My Wife Had an Affair Because She Doesn’t Find Me Attractive
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I'm trying to save my marriage after finding out that my wife had a three-month affair with her boss. Oh, man. And I don't know what to do. My wife has been dealing with a lack of attraction towards me. She says that I am overwhelming in my desire. Why do you want to save this marriage? What in the world's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Talking to you about your mental and emotional health and your relationships and your marriage and your kids, whatever you got going on in your life. And you tried to Google it and you tried to chat GPT it and you just went, what?

I just need someone to sit down with me and listen to me. And that's the promise on this show. I'll sit with you and we'll figure out what's your next right step. All of us have chaotic lives. Not everybody's got somebody they can just sit down with. And that's what this show is all about. You want to be on the show? Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask and check this out.

this upcoming fall my favorite event i'm a part of we just did the the valentine's day weekend and it was off the hook hook it's my favorite event i'm a part of it's called the money and marriage getaway it's a weekend retreat here in nashville tennessee um it's a marriage retreat y'all

Get on the planes, on the buses, on the, on the planes, trains and automobiles get to Nashville. It's a weekend with me and my buddy, Rachel Cruz, and a couple of special guests that we bring in because Nashville is kind of a rad city for that. And listen, three days of laughter, hard conversations, often some tears, intentional time together, lots of practical teaching. And the best part about it is if you leave the money marriage retreat without your question answered, we cap it to just 600 couples or so. Um,

If you leave without your question answered, that's on you. The whole purpose is getting access. You can listen to the show. You can...

Read blog articles. You can read my books. This event is about being able to look me in the eye and say, okay, but yeah, what about my situation? And we're going to get your questions answered. Join us November 6th through 8th, 2025. You can go to ramseysolutions.com slash events. Get them quick. It sells out all the time. We've already sold a huge chunk of tickets for next fall. Get on it. Get on it. Get on it. All right, let's go out to Jackson, Wyoming, one of my favorite places in the world, and talk to Ryan. Hey, Ryan, what's up?

Hey, John, how are you? I'm doing all right, brother. How about you? I've been a lot better. Let me know what's up. I'm trying to save my marriage after finding out that my wife had a three-month affair with her boss. Oh, man. And I don't know what to do. I'm sorry that happened, man. You too. Have you said that out loud before? Yeah. I told a couple close friends. How'd that go? Um...

It went well. They're supportive. I don't think they fully understand why I want to try to save it. So I want to start the conversation this way, and then we'll dig into what happened. Sure. You can only save your part of it. I know. And she might not want to save it. And I think sometimes after somebody cheats on us, we think that...

We, it's all our fault. And so we need to do a bunch of stuff differently. Infidelity almost never happens in a vacuum, right? I don't like to use the word fault, but there's usually a world that's created between two people. Not always, but often. So you can quote unquote, try to work on your part, but I don't want you to think you're a personal failure if this thing doesn't get held together because you don't want to hold it together.

I've been more okay with that lately. Good. Awesome. I've gotten to the point where I know I'm going to be okay if this ends. Well, it's okay to not be okay, right? Oh, yeah. That would take time. There you go. There you go. All right. So what happened? Tell me what happened. Over the past year or so, we've been married about three years now.

And this last year has been really hard dealing with, um, my wife has been dealing with a lack of attraction towards me over the last year. Um, she says that I am overwhelming, uh, in my desire. She says that I, I give her too much and that she instinctively pulls back. Um, we've been dealing with that for the last year. And honestly, we got to the point where we were wondering if, uh,

We were wondering if she was asexual or trying to figure that out. And at work, she... Asexual what? She just lacked desire? She lacked desire. And I was trying everything to reboot it, and nothing was working. And then at work, she felt attraction towards this other man, and she explored it and turned into a three-month affair.

How long did the emotional affair begin? Because here's what I'm hearing happened. For a year, she told you, I'm not attracted to you. I don't feel this about you. You're overwhelming me. All you want to do is have sex with me. I just want to lay here and cuddle. I just want to do my own thing. You're bothering me. You're smothering me. And so this whole year, you've been trying to figure out what you were doing wrong.

And what she was telling you is she's uncomfortable in her own skin, in her own house, and she's found it elsewhere. She's found that aliveness that starts with a spark, that starts with a, oh, this one's safe because this guy's married, this guy's my boss, and I don't have to go home and actually look in the mirror and deal with me. And so it's fun to have a conversation. It's fun to be a little extra flirty. It's fun to make little funny notes, you know, because she has access to his calendar and all that kind of stuff that turns into...

You want to meet for a drink? Does that sound familiar? Yeah. I mean, they were friends for a while at work. And I found out in stages she lied to me about pretty severely. Right before Christmas, she told me that she had feelings for him and she basically told me that it was an emotional affair. And then I found notes that they'd written back and forth about

that were pretty explicit. And then I, I found more details and eventually it all came out. And I, at this point, I am confident that, that I know everything, but it was a battle to drag it out. Um, I, I think that it was genuinely that they were, they were good friends. They were working together really closely. And then, um,

right around August of last year, she, I think she found out that he found her attractive. She felt something and she pursued it. Um, that continued until early November. Um, and then I found out about it around Christmas and we've been really struggling. We're basically taking our marriage a week at a time right now. Okay. Um,

She's gone to two appointments and has a third appointment today. I just got my insurance back and I am about to start looking for a good therapist. Why do you want to save this marriage? Let me ask you, how can I help? Both of us love each other a lot. There's a lot of love between us.

We care about each other deeply, but we're dealing with the lack of attraction on her side. We're dealing with the fact that I want more than she does. We're dealing with the fact that it seems like we want different things, but we both love each other deeply. And I want to save this marriage. I love her more than I've loved anyone else in my life.

But I don't know if those differences and things that we are dealing with can be overcome or if it's worth fighting for. So I need someone to tell me if it's worth fighting for or if I should try to find happiness elsewhere. Well, I mean, I think happiness is inside your guts right now. Can you help me find it? Well, I mean, there's so many layers here.

You have bought into a story about how she suddenly found you unattractive. You've bought into a story about your marriage is full of love and you're crazy about each other. You've bought into a story that she was just good buddies with somebody who found her attractive and she just kind of goofed up. All those stories are creating this context where you're suffocating and it's tough to hear. Yeah.

And I, again, you and I could talk for five hours on this deal, probably for five different weeks. In many of the situations when I've had a very similar conversation with somebody, when you dig down to the root of it, you're a good man and she finds safety in you. And she has a really good man. She has absolutely no idea.

how to practice or create desire and novelty and romance and arrows. And so what she does is she doesn't chase joy. She doesn't chase stability. She chases excitement, aliveness. And that is a fire that can never, it's all consuming. That's how you end up doing something. And that's like, you know, let's just go read the YouTube headings on this show. That's how you end up in crazy situations, right?

When you're always chasing unbounded, and I'll come back to what that means, unbounded excitement, aliveness. Seeking aliveness is amazing. It's the same as spending money. Spending money can be fun. Money gives you options. It gives you resources. It gives you access to really cool, shiny things. But just unbounded spending creates huge deficits that ultimately end you, right? And so what it sounds like,

You are floating in the ocean and she just keeps saying, I got to swim over here because it's all you. It's all because of you. It's all because of you. And you're such a good man. You keep going back to the mirror saying, okay, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? And I'm afraid if this marriage ends with what she has told you about you, about how your lack of attractiveness, about your lack of desire, your essence is too much, that part of the reason you want to hang on to this thing so bad is because what she has said about you is so personal.

Yeah. And what I'll tell you is she's, she has put you in a very unfair position because if this thing goes south, your identity is in ash because your wife has said, no, no, no. It's absolutely you. It's the way you look. It's the way you are. It's the way you try to love me. Dude, nobody can come back. Nobody can hold that weight. That's too heavy. Do you get what I'm saying?

So what do I do? I think you got to call somebody today. And here's the deal. I'm going to hook you up with three months with BetterHelp right now so you can at least talk to somebody today. Okay? And I think you need to see somebody in person in your local area, but I'll get you hooked up today. Okay. And if you haven't wept, let me put it this way. The marriage you had is officially 1,000% over. Okay? It's over.

There was too much lying. That was me enough to know that. Okay, good. The question is, do you and her want to sit down and make it work? Now, here's what love sounds like. Love looks like your partner gains 20 pounds or 50 pounds, and I still love you deeply, and I'm still attracted to you as a person, and I love you enough to say, I'm worried about your health, or, hey, don't wear those jeans anymore.

Or as my wife told me the other night, I look like a backstreet boy because my jeans were real tight. And I tried to blame the jeans. It was not the jeans' fault. It was me. It was me, right? Or love looks like, do people get zits? Do people get bad haircuts? And people get skin cancer and have to have big chunks of their nose taken. Love looks like those things. And attractiveness for sure matters. Anyone who says it doesn't is lying. But this idea that somebody is going to... I hope you hear what...

Those feelings you have are right. She has blamed your entire essence on the falling out part of this marriage. And I want you to let that go. She made choices, man. You're a good man. Is that right? I'm a great man. Okay. I want you to exhale in that. I want you to go to the mirror when we get off the phone in your bathroom. I want you to close the door. I want you to put your fist in your chest. I want you to look yourself in the eyes and say the words, I love this man.

Okay. Okay. I want you to feel it. I want you to drop your shoulders. I want you to say, I love this man. Now, do you have crap you need to work on? Of course. Okay. What is it she finds unattractive about you? I'm a little bit on the messy side. Okay. I am extremely empathetic and that I think causes me to appear unconfident a lot.

I also have been through three job losses in the last year. So this is about, this is about a bad job. I, I got laid off. Um, I, she doesn't respect my confidence. She doesn't respect me. That's it. And I don't mean that in the like traditional matcha. That's not, I mean, yeah,

We got to start there because you can't stay married. You can't stay connected and love someone who just thinks you're a loser. And maybe the word she's using, I'm unattracted to you. Maybe that's the essence she's talking about. And let's get to the bottom of that. You're a good man. Do you have things to work on? Sure. Can you get less messy? Yes, of course. Jeez Louise. Does it suck getting laid off, quitting a job, and then finding yourself? Yes, it does. Does that make it hard on a household? Yes, it does.

She only had to sit down and decide if we're going to stay together. Right now, you've got some healing to do because you have some scars on your heart. And the woman you want to reconnect with and rebuild with is the one who put them there. I'm sorry, my brother. I'm sorry. Have her call the show. I'd love to talk to her. I have a feeling she's got a story to tell, too. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

You've probably heard people talk about different kinds of flags and friendships and romantic relationships. You got red flags and green flags and beige flags. Listen, yes, it can be helpful to look for relationship patterns or unsafe behaviors. But if you ask me, all these flag labels can distract from what's really important when you're trying to find a lasting relationship.

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All right, let's go literally like five blocks over right down the street in Franklin, Tennessee and talk to Stephanie. Hey, Stephanie, what's up?

Hey, Dr. John. How are you? I'm so good. How are you? I'm doing well. Thank you. I mean, I'm calling you, but I'm doing good. Excellent. What's up? All right. Well, first, I want to say thank you to you and George for the public service that you guys did at Dainey's a few weeks ago. That was incredible. You can? I was there. No way! I was there, and it was awesome. Y'all were amazing. Dude, you have no idea how...

That makes my soul feel good. Thank you so much. That's the most nervous I have been. For those of y'all listening, me and my buddy George Campbell, we co-host another radio show together, but we both called each other's bluff. We speak for a living, but we went to a tiny little comedy club here in Nashville and just did a comedy set. It's the most nervous I've been maybe ever, ever. And dude, I can't believe you came. Thank you for coming, Stephanie. That means the world to me. We're going to run it back in March, so I can't wait.

Oh, good. Good to know. I'll try to be there. All right. Fantastic. All right. So how can I help you? You've made my whole day. So now I owe you one. What's up? Okay. Good deal. So I'm going to give you a little bit of a backstory. I'll try to make it quick. And then if you need more, just let me know. You got it. Okay. Good deal. So about 10 years ago, currently I'm not married. I am divorced.

But 10 years ago, I was a homeschooling military wife, and I had five kids at the time. And we had moved to a new duty station. I had signed up at a homeschool co-op and very quickly made...

one of the dearest friends I've ever had in my entire life. And she was my ride or die, call at 2 a.m. type friend. We did everything together. Sometimes the dads would join in, but usually the stuff we did was during the day. So it was usually us and the kids. And because we were military, we quickly moved, but she and I would keep in touch. And

Fast forward to about four years ago, she got a cancer diagnosis. And then shortly after that, I actually filed for divorce. It was a very abusive marriage. And so our grief journeys kind of overlapped a little bit. And...

Early last summer, actually the day after my divorce was finalized, she lost her battle with cancer. Oh, golly, dude. So talk about a range of emotions there. I'm telling you. Well, it just seems like there was one big emotion. My God. Yeah. Yeah. It was a hard 24 hours. 24 hours? Well, just a shock, I guess. Okay, there you go. I was going to say, jeez. No, it was a lot more than 24 hours. Yeah.

Um, okay. So fast forward to a few weeks ago, um, I was, I got a friend, a Facebook friend request from her husband who had recently gotten on Facebook. And so I accepted it. We started talking and Oh no, you already know where I'm going. Brady bunch action. Yes. Okay. So, um,

It started out as he just wanted someone to kind of sit with him in his grief. And I was like, yes, I'm all in 100%. So then it kind of shifted to, I started thinking, okay, is he interested in something more than just

talking like what what's going on so instead of mulling over it in my head I thought you know what I'm just gonna ask him and dive right in so hey hold on Stephanie can I just applaud you for that oh thank you good god listen if if everybody's listening to the show for five years we just or for four years we'll just take that away like I'm an adult I don't want to sit here make up stories for the next seven months but I'm just gonna ask you do you like me

God, Stephanie, dude, the world would change with that. So high five to you. So you just asked him. And of course he was like, oh yeah. Is that right? Yeah, actually. Oh gosh. Okay. So did your heart start beating fast? Did you, did you yell out me too? Oh, me too.

And my heart did start beating fast, but I was also freaking out like, oh, crap, me too. Oh, sweet. How many kids does he have? He has four and I have six. Oh, you're like Brady Bunch. Hold my beer, dude. We got a dozen.

Sheesh. Okay, so here's my question. Obviously, like, if we continue on, I don't want to officially do anything until we've passed the year mark of my divorce and his wife's passing, especially for the kids' sakes. Like, I don't want to mention anything to them. Okay, can I just tell you one thing right now? Yeah. Take a huge deep breath. Exhale. Exhale.

Okay. Okay, listen to these two words and imprint them on your soul, okay? Okay. Slow down. Okay. And listen, you thought you were past this when you're not 17 anymore. It all comes back when you start dating again. Just slow down. This is an amazing, awesome, cool moment. And my guess is because you're a great mom and because you're just you,

You went all the way to the end and how are we going to explain our wedding and what's our wedding going to look like and how are we going to put 10 beds in this house, right? Yeah, actually. Yeah, exactly. So this is a rad, cool, scary, exciting turn of events. Let it be that. How do we purposely walk through that? Because I am about...

going through it slow actually. And I've, I told him that last week. Um, and, um,

Yeah. I guess I just want to know the steps that we do need to take and we're actually meeting. I haven't seen him in like 10 years and we're going to meet halfway in a few days and just be around each other. I bet you are. That was awesome. That was a great joke. Yeah. Um, no, that was good. Um, okay. Have intentional time together. And so I would just, yeah,

Yeah, I would love some advice from you on that. Awesome. Okay, so I want you to spend some time by yourself defining what go slow means. Okay. Does go slow mean physical? We're going to get together, but I'm not going to kiss you yet. It's too soon. Or does it mean like you decide what does go slow mean when it comes to physical intimacy? What does go slow mean when it comes to being seen in public?

What does go slow mean when it turns to like phone calls, writing, text messages, letter writing, telling the kids, considering like – I want you to define go slow because if you don't, you're going to have this idea of go slow and he's going to have a picture of go slow and your pictures are not going to match.

And so what you're going to do is you're going to feel this weird angst and frustration and annoyance with each other. And really, you both want the same thing. You just didn't align your pictures up. Okay. Because he might say, yeah, I want to go slow. I want to make out, but I want to go slow when it comes to like, are we going to get married? And you might think, no, I want to go slow. Like you can hold my hand. Like, right. So you end up wanting the same thing sort of, but you end up just flying by each other in the night. And it's just about being clear on that. Okay. So that's number one.

The second thing, and this is me being a bubble burster. Is that okay? Yes. Just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's right. Okay. And this might be the safest, most familiar step into a terrifying new world of dating with six kids. Okay. And that doesn't make it wrong. That doesn't make it bad. That doesn't mean y'all can't have a great few months of just hanging out and dating each other.

Right? And this is, you're his first, safest, wandering out into the world as a single dad with four kids. Right? Yeah. So just remember, familiar is going to feel safe, but that doesn't mean it's right long-term because in addition to familiar, you're going to want novelty and you're going to want new and you're going to want adventure. And if you try to bridge houses, y'all are going to get plenty of that stuff. Right? But don't mistake comfort for

For, or as the old Cademan's Call line says, don't mistake happiness for blessings. Just because it's happy and it all feels good doesn't mean like, dude, we're not going to get married. All right, here is, let me try to say it. I'm trying to think of the right way to say this in a non-clinical nerd way. Oh, man. How old are your kids? They range from 7 to 18. Oh, geez, Louise, on a stick. Yeah. Yeah, for real. Okay, so your kids...

are going to have all six different thoughts about this. That's not true. They're going to have a thousand different thoughts about this. Okay? And anything for, especially a teenager, if you've got kids from 12 to 18, 12 to 25, really, it's age appropriate. It's developmentally appropriate that they can't hold ideological discomfort without giving it to somebody else to hold, their kids.

Okay, what does that mean? That means an 18 year old is going to see you potentially six months from now holding hands with another person Maybe somebody that they've met peripherally and they're going to feel all kind of weird about it and they're going to have to blame you for that discomfort because they can't hold the tension of Oh, my dad is really gone or mom and dad the fantasy. They're really really not getting back together

Or in this other guys like, oh mom. So just be prepared for if you have an angry 14 year old, that doesn't mean that y'all are doing anything wrong. That means they're 14 and there's a ton of feelings and they can't hold them. It goes back to that word sturdy that I talk about all the time that I got from Becky Kennedy. Like is we're going to, we're going to, we're going to make our decisions and we're going to move forward. So what does that mean? There's not a, there's not a stress-free way of introducing all of this to your kids if it ends up getting there.

Mm-hmm. It's just going to be uncomfortable and weird and discombobulated. And you two are going to have to continue to work on your relationship and work on it and work on it and work on it and work on it. And you're going to have 10 different kids who are blending. It's just going to be chaos and just expect it. So I guess that'd be the last thing is, if y'all pursue this, right now, y'all feel like teenagers again. And that's a fun, exciting feeling, especially after all the hurt y'all both endured.

So I'm going to tell you something crazy. Enjoy it. Enjoy the pitter patter. Enjoy seeing his text pop up and you getting excited like you're 15 again. Enjoy all of that stuff. It's exciting. It feels alive again. Right. And you felt dead in your own skin for a while. Fair. Very fair. Okay. Let that aliveness just course through you. Make good grownup choices. Right. But enjoy it. And. Okay. Understand y'all are signing up for the craziest roller coaster at the park.

Yeah. All right. And so just know that going into it. And last little thing, keep some space for being sad in ways that you didn't imagine. And there are little things that will hit you. Like if you hold hands with him this weekend, you'll look down and really quick in a blink, it won't be your husband's hand, your ex-husband's. He'll look down and it will have different, your fingers will look different than his ex-wife's fingers.

It's little bitty things that are both exciting and also catch you off guard. And it just has a little, it's like a grief dart that you don't expect. Does that make sense? Absolutely. Cool. All right, so I threw a ton at you. I'm just rattling stuff off here. How's that hitting you? Exciting? Cool? Did I just douse cold water on you? Tell me what you're feeling.

No, not at all, because the last week or so, I've actually been like, oh, no, I don't know if this is right. But yet, you know, is it...

my alarms and bells going off because I'm used to so much pain. And, you know, so I've been kind of going back and forth with that. And he's actually been very gracious and he's backed off a little bit. Um, but we still think it's fair to move, not move forward, but just continue talking and just see and just have fun and just see what it's, what it's like. Cause this is,

brand new and it is scary in a lot of ways, but you know, I just, I don't know what's going to happen. And so I'm trying to tell myself to just relax. I'm not committing to anything. Um, just by seeing him, it may work out and it may not. And that's okay. So everything you said is exactly what I needed to hear. So thank you. Well, if you just go have a great time,

With your best friend's husband, which sounded awesome. I hope they clip just that and put that in the teaser. It's going to make this call be really well on YouTube. If y'all choose to just go have a blast, that's a weekend well spent. If y'all go laugh, tell old stories, he's like, I knew your husband sucked. And you're like, this is super weird that I'm holding hands with my best friend who passed away. Just put all the weird on the table. There's no reason to hide it.

Mm-hmm. And you are one, God, you're so far ahead of the curve, Stephanie. You're like a hero. There's going to be the weird part because you know him and there's going to be the weird part that you know, I don't know how to say this without just being crass, that he partied with your best friend, right? Yes. You'll know all that, right? And there's going to be those safety alarm bells in your body that says, hey, if I let another military man get close to me, he's going to hurt me like the other guy did.

Well, thankfully, he's not military. Oh, he's not? Okay. No, that is a plus right there. Oh, sweet. Okay. All right. So we're getting out. But expect those alarm bells to go off and vice versa. He's going to have that GPS pin in his soul that says she may get sick and pass away. Right? Right.

So one of my closest, closest buddies and mentors, his wife lost her first husband with just an out of the blue health experience. And I just remember him when they were newlyweds. She was extra attentive. She should be, right? Yeah.

And so just expect that weirdness and that awkwardness. And I think what I love about you, Stephanie, is you're so far ahead of the curve. You just put on the table. Hey, do you like me? Is that why you're Facebooking me? You old man with a bunch of kids. And so you just putting it on the table. I feel weird.

Or my ex-husband used to do that right before he would scream and yell and punch a hole through the sheetrock. And I'm just putting it on the table. So maybe that's part of the deal. Y'all agree early on. We're going to have as much fun as we can. We're going to align our pictures and words about what going slow looks like, what physical intimacy looks like, what being weird looks like. And we're going to put all the awkward on the table all the time. We're just going to make a commitment to that. And then...

Man, listen, if y'all get married in Franklin, Tennessee, I will go to that wedding. I'll go to that one. So thank you so much for the call, Stephanie. You call anytime and swing on down the road one day and we got free coffee and cookies out here in the lobby. And I'd love to just come out there and give you a high five. Blessings to you on this new adventure. I wish you guys the absolute best and make good choices, Stephanie. That was awesome. We'll be right back.

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All right, let's go out to San Diego, California and talk to Kevin. Hey, Kevin, what's up, man? Hi, how are you? I'm doing all right, brother. What's going on?

Yeah. So, okay, so I have this dilemma that I have. So my ex-wife, whom I've been estranged for for about four years, she has reached out through her cousins that she has stage four cancer and she would like to reconnect with me and my son.

Does she have visitation with you? Is the son a kid you all share together? Yeah, we have one son. Okay. I have primary custody. In fact, she has...

She does have supervised visitation rights, but she hasn't used that in quite a while. In fact, she and I live on the opposite sides of the country. All of a sudden, I hear from one of her cousins, whom I still talk to to this day, that she's really sick and she would like to reconnect. To be honest... You don't believe her, do you? You don't believe him? No.

Well, I mean, she said and did a lot of things, like, which made me divorce her. Hold on. Forget all that for a second. Write this down, because here's the deal. If your ex, let me say it this way, if your son's mom is going to be dead in three months from state, what kind of cancer is it? Are they telling you? Pancreatic. Yeah. Stage four pancreatic cancer. She's got less than six months.

If she truly has stage four pancreatic cancer and she will not be with us anymore after six months from now, any, any, man, I'm gonna get myself in trouble here. Almost any self-respecting dad would get in a car and drive across the country and let his young son see mom before she dies. The other side of that is I don't think you believe her. Yeah, I don't. Okay. Yeah, I don't. So just, just own that. She deceptive. Yes. Okay. She have, does she struggle with substance abuse?

Um, I don't, it's not substance. Um, but she has done a lot of, she's done a lot of things recently. Okay. So what's your question for me? So my son, he's five. Mm-hmm.

He was about one, he was like physically speaking, like he was only one and a half when he last saw her. - Okay. - The thing is, like after that, like we split off, like she didn't even do the visitations anymore, she moved to another state, and we just didn't get in touch ever since. - Okay, so what is your son, is your son asking to see her again?

No, like my son doesn't even remember her. Okay. Like he kind of says like, I mean, there are situations like, do I, I mean, where's my mom? And I'm like, and I, and I tell her, well, she's away or yeah. I mean, that's the rule. I mean, I can't tell her, tell, I can't tell him right now she's dead, you know, because that's not true. No, but what you can't tell her is your mom's very, very sick and she, she needed to, she decided to step away or she needed to step away.

But I want to see her. She's very, very sick and can't be seen right now. Yeah. That's what we tell a five-year-old. Yeah. Because by the way, any mom who doesn't want to see her five-year-old son is struggling with something, right? Yeah. The thing is she wasn't, she didn't have any drug or substance like the last time I met her. The thing is like we had a very acrimonious split.

Um, where basically like, and this is back in, this is in California where I got everything. Okay. But listen, I, this is five years ago. I don't, I mean, four years ago. I mean, you had to split, you had to split. I guess, let me, let me say it this way. I don't know. I still don't really fully understand what you're asking, but let me just say this. If you find out, and by the way, I would not take, um, a comment from a cousin.

Right. I would, if she wants to reach out and you have ways of confirming it or if her attorney or your attorney wants to be notified that she's about to pass away and wants to change the agreement so y'all can go see each other. Yeah. Then don't be the dad that doesn't let his young son have a photo with his dying mother. Okay. And you're gonna have to put back the crap she did to you four years ago. Get over yourself.

If this is another move in a long line of deceptive things and dishonest things and shady things, then you need to go do your due diligence and find out if this is actually real, if this is true, et cetera. And I don't know a way to do that without being awkward or asking hard questions. You mean contact her directly? Or I don't know, because she has, like you said...

hit stuff, shady stuff, and lied. Sure. She has a history of that. For me, yeah. Go ahead. For you, what? For me, I don't know how to validate or verify. She hasn't even contacted you, dude. Yeah. Let me put it this way. If I got a six-month diagnosis, you're going to be dead in six months, John.

and me and my wife didn't live together, the last thing I would do on the planet Earth would be to find a way that I see my kids, period. I wouldn't call a cousin who called a somebody. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Now, maybe she's not well. She doesn't feel welcome. It feels awkward. Maybe you tell the cousins, you have her reach out to me. If she wants to see her son, she needs to reach out to me. We're talking adult stuff now. Okay. Okay? Yeah.

And if she can't talk, she can't see, you know, then you can manage that here. But I'm telling you, you don't want to be on the other side of this thing where I thought she was lying and then she passes away. And your son, you have to have that conversation with him. Yeah, she let me know she was dying and wanted to see you, but I didn't do it. Is there a way that I can, I don't know, like hire a PI to kind of like verify? I wouldn't, but you can. You can do whatever you want, man.

Yeah, because, like... You can ask to see her medical records. You can ask to go to a doctor's visit with her. I haven't seen her in years, and...

And like, there's a reason where I, there's a reason why I, like I left her and I ghosted her and I grace and like I grace, I grace don't or whatever that's called. I don't know any of those newfangled Jen, Jen, why words, whatever you're saying. What, like, what did she do that was so bad? Uh, she cheated on me with her ex. Okay. And, uh, and that's the reason to keep a little boy from her mom.

After that, she became very vicious. She became very toxic. She tried to do everything in her power to try to get primary custody. Basically sued me for abuse, both emotional and physical. Was it all lies?

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So she's proven unsafe and she's proven to be a person who will go to the ends of the earth to get what she wants, even if it means lying and cheating and ruin somebody else's life. Yeah. Okay. I have no, if somebody cheats on you, yes, we got to deal with that relationally, but that's still the mother of your kid. If somebody tries to go to the ends of the earth to get primary custody, fine. Unless they use the kid as a bargaining chip and then

That's when I rarely get mad, but I get mad and couples do that But I don't get mad that couples are about to get divorced and they both are terrified to not see their kid very much I get that totally now we're getting into different layers where in order to see her kid more She looks at you and makes up lies about you They're gonna get you in jail get you fired get you all those kind of things and make it to where you can't put food on Your table. Yeah, then we got a problem. The relationship is over and

Between my son and his mom? Correct. It's over. Okay. Okay. Like a caretaker relationship, a friend relationship, a loving, interconnected, intimate relationship, it's over. She ended it. Yeah. Okay? She's made choices repeatedly over the years to not have a relationship with her son. Period. End of story. This isn't about her at this moment. This is about when your son's 19.

And he's trying to figure out who he is. Half of him will be you, a good man who worked from home, probably made less money than he was worth because he was working from home, got him through special needs, got him the resources that he needed, was really an attentive, caring father. Half of him will be that good man. And he'll always know that half of him was this other person. Okay. And that's the world he's going to have to inhabit. Right.

When I'm thinking ahead to that 14-year-old, to that 17-year-old, to that 25-year-old, I'd rather him have a picture with him smiling next to this woman who he does not know, who's wearing a bandana because her hair has fallen out from her chemo treatments, as she's trying to hang on the last few months of her life. I'd rather that than him look at you from across the table and say, I could have seen her.

And you kept me from it because you were too dramatic and saying she did shady things. Because you couldn't get over her cheating on you five years ago. Do you know what I'm saying? Yes. Both of these paths are messy. Both of these paths are gnarly. That's what happened when y'all made a kid. That's what happened when she cheated on you. The whole thing blew up, right? So there's not a stress-free path forward.

Every time somebody gets divorced and there's a kid involved, I always tell them, you're playing a 20-year game now. You're playing a 15-year game now. And so, yes, I would. This is me personal. Now, I don't know her. I don't know her backstory. I don't know any of the stuff that she's done to you personally. You do. So you take this with a grain of salt. If somebody had accused me of physical abuse and emotional abuse and tried to call the police and I had to go do it, I probably would not enter their orbit again.

Because I would be terrified for not being able to provide for my kid in case they made some more crazy stories up. If four and a half or five years ago, somebody did something stupid and they cheated on me with their ex and then yada yada and partridge in a pear tree and it got nasty for a bit. But here we are. Calls and says, I'm dying. I'm going to be dead soon. Can I see my son? I would make that happen. And it would be awkward and it would be awful. It is not a rekindling. It is not a reintroduction into our lives. It's not...

Renewing relationships. She burnt it. It's over. But it would be a gift to this young boy as he becomes an adolescent and becomes an adult and tries to figure out, who am I? Now, if this mom is unsafe, then absolutely not. If this mom is unhinged and untethered and she's willing to go to the ends of the earth to burn you alive, then no, I would not put myself in harm's way that way. So you're going to have to make your decision there. You're a good man. You're a good dad. And that little one's lucky to have you. We'll be right back.

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Go check them out at hallo.com slash Deloney for three free months. That's hallo, H-A-L-L-O-W dot com slash Deloney. All right, we are back and it's time for a money and marriage question. This is a live question that somebody asked at the money marriage conference and I thought it was a good question and wanted to bring it to everybody. So here's the question. My husband and I are millionaires.

This is a common question I get. Just kidding. I don't get this question almost ever. But I do think it's important. So hang with us. My husband and I are millionaires. We can't seem to agree on a timeline of moving to a different city or a different state. He's more methodical and I am more spontaneous.

How do we move forward? So, yes, very, very, very few of you listening to this are millionaires, right? Very, very few of you are in this place where we can kind of do whatever we want whenever we want, and we're fighting on how to do that, slow or fast, right? But almost everybody listening here has, they want to get a new car.

They want to move schools. One wants their kid to go to a state school and one wants their kid to go to a fancy private school. Trying to figure out, do we just make the two boys share a room or do we go get a whole other house? Or should we take out a HELOC and build a garage apartment, right? And one wants to move fast, one wants to move slow, whatever. By the way, don't take out HELOCs. It's so stupid to leverage your home.

For a credit card. Anyway, that's another conversation, different show. He's more methodical and I'm more spontaneous. Here's what I always want to get when people say, I am this way and you're that way. You're identifying with a way of solving problems that your body feels keeps you safe. Some people feel that they can best solve problems when they go very, very slow and they think it through. And sometimes that thinking it through and going slow becomes a way to procrastinate, to not make the final decision. Others...

This is more like me are like hyper spontaneous and it's their way of not having to think things through. We're just going to go, we're going to figure it out when we get there. And both of those are ways that we keep ourselves safe. And so I want to get to the underlying question beneath the, well, I just need some more time. I need some more data or let's just go. Let's just pack up and move. What's beneath that? I'm bored here. I need some adventure in my life and I want you to come with me.

Yes, I know we have a whole bunch of money, but I worked really hard and I kind of love this house and I love our little neighborhood church and I love being able to ride my bike to the grocery store even though I'm 62. I don't know that I want to move and I know that we had dreams of moving to the mountains or moving to the beach, but I kind of like our just Midwest town. What if now that we're millionaires, what if now that we paid off our last credit card, what if now that our marriage is in good footing,

we decided to get real real fancy vacations um do fancy vacations a couple times a year what would life look like if we didn't have to move those are deeper than we can't agree on a timeline i want to get to those questions because then we get into the grief i don't want to move and i told you i did but i don't oh my gosh i hate this town i wanted to move i've always wanted to move

I want some adventure. I want some. So then you can start solving the actual problem. All right, if we're not going to move, what would not moving look like? And what would adventure look like? Or, okay, we are going to move, but I got to stay connected to some of my close friends here. Making friends in your 50s or 40s or 60s is the worst thing on the planet. And I want to stay connected here. So I'm going to put some money in our account. So here's, for instance, when we moved to Tennessee, my wife and I set up a fund for plane tickets to go visit family because both of us are pretty close to our family.

We set up plane tickets, like just a small fund. It's not huge or anything, but a small fund that if somebody's parent passed away, I'm going to go to those funerals. Some of my closest friends in Texas, I'm going to go to those funerals. I'm going to have an account for that. So we just built in travel as a part of, we want to stay connected to those folks, but we both think it's right to move. And so I want to get to the beneath the timeline question and get to the

How's your body trying to keep you safe during this period of transition in our lives? And here's the final question that I want every couple to ask all the time. How do we want the house to feel when we walk in every day? Do I feel like I don't know what town I'm in? I don't know anybody here. I'm nervous. Do I want to feel like I know everybody here and I'm just comfortable? How do you want this house to feel like? And then you can build a timeline, reverse engineering from that. How do we want this thing to feel? Let's go make that happen.

Thanks for the question. There's not a name on here. Oh, yeah. That was part of an anonymous question drop-in. So there you go. I hope that helps. Hope that helps. Always get to the question behind the question. If you're procrastinating, what is not doing the thing? How is that keeping you safe? Love you guys. Bye.