I’m Still Sexually Attracted to My Ex-Wife
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How do I move past my sexual attraction to my ex-wife? I've had relationships with new women, but it never seems to gratify the same way as it did with my ex-wife. Is this about sex or is this about a 20-year relationship where somebody knows everything about you and there's a deep, safe, intimate connection there? What's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show coming to you not live. That kind of feels like it is, right, Kelly? Kind of feels like it is.

Well, I mean, we're live in the fact that we're all in here doing this show right now, but when the people hear us, it will have been. I think one day we're going to do this show and there's going to be like some big wild thing and we're just going to be like, beep, beep, beep, like before COVID when all those people had recorded their shows. Right. Because, yeah, I mean, so from the time we record this until it releases, it's a good five weeks, four weeks. No, more than that. And so, yeah, you know, things happen in that amount of time.

And we're just like, la, la, la. We transcend the dailies. Yeah. I'm worried about like baseball season has started and spring is here, you know. I don't really care about baseball because the Astros traded away everybody. That's why I'm a huge believer in the Nashville Stars because my Astros gave everybody away. So we just need the White Sox to have one more really obnoxiously bad year. They can just move on down south to the Nashvilles.

I don't even know if that's supposed to be how it works out, but that's what I'm hoping for. Hey, glad that you're with us on this show. Kind of distracted today because Kelly got a new tattoo. She got a dragon across her stomach. And if you're wondering, was it weird when she showed us? Yup, it was. But I'm glad that you're here talking about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your coworkers who just get weird tattoos and just feel the need to show you. Oh, so you're going to talk about weird tattoos. All right, let's go out to Phoenix. TJ, what's up, brother? Not much. What are you up to, sir?

Dude, I am rocking on to the break of dawn, brother. Just chilling. Are you? Yeah. What about you? Good. Well, you know, just enjoying life. Excellent. In the warm, in the great area here. Awesome. What's up? Well, my question to you is, is how do I move past my sexual attraction to my ex-wife?

How do you move on from your sexual attraction to your ex-wife? I need some more context. I would assume you're still sexually attracted to her.

That's a strange assumption. So tell me what you're struggling with. Well, we were married for 23 years and we've now been divorced for three years. And I've had relationships with new women and whatever else, but it never seems to gratify or satiate the same way as it did with my ex-wife.

Is this about sex or is this about a 20 year relationship where somebody knows everything about you and there's a deep, safe, intimate connection there? I would say it would be, I would say it'd be a bit of all of that. Well, cause like one of the biggest, the funniest misnomers is that the best sex you're ever going to have is when you're 25. And what the data tells me is like married couples who are in their forties and fifties are having the best sex. And so, but that, that's not because they look the greatest.

I was way more attractive when I was 20, right? Like it's not the things that we think matter when we're younger. It is I know what you're into. I know what makes your toenails curl. I know like I know all about you. And there's a safety. There's a relational safety that is super deep after two decades with somebody. Yeah, I would agree with all that. Yes. So I guess like let's take sex out of the equation. I don't know. No, we can leave it in.

I guess I, to have the same level of trust and sexual compatibility and intimacy, I'm, you're going to need more time. Like you're going to have to build that relational stability. You were married to somebody. Now you're just hooking up with people. That's a different anchor point.

Yeah, when you say it like that, yes. I mean, does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, no, that all makes sense. If you're married 20 years, not everybody, but you get to a point where you're not performing anymore. You can be with. If you're just hooking up with somebody, that's a show, right? You're doing your greatest hits so that hopefully they can do their greatest hits. See what I'm saying? Yeah, we're playing nothing but the hits here. That's exhausting because you're not being you. Yeah, right.

What does, I mean, do you still miss your ex? Well, yeah. I mean, like you said earlier, it was somebody that I was with for 23 years.

And why'd y'all get divorced? Well, she lost, she lost respect for me. And in the end, I mean, I had some business deals that went bad and, you know, there, there were money issues that went on and, you know, I don't want to throw the word narcissist out there, but I mean, she certainly falls into a lot of those personality traits. Um, and,

Gaslighting was her biggest nastiness to her. So it was, you know, in...

And then after we got divorced, I mean, she came out as a lesbian too, so that might have played a factor in it a little bit. You think? I don't think it... It was only a small factor. I don't think it was a huge factor, but I knew she was gay when I was married to her, but it never seemed a

affect anything otherwise but i mean she was just a very difficult it was a very she's a very difficult person so hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on hold on what are you saying man like you're like i knew that she wasn't living a life that she felt would make her a whole but it was all good and she was combative and was blaming me for her lack of happiness i knew she was gay but

It was all good. And then I had, I had money issues and business issues that, but did you have integrity issues too? Did you hide the losses? No, no, I didn't do that. So she just didn't expect you to do that. It was hard to do that in 2008 and went down for millions. Oh, there you go. Okay. I can't hide that. Yeah. Well, some tried, some went down trying. I'm sure they did. So here you are three years post-divorce.

Yes. Do you like the life you're living right now? No. Do you respect TJ? Do you respect you in this new world? Do I respect myself? Yes, I do. Okay. Yeah. Are you proud of who you've become post-divorce? Yes. Excellent. Yeah. Excellent. Who are you sharing your life with?

In what respect? Do you have a group of guys that you hang out with, that you go shoot and pool with, that you go shooting with or drinking with? I don't know what you do out there in Phoenix, but just sitting around being hot with, right? Do you have a gang? Oh, yeah. We go out to the lake, go wakeboarding and surfing and all that stuff. Yeah, I know I have a group of guys that I hang out with.

Okay. So every time you date, what happens? I'm nearly, I'm sorry. Every time you date, what happens? Your ex-wife just pops into your mind? Uh, yeah, sometimes. Um, part of me is that, is that while I'm 52, to put some context to it, is that like I'm out in the dating market of, you know, 50 year old women and, you know, they, they come with some,

some wild issues too. And some of it, well, I know, but it's all, it's all in how you deal with them too. So, um, or what you want to get involved with. Um, a lot of they're, they're all going, yes, they're going through their divorces at the same time. And so let me ask you this. What are you looking for in the last, in the back half of your life? You built a life for somebody.

And neither of y'all were honest with each other and you tried to make it work and it imploded. Now you're trying to figure out what you can do in the back half of your life. What do you want that to look like? Serenity. Peace. Awesome. Peace, peace, peace. I love that.

My ex-wife made it very difficult for me to be with my own family, so I spent quite a lot of time reconnecting with my own parents who are on their last days.

Amazing. Kind of thing. So I'm enjoying that. And I've opened a new business, which is looking very profitable. So I'm happy. I'm happy with that. So can we exhale for a second and grieve? You had a spirited, sexually adventurous, very chaotic two decades with somebody. There was good stuff. There was great stuff. There was really tough stuff. And there was painful stuff.

If you keep that door open and you parade every new person you meet in front of that door just to compare it, it will always collapse on you. You have to agree that that part of your life is over. And if you had great sex with your wife, no new person is going to, or your ex-wife, no new person is going to come in and take that away or minimize that. You only have a few choices in your life to have a 20-year relationship with somebody.

Right. So it's not about how do you compare? It was great. She was my wife. What's going to matter going forward is can you and I decide you're going to bring baggage to the table, I'm bringing baggage to the table. We are going to choose peace in our house and we're going to choose as much joy and novelty and fun and whatever and whatever and whatever moving forward. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah.

No, that, that, I mean, I've heard, I've heard you use the same kind of advice in the past. I guess I just never applied it to myself. Gotcha. Grief, you know, grieve it and move on. Cause it feels like if I, if I, you were just talking to me, I would feel like you just found out six months ago that your wife actually is gay after two decades. She just hid it from you and hid it from you. And she moved out. She's remarried to another woman and your head is still spinning. That's how fresh it feels when you're talking about it, even though it was three years ago.

Right. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Total sense, yes. Can I just say this? I'm sorry. Because I also get the impression you really loved her. Yeah, I did. That was your wife. I do. Yeah. That's the thing you do. And when you have kids together, it sort of puts another layer on there, right? Yeah, it's their mom. Mm-hmm. So you're always going to be connected to her. Right. Right.

And trying to have somebody just waltz in and do – like don't let the physical – whatever fun times y'all had, whatever deep connected sexual contact, don't let those moments – let me say this. Going to the top of the Empire State Building and looking at that spire that goes really high into the clouds, it's amazing.

But you can't forget that that only exists because of the however many 300 or whatever floors that are beneath it holding it up. The sex was so great and the connection was so great and the depth was so great because y'all were both all in for 20 years. You made humans together. You were ride or die. And there was some big secrets, some big, big, big, big things in between you two. Man, y'all went for it. And if she's the one who decided, I'm out.

I don't respect you. Then you would be a different man than me if you didn't look in the mirror and ask, am I worth respecting? And by the way, for whatever it's worth, I think you can be a respectable person whose business goes away. I think you can be proud of yourself that you went all in and some new technology came and took your company away from you or a new competitor. Or a financial collapse. Or a financial collapse, right? Yeah. That's not a reason to bail on somebody. That's a reason to double down on somebody.

And she left. That's painful, man. That hurts. And so I would say as you're dating and as you decide to marry somebody new, let those opportunities be as fresh and new because we're starting from day one with those things. And do not compare them to what was. And by the way, that's going to be a natural thing. When that pops into your head, you have to make a choice. You have to make a choice. I'm stopping for a second.

No, I'm not going to go back to that one night or go back to that crazy weekend in wherever. I'm not going back there. My wife left me. We are divorced. She is gone. I'm here with her. And if you try to heal those wounds of, hey, she left with sex with strangers. If you try to heal that, I thought we were ride or die and the economy tanked and then you were gone. And you start to feel like I was just a meal ticket for you and the kid. Like when you have those moments,

Like the thing about casual sex is for a second, it can make that stuff go away, but it is hollow and hollow and it piles up on you. So pause for a minute, brother. Pause for a minute. Grieve that thing fully. And I don't know anybody who can grieve by themselves. So get your gang and then date somebody new and be open. Everybody's going to have baggage. 21 year olds who get married have baggage. They got their family baggage. They're bringing their whole families in the new house with them. And they got to figure out how to unwind those things. It's just part of moving forward with somebody.

Honor what was you loved her and if you believe you did right by her for 20 plus years Then honor that exhale drop your shoulders and if you believe she just walked out on you If you believe that she said it was all cool, even though she was gay and it hurt like exhale that it hurts It's painful and then meet somebody else and say hi. My name is dj. I got a lot of baggage, too I'd love to get to know you. Thanks for the call. My brother. I really appreciate you hopping on the show

All right, coming up, we talk to a woman who is struggling to regain her husband's trust, and it wasn't an affair. We'll be right back.

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Let's go to Nicole in the Ozarks. What's up, Nicole? Hi. What's up?

I'm doing great. Better than I actually have been in a very, very long time. Incredible. Just by calling the show, your life got better. I actually agree. I probably would disagree with you. Okay, so go ahead. What's up? Well, my original question is, what should I expect with rebuilding my marriage? And if you want me to, I'll jump into some backstory, but yeah. Yeah, let it rip.

Okay. Well, me and my husband have been married for 10 years. And in the last five years, I've been struggling with depression unknowingly. I could only focus on keeping me and my three boys alive and none of the house chores were getting done at all. And my husband loves a clean house. He and I have had several conversations about it.

And all ending with me saying, I'll do better, I'll do better, I'll do better. And every time, better would last for a week at the most and fall off. His trust is very low right now.

right now and I don't blame him for that um and he told me last month that he had actually been considering leaving me several times but didn't see the logical way of doing it I've been in counseling and God has been helping me for the last three months healing and growing and changing for the better um

And in listening to your show, I was able to ask him to rebuild a new marriage with me, and he was on board. We are a month into rebuilding, and I'm three months into counseling and change. I'm wondering what to expect with him needing to rebuild trust with me, and how do I practice slowing my role when I just want to get to the good part? Yeah.

Yeah, there's so much in your question. You said today, the last few days have been the best in a long time. What's made them the best? Well, just for a really long time, I have, with struggling with depression unknowingly, it feels like, it feels like

I have kind of like the best analogy I can figure out is like a three-part Christmas tree. And when you don't have one plugged in, the rest of the lights don't work. And that's

That's just kind of what it's been feeling like where mind, body and spirit are not plugged in together. But in the last three months, it's felt like mind, body and spirit finally plugged in and I can actually put mind, body and spirit together. I can get house chores done. Literally, my house is cleaner than it's ever been in 10 years of being married and I'm

It feels so good. It feels like a giant weight off my shoulder. And I can see it in my husband. I can see it in my kids that we're all feeling better because of it. So it's just kind of like this moment. But then it's like after he told me last month that he had been considering leaving, I was like, oh, whoa, this is a lot serious. This is a lot more serious than I thought it was. So...

Is it that you have a cleaner house or is it for the first time in five years you feel like you can finally trust you again? It can make me emotional, John. Because you're thinking depression, like I talk about anxiety, OCD, all these other things. Depression's a different animal in my book. And I think depression and anxiety are on the same trend line, but it's a body that says, it's your body trying to take care of you by...

turning the lights out and get under the covers yeah it's really powerful and in any major depressive and i don't i'm not obviously not going to diagnose you over the phone but in any major depress like when you're dealing with somebody who is really struggling with depression one of the chief goals is tiny wins yeah just get up today and take a shower and get back in bed that's it that's how it was a lot just get up today take a shower put on makeup go back to bed

Yeah. And I say depression because I was never really clinically diagnosed, but I could see the patterns. And my dad actually struggled with depression, but he didn't ever tell me or my brother that it was depression. So it was just really angry around the house. And you just kind of thought he was just a really mad person. So you and I only have, we've been talking for three minutes. Can I, um,

Connect some dots and you just say no no you're wrong. Yeah Okay Is there a chance that whenever a parent is really struggling with depression? very challenging for a kid because I Often use the same analogy and talking about parents who are struggling with alcohol for a kid. It's like trying to hug a ghost They're there. They're right there physically. Yeah, but they're not there and for a child

children do so much to try to connect. Hey, let's go play the ball, kick the ball. Hey, will you do this? Can we watch videos in your lap? Can I do anything with you? Because a child naturally wired into them evolutionarily, they have to stay connected to a parent. And when a parent is unplugged right next to them, whether it's because of substance or because of depression or whatever, a kid will kind of start cycling. They'll start spinning, trying to find ways to connect. And you did that your whole childhood, fair? Yeah.

Definitely. Okay. Yeah, 100%. And my mom really wasn't a great person either. She would rather go to work than be home. Work was her drug, right? Yeah. Work was her drug. So is there a possibility? Tell me, I'm happy to be wrong here. That you fell in love with somebody and you married them?

And then yet again, you found yourself having to perform up to a certain set of tasks for them to be okay with you. For instance, the house has to look a certain way or I'm out of here. Yeah, kind of. I mean, I definitely believe that my husband was given to me by God because of other circumstances that we don't have time to go into. But did you accidentally marry your unfinished business?

I, yeah, I can see that. Okay. And he told me even last night that he, um, he thought that marriage was the next thing to check off in his box. And I, so yeah, we kind of both did it. So in a weird way, and this, and hear me say this, this isn't this, it's not a good thing, but it's not a bad thing. Okay. Just as an is. Okay. Yeah. And this happens all the time. It happened in my marriage. Okay. Um,

Y'all both married each other in some sort of way using the other person to try to fill something in their life. You were there, you were well enough, and he had a list he needed to check off. You needed safety. You needed somebody to say it's not, that you're not somehow malfunctioning. And y'all married, y'all connected. And you were each other's oxygen until the tank ran out.

Yeah. And then you want to be more than just a checkbox on a list. Yeah, definitely. And he wanted you to be a maid slash mom, right? Yeah, I definitely thought that at a certain point. And my guess is, again, there's a thousand different things, so I don't want to minimize it, but I wouldn't be surprised if your body said, I know this story, I'm out.

I know how this goes. I quit. And here's why it's important for you to internalize this. You being squished under depression does not mean you are somehow malfunctioning in your character. You're not a bad person.

Yeah, because it was like I could only, I would do fine at other people's houses and I could like even help my in-laws clean their house, help my sister-in-law clean her house. Nicole, none of this is about cleaning. None. Okay. What this is, that is a distant, that is a distant byproduct.

What it has to do with is for whatever reason, and this is all going to tie back to your question, what should you expect rebuilding your marriage? Okay? Yeah. It all, your body identified your world, your home, your partner, something, all of it, a piece of it as I can't do this. I'm out. Yeah. And if you think about yourself underneath a...

I don't know if this analogy will hold. I'm just making it up off the top of my head. But if you struggle with anxiety and you're doing bench press, imagine the bar is so light that you can lift it a hundred times like a broom handle, right? You're just lifting it and you're trying to lift it as much as you possibly can so you can get as strong as you can because one day someone's going to try to kill you. Yeah. With depression, somebody loads it up with five times the weight you can lift and you push and you push against it and you can't budge it an inch and you just stop. Yeah.

Yeah. And it lays on your chest and you can't move it. And the only way to get that bar up is to get some of that weight off the bar. Yeah. Is that making sense? Yeah. Here's what I need you to hear me say before I go any further. There's not something wrong with you. Your body was simply trying to keep you alive. You're not a bad wife. Okay. You know how long I've been telling myself that? I know. You told that self when you were a little girl that dad wouldn't talk to you because something was wrong with you. Okay.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you and your husband created a world, the one that y'all both knew, and you were somebody that was going to accomplish all of his tasks, and he was somebody that was going to finally heal you. And y'all both were like, oh, this isn't how this works. That's a great place to find yourself if y'all can come to the table and say, okay, cool. We created this world. Now we can create any world we want.

Yeah. Okay. And I think we're finally there. That's amazing. But you cannot predicate what comes next with, look how clean the house is. Because let me, I'm promising you, Nicole, I'm promising you. If that's what it takes to bring you all back together, that finish line will move. Yeah. The house will never be clean enough. It kind of feels like it already has. That's right. It will move to, well, if you lost 20 pounds...

And then it will move to, well, if you just did this in the bedroom, and then it will move to, well, if you just simply flipped. You just hit another button. Right. Well, it will always move because you were never the problem. It was this context y'all created, this environment, this world, where he's trying to find somebody that will do all of the things that he thinks is what it's going to take to make him feel whole. And you cannot feel that for him. He can only be whole from the inside out. Yeah. And...

He can't rescue that nine-year-old girl inside your chest. That's your job. Yeah. Fair? Does it make sense what I'm saying? Yes, definitely, 100%. And I've kind of told him. We've kind of had those discussions and those realizations. Awesome. So rebuilding a marriage, imagine rebuilding a house.

Yeah. You're going to have disagreements on where to put the new bathroom. One of y'all is going to lay a tile floor and it's going to look funny. You have to pull the whole floor out. One of you is going to roof the house and the roof's going to be crooked. You have to pull all the shingles off, all that expense and redo it or maybe hire somebody to come into it. Rebuilding your marriage, expect it to be uncomfortable. Yeah. Expect it to be like glimpses like you're experiencing right now of, oh gosh, when this thing is singing, it's going to be uncomfortable.

It works. It's amazing. It feels right. Now we're both, both of us are in the boat and both of our feet is in the boat. He's not just watching you row while he sits on the shore in a lawn chair with a beer and you're not him in the boat. You're just trying to paddle as fast as you can to be the wife he wants you to be, right? It's both of you saying, hey, both of us have to be in here and both of us are going to row. And both of you have never done that before.

Yeah. So it's awkward. It's weird. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It really is. And here's the important part about the marriage, about building a new marriage. You always have to go back to that blueprint, that picture y'all created together about where this thing is headed. Yeah. Because that's what matters. Yeah. And we did. We even...

And because I watched your show, I was like, okay, I'm ready to rebuild this thing. So we're going to have a talk and we're going to sit down and we're going to talk about what we want. And then we're going to come back to it in three months and see if that's changed or not. Right now, do it weekly. Okay. Do it weekly. Talk about your money. Talk about your sex life. And commit to each other to not use the word you. Commit to use the word I.

Okay. He's not allowed to say, you need to do, make sure our bet, he can't do that. Yeah. He needs to have the courage to say, when I walk in the door and this house is all cleaned up and I've been working really hard all day and you are like running the house and I'm running this business, I feel so loved. Yeah. Or I'm struggling with being attracted to you right now. That's exactly. But that's different than, hey, you need to lose 30 pounds. See the difference?

Yeah. And when he says, I'm struggling with being attracted to you, exhaling and choosing curiosity over judgment. How dare you? You son of a, that's judgment. Curiosity is, whew, that's hard to hear. Tell me more. Tell me more. Right? Yeah. And you, if you're being honest, are tired of him hassling you about sex when you can't even brush your teeth.

No, it's not him hassling me. It's me hassling him. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Will you do me a favor? Sure. I want you to go get, you've heard me say, if you listen to the show, I want you to go buy yourself a small little journal for nine bucks at Walmart or Walgreens and commit. This is for this, your soul, for your marriage, for your husband and for your kids. Okay. This is a big, the stakes are high on this. I want you to write down for a month or two, every single story that pops into your mind.

Write it down and then ask your husband if he would honor you by sitting down and helping you challenge those together. Okay. If I don't do open, clean the dishwasher, my wife, my husband's going to leave me. Write that down. You suck at being a mom. Write that down. Good moms don't need time away from their kids. Write that down. Okay. Husbands always, always, always want to have sex with their wives. And if they don't, that means he's having an affair or that means I'm unattractive. Write that down.

We are always, always going to be changing diapers, bathing kids, dealing with spit up, getting food off the floor, dealing with screaming and crying in bedtimes. We're always going to be. It's not true. You're in a phase. It's winter and you're really cold, but I promise spring is coming. And I hate being cold. I know, right? Everybody does. It's the worst. So here's your expectations. Curiosity over judgment. Okay.

How can I love you? Not this year. For our whole marriage, how can I love you today? Yeah. We're looking for little wins, tiny wins. I believe I'm worth an hour in the gym, an hour of walking around the block. How can we make that happen? Enough space where I get that hour. Okay.

If you want me to show up in the bedroom for you and you want me to show up here as your wife, I need to have adult friends that I can exhale with. So that way we don't use each other as garbage dumps. And I tell you all the bad stuff that happened with the kids. You tell me all the bad stuff that happened at work. And then we just go, and we watched an episode of Dexter and we fall asleep. That's typically what we do. I know it is. Cause you're, I mean, cause it's, that's the American marriage right now. Yeah. Yeah. I've been wanting something different for a while too. So amazing.

I think it's cool. And I would be lying if I say there's some psychological benefits to getting rid of clutter. My friend Dawn Madsen, the minimal mom, she's amazing. My buddies Josh and TK over at The Minimals, like the stuff they teach and preach is right. They're right. Yeah. I've done a lot of that. A non-cluttered house is good for your soul. And this isn't about you having a clean house. Yeah. This is about you desperately seeking some signal that you're worth being loved and married to.

Yeah, 100%. I haven't felt like that in a while. That's right. That's what he needs to hear if you don't want to rebuild your marriage. Because he has to come to the table with, how can I love you today? I just need you to hold me. How can I love you today? I need you to wash all the bottles. I know you're an attorney and you work 17 hours a day. I need you to wash the bottles. Got it. How can I love you today? Can we just have...

Hotel room sex while the kids are asleep just in the bathroom of the hotel. Can we shut the door and just get after for five minute, please? Got it. Expect there to be starts and stops and fits and backwards and forwards and all that kind of stuff. One more thing. Okay. This is just nagging me in the back of my mind and the back of my chest. And so I just want to put it on the table. Okay. Okay. Yeah. If y'all haven't already,

I want y'all to have a, after the kids are in bed, tell him, I'm going to talk about something really big this evening. Okay. And I want you to hold both of his hands. And I want you to say, before we go, the last three months have been such a transformation in our lives. The last month has been amazing. I need to make sure that all of the secrets are on the table.

I kind of did that last night because I had always had this nagging thought in the back of my head. And I was like, I just need to put this to bed. So kind of did a little bit, but not all of it. Have you gone through text messages and cell phones and social media accounts?

Oh, it's nothing like that. He's 100% loyal to me. It's more like an old fling that I was like, I don't know if I fully got the true story for that. Okay. Whatever you need, make sure the secrets are all out. Because if you go forward and you still have shadows, it just makes it hard to see. Right? It just makes it hard to see. But amazing story.

Keep going, keep going. You two can call me anytime. I'll have you both on the show if y'all want to be on. I'll walk with you as far as y'all want to have me walk next to you. I'm so proud y'all are rebuilding this thing. Keep that picture in mind and keep this phrase going all the time. We are on the same team.

And both of you are going to have to say, I'm sorry. Both of you are going to have to say, I forgive you. Both of you are going to have to say, well, we got to pull out that bathroom because the tile's on sideways. We got to rebuild the bath. Here we go. And we're going to keep going and going. And by the way, as soon as you get this whole house built, you're going to have three teenagers. You're going to have to build a new house. And that becomes part of the excitement and fun and novelty and playfulness and work of being married for a long, long time. Amazing, Nicole. I'm proud of you.

Keep seeing that counselor. Keep seeing that counselor. Next up, a woman is forced to reckon with her past and the guilt it brings into the future. Stay with us.

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Thank you.

That's join, J-O-I-N, joindeleteme.com slash Deloney. All right, Omaha, Nebraska. What's up, Heather? Hello. How we doing? I'm doing okay. You don't sound like it. I'm not a very big phone talker, so this is hard. Okay, well, thanks for reaching out. It's awesome.

Yeah. So my worry is when I... Back in 2008, 2009, I had an affair with a married man. And then recently, just last month, he randomly sent me a message asking how I was doing. And it really upset me because I had never told my husband about this person. And I hadn't...

I hadn't met my husband when I was having this affair, so I didn't cheat. And I told my husband about it because I've been carrying the guilt for the last 13 years we've been together. And I just, I hate myself for it. How old are you now? 37. So how old were you? 20 what? 20, 21.

And dumb. I was going to say, did you do anything else dumb when you were 20 or 21? Yeah. Like every 21-year-old on planet Earth? Yep. I made bad decisions, that's for sure. Well, you're going to have to get in a long line of 20 and 21-year-olds who made bad decisions. Why is this still haunting you at 37 years old?

Um, I've just always carried around some guilt about it. Like it's a horrible thing to do. Um, I was single at the time. Um, but yeah,

I didn't want to tell my husband. Every time we watched your show and somebody talks about cheating, he's just like, people who cheat are just terrible. And I'm just sitting here thinking, you're going to think I'm a terrible person because of this terrible thing I did. And it finally came out. But do you see how you're bouncing tenses and trying to compress time? Yeah. People who are cheaters are terrible people. One time...

Getting up on two decades ago or a decade and a half ago, I cheated. In fact, I didn't cheat, but I participated in somebody cheating. You see how you're toggling time back and forth to bring your stuff that happened a long time ago into the present? I just don't want my husband to hate me, to think I'm a terrible person or that I would do that to him. What did he say when you talked to him? He was kind of...

stunned he um because at first I asked him what would why would a man email somebody who he hasn't seen in 17 years and he's like probably nothing good right he's exactly right and I then that's this one I was like okay I have to tell you something and um

And he just, he's kind of a stoic person. So I really didn't get much emotion out of him, either mad or sad or anything like that. He was just kind of like surprised I kept something from him that long. That's what I think you're frustrated with. I don't know. I've always been carrying around this guilt for a long time. What is it? Even before, man. Okay, let me ask you this. What is it getting you?

Nothing. No, it's giving you something. I don't know what it is, but it's giving you something. Is it a way to remember this affair? Was it pretty wonderful? No, it was not. Okay. Is it a way to protect you from ever, like a...

I'm thinking of like a little kid who dresses up in like old armor, right? Like an almost knight costume, thinking that's going to protect them from something. Is it your body trying to protect you from ever doing this again? So it just carries it around and dangles it in front of your face like one of those carrots in front of a donkey on the cartoons just to remind you? It's getting you something.

I think it's more like, okay, I know that somebody can be a liar and cheat on their wife. And I guess I'm afraid of that happening to me because I know that people falter. Are you worried that your husband has cheated on you? No. Okay. Again, I...

Yes. I think you played a role in participating in something that was very unhealthy and not good. Fair. Correct. I'm wondering if the intensity of the guilt you feel is that you've had this big secret for all these years that you believed in your heart and mind. I think you're right. My husband doesn't really know what I'm capable of.

Yeah. And every year he did something great. Every time something happened, every time he popped off about, man, if somebody ever cheated on, and that weight got heavier and heavier and heavier. Yeah. Because if I'm, if my wife comes up and says, hey, I did this thing, it was pretty rough before we met. My immediate frustration would be, you've kept this from, you've kept secrets like this from me for this long. That'd be my first thought, not the thing that happened.

The disorienting thing, we'd get to that eventually, but the disorienting thing would be, I thought we knew everything about each other. Yeah. And maybe I'm out to lunch here, but I'm wondering if you sat down and said, hey, I told you this thing. I kind of wanted to get it off my chest and I threw it at you, but I realized it's fair for you to be sitting around wondering what else I haven't told you for the last 15 years.

Yeah, like it all happened in the morning and he said, okay, we'll talk about it after work and then got the kids to bed. And I was like, can we talk about it now? And he's like, sure. He didn't really want to. So we did talk about it again, but he said that he doesn't care and he's not going to think about it and let it bother him.

Do you believe him? I don't know. He's kind of hard to read emotion-wise. Okay. But he's... Here's the exercise I want you to try, okay? Okay. Two things. Number one, I want you to give it a day or two. And then I want you to, when the kids go to bed, say, hey, let's go out to the kitchen table. Not in our bedroom. Let's go out to the kitchen table. What? I want to go... Just please do this for me. Okay. Okay.

And I want you to say, I kept something big from you that I was ashamed of for all of our marriage. And it breaks my heart that I didn't tell you the truth about who I was or not even who I was, but a thing I did that I'm really ashamed of for all these years. And I also understand that you're going to have questions about what else does she not tell me? So I would like to offer you opportunity to let it rip. Ask me any question you want to ask. I'm going to answer it right here.

Because I want to build trust with you that you know I'm not walking around with these. You're going to be waiting for another shoe to drop. And if he says, I don't have any other questions, I'll believe you. Okay. If I was a husband, I wouldn't do that. I would have a whole bunch of questions, right? But maybe he is. Maybe he's just a stoic guy that trusts you and realizes that was probably hard and maybe moved on. He's probably a more chilled dude than me. The second thing is, this is old school Deloney advice. I want you to go to Lowe's or Home Depot and buy shoes.

A cinder block and it's important that you buy it. Don't just get one from the yard go buy one And I want you to duct tape on it when I was 21 I got with a married man and I want you just to carry it around you can carry it around in your hands You can put it in a backpack and carry it around your house for a while But I want you just to hold it until it gets so heavy You just can't carry it anymore and then I want you to go out in the backyard and throw it on the ground tear off the tape

Wad that tape up and put it in the trash and tell yourself, I'm not carrying this anymore. I forgive 21-year-old me, period. I forgive you. And when that guilt comes up, I want you to exhale, go, nope, I forgave her. Because Heather now in the present would never cheat. I forgive her. She did something dumb. Forget about the work dynamics and the age difference and the hierarchies or whatever happened. I forgive that 20-year-old, 21-year-old knucklehead. I forgive her.

And I'm not giving that guilt a vote at my kitchen table anymore. I've got kids. I got a husband that I love. I'm moving on with my life. But I want you to have some moment that you can exhale and say, I set that down. And then what you're going to practice over the next few months, maybe a couple years is when that thought pops in your head, you remember one of the nights together you spent with that dude, or he pops up on your LinkedIn, you hit delete and block. Don't reply. I forgive her.

Then go on about your day. And that sounds a glib, but this is just you practicing living in the present and stop letting the thing that happened 15 years ago haunt every minute of your life. And again, my gut tells me that the intensity of the guilt is more around I'm keeping this big secret from my husband more so than I did something really stupid when I was 20 or 21. Thanks for the call, sister. Hey, we'll be right back.

All right, so we are long past Easter now. And just like there's no finish line for your physical health or your mental and emotional well-being, there's no finish line for being still and intentional about gratitude, for growing in your faith, and for building a relationship with God. And this is good news.

Intentionality about spiritual matters is a practice and any time can be a new starting point. So if you committed to consistent practice of prayer and gratitude or reflection during Lent, I want to encourage you to keep going. The small daily habits add up to a transformed life.

For my daily practice, I personally use Hallow, the number one prayer app in the world. It's a great tool to help me stay connected, to help me slow down, and to help me be grateful. Whether it's guided meditation, music, or scripture readings, Hallow helps me stay mindful even when life is gone berserker.

So set reminders, carve out time and keep leaving space for intentional spirituality with hallow. Plus when you sign up at hallow.com slash Deloney, you'll get three months for free. So even if you missed out on Lent, it's still a great time to start again. Go to hallow, H-A-L-L-O-W, hallow.com slash Deloney for three months for free. All right, Kelly, something cool happened. What's up?

All right. This is from John in Thunder Bay. I know. That sounds amazing. That sounds like one of your high school boyfriend's name. Hello. Like pulls up in a Camaro. I'm Thunder Bay. And you're like, oh. No. But I'm just going to go ahead and read this now. Your eagle tattoo on your arm goes, oh. Oh.

Bon Jovi just spontaneously starts playing. Yeah. Yep. All right. Hey, John, I started listening to your show before the holidays. I decided it would be fun to buy questions for humans, Christmas couples, and parents and kids. Our two kids, ages nine and five, often groan when we do a few questions over dinner. Today, my daughter was at a party and my wife is out of town. So my little guy and I ordered pizza. And when we sat down to eat, he held up the deck and said, Dad, can we do this?

I'd like to say thanks to you and to your show for helping me become a little bit more intentional about my interactions with my wife and kids and making me a more open and better communicator. Keep up the good work. Dude, good job, Thunder Bay. Thank you so much for reaching out, man. Even though now I'm going to have to deal with like a month's worth of Kelly's high school boyfriend stories. Dude, that's awesome. I'm proud of you for stepping up and being that kind of dad that just wants to be a little bit more intentional. And man, anytime your kids, your little kids lean up and say,

Hey, Dad, Mom, do you want to try this? That's amazing. That is just amazing, watching little kids connect with their parents. I love it, I love it, love it. Congratulations, man. Everybody else listening, be a little bit more intentional. That's all it takes. Love you guys. Bye.