How Do I Tolerate My In-Laws for My Family’s Sake?
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How can I overcome the negative feelings I have about my in-laws? There's a little bit of drama. He had made her cry. Can I just say on behalf of husbands everywhere, and this is going to sound trite, I'm not playing. And I know people might roll their eyes listening to this. I'm being very serious. I'm proud of you for standing up to her because that was not easy. Yo, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, as the world is burning down around us.

Hope you are making it. We are recording this. What month is it even? Are we in March? Are we in April? No, we're in April. I don't even know when we are, where we are. That's a problem. It's a problem. I'm all over the place, though. Traveling and then running to do this and then writing in the mornings and in the night times. And when the world burns down, I'm okay with it. When we just light matches and then dump gas on it, golly, dude. If you are sitting at home wondering what's happening, I'm going to tell you.

Me too. Me too. And that's what this show exists is for people to pull up a chair and just to look across the table from one another and say, how can I help? How can I sit with you when whatever's happening is happening, whether it's in your homes, whether it's in politics, whether it's in your neighborhoods, whether it's in your schools, my promises, I'll sit with you and we will figure out what's the next right move.

Yeah, I'm going to stop talking because I'm going to get myself all fired up, man. Let's go out to Montreal, Quebec. What's up, guys? Okay, so we got Cindy and Will from Montreal. Good to see you guys. I'm not seeing you guys. We're going to talk to you. How about that? Yeah. All right, so who wrote into the show? It was me. Okay, so you throw the first grenade, and then Will and I will sit in the shrapnel and see what happens next.

All right. I'll start off with my question, which is, how can I overcome the negative feelings I have about my in-laws for the sake of my husband and my children? So my first response before Will responds is, tell me about your negative feelings. What are they? Um...

I mean, there's a little bit of resentment because I feel that sometimes they simply do not care about our rules and wishes when it comes to certain topics, especially revolving around our kids. Give me an example or two. All right. So...

main one that's been bugging me a lot is, and this has been ongoing for years, is the amount of gifts my daughter receives. At the beginning, it was just holidays and birthdays. But I might sound a little bit ungrateful here, but this is like nothing you've ever seen before in terms of the amount of gifts. And

In the beginning, my husband has asked very nicely for it to be reduced. But then after that, it got to a point where he had to ask very not nicely.

to the point where a couple of Christmases ago, there was a little bit of drama. He had made her cry, but we thought at that point that we had gotten through to her. And I say we, but in reality, it was him doing most of the talking. But actually, that did not change much, and it turned into mostly...

gaslighting, telling him this is her right as a grandma to do these things and to drop it. And there's a reason I ask my question the way I did, and it's because I've kind of given up on

on getting her to change her behavior and I'm trying to find ways to way to go I'm trying to find ways for me to deal with it because I'm becoming this naggy wife that I don't like and I

I don't want my husband to have to deal with me complaining. You know what I mean? Yeah, a hundred percent. I don't know any husband loves a nagging wife. All right. So, Will, tell me what's going on in your world. So, yeah, from my perspective, I'm on board with my wife and I support her completely. And I feel the same way in a lot of ways. You know, I construed the situation to be my parents were,

It's more my mother, okay? My father is just like, you know, tells her all the time, but she doesn't listen. So I construed the situation to be more about birthdays and events, and I put my foot down hard. I made her cry on a Christmas. Did you make her cry, or is that her move? And has that always been her move?

Well, uh, no, her, her move was always, you know, I'm the matriarch. Listen, shut up. This is it. And I said, no, I'm not taking that. And I went over the, over the hill and I put my foot down and said, these are my kids and these are our rules. And since then, um, Christmases and birthdays and everything, uh, I, I give her reminders weeks ahead and I tell her, you know, Hey, keep it calm. And

And she does communicate with me a little bit better before Christmases and birthdays and stuff like this. But it turned into every week that she would see us, there's a new something, a little gift, a little thing. So let me hop in here. She's been doing this to you your whole life, right? Yeah.

Not just in even material things, but food. If it's not an excess, then it's not good enough. That's right. But what I'm saying is she has blown through your feelings and emotions and what you need and what you want your whole life. Yeah. Right? So can I just say on behalf of husbands everywhere and dads everywhere,

And this is going to sound trite. I'm not playing. And I know people might roll their eyes listening to this. I'm being very serious. I'm proud of you for standing up to her because that was not easy, was it? No. A manipulative, overbearing, self-declared matriarch.

Is every bit as pompous and arrogant as a self-proclaimed patriarch. I'm the man of this house. It can be just as obnoxious when it's, I'm the matriarch of this house and you will all, and you've been dealing with that crap your whole life and you stood up on behalf of your wife and your kids and you, and I'm proud of you. Okay. Thank you. You did not make her cry. That was her move. Number two.

That's when a bully gets punched in the nose and then goes running to the teacher and says, he hit me, forgetting the fact that that bully has been messing with you for months and years on end, right? So crying, just the, that's manipulation tactic part two.

It's just another way to get as much to my father after she cried, you know, like, uh, and he expressed and said he felt the same way that he'd been rolled over his whole life. There you go. But here's the deal. He's taken that and that's the life he's chosen to live. You can't impact that. Right. And so here's your next move. Y'all have to begin to not speak your boundaries. You have to begin to live them. And what that means is she has opted out of y'all seeing her every week.

That's a choice she made. And your dad has chosen this life. And so because he's chosen to attach himself to somebody like this, he has chosen to not see your kids. And y'all are going to have to grieve the fact that every young kid needs grandparents that are on their side. And y'all don't have that. How does that sound? That's difficult. How come?

Our eldest daughter absolutely loves their grandma. Of course she does. I would expect a kid who every time they see somebody tells them the greatest thing ever, shoves a bunch of presents in their face, feeds them a bunch of sugar and junk. I expect a kid. It's their parents' job to keep them safe. And if you guys have identified, we're tired of this. The other thing you can do is every time you get a gift, you can throw it in the trash on the way out.

You can set it down on the front porch and leave it. But you have to begin to take action, I guess is what I'm saying. And you can't, my guess, Will, is in your heart and mind. I hear that little baby. I love that sound. Will, I can imagine you're refusing to do to your kids what was done to you, right? Yeah.

I get that. I mean, I married a minimalist at heart. She wants to have that little small car and I'm like used to being the only child spoiled with everything. I let her lead in terms of what we want in the house and she's the one who keeps me in check from overbuying things. So yeah, I'm totally on board with that mantra. Okay. And minimalism isn't always right. So you guys sit

sitting down and deciding what do we want our house to feel like? What kind of world do we want to create together? There's always going to be a push-pull there, right? I'm a little bit of a prepper. My wife's a little bit of a rationalist. And then some weekends, I want to be a minimalist and I want to throw everything away. So it's always like a push-pull, right? It's a teeter-totter. And that's a good marriage, right? Y'all both holding each other in check. When Cindy's like, hey, we'll just...

We'll just strap the kids to the roof because I want to drive a two-seater. She needs a will in her life to say, hey, we need a Highlander, right? We need at least a couple of seats. And then the other side of it is you're like, hey, let's buy everything. And she's like, hey, that's not wise for us financially, space-wise and all that. So that's all good. That's all good, that push-pull and that tension. You don't want a tension-free marriage, right? Y'all want to be always negotiating and navigating these things together. The bigger deal sounds like

Because, Cindy, tell me if I'm wrong. This isn't just about gifts. Because a mother like this eyeballs you every time you walk in the house, doesn't she? Absolutely. A mother like this makes sure you know how much better a job she did raising her precious will than you'll ever do raising your kids.

Well, she's not so much of a show-off, but she definitely took control of a lot of things. That's what I mean. Our wedding. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yep. And so, Will, in many ways, this is about Cindy feeling like she's still competing with another woman. Yeah, that's something to settle in here for sure.

And it sounds like you are, and Cindy, I want you to, and I know you have, but I just want to say it out loud. I want you to understand the Herculean effort Will is putting forth in taking on his mom. That's a hard deal. And for you, it's like, I'm the wife. You're right. And that's still hard, right? And Will, I have to lean on you a little bit more and say, all right, it's time to start acting.

And that's gonna come with tears from your kid. That's gonna come with dramatic tears from your mother-in-law. That's gonna come with your dad having to make some hard decisions.

So here's where I'm going to interject and say that my parents have plans to retire on the other end of the country. Okay. And I want to know from your perspective, is this something that I need to rock the boat on or do I let my mother get away with it for the next couple of months and hope that the problem kind of solves itself because she'll be on the other end of the country? I think there's some merit to that. I'm going to...

I would love for you to send me an email when they actually move because I don't think they will. Okay. If she does, because, again, I hate talking about people's mothers, right? That's so dicey, right? And I feel scummy even doing this. It's like I'm breaking every code I learned in recess in fourth grade, right? A person with this limited scope of power

And what I mean by that is she has already exerted dominion over your dad. She had you under her thumb forever. And then when you brought this other woman into the fold, your wife, she was like, oh, I'm going to run your marriage. I'm going to run your wedding. I'm going to run your kids. I'm going to run their gifts. It's rare that a person like that just withdraws what limited scope of influence they have.

On the world, right? And so by moving across the country, she's going to go back to just running the one person she's already exerted dominion over. So if she does do that, yeah, I mean, this problem solves itself. But it does. It does. Amazon exists in dropshipping. Do what? Amazon exists in dropshipping. Yeah. I am that scared that we're going to get that. Throw in the trash, dude. Just don't open it.

I mean, if she wants to just burn her net worth to the ground, go for it. Or don't throw it in the trash. That's bad form. Take it to a local shelter. Those kids don't have any toys. Take it to your local church and drop the toys off. Your three-year-old doesn't get a vote. And I don't mean that to be ugly or mean, but your three-year-old doesn't get to decide the direction and influence on your home. Of course she loves grandma. Grandma buys her everything.

Every day is Christmas. Every week is Christmas, right? So of course the three-year-old is going to love that. The question I want you to ask yourself is, is grandma walking kid around, teaching kid things, showing your daughter things because she's trying to open your daughter's eyes to wonder and love and fun? Or is she saying, look what I bought my daughter. Look what I bought my, I mean my granddaughter. Look what I did. Look what I did. Look what I did.

And my guess is you've lived that and then you're watching it be repeated and it's hard to decouple it. All I have to say is to answer your original question, Cindy, your feelings are real and that's okay. Choosing to nag, not a good idea. It's not going to work. Choosing to complain all the time, it's not going to work. It's you and Will getting away for just half a day and saying, okay, our lives are all different now because we have two kids, two under three.

So what do we want this house to feel like and look like? And then we get to decide that. And that's going to be how many toys we have in the house. That's going to be how many times we go down the street to see grandma and grandpa. That's going to be how we interact with cousins. It's going to be how do we want this house to feel? And then we're going to reverse engineer our boundaries that way. And you guys have spoken your boundaries. Will, you've gone to battle for your family and I love it. Now it's time to begin acting. And yes, if they actually move across the country in a few months, fair.

but you will deal with this again at some point. And maybe that's the space you need to begin to get a little stronger, a little stronger. I just want you to be prepared for, it's gonna feel bad when mom calls and says, I don't feel good because of you. You cut us off. You made us leave. You won't let me love my grandkid. And it's you, you, you. That's gonna hurt, man. And it's hurt your whole life. That's part of the adult growing up process that just stinks, man. I hate it for you.

Thank you guys for the call. Y'all are in a good spot. Don't stop communicating. Cindy, commit to stopping the nagging and complaining because those two things never work. And Will, keep standing firm for your family. Now, y'all stand firm together and say, okay, we added another kid to this crazy house. We're wiping the deck. We've got a new marriage yet again. What do we want this thing to look like and feel like? Y'all are on the right path. You're on the right path. I'm so honored to talk to you guys today.

All right. We come back. We talked to a woman who was wondering, can I trust my husband again? We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. More and more people are becoming aware of the need for mental health resources, physical health resources, and more. Whether it's finally taking action with their physical health, finally getting some friends to do life with, or finally getting the courage to seek professional mental health support. But when

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Hey, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you? I'm doing okay. Yeah. Excellent. As good as we can. Yep. Right. I guess try to figure it out. Ah, what a wild world we live in. So what's up? How can I help?

Well, so my question is, how do I know that it's safe to recombine my finances with my husband? What happened? So my husband, he has a very big problem with addiction. He has gone through drugs. He's gone through alcohol. He's gone through gambling. It got to a point where we...

Didn't have money left in the bank account anymore. And there was just like a time that we needed to have stability in our house. And with the kids, I wanted to make sure that we were able to have them provided for. So can I change your language just a wee bit? Yeah. And I want to empower you, okay? Okay. There was a moment a decade ago.

When you had to take a stand for your safety and your kids' safety, and you said enough. And I announced, I always am telling couples, the data is clear. The reality is clear. It sounds all cool and hipster and modern to you have your finances and I have mine. And then we get these disastrous marriages where you got two people coexisting in the same house. They're co-managers of their household.

So you guys did what I will preach till kingdom come, which is you combine your finances. And like you mentioned, there's a few moments when somebody has to take a stand and say, hey, you partner, you're driving us into oncoming traffic. So it's not we in that moment, Lee. 10 years ago, you said for my safety and for our kids' safety.

I'm taking a stand. I'm pulling my money out. I'm not sharing with you anymore because you're untrustworthy. And I'm going to make sure we got a home and we got electricity and we got water and we got food, right? Yeah. Okay. I want to call out how proud of you I am for that statement because that's hard to do. When you love your partner and you watch them struggle with addiction after addiction, that's hard. And you want to be supportive, but there comes a moment when you say, okay, for me and my kids, we got to eat. So I'm proud of you for that.

So paint me a picture of the last 10 years and why are you, why are you stumbling back into, I think it might be time to re rejoin finances. Um, well since then, I mean, we've done a lot of healing. Um, we did therapy and he is sober. He is. Yes. How long?

Um, it's been about two years now. Okay. Sober from what was his last vice that he is working through? Alcohol was the last one. Okay. So he's been alcohol free, gambling free, drug free for two years now. Yeah. Okay. Has he reengaged and being present in your marriage? He's still working on it, but it has definitely been a big improvement since it was in the past. Do you feel safe physically and sexually and emotionally?

I do. It's more of like, I don't know if I can convince myself of it too, though. Well, if you have to convince yourself of basic safety, then that often means you're overriding your body's innate safety signals. You took a big gulp of air when I asked if you're safe physically, sexually, and emotionally. Tell me about that pause.

Um, I think it just, like, I struggle with kind of my mind reminding myself of what it was in the past. Okay. And so it's like the last two years have been, I mean, outstandingly better. Um, but it's like, I still struggle to know that, you know? To, to...

Or I said to my therapist recently, I want to feel in my chest what I know to be true in my head. Does that sound right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, exactly. Like you're seeing this changed behavior. You're seeing minute by minute, day after day, a changed man. And yet your body's still saying, hey, remember when, remember when, remember when, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So in your everybody's completely healed picture, the fantasy picture, I'll call it, um,

What does recombining finances get the both of you? What does that bring to your home? I think unity. Okay. Do you feel disjointed still? Yeah, it's, it's kind of like ups and downs, especially with not having them combined. Like we decided back then that, you know, his money was his money and my money was my money. And I mean, we would,

kind of work together as the splitting the bills and everything. But it's, it's been a struggle with, I guess, watching him blow money. Yeah. Yeah. But it, it's like, I don't want to say anything because I know it's not combined, but it's like, I think I'm a little scared to say something too, just because he's still been a lot of those in the past. Is he still being irresponsible with the spending, even though his addictions are under control?

Yeah. For the most part, yeah. Okay. So if that's the case, I don't think we're there yet. But I do honor the fact. Here's what I hear you saying. I hear you saying you admire how hard he has worked the last two years. And you see the work he's putting in. And you feel a sense or a move inside the middle of your chest for you to make a move back to center too.

And you want to feel like you're doing your fair share for y'all to come together instead of you just staying on your side of the fence and you keep telling him, when you get over here, when you get over here, you're saying, okay, I'll take down the fence too. We'll meet in the middle. I want to applaud his sobriety for two years. That's a nightmare for anybody. That's tough. I do think you might be at a place where you can sit down and have the money conversation. Here's what must be true. You got to be on a budget for six months.

Or the impulse spending or the boxes showing up in the front of the house or the new whatever guitars or guns or whatever he's into. I want to see that you are invested not in quote unquote managing your money, but you're invested in this household working together, together moving forward. And then you be very specific about what you would need to see for you to be able to exhale and override your body's GPS alarm systems and put your money back in the same account.

Because it could be that y'all dump all your money back in the same checking account and you have a big kumbaya moment and it's beautiful and you just handed a match to somebody holding a can of gasoline. Or it could be the olive branch. And so sobriety is step one. Like when people say like, hey, I want to meet with my –

I went behind closed doors with a couple a few months ago and I got kind of an emergency call. Hey, things are blowing up. Will you come over? I went over and one of the people was completely drunk, just hammered. And so I said, hey, there can be no healing in this house until that's dealt with, period. And so I think what's hard for you is you've got 10 years of kind of doing life on your own with this other person in your house who you love and care about.

And now you've gone to, and you want it to just quote unquote, go back to the way it was. I don't think we're there yet. I think two years just said, okay, now we're at the starting line. Almost like you're redating again. Okay. Now you're clear eyed. Here's what must be true for me to feel safe with something as powerful as transportation, food, lights, a roof over our head. And if he looks at you and says, I'm not doing any of that crap. Then I think Lee, you have a, you have a,

You've got more data than you wanted, but you've got data that you got to deal with. That would say he's not invested in this marriage. He may be invested in staying sober, but he's not ever going to be invested in getting you guys back together. If like some, some folks I've been around who are, I mean, their sobriety stories are, are amazing, but they cross that one year mark, that two year mark, that six month mark. And they say, what's next? How else can I get back in the game?

How else can I heal this relationship so that we can move forward? And so maybe you sitting down and saying, I want to just call out the last two years I've watched you change. I've watched the lights come back on in your chest and in your eyes and in your soul. And it's amazing. And I feel like we're back at the starting line. I want to combine our finances. I want us to start talking about our future. I want us to talk about retirement. I want us to talk about how we're raising these kids. I want to talk about us having a fun, exciting sex life again. I want to talk about these things again.

Starting line number one, I want to see you for six months budget your money and manage your money. You're a grown man. I'm not going to do it for you. I want to see you have some impulse control there because I want us to bring our money back together. And yes, that might blow up. But if that blows up, then you know it's not what you think it is right now or it's not what you're hoping and grabbing so tightly around. Like you're holding this thing so tight, you may realize it never was all the way back. Tell me what you're thinking. I'm thinking...

That sounds reasonable. Can I tell you one other hedge I would make if I were you? Yeah. Do you have an emergency fund of any sort? Do you have a cash position just for you, some savings? I do, yeah. How much? Well, it's getting close to three months now. That's amazing. So basically, you've been a single parent inside of this home. How many kids do you have? Three. Okay. Okay.

So you've been paying the bills, taking care of your kids, taking care of everything, taking care of you, and you still manage to save three months. Like if it all burns to the ground, you've got three months to keep the lights on. That's amazingly. And so you do have some margin that when he, two months, three months, six months, you're a grownup, you get to decide what your body's going to need to feel safe. But if he doesn't speak it, behavior is a language. If he acts it,

If he puts into action a commitment that he wants to be all in with you, then you've got some rope here that in case he burns everything, if he takes that money, y'all put in the same account again, y'all go down and have a ceremony. You open a new checking account in a new place. You close your private accounts. You put it in there, but you're keeping that savings account. And you tell him, I'm keeping an emergency fund because we are tiptoeing our way into this trust.

And if he loves you and he's all in and he's truly on the path to sobriety, he'll say whatever it takes for you to feel safe. Okay. My gut tells me that your silence is speaking volumes. And I don't know if it's just a lot to digest or if you're scared about this conversation or if you know underneath all of this, he's not going to do any of this stuff. And you got to deal with that. Oh, I don't know. It's like, I feel like he might.

I don't, it's like, we've tried so hard to just not talk about money because it has been like such a big stretcher point. Yes. But also something you can't put off forever. Yeah. So can I give you two or three pointers for how to engage in this conversation? Yes. Okay. Set a date for it and get out of your house and maybe write down two, three, five, seven things that you have felt in your spirit, in your chest.

That you have seen with your own eyes over the last two years of ways he has just turned the lights back on. And that might be as small as, I just see every time you walk by the sink and there's dishes in it, you just clean the dishes and put them in the dishwasher. Thank you. I see that. There's not just little tiny hairs all over the sink when you shave. Like, I see you.

I believe you that you say you haven't had a drink in two years and you've got the two-year chip. I'm so proud of you. I want you to put some immediate relational deposits in the bank when you sit down. The good stuff starts with you, you, you, you. The challenge then when you shift gears to, I want to begin coming back together and I still don't feel safe about our money.

And so do you see what I'm doing? Like you were saying, the positives are seeing you, the negatives you're saying, I, I feel unsafe. I see the work you're doing. I want to begin to practice putting our money back together. Here's what that would look like. You being on a budget for two to six months, you, whatever. And by the way, I'm going to help you out. So this show is hosted by the Ramsey Network. I also co-host the Ramsey Show. I'm going to give you our flagship product. It's the best budgeting app on the planet. It's called EveryDollar. I'm going to give you the premium version for a year.

Okay. Okay. In fact, you know what? I'm going to send you two. I'm going to send you two of those. Let him use one by himself for three months, for six months. Okay. And he can make you a participant in that. So you don't do anything in his account, but you get to see he's living with a budget. Y'all commit to a weekly budget conversation. How are we doing? You commit to a monthly reconciliation of how money goes.

And this is you telling him, I want to feel safe. So here's what I need. Here's what I want to feel safe in this house when it comes to how we spend money. With the goal that in January to start the new year, August 1, whatever, I want us to put all of our money back together so that we are ride or die, same team, both of us moving in the same direction moving forward. And for six months after that, I'm going to keep an emergency fund over here on the side because it was 10 years of pain. And it was painful before those 10 years.

And it's been dicey the last two. So I'm being smart for me and the kids, but I'm working to come back to you. And I want you to work equally hard to come back to me. And I think that's a fair, honest, and I'll say rational, but a way that communication will work. And it'll be your best attempt to make him feel safe and seen. And at the same time, put some hard things on the table by using the word I. Here's what I want.

Here's what I want so that I can feel safe in this house. I want to acknowledge you. I want to feel safe. Are you in? And by the way, as the old, the great Dr. Irwin Yalom says, everything is data. If he looks at you and says, this is stupid, I'm not doing any of this crap. Or he says, sure, I'm all in. And then one month later, he's like, I'm not meeting you. My budget is my money.

Then you've got some big answers to some big questions and y'all are going to have to have that conversation. Or, I mean, you can choose your other hard, which is we're just going to keep living like this. But I hear in your voice, you're tired of just being a roommate and you're ready to be married again. I applaud you, sister. The next path is choose your hard. Choose the one that might get you to where you both want to be.

I'm proud of you. Hang on the line. We'll get you hooked up with those free tools. All right, when we come back, we talk to a new dad who is struggling with his wife's picture of raising his little baby. We'll be right back.

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Not doing so well, Astros. Talk to Neil. What's up, brother Neil? John. John, how's it going? Dude, I'm doing great, brother. How are you? I'm, you know, living the dream. That's what everybody says when one of their tires is flat and they think their back tire is flat, too.

Living the dream. So what's up, Neil? Yeah. Hey, so new dad here. How old? I just had like 12 days. Oh, dang, Gina. So you're in it, in it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. New, brand new kid. Awesome. Okay. Very cool. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. So my wife and I are struggling with breastfeeding. Hopefully you're not struggling with breastfeeding. Well,

I know you're a new dad. Contrary to what some of the science textbooks say now, you can't, brother. Shame. I wish I could. That way I could help her. Bro, I tell you what, man. You're struggling so much. Yeah.

I see her struggling and like we have this, I call it the baby Keurig, right? It's like this formula machine and you can just press a button and there's a bottle. And so I just want to like give my baby a formula bottle when I see my wife break down every single night and I get that breastfeeding super important to her. I,

I don't really see it as that big of a deal, but I know since it's important to her, it should be important to me. And I just need some new tools to help support her. Sure. So I want to first blow up that idea. You're going to have things that are very important to you and your marriage that will not be important to your wife and vice versa. Okay. It doesn't have to be something, but you can honor her the importance that it has for her. Okay. Yeah.

And so don't ever feel like, well, it's important to her. So I have to make it important to me that, that that's, that can't work like that. You're going to have an exhausting life. If y'all do that for each other. Okay. If you're constantly forcing yourself, like she likes square dancing, so I've got to like it too. Like, Nope, she can go square dance with somebody else. Right. So, um, when you say she's having problems with breastfeeding, is she having problems producing enough milk? Is she having problems? Is the kid having problems latching? Like, what are the challenges here?

Yeah, I mean both of those, right? Both of those and then just extremely painful. Okay. Has she met with a breastfeeding coach? Just, I think yesterday was her first lactation consultant. Okay. How'd that go? We, you know, I guess she learned a few exercises or strategies or whatever to try out. Okay. So we're going to try those tonight. Okay. So what I would tell you is on day 12,

Nothing is the way it is in the movies and nobody tells you these things. Like when you see just like in a movie or a buddy and their wife is just breastfeeding and it all looks just so natural and they're just having a conversation in a coffee shop with one of those little showery things. You know what I mean? It looks like a shower curtain, you know? Or like the other day at the hibachi grill.

That lady just decided to go for it right there at the hibachi grill. And there's like fire flaming up and the guy's like making onion stuff and she just let it rip. Knock your lights out, right? But like it looks so simple and so pain-free and so dot, dot, dot, dot, dot. And I had some friends who were way down the road and they would tell me, they're like, no, no, no.

Like that baby doesn't have any teeth, but those gums feel like death or they're like getting a kid to latch sometimes is really tough. And then you begin to think I'm, I'm a failure as a mother or my body's broken somehow. And it's just a challenge, right? Just getting there can be a challenge. And so you're day 12 in, I would exhale a little bit, just knowing that,

Man, there's different sights and smells and challenges and pain and all those kind of things are just new and nobody tells anybody about any of that stuff. Okay? And I applaud you, brother, for wanting to help. And you are experiencing this in day 12. I experienced it for about two years before I called it out. So I'm going to give you some language here, but kudos to you for already trying to figure it out. Okay. Few moments in my life have I felt more powerless than

than in the season you are in right now. Because there's going to be seasons over the next one to two years where your kid will be screaming and you can't stop it. And you will feel like a huge failure. You will see your wife in tears because she thinks and wants so desperately that

This basic, this basic biological process between a mother and an infant feeding is so difficult. And you're going to want to rescue her from the pain, from the tears, from the kid biting, the kid screaming, the kid kicking, all those, you want to rescue her and you can't.

Yes. That's where I'm at. I know, and you'll feel freaking powerless. And you put on top of that, you haven't slept. And you put on top of that, you're getting emails from work that you're trying to respond to, and you're not doing a good job of that either. And then you just start to feel like, I suck at all of this stuff. Yeah. And that's a total lie, and it's not true. You're a good husband. You're a good dad, Neil. Thanks. And this is just one of those things that I wish I had another phrase for it, but this just sucks. If your baby was starving...

and you were watching your wife force her ideology, and it was coming at the cost of your kid's health, then we're going to intervene. If you see your wife trying to make something happen, and the lactation consultant says, hey, you aren't producing enough milk, we have to supplement. And she said, absolutely not. I will never supplement with formula ever, ever, ever. We have a different kind of problem. It doesn't sound like y'all are there yet. Is that fair?

Yeah, I would say not yet. Okay. All right. My hope is now that you have done the right thing, which is to bring in a professional, that professional will serve as a, what I would call a neutral third party. And it will give you a touch point that when you start getting concerned, hey, that baby hasn't eaten all day. The doctor said we need a supplement. I know that's not what we want to do. That wasn't our plan, that we wanted everything to be natural. We wanted that way. And thank God we live in a teeny tiny sliver of history

when they have supplementary nutrition for infants. Thank God. And then we can go be lunatics about what's in this, in the, you know, this is what I would do. I would like, what's in that formula and who made it and who owns, like, go down that rabbit hole. Let that be a thing y'all can focus on, like a demon y'all can fight together. And that will shift the blame from fighting, her fighting her body, her fighting herself, you fighting your ineptitude as a dad, which isn't true, but it's what it feels like.

My hope is that just a few tips from a lactation consultant, from a breastfeeding coach, man, that makes all the difference in the world. And it may not be easy, but it may be way better. Okay. And maybe sit down and ask your wife this question. After the baby's asleep, okay, ask her this question. How do you want me to bring up concerns about the baby? And when do you want me to bring them up?

Because I want to do it in a way that is honoring you and us and that kid. And it's just a good conversation to have. I've learned after one of my kids has just thrown a temper tantrum or being nine or 15 or whatever's happening, I've learned that is not the moment to tell my wife, we need to start doing, that's just not a good time. All right? I've learned that the next morning after everybody's had coffee, to be like, hey, tonight, let's go for a long walk. I want to talk about what happened yesterday. And my wife goes, all right, cool.

And you'll just learn. So having this conversation now, how do you want me to have this conversation with you as we move forward? And then the second thing is, how do you want me to ask you things that I don't fully understand? Okay. But you mentioned one of them. You could care less if it's breast milk or if it is formula. I don't care. I just want my kid to not scream. I don't want my kid to have a full belly. Right. So how do you ask that question to an exhausted hormones have just exploded. Body still hurts.

Either she's got episiotomy or she's got a huge wound healing across her lower abdomen, right? Like, how do I bring this stuff up? It's very delicate, right? Right, right. It's tough. What you don't want to do is get in the position that some men find themselves where they start telling women what they need to be doing with their baby and their body. Yeah. Because whether you're right or wrong, it doesn't matter. It feels like it's, oh, it's now you versus me and my baby. And husbands never want to find themselves there.

And sometimes husbands have to intervene. Things aren't healthy. Things aren't safe. Things aren't okay. Postpartum is real. It's scary. Yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. How do we want to have these hard conversations? So I guess it's in the moment, you know, at 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock at night when we're trying to feed and she's crying and frustrated. How do I support her? Here's how you do this. At noon, the day before that 10 o'clock,

You let her know, I feel powerless at 11 o'clock when you're crying. What are some things I can do to bring you peace when that's happening? So that at 12 o'clock or 11 o'clock when she is heartbroken that she's struggling with breastfeeding, because she's had this picture in her mind. She knows this kid a year in advance of you, which took me a long time to recognize. She's already got a relationship with this kid.

And so when she's feeling shame, like her body's a failure, like she's a failure as a mother, she can't even feed her own kid, all these stories she's telling herself. You don't want her also to feel like she's got to take care of you at 10 o'clock too. So y'all have already had that discussion at noon. Hey, how can I best love you when things aren't going well? And she might say, it would really be awesome for you just to sit by me and not ask me any questions. Let her cry. It may be really awesome. Bring me a cup of tea.

It may be really awesome. Just take this baby and make that baby a bottle and let me just sob by myself.

And then have that plan so that when things get tough at 10 or 11, and by the way, it won't just be about this. There's going to be some weird rash that just pops up that happens. There's going to be a preschool that y'all have signed up for four years in advance that just closes. And now you don't have any childcare. There's going to be things like that that pop up all the time. So having a plan ahead of time so that when this thing happens, how can I best love you?

What, you just like sit there in the uncomfortableness and just let her cry? Sometimes. Sometimes it's I'll rub your feet. It is, man. Sometimes I'll rub your feet. And by the way, in 10 years, is it a boy or a girl? It's a girl. In 10 years, some little jerk of a fourth grader is going to break her heart. And you're not going to be able to fix that. But you're going to be able to sit by her.

And you're going to be able to hold her teeny tiny little 10 year old body while she sobs. You can't fix it. You're going to want to go fight a fourth grader, but you're not going to fix it, but you're going to be able to exhale. And so, yes, there is a thing about feeling the powerlessness. It doesn't mean you're broken. Doesn't mean something's wrong. It just is. But let me tell you this, this is the way this is. And the feelings are scary and the feelings hurt. And you're a good dad, man.

Thank you. And you're a good husband. So heavy. It is. And can I challenge you to do something that I wish I had done? I'll certainly try. Get on Amazon today and buy a really, really nice thick lined leather bound journal. And at the top, write day 13. And in those moments of powerlessness,

Those moments of just you're overcome with love, you're overcome with the responsibility, the weight of a little girl, write her a note, an entry into this thing so that when she's 16, you can just hand her the whole thing. Here's 16 years of how much your dad loves you. When it was hard, when it was easy, when I didn't know what to do, when I didn't feel like I was loving you and your mom well, but I just stood in it, I stayed in it. When I had to say hard things like, hey, we've tried for three weeks and the baby's losing weight.

We got to do something about formula. Let's go meet with a doctor. We got to do something. And that was a hard conversation. Hand her that journal. And by the way, that will give you something to do with that excess feelings of powerlessness. And I don't know what to do next that you're feeling at 10 o'clock at night, at two in the morning, at five in the morning, all that kind of stuff. All the joys and excitement and pain and challenge of having a newborn at the house, man. When you feel like, I don't know what to do next. You're right where you need to be, brother. I'm proud of you.

Hang in the game. This is when most men begin to bail. Hang in there. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back.

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That's join, J-O-I-N, joindeleteme.com slash Deloney. Hey, please take two seconds and hit the subscribe button. We get millions and millions and millions and millions of views every month on our short videos, on the long form videos, tens and tens of millions of videos. I mean, it's amazing. And...

We have 1.1 million subscribers. What does that mean? That means that many of you are watching this. You're watching every day. You're consuming it. If you'll just take a second to hit the subscribe button, it moves the show up in the algorithm and it gets the life-changing bravery of these callers to more and more people. And what we need right now is real-life examples of bravery in our homes. We're not seeing it anywhere else.

It will get this show out to more people, and that's what we need right now is more people listening to these stories and these struggles and listening to people make hard choices about what to do next. So if you'll just take a second, hit the subscribe button or the like button or the leave a quick review, whatever it means to the world. All right, Kelly, am I the problem? Let it rip. All right, so this is from a woman in Austin, Texas. She did not give her name. 512. And she writes...

Nope. Nope.

They have known each other for about 10 years. Oh, yeah. And she recently got married. However, her husband works out of town and won't be home. Oh, yeah. I am uncomfortable with him staying there because we have both had affairs in previous relationships. I trust him completely, but I also think that it is better to have a practice that we don't stay alone with people of the opposite sex. He sees it as platonic and that it is not an issue. Am I out of line? No.

No. And from one guy who is comically clueless, like embarrassingly clueless about the intentions of other people. Just trust your wife on this one, dude.

And yes, I think what she is saying is even more right, which is let's build a culture of beyond reproach. Nobody can ever question us because we don't put ourselves in situations to be questioned, right? Which is good God almighty, dude. In my past, I've put myself in the dumbest situations and it's just stupid. It's just dumb. So 100%, this is not a...

This question came from somebody like going to a youth group. This is far beyond anything out of a faith context. This is just being smart and protecting your wife's reputation, protecting your reputation. And Plutonic, dude, some of my best friends on the planet are women. They're awesome. They're like, they're awesome. Women are awesome. I thought it's so stupid. I just said that. Our entire gender thanks you for that. Well, yeah.

Just so we all know, I almost made an awesome joke just then, but I'm trying to be more mature as you're always asking me to do. But I don't spend the night at their house when it's just them. I just don't. And it's just not wise. So anyway, there you go. No, you are not the problem. You are very wise. I'm going to take the high road here and assume your husband is like me. And that's just comically clueless. He's had affairs in the past, though, so I don't think he is.

But you know what? I've been kind of a grump today, so I'm going to take the high road on this one. Going to be happy. Nope, you're not the problem. He is. And probably that other woman is too. Kelly, fix the world. Stop tattooing yourself and fix the world. I'm only paid to deal with you. That's a lot. I gave you that one. Love you guys. Bye.