I Have 3 Failed Marriages and the 4th Is in Trouble
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I've had three failed adult relationships, and I'm trying not to fail the fourth. What are the things that you say you think you have failed for marriages? I take most situations and turn them into, oh, you're trying to control me. Who controlled you? My stepdad. Okay. Horribly. Good morning, good afternoon, good night. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so grateful that you've joined us.

Talking about the things that are going on in your life, with your marriages, with your kids, with your friends, with your workplace, your mental and emotional health, whatever you got going on. There's so much just unease across the world. And sometimes when it feels like everything's coming apart at the seams, it's good just to have someone you can sit down and just say, I'm not okay.

And somebody will listen to you. Someone that will tell you the truth and be honest with you. Someone will say, I don't know. Or somebody who will say, you can't do that. And then together we'll figure out the next right step. This show is about real people going through real challenges. If you want to be on this show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. A-S-K.

All right, let's roll out. This is our last show with Mama Kelly, or actually Grandma Kelly, not here. We can get off the rails a little bit. Let's go out to Vancouver and talk to dear Marie. What's up, Marie? Good morning. How are you?

I'm okay. How are you? I am. I don't know that I could be better. I'm doing pretty good. Pretty good. So what's up? So I will start with my question. And sorry, I'm super nervous. So I'm a little shaky. What's your favorite song of all time?

Oh gosh, I have no idea. You just put me on the spot. Do you know the song Every Rose Has Its Thorn? Yes. Sing it. Just the chorus. No, I can't. Yes, you can. You're from Washington. You can do all things. Every rose has its thorn. Sing with me. Every rose has its thorn. Look at that. You're not even nervous anymore. You just sang in front of like a dozen people. We don't have a lot of listeners, Marie. We're good.

All right. So what's up? Okay. So my question is, you often say behavior is a language. It's me. I'm the one with the behavior that I'm trying to identify why I do the things that I do with my marriage. I come from an abusive and controlling childhood. I've had three failed adult relationships, and I'm trying not to fail the fourth. But I feel I've entered into another unfit environment.

unfinished business relationship again at 52. I'm realizing I don't want to live this way any longer. Good for you, Marie. That's a hard thing to say out loud at 52. Yes. I'm really proud of you. Thank you. What happened that you said enough is enough is enough is enough.

I'm just, I'm recognizing behaviors in myself that one feel childish and immature, but also I'm trying to figure out just why I do these things. And can I tell you something that is kind of strange at this particular moment? I think it's less important to figure out why.

Okay. I think you've spent a ton, a ton of energy trying to figure out why. Okay. And sometimes we cut ourselves off at the knees. We, we, we, we grab our own kryptonite rope, wondering why, wondering why, trying to figure out why. And sometimes we can't think our way out of these patterns. We have to act our way out of these patterns.

Yeah, that makes sense. And so sometimes the most important thing is I will not pick up my phone and text a former ex when I'm mad. Sometimes I will disconnect the internet and throw it away. I will not go look at pornography when I'm lonely or when I'm tired or when I'm frustrated. I'll dump every drop of alcohol out of this house. And so I'll make it impossible for me, at least in this, in this, you know, 2000 square foot little box, I won't be able to drink.

So what are the things that you're doing that you can't seem to trace back? Well, I kind of feel like I have figured out how to trace them back, and I just haven't figured out how to correct them. What are they? Name them. What are the things that you say you think you have failed for marriages, which I don't even like that language, but what have you failed? What do you keep doing? Well...

I don't, I guess I haven't recognized that I keep doing it. I'm just seeing what I'm doing now. And maybe it was things that I did previously and I just didn't recognize it before. What are you doing? So now I, I tend to create problems. I am extremely sensitive. Um, I take most situations and turn them into, Oh, you're trying to control me. Who controlled you?

My stepdad. Okay. Horribly, horribly. Here's what I want you to do before the day is over. Do you have a picture of him? I don't. Okay. I want you to write his name down on a piece of paper. And this is an assignment for 30 days, one month from today. Okay. And I want you to put that piece of paper with his name on it in your pocket at all times. If you're wearing clothes that don't have a pocket in them, put it in your, in your waistband, put it in your bra, put it somewhere where it's on you at all times.

And every time your current husband or one of your kids says something and you're about to unload, I want you to pull out that piece of paper with his name on it and say, hey, I'm going to blow up this relationship for you because you're letting that man still run your life, still ruin everything. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know why you continue to give him that power at 52, but you do. And so let's honor him every time you hurt somebody or blow something up.

And by the way, this is an old counselor trick to get you to pause before you do the next thing that's going to hurt somebody. Right. What was this guy's name? Ed. Ed. Mm-hmm. Ed's cost you three marriages and almost a fourth? Possibly. Okay. That's a lot of power to give one guy. Right. Yeah. Is your current husband trying to control you? No. No. Do your kids try to control you?

Uh, no. How old are your kids? They're adults, but they're 31 and 21. So they're adults now. What else do you do besides, um, your emotions get real hot. Yes. And then you do things to cool yourself off, which might include yelling, might include blaming, might include smashing. Something might include some sort of numbing behavior. What else do you do? Um, I just, um,

Now started yelling. Okay. Um, how does that feel? How does that feel? Be totally honest. A hundred percent. What does that feel? It feels good. It does. It feels powerful, doesn't it? It does because I being controlled my entire childhood, most of my other relationships. Also, I married my stepdad. Okay. Um,

I was a mouse. I was very controlled. I let things roll off my back. I just did whatever. I didn't have a voice. So now I'm trying to have a voice, but I'm not doing it very constructively. There you go. So you just gave yourself some really incredible insights. I learned this working at the law school, working with training lawyers. The most powerful person in the room is the person who says what they say.

neutral or quiet and then puts a period at the end and says no more. That's the voice. The one who dances around and screams and yells is just the big child in a fancy suit. And so in a weird way, you're just replaying childhood again, just on the other side of the seesaw. Right. But you know that now. Yes. And so I do want you to have a voice in this marriage and I want you to feel heard and I want you to feel respected and feel like you've got dignity.

But when you scream, you are ashamed of yourself just like you are when you say nothing. Right. So, cool. I'm not going to try to think of why do I keep, I'm just going to make a commitment to myself. I'm never going to yell again because yelling is just childish. I am going to speak my conviction and I'm going to put a period at the end. I'm not going to justify it. I'm just going to say, I might be wrong. I'll say, and then later I'll say I'm wrong with that same cadence.

Or I might gently whisper, told you so. Like I told you so. Out of fun, right? Not out of poking, but out of love and fun. But you see, let's focus on these actions. I think you spend enough time in your own head trying to get it out that way. Let's act it out. What else do you do? Well, one of the biggest problems is I try to make myself feel better by shopping.

How's that working out for you? It's not because it's gotten me in trouble, bad trouble twice in my adult life. And I now have a little bit of debt again. And I finally admitted it to my husband because he didn't know that I had it. And that did not go well in the conversation. And yeah, but I also find myself

Because I know I'm not supposed to. This is where the childish part comes in. I know I'm not supposed to be using credit cards or spending money frivolously because we have goals. And so I'll sneak things. Like I know I'm not supposed to go to Starbucks. But then I say to myself, I'm a grown ass woman. I work really hard. I can go to Starbucks and get a coffee.

But at the same time, we have goals. Yeah, but hold on. You don't have goals then? Right. You've got directives. That's right. He's got goals and he's telling you what you're going to do. That is how I feel. Every nutrition, every exercise, every mental health practitioner that I know that people live out of restriction. Mm-hmm.

Right? Every person of faith I know, when they make this turn, I'm not allowed to or we don't fill in the blank versus, thank God I don't have to fill in the blank. Right. Right. And for whatever reason, you don't have goals. I wonder if you even have the ability or have ever practiced picturing yourself at 65. Because my guess is you always picture Marie one day later. Yes. And when you grow up in a survival mindset,

household, the goal is to get through the day and that stepdad will finally collapse either drunk or angry somewhere else. And that becomes your nervous system. Yes. Peace feels very uncomfortable. Or as my friend Ian Simpkins says, in your life, I'm guessing, um, busyness chaos is your, is your operation standard, right? And that means rest feels like stress for you. Peace feels uncomfortable for you. Is that fair?

Yes. Okay. That's what you got to learn. But that can only come from a place of Marie's worth piece. The most, I told you so, the most counter-cultural, the most you-can't-tell-me-what-to-do thing you could possibly do in this current day and age in a world that owes $91 trillion is to not owe anybody anything. That's the biggest middle finger right now.

The biggest middle finger in an ecosystem in the media that tells you to be chaotic and can you believe it's all coming down and oh my gosh. The craziest thing you can do is to create a home that you love coming home to. You just have to decide that you're worth that work and then you got to start doing the next right thing regardless of how it feels. Yeah, it feels pretty anxious right now. It does.

You've created a very anxious world for yourselves, right? Yes. So what about husband's goals do you not like? I don't think it's that I don't like them. So I purchased my house before I met him as a single woman by myself, very proud of myself for doing that. And he's always hated the house and can't wait until we can –

buy a new house. And the goal is in a couple of years, I think I have some kind of negative. Have you ever sat down and looked at me now and said, Hey, this house has significant meaning to me. And I love this place. It's my home. Probably not in those words. You fought him on the merits because when you fight him on the merits, then he can't get to your heart and your heart is this, this place, maybe we're going to move someday. That's fine. This is just, this is just a stick and some bricks. Right. But

This was a stake in the ground during a time when I'd lost all sense of myself. This place is important to me. So I'm asking you don't run it down. It's a moment of pride for me. Yeah. And if we want to move someday, cool, but we're going to go to something. We're not going to run from this house just because you hate it because this house is important for me. But if you say that out loud, he might look at you and go, well, screw you then and leave. And if he does, then good riddance. Yeah. But that's what getting a voice means.

Yeah. Not waiting until something blows up and he finally says, I hate this house one too many times. And you just start screaming at him. Yeah. Because here's what happens. Then he looks at you and goes, oh my gosh, you're crazy. And then he tells his friends and the marriage counselor, she just starts screaming at me. And you know what? He's right. Here's how all this works in real life. Y'all have to have a regular practice of sitting at a table and allowing each other to speak. Think of it as tiny little pressure valves that go when you turn them.

And it's you practicing peace. And I know that sounds bonkers, but that's where I want you to head. I want you to practice peace. And when you feel uncomfortable and you don't feel angsty and you feel like you want to go buy something, that's your middle finger to the world that tells you this is the way you solve childhood conflict, buying stuff, raging against things, screaming, yelling, fighting. Nah, I'm opting out of that game. Looking at him telling you, hey, by the way, I'm never going to yell at you again.

I love you too much for that, and I love me too much for that. I'm not doing that. And when you find yourself getting spun up, pull that piece of paper out and say, this one's for you, Ed. And then, by the way, then don't do it. Yeah. Have you written Ed a letter? No. It's time. It's time to let Ed go from your home. It's time to let Ed go from your heart. It's time to let Ed go out of yet another marriage. I want you to write him a letter that said, you hurt me. And if you can, be pretty specific.

And then I want you to end the letter with saying, and today is the last day you have any say in my life, in my home whatsoever from this point forward. I got a lot of healing to do. I'm going to walk around on crutches. That's metaphorical, of course. I'm going to practice. But you've blown up the last marriage. You're not scaring me anymore. I'm not scared of you anymore. I don't have to act like a frightened child anymore. I'm 52-year-old Marie. I can have a voice in my own house. I bought my own house.

And me and my new husband can make plans together to move forward. And here's what's going to happen. You're going to begin to act differently. And I want you to spend some time writing down the behaviors that will be different. The actions you will take on a daily basis that are going to look different. Are you going to get them perfect? God, no. Absolutely not. And I want you to write them down. And then 80-20. 80-20, get them right. Most of the time, get them right. And then the insights will begin to come.

the ahas will begin to come and you'll begin to prove to yourself, I don't have to yell. I don't have to be silent in my own home. I don't have to tiptoe my own house. Hey, fourth husband, we're building something new because you don't get to scream at me. You don't get to act like a child. You don't get to whatever, whatever, whatever. I don't have to take out credit cards and buy stuff because I know it's not gonna make me feel better. And I'm gonna reject the system because that's the kind of girl I am. That's a different way to do life, Marie. And at the end of the day, that's solving for peace.

Hang on the line, my friend. I'm going to send you Building a Non-Anxious Life. It's my book. I'm going to send it to you as a gift. I want you and husband to read it. And then just use it as your blueprint for building something new. Actually, I'm going to send you Own Your Past, Change Your Future, too. I want you to read that one as well. That will walk you through just some of the stuff you've dealt with in the past and how to handle it. But I'm going to give you the roadmap, but you're going to have to start acting new. Thanks for the call, sister. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

So my wife and I were meeting the other day about the back-to-school madness that is about to be on us. We've got my travel schedule, her work schedule, our daughter's new school and clothes and forms to fill out and all these online portals and my son's sports schedule and he's got to have shoes every two weeks because his feet won't stop growing and how are we going to pay for all this and on and on and on.

And when we step back and look at our schedule, it's so packed and we haven't even put in the things like exercise, date nights, counseling appointments, church and holiday trips and big home projects. And these are the things that make life worth living. And I listened to y'all. This is your life too. And here's what I've learned. When it comes to taking care of me, my family and my work, I have to begin with the things that matter most and the things that keep me well and whole so I can wade into the chaos and be sturdy and present and strong.

you too. So as you're planning your upcoming end of summer and fall plans, make sure you don't skip date nights, don't skip regular exercise, and don't skip your regular therapy appointments. Yes, therapy can be hard work, but it can also help make the rest of your life possible.

When it comes to therapy, I want you to consider calling the team at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule.

With a good therapist, you can learn things like positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, how to deal with all the chaos going on in your life, and how to be the best version of yourself. In this upcoming season, make sure you put on your oxygen mask first. Never skip therapy day. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney.

All right, let's go out to the Utes, the Salt Lake City folk, and talk to Heather. What's up, Heather? Hi, John. What's going on? Well, I'm a mom of four kids, and my youngest, we're technically empty nesters, but we've got three living at home with us right now. And my daughter... You're not an empty nester at all, Heather.

Yeah. My daughter is in a relationship with a young man, and they've been dating for just over a year. And when they first started dating and it was looking like it was getting serious, I stressed to her that...

She needed to have some tough conversations with him and be willing to have uncomfortable conversations. One of those is addiction and most specifically pornography. Is this guy addicted to pornography?

I don't know. It's hard to know what addicted means because so many people that I've talked to have different opinions about pornography and different perspectives on, well, if it's once every once in a while, that's not an addiction.

And for me as a mom of daughters, and I've known enough people, women who have suffered and their marriages and relationships have just fallen apart because of pornography. And my daughter has been with this guy now for a year and she's hiding it from us. How do you know? Because...

There has been signs of isolation. Whoa. If you're going to lodge this grenade, like throw this grenade at this young man, I need some very specific details. Okay. So last year, after I said, you need to have a conversation with him about these things. Okay. She came home.

And said he acknowledges that he had viewed pornography. Okay. And I think 98% or 99% of men in the United States of America have viewed pornography at one time or another. Right. Okay. So that makes him every single man ever. Go ahead. Right. So then I said, okay, how much, how often, how frequently? How old is your daughter? 22. Why are you grilling her like this?

It's like you're putting this boy on trial. And I get that you, I've got a daughter too. I want to protect my daughter. It's more, it sounds like I'm growing her. During the time of the conversation, it was over the course of about three weeks. Okay. As I'm trying to learn and I'm trying to understand about this realm that I don't know enough about. Okay, but what I'll tell you is, what I'll tell you is, here's what you've created. She will never come to you with other things.

I've worked with this age group my entire career. You've created a world where she now knows I'm going to get 30 questions. She's going to judge. She's going to come to conclusions. She's going to start putting on these glasses and looking at me and my boyfriend or my future kids or whatever. I will never bring her stuff. So when you tell me she's hiding, 1,000% yes. Oh, I know. But you created that contact with your daughter.

Instead of her coming back and saying, mom, he admitted to looking at pornography and you sitting down saying, let's go get coffee and saying, tell me about that. No, that is what I did. Okay. That is what I did. We, we had very, like, I didn't react immediately. I just like, so how'd you feel about that? And you know, where, where do you see this going?

OK, and if you're OK with that, we you know, and you did not say that, Heather, you did not say, well, if you're OK with that, then cool, we'll support you. No, no, I didn't say if you're OK with the pornography. I said, OK, if you're OK with his answer, you've got to figure this out. You know, this is your relationship and, you know, we're here for you. And at the time she was living, she wasn't living at home with us. She was away.

And now she's come home and they've gotten more serious. And there is, you know, we are relatively hands-off parents. Okay. And so we have tried to allow our kids to make their mistakes. The concern that comes is when their relationship has now become...

He doesn't ever want to be around us. And we literally have never, like, I've tried to be a very conscious parent to give my kids the space that they need to grow. And what you're hearing right now is the culmination of a year of

Am I ignoring red flags? And, oh, no, this is not my job. You know, she's 22. This is not my job. I've done my job, and now I'm just cheering on, and I'm a spectator whenever they want to involve me. So what's the core issue, that this young man might become your son-in-law and she doesn't want you around? The core issue for me is how can I help

Percy, that being with a guy who uses and views pornography is not going to lead to a successful relationship. How do you know that he's still using and viewing pornography to this day, a year later, after they had a conversation about it? Because I saw a page in her journal. I did not search it out. It was there, and it was open. Okay. And what did the journal say? As soon as I saw it, it said...

He admitted to me that he was using porn again. Okay. And the, again, you know, the, again was what, and I was like, I got to get out of this room. You know, I was putting laundry away. You know what I mean? It was not. I know, but your kids are living in your house and that's the, A, the choice they made and that's the risk they made. And I'm going to get a lot of hate on the internet for saying this, but they're choosing to live in their mom's house instead of having their own place. And it's your home.

And they are subject to your rules and regulations in your home. And so you read her journal and learned some stuff. Yeah, and that's what has... It is what it is. So you found out and you know, okay? So let's just deal with what you know. We can talk about that another time, but the language here is pretty instructive for me, okay? What do I mean by that? Yesterday was a really hard day for me.

professionally and personally. I had to have a hard conversation with a group of people about the loss of a dear friend. I had a slate of shows. I had some personal stuff at home. I had hours and hours of radio and podcast. I got home last night and I was exhausted. I'm also in the middle of a pretty intense weight cut. And this morning I came to the office and I'm kaput.

And I grabbed out of a snack bag some of the gummy candies. And if I was to text my wife, and like I'm not hiding anything, of course, but she could write in her journal, my husband's using gummy candies again because he's not doing well. Is that the same as pornography? No. But it doesn't mean that I'm an addict and that I have a pattern of behavior over and over and over again. It means I'm back going through a tough time. And the fact that she used the language that I think is instructive, which is,

He slipped up. He had came to me and said he's struggling again. If I was talking to him, I would be adamant about him finding some different outlets than pornography. But if you back up, what do we want from our spouses when they're hurting and struggling? We want them to come to us and say, hey, I screwed up again and I'm sorry.

And for a young dating couple, for a 22-year-old boy to come back to a girl that he loves and that he wants to spend the rest of his life with, and they've had this conversation before, for him to be honest and say, hey, I messed up. I'm doing something I don't want to do again, and here's what's going on. Yeah, I'm going to be heartbroken about the pornography part, and I'm going to tell him, dude, it's not good for your brain. It's not good for your marriage. It's not good for your future family. But good on you for having the courage to come tell the person you want to spend the rest of your life with that you're hurting and you messed up. It may be that your daughter's doing a pretty darn good job. Is that possible? Yeah.

Of course, all things are possible. It's like what you just pointed on. It's not good for your brain. It's not good for your heart. It's not good for your family. All of those things to me far outweigh the...

Good on you for talking to your girlfriend. I got it. I don't. Does that make sense? Yeah. They haven't even had kids yet. They haven't even gotten, they haven't made any commitment to get married yet. They haven't, you know, there's, there's, if this was the only flag. Okay. Now we're in it. What, what, what's your real problem with this boy?

My problem with the boy is my daughter doesn't see that she has worth. There you go. Let's be honest about what we're upset with here. Yes, is pornography going to get us fired up? Of course it would. Of course. You don't like this guy. I don't like that she tolerates. Nope. Let's take away her for a second. You don't like this guy. Just be honest about that. That's okay. There will be people that my kids date that I will not like. And I'm not going to shy away from that.

Does he not treat her with dignity and respect? Not if he's young pornography. That is not treating a girl with dignity and respect. Go beneath that. What's beneath that? What have you seen in their dynamic that makes you sick to your stomach? He has isolated her from our entire family. How so? So that she spends 90% of her time with him and his family because he thinks our family is not good enough. Has he said that?

He's told her, I don't like being around your family. You don't like him. I don't like being around people that don't like me, Heather. Have you ever said, hey, young man, you might be in my life again. I want to take you out for coffee. Has your husband ever reached out and said, let's go fishing? We have tried. And he just says no? He always finds an excuse to not come. Okay. So here's where we are globally speaking. You have made up your mind about him. And there's a period at the end of that sentence.

The question you have to ask yourself is, do I have the courage and the integrity to sit down with my daughter and say, hey, I saw your journal. I know this guy's struggling, and I know you're in love with him. I don't like what he's done to you. I don't like how he talks about us. Partridge in a pear tree. If you ever want an outlet, I'll be here for you.

And we can't stand by and watch you marry him. So if you choose to marry him, if you choose to be a part of this thing and accept this thing, here's going to be our boundaries and our consequences. Otherwise, every time she's around you, she's going to know that she's going to be able to detect in her guts. Mom doesn't approve of me. And kids take that feeling and they make it their fault. And some kids try to be perfect. Some kids turn into the clown.

And some kids just disappear because they can't carry that weight. But you have cast judgment on this young boy, period. Okay, you have to decide what you and your family are going to do next. Because right now you're just spinning and spinning and spinning and spinning. There's not a conversation you can have with her about the psychology or the neurology of pornography. I know it's bad. She knows it's bad. Her boyfriend clearly knows it's bad because he apologized to her, says he's struggling again.

You know it's bad. Everybody knows it's bad. It's not a science conversation. That's not the deal. The deal is you do not like this guy, and you do not like her with him. Have you told her that? I just don't like their dynamic. I know, but have you told her that? I've told her I have concerns because we haven't been able to, in our attempts to try to get to know him...

He has distanced himself more and more and pulled her with him and made it that we are the ones that are the problem, that our house is the problem, that our family is the problem. And you feel like you're losing your daughter? Oh, I know I am. Okay. Is there a chance that he's not pulling her as much as she's going with him? He's very needy, and she is one of the biggest hearted people. And with other dynamics in our family, it's nice to feel needed.

Yeah. I understand that. I just see her thinking. Okay. Without realizing that she has chosen to think with him. Then as a parent, and this is just me talking parent to parent here, I'm watching my kid drown. I'm either going to speak now or forever hold my peace. And I, for one, I'm somebody, as you can probably tell, I will speak. And I will...

In a nonjudgmental, not about him way, because the way you just ended that conversation is really important. It's not about him. It's about your daughter. You're losing your daughter. And for whatever reason, your daughter's choosing to be around him and not around y'all. For whatever reason, her body feels safer in that dynamic than it does in your home dynamic. And I know as a parent, that could be devastating to hear and to see that happening in real time.

Maybe he's highly manipulative and highly abusive. And if so, you as mom, you better get involved and sit down and tell your daughter, I love you. And I see this happening to you. And if you want an out, I'm right here. But the more you hang on trying to find a thing that you can go, see, there it is. That's why we don't want him with you. Like pornography, like man, that's just not going to be the thing. And now you've got this secret between you because you, because you read her journal or stumbled upon her journal, whatever. And, and,

You're going to have to be the one that bridged that gap. I know, sweetheart. I know. And this is also a great time, Heather, for you to talk about situations that you may have experienced with your husband over the years or people you dated in the past as a way to say, honey, daughter, 22, 23-year-old daughter, I've been there too. And the reason this is so hard for me is I've been there too. And she may look at you and say, yeah, I choose him for now. I choose him. And it is so heartbreaking.

But hear me as clearly as I can. If any child feels like it's just not wise, it's a pain in the butt, it's not safe, whatever word you want to use to talk openly here, they're going to disappear. If your kids are dating somebody, this isn't just you, Heather, this is everybody listening. If your kids are dating somebody and you hate that person, that person will not come around you, period. They won't because they know they're not liked. They know they're not wanted.

And if somebody always is coming up with excuses not to be around you, then jump right square in the middle of that. And if they still don't want to be around you, then they've made their grown-up decision. I hate this for you, Heather. I know it feels like you're losing your daughter, and in a way, you are. She's 23. This is natural. In fact, it's a little bit late. The kids start pulling away. It's time for you to stop talking at her as though she's still 14, and you have to switch from I can tell you what to do to...

Honey, I'm going to tell you some stuff about my childhood that you don't know. And I've been there too. And I'll walk with you. And if you choose to do this, this door will always be open or it won't be open. You get to pick your boundaries. And for everybody listening, yes, pornography is not good. Y'all know that. But man, oh man, I'm doing everything I can right now to let both my kids know.

There's not a thing you can do. There's not a place you can go. There's not trouble you can find yourself in. That A, I'm not going to tell you the truth. That B, I won't come get you and see that that front door will not always be open and there won't be a bed here unless you're an active threat to the safety of this home. Period. Thanks for the call, Heather. I know this is a heavy one. We'll be right back.

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Go to helixsleep.com slash Deloney. That's helixsleep, H-E-L-I-X-S-L-E-E-P.com slash Deloney. This offer won't last long, so go right now. Because with Helix Sleep, better sleep starts now. All right, let's go to Nova Scotia, Canada and talk to Becca. Hey, Becca, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm good. How are you?

I am great. I'm excited to be talking to you. I am more excited to be talking to you. Okay. So my question is, how do I make decisions about my family's future without my mom's disapproval influencing me? Okay.

So good. So that's an interesting pair with that last call that you had. Listen, if you, if you, yeah, exactly. Exactly. If you write this book, you'll be like a multimillionaire by the way. Okay. I'm glad. I hope you figure this part out. It'd be great. All right. So what's, what's happening? So, okay. So I'm 30 years old. I'm my husband and I have been married for five years. He is amazing and wonderful. Um,

Um, we are, we're in crazy town right now. We have three kids under four years old. So yeah, we are, I'm the mayor of crazy town. We are, we're in crazy town, but I love it. Um, and so my youngest is two months old and so I'm currently on maternity leave, but in between maternity leave, I've been working part-time. So I work part-time.

Three days a week. And my older two kids are in daycare. And so we live close to my husband's family. And we live really far from my family, about 2,000 miles from my mom. But we've always been close. We talk multiple times a week. We FaceTime with the kids all the time. We go to visit a couple times a year or they come to visit us.

And she's always had strong opinions. Like my whole life, she's had really strong opinions, but we've found ways over the years to kind of work with it or work around it or deal with it, I guess. But then six months ago, I feel like everything just blew up. Hold on, back up, back up.

You didn't work around stuff as much as you moved 2,000 miles away. Yeah, I did do that. Yeah. Behavior is a language, sister. We get it. Yeah. We need a continent or two between us, which is all good. I'm not judging. I'm just like, we've worked it all out. It's like, not really. We just went to the moon. That's cool. That's cool. We totally avoid. Okay. When we get into a conflict...

It's like, just, just avoid it. And when Deion Sanders was playing a cornerback teams would just throw to the other side of the field. They just, that was their offense was like, let's just don't be around that guy. So again, it's a strategy and it works. Okay. So what happened six months ago? So we were, my, my family was home visiting or, or back in my hometown visiting and

And on the last day of our visit, I just got into this terrible, terrible fight with my mom. And it started... She just kind of told me all of her thoughts and opinions about the way that I'm raising my family and basically how we're doing it all wrong. Everything from the fact that I'm a working mom, she thinks is terrible.

detrimental and harmful to my kids agreed continue the fact that we send our kids to daycare um agreed continue she just she thinks we're we're like sloughing off responsibility and letting somebody else raise our kids 1000 good job i'm team mom keep going becca yeah um she thinks the fact that we're even considering public schools is crazy it's a disaster keep going

She thinks that my husband's career, which is in a nonprofit sector, which he's really successful in, but it does have a slightly lower income than other fields. She thinks he's not providing adequately for my family, which is just crazy town because we're doing great and we're very happy. So she doesn't like my husband's career and she doesn't like the fact that we live in an apartment.

and don't have a yard for our kids. So it was like all this stuff just came spilling out. And I was,

totally thrown off. And I asked her if she, the thing that like, I can't get out of my head is I said, what do you, do you think I'm a bad mom for doing all these things for sending my kids to daycare and working? And she said, yeah, I do. Whoa. No way. Are you for real? Hold on. Stop, stop, stop, stop. I want you to digest that. Cause you blew over it and you used anger and rage to wallpaper over it.

Oh, yeah. I'm still mad. Hold on. You're not. No, there's that old famous saying, I sat down with my anger and she took off her mask and revealed herself as grief. I can't think of a more heartbreaking thing for a child to hear than their parents say you're a bad mom. Yeah, it really, really. Hold on. Sit in it. You're too quick. Sit in it with me. I honestly can't think of a more damaging thing for a mother to tell her daughter.

I'm sorry that she said that. Yeah, it hurt. It hurts. Still does. Yeah. And Becca, I'm going to ask you something and I tell the truth on this show. I'm going to ask you to tell me the truth. Okay. Yeah. Are you a bad mom? No, I'm not a bad mom. Okay. Period. Period. End of story. Yeah. And I'm sorry that your mom said that. I'm sorry that she lied to your face. I'm sorry that she broke your heart.

Because moms are supposed to be moms and they're supposed to give their opinions even when they're wild and that's okay. And moms are also supposed to be our biggest cheerleaders. Both and. That means sometimes my mom calls and my mom's in her 70s and she's brilliant and a savant and she also says crazy things. And I'm like, oh, geez. Or she finds something on the internet that is super scientifically inaccurate and she explains it to me. I'm like, oh, gosh. And...

There's not a phone call that goes by that she doesn't tell me how proud she is of what a good dad I am. And both are true. And I get mad when people write their parents off too soon. And I really get my heart broken when moms and dads don't say the words, I'm proud of you and you're doing a good job with their kids. Even though the situation's different than they had pictured. Because it sounds wrapped up in all the stuff she said to you.

I had a different picture of what my life as a grandma was going to look like. And I miss y'all. And I don't know how to say that. So I'm going to say it with criticism and accusations. And she's probably told you she loved you that way her whole life. Yeah. Like if you got second place in the class grades, it wasn't, oh my gosh, I'm so proud of you. It was, oh my gosh, you almost got first place. Right? Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Here's the homework assignment. I want you to go to like, I don't know what kind of stores they have in Canada. So I'll just say a shoe box. I would tell you to go to crafts, et cetera. I don't even know if that's a store anymore or like Hobby Lobby, but, um, I want you to find a small box and put it on your kitchen table, like, and do this actual thing. Okay. I don't want you to write down the names of people in your life.

it could be your mother-in-law could be your father-in-law could be both of them it could be two of your girlfriends from college it could be your next door neighbor it could be your minister it could be anybody your husband but i want you to actively on note cards write down the names of people who get a vote in your life i want you to put that in the box and there shouldn't be more than five or six max and by the way my mom and dad who i love

I mean, they gave me an amazing ride. They're the best. They're still married. They're an incredible example. They're great in every way. They don't get a vote in my life. I call my dad and ask him for wisdom. I call my mom and ask her for wisdom and support. They have influence, but they don't get a vote because they don't live in and out. They're not my go-to. They don't know all the deep, dark secrets.

My job is very different than any sort of experience they have. The way, where I live, the state I live in, the like living on acreage or living downtown in a city like that's just different than the world they inhabit. It would be unfair to put them in a position where they're voting on things that they don't fully understand. I love them, but they don't get a vote. I guess I, like I wish she did. There you go.

And grief is the gap between what we wished, what we wanted to be true and what actually is true. And what actually underneath all of this is true is that you had to move 2,000 miles away to find peace. Because this kind of stuff's been going on your whole life. Yeah. And I wish it wasn't that way for you too. And I guess when I'm looking at...

we have a lot of big decisions coming up in the next year. Like what? My oldest is going to be school age, so we're going to decide what school, possibly homeschool, possibly private school. And we're also looking to buy a house for the first time. Cool. But my mom doesn't know any of that because she's... She's not a voting member, Becca. It would just... She's not a voting member. It would just cause more pain. It would. That's why she's not a voting member.

Yeah. And by the way, can I take some, take some bricks out of your backpack for you? Sure. Um, my son went to, um, a teeny tiny private little Christian, um, I don't know, Tuesday, Thursday kind of school. And then he went to a public kindergarten, first grade, second grade. And it was amazing, like world-class, unbelievable. Then we moved and sent him to this like hippie, awesome, uh,

private school for two years and it was an absolute like soup to nuts disaster. And then I put him back in a public school and it was extraordinary. And now he's transitioning grades and I'm putting him into a private school. Why do I tell you all this? It doesn't matter. You don't know the real data. Did you go to college? Yeah. Did your husband go to college? Yep. Do y'all read books to your children? Every day. Okay. That's about it.

Are y'all still married? Yes. Do you have a home that is relatively safe? Yeah, absolutely. Do you teach your children what feelings are and that they can tolerate frustration? Yes, especially my four-year-old. Ta-da! You have more of a chance to screw your kids up than you do to make them. You're like, you're doing all the right things. You're doing all the right things. And here's my opinion. This is just my opinion. I want my kid to go to school and hear wild, weird things.

I want him to hear beliefs that I don't agree with. I want him to hear all sorts of things while he still lives in my home so that he comes to me and asks me, hey, dad, what about, I heard that whatever the thing might be. Yeah. Because if I try to shield him and create a bubble for him to exist in, and I personally get down on my hands and knees and wipe off his knee every time he scrapes it, he's going to go to college or he's going to go straight to the workforce and the world's going to set him on fire.

Yeah. And so I'm going to do what's best for him academically. It's my job to teach him spiritually. It's my job to make sure he reads. It's my job to make sure, and again, I'm speaking very liberally. My wife was Dr. Delaney way before me. She's way smarter. But it's our job to make sure these things, these benchmarks are met. I'm not going to outsource that to the state or to the government. So send him to the school where he's going to thrive the best, socially, academically, et cetera. And if it doesn't work, just move him the next year.

If it doesn't work. Oh, yeah. I also forgot the year of homeschool that was not great during COVID. You see what I'm saying? You have so much pressure. Yeah. It's not permanent. Do the next right thing. Let it ride. Be willing to go, that was dumb. That was dumb. And we're going to do the next thing. Yeah. Here's what I know. I know I trust you to do what's right for you and your family. Mm-hmm.

So if no one's ever told you that besides your husband, hear it a second time. Becca, I believe in you as a mom, and I believe in you as a wife, and I believe in you as somebody who's co-creating a home for their kids. And I'm proud as hell of the work you're doing, and I'm proud that you're going to screw up some stuff, some things royally, and you're going to say you're sorry, and you're going to do the next right thing after that. Yeah. If you have some real courage later on down the road...

Don't send it. Don't send it. Please, God, don't send it. But write the letter to mom. Yeah. And say thank you for the things that she gave you because as hard as it is to see through the smoke sometimes, she did give you some great stuff. Yeah, she did. And be honest about the things that made life really hard that you're going to have to overcome for years. And then be really clear in that letter about the things you're doing differently with your kids. And let your mom go because in a weird way, you're the one still dragging her into these conversations. Mm-hmm.

If she lived next door to you like Ray Romano's mom and was always knocking on your door, that'd be one thing. You're 2,000 miles away. You're half a continent away. Yeah. So in weird ways, you're still searching for that one thing you can do or the one thing you can say that she's finally going to exhale and go, I'm so proud of you. You're a great mom. And Becca, I hate to tell you this, that call is not coming. Yeah. Yeah.

So your job is to find the people in your life that will be honest with you. And when you are doing a great job, they'll look at you and say, amazing. Yeah. Is that cool? Yeah. Yeah. And it's, I mean, I know it's not,

It's not any of that, but it just feels like I've just, for the last six months, I've just like left her out of so many parts of my life that I maybe would have invited her into before. But she opted out. Becca, she opted out. Becca, she opted out. Yeah. She opted out. And I hate that because I wish she was right by your side in this. But when she looked at the fact that your husband is somebody who is dedicated his life to service,

And when y'all have looked at, hey, you know what? We live in one of the most expensive places on planet earth. And so we're going to make do with the best we can. And that also means we don't just drop our kids off in the yard that we have to go take them to parks and go be active and go move around because that's what we have to do. Yeah. Yeah. And she looked at you and said, you're a bad mom. She opted out. Yeah. She opted out. And so it's not dishonest to not include somebody who doesn't have the emotional or psychological or physical capacity to participate.

In fact, in a weird way, it's a gift to her because she has told you, I can't lift this weight. So if you keep putting that weight on the bar, it's going to crush her. You just have to make peace with, not make peace. You have to grieve. You had this picture of mom being able to come in and sit by you and cheer you on because you've been searching for that. Mom, am I doing a good enough job? You've been searching for that since you were so little. And the answer is yes. And the answer is also she does not have the capacity to tell you that. I'm sorry.

And this is a hard thing for me to tell you. You have to make a choice to stop seeking it because a choice to continue to seek something that can never be true or it probably will not be true is a choice to be miserable in the present. And you don't deserve that. Your kids don't deserve that. Your husband doesn't deserve that. Your coworkers and clients don't deserve that. Call's not coming. So sit down at the kitchen table this weekend and put a box out on the table.

and be very clear about who gets a vote in your life. And if you only have one and it's your husband, then you've got a mission ahead of you. And that's to get some people that you trust that you will say, hey, I'm going to lean on you. You're my 2 a.m. ride or die. And if you do have four or five or six people that you can call your sister, your friend, your mother-in-law, whoever that happens to be, your husband, you're gonna be a real gangster. Call them and tell them. Call them and tell them you have a vote in my life. You have access to my soul, to my heart. Please wield that power.

and responsibility with care and with wisdom. And it will, your body will relax in a way that it probably hasn't ever. Becca, you're a good mom. Your kids are lucky to have you. Your husband's lucky to have you by his side. I'm grateful that you called. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're back. So Taylor, what did I put on the internet this time? Social media. All right. So you posted, as a culture, we have an obsession with avoiding discomfort, with not wanting to feel bad or wanting to avoid the ugly cry, the hard conversations, or the fact that your life isn't where you thought it would be. We've made what's uncomfortable the enemy, and it's not. Stop avoiding and ignoring. Embrace the uncomfortable with the necessary. And remember, there is no growth without discomfort.

Yeah, I mean, this is just an homage or a nod to somebody who's become a good friend, Michael Easter, who wrote The Comfort Crisis. And it's one of those rare books that you pick up and read, and it was like such an aha. And I knew that the only way to get stronger over time is to add more weight to the bar. And I knew the only way to...

get a promotion in your job was to go get more training or to stay late and to get up early and do excellent, excellent, excellent work, which in my world takes lots of revisions and lots of looking up case law and et cetera. And I know in mental health, the only way like to heal from anxiety is right through it. I knew all those things individually, but,

And then here came Michael Easter with this masterpiece of a book, The Comfort Crisis, and laid it out like, oh, we've created a whole culture that avoids anything uncomfortable. And we've demonized everything that's uncomfortable. And I just looked around and I was like, yeah, if we would all do the hard thing. For instance, if politicians, instead of yelling, would just look at their person and just say, I'm not going to scream at you. I'm not going to yell at you. I'm not going to, I'm not going to.

I'm not going to argue about whose golf game is better. I'm actually going to talk about the people that we're trying to serve. Like I'm just like, that's the hard thing now to, to keep your cool and be a person of dignity and character in the midst of chaos. If the person cut you off on the highway and we did the hard thing, which is to exhale instead of the easy thing, which is just flip them off. Um, if we all collectively said, Hey, let's lower the, the, the, the debt, the, the U S debt, and it's going to be an awful 10 years. We're gonna have to really buckle down for 10 years. We can do it together. Um,

We would be setting up the next 250 years worth of, you know what I mean? Like it's, we, we have just, but we can't because it's about what's comfortable right this second, this quarter, this next minute, this next, whatever. We just can't do it. A buddy of mine was in a, working in a high rise, um, downtown in a building. And he said that there was an email sent out to everybody. It said the bathroom on floor seven is out.

If you need to use the bathroom on floor eight or floor six, feel free. If this is too much of an inconvenience, feel free to go home for the rest of the day. And we were talking, he's like, dude, they would rather send you home. Like we're such a culture. Like if I can't just walk right over there to the bathroom, I can't go up and down the stairs or I can't use the elevators. I seem to go to my house. Like that's where we are. And that's madness. It's insanity, right? It doesn't make any sense. And so all I have to say is,

The parts of your life that are uncomfortable, head right into them. Because almost always, peace is on the other side of that. Healing is on the other side of that. Sleep, better relationships, freedom from all sorts of things is on the other side of that discomfort. And man, as we said with the first caller, the biggest cultural stick it to you isn't to yell at the next person. The biggest cultural stick it to you is to be completely free.

to be just navigating your life. Can't hurt my feelings. You can't take my house from me because I own it. You can't take my cars because I own them. You can't make me mad because I'm just going to be kind anyway. Like that is the great stick it to you of the 21st century. Seek discomfort because there's joy on the other side. Shout out to the great Michael Easter. I better go pick up that book, The Comfort Crisis. What a masterpiece. Love you guys. Bye.