How Do I Tell My Wife to Get off Her Phone?
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What up, what up, Bull City? Me and Dave Ramsey are bringing the Money and Relationships Tour to the DPAC on April 23rd. Here are unscripted thoughts on the topics you vote for live and get the answers to questions that will impact your life. Tickets are the lowest price they'll ever be. Get yours at ramseysolutions.com slash tour. How can I talk to my wife about her cell phone use without causing the offense? Ha ha ha!

It's hard for me to push through that and for us to get through that barrier. You're never going to get through that barrier until you all deal with the way you treated her in the past. What up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls about your relationships, your marriages, your kids, your emotional and mental health, whatever you got going on in your life. For 20 years, 20 plus years, man, I've been sitting with hurting people trying to figure out what's the next right move.

move when everything's falling apart. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K. Fill out the form or leave a message and we'll holler back or let you love to have you on the show. Let's go out to Denver, Colorado. Denver CO and talk to Martin. What's up, Martin? Hey, how you doing today? I'm doing all right, brother. How about you, man? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on your show. I really appreciate it. Absolutely, man. What's up?

So my question is, how can I talk to my wife about her cell phone use without causing defensiveness? That's my favorite question of the day so far, Martin. Without causing defensiveness, why is that your goal? So there's a lot of background to the question. Okay, let it rip.

So the first half of the first eight or nine years of our marriage were very emotionally abusive from my side. And it caused a lot of walls between us. And when I would come home from work and I would see the house is dirty or things that weren't the way I wanted them. And I would notice that maybe she was on her phone. I would automatically say, well, you've been on your phone for

you know, multiple hours, why haven't you been cleaning the house? And that, that has led, um, to other conversations, to other areas of our marriage. And now I feel like when I, when I talked to her about, um, her being on her cell phone, it automatically brings up all the things from the past. And it's, it's hard for me to push through that and for us to get through that barrier. Um, you're never going to get through that barrier until you'll deal with the way you treated her in the past.

Right. Like you have to, you have to heal that. Sure. And we spent a lot of time in counseling and a lot of, um, um, that's all well and good. A lot of years. Are you different now? Yes. Okay. Does she acknowledge that and accept that? Yes. Okay. But it, it still can. So that old, that old self, um, I feel like she's thinking that it's still going to come up and that can still, um,

uh, cause walls. Um, and if I walk in the house and I see the house is dirty and I have a, the, the look on my face, like I used to have on my face, she immediately goes to, she's not enough and she's not good enough. And I'm, you know, going right back to those things. And I'm not sure how to get, how to get past that. You can't. And that's the hard part. She's going to have to make a choice. And so it's, it's a, what you're experiencing is really common. So let's take this out of this situation. Cause it's pretty raw with you.

Let's say your wife cheated on you. You walk through it all. You all figure it out. You get it all squared up. You decide to stay together. You all build something new. And then here you are four years later, and you bebop into the house 30 minutes early, and she looks surprised, and she sets her phone down face down really quick. Your body has a GPS pin in it. It's going to remember, oh, I know exactly what she's doing. I've seen this play out before.

And as a part of having a well-regulated home moving forward, two things have to be true. One, you have to call out, hey, my body's doing it. Just notice this and this and this behavior. And y'all have a plan already in action where she goes, oh, God, here's my phone. Right? You have already talked about when I see you flip your phone over, it just sets it. My body goes to set off. The second thing is, is you have to feel it. Exhale.

And say, that was then. I wasn't safe then, but I'm safe now. That's a choice you have to make in that moment. And so, your wife for eight or nine years, almost a decade, experienced living in the home with an overbearing dad. Oh, yeah. Big time. Okay. And...

She's probably had scars from her own dad because that tends to be how those cycles work. And then she married another version of him. And so now she's in a home. Y'all have worked really hard. Y'all have changed. You've changed. You've literally not just stopped getting mad about the house being a little bit dirty to your liking, but you've let that go. Right. And by the way, I'm doing my best. Yes. Well, let's, we can talk about that in a second. Okay. But,

um i'm gonna say women but i'm saying it people in positions of lesser power kids are incredible face readers they're incredible but incredible body energy um tuners if you will because they have to that's how they stay safe right i say often women but women are usually smaller they're they're a um

In a more precarious position, both of you get mad, right? So they are very good, not always, but sometimes, at identifying body language.

They can feel you walk in the door. And so you can say, oh, it's good to see you. But she knows, oh God, he's pissed. I can feel it on him. Right? And so that means you have to do the work to regulate your nervous system. And that's not just going to counseling and learning some tips and tricks. That's you getting to the root of why in the world would something as trivial as dishes in the sink make me mad? Why would I outsource my joy to that? That's ridiculous.

And then you get into other things, but that's your work to do brother. But let's get to her. She's going to have to choose when she sees that flash across your face to feel that less than ask herself, is it true? Yeah, I actually just sat here on the phone for five hours today and didn't do anything or not. I've been working hard all day. He just caught me just in this one weird moment and she's going to have to choose to move on to. Does that make sense? Yep. So you can't, you can't solve that for her is what I would say.

My bigger question is, what is it about being inside her own home that she still has to hide inside of a cell phone? So think of a cell phone as Xanax nowadays. Scrolling is a way to numb out, to be present. It's like alcohol. It's like I'm here, but I'm not there. What is it about her own home that she feels like she has to hide inside of? That's a good question.

Because here's the sucky thing about, let's take the phone away. Let's pretend she drank. Every day you came home and she had a tumbler full of vodka. Okay? Mm-hmm. The question we don't often ask is what is going on in her life that her body has figured out is this is the best way we can handle this problem. Or said in another way, alcohol works, man. Yeah. And my ultimate, I mean... Scrolling Instagram works. You can scroll for an hour and it makes part of your day go away. Right. Yeah.

Yeah, and I feel like I've pushed her to that point to where she wants to do that, and it's because of my actions early in our marriage. That is just... She's got some autonomy. She's got some autonomy. Okay. Because again, that comes back to... I put you right back, and this is going to sound really strange. You assume a lot of power over her and probably others too. And so here's a way to kind of deflate that. You're not powerful enough to do that for her. Mm-hmm.

does that make sense yeah yeah just the same as you are not powerful enough to scare her into cleaning your house for you you are not powerful enough to scare her into treating your kids the way you demand they be treated or have sex with you just as much and as often as whatever you realize you don't have that kind of power you can scare somebody and you can corral them and for a period of time you can force when you have a power differential

But you just set the whole relationship on fire and you found out you didn't love that, right? You don't even like that. Yeah. Yeah. Much less the hell she was living in. Right. The bigger question is, go ahead, go ahead. I just, I love her so much. And I just, I want to get past this to where this isn't a thing anymore. And I, I'm just not sure what to do. How long since you guys have really been working hard on, on practicing doing the right things?

Been several years since we started doing it. Okay. Yeah. And we had, we had a major life shift, um,

about six years ago. We had dealt with infertility for years, about 10 years. And then we're looking at our future and what God had for us. And then she became pregnant and now we have two boys. Um, and, uh, it's totally changed the trajectory of our marriage. And so we've had to start to build something new and that's caused a lot of frictions along the way. Sure. And, uh, so, so,

- You say it changed the trajectory of your marriage. Were you all headed towards divorce and then she got pregnant and you decided to stay together? - No, we were like, okay, well, we've been trying for 10 years and I just, we don't think we're gonna have kids again, so now let's start looking past when our daughter graduates high school and what that's gonna look like and we're looking in the future and now we're not gonna have a house with kids and then now we have two young kids and yeah. - Okay, so let's go all the way back to the beginning. Do you like Martin? - Sometimes.

How come? A lot of self-doubt. Where does that self-doubt come from? I feel like I'm not good enough. Who told you that? The way I was raised. Tell me more. I was never affirmed by my father. Okay. And when there was issues in the house, it was always put on me. Okay. And my parents would fight, and then my dad would leave, and...

And it would always, it always felt like it was my fault. And then my mom would try to protect me and coddle me through that. And yeah, so I have a lot of, yeah, I fight with that a lot. And so you recreated the exact same pattern where you'd walk into your own house and not feel comfortable in your own skin and you blamed her for it? A hundred percent. Okay. Even more so in our house than when I was a kid. Okay.

Yes. And usually that's how family trauma rolls down generationally is it amplifies itself. Yep. Okay. And yet, here we are. So the question I want to ask you is what are you going to do now? And I want to back up, and maybe this is inappropriate, but will you go with a reframe, on a reframe with me for a second? Sure. Okay.

For the first eight or nine years, you had a picture in your head of what your life was going to look like. You're going to have kids. You're going to have chaos. It was going to be fun. It was going to be this. And you were not going to be the dad your dad was. And then you got a decade of infertility. And I've been there, not for a decade, but for a lot of years. And what I didn't understand is how much anger got built into that. And how many 16-year-olds are having kids. And it's, what about us? And I had a picture of my house that's going to be in every time I came home. It was a reminder of that picture's not happening.

And then you did what you defaulted to how you were raised, which is everybody else needs to fix their crap. And that's why I don't feel good. Yeah. And then you did something that your old man never did. Here's the reframe. You said enough is enough. I'm going to change. And you asked for forgiveness from your wife. Is that right? And you did something crazy in your line of men and that's go to a therapist. Is that right? Oh yeah. Yeah. And you've been trying and working hard and you've been doing the, doing the actiony things for the last couple of years.

So I'm going to tell you something I don't think you would expect me to say to you. I'm proud of you for the work you're doing. You're changing the whole thing. Thank you. I know it's cool in academic circles and in Hollywood movies to flip a switch. That's not how it works in real life. And you've put in a ton of work.

And so I want you to think of the work you've done over the last two years, you and your wife, is the whole house fell down and y'all have been doing the worst part of building a house, which is leveling a foundation, re-digging it out, breaking up the concrete, re-pouring it, leveling it, having to do the porch again, and this thing's off and that back corner is sagging. You finally got the foundation poured.

And now the phone is just a, it's a proxy, dude. It's the light on your dashboard that your wife is uncomfortable in her own home, in her own skin. Okay. And my guess is your energy coming in the door tells her the exact same thing about you. So this is a beautiful moment after a couple of years of hard work that you and her get away and you set it up. You deal with the childcare, you deal with all of it.

You get away for half a day or you get away for a day. And you sit down and say, I'm going to go one layer deeper and I want this house to feel safe. And I want you to feel alive inside this house. What must be true for us to build the house we want to build now? I can do that. And here's what some of the questions look like. Not, why won't you get off your phone? But how could I love you in a way that made being on your phone like a total useless waste of your time?

What is a way that I could contribute to making this house feel so safe that this is the place that you think of more than any other place in the world where you want to be? I want that for sure. Yeah, I know you do. You've been putting in the work, man. I'm proud of you. If you'd called me six years ago, this would be a very different call, right? But I see you putting it in, man. Yeah. How old are your kids? 25, 16, 5, and 3. Oh my gosh. Jeez, dude. You have a three-year-old? Yes, sir.

And he is an absolute joy. Of course. Oh, I just love him to death. He's finally got mature parents. Yes. Whose self-worth isn't hinging on how he acts in any given moment, right? So what if you with a smile on your face said, hey, honey, we survived. I love you more than life itself. I'm all in and you stayed with me and I see the work you've done. And I'm so grateful that you hung in there with us.

Now we've chosen a marriage where we're working on the activities, but we're choosing a marriage that is adventure-free, that is novelty-free, that is life-free. We get in a routine. And some part of having a three-year-old is about routine. You just got to do the same thing over and over every day, and you got to grind that one out. But we get to decide how this home feels every day we walk in. We get to decide our adventure levels. So I'm going to turn off the TV. It makes me, I feel less than when you're sitting there on your phone.

What are some things I could do? What are some ways I could love you to make the phone so boring and lame? What is the phone allowing you to hide from? And you've got some things you hide from too. So you can put those behaviors on the table too. Let's go there. Let's go to the deeper stuff. And at the end of the day, here's this. We've chosen this life and that means we can choose something else. Something awesome. Start there. And man, if you both want to call me, we can keep going. I would love it. But I want Martin to start liking Martin.

And I want Martin to stop paying penance for who Martin used to be. And I want Martin to start owning who he gets to be moving forward. And I have a feeling that will change the entire energy in your home. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back. Let's talk about Halo, the number one prayer and meditation app in the world.

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All right, let's go out to Los Angeles, California and talk to James. Hey, James, what's up?

Hey, John. What's up, dude? Thank you for taking my call. I'm stoked to talk to you. Awesome. I love talking to a Southern California guy who says the word stoked right out of the gate. What's up? You know it. Hey, my question today is, how do I address hesitations about marriage due to my girlfriend's plans and some financial concerns?

I think the first thing is you take ownership of your hesitations and don't put them on her. Absolutely. And I want to preface this by saying we have a great relationship and I absolutely want to marry her. But I've also noticed that I've been internally wrestling with two hurdles that I can tell are keeping me from saying, all right, let's do this thing. So the hurdle one is...

is she wants to move states away from my family. And I also would rather live in a different state, but I haven't fully accepted the reality of raising my kids away from my parents. And I just want my parents to be involved in my childhoods for my kids' childhood.

And then hurdle two is her mother is going to need assistance. And my girlfriend wants to be a stay-at-home mom. And I'm concerned with raising a family on a single income with the potential of also supporting my future mother-in-law. And I currently make a good salary, but I just feel like it's not enough. And...

Like you said on ownership, I'm just wondering if I'm holding on to not stepping up and owning these things and just saying, babe, I love you. I'm going to go through life with you and we're going to figure everything out along the way. You just nailed it right there. Every single person I know, myself included, has had to grieve the fact that they had a picture in their head of how their parents were going to be involved and it didn't look like that in reality.

Yeah. That was never on my wife. It was on me. Yeah. And quite honestly, it wasn't on me. My parents are grownups. They get to do what they want to do. And because I don't come from a home of billionaires, they didn't buy me a house and a plot of land and give me a job next door to them. Yeah. And so I had to do what I thought was best for my family. Actually, me and my wife did. Yeah. Right. And so I moved away and I grieve that. Bums me out.

And they have jobs, they have lives, they've got a whole world too. Yeah. Right? How old is your soon-to-be wife's mom? She's around 60. Okay. So you're projecting a potential challenge 20 years from now.

Yes, she, she does have, um, she's had a lot of hardships and still is having, um, health issues and currently has someone help her out throughout the week. But, um, I guess I'm concerned, like I'm a little stressed about being a single income home. Okay. What's, what's, what's the number?

Uh, 110,000. No, no, not that. Not your income. Not your income. I'm talking about if you sat down with your wife and you said, I want to have this much money in the bank for the day your mom says I need to move in with you. Would you, would you knuckle down for two years with us and we're just going to funnel that money into an account? Yeah. And this is my commitment. This is, this is my, not my commitment to you fund, but I don't want to be an anxious mess walking around all the time.

Absolutely. And do you know if her mom has support, if there's federal programs, if there's money? I don't believe so. Do you know that to be true, though? I know that she gets assistance through the government right now. Okay. So I don't know that I would count on that just going away. Maybe. Who knows what's going to happen in 20 years. Yeah. But let me pan back 30,000 feet and look at this with you.

Up in the clouds looking down, okay? Okay. There's a 1,000% chance you'll have struggles your first year of marriage. Yes. There's a 1,000% chance at some point one of you gets laid off, one of your job changes dramatically, you've got a wild swing up or down in finances. One or both of your... If you all stay married long enough, all of your parents will pass away. Yeah. All of your parents will do something at some point that you wish they hadn't done revolving on your grandkids or your marriage or something.

And so trying to pre-solve all of those problems, or as Brene Brown says, trying to dress rehearse tragedy. What it does is it does two things. Number one, it's fake. It's false. It gives you a false sense of security that you have any idea what it's going to actually feel like when your mom passes. Any idea what it feels like when your mother-in-law decides, I'm moving in. And of course, that's the month your wife's going to find out she's having twins.

Right. Yep. Or that you thought it was going to feel like when there's a big economic correction and everybody's job goes well. There's something about having a math problem, right? I'm with you. I want a number. I want a number and a savings account. It's my emergency fund. I'm with you on that. But anything else is me using future pain as a way to numb a current, present-day decision I need to make. Mm-hmm.

It's a Xanax. Okay. The, the second part of it is here's the only question you need to ask yourself. Will I wake up every single day and come what may good stuff, bad stuff. I will make it my mission to love you in the best way that I know how. And part two to that is vulnerably. Will you make that same commitment that you'll wake up every day and decide to love me the best way you know how, because together we can get through anything. Yeah. That's,

That's beautiful. And she's the type of girl that will do that. She'll do that with me and I'll do that with her. So are you in? I'm in. I'm all in. Game on? Game on. Okay. If you get married and mom needs a place to go and wife says the only right move is mom to move in with us, then y'all figure that problem out together. Yep. And if you say, I see what's coming and I don't want to have...

a mother-in-law living with me, then break up with your girlfriend and set her free. But holding onto one of those things and holding your girlfriend, future wife's head underwater is not fair. - Yeah. And I can feel that that's a pain point for me right now, but when I go back to that 30,000 foot view, like you said, like she's the one that I wanna go through life with.

So it might be you saying, okay, what is it about having an elderly person in my house? Is it that I can't walk around in my underwear? Is it that I'm worried about money? And if it keeps coming back to your fear of money, I grew up in a home that it was sketchy on groceries sometimes. Yeah. We never went hungry, but man, it was pretty dang close. And my dad borrowed a lot from groceries sometimes. Yeah. So the challenge was me working through my money anxiety.

Had nothing to do with wanting to take care of an elderly woman in the most honorable way possible. Had to do with, I felt less than insecure. Yep. And that's a me problem. That's a you problem, right? Exactly. Exactly. And by the way, brother, if you're like 99.9% of us, you're still going to feel nervous. It's okay. How long have you been together? Um,

Almost two years. Okay. How old are you? I'm 32. Man, you know. I know. So what's the hang up? Give me a 10 second hang up. I think right now I see my sister with her kids and my parents and I see that picture that I had in my mind.

And it's just tough for me, you know? Like when I grew up, we were at my grandparents all the time and running around in the cul-de-sac. And it's tough to, I guess, remove that, you know, from my future kids. When you think of it that way, you've made it an item of scarcity. Yes. It was an awesome blessing that you had grown up like that. It was amazing. Yeah. And the world is different now. Yeah.

And it's very, very expensive to start a young family in California. Yeah. It's prohibitive. And so what does it look like to, like me and my family just did the other day, have some adoptive grandparents on your street? My son still goes when we go to West Texas. There was a Miss Tarver who lived next door. She was in her late, late 80s, maybe early 90s.

She would share fig Newtons and he would pull up little weeds in her garden. They hung out. My son was two. He was three. He was four. They were best buddies. I would have done anything for that to be my mom, but it wasn't. My mom was a professor in another state, in another town. And so I grieve like, oh man, that would be,

And it made my grandparents house that much. I mean, my parents, my kids, grandparents house that much more special when we went and visited and made it a magical place to the point now that my son says he has to live a minimum of one hour away from me just because he wants it to be magic when he comes home. All I have to say is you get to inject what happens next, the joy, the laughter, the fun, the excitement, and none of it trying to recreate your childhood. A won't be what you remember it to be in reality.

But also, man, it robs you of any future adventure you can stumble into. And think of the way your sister's doing it right now. That's like her having a car that you want. That's cool. I can afford that car. Sweet. That would be awesome. We get to come once every four months and visit mom and dad, and it's magic for the kids. And by the way, you don't have any kids yet. It's like four or five years down the road, right?

And hey, this is important. Have the values conversation. Your wife has said, hey, if we have children, I want to be a stay-at-home mom. Cool. What must be true financially for us then? And let's start planning for that right now. Let's don't get surprised and go bananas like young couples in their early 30s do financially when they find themselves dual income. Let's go out every night. Let's just, let's us live hyper-intentional.

So after 24 months, we don't owe anybody anything in the world except for our mortgage. Let's don't go out to eat a whole bunch when we're newlyweds. Let's just grind it and grind it and get a humongous emergency fund so we're safe. And then when we have our first kid, we can all exhale. It's going to be awesome just how we planned it. And my last thing to you, James, before I let you go, almost always when I talk to a young man who's like, I don't know, I don't know, I should, I know everything's right.

That guy, when he looks in the mirror, doesn't believe he's worth hitching his wagon to. So you've talked to me about her, your future wife. You've talked to me about her potential mother's health challenges. You've talked to me about your parents and potential moving and finances. I want you to look in the mirror and ask yourself, am I a man worth marrying? Am I a marriable man? And the answer to that question is yes. But underneath that is what are the things you need to lean into?

Your tendencies, your addictions, your challenges, places where you want to grow. Lean in there. And that's a problem for you to fix, not for the external world to come solve for you. Thanks for the call, my brother. Send me a picture when y'all decide when y'all going to get married. If you get married in Nashville, I'll come. Party on, dude. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks, let's talk about Helix. All right, do me a favor. Close your eyes and think about your mattress.

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All right, let's go to Fort Wayne, Indiana and talk to Elizabeth. Hey, Elizabeth, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? So good. How are you? Doing okay. Doing okay. What's up? So some quick context. I have a daughter who is nine and then I have a son who's 11. And my husband loves our kids in the best way that he knows how. But

He lacks the tools to know how to really connect with them on a deep level. And since fathers are the examples for their daughters of how a woman should be treated, I want to address an issue now so that she won't settle in the future for less than she deserves. So my question is, how can I help my husband and my daughter build a better, more trusting, stronger relationship? Do you realize the gravity of the question you're asking?

Uh, I'm, I'm beginning to. Okay. Yeah. So a couple of things. Go ahead. I was just going to say there's, there's definitely like an urgency in my heart to address this now because I, you know, she's half, she's halfway to adulthood. So I'm sensing that urgency now. Okay. Two big flags shot up for me just now. Flag number one is when you say he's a great dad, but he's not, doesn't know how to connect with him at a deep level. What does that mean?

So, I guess there is just not a lot of connection or intentional interaction with them. And I say them, this question is about my daughter, but it kind of applies to both of them. So does he come home and plop on the couch and just turn a game on or go to a study and scroll his phone? Yeah.

That, yep, that, or he goes to the garage and, you know, does his thing in the garage for a while. It's just, yeah, it's like there's no, there's not really any intentional interaction. And then like, you know, he, if he comes home from work and they're not in the room that he's in, you know, he doesn't like go seek them out. He doesn't go find them. I mean, it may be two or three hours that they're home.

or that he's home, I'm sorry, before he has any interaction with them. Like there's just not a ton of intentionality there. Okay. And when they do interact, you know, it's for the most part, it's good. It's, it's normal, but you can just, it's pleasant. Most of the time it's pleasant. Yeah. Not always, but sometimes. So let me ask you this. This is a deeper, harder question. Okay. And he's not on the phone, so I can't talk to him. So I can only ask you questions. Okay.

Right. Has he learned over the last nine, 10, 11 years that he doesn't do this thing right and that this is Elizabeth's home and this is how you need to do things? And he's learned that his kids don't really like him. And so he's come to the conclusion, however false it may be, that the greatest gift he can give his family is to go to work, make sure the direct deposit's still functioning, and stay out of everybody's way. Um...

I don't, I mean, I don't, I don't think so. Maybe I don't, maybe, um, I know. I mean, okay. So this is my perspective and I realized that there's two sides to this story, but he has a lot, I can tell. And I know for a fact, he has a lot of internal struggles with his own like self-worth and, um,

you know, depression. He hasn't been diagnosed with anything, but it's pretty obvious. He's very like moody and irritable most of the time, or at least, you know, at least half the time. And so I guess I've assumed that the disappearing is like his way of coping. You know what I mean? Like he doesn't have to interact. If he doesn't have to interact, then he can't

be asked questions or can't be burdened with anything. That's sort of how I have interpreted what's happening. Okay. And if you've probably, if you ever listen to the show, you hear me talk about a dance, the couples get into, all couples get into, me and my wife get into, every couple gets in the dance. And they're very hard to peel back. Yeah. But one thing I want you to just ask yourself and examine is,

Sometimes we know that someone we love has depression or they're struggling with anxious season, right? And by the way, all these diagnostic things are just a symptom, a cluster of symptoms, right? Right, right. But if he knows I'm walking into the door, my wife's already cast this judgment about me and my feelings don't even working right, according to her. I don't put my clothes up the right way. I don't...

When I got home, I just needed to exhale for a second, but I needed to actually go into my kid's bedroom and knock on their door where I don't really know what to say. I don't know how to say it. And here's what I'm hearing across the country. Men are increasingly not like being at home because their homes feel like a failure factory. Okay. And that's not on you, but it's something to be cognizant about.

That the world tells men you need to be doing this and you have to do this. And if you haven't done this, oh my gosh. And then you're not doing enough housework here, which is there's some truth to all of this. Right, right. But it has to be contextualized in this is what works for us. Okay? Sure. So answering your original question, how does a...

dad build a, Oh, let me ask you one more thing. Here's the second thing. The second flag that went up all the way back. Jeez Louise, I'm talking too much. That's okay. And again, tell me if I'm wrong. Okay. I will. I will. What is your husband not bringing you? What is he not providing for you? Um, uh, I don't, I don't know how to properly answer that. I would just vomit it. Oh boy. Um, I would say there's definitely a lack of,

Um, like emotional security. Um, I just, yeah, I kind of, he's, he seems like a ticking time bomb. Not that an explosion would be anything like, you know, he's not abusive or anything like that, but he, his moods are very unsettling to me. Um, my wife once told me it felt like I had a nuclear reactor in my chest.

Yeah. And I never yelled. I didn't swear in our house. And of course I would never hit anybody or anything like that. But she said, oh, I knew. Right. I could feel it. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, his... Yeah, kind of. Yeah, his is not... He doesn't scream, but he is very, like, very harsh, very critical in his tone. Okay. And it's... He treats...

I got to back that up a little bit. The way, the way that he speaks to me and the way that I see him speak to our kids makes me feel very much like a burden or an inconvenience. Um, he's just very quick to be irritable, very quick to be not judgmental, but just, I don't know, just very like irritated. Very. Yeah. But dismissive in a way that's like, Oh, you know, like I, he was, yeah. So, so here's what's important. Okay. I don't want you casting that on your daughter.

I know, and I have worried that that's been part of my thing. No, no, no, no, no. You're trying to solve his relationship with her, which needs to be addressed, okay? And I'll give you some tips on that. Okay. But you have to sit down with him and have this conversation. I know. Because you're hoping that if he fixes it over here, it will somehow... The greatest gift a father can give his daughters twofold. Number one, she needs to know every single day...

How grateful you are that of all the daughters in the world, you got picked to get that one. She's beautiful and loved no matter what, come what may. That's number one. Number two, the greatest gift a dad can give his daughter is to, on a minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour, day-by-day basis, love her mother recklessly. Yeah. And so you're trying to solve a problem over here. The problem is between the two of you. Yeah. Yeah. I think I would agree. Yeah.

So the hardest thing for most couples is that. Now, here's some low-level tips. Every kid is different. My son loves together time, long drives. We drove to Texas for the holidays this year instead of flying because he loves road trips. Me and him in a car was awesome. He likes going hunting with me. He likes going fishing with me. He likes time with me.

Mm-hmm. That also means when I'm out in the garage, I invite him out there all the time. He didn't always come, especially as he's getting older. Dude, when he was younger, it made every job take five hours longer. Yeah. But he came and it was awesome. So presence with my daughter. Last night, we have an Olympic wrestling mat up in our living room. We wrestle together.

She's maniacal. And last night I gave her boxing gloves and it was like I'd unleashed a round, like the second boss on a video game. That's awesome. But here's the thing. It's intentional. Yeah. Or I gambled a half yesterday for her. We had a Candyland tournament the other night. Just talking trash.

And we made a bet I lost, so I had to give her a half yesterday on this weekend. Here's the deal. Whether it's Candyland, whether it's wrestling, whether it's kicking a soccer ball, whether it's making a drive, the word there is intentional. And you just got to know what that is. The master underneath that ticking time bomb that you're talking about is your husband's got some demons that I can almost guarantee you originated when he was a kid. Yeah, they did. And he has to choose, I'm going to deal with those.

Okay. And if he doesn't, it's the old backpack analogy. He has a backpack. And when he was a kid, some adults in his life shoved a whole bunch of bricks in him. And he can deal with them. He can go to a therapist. He can go to a trauma therapist. Almost every man that I know who's struggling with what your husband struggles with has some sort of abuse in their childhood.

He did, yeah. Yeah, pretty bad. Almost everyone. And every day he's at war to not scream, yell, or punch, and he's fighting so hard, and he's doing good work. And it's hard to get a man on the other side of it to say, whoa, that's not the solution. The solution is just be free.

Not to fight harder. Right. Right. But you can't do that. I can't do that. He's got to decide to do that and go sit with a trauma therapist and work through that. If he doesn't, he's choosing to take that backpack full of bricks and hand it to his kids and say, y'all carry this. I didn't want to, I didn't want to do the work to set it down. Period. Okay. Okay. Okay. But y'all need to work on y'all's marriage. Yeah. Because your kids don't want to be around him right now because they feel that nuclear reactor more than you do.

Right. Right. And I can, that's what I'm sensing. They want to hug him, but it's like hugging an electric fence. They can't. It hurts. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with that. And then they back up and then you get frustrated. He realizes he failed and he just goes in the garage and the whole thing starts over again. Yep. That sounds right. And I'm not saying that you just go cheer him on. Like you're so great. Right. I get that. But you're the only person in that house that can lean into that electric fence.

Yeah. Okay. So I guess then my question would be, so I have in the past and it's been a long time because he was so,

like dismissive of it, but I have in the past said, you know, based off of your childhood, you have a lot of things you need to tackle, you know, you need to address. And, and he, he does not think that he has a problem. He does not see the issue. So do you have any thoughts or suggestions then on how I can bring it up to him again in a way that maybe he'll understand? Yes. You have to use I statements. Here's why. Okay. He's been fighting his whole life.

And when you say you need to do some stuff, those gloves come on instantaneous. He's like Wolverine. Those blades shoot out without even thinking about it. Because somebody has been saying, you need to satisfy my sexual desires. You need to take the blame for my failures as an adult. He's been doing that since he was a little kid. Right. You're going to turn the flip of script as you look at him dead in the eye, holding his hands and say, I don't feel safe around you.

I don't feel safe in my own living room. Not because you're going to hit me, but because I keep trying to plug into you and I don't feel loved in this house. I make money. I let you do whatever you want. I know, but I want you or I miss you. And I keep trying to hug you and I keep getting electrocuted. That's good. Will you fight your way back to me? Most men who had childhoods where they were hurt in some shape, form or fashion, they

are so vigilant about making sure the people around them are not hurt. That when they come to realize the very things that kept you safe as a kid are hurting the people that you love the most. That sometimes is the crack in the armor that they'll say, okay, I'll go talk to somebody. And by the way, when I went and met with the person that ended up walking me through the most healing adventure I've ever been on, I went in full protest after I had a PhD in counseling, by the way.

Wow. Okay. I was not happy to go. I went as a sort of middle finger to my wife. Oh. Like, fine. Watch this. I'll even go do that. And I happened to go to a trauma therapist and she's just, I felt it. She stared a hole right through me. She knew. Right when I walked in, she knew. And that was the first time ever I felt like, oh man, I met my match. Okay. So it's not like the clouds will part. Right. Yeah.

Here's the answer. Oh, so what do you want me to do? Go see one of those stupid counselors? Just one time where you go sit with somebody and tell them what actually happened, what really happened to you. Okay. Let's get back to the original question. What do you want this house to feel like when you come home? How can I love you through that? How can I love you to that? And then you have to look in the mirror, probably get with a counselor, a couple of good friends or a minister at your church, like whatever, whoever you make decisions with. Say, okay, here's your what? I got a nine-year-old daughter.

I want to be in a relationship where my daughter has a vivid feeling and a picture of what love looks like, what a marriage looks like, how a husband loves his wife. I don't have that. And how a wife loves her husband. I haven't done that well myself. I'm going to work on that. Or what? I'm going to leave. I'm just going to make peace with it. You get to decide that. But yes, everybody can have an or what statement, but every or what statement comes with choices. Thanks for the call, Elizabeth. Y'all have some hard, hard conversations coming. Okay.

The one piece of advice I'll give you on those conversations is write everything down beforehand. And if there's some old default behaviors that you both go to, just know they're coming. Plan for them, breathe through them, and keep on moving. Thanks for the call. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're back. Kelly, am I the problem? Let it rip. All right, so Jill writes, my husband and I drove separately to meet family for dinner. The restaurant parking lot was full. I found a spot in a nearby lot and walked a bit. But my husband decided to save time and park in the next door adult triple X superstore parking lot.

Oh, man. Hey, I got to props that guy. That's a great story he made up real fast on the fly. We live in a small town and he drives a very recognizable truck. This is awesome. I asked him if the issue arose again, I would prefer that he park somewhere else to avoid anyone seeing his truck and thinking that he was inside the store.

He said he didn't see a problem with it and that it wasn't his problem if anyone came to that conclusion and that I shouldn't make a big deal of it. Am I the problem? Man, I don't think anyone's the problem here. He's pretty obtuse, but...

Because in a small town, 100% people are going to talk about it. It's one of those things like, I don't care what people think. Sometimes you should. And I know it's cool to like go through. I'm reading Anthony DeMello book right now. Like I get it. I want to not have any attachments and not have any external people judging me and not care. Fine. But sometimes my lack of like, I don't care if my shirt's tucked in. It embarrasses my wife, right? Or I don't.

Here's a good example. Can I give an example? Sure. It was working here when I first submitted the first round of questions for the intimacy deck. I remember those. Yes. I had several conversations with people that were like, what is the matter with you? Who would ever talk to their spouses about this stuff? Are you insane? And et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So it got to the point that I went home and I talked to my wife and I was like, who, by the way, had authored most of the questions.

I said, hey, here's the problem. I think I work with a bunch of weirdos because I've been asking these same questions like at dinner parties for years. To which my wife said, yeah, you've been making dinner real weird for a long time. It's been awkward for ages. And then I thought back and we talked about it and we laughed, but she had asked early on our marriage, like, hey, don't ask that question at dinner with strangers. I'm like, oh, okay, cool. So anyway, all I have to say is,

My obtuseness has probably had fewer and fewer dinner date invitations over the years. But all I'd say is him parking there reflects on her. And so, yes, it is a valid request to say, hey, would you please not park at the sex shop?

And with your big pink Cadillac or whatever he's driving, his big jacked up red truck with the cow balls hanging from the back underneath. Like, if you're going to drive that car, don't park it at the sex shop, please. Just, and that's not ridiculous. And it's cool for him to be like, I don't care what people say. I get it. Fine. But your actions reflect on other people. So there you go. That's why I've quit asking weird things at the dinner table. Alas.

What do you think? I agree. I mean, it's funny, but, you know, small town, 100% someone's going to see his truck there and go, did you know where I saw Dwayne's truck? You know, whatever. I saw them cow balls right in front of the dirty store. Exactly. And so that's 100% going to happen. And he may not see a big deal with it at all, but she does. And it's one of those, are you really going to die on that hill?

Just park somewhere else. That's the other thing is, bro, don't die on that hill. It's not worth dying on that hill. Just park another block, you know, further and be done with it. And he may just laugh to yourself if you think it's ridiculous. Great. Go on about your day. Yeah. Yes. But realize for some reason it makes her uncomfortable and it's not a huge ask.

I mean, it's not like she's asking him to, like, sell your truck and buy something that everyone else, you know, more inconspicuous or whatever. Just park somewhere else. Here's the real problem. He 100% went to the sex shop, and she caught him. That dude, you're the problem. Busted. Busted. If you're going to drive that truck, you're going to get caught doing that kind of stuff. Anyway, no. Listen. Listen.

Every relationship has a little low-hanging annoyance. Hey, would you not? Would you fix your pants? Just fix your pants, for God's sake. Fix your pants. Hey, whenever you wear those shoes, just don't wear the shoes! Jeez Louise. Can we just... Could you just not park at the sex shop? God help us. I love you guys. Bye. Bye.