My Stepdad Had an Inappropriate Photo of Me on His Phone
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I found a picture of myself on my stepdad's phone. He had put a picture that I had posted on Facebook through an app that made me look completely naked. I'm just absolutely gutted. Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls from real people all over planet Earth.

about whatever's going on in your lives, your mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you got going on. I'd love to have you on the show. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K.

All right, Raleigh, North Carolina. Let's talk to Renee. What's up, Renee? Hi, nothing much. How are you? I am running a scam called being a YouTuber. What are you doing? Yeah, nothing much. Just enjoying the sunshine out here in Raleigh. Amazing. It's a beautiful part of the world, man. That's fantastic. So what's up?

Yeah, I had an unfortunate situation where I found a picture of myself on my stepdad's phone and he had put a picture that I had posted on Facebook through an app that made me and the friend that was in the picture as well look like we were completely naked. It

it's my world kind of shattered in that because I don't have a great relationship with my dad and my stepdad has been in my life for, you know, 10 plus years. And he's really been an answer to prayer for me in so many ways. So I'm just absolutely gutted and shattered. And I, um,

I don't know. I don't know what a relationship with him would look like moving forward. I don't know if I want that. I don't know. I just, I feel very heartbroken, very betrayed, very trapped and very, very stuck. So I'd love any advice that you have. How old are you? I'm 30. How old was this picture that you posted?

It was about a year old. So I was very much an adult. Okay. So this wasn't kids? No. Word. Gosh. How'd you find this? So I...

He was picking me up from the airport. I'm originally from California and my flight got in very, very late. It was delayed. And so he picked me up from the airport and I heard a notification go off on his phone. And I asked him, I'm like, why, who's messaging you at like

one in the morning, what's going on? And so he told me he's got friends that he used to work with that are contracting over in the Middle East and they sent him motorcycle videos. Okay, no big deal. So we sat down for breakfast, dinner, whatever meal that was at one in the morning.

And, um, I took his phone and his password is my birthday. And so I looked at the message and it was in fact, just a motorcycle video, but he had another message that was kind of suspicious. And I asked him about it and he was like, he just had some excuse for, oh yeah, that's a girl that I knew from high school or whatever. Um, and then, um,

I don't know why I did this, but I looked at his text messages and one of the first messages that he had was a picture that he had sent himself. And so I opened that and that's where I found the picture. I did have a chance to talk to him about it the next day because right then I was absolutely shocked. I didn't see anything about it. He saw you open the picture?

No, he saw me open the messages, but he didn't see me open the text message thread, the picture. I just exit out of everything, put the phone down, flip it back over to him. And we ate breakfast in almost silence. So how'd your conversation with him go? To start with, hey, stepdad, what the, like, how did it start?

So, I tried to not be overly emotional about it. Why? I don't know. You know what? I retract that. Why is a terrible question to ask you, and I just put you on the defensive, and you don't need that right now. I'm sorry about that. That was a bad move on my part. Okay, so you're challenging him.

Yeah. And so I sat down with him and I said, hey, I found something inappropriate on your phone that's concerning. And he was like, yeah, what did you see? And so I told him, well, I saw the picture that you sent to yourself. And he said, oh, yeah, well, yeah. Yeah. You know, it was it's an app and I don't know, just playing around. I don't know. And just, you know, kind of.

wishy-washy waffling back and forth of, you know, there's not an excuse for that. Um, and so I asked him, I said, do you see me as a stepdaughter? Um,

Because that's not, that's not what a step, like, that's not a fatherly, you know, that's not something that a father figure would do. And he said, yeah, I know you're absolutely right. That's not something that a father figure would do. I do see you as a stepdad, but he couldn't look at me. And so I don't believe him like this.

does shatter my image of who he is in my life. But I just told him like, Hey, just delete the picture, delete the app. Like I don't, I don't want, I'm not going to make a massive deal about this. I'm not going to tell my mom. Like I don't, I just, at that moment, I just really did want to forget about it. But like, I can't forget about it. Yeah, man. So there's so many layers to this. Um, do you mind if I think about them out loud?

Yeah, sure. Is that okay? So I'm going to go real big picture and then get pretty granular with your situation. So big picture, we're in a new era. Normally, to get a picture of a stepdaughter, and unfortunately, I've seen this and been periphery to this and had some of these hard conversations, you'd have to physically sneak a photo of somebody, open up their blinds, somehow get your phone in the bathroom while they're showering. You'd have to do a thing like that that is a crime.

Now, with these AI apps, you can take a benign picture and without committing a crime, have this as real as a real photo right there, right? Yep. It's a disturbing new world we've entered into. So that's big picture. Second picture is maybe not in the legal sense, but I want you to feel real.

I want to connect that feeling you have in your guts and that feeling you have in your chest with that confusion in your mind, okay? It may not be a legal case, but I consider this assault. I consider this a sex crime, okay? At the very least, it's so disgusting that every bit of unmooring you feel, especially for somebody that came in as a rescuer,

Because here's what you're, just for the people listening, here's what I know to be true. And feel free to tell me, actually, you missed this one. Now you are wondering what other pictures he has of you. For how long has he been looking at photos of you and your friends? Did he take pictures of you before these apps were out? Does he fantasize about, I mean, it unmoors everything, right? Yep. And you and I both know this doesn't happen a single time that someone happens to see a photo. You know that, I know that.

And then I want to know what friends in the Middle East is he texting? And what is he sending? And honestly, that stuff does matter, but not right now. Right now, you're just devastated. And so I have all sorts of opinions on what you should do next, and I also know it doesn't matter. My question to you is, what do you want to do next? Not what you think you should do. What is your gut telling you is the next right move? I'm so conflicted because he...

Part of me, like, I don't want to disqualify all the good that he's done in my life. But also, like, when I look back at our entire relationship, I was holding back. Like, I think I knew something was off for a while. I didn't want to hug him. I didn't want to, like, tell him I love you. He...

Again, he's been like a really good influence, but now I just feel dirty. Like I just, yeah, all those things are right. Like what this feels like the tip of the iceberg, you know? Yeah. Hold on. Don't you're holding back. Don't do that. Well, I don't want to tell you, I don't want to tell you what to do and what to feel right now, but if you'll honor yourself, don't hold those tears back.

Because right now, if I've sat with enough people in this situation, there's a sense that if you start crying, you're never going to be able to stop. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah, I just feel like if I actually show emotion, it'll be like completely the end of a relationship with him at all. Okay, but listen, he ended it and you have always known. You ever heard of the turkey problem? No. It's an economics...

thing, but it works here. A turkey is born the day after Thanksgiving and is moved into the family yard. And every day the farmer goes out and pets that turkey and feeds that turkey the best of the best of the best. And over time, that turkey knows and would tell everybody, this is the greatest guy who ever lived. He feeds me every day. He pets me. He brings in mates for me until Thanksgiving morning.

And so maybe you have been caged with a predator for a long time and your instinct, your genetic line, and your just grit and determination. Because let's say before him, your life was rough too, right? Yeah. Yeah. You're very tough and pretty gritty too, correct? Yeah. Like you get stuff done, you figure it out, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

So it may be that caged with a predator, you have always, you've been able to extrapolate the good. And so I don't want you giving him credit for your survival and your hard work. Okay. I want you to know he destroyed this relationship, not you. Yeah, that's true. And I know that you want to hang on to it. Okay, you're getting hard on me. Tell me what's happening inside your chest.

I can feel you walling up. Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely correct. And I'm just really frustrated at myself for not like seeing what you're saying sooner of like, you're right. He, I have feelings.

been chained to a predator and have made the most of the situation. But like, why did I not know? Like I knew, you know, as you said, like my gut told me, I just didn't, I don't know if I didn't care or didn't want, like, I'm just, I'm angry with myself. I'm frustrated. How long have you known him since you were 20? Um, he's been in my life as a stepdad since 20, but he's been in my life since I was like six or seven. Okay. Do you have any memories of him doing something shady?

There was one time I remember I was rooming with, he was living with my mom and I was staying with his step, his daughter, my stepsister at his house, but he wasn't living there. And there was one night that he did come get into bed with me. Nothing happened, but he just slept there. Yeah. I'm sorry. Yeah.

You've been through enough and you didn't deserve to have another man blow your life up. And I'm sorry. Me too. So can I draw a map for you about what I think might happen down the road here? Just so you're not, I'm using it part as teaching for the people listening, but also just for you. If you're not there already, you're going to become overwhelmed with rage for your mom and you're going to be overcome with rage for him and

And you're going to begin to ask yourself, was your whole childhood a lie? What do you not remember? And then there's going to be little GPS pins popping up all over the place. Okay? And then you're going to think about another sleepover when you had a friend over that you're going to think about all. It's just going to come back in pieces and pieces and pieces until it's like a leak coming from a hot water heater until the whole thing just burst. Okay? And so I want you to hear me say you cannot go through this next stage by yourself. It'll kill you. Okay?

Yeah, I'm just, I'm really scared about telling my mom because, you know, ever since I was, ever since they got together, um, she's been telling me like, you don't deserve a man as good as him in your life. And she's always felt like she has to compete with me for him. And, but you know why now she was crazy. Yeah.

Yeah, but now I'm seeing that like, wow, she saw. I mean, yeah. She saw, but the dot, dot, dot is, did she know? Yeah, I don't know if she knew or not. I pray to God she had no idea, but I'm also not that naive. That's right. That's right. And so the domino here is you may have lost your mom too. Yeah. And if she knew she dragged her little daughter into a cage with a predator, shame on her.

Shame on her. And you can find out with a simple email or a simple phone call. And if she chooses your side immediately, you know, oh my God, she didn't know. And if she says, how dare you talk about this man that was so good, then you know, right? Yeah. I mean, I think I already know. I just, I'm really not wanting to confirm that. Yeah. It feels like you're holding a dam up with two hands.

I want you just to look to your left and your right and see that dam is already blown out. That water is rushing. What was is now over. And so that strength and energy you're using to hold up what was or the shreds of what was, it's just wasted energy. I want you to use that energy on you. And that means you're going to have to find people to do holidays with. That means you're going to have to find people to celebrate with. That means you're going to have to go see a therapist for real, probably a trauma-informed therapist in the Raleigh area.

I mean, you're going to have to do some of those things that are very hard and very uncomfortable because Renee, you deserve peace and your body does not know what that feels like. Renee, call anytime. Everybody listening and everybody listening is probably feeling the same bit of disgust, the shock. Let's burn it down. Call everybody. And that's my, that's, that's what I want to say too. I want to tell Renee, you need to get on the phone. You need to call everybody. You need to burn it all down. You need to find out who was in the Sunday school class. All those things. And I get that.

And also I want everybody to know I just, I've sat with so many Renee's in my career and I'm just so sick to my stomach and heartbroken. But there's a fog that, and there's a depth of this hurt that is so almost, it's a paralytic. It's so hard. And so the, again, the last thing she needs is some other man saying, here's what you got to do. That's not going to help. What she needs is somebody to sit by her and say, I'm not a predator and I'll sit with you and I'll listen. And I want to encourage you to do the next right thing.

I have a feeling that when the fog begins to clear and Renee goes from numb to feeling that that rage will emerge and she'll enact justice across the board. And those will be her calls to make. But Renee, I'm really honored that you sat with me and let me sit with you. All right. When we come back, I talk to a dad who is newly divorced and is really struggling with only seeing his kids half the time. We'll be right back.

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Not too much, just living life I guess. What's going on brother?

Yes, so I went through a divorce. That was final last July. My ex-wife, she originally left the marriage coming upon two years now. We have two daughters. Right now, they're both to be four and eight this year. The thing I'm...

Still struggling a lot with is the fact that we have 50-50 custody and I'm having a hard time with the fact still of just being separated from my daughters. I still hold a lot of anger towards that part of it. I mean, their mom, she stepped out, she had an affair and all that. And that, okay, I got over it. It is what it is. It happened. But it's just the fact of being separated from my daughters, knowing that

They're still so young and the rest of their childhood, I can only be a part of their lives 50% of the time. So I don't want to live with this kind of feeling that's been in my stomach the rest of my life. I want to get to a place where I can be okay. But it's been a couple years now and I still hold that anger and just that feeling that's been in my stomach that I just can't seem to get over. Man, I got two things off the top of my head here, but I'm going to go backwards.

The first thing is I'll just sit with you for a second, man. I don't know how you do it. I don't know how anybody who splits custody does it because my life's just not complete when my kids aren't around. You know what I mean? Yeah. And they drive me crazy and we get on each other's nerves and it's loud and messy. But, dude, my life's not complete. So, dude, I'm sitting here with you just as a fellow dad. I can't imagine that kind of pain. I can't imagine that pain.

Right. And then you throw in, is she dating again probably? Yeah, she's with the guy that she had an affair with. Yeah, basically as soon as she left, she moved right in with him. Okay. My girls didn't know this guy. And I guess to kind of throw another layer onto that is, you know,

How do I even get okay with another guy being kind of another fighter figure in their lives? I struggle with that, too. Well, let's get... Go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, you know, going over the last two years, people say it's just a new normal. You get used to it, but there's nothing no more about it. So it's like how you get used to something. Right.

Like that. All right, here's the first thing that is just sitting on my chest, and I want to say it, and tell me if I'm wrong, okay? Okay. The pain that you feel for missing your daughters, dude, that's visceral, and just like I said, as a dad, I can't wrap my head around how painful that would be. But I don't think that's where your anger comes from. Okay. The way you've mentioned this a few times, I think your anger is in a laser beam on your ex-wife.

I still think you can't figure out what you did wrong that she left you. I still think you're back there two years ago going, you're cheating on me? Like what? And so you're living with the reality that you don't get to see your daughters half the time. Can't imagine that. But I think the source, the epicenter of your hurt is that you still haven't metabolized the fact that your marriage is over. Like you're still living in that marriage situation.

And she still controls your thoughts. She still controls is one of the first people you think of during the day when you wake up. Like you're so angry. Yeah. And you're stuck in the grief that she blew up y'all's life. Yeah. Until you grieve, brother, that your marriage period at the end of it is over. It's just going to you're going to constantly have a nuclear reactor in the middle of your chest.

And you can then go around and cast stories on other situations in your life, other pain points, not getting to see your daughters, this scumbag who hooked up with a married woman and then now she's with him. You can cast other people in your life as the villains. And there's truth to that. But I think the real hurt here, man, is...

You haven't gone through the full grief cycle of you lost your marriage. You never considered yourself to be a single dad. You never considered you would have to say, hi, I'm Jay, I'm divorced. Does that ring true? Tell me if I'm out to lunch, man. No, I think you're hitting it on the head pretty well there. I mean, I know, I guess I can kind of agree with that because even just dealing with their mom, I still get anxious. That's it. I tense up.

Um, I, I, I hate having to have any kind of communication with her. Um, tell me about that. Is it because you're enraged with her or, or the layer beneath that is you're still wondering what's so bad about you?

I think it comes from, so during the time, um, probably the first year, um, of us being separated, she was back and forth with this guy quite a bit. And when she wasn't with them, we were able to be, to be cordial and, you know, talk through things when she was with them.

I was the enemy. Uh, they, they did a lot to just disrespect me as our girl's father. Um, they alluded me as her father's more him. Give me an example. Um, so, uh, there was one instance where one of my daughters had pneumonia. She had to stay overnight at the hospital. Um, and, uh,

So I let the staff there know, hey, the mom's coming with this guy just so you know he and I, we don't get along. It's best to keep us separate or whatever. Let me stop you right there. Why would you feel the need to preface that? Because he always has to make comments towards me. Like what? Like, for instance, when this happened and then when I spoke with him, he...

He could still see me, and he was like, thanks for that. Not allowing me to come in the room right now. I was like, you're not their dad. Of course. He goes, I am their dad, is what his response was. Wow. Okay. So things like that, just to try to dig at it even further. So let me ask you, this is a hard question, but like it or not, he's a man that your daughter spent 50% of their life with.

Right. Tell me about the power play on display at a hospital when you have a little girl there laying there in the hospital with pneumonia that you wouldn't be able to just suck your pride and bury it for a second and let all three of y'all in the room to be with this little girl. I guess of the anxiety that I get when I was around them during that time. Okay. There was other stuff that's happened up until then.

So before all this happened, I was never anxious enough, and I was carefree. No, but your life blew up. Your body now has a GPS pin and pain that you did not ever, you couldn't imagine, and here it is. Right. Right? Right. Yeah. And so your body's right. Your anxiousness is right. Now you know somebody who says, I do, might stab you right in the face. Mm-hmm. Now you know...

A love that you didn't know you were capable of with two beautiful little girls, and then you only get to see them half the time. You didn't know that kind of pain. And so your anxiousness is right. But I think it's because your body is still trying to solve for what was instead of owning reality, choosing what is. Right. And it's solving that anxiety.

Yeah, and that's where I'm stuck. Okay. I don't know how to. I got you there. I'm going to send you Building a Non-Anxious Life, my book, for free. Okay? It's going to be my gift to you. Okay. Okay? Thank you. I'm going to hook you up with that. I'm also going to hook you up with three months free from my friends at BetterHelp. Licensed therapist. You can check them out online at your computer at your house. Okay? Okay. I'll hook you up with that. And you can call them and just begin to walk through some of this stuff.

But here's the big thing I want you to do. Do you have a couple of boys that live there with you in Florida? Some men that you trust? I do. Okay. This is going to sound ridiculous. And you can say this idiot podcaster told me to do this. And so I'm going to give it a shot. I want you to have them over to your house and I want you to have a miniature funeral for your marriage. Okay. Okay. This is you pronouncing it in front of a couple of other people. This is over. And,

If you want to take a step further, this old Terry real move, which I love, get a picture of your ex-wife and get a picture of her new boyfriend and frame them and put them at your kitchen table. And every time you're mad, look over and say, I'm going to choose to have less of a relationship with my daughter to honor you too. I'm going to let y'all continue to ruin my evenings, keep me out of the dating game, get frustrated all the time. I'm going to honor you too.

And then really quickly, you're going to see how ridiculous that is. Right? Or keep a picture of your ex-wife up just at the dinner table in a small little frame. And when you start to spin out, literally lean over and put the picture face down and say, you don't get a vote anymore because you're going to have to teach your body because it's still trying to protect you. It still thinks it can hold on to this marriage. It's over. And now you have to, and hopefully she does too, and hopefully this other guy does too,

Y'all are going to have to enter into adulthood, which means I'm going to put the needs of our kids ahead of my ego, of my anxiousness, of my whatever. Right. And you want me to tell you something crazy? Now, I don't know all the ins and outs, so you can decide for yourself if this is dumb. But if you were to call this guy and say, hey, you mind grabbing a cup of coffee with me? And saying, at the hospital, I was wrong.

I know you see her 50% of the time. I'm their dad. It makes me uncomfortable when you say that. I don't like it. I'm their dad. But also, I know you care about my daughters too. And that won't happen again. If they go to the hospital, we're all going to be there because we're the three adults in their life, like it or not. That's the way this is. Right. And that olive branch, he may take that olive branch from you and stab you with it, maybe. Or he may take that olive branch from you and just exhale.

And if you say, I want to do what's best for these girls. Right. And so I want to trust you. I got to know your name. You got to be able to text me and say, hey, eight-year-old just started her period when she was 12 and mom's struggling with it. Just know we got to be able to text each other or some boys around here, you know, trying to talk to her just FYI. Y'all got to be able to do that for her. Right. And he may tell you to go to hell, dude.

But at least you know I did the right adult thing for my kids. Yeah, yeah. I've actually had thoughts about just saying, hey, let's throw the hatchet. What happened happened. And kind of move on from there. But if you've been an anxious mess fighting the whole way, and by the way, he only has an earful of how evil you are and how dumb you are from her. Right. And she has shown the world what kind of character and integrity she has. None, right? Yeah.

Right. And so you've dated people in the past who was like, my ex-boyfriend was this and this and this. Maybe you got one side of that story. And so calling him and saying, hey, let's bury the hatchet. That's a step, a better path towards connecting because this guy's going to be in your kid's life a lot is starting with, hey, I was wrong. I messed this up. Right. And if you get to a point in that conversation, you can say, bro, you slept with my wife.

Like, of course this is hard, right? Yeah. I mean, it's just putting it all on the table. He knows it, you know it. Not saying it doesn't make it go away. And then maybe putting it out there, only seeing my girls 50% of the time is like guts me. But you're not able to move to sad yet because you're still so mad. And you're still so mad because I think you're still hanging on to this marriage in a weird way. Right, yeah. I mean, I do feel like...

Like, if she was trying to come back, I wouldn't. You think about it.

Yeah. I only say that because she, within the first nine months of her being back with this guy, I took it back twice at about six or seven times and don't look forward to take off again. Yeah. And, um, so no, I told myself, you know, I would never do that. And just seeing how heartbroken my older daughter was when she did it again, I was like, I would, I'd never put them. That's right. That's right. And, and, and I,

I mean, I don't, I can't tell you whether to take her back or not. My gut says, I don't know why you would, but a lot of that, even that circular thinking, that circular conversation is because you haven't fully ended it yet. And to you, she's still like a prodigal wife. You still are waiting for her to come home every night. And even though you're like, I'm not going to take her back, but you kind of wish you would. Right. So,

It's just metabolizing this, this thing happened and that marriage is over. Even if y'all got back together someday, y'all are building a totally new thing, a new thing that she may leave. She may sleep with one of your friends. She may like, who knows, right? And you may turn into an anxious wreck and get, let your ego speak for you. So all is to say is get a couple of friends over and let's exhale on this marriage.

And let's make a conscious decision and it's gonna take some practice 60 90 120 days two three four months. She doesn't get a vote I'm not waking up thinking about her every minute of every day. I'm just not I'm gonna call this other man who's 50 of my daughter's waking moments are with him And i'm gonna bury my ego in the backyard and we're gonna do what's best I'm gonna start by saying that was a bad call on my part, dude That was me just uncomfortable and I shouldn't have done that in the hospital. That won't happen again

And please understand I'm trying my best to navigate this with you. You slept with my wife for crying out loud. It's hard for me, but I'm doing the best thing for these girls. And we got to be able to text back and forth for their sake because they need one continuous stream. Is this pie in the sky? Of course it is. If most people could be this emotionally mature, they wouldn't get divorced in the first place. But here we are. And all we can do is the next right thing. And for you, I think the next right thing is grieving this marriage and then

taking that next step forward. Thanks for the call, my brother. I'm really grateful. Holler at me if y'all have that call. That would be rad. And by the way, you know what I've never had on this show? I've never had a bio dad and a stepdad call together and say, how do we best honor these kids? I'll take that call every single day. So if y'all want to do that, that would be amazing. Reach out to Kelly and we would make that one happen, my brother. That'd be cool.

Also, no, that's probably not going to happen. But man, I would love for it to. When we come back, we talk to a woman who's trying to figure out with her teenage son about sleepovers. Stay tuned.

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All right, let's go out to Boise, Idaho and talk to Annie. What's up, Annie? Oh, not much. How are you? I'm doing great. What's going on in your world? Good. Good. Well, not much advice from you. You got it. What's up? All right. So how can we manage our son's frustration while standing firm on our no sleepover rule? No sleepover rule. Okay. How old's your son? He is 12. Okay. Almost 13. Okay.

So I want to applaud your stance on no sleepovers. There's literature that exists about the increased sexual predator, like just madness. There's also anecdotally, I just can't tell you the number of people who had incidents at sleepovers.

Like our team was talking before this call just about sleepovers and everybody's got stories, all of us, right? Yep. So I'm 100% behind you. I think no sleepover rule is fantastic. And we'll get into a little bit of the downstream stuff, but I want to answer your big question up front. You cannot manage the frustration of a 12-year-old. You can't. And to try to do that is futile.

What you can say every single day of his life is my job is to keep you safe and my job is to love you. Yeah. And that comes with some of these hard decisions. And I always give my kids permission to tell their friends that their dad's a moron, outdated idiot. I don't need him. I always felt the need, and my dad never said this explicitly, but I always felt the need to protect my parents when they gave me these, what I thought at the time were crazy boundaries with my 13 or 14 year old brain.

I don't want my kids to ever feel like they have to protect me. Right? So tell your friends that your dad's the worst, that your dad's lame. That's no skin off my nose. Right? Yeah. And then occasionally, maybe your house becomes the sleepover house, but that's a conversation for after 12.

Yeah. Yeah. We've had those conversations where we are, we are totally open to the sleepovers at our house, but that kind of makes me feel a little hypocritical. Nope. Nope. Because it's not, the concept isn't, isn't sleepover. The concept is environment. Right. It's our values. That's right. Yeah. And so I can tell you, like when we used to let my kids go over to

Like we'll come pick you up at midnight. I'll pick up at 1am. Yep. Like make no mistake, awkward or not. My wife was calling and only because I was at work. My wife would call and say, Hey, my kid can go over there, but there can't be any phones. No kids can have phones. Can I tell you something crazy? Oh, this is just this limited friend group. A hundred percent of them took up all the phones when the kids came over. They all, they just did it. And if they were like, well, then your kid can't come over. Then great. I don't want my kid over there anyway.

Yeah. But they did that. And hey, my kid isn't watching these kind of movies. Awesome. Done. Next. Right. And so it was all it was super good. And I'm going to tell you, maybe 13. I don't remember exactly when, but I've allowed it. I've allowed it twice. And it was with a family that I trust implicitly. It was with a family that has the same electronics rule. And here's the bigger one.

It was a family where most people get mistaken on where things happen at sleepovers is often it's not the parents and it's not the kid and it's not the kid they're sleeping over with. It's that kid's older brother or sister who has a friend over, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm laughing because that's exactly, you know, we know the dangers. We know it's, yeah, it's a friend that comes over that we don't know who has a smartphone. And we, you know, it's when the parents go to sleep at night, like does the smartphone get taken out? What's my kid being exposed to? Or worse. Hey, let's play a game. Yeah. And that friend's 17 and your kid's 12. Yep. Let's play a game. And now we're in a big mess.

Mm-hmm. Right? So I don't feel any sort of hypocrisy. Number one, again, this is easy for me to say, right? If other parents don't like me, I'm okay with that. I have my friends, or if they don't understand me, if they want to ask me, I'll be happy to explain it. But I have no problem saying, yeah,

As for me and my house, we don't do X, Y, and Z. And by the way, most of my friends give their kids smartphones and they know my stance on smartphones. Every friend I have has a credit card and they know that I don't, I opted out of the credit system. Right. Yeah. Every friend I have is a Ford family and I drive Toyota. Right. So like, um, I was just saying in another episode, um, my, one of my best friends on the planet is a banker. Right.

And other than this show, I co-host a show about getting people out of debt. Every day I go to work trying to get people to not use my best friend's business. And every day he goes to work and tries to convince people that I'm a goofball. And we still love each other, right? So I don't feel like I need to explain my values. I will if somebody asks about them. But if you don't like my values, you're so dumb. That's super great. I'm not going to sleep over you. You don't get a vote in my life.

And so one of my values for my kids is I want them in not risky situations. When people... We do have sleepovers at our house. Dude, they're out in the woods. I don't know where they are. I know they're not in a city playing...

playing chicken in the middle of the highway like I used to, but I know they're in the woods and they're probably playing some form of chicken because that's what they do. But it's probably, I bet you won't jump in that huge hole in that Creek or whatever. I'm okay with a broken leg. I'm not okay with a kid getting blasted across the highway. Right. You know what I'm saying? So like, I'm not about not taking risks. I'll see him climbing trees or sword fighting each other with crazy. Like, I'm not about that. I'm all about that.

This is going to sound crazy. I think kids need more broken hands and fingers and arms. Like they're not risking anything. It's that I will control the safety environment. And that's for me. And so as for me in my house, I know that when people are at my house, they don't have access to the Wi-Fi and they won't have access to smartphones. And I know that there's not going to be some buddies, friends, other brothers, sisters, cousins show up that suddenly says, hey, y'all want to play a game. I can control that.

And over time, if there's one or two families or three families that you begin to trust there, I'm all cool with that. Yeah. Yeah. We do have an exception where, you know, we don't have family close by. And so we have, you know, a family at church that we share the same values and we have let both of our boys go.

go over and stay at their house. And that's always, that's mostly for us. Like if there's ever an emergency where they need to stay somewhere, they feel comfortable there. Sure. Um, so we have that exception. It can be fun too. It can be fun too. Right. It can be fun too. But it's kind of like when your kid turns like 13, 14, I don't know. I don't want to become the movie police, but I let my, my 14 year old and I, we watched, um, tombstone the other night. Mm hmm.

It's one of the greatest movies ever. And that doesn't mean that he gets to watch every rated R movie that ever went out there. Yeah. I get to curate it. I'm his dad. Yeah. Right. And so all I have to say is you don't owe an apology to anybody. Your 12 year old is super. If it, let me, let me say this as boldly as I can. If you're a 12 year old likes you all the time, you're probably not parenting well. Yeah.

Yeah, true. Right? The research says firm parenting with love. I will hold very firm boundaries, very high expectations, and you will always know that I love you to the end of time. Overly permissive parents destroy their kids. Overly critical, overly strict parents with no connection or love destroy their kids. It's the one in the middle. Yeah.

But I can't give you any peace on your 12-year-old getting mad and going to bed. Yeah. Especially when he says this. Tell me he says this. I'm not going to have any friends. Nobody calls me anymore because I can't do anything. You guys are keeping me from having any sort of friends, and I'm lonely. All that. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Yeah. We've compromised where we will let him go when it's a weekend and his buddies are together and we'll go and pick him up at, like you said, 11 o'clock at night. And he just gets frustrated that we're taking him from... And yeah, we're just, we're so firm and really wanting to stick to our guns on protecting him. So...

Yeah, I don't know if protecting, I guess that's the right word. For some reason, when you said that, it rubs me the wrong way. I don't know that it's protecting them as much as it's my job to make sure they remain as much as possible in environments where they can make successful choices. Yeah, yeah. I don't want to, my goal isn't to make all the choices for my kids. My goal is, especially when they're younger, and of course, this increasingly opens up as they get older, but I don't want to make all the choices for my kids.

I want to make sure that I'm curating environments where they, if they make a wrong choice, it ends in a broken arm, not a pregnancy. It ends in somebody, I don't know, falling out of a tree and breaking their foot or their ankle and not them having to go see a sexual abuse counselor 15 years later or seeing things in their mind that they can never unsee. Yeah. Right.

So I'm not going to pick the movie for them, but I'm going to make sure that I, it's like, it's like Vordire and for jury selection, I'm not going to pick the movie I'll watch, but I'm going to get rid of these. Cause you're not watching those. Right. So I just want to give them environments where they can make successful choices. And after 11 o'clock, I mean, really, the only thing to do is to watch a movie. You're not supposed to watch or stay up so late that you're useless the next day. Yeah. You're 12. You know what I mean? Yeah. When you're in college, make those choices, knock your lights out.

Yeah, for sure. So I think you're on the right path. You've got my stamp of approval. You're a good mom, good dad. Stick to your guns.

Awesome. Thank you. And when your kid doesn't like you, I think it's fair to say, I know this is the worst. I know it. It's the worst. Yeah. And you are right to be frustrated with us and you are right to feel like we're taking away everything. I totally get that. Feel free to tell your friends that we're the worst, but my job is to keep you safe and put you in positions where you can make the best choices. Yep. I like that.

You don't love me. You're okay. Right? Okay. Yeah. And I'll leave you with this. I won't say which kid because I think some of my kids, both my kids are getting old enough now with their friends. Like, is your dad on it? Right. But my wife and I took a long walk the other night and it was a bummer because we have to hold, we were doing something pretty cool and we've got to hold one of our kids accountable.

which means we have a really cool thing planned and they're not gonna be able to do it. And it actually bums us out because doing it with them would have been the best. And my wife was Dr. Deloney long before me. She's a maestro with K-12 kids. And I do this for a living. And we still had to walk around the neighborhood for a couple of miles, just both talking out loud. But we were really circling grief. I don't want to hold him accountable.

I don't want to hold her accountable. I just want to blow it off. And that would be dishonoring and not loving my son and my daughter, right? Right. So just know it's never going to feel good, but often doing the right thing doesn't feel good, but we do it because it's right. So high five to you, Annie. And parents, if you're like, oh, who cares? Just sleep over. Times have changed. Times have changed. We'll be right back.

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The Money in Marriage Retreat. We just got back from a cruise. A big chunk of us, me and my network colleagues went out and Rachel Cruz and I did a version of Money in Marriage on a cruise ship. It was awesome, man. But here is a Money in Marriage question. This is a real question that somebody submitted. Is there such thing as having too much sex? No. Ta-da! I feel like I nailed that one.

I feel like I just crushed it. You are brilliant. If you're having sex that you don't want to be having, that's a problem. If you're having sex in a marriage and you're being coerced or your partner says you have to, or the Bible says you have to, or I get what I, that's a problem. But if you two are like, again today? Yep. Want to go for three? Yep. Rock on to the break of dawn. Does that sound right, Kelly?

Yeah, that sounds great, as long as you're not being coerced or trying to – everything I say sounds inappropriate here. But you're trying to substitute that for something else that does a problem. You're using sex as a Xanax. Yeah. Or is it a way to keep somebody at bay or to keep somebody from bothering you? Right, or solving a problem, band-aiding over a problem. But otherwise, right? Yeah, there's a lot of talk in the –

sex and relationships literature about the orgasm gap. That I think it's 40% for women and 90% or something higher for men. I haven't looked at it in a minute, but whenever I teach this, I always go back to, if you ate at a restaurant and it was only good 40% of the time, you would not look forward to going six out of 10 times the restaurant wasn't good. You wouldn't go. If the restaurant was great 90% of the time and it was fine that other time, you would go all the time.

And so sometimes when it comes to – if we're having too much sex, it's people have figured out that orgasm gap. And people have figured out like, oh, if we were together on this deal, this could be amazing. So no. And by the way, outside of a sexless marriage where there is a gap between desire, where people are not having the conversations and one person is weaponizing sex –

I would go as far as to say, if you are intimate, meaning you're connected, you have skin-on-skin time, if y'all are proximal, you sit by each other, you nuzzle up to each other on the couch, I would also say there doesn't have to be a floor on a bare minimum of sex you need to be having. If you both are saying, no, no, no, this is the world that we want, and this is the one that we are co-creating. Where it gets to be a problem is when there's mismatched desire, but...

On its face, is there such thing as having too much sex? Nope. If y'all are both in, both consenting, and both ready to rock on till the break of dawn, rock on till the break of dawn. That's it. Money marriage. Come see us in November. If you're wondering, yes, we talk about this and so, so, so much more. Have a conversation with your partner about sex. What do you like? What do you not like? Do we have enough? Are we having it too much? What's one thing you want to try? What's one thing that makes you nervous? How can I love you more?

I feel like you're coercing me. I feel like I have to. I feel like this is a duty. Those are some good conversation starters. Love you guys. Bye.