I Think My Husband Is an Idiot (but I Don’t Want To)
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You've told yourself a story that your husband can't, and that's easier than dealing with the truth is that he won't. What's up? What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So, so grateful that you are with us talking your mental and emotional health.

Your relationships, your marriages, dating, whatever you got going on. This is the state of the world. Whatever you're working through, I've probably got an opinion on it. But more importantly, here's my promise. I'll sit with you. And for the last two decades plus, I've been sitting with hurting people trying to figure out what's the next right move. And I'd be honored if you want to join us on this show. We take calls from all over the planet. Give me a buzz. 1-844-693-3291.

or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And we'd love to have you on the show and call, leave a message, let us know what's going on in your world. And we'll see if we can get you on. And Kelly's gone today because evidently administrative tasks were more important than partying with us. So T-Money's running the ship and T-Money likes to drive fast. So let's go out to Gulfport, M-I-S-S-I-S-I-P-P-I and talk to Kate. What's up, Kate?

Hey, John. How are you? I'm so good. How about you? Oh, I'm wonderful and enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime snow in South Mississippi. Very cool, man. I don't think I've ever heard that sentence, so that's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. What's up? Never happened. Yeah, so I need a Big Brother's perspective. Got you. How can I see men more positively? Oh, man. Tell me more about that. I think men are pretty great. Yeah. I'm kind of biased, too, though, so...

This is true. Well, I have been married for the past seven years. My husband and I have been together for 10 almost. We've got two little boys, a one-year-old and a three-year-old, and we want to raise them to be good, godly men. But neither one of us really have had very strong male influences in our life. My dad is still around, but he is...

is not like emotionally there. And when I was younger, he had made some kind of comment when we were on vacation. I think I have Asperger's. I was like, okay, all right. And that was that. I mean, he's a brilliant man, just not emotionally there. My husband's dad died right before we got married.

And we just, we don't have very many people in our lives that we can look up to. So I'm trying to see how to view men more positively when the ones around me are just either wimpy or false puppies or, um, harsh. It's just, it's hard to, to see more positively or even look out for people that we can look up to. If that makes any sense. Yeah, totally. Um, are you married to a good man?

He is. He's a very good man. So do you not look at him favorably? I wouldn't say unfavorably, but...

I don't think he's an amazing provider. And a lot of that's because, you know, what he wants in life. We're both involved in ministry, so we know that, like, financially, things weren't always going to be amazing. But it's like, he'll say he's going to do something, and then it falls through. Like, he's been looking at other jobs, but he won't apply for them, and he says that he will. Or...

It's just the follow through is not really there. But otherwise. Sometimes overgeneralizations are true. They just are. Sometimes overgeneralizations, stereotypes, whatever you want to call it, they protect us from having to deal with the reality in our own house or in our own neighborhood or in our own families. And so I guess what I would tell you is there are men who are idiots.

Yes. And there are millions and millions of men who grind every single day to do the best they can with the tools they got. Yeah. Right? And so what I hear is two different things. Number one, so let's pretend your dad does have, he's high-functioning autistic. Mm-hmm. You said he's brilliant. He is. You said he was a provider. Mm-hmm. So, yeah.

But he wasn't as emotionally available as you would have liked him to be. Right. So what I'm not going to do as an adult with my own kids is choose to hold one of my parents responsible for a potential special need. Right. Right. Or when it comes to, I don't know, a dad passing away. I'm not going to assume negative about that guy. He died, right? Right. And then I've got to...

It's easy to go, oh, man, I don't respect them. I don't like them, whatever. It's harder to say my husband is not a person of character. Right. That's a much harder thing to say. It's harder to say, to part, to dig into the nuance of my dad, which is he was really good at some things and awful at some other things. Both are true. Right. So it sounds like you got two things going on. One, you don't like the situation that you don't like the life that you're living.

Or you might like parts of it, but you thought it was going to feel different. And so it's easy to point your finger out at the world and I'm just going to find this group. The other side of that is you got to be really radically honest with your husband or about your feelings and the reality that you find yourself with the man you married. Tell me about him.

He is an amazing dad. Okay. Sorry, I'm getting emotional. That's okay. Well, take a breath. I said a lot to you. Am I out to lunch? No. Okay. No, I don't think you're out to lunch. I think you're on the right track. It's just like you had mentioned, I thought things were going to look differently. I thought our boys were going to have grandfathers to look up to.

And we have pillars of strength and integrity to look up to. And my husband does an amazing job doing that. But there's some things that he won't be able to teach them, which sounds silly, but... Like what? Like, I don't know, build something or... It seems really silly, but I just...

I want them to know how to be well-rounded individuals and be able to fix a tractor as ridiculous as it sounds or fix something electrical. And my husband, love him to death. He's very smart, but not handy, I guess would be the word. Okay. So the grief that you're putting on into the world is yours. Yeah. And the grief...

You keep telling yourself a story, and that story is, he's so amazing, he's so amazing, he's so amazing. At the same time, you're telling yourself another story, which is, he will never teach my boys to be the men I want them to be. Right. And those two stories can't compete. Right. You're making yourself bananas, right? Like, you're trying to spin the record both directions, and it just sounds like noise. Mm-hmm.

So do I lean more into this is what he can do for them? They're going to be amazing because he can do this. Well, I just reject that he can't. Okay. The first time I ever went deer hunting was I was in my 30s. And it's because my father-in-law berated me into it. And it's become my singular obsessive passion over the last 15 years. I watched my dad fix stuff growing up because we had no money. He had to.

Yeah. And this weekend, as I was building garden beds by myself, I grew up in the suburbs, dude, outside of a major city. As I was building garden beds for our property outside of town in the woods this weekend, I was thinking, huh, I got come a long way. And by the way, I had my headphones on and I was listening to an audio book of a nerdy science book about marriage.

So both things are true. You've told yourself a story that your husband can't, and that's easier than dealing with the truth is that he won't. Yeah. Because I don't think you respect him. Yes. If I'm honest, sometimes I do struggle with that. Okay. Tell me about that. Don't put this onto the boys. The boys are, the boys can learn whatever you want to sign them up for. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Um, yeah.

Like I mentioned earlier, just the follow through on things. I feel like I was talking to him about it this last weekend. Like I felt like I've been let down in a lot of different ways. Be specific about a lot of different ways that feeling becomes a lot. Be specific. Are you frustrated with your financial situation? Are you frustrated with you thought you wanted to live, do ministry and live in rural Mississippi and you hate it there?

Did you think he was going to be a guy who exercised, knew how to fix? Like, do you think just men just knew how to do some stuff and he doesn't know how to do that stuff? Like what would be specific?

So, for instance, like he's been looking at different jobs and he says he's been looking and looking and looking, but he's never actually created a profile on Indeed or looked and actually applied to anything. He's just word of mouth. Or like for my birthday years ago, I had told him that I wanted to

build cabinets above our washer and dryer. And he said it was going to happen. He was going to do it. He promised it was going to happen. And it's been three or four years that hasn't happened. Just things like that with the follow through just isn't there. And I don't want to be promised something if you're not going to be able to follow through. What's a deeper thing? This isn't about cabinets. This is not about him looking for a job. It's even deeper than that. Be totally honest. What is it? Um...

I guess I felt like my dad let me down. Okay. Like maybe on one hand I could count the amount of times he told me he loved me or he was proud of me. Okay. Including my wedding. I mean, I've just seen the marriage that my parents have and it's lasted, but it's not been...

Wonderful. What are you doing on a daily day-to-day basis to contribute to that not being the same way? Because I hear somebody who's just looking around and saying all of my life is happening to me. Where are you taking control and autonomy and running with it? Um, so like when I, I had back story, I had a struggle with depression. So I started going to counseling and I was put on, um,

This was a loft after I had my last kid because I had postpartum. Okay. And I've been working to a lot of that stuff and I've been working out, eating better. I've been trying to take care of my mental health because I know that I can't take care of anybody else. Okay. I can only focus on me. Can I tell you that I'm really proud of you for that?

Thank you. It's good. It's awesome. And underneath all of that, you sound to me profoundly lonely in rural Mississippi. Yeah.

Tell me about some girlfriends that you have that you go hang out with, you have coffee with, that you go have beers with, that you just act silly with. My coworker is a really good friend. She's probably 30 years older than me, but we're crazy people at work. And it's even funnier because we work with intellectual disabled adults, so they get a kick out of it. But every day at work is hilarious.

But that's work. Do y'all hang out outside of work? Rarely. Okay. Rarely. So I want that to be on your radar. Okay. And I'm trying to think of things that you can control. Here's the bigger picture. You're on a bullet train to recreate the marriage that you experienced in your house. Yeah. And it's because you've told yourself stories about your husband and then you hold him accountable for those stories.

At the same time, and I don't say this lightly, he is a man who is currently lacking in integrity. And if you don't own that, then you make yourself bananas when you're like, he's so great, he's so wonderful. And I hate where we live. We tried this life and I don't like it. We don't have enough money for basic stuff. And what y'all, it sounds like the old pictures and words thing. You have a very clear picture of what quote unquote looking for a job looks like.

He evidently does too. And those pictures don't align. So he can go have a bunch of cups of coffee and have some lunches with some guys and talk about jobs. And you come home and you're just sobbing that your husband's a loser because he won't apply for a job. And he's thinking, I tried. I'm trying. Or you have pictures of us not being in Mississippi anymore. And he's trying to find a job that will pay bills in rural Mississippi. Yeah. And so what I think you need is to back all the way out. Number one,

Let go of the all men are bad. They're not. Most men are doing the best they can. They have limited tools and the world shifted on them. Yeah. Okay. And I don't know anybody that if they could go back and coach their dad to do different things, wouldn't have a long list of things they could coach their dads on. And it breaks my heart for you that that call is never going to come that he's proud of you. It's not going to come. And I think you got to grieve that and write him a letter.

Don't send it to them, but write it. Get that stuff out of your body. Okay? Yeah. Because it just loops and loops and loops and loops and loops. And you're taking small baby steps, which I love to see of making, like being well inside your own head, inside your own heart, inside your own house. You're taking action steps, which is amazing. Exercising, going to see a counselor. I want you to start hanging out with friends outside of work. Okay. But I want you and your husband to go sit down and have a honest to goodness conversation. Okay.

That is you telling him, I don't like our life. And the more specific you can be, the better. Dollar amount, geographic location, career trajectory. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Because those are the realities I think y'all are working around. Y'all are just looping and looping around those, and you're not being direct about them. But here's the bigger thing. His wife is drowning inside of y'all's house.

And you have to be honest because I think you're drowning and he's looking at you waving your arms in the ocean and thinks you're waving at him. I don't think he realizes how bad it is. Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. Fair. The greatest gift you can give him right now is honesty. Yeah. Sometimes when we sit down with our spouses and we make these plans, they come with these, but we have to live here. And you have this degree, so we have to do this.

And I think we're in a season in the world that's changing so, so, so fast. The world we live in right now will be so different five years from now. And in many ways, that terrifies me because I don't have a roadmap for it. I don't like living without a roadmap. But you all have to sit down and take your arm and wipe off everything. You have family land. So what? You have a degree in whatever. So what? You don't know how to do a certain thing or certain things right now, but you can learn them.

Shoot, I don't mind telling you. I just asked Andrew, who's currently running the video equipment right now, if this summer he can give me and my son welding lessons because they left the welding class. I just asked him the other day to create a class for me and my son and to give me a list of things I need to buy so I can be a welder. And I'm old. I'm an old man. I'm not an old man, but I'm getting there.

So this idea that you can't learn, if you get a master's degree in theology and wrestle with those abstract ideas, then for sure you can learn how to do some of these other things, but you got to want to do it. And I want you to have a picture. I want my boys when they walk across the graduation stage at the age of 18 to know how to do these things.

That's actually a thing I went and did. You and your husband need to go through John Tyson's book, The Intentional Father. It is a faith-based book. So if you're not a faith-based person, I think the book is still extraordinary. But if you are people of faith, it's the best fathering book I've read. But it gives a map for your kids got to learn how to do a whole bunch of stuff, especially in the upcoming world they got.

They got to learn how to raise chickens and they got to learn how to like dodge a punch and they got to learn how to code or whatever, like deal with AI. Like they got to do all of that stuff. It's a new world, new planet. But instead of just every day being like, well, they can't do this. They're never going to be able to do that. Let's go all the way out to the end, to the finish line and reverse engineer it. When they're 18, they walk across the stage. I want them to know how to do these things. Husband, I want you to know how to do some of these things. It would make me as your wife feel safer if you knew how to do some of these things. And,

Some of these things you're not going to know how to do. You have to learn how to do it. You have to learn how to do it. One of the most humbling and it's turned into my favorite part of my life is I know how to do a couple of things pretty good. There's a whole bunch of stuff I don't know how to do. And so I love surrounding myself with other men and women who can teach me how to do new things. It's awesome. It's just being a lifelong learner. That's one thing he should have learned in grad school. But all of this starts with you at home being very specific about, I don't like the world we're creating, even though we're surrounded by cool stuff.

Right. I don't want to mistake my happiness for blessings, as the old cadence call says. I don't want to I don't want to just continue to put along like this. So let's be honest and let's be specific. And right now your husband's not doing what he says he's doing. And you got to call him out on the carpet on that because you love him. And hopefully he's a person of character and he hears it. And then he begins taking action steps. Thanks for the call, Kate. I'm really grateful for you. We'll be right back.

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So I've had that conversation with my wife, just the other side of it, of my dad taught me all of the construction skills and running cows, all of how to change your oil on brakes, all that. And y'all had to, right? Very similar to my childhood, right? Like you had to. Yeah, we had to. It was just a part of what we did. Couldn't afford to take it everywhere else. And now I work in an office and... With some really like fancy technology and... Yeah, stuff my dad wouldn't understand, but also...

We still have cars and we still have all the things that break. So my wife and I have had the other side of this conversation of how do I transfer my father's skills to my sons? I've got two sons now and that's, it's tough. It's tough to think through that. And it's, we're still learning that. I actually just found that book that you were talking about. I'm going to buy that. Yeah. So this is, that was a great call for me to hear as well. Just that.

Something I've been wrestling with, so thanks for sharing that. Something I've been wrestling with is this idea of masculine protect and provide. And I see it on two sides of the teeter-totter, and I think everybody misses it. I think there's the protect and the provide, the bros who are all about, you've got to lift weights and snap into a slim gym and know how to use all your bow and arrows and guns and all that, which is awesome. And provide is paychecks and direct deposits, right?

And then I think they've got families and spouses that are desperate for, hey, I want you to provide laughter and joy in this house. I want you to provide a stable personal presence here. I want you to provide stability and a hug and laughter and help cook dinner. Provide a...

the trash taken out right and so i think it's easy for men sometimes to spend a lot of time on instagram and whatever and then they hide from their families in the gyms they hide from their families at the shooting ranges they hide from their families at the bow and arrow places and there's the other side of that which is it's the modern world i don't have to do any of this stuff um

I can, I'm providing a paycheck and I know how to play video games and stuff like that. And those guys need to get their butts out into the gym. They need to go outside. So it's a both and, but I think what you mentioned, Andrew, which is I love is it's about sitting down inside your home and saying, what does our family need right now? And so knowing you're, you grew up in a more traditional blue collar world and I'm watching you like

Like literally take classes and learn different aspects of the internet kind of stuff, right? I grew up in a house that was, we did stuff because we had to. I grew up with a, you work five jobs. I've been working since I was a little kid. That's just what you do. And,

I learned how to have hard conversations with people, but I'm not a policeman. So I've got to learn how to do them differently. And I'm doing, so I think the whole thing is what does protect and provide mean in my house and in my neighborhood. And it's going to be different for everybody, but in this current world, you can't hit the teeter-totter on either side. You got to do both. If you're really good at your MMA gym, awesome. You got to learn how to hug your wife.

And if you're really good at your, like, I know how to handle myself and I conceal, great. You also need to learn how to get on the floor and play candy lane with your daughter. You got to do both. And the other side of that is true too. Me and one of my colleagues, he's like, I've never mowed a lawn in my life. And I'm like, that's not a good thing. You got to learn how to mow. You got to learn how to do some of these things, right? I'm thinking of the time I was pushing George Campbell's Tesla when it ran out of batteries, like,

Like that wasn't great. Right. So I just think, I think we're in a world you got to do both. So anyway, thanks for the little diversion there. Let's go out to Huntsville, Alabama and talk to Emily. Hey, Emily, what's up? Hi, John. Thank you for having me on. I really love listening to your show. Well, thank you so much for joining us. What's up?

I just had a question about my relationship with my husband. It feels like he kind of treats me like the maid in a lot of ways. And then, like, at the end of the day, he's kind of, like, baffled as to why I'm not, like, diving into intimate time with, like, any kind of fervor and love.

not feeling very affectionate towards him. And I know it's a two-sided issue that we've kind of created this dynamic together, but we've been married for like 13 years and just have just been through the ringer kind of. And I just have a hard time broaching these subjects because he, he does get kind of sensitive and will feel like I'm not

Mad at him like when I'm not mad at him or if I'm just saying like hey, could you do this? He's like, why are you grumpy? Why and I'm I'm not grumpy So I'm just kind of I'm not the best communicator either. So I'm kind of just stumped Yeah, so can I tell you that um, I don't know if this will make you feel worse or make you feel better But you found yourself in the 13-year dance and you're not broke and there's not something wrong with y'all. Okay, okay, so

But there is some paths out. It just means that both of y'all are going to have to decide we're going to do things that are different. Okay. And that's frustrating and it's different and it's uncomfortable, but it's super manageable if y'all choose. Or another way to say it a little less nerdy is tiny decision by tiny decision. Y'all have chosen the life you have, which means y'all can choose something completely different if you want to. Okay. He is going to have a harder time. Here's why. He has a maid.

He has a live-in housekeeper that does everything for him. And occasionally she has sex with him. Yes. He's kind of got what he wants. Yeah. You do not. So the impetus for change, and by the way, he doesn't have the life he thinks he has, or he thinks he's got it about as good as he's going to get it. And he doesn't understand how amazing his life could be too. Yeah. With a wife who is not an employee, but was a full-time co-adventurer in this one wild life we all have.

Yeah. Well, that's, I mean, the last couple of conversations we've had about just the state of things have been initiated by him being unhappy. Okay. Tell me about it. And he's like, well, he's like, I just feel like you don't like me at all. That's it. And I'm like, well, I don't really right now. Cause I just had to pick up all of your dirty socks and you're watching TikTok while I did the dishes and just like,

And I understand that like there are going to be days that he's like at a zero after he gets home from work. And I'm so appreciative that he does go to work. But I've tried to like say like, I don't really want to like make a list. Like you have to do this every day, but just like jump in. Let's do it together. Let's like, you know, exist together instead of just you being off to the side until the end of the night. So he's not on the phone. So the only person I can challenge here is you. Is that okay? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Has, over the last 13 years, his experience at home been somewhat of a failure factory? And here's what I mean. If he decided one day to start doing the laundry, would he do it, quote-unquote, right? Or would he fold the stuff, quote-unquote, right? No, but I will say I have gotten better at not saying anything about it. Right. So here's the dance. Maybe one time seven years ago he tried, and...

And I'm just, I'm making something up here, okay? Right. They tried. And he saw you undoing the dishes where he'd put them away because he'd put them in the wrong stack or on the wrong side. And of course, he could have asked, but he didn't. He was trying to be helpful. And what he learned was, I don't do this the quote unquote right way. I'm going to let her just do it. Right. I'm going to opt out of that. And when he begins to drive home, he knows, here we go.

I'm not going to do home right now. I would challenge him if he was on the phone that his job is to sit down with you and you'll swipe the deck completely clear and say, okay, what kind of world do we want to live? What kind of world we want to have in our house? Cause we get to create it. How do we want this house to feel every time one of us walks in the front door? Yeah. And I want you to put your phone away the moment you get out of the office and don't pick it back up. Can we create that world?

Yeah. And he's going to look at you and say, I just want you to like me. Will you show some interest in me romantically? And you might say yes, but if you're always telling me how much you need sex, how much you need this versus you want me, because most wives who feel like they've been relegated to the maid role feels like they're really kind of a vehicle of interchangeable body parts that their husband uses just to get off. Yeah. Yeah.

need versus no, he wants me. He wants to be with me. Yeah. Where does he do things that are good? He's a good provider. I don't have to work and I appreciate that so much. He's very much like the fun dad. So he jokes with them and he'll take them out four-wheeling and tries to

you know, be very fun. And he's, you know, the best brother and like a really great son. And it just feels like he's, he's really good in all these areas. And if you were to talk to somebody in his office, they'd be like, Oh my gosh, he's such a hard worker. He's so nice. And then I feel like he gets home and it's like, he just, I don't know, like, I don't know if he just deflates or if he's just like, you know, are you happy to see him when he comes home?

No. And I want to be. I know. I know. Don't blow by it. Just sit on that for a second. Yeah. Because I know it's both and. But it's hard when everyone tells you how great your husband is. And it's like, that's not the guy I experience at home. Yeah. And it's usually a mix of both. He knows you don't want him to come home. Yeah. Or he knows you want him to come home, but he knows you don't like it when he's there because you're in, he's in your house. Yeah.

Yeah. And he's not doing your house the way you want house done. And if he was on the phone, I would tell him it's not an excuse. You got to plug in, dude. Yeah. But here's, here's this weird place. I'll find yourselves. Y'all are going to have to decide. I, we want to like each other again. The Gottman's research. They're kind of the gurus on marriage research beyond all things, fighting styles, the bull crap. And then are from Mars and women are like all that stupid stuff. It's not real. Um,

The one unifying factor in marriages that make it, they're just friends. They're great, great, great friends. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? And so y'all have to decide, we want to be friends again. Yeah, I guess, does that just, like, mean me asking him to, like, sit down and, like, just, I don't know. I'm so bad at talking to him. Okay, I want to dig in right there. Why? Um...

I mean... Do you have this Hollywood version of your house that if we have to say it, it makes it less? No. I mean, I feel like I have pretty realistic expectations for the household. So just like recent history, our son passed away two years ago. Okay. And it was like right after...

We were so close and we like, I mean, it was just like the shock of everything. We kind of bonded more than we had been before. And then the following year, he kind of lost it because I went to, you know, the support groups in therapy and our older kids were in therapy and we were all getting help.

And he just didn't. And he was like, well, you're my wife, like you can help me. And I was like, I'm drowning. I can't help. I can't help anyone. And so he got really mean for a really long time. And what does really mean me?

Like just yelling. He never was like physical, but just like the littlest things would just like set him off. And so I feel like I still have like that flinch reflex. Okay. That's super fair. Yeah. Super fair. So don't walk around saying, well, I'm just not good at talking. You have a husband that went through a gnarly depression. He's probably still there. Yeah. I'd say most couples, I haven't looked at the data recently, but most couples don't survive the loss of a child.

And here's why. Yeah. Because of the pace of their grief is different. Yeah. One person's like, all right, can we get on with our life? And the other person's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, realize what just happened. And one person goes to counseling and gets on it and let's go. And the other person just is buried for a while. Yeah. And then eventually you look up two years, three years, five years later, like, I don't know that dude anymore. That sounds very accurate. Okay. What was your child's name? Thomas. How did he pass away?

He was six months old. It was positional asphyxiation. Oh, man. It was just like super crazy traumatic. And I just, he ended up, the only reason we didn't get a divorce, like when he did kind of lose his mind, is because he ended up getting really, really sick. And it was almost like

His body was like, nope, like no more. And his like, I mean, we went to every doctor. They couldn't tell us what was wrong with them. And still it's a little bit of a mystery. And I was like, just a couple of weeks ago, I was like, that was like your God. I mean, your body and God saying like, sit down. Yeah. Like we, you gotta stop. And so I'm so thankful that that happened when it did. Cause it,

Which is like so toxic and he's been much better since, you know, all this past year has been better than the previous. So maybe we're at a place now where it's time for honesty and skill building. Okay. Here's what I mean. And you're thinking, God, I have to plan one more thing. And what I would say is yes. Because you painted me a picture of a husband that's drowning.

Yeah. And you're thinking, God, there's so many life rafts out in this lake. And I was able to get on the life raft. I got all our kids on the life raft. You're right about all that stuff. But right this second is not the time for keeping score. Right. If you go back and look at the data that says that anxiety and often depression are quote unquote women's illnesses because they're diagnosed so much more frequently. And more sophisticated research has come out in the last few years that actually Terry Reels on this 20 years ago.

that men often display anxiety and depression through anger, through physical altercations, right? Yeah.

he, he kept on like having what we thought were like cardiac episodes. And we went to the cardiologist and he was like, he's having panic attacks, which of course he as like, I don't know, he comes from a very macho family and they're wonderful and they love him very much, but they, you know, they just have a very traditional, like, that's not something that would happen to a man. Right. But it is all collectively kind of brushed it off. But I was like,

If the doctor's here telling us, you know. So think of it this way. Your husband's, and I know this happened to you. I'm not excluding your experience. I just want to shine light on his. Right. Your husband's son passed away. And the story he's probably told himself was there was some level of prevention that could have stopped that. Yeah. Putting a blanket in a different position, putting a pillow in a different position, putting a stuffed animal, whatever happened. Yeah. And your husband leans over and looks in his toolkit. Yeah.

For how to, for what to do next. And there is nothing. His toolkit is empty because his parents, the ones who were supposed to put tools in that toolkit said, you shut your mouth and move on with your day. Yeah. And so that tends to lead a more compassionate. Now that doesn't negate the fact that he started to treat you. His way of getting through the day is just to numb out. He scrolls his life away.

And you, because you're a person who's picking up the slack in the house, I often have asked parents, how did you, especially when one parent picks up all the slack, how did you make it? And they're like, I had to. Yeah. Right? And so you've had to the last 24 months. And I'm super grateful for you. And when the lights come back on for him, he will be too. But right now the world is his only connection to humanity is through a sexual encounter with you. That's it. That's his only connection to intimacy. Yeah.

And for you, I need you present socially so that I can even get there in my head and my body. You know, let's miss each other in the night. And he just has gotten used to his socks magically appearing in the drawer because he's tuned out. That makes sense. And so both of you have to sit down. And again, when y'all sit down, I'm giving you a chore and you're gonna be like, God, I hate to have a chore, but we're here. I want you to plan a half day together and I want you to find somebody to watch your boys.

And I want you all to have a two year since Thomas passed away. Here we are. And I think it's right and honest for you to say, I love you. And I want to learn to like you again. Okay. And here's what I need. And it is not sexy to say, I need to not see your phone. I need you to not bring your last meeting home. I need you to practice being likable in the side of this house. And then you turn around and say, what are some things I can do?

And you'll have to start there and ask him, are you willing? Are you willing? Yeah. If you can imagine that conversation in your head, what do you see him doing? Kind of following along until there's been like a request made of him. Okay. Like the phone thing is just for me because I get distracted easily and I just...

this like the constant like TikTok, Instagram video reel going drives me crazy. So that would be like a big item for me. But I feel like that's the hardest thing for him to put down. Yeah, but it's kind of like telling a smoker to quit smoking, but there's nothing, there's no other behavior to fill that gap. Right. And so it's like, I need this phone away and I need you to just chit chat. I need you just to pull up a seat from the hours of 530 to six while I'm making dinner and just talk to me.

And it will be boring and it will be frustrating. And I'll give you all the questions for humans cards so y'all can just get to know each other again. And I know that sounds silly, but I've heard from couples all over the planet about how these knuckleheaded little cards are reigniting their marriages because they're learning about each other again. That sounds awesome. You get what I'm saying? Like it's real easy to get overexistential. And what we have to do is rebuild from the floor up.

and the floor up start. It's cool to like go into a house and to check out paint colors. But before that, there's a bunch of dudes outside laying concrete forms. Yeah. So they can just pour a foundation back. And that's where y'all are. And I do think it's fair to start the meeting with, I'm not going to poke at you. I'm going to ask you not to disengage. I'm on your team. I love you more than life itself. You're the father of my kids. You're my husband for 15 years. We've been through hell together the last two years.

And the things I put on the table are not attacks. They're invitations. Please stay present with me. Okay. Okay. And what you're doing is you're just setting the ground rules for a conversation. Okay. I think I can do that. Here's the alternative. Everything just stays the same. Seeming less and less like an option. I know. I know. And I've said it often on the show. This is one of those moments where you are turning the music off. You're turning the lights on. The party's over for a while.

We're going to have to learn new dances. We're going to have to get new records because this party is going to change now. And it almost always takes one partner just saying, I'm done with this, but I want to rebuild something new with you. And the flexing and the macho and the just trying to numb it all away isn't working inside your own house. So circling back, y'all aren't broken. Y'all had an extraordinary event that you need to deal with.

And you're probably going to need some professional help to go through it. And it might be him saying, or if he won't go see a therapist because of how he was raised and all that, fine. But you can tell him, if you really love me, I want you to come with me so we can learn some new skills. Because I do believe right now this is a skills issue. So the guy's still trying to touch the ground after his boat sank. I'm so sorry for little Thomas. Thank you for sharing that with us. Here's the words I want to guide you. Clear boundaries,

direct, honest, open connection, very specific. Here are some things and always begin with I. I feel like I'm competing with the phone. I would like us to have a phone-free house from the hours of five till 10 p.m. Will you honor me enough by that? And go from there. Thank you for the call. We'll be right back. I want to introduce you to my friends at Cozy Earth, the makers of the best bedding, sleepwear, and bath linens in the world.

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Hi, Dr. John. I am wondering how do I develop self-discipline and stop abandoning healthy habits? Ooh, good question.

I feel like it is, should be just as easy as well. Just do it. But, um, I'm 35 years old and haven't been able to just do it yet. So, Oh man. Tell me what you have tried that hasn't worked. Um,

you know, I've read as many books out there as I can think of. And, you know, I'm tend to be a reader and then have a really hard time implementing things. Um, even just things like drinking water every day or exercise or budgeting or anything that requires consistency in life to create a healthy, a healthy life. Um, so I'm going to give you, I'm going to give you the crazy, uh, thing here. Okay. Yeah. I,

I think we've entered into a world where, and if you go back and listen to my show over the last few years, I've been hyper-intentional about it. And it's one of those things that I'm hoping people will go, oh, like in 10 years. Okay. So I'm giving you the secret right now. All right. I think we have all reached information overload. Yeah. We don't need to read a lot more new books. I'm going to write a book on marriage, I think. So everyone needs to buy that book later on when it comes out. But other than that,

I think we're pretty much, I think we got the info. Yep. And I've heard you say that. That's why I even mentioned it. It's because I've heard you say that. And, um, so that's why this show is about real people. Okay. So number one, you have to stop. You have to, you have to stop looking at certain behaviors as productive behaviors and you have to look at them for what they are. They are numbing and avoidant behaviors. Some people smoke weed. You read books.

For sure. Some people look at pornography. You listen to podcasts. Yep. Okay. All of it is a way to keep space from actually dealing with the hardest part of habit building, which is identity. What is the story I'm telling about myself? And I think the stories you tell yourself are that you're not very good at a lot of stuff.

I think I'm really good at a lot of stuff. Okay. But yes, I'm not good at other stuff. What are they? What are the books you keep reading trying to quote unquote fix? Except for my books, obviously, because they're amazing. I've read your books. I've read, you know, a lot of the big ones out there, like Atomic Habits and that one about her, you know, the Relentless

Well, the one about stopping hurrying. Oh, John Mark Comer's book, yeah. Excellent book. Yeah. The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, yeah. Yeah, thank you. Ruthless. Really good books. I want... If you could snap your fingers, what behavior would you change in your life? Um...

Exercise. Being a person who keeps my body healthy. What does not keeping your body healthy get you? Less mental load, less things on my plate. It's just another thing to think about, another thing to do when there's already so many things to think about and do. How do you move it from your chore list to your want list?

I know it's an identity change. But beneath identity is the self-worth. Why don't you think you're worth an hour every day just to feel good? And why have you outsourced how you feel to a number on a scale or a pant size or a number of hours in a gym?

I don't, I don't think I do Dr. John. I really, I really, cause I've sat with that question. I've listened to everything you've said. You're like, I listened to lots of podcasts. I listened to podcasts and I don't, I could be wrong, you know, maybe if we dig deeper, but I, I, I do believe I'm worthy of being well, I love myself. I think I'm a great person.

Hey, high five to you. Nobody calls my show and says that. That's awesome. Okay, great. So how can I help? Where are you stuck? What precipitated this call right now? What habits did you abandon that you're like, gosh, again?

The thing that precipitated this call is I was reading back through journals and from my life. And I have a whole lot of Januaries that are well documented. My wife's favorite person on the planet is January John. She loves that guy.

She loves it. She says he's the best guy who's ever lived. One time, January, John made it one time all the way to April. It was amazing. Yep. Yep. So, yeah, I and I just I would look at the different

The different things I was stuck on when I was 20, and they're the exact same things I'm stuck on now. The same things that I want to develop in my life when I was 20 are the same things now. And there's just a whole lot of Januaries that talk a lot about that.

And, um, I don't know. I worked really hard in the last few years on my mental health and anxiety. Um, that's required cutting a lot of things out like caffeine and busyness and political articles. Um, so I, I've had tremendous growth in those areas, the things that cut things out. Okay. But what are you, what are you, what are you adding in? What are you going towards? Here's an example. You and I sound very similar.

So last year I did something I've never done before because every January has always been about restriction, what I'm cutting out. Yeah. Last year I made a change. I will go to 10 punk rock or metal shows and get in 10 mosh pits. That was the thing I put on my January last year. I will go to the comedy club 25 times in the year. That means once every other week. Yeah. Okay. I began putting in because to do that meant I had to go to sleep.

earlier. That to do that meant I had to spend my money differently. To do that meant I had to exercise and be super intentional about it. And I had to be okay with 15 or 30 minute exercise sessions because I had this other thing that was a bigger priority last year. And two weird things happen. I put on more weight than I have in a long time. And I had maybe the best year I've had in ages.

And so what I've had to address this year is the story that I told myself that life would be good at scale number X was maybe false because I got my blood work done and my blood work's pretty good too. Do you get what I'm saying? So what I had to do is go address some of those. What are the cornerstone stories you've been telling yourself every January for the last 30 years? That it won't feel good until I have done these things. Yeah, except it's cognitively dissonant because you feel good. You like yourself.

I do. You've done a lot of work. And so that's where I think the master stroke of Atomic Habits is the identity call out. Who do you want to be? And if it's, I'm a guy who doesn't fill in the blank, that's fine. And a couple of like virtue issues, value issues, fine. Right. But if your list is just, I'm a person who doesn't, it's just a scarcity way of living. So what's a thing you'd love to add into your life?

I want to spend more time with my siblings and their families. Are they around you or do you have to travel? About an hour. So what must be true for that? Probably stop listening to as many podcasts as you can to get out of the house. Okay. Scott Galloway talks about this, that maybe the most important advice for 20 to 35-year-olds right now is get out of your home. Be at home as little as possible.

Do you know how cold it is here right now? I know. It's negative everything. But life is happening outside of that screen, and life is happening outside of that house. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Yep. I want you to build a life worth living, a life that you love, a life that you want to have. And that's family, and that's your faith practice, tethering into something bigger than you. That's your work, and that's purpose. Like, why are you here? What do you want to do? And from that...

Like, I think you've probably heard me talk about my conversation with my dear friend, Sal DeStefano from Mind Pump, guys. Like, dude, if you go to the gym and work out because you think you're gross, if you go to the gym and think that you'll be happier at some number on a scale, you're going to quit every time.

If you go exercise because you're worth exercising and because you feel good so you can go to the comedy club, so you can go see your family, so you can go to these other things, you'll do that forever. And you'll have weeks where you go an hour every day and you crush it. And you'll have weeks where you go 15 minutes and you just get it through because I got to go to the next thing. But that's a part of who you are because it's got a big, it's serving a purpose. Do you get that switch? Yeah, I think so. That's harder than you giving me a magic formula. So much harder. Yeah.

So here's the magic formula. And this is the worst thing I can tell you because you know this and you've done it every time. We only change what we measure. Our feelings are almost always wrong. And I'll say that they're not always almost always wrong. They almost always don't give us the clearest and most correct information. And you have to have some sort of accountability. And you know those things and they're really annoying. They're really annoying. Yeah. And if you want to change the nitty gritty habit,

Huberman has talked about some really important neuroscience that's come out in the last few years, which like actually has been around for a while, but he's calling it to the forefront. If you do things that you especially don't want to do, you actually grow part of your brain that allows that same behavior to be easier to do next time. And so here's what that means. You just have to do stuff sometimes that you really, really don't want to do. Mm-hmm.

And January John loves hearing that. February John does not like hearing that. And I also made peace. I quit hating February John. I just quit hating that guy. I quit being annoyed by him. I quit looking him in the mirror every morning and being like, you're gross. You're disgusting. And from that foundation, I have found it infinitely easier to hang on to habits that I want to hang on to and be really hold loosely on the nights that I just go to bed.

Or the mornings when I sleep in and wrestle with my son in the morning or get into a poking contest or like a bickering contest with my daughter before school. We both go to work annoyed and I could have just gone and worked out like it is. I was stupid and I'm on to the next day. Yeah. Will you put on the calendar? I will see one live music event every month this year. I'll see a minimum of 12 live music events.

And that means either I have to go by myself or I have to do something even weirder and ask somebody at work or a friend to go with me. Yeah. Yeah. My sister and I just decided that we're going to, the one that's an hour away, that we're going to put on our calendar every other week to see each other. I think that's. I go there, we meet halfway. That's incredible. But here's what I want you to do. It's easy to put that calendar, that date on the calendar and then get surprised by it every day before that date.

What I want you to do is you put that date on the calendar, which is important. It's like you're training for a marathon. Not because I got to train for a marathon, but I'm a person who runs. I run all the time. So here's, I'm going to choose to be a little bit less healthy because running marathons come at a cost. I'm going to be a little less healthy so that I can accomplish this goal. You have an awesome new goal. I want to see my sister in person every other week because my identity is I'm a person who hangs out with my family.

And instead of every Friday going, oh gosh, tomorrow I drive to whatever, I want you to begin to reverse engineer that Saturday all the way back to the previous Sunday. What must be true for this week? I'm going to need to do my laundry earlier this week. I'm a person who takes care of their body, so I'm going to need to get all four exercises and exercise sessions in before that day. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yep.

And my guess is when you begin to reverse engineer and plan some of those things, amazing. And then if you only get three one week, okay, fine. You'll live. Because I'm a person who's pretty compassionate to myself because I'm doing about as good as I can do right now. I like that. I have an incredible new partner that I'm going to hook you up with, okay? It's this amazing company called TrainWell. And it's a personal trainer on your phone in an app.

You can connect with them and they give you workouts. And here's what's amazing. Like for the Thanksgiving holiday, when I was trying out to see if this was somebody I wanted to do like to partner up with, I just said, Hey, I'm going to be staying at a place in the woods. And so I'm only going to have a couple of dumbbells and a kettlebell and some, and some exercise bands trainer suite. Here's your workout for the week. Boom.

Next week i'm back in my regular gym But I only can do three weeks three days of heavy lifting this week because I can do something like great boom done So they work directly with you and they give you feedback every day Oh cool, but it's on your phone. So there's nowhere to go And you know, they're gonna text you. How was it? They're gonna give you a photo a photo. I mean a video chat How was it if I give that to you for three months for free? Will you use it? Um Yeah, if you're not that's okay

No, I can do three months. I've done three months before giving up before. All right. How about this? Do you want to wait until you're about to give up and then start?

No. Okay. No, I want to start when we get off the phone. Excellent. All right. Hang on the phone. I'm going to hook you up with my friends at Trainwell. T-R-A-I-N-W-E-L-L. It's awesome. It's probably the coolest innovation I've seen. And I'm a lifelong exerciser, but I've loved what they've brought to my life. Even if sometimes I know...

My trainer, Nate, is going to text me like, where are you, man? I'm right here. Right. I don't want to. I don't feel like it. But my feelings don't get a vote all the time because my feelings are wrong a lot. Sometimes I just feel like Cheetos and that's usually a never good idea. But here. Accountability seems like it would help. Well, it's annoying, but it's just necessary. All right. So and here's the thing. Here's here's your magic wand roadmap. OK, when you get off this call.

Take out a piece of notebook paper or a piece of printer paper or whatever, but I want you to write this down. If you've got a journal, you sound like you're a journaler, write this stuff in the journal. Number one, write five things you're grateful for. Start with the words I am grateful for. That's number one. Number two, I want you to write down four or five identity statements for 2025. I'm a person who. In 2025, I'm a person who. Under each one of those things, I want you to write three or four behaviors that you got to lock into.

And just commit to yourself on those behaviors because I'm a person who, and the very bottom, actually not the very bottom. I want you then to go into your bathroom and look yourself in the mirror. And I want you to say 10 times, I love this girl. I want you to look yourself dead in the eyes. I love this girl. Do you get what I'm saying? Yep. Okay. If you miss a workout, who cares?

It doesn't matter. If you go see your sister and you haven't got your laundry done and I'm a person who takes care of all my household stuff before I go out, all right, fine. Next week, I'm going to tweak my schedule so I can get that laundry done because I like coming home on Sundays after being with my sister and everything's ready to rock and roll for Monday. And I'm going to go to concerts. I'm going to go to 12 concerts this year. I got to find the money for that. So I'm a person who's going to work some overtime because I'm a person who loves to go see live music more than I like sitting at home watching TV.

It's going to begin to build it in. And for anyone who's trying to change identity habits, there is seasons of doing stuff that you don't want to do. That's a cornerstone of any sort of behavior change. I don't want to do it. It's uncomfortable. I'm going to choose my heart. I'm going to go do it anyway. There is a season of that. Actually, there's a long time of that. I don't want to, but I'm going to. You're on the right path, dude. It's awesome. It's an honor to talk to you. This is January John to January Paige.

Actually, let's do this. Call back in February because I want to see where you are. And we'll keep working through this thing. Hopefully February John doesn't show up this year. And January John goes into February. Hey, everybody hang with us. I've got a wild new segment coming up right after this break. We'll be right back.

Okay, good folks, Lent is just around the corner. And if you haven't heard of Lent, it's a practice that goes back centuries. It's when Christians all over the world get ready for Good Friday and Easter through different kinds of prayer, meditation, and fasting. It's about getting rid of the things or habits in your life that get in your way of knowing God and of living a full, joyful life. So, let's get started.

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So download the app and sign up at hallow.com slash Deloney to get notified when the Lent pray 40 challenge begins. That's hallow.com slash Deloney for three months of hallow. Absolutely free. All right, we are back. So, um, as y'all know, one of my favorite events that I'm a part of is the money and marriage event that me and my friend Rachel Cruz put on. That's a weekend, a weekend long retreat. We do a couple of times a year. Um,

At a recent Money in Marriage, we take live questions from the audience. We also give them an opportunity to write down questions that we answer live. And this year, we got some questions, a huge stack of questions that some of them were so gnarly. They were so personal. They were so intense. We just didn't get through them all. But they're too important. As we went through them, they were so, so heavy and so important. And so,

And so what I want to do is have start a segment into the show where I answer these questions that, that were, that people left. These are real people who wrote in these questions and handed it in on a card. We took it out of a, out of a anonymous question box and there's some doozy. So here's tonight, here's today's not tonight's, but here's today's last night. My husband admitted to a pornography addiction. That's been going on for four years. I'm utterly heartbroken and shocked. Where do we go from here? Right.

I don't know anybody who's been married for a long time, hasn't had their partner sit down and say, hey, here's something that's going on. We're about to go bankrupt. I have $50,000 in credit card debt. You thought I got a degree. I didn't. I'm about to lose my job. I've been struggling with pornography. I'm having an emotional affair, fill in the blank. And you sit in that moment. A couple of things to do right away. Number one is...

regardless of what is said, and this is going to sound controversial, and I'm not, regardless of what you're told, a good default response is, thank you for sharing. If you can summon those words, thank you for sharing, you force yourself into what I would call a position of maturity. That doesn't mean you're not going to grieve like crazy. That doesn't mean you're going to get enraged, angry, want to smash stuff, do smashed. It doesn't do any of that away.

What it might do is stem

your next emotional response. And sometimes emotional responses are punches. Sometimes emotional responses are I'm leaving. Sometimes it's saying really ugly things that you can't get back. Sometimes emotional responses are you immediately try to take that pain away. You try, you go into peacekeeper mode and try to solve it real quick. Oh, I'm so sorry. Or an emotional response might be, oh my gosh, you've been like, in this case, you've been addicted to pornography because I'm not beautiful anymore. I haven't been around or, or, or,

That's not the time for the solution. When somebody sits down and puts this upon you, not by your hand, but in your lap, boom. I've had this ongoing addiction and pornography for years. Thank you for sharing. The second thing is almost always, 99.9% of the time, the solution will not come in this first day or two or three or four or five. These are moments for revelation, for heartbreak, as you mentioned here, for shock.

For lack of better terms, this is about survival now. If you can hear it, thank you for sharing. Tell me everything. Tell me everything. You just listen. I'd advise you to write things down, things that you feel, things that you want to say. Get them out of your body, but write them down. Don't lob them onto somebody else, but write them down. And then over the next...

24, 48, 72 hours, two, three, four days, you begin to, the fog begins to clear on the next right step. And it's not the next right step towards solution every time. It's the next right step towards dealing with the smoke and ash that was your marriage, the smoke and ash that was your reality that's now very, very different. Sometimes it's, I need to go stay with a friend for a couple of days.

Sometimes it's, I need you to go stay with a friend for a couple of days. Sometimes it's, I don't want to see a laptop open. I'm cutting off the internet for the next 10 days. I need to do a thing right now that's pretty drastic. And if you don't want to be around that, fine, but I need you to step out. Sometimes it is, we're going to go to dinner tonight and I need to hear every single lurid detail. I want to know all of it. Sometimes it's, we're going to sit down today and we're going to go through your search history. I want to know. Sometimes it's fill in the blank, but it gives you 24, 48, 72 hours.

The next thing is you have to have somebody or a small group of people you can talk to. Secrets will kill you and grief demands a witness.

Sometimes it's a therapist. Sometimes it's a counselor. Sometimes it is a close group of girlfriends. And if a husband says, I've been addicted to pornography for four years. You can't tell anybody. Nope. You just threw a grenade. You handed me a grenade. You can't say, here's a grenade. Just hold it. I'm not going to do that. Now, I'm not going to go parading it around. I'm not going to be ridiculous. I'm not going to go smear you. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to get down in the mud like that. But this is a lot for me to hold when I'm utterly heartbroken and shocked, as the author writes here. So I'm going to find somebody.

So the response, shell shocked. Thank you for sharing. And I know that sounds crazy. Try it next time somebody tells you something insane, something heavy, something that just blew your world up. Thank you for sharing. Calm is contagious. Then I'm going to begin to write some of this stuff down. I'm going to begin to exhale. I'm going to find somebody that I can talk to that I trust, one or two or three or four people. And then we will go from there. To the person who wrote this, you're not alone. Lots of homes all over the place are destroyed by pornography.

And if you are struggling with pornography and you need to sit down with your partner, today is as good a day as any. Secrets will kill you and it will destroy your marriage. Let's start there. That wraps up today's show. We're going to leave on a heavy note, I guess, with some of these marriage questions, man. There's some gnarly ones here on the stack that we'll go through. Thanks for being with us. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Love y'all. Bye.