My Husband Divorced Me Because I Watched Porn
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I'm recently divorced. He found out I was looking at porn and he said, well, I wouldn't have cheated had you been, you know, giving yourself physically to me. That's stupid. My ex-husband is very angry with me and I know that his family is too. Why? Hold on. Why? I think you're so blinded by the gas lights. They're so bright. What's going on, everybody? This is John with the Dr. John Maloney Show. Thanks for joining us. Talking about your mental and emotional health and your marriage.

taking calls from all over the planet. Can't do anything about what's going on in the news. Can't do much about much of anything, but we can begin to acknowledge the person we see in the mirror. We can be present for our families. We can figure out what's the next right move for ourselves. And that's what this show is about. People pulling up a seat at the table and just saying, Hey man, I'm struggling. And my promise is I'll sit with you.

If you want to be on the show, reach out John Deloney, D-E-L-O-N-Y, johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. Love to have you on the show. Billings, Montana. Let's talk to Anne. What's up, Anne? Hi, thank you for having me on. Of course. What's going on?

Um, so I'm recently divorced and, um, I'm a crier. So just FYI, I'm a crier too. I'm a crier too. I'm good at crying at people. So, um, anyways, I, uh, I, I'm recently divorced. I was with my ex-husband for 18 years and married for eight. And, um,

I guess the ultimate question is, I did look at porn during my marriage, and I feel immensely guilty and horrible. Like, I let my son down. Like, I let myself down and my marriage down. And so I don't know how to cope with moving forward from that. Are you pegging pornography as the reason you're not married anymore?

Well, that's what my ex-husband told me, but I also know in reality I walked in on him with another woman in our bedroom. Yeah. Let's start there.

Yeah, he stepped out on me, I think, at least eight times that I know of in our relationship. And I like to call it, I have like the major ostrich effect where I just buried my head in the sand. I just turned a blind eye to a lot of things. But I guess the straw that broke, I'll go ahead. The straw, that's not the straw that broke the camel's back. You coming up for air. Yeah.

is not the straw that broke the camel's back. You saying no more is not the straw that broke the camel's back. Yeah. He found that I was looking at porn and he said, well, I wouldn't have cheated had you been giving yourself emotionally, physically to me. That's stupid. That's stupid. Were you using other tools besides coming to the table with your husband and saying, I'm not okay with living a life where I have...

Where I'm dead in my own skin. Did you pull off to the side of the road? Yep, you did. Would I recommend that? Having the secrets inside of a house, right? Like going elsewhere for that feeling of aliveness? No, I wouldn't. But for somebody to say, you did this, so I went and did something? Nonsense. He made a grown-up choice over and over and over and over again.

Yeah. I feel horrible about it, though. Like, horrible. Go beneath the pornography. Do you feel horrible that you didn't tell them the truth for 20 years? Yes. Do you feel horrible that you were worth more than putting your head in the sand? Do you feel horrible that you don't trust yourself because you knew for all these years what was going on and you chose not to do anything about it?

Because I think you feel horrible, potentially. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's all about pornography. I just don't think so. You violated your own moral compass when it comes to pornography, fine. And you're allowed to feel guilty. Guilt is a good emotion. It signals us when we have violated one of our own internal values. And if that's a value you violated, cool. Feel guilty. But don't you dare peg the collapse of your marriage on that one thing. Similarly, flip it around.

If he was looking at pornography, which would put him 90 plus percent of all men in America, and you cheated on him eight different times with eight different men. If you looked at him and said, hey, this is your fault. Come on. Yeah. I know in reality, like I can see, I can see that writing on the wall. And I do know that.

You're right. I think I just, I know it's going to come up as my son grows up. And I know that he's, my ex-husband is very angry with me. And I know that his family is too. Why? Hold on. Why? I think you're so blinded by the gaslights. They're so bright. He cheated on you eight times. He had sex with eight different people. Yeah. Call me crazy. That is a different level of betrayal.

In my book, it is. It is. It's a cosmic different level.

He said it was me stepping out ultimately on him as well because I wasn't wanting to be physical with him because I was scared of, I didn't know who he was with. Therefore, I wasn't wanting to have relations often with him at all. Hold on, stop, stop, stop, stop. Are you crazy? You're not crazy. I don't want to say are you crazy. I'm saying that in a loving way. Like if we were sitting together, you would see me smiling.

So if nothing else on this call, let me tell you, you're not nuts. No, if every time I had sex with my wife, I was worried about getting a disease, getting sick, not being able to be there for my son down the road, having to go to the doctor and go through insanely invasive checkups. Like, Ann, like this guy has, let me ask you this. Let me just ask you this.

Let's say, just for devil's advocate, this is 100% your fault. And because you didn't want to have sex with him, he felt licensed to go sleep with eight other people. By the way, that's the number you know. You know it's more than that. I know it's more than that. Yeah. Do you have the power to force him into another woman's bed? Do you have that kind of power?

No. Do you even have the power when you were married to spend money like you wanted to? No. Did you even have the power to parent like you wanted to, to drive what you wanted to drive? No. No. You've never had that kind of power in this relationship. And because he's embarrassed, his own family is looking at him and saying your marriage fell apart. Because he's a lying coward, he figured out how to take all of just the mountain of

Of things he did to violate your trust, to violate your relationship, to violate your safety, to violate being a good male role model for your son. He did all that and just handed it to you. And because you've always carried that lack of power, you decided to pick this one up too. Yeah. Here's what I hear. And again, divorce is catastrophic. People blow it off. It is catastrophic. It's awful. It's awful. But listen to me, sister. You are free.

I know that. And I'm happy in that sense, but I'm also, I wake up and I just feel this immense sadness all the time. Okay, tell me about the sadness. Tell me about it. Well, I feel, again, like I just let my son down. Let me free you from that. This is going to sound nuts what I say.

I know many men who are exceptional parents, good loving fathers, and they struggle with pornography. Your husband blew up your marriage, period.

Yeah. That sadness though, I feel so immensely. And I see him, my ex-husband, and he's now with the girl that I walked in on him with and they have a child now and I, they look like they're thriving and I'm just here. I feel so lost. Hold on. Were you thriving under him? No. No. Okay. Then exhale. It's all a social media mirage.

And you're right to be heartbroken. You're right to understand the ramifications of a young boy growing up in a single mother home. You're right. It's going to be tough for him. And you're going to need to get some mentors. You're going to need to surround him with men who are actually decent human beings. But you going around and beating yourself up because you escaped from a wildly unsafe relationship is not going to help him. You being heartbroken and sad

I wanted you to have a stable home. And I married, I made a child with somebody who lacked such basic common decency and integrity. Even when he did choose to be a serial cheater and repeatedly put your mother, your mommy at risk, I tried to keep this thing together because I believed in my guts having a two-parent household was going to be better for you in the long run. And that just didn't, it didn't work out. I'm sorry. Heartbroken. Okay.

Yes. Sometimes, sometimes, well, I don't want to go down that road. Like, I guess I'm just heartbroken because this was an incredibly emotionally abusive and manipulative relationship.

And for some reason, not for some reason, I know why, but I'm trying to be over the top a little bit, okay? For some reason, you have framed a picture of your husband and you still invite him to dinner every night to speak in on how you're cooking, how you're raising your boy, how you look, how you feel. And that guy never deserved that voice into your life. And he especially doesn't now. And who gives five bags of farts what his family thinks about you? Yeah.

Yeah. I think it's so embarrassing. What's embarrassing? That your husband sucks and you escape? Well, he's the fact that he's just told everybody about it. And then just, I don't know. Hold on. Hold on. Like, let's dig into that. Who's everybody?

He's told friends of ours, mutual friends of ours. He's, um, like my son plays football and he was the coach and he had told several people on the team about it. And they tell him about all the, all the, all the people he cheated with. No, I have not. No, did he? Oh no, he didn't. No. And so all you have to do is smile and say, he is a pathological liar and he's

I'm moving on with my life because I know I'm a good mom and I know I did every single solitary thing I could do to keep that stupid marriage together. And then I'm walking away. And I know that sounds easy. And I know your other circles, because by the way, a guy who is deceitful in that way to his wife and to his son is deceitful with the other coaches. He's deceitful with his friends. He's deceitful with his family. Listen, and they know.

They know there's the occasion that somebody has a long-term affair or a one night stand and it stuns everybody. Someone who's a serial cheater. They all know all their wives feel uncomfortable when he's around. They know the husbands know that he's kind of eyeballing their wife or their daughters. They know everybody knows.

Right. Oh, I'm sorry. No, go ahead. Go ahead. When we went to mediation the first time, because I had to beg him to do it because he kept saying he didn't want the divorce. But eventually we got to mediation. And at the end of it, it was like a nine and a half hour day. The mediator said, he's just a spoiled brat and a bully. Good luck. And I know that I could see all these things and everybody's pointing out that kind of behavior to me.

And it's just, I don't know, these blinders are on and I, I just, it's wild. I don't know how to cope. I don't know how to move forward in a healthy way. Yeah. Tell me about your dad. My dad is the best man I've ever met. Okay. What makes him the best man you've ever met? He is a constant. He is strong and kind and protective of his family. He loves us unconditionally.

Have you sat down and said, dad, my husband had eight affairs that he's admitted to and God knows however many else? Oh, my dad knows. Okay. And has your dad known that his daughter looked at porn too? Yes, I was up front with it all. Okay. And did your dad get up from his side of the table and come over and give you a hug and say, I love you?

Yeah. Okay. Then let that be true. In those moments when you don't believe in yourself, and by the way, this grief is heavy and the grief makes everything dark outside. All of us, myself included, need people we trust and we love to say, I know that you don't see the light, but it's light out here. Follow me. Yes. Okay.

And you're not a spoiled brat. And so you also trust your dad that if you had been in the wrong, he would have said, I'm so sorry, honey, you blew this thing up. I love you. I'll sit with you. And he didn't do that, did he? No. No. Because he's a respectable man. He is definitely that. Okay. So in these moments, I guess if you get nothing from this call, you're not crazy. You didn't blow this thing up. Did you violate your own core value? Yeah, we all do.

And we all wonder if we're worthy of being loved. And thank God you have somebody. Many people have nobody. You've got at least one person that looks up and says, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're my daughter. You're worth being loved. Yeah. And you choosing to respect yourself and keep yourself safe was not a violation of your marriage contract. It's you being human. It's you being smart. You being wise. Here's what we're going to do next. I'm going to give you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life as my gift to you, okay?

I'm going to send, we're going to mail it out to you. Thank you. The other thing I'm going to give you is I work here at Ramsey solutions and I'm going to send you our flagship product, which is to help people get control of their finances as a single mom. That's a terrifying proposition for you. I know that having a guy who cheated on you so many times over so many years, still drag you through nine hours of mediation, blaming you the whole way is a four year old emotionally.

And that tells me that you have been squashed financially too. Is that right? Oh my gosh. Okay. So I'm going to send you the financial products too. I'm going to send you every dollar of the apps. You can begin to gain control of it. I'm going to send you all nine lessons. They're digital videos. I'm in one of them. And my colleagues are in all of them. And I want you to watch them. How old's your son? He's nine. Awesome. Have him watch them too. Watch him with mom. And here's what he's going to get to see.

He's going to get a ringside seat to watching an adult, a mother who he knows loves him, slowly regain her footing. And here's what I think you're going to find. You feel like you're drowning, but what you don't realize is the water you're standing in is about nine inches deep. And you're going to slowly begin to learn some skills financially. You're going to learn some skills relationally. That's what I'm going to send you in my book for free. And you're going to slowly start to stand up and realize, oh my gosh, this water's around my ankles. Yeah.

And it is going to feel super awkward making decisions on your own because you've never been allowed to do that. Okay. Just expect it. It's going to feel weird and hard. And you're going to feel like, I don't know what's the next right move. What's the next? I don't know. What's the next right move? Make it. And then if it's the wrong one, go, ah, I blew that one. And then we're going to keep moving forward. Is that, you get what I'm saying? Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. I work two jobs now. So yeah. You know why? Cause you're a good mom. Yeah.

Thank you. Because you have high integrity. Because you can do math. You know, we need more money now. Now, last thing before I let you go. You've probably heard me do this on the show before. I want you to do it for everybody listening, but especially for yourself, okay? I want you to make a fist with the hand that you write with. Are you doing that right now? Yes. And I want you to put that right in the middle of your chest. Okay.

And I want you to say out loud while you slowly tap your chest, I love this woman. I love this woman. Nope. Say it loud and proud, sister. I love this woman. Okay. This is day one. This is the day one where you start loving you through action too. Okay? Okay.

Thank you. You're going to watch these videos. You're going to read the books. You're going to go see a counselor. But I believe in you, Ann, and you call me anytime and I'll give you any resource I got and I'll walk alongside you anytime. And if you know of some other resources, I'm going to send you all the questions for humans, for parents and kids and parents and friends too. I want you to begin to use these with your nine-year-old because here's what we're going to do. We're going to build connection from the inside out.

we're gonna have breakfast together with that little nine like nine-year-old and we're gonna use these questions for humans and we're gonna slowly develop internal relationship he's gonna love the chocolate chip cookies and the chaos at his dad's house and the four-wheelers and the jet skis but his nervous system will know when i go see mom i'm safe i'm loved and i'm known thanks for the call sister coming up next we talk to a man who is thinking about being homeless again

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Go to helixsleep.com slash D'Aloni. And if you get a post-purchase survey, tell them you heard about it on this show. Go to helixsleep.com slash D'Aloni. With Helix, better sleep starts right now. All right, Columbia, South Carolina. Let's talk to Asher. What's up, Asher? Hey, Dr. John. It's super wild to be talking to you right now. This is amazing. It's wild to be talking to you, brother. Appreciate your call, man. What's up?

Cool deal. So I guess my concise version of the question is, would it be wrong or such a bad thing to make enough money to just afford cheap food and gasoline and just live in my car again? And I'll elaborate on that in a little bit if you... Yeah, I'd love to dig in. Just on its face, I mean, I wouldn't judge that as good or bad.

I might judge that as wise or unwise or smart or dumb, but I wouldn't categorize that as a moral issue. Tell me what you're thinking.

Yeah. So, um, uh, last month I was, uh, in between living situations for about two weeks and, uh, what does that mean? What does that mean? Uh, uh, just like, uh, the lease on my other place ended before the next one started. Okay. So, uh, you know, I know where to go for just a little bit, not, not super long, just like two weeks and all that. But the options were, uh, uh, either get like a hotel and, uh,

pay the two week, uh, pay two weeks of that or just live in my car for that period of time. And I chose the latter and, you know, people kind of, I guess, uh,

maybe you're like, like fear that and stuff like that. It was not that bad at all. It wasn't, it wasn't that bad really. And, um, you know, I just, um, I'm in my new apartment now and it's, it's a pretty nice place in the city and everything like that. Um, but I'm kind of like ruminating on, like during those two weeks, I felt like I was just kind of living in a box, like parking lot to parking lot. And now it just kind of feels like I'm living in

a slightly bigger box, but paying a whole bunch of money for it. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. So how old are you?

I'm 26. Okay, cool. No family or anything. Sure, sure, sure. No one depending on me. Yeah. If I did have people that, if I did have dependents, this would be a completely different story, but it's not, so. Absolutely. I think the balance for 26-year-olds and for 36-year-olds, and I'm especially talking to people who aren't married and who don't have children, dependents, it's a tough balance to begin to do things that will honor future you.

When you have a seat with 50 year old you, will he be glad that you're not married, that you don't have any kids, that you don't have any dependents, that you haven't done this thing that the research says makes you quote unquote less happy, which is a stupid metric in the short term, but that gives you purpose and meaning for all of the rest of your life. And let's, let's cross our fingers that you've got 70 more years left, 60 more years left.

Um, or do we do the next convenient thing or the next easy thing or the next opt out thing? Just because we can. Here's a good example. Let's take, let's take living in a car off the table. 26. You're working. You have a good job.

Uh, I had a good job. Um, I'm, uh, kind of, kind of in the, in between my like career path right now, I have a background in software sales. Okay. But, um, the thing is I've like, I'm three years out of college and I've blown through five of those jobs in the course of three years. Yes. And, uh, I've just, um, during that time, I've just been doing like little odd jobs, like little things on Craigslist that people need, need done, uh, driving DoorDash, like just any, any little thing. And, um, uh,

During my time in software sales and stuff like that, I would go to work, get up at the same time, and just grind it out to be able to keep the lights on, pay rent, and stuff like that. And I don't really have that high of standards. I don't really need a whole lot. I've been in the state of mind right now where it's just like,

Like, okay, like, like, like you get up and do all that. Like, like why you don't, you don't need it. And sure. And it clearly don't like, uh, I was gonna say like that same thing applies for you right now with, with lifting weights. Like why I'm not playing football. I'm not in college athlete. I'm not fighting anybody. Why? And your 60 year old self whose hip has degenerated and I've got to do 40 years with artificial hips or I can't move. And my health has fallen off a cliff.

is going to say, man, I wish you had have. And so you're right. Doing the calculation right now, you have no responsibilities and you have no purpose. And so when you are absent those two things, which by the way, this is a cultural issue. This is not an Asher issue, man. So I'm not coming at you. Like you are asking the questions that everyone should be asking right now.

The job market is chaos. They told us a bill of goods going to college is going to solve all of our problems. That if you just get this degree and you probably listened, a job in STEM, cool, great. And you're like, this sucks. I keep getting laid off. I keep getting fired. I keep book, whatever. I'm just gonna tell you right now, the greatest gift you could give 27 year old Asher, the greatest gift you could give 37 year old Asher, the greatest gift you could give 77 year old Asher is not stuff.

So the question about should I live in my car? I could give you all the data on how your amygdala functions in an unsafe environment. It feels cool to take a two-week vacation and go camping. I would never recommend anyone pack up and move to the woods, right? That comes at a cost. But what you felt was you've been living in a failure factory for the last five years since you graduated college, and it just felt good to opt out for a minute. The greatest gift you could give yourself, your 27-year-old self and on,

is to go find a squat bar and get under it. And I'm not talking about a weight room. The greatest gift you can give yourself is responsibilities. The greatest gift you could give yourself is purpose. And you don't have either of those things. Responsibilities to a young adult, to somebody in their 20s and 30s, is the weightlifting for your mind and your body and your spirit.

And so it may be a bad quote unquote investment to have an apartment. I love the fact that you signed a contract. You got to go do something. Yeah. You have to. The question is the thing you've been trying to do for five years is killing you. So let me back all the way out. Dude, what do you want to do? Or more importantly, who do you want to be? You're not going to have any purpose in life. You're going to continue to flounder until you find a place where you can contribute. And that's responsibility.

What means would you say are the best of going about finding that thing? I'm going to send you – my buddy Ken Coleman, he's got a small book out, but the importance of the book is called Finding the Work You're Wired to Do. I'm going to send it to you for free, but inside of it, it's got an assessment. Here I am. I've got student loan debt. I've got this – or maybe you do or don't, but I've got this job. I've got this degree. This thing has gone away.

Nope. I don't have any debt or anything like that. Okay, great. Cool. So you're at Even Steven, which is awesome. And that allows you to even ask this question. Can I just opt out of the system? Of course. But my buddy, Josh Milburn, he runs The Minimalist. It's not about buying stuff. And maybe you're figuring this out before most people figure it out at 50 or 60. They got a lot of stuff and they are hollow. Yeah. And you're looking around and be like, I just slept in my car. It's kind of awesome. I could go sleep whatever parking lot I wanted, et cetera.

Yeah. Like the other stuff feels futile. I don't, and it seems like, I think the kind of genesis of where this all is coming from is that like, um, like, uh, find, finding a meaningful career. That's not only, not only something that you like doing, but it's also able to support a family and like maybe, uh, maybe burned out a mortgage eventually. It's just, it's something that everybody, everybody else is doing. And it's so strange to me. It's so, um,

It's so predictable. I don't know. It's very easy to get winded from that the more that you think about it, I guess. That's kind of where I've been. That's a pretty audacious thing for a 26-year-old to just throw out. What do you mean? I mean...

So I'll give you an example. My brother and best friend are the main people that I talk to and they're moving on with different stages of their life, getting married and all that stuff. And I see them a lot, a lot less now. And you know, I, I get that they have different priorities now and everything like that. But it just, the things that they want are basically the same. And yeah,

None of them really sound that exciting at all. I would say, A, excitement is a horrific metric to chase. Okay. Right? Novelty and fun, I'm all about that. I like excitement on the path where I'm going. But you get excitement when your team wins the championship, or you get excited when you...

find a solution to something. I remember a guy, one time I was in a neighborhood and there was a bad storm and our power went out and this guy came in at three 30 in the morning on this huge truck and he climbed up and re redid the transformer at three in the morning in the rain. And he clicked it back on and I was out there with him. And I said, I yelled up to him, you just gave my family light back. Thank you. And he smiled and said, that's what I do. So it doesn't have to be like curing cancer. I understand what you're saying. Um,

Yeah, I get that. That'd be cool. Where does the cynicism come from? I don't know. You know, when I was kind of late college, I used to tutor people as a side hustle and stuff like that. And it was cool, like, seeing, like, I would have, like, parents, like, review me and stuff like that. And it wasn't just, like, you know, my kid has a B instead of a C now. It was like, yeah,

Yeah, he has a little more confidence now. It was kind of cool just having someone to just talk to not only about school stuff but also about ways of thinking about things. And that was way more rewarding than anything that I did in tech sales, even though it made more money. So why in the world aren't you chasing that down? What the world needs is a bunch of people who inside, forget the money part, forget the fame part, forget the business part of it. Yeah.

are doing things that light them up because that's what is going to, people are gonna be attracted to that. And if you don't know anything, if everything's just running low, right? Everything's just low. I get no joy out of anything. I get no like out of everything. You got to go sit down and talk to somebody, man. Like a professional. Yes, absolutely. A hundred percent. And you can roll your eyes. I'm not going to pay for it. That's just, that's just the cynicism talking. No, I've paid for it before. He's a cool guy. Okay. Hang on the line here, brother. I'm gonna hook you up. Um,

I don't want you to think in terms of good and bad. I want you to sit down and have an imagine, write your 50-year-old self a letter and say, at 26, I made some choices. And because I made these choices, here's your life at 50. And I'll tell you what, I burned myself to the ground. I burned the candle all the way down in my 20s. And it almost cost me my marriage. It almost cost me friendships. It cost me a lot. And so I'm not recommending burning it like I did, but I'm often...

In moments of quiet and solitude i'm really grateful for my 20 year old self because i'm living In a house built on the foundation that my 20 year old self when I didn't have a lot of Responsibilities man, I went all in i'm super grateful that when things were awkward that I chose To go in again And I didn't just choose to sit down and opt out of the game because I was too clever or sophisticated or pessimistic about the whole thing Yeah, hang on the line. I'm gonna hook you up with with my buddy ken stuff and we'll get you we'll get you connected there um

I think your answer is in what you told me. If you were my friend and we were just having a drink at a local pub, I would tell you. I think you know. And it's going to be hard to let software sales go because that's quote unquote who you are. It's not who you are. You're a guy that likes to sit next to people and help them find who they're supposed to be. And that's a great gift. The world needs more of that. Thanks for the call, brother. We come back. We're talking to a man who's trying to figure out what's the best way to support a friend who's going through a hard time.

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Go to Organifi.com slash Deloney and use code Deloney to save 20% off. That's Organifi.com slash Deloney. Go check them out. All right, Phoenix, Arizona. Let's talk to Russell. What's up, Russell? Hey, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing great, brother. What's up with you, man?

Oh, not much. I do, before I get into my question, I do want to just give you guys some gratitude and say I appreciate all you do. Found your show like a year ago, and it got me through some pretty rough stuff. So I appreciate all that you do, and I'm excited to talk to you. Man, that means the world to me, brother. I'm really appreciative. Thank you so much, man. Awesome. What's up?

Um, yeah, so I wanted to call, um, so I've got one of my ride or dies 15 plus year long friendship. Um, he, I was in his wedding a couple of years ago and, uh, he found out probably a couple of weeks ago now that his wife has cancer and it's pretty heavy. And I just want to, uh, I want to figure out how I can support him and her obviously, uh,

Um, cause I just like, it is luckily the first time in my life that, uh, I've had someone that I know this close that has been diagnosed. Um, and I just like, I don't know how to help my friend. And that's, that's really what I want to do. Yeah. You're a good man, dude. I appreciate it. Um, tell me about this cancer. What does she have?

Stage four brain cancer. Yeah. So they did, um, they did surgery a couple of weeks ago, got a lot of it, but not all of it. Yeah. Um, so they're gonna, they're gonna treat it and we'll,

We'll go from there. What's the prognosis? Usually with stage four brain cancer, they can tell you. You got six months. You got max of 10 years. Yeah. I haven't asked. Okay. Like, try not to poke too much. It's like that weird, you know, like where you want to be supportive, but you, like,

they're going through it and they're, I mean, we're, or they're right in the thick of it. So I don't want to pry for too much information. Um, okay. We do live like five or six hours apart. So, um, I haven't been able to see him yet, but just phone calls. Okay. So, um, I'm going to tell you the two things people have come back and told me over the course of my career that they were most grateful for when they were going through something similar. Okay. And one of my oldest best friends in the world who I don't talk about on the show very often. Um, he is, uh,

He's in one of what I would call in the vault friends. He went through the same exact thing. And I was in his wedding and I was at his wife's funeral when she passed to brain cancer. Okay. The two things that have come back repeatedly over and over, and I haven't done this perfect every time. In fact, I've screwed it up royally multiple times is they've come back and said, nobody would ask us the hard questions and you seem unfazed and you just asked. Okay. And so what feels like you're dancing around, like, I don't want to, I don't want to pry too much.

They will tell you if I'm not ready to talk about this. I don't want to talk about it. Okay. But I remember my friend when she got it and she was a close friend. I consider her close to like, man, he's one of my brothers. And when she got sick, man, I was, I was asking all kinds of questions. How much time they got? Where is it? Like, what do they do? Like asking as many questions. And I'll tell you this, as the cancer progressed and she got closer and closer to passing away, it was made very, she was very clear. And so was her husband. Hey, let's,

We just want to talk about it right now. Awesome. Okay. So that was number one. And this could be as easy as asking, all right, so what kind of cancer is it? And man, what kind of prognosis are they giving you? Usually with this type of stage four aggressive brain cancer, they will say a home run is 10 years. Most people hit singles and they get four.

Occasionally people get nine months, right? They'll tell you that kind of ballpark. And so asking that question directly is not out of bounds. And in fact, it can often be a relief because both of them are carrying it. And as most people who get cancer find out, they find themselves responsible for how everybody else around them feels. And so asking those direct questions can often be a gift. Like I'll carry some. Okay. I'm not scared of that. Yeah, that...

Yeah, I mean, that actually resonates pretty hard. I know they've obviously had a bunch of family coming into town, and obviously there's just a lot going on for them. Sure. This is one of the first times, like I said, he's, to use your words, one of the in-the-vault friends for sure. And this is one of the first times he's called me and kind of broken down to me. He's just first responder, ultimate tough guy, like...

Awesome, awesome dude. Let me tell you this. If there's any possible way you can get on a plane and go down there and see him, do that. Even if you have to fly on a Friday night, only spend Saturday and fly out Sunday morning, go do that. He called me two Fridays ago now and that was my first response. It was like, hey man, I'm getting in the car. It's five hours. It's not going to take me very much time. Let's

Hammer out a day that works for you guys in the next week. And then they had some additional family come in. So we paused that. And then I'm actually on a work vacation right now, but I land, I go back Friday. And then I have a flight booked for the next week. They don't know I have a flight booked yet, but I just...

It was one of those, I'm going to do it and show up, and I think that's the right thing to do. But you're just like with a situation like this, you never really know what is right and what is wrong. Don't ask, how can I help? Just show up. Okay. Yeah, I know that. And if you send food, if you just start making – you put a note on yourself and you start having food delivered every Monday, they can be grownups and throw it in the trash. Yeah. Just show up.

Yeah. And your buddy who's a first responder, tough guy, would be really out of character for him to say, hey, I need you here just to give you a hug. He's not going to say that. Yeah. Oh, for sure. His wife's certainly not going to say that. And by the way, people get flooded with family. That doesn't always mean it's a good thing because a whole bunch of family shows up and wants you to make them feel better when you're dying of cancer, right? Yeah. Yep. So sometimes showing up and being like, dude, I'm getting us out of here.

I remember going to a bar and having beer out of a bottle. I used to love this woman because she was only, she would just crush beers out of a bottle. I used to think that was the coolest thing. And she was hilarious and she was amazing. And just saying, all right, we're done with all of the whiny hiney. We're all going out. We went to a social distortion concert together. Like it was like, we went and did stuff until stuff, we couldn't do it anymore.

So that's number one. Yeah, I mean, that sounds great. So number one is that. And number two, don't send what I call text bombs. Hey, how are you? Don't send texts like thinking about you. Pick up the stupid phone and call. Okay. And don't give them another job to do. You tell me how you're doing. Yep. Just call it with a funny joke, with a funny meme, with a funny...

Alright, so you got the cancers. What's up? Yeah. A buddy of mine recently had a quadruple bypass and he's like 48 years old. I'm going to tell you what my phone call was like with him. Deloney, is this you? Dude, I heard your heart exploded.

That's how I started the call. He started laughing so hard. I thought he's gonna have another going to cardiac arrest again. Now, Hey, now that's not my wife's personality. That's not everybody's personality, right? That's just how that's me. But here's the message I sent to him. You're sick. You're going through a tough time. I'm not suddenly going to be like, Oh, cause I don't stitch things into pillows. Yep. I'm still going to love you. Fool me. The last thing is say yes.

way less than you think okay sometimes just dude i'm calling this sucks yep not hey dude i've been googling and i found there's a new none of that yeah i think they're probably doing enough googling themselves i don't need to i don't need to do that that's right and hey um do you mind if i do something do you mind tagging in here kelly

Of course not. Kelly's a cancer survivor. Um, I'm, I'm rattling things off to Russell here. Anything out of bounds that I've said and B is there anything else you want to throw in here? Uh, no. So I think Russell just reiterate a couple of things. He said that we're the best. We're, you know, don't ask them how they're doing and don't, um, ask them what you can do because they're so overwhelmed and nobody wants to tell somebody, here's the things that I need you to do. It's just a weird thing to say. And, um,

don't the biggest one is don't make them make you feel better yep everybody else's emotions are exhausting especially during a time like this they are exhausting and so to have to make them you know if you go sit over there and you're boohooed and bawling and crying and all that excuse me they have to take care of you and tell you how they're going to be okay and how it's going to be okay and that's not beneficial to them at all and it's it's it's just exhausting um

Frank talk. I had a couple that was our next door neighbor at the time when I was diagnosed and they invited me over for coffee, sat down and they're like, all right, tell us everything about it. Because most people don't want to know or they don't know how to say, just tell us everything. And it was very cathartic for me to be able to sit down and pour out everything that was going on because most people just want to give platitudes, well-meaning, but still platitudes. So just be frank and honest about it because trust me, they already know what's going on.

So it's not like you're going to tiptoe around it because you don't want to say the wrong thing. They're very well aware. And in a case like this, nobody's going to ask them, hey, are you going to die? Yeah. And sometimes that's the question they're desperate for somebody to ask them. Yep. I think that's one of the first things I ask Kelly. Are you going to die? And she's like, no, John. And this is Kelly's personality and this is my personality. Kelly, I can assure you there were times when you came back to work where

That if people had heard some of your inner circles, some of the jokes we were making, they would have been very uncomfortable. Oh, trust. I had a whole group of people that I was like, this is so demented. But it's how I processed it. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Nothing is right or wrong. Whatever it takes for them to process it is what matters. And by the way, Russell, there's going to be people who are struggling with cancer. Your friend, that may not be funny.

Yeah. Kelly and I have a mutual friend and colleague right now who's going through some tough stuff. That wouldn't be a great way to handle it with that person. Yeah. Right. Yeah. No. Yeah. I get that. And so that person is, you're going to handle that differently. But I think the thing is to keep true to the nature of the friendship. My oldest friend on planet earth is a paraplegic was in a terrible car accident. And I remember me and him, I mean me and his brother and one of our other ride or die friends. These are, these are 45 plus year friendships.

I remember we were in a, not a Waffle House, what's the pancake? IHOP. IHOP. And we were all saying, hey, are we going to just stop making jokes? And I remember we're like, nope. He didn't get a pass just because he's in a wheelchair. He's still our brother, dude. And then it's like, all right, game on. And it's, dude, we've gotten stopped at restaurants. We've gotten stopped in parking lots. There's been some moments they're like, all right, that's probably too far. And by the way, he dishes out.

But all I have to say is this, keep the nature of your friendship whole. Okay. Yeah, that's, I mean, that, I mean, so we're like a couple weeks into this now, and that is, I have felt myself being like, dude, I don't know what to say. Yeah. Like, nothing I can physically say is going to make the situation any better. No, but you will. Yeah.

Yeah. Your presence will. It gives me a lot of, I don't want to say permission, but it gives me relief that just keeping...

keeping our friendship going like it's gone for the last 15 years is will bring some sort of maybe relief or distraction, if you will. Um, something like that, that will just, you know, give them a break from all that they're going through. Cause yeah, that's the last thing I want to do is like, they don't need to make me feel better about it. Um, I'm sad for them. I'm sad for my friend, but the last thing I need them to do is to console me. Like, that's right. But sometimes, um, if, um,

Your friends have a demented sense of humor like me and my friends do. Getting online and ordering them two dozen cupcakes that have the words, you know, F cancer on them is hilarious. Yeah. Making a demented cake is hilarious. And other times showing up with flowers and a hug, if that's the nature of your friendship and that's the person on the other end of this thing, that's who you would have been if you found out they're pregnant. That's who you would have been if you found out, you know, their mother passed away. That's who we're going to be in this moment too. Yeah.

It's when the whole identity of the friendship changes. Like, oh, my goodness. If I walked into – I'm thinking of a friend right now who's struggling. If I just showed up at their house and was like, oh, my gosh, I'm so sorry. Come here. They'd be like, dude, what's wrong with you? Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Finding ways to be yourself and inject joy into a really dark moment and not make them be the ones to make you feel. That's just it, man. So thank you for loving your friend really well, dude. That's, that's man. The world needs more friends like you who want to show up and just want to do it right. And, um, your presence and often your silence, your presence means the world. Thank you so much, my friend.

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That's B-O-N-C-H-A-R-G-E, bondcharge.com slash D'Loni. Use coupon code D'Loni to save 15%. All right, we have a money and marriage question from a live event. This is a real question that somebody posed at a live event in an anonymous, in an anonymous, man, I'm so good with the English language, in an anonymous Q&A box. And so here's one of the questions.

What do you do when both of you thinks the other never initiates sex? This is going to sound absurd, and this is just popping into my head. But if you're both sitting there saying, you never initiate sex, and the other person says, I do it all the time. You never initiate sex. And you're like, I do it all the time. You never. Cool. Then for the next 30 days, we're just going to keep a tally mark. Or be silly about it. Add some sort of levity into a heavy situation and say, all right, I'm initiating sex.

And begin to just call it out. Because when both of you think a thing and the other one's accusing you, all right, then we need to go to the data. And there's not a lot of data, right? But we have sex all the time. Actually, I marked it on the calendar. We've had it twice in the last two months. On this day and this day. Or we never have sex. We had it four times last week. No, we didn't. Yeah, we did.

It wasn't very long, trust me, but we did, right? We did. And so there's something about the data. That was a good joke. There's something about just data. It just is. And so, by the way, don't, don't, this is important. Don't bomb each other. It's like, don't secretly record somebody and be like, no, you said it in push play. Don't do that. But say, okay,

I think I'm initiating all the time and I'm clearly not doing a good job initiating because you're not getting my initiation and I'm blaming you. So for the next month, the next 30 days, when you think you're initiating, when I think I'm initiating, I'm going to either call it out or I'm going to make a little tally mark in my calendar and we'll get to the end of the month and we're going to start tracking how I think I'm initiating. I put on my special bra. Well, I didn't, I didn't get it.

Um, I put my phone away. I missed that. I put three cups that were on the table into the dishwasher. I thought that was me saying it's go time, baby. Like I missed it. So maybe you're both initiating and it's not the, the signal's not coming through. There's too many clouds and you can't see the bad signal. So let's just start. Let's call it out.

And by the way, this isn't just about sex. This is you never help around the house. I always help around the house. All right. Just for 30 days, not to weaponize anything. So when I keep track of it and you keep track of the times you walked in and the dishwasher was still full and I was in there just farting around on my phone and I'm going to keep track of the times I did the dishwasher and we're going to get to the end of the month. And all these times I thought I was doing it. I actually only did it once. I'm sorry.

I did it once a week. I did it four times in a month. And that meant you had to do it twice a day for like the other 24 days of the month, 28 days of the month. Sorry. Right? So when you get stuck with feelings, let's just start going to the data for a bit. And if you use this data to weaponize, you're not a good person. Don't do that. Don't do that. This is just to help us sift through the

shame and the vulnerability we feel when we try to initiate something as sensitive as sex and then we feel rejected so just gonna write it down call it out and then we'll go from there hopefully this allows you both to begin initiating sex in a language you both understand and then the house will be a rocket so we will not come a knocking love you guys bye