← The Dr. John Delony Show
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- [00:06]
A
In the strict Christian religion I hold to, I try to hold to the values which is every time you come together in communion of marriage that's to create a baby. You read about the sin of Onan filling the seed.
- [00:20]
B
What are you talking about? I've never ever, ever heard what you're saying. Hey, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Del the show. I'm glad that you are here talking about your mental and emotional health, your marriage, your, your kids, your sex, intimacy life, whatever you got going on. That's what this show is. Pull up a seat and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. Let's go to Raleigh, North Carolina and talk to Andrew. What's up brother? How are you, Andrew?
- [00:53]
A
Good. How you doing, John?
- [00:54]
B
I'm good. My man. What's going on, dude?
- [00:57]
A
Yeah. So brief history here. God. I've been married about 10 years now. We have three beautiful kids, another on the way, me and my wife. And yeah I. The entirety of really my whole life, but my married life as well. I've always kind of had these questions in my head that I have a real deep love and attraction of my wife. Nothing held between us. We both desire each other like in every way. We're each other's first, you know, so we've always.
- [01:34]
B
Are you talking about sex?
- [01:36]
A
Sex? Yeah, exactly. I guess I'd start with that. But yeah, we're each other's first and only sexual partners and we have always never held anything back. Desire wise. But in my.
- [01:51]
B
What?
- [01:52]
A
Yeah, right. Yeah, but I in, in the strict Christian religion I hold, I hold to, I try to hold to the values which is every time you come together in communion of marriage, you. That's to create a baby. Now me being a guy who's also very much. Yeah, so it's. The point is we don't. They don't. My. My Christian values hold or not my Christian values. My religion that I follow is Roman Catholicism. So it's very much the approach is if you are going to, you know, come together in union, it. You have to be open to the possibility of children every, every time you do. Unless.
- [02:44]
B
So are you like four for four?
- [02:47]
A
Right? Yeah, well no, no, not four. Four. Four.
- [02:52]
B
Okay.
- [02:53]
A
But my question is more how do I personally handle the feeling of guilt when I. It's hard, it's guilt, but it's not really my guilt. It feels more like I should feel guilty that every time we do I just sometimes want to enjoy my wife and she sometimes just wants to Enjoy me. I don't want to be, you know, too descriptive, but, you know, I don't think I have to go into it in detail for you to understand. What I mean is sometimes I just love to be intimate with my wife and, you know, just please her and make her feel good and sometimes, every time.
- [03:40]
B
Okay, here's, here's the thing. I've got friends that are. I, I'm not Catholic.
- [03:52]
A
Right, Right.
- [03:52]
B
Okay. My son goes to a Catholic high school. I've got loads of friends that are Catholic.
- [03:56]
C
Right.
- [03:58]
B
What you're telling me is something I don't, I don't know and I've never, ever, ever heard.
- [04:04]
A
Right.
- [04:05]
B
I do have friends who, their religious belief is anti birth control.
- [04:12]
A
Yeah, well, that, that is a, that is definitely something which is like, knock.
- [04:16]
B
Your lights out, we razz each other, we make fun of each other, but like, I'm not gonna, like, that is what that is for, for them.
- [04:24]
A
Right.
- [04:24]
B
I have never in my whole life, ever, ever, ever. And dude, the comments will tell me where I'm wrong here. I've never heard a secular, a Christian, a Mormon, a Muslim. I've never heard any faith tradition say that you're not supposed to enjoy sex with your wife ever.
- [04:48]
A
Right, well. And no, I wouldn't, I wouldn't think that anyone would say that.
- [04:53]
B
That's what, that's what you're telling me? That you feel guilty that sometimes you don't want to make a baby and hopefully it's all the time. You just want to have sex and have it be awesome.
- [05:03]
A
Yeah. Yeah, I want, I want it to be awesome.
- [05:06]
B
Okay, stop. Why do you think it's not okay for that to be the case?
- [05:12]
A
Because the, and this is something that, again, I have a lot of mixed feelings about. Is they. In, in a lot of the teachings you read about the sin of Onan. Onan is like spilling the seed, right? No, I, if it's.
- [05:30]
B
What are you talking about? I, I've never, I've literally, I've been around faith traditions. I've spoke at bajillions of faith traditions. I, I've, I've worked at ecumenical faith based universities with kids. I've never ever, ever heard what you're saying. That doesn't mean it's not true.
- [05:46]
A
No, no, no, I know. So what they go off in, in teaching about the theology of the body and human sexuality is that every time you come together, you know, to have sex as a couple, you, you must not, you must not spill your, your seed. As in it must go in the correct place to be able to make a child if you are to orgasm. And it does not, you know, come to the possible creation of a child that would, you know, that would be a sin.
- [06:25]
B
Okay. And so let's do this. Yeah, I can't speak to that. I've never heard that, that if you orgasm in the wrong way or in the wrong place like, I. I don't know what to tell you about that.
- [06:37]
C
Right.
- [06:39]
B
What I can tell you, what I can address here is this. You are participating in a belief structure or in an organization or a sect of an organization that has given you a script for how you're supposed to do your life. And you are coming up against that script and saying, A, I don't believe it. B, it is causing rift between me enjoying a fun, amazing life with one partner. Ride or die.
- [07:16]
C
Right.
- [07:17]
B
And so at the end of the day, you have a choice to make. And it's just that simple. It's that complicated and hard, but it's that simple.
- [07:29]
A
Right. And I think that's, you know, I think that's where I'm. I believe that God gave us, you know, man and woman to enjoy each other and to not be in your head worried about all these. These rules and things. And I personally. Amazing love life between me and you.
- [07:49]
B
I.
- [07:50]
C
Right, right.
- [07:52]
A
And I'm not asking obviously anyone's opinions on any religion because I don't think that's a fair thing to ask you. I guess for me that was more of, I feel like there's something wrong if I'm going in my head when this is the person I've committed my life to.
- [08:10]
B
And I think you're right.
- [08:11]
A
I'm always focused on her.
- [08:13]
B
And as long as your focus is how can I love her in the best possible way that she and has told me she wants to be loved.
- [08:24]
C
Right.
- [08:25]
B
And vice versa at the same time. And there's navigation there. There is. There is, for lack of better words, the bad word to use here. But there's compromise there. There's feelings and emotions and all that stuff. Is there? Yeah, but I think you are 1000% right.
- [08:42]
A
Yeah, that was.
- [08:44]
B
I cannot help you in any shape, form or fashion with a belief structure. A what you're. The way. The particular religion you subscribe to has read these ancient texts and said, this is what this means in the 21st century. I can't help you with that. Right. That's a choice between you and your wife and your faith tradition.
- [09:06]
C
Right.
- [09:08]
A
But yeah, and that's a good point that it's you know, I think that it's one of those things that some, you have a million different people and they all have a different opinion on it, you know, and it's like, oh, this, this was taught here, this was taught here and you know it. At the end of the day, I do really feel when ever since, even before we got married, although no one would suggest that you, you, you know, before marriage is. But it's best to probably not have sex. But even though we had been together before it, I had chosen this, the person I'm gonna love forever. You know, we've been together 15 years almost and I, I just, I completely loved her. And it always felt like, for a lack of a better term, it did feel holy. Although it's like, it's romantic and it's like, it's, it's awesome and it's amazing. It's the person I love forever.
- [10:04]
B
Yeah. But again, hold on, hold on. You're, you're creating a bunch of narratives around things, okay? And so let's take sex off the table. Let's take religion off the table. Those are two really electric topics. Okay? If you purchase a workout program and you say, I am going to do this workout program and then you get into it, you're like, well, I don't really want to do this part of it. I want to do this part of it. You as an autonomous being are allowed to do that, but you can't walk around saying I do this workout because you don't.
- [10:47]
A
Right?
- [10:48]
B
And if every time you do that workout but you do something different, you feel guilty and you hate yourself for it and you beat yourself up for it and it doesn't ring true to you. Let's say you bought one of those crazy Looney Tune influencer workout programs. Not one like from my buddies at Mind Pump, that's like legit and good. Or my buddy Jordan site, like, or Lane Norton, like a real science backed program by people who have trained people for years, right? Let's say that's not what you got. You got one of these dorky influencer, like, yeah, like whatever, right? Let's say you bought one of those and when you do the workout, it hurts, you feel terrible, it injures you, then I would suggest stop doing that thing. That doesn't make sense right now. If you do a mind pump workout, you do Jordan's workout, you do Lane's workout, you do like knees over toes workout, all those are great programs. If you do those, they're going to be really hard and there's gonna be days you don't want to do it, but you're a part of this community, you're part of this system for a better, for a long term good. Right, Right. So I'm not saying you stop doing things just because it's hard or it's uncomfortable or you don't like it or doesn't quote, unquote feel good in the moment. Yeah. Right. And nobody who follows a faith tradition or a religion, it, it, does it ever feel good? All the time. Period.
- [12:11]
C
Right, Right.
- [12:13]
B
Even if you're a Christian. Jesus was in the garden before he died and said, hey, is there no way we can do this?
- [12:21]
C
Yeah.
- [12:21]
B
He was crying in front of his father. Right. And so.
- [12:25]
A
Exactly.
- [12:26]
B
It's not always going to feel good. And that's part of life, that's part of being a part of a tribe.
- [12:33]
A
Exactly.
- [12:34]
B
But if you're walking away injured, you're walking away hurt, you're walking away knowing this is doing more damage to me, then A, I would suggest you back up and stop doing that thing or at least be really thoughtful about it. And B, you can't walk around and tell everybody that's what I do. Because you're not doing that anymore.
- [13:01]
A
Exactly.
- [13:01]
C
That's. Yeah.
- [13:02]
A
And I think that's probably where the conflict is, is that I need to, I need to, you know, make sure. Is this something that I, you know, like you said, a believe in and is this also something that is a.
- [13:19]
B
Net good for me and my family?
- [13:21]
A
Right. And. And, you know, I, I think me and my wife, do. We talk about everything. We, we talk about this exact thing as well because we, we ultimately trust each other and everything. And I do want to be a good father and a good, you know, spiritual head of the house. And that also goes with, you know, in, in my life with my wife, opening up everything, every door with her. You're not, not keeping any door closed.
- [13:47]
B
And well, all that, all that's good. But you're, you're talking in really lofty distress, like distancing language. And until you can let this center in the middle of your chest, I think you're going to struggle with connection to, to the problem, to the issue, to your wife, to your faith.
- [14:07]
A
Yeah.
- [14:08]
B
Right.
- [14:09]
A
Yeah.
- [14:09]
B
Because what you're running up against is I'm consider, I consider part of my identity as a member of a particular religion. And at this point, I don't believe what this religion has taught me and is teaching me. And I don't believe it's a net good for Me and my family, much less anyone else in that community.
- [14:32]
D
Yeah.
- [14:32]
B
And now I have some really hard decisions to make that I want you to start at the identity level. Do I still believe in God? Yes or no? Do I still believe in the daily practice of prayer and meditation to this. Do I believe in taking a need of something bigger than me? Do I believe that I need to be part of a community that worships in somewhat the same way? Yes. But can I continue to go to this particular building with this particular set of leaders who have taught me this particular thing that is a net negative. I. I've never. I honestly, again, I got circle back. I've never heard of what you're saying. It doesn't mean I'm right. It just means I've been around all different types of faith for decades and decades and decades and I've never heard this one. Doesn't mean, it doesn't mean anything other than I've never heard this. But I want you to not use like big lofty distancy language as though you're trying to sound smart and sound elevated and blah. Like, I want you to be honest about where this is going to impact you. It's going to impact you in your spirit, right in the middle of your chest. It's going to change the question, it's going to change the answer of who am I? And when you change who am I, that impacts the actions you take to build into that identity that you've created for yourself that you've, that you've stated publicly. And so that's what that is. But to answer your original question, I would hope you and your wife are having the time of your life. Life is hard. Life is tough. And sex and intimacy is sometimes the only, one of the only places where we have human connection and play in the arrows and where you get to kind of step out, where you get to fully be seen and known and experienced and where things get messy and things get confusing. Like all that, man, it's all good stuff. But yeah, dude, entering into that moment with your wife of, of a decade or more or whatever, y' all got four kids and trying to follow like a road map or a chart. Yeah, that's a recipe for not ever being fully present with somebody. In fact, that's a recipe for using somebody. And that never, ever leads to a good connected marriage, a good sex life, or ultimately peace. So that's what I got to say about that. Best of luck to you, brother. You got some hard decisions to make, but it sounds like you're already there. You want my permission? I can't give that to you. That's between you and your faith, tradition, and your wife. But that's just my opinion on that one. I don't know how to end it, but best of luck to you, brother. That's. That's best I could say. When we come back, a woman asks should she break off her engagement with her fiance because he won't set boundaries with his mom. Yikes. All right, it's February and it's dark and it's cold outside. And I know that you're spending more time in bed. So if you're gonna be spending more time in bed, do it right and do it with comfort. And get yourself a Hel Helix mattress. It's the new year. Get a Helix mattress. I've been sleeping on a Helix mattress for a couple of years now, and I track my sleep. And I know for certain that my sleep has improved since I started sleeping on a Helix mattress. Helix mattresses are designed for real people with real sleep styles. Whether you run hot, whether you toss and turn, whether you just go to sleep and sleep like a rock, like my wife does. Listen, I want you to get online and take their sleep quiz. They'll match you with the perfect mattress. It's simple. It and it works. Helix offers a hundred night trial and every Helix Mattress comes with a 10 or a 15 year warranty. It's worth the risk. It's going to change your life. And right now, Helix is giving my audience 27% off your entire order. Site wide. This is the best deal you're going to find anywhere. Go to helixsleep.com deloney today and get yourself a Helix mattress. That's Helix. H E l I x helixsleep.com/deloney with Helix, better sleep starts now. All right, let's go to Los Angeles, California and talk to Monica. What's up, Monica?
- [19:17]
D
Hey, Dr. John. Grateful to be here.
- [19:19]
B
I'm grateful that you called. What's up?
- [19:23]
D
So my question is, should I break off my engagement if my fiance cannot put boundaries with his mother in law or with my future mother in law?
- [19:33]
B
Oh, yikes. It doesn't sound like your future mother in law is super great, huh? Not at all. All right, so what happened that precipitated this phone call?
- [19:46]
D
Well, it's kind of been like cumulative. So it's just little things that are adding up over time until I became like an explosive bomb and just said, I can't take it anymore.
- [19:57]
B
Okay.
- [20:00]
D
But there's just a lot of micromanaging, controlling from her. Yes. She texts or calls my fiance sometimes daily. She wants to know. A lot of it's just very invasive. And the way she treats him and me is like, were her child under her roof kind of thing. Like, I don't think she understands the concept of leaving Cleave very well.
- [20:34]
B
Well, it sounds like he doesn't understand that.
- [20:37]
D
Yeah, that's true.
- [20:38]
B
She sounds like she's a mom that overly. Is overly enmeshed with her son. Yeah, but she's just doing what he allows.
- [20:47]
D
Yes.
- [20:48]
B
He doesn't understand leaving clean. Or let me put it this way, she's just filling a relational vacuum.
- [20:57]
D
Yes.
- [20:58]
B
So the bigger. The bigger thing is twofold here. One, let's take her completely off the table. Okay. What you're really asking me, tell me if I'm wrong here is, number one, is being in this relationship nudging you to become a person that you don't like or want to be. Number two, have you been clear with your fiance that this is important to me? And he has looked at you and said, I know, but she's more important than you. Because if behavior is a language, that seems to be what he's telling you.
- [21:47]
D
Right.
- [21:47]
B
But like, if you. If you nickel and dime it, like a mom who calls her son every day or text every day, that's different than me and my mom. But I don't. I wouldn't necessarily. That automatically means something's bad. It seems like a lot, but isn't it. But like you said, it's cumulative. But if you have set your default setting to every call, I mean, every. I think she's invasive. And so you'll see everything she does as invasive. But if it's. If it's specific, she says we're not allowed to eat it at this restaurant. She says we have to be at this place or she's going to cut off her son. She says that she doesn't like the clothes I wear. Then. Now we're getting into invasive. She says we're not. He. He's not allowed to buy this particular house in this particular town. And he said, my mom said, I can't do that. Now we have a problem. You get what I'm saying?
- [22:43]
D
Yeah. I guess what bothers me more than the invasive is, like, the manipulation. And can I give you an example?
- [22:51]
B
I would love that. Yeah.
- [22:52]
D
Okay. So she called me and said it's urgent. So I called her thinking it was urgent, and she said that her and her husband checked the phone records, and my fiance hasn't called them since maybe, which is not true. And she asked me if I know why he's not calling her as much. And she said, we noticed a change about two years ago. Do you know what that could be from? Well, that's when we started dating.
- [23:21]
B
Nice. Okay, so this thing happened.
- [23:25]
D
She said, can you figure out what his problem is, but don't tell him? I asked. And I said, well, if you have a problem with him or your communication, like, you need to go to him directly. I'm not. I don't do, like, the triangulation thing. So it's just. That's not healthy. And you would need to go to him directly.
- [23:42]
B
Perfect.
- [23:42]
D
She's like, well, I just don't understand why you can't talk to him for me. And just don't tell him that I asked you. And I said, because I don't. I don't do that. So.
- [23:51]
B
Great.
- [23:52]
D
That's a no.
- [23:53]
B
Okay, so somebody asked you to do something that was against your character, which I applaud you. Bravo. Bravo for not getting triangulated. Bravo for not holding secrets in your marriage. Awesome. What did he say in response to that? Did he immediately say, I'm going to call my mom, Dude, I'm sorry, I'm going to pick this. I'm. And. And tell his mom, mom, don't ever call my fiance again like that?
- [24:17]
D
Yeah, no, he didn't. So his. He. He agreed with me and said, yeah, that was. That was wrong. Like, I don't know why she did that, but his pattern is avoiding confrontation with his parents. And I kind of watch as his nervous system shuts down and he kind of just goes into this blank space kind of thing. And so back to your original thing about he doesn't understand leaving Cleave. I think the resentment that I have is less about his mother and more about him because I feel a lack of emotional safety and protection when I feel like I'm left to defend myself. Because his coping mechanism is to just avoid and not answer and just become kind of, like, stoic.
- [25:07]
B
Okay, but let me push back on that. What if he has learned over 25 or 30 years that it's a complete and utter waste of time and that it's. It's a fight not worth fighting because it's unwinnable. And if he told you, hey, if she texts you, just don't respond, don't call her back because she's not mentally stable. She's not. Well, what you're seeing, what you're calling resignation, might be deep. Wisdom.
- [25:39]
A
Wow.
- [25:40]
B
You get what I'm saying? If she's going to call you and say that kind of crap, I can only imagine what she has said to him over the years.
- [25:49]
D
Right.
- [25:51]
B
And so what you see is shutting down might be him just putting the car into neutral because he's in the mud. I'm not just going to hit, keep hitting the gas here.
- [26:01]
D
That's a good point. And for me, I think in the beginning when I would confront him and say, hey, like that was really hurtful or what, the way your parents like treated us was wrong or it didn't feel right. Can we talk about it? He would get really defensive and say like, oh, they're just joking or you just don't like my family. And then we would get in an argument. And now I think we listen to your show a lot and we've done couples counseling. And so he's becoming more aware, I'm becoming more aware of what I bring to the table. And so recently we've had some good conversations where he is less defensive and he's more so like, yeah, I avoid it because like the best way to win is to not even play the game. So I do, I do see that there's wisdom in that.
- [26:48]
B
So I'm a big lifelong for. Before it became super famous, I was obsessed with mma, right? Even when it was like over in Japan, it was pride fighting. Like I've, I've been obsessed with mixed martial arts for a long time. And one of the keys of mixed martial arts is know your thing really well, your discipline, the thing you're the best at. If you're a wrestler or you jiu jitsu person, or you're a kickboxer or a Muay Thai guy, like, know your thing the best and try to get your opponent to play that game. And where I see fighters over the years get in a lot of trouble is their ego gets in the way and they're a world class wrestler, but they're fighting a great boxer and they decide to box with them and they get their head knocked off. And so I wonder if, like it's. By the way, it's very, very common. Super common, especially in young relationships, but especially over time. Like, I don't want you talking bad about my family. Great, cool. And so you, as somebody who loves him, needs to know the best way to communicate with him isn't to badmouth his mom. That doesn't make him weird. And you figuring out a way you can tell him in a language he can hear, which is what? Like Romantic communication is all about. It is, hey, I'm uncomfortable when your mom calls. What's a path that you have seen work over the years? And he would say, dude, don't return that call. Which is what I would coach a fighter to say, hey, this guy keeps trying to take me down. Should I just wrestle with him? And I'd be like, no, he's going to kill you. You try to keep this fight standing as long as possible and try to sucker him into a boxing. You get what I'm saying? So the deeper question for me is, and this is a hard question, when you see him as a man that you're considering becoming a unified team member with Ride or die, us two forever. Is he a person you want to be with forever? Still there?
- [29:20]
D
Yeah.
- [29:22]
B
Because here's what, here's what I'm hearing the subtext.
- [29:25]
A
Okay, okay.
- [29:26]
B
And you tell me I'm out to lunch and I'm a. And I shouldn't even have a show. I'm so dumb. Feel free to say that. Okay. What I hear is you don't know if he's the right guy for you. And so you've put on a pair of glasses, which is. I'm gonna find reasons why it's somebody else's fault that this close to marrying him. Ride or die us to till death do us part. I don't think I want to do this. Or maybe it's not even that dramatic. It's just I got really cold feet.
- [30:04]
D
Yeah.
- [30:05]
B
Because I know loving him means I'm gonna have a crazy mother in law forever.
- [30:10]
D
And that's really what it boils down to, I think, because they live in. In another state. So when it's just us too, and we have a great group of friends, like, I see him as that person that I want to marry. And then when we communicate with his family, we start getting into this cycle of arguing and we're both triggered. And so that's kind of.
- [30:34]
B
Okay. So here's my rule on triggers. You get two. You get to be triggered about the same thing two times. And then you have a responsibility to go make a change. Either I've got to go deal with my personal trauma history, or I've got to deal with this relational pattern. Or I just have to stop picking up the phone. And it might cost me an inheritance. It might cost me my cell phone plan. But just choosing to constantly be triggered over and over and over again is indeed that it's a choice. You can't help it. When your body a trigger is your Body acting before you even know it to try to keep you safe.
- [31:13]
D
So at this point, it's in my control to say no to the phone call.
- [31:18]
B
It's your responsibility to. Otherwise, you're choose every time you pick up the phone. You're choosing misery. You're choosing because you know how the pattern goes. You're choosing to have a fight with your husband, with your fiance.
- [31:34]
D
Yeah.
- [31:35]
B
Now the real relational work is every time I answer the phone, the phone, I choose to become somebody I don't want to be. I get angry, I get bitter, I get frustrated. So the thing I can control here is to stop picking up the phone. And to your fiance when I come at you and I blame my discontent on your mom and I call her this and I say, she's making me do all these things. I realize that I put you in a position to let somebody just badmouth your mom, however crazy she is, or defend me, and that puts you in an awkward position. I'm gonna quit doing that. Like I. A lot of the critique I get on this particular show is I don't. I just have it ingrained in me for. Since recess in fourth grade. I don't like talking about other guys, wives. I don't like talking about other guys, girlfriends in a negative light. Right. And so. But it's. You say because it, because it puts people on a defensive in a pretty profound way. But I want you to come back and this. And the question I would pose for you is, are you going to let this woman get between you and the person you want to spend the rest of your life with or not? And if he is telling you through his actions, she's going to be an integral part of our life, then you have a really hard choice to make. Or if he's constantly telling you stop answering the phone, she's not well, or we have to do once every two years, we have to do Thanksgiving with them. That's just the polite kind thing to do. And we're going to do it and it's going to be miserable. And so on the front end, we're going to do some things and we're going to plan a thing on the back end because it's just we got to go touch the electric fence once every two years. Then you get to decide, don't be part of that.
- [33:44]
D
Yeah, I need to reflect on it because I, yeah, I wonder how that. I'm just curious how flash forward, you know, having kids and then being around their grandparents, like, I don't know if I could handle that and I guess it would come down to how much exposure we have. And if it's once a year, then fine. But if it's more common, then I don't want to do that. So, yeah, I guess it would. I need to think about that.
- [34:18]
B
So here's my challenge to you as you work through it. Okay?
- [34:22]
D
Okay.
- [34:22]
B
Use I statements as much as possible. Those are words of ownership. Instead of your mother keeps doing this, I want you to use I statements which are, I don't like being disrespected. I don't like being triangulated. I am uncomfortable with X, Y, or Z. And so it stops. A the way to Instagram, say, this is victim mindset. There's actual real victims in the world. So that blanket statement isn't always helpful. But there does come a point when I want you to begin using I statements. I no longer want to have my body take off and try to solve me and keep me safe every time this other person calls. So I am deciding for this season, maybe not forever, but for right now, I'm going to quit taking those calls. And once a year, once every two years, if I have to see this person, and she starts off with, man, my son used to call me all the time until you came along. And you never take my call. You can just smile and say, yep, I don't pick up the phone very often and go on about your day. And if that continues to hang on you like an old wet T shirt, you have to ask yourself, what is it about me that needs other people to like me so bad? Maybe that's what I need. Maybe I've been a people pleaser my whole life. Maybe I've been a peacemaker my whole life, and I'm tired of that job.
- [36:04]
D
Absolutely. Yeah, That's. That sounds. I gonna let this affect my day.
- [36:16]
B
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yes.
- [36:18]
C
Ta da.
- [36:19]
B
Now you're on it. Because what you just said there is. I get to choose what happens next.
- [36:26]
D
Yes.
- [36:27]
B
And when I say what I'm choosing. Well, when I'm say. When you say what I'm choosing next, here's where that's vulnerable and scary. He gets to choose whether he wants to be with you. And when he says, here's what I'm choosing, I will go see my mom once a year. You get to choose to let him go alone. And you not say, that's the end of our relationship. You recognize the pickle he's in, which is he's got a mom who's not well and who's super manipulative. And it's still his mother and he wants to honor and respect her. And he gets to choose. You know what? I'm gonna love my new wife with all of my guts. And I'm gonna protect her from this trip.
- [37:10]
D
I love.
- [37:11]
B
And in a perfect fantasy world, yes, it would be awesome if both of y' all snuggled up and you had two in laws that were like, oh, my gosh, I'm so glad you're here. We got your fav food. We got everything for you. It's going to be amazing. Y' all want to go out to dinner?
- [37:22]
A
No.
- [37:22]
B
Cool. Great. What? That'd be awesome. That's not the life you'll have by no fault of your own. Not by your hand, but it's in your lap. So you get to choose xyz and then he gets to choose whether he chooses you.
- [37:38]
D
Yeah.
- [37:40]
B
And that's scary. That's hard. And it's also hard to constantly be being whipped around by other people's feelings and emotions and manipulations, etc. So what I'm asking you to do is choose your hard. Choose the path. Both paths are hard. Choose the path that is going to give you empowerment, strength, and peace. So your move, sister. Thanks for the call. Call anytime. And if y' all want to call before you get married, I'd love to take that call too. We come back, a man asks how to tell his sister in law that their filthy home is a danger to their kids and their marriage. Montana Knife Co. Makes the best knives on the planet. Period. This holiday season, me and my son were out in the woods all across the country hunting, doing outdoor adventures. And me and my wife have been cooking the whole break between the woods and the kitchen. I need knives. My family needs knives that actually hold up. And Montana Knife Company is the best. The best. The best. A few years ago, I bought my wife the chef's knife set and she still uses it every day. I've started using every day. I love them and I love Montana knife companies outdoor knives. I have tons of their knives. They're designed, tested, and built by real hunters and real cooks. And when you pick one up, you can instantly feel the quality. They're proudly made in the usa. They are razor sharp right out of the box, and they are tough enough to last a lifetime. Montana Knife Co. Guarantees that my grandkids are going to fight over my knives someday. They're that good. And when the knives need sharpening, just send them back to Montana Knife Co. And they'll sharpen them and send them back to you for free. Give the outdoorsman and the cook in your life a knife that they'll love and actually use forever. Go to montanaknifecompany.com to see what's available right now. You will not be disappointed. That's Montana knifecompany.com All right, we're back. Hey. Take two seconds, two seconds and just hit the like or subscribe button. This is one of the most shared shows in the world last year. I'm super grateful for you all sharing the show. I want you to take two seconds and hit the subscribe button because it just kicks the show up into the algorithms and puts it in front of more people who need a sensible, just wise approach to see what bravery looks like when y' all call and what doing the next right thing looks like. So take two seconds, hit the subscribe button, and I'm super grateful. Let's go out to Utah and talk to Parker. What's up, Parker?
- [40:19]
C
It's going well. Love the show and happy to be here.
- [40:22]
B
Appreciate you, homie. What's up?
- [40:25]
C
Well, we want to know how the best talk to our sister in law about the. The filthiness of their home and how it's. It's a danger to their kids in their. In their marriage.
- [40:40]
B
Okay, there's that. That raises two flags for me, one of which is I'm. If you've listened to this show for any period of time, I'm hyper protective of children. And so let's go to the marriage part first and then we'll loop back to some duties and responsibilities when it comes to hurting kids. So tell me about your brother and what he says about his home.
- [41:02]
C
Well, that's my wife's brother, but.
- [41:04]
B
Okay. Okay.
- [41:04]
C
My wife's brother and his wife, they're both almost 40. They've been married for 10 years. This is technically their third place that they've lived in and frankly, they can't seem to keep it clean. And she's a stay at home mom, for lack of a better phrase. And he's the sole breadwinner, so he's working all day. Sometimes he has to travel for work. And he unfortunately admitted to it to his mom that he dreads going home because it's filthy and chaotic and basically he doesn't rush home. That's a work.
- [41:56]
B
And so where do y' all come in on this? Because it doesn't sound like he's asked for yalls help.
- [42:01]
C
He's. They've asked in the past. They've asked our Help to help clean their home.
- [42:05]
B
Okay.
- [42:06]
C
And when we would help them move, we would spend more time cleaning than actually moving.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah.
- [42:13]
C
And especially when they're leaving apartments, they have to, of course, keep them. They have to have them clean of all stuff, and that takes longer. And we've actually had to put. We've had a healthy boundary saying that after the fourth time of them cleaning, it seem not to do anything, that we can't come over and clean their home anymore.
- [42:34]
B
Okay. And so how'd they respond to the boundaries?
- [42:38]
C
Kind of indifferent. Like they said, oh, we'll get on it, but they don't do anything.
- [42:42]
A
And then.
- [42:45]
C
And then because of the level of filth in their home, it definitely contributes to how they get sick fairly often, like more often than my wife and my son do. And then with that, they will. They have no discretion of coming to family gatherings when any of them are under the weather. And then that gets us sick. And kind of. Especially last things given we actually missed. We were. We were supposed to go to my family for Thanksgiving, but we couldn't because my son has a bad flu because he caught it from one of my nephews.
- [43:29]
B
All right, you're at. You're attaching a ton of causality to a group of people you don't like. Okay? Like. Like, I think the honest move here is you're grossed out by him. Is that fair?
- [43:47]
C
Yeah, it's pretty fair to say.
- [43:49]
B
I mean, how old's your kid? How old's your son?
- [43:51]
A
He.
- [43:52]
C
My son is eight.
- [43:53]
B
Okay. I guarantee you there's kids in his classroom licking the floor and passing donuts around, especially during holiday. So who knows where he got the flu. Okay? And it's gross when people show up and they're under the weather and they're coughing all over everything and they're not using. Like, I. I get it, okay? But what I don't want you to do is use your kid. Use moving. Using yalls previous lack of boundaries as an excuse for saying, I don't want to go around to family. I will not go to family gatherings where they're there anymore. I don't like them, and they gross me out. I'd rather you take ownership of what you're going to do next, because what's been made super clear in your life, if behavior is a language, is they don't care. Now, if there's rodent feces all around, if there's dog crap all over the house, if there's dog pee all over the house, then I'm going to call Social services, because those kids are in danger. If those kids are coming to school with open sores and unwashed clothes and etc, that tells me that their mom is probably struggling mightily with some sort of challenges, emotional, psychological or otherwise.
- [45:21]
C
And DG is. I mean, she has been diagnosed with OCD and depression and it seems like she has no. No motivation to clean. And so thankfully they don't have any pets and as far as we know, any kind of rodent, feces or whatnot to.
- [45:45]
A
Serve.
- [45:45]
C
But we're talking like moldy food and.
- [45:52]
B
Just gross. Just gross. Yeah, I get it, I get it. It's gross. And it's not how you and your wife do life and it's not how you would wish anyone live or grow up. I get that. But it sounds like if you want to help her, if she's been diagnosed, that means she's been under the care of a professional. So the big question is, how can we get her the support services we need?
- [46:14]
C
You see?
- [46:17]
B
And how can we either get invited to be at the table and help with support there, or look at her, at your wife's brother and say, until you invite us in to be a part of what. How we can be supportive. We're going to choose to back out. Because. Because here's the deal. What's the alternative? You're now finding yourself angry in October, about two months away. Family stuff.
- [46:58]
C
Yeah. Like to the point where we second guess go in a family gathering because we'll know that they'll be there.
- [47:04]
B
Okay.
- [47:04]
C
I mean, they're the sweetest people, but they. Yeah. Living situation that they have is we would never want to go over to their place. It's always gathering at grandma's.
- [47:14]
B
Okay. And so if that is with what y' all need to grieve is, man, we wish we could go to each other's houses and we just can't. Or we're just not going to, then let's be sad about that and let's get on with our lives. Or if the story is, I wish my brother had never married her, I wish she would just leave her. I wish she would take the. Here's the deal. He's not going to. At least not now. And he's not asked for that input. And so just sitting there and basting in that story over and over is a choice to be miserable. It's like. It's like screaming at somebody who just cut you off in the car in front of you. All that does is raise your blood pressure. That person can even hear you.
- [47:55]
C
Yeah. Exactly.
- [47:56]
B
So it's a choice for you to die younger in your car. Or you can exhale and open your hands on the wheel just a little bit to relieve some of the pressure and you can just say a quick prayer. De God, I hope that dude gets to the hospital before his wife dies. I get to make up whatever our story I want so I can sit at home and be like this disgusting. That's gross. That's sick. I can't believe she's like that. She's lazy. She's a so called stay at home mom. She doesn't do crap. You can do that. I wish my brother would leave her. I wish my brother in law would leave her. And the you can do that and all you're doing is making yourself ins and your wife too. Or you can exhale and say my God Almighty. I can't imagine being trapped in her body where she's that depressed and that clinically OCD where she's frozen in time.
- [48:46]
C
Right.
- [48:46]
B
I'm gonna compassionately reach out to my brother and say hey, if there's everything we can do to help with her depression. If you only help with, with medication, with doctor bills, with psychiatrics like will help any way we can. We're not going to come over clean your house anymore because that's just a symptom of a bigger issue. Yeah, but you get what I'm saying either. And because she's not well, because the whole family ecosystem, because we're just ooed out and grossed at whatever we are going to choose to not do, X, Y or Z.
- [49:15]
A
Right? It's our choice minus the story.
- [49:17]
B
Because the story just makes you all miserable. It doesn't solve any problems. And it's probably partially true.
- [49:25]
C
Right? We could, we could theoretically talk to her all the live long day, but it's their choice and it's also our choice on what we choose, what we do going forward.
- [49:33]
B
That's right. It's you getting out of the back seat of your own car and getting back into the driver's seat.
- [49:41]
C
Time for that. I prefer driving.
- [49:43]
B
Yeah, exactly. I do too. I do too. I'm kind of a control freak, so. I do too. My wife says I'm a terrible, terrible driver, but I like to drive. But, but, and, and it might be y' all bring invite your brother in law over and say hey, you've asked us for this before. We just want to put this out there. We know your wife struggles with depression. We know she struggles ocd. We're worried about y' all and anything we can do to help with the funding the f. I don't know what kind of resources y' all have, but when it comes to, like, help, this is y' all putting this on the table and saying, here's where we're willing to help moving forward. And y' all choosing to say, hey, us being angry all the time or frustrated all the time or mad, all it solves nothing other than to create an anxious, anxious, chaotic home environment for our kids. And as for our house, we're going to solve for peace, which means we got to be sad because we're going to go do Christmas somewhere else. We're going to go get a log cabin during Thanksgiving, and we're going to have our small family Thanksgiving. We're going to have a rando Thanksgiving where I'm gonna invite a bunch of random people from my office and my wife's gonna invite people from her office, and we're just gonna get together and do Thanksgiving. Whatever y' all want to do. But y' all get to choose what happens next. I'm just telling you, choosing misery and anger and rage all the time about a problem that nobody's asking you to solve is a recipe for burnout for just. And it's not being uncompassionate at all because it sounds like y' all are super compassionate. It's. It's the futility of trying to help somebody who's not asking for, does not want your help, which is heartbreaking, but that's the reality that you live in. Thanks for calling, my brother. Appreciate you. You got the next move, dude. Take care. We'll be right back. I love my three dogs, but I don't always love dealing with all of the cost and drama of being a pet owner. Every pet needs good veterinarian care, but getting to the vet and being able to afford the local vet can be a nightmare. And that's why I love Dutch. Dutch gives you 247 access to licensed veterinarians anytime anywhere. No waiting rooms, no tests that you don't need, no guessing games while your pet suffers. Listen, here's the best part. A Dutch membership covers up to 4,5 pets with unlimited visits, unlimited follow ups, and prescriptions shipped free right to your door. All of this is less than seven bucks a month. With my code, that's cheaper than just walking into the vet's office one time. The average Dutch member saves over 800 bucks a year. So whether it's medication, behavior issues, allergies, or weird rashes, Dutch veterinarians are trained to treat over 150 common pet conditions. You're not just getting care, you're getting expert care by licensed veterinarians. Go to Dutch.com DeLoney and use code DeLoney to get $50 off a year of veterinarian care. That's Dutch-U T C-H.com DeLoney use code DeLoney. See site for more details. All right, Kelly, something cool happened. What is it? Yes. So Sarah from New York says I work with kids on their social and emotional skills in both school and home. I've been using the Questions for Humans Kids edition deck during my sessions and the kids absolutely love it. Yes, the combination between serious and funny is perfect. Questions like where do you feel safe? Where?
- [53:21]
D
What are you most proud of?
- [53:22]
B
Where are you most calm? Are amazing. For kids who struggle with self esteem or feelings of safety, please come out with decks for teachers and kids or kids to kids. These are amazing. You know what I've never thought of? Kids to kids. That's a great idea. And we do have some teachers and student decks for elementary school and for middle school. I don't know if we have them for high school. And can I say this? I appreciate her note because I know they look silly, but I work really hard for them to be developmentally appropriate and sometimes they're silly ones like what color is a dragon's booger? So, like, there's silly stuff. But I do work hard to focus on kids learning about their social emotional needs. And that's awesome. I'm glad she caught that. That's pretty cool. That's. That means she's pretty sophisticated. That's awesome. So question for humans, pick them up. They are a tool. They actually are a tool to help people put their phones down and look eye to eye and chest to chest and heart to heart and actually have a human interaction which everyone I know is craving these days. Love you guys. Bye.