My Brother-in-Law Is in Love With Me
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. My husband believes my sister's husband is in love with me. He's been cheated on in prior relationships. I think he's bringing in some of that. What he's trying to do is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's going to set this relationship on fire and then eventually he's going to get burned and say, see, I told you so.

What in the world's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. What's up? What's up? I'm so glad that you are with us talking about your mental and emotional health and your relationships, the things that make our lives worth living, and figuring out what's the next right move when everything feels like it's falling apart. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. A-S-K is real people.

all over planet earth going through real challenges in their life man here's my promise i'm gonna sit with you i may not have the answer every time but i'm gonna sit with you and we're gonna try to figure out what's the next move sometimes it ends with a happy ending and sometimes it does not but that's life right that's life let's roll out to cleveland ohio and talk to maria hey maria what's up

Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm good. How are you? I'm doing great. Are you nervous right now? Oh, don't be nervous. You're good. You're good. Thank you so much for hanging in there. I know we're a little bit behind schedule here, but thank you so much. So what's up? So my question is complex and simple. My question is, my husband believes my sister's husband is in love with me.

And I'm like, how do I handle that situation? Take your husband out of the picture for a second. You, how old are you? 42. You're 42. You're a wise woman and you know. Is this man in love with you or no? No. So the real issue here is why is your husband projecting this jealousy into this relationship? Yes. Why?

- I don't know why. I mean, I know there's history there with prior infidelities and prior relationships. It has not been an issue in this one, but I think he's just bringing in some of that, I guess. - He's been cheated on or you've cheated on him before? - Me, no. He's been cheated on in prior relationships. - Okay. So does he not want you to hang out with your sister anymore?

He hasn't said that. However, I feel that pressure to do that to make him comfortable. Gotcha. My guess is this is going to be a moving target and you're never going to land that plane. Uh-huh. Yeah. Because the moment you quit doing that, he's going to see it as somebody at work. He's going to see it as somebody in the grocery store. He's going to see it at the place where you get your oil change. It's never going to stop. Yeah, correct. Is that already happening?

Yes. Okay. So are you doing anything or bringing anything to the table that would make him think that you have eyes for other people? 100% not. I mean, no. So y'all need to have that conversation ASAP. Because what he's trying to do is to create a self-fulfilling prophecy. He's going to set this relationship on fire and then eventually he's going to get burned and say, see, I told you so.

Uh-huh. So what does it look like for you to stop playing and stop placating and stop trying to make him feel comfortable all the time, all the while squashing yourself and looking at him with all the lights on in the room? I will not cheat on you. Stop. Yeah. What do you need in this relationship to feel safe and to feel like I'm not cheating on you? Because I'm going to be around other people, including family members, for God's sake. Yeah. Are you able to do that?

Um, yes, I think I am. And I think, you know, you speaking about washing myself just really resonates because I think that's kind of what's been necessary for me to, um, or for him to be comfortable. And it's just, you know, after so many years, I think it's just very wearing and taxing and, you know, I'm not, I don't want to live that way. Do you think he'll be able to hear it?

I think you'll be able to hear it rationally. In practice, I don't know what that's going to look like because I've never seen it before and I've never been so vocal about it before, so I don't know. So often, do you love him? Yes. Okay. If he's been cheated on before, then this is just his body's way of trying to keep him safe so that doesn't happen again.

So he's wearing a pair of glasses in which everyone is out to break his soul again, like happened last time. Yeah. And so a way you can offer this is to say, here's where I feel like I don't get to be fully your wife. And it's actually costing, it's killing you, but it's costing him. He doesn't get the full rambunctious, wild, exciting, playful, joyful, uh,

Super sexy Maria. Because Maria's too busy working to protect his feelings. 100% accurate. Men often don't realize that by being, oh yeah, they actually lose the best parts of their partner. Right? So I think it's explaining that pretty clearly. And you just said it best. He's going to go, I know, I know, I know. You're right. I know you're right. And then he's going to go out.

And without even thinking, he's going to grab his wallet and his keys and that pair of glasses that says, everyone's out to steal my wife and break my soul again. And so a way you can practice with him is that every time he feels super jealous or feels like someone is looking at you too much, you can tell him, I want you to come hold my hand. Or I want you to come put your hand on the small of my back. And that's going to be my private signal that you feel like this is happening and

And I'm going to tell you, Maria, I am comically embarrassingly the world's worst at realizing someone's hitting on me. Always have. Like my wife said, that was the joke, like in the, in the residence hall back in college. Yeah. Like I am awful at it. And so sometimes my wife will say like, Hey, we got to go.

And I'll be like, whatever. Right. So sometimes like she's right. I'm way off. And then we get in the car. She's like, this is I'm like, oh, no. Right. And that's happened to me before with my colleagues and friends. Like I had no idea. And so, yeah, it's you saying, OK, I'm going to hear you. And if you see it, if you feel it, I want you to let me know. And my promise is I'll keep my eyes open. I'm a lean into you.

Okay. Does that make sense? So we're going to practice this together and it's giving him an outlet for those feelings. And here's the goal. I want him to begin to feel it and then to ask himself, is this true? Is my brother-in-law actually trying to hook up with my wife? No. Is my brother-in-law a flirty guy? Maybe. Is my brother-in-law think my wife is awesome? Cause she is. Yeah. All right. Who knows? Whatever. But all that to say is, um,

Give him an opportunity to practice it. And potentially there's an off ramp there, right? Potentially he's like, all right, I'm going to try this. But I think it comes back to you saying, I can't do this work for you. I will tell you, I will never, ever, ever cheat on you.

So let's map out what safety looks like for you because I'm not just going to sit at home and I can't spend the rest of my life trying to protect your feelings because your feelings are a moving target. Every time we get to a baseline, they go up again. Every time we get to that baseline, they go up again. And now you're accusing my brother-in-law. Now you're accusing who is just going to keep going and going and going and going. So let's come to some sort of what's a base baseline of relational safety.

And let's go get into the good stuff. I want to get my life back. I want to get my joy and my sexiness and my dancing and my fun back. And I can't live my life trying to look at every situation and protect your precious feelings because your feelings don't tell you the truth. And let's practice this together. And hopefully he'll go with you, man. That'd be awesome if he did. I'd be proud of him if he did because I totally get it that he is trying to play defense. I totally get that.

I mean, getting cheated on can just destroy your confidence in yourself. And he's trying to make sure he never gets hurt again. I get it. But in the process, he's going to end up crushing his most precious current relationship. And then the worst part of it is it's just going to be proof that he was right all along, even though he wasn't. Great call, Maria. Thank you so much for giving me a shout. And I think it's time to turn all the lights on, turn the music off and say, all right, honey, new relationship time. We're going to build it from the floor up. Are you in?

And hopefully he says yes. Have him call me if he ever wants to. I'd love to talk to him. We'll be right back. It's time to talk about Organifi. All right, here's one of my main life goals. I want to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible. I want to be that old semi balding guy in the back of the mosh pit. And I also want to be that old guy dancing with his beautiful wife into my 80s. And I want to be able to roll around with my grandkids in some WWE style wrestling match into my 90s.

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As much as we can be, it's definitely a killer heat, that's for sure. That's like unfathomable hot, man. So what's up? So I'm calling because speaking of this killer heat...

I'm calling because I'm trying to prepare for my third child, but last year I had a heat stroke that disrupted my career plans. Dude, no way. And it's for the job I specifically moved for. I wouldn't have made a heat joke. Man, okay, heat stroke. Actually, I probably would have made a heat joke anyway. I'm sorry. No problem. It's all good. It's all good. That's how I deal with awkward is making really more awkward jokes. All right, so you moved down to the outer rim of hell for a job, and then you had a heat stroke.

That's right. It literally moved from the West Coast all the way in the West with great weather, came for a career in law enforcement, and unfortunately had a heat stroke probably within a month when I moved here, and it's completely derailed my plans. How so?

So I basically was hospitalized for eight days. Okay. Just got medical clearance to start resuming physical activities about a month ago. And in that time, I missed out on being able to go through everything I was planning on doing. When I made that move, it was all with a specific plan in mind to set up everything for my family.

And as time went on, right now we're expecting our third child. And I'm preparing to go back into the academy. It was a career in law enforcement. But we don't have family out here. We're not from around here. And I feel very...

conflicted about going back into this academy and then putting my wife through having our third baby with two children and no support because they don't allow me the time off to support her. Um, can I make a guess? Just a wild guess. Tell me if I'm wrong. Sure. She really wants to go back home. Yeah, she does go home.

You think so? I mean, I can hear it in your voice, man. If you're going to go to the academy, you got to be all in. Yeah. And you're going to get hurt if you don't. Yeah. And how long have you been out in Tucson? It's coming up on a year, almost 10 days, year to date from the incident. Okay. So you were out, you were medically uncleared for a year? Just about. Good God, dude. Yeah.

What happened? That was just straight up heat stroke? So, of course, you know, we were outside. We were running up in the mountains there. And when I had my heat stroke, I was unconscious, woke up in the hospital. And then with the heat stroke, I ended up with rhabdomyolysis, which is the muscle death. Yeah, yeah. And that's, you know. How much weight did you lose?

- After, so probably about 40 pounds after being on the IV bag. - Golly. How much of that was weight you needed to lose versus it was just eating muscle? - Most of it was muscle at first. And then now that I got the clearance, I've been able to really attack a healthy lifestyle and get after it that way. - Do you still want to be a policeman? - I do. I do. - Okay. Why Tucson over anywhere else?

Um, honestly, it was just the circumstances of how life was going. I had recently before applying and getting to Tucson was let go from a job in finance and refinances after the interest or the rates went up. Oh yeah. Yeah.

And I decided I needed to really pursue a career that I've been passionate about. I've been a family man since 19 and just was focused on providing for my family. So I job hopped looking for the best, best pay until I got laid off and heard about Tucson people needing, you know, cops out here and,

at that time I really was looking for a way out of California, especially how things were kind of hectic. Yeah. Well, it feels like you and your wife need to have that conversation. Yeah. Because I'll revise my, my statement. It may not be that you need to go back to California. That may not be economically feasible for y'all. It may not be values feasible for y'all. It may not be, there may be a thousand reasons to not go back. Um,

But you and your wife need to sit down and ask yourself, what kind of life do we want to build for ourselves? Because that might mean we really want to have a house on an acre so our kids can run and play. And to make that happen, we got to move to Kansas. And by the way, they're going to need police officers in Kansas. It might be we want to be around family no matter what. So I'm going to be a police officer in L.A. County. We're going to live in a two bedroom apartment because that is the most important thing to us. You all need to have that. What kind of life do we want to build for ourselves?

Yeah. And then you're going to reverse engineer it and make that work. And every single picture y'all come up with together is going to require a compromise. And that's okay. Being a police officer comes with a decision. I am going to make sacrifices economically. I'm going to make sacrifices for safety for a much greater purpose. Yeah. And it's my gang. It's my, it's people I love. It's my dad's tribe. It's, it's my, it's people I've run around with. That's the people I love.

but it is a decision to have a different kind of life. Yeah. Yeah. Why the exhale? I think for me, it's just, it's been a wild rollercoaster, you know, when, when plans completely go wrong,

away and derailed and being the sole provider and always wanting to just give the best to, to my wife and my kids. You know, she was there with me when I went through this and want to be able to stand by her. And I feel an immense amount of guilt for moving us out here and wrestling with the question of, had I not moved out here, would we be in better condition?

circumstances or so let me let me just let me interrupt you that's a choice to be miserable in your own home okay that revisionist history that could have been that man i wonder if is a complete and utter waste of time because those moments are gone here's what's a better use of your time you proved that you can pack up a move across the country and make a life

You prove that you are real tough and you almost died and you fought through it. And now you're back in the gym, which should tell you I can do anything. I can pack up and move all the way back. Yeah. And the only thing that would prevent you from that is ego. Cause probably some people told you, I can't believe you're moving away from family or you'll be right back. And you're like, Nope, watch it. And then you're going to go back. And that's just ego. Who cares? Yeah. The other side of it is,

and this is just me sitting with a lot of police officers who've been in, not heat stroke, but who have been injured or hurt, is you lost trust in the most precious thing that you didn't even know you had laid trust in, and that's your own body. Yeah. And anytime you get hurt like that, or you have some sort of illness, some sort of something or other, it's that weird, the ground feels unstable. Because if I can't trust my body to work right, I can't trust anything.

And it's just scary. It's a control-alt-delete. It resets things, right? Yeah, it does feel like with almost like undealt with trauma, not really fully accepting that I could have died or that I almost died that day. Yeah. You almost died because your body quit. That's scary. Yeah. And both and, I say that a lot on the show, and you didn't. And your body shut itself down, but it's back and it's healthier than ever.

Now the question is, what kind of life do we want to build together? And I hope you hear that question as a very forward-thinking way to see the world. It doesn't matter what happened last year. And if you are in it enough, whatever it is, then you'll be home for a few days. What did they give you, 48 hours, 72 hours? Yeah, 48. Okay, you got to be back on. So...

If you are a thousand percent in to whatever it is, and it just happened to be you were in this training or you're taking your med school finals or your law school finals, or you're trying a case before the Supreme court, or you're in the police Academy, whatever job you're in, you get 48 hours to go be with your wife, see your baby, get born, make sure everybody's okay. And then you're back.

You'll scratch and claw and hire and people will come visit and they'll stay in the guest room and you'll move the other two kids around. You make it work. If you don't want to be here and you don't want to be doing this and you're terrified because I was in finance and then I tried power washing business and then tried a lawn business and then I was going to be a cop and that almost killed me and you feel listless and lost, address that issue.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that makes sense. I've also just feel like, you know, I'm lost more, more like even mad, just kind of mad and not understanding because I'm a man of faith and I always figured, you know, God works things into his glory. And this past year, I just couldn't find that and have a hard time finding like why, but I got to at least let it go.

I just don't think you're, I think you're too close to it right now. Yeah. And glory doesn't mean everything works out in the end. And glory doesn't always mean economic safety. That's prosperity nonsense. Yeah. Glory is the man that got shot the other day and died at the failed assassination attempt and listening to his daughter, what she wrote about her dad. Yeah. What kind of amazing man he was. What kind of a great example he was.

That didn't work out in the end. Yeah. And so I think we often pin on God that everything's great in the end. It all works out. It's all roses and butterflies. That's not how it works. But I think bigger than that is you have to ask yourself, take full ownership and say, okay, what kind of house do we want to build? What kind of home do we want to have?

Otherwise, you and your wife just end up playing whack-a-mole with the latest feeling. I don't feel enough. I don't feel like my parents are close enough to us. I feel like I'm mad at you. I feel like I don't like you. I feel, I feel, I feel. And you don't ever do the hard work of, okay, what do we want to build? Let's work towards that. And by the way, you build and work towards it. You get there and you're like, I don't actually like this.

cool let's just build something new that's what makes it all that's what that's what's awesome about having a ride or die it's more complicated because you got three little kids that makes everything wonky right but you and your wife get to get to choose after being around police officers is that what you really want to do yeah i mean it's something i've always wanted to do and

The timing fell right the first time around and then the whole issue, the incident happened and things just got wonky. And then the family's growing and I think it just undealt with before. Yeah. So here's what I want you to do. It's going to sound crazy. I want you to write a letter to Joe's body and tell it that it scared the crap out of you and you're proud of it. And here's how you are going to be a steward of it moving forward.

And that's just you processing the grief of, man, I almost died, but you didn't. So we're going to own that. Cool. And then we're going to go on to the next thing. And the next thing is going to be you and your wife deciding, hey, before we move again, before I go back into the academy, before you have a baby by yourself, before we do all this stuff, let's decide what kind of life we want to have and where we want to have it. We've learned some lessons this past year. Maybe we thought that we could just move away from family. But then, man, one of us got sick for a year.

And we realize, no, we need family support. We didn't want to, but that's the reality for us. Or man, we're going to move again because Tucson's real expensive. We're going to move to a cheaper place where I can be a police officer there because that's really what I'm called to do right now. But we're going to have to be maniacal about making friends. We have to have friends everywhere, all over the place because you can't do life by ourselves.

And we've never had three kids. We're going from man to man to zone. And that's going to be hard. So what kind of life do we want to have when we are navigating three kids plus police academy, plus we don't have a ton of money? What's that going to look like? But all of these things, hear me say, are moving forward. What's tomorrow going to look like? We do have to spend some time in grief. We have to spend some time in gratitude. Thank God your wife stuck by you. Thank God your body's healed. Thank God the doctors walked with you.

And now we get to ask ourselves, all right, what's the next right move? By the way, Joe, it can be whatever you want it to be. Just be intentional about all of it. What's the life we want to build? And then go build it. As the great Avett brothers sing, decide what to be and go be it. Make sure to call my brother. I hope you are a police officer and hope you're an amazing public servant and you take care of your community and your family because we need more guys like you. We'll be right back.

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That's join, J-O-I-N, joindeleteme.com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to Denver, Colorado and talk to Cassie. What's up, Cassie? Hey, Dr. John. What's up? How are you? I'm all right. Awesome. I'm a little bit nervous, so I wrote everything down. If you don't mind, I'm just going to read what I've got. Let it rip.

All right. About two months ago, my home was broken into. Oh, no. Yeah. I was lucky, though. I wasn't home. And thankfully, my security system notified the police. And, you know, aside from them ransacking my house, I mean, everything is okay, right? Nobody got hurt. Hey, Cassie. Cassie. Yeah. Yeah. You have to stop doing that. What's that?

Having somebody break into your home is one of the top few most devastating personal invasions. Yeah. Sexual assault is one. Someone breaking into your home is another. It's different. It's distant. It's a distant second to sexual assault, but it's devastating. And you have to stop qualifying that sense of loss and that sense of panic

but it could have been worse. It's okay. It could have been worse. You just got to sit in it for a minute. Okay. That's fair. Let your body metabolize it. Cause that's the only path to healing. Can you even walk in your front door? Not calmly. There's a lot of anxiety and a lot of lack of sleep. And, and I guess that brings me to the question. I don't know how to feel safe in my home again. Cassie, your body is working perfectly. Yeah.

Do you hear me say that? You're not crazy? I don't know. I feel it. I feel crazy. And I feel like I'm being paranoid and I'm taking all these precautions to try to get safe or feel safe. And it's not working. Because you're working around the core issue. And the core issue is there's a before and after in Cassie's life. As my buddy John told me one time, locks keep your neighbors out.

If somebody wants in your house, they'll get into your house. And that was after my apartment got broken into. And I had to metabolize the fact that somebody can come into my house. And I didn't have a psychology for that. I assumed that when I locked the door, I was safe inside of that place. And that was an illusion. And once I spent some time in grief and then asked myself, okay, what is going to make me feel safe, reasonably safe? Not ironclad safe because ironclad safe doesn't exist anymore. There's a before and after. I thought it did. It doesn't.

Whew, that's not what I hoped for, but here we are. Yeah. And I checked the locks three or four times a night. It doesn't help that I was an OCD kid anyway, but I checked the locks a bunch now. And I've got some other personal precautions. And now I can't stay awake past like 9 o'clock. I just fall asleep. You know what I mean? Yeah. Have you tried walking in the front door and when you feel seized up, laughing and saying, thank God you're working right, Bobby? No.

No. Or have you started getting anxious about going home because you're worried that your body's going to get anxious when you go inside your own house? Yeah, that happens. Yes. And that turns into full-blown panic probably? Yeah, it has recently. I actually left my house and went to like my condo in Florida to try to get away from it all. And I feel safe here, but every time I think about going home, I just get all panicked and

really anxious and my family doesn't get it. And I don't know who to talk to about it. And I went and saw a therapist and her suggestion was to keep it out of my mind. God almighty. That's a terrible, terrible one. All right. Good gosh.

Oh, I'm going to have a job forever. Forever. Hey, team, I'm looking at the people in the studio. We're going to be employed forever because there are some god awful therapists out there. Jeez Louise. All right. Here's a basic primer on how your brain works. Okay. Your body identifies a threat out in the world.

It could be real. It could be imagined. It could be a memory of something that happened that it just puts a GPS pin in your nervous system and it keeps sounding the alarms every time it senses it somewhere. Okay. Doesn't matter if it's real or not. It just identifies a threat. Yeah. Here's what's amazing about your body. It only wants one thing and that's for you to not die. It doesn't care if you're happy. It doesn't care if you're lonely. It doesn't care if you're miserable. It just wants you to not die. And so it sounds every alarm you got, right?

And if you avoid the thing that it thinks is going to kill you, whether it's a relationship, if you have social anxiety issues, whether it's a romantic issue, whether it's somebody breaking into your house again and doesn't want you there. If you avoid it, your body goes, that's how we stay safe. And it reinforces it and makes it stronger. And so every time you avoid your home, your body gets exactly what it wants, which is you didn't die.

And it thinks that's why. And so the next time you think about your house, it's going to be a little bit stronger. And the next time you pack up and run away from your home and go to Florida, your body really got what it wanted. So it's going to reinforce that pathway. So the therapist idea was the stupidest thing possible. Because by putting it out of your mind, it just makes it stronger. Yeah. That's how it feels. Because I'm terrified to get on the flight back to my reality. Correct.

The only path is directly through it. And I know that's the worst thing I could tell you. And hey, I also want to honor the fact that now you got two people telling you radically different things. I will say just from a data perspective, did their idea work? No. All right. Try mine. Just try mine. You can do one of two things. Okay. You have our three things. You have, you have three paths forward. Okay. Path number one, you can sell the house.

You can sell it. Yeah. Okay. And that's not a bad option. If that helps you sleep, sell it. Number two, you can be very specific about what you think will make you safe in this home. And then you will practice over a series of months feeling scared, feeling nervous, and staying anyway. Under reasonable amounts of safety, right? Yeah.

Um, and that might be getting an alarm system that might be having a friend walk with you. That might be you checking the locks. That might be you going to a CHL class and watching a lot of John wick movies. I don't know, or learning karate. I don't know what the thing is, but you have to decide what those things are. And then you're going to make a commitment to doing those things.

Yeah. The third option is to do what that other goofball told you to do, which is just put it out of your mind and just plug along and then run to Florida whenever it gets real heavy. Yeah. And that will be a recipe. That's like taking gasoline and dumping it on a fire. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's kind of what I, what I did under the assumption that I was listening to someone who knew what they were talking about. I know, I know, I know. You know, I'm sure they were well-intentioned. They just told you the wrong information.

Yeah, and I've done some of the other things, you know, like I mean, I wasn't like a stupid person just sitting around waiting to get broken into. I have the security system. I have those locks on my door. I have cameras. I have a gun. But I just feel constantly jumpy and paranoid. I'm checking the cameras all the time. Every little noise makes me jump. Okay.

It's hard. I know, but it's on a framework that there's something wrong with you and there's not. Okay. You had a core violation. And so when something, there's a noise, I want you to literally feel it. Put your hand on your chest and say, my body's working perfectly. Let's go check that out. Okay. I want you to make a, like, I will only check the cameras this many times a day. Okay. I'm going to check them.

Yeah. But I'm not going to turn it into an addiction, a way to numb the reality that, man, somebody could break into my house if they want to again. And can I ask a crazy question? Yeah. Did it all work? Yep. Yeah. I mean, it all worked, right? The police came. It all worked. And yeah, I wasn't home and I got the notification. It all worked. It just. And you've also made up a story that if you had been home, they would have come in and killed you.

Yeah, I play the if game in my head a lot. The other story, which is more plausible, statistically speaking, is they bust into the house, you scream and they run away. Yeah. That's also equally plausible.

And because your body has one job and let's try to keep you alive, it's made up the story that the worst thing could have happened. And that's the one that just resonates in your guts because that's the most like dramatic interpretation of what could have happened. And that's the story that's most likely to keep you most alive. But statistically speaking, you scream, they run away.

I was recently watching an interview with somebody about crime and they said most people just need to lock their doors and lock their cars because people will just go to the least, the path of least resistance. Now that didn't work in your situation. They still broke in, but the alarm worked and the police showed up and, and like, so it's backing up and going, I hate this. Someone picked my house and had all these steps in place and everything worked. Whew. Could have gone real bad, but this time it didn't. So body,

Thank you for trying to keep me safe. I'm sleeping here tonight and I am going to lock the door and I'm going to look at the camera and my body may pop awake at 2 a.m. Cool. It's just extra vigilant, extra alert. That's okay. But at the end of five days in a row, I'm going to write down in a gratitude journal, it's been five days and my body's working great, still trying to keep me safe and my home safe. And I'm going to continue to come back to the well and come back to the well and come back to the well.

And this is going to sound stupid. And I know I'm always telling people to write letters. I want you to write a letter to your alarm system. Doesn't have to be long. I want you to write a letter to your home, dear home. I'd put a lot of stuff on you as though you were going to, you were going to be able to protect me from everything. You can't. And I'm sorry, I put all that on you.

Write a letter to the alarm system, to the police officers and say, thank you. Maybe you make some cookies or go buy some cupcakes, take them over to the police station and say, hey, you guys showed up. Thank y'all. I'm grateful. Be proactive and go walk towards, walk into. And at some point you may need to have some sort of gathering at your house. It's a reclamation. This is my home. Play Tom Petty's. I won't back down on repeat, but this is my home. And I'm drawing this line. This is where I live.

And one time people tried to break in, but every system worked perfectly and I'm still here. I'm still safe. And we're going from there or, or Cassie, you just sell it. But the other, the first option sounds more like William Wallace. It sounds more hardcore and tough, but I think it's feeling the discomfort, feeling the anxiousness, knowing panic can't kill you. Anxiousness won't kill you. It's just your body sounding the alarm saying, Hey, whoa, I don't think we're safe. Put your hand on your chest. Yeah, I feel that.

Pretty sure that was just the dog or just the drawer, just something adjusted in the dishwasher. We'll go check it out. For sure. We're good. Thank you so much for the call, Cassie. Your body's working perfectly. Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of building a non-anxious life. Check that out. Won't directly help with your particular anxiety, but I do think globally speaking, it'll be good. We'll be right back.

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All right, we're back. Am I the problem? Taylor, let's do this. Yes, you are. Am I the problem for distancing myself from a coworker? I am a high school teacher. The staff members in my hallway and my department are pretty close, and we share each other's lives. We chat daily about our kids, struggles, general stuff, and we've all gone out to dinners, lunches, and spend time with each other outside of work.

The problem is with one coworker. Over the last three years, she disappears for an entire school week. She doesn't leave sub plans, copies for anything for her students to do. And the first few times she went MIA, we assumed she or one of her close family members were having an emergency. We all pitched in to help her, but since then it's happened at least six or more times without explanation. We're done bending over backwards to help. Our

Our contracts say after four or six days, we have to have a medical note, but I have no idea what administration is doing. This spring, she missed a full week and the next Monday. We have lots of holiday breaks and feel like our students really miss out when we aren't there. Obviously, she's struggling, but no one knows what. I am all about helping others and being supportive to the person, but I've distanced myself and feel guilty we're no longer friends. Am I the problem for no longer maintaining the friendship?

Oh man, that's complex. Um, cause I feel like there's multiple questions there. So question number one, this friend is not the friend that you think they are because they've got a lot going on in their life and they are not choosing to disclose or talk to you about it. And so you have to deal with that. This person doesn't want to be the friend that you want to be with them. Right? So there's a lot going on missing weeks at a time. Hopefully the administration's on board and knows and has said it's okay to

And that person is then choosing to not tell you. So that's not a friendship that you think you have. That's number one. Number two, this would be very unpopular and I don't care. I'm tired of talking about schools and talking about the administration, talking about the teachers, talking about the system, and nobody talks about the kids. And so if you're a teacher and the teacher next to you doesn't show up, it's not about them. It's about those kids.

And so I'm going to keep showing up for those kids. Now I have to ask myself, can I keep doing two classrooms and whatever? I may have to leave the job, but it's about those kids. Or I may have to go to the principal and say, hey, we have to come up with a better system here because this person keeps being gone for a week at a time. And like, it's not about friendship. It's about taking care of those kids. And the kids suffer if someone just disappears for a week and they disappear for a week, disappear for a week. And so I'm ready for education to be about kids again.

And so that's where I would approach that. This is a pure, this is two separate matters. One is, is professional competency and taking care of children. The other is this person doesn't want to talk to you, doesn't want you in their life. And you just need to make peace with that. So I don't think it's a, am I the problem? It's more of like, I thought we were all closer than we were and we're not. And I thought this person and I had a different kind of relationship and we don't now got to deal with the professional stuff. That makes sense.

Definitely. I hope that helps. I don't know. What do you think?

I agree, but I'm also, I could be a tattletale and that's my name, Tattletailer. I go and tell someone. Well, I mean, I, again, in this situation, I'm thinking back to when I was a high school teacher, I had a, I was out in the portable buildings and I shared it with another teacher. He was awesome. And this was right when cell phones were coming online. So we could call each other and be like, bro, I'm running two minutes late. Will you just stay in between the, our two classrooms? That was awesome.

And I think there was one time he was like super like comically MIA late. But he's my friend. And also there's students in there. So I just rolled with it. And I'm sure I may have been late a few times too-ish. Maybe. Allegedly. And so, but yeah, if he's gone for weeks at a time,

It's not about that dude. It's about the kids. And so I'm going to go to the administration and say, these young people are not being served. We need to fix that. I don't know what the deal is over here. I don't know what kind of health issues or crisis or whatever. I trust y'all to be handling that. We got to deal with these kids. And if the administrator says there's, there is nothing, um, you're on your own, then I got to make a professional decision there. But I don't see it as tattletaling. I see it as taking care of kids.

And I'm just ready for education to be about kids again. Ta-da. I didn't mean to get on a soapbox there, but here I am. And since I'm on a soapbox, we're all clean enough for it. All right. Hey, appreciate you guys. Love you all. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. And for God's sakes, if you're a teacher and you're going to be gone, leave lesson plans, good ones that someone can actually follow. Please, please. It's about the kids. The kids. It's about the kids. See you later.