Shownotes Transcript
How can I help my husband better manage our kids? He's not that awful with like the babies, but once they hit the toddler age. He's not that awful. He's only medium. He's medium awful with the babies. He's full awful with the babies.
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I'm all right. How are you? I am doing good, doing good. Recovering, but I'm coming back. What's up? My question is, how can I help my husband better manage our kids? Oh, man, I don't have any idea. Help me. Help me. I probably need to call you. What's going on?
So we have a three-year-old and a four-month-old. And he has some anxiety and he's pretty impatient. And he kind of just gets frustrated after like 10 minutes and then just needs to go take a break. And I don't get any breaks. Yeah. How long has this been going on?
Um, he's not that awful with like the babies, but once they hit the cobblery, he's not that awful. He's only medium. He's medium awful with the babies. He's full awful with the babies.
With the older one? Yeah. So the older one is a little bit worse just because, you know, toddlers are little mini teenagers. But also, like, all right, so I am with the, I remember the exasperated when my son, my daughter didn't do it so much, but my son, when he was just like a ball. I just remember he's a ball of human, right? Yeah.
And I was a newborn. My wife was back teaching and he would just scream in this harrowing scream. I didn't know what to do. And I would just like try everything screaming, screaming. I didn't know what to do. And I used to get so frustrated. I would just get exasperated. Like, I don't know what to do here. But my wife wasn't there. So I had to do something right. And sometimes I would just take him out, put him in a stroller and just be walking on the street and screaming. I know what to do. Right.
Um, and so I get that the three or four year old, now we're getting into like adult grownup temper tantrum me kind of world. Tell me about that. So let me say it. So I have a ton of compassion for mom or dad, uh,
Like I need a break for a second. I got to go outside because my nerves are fried. I get that. I get that. And I also get the other side of it. Like, Hey, one of us doesn't get a break, right? One of us has to be here for the screaming human being. I get that. But tell me about the three, two, three, four or five year old.
I don't know. Like, she is very independent and likes to do her own thing. And she doesn't listen to him because I feel like he, like, just starts yelling and, like, puffs and puffs whenever she's, like, reacting to anything. And, like, I...
I'm able to, like, talk to her and, like, validate her feelings and, like, work her through it and kind of use it as, like, a teaching moment. But he just kind of freaks out. So then now she doesn't listen to him. And then I think he, like, is scared that...
He doesn't want to cause a tantrum by like getting her to follow through with like non-negotiable things like brushing your hair after the bath because he doesn't want her to cry because he doesn't know how to handle it and then stresses it out. Gosh, this is the most like, dude, you're like talking about every house USA right now. Yeah.
I guess this is as direct as I would put this. The stake of his relationship with his daughter and his wife are on the line right now. Yes. And if this was not about relationships, but this was about feeding his family at work, hey, we are no longer writing things on paper and putting them in an envelope. We have this new thing called email. You learn how to do it or you're fired. You know what everybody did? They learned how to do email. Mm-hmm.
And so that I know we can do it, but we have to step over our egos. And by the way, it's a big step. And I'm, this is, this is the pot talking to the kettle here. When, um, you look in your tool bag to help solve a problem with your kids and there's no tools in there, or there's just one yell or just another tool, just hide or another tool, just shut down and play video. Like it's scary. So I get that. Um,
But he has got to put on his big boy pants and decide, I'm going to learn how to connect with my daughter and do this right because the stakes are way too high. Yeah. If you approach him as a skills issue, at least in my house, I will tell you it's one of the greatest gifts my wife gave me. Besides psychological stability, which I needed desperately, she...
She approached me learning things about my kids as skills, not as character defects. Do you get the difference? It made all the world to me because when I would do something wrong, when I would try to take on my daughter when she was four and there's now I've got a 40 year old trying to take on a four year old, which is a recipe for an inferno, right? She didn't come at me and say, you're stupid, you're dumb. I can't believe you're doing this. She would never do that.
But she'd say, hey, this particular approach isn't effective. Try this one. And then I had to be a grown-up and go talk to Becky Kennedy. I had to be a grown-up and go talk to Sissy Goff here in Nashville. I had to be a grown-up and go learn a whole bunch of skills, talk to my friend Lynn Jennings back in Lubbock, Texas. I had to get on the phone and learn some skills because the stakes were too high. Do you get what I'm saying? I'm pretty passionate about this just because it was my house, right? Yeah.
Yeah, and I try to give him tips on things that he can do, and then I kind of explain why I do the things that I do. And I know that he feels really bad because he can't figure it out. He can. He can. He can. Because he can figure out his truck, and he can figure out sports. He can figure out what he wants to figure out. Yeah. It just takes a lot of patience, and it's really boring, and it's really revealing. Yeah.
And I ended up in counseling, some pretty heavy, heavy counseling because I had some stuff I had to get right with me. Yeah, I forced him to start therapy. That's always good. So you get what I'm saying? Yeah. How did his mom treat him? Oh, she just let him do whatever he wanted. He was an only child and she's still the same way today. Okay. What about his dad?
Yeah, he wasn't really in the picture. Okay. Does he like the way his mom raised him? I think yes and no. Okay. I think he's starting to realize that it wasn't always the best, but she did the best that she could being like a single mom. Okay. Have you two aligned on parenting strategies? No.
I mean, I know for sure. I know you do. I tell him what I want and he agrees with it most of the time. Okay. Here's a helpful exercise. Yeah. I want you all to get away for a breakfast, okay? And I know that sounds insane right now.
Can you pump or something? I don't know the mechanic. Can you get away where it's just y'all two for one breakfast for two hours? Is that possible? Okay. I want you to do that. And I want you to hold both of his hands across the table and say, I see a husband who loves me and our two kids more than life itself. And I'm so grateful. Do you believe that? Is that a true statement? I don't put words in your mouth. Yes. Do you believe he's a good man inside? Yes. Okay. I also want you to tell him,
Whatever is true in your heart about how he has talked to you about how he was raised and that I don't want to duplicate that here. And maybe that frustration and that smoke and that anger he's feeling, his dad laughed. He used to go deal with that smoke and anger and rage, right? Or that powerlessness. That's the feeling. It's that powerlessness. I can't even get a four-year-old, a 10-pound four-year-old to put her clothes away, right? I can't. I feel so weak and powerless. Right?
And then men especially take that personally and becomes existential. And then it gets loud. And then I think you'd be real clear, hey, the stakes are too high here. What was your relationship like with your dad? He wasn't around. Okay. So are you both kind of flying blind here on what a good dad looks like? Yes. Can we put that on the table? And you can look at him and say, now that I'm a mom, here's what I wish I'd had. And then here's a real fun exercise.
Let's say your daughter's name is Julie. What do we want Julie? Who do we want Julie to be the night she walks across that graduation stage in high school? We want her to be a person of character. We want her to be hilarious. We want her to be strong. We want her to be independent. We want her to be able to follow instructions, like all those things. Write all those down and let's distill those all the way back to, okay, then as of right now, she's got to know that we love her no matter what.
As for our house, no more yelling. As for our house, no more disappearing. And let's put some of those things on paper. Because I think both of you are, have you heard me talk about pictures and words? Yes. Okay. I think you have a picture of what you want him to be like. And he's got a picture of what he wants his kids to be like. And y'all are talking past each other. So let's go paint those pictures really clearly. Yeah.
And then he's going to have to just be a grown man and get some new skills because he doesn't have a skill set. And you're going to have to be a grown woman and get some skills on communicating directly and clearly and go from there. Does that make sense? I don't know if this is helpful or not, but. No, yeah, that makes sense. I ache for him. It's like I want to hug him and also be like, bro, it's time. Yeah, like hug him and shake him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's shake and then pat, pat and shake and then pat, pat.
Because I've been him. I've been him. And I want him to know what it's like on the other side of this when your nine-year-old daughter brings you this hilarious story that she's written in a secret card that says, I love you, daddy. You're my favorite. And curls up next to you on the couch when you're sick and says, I want to watch whatever show you want to watch. I want him to know what it feels like to be at peace.
with your kids and that means you're at peace with yourself i want him to know what that feels like and you can't you just got to tell somebody trust me walk through that that gauntlet you know what i mean yeah but i will also tell you that it's become much it's a much easier process when i know my wife isn't sitting next to me judging every step i take she's with me encouraging me and receiving feedback too because it's not like she's perfect right um but we're doing this thing together you're on the right path man you're on the right path you
Can't change him. But man, you can sure encourage the heck out of him. And on the actual tasks, you can be very, very clear about some tasks. But let's get away. Let's swipe the thing clear. Both of you are trying to have a picture of a dad that you'll have never experienced in real life. Let's get aligned on that picture. And let's go try to make that picture real. I believe in you guys. We'll be right back.
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I'm doing okay. It's a little bit warmer here today finally, so it's nice to have a break from the cold. Excellent, man. What's going on, brother? Okay, so my question, long, like, windy, twisty question, so I'm just going to jump into it. How much of my past and my struggles do I need to, like, tell my daughter later in life, or does that, like, cause problems for her growing up? Hmm. What brings that question up right now?
So, um, my, my daughter and I are kind of butting heads. She's three and yeah. How old are you? I'm 27. All right. Let's just pause right there. It's you're right where you need to be, dude. Okay. Three-year-olds run around and bang their head on every boundary possible to see if it will hold.
Which is what I've heard, and we've come up with the phrase, she's a three-nager, and it's wonderful. Correct. You're not a bad dad. I mean, you might be a terrible dad. I don't know. But just because she's doing that doesn't mean your marriage is bad, doesn't mean you're bad, doesn't mean your past is bad, doesn't mean anything other than she is three years old. And developmentally, she's doing exactly what she should be. And she's saying, oh, yeah, you say that stove is hot? I'm going to find out.
and this is just a critical developmental time, and that's why when people call me, they're like, my marriage is messy, or this is happening, and my kid's three. I always just stop and be like, all right, call me back in two years, and we'll square up again. It's just that season, man. All right, so y'all are butting heads. And by the way, you ever seen those cram videos? I forgot the name of the comedian. They're the best, like the goat videos. They're like, cram. Don't get into a, like a,
head-butting competition with a three-year-old. Everybody loses that one. Yeah, and I'm learning through that, especially with what I've been working through the past couple of years. So if you're good with it, I'll just cut it short. Yeah, let it rip, dude. Let it rip. Tiny story. Struggling with addiction. Came to a head two years ago, well, two and a half years ago with an affair. Yours or hers? Mine. Okay.
I told my wife two years ago in January and we've been on the recovery journey. She's been through a lot of intensive counseling. So have I like, and we separated for two months in 2023, then separated for six months last year because we were just bandaid fixing and not actually fixing the root issues. Um, we got back together summer of last year and, um,
realizing like my daughters and my relationship is like, it's okay. It's good. But like, there are times where it's like, I'm getting frustrated with her. She wants mom more than me. She wants like, she won't listen to anything I say, even if I'm saying it calmly and kindly, she won't listen to me until my wife says, Hey, what did dad say? And listen to dad. And then she'll listen. Um, so I don't know if like totally development. No, there's nothing wrong with your daughter.
Okay, so that's not like I haven't really screwed her up with the separation? No. Okay. Your daughter's being three. My bigger concern is that you're at a place, you're at a fragile emotional state to such a degree that a three-year-old is threatening the access upon which your world spins. Let me put it another way. That sounded really dramatic. You're giving a three-year-old a vote.
Like a three-year-old doesn't get a vote or three. Like I'm not going to give a three-year-old my bad day. I'm not going to give you my feel like you're three. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Like there's a reason they can't vote. They don't have – a three-year-old does not have the – they can be manipulative and a three-year-old can – I mean, I don't want to get through all PSJA and all that. Three-year-olds are smart and they can be manipulative, but they are not as cognitively complex as adults put upon them. Okay. And so she just wants to check in with her mom. That means you and your wife need to be connected there.
Or you and your wife need to come up with, she doesn't check in with mom. Okay. But that will go away over time. What won't go away is she will very quickly, if she has, I guarantee she already has, she knows how to control dad. I can get dad to leave the room if I push one inch past this one line. He'll leave. I can finally get him to give me that candy if I just push past this one line. Or...
I'm uncomfortable because daddy's uncomfortable and he'll I can do this one thing. He'll get mad. He'll spank me He'll yell at me and then I can cry and then i'll feel better But what she's learning is it's her job to make sure dad's emotionally. Okay, and dude that cannot be your daughter's job Right That was alcohol's job. That was your affairs job. And now you've given it to your daughter. That can't be her job That has to be your job. Okay, is that fair? Yeah, very um
Yeah, there's been other stressors that I've been like really letting affect me. My wife has noticed like, hey, you're really stressed about work and it's affecting our home. So like it was very clear. Work is just really stressful. Getting pulled 30 different directions to do everyone's job and covering incompetency from lack of effort from where I work. And I work really hard and I have a different buy in because if I don't work, my family doesn't eat.
Um, and I've worked really hard to develop that work ethic over the last two years. And even my wife said, Hey, you're not allowed to bring work home. Cause like of everything that we've been through, we've had very long conversations. We've had boundary talks. We've had rules put in place to keep us both safe. And there are times when the tension of work and just not like really high emotions spill over. And I do, um,
tend to get frustrated with my daughter, not because it's my daughter. It's because it's like, I haven't processed other stressors. Yeah. Make, make that commitment right, right now, today, make today day one, day one, that that never happens again. Don't make her carry one too, man. She's three. Yeah. Okay. And here's the other side of that. I keep hearing in your language that you're trying to put yourself in a position where either you're the only one doing it right, or you're the victim of a thing.
And if you're going to work and you're working really hard, even if you have to clean up other people's mess, but it's paying your bills and it's what you want to be doing every day, then exhale and make peace. You work with a bunch of people who don't do their job. Okay. But if you show up every day expecting that thing to fulfill you too, or I'm trying, I don't want to be like a beautiful mind here where I'm pulling this piece of data and this piece of data and trying to create a whole new story. But of all the different things you're telling me,
Everything is leading to a guy that is desperately seeking something external to tell him he's got value and he's okay. Yeah, definitely fallen into, that's where I used to be. Like that was my biggest, like. Bro, that's you right now. That's you right now. That's you right now. You just moved it to something that's not going to get you arrested or get you divorced, which is work. And that's where most sophisticated men move their addictions. Do you have any friends?
Yeah, actually I've worked really hard to develop really good close friendships the past couple of years. Are those guys you can call and just whine about work with for a minute? A hundred percent. Okay. Do you have an exercise routine to burn some of this off? Not lately. We just moved, but definitely need to get back into that. Okay. Not as a place to escape, but a place to channel some of this energy. And kudos to you, my brother, for getting a group of friends. That's awesome. That is amazing.
Thanks. Often I hear in these situations, wives just become trash bins for their whole day because they're the only person their husband has, right? Yeah. Tell me about your addiction. What were you struggling with? It was pornography. Okay. Yeah. That even tells me more like you, like. Yeah. Yeah. Searching for somebody out there to tell you, to feel, help you feel alive. Yeah. Where does that come from, man? That's the house I grew up in and worked really hard with my counselor to,
kind of address some of that. Um, but no, it was like, I was homeschooled for all 12 years. And so it's like more of a student teacher relationship than a parent relationship. Yeah. You've been singing and dancing your whole life, huh? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, can I just like, I don't know if you've ever come across this, but this is just something crazy in my life. Um, I got a letter grade for how I cleaned a bathroom. Doesn't surprise me.
Okay. Doesn't surprise me. Wow. I can't imagine that much wood at this point, but like... Well, and I'm just trying to quickly reverse engineer it as a parent. Like, all right, great. You don't need to know about chlorophyll, borophyll, but you do need to know about how to clean the bathroom. So I'm going to shift grades to... I can see the logic there, but they can also see a kid being like, dude, I'm seven.
I just got to see in bathroom. Like, what are we doing? Right. I can see that too. And so it's, it's like one of those things that like, as you get older, you'll start to get compassionate because your parents are probably trying to do the best they could. And they were reading a lot of internet and they were like, yeah, we're going to do it different. And then they ended up giving their kid a grade on bathroom counter cleaning. Right. Like, so it's like one of those, like, oh gosh, this is insane. And also I've been dead in my own skin for 12 years.
And now I'm finally free. And then all of a sudden the world hands me this box with every act of depravity known to, you know, in human history. And now I'm married. Now I got a kid that won't listen to me. Now I got people at work that won't do it. And it just kind of unspools. So what if I flipped it all over, dude, and said this, um, are you still fighting on a day-to-day basis to, uh, put away pornography? No, actually that, um,
With a lot of hard work and accountability group, I've been able to find good chunks of sobriety. I had a relapse in January, but since that point, there's been no problem. Cool. And before that, it was nine months. Before that, it was six or seven months. But what I'm asking is, I asked it in too dramatic of a way, but you're staying vigilant, right? You're still working? Yep. Good. Are you done cheating on your wife? Oh, yeah. Okay. Have you and your wife sat down and begun to the healing process to get to the root of all this stuff?
Yeah, we've worked really hard to get there. We actually had our dreaming vision for this upcoming year meeting like last December. A lot of your tips and tools have really helped us. It's awesome. The next gift you can give your family, and this is a tough one, is to deal with the nuclear reactor that's sitting in the middle of your chest. The one that's always hot, always looking for the next person, always trying to get out of the next thing.
Always worried about what you just said. Always trying to make sure you're impressing the person over there or over there. The one whose head's always on a swivel, the eyes are always moving. Situational awareness 24-7, 365. Right? Yeah. It's exhausting. I'm not to care so much what people think, but... I know, but that kept you alive growing up. You had to because you were getting graded. And listen, your daughter's teeny tiny little body, think of her just as a walking nervous system.
I promise you that little girl wants more than anything on planet Earth to run and hug her dad. And her teeny tiny little body is saying, do not do that. He's electric. And I know this, brother, from personal experience. And when I freed myself, I freed her. Now I'm getting all choked up on the radio, man. Hold on. No, having a daughter is the wildest adventure I thought I could ever be on. I know. Yeah.
My daughter, dude, she is a human hurricane, and she still, dude, she fights me every single day, literally and figuratively, and I love it. But it's not from a place of nervous system fear anymore. It's from normal developmental, I've got a really tough, amazing, beautiful little girl who's going to grow up to run some stuff someday.
It's not me versus her anymore. It's me with her. But I had to go do my work so that I could show up okay. I had to get my head off the swivel. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. Like, okay, I hear what you're saying. Now my brain is like trying to think of like practical next steps for how to do that. Is that through counseling? Is that through reading, exercise routine? Probably both and. Okay. Probably all the above. When you met with a counselor, were you totally honest about what you grew up with?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. I still see my counselor every other week just because there's a lot of stuff I have to work through. Okay. Yeah, that's the one place that I've dumped every little thing. Okay. So I want you to go ask for some very specific practices, not just tools, but practices on reactivity. Okay. The nerd word is mindfulness. It's the gap between stimulus and response. We're going to start to lengthen that gap.
between when your daughter goes no daddy and the rage that fires up without you even realizing it and the rage comes from a perceived lack of control out of out of power out of balance that's exactly what it is and that came from when you were a little bitty kid because you never had any autonomy in your house you're getting graded on toilet cleaning huh i've never thought to equate like that with how i react to my bro you got a grade on how to pee
You've never, you got a grade on wiping your deuces, bro. You've never had autonomy. Not for a second. That's what pornography gives you. It gives you, it gives you the sense of aliveness and it's not even the pornography. It's the urge. It's the, the, the dopamine buildup. People think dopamine is after you click it's before you click. It's the build. It's the feeling of, of,
That's the rebellion of a life that has no autonomy. And a three-year-old little girl just reflects it back to you. And so for the sake of our entire family's souls, dude, you don't get a vote into whether I'm in a bad mood or not. I'm not giving you that. You're three for crying out loud. You are going to stop hitting or you're choosing to fill in the blank. But okay, cool. Go check with mom. And then when you come back, you're going to do X, Y, and Z.
Like, I'm not going to let her make me mad. She's three. And then what she's going to learn is, oh, mom and dad are united in everything. And then shortly those need to go check with moms. Those things stop. Okay. But you get what I'm saying? I want you to ask your counselor for some very specific tools. Sometimes it's breathing exercises. Sometimes it's journaling. Sometimes it's catching yourself being mad and forcing yourself to walk back and get down on your daughter's level and look her in the eye and put both hands on her face and say, daddy got too mad. And that was not your fault. That was daddy's fault.
Yeah, that I have done. There have been times where I have walked away, took a breath, and then apologized to her. Okay. Have you forgiven yourself for cheating on your wife? I'd like to say yes, but I don't 100% believe that I have. Okay. Commit to that. Stop carrying it around. If your wife says she's not carrying it around, you stop carrying it. Stay vigilant, but stop carrying it. Go be the next best husband you can be the next minute, and the minute after that, and the minute after that. Okay? Okay. It's game on now, my brother. Good call. All right.
Absolutely. All right. Grateful for you, brother. Thanks for calling JT. Stay out of trouble. Appreciate you. We'll be right back. All right. Let's talk about delete me, my go-to provider for online safety, security, and peace of mind. Please don't skip past this. Listen, we've been talking about this for a long time.
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All right, we are back. Hey, don't forget to subscribe, like, and review the show with all the stars you can punch into the internet boxes. That was my, uh, was that a good song, Kelly? You don't think you like that song? No, I don't think I'll be downloading that one on my playlist anytime soon. Well, fine. All right, let's go out to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and talk to Turn the Page. Hey, Page, what's up?
Hi, how are you doing? I'm doing great. How about you? Oh, you know, sitting on the floor throwing treats at my dogs to try to keep them quiet. Oh, one of those days, huh? Yeah. So what's happening? I'm going to read my question because I tend to fumble. Okay. How do I metabolize anger and resentment towards my father, who is a therapist, while I also pursue my own career in therapy?
Why are you angry with your dad? I mean, obviously it kind of goes back to being a kid, but the big thing is I just see a big disconnect between his work life and his family life. You didn't practice what he preaches? No. But the thing is he's an amazing therapist, so it's kind of like
There's confusion on my side too on how those don't connect. Okay, let me ask you this. Is he your therapist? No. Okay, so let's hold him accountable to the role with which he's assigned in your life. Okay. Forget what he does for a living. Okay. What are you mad at that he did or didn't do for you as your dad? Well...
I'd probably just say like, he, he wasn't always a therapist. He became a therapist within the, like the last eight years. Um, but he, he kind of like self-diagnoses himself as a workaholic and he, he knows it. Um, so like as a kid, I just kind of always felt abandoned by him. Um,
But a lot of what my anger comes from is recent stuff between him and my mom. And I know it's not my place to get in the middle of that. It might be. What is it? So they had a really rocky start. They did not...
off their marriage in the best way. And there was a lot of really bad stuff that kind of happened between them in the first couple years. And they've been married for over 30 years now, but now they're empty nesters. And my dad is kind of using his therapy knowledge kind of against my mom. Mm-hmm.
And it's really frustrating for me because I'm going to school to become a trauma therapist. And what I learned, I've applied to my life. And my dad is such a smart guy. He's really smart. And I'm really frustrated with his behavior and how he treats my mom. And some of the stuff that's coming out that I'm learning is just... It's really, really bad. And...
I don't know where my place is to step in or not because I'm the youngest child of five. Are you in graduate school right now? Yeah, I'm in undergraduate. I'm kind of taking it slow so that, you know, no debt. Sure, sure. But I do a lot of my own studying off the course as well. Okay. Okay.
So there's a couple of things here that are kind of blinking lights at me, okay? And so I'm always okay to be wrong. I'm often wrong, okay? But there's a few big blinking lights that are relatively common. And so are you in your 20s, early 20s? Yeah, yeah, I'm like mid-20s. Okay, all right.
So big blinking light number one is, there's actually some words for it. I won't nerd out, but students who study psychology, students who are in the first couple of years, especially of graduate school for psychology, LMFT, LPC, social work, whatever, begin to pathologize and diagnose everything and everyone around them.
About everything. Oh, yeah, no. That makes sense? Everything, everything, and it's a, it's a, it's, it makes sense, but as one colleague, I used to, I used to, she used to say, no unauthorized practice of magic outside of Hogwarts. That's a good way to put it. And so, if you're not in school, close the book.
Now, school's always fun to be reflective and to ask yourself questions, but it's not until, you know, it's like when you think you have every diagnosis until you do one of your practicums in a psych ward and you go, oh, that's what that is. Yep. Right? I was uncomfortable. That is not, that is what we call fill in the blank diagnosis, right? Yeah. Okay. So that's number one, which is,
don't look to counteract your dad's, you know, uh, wizardry with your own, um, undergraduate wizardry. It's a fool's errand. Okay. Yeah, no, I'm, I'm very, very aware of that. Cause I actually, a lot of this started before I even got into school and I've been listening to your show forever. Um, and I actually pull a lot of, I actually learned a lot from you, which is kind of, kind of fun. But, uh,
So you'll know one of my big things is don't diagnose your friends and your neighbors and your whatever. Yeah. I quickly understood that in the beginning and I was like, okay, this is not a good idea. Awesome. I actively try to close the book on myself. Perfect. So I intentionally don't ever use the words narcissist around my friends. I don't use the words. There's just words like that that are diagnostics. I don't use them. I just don't use them.
I say that guy's a jerk and I'll leave it to his clinical psychologist to diagnose him. But what I can say is, and this is the part two, focus on the behaviors. I don't care what your job is. I don't care what your, how smart or how not smart I think you are. Don't talk to somebody like that. And so I don't care what the diagnosis is. That's a context, not an excuse. You can't treat people a certain way. I don't care how, I don't care what your IQ is. You can't treat people a certain way.
Have some dignity and some decorum for crying out loud. Right? The third thing is I get involved when somebody's getting hurt. I don't care if that's my role or not my role or my place or not my place. I could care less. If somebody's getting hurt, I'm getting involved. And so if your mom's getting hurt and you can't sleep at night without saying something, then say something. Know this. You've probably got a part of a conversation. Yeah. No, it's a...
It's weirdly enough, even though I'm the youngest, and I know this isn't healthy and I've tried to back off on it, but both of them do kind of come to me to talk about stuff or at least my dad does sometimes because he knows I'm interested in therapy, but then I get his side of the story and then my mom's side and it's like they're two different things. Have you studied triangulation yet?
A little bit. Okay. Google that one because it's happening to you. Yeah. And it always collapsed the relationship between everybody. Yeah. And so you're getting triangulated into this. What do you think about this? What do you think about this? Do you hear what she said? She told me that you said that I'm out. I am not playing that game.
One of the most successful things I've heard from multiple peers, people my age is, they tell their parents, well, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop. That's my dad. I don't hear you talk bad about my dad or that's my mom. I can't be your safe place for that. That's actually one thing that I learned from your show that I actually kind of did with my dad. Good.
Because he would try to like bad mouth my mom and I'm like, hey, I'm not here to talk about my mom. Good. This is a different conversation. But one step further, I'm not going to listen to you talk bad about my mom. If you need to talk bad about mom, you need to get yourself a therapist. Yeah. Right? So that's one thing. Like one is I'm not going to talk about mom. The next layer of boundary is I'm not going to sit here and listen to you do it. Okay. So if you keep talking bad about mom, you are asking me to leave by your actions. Okay.
And that's a different level of grown-upness of putting up boundaries. And I'll tell the same thing about mom. I'm not going to sit here and let you talk bad about dad. She doesn't. I know, I know. I'm just putting it out there. It's just not picking on dad. And I would back all the way out. As it comes for resentment, I wouldn't give him that kind of power. Like, go study and be the best therapist that you can possibly be. There's tons of hurting people out there that need somebody to sit with them. Mm-hmm.
And if you notice, he is not being congruent in the things that he learns versus how he's weaponizing some of these things and how he is like honoring his patients more than he honors his own kids or honoring his patients more than he honors his wife. Then make a firm commitment as for me and my house, I won't do that.
The best way to navigate resentment is to commit and then live out step by step by step by step a different kind of life. I'm not going to be that kind of person. The path forward as two adults navigating how to move forward is one person has to turn the lights on and say, here's the boundaries and I'd love to have you in it. Here's my picture of what us together looks like. Are you in? And as another adult, whether it's your dad, it's your mom, it's your spouse, it's whoever, they can say, I'm not in. And...
Avoiding that reality. I mean, you can kick the can down the road, but that reality is eventually going to catch up with you. And it's heartbreaking at any point. So I'd rather catch it earlier than later. But Paige, go be a great therapist. Go be the best counselor you could possibly be. The world needs you. The world needs you. We'll be right back.
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Again, that's hallow, H-A-L-L-O-W, .com slash D'Loney for three months for free. All right, we are back. Kelly, my voice is fading. Yes, I know. I can tell. I kind of feel like this is how the metal singer I always wanted to sound like. Just not sound like Sebastian Bach, just so we're aware. Guys, that's so good. All right, so am I the problem? Go for it. All right, so this is from Jessica, and she says...
I read a lot. I'd say 40% romance books. Many have explicit scenes. I recently got into a discussion with a friend, and I'm wondering if I'm the problem. A friend said I was reading porn, and it is the same as watching porn. I disagree for two major reasons. One, no real person is being harmed, trafficked, taken advantage of. Regardless of where you stand on sex work, there's actually none of that happening in books.
Two, if my book is 300 pages, maybe 30 or 40 pages is quote-unquote porn. The rest is enjoyable. That's fine because of the other 80 to 90% that's actually character development and plot. Even in the quote-unquote smut books that are 50% explicit, I'm still reading 150 pages of plot.
What do you think? Are explicit romance books just as bad for our minds and bodies as videos? And my ruining my chances for healthy relationships? Or is mixing in a little romance between real books okay now and then? Ugh, this question. You wrote this question. I know you did.
No, I did not. But I was never had really thought of it this way. And I was very, very curious to hear your thoughts on it. So I was with her 100,000% on point one. I think she's really reaching on her point two, mainly because there's no plot in those books. Come on.
Um, this is not like, she's like reading literature that just happened to have some nudity in it, right? Like I was walking through a museum and I saw shut in the David was standing there, right? Not real. Um,
And I actually just did a big event and this question came up. I don't have any data. So the best generalizable data, or I would say non-generalizable data, but we'll generalize it here. And by the way, generalized, I say that all the time. All that means is I can make a point about men and cast that upon all men. And when you say non-generalizable, that just means I can't say this about everybody, right?
Um, but I think I'm pretty close here that in some, you're like, you still don't know what you're talking about. I'll stop speaking nerd on the whole women read pornography, men watch it. And I can't, I've never read a study on this. I've never, whatever. And that doesn't hold true for everybody. Some women watch pornography. Some men, I what's that? What's the fairy porn porn book.
Oh, yeah. I read a couple of them. I tried to read the first one of those and could not even get into the book. But the game of A Court of Roses and Thorns or whatever. But there's a whole – I think that's a whole genre now, fantasy. Yeah, it's like Hogwarts after dark, right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah, it's Hogwarts after dark. But like I read that first book on the airplane. Like I read it. Whatever, it's fine.
I can't, for the life of me, I've never seen a study on this. It cannot be as quote unquote damaging neurochemically as watching hardcore pornography. I can't imagine that. To the dopamine system, to the whole dopagenetic system, I can't imagine that. At the same time,
um, Anna Lemke writes really eloquently. Like she studies addiction at Stanford school of medicine. She talks about her addiction, literal addiction to romance novels. They became a place where she went to and they got increasingly sexualized and they got increasingly out there and she had them on her Kindle. She could hit another one and another one and another one and another one. And it was like a morphine drip. Right. And so, um,
When any type of sexual content, if you will, becomes a way to escape the life that you have, you're in a big problem. You're in a problem. I will say the visual stimulating stuff, it just, I just think it's worse. I think it's not good. It's just not good. And I think it has to do different stuff. I need to talk to Huberman about it. Like it has to do different stuff to you. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm okay being wrong there.
Um, I'm not saying that I want to be the, the police on nudity and movies. I'm not going to be the police on like what's a good book and what's not a good book, whatever. I think anytime you get into banning books, you get into, that's never gone well in history ever, ever, ever. Um, so all that to say is, you know, you know, and I know that's not a helpful thing, but you know, you know, if, um,
Um, here's a good example with one of the, the fairy porn books. Um, I told, I asked my wife to read one. I was like, read this. This is like going through like it's wildfire and I don't get it. She texts me. This is actually kind of hilarious. She texts me him reading this book. I just read the hottest scene I've ever read. I bookmarked it for you. Bro town in Motown. You want to say I got home early that day. I got home and,
clear the decks hey dad shut up kids everybody not really but like i read this quote-unquote scene i mean i went thumbed through it to find out like dude am i gonna have to like get on amazon and get some wings like what are we doing here like i'm down but like i need to know it was the most boring scene in human history it was so it i didn't get it it was like
We were like, no, it was nothing. There was nothing explicit. In fact, I asked my wife, like, when did they start hooking up? And she's like, that's not the best. Not what are you talking about? That's not the point. I was like, that's pretty much always the point. She's like, no, it was about anticipation and build and nobody knew, but they knew, but maybe one person knew and nobody was watching, but maybe. And I was like, oh my God.
my gosh, I don't know you. We've been together for a quarter century. I don't know. But so that led to a hilarious, fun, amazing conversation. I learned stuff. So all I have to say is this, I'm not going to police all that stuff. Like, especially when it comes to literature and whatever.
I will say, you know, if you're hiding from your own marriage, you know, if dude, I can't stop doing this or I'm increasingly becoming more aroused by these books and about my own life or I'm skipping sex or intimacy or hookups with my husband or my wife so that I can get under the covers and read these. But like, then you got a problem, right? Yeah.
And I guess if you want to get super moral about it, if you're going to say, I don't want to have eyes for anybody else, then yeah, clear the deck, man. If you're going to clear the deck, clear the deck all the way. But as for, so that's me just spinning off the top of my head here, but I don't know if that answers the original question. I don't even remember. What do you think?
I think I agree with you pretty much 100% on this. I would love to see like a brain scan because we've seen brain scans of when men watch porn. Yeah, it lights up like a Christmas tree. Yeah, I would love to see a woman reading one of these books, what it does. Is it the same? Because I'm like you, I don't think it would be, but I don't know. They're not the type of books I read.
I know because nobody gets beheaded. There's not true crime books. I read three kinds, murder, history, or biographies. That's pretty much all I read. Right. But I did try the – because I knew the whatever court of whatever it was called, the fairy porn. I tried and I was like, I can't. I mean they're not even human. Whatever. Hogwarts gone wild. Yeah, Hogwarts has kids in it. So let's not. That's a children's thing. Oh, sorry. So let's not besmirch that. Let's don't use besmirch on this show. Yeah.
Gosh. But I agree with you that I can't think it's the same, but I think it's all about the...
If you are escaping something and this is your real life. Escaping. And I'll even say this. There's times to escape. Oh, yeah. Sometimes I just want to read a book. But it's being intentional. I'm intentionally escaping. I'm intentionally – I don't want to deal with this. I'm going to just get to live in this world. Escaping versus numbing, I think. Maybe that's it. If you can't have a life outside of this world, then we've got a problem. There you go. But it is a thing now. It is a huge, huge –
money-making genre now. Well, and AI do just print some. Yeah. Like you can just hit a button because there's not plot. I think the first one, I mean, Fifty Shades of Grey started all of it. I think that was the first one. Which one was? Fifty Shades of Grey. I don't know. I think that was the first one I remember hearing about like
That's when it crossed over to like BDSM, like Psalm. Yeah, but that was the first one I remember hearing from even my friends like, oh my gosh, I read this book. And I'm sure it was out there before, but not that explicit. Gotcha. Yeah. Well, still don't know that it beats the real thing. I hope not for people. That's not good if it does. So they say. That wraps up another educational episode. I don't know if we helped anybody on that one. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Bye.