Shownotes Transcript
I heard you say that a lot of young men nowadays only know how to give and receive love through sex. I felt a little pointed out when you said that. So I'd love to know, how does one learn how to receive love through other methods? And I really want to make it easier for my wife to love me. Yo, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so grateful that you are with us talking about your mental and emotional health and your relationships. Whatever you got going on in your crazy, crazy life.
Whew, man. We all have it. I've got it. Everybody's got it. Kelly especially has it. Kelly, the show producer. So much so that she wore all of her knuckles today. Blang, blang. Do you have a pinky ring that costs about 50? No. No, I don't. I do have on my yellow rose a Texas gold ring, though.
That cost about 10. Hey, actually, no, it didn't. Ah, here we go. Hey, if you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you. 1-844-693-3291. Give me a call. For you texters out there, yes, you'll have to call, but a human won't answer. It will just be a recording and you can leave a message or shoot us a note at johndeloney.com slash ask.
And big time, big time, if you'll hit the subscribe button, if you will share these episodes with your friends, leave five-star reviews, it makes a huge, huge difference for us. Let's roll out to Cleveland, Ohio and talk to Adam. Hey, Adam, what's up? Hey, Dr. John. I'm delighted to talk to you today. I'm glad that you called, man. And for those of you who aren't Adam, it took us a long time to get this show rolling this morning because we had lots of technical difficulties because...
Ben doesn't like hitting record. I don't know. I'm just blaming you because I saw you at a corner of my bend, but no, it's all good, man. Adam, what's up? Okay. So, um, a while ago, uh, I heard you say that a lot of young men nowadays only know how to give and receive love through sex.
Um, that I, I felt a little pointed out when you said that. Uh, so I'd love to know how does one learn how to receive love through other methods? You said it was, I think you've said in the past, it's effectively the only tool in their toolkit. Yes. Um, and I, for example, I definitely love, love words of affirmation, but,
But nothing gives me those feelings of love like sex does. And I really want to make it easier for my wife to love me. Um, and has been difficult for us. Oh man. Oh gosh. You're not, I say you're not, you sound like a love languages guy. Yes. A little bit. Okay. Um,
So I don't believe in the takedown. There's whole podcasts and authors and whatever. Their whole life is just all they do is go around and take down other people. So I'm not really into that. I will say that I think the love language phenomenon, the five love languages and all of the various whatevers, it's fine as an aha and as a good conversation moment between partners. It can be cool to be reflective sometimes.
Um, but it's not real. And I think we end up sometimes those love languages get weaponized as you have to do this because this is the only way that I am programmed. And if you don't do this and you're choosing to not love me, um, instead of it being like, huh? Yeah. Like I have a bent this way or I kind of lean this way. So, um, tell me about what love looks like in your house. You got kids.
Yeah, I got three boys. Um, I am extremely affectionate with them. Um, I would say more so that than anything else. Uh, my wife is a little bit more, she seems to enjoy quality time with them. Um, and this guy is always pushing me to spend more quality time with them and try to speak their love languages. Um, but, uh, I mean, as far as what love looks like, that's about it. Um,
We try to say nice things to our kids too, like, you know, proud of them, think that they're awesome, et cetera. What does love look like for you? I guess I think, like I said, it feels like sex. And, you know, my wife would say nice things to me and that feels nice. But then you're like, okay, prove it.
Yeah, kind of. It almost feels like, all right, we're going upstairs now. Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, you look really nice today. It's like, oh, sweet. You just want to take your shirt off. I get that. I totally get it. I'm trying to do this in a way that I can also teach at the same time instead of just pulling apart your situation. Because I know, like, I'm really grateful that you called because millions and millions of men experience this. And on the other side, millions and millions of spouses experience trying to love with three kids. How old are your boys?
Uh, three, five and eight. Good gosh. You haven't felt loved in a long time, have you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. Um, tell me about growing up for you. Um, I, my, my, my father was pretty, uh, intense. I'll say, um, my mother was very loving and kind of tried to protect us from his outbursts. I'll say, um,
So love was kind of avoiding my father and leaning into that relationship with my mother. Okay, man, you are, um, you're, you're helping a lot of people by being honest. Um, what did high school romance look like for you? A lot. I, I had, I was, I was a serial monogamist. Um, I, I had long relationships, but a lot of them. Yes. And, um, very deep, very deep, very fast.
Uh, I wouldn't say deep, uh, but I mean like this, did you fall hard?
Yeah. Oh, and I was, and I was always the one who loved more than the other. Even now in my relationship, I was, I'm the, I'm the adorer. Okay. Um, so, and my wife is the adored and every single girlfriend I'd ever had, I, I fell harder than they did. Yes. It's a little, it's almost embarrassing to think about it, honestly. Well, so I get that, but also I want to step back and, um,
I don't know, dude, if I let myself, it's a rainy day here in Nashville. It's kind of just a gray day. And so it's just one of those days where I just on the way to work, I was a little extra introspective just because of the weather. And I listened to like moody music kind of thing. I can get choked up. Here's why I'm thinking about a little boy who so desperately wants to be seen and known and hugged by his old man and is constantly having to be rescued by mom, by this maternal figure.
And I'm looking at a little boy who goes off a cliff every time somebody gives him a little bit of attention because not because there's something wrong with him or it's embarrassing, but because he's desperate for oxygen and he falls hard.
Breakups are really hard within 24 hours instead of mourning that. Dude, I love a good middle school or high school crush. I love them. But instead of mourning it and being sad like you're supposed to and you get quote unquote dumped, right? You're right onto the next because this is a matter of survival for your little nervous system because home's not safe.
And the challenge is, and again, the challenge is it's really easy for you guys to get in a dance, especially with a chaotic house like you have. I need this. This is my love language. I need sex. I need this to feel loved. So your wife loves you and she puts you on a chore list.
Yeah. That's exactly how it is. We got to get the boys fed. We got to get the boys done here. We got to do this. You get the yard mode. I got to get him off, and then I can go do this, and then I can go to sleep. And what she does when she moves you to a chore list, she becomes your mom. Yeah. Right? She becomes a person. You become yet another thing that she's got to take care of that day. And so the reason I don't like the love languages other than just a fly-by reflective tool is...
It puts people on chore lists and it avoids the harder conversation, the more vulnerable conversation, which is you looking at her saying, I want you. How can I love you today? And that all covers up the deeper question, which is most of the men running around needing, as they say, and by the way, men don't need sex. You need oxygen, food, and water. What we really want to say that we're terrified to say is I want you. I want to be with you.
I have all kinds of crazy, dirty thoughts about you. I want you. But when we say we want something and we don't, and someone says, I'm not going to give that to you. That's so devastating that we then dump it into this. Well, I need it. I need to have to have, right? And so the ultimate question you, I have to ask, are you, are you wondering becomes, why doesn't somebody love me? Because when you, when you outsource it to a physical act,
It's basically a little kid asking, will you prove it? Will you prove it? Will you prove it? Yeah. And when you get a group of guys, and I'm all about getting a group of guys to meet with, I talk about that all the time, you have to have that. But if the group of guys just sit around and it's this, iron sharpens iron happens through action. It doesn't happen around like,
So what did you do? Are you struggling with this? What are your struggles? Like, well, let's talk like you get what I'm saying, because it just becomes a one up. It becomes. Yeah, it's it's trying to hack your way around. Do we have to go do stuff together? We have to share a common purpose and mission. And I would be willing to bet there is a lot of secrets held at that table. Fair. Yes. Yeah, I think so.
You might be the open one which is awesome But I it I've never seen those groups where someone doesn't sit down and be like hey I'm cheating on my wife and it's it stuns everybody or I've been an alcoholic for three years Everyone's like what and they don't know now now again. It's not every every group but backing all the way out Let me ask you this you Adam. Why don't you feel like you're? Lovable, what is it about you? Yeah, I got I don't know. Um, I
I think like intellectually, I feel like everybody should love me. Like I'm pretty much a people pleaser. But hold on, you had to be. You had to be. Yeah, yeah. That was a survival skill. Yeah. And I was the guy that you say the trauma response of getting...
Good grades. I was that guy. Um, and was pretty, I generally been successful at everything. I put my, my hand in my mind too. And, and I'm also just like, I got a silver tongue. I'm good at talking to people. Like everybody really seems to think even at work, people seem to think I walk on water, but for whatever reason, I can't.
Like I've said to my wife in the past, the one person I want to love me, I feel like doesn't. And that's her, right? I want her to love me. Everybody else thinks I'm fantastic. And for some reason, I can't get her to love me. Okay, but she's the last one that sees you. Yeah. She sees all my crap. Well, but my guess is she looks at you and says, I made a human, I made three humans with you. And make sure this house is running.
I make sure like in her mind, like how else do you want me to love you? And what I'm willing to bet is there's a constant escalation.
Love look like this. Can we just make out? Love look like, can we sleep together? Love look like, and increasingly, let's ramp up the novelty of our sex. Yeah, you're absolutely right. But that's not about her. She's going to scream when she listens to that. Well, here's the thing. It's you chasing a ghost. Will you do a quick experiment with me or a quick exercise with me? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, I want you to close your eyes. Okay. And I want you to picture yourself sitting down in a chair and in a completely empty room.
And there's one other chair in that room and it's about four feet from you facing you. Okay. Your old man walks in and sits down. I don't want you to picture me, John. I want you to picture him sitting down. What do you say to him? You can say anything. You can ask him anything. Um, why was it so difficult to be nice to me? No, that was silver tongue, Adam.
Why won't you love me? No, you're just answering that because like that way, because you want me to answer that. What would you say? I really think that's what I'd say. I think I would say to him, you were a jerk to me as a kid. Okay. Why, why was it so difficult for you to be a kind pilot? I, I, I care so much about kindness now. Talk to him, talk to him, talk to him, talk to him. I feel like you were nice to everybody else. Everybody else thought you were a nice guy.
Everybody I've met nowadays thinks that you're a nice guy and doesn't understand me when I say that you were a jerk to me when I was a kid. Why did you treat me like that? Keep going. Why did you treat mom like that? Why did you treat my sister like that? I don't understand where this behavior, why, why, why you feel like it's acceptable to behave like a child to me and my family. I don't know. I think that's it. That's all I'd say.
Now, I want you to do something even harder. Imagine you're 10. I want you to look down with your eyes closed and your feet aren't touching the floor. And you see your little feet kicking. I don't know what kind of shoes you wore. I wore little Converse All-Stars when I was a kid. I want you to look at whatever shoes you're kicking. I want you to look back up and see your dad. What does 10-year-old Adam ask your old man? I don't know. I mean, beyond everything I've already said, I don't know what else I would say. Okay. Probably something simple like, Dad, can we go outside? Hey, Daddy, will you not hit me anymore?
Hey, Dad, can you just get off the couch? Can we go play? Look, Dad, I took my shirt in for you. Look, Dad, look, I got another one of those special numbers on this piece of paper that you want so bad. Am I good enough now? I think back to when I was a kid, I did not want to play with my dad. I had no interest in being around him. It was, and like, and my dad didn't hit me, like, but he was just very verbally abusive. And I, I just stayed away. I hid to survive, you know? Yeah.
So here's your, I guess I'd say, man, is you're not broken, but you have a lot of healing to do. And here's where it is. You've been trying to ROI. You've been trying to solve for that question. And our culture gives us a playbook of lies that are supposed to solve that question. What was so bad about me? What's so bad about mom? What was so bad about me? I was freaking nine. I was 13. Why did you come home so angry all the time?
And culture says, you can show them by making this much money. You can show them by having everybody like you. You can show them by being the go-to guy. When anything goes wrong, we're going to call Adam because he'll be here to solve it. And then you marry somebody and she thinks she won the lottery with a smooth talking, good looking, solve everything, good grades, going to make us some money and keep me safe guy. And then you realize all of these other things don't work. And so increasingly you put it on her shoulders to solve it.
And it's, I want to have kids. Okay, cool. Let's have three. I want to do this. Okay, cool. I want to move here. Cool. Let's move again because I just got a new promotion. Okay, cool. Let's do this. I want to get this car. This will help. And eventually it all comes down to you must prove that you love me. And that is why the five love languages, the Myers-Briggs, Enneagram stuff, I don't like them because they become weapons.
You will do this or it will give me the, it will finally prove to me why my dad didn't love me because I'm unlovable because you won't even do what I'm saying or quote unquote what I need. And I need you to hear me say, dude, all of this stuff is an extra, you're trying to take external, external wallpaper and cover up an internal hole. It's the size of Kansas inside your chest. And I'll just tell you now she can't, she can't fill it. Yeah.
How do I, what do I do next? Yeah. Well, I got a couple of things for you. One is the practical. I want you to do the bravest thing you've probably ever done. I want you to go sit with somebody and be honest. And there's some stuff that you can tell the guys that you sit at a table with. You can tell something to a counselor that I promise you will make their toes curl. Fair? Maybe. I don't know. You can. I've lived a pretty boring life. Yeah. Yeah.
And then the second part is I want you to sit down with your wife and begin to have conversations about want, play, laughter. We often exchange excitement for joy. We think we're chasing this excitement. And if we're good men, we dump all that on one person. It's just a lot. What brings you joy? What gives you peace in your heart? Is sex a part of that? Of course it is. Is adventurous, novel sex a part of that? Of course it is.
But if that's the end aim, I'm promising you, nobody can hold that. We have a culture that's been melted by that message. So, A, your wife is blessed and it's honorable that she has a husband that just wants her all the time. But I also promise you, she feels that you don't want her to be together. You want her because she's feeling it. You want her like a Xanax.
Yeah. And that's not sex. That is, that's numbing. That is so I don't have to feel unloved in my own skin. And I wish there was another way other than grief demands a witness. You sitting with another person, preferably a trained person, but maybe these guys are your guys and you can sit down and have like the deep heart. I got to be seen. Here's a couple of easy things you can do in a day. Have the brakes and gas pedals conversation. I want you and your wife to read Emily Nagatsky's book,
What's the name of that book? I just lost it. Come As You Are. Come As You Are. That's right. Y'all read that book together. Read that book together. And I want y'all to have some conversation. And it will be super, super comically awkward in all the best ways. Emily's a great writer, but she gets right to it, man. And I want y'all to begin to ask questions like, how can I love you? What does love look like in this moment today? And on and on and on. And the sex will come. And I'm telling you, this is wild. Sex will be different. It will be deeper and more.
more fulfilling in a wild way and it will be a what kind of sex you want to have tonight and what are you into and it becomes something it becomes an act of play and an act of escape not an act of desperation it's the greatest sexual ever ever ever have because it won't be survival sex it will be together two people two great great great friends who are like dude it's on tonight
I'm proud of you, man, for making that call. When we get off the phone, I want you to pick up a phone book in your local area. I want you to call somebody, preferably, it doesn't matter what the gender is, but call a therapist and sit down and start having those hard conversations. Today's day one, brother. We'll be right back.
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20-something years. My friend Cassie said phone books are when people used to print off parts of the internet and put them on your front door. Pick up a phone book. Did I really say that? You did. Dude, I got old up in here real quick. Yeah, real fast. Yellow pages. Man, you kids and your internets, y'all don't even know. You don't even know. If you wanted to call Kelly Daniel, you'd have to open the phone book and there'd be 30 Daniels and you'd start at the top. And you'd look down and you'd hope that maybe their name's listed in there. Just start calling. Yeah.
Is Kelly there? Hello. And you hang up. It's different. It was a different time. Like or subscribe. Hey, man, for real. Hit the subscribe button on YouTube. All right, let's go out to we got a couple here, but they're a long distance. So we're going to slap it up, flip it and reverse it first and go to Virginia Beach and talk to Ethan. What up, Ethan? What's up, John? How you doing? Dude, I could not be doing any better, man. How are you?
I'm doing great, man. Excellent. Excellent. All right. We're going to bring in Grace, who's in Columbia, South Carolina. Hold up. Grace, you there? Hi, John. How are you? I'm so good. I'm good. All right. So, Ethan, I think you're the one who called in with a question. And let it rip, dude. Let's get into it. All righty. My question is, how should we proceed in our relationship when we haven't gotten my girlfriend's parents' blessing?
Have you not got it because you haven't asked for it or did you ask for it? They said no. I asked for it and it was a long conversation where I feel like her mom was bashing me. Dude, okay. Tell me how it went. So it was around Thanksgiving and earlier in the day I had asked her dad if I could have a conversation with...
Him and his wife and my girlfriend was at the table as well. And the conversation started off good. I mean, we were just talking about what everybody was doing and everything. And it got to the point in the middle of the conversation where I asked them what I needed to do in order to get their blessing. Oh, no. I bet they give you a list, huh? No, they didn't really give me... I mean, they gave me a couple things, but I felt like it was just...
Her dad didn't really say too much. It was more of her mom. And she was just like, we feel like you're being manipulative toward her and you're trying to take her away from our family and some other things. And it actually went on for like an hour and a half, man, to where like she told me I was getting upset at what she was saying. Like she said that she could see me getting angry. And I was like, well, of course I'm going to be a little upset. But yeah, it was like an hour and a half conversation where I really didn't say anything. Nobody was really saying much except her mom. And it was...
Was it something that you could tell had been building up for a long time? I don't know. Like, I just felt like it all came out at once. Yeah. Why did you feel the need to ask both of them at the table? Because I just feel like, I mean, she can speak for herself, but I think it was important for my girlfriend to get that blessing before we proceed. Okay. Grace, what was your memory or experience of that conversation? Um...
It was definitely a hard conversation. I kind of anticipated it not going the way it went, but just maybe not having the outcome we wanted simply because there's like other tensions, you know, in life right now. And I'm the oldest of four, just to give some context. How old are you? I'm 18.
I'm 26. I just turned 26 in January. And mine and Ethan's relationship is my first long-term, genuinely, this is going to happen kind of thing. And on top of that, it's been long distance, so that ropes in some difficulty as far as family time and them
them getting to know one another and things like that. And we'll be having dated a year in April, but it's just, it's come with its own like good and bad at times. But going back to that conversation, I think it was a lot of fear that was like the root of that reaction. Yeah. But she, you would have known that mom's going to react like that. Cause mom always reacts like that.
Yeah, that was my biggest fear. So why'd you set Ethan up in that situation? I don't think it was... It was never an intentional, let me set him up for this to happen the way it did. But you kind of knew what was going to happen though, right? I think my inner fear was, what if this happens? But then on the flip side, I was like, I would hope that 26, they can see that I'm happy and we're happy and...
then just be in support of that and be happy for us kind of thing. Have they, have they ever been supportive in that way of you? I mean, I think to them support looks like being available or being involved in a way. Um,
But I've never truly dated someone where it was like I knew I wanted to spend life with them, like I wanted to have them around and, you know, pursue life with them. And so I think there was always an idea that it would be somebody familiar or somebody close to home or...
You know, not necessarily like states away. And so things being different than expected, it's just been very hard for them to like come to terms with that. Ethan, did you feel like Grace hung you out to dry?
I didn't feel like with the conversation she hung me out to dry but I mean me and her have already talked through this a little bit but when her mom was saying all those things about me like she was just sitting there quiet that's what I mean you know what I'm saying yeah yeah why didn't you intervene and say whoa whoa stop talking about the guy that I love in all honesty it just triggered like the little girl yeah
in me and I believe me, John, believe me. And I've wanted to speak up, but I felt like I couldn't in a way. Like I felt like I was born in the wrong since then. Like have I gone back and spoken up? Oh, for sure. Yeah. How did that go? I know. And, um, it was heard and it was very honest and straightforward and, um,
I think it established a boundary that was probably not known prior to now or prior to that conversation. They didn't know you had a backbone. They thought she's still our little girl and she's still going to do what we say, when we say it, how we say it.
And you got kind of run over at the beginning in that conversation, which by the way happens. I'm not, it's not a beat up, but I'm just trying to call out. If I'm Ethan, I would feel like I'd keep side eye and you'd be like, are you going to stand up? These are your parents. And I get that. But also if you circle back and said, whoa, this never happens again. Not on my watch. You've done this to me my whole freaking life. And this is over. So Ethan, what's the root of your call, man? Trying to figure out how to move forward.
Yeah. Just trying to figure out how to move forward. And if you think I necessarily need to ask for their blessing again, I mean, because I know that is so important to my girlfriend that we get their blessing. And another thing is her dad never really said much in the conversation. Like, I feel like that's who I really want to get my blessing from, but I feel like he was just kind of quiet sitting there, you know? So I really don't know like how he, like what he thinks. Oh man. I don't want to speak ill of him cause he's not on the phone. Um,
One of two things. Either he's a complete and utter coward and didn't believe anything his wife was saying, but just doesn't want to fight her. And so he doesn't mind watching some guy get run over at the kitchen table because it's easier to keep the peace with his out-of-control wife. Or you know exactly what he thinks of you. She just speaks for both of them. Neither of those are good. Right. And if he didn't reach back out afterwards and call you and be like, hey, dude, how that went was wrong. I'm sorry. Right.
No bueno. I'm sorry. Yeah, well, I mean, the morning after, because I mean, I was at their house. The conversation probably ended at like midnight and I ended up just packing my stuff and leaving. Yeah. That's exactly what I would have done.
Yeah, so I just, I left and he ended up texting me the next morning early and just asked how I was doing. And I told him how I felt and how everything made me feel. And he just said it was no intention for us to make you feel that way. We just, I don't know, just that kind of stuff, you know? Well, I mean, it was 100% their intention and they got what they wanted. They wanted you to leave and they got what they wanted, which is you to get away from their daughter for a minute.
Yeah. Yeah. And that was another thing her mom was saying in that conversation is she felt like I was smothering her in a way and that like, we should take, like, I was like, she wants to like not talk to each other and like take a break. And she was like, basically said yes. And I was like, well, I'm, I'm not going to do that. I mean, I love her. Yeah. So yeah, she doesn't really get a vote there. I, to me, great grace. What do you still look at searching for? Cause here's the thing. I'm an old fashioned Texan. I called my wife's Texas father.
and asked for permission to marry his daughter. Number one, she was a grown woman and we're not in the 1300s, right? I wasn't trading like many goats for her, right? She wasn't his possession to quote unquote giveaway. And I also, I don't know, there's an old school respect thing that I just like. And so I'm all about it. I love it. And by the way, my father-in-law was hog hunting.
And he's one of my favorite people in the world, but he was gone. I went ahead. I talked to my wife's mom. She was awesome and said we'd be honored and whatever. My father-in-law called me back that night late and said, I heard you asked my daughter to marry her. What'd she say? He knew. And I said, she said, yes. Got long silence. And he just said,
There's not a rock small enough that you can hide under that if you hurt my daughter, I won't find you. And I was like, yes, sir. And he goes, all right. And he was awesome, man. But I remember him being like, got it, got it. I love that. I love it. There's a lot of theater in it, but I love it. But here's the thing. If you're asking for a blessing grace out of this codependence, like I've never been able to
pick a class in high school, buy a car, pick an apartment, date more than two weeks without mom coming in and saying, this is what's going to happen. This is how it's going to be. Or anytime I got a C on a college class, my mom was the one calling the college professor. If that was your life and you're codependently, you can't move forward without them nodding approval from on high. Then Ethan, I would say I'd run or at least take a big step back because grace is
And you're going to be asking her opinions on – you're going to have a third person at your table for your entire marriage, and your marriage is going to suffer for it. If, Grace, you like the picture, as a little girl, you always had this dream of the guy you were going to marry was going to ask your dad for your hand in marriage, and he was going to say yes, and they were going to punch each other in the arm. I don't know whatever picture you had.
If you just know that's what I wanted and I totally get that and I love it and I hope Josephine demands that of her, the person, my daughter Josephine demands that of who she married. I hope that's the case. And it's old fashioned and it's, I don't care. I like it. But if you're doing this because you are so uncertain about your next move because your mom has dictated every move in your life, you're going to have to cut that cord or you're going to have to let Ethan go.
Because when y'all two say I do, you can't invite her to share your bedroom with you. And you can't invite her into your finances and you can't invite her into your home decisions and job decisions. You can't invite her into like permission to send your kids to a certain school or whatever. It's got to be you and Ethan ride or die. Yeah. And so if there's a grieving, tell me about this blessing. What do you need from it?
Um, honestly, it's not, for me, it's not really a codependency thing. It's more so just that as their oldest daughter, I always prayed for and envisioned them having that relationship with my parents.
spouse, significant other, before they could hand that over with joy and excitement. And I can't make them feel those things. I think they do feel those things, but it's coupled with grief because they see their daughter's not going to be around like she always has been. Sure.
and available to them in ways that I have been. And, um, like, you know, life has ultimately dealt, dealt my family cards in ways that it's like, at the end of the day, all we had was family, like the six of us. And so that is what's hard is drawing that line of separation, you know, to step away from that. And so it's like, at the end of the day, I,
I know I love my parents and I seek their wisdom and all of that, but I also know that I am an adult. Yeah, they raised a strong, smart woman. Right. Ethan, there's not really like a research answer to this. I'm just going to tell you what I would do. I would reach out and call dad and I would say, hey, I'm going to be in town. I'm going to come in and visit. I want to take you out for lunch. Just you.
And I would probably be pretty direct and specific and say the last conversation we had didn't go well. I didn't ask the question right, and I'm going to own that. I'm going to ask your daughter to marry me, and it would mean the world to me to have your support that you and I can become friends over time, that you know that I love and care for your daughter, that you ask me any questions you want to ask me, but that we're on the same team. And I can't choose if you want to be on the same team as me. I can't choose if you like me.
But I want you to know that I want to honor your relationship with your daughter. And I would be as direct just one grown man to another grown man. And again, not the can I have her hand because she's not property, right? She's not his to quote unquote give away. But there is a we're joining families here. And Grace, I would go take your mom out and say, Mom, this looks like this is happening.
we want you on board. And also we know that, and by the way, this can't happen in text. This can't happen on the phone. You need to do this in person. We want you side by side. And what you said last time really hurt him, hurt him bad.
And you don't have to join us in this, but man, we don't want to do life without you. And family will be family will be family. And it might be that we're in different towns and different states for a season, or we might be overseas for a season. Who knows? But y'all are always going to be our family. It's just going to look differently. And I would give them a chance and have that conversation, that direct conversation.
I wish you guys the absolute, absolute best. Hang on the line. I want to give you all a couple of tickets to the October Money in Marriage that's coming up. We had one at Valentine's Day that was just off the charts, the best thing I'm a part of. But we're going to do it again in October, and I'd like to invite you to come join us by that time. And if you want to just go ahead and do your wedding at Money in Marriage, that would be even doper. All right. Thank you all so much for the call. We'll be right back.
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All right, let's go out to Atlanta, Georgia, home of the Braves that ruined my childhood because they had all those great pitchers. Talk to Emily. Hey, Emily, what's up?
Hey, yeah, so I just have a question. My husband grew up in a very abusive family, and it just really makes me mad, the stories and some of the mess we've been dealing with now. But I really just want to be able to look past that, forgive them, and just kind of pretend none of that has happened.
And I want dragons to be real and I want four million bars. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So pretty much a compromise between. There's no compromise. Yeah. And yeah. So when you said dealing with the mess now, what has emerged since y'all got married?
Um, just like all the mother-in-law stereotypes, times 10, pretty much. But, uh, interesting thing, she actually passed away this last year. So a lot of that ended, of course, still some through his dad.
But I'm finding myself just incredibly angry with someone who's dead. And that does absolutely no good at all. But it's still real. Anger is a good emotion. It points us towards something that we really care about that shouldn't be the way it is. Yeah. It's when we meditate and ruminate on it. How often do you have imaginary conversations with her where you just let her have it?
Okay. It goes through seasons. So I'll have a few days where, you know, I'm good and everything's cool. Something will happen. And then it will just be like, it all comes rushing in, lingers for a few days after that few days. I'm cool. It's a cycle. Yeah. It's a cycle. You probably heard this. Forgiveness is for you. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a decision to no longer let her, this person who, you know,
to just hurt the man that you love more than anybody else in the world who hurt him over and over and over and over and didn't protect him from other people hurting him. It's a decision to no longer let her hurt him and hurt you.
Yeah, you know, it's true. I think, so, um, growing up, I was always taught, forgive and forget, forgive and forget. Yeah, whoever says that's, that's moronic. That's just like a dumb church trope or something they like stitch on a pillow at home, at like home goods, right? Like you can't forget. It is.
It's so true. So like for a long time in our marriage, I wrestled with the whole, but if I forgive her, I'm opening myself back up to her. But I don't want to open myself back up to her because that's painful and it's terrible and it hurts. But I also know I should forgive her, but I don't want to get hurt, but I should forgive. Okay. Okay. I'm glad you're bringing this up. So forgiveness does not mean I have to hang out with you ever again.
Forgiveness doesn't mean I have to talk to you. I have to engage with you. Forgiveness doesn't mean anything like that. Forgiveness simply means think of what happened like a cinder block. All the trauma. Give me some examples of stuff she did to him and his dad. Okay. So just like excessive beatings in the name of discipline to the point where my husband would black out. Yeah.
They would spank him on the head. So, yeah, like he has seizures and his neurologist thinks it was from all of the head trauma as a child. Do you have your own kids? Yeah. How old are they? Four and one.
And do you ever have a moment with your four-year-old where you just look at them? Those like four-year-olds are kind of the best because they're over that. People say terrible twos. I think threes way worse, but they have that. They have, they have the fours where they're able to go, go to the bathroom by themselves, but their eyes are still wide with wonder. And if you get, you have those occasional moments when you look and think, how could anyone hit that?
Especially a parent. My job is to call out and beat up anyone that would do that to him, not do it to him. Who in your life didn't show up for you?
Well, my immediate family is awesome. So they're all great. So like I grew up in a church and it was the church I grew up in. Like we had a man that was like our youth pastor, principal, all of those things. And he was honestly a jerk. So I guess that could be one where he's supposed to actually be like.
A jerk like he was inappropriate with the young women in the group. A jerk like he swore at you and gave you bad theology. Yeah, that too. Okay, hold on, hold on. Hyper-controlling. He's not a jerk. Okay. He's an absolute child predator. He's a scumbag. Yeah, yeah. He was...
He was a major flirt and used his control in all sorts of crazy ways. And he would flirt with the teenage girls and then also, like, at the same time, get on them for not being feminine enough. That was one thing because I didn't wear enough dresses. So he got on me for that while at the same time flirting with me. So, yeah, that's probably the most person who let me down in life, I would say.
Okay, they didn't let you down. They abused you too. Yeah, I guess you could say that too. They used you too. Now listen to me. This is where this gets terrifying. In a home with great parents who don't know this is going on. I'm not letting them off the hook because I think the whole youth ministry thing is its own catastrophe. But that's a whole other thing. Yeah. When you're a 13-year-old girl and you have a guy with spiritual authority over you,
who is both, you know it, he knows it, everybody can feel the sexual tension that he is putting on a child. And at the same time, telling you to get more sexy, and at the same time, telling you if you make, quote unquote, make a grown man feel these ways, that you somehow are responsible for his, all that nonsense. Yeah, yeah. As a 12-year-old, as a 13-year-old, as a 19-year-old, as a 25-year-old,
You learn really young, I got to bury this because I'm going to end up killing somebody. Yeah. So what I don't want you to do is be led by that power, that 12-year-old girl who's totally powerless. And now that you have bigger muscles, right, you're bigger and you don't put up with that crap anymore, that you're going to try to exercise that demon with this dead mother-in-law. Mm-hmm. Okay. And my guess is you're being, you're telling me only some of it.
Yeah. If I told you everything, we'd be here for hours and hours and hours. So it's kind of like, yeah. Yeah. So you have a sense of justice inside your heart and your chest that I think is so good and right. But that sense of justice also comes because you had to protect yourself because no one else would. No one else did. And so in a strange, awful way, that scumbag, piece of crap, child molesting youth minister and
The abusive mother who beat your husband into unconsciousness when he was a young kid, both of them every single day have a seat at your dinner table. Yeah. They're still here with me, even though they're not with me. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And so that's when you knock on the door to a trauma therapist and say, I need to let two people go. And if that guy is still working with young people, then it's time to put that call in.
He's actually the pastor now. Yeah, I would make that call. But that's just me. That's easy for me to do. And I'm a big, humongous, six foot two Texas male. So it's easy for me to say. I'm not going to tell you what to do. But if he still has access to kids and to other people of influence, then I want those people gone. I want them out of churches. I want them gone, gone, gone, gone, gone.
Same. Yeah. So, I guess, you know, my mother-in-law has passed away, but... Have you written her a letter? My father-in-law isn't. Your father-in-law doesn't get a vote. Your father-in-law shouldn't be in your home. Your father-in-law shouldn't be, like, at holidays. Father-in-law cashed out. Okay. Yeah, well, there's definitely still a relationship there. Yeah. Your husband's a grown man, but at some point, you're trying to prop up a fantasy. If those kids need a granddad, no, they don't need that one. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, no, I get it. I think something growing up with like a very religious background is almost grace for everyone else except for yourself. That's right. So, you know, grace for him. And I know something my husband's wrestled with. What is that kind? Is it right to... He's in a much better place now, but for years, you know...
We were entertaining them, having them in our house, and while also kind of taking a beating verbally, not physically at that point, but a verbal beating for doing it. So I want you and your husband to wipe the table clean. I want you to like, and I say this like kind of joking, but it helps to have the physical act, okay? Yeah.
I want you to get a whole bunch of kids toys. I want you to send your kids out to a babysitter's house. I want you to get a whole bunch of kids toys. And I say that just because if you break them, that's okay. I don't want you to pile them up on the kitchen table. I don't want you to sit on one side and your husband to sit on the other. And I want both of you in one fell swooped act to swipe the table completely clean.
And it's a symbol. It's an act. It's like a wedding or a funeral. It's an act between the two of you. We are clearing the table. And I want you to hear everything crash on the floor. I want there to be a mess on the floor. I want all to just fall. All that. And then I want you to look at each other and say, you and I get to decide how we feel inside this house moving forward. Okay. What do we want that to feel like?
A sanctuary where no one who's not going to promote that feeling and that safety, no one comes in. That's right. And if you're not being honest with your husband about that, then you start keeping secrets and then he feels a distance from you and then he tries to solve. You see what I'm saying? It just creates this hole. Yeah. And let me just free you from some things. Grace does not mean, grace means I forgive you. Grace means go be well. That does not mean you get to have access back into my house.
Yeah. It's two different things. It's two completely different things. Forgiveness is not for them. It's for you. Yeah. So I can stop having these conversations in my head. Yeah. Because your body doesn't know the difference. Your body thinks every time you spin up one of those conversations that mom's at the door again. Yeah. And I want you to write a letter and I want you to ask your husband to write a letter to mom. You'll read it to each other and you go outside and put them in the Brio and put them in the fire pit and let it be done. Yeah.
Like I'm going to write, I'm going to say the things I need to say one last time and then go and move on. Okay. Because if your faith is, is what you believe it to be, she's getting hers, right? Yeah. Let it go. Cause I'm not, I'm not either that, or I want you to take the extra step of framing a picture of her and just bringing it to the dinner table every night. Just sit it right there. Make her a seat at the table. Cause that's what y'all are doing.
It's very true because I want to be able to focus on my kids, focus on my husband. That's not true. That's not true. You don't want that. Yeah. You want to want that. Okay. What you really want is to go vindicate your husband with his parents because nobody vindicated for you. Yeah. Sometimes it irritates me. She's dead and justice never happened. That's right.
So, yeah. And I know you've got a lot of religious trauma baggage, but do you still, are you still a person of faith? I am. It just looks a lot different now than it did growing up. As it should for all of us. Like still in church, but it's not that bad. As it should for all of us. But... Yeah. Then whatever your faith background is, justice is being served. Fair? I'm not sure I understand how, like...
How is it being? Oh, yeah. Okay. There you go. Can I tell you the greatest middle finger? Mm-hmm. What? Y'all go raise amazing kids. Yeah. That have no idea of what it feels like to have parents that don't go to war for their kids. Mm-hmm. Very true. Raise kids that know they can always come home no matter what they do.
Raise kids that fully understand. I'm not going to outsource your spiritual life to some 22-year-old kid. Raise kids who know if you spill the milk in the house, we're going to laugh. You got to clean it up, but we're going to laugh about it. Yeah, yeah. Raise those kids. That's the biggest middle finger. I'm going to change my family tree. That's the greatest rebellion is joy, kindness.
Yeah. And here's what healing is. Forgive and forget is bull crap. It's not real. It's not true. It's a dangerous trope. Healing is when I think about it happening, my body doesn't respond as though mother-in-law is banging on the door to come in.
Okay. That's what you like. I can just, when it comes to my mind, just be like, okay, that's done. And then move on. I can just think, oh, sick poor woman. And you're going about your day because she doesn't get to impact how you deal with your kids. She doesn't get to impact the way you love your husband. And every time your husband has a seizure, I'm not giving her that. Yeah. Because that's one of those things where when that happens, I then for days am...
Yeah, thinking this wouldn't be happening to us if it weren't for her. And that's a way that you don't deal with the reality that you married an amazing guy who also has seizures. Let's just deal with that. Yeah, yeah. And by the way, I'm making it sound easy. It took me about 10 years to get here, and I still have days, right? It's not like it just all goes away, but this is the work. This is the work. And so at the same time...
After you and your husband read the letters that y'all write to each other. So here's what I want you to do. The table swiping exercise. I want you to each come to the table with five or ten things that you want your house to feel like. And then y'all are going to talk about how we can do this. Oh, if that's the case, then dad can't ever come over here anymore. Yep. If that's the case, we're doing Christmas in a small state park because that's all we can afford, but we're not doing it with the whole family again. Yep.
I want y'all to do that exercise, swipe the table clean. And then I want you to write that letter to mom and be done with her or frame a picture of her and put her at the kitchen table and start making her a seat because that's where she is anyway. The second thing I want you to do is I want y'all both to write a letter to your kids, dear kids, for when they are 21 and 25, I think is what you said. Here's the work we did for y'all. And I want you to read that letter to each other. It's a commitment letter for you and your husband to each other.
That we're now moving forward. We're not going to continue to look back, look back, look back. He's got some healing to do, by the way. He needs to go see a trauma counselor. You need to go see a trauma counselor. You need to consider talking to somebody in authority if this pastor still has access to kids. And God, I hope, dude, a few things get me more raged out than that. But we're going to start moving forward. I'm going to set the bricks down.
If you want to, it's an exercise I've given a lot of people and it's astonishing how successful they tell me it's been. Go to Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a cinder block and put a piece of duct tape on it and write your mother-in-law's name on it and just carry it around your house for a while.
Carry it around your house, carry it around in your backyard. Just keep carrying it and carrying it until your hands feel like they're on fire and they're going to burst. And then you throw it down in the backyard or go throw it down in the woods somewhere. Tear off the duct tape, throw it in the trash and say out loud, I'm never carrying your sins again. I'm not carrying your abuse anymore. I'm done. And there's a physical act that you can always point back to. So whenever your body spins up, you can go, no, no, no, no. I set that down. I set that one down.
And that is the path out of victimhood, the path to freedom. Thanks for the call, Emily. Super, super grateful for you. We'll be right back.
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All right, we're back. Here's a question from the Money in Marriage weekend getaway, the marriage retreat that me and my friend Rachel Cruz put on that is, I'm kind of biased, but it's the best marriage retreat in the world. Here's the question. How do you combine finances but still have your own bank accounts? We were both previously married to spenders who kept us broke and in debt. So I am a 100% all the time
Always, that's not true. I always say stuff like that. And then I immediately think of like an exception. Married couples should combine finances unless there is abuse or infidelity, like financial infidelity. But married couples should have one checking account that they both live out of. And it's astonishing to me how many people make humans, make humans. They share their DNA, but they don't share bank accounts. That's my money. That's his money.
My friend George tells some, like has some great jokes about like, dude, if you Venmo your wife for the light bill, your marriage is in trouble. If you, if you're like, no, no, no, you get the, you get dinner tonight and I'll get the water bill. Your marriage is in trouble because you're operating on two different spheres. Your roommates, your roommates.
Married couples should share finances, and there's a reality that if money was used as a way to keep you down, if money was – if somebody exerted power over you in a previous relationship, they kept all the money, you didn't know where it was, they wouldn't let you pay, they took out credit cards, you name it. Man, that trauma is real. It's scary. But if you get remarried, but you each have one foot out of the boat –
That's where you get those statistics that you're statistically more likely to fail in a second marriage too. And it makes sense, but most people don't go all the way in the boat. If you get married again, you have to risk getting hurt again. And that means you have to risk sharing bank accounts again. You can't get remarried and only go partway. And so how do you do this? You sit down and you're very honest.
Here's what happened to me. What happened to you? Let's come up with some things that must be true for us. Like these are ways that we can establish trust when it comes to finances. Um, this isn't a pitch. I love the every dollar app because, um, both me and my wife have it. When I spend something, it shows up on her phone. There's no hiding. There's no like, Oh, secret. There's just not just not. Um,
And it keeps you on the same page. And if you're talking about your money, then you're probably talking about your calendar. And if you're talking about your calendar, you're probably talking about, hey, who's picking up who and how are we doing this? And let's put sex on the calendar. And when's parents coming? It just keeps you completely aligned and connected moving forward. So this is like the conversation about past relationship hurts. Those are traffic signals of conversations you need to head towards. You got to head into those things, not around them, not around them.
So how do you combine finances? You get one checking account and you say, I'm all in. Are you all in? And here's what must be true. I wish it was more complicated than that, but it's not. It's people being honest. I'm starting to feel, I'm starting to feel, I'm starting to get, feel. Be honest. Be honest. Be honest. Be honest. And then you'll act in accordance together. Y'all have a great day. Love you guys. Like and subscribe. Peace.