above it and looking down as far as you can on it. Okay?

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:33Dr. John Delony?

  Give me the high level, and this isn't for, like, good radio. This is for you to be able to begin to talk about this without getting dragged underwater by it, because every time you go underwater, you get emotional, and you get emotional, you act crazy. Either, "I'm gonna let her back in," or "She's never coming back," or "Oh, my frie..." Let's practice staying way up here on this one.

• 2:51Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 2:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so tell me what happened?

• 2:54Speaker 00

  Um, so I guess we'll...

• 2:55Dr. John Delony?

  In as few sentences as you can.

• 2:57Speaker 00

  Okay. Last August, I got on her laptop and found that she had been on a paternity test website. Our daughter just turned one.

• 3:09Speaker 00

  I'd been on a paternity test website and questioned her about it and ended up finding out it was one of my best friends who was also my boss.

• 3:18Dr. John Delony?

  Whoa.

• 3:19Speaker 00

  He was in our wedding. I left my previous job for him.

• 3:24Dr. John Delony?

  What do you do?

• 3:25Speaker 00

  That job that I really, I'm a firefighter.

• 3:29Dr. John Delony?

  Does that guy still have his job?

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Um, let's just say he was, he left.

• 3:36Dr. John Delony?

  Good.

• 3:37Speaker 00

  After that.

• 3:38Dr. John Delony?

  The research is pretty clear that somebody that cheats on their wi... that is, lacks that, that type of integrity at home, also lacks that type of integrity at work.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, and this is an ongoing thing for him.

• 3:52Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, and you're a firefighter. I don't want a piece of crap like that out making sure my community is safe, because that sucker's gonna cut corners. And some innocent bystander's gonna die, because that person lacks the deepest roots of character.

• 4:06Speaker 00

  You're 100% right.

• 4:07Dr. John Delony?

  Good, man. I hope that, that dude's like, like grooming dogs or something right now, where he can't hurt anybody. All right, so...

• 4:15Speaker 00

  Yeah, the hard part about that too was, so we actually found out she was pregnant a few months before we got married. Just, we were already engaged, it just kinda happened.

• 4:27Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, it did just kinda happen.

• 4:28Speaker 00

  She had a bad reaction to that. Well, we know how it happened.

• 4:31Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I was gonna say, like, "Whoa, my gosh." No, we know how it happened. All right, so she had a bad reaction, what does that mean?

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Well, so, she's always had, we've been together, we're high school sweethearts. She's always had really strong Christian values and...

• 4:45Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, that's super strong.

• 4:46Speaker 00

  Out of nowhere, the night we found out, they like, they flipped, like, eight months before our wedding, and it was really bizarre, and I didn't understand why. Like, she wanted to start, to start using things like, "I'm gonna do what I want to do," like, comments like that, like, "Regardless of what I think." And, um, so, when she found out she was pregnant, she had told me she wanted an abortion.

• 5:08Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 5:09Speaker 00

  And it was really hard on me, obviously, of trying to be like, "Please, you know, don't do this, like, this is our baby, like, you will regret it."

• 5:16Dr. John Delony?

  Is that because she thought it was somebody else's baby?

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, which I didn't know, and she didn't tell me.

• 5:22Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 5:23Speaker 00

  So that was before our wedding, he was in our wedding, she'd, that's, and she had started the affair with him, and I didn't find out until over a year later, and had continued every now and then with him through then.

• 5:35Dr. John Delony?

  How long have you been married?

• 5:38Speaker 00

  A year and a half.

• 5:39Dr. John Delony?

  How old are you?

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Uh, I'll be 25 in a few months.

• 5:43Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 5:46Dr. John Delony?

  This girl broke your heart, man.

• 5:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:53Dr. John Delony?

  And she gave you the best thing of all time too, at the same time. That little, that little kid, right?

• 5:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:00Dr. John Delony?

  That messes with your mind up, right?

• 6:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:05Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I'm sorry, man.

• 6:10Dr. John Delony?

  Um, the only way that this marriage can survive, can it? Yes, it can. Is it gonna be hard? Yeah. You're a firefighter, you're not scared of hard things. The only way it survives is y'all completely control all, delete everything you knew about your marriage, and you start completely over. And both of y'all are all in. And what does that mean? The fact that you called and said, "I looked at her laptop."

• 6:36Dr. John Delony?

  My wife and I just have laptops.

• 6:39Dr. John Delony?

  Several, actually. I guess she has her phone and my phone, but we both know the codes to each other. Like, it starts there.

• 6:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:47Dr. John Delony?

  You don't have secret stuff, and I don't have secret stuff. This is, we're just gonna build a unified structure here.

• 6:53Dr. John Delony?

  Right? You wouldn't put up with that kind of logic in, in the firehouse, right? You wouldn't have like, "I just, I'm just gonna prep this however I want." You can't, because someone will die. Same, same applies in your marriage. Would she do that?

• 7:07Speaker 00

  You mean, would she be willing to...

• 7:10Dr. John Delony?

  Control, alt, delete, start over, open up account, I mean, open up finances, share finances, open up electronics, cut off all contact with other people, and just go fully in, us two, ride or die, building a marriage that will last forever?

• 7:26Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, to add the other, extra layer to this situation, so that was like, the night that I found out, I went up to the firehouse, me and him worked different shifts, and I confronted him. And then I came back, and the first thing I said was, "Here's what I need if we're gonna fix this." And that was one of the things. And she genuinely tried for a few weeks, and then it just stopped. And, and I will say, like, I'm a pursuer, and she's like, definitely a withdrawer, like, she shuts down. And so she shut down, and that lasted until the end of December, and I, we separated.

• 8:03Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  But this is, you know, I, when we separated, it's with the hope that like, maybe something will change and get better, and I do see flashes of that at times, and then there's, you know, there's really high highs, really high lows.

• 8:21Speaker 00

  I grew up with a mom with BPD.

• 8:26Speaker 00

  And I see a lot of the similar traits in her, and I genuinely believe that like, a lot of this is caused by the mental illness. And my vows meant something to me.

• 8:37Dr. John Delony?

  She broke your vows, brother.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Regardless of what she did.

• 8:40Dr. John Delony?

  She broke your vows. I know your vows meant something to you, but she broke them.

• 8:46Dr. John Delony?

  You're hanging on to a ski rope, and she cut the rope, dude. And you're still trying to ski, and you're bobbing in the middle of the water, and the boat is gone.

• 8:55Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I'm just hanging on to something that I wish was there.

• 8:58Dr. John Delony?

  That's exactly right. That's when I tell you, you gotta build something new, you gotta build something completely new. And I, by the way, I really lately have, you stepped in it, you didn't even mean to, so I'm not gonna direct this at you. I'm kinda over the, "I'm a maximizer, I'm a builder, I'm a pursuer, I'm a whatever," like, I don't care, like, I am a podcasting, YouTube, and radio personality. That's, that's on my job description here at my office.

• 9:30Dr. John Delony?

  I also go out and pull, pick up trash outside if we have a bunch of guests coming. Because when things get, uh, when you need to pull together as a team, you move chairs together. You just do what you gotta do. Right? And so, I don't care if you're, "I'm a withdrawer, I'm a pursuer." Dude, my marriage is about over, I'll do whatever I have to do.

• 9:52Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:53Dr. John Delony?

  If it's uncomfortable, if it like, I don't care, right? And so it's like, "I'm just gonna do my withdrawal game." No, dude, we don't have time for games. This thing, you're about to be a single mom, and I'm about to be a single dad, and I don't want that for us, I don't want that for my baby. But yes, you are holding on to something that no longer exists. The question is not, can you get it back? You cannot, it is over. The question is, can y'all build something new? And I think you can, but it takes both of you.

• 10:18Speaker 00

  And she goes through, one day, she doesn't think there's a chance that she would ever want to be with me again, and then the next, she acts completely otherwise.

• 10:29Dr. John Delony?

  All right, here's what I'm gonna tell you. You, you have self-diagnosed her, and you were looking at her through a lens of some sort of mental health diagnostic. Don't do that to her, it's not fair.

• 10:42Dr. John Delony?

  What you have to do is to ask yourself, because, because here's what it does, it also gives you a pass, it helps you not look at reality.

• 10:50Dr. John Delony?

  And you've probably heard me say this a million times on the show, if behavior is a language, what is she telling you? "I don't want to be with you."

• 10:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:59Dr. John Delony?

  Occasionally, I'll hook up with you, occasionally, when we come see the baby, or when she comes to visit the baby, or you go to visit the kid, y'all have some laughs, you grab a drink, maybe she's made dinner, and it just feels like it would feel good, but it's not real.

• 11:17Dr. John Delony?

  Is that, is that true or false? Tell me if I'm wrong, man. I'd love to be wrong here.

• 11:21Speaker 00

  Very true.

• 11:22Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 11:27Dr. John Delony?

  The only thing I think left to do is to sit down and say, I need us to be adults and let's, let's say we're gonna go all in. And I have done my work to say, here's what all in means. Or let's call it.

• 11:45Dr. John Delony?

  Cause right now you're both drowning. In the maybe. And maybe, maybe there needs to be some just gray mush for a while. But it doesn't seem to, it doesn't seem to be effective. That's why I like separations, like to have a date and a time and a location where we're gonna reconnect. What we're gonna talk about when we get there, like that separation's got a purpose. And that's just to let the fire burn out in the house, cause things got too hot.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's been four months.

• 12:15Dr. John Delony?

  Has she seen somebody else that you know of?

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Uh, I asked her yesterday, she says no, but.

• 12:21Dr. John Delony?

  You can't believe that. Yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  No, I don't trust her.

• 12:24Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 12:28Dr. John Delony?

  Would she go see, she go see somebody with you?

• 12:33Speaker 00

  So, we went, we went to counseling. She actually, like the day after I found out, uh, scheduled us an appointment with a lady. And, um, we went together like three times and this lady and I kinda butted heads. Um, it was a lot of, like I would make the comment of how, like I felt if she can't, if, if I can't be, if I can't trust her with her phone as far as, um, if I just asked to do something on it and she was very skittish about it. Um, the, pretty much the counselor told me that I have no right to even ask that.

• 13:12Dr. John Delony?

  It's nonsense, nonsense. Never walk in that lady's office again. It's bull crap.

• 13:17Speaker 00

  Well, I stopped, uh, from, from pretty much the third or fourth appointment. She said, we should wanna start doing separate and I didn't do that with her.

• 13:25Dr. John Delony?

  Um, that's absolutely nonsensical.

• 13:27Speaker 00

  She still goes to her, but I feel like the lady almost justifies it. Like, I don't, I don't think, I don't think it's, I think it's doing more harm than good.

• 13:39Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the deal, here's the deal, here's the deal. You're spending a lot of time in your wife's head. And you're making up stories about why she's doing something, what it's doing, how it's, I wouldn't do that. Judge the actual action in front of you. Okay? Does it matter what she's doing? Does it matter where she's like all, like, I, for us to stay together, I need you to be completely open with electronics. If that's not something you can do, then that's cool. I'm out.

• 14:09Speaker 00

  It's not, she's still missing out.

• 14:11Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 14:14Speaker 00

  And I got just scared, cause I grew up, my parents divorced when I was early into my teenage years and I had a really bad reaction to it and grew up, you know, I'll never do that to my child and.

• 14:28Dr. John Delony?

  So, two things. You gotta forgive yourself. You made yourself a promise that you didn't realize at a young age that takes two. And it sounds like you've worked your butt off to hold up your end of, um, of that rope that somebody else cut. And so go back and forgive your 13-year-old self for being so pissed off at your parents? Cause you don't really know what happened? You kinda do, but probably not. And, give yourself some grace, man. You went all into the ring to fight that guy as hard as you could. You just didn't know the person that was supposed to fight with you was gonna cut your knees out from under you. Gotta give yourself some grace on that. And, part two is,

• 15:11Dr. John Delony?

  be the best damn dad that ever existed to that little kid.

• 15:25Speaker 00

  She's my everything.

• 15:26Dr. John Delony?

  I know she is. My daughter's mine too.

• 15:30Speaker 00

  Uh, I mean, it made it 10 times harder to even deal with what she did because for four months, I didn't even know she was mine until the results came out.

• 15:39Dr. John Delony?

  I know.

• 15:43Dr. John Delony?

  And she'll always be your baby girl. And we're not gonna talk bad about mom, because she's also half mom too.

• 15:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:52Dr. John Delony?

  And we're gonna love that little girl. She's not gonna know a day in her life that daddy's not telling her that she loves her. And if some crappy stepdad comes in the picture, your dad's gonna be right there. And if mom's not okay, dad's gonna step in. And if dad's gotta go to court and get everything sorted out, which you're gonna need to do, then we're gonna go get things done, but we're gonna take care of that baby girl.

• 16:21Dr. John Delony?

  Is that cool?

• 16:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:24Dr. John Delony?

  I hate this for you, man. Sounds like you tried to do right. I'm sorry.

• 16:35Speaker 00

  It's been seven, eight months now of just trying every day.

• 16:40Dr. John Delony?

  The, uh, the first, like, uh, I wrote this book a while back and I couldn't figure out the first way to start it. I couldn't figure out like the entry point to it. And I finally landed on a sentence, on two words, choose reality. And I don't know there's any sort of healing or mental or emotional or even physical health. I don't know if there's any way to get that without first being honest about the starting line. Here's how far I have to run. And I gotta just at some point drop my shoulders and choose reality. The reality is, my best friend in the world and boss didn't stab me in the back. He stabbed me right in the face.

• 17:23Dr. John Delony?

  My wife, the mother of my baby girl stabbed me right in the face. Right?

• 17:31Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 17:33Dr. John Delony?

  That's choosing reality. That's heartbreak, dude. That's grief. That's deep grief, man. That's anger, that's rage, all of it, dude. And it's all good. It's all right. And then the question is, what are you gonna do next?

• 17:52Speaker 00

  I don't, I think the conversation needs to be, I mean, I'll say this. There was a little bit of conflict between the two of us yesterday. And, um, she said, you know, she doesn't wanna be with me and if that were to change, it wouldn't be for a long time.

• 18:12Dr. John Delony?

  Cool. Um. You need, you need to have the courage to hear her words. And then go do what you gotta do. You need to go to the courthouse. You need to get an attorney. You need to go do this, the next right thing.

• 18:25Speaker 00

  I just feel like I'd be losing my daughter too.

• 18:28Dr. John Delony?

  No. You won't be.

• 18:34Speaker 00

  Cause she makes it very difficult for me already.

• 18:37Dr. John Delony?

  I know. And that's what a court order can help with. At least it'll clarify that halftime or three-fourths time or whatever, non-shift time. But you're trying to hold together a fantasy brother, then that, it's gone. It's a ghost. And that's, that, that angst, that, like, I'll, I'll say this in a harsh way. You've already lost your daughter. Your daughter right now is tangled up in like an electric fence of chaos and tension. And I don't know who's what and where. And that's my daddy, but he doesn't live here. That's my mommy. She doesn't live here.

• 19:15Dr. John Delony?

  I hate this for you, man. But it's time. You can call an attorney. You find yourself a therapist that isn't delusional. So ridiculous.

• 19:28Speaker 01

  I'm worried that my husband may be having an emotional affair with my best friend. And I'm having difficulties having like open and honest conversations with him about it.

• 19:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, tell me more.

• 19:43Speaker 01

  Um, so I guess, I guess it all started a month ago. I woke up one morning, just happened to see that the security cam doorbell thing had a banner on my phone. And it was my husband leaving the house at midnight. And then there was another one that had him coming back at 2:00 AM. And so when I asked him about it, he just said that he went.

• 20:04Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on Hannah, those are called regular affairs, not emotional affairs.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Okay, well, the, so he said he went next door, which is, my best friend is my neighbor next door. And, um, her and, me and my husband and her and her husband, we hang out, we do things with the kids. So I didn't actually feel weird about that, but what I, I asked him, how did it come to be? That he went over there at midnight? And he just said that she invited him over. So, that didn't really sit well. And I just asked him to see the text, so I could understand. And a few hours after him just refusing to let me see the phone at all, he told me he deleted the text.

• 20:51Dr. John Delony?

  Hannah.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:54Dr. John Delony?

  You hear yourself as you're saying this, right?

• 20:57Speaker 01

  I, oh, I know, I know.

• 21:00Dr. John Delony?

  You, until you decide I'm gonna sit in reality, I can't help you.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:08Dr. John Delony?

  You know, you know. Has he cheated on you before?

• 21:12Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 21:13Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Do you have little ones? Do you have little ones?

• 21:19Speaker 01

  Um, yeah.

• 21:19Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 21:20Speaker 01

  We have a almost, well, almost 13-year-old and an eight-year-old.

• 21:25Dr. John Delony?

  And you promised yourself never again, right?

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Of course.

• 21:29Dr. John Delony?

  And you blamed yourself for part of it last time, right?

• 21:32Speaker 01

  Yes, sir.

• 21:43Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not minimizing what this all means.

• 21:48Dr. John Delony?

  Okay?

• 21:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:49Dr. John Delony?

  In fact, I know that you don't want to turn around because if you turn around, you realize that the gates of hell have just been opened.

• 21:59Dr. John Delony?

  And so it's easier just to keep looking forward and make up imaginary stories.

• 22:03Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 22:04Dr. John Delony?

  But I would not be your friend and I wouldn't be someone who cares about you if I didn't metaphorically hold your hand and say, we gotta turn around and look because the gates are wide open.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  Right.

• 22:22Dr. John Delony?

  It doesn't, I have left my house multiple times in the middle of the night. And I just go sit with people whose family members have passed away and it's with a team of people and it's part of a job. Whereas to sit in hotels and whatever, okay? So I've done that. I, so many times I can't even count. I pride myself on being available for my friends 24/7, 365 and for people in my community.

• 22:52Dr. John Delony?

  If there ever was a moment when my wife said, let me see your phone. Well, she wouldn't have to do that because she's got my code and she can look anytime she wants.

• 23:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:03Dr. John Delony?

  And I don't have a history of cheating on my wife.

• 23:08Dr. John Delony?

  I have a history of being an idiot. I see what you're saying, like, like every, every variable you told me. Where was your best friend's husband?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Apparently from what she has told me, he was upstairs with their youngest, trying to get him to bed and she just really needed a corkscrew to open a wine bottle.

• 23:32Speaker 01

  I know.

• 23:33Dr. John Delony?

  You can't be serious.

• 23:36Speaker 01

  I know, I know.

• 23:40Speaker 01

  Oh, I wish I could laugh.

• 23:41Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I'm laughing for you. I'm laughing, laughter you don't have. I know, I know, I know you don't have it. I know you don't have it. And I know if you start laughing, you'll probably start crying, you won't be able to stop. I know. Okay, I know.

• 23:56Dr. John Delony?

  So what, it, it, we're at that magical place. Everyone I've ever sat with, eventually we get to this one question. What are you gonna do now?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  That's, that's what I've been asking myself every day.

• 24:12Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 24:13Speaker 01

  I know what I should do, I think.

• 24:16Dr. John Delony?

  No, there's not a should. There's not a should, there's not a have to. There's just an is. Because if you, if you, if you say, I should, then you're outsourcing, you're blaming, you're outsourcing your next move on some kind of cultural pressure, social pressure, blah, blah, blah. What do you want to do?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  I mean, I wish I could just forget about it completely.

• 24:49Dr. John Delony?

  You can't.

• 24:52Dr. John Delony?

  You can, you can sweep another rug. You're a grown up, you get to do that.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  I've done that for 10 years.

• 24:58Dr. John Delony?

  I know you have.

• 25:00Dr. John Delony?

  And if, and this is one of those moments, if you've got a serial cheater that it, everything kind of stops like, do, do, do, like Star Wars, right? And all of a sudden you go, oh crap, this has been happening for a long time.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:17Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, there is a way to, um, you can just Google it. There's a way to get deleted text messages that they stay on your phone.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  I know, I tried that and that's when he, I, I tried to be sneaky, but well, I asked him for it, he handed me the phone and I started to do that. That's when I saw the amount of text messages between the two of them.

• 25:38Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 25:38Speaker 01

  But he'd snatched it out of my hand before I could actually go through anything.

• 25:42Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  And that's really.

• 25:44Dr. John Delony?

  You get, listen, listen.

• 25:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:47Dr. John Delony?

  I'm not, I'm not gonna make any judgments of you. I'm not gonna beat you up. I'm just gonna sit here with you. You can live with somebody who's gonna lie to your face and sleep with your next door neighbor slash best friend, who by the way, she's not your best friend, stop referring to her as that.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Right.

• 26:01Dr. John Delony?

  Um, she's a neighbor who is sleeping with your husband. And, or let's say they're not sleeping together, is being so incredibly disrespectful of you and your marriage and your integrity, just stupid, right? Just dumb.

• 26:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:22Dr. John Delony?

  You can live with that life and you can raise your two kids and let them see like, this is what love looks like and this is what marriage looks like. Or you can make another choice and I'm not, I'm not, like, the thought of becoming a single mom, that, that phrase is terrifying and what that means economically and what that means decision making. And if you have done anything dumb, every one of your texts is gonna be made public too in court. Like all that stuff, I know, I get it, I get it.

• 26:55Dr. John Delony?

  But you have to choose to live in reality.

• 26:59Dr. John Delony?

  And if you can't bury the, bear the weight of reality, which I get, I've been there myself, then you gotta get somebody to sit with you and hold it with you.

• 27:08Speaker 01

  Right.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  And that's been the difficult part because he's telling me that my reality isn't the actual reality.

• 27:15Dr. John Delony?

  I know.

• 27:17Speaker 01

  And he's, I mean.

• 27:21Dr. John Delony?

  When you, when you just said at the thing about the corkscrew, it's not on camera, all of the, the men and women in the booth, like they all dropped their heads, like, oh God.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  I know.

• 27:33Dr. John Delony?

  But listen.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 27:34Dr. John Delony?

  If nothing else, you get from this call, you're not crazy.

• 27:38Dr. John Delony?

  You do have some choices to make.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  I want to hear that, thank you.

• 27:41Dr. John Delony?

  You have some, you have some hard choices to make.

• 27:44Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:44Dr. John Delony?

  But you're not crazy.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  Well, I appreciate that.

• 27:54Dr. John Delony?

  So how can I help with you?

• 27:58Speaker 01

  I guess that was it. I mean, you know, I talked to her about things and it just, I realize my, you know, the part of me that said, I just want to know what was in that text, but that won't really make anything better because then they'll just be waiting for the next shoe to drop and.

• 28:16Dr. John Delony?

  You know what's in those texts, Hannah?

• 28:20Dr. John Delony?

  You know.

• 28:24Speaker 01

  I know, I just wanted to be so wrong.

• 28:26Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I know. Trust me, I would love, I would love for you to call and say, I think my husband's having an affair and you rattle it off and me go, I don't think that's it at all. I would love that. I would love that. And if that was the case, as a guy who would gladly, in the middle of the night, go over to my friend's house and help their wife out with anything they needed.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Right.

• 28:53Dr. John Delony?

  Not anything, most things, right?

• 28:56Speaker 01

  No, no, I get it, yeah.

• 28:59Dr. John Delony?

  I would gladly, I would, with unthinkingly, hand my phone over to anybody.

• 29:07Speaker 01

  Right.

• 29:07Dr. John Delony?

  And I would also set up some pretty ridiculous guardrails, right?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Right, yeah.

• 29:15Dr. John Delony?

  And if I'd ever cheated on my wife, if I'd ever slept with somebody that wasn't my wife, I would have new rules that say, I don't go over to people's houses in the middle of the night.

• 29:26Speaker 01

  The funny thing is, is we had those rules. They sat on our refrigerator for years.

• 29:29Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 29:30Speaker 01

  He just forgot, I guess.

• 29:31Dr. John Delony?

  No, he didn't, he never cared, he never cared.

• 29:33Speaker 01

  I know.

• 29:34Dr. John Delony?

  He never cared.

• 29:35Speaker 01

  I know.

• 29:40Dr. John Delony?

  Will you just sit with me for a minute in that?

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Yes. Yes.

• 29:46Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sorry.

• 29:53Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sorry. I, in the same way, I'm asking you to live in reality.

• 30:00Dr. John Delony?

  Until he decides to sit down and be honest with you. There's not a lot of co-creating what happens next. You're gonna have to move on your own.

• 30:10Speaker 01

  Right.

• 30:12Dr. John Delony?

  Right? If he decides to sit down and say, all right, here's a deal.

• 30:18Dr. John Delony?

  Um, but until he decides to be honest, he's not gonna be, I mean, what, what does he even say when he looks you in the eye and says, you can't see my phone?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  It's.

• 30:27Dr. John Delony?

  Like that doesn't make any sense to me.

• 30:29Speaker 01

  Here we go. You're looking for something, you're gonna be a detective, here we go.

• 30:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yes, I am. Show him your phone. Why do you back away there?

• 30:40Speaker 01

  Um, I did, I mean, I was, I was, I didn't physically take it from him. That's the only thing I didn't do. I mean, I did actually say the word, if you don't show me your phone right now, we're done.

• 30:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, did he laugh at you?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  He didn't laugh, but he, that's when, he hadn't deleted it at that point. And then after that, an hour later, he was like, well, I deleted it.

• 31:02Dr. John Delony?

  And he, okay, you've heard me say this a million times on the show, behavior is a language. What did he tell you? This is over.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:12Dr. John Delony?

  He called your bluff.

• 31:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:13Dr. John Delony?

  Cool, this is over.

• 31:15Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:16Dr. John Delony?

  And you're the one that doesn't want to hear what he just said, by deleting the thing you said, if I don't see it, I, I'm out. And he's like, cool, delete.

• 31:25Dr. John Delony?

  I call.

• 31:25Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  It's true.

• 31:32Dr. John Delony?

  Do you have somebody you can call?

• 31:35Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 31:37Dr. John Delony?

  You have somebody you can sit with in your local community and be completely 100% honest?

• 31:41Speaker 01

  Yes, I do.

• 31:44Dr. John Delony?

  I will be available to you every step of the way. Call back anytime.

• 31:50Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 31:51Dr. John Delony?

  And you know, like I do, the next while's gonna be awful.

• 31:56Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 31:57Dr. John Delony?

  And it's, it will be, it will be insane to expect someone who has no character, has no integrity, who hurts you with his dishonesty and then makes you feel crazy for it, to suddenly treat you with dignity and respect as your marriage, as y'all figure out what happens next.

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 32:17Dr. John Delony?

  Okay?

• 32:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:22Dr. John Delony?

  He heard you, if you don't show me this, this marriage is over. Cool, delete.

• 32:28Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm. You're right. I just didn't want to see it.

• 32:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 32:33Speaker 01

  But I know it.

• 32:39Dr. John Delony?

  I'm so, so sorry.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  That's all right. I think it is. I mean, this is what I need. I need somebody to just say, here's the mirror. Look at what you're saying. You know that you're not crazy and

• 32:55Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you're not crazy. You're not crazy.

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Listen to yourself.

• 32:57Dr. John Delony?

  And you heard it. You heard yourself when you said it. Like, you're not crazy.

• 33:03Dr. John Delony?

  I'm heartbroken with you.

• 33:06Speaker 03

  Been married for more than 20 years. We experienced normal marriage problems like most people, but got involved at work with somebody, a coworker, and have had a very difficult time dealing with those emotions, making probably negative emotional decisions. And that's drawn me away from being the best husband and father. And I don't like it.

• 33:40Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me about the involvement. How long you been? Are you having an affair? Are you just, are you just, you're just like the attention from somebody?

• 33:51Speaker 03

  Um, well, I'm

• 33:55Dr. John Delony?

  Have you been sleeping with this person?

• 33:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 33:58Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, for how, how long?

• 34:00Speaker 03

  So it's, it started out several years ago. It's been, it's been like eight years now.

• 34:09Dr. John Delony?

  Eight? So the better part of a decade?

• 34:13Speaker 03

  Almost, yeah.

• 34:15Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so you've been in this, having this affair with this other person for almost as long as halfway, as long as like 50% of your marriage, you've had somebody else?

• 34:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, not quite, but yeah.

• 34:29Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, how can I help you?

• 34:31Speaker 03

  Um, so I've been talking to a therapist on the side for about three months. And I don't want to go through divorce. Never planned this.

• 34:46Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, hold on. This isn't a one night stand. This is an eight year long sexual and emotional affair. You're talking about this like it just happened. Like you're on a work trip and you had too many drinks and you just, and it happened.

• 35:03Dr. John Delony?

  Help me with this.

• 35:04Speaker 03

  Well, it definitely, it definitely happened. So we were working together for a while and a couple of years before anything transpired. And she kind of like expressed to me, you know, we were actually, that the times when I came by the desk, like she couldn't, I couldn't do that. I couldn't come, you know, and I'm kind of her supervisor. And when I'd come and look at stuff, she got physically changed, I guess, warm and flustered. Maybe it's love, whatever the feeling is. And she basically told me without telling me that she was interested.

• 35:47Speaker 03

  It's like, I can't handle it when you come by and

• 35:51Dr. John Delony?

  So one of your employees eight years ago said, hey, it makes me feel uncomfortable when you come by?

• 35:58Speaker 03

  I should have replaced her. Yep.

• 35:59Dr. John Delony?

  And you were like,

• 36:00Speaker 03

  I didn't.

• 36:00Dr. John Delony?

  You know what? We should probably sleep together.

• 36:03Speaker 03

  No.

• 36:05Dr. John Delony?

  Or we should go out for coffee, or I have feelings for you too, or whatever happened.

• 36:10Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 36:11Dr. John Delony?

  All right, but you're, even the way you're telling that story, it's like it happened like two weeks ago.

• 36:18Speaker 03

  Right.

• 36:18Dr. John Delony?

  So why are you still married?

• 36:23Speaker 03

  That's the question I've wrestled with. So like, I've been unhappy. And the, the large majority was probably just the butting heads at home and what I felt was lack of respect at home. And kind of like, when we had kids, they became the priority. And, and I was thrown aside. Not entirely, but it had, the feelings were lack of respect and arguing with me about parenting in front of our kids. And so the kids start to argue with the parents. And suddenly, I look like a bad guy or the wrong guy. And we were not

• 37:07Speaker 03

  on the same page. And we tried to counsel around the same time that that happened. Finding out your different value systems. And we started counseling back then. She had suspected, just because we work in a smaller office. So she kind of like said, I bet you want to, you look at her and want to, boom. And I'm like, no, never. I hadn't, that hadn't crossed my mind before. Until she said that. And then

• 37:44Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, you're gonna, you're gonna blame your wife for this too?

• 37:46Speaker 03

  No, no, no, no, I'm not trying. I'm just, I guess, there's that, there's that potential in any situation. I'm not saying she's wrong for thinking that. But that's, I was shocked when she had said that. Because that's not at all how I felt. I always guarded my thoughts. I always tried to submit those to Christ and have, you know, not, not have to deal with that.

• 38:20Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, okay.

• 38:20Speaker 03

  But I, but I, okay.

• 38:22Dr. John Delony?

  You, but you're there. You're here.

• 38:25Speaker 03

  We're there. And it's

• 38:27Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. I, I can't help but feel there's a disassociation from reality. Okay? I don't know a marriage, none, zero. I don't know a marriage that when kids start coming along, that there's not tension.

• 38:48Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 38:49Dr. John Delony?

  And that there is a need to figure out a new way to communicate, new values emerge that we didn't even know we had. This is a big deal to me. This is not a big deal to me. And there's, that's, that's, that's par and course for, marriage is par and course for having kids. And I applaud you all for going to therapy, for counseling, try to figure out a new way. I'll take your word for it. That your wife just said, I don't care what you feel. I don't care what you think. I'm gonna treat you like crap. I'm gonna not care about you at all. Which by the way, I don't believe, but I'm, I'm gonna take your full word for that. I'm gonna treat you like crap, husband. I'm not gonna care

• 39:34Dr. John Delony?

  about you. I'm not gonna respect you. I'm not gonna love you. I'm just gonna care about these kids. And still, you chose to sleep with one of your employees for the better part of 10 years.

• 39:48Dr. John Delony?

  You have agency. You've always had agency. And so we're here now on this call. Tell me about how I can help you with the call. Are you wrestling with staying in your marriage? Are you wrestling with, like, what do you, how can I help you, man?

• 40:06Speaker 03

  Well, there's a lot, there's a lot of, naturally of potential shame. I don't want to, I don't want to drag through a divorce. And I, my kids are super important. It's super important for me to be there with them in the mornings, taking them to school and

• 40:27Dr. John Delony?

  I know, but you should have, you should have been through that eight years ago, dude.

• 40:32Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the deal. You've burned your house down. And you're trying to tell me like, I still want to keep, I want to keep the upstairs. And I want to keep the couches. All of that is gone now. It's over.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 40:45Dr. John Delony?

  The question is, how long are you going to live a life where you can't even look yourself in the mirror?

• 40:55Speaker 03

  Right.

• 40:56Dr. John Delony?

  Because I hear that on you, dude. I hear it. I'm trying to be compassionate. I hear it.

• 41:03Speaker 03

  So I've, I've driven myself to this point. And I'm, the heaviness is just overwhelming.

• 41:13Dr. John Delony?

  What got, why now? What got you here?

• 41:19Dr. John Delony?

  Are you about to be found out? Are you, like,

• 41:22Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:22Dr. John Delony?

  Why here?

• 41:23Speaker 03

  No.

• 41:23Dr. John Delony?

  Why now? By the way, your wife knows. She 100% knows.

• 41:31Dr. John Delony?

  You don't think so?

• 41:35Speaker 03

  I don't, seemingly not. But I mean, maybe she, that she does. I've, I've, I've heard you tell that to other people as well. And I'm just trying to minimize destruction.

• 41:50Dr. John Delony?

  It's gone. It's already gone. It's gone, brother.

• 41:52Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 41:53Dr. John Delony?

  It's gone. It's gone. That's, that's the fantasy part of this. That you are in control of this. You're not.

• 42:00Speaker 03

  Right. We're not.

• 42:01Dr. John Delony?

  It's gone. The only thing you can do now is the next right thing, which is to, for the first time in a long time, be a person of 100% integrity. What's the next right move?

• 42:19Speaker 03

  Stopping what I'm doing.

• 42:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 42:25Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, that will come with multiple lines of consequences. It may end in the loss of your business. It may end in a lawsuit at work. It may end in loss of your marriage. It may end in all of it. And that won't make it not the right thing to do.

• 42:49Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 42:52Dr. John Delony?

  I don't see a way where these planes land. And I know you've been trying to air traffic control them all, dude. They're gonna crash. I'm telling you, man. I've just been doing this too long.

• 43:01Speaker 03

  Mm hmm. That's what I feel. I, I

• 43:05Dr. John Delony?

  Aren't you tired?

• 43:06Speaker 03

  And

• 43:07Dr. John Delony?

  Aren't you tired?

• 43:08Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 43:13Speaker 03

  It was amazing and exciting as it's happening. And then you just realize, what you said, it's, it's gonna crash. And I, not, I'm not trying to be a bad person and

• 43:37Speaker 03

  If things don't change, I guess, and I, I, I, number one, I'm okay with ending it and, and, and moving on, and, but then what about my marriage? Am I, is it, is it too long gone? Do people recover from this kind of things?

• 43:54Dr. John Delony?

  Listen, brother, I'll say it one more time. The marriage you have is over. The best shot you have, if you want to keep that charade going, is to exhale and to put everything on the table. And maybe your wife will choose to rebuild something new with you. But your marriage hasn't been what you project to the world for 10 years. And by the way, it started falling apart before you started sleeping with one of your employees.

• 44:33Speaker 03

  Right.

• 44:34Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 44:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 44:40Dr. John Delony?

  Who is this? Tell me about this woman who's gone eight years being the other woman. Is she content in that role? Has she been asking you to leave your wife for years? Like, even that arrangement is strange.

• 44:58Speaker 03

  She's, she's married too, and unhappy. And so, talking about those things is what led to this, and, and, of course, um...

• 45:14Dr. John Delony?

  So there's two families that are gonna be blown up over this?

• 45:19Speaker 03

  Right. And that's, that's what I've been telling her, and trying to, basically, get out without hurting, you, you can't get out without hurting people. But she, why hasn't she, my therapist has said the same thing. Why, why hasn't she left her marriage? Because she's, for whatever reason, either just waiting on you, or, or she's not serious. Like, she's not seriously in love. It's not love. It's something else.

• 45:54Dr. John Delony?

  Trying to get in her head and decide why she's doing what she's doing is a waste of your time and energy.

• 46:01Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:03Dr. John Delony?

  Building a life with somebody who also lacks that much integrity is a fool's errand. It feels to me like the right thing to do is not for you to go fire somebody, but for you to leave. And you to say, "I'm starting over." "'Cause I've burned this whole thing to the ground." How are any of your other employees gonna trust you? How are your customers gonna trust you? If you can keep an ongoing deception for eight years from the person you said till death do us part,

• 46:46Dr. John Delony?

  no customers can trust. You know what I'm saying? I don't know, I don't, I don't get that you get the depth of the mess you're in. Or maybe you do, and it's just saying it out loud is so scary.

• 47:04Speaker 03

  Totally.

• 47:10Dr. John Delony?

  So what does it look like? What's your next move?

• 47:18Speaker 03

  Um, I don't, that's, I don't know. I'm, that's why I'm calling.

• 47:23Dr. John Delony?

  What's your counselor been telling you? What, what, have you been seeing a counselor for depression or anxiety? Have you been seeing the counselor for?

• 47:28Speaker 03

  Nope.

• 47:28Dr. John Delony?

  What to do?

• 47:30Speaker 03

  Yep. He, he said, as quickly as I can end it, to, to do it if it's next Monday, you know, that's...

• 47:39Dr. John Delony?

  And that's, you've been seeing this person for multiple months, you said?

• 47:44Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 47:45Dr. John Delony?

  So I, you, you haven't taken that professional's advice that you're paying. Where are you gonna take mine? I'm just some yahoo on the internets, man. Like, I think you need to have a conversation with your wife today. And at some point, you have to, I don't think you fire that person, or you separate from that person. I think you leave your job, and then get a close-up shop. I don't know, I don't know what your profession is, and if you're a boss, or if you're just a mid-level manager. I don't know the arrangement, what you got. But I think the integris thing is for you to leave. You've been in a power position over this employee for eight years. That's not gonna read well in the deposition, my brother.

• 48:29Dr. John Delony?

  Not to mention her feeling a, like, man, I don't, what am I supposed to do? Lose my job too?

• 48:41Speaker 03

  Right.

• 48:46Dr. John Delony?

  Forget the legal side of it, just like when your boss says, "Hey, you wanna come over?" Like, "Are you gonna meet at a hotel?" Or whatever. Those text messages in black and white don't read well, man. I, I, I, you, go with what your therapist said? He's been working with you for months now? I think the first conversation begins with your wife. Or the first conversation begins with you submitting your resignation for wherever it is you work. And you going home and telling your wife, "Here we go." "Here's everything."

• 49:29Dr. John Delony?

  And she may get on the phone and call this other woman's husband. She may march down to, who knows? You can't control what happens next. And I think this illusion of control, and you balancing all these spinning plates, it's made you have to detach from reality, from the amount of pain you're about to go through, and more importantly, the amount of pain you've put so many other people through by your choices and your actions. And the other employees in this office, the customers that you serve, everybody. But the only person you can control right now is you. And doing the next right integris thing.

• 50:08Speaker 04

  The question is, how do me and my wife rebuild our marriage after I had a, a one-night stand? Or like, hook up, I guess, with her stepmother?

• 50:21Dr. John Delony?

  Errit. Um, let's just, uh, as they say, back that thing up. Say what?

• 50:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, um, really, it's a wild situation, um...

• 50:34Dr. John Delony?

  Wait, wait, what, in all seriousness, like, what, what happened?

• 50:38Speaker 04

  Um, we were all drinking together. Um, we all killed a bottle of tequila, the three of us in the hour. And then it was just me and her stepmom in the, in her apartment. Um, my wife went downstairs with the kids and all that good stuff, and they were swimming, and... Um, basically, she was asleep, and I was on the couch just waiting for, I was gonna wake her up for her work call. She was like supervisor or whatever, and had to, and, like, send a closing email. So I was standing there making sure she woke up to do that, and when she woke up, her top fell off. She was wearing a bikini, her top fell off, and put it back on, and then I kinda like pursued after that, and, uh...

• 51:20Dr. John Delony?

  So you, you, your, your marriage is over. You're not gonna rebuild this?

• 51:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 51:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. I mean, I, I can't think of a more egregious violation, man. I can, uh, kids, and beyond kids, this.

• 51:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's definitely...

• 51:36Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. You've blown it up. I think the integris thing to do is to, uh, treat your wife with dignity and respect as you all make, I mean, I can't think of a more, like, just, uh, uh, dishonoring thing you could do to somebody, man.

• 51:57Speaker 04

  I agree. It was the most, my biggest, dumbest decision I've ever made, and the biggest regret, and I've just...

• 52:04Dr. John Delony?

  How long you been married?

• 52:06Speaker 04

  Um, this year would be five years.

• 52:08Dr. John Delony?

  Are those kids yours?

• 52:10Speaker 04

  Um, they was her, one of them is, and she was with my, her, uh, little brother and sister as well.

• 52:16Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, so your wife has two kids by somebody else?

• 52:19Speaker 04

  No, she, um, she, there's three down there. One, it was just one, that was our daughter, that's the only kid we have. And then the other kids were her stepmom's kids.

• 52:27Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 52:29Speaker 04

  Her brother and sister.

• 52:32Dr. John Delony?

  So, obviously, you know this. This is just like insanely sensational, and it's gonna make for good YouTube clips and all that. And you also know that what you did is like, it's just the lowest thing you could do to somebody. But, so I'm not gonna kick you while you're down anymore. Like, what's the world been like since then?

• 52:49Speaker 04

  Ah, I've just been trying to figure everything out. Um, been really, really hard. Um, I mean, I've, you know, I've been trying hard to forgive myself, and to, you know, just work on myself is all I can do at this point. I mean, I, um, me and my wife are cohabitating right now. Uh, we're still in the same room and stuff. We've been able to go and do things together, and they've been civil, and then, you know, nothing, nothing crazy. Our marriage wasn't perfect before this by any means, obviously, or this wouldn't have even been close to happening, but...

• 53:28Dr. John Delony?

  Does your wife wanna stay married to you?

• 53:30Speaker 04

  She's in limbo right now. I mean...

• 53:33Dr. John Delony?

  What, what's a limbo?

• 53:35Speaker 04

  Um, we just need to work on ourselves. I mean, we've been attached at the hip since we were 17. And really lost ourselves in our relationship. We just, um, got, you know, got together real quick, and moved out of state after that real quick, and then had a baby by 18, and so our whole life was just each other and baby, and then, uh...

• 53:56Dr. John Delony?

  But that's not a bad thing, and that's not a reason why you hook up with somebody's mom.

• 54:00Speaker 04

  Not at all. There's never a reason why, that, it should not have happened. There's no, I'm not trying to make any excuse. I've tried to take accountability from the, you know...

• 54:08Dr. John Delony?

  Sure. I, I, I'm saying, like, I'm saying, like, the, there's like this just annoying cultural narrative, like, you gotta go find yourself. I mean, you don't. You, you, you make a commitment with somebody, and y'all figure it out. Right? Y'all decide we're gonna build something together. Um...

• 54:30Dr. John Delony?

  So what do you want to do next?

• 54:35Speaker 04

  I want my family more than anything and I understand that I've blown that up and I'm just trying to

• 54:41Speaker 04

  I just can't think of not coming home to my daughter every night and not coming home to my wife every night like it just doesn't life doesn't seem like there's a obviously there's more to go and there's I mean I'm I'm 23 about to be 24 so there's there's more to go.

• 54:58Dr. John Delony?

  You're a quarter way you're a quarter of the way done. First quarter's over.

• 55:05Speaker 04

  I just can't see life without them.

• 55:08Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 55:08Speaker 04

  I really can't.

• 55:09Dr. John Delony?

  I I because you'll have a child together unless you're gonna abandon this child you will be in each other's lives forever.

• 55:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 55:17Dr. John Delony?

  Alright, so that's that's that's a given.

• 55:23Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know unless you'll have some sort of defining

• 55:31Dr. John Delony?

  the only word I could think of right now and this isn't accurate this isn't right but this is the word that's in my head. You'll have to have some sort of line like I'm thinking of the word funeral keeps coming to mind. You have to have a funeral for what was. What we had is over. And as you described it this stumbling from 17 into 18 to oh my gosh we're parents to trying to make it all work to I got really wasted and hooked up with her mom like that is all over. And you you got a dropped into a coal plunge like you're an adult, right? And when you're 18 19 20 and you have a little one it's easy to kinda

• 56:12Dr. John Delony?

  still be a kid but also be a parent you know what I mean like you're a grown up adult who may have just blown up his whole life.

• 56:19Speaker 04

  Definitely blew his whole life.

• 56:20Dr. John Delony?

  Right, so there has to be some sort of line drawn. This was and now this is. And that might be you sitting down saying okay I have blown up our life. What we had is over. Both of us have to be adults and sit at this table and decide what we're gonna do next. Do you want to be married to me? And she's probably gonna say I don't know because the thought of answering that question is she knows her life is different now is blown up but I don't know that she's metabolized it.

• 56:55Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 56:56Speaker 04

  That's definitely taken some time it's only two months ago on the 8th.

• 57:01Dr. John Delony?

  And and the fact that the knife that cut her is still sleeping in the same bed is just really close. So it might mean you go and saying I'm gonna take 30 days for you and I'm gonna go live with my mom with a friend with whatever and let the smoke clear.

• 57:18Speaker 04

  Right, and we we did that for about two weeks I would say and then my staying at my mom's and she lives off a dirt road though and a bunch of storms came through and made it pretty inaccessible to get through especially with my car and so then went to the couch and then kinda went from there went back into the bed and whatnot and.

• 57:41Dr. John Delony?

  It doesn't it doesn't sound like she's ready for you to be back yet.

• 57:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, partially I mean it's.

• 57:47Dr. John Delony?

  Does she work?

• 57:49Speaker 04

  Um, not as of now um she's been at home with her daughter she's uh going I think she's actually starting today to uh get her GED she's going um the local schools out here and doing the testing and stuff like that.

• 58:03Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 58:03Speaker 04

  She didn't get it.

• 58:05Dr. John Delony?

  So she's taking the GED today?

• 58:07Speaker 04

  Yeah sure she's got like starting the class I think she's like taking the

• 58:10Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 58:10Speaker 04

  the pre quizzes and pre tests and all that stuff to see where she's at.

• 58:13Dr. John Delony?

  So I want to challenge you, okay? Um, I know that the life of your daughter will be different without a dad in the home.

• 58:25Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, I know that. I also know that a wife living in terror

• 58:34Dr. John Delony?

  of her marriage will negatively impact your daughter as well.

• 58:42Dr. John Delony?

  And so I can imagine your 22 or 23 year old wife hearing the most insane news ever.

• 58:51Dr. John Delony?

  And

• 58:53Dr. John Delony?

  having to stay in the same lion's den of the lion who just mauled her present and her future because she has no money she has nowhere to go.

• 59:04Speaker 04

  Right.

• 59:05Dr. John Delony?

  And so part of me thinks it would be of high integrity to you for you to say honey I you're trapped and I know that.

• 59:15Dr. John Delony?

  Is she still flinching around you?

• 59:19Speaker 04

  Um, there are good days and bad days um. We've been able to go to the movies and we were just able to you know this last week and went to escape room together and went to dinner and and we're still doing things like that and able to laugh together and you know I've been able to be intimate and hug and kiss her and then and then other days it's not going like that.

• 59:42Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 59:43Speaker 04

  Which I completely understand.

• 59:46Dr. John Delony?

  I want to challenge you to sit down with your wife and say you've heard me say this before but I want you to hear me say it again I blew our lives to smithereens and my ultimate dream is that you will rebuild something new with me. But I also know that you need time to breathe. So for 30 days I'm gonna go live here and I'm gonna take care of all the bills at this house you're not gonna worry about anything.

• 1:00:11Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to be able to breathe.

• 1:00:14Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm gonna write you a letter every day and put it in the mailbox. I would love for you to write maybe you present her with a nice journal like something you go somewhere and buy a nice one today and put it on the on the like I want you to get this stuff out of your body and write down because I know it hurt you bad. But if you keep hovering

• 1:00:34Dr. John Delony?

  and she is legitimately trapped as a 22 year old with with a high school diploma does she even graduate high school?

• 1:00:40Speaker 04

  No sir.

• 1:00:41Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, she's got nothing.

• 1:00:46Dr. John Delony?

  And she has to tread water you've heard of fight or flight, right?

• 1:00:49Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:00:50Dr. John Delony?

  There's another one called fawn where you have to nuzzle up next to the person who just tried to kill you or just blew up everything because you got nowhere to go it's the safest place for you.

• 1:00:58Speaker 04

  That's her.

• 1:00:59Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Do the next dignified right thing and give her a chance to breathe and make sure she's got no worries when it comes to money for the next month.

• 1:01:09Speaker 04

  Okay, and I guess I have a kind of a wimpier question for you based off of that then um. I I just feel like we we've both like established that we're both just codependent on each other and that uh you know I don't know it's just hard for me to like.

• 1:01:29Dr. John Delony?

  You don't even know what that means dude that's that's that's a couple of 23 year olds Googling what that term means.

• 1:01:34Speaker 04

  Very true.

• 1:01:35Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, you don't even know what that means so don't don't try to give any diagnostic excuses you gotta be a grown man you're 23 you just blew your family up you have to say okay I'm gonna do the next right thing which is to let my wife stand back up on her own two feet because I knocked her down.

• 1:01:50Dr. John Delony?

  And then we're gonna come to the table and I'm gonna say I'll do anything it takes what does rebuilding trust look like? And after 30 days of the smoke clearing her catching her breath she may look across the table and say nothing you slept with my mom.

• 1:02:03Speaker 04

  Right.

• 1:02:04Dr. John Delony?

  Or she might say here's what it's gonna take.

• 1:02:08Dr. John Delony?

  I'm gonna need this this and this and this and then you as a grown man have to make a choice. Does that make sense?

• 1:02:14Speaker 04

  It does and I'm not trying to minimize the situation or make an excuse but I didn't fully sleep with her mom.

• 1:02:20Dr. John Delony?

  It doesn't matter doesn't matter doesn't matter doesn't matter doesn't matter doesn't matter. Doesn't matter it happened.

• 1:02:28Speaker 04

  And it's try to take accountability from the beginning and just.

• 1:02:32Dr. John Delony?

  I know.

• 1:02:33Speaker 04

  Go from there I thought she didn't find out or anything I like sat her down and told her which also doesn't make a difference but.

• 1:02:39Dr. John Delony?

  Right, I mean it is what it is what it is um and you need to understand from her perspective she lost her mom too.

• 1:02:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Dr. John Delony?

  Like she's lost everything.

• 1:02:48Speaker 04

  And then there's past trauma from her stepmother as well.

• 1:02:51Dr. John Delony?

  I would I would imagine so I would imagine so.

• 1:02:56Dr. John Delony?

  And so I think that we're doing the next compassionate right thing. Which is you're gonna have groceries the rent's taken care of the bills are taken care of you're gonna be able to breathe even if you want to go one step further which I think you should I'm gonna help with childcare whatever you gotta do and maybe give you 30 days and then at the end of 30 days I want us to go eat breakfast at such and such place. And I want us to ask the question are we gonna stay married?

• 1:03:24Dr. John Delony?

  And I want you to tell her I hope we can. And I understand we gotta rebuild everything.

• 1:03:32Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, but I want you all to have a date on the calendar when you're gonna come back together.

• 1:03:37Speaker 04

  Right, that makes sense.

• 1:03:38Dr. John Delony?

  And say text me if you need me to come get our little girl but we're not sleeping together we're not hugging and kissing we're not we're just taking a break.

• 1:03:50Dr. John Delony?

  Is that cool?

• 1:03:52Speaker 05

  It's gonna suck, but if that's what's needed, I'll do absolutely anything to to move on from this, even if it's not in the direction that I'm hoping for.

• 1:04:01Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. The thing you can do next, you can undo what happened. The thing you can do next is be a person of high integrity and honor moving forward.

• 1:04:09Speaker 05

  And that's, it's been eating me alive too, because I, you know, it's thrown my moral compass so off, because I've always told myself I wasn't that person. I would never be able to do that. And, you know, I've looked down on others that have done that and be like, okay, well, they can do that to the person they say that they vowed everything to, they can do that to me.

• 1:04:27Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. That's right. And so you are now, have to reestablish trust with you.

• 1:04:32Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:04:33Dr. John Delony?

  And that means you have to do the next right thing. You can't will it, or you can't think it into being, you just have to act it. You have to do the next trustworthy thing.

• 1:04:43Dr. John Delony?

  I've often found trust rebuilding, if you have other people in your life that you've wronged, it'd be a good time to get on the phone and call them and say you're sorry.

• 1:04:53Dr. John Delony?

  It's doing the next right thing with your wife and with your kid.

• 1:04:58Dr. John Delony?

  It is going to do some acts of service. So twice a week, I want you to go, go to a, a food kitchen. I want you to go do the next right thing that's bigger than you, so that you can reestablish trust with yourself. If you go to the local church, I want you to go sit with the pastor and say, hey, here's what I did, man. I blew up everything.

• 1:05:14Speaker 05

  That was one of the very first things I did.

• 1:05:15Dr. John Delony?

  Good.

• 1:05:16Speaker 05

  Went there, talked with him, with the therapy immediately. We've done couples therapy, we've done, tried to do that stuff. And couples therapist didn't really seem to help, that she didn't really give any, you know, tools to use, or any kind of plan of action to...

• 1:05:34Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, sometimes going to couples therapy right after something this big is like trying to go to PT instead of into surgery. It's like being in a car wreck and going straight to the physical therapist. It's not time yet, man. You still gotta, you gotta reset the bones and stitch somebody up and take out all the bad tissue, let those wounds heal, and then you can start going to physical therapy.

• 1:05:54Speaker 05

  Right.

• 1:05:55Dr. John Delony?

  Like, it's just, it's just a matter of going too fast, man.

• 1:06:05Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I think you can do the next right thing, man.

• 1:06:08Dr. John Delony?

  And

• 1:06:11Dr. John Delony?

  I hope more than anything that your daughter doesn't grow up without a dad.

• 1:06:16Dr. John Delony?

  And so if your wife decides, hey, I just can't move past this, such a, such a horrific violation of our marriage covenant, I hope you will honor her and say, I get it. And I'm gonna be the best dad and co-parent I can be. I'm gonna be an adult. I'm gonna be a grown up, even though I'm sad and I'm heartbroken. And I hope you will do the things you gotta do to rebuild trust in yourself. And maybe by God's grace, she comes around and says, okay, I'm gonna go slowly but surely, and we're gonna rebuild this marriage, and here's what trust is gonna look like, reestablishing trust. You can't drink, I wanna see your phone, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And you're gonna say, cool, I'm a hundred percent in. Cause I believe in you, and I believe in us, and I believe in being a good dad.

• 1:07:02Dr. John Delony?

  This is a big one, man. It's a big one. Go slow, go slow. You will not fix this in two months, three months, six months, one year. It's gonna take a long time to rebuild this.

• 1:07:11Dr. John Delony?

  Constantly focus on doing the next right thing. For you, for your daughter, for your wife, and for your marriage.

• 1:07:20Speaker 05

  I found my wife in an emotional affair with my neighbor for over a year now. I found out a couple weeks ago, I looked through the call logs on the phone. I knew something was going on between the two of them. I confronted him three times, and I confronted her, I'm being honest with you, was probably two to three times a day. We would consecutively argue about it. He would buy my son clothing for school, and just stuff for his room, and he would cook my wife dinner a lot. And in front of me, they had nicknames, and everybody

• 1:07:58Speaker 05

  denied it. And I'm having a hard time believing her in anything she says. Her mother passed away about two years ago, and she was swearing on her deceased mother and our son that nothing was going on. And then, when I confronted her, it was my, it was, the blame was on my end, and things weren't good. And it's been going on for about a year. We were in couples therapy, starting this January. I was unaware of everything, but I knew something was off in the marriage, and I was trying to make it better. And I can't even get away, because

• 1:08:36Speaker 05

  he is at my, he's next to me at home, and he is there when I go to the gym, at the same gym. So I can't even have an escape that way. And I'm not sure where to begin. I'm not even sure where my head is at. I can't trust anybody. And this is where I'm stuck at right now.

• 1:08:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, dude, that's a terrifying place to be, man. I'm sorry.

• 1:08:56Speaker 05

  Mm-hmm. That's okay.

• 1:08:58Dr. John Delony?

  Hey, it's not okay, man. It's not. You don't gotta make me feel better. I'll just sit here with you.

• 1:09:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it.

• 1:09:06Dr. John Delony?

  Do you have little ones?

• 1:09:07Speaker 05

  I do. I have one three-year-old son.

• 1:09:09Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, man.

• 1:09:10Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Speaker 05

  I'm not even, I, I don't wanna come home.

• 1:09:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:16Speaker 05

  I, I literally can't get away. And she said that she broke it off with him, and our houses are so close, if I, you know, put a hammer through the wall, you can probably see his living room. That's how, you know, we're right next door. But, and, you know, she said that she broke it off. And then, about two weeks ago, I asked her, we were just talking, and I asked her what she had for dinner, and she said that she didn't eat. And this is something little, but it's just the fact that it happened. She said that she didn't have dinner, cause she wasn't hungry, cause of everything going on. And then, I got home, I work late, and I got home that morning, and there was food, and that was

• 1:09:59Speaker 05

  not ours. And how I know is cause it was on a paper plate that was not ours in the garbage. And she wasn't honest with me again. And he keeps talking to her and saying hi. And, yeah, and they, they both said that it was nothing sexual, but I don't believe the two of them, because, like I said, he, I confronted him three times about it, and my wife twice a day, two, three times a day for the last year. So...

• 1:10:31Dr. John Delony?

  Man.

• 1:10:34Dr. John Delony?

  There's not a good, there's not like, it's not written in a textbook somewhere what the next move is.

• 1:10:39Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:10:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 1:10:40Speaker 05

  I understand.

• 1:10:41Dr. John Delony?

  So I'm gonna give you, with all of my, the time I've spent sitting with people who've had emotional affairs, and full-blown sexual affairs, and like, my personal experience, all of it.

• 1:10:54Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:10:58Dr. John Delony?

  I would probably leave for 30 days.

• 1:11:00Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:11:05Dr. John Delony?

  Because here's the thing, your wife is just lying to you, and lying to you, and you're going crazy. And it's hard to stay clear, because every time you go to your, to the safest, what should be the safest place in the world, which is your home, you're in fight or flight the entire time.

• 1:11:18Speaker 05

  Correct.

• 1:11:19Dr. John Delony?

  And every time you go to work, you're in firefight. And

• 1:11:25Dr. John Delony?

  the other option would be, I'm gonna go stay in an apartment for 30 days, and we're gonna put the house on the market. And I'm gonna sell this house, cause that's the only way you're gonna save your marriage.

• 1:11:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:11:36Dr. John Delony?

  And if she says, I think that's a great idea, let's do that, cool. And if she says, absolutely not, this is where we live, yada, yada, then she gets to make a choice. Do you want this, do you want to fight me for this home? Or, we're gonna sell this home when we're the other. We're gonna sell it through, when the judge forces the sale of the home, and we split the assets up, the equity up, or we can sell it now and try to save our marriage.

• 1:11:56Speaker 05

  I, I don't mean to throw another curveball at you.

• 1:11:59Dr. John Delony?

  Throw them all, man. Throw them all.

• 1:12:01Speaker 05

  So, this past February of this year, we jointly filed bankruptcy. So, we could sell it, but as far as buying, I'm, I'm pretty sure we can't buy it.

• 1:12:13Dr. John Delony?

  Bro, you're past all that.

• 1:12:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:16Dr. John Delony?

  Joe, your wife is sleeping with your neighbor. Period. End of story. You know that, I know that, they both know that.

• 1:12:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, and they would FaceTime too, I forgot to mention that.

• 1:12:28Dr. John Delony?

  Joe.

• 1:12:32Dr. John Delony?

  If you're done with this marriage, be done with this marriage. An important family death, bankruptcy, those are two of the, of the most powerful stressors on a marriage.

• 1:12:44Speaker 05

  Yes, sir.

• 1:12:44Dr. John Delony?

  An affair, I mean, you've got, like, you're, it's the trifecta.

• 1:12:51Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:12:52Dr. John Delony?

  But now you're at a place where you keep coming back to drink more poison, and more poison, and more poison. And I don't even, I haven't heard you once say, I am desperately in love with this woman, and I wanna try to save this marriage. I hear you pissed.

• 1:13:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm, I'm, I thought I was past the anger stage, and...

• 1:13:09Dr. John Delony?

  No, dude, your wife's cheating on you right, and your neighbor waves at you.

• 1:13:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Dr. John Delony?

  I'm afraid you're gonna end up in jail. You know why? Cause I would.

• 1:13:18Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:13:19Dr. John Delony?

  I don't have the strength to go through what you're, what you're doing every day.

• 1:13:26Speaker 05

  I thought I made the right, honestly, I, I thought I made the right call for staying from my son and, and try to work it out, but I'm just, I'm angry. I can't even look at her. It's like she, you know, she's trying in that aspect, but when I first found out, it was like the end of June and I, I, I just said a divorce, probably I'm going to say like two, two weeks ago. And then that's when she started to change. And I'm like, well, you know, why did it take me to say a divorce? And you know, I, I don't want to come home. I don't want to be around anybody. I'm, I'm angry. I'm upset. I, I can, I can't believe anybody. I don't believe a word that she's saying, you know what I mean? Even though she's, she, she could be telling the truth very well.

• 1:14:04Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the deal. Here's what you have to, here's what you, the work you have to do.

• 1:14:07Speaker 05

  Yes, sir.

• 1:14:08Dr. John Delony?

  What does the path to trust look like for you? Cause let's say we can't sell the house. We are stuck here in this house. It's against the law for us to sell, which is not true, but let's just make up something. Okay?

• 1:14:18Speaker 05

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:19Dr. John Delony?

  What does trust look like? Trust looks like a no contact order. Trust looks like you saying you are forbidden from coming on my property. And if you come on my property, you call my house again, you're on notice now, I'm going to file a harassment complaint.

• 1:14:34Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 1:14:36Dr. John Delony?

  And your wife cuts off everything. She throws her phone in the sink and lets it, and loses all contacts and starts completely over.

• 1:14:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:14:45Dr. John Delony?

  But here's the deal, bro. She did all this stuff and she, and he made her dinner and they had dinner together last night.

• 1:14:50Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:14:51Dr. John Delony?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:14:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, I understand.

• 1:14:54Dr. John Delony?

  You've heard me say this a thousand times, behavior is a language. She's being very clear with you.

• 1:14:58Speaker 05

  No, I understand.

• 1:14:59Dr. John Delony?

  And she, right now she's got a gravy train, which is you going off to work and then coming home. Does she work too?

• 1:15:06Speaker 05

  Uh, yeah, she works during the day and then I work second shift from three to um, midnight.

• 1:15:13Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 1:15:14Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:15Dr. John Delony?

  So y'all effectively never see each other and she has eight hours a day when she gets to spend with the man next door.

• 1:15:20Speaker 05

  That is correct.

• 1:15:22Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:23Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 1:15:24Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:25Speaker 05

  Yes, sir. Yeah. Like when the minute I leave for work, I leave the house around two and then that's when the calls would happen.

• 1:15:31Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 1:15:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:15:33Dr. John Delony?

  Of course they would.

• 1:15:34Speaker 05

  I guess I'm just still processing this and I don't even know. Yeah.

• 1:15:37Dr. John Delony?

  But here, here's the deal. I'm afraid you're about to do something stupid. Will you promise me that you're not going to go to jail?

• 1:15:43Speaker 05

  Of course. Yeah. I have a, I have a three year old and I can't.

• 1:15:46Dr. John Delony?

  Excellent. Excellent.

• 1:15:47Speaker 05

  I don't want to, I don't want to make it worse for anybody.

• 1:15:50Dr. John Delony?

  And for whatever it's worth, during a divorce proceeding, every one of her text messages will be subpoenaed. Every one of her emails will be subpoenaed, even the deleted ones.

• 1:15:59Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:16:00Dr. John Delony?

  Everything is on the table. Okay? Yours too.

• 1:16:04Speaker 05

  Yes, sir.

• 1:16:06Dr. John Delony?

  And so there's a chance you end up with full custody here because she doesn't want to be married to you.

• 1:16:10Speaker 05

  Hmm. I mean, yeah, she's, I mean, she's a great mom and I, you know, I couldn't ask her about her mother that way.

• 1:16:21Dr. John Delony?

  Joe.

• 1:16:22Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:16:23Dr. John Delony?

  A great mom doesn't bring another man to the house every night.

• 1:16:25Speaker 05

  Yes, sir. And our son, like just to bring one more incident up, like, you know, we were painting our son's room and um, we were in the middle of it and him and I started it and nothing was done. And she got the next, the following day, she got to work at two. I left and I called her around my six 30 break time and um, she said that the room was finished and done. And um, I didn't believe her because I know how much that takes, especially with a three year old by herself. And then, uh, you know, I got home the next day because I get home at night and I looked at the room and it's, it's beautiful. Everything was cut

• 1:17:05Speaker 05

  in, all the corners. And I look on the tarp and there was paintbrushes and rollers that I don't have. And um, our son consecutively says that, um, I don't want to say names, but her, but um, the neighbor, um, mommy and him were all painting the room. And um, she obviously denies it, but this is.

• 1:17:26Dr. John Delony?

  Joe.

• 1:17:27Speaker 05

  Yeah. I'm just.

• 1:17:29Dr. John Delony?

  You can hear it as you're saying it out loud, can't you?

• 1:17:31Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:33Dr. John Delony?

  Listen, like if, if we were in person, if I was sitting in Connecticut right now with you in New Haven, I was just there a few weeks ago. If I was there with you right now, I would stop the conversation and I'd give you a hug. Cause I know the path is, it's in front of you is gnarly.

• 1:17:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:17:51Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sorry.

• 1:17:56Speaker 05

  Sorry.

• 1:17:58Dr. John Delony?

  I know miracles happen, but this sounds like your marriage is over and it sounds like now we're just waiting for somebody to be the adult and have the courage to do the next thing.

• 1:18:10Speaker 05

  Yeah. I guess that's what I was afraid of.

• 1:18:14Dr. John Delony?

  I know. I'm sorry. I hate it for you too.

• 1:18:17Speaker 05

  Sorry. It's just, um, it's, you know, loads of funny things. It's like no matter how bad somebody hurts you, you just, you just don't stop them.

• 1:18:25Dr. John Delony?

  No, of course not. Of course not.

• 1:18:27Speaker 05

  I guess that's what I'm holding on to.

• 1:18:29Dr. John Delony?

  And dude, if she, if she was ready to fight and go to war for this marriage, dude, I'd be, a thousand percent y'all could save this marriage.

• 1:18:35Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:36Dr. John Delony?

  No question about it. I have no question about it. But everything starts with, I'm going to tell you the truth. And she can't do that. And she won't do that.

• 1:18:45Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:18:49Dr. John Delony?

  And now we're at a place where she is teaching her son that we lie.

• 1:18:53Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:18:54Dr. John Delony?

  She's teaching her son that multiple men stay in this home.

• 1:18:57Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:03Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, dude, Joe, just, just so you can see this from an outsider's perspective, because I'm just a random dude in Nashville, Tennessee.

• 1:19:09Speaker 05

  Yes, sir.

• 1:19:10Dr. John Delony?

  She's trying to send you a message. She's leaving trash in the trash. She's leaving rollers in the house.

• 1:19:16Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:18Dr. John Delony?

  She's not even trying. You know what I mean?

• 1:19:21Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. That's true.

• 1:19:25Dr. John Delony?

  Like there's a lot of what I would call um, infidelity gymnastics that people go through. Lots.

• 1:19:32Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:33Dr. John Delony?

  She's almost rubbing your nose in it or less like, less aggressively, like letting you know, this is happening. Ta-da. Right?

• 1:19:42Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:44Dr. John Delony?

  And maybe you tell her, I want you out of this house by the, in, in the next week. She's got to move out.

• 1:19:49Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:19:52Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all figure that stuff out. But y'all, but I mean, you, you can't continue to allow another man to come spend eight hours a day in your home with your wife and your child.

• 1:20:03Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:20:04Dr. John Delony?

  And that can be that you leave.

• 1:20:05Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:20:07Dr. John Delony?

  And then serve the papers or sit with an attorney or y'all go to mediation, wherever it happens in Connecticut. Every state's different. Um, or she packs up and goes. Although I think your fear is she's just going to go 20 yards next door.

• 1:20:21Speaker 05

  Um, yeah. Um, yeah. I'm, I'm pretty sure that's, you know, that's what's going to happen. And she told him that, you know, she wants nothing to do with him. But um, you know, yesterday he was, they were outside and she took my son and her, um, uh, herself and my son and the dog for a walk. And when she went down the street, you know, he was staring at her. And when he got back, he, you know, he's like, hey, how are you guys? And she's like, you know, good. How are you? And it's something little, but it's the, the fact that we're going through all this. And it's like, I, you know, my expectation is no, no contact. And I shouldn't even have to say that if you're willing to work with somebody. And her defense was, well, we're neighbors. You know, what am I going to say? We're going to say hi. And I'm like, okay, but our marriage is on the line.

• 1:21:05Dr. John Delony?

  Not a neighbor that you're having an affair with.

• 1:21:06Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Dr. John Delony?

  Right? Has she shown you the messages that she sent him that said, we are never going to be in contact ever again? Stop contacting me effective immediately?

• 1:21:16Speaker 05

  No, sir. Apparently this is all verbal on the back deck.

• 1:21:20Dr. John Delony?

  Exactly. I want it in writing.

• 1:21:21Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:22Dr. John Delony?

  I want it in writing so that when you file a harassment complaint, that this man won't leave your wife alone?

• 1:21:27Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 1:21:28Dr. John Delony?

  He keeps uh, coming over to the property line and staring at her. He keeps yelling at her, trying to say hello to her when she's trying to walk uh, your child and, and the dog.

• 1:21:38Speaker 05

  Hmm.

• 1:21:39Dr. John Delony?

  All, all in writing. I used to tell my college students, you have to put in writing through text message or email, do not contact me anymore. Period. And once that line is crossed, then it's harassment. Now we can get involved.

• 1:21:50Speaker 05

  Yeah. That's a good point. Okay.

• 1:21:53Dr. John Delony?

  All right. But I don't think she's going to do it, Joe.

• 1:21:56Speaker 05

  I'm going to have to agree with you there.

• 1:22:01Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So let's start, let's, let's get a group of people in your corner, whether that's a couple of close friends, whether that's a minister from your local church, whether that is um, an attorney that you're going to sit with, a mental health professional, everybody. Uh, maybe the path right now is to go sit with an attorney because you've got a lot to untangle, whether with, with the bankruptcy, with child, with home equity. I don't know how any of that stuff works in Connecticut. So having somebody, a professional just to know what you're looking at here. And the whole time, I want you to spend some time with yourself in a local coffee shop or on your breaks at work, or in the morning when your son is taking a nap, figuring out what is a path back to trust so that you

• 1:22:46Dr. John Delony?

  can lay it down in front of her and say, this is what this looks like. We sell the house and we rent. Cause I, I would rather be married to you and rebuild this marriage than own a house. Or you have to sever all contact forever and partridge in the pear tree on and on and on and on and on. And I'm going to put cameras up in the house. And if this man steps on my property, I'm going to have him a no trespass. I don't want his plates in our home and I don't want his paint rollers in our home. And I don't want his love and affection for you and our kid in our home. It's our home, not his. But Joe, you gotta stop. I mean, I know you hear it and it's, it's hard to even wrap your head

• 1:23:30Dr. John Delony?

  around, oh, this is it. Like my wife is choosing him. She's choosing dishonesty. She's choosing lying and I'm so sorry. Call back anytime, brother. You got a long, hard road ahead of you. And listen to me, just because it's painful, doesn't mean it's not right.

• 1:23:47Speaker 05

  This time last year, my uh, wife asked me for an, an open relationship. And I could see that she was struggling really bad and had been for a while. Um, and I felt like I didn't want to just say no to her. So basically I said, I'll give you a month. Not do anything, not, nothing physical. I said, I'll let you collect information.

• 1:24:12Speaker 03

  Give me some data. Tell me a reason why you think this would help us.

• 1:24:16Dr. John Delony?

  She was already with somebody, wasn't she?

• 1:24:19Speaker 03

  She had been already a year and a half before that for a year.

• 1:24:25Dr. John Delony?

  Yep, almost every time.

• 1:24:27Speaker 03

  And she already had a plan.

• 1:24:31Speaker 03

  Like, we laid out all these ground rules, what would happen if we got there. And she was with somebody like almost right away, somebody different than this other person. And both of them were from work. And then, so I am struggling with this because I just, it wasn't, after the first month, I was like, this is not something I want to have anything to do with, which I knew before I even agreed to any of it.

• 1:24:58Dr. John Delony?

  Right.

• 1:24:59Speaker 03

  If I would admit it to myself, but then,

• 1:25:04Speaker 03

  it all, like I asked her to stop and she said no.

• 1:25:09Speaker 03

  And even though she told me she hadn't been with anyone, there was nothing there.

• 1:25:14Speaker 03

  She was still sleeping with me and then I found out later that she wasn't using protection with these people.

• 1:25:20Dr. John Delony?

  Have you ever heard, have you ever heard the analogy about the rattlesnake in the paper bag?

• 1:25:29Speaker 03

  I think so, but you might have to refresh my memory.

• 1:25:33Dr. John Delony?

  So a guy is walking down the street and he stumbles on a plastic bag and he opens it up and there's a rattlesnake inside buzzing. And that rattlesnake says, hey, will you help me get out of this bag? I'm stuck in here. I can't get out. And the guy goes, dude, I'm not going to pick you up here. A rattlesnake, he'll bite me. And the rattlesnake goes, no, I'm not. I need help. Like, I'm not going to bite you this time. Like, I need you to help me. And the guy's like, huh, okay. And he sticks his hand in and the rattlesnake just bites the crap out of him. And the guy goes, why'd you do that? You said you weren't going to. And he's like, I'm a rattlesnake. That's what I do. And then he goes, will you help me though? Help me out of this bag. And he goes, no, you just bit me. And he goes, I know. I had to get that out of my system. I'm a rattlesnake. It's hard for me not to. I won't do it again. The guy's like, no, you bit me. And he goes, oh, come on. And he goes, all right. So he puts his hand back in the bag to grab the snake and the snake bites him again.

• 1:26:19Dr. John Delony?

  That's you.

• 1:26:23Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:26:23Dr. John Delony?

  Your wife was cheating on you for a year and a half. My, how long have you all been married?

• 1:26:28Speaker 03

  We've been married for six years, but we've been together since we were teenagers. So we've been together for almost 16 years.

• 1:26:35Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, it's been happening before that.

• 1:26:39Dr. John Delony?

  Statistically speaking, it's happened before that. Hold on. She's cheating on you. Then she came up with a plan to get you to go along with it.

• 1:26:49Dr. John Delony?

  And when somebody's cheating on you for over a year, that means she didn't just have a one night stand or a weekend fling or a two or three week like, ah, what am I doing? She was with somebody for a year. And so that marriage disconnection you felt, that even entertained the idea that I know it'll make my marriage better. My wife goes and knocks around with some other dude. That'll help. The fact that you even entertained that was not because your marriage is falling apart because of something you were doing. It's because your wife is already in a relationship with somebody else.

• 1:27:25Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:27:26Dr. John Delony?

  And then you set up ground rules and you're stunned that she goes and sleeps with somebody else right away.

• 1:27:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, she broke every rule the first time.

• 1:27:33Dr. John Delony?

  She's not a person of integrity.

• 1:27:37Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm only telling you that because I love you, man.

• 1:27:40Dr. John Delony?

  She's a person that lies and cheats to her husband of, and her ride or die for 16 years.

• 1:27:47Speaker 03

  I would like to say that since, so we went on a family vacation and she, on this vacation, we were driving through the middle of the night because we have young children and I wanted them to sleep. And her phone was still lit up because everything was locked on, obviously. It was still lit up, so I grabbed it and I found a bunch of stuff. She was sending videos and pictures and all sorts of stuff to many, many people.

• 1:28:10Speaker 03

  And from, and from that day, we started working to try to fix this. And then I found out everything, maybe a month and a half after that in July. And since the day that she has come clean and told me everything, she has done every single thing I've asked. She has gone to counseling. I've gone to counseling. We're about to start couples therapy.

• 1:28:33Speaker 03

  We've taken trips together. We've really tried to reconnect on all levels and become better parents and just do things together. And to be honest, I've found nothing since then that says there was more. And trust me, I became a person who was searching phone logs and doing all this stuff that I had never done over the first 15 years. I'd never even been through a phone.

• 1:28:52Dr. John Delony?

  You find yourself like Liam Neeson real fast, like.

• 1:28:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was wild.

• 1:28:56Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you just, you just like become one of those murder podcast people for sure. I gotta solve this, right? So what's your question? Let's get right to it. What's your question?

• 1:29:06Speaker 03

  I cannot stop thinking about her with these other people.

• 1:29:10Dr. John Delony?

  That's right.

• 1:29:11Speaker 03

  I, I, I start visualizing and then I ruminate and then I spiral and then I make up scenarios in my head and I make everything even worse than it probably was. And then I ask her about it and then I can see the guilt is crushing her because now that she's in a healthier place and knows what she did, is doing to me currently like, and I, for us, for my children, for her, I need to start feeling better and not being so crushed day to day and not having these two or three day spans where I just cannot function because the weight of this is killing me.

• 1:29:48Speaker 03

  And I just am not sure how to move forward with it.

• 1:29:53Dr. John Delony?

  Often what happens in these situations is

• 1:29:58Dr. John Delony?

  you are so empowered, empowered is not the right word. You're so brought back to life. You're enlivened. That's not really, I don't know if that's the right word. You're just given life again by seeing your partner try to connect with you. By seeing her do the things that you wished had been happening for 15 years. And it injects some life, some light back into a dark, dark, dark room.

• 1:30:27Dr. John Delony?

  And what often happens is what you're running into right now. So I want you to know you're not crazy. You're not nuts. You're not alone. You're not on an island by yourself. This happens all the time. Okay?

• 1:30:37Speaker 03

  That's exactly how it feels.

• 1:30:38Dr. John Delony?

  I know, I know it does. It's super isolating and you start to feel crazy.

• 1:30:44Dr. John Delony?

  Because she's doing all these things

• 1:30:48Dr. John Delony?

  that seems that she's all in.

• 1:30:52Dr. John Delony?

  And.

• 1:30:53Speaker 03

  It really feels that way.

• 1:30:54Dr. John Delony?

  I know it does. You're not crazy. Okay? What you haven't done is a couple of things. You have not grieved this yet.

• 1:31:04Dr. John Delony?

  I don't know that you fully metabolized what actually happened. You've been too busy searching and playing Matlock and trying to solve this thing and then trying to get her to not wreck this whole car because it's flying down the highway and it's got kids in it and it's a thing and it's my marriage.

• 1:31:23Dr. John Delony?

  And you haven't sat on the back porch by yourself and stared off at the sunset and said out loud, my wife was cheating on me for years.

• 1:31:33Dr. John Delony?

  My wife was sleeping with other guys. My wife was sending nude videos and photos of herself all over the place. People have my wife's naked body on their phones. Who knows? Who knows how many? Who knows who they've shared that with?

• 1:31:48Dr. John Delony?

  Uploaded it to.

• 1:31:51Dr. John Delony?

  And the only way, and I'm being really direct with you because the only way to heal, it's the same as if I'm looking at somebody and I'm holding both of their hands and I look them in the eye and say, your husband was in a car wreck and he has died.

• 1:32:06Dr. John Delony?

  There is something about you have to, facts of your friends have to be told. This is what happened and you have to sit in that and own it.

• 1:32:16Dr. John Delony?

  And what you're going to find is that you've been trying to keep your marriage together. Brother, the marriage you had is over.

• 1:32:28Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can definitely feel that.

• 1:32:29Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all can, no question about it, decide to build something new.

• 1:32:35Speaker 03

  And we have. I think that's where we're at right now. If I can move forward, I think she is starting to. And trying to forgive herself and trying to do.

• 1:32:44Dr. John Delony?

  And you're making yourself the bad guy?

• 1:32:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm good at that.

• 1:32:48Dr. John Delony?

  I know. It's one of your spiritual gifts. Stop. Quit it.

• 1:32:56Dr. John Delony?

  Quit it. It doesn't help the situation.

• 1:33:00Dr. John Delony?

  The reality is

• 1:33:03Dr. John Delony?

  the person who is the mother of your kids didn't stab you in the back. She stabbed you right in the face. And then tried to concoct a plan to get you to go along with doing it in the future.

• 1:33:16Dr. John Delony?

  And you being a guy that always goes to the mirror and is convinced that you're the biggest piece of crap on planet earth and you can't believe a woman like her would even be with you in the first place, much less have kids and be your wife, went along with it.

• 1:33:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a hard thing to face.

• 1:33:34Dr. John Delony?

  I know it is. I know. Here's what she really needs. She needs you to stand up on two feet tall. Put your shoulders back.

• 1:33:45Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all are keeping the car going. You are. But you have to ask yourself a question you haven't asked yet. What do you want moving forward?

• 1:33:57Speaker 03

  I want to make it work with her, for our children and for me and for her. And I don't think it was ever about leaving me or any of that. These are both married men. I gave one of them 24 hours to tell his wife he lived locally and then I made sure she knew the details. The other one didn't even mention knowing her, so I got his wife's phone number and I made sure she had all the details.

• 1:34:16Dr. John Delony?

  And did that make you feel any better?

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  Um.

• 1:34:19Dr. John Delony?

  No.

• 1:34:20Speaker 03

  Not really. I was angry at the time and.

• 1:34:22Dr. John Delony?

  That's pure anger and rage.

• 1:34:25Speaker 03

  I had nowhere to take it but to my, basically what you called like the Sherlock Holmes things. Like I was just searching and I was digging and I couldn't stop and I felt like that's what needed to be done.

• 1:34:34Dr. John Delony?

  And I would golf clap if I was here.

• 1:34:35Speaker 03

  Ruining multiple lives.

• 1:34:37Dr. John Delony?

  She wasn't trying to destroy your marriage because she thought she was bigger than the whole thing.

• 1:34:44Dr. John Delony?

  She did though. She destroyed what y'all had and you went along with it for a while.

• 1:34:52Dr. John Delony?

  So both of you have to look at the parts of your marriage that you love and want to hang on to. And you both have to look at the pieces that have to be gone.

• 1:35:07Dr. John Delony?

  Then you have to decide, will you be a part of this new thing? And then to answer your question, at some point, you are going to have to do the hard work of deciding, I trust her enough to tell myself to stop ruminating, and I'm going to practice that, and it's going to take about a year or two, if not longer. And then 10 years from now, you're going to have a lightning bolt image pop into your head of your wife with somebody else, and you're going to have to say out loud, "Stop it", or "No", or "Not today". You're going to have some sort of mantra.

• 1:35:44Speaker 06

  Yeah, they're going to kill me.

• 1:35:48Dr. John Delony?

  Here's what it kills you, and this is when you have a choice. You don't have a choice right now because you haven't grieved this thing, and your body is trying, is taking over because it knows you're not driving. What it's trying to do is to keep you safe. And this woman who destroyed you, and your marriage, and your family unit, and you went along with it, is still living in your home, and y'all are having good moments, and your brain is screaming at you, Jeff, going, "She's the bear, she's the tiger that just tried to kill us!". And so it has taken over. What grief allows you to do is to own what happened, feel it, write the letters you need to write, have the conversations you need to have,

• 1:36:33Dr. John Delony?

  slowly begin to come out of this thing, begin exercising, begin moving, begin standing up on your own two feet, building something new, and then your body will stop trying to drive for you. Sort of, but it will still, man, it'll still drop some lightning bolts in there. That's when you have a choice. When those lightning bolts come, you can't stop those, you can't predict those, they just happen. It happens if you see your kid, and you're in a tragic car wreck, and your kid passes away, and you get that image in your mind. Or if you are at a funeral, and a loved one, a husband, a wife, a child is in a casket in that picture, or if you're, there's someone cheats on you, right? Those

• 1:37:15Dr. John Delony?

  images flash into your mind, and it's your brain's way of trying to protect you. You have a choice after that, from the second after that. Am I going to sit here and worship that image? Am I going to ruminate on it? Am I going to create stories about it? Am I going to let it fill my body? Am I going to feel it? Or am I going to stop it? Nope, I will not. And here's the magic. You have to have a couple of pictures in your mind, ready to replace it.

• 1:37:43Speaker 06

  That's a good idea.

• 1:37:46Dr. John Delony?

  So, get two or three photos of you and your wife together laughing. And if you don't have those photos, go get them taken. Cracking up, doing something funny, back when y'all were in high school together, at a concert you loved together, and when that picture of her with some other dude pops into your head, you say out loud, "No!", and then you close your eyes, and you concentrate on that photo.

• 1:38:08Speaker 06

  I can tell you were definitely right. She was, there was stuff before all this too, it was mostly all emotional, but I found that too, and it just killed your whole memories. So I can see where you're coming from. Like, my memories for the last 15 years feel destroyed.

• 1:38:23Dr. John Delony?

  Yes, because the tiger's still in your home. So what you have to teach your body is, "That tiger tried to kill us before, but I believe she's not going to try to kill us again."

• 1:38:32Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:38:34Dr. John Delony?

  And give yourself some, give yourself some grace. You're not crazy. You're not nuts. You're just going from one thing to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing, to the next thing. And it sounds a lot, my brother, like you're getting dragged. You got dragged into this idea that, "Man, maybe if my wife just hooks up with other dudes, then things in my marriage will get some spark back." Madness. Maybe I'll do a whole thing on open marriages. My God. But, geez, I'm all distracted. Or, "Now we're going to go to this, now we're going to go to this." It sounds like you're getting dragged through this recovery. Your recovery is something that you have to own. You have

• 1:39:16Dr. John Delony?

  to take the leadership on. Okay? It's gotta be you, it's gotta be you, it's gotta be you.

• 1:39:21Speaker 06

  I've been with my wife for, we've been together since we were, for 14 years. I, I'm 32, I met her when I was 19, we had a child at 20, and I've always just kind of been a butt head to her, to be honest. Every now and then, I would demean her, or make little comments, and I would say, it started really getting bad about six weeks ago. We were doing some work in the yard, and I really just blew up on her over the stupidest little thing. And then about a week later, we're just constantly arguing and dividing from each other. And then, about a week or two later, she told me that she thought she was

• 1:40:03Speaker 06

  falling out of love with me, and it just really crushed me. I never would have thought that those words could come out of her mouth, and she told me that the way I treat her is, I'm not treating her the right way. And I completely owned it. I mean, I said, "Everything you said is absolutely correct", you know, and I said, "I don't want my son, our son, growing up thinking that this is how you're supposed to treat women." And, I mean, since that day, I have treated her like an angel. I mean, I've done everything, and just constantly telling her I love her, giving her hugs, kisses. But, that was a Saturday night, and then Monday night, she ended up telling me that she was in communication with a guy

• 1:40:45Speaker 06

  she met on TikTok, and she told me she broke it off with him, and I asked her what was the subject about, and she said it was just somebody to talk to about what I'm going through, my mental, you know, health. And she said it was never anything flirtatious or anything like that. She said it was just a stranger that I could talk to. But she said, "I broke it off with him, and I'm going to focus on us." And I said, "I'm all in with you, let's rebuild this." And we went about two weeks, and it was just absolute honeymoon phase. I mean, we were just never, it was great. And then I went through her phone, two weeks after that, and found that she was on Snapchat with the guy, and I confronted her about it. And she said, "Okay, well, I didn't, I didn't think you were really

• 1:41:30Speaker 06

  going to change, and I wanted to keep this friendship with the guy." And she said, "I'll break it off with him." And I'm like, "Okay, I guess I'll give you a second chance. I'm kind of heartbroken again that you would keep this from me." And then about a week and a half later, which was just yesterday, I went through the call logs on AT&T.com, which I feel bad because I'm constantly digging at all this, but every time I dig, I find something. And I confronted her yesterday, that she's been talking to this guy for 30, 40, 50 minutes a day, the last week and a half, after she told me a third time that she was breaking it off with him. And I'm just super confused. I don't really know

• 1:42:14Speaker 06

  how to handle this. Now she's saying that she's all done talking to him. And I'm like, "Well, how do I trust you now? You've been lying to me for the past three weeks about this." So, that's really all I got.

• 1:42:27Dr. John Delony?

  So for 14 years, you belittled your wife. She, she got the clear message, she was beneath you. You're the smart one, you're the fast one, you're the quick one. You are the provider, you're the all this stuff.

• 1:42:44Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm. I always thought she was beneath me.

• 1:42:47Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, you did. And she's got that message for, for, for a decade and a half. And then five weeks ago, you decide, "It's all going to be different."

• 1:42:58Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:00Dr. John Delony?

  And four, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Four weeks into this? You're pissed off that she's not just like, "Oh, all right!", dude, you're belittling her again. Did she lie to you? Yes, no question about that. She's not on the phone to defend herself, just you.

• 1:43:15Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:43:16Dr. John Delony?

  Bro. Like, as you were talking, here's the words that kept coming to my mouth. Dude, who do you think you are, man?

• 1:43:23Speaker 06

  That's how I feel. I know, I don't, I feel like I'm two inches tall that I've treated her like this the last 14 years. And I wish I could fast forward 14 years from now and show her that I can treat her well.

• 1:43:36Dr. John Delony?

  I know. But look, here's what you tried to do. You tried to fix this by doing things that you like doing, or that you think that she would like. "I'm going to buy her flowers, and hug her, and kiss her."

• 1:43:45Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:43:47Dr. John Delony?

  You didn't get down on both knees and say, "My God, will you forgive me? How can I love you?" And so, when you decided to fix this thing by showing her more affection and loving her, you did it how you wanted to do it, which is, again, belittling.

• 1:44:01Speaker 06

  I pushed her away by being so close to her.

• 1:44:05Dr. John Delony?

  You, I mean, I, I can't believe she's put up with you for this long, man.

• 1:44:14Speaker 06

  I can't either. I told her that. I said, "I don't know why you, why you're still with me after 14 years."

• 1:44:20Dr. John Delony?

  She's created a fantasy, where somebody that she's never met, now she's talked to on the phone. Is she on a dangerous trajectory? No question about it. There's no question about that. But at least that guy will listen to her, right? At least that guy makes her feel alive again, makes that, that guy feels, it makes her voice feel like it matters, because her own husband, she doesn't.

• 1:44:41Speaker 06

  Right. That guy asked her how her day at work went.

• 1:44:46Speaker 06

  Yeah, I never did that.

• 1:44:49Dr. John Delony?

  So, I mean, I'm, I'm, yes, I get, I get being hurt like, oh, gosh, my wife's gonna leave me. That can be a rattling moment. Or my wife has feelings for somebody else. By the way, just to say this at the outset, the phrase fall out of love is just nonsense. It's, it's just, it's a dumb thing to say. Um, it's a, you don't fall in love, you don't fall out of love. She stopped, she just threw her hands up because there was no connecting with you. You were too important and powerful and wonderful and great, and she was too stupid and dumb.

• 1:45:22Speaker 06

  Yeah, and she never thought she could come and talk to me because my arrogance, I would just blow her off.

• 1:45:26Dr. John Delony?

  Right. Bro, if you want to save this sucker, it starts with you begging for forgiveness.

• 1:45:36Dr. John Delony?

  And saying, how can I love you?

• 1:45:40Dr. John Delony?

  And let her speak into that. And when you go, well, I don't, you gotta stop all that.

• 1:45:44Speaker 06

  Okay, quit saying hi so much.

• 1:45:47Dr. John Delony?

  It's not even saying hi, what are you talking about, saying hi?

• 1:45:51Speaker 06

  I know, I.

• 1:45:51Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, yes.

• 1:45:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:45:53Dr. John Delony?

  Yes, it's we, it's us.

• 1:45:55Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:45:55Dr. John Delony?

  Because here's the deal, you felt bad.

• 1:46:00Dr. John Delony?

  Like, you felt bad, you decided to change, you started doing new things. And nowhere do I hear, we decide, we decided to redesign our marriage. And so again, all of the things you're doing to save this thing, you're continuing to leave her out, bobbing in the, in the middle ocean while you're sitting on the island.

• 1:46:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:46:20Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense? Where, where does this, bro, where does this arrogance, like, where does that come from, man? What are you scared of?

• 1:46:26Speaker 06

  I don't know, I, I don't know. I, uh, I grew up, I mean, my dad married, remarried when I was about eight, and he was in a very toxic relationship with his now ex-wife again.

• 1:46:38Dr. John Delony?

  So is your wife, she's in a toxic relationship.

• 1:46:41Speaker 06

  I know, absolutely. And I, I don't know, I just, I never knew, I was, and this is not an excuse, I was just never shown like how to treat a woman and love her and just accept her for who she is and, and everything.

• 1:46:53Dr. John Delony?

  And don't just accept her, honor her, cherish her.

• 1:46:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:46:57Dr. John Delony?

  Like, wake up every day, um, so excited that you get to provide for this amazing person who gave you children, who takes care of your home, right? It makes, makes, contributes to the house, like, contributes to the finances of the house, all that stuff. But I, do your friends, do you act like this with your buddies or at work too? Is this kind of the way you enter into the world? Or do you just dump all this under your wife?

• 1:47:21Speaker 06

  Um, a little bit, I mean, I do have a level of arrogance at work and I do feel entitled and, um, I don't know, I just feel, it's, I feel like it's all gone now and I, I'm trying to let it come back. I'm trying to be a better person. I am, it's hard, I'm going through my first therapy session at three o'clock today to talk to another therapist.

• 1:47:43Dr. John Delony?

  Good.

• 1:47:43Speaker 06

  Locally here. Yeah, I mean, I'm doing everything I can.

• 1:47:46Dr. John Delony?

  I got you, I got you. Um, for whatever reason, whatever went on at your house, whatever went on in, in high school and whatnot, you've developed this tough guy exterior.

• 1:47:58Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:48:00Dr. John Delony?

  And man, it's gonna cost you everything. This bravado.

• 1:48:04Speaker 06

  My family.

• 1:48:05Dr. John Delony?

  It's gonna cost you everything, dude. Is that worth it? Right? And like, it, in an effort to not take imaginary punches, or more importantly, to punch first everywhere, all the time. Right? Do you have a big truck?

• 1:48:20Speaker 06

  No, I don't.

• 1:48:21Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 1:48:22Speaker 06

  I, uh, I have a company truck, but it's just a little truck, but I mean, she drives a Grand Cherokee, but it's bigger, I guess.

• 1:48:29Dr. John Delony?

  I was just fishing there, I was just seeing if you were gonna.

• 1:48:30Speaker 06

  No, you're good.

• 1:48:31Dr. John Delony?

  Complete the stereotype for me, but I could. All right, so, um, and here's the thing, I, I actually honor that. I get that you don't have a picture or model what this looks like. And I also know what it's like to be trapped and I know this isn't working and this is hurting my, me and it's hurting everybody I love, and I don't know the next right step. Do you have some men in your life you could talk to?

• 1:48:53Speaker 06

  Yeah, I, I've been going out, I've got a great buddy since middle school and he's been keeping in touch and checking in with me every day.

• 1:48:59Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, that's, guys, that's not the right guy.

• 1:49:01Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:49:02Dr. John Delony?

  I'm talking about a couple of men who are 10 years older than you.

• 1:49:07Dr. John Delony?

  That you can say, I'm a complete ass to my wife and I've gotta stop, I'm gonna lose my family, and I've got this built up arrogance inside of me where I think I'm better than everybody and I know I'm not, but I can't stop.

• 1:49:19Dr. John Delony?

  Can you help me?

• 1:49:21Speaker 06

  Yeah, there's a couple of works, guys at work I could talk to, they're a little older than me, yeah.

• 1:49:26Dr. John Delony?

  If you talk to them, can you be honest with them? Can you take them out to lunch and say, I'm gonna buy lunch, but I gotta be totally straight up honest with them, not okay?

• 1:49:32Speaker 06

  Oh, absolutely, yeah, definitely, I have nothing to hide.

• 1:49:35Dr. John Delony?

  Here's gonna be the scariest part, actually, your situation, like, people call with borderline personality disorder, all these different things. Your situation, I think, is one of the hardest things to heal from, and here's why.

• 1:49:50Dr. John Delony?

  Because all, the way you interact with the world is to protect yourself from one thing, and that is ever, ever being vulnerable.

• 1:49:59Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:49:59Dr. John Delony?

  In a position where somebody can roll over on you. And I don't know when that happened in your childhood, but it did, and it did bad.

• 1:50:06Speaker 06

  Up with a big brother who was a tough guy and, you know, everybody feared him and everybody, you know, he would beat everybody up, nobody messed with him, and I always thought I had to put that shield on as well.

• 1:50:17Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. And that shield is going, is, is, made it impossible to be married to, and it's made it impossible for your kids to love and connect with their dad.

• 1:50:27Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:50:28Dr. John Delony?

  And you know what they're gonna have to do? They're gonna have to go out in the world and be tough guys because they don't know how to feel because they've never hugged their dad for real. And they're gonna, this whole cycle's gonna start over. They came from your granddad to your dad to your brother, and it's just gonna go through your family line unless you stop and turn and say, enough. And the scariest part for you is the only path forward is risking getting hurt. And I'm gonna tell you, your wife may leave you.

• 1:50:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:50:58Dr. John Delony?

  She may take your kid and go because you've been awful to her for a decade and a half. I hope she doesn't.

• 1:51:06Dr. John Delony?

  But I want you to see her, like, yes, she's not being right, and yes, if she was on the phone, I'd, I'd be letting her have it too. Because that's not the way to solve this problem.

• 1:51:15Speaker 06

  And I didn't yell at her, I just asked her very calmly, can you explain this? Like, I don't have the energy, I can't argue with her anymore.

• 1:51:22Dr. John Delony?

  Sure, yeah. But even, like, explain, explain what? That I haven't felt safe in my own home for a decade and a half? That I've never felt loved, I've just felt like a child in my own home? Like, I know what this, and this guy actually asked me how my day went, for God's sakes?

• 1:51:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I own every, I own all of it, I do.

• 1:51:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 1:51:41Speaker 06

  And it's so hard for me to admit it.

• 1:51:42Dr. John Delony?

  I, I know, I know it is, I know it is. And you are, you are bucking family tradition right now on this call, and I, I honor you for that. But ownership has two parts to it. One is choosing reality, admitting it, and the second part of ownership is to go do differently.

• 1:51:58Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:51:59Dr. John Delony?

  You gotta act differently.

• 1:52:01Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:52:01Dr. John Delony?

  You gotta say, I don't know. And so here's what I would love for you to do, how many kids you got?

• 1:52:07Speaker 06

  Just one boy, 12 years old.

• 1:52:09Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome. Here's your homework for this week.

• 1:52:14Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to ask your wife,

• 1:52:19Dr. John Delony?

  would you go to a nice dinner with just us? I have some things I want to tell you.

• 1:52:23Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:52:24Dr. John Delony?

  And then if she says yes, say, um, we're not gonna talk about the other person, we're not talking about any of that stuff. I just need to talk to you about some things. If she says yes, I want you to spend some time alone writing a letter that you're gonna read to her.

• 1:52:39Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:52:39Dr. John Delony?

  And that letter is gonna be, start with, love of my life, I'm so sorry.

• 1:52:46Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:52:47Dr. John Delony?

  And then if you want to work through, like, I didn't have a picture of what treating a woman looked like, and I have done it all wrong for 15 years.

• 1:52:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, I sent her a text like that about two weeks ago.

• 1:52:59Dr. John Delony?

  Text messages, bull crap on a stick with a pony.

• 1:53:01Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:53:01Dr. John Delony?

  Lit on fire, okay?

• 1:53:03Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:53:04Dr. John Delony?

  Text messages, how chill, my, my 14-year-old son talks to his friends in text messages, that's not it. You have to look at her and say these words, okay?

• 1:53:12Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:53:12Dr. John Delony?

  You have to feel that discomfort. That's vulnerability. And she might look at you and go, I'm done. And vulnerable means I'm risking looking at somebody and saying, this is all of me, do you still love me? And that's what you're gonna be doing, and that's terrifying for you.

• 1:53:30Speaker 06

  Yeah, she told me she wants to work it out, that she sees me making changes and she wants to make this work.

• 1:53:36Dr. John Delony?

  But I want you to tell her in that letter, I immediately tried to solve me, my 15 years of being an ass to you by doing a bunch of stuff that I thought, and I never bothered to ask you. And she's probably gonna look at you and say, I don't even know what I need, I don't even know what I want.

• 1:53:53Dr. John Delony?

  I just know I can't do this anymore.

• 1:53:54Speaker 06

  I bought her flowers.

• 1:53:55Dr. John Delony?

  Do what?

• 1:53:55Speaker 06

  I bought her flowers, I bought her flowers a week ago and she was like mad at me. Because she was like, you've never bought me flowers, you're trying too hard. And I was like, I was like, you're absolutely correct.

• 1:54:06Dr. John Delony?

  Just ask her.

• 1:54:07Speaker 06

  I was like, I feel bad.

• 1:54:08Dr. John Delony?

  Ask her, how can I love you today? Okay, start that way. And tell her, I'm gonna start asking you every morning and every evening, how can I love you today?

• 1:54:16Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:54:17Dr. John Delony?

  And when I feel.

• 1:54:17Speaker 06

  Can I ask?

• 1:54:18Dr. John Delony?

  Go ahead.

• 1:54:18Speaker 06

  Go ahead, I'm sorry.

• 1:54:19Dr. John Delony?

  Let's get, when I.

• 1:54:19Speaker 06

  Can I ask you a question?

• 1:54:20Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, ask, go for it.

• 1:54:22Speaker 06

  How do I, like, I'm afraid of investing all this and then I find out that she is still communicating with this guy. Like, I feel like there's some trust gone.

• 1:54:36Speaker 06

  That I take responsibility for, I know I caused this, but I'm having a hard time to, like, starting to trust her and rebuild this once again.

• 1:54:46Dr. John Delony?

  After you have told her that you're gonna begin asking her every day how you can love her better, it's fair to say, I can't breathe knowing that some other person is your go-to.

• 1:54:59Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:55:00Dr. John Delony?

  And I can't breathe, and see, what you're doing is, you're starting with the word I. You're not saying, you can't do this and you need to get off the, I can't breathe knowing I've put you in a position where you have to go to somebody else just to get the words, how was your day?

• 1:55:15Dr. John Delony?

  I've put you in a position to have nobody to talk about what's going on during your day because I just come home and I'm a bulldog in my own house.

• 1:55:24Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:55:24Dr. John Delony?

  Now, is this 100% you? No. But this is just, I'm, I'm gonna take all, it's, if you've ever watched Jaco's original TED Talk, all these things went bad, he was the guy in charge and he said, it's on me. And you, for 15 years, have said, I'm the head honcho, all right, well then own it all then, okay? Is that fair? No, it's not fair, but let's just take it all. And then at the very end, you can say, I can't move forward without a commitment to you that we've got no outside people speaking to this, it's just gonna be you and it's just gonna be me.

• 1:55:57Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:55:58Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 1:55:59Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 1:56:00Dr. John Delony?

  And I think it's fair to say, I'm not gonna sneak around and go through your crap anymore. I don't wanna live like that.

• 1:56:08Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 1:56:09Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, and also, as you get two, three, five weeks into this, two months into this, six months into this, it's fair to say, hey, I wanna circle back. How am I doing? Are you feeling loved? And she might, she's gonna uncover different ways, right? This thing's got 15 years of the layers on top of it. And she met you really young, and she got a kid right out of the gate. She doesn't even know what she, what she doesn't know.

• 1:56:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:56:35Dr. John Delony?

  Right? She's never felt safe and fully wrapped up in love with somebody who's like, my mission in life is to make sure you're whole. She's never experienced that. All this is gonna be new.

• 1:56:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, she's never felt whole.

• 1:56:46Dr. John Delony?

  No, all this is gonna be new. And so, it's fair to say, are you communicating with that guy? Right? And this is after you'll get some rapport, you start building some trust back. And then if you feel that, that anchoring in your soul, you can say, would you be willing to show me your text messages or your whatever? Okay, that's not for right now. It's not for right now.

• 1:57:05Speaker 06

  No, no, no, yeah.

• 1:57:07Dr. John Delony?

  Is that fair?

• 1:57:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, yeah, I'll wait six weeks.

• 1:57:10Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, I'm proud of you.

• 1:57:11Speaker 06

  Thank you. It's hard.

• 1:57:13Dr. John Delony?

  Dude, I know it's hard. You're changing your entire family tree right now.

• 1:57:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm changing my whole personality.

• 1:57:19Dr. John Delony?

  Yes.

• 1:57:20Speaker 06

  I am.

• 1:57:21Dr. John Delony?

  Yes, and sometimes changing that personality means we have to change all of our actions. So, do something ridiculous, like wake up early. Go get a cold plunge or get some ice, take a cold shower in the morning. Start exercising in the morning.

• 1:57:33Speaker 06

  I have been, yeah. I've been eating way better, I've been drinking a lot more water, I've been going for walks.

• 1:57:38Dr. John Delony?

  Good. You have to start doing different things if you want different results, that's right. That's right, so, so change it all, change the whole thing up, man. And when you find yourself, you're gonna get angry, you're gonna get, uh, you're gonna lose a job, you're gonna miss a sale, something's gonna happen and you're gonna find old you coming out swinging. You have to be willing to say, oh, here he is, here he is, here he is, I'm gonna go for a walk. I need to step out, I need to do dinner by myself tonight. I love you with all I got, and I gotta go do something else. Right? This is gonna be a long-term practice. You have to unwind 30 years of you not liking yourself and taking it out on other people.

• 1:58:16Dr. John Delony?

  Proud of you for all the steps you're making, man. Be in this for the long haul. You're worth it, she's worth it, and that 12-year-old little boy's worth it too. His kids are gonna be so grateful that granddad put a stick in the, in the rock and said, no more.

• 1:58:33Speaker 01

  I wanted to ask how I should go about dealing with finding, uh, messages from my husband to, and to his ex, um, promising that, that one day he will be with her, but just not now.

• 1:58:56Dr. John Delony?

  Tell, tell, tell me, are you okay?

• 1:58:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:59:00Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, does this feel weird to say that out loud, or is it just weird to like be talking on the show?

• 1:59:05Speaker 01

  No, it's, it's hard to say out loud, honestly.

• 1:59:08Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, tell me more about it. Like how ex and how old, like, tell me, tell me everything.

• 1:59:13Speaker 01

  Um, okay, so we've been together for 12 years and we've only been married for two, um...

• 1:59:20Dr. John Delony?

  Y'all dated for a decade?

• 1:59:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, we have four kids together.

• 1:59:27Dr. John Delony?

  Cool.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  Um, and this was his, okay, so I found messages to his ex, that is, his, his high school sweetheart. Um, I guess she broke his heart, broke up with him, and he never was quite over it, so...

• 1:59:44Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, how, how, how old are y'all now?

• 1:59:46Speaker 01

  We're 35, both of us.

• 1:59:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so all this time, it's, it's kinda like weird for me that, um, okay, so, over the years, he's kind of gotten in touch with her every once in a while, and they kind of do this how have you been thing? And I would always say, hey, you know, I'm not comfortable with that. Um, and have him block her or whatever, but then at some point, a year later, so she would, she would get unblocked, and then I would see, but from what I could tell, it wasn't anything past, you know, a quick high.

• 2:00:28Speaker 01

  And then, I was pregnant with my third child, so two years ago, and I saw messages back and forth with them that were more than just talking. It was quite a bit of complimenting each other and a lot of, I don't know, him giving details of our kids and just kind of more intimate talking, I guess.

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Um, that turned into an issue, but I got over it, I guess, because he told me that he was just gonna stop talking to her, and as far as I know, he did. But then, I was pregnant with my fourth child, who I just had him a month ago.

• 2:01:16Speaker 01

  Um, this was like back in January or February. And I found messages that he, they're, they're talking back and forth like they love each other. Um, and he, at some point, he told her that they can't be together now, but one day he'll show up on her doorstep like a stranger and they can start all over.

• 2:01:43Speaker 01

  Um, I guess he's making it sound like he needs to stay with me and like be this good guy to help raise our children together, and then, mm, I guess do something for him later in life, which would be, be with who he really is supposed to be with.

• 2:02:05Speaker 01

  Which I know this all sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud, when I talk to him.

• 2:02:09Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I mean, it sounds like he is, he is in a fantasy world. And I'm not excusing it, so let me just back out. Like, I still am friends with several people that I dated back in high school. I also met people back in high school, and I had my heart broken regularly in high school. One, I was an idiot, a bona fide idiot. And, like, when you're in love in high school, it just feels, it's the best, right? And so, still being friends, that's number one. Number two, this idea that like, it's, the whole thing is a fantasy.

• 2:02:49Dr. John Delony?

  Right?

• 2:02:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:02:50Dr. John Delony?

  And he can, he can gallop around in this fantasy world because he knows he's not doing this. He, you know, you see what I'm saying? Like, none of this is real.

• 2:03:01Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:02Dr. John Delony?

  Um, at the same time, the, the, A, don't do that, and B, because it's dangerous, right? Because she might show up somewhere, or he might show up somewhere, right? And so, you're playing with fire, but bigger than all of that, is 10 years ago, you asked him not to talk to this woman because you didn't have a good feeling about it.

• 2:03:21Speaker 01

  Right.

• 2:03:23Dr. John Delony?

  And he's continually rubbed your nose in your request for fidelity.

• 2:03:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's kind of haunting me.

• 2:03:33Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 2:03:35Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And almost always, this isn't the only place that somebody like that does this. Where else does he completely ignore what you need or what you want?

• 2:03:46Speaker 01

  Pretty much on every, uh, level.

• 2:03:52Speaker 01

  He breaks up with me all the time, which is the craziest thing. Um, he'll actually, um, stop speaking to me for a week, and then he'll say, you know, he, he doesn't wanna be together, he wants to, he will never say divorce. He calls it a relationship, he, he doesn't even call it a marriage. I just feel so degraded all the time, kind of.

• 2:04:14Dr. John Delony?

  Well, you dated him for a decade, and you had children with him before you were married. So this is what you signed up for.

• 2:04:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:04:22Dr. John Delony?

  My guess is he's been the same, he's been pretty consistent for 12 years, right?

• 2:04:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:28Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, and you got married thinking this would all switch.

• 2:04:31Speaker 01

  I did, because I, I wanted to be married before we had children.

• 2:04:36Dr. John Delony?

  But you had children before you were married.

• 2:04:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:04:40Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. So somewhere along the way, you just started accepting, I don't know, it sounds like he's been pretty consistent this whole time.

• 2:04:50Speaker 01

  Well, I never thought that he would ever cheat on me, or talk about cheating on me, or go in that direction.

• 2:04:58Dr. John Delony?

  He just ignores you for a week and breaks up with you regularly, and won't even refer to you as his wife?

• 2:05:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I guess since, since I had my third child, that's kind of been the thing for him to do. So that's been about two years now. I guess since we got married, that was the trigger, I guess.

• 2:05:17Dr. John Delony?

  But then you made, you, you made another human with him.

• 2:05:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Um, it's so much to unpack, but well, what he'll do is he'll take back all of the negative things that he says to me, and he will make me think, he just said it because he was in a bad mood.

• 2:05:38Dr. John Delony?

  Both of those things can be true, it doesn't make it right.

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:45Dr. John Delony?

  I'm often not who I wanna be when I'm in a bad mood, but if I act like an idiot, then I'm still an idiot. You know what I mean?

• 2:05:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:05:52Dr. John Delony?

  It's not like a, a universal path.

• 2:05:55Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:05:58Speaker 01

  But he, so, I don't...

• 2:06:01Dr. John Delony?

  Let me ask you this, how, how can I help you?

• 2:06:04Speaker 01

  Well, um, I could stay and just let him continue, um, doing this, this way, because my, well, for one, I feel like I have, um, I'm pretty isolated. I have no family here, and he says that I can't leave because I, um, would be taking the kids out of state to go live with my parents, and I'm a stay-at-home mom, and I don't, um, I don't have any money myself. So, uh, that would be my solution to leaving and or I could stay and

• 2:06:52Dr. John Delony?

  Ashley, are you safe?

• 2:06:55Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:06:56Dr. John Delony?

  You don't sound safe. I've talked to people who are not safe my whole life, my whole career.

• 2:07:03Speaker 01

  I'm safe. I'm just very, um, I'm emotionally distraught.

• 2:07:15Dr. John Delony?

  And you, you have, you have a one month old, right?

• 2:07:18Speaker 01

  Yeah. So, so what happened was my entire pregnancy, he was telling me that he didn't want to be with me, but he was gonna let me stay at home. And so I was very depressed the entire time. And he didn't care and he was very cold to me. But then just about three weeks ago, he completely switched and has been telling me he wants everything to be better and he wants to stay together and he's been very nice and kind and, um,

• 2:07:54Speaker 01

  I am so confused by it. It really just throws me up and down and

• 2:07:59Dr. John Delony?

  Sure. It sounds like he's the kite and you're the tail of that kite is getting dragged all over the place. And the only way a marriage, especially marriage with four kids, the only way marriage works is if two people sit down and say, here's what we both need, here's what we both want, and here's what we're gonna build together.

• 2:08:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:19Dr. John Delony?

  It can't be you living outside on the front lawn in a tent and just some guy coming out the front door on random intervals saying, you can come on in. Where you been? Come on in. You can't live like that. And your four kids can't live like that.

• 2:08:35Speaker 01

  No.

• 2:08:36Dr. John Delony?

  The challenge you have before you is this has been your relational dynamic for 12 years. This is a bed that y'all co-created together.

• 2:08:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:08:47Dr. John Delony?

  And if he was on the phone, I, I would, I would talk man to man to him and the way he's treating you is wrong and it's disrespectful and it's shameful, all that.

• 2:08:59Dr. John Delony?

  And you've had four kids with a guy who's been the same way for more than a decade. He's never changed.

• 2:09:08Speaker 01

  I know.

• 2:09:09Dr. John Delony?

  And so you've been with a rattlesnake and you've dated a rattlesnake and you, you created people with a rattlesnake and now you've suddenly got upset that he keeps biting you.

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:21Dr. John Delony?

  And now there's a lot at stake. There's four new lives at stake here.

• 2:09:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:29Dr. John Delony?

  And so I don't see a path forward without professional intervention.

• 2:09:36Dr. John Delony?

  Okay?

• 2:09:37Speaker 01

  Really?

• 2:09:38Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, of course. You have to get a, a, a marriage therapist of some sort to sit down and sort this out. Cause he is gonna have to decide, I am a different human starting now. And I've seen that done and it's hard. And you are gonna have to decide, I'm gonna be a different human starting now.

• 2:09:57Dr. John Delony?

  He is gonna have to honor and respect you and be a present father and a present husband. And y'all are gonna have to learn how to be friends for the first time in a decade. And you are gonna have to learn to say what you want and what you need and stand by those boundaries.

• 2:10:11Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 2:10:12Dr. John Delony?

  Right? But y'all can't do that by yourself. You've proven that for over a decade.

• 2:10:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:18Dr. John Delony?

  And by the way, I'm Dr. Deloney. My wife is Dr. Deloney. We're pretty smart. We're not very smart. She's smart. I went to a bunch of classes. I went to a bunch of school. We have sat at the feet of great therapists over the course of our 21 years, because I've almost blown it up a few times.

• 2:10:35Dr. John Delony?

  Okay? Doesn't mean you're broken or wrong, but y'all have reached a point where you need to get a professional. Or think of it this way, your husband has been plunging and plunging and plunging a toilet and it keeps clogging up. You gotta call a plumber.

• 2:10:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:10:49Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. And if he says, I won't do that, behavior is a language. He is telling you, I'm not, I'm not interested in this thing working out.

• 2:10:58Speaker 01

  Right. Cause that's what I kind of feel like it's gonna happen. He's not gonna be for that. And he really won't have a conversation very deep with me.

• 2:11:08Dr. John Delony?

  That's right. And listen, nothing changes if nothing changes. That's it. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

• 2:11:17Dr. John Delony?

  And if he, if he cracked the door open and said, I want this thing to work, you're my wife, these are our four kids, I want things to be better around here. As an invitation, or you could take it as an invitation for you to say, okay, cool. I've made us an appointment with a marriage therapist. I've got somebody who's gonna come watch the kids. Um, and we're gonna go sort this thing out and we have to build something completely new. Neither of us have ever been married with four children. That's a new world. That's one player away from a basketball team. We're gonna have to learn how to be friends. We're gonna have to learn how to date. We're gonna have to learn how to run this household. We're gonna have to learn how to be lovers. We have to learn how to do all this over again. Are you all the way in? Cause I am, I am.

• 2:12:00Dr. John Delony?

  And we're gonna go from there. And if he says, screw you, I'm not doing any of that. This is what you always do, yada, yada, then your next call should probably be to an attorney to find out what the rules are and what the regulations are and what your rights are. I don't know what they are in Arkansas. You and only you can make the decision as to whether this is the life you want for you and your kids. I'm not gonna make that call for you, but I will call out, this has been the way it's always been and you opted into this thing for 12 years.

• 2:12:31Dr. John Delony?

  So one of y'all has to make a call. This is gonna be different starting now.

• 2:12:36Speaker 06

  My wife works as a nurse at a large hospital and, um, I work from home at, in a tech company. And, um, some of her interests have kind of changed. Um, she came home and kind of let me know that she had interest towards a coworker. And kind of caused a little bit of a tough between us. And then, um, I found out she was hanging out with some of her male doctors at their house. And, uh, she said that she was actually hanging out with some of her

• 2:13:17Speaker 06

  other coworkers who were different in a more social scene. So, um, just been trying to kind of work through that and get on the same page and see what's going on. I was kind of wondering what your thoughts and opinions were.

• 2:13:33Dr. John Delony?

  Uh, I mean, I guess my first thing, uh, this, my first gut reaction, um, and again, this one's a little more challenging because you're not sitting in front of me. I can't see you. Um,

• 2:13:47Dr. John Delony?

  but it feels like one of two things. One, you don't fully want to metabolize the seriousness of this. Or you've just come up with some, some safer, more generic, uh, um, unflavored oatmeal language to describe the fact that your wife is having an affair. She's cheating on you.

• 2:14:06Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:14:07Dr. John Delony?

  Which one of those is true? Is, is one of just nervous you're on the show and you don't want to like fully dive in? Or is it just, is it hit differently when you're like, no, my wife's having an affair. She's cheating on me and I think my life as I knew it is now over and different now.

• 2:14:24Speaker 06

  Um, I think I'm just trying to come to the sense of reality of it.

• 2:14:28Dr. John Delony?

  There you go. Okay.

• 2:14:29Speaker 06

  That makes sense?

• 2:14:30Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, totally. I mean, your whole world got blown up. How long have y'all been married?

• 2:14:35Speaker 06

  We've been together for 12 years now.

• 2:14:38Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 2:14:38Speaker 06

  And, uh, we got married a little bit before COVID.

• 2:14:44Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So just y'all been married for five years?

• 2:14:47Speaker 06

  Yes, sir.

• 2:14:47Dr. John Delony?

  Ish. Okay.

• 2:14:54Dr. John Delony?

  My gut tells me this didn't just start. How long has she had one foot out of the boat of this marriage?

• 2:15:02Speaker 06

  Um, I kind of just started to find out about this, um, towards the middle of, end of last year.

• 2:15:12Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Was it a shock to you? Or did you go, I knew it?

• 2:15:17Speaker 06

  I was a little frustrated to say the least.

• 2:15:21Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but that's not, that's not what I asked. Were you stunned by this? Did it catch you completely off guard? Or did it confirm some fears you've had for a while?

• 2:15:29Speaker 06

  Um, yeah, definitely. I didn't know where this came from.

• 2:15:32Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Did she ever cheat on you when y'all were dating? Y'all dated for seven years, huh?

• 2:15:36Speaker 06

  Yes. And no, she did not cheat on me during that time that I know of.

• 2:15:40Dr. John Delony?

  Okay.

• 2:15:45Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I guess, I, I mean, I guess the, the bigger questions are, what are you, what are you gonna do now?

• 2:15:52Dr. John Delony?

  What do you want to do now?

• 2:15:54Speaker 06

  It's a good question. Um, we're trying to go to therapy at the moment to try and get an understanding. She indicated that she didn't cheat on me. She needed

• 2:16:09Speaker 06

  Father figure or another person who's more of a superiority individual to like, talk about stuff with because what she does as a nurse is very traumatic. Um, she works in an OR room, then they do a lot of, you know, they are saving life and death, I guess. And I don't know, she just kind of indicated that she never really cheated on me. She went to somebody else. It was more like an emotional type thing. I don't know if that helped to provide any context, but.

• 2:16:51Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, I don't, I don't buy it.

• 2:16:53Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:16:55Dr. John Delony?

  At, at all. You, you go to lunch with emotional affair. You, um, send inappropriate texts with an emotional affair. You, um, over disclose that person becomes your safe place and you begin dreaming about life, um, with them as opposed to the person you're with. You don't go to their house over and over and over again.

• 2:17:19Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:17:20Dr. John Delony?

  Um, I, dude, I, I've been in those rooms and I, I, I'm not in those rooms. I've never been in those rooms day in and day out, minute after minute, hour after hour. She's exactly right. It's a traumatic job. It's hard. Um, and you go talk to, with those, about those challenges with a counselor. You go talk about those challenges with a group. You tell you, your hu- her husband, um, hey, I, I, I'm struggling carrying the weight of this thing. I need to go talk to somebody. You don't sneak around for a year going over to, you know what I mean? And that, like, forget going over to doctor and surgeon's

• 2:18:03Dr. John Delony?

  houses. Um, she told you she's got feelings for somebody else. I mean, am I wrong?

• 2:18:15Speaker 06

  No.

• 2:18:16Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So what are y'all going to therapy for? Cause I, cause you can go with two different, with two different mindsets here. If you're going to understand what happened, um, if you're going to just poke around in the drawers, this will happen again, this will happen again, this will happen again. If you're going to save your marriage, then you'll have a different track to take. Do you get what I'm saying?

• 2:18:51Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 2:18:52Dr. John Delony?

  Cause she's still going to work in the same place with these same people, right?

• 2:18:56Speaker 06

  Um, the individual no longer works there is what she told me after some time.

• 2:19:03Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but I don't, I don't trust her as far as I can see her. Does she show you her texts every day and have her location turned on?

• 2:19:08Speaker 06

  Um, she actually turned her location off and said that it was overarching and overpowering.

• 2:19:17Dr. John Delony?

  Yet she wants a, a father figure?

• 2:19:20Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:19:28Dr. John Delony?

  I'm sorry, man.

• 2:19:33Speaker 06

  Yeah, that's a.

• 2:19:39Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. You love this woman, huh?

• 2:19:42Speaker 06

  Yes, sir.

• 2:19:44Dr. John Delony?

  You all have kids?

• 2:19:50Speaker 06

  No.

• 2:19:52Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. My, um, associate producer of the show let me know that she never even changed her name on her driver's license. Is that right?

• 2:20:07Speaker 06

  Um, eventually she did after some time.

• 2:20:14Dr. John Delony?

  How long?

• 2:20:15Speaker 06

  But it took a while.

• 2:20:21Dr. John Delony?

  How many years?

• 2:20:22Speaker 06

  Three.

• 2:20:26Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. So just from the outside looking in, man, it sounds like somebody who, for whatever reason, it took y'all the better part of a decade to, to even get married. And even after that, she didn't want to give up her independence or her way of navigating the world. And maybe she didn't mind riding co-pilot or her driving and you riding co-pilot, but she wasn't going to become one with the person she married. And let's give her the benefit of the doubt. Let's say she's exactly right. She never slept

• 2:21:07Dr. John Delony?

  with anybody. High five. Um, but she doesn't trust you enough to say I'm struggling. She doesn't honor you enough when you say, when she says, hey, I've got a feeling for somebody else. And you say, okay, let's rebuild trust. And she's like, no, no, no, no, I can't rebuild trust like that. Like you need it. Like, let me see your texts and let me know where you are. Cause you're telling me you're going over these guys' houses late at night. Um, and she says, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down. That's too much. I mean, if behavior is a language, she's telling you, I, I want you there. I want you at home working the IT job so I can know that direct deposit's

• 2:21:49Dr. John Delony?

  going to keep happening, but I want to go live my life. I want to deal with my stuff the way I want to deal with it. I want to involve other men in our, in our circle of emotional and physical trust. And you just have a grown up decision to make, my brother.

• 2:22:03Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:22:06Dr. John Delony?

  And I hate that. I hate that for you.

• 2:22:08Speaker 06

  We, we do split everything, which is, you know, nice. And they have separate bank accounts and things.

• 2:22:14Dr. John Delony?

  No, that's terrible. That's terrible. That means y'all are roommates, dude. And I, and I say terrible, like, not as a judgment call, but as like, you can't make your marriage work that way. I mean, you have split emotions, you have split physical lives, you have split financial lives. It sounds like the only thing that's different is y'all went and got a government stamp on, on a piece of paper, but your lives are still as though you're dating.

• 2:22:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, I can see that.

• 2:22:49Dr. John Delony?

  Does that make sense?

• 2:22:50Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 2:22:52Dr. John Delony?

  I guess the only, the, the path you got moving forward, brother, is to truly, honestly, and as painfully as this would be, write down the questions you actually have. Not the hem haw, not the, like, put your head down and she just kind of tells these tales about, I'm struggling and then this, and then I had to go over their house over and over and over again. And, and you say, will you go over there anymore? Like, how dare you ask that? It's too much. It's just too overbearing. Um, you need to write down the questions you actually want to know the answers to. And then you're going to have to ask yourself, A, do I trust this person? B, um, do I want to stay married to this person?

• 2:23:37Dr. John Delony?

  And C, what must be true for me to remain married? And no one can really make that decision for you.

• 2:23:48Speaker 06

  Right.

• 2:23:49Dr. John Delony?

  I can just tell you, if I was to switch places with you, I would, it'd be real, real, real thin ice.

• 2:23:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, I understand that.

• 2:24:00Dr. John Delony?

  Do you feel like you got the full story?

• 2:24:04Speaker 06

  I feel like there might be a few areas of the painting that still needs to be drawn out.

• 2:24:16Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah.

• 2:24:17Speaker 06

  But it's mostly there.

• 2:24:18Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. Well, I can't make, I can't, I can't, I mean, I can't tell you what to do next, brother. All I can do is just say, from the outside looking in, you're right to feel completely bewildered. Cause the actions of both of you aren't the actions of a married couple. It's going to be ride or die till, till the wheels fall off. It's going to be standing there at the castle gates, like, just saying, bring it on, world. It's, it's us two versus y'all. Um, your marriage is, is built on, we have two different lives that we just happen to share a house and a marriage certificate. That's what we all run it, dude. You can run it that way. The data tells me it's not, it's not going to

• 2:24:59Dr. John Delony?

  work. And I think a lot of people race off to marriage counseling after there's some sort of infidelity and they just want to talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. Um, and maybe you don't even know if you want to save this marriage. You want to find out some more information. You want to get to the bottom of some stuff, but it's going to always land on what you need to feel like I can reestablish and she can re-earn my trust. And what things are we going to do differently so that we create a life where one plus one equals one? And that's the choice you're going to have to make, man. And again, if it's me, all the notifications are turned on. Um, probably she's getting another job.

• 2:25:42Dr. John Delony?

  She's working at a different hospital. Um, she's committing to letting you know, I'm struggling in these areas and so I'm going to go talk to this professional or this person. And I'm not going other, over to, um, other rock star surgeons and doctors' houses late at night and lying to you about it. Um, I'm not going to continue working with people that I've got, that I'm, want to have, you know, a relationship with, an intimate or romantic relationship with, or that I have feelings for, if you will. Um, we're going to share finances, all those things. Like, man, you're going to have to do a bunch of different stuff that y'all haven't done in, what, 10, 12 years of being together. And you're going to have to build a completely new marriage. Um, and you just, it's going to start with you asking yourself, do I still want to do that? And then asking her, do

• 2:26:27Dr. John Delony?

  you want in on that? And that's two big question marks in my mind. And then from there, man, I believe y'all can build whatever you want to build. I just have a belief in people and redemption. I have a belief in people. They can, they, if they've chosen a miserable life, they can choose an amazing one. But it all comes down to that choice. And both of you have to have both feet in the boat. Both of you have to be all the way in.

• 2:26:51Speaker 07

  So my husband and I, we've been married for 12 years. We have two kids. Um, we got married pretty quickly. It was a pretty brief courtship. So a lot of things you would find out about your partner before you get married. We kind of found out after we were already married. So it was kind of rough.

• 2:27:08Dr. John Delony?

  Awesome.

• 2:27:09Speaker 07

  For a couple of years.

• 2:27:10Dr. John Delony?

  You said that, you said that so eloquently. Some of the things you find out beforehand, um, we found out after.

• 2:27:18Speaker 07

  Afterwards.

• 2:27:19Dr. John Delony?

  But the way, but I know what that probably means. And the way you said that so gently, so you're delighted. Okay, keep going.

• 2:27:25Speaker 07

  It's been 12 years. I, I trust me, I get it right out. So our main problem or my main issue has been with infidelity with him. Mostly just internet issues and texting and messaging and Facebook and Instagram and so forth. Um, we've been to counseling quite a few times, three, four times on and off. Um, he's also done individual counseling a couple of times. And then things seem to be pretty good for a while, a few years. And then, you know, things happen and we kind of end up back here. So, um, a few months ago, he started acting a little bit differently, going out more, staying

• 2:28:05Speaker 07

  out a little bit longer, um, very protective with his phone and accusing me of cheating. So, um, the light bulb kind of went off and I was like, okay, something's going on here. So, um, about a couple of weeks ago, I decided to do some investigation. Um, so I went on his computer and I saw that he was on a dating site.

• 2:28:26Dr. John Delony?

  Ooh.

• 2:28:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, so I, I catfished him.

• 2:28:31Dr. John Delony?

  Um, no way.

• 2:28:33Speaker 07

  I sure, yeah, way.

• 2:28:36Dr. John Delony?

  You did? Did he fall for it?

• 2:28:38Speaker 07

  Oh, he sure did.

• 2:28:40Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, this is my favorite call ever, ever.

• 2:28:42Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:28:43Dr. John Delony?

  Hey, can we call him right now? And I'm going to pretend to be, uh, the, the husband of the person. Please, please.

• 2:28:50Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh. Um, the, the thing was, I knew it was probably going to happen because I know my husband has been 12 years. So, um, um, I created a fake profile. I was messaging him. He was all for it.

• 2:29:03Dr. John Delony?

  Oh, you're the worst and incredible all at the same time.

• 2:29:07Speaker 07

  He invited me out to dinner and lunch and, um, he's saying he was divorced. He did say he had two kids though, so at least, you know, that was something. So, um, so then I started, I was going along with it and I was going to, you know, meet up with him.

• 2:29:23Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. I was going to say, make a date with him, man, and record it and we'll put it on the show.

• 2:29:28Speaker 07

  But, but this is what happened. I kept looking and I came across two, um, credit card receipts and I saw, um, like two hotel receipts.

• 2:29:41Dr. John Delony?

  Ah, yeah. Not funny anymore, not funny anymore.

• 2:29:45Speaker 07

  Yeah, and I kind of lost it.

• 2:29:46Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, not funny.

• 2:29:48Speaker 07

  And I confronted him, um, and he lied and said the first one that was in our city, he got it for a friend, don't buy it. And the other one that was not in our city, it was when he went out of town to visit family and he said he didn't want to stay at their house, so he got a hotel. I didn't buy that either because he just told me about it. He didn't. He had me thinking he was staying at his family's house and he wasn't. So I didn't buy any of that. Um, so my husband has a tendency, so the counseling he's been going through over the years, we've kind of figured out and he'll admit that he has an issue with attention and validation. And it's like when I'm not.

• 2:30:29Dr. John Delony?

  Hold on, hold on, Janelle, Janelle, Janelle, Janelle.

• 2:30:33Dr. John Delony?

  Your husband cheats on you. Period, period.

• 2:30:37Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:30:37Dr. John Delony?

  I have problems with validation. I don't get meet women in hotel rooms across the country.

• 2:30:43Speaker 07

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:30:44Dr. John Delony?

  I like to, um, for my wife to tell me nice things. I like for my wife to tell me she's proud of me. I like to fill in the blank.

• 2:30:54Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're right.

• 2:30:56Dr. John Delony?

  So, so you can go to counseling and learn all these neat things and all that kind of stuff. All of that is a complete and utter wash. It means nothing. If your husband is meeting other women in hotel rooms across the United States and then lying to you about it.

• 2:31:14Dr. John Delony?

  Period, I mean, just period. End of discussion. And here's what I think is, is unfortunate is that you are so kind.

• 2:31:27Dr. John Delony?

  And you are so, there's something inside of you that has told you that you don't have equal value to him.

• 2:31:36Dr. John Delony?

  That you have come up with some really complicated narrative as to why this is mostly your fault.

• 2:31:45Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm telling you, as a husband,

• 2:31:50Dr. John Delony?

  that is not a true story that you tell yourself. You're married to a serial cheater.

• 2:31:57Dr. John Delony?

  Period.

• 2:31:58Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:31:59Dr. John Delony?

  He's a guy who steps out on his wife repeatedly. And I've said on this show, I'll say it again, I have a ton of sympathy for, um, a business trip, one night stand. I have a ton of sympathy for, I met somebody, am I saying it's right? I'm saying if somebody sits down and goes, dude, this thing happened, things happen. Or I was working on a project with somebody for a year at work and I, I just fell head over heels. I get that. This is persistent and ongoing. He's spitting in his wife's face, telling her, she's stupid. You're so dumb, you can't even find out. And when you're looking at receipts, he's like, you're an idiot. And you, for some reason, Janelle, believe, yeah, you're probably right.

• 2:32:41Dr. John Delony?

  Even as you described, Janelle, listening to you, even as you described the story about him going to see family but staying in a hotel, when I promise you, when he was there, he was telling you that I'm at mama's house and she's whatever. You, the way you told that story, if you go back and listen, you don't fully, you're not a hundred percent that you're right.

• 2:33:04Dr. John Delony?

  You're about 85%. I'm telling you, you're a hundred percent right.

• 2:33:08Speaker 07

  Yeah, I know.

• 2:33:11Dr. John Delony?

  And you probably don't want to be a statistic. You probably have done whatever you could do for the last decade to keep his family together. And you're married to someone who's doing everything he can to unwind it.

• 2:33:26Dr. John Delony?

  True or false?

• 2:33:27Speaker 07

  Yeah. You're right.

• 2:33:31Speaker 07

  You are right.

• 2:33:32Dr. John Delony?

  And I've got like a, like a knot in my stomach talking to you right now.

• 2:33:39Speaker 07

  You're right.

• 2:33:40Dr. John Delony?

  Like I'm sick right now.

• 2:33:45Dr. John Delony?

  Did you tell him that you, uh, were catfishing him? Did you tell him? Or does he even know that yet?

• 2:33:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah, he knows. Um, when I confronted him, it all came out. Um, he knew. Then he apologized and, you know, acted remorseful and saying he wasn't going to go and yada, yada, yada, which is all a lie.

• 2:34:08Dr. John Delony?

  Of course.

• 2:34:08Speaker 07

  He was going to be up, of course, that's a lie.

• 2:34:14Dr. John Delony?

  So the real question is less about him. The question is about you.

• 2:34:23Speaker 07

  Is my marriage fixable?

• 2:34:27Dr. John Delony?

  I think any marriage is fixable, quite honestly.

• 2:34:32Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:34:32Dr. John Delony?

  But I, you can't fix it alone. Period. And quite honestly, you've tried for, for 10 years.

• 2:34:45Dr. John Delony?

  You have to have a man that will tell you the truth. You have to have a man that will tell you, I'm sorry. And you have to have a man that will not end up in a hotel room with a bunch of other women he's not married to.

• 2:34:57Dr. John Delony?

  Are you perfect in this marriage? No, I don't, I don't even know. And I'm telling you, no, of course you're not.

• 2:35:02Speaker 07

  No, right.

• 2:35:04Dr. John Delony?

  And?

• 2:35:07Dr. John Delony?

  Has he weaponized any imperfection to give him liberty and license to do whatever he wants to? Yeah, absolutely. And you're worth more than that. And so are those two little kids.

• 2:35:21Dr. John Delony?

  Let me say it this way. I, I'm going to, I'm going to take back my answer. Ask me your question again?

• 2:35:28Speaker 07

  Is my marriage fixable?

• 2:35:30Dr. John Delony?

  I will answer it this way. No. Your marriage as it was is over. Can you and your husband build something completely new? Yes. Have you heard my twin towers analogy?

• 2:35:43Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:35:44Dr. John Delony?

  Okay, same thing. What y'all had is over. Those towers have fallen down.

• 2:35:50Dr. John Delony?

  They are in rubble and in ash and smoke and there's dust everywhere.

• 2:35:57Dr. John Delony?

  The choice you have to make, and I think right now it's, it's the initial choice is you alone. Are you going to walk away from the towers and let nature take them back?

• 2:36:11Dr. John Delony?

  Or are you going to sit down with him and say, from this point forward, we build something new and here's my stipulations.

• 2:36:21Dr. John Delony?

  Here's what I need to move forward. And then y'all go get some professionals to help you rebuild something completely new. And that might mean new jobs. That might mean moving. That might mean everything is different because everything is different.

• 2:36:36Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:36:37Dr. John Delony?

  I mean, you see what I'm saying?

• 2:36:40Speaker 07

  Oh, yeah, I do. I.

• 2:36:43Dr. John Delony?

  My, my guess is you've had some dark moments, like where you're just sitting in the shower when you're finally by yourself and you weep so hard you can't, you can't catch your breath. Fair?

• 2:36:56Speaker 07

  Yeah, that's fair. That is so true. Um, just wondering why, you know, why me? Why, why this? What, what is it that I did?

• 2:37:06Dr. John Delony?

  No, you can't, you can't. Your husband made some bad choices over and over and over and over and over again.

• 2:37:17Dr. John Delony?

  And at this point, if I'm being super frank, um, I'm worried about your health and safety. I'm worried about him bringing something home from some woman that you don't know about, or multiple women that you don't know about.

• 2:37:33Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm as concerned for your safety right this second as I am for your marriage.

• 2:37:42Speaker 07

  I am too. I said, we have to definitely go get, go get tested because I don't feel, I don't feel safe.

• 2:37:51Dr. John Delony?

  Janelle, sweetheart, where does this come from? Who taught you that what you feel in your guts is so wrong?

• 2:38:05Dr. John Delony?

  Cause you've known he was cheating on you for a long time.

• 2:38:08Speaker 07

  I knew.

• 2:38:09Dr. John Delony?

  And even the way you just said just now, like, yeah, I told him about, there's an uncertainty.

• 2:38:17Dr. John Delony?

  Instead of a proclamation at your front door, you don't come in this home until you go get tested, period. And you showed, put the, you hand me the results.

• 2:38:30Dr. John Delony?

  Like, who told you that? That you're worth so little? That what you feel and what you think and what you need is of, of secondary importance?

• 2:38:43Speaker 07

  It didn't help that I see myself in my parents' relationship, where they're still together, but, I mean, my dad practically, practically cheated on my mom the entire 25 years that they've been married.

• 2:39:02Dr. John Delony?

  So it's what your body knows, right?

• 2:39:05Speaker 07

  Yeah, yeah.

• 2:39:06Dr. John Delony?

  Except the rules have changed and the game has changed. And Janelle, my friend Janelle is not going to take this crap anymore. Here's why. Cause your two kids aren't going to repeat this thing.

• 2:39:18Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:39:20Dr. John Delony?

  They're going to have a very clear picture in their head of what either a strong boundary and self-worth looks like.

• 2:39:30Dr. John Delony?

  And a single mom who cannot be stopped, come hell or high water, or they're going to have a ringside seat to a couple fight and scratch and claw their way to something so remarkable and strong and beautiful moving forward.

• 2:39:47Dr. John Delony?

  But they're not going to learn, this is what marriage looks like.

• 2:39:51Speaker 07

  Yeah, you're right.

• 2:39:53Dr. John Delony?

  Fair?

• 2:39:54Speaker 07

  Fair. You're absolutely right.

• 2:39:56Dr. John Delony?

  Now, this is the part of the story where, like in the movie, when the music swells and then like the montage scene happens. This isn't, but that's not reality. Reality is this. Do you work?

• 2:40:08Speaker 07

  Not right now. Um, I got laid off a couple of months ago and I'm looking for, for work now.

• 2:40:14Dr. John Delony?

  Okay. This kind of self proclamation has very real economic consequences.

• 2:40:23Dr. John Delony?

  Right? It sounds easy for me, sitting in Nashville, Tennessee with a, with a good job to say, you should just, and that's why I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to tell you to run out today. Cause there's a real question of where do you go? And how do you feed your kids? How do you eat? Right?

• 2:40:38Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:40:38Dr. John Delony?

  That's a very real thing. And you know, as well as I do, the court processes are so jacked up, it takes so freaking long to get anything done.

• 2:40:46Speaker 07

  Right.

• 2:40:49Dr. John Delony?

  And so I would, here's my, my, I mean, I just love talking to you. You're a fun, you're funny, you're like, you have such a great personality.

• 2:41:00Speaker 07

  Thank you, Dr. John.

• 2:41:02Dr. John Delony?

  And I'm heartbroken in my guts for you.

• 2:41:04Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:41:07Dr. John Delony?

  And I, I don't think I've told you anything you didn't already know. I'm heartbroken in my guts because I've sat with women as they've walked with the next two years of your life is going to be, and it's not going to be pleasant.

• 2:41:21Dr. John Delony?

  And staying in this is not going to be pleasant.

• 2:41:25Speaker 07

  You're right.

• 2:41:26Dr. John Delony?

  And so the path that you have to choose is not one of ease and least resistance and one of really hard. You have two incredibly difficult paths ahead of you.

• 2:41:37Dr. John Delony?

  And so I always want someone to choose the difficult path that's going to lead to freedom, not lead to repeating a cycle of abuse and you're just going to take it and this is just the way things are over and over again.

• 2:41:54Dr. John Delony?

  And dude, I would, I would love to talk to your husband if he wants to call me. He, he won't, he won't, but I'd love to.

• 2:42:01Speaker 07

  He probably won't.

• 2:42:03Dr. John Delony?

  He won't. Oh, I know he won't. He won't.

• 2:42:06Dr. John Delony?

  Here's, here's, I think your next steps are. Number one, I'd go get a counselor today.

• 2:42:11Dr. John Delony?

  In fact, I'll hook you up with three months of free BetterHelp. If you don't have a counselor in your area, um, stay on the line here and we'll get you a code and you can call somebody and be on the phone or talking to them via Zoom within the next 24 hours.

• 2:42:23Speaker 07

  Thank you.

• 2:42:24Dr. John Delony?

  And here's what we're talking about. You need to get somebody and I want you to be very specific when you ask, I need a game plan to begin to identify my next steps. I've been married to somebody for a decade who cheats on me and cheats on me and cheats on me. And now he's spending money out of our family account. Now he's increased up, an uptick in lying. He's now traveling distances and I need to figure out what my next steps are. And what they'll do is they'll help you think through boundaries, think through, do you have a mom or dad's house you can go stay at for six months with the kids? Do you have an attorney? Do you, like some of those hard questions you're going to have to face? Also, here's a testing site. I mean, they're going to walk you through all those, those questions. The second thing is, is I want you to get a couple of girlfriends. Do you

• 2:43:08Dr. John Delony?

  have two or three women in your life that you trust a lot?

• 2:43:12Speaker 07

  I do.

• 2:43:13Dr. John Delony?

  I want you to take them out to coffee sometime this week. I don't want you to tell them the truth because you have never told them, have you?

• 2:43:20Speaker 07

  No.

• 2:43:20Dr. John Delony?

  It's time.

• 2:43:23Dr. John Delony?

  You need some real people in your corner, in your local community that knows the truth about what you're experiencing and dealing with.

• 2:43:37Dr. John Delony?

  And this is part of the, the rising. This is when Janelle

• 2:43:42Dr. John Delony?

  begins to come out of the water, like on her own two feet. And this is my life. I'm not doing this anymore.

• 2:43:52Dr. John Delony?

  Tell me why that scares you to death.

• 2:43:58Speaker 07

  Because

• 2:44:02Speaker 07

  I'm going to have to come out of my...

• 2:44:07Dr. John Delony?

  Yes. It's, everything's okay, Shell.

• 2:44:09Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:44:10Dr. John Delony?

  Yep. You have created the most beautiful, it's all great and I'm hilarious facade.

• 2:44:16Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:44:17Dr. John Delony?

  You're so good. You're so good.

• 2:44:20Speaker 07

  Yeah. That is, you have, you, I was going to say you have no idea, but you probably do. Cause we're the couple that everyone looks at. Oh my God, you guys are so perfect and all great and all that. Yeah.

• 2:44:36Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah. And so you're going to lose your identity.

• 2:44:40Dr. John Delony?

  The identity as the perfect married woman.

• 2:44:44Dr. John Delony?

  And we're going to change that identity for the woman who tells the truth and the woman who is stronger than iron.

• 2:44:53Speaker 07

  You're right. Over the years, I've just gotten less, so the more it's happened, it's just the braver and braver I'm getting as far as I need to leave, I need to leave.

• 2:45:06Dr. John Delony?

  Yeah, but it's very, very, very hard to leave by yourself.

• 2:45:09Speaker 07

  It is. It is.

• 2:45:11Dr. John Delony?

  That's why I want you to talk to these three women.

• 2:45:15Dr. John Delony?

  And there's something surreal about saying it out loud.

• 2:45:22Dr. John Delony?

  Even you started this call with me, like, well, and this is going on and he's got some needs. So bad that I, I mean, I feel bad. I interrupted you. I would love for you to sit down with these three women over coffee or tea or whatever y'all, you'd like to drink and sit down and go, my husband's been cheating on me for a decade and now he's moved on to multiple women in multiple cities and it ends now. And their jaws will hit the floor and you can smile and say, I didn't mean to drop it on you like that, but I for sure meant to drop it on you like that. I need your help.

• 2:45:55Dr. John Delony?

  And there's something empowering about it because you don't want to say it out loud because you don't want it to be true. And I love you enough to tell you, it is true.

• 2:46:04Speaker 07

  Yeah. You're the, this is the first time I've actually said it.

• 2:46:07Dr. John Delony?

  I know. I can hear it on you. I know. I know.

• 2:46:17Dr. John Delony?

  Do you trust me that there is, I, I know there's nothing easy that comes next. Nothing.

• 2:46:25Dr. John Delony?

  But you have a great picture of your mom, that hollowed out shell.

• 2:46:30Speaker 07

  Yeah.

• 2:46:30Dr. John Delony?

  That distant look.

• 2:46:36Dr. John Delony?

  That dad who walks in and out of that house like he owns planet earth.

• 2:46:41Speaker 07

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 2:46:43Dr. John Delony?

  That's you. That's the trajectory. And that's if your husband chooses not just to bail or doesn't get somebody pregnant.

• 2:46:55Speaker 07

  You're right.

• 2:46:59Dr. John Delony?

  I'd call those women ASAP.

• 2:47:04Dr. John Delony?

  Like I'd call them today or shoot them a text message and say, we need to meet tomorrow morning for breakfast. We need to talk.

• 2:47:14Dr. John Delony?

  Gosh, I'm sick to my guts. I hate this for you. I hate this for you. I hate this for you.

• 2:47:21Dr. John Delony?

  Whoo. When this call first started out, I thought we were going to have some fun in the catfishing thing and this got real, real, real fast.

• 2:47:29Dr. John Delony?

  Here's the deal, Janelle. Um, hang on the line. We're going to hook you up with that counseling and I'll be here every step of the way. And, um, you've got Jenna's contact info. I want you to reach out anytime you want to be back on the show. You want to talk. Um, I got you. Okay.

• 2:47:45Dr. John Delony?

  Man, what a mess. Somebody threw a grenade in the middle of your home and it was not you. But what comes next is going to be largely what you decide. Not by your hand, but in your lap. And here we are and here we go.

• 2:48:02Dr. John Delony?

  You didn't cause it, but you're part of the cleanup crew and you're part of the what's next crew. And I'll be here with you.