I Blame My Parents for My Porn Problem
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How do I deal with my resentment towards my parents due to their inaction when I told them I had a porn addiction at 16? How old are you now? I'm 31. You've been hanging on to this one for a long, long time, huh? What's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls.

on just about everything going on in your life, your mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you got going on. My promise is I'll sit with you and we'll figure out what's the next right move.

John Deloney.com slash ask a S K if you want to be on this show. And yes, I get, um, direct messages and emails and calls from all over the planet. We will have you on. We'll figure out a way to get you on John Deloney.com slash ask. All right, let's go to St. Louis, Missouri and talk to a M Y what's up, Amy. Hi, Dr. John. How are you? Good. I'm good. What's up in your world?

Um, nothing much. Um, I'll just get to my question. Um, so how do I deal with my resentment towards my parents? Um, when I, um, be due to their inaction, um, when I told them I had a porn addiction at 16 and do I tell them about it, that I resent them. How old are you now? I'm 31. Okay.

You've been hanging on to this one for a long, long time, huh? I have. How come? I think that I was introduced to pornography pretty early on. By who? A friend. We were both eight years old, and she saw it on her parents' computer, and it just turned into a full-blown addiction up until...

even all the way through my like mid 20s to late 20s. Um, I feel like I dealt with a lot of shame and depression from it. And I feel like that, um, took a lot of years from my life, nearly, nearly all of my twenties. And now that I'm like starting to get my life back on track, I just

I feel like I mourned how much time I lost due to dealing with the depression and shame and all of that that came from having a porn addiction. And how do you, how have you reconciled blaming your parents for this? Um, so at 16 years old, I told them that I was dealing with a porn addiction and, um,

So at 16, I told them and then they just were kind of like, yeah, you got to stop.

And didn't really do much with that information. And so fast forward a few years later, my sister had told me that at the time, she's five years older than me, so she was like 21. She told my mom, she was like, hey, I think you actually should put Nika in counseling and kind of figure out why she's having this porn addiction. And

And my mom said, well, who am I going to go to that won't tell our business? Okay. And so it kind of felt like image was more important than me getting help. Okay. So let's say that's true. Let's say you came to your parents at 16 and you laid it out for them. It's about 2010, 2009. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. And you said, I need some help.

And they said, well, we got you. Just quit doing that. Yeah. And now that you're 30, do you have your own kids? No, not yet. Okay. So you're looking back and saying, man, I wish I had done that differently. Yeah. I think if I had handled the problem earlier, I just think that my life would be a little bit different. I don't know why I feel that way, but... It probably would have been. And also...

There was the, let's say 18 or let's say 21. There was a decade of agency there that you had as an adult, right? Yeah. Yeah. And my guess is that pornography was a way to feel some sort of aliveness in your skin inside of a house that didn't allow you to breathe. This wasn't the only thing your parents edged you out of, right? Right. Right.

So pornography is a symptom. Actually, pornography was a solution to a teenager, to a child desperate for connection, desperate for life and breath in their own lungs inside their own house. Yeah. So if we're going to blame, let's blame all the way. And the bigger question is this. Paint me a picture of your fantasy of how this conversation would go. Of me telling them how I feel it is. Yeah. Tell me how like this whole thing will play out.

From start to finish. You're sitting where? Probably in their living room. All right. So they're in the living room. They're in their recliners that they always sit in. And you walk in and say what? If I can talk to you for a minute, I just have something to get off my chest. Okay.

I felt really let down that at 16 when I came to you guys that I had a porn addiction that it was not really handled and just swept under the rug and how that has affected me through the years.

And I guess for some context, I am first-generation American. My parents are Nigerian. And unfortunately, I think that sometimes there is a shame-based culture, but there's also a real big hesitancy for elders to kind of acknowledge sometimes what they've wronged their children. Okay.

But this is going to be your big moment against years of culture, first-gen parents dealing with something that many people didn't even acknowledge in the scientific literature until just maybe a decade ago, which is women can get addicted to visual pornography too. Yeah. And so—

But like, you're going to have this one conversation, this moment, this 31. So you tell your parents, let's play out two scenarios, okay? Close your eyes and imagine you're there in the living room. You're letting them have it. I came to you when I was 16. I told you I had this problem with pornography. Dad, you told me just stop. Yeah. And you didn't come rescue me. 16 years old, I needed you. Now, here's scenario one. Mom and dad stand up and they say, you are right. We wronged you. We're so sorry.

We messed this up and we blew it and we love you and we're glad you're still here. And they give you a hug. What does that change about you right now, Amy, in the seat you're sitting in right now talking to me on the phone? What does that get you? I think just validation that they dropped the ball. So let me ask you, why are you still going back to them for validation? You've been seeking that validation since you were a little bitty girl.

You're still outsourcing your well-being to people who have demonstrated over and over for a number of different reasons. We can't give it to you. Unless you're perfect. Do what? I said they'll give you validation if you're perfect. There's no such thing as that. There's no such thing as that.

Yeah. I guess I'm just saying that that's just the house I grew up in. It was just very critical. And it's easy to think that's because you're first gen, it's because you have immigrant parents, because there's cultural. It's just, I mean, more people than not called the show and they grew up in very critical homes. Parents unequipped for the world that their kids inhabited. Yeah. Yeah.

And so I guess my question for you, again, a 31-year-old, and let's play out scenario number two. You go in and you let them have it. And they say, hey, we barely even spoke the language. We were doing the best we could with what was going on. We didn't even know what you were talking about when you said porn addiction. We didn't even know girls could do that 15 years ago. We didn't even have support resources. What were we supposed to do? Get out, you ungrateful kid. So picture that response. Does that still make you feel better? Does that give you permission to finally be enraged with them like you want to be? I mean...

I guess not. In either of those scenarios, here's where you still find yourself. And this is a wild situation. It's a wild thing. Okay. You still find yourself anchored to them. Yeah. You still need, you still are looking for validation that yes, they blew it and they finally call it out and acknowledge it. Or you're asking for them to respond negatively. So you finally have permission to just be enraged and hate them.

both of those scenarios still require them to do something to make you feel okay about being in your own skin. Yeah. And that feeling of not being okay in your own skin is what pornography lets you escape from for your whole life. Yeah. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. So my big question is, when is the moment going to come when Amy can look in the mirror and exhale and drop her shoulders and say, I love this woman?

I don't know. I just, I feel, I mean, I'm very critical of myself too. Sure. That's their words became your words. Yeah. And so anything that I did wrong in life, I just pretty much held it against myself or still do. And, um,

It's like this, I can place the blame on somebody else, you know, and I don't, I don't know. It's like, I'm looking for somebody to blame. And all that's doing is robbing you of living your full life right now. It's easier to say, I'm not married. I don't have kids. I'm not in grad school, whatever the things you want to do because they fill in the blank.

Yeah. It's harder to say these things happened to me and they were real and awful and scary and bad. And I get to choose what happens next. Yeah. So here's what I'll tell you. The absolution you were hoping for will not be found in a singular conversation. Okay. I've never met somebody who had their last, I told you so conversation and they felt great leaving it. That doesn't mean they don't exist.

Yeah. Especially for people who they, that probably can't hear it. I've only in fact heard them say it made me feel worse when I finally, I let them have it that they walk away feeling a little bit smaller than they did. I'm sure there will be people who comment on the YouTube section here that says, no, no, actually I told somebody off and it felt great and powerful or whatever. Um, I just, I haven't met those people. Well, I didn't plan on telling them off or being rude. I just,

I don't know. I guess I just wanted to tell him how it made me feel and, but not be rude or disrespectful or anything like that. How did you end up, uh, kicking the habit? Um, when I got in my twenties, I went to counseling myself. Okay. So you begin to parent the child that needed parenting all along. Yeah. Okay. Why don't you trust that young woman? I mean, I would just kind of,

done a lot of things wrong. I sometimes don't trust my own judgment. What did you do wrong? Um, oh, I, I mean, it's taken me such a long time. I'm finally getting into medical school. I'm, you know, thank you. I, um, you know, I, I barely, like, I, I don't know. I just had a lot of, no, no, answer the question. What did you do wrong? Looked at pornography as a kid.

Yeah. Okay, hold on. You're a kid. You're a child. Eight through 18. Ten years. You're trying to figure out up from down. You got to let your child off the hook here. Yeah. You were introduced to a drug at eight years old that was far more powerful than you. You can't be 31 holding yourself accountable for stuff you looked at when you were 14 years old. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? And when you finally took control of your life in your 20s as an adult,

That's an act of bravery and courage. That's hard. Yeah. I think that I dealt with a lot of sense of unworthiness. Yeah. But that's not from the pornography. The pornography was a symptom. That sense of unworthiness is time and time again you went to your parents and said, I need, I want, and they said, yeah, we're not doing that. Fair? Yeah. Okay. You won't find that sense of worthiness by going back to that same dry well. Yeah. Yeah.

You will find it in a group of friends and community and whatever else, like faith community, whatever else you're anchored to now moving forward in a sense of ownership and purpose for what comes next in your life. I guess my recommendation for you is to, with what you can, look forward for who you can become and who you're becoming and not, I need to go back and have all these old conversations, unless you're making amends. I'm really grateful for the call, Amy.

Let's see what happens about exhaling and saying, I love this woman who I've become and who I'm becoming. I'm going to spend my energy having conversations with her about where we're going. Not finding old people from the past to say, here's what y'all did. Next, we talked to a man who is hoping to reconnect with his distant wife.

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I'm doing well, John. How are you? I'm doing all right, brother. What's going on in your world?

Oh, um, you know, uh, a lot, uh, we've, my wife and I, uh, have a two year old, two and a half year old son rather. Um, and you know, I don't think either of us understood how difficult parenting was going to be. And we've drifted apart these last couple of years, um, due to, you know, a number of factors, but, but mainly parenting and work. Um, and yeah,

Not for lack of trying on my end, but I've been really struggling to reconnect with her because she's just burned out. She's exhausted. She's over-touched. She's over-stimulated all the time. And kind of the last thing she wants to do is hang out with me, which sucks. Does hang out with you go do fun stuff together or hang out with you sleep together?

Uh, both. Right. Um, um, yeah, intimacy has been a challenge that we've been working through and things have been, you know, getting better very slowly. Um, but her work schedule has been so hectic. Um, she works in healthcare and, and she can be gone for long periods of time. She a travel nurse?

- No, but she might as well be. She has call shifts. - Okay. - So she can be gone 24 to 48 hours a pop. - Okay. So a common thing that happens, what do you do for a living real quick before I jump in there? - I work in accounting. - Okay. A very common thing that happens one to two, two and a half years in is the recognition that, oh, we just kept going with our lives and we added a baby.

Like obviously the smoke clears, there's maternity leave or not. There's paternity leave or not. There's this, we did the money. We did the, but then we're back to our jobs. We're back to our, our lives, if you will, except there's this big gaping hole relationally. And we've got this human that's still here. And this is one of those magic moments where a couple gets away for half a day. And if you want to be like truly send a signal that you're in, you find somebody to do childcare.

And we sit down and we say, okay, we get to have the life that we choose. And we put every single thing on the table. Employment, hours worked, job, certifications, where do we want to live? What do we want to do? We get to pick. We get to choose. Right now in this teeny tiny sliver of history, who knows how long it will last, but we get to choose whatever comes next our way. We get to pick. And it's essentially saying we have a brand new marriage now. We have a brand new life now.

And most people don't take the time to do this until three or four years from now. If that long, somebody is going to come in in your office and they're going to think your jokes are hilarious. And she's going to say, hey, can we go grab coffee? I have to ask you about something and you're going to go and now you're going to find yourself in a mess. Or your wife will think some doctor's hilarious.

And he gets her. And because we've had just this, we've had a, just, we was doing survival at home and we start to remember that we want to live again. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. I think my desire for that is much stronger than hers is. Maybe, maybe. And she may be stuck in a, everywhere a new mother turns. It's just a constant guilt factory.

Like you went to school and did all this and got certified to be a healthcare X, Y, or Z. And you're just going to leave for a kid. Man, really? Or, oh, you're just going to come here and work and just outsource all the parenting to your kid. Really? Or, I mean, you can't win. You can't win. Or I don't know how to take care. I don't know how to, I can't be a mother to my husband too. And he just feels needy all the time. I'm just going to stay at work for another shift.

Yeah, I think that's probably kind of how she feels. I'm definitely the the emotional one in the relationship She is not okay. I promise you she has emotions. They may just come out differently They may come out in lists and they may come out in budgets and they may come out in Have you washed the bottles? You know what? I mean, they may just come out differently, but there's still emotions there. They're just expressed differently yeah, and and you know, I've

I try to do everything I can around the house and with the kid. Like, I'm not a slob. She doesn't have to pick up after me. I try to help out because I know, like, frankly, my job is easier than hers. I'm way less stressed at work than she is. She's got a bigger, she's got more of a burden of responsibility than I do. So I do try to pick up the slack. Has she asked you to pick up the slack? No. Okay. That's the problem.

is you're trying to look around and find ways to love her without ever stopping and just exhaling together and looking each other in the eye and saying, hey, how can I love you? Because there's a, okay, can I tell you a weird thing that's kind of nutty? A buddy of mine, my first like group of dudes that were close buddies, the first guy to have whose wife got pregnant, it was probably six or seven months in and we hung out and she looked exhausted, just cashed.

And I told my wife, hey, I'm going to hire them a house cleaner. And my wife looked at me and she was like, are you out of your freaking mind?

that you're going to hire a house cleaner just randomly for this friend of yours whose wife is seven months pregnant. And I was like, what are you talking about? That'd be such an awesome gift just to like, she goes, the message you'll send to her. And that's when I was like, oh no, right? There could be a scenario, Andy, where you clean up your whole house and make it amazing and your wife gets home and it just signals what a failure she is as a wife and mother.

Either that or it seemingly goes unnoticed. Well, or often unnoticed means I can't even process this because then I'd have to deal with the emotions behind it. Okay. That sounds bananas. That's not to minimize what you're doing, but the bigger conversation still needs to be had. And this is when people come home with flowers. They come home and they're like, you're going to get the best sex of your life. And the other person's like, dude, I just want to go to bed. And people end up missing each other. Or you being able to be honest and say, hey,

Now that we're two and a half years in, I feel like I'm fourth place in this house. I feel like we have a kid. I feel like you have your job. I feel like we have a dog. And then there's me. That's how I feel. Yes. You have to have space to say that out loud. But if you sit down and you point a finger and you say, hey, you're always at work. You're always dealing with this. You never have time. All of that is accusation. If you sit down and say, hey, I want us to spend three or four hours together co-constructing the next world that we get to live in.

She might say, I am doing great. I'm doing fine. To which you will have to be honest and say, I'm not. Yeah. I don't know how to love you in this season. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. And we've certainly had those conversations. God, I don't even know what that looks like. I'm afraid that if we have that conversation, baby number two is going to come up. Does she want baby number two or you? She does. Okay. Do you not want baby number two?

No. Why not? My experience this first time around was rough. When she went back to work, you know, first time dad, I also work full time and I find myself at home with no help with a baby for two days straight. Okay, let's have that conversation. That's the conversation you have to have. Because right now she is at work resenting the fact that she wants to expand the family and you quote unquote do nothing.

at your job and it's so hard for you to change diapers.

Right. And then you sit at home saying, hey, I've got a full time freaking job and I got no help. And by the way, because this is a role reversal, most of the time in the media, this is flipped gender wise. You don't even have any of your buddies to talk to about this. I don't know anyone in a similar situation as me. And I should I should say she's the breadwinner in our relationship. She is. I don't even like that breadwinner language because the house takes both of you to run.

Yeah. And so sitting down and saying, hey, you've talked about baby number two. I would love to have a huge family. I would not love to continue moving forward like we're moving right now. Yeah. That's a totally different conversation. And if she goes to work and makes more money and lets you know that she's more important than you, you'll need to have that conversation. If you're walking around feeling less than because your wife makes more money than you,

Then y'all need to have that conversation because that may be your ego, ego and insecurity, or she may be squashing you on purpose. You know what I'm saying? It's like, it's all those things. But if you don't want to have a truthful, hard conversation, cause you're afraid she's going to bring up something that you don't want to talk about. Then of course she's resenting you and staying at work. Cause she didn't want to even look at you. She wants to expand the family and you don't want to, cause you have to change it. You see what I'm saying? It's just a weird dance y'all are in. Somebody has got to flip the lights on, turn the music off. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the parenting has gotten much easier, obviously. I've been doing it for two and a half years now. Of course. I got that figured out. Yeah, but then you're going to start all over again? It's crazy. That's what scares me, John. That's what scares me. It's cool. And I feel like, you know, for the last couple of years, I've been really trying to, like, rebuild. And obviously not get back to where we were prior to having a kid. I know we're likely never going to get back. Like, life's different now since having a kid. That's right.

But it can be a different kind of awesome. It doesn't have to be it was awesome and now it's awful. It can be that was awesome and we could just make out whenever we wanted and we just had tons of money because you work so much. And then you get home and with what energy you had left, we would, oh, yeah. And then now it's just going to suck for 18 years. That didn't have to be the other case.

Yeah. Y'all can build a different kind of awesome. It might be that y'all need to hire some help. It might mean that you feel small in your job and you want to start pursuing a different career. Yeah. It might mean that you just found yourself as the stay-at-home dad-ish with a full-time job and you'll never even talked about it that much. It just kind of happened.

It did. You know, I when she was pregnant, I didn't even think about like what it was going to mean when she was on call. Like, I don't know if I like purposely block that out. No, it just didn't even. Yeah. My wife, my wife taught grad school in the evenings. It never even occurred to me.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. It was scary for a long time. Yeah. And I don't look forward to having to do that again. But I should say she is moving to a normal schedule soon. Okay. So this is a perfect moment. Yeah. Yeah. And we also have a date planned on Saturday. How long? We have four and a half hours. The sitter is watching for four and a half hours. Game on, dude. Game on.

You sit down and write out a series of notes. Like, we have a totally new marriage. We have a totally new adventure. I want to co-create something awesome in this new world. How do you want to feel when you come home? That's the question. How do you want to feel when you come home? I joke with her. She probably just wants to be left alone. Probably. And you get to answer that question too. Say, when I get home, I want you to be really happy I'm here. I want you to come greet me with a hug and say, I'm so glad you're home.

Or when I come greet you with a hug, I don't want you to be like, ugh, don't touch me. That's typically what it is. That makes me feel small and less than. Yeah. And that might mean that she's sitting in the driveway for 10 minutes and scroll Instagram until she flips her switch from this job to this job. That might mean that you give her five minutes to get in the door. I mean, this is the stuff y'all talk through and negotiate. But just saying, ugh, don't touch me, that's not a solution for a long-term relationship. And you trying to just bomb through that isn't a long-term solution either. It's both and. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's the recognition that both of you get to sit down and say, here's what I really want. Here's what I want this house to feel like and be honest about it. And here's both of y'all saying, here's the parts I don't like about how our house currently feels. And we get to choose what happens next. That's the beauty of it. We get to decide what happens next. And if you can honestly say, dude, I would love to have a second kid, a third kid, a fourth kid. I don't want to be a stay-at-home dad. We need some help.

or she can't wait to switch to this new schedule so that she can finally exhale. She might say some things that'll blow your mind, like, man, I just want to be here with you. And I've never been able to say that out loud. So it's just a matter of sitting here saying, okay, here's what I want. And that's a scary, vulnerable, terrifying, scary, vulnerable, terrifying thing to say. I would recommend both of y'all writing it down, telling her, hey, we're going to talk about this on Saturday.

Here's the one question I want us to answer. What do you want this house to feel like when you come home? And what do I want this house to feel like when I come home? And what must be true, what do we both want in our lives so that if and when baby number two comes along, we both are excited about the world we're creating together. That's the place to start, brother.

I'm really grateful for the call, man. Your willingness to call and be honest and open, most dudes wouldn't do that. So it was an act of courage on your part, my man. And I'm grateful that you did that because it's going to help a whole bunch of people. Thank you so, so much for the call. Next, a woman asks how to discuss her atheism with her soon-to-be Christian stepdaughter. Can't wait. We'll be right back.

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That's joindeleteme.com slash Diloni. All right, Phoenix, Arizona. Let's talk to the great and powerful Anna. Hey, Anna, what's up?

Hey, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate it. Of course. What's going on? So I need a little help navigating this situation. Cool. What's up? My 13-year-old, soon-to-be stepdaughter was recently baptized, and she has some pretty big concerns about my atheist beliefs versus her Christian beliefs. Hey, can I tell you, I love, with all of my heart, convicted 13-year-olds. I love it.

Me too. Yeah. And I'm, I'm super excited for her and for her to go through her own journey of beliefs, however they may change or if they don't, all that kind of thing. I'm super proud of her and she's a great kid. Um, but I want to quell these concerns that she has, um, a little background. So her dad and I have been together for about a year. He's got two girls, uh, 13 and 16. And it's this 13 year old that, that she's my little buddy. I love her. I adore her. We get along great. Um,

And she sent her dad a text message a couple weeks ago saying, hey, Anna's a good person, but

I'm worried about you guys getting married. Can you please talk to her about her atheist beliefs? Because I think that, you know, changing that would make a huge difference in all of our lives. So she hasn't said anything directly to me about it. And I know it's going to come up from her at some point. And I don't want to sway her beliefs. But, you know, how do I approach that? That's a great question. Thank you so much for calling. My first big, like, neon sign that's flashing is,

Is that your boyfriend used her text message to ask you a question that he didn't have the courage to ask you? Well, he and I have discussed it. I know y'all discussed it, but was he pitching one last something or other? No, no, not at all. Okay. He told me he, he showed it to me to show that she was concerned. Okay. But he wasn't showing you like, well, you know, like this would say, try and change me. No, not at all. Okay. So a,

You could probably find this on the internet. I'm sure everything's on the internet these days. One of the awesomest things, maybe you've talked about on the show before. It's either Penn or Teller, whichever one's the real tall one. Teller's the tall one. Okay. So at the time, I don't know anything about their beliefs, but Teller was a conversational atheist. Talked about all the time. Okay. Yes, I remember that.

Oh, Penn. Kelly screwed that up. She was trying to produce a show and she... It's Penn. And she just made a mean hand gesture to me that she's going to edit this part out of the show to make herself look good, but she just did. So Penn...

gave a, it was like on a vlog. Remember back in the old days, like the vlog things that people did. Long story short, he had somebody stay after a show, talking magic, waited for him in the lobby. They talked magic, was talking about intricate parts of the show. He said, I could tell this guy really loved the craft of magic. And it was a fun, engaging conversation. And the guy started to turn away and he turned back and said, hey, I can't in good conscience not invite you. Tomorrow morning, I'm going to church service. I'd love for you to be my guest.

And he said, hey, I appreciate it. I think, thank you so much. I'm going to go ahead and pass, but I appreciate it. And then here's what Penn said. He said, if a truck was coming down the street and you saw it was going to hit me, how dare you not shove me out of the way? And he said, this guy was so respectful and so kind and he genuinely cares for my soul. And he took a second not to point a finger at me, but to gently and kindly invite me to what he thought was going to be my safety.

And he said, how can I not love a man like that? And so there was a posture of you and I have different beliefs, but I know your belief is rooted in a space where you want me to be safe for all eternity.

Thank you for saying something, you know, you know me like it was such a different Not an intellectual fight not a I can't believe it It was like dude, you just are trying to shove me out of the way of a truck that I don't think's coming But you do and thank you Like there's something amazing about that posture. So here's the path I think It is you sitting down and saying I have heard you you just got baptized. That's i'm so proud of your following your beliefs Will you teach me about that?

And give her an opportunity to take ownership of that disconcerted feeling she has. Right. Okay. And what you're doing is you're not inviting her into discourse. You're inviting her to share part of herself, which according to the text message is a big part of herself. Yes. That makes sense. And then if she asks you, like, why don't you believe you? I mean, she's 13 at that point. She's old enough to hear some of your convictions and beliefs, right?

But she can also at that time hear your compassion for her. Your support of her, your love for her, right? Yeah. And I think that over a meal that goes a long way on two fronts. One, I'm confident that she has a picture of what the word atheist means. Yes. And you don't fit that picture because you're kind and loving and you're generous to her. You're about to marry her dad. So she's got some cognitive dissonance there. Yeah. Right. And on the other side, um,

So many issues are humanized when people sit down and have a meal together. Yeah. And I think that's awesome. Yeah. Nope. I think you're right. I think that sounds like a great plan. Hearing you say, I love and support your beliefs and your journey and where you want to go. And this is where I happen to be right now. And probably the bigger, deeper concern, I love your dad to the moon and back. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's probably point A. I think that's probably more where it's coming from more than anything. And you know that you, like me, have atheist friends that are extraordinary people, right? That are giving and kind and loving and generous. And you also know that in certain groups...

They may be painted as not only non-believers in the afterlife in the religious context, but evil people. Yes. And so I think she's gotten a little of that from the other side. Yes, from whatever group she's associated with. So I would totally honor that fear that she has.

Yeah. Right. And if there's some 14 year old who, you know, I got a 15 year old, you know what he knows? Everything that has ever existed. He's the smartest person alive right now. And so there may be a 15 year old telling her like, well, you know, this and this and this. So it's her, her fear and her trepidation. It's all, it's all right. It's all good. Right.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think she's right to be nervous for her dad. She's right to be nervous about who's this woman who seems to be so kind and loving, but also this 15-year-old friend of mine is telling me, ooh, she's eat, right? Right. Yep. Yep. And finding a place where y'all align on, man, if you would have the compassion enough for this 13-year-old Anna to say things like, um,

Like when I hear about Jesus and that he was there for the poor, he was there for the least of these and those in the margins. I absolutely love that. And I don't know what your personal convictions are about service and taking care of people in your communities and whatever, but any way you could align with her principles, I think that'd be amazing. Yeah. Find a common, a common ground there. Yep. Absolutely. And letting her know it's going to be you and me loving this old man.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And then hopefully she says, well, then you're going to go to hell. That'd be hilarious, but hopefully she didn't say that. I hope she does. No, Anna, no. But if she does say that, I'm worried about your soul.

I'm worried about yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Legit. I hope you say thank you so much. Sounds great. All right. Thank you. Does that make sense? Like real quick. If she says like, I'm worried about your soul. Yeah. If you could reach across the desk, I mean the, the diner table and hold her hand and say, thank you so much for caring about me. That means the world to me. You know what I mean? I just think that's so hospitable.

Yeah, I agree with that. Absolutely. But thank you for loving her. And I love your words. I'm not trying to squash her. Thank you for honoring her and doing what you can to lift up a 13-year-old who is searching for truth with all of her heart and mind and soul. Yep, I love that about her too. That's awesome. That's awesome. Let that light shine. And if you ever want to talk about Jesus, you can call me. How about that? I appreciate it. Thank you. All right. Hey, stay in school. Don't do drugs. Appreciate you so much, Anna. All right. We will all be right back.

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That's right. Go to hallow.com, H-A-L-L-O-W.com slash Deloney for three months for free. All right, we're back. We have a money and marriage question. All right, what'd you pick, Kelly? What is the most effective way to recover from infidelity when my husband confessed a year ago to an affair, but the resentment in my heart still lingers?

This feels like multiple questions here. I think the resentment will always linger, always, forever and ever. Just expect there to be moments when a lightning bolt of your husband, a picture of your husband with this other person will pop into your mind. That will happen. Or somebody will see him in 10 years if y'all decide to stick this out and you'll build a new marriage and it's amazing. And they'll say, he is so amazing. I can't, I wish my husband was like him. And you'll instantly go, oh, you don't even know.

That will be the rest of your life. So if an effective way to recover from infidelity for you is never having these flashes, these, this resentment that lingers, if you will, um, man, you're in for a ride. And here's the sucky part. If you divorce him, that resentment will still linger. It just isn't is now it's an is now because there's, there's this, this cancer that got dropped into the middle of your marriage. Um,

I think the effective way to quote unquote recover from infidelity is A, you have to reestablish trust. Both, you have to learn to trust you again, which is really, really challenging. And you have to establish, hey, this is what it's going to take in this house for me to trust you again. I got to see your phone. I got to see your text messages. We don't go to lunches with people who are not married. Whatever you say, I need this for me.

He says, I'm all in. I'm in the trust rebuilding phase. And then the third part of this is you choose, and this is hard and unpopular, you choose to put both of your feet back in the boat and risk getting hurt this badly again. You get back in the boat and y'all row together towards whatever you wanna build, which means as much as this might like stab you in the guts, I'm gonna go back out on a date with you again.

I am going to write you kind notes again. I'm going to make your coffee in the morning again. I am not going to just hold this thing out over the both of us so that I can kind of maneuver and feel a little bit powerful in those moments when I feel not powerful, when that image of you and her snaps into my mind, when the image snaps into my mind, I'm going to instantly have another image of a positive new image that I'm going to use to meditate on instead of the old one. And this takes work and it takes time and it's hard. Um,

Lingering, that's a great word. I would just expect that to happen. The lingering is the real part. The challenge for you, I mean, it's the is, it's the reality. This is gonna happen. The challenge is, what are you gonna do next? What are you gonna think about? What are you gonna do? What are your actions gonna be? And how honest and open are you gonna be with him? Kelly, am I missing anything? No, I think that was really great.

Well, okay, that's it. By the way, money marriage questions. Join us for it's in November. You can go to Ramsey solutions.com slash events and you can check out the money marriage retreat here in Nashville, Tennessee. It's, it's my favorite thing that I'm a part of. It's so fun. Me and Rachel Cruz and a host of other cool people come and go. But come join us in November.

November and in Valentine's Day, one of those two retreats. They always sell out, so get your tickets when you can. RamseySolutions.com slash events. Peace out.