Can Our Marriage Be Saved After My Wife’s Affair?
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. What do I do now moving forward with my wife after she moved out, started having an affair with a co-worker, and now has come back and wants to stay married but shows little to no remorse for what she did? You have a wife that cheated on you with a co-worker and she's openly mocking you in the home that y'all have built together. Yeah. That's madness, Sam.

What in the world's going on? This is John with Dr. John Deloney's show, talking about your life, your relationships, your mental and emotional health, whatever you got going on in your world. If you want to be on the show, we're talking with real people who are going through real challenges. 1-844-693-3291. And because I put one in front of that, you know I'm a thousand years old.

Call 844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. And please, please, please, please, please hit the subscribe button. Makes all the difference in the world if you like it or subscribe it or review it. All those things that the internet people tell you to do so that other people on the internet think that you have value. That would be so great and it helps everybody out.

Really, really, really blessed to have you guys along with us. Let's go out to Sedona, Arizona and talk to the SAM. What is up, Sam? Hey, John. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How about you? I'm hanging in there. Excellent, brother. What's up?

So I'm going to read the question to you. I think there's a little bit more to unpack, but I'll let you kind of take it after that. But my question to you is, what do I do now moving forward with my wife after she moved out, started having an affair with a coworker, and now has come back and wants to stay married, but shows little to no remorse for what she did and acts like it's not a big deal? She also said to me a

last week in conversation that she still has feelings for this guy that she works with, but it doesn't matter because they don't talk or spend time together anymore.

I'm not really sure what to do. I've lost a lot of respect for my wife and I also just don't trust her for a multitude of reasons. And then I kind of want to add to that, that after she left and moved out, I went and slept with someone that I don't have contact with, that I don't have feelings for. Sure, because why not, right? Because why not? You showed her, huh? Yeah. You showed her. Yeah, so this isn't... I just turned 30 this year and this isn't like...

not really what I'd envisioned for my life. And I just, I hear you say all the time, you know, uh, I'll sit with you and help you figure out the next right move. And it's like, I just really don't know what to do, John. Yeah. Um, can I be super honest with you, Sam? Yeah. I think you do know you don't want to, I think you're probably right. Um, I think you 100% know. So let me ask you, what is, uh, what's terrifying over that next hill? Um,

Because you know the hill you got to cross. And we have a baby that's about to be two next week, or actually on Sunday. And then I have a stepdaughter that I've raised. Her daughter, since she was a year old, calls me dad. And so I desperately want to be with my girls and wake up in the morning and get them dressed for school this morning. And I want that. And I really just want to have

a quote unquote normal life. And you don't. And you don't. I don't. You don't. Right. So you can uncouple those things. There will be moments and mornings and time when you can wake up. I woke my daughter up this morning. It's one of my top five favorite things on the planet to do is wake up my daughter. My son, it's hilarious and it's funny. He's humongous and he's in high school, but my daughter is still really little. It's one of my favorite things in the world to do. So I'm totally with you.

because she's hilarious and she's a little bit mean and a little bit sassy and it's just the whole experience is hilarious. I love it. I love it. So those moments will still happen. They won't happen in the fantasy that you're desperately trying to hold together that no longer exists. And I think, so one of the things here is that like,

So my wife in January told me she didn't want to be married anymore. February, March, she started talking to this guy and hanging out with him, going to lunch or whatever. And then March, she moved out. And the whole time she said, hey, like, I just need to, you know, hurt from the past. I need to take a break, figure things out. But the whole time she was having a relationship with this guy. Hey, you just circled back around on me. Go ahead. No, you circled back around. Did you realize it?

Because I guess one of the biggest things I struggle with is like if I heard a call last week where the caller said your husband had an affair and super remorseful and apologized and kept apologizing. And I just feel like with my wife, it's like it's almost...

It's like a joke. Like, and she said to me last week as well, she said, Hey, I don't feel like this would be a big deal had we not got back together. And I said, but we did get back together. You, you came back. I didn't drag you back into this house. Like, you know, I'm the one that filed for divorce because you're the one that told me to file for divorce. And so it's, it's a rollercoaster ride. And I just, I do want to get off the rollercoaster. So get off. That doesn't mean divorce. I'm saying stop the ride. Just stop.

And when I said you circle back on me, for some reason, and I say for some reason, nobody likes to sit in just that black hole of grief. And especially when there's a hard decision to be made or multiple hard decisions that are going to be chaotic and they're going to disrupt this world that we wish so badly still existed, but yours doesn't. You have a wife that cheated on you with a coworker and she's openly mocking you in the home that y'all have built together. Yeah.

That's madness, Sam, madness. And I completely reject, it doesn't matter if y'all were on a break, it still would have been a big deal. You know that, she knows that, that's just her way of dismissing her own guilt, her own lack of zest for the life that she has now and you. But looping back and telling the story again from another angle and from another angle and thinking about it from another angle and listening to another podcast and reading another book about it,

all that is serves as a Xanax. It serves as a way to tamp down the reality that I got a hill, I got to climb. And it's not going to be fun. And I don't know what's on the other side of it.

So let's go back just real quick. So before we got married... I'm laughing only because we're just going to loop back, but let's do it. I'll go with you on it. I'll go with you. So just a little bit of like to set the stage. So back in 2019, we got married in 2021. So we were married very long. Back in 2019, before we got married, I...

I was still having a relationship with the mother of my first daughter before we got married. And then after we got engaged, I stopped all of that. But she found out about that. I obviously hid it from her. I was ashamed, embarrassed. It was wrong. But I feel like the difference is I changed. I cleaned my life up, started seeing a counselor, asked God to forgive me, and got back into my faith. And I know that I'm not the same guy that I was.

And I was not a very good husband out of the gate. I still probably am an idiot at times, but I know that I show up every day as a dad. I know that I try and show up every day as a husband. And so I know that I hurt my wife. I would hurt anybody, but I still don't feel like that is justified with what she went and did. And do you think I'm fair in thinking that? I think you did something that lacked integrity. And I think that

From, I'm just hearing your side of the story here. It sounds like you took a knee and you said, I'm sorry. Can we make this right? And she said, I do. And she said she forgave me. She said to me. Just stop for a second and sit in it. She said, I do. And what should have happened there is she sat down and said, okay, here's what must be true for me to rebuild and reestablish trust with you.

Something that happened two years ago, three years ago, four years ago, 20 years ago is never a license to go ROI that or to go quote unquote balance the scale. That's what forgiveness is. It's taking the weights off the scale. I'm not even, I'm not carrying this for you anymore. She said, I do. And so that's not like, all right, so I'm gonna put this in my pocket. I'm gonna play this card one day if I meet some coworker that I kind of want to sleep with.

It's not, I'm going to put it in my wallet and I'm going to pull it out. I'm going to put it in my purse and pull it out when I can make fun of you for having your heart broken that I'm cheating on you again and again and again.

The biggest thing, John, and we went to the county fair this weekend and we were driving back and I not really seen this guy. I've just seen his car and we're at a light. I've got all three girls in the car with me and her. And there he is at the light and he looks at it and it just eats at me, John, thinking about my wife sleeping with somebody else. And I don't know how to let that go regardless of everything else. Why would you let that go? She's still calling him, Sam.

She still calls him. She laughs at you for feeling weird about it. You're not crazy. You're not crazy. And she won't change. Or let me say it this way. You can't make her change. She can't be in an active affair with somebody. You see that person and you look in the mirror and wonder what's wrong with you for getting upset about it. You're not the problem here.

All the lamps in your living room are gas lights, brother. Yeah. Here's your next step, my man. I want you to spend some time, stop talking, stop listening, stop reading. I want you to spend some time with you. Go to a coffee shop this evening, or if you're working from home, take a couple hours off or take a longer lunch, whatever you got to do. And I want you to write this stuff down, what must be true. For me to stay in this marriage with someone who is openly just rubbing my nose on

That's what she's doing to you with her affair right now. I want you to write down what must be true for me to stay in this marriage. This must be true. This is how I will reestablish trust with you. This is how we will reestablish trust together. That's the path back to trust that you've talked about before. Right. But you're trying and she is laughing at you. And somehow this has gotten twisted up in your heart and mind that because you did a thing five years ago, four years ago, whatever, that

That you kind of deserve this and it's kind of all right. It just hurts. And you want you, since you deserve it, you want the hurt to not hurt so bad. This is the whole thing is so dysfunctional, such madhouse, but I want you to write down what must be true. And here's, what's going to suck for you. You know, with some certainty, she's going to look at what you write down and be like, yeah, I'm not doing that. Right. And it will be confirmation. It won't be the explosion. It will be confirmation that things have already exploded. Do you get the difference?

Yeah. One thing she said to me over and over again, that's, that's confused and frustrated me is she said, well, I feel like it's two separate things. Like me being hurt from the past and you know, our relationship breaking down and me having a relationship with this guy is two separate things. And I said, I don't see that being two separate things. Like it's. Sam, you can't figure, you can't, I don't mean to interrupt you, but I'm just trying to stop the loop.

Right. I don't want this for my life. I don't. Absolutely you didn't. I wouldn't want this on anybody. I said to my therapist last week, I said, honestly, I said, I really want to talk to Dr. Deloney. I said, I don't know what to do. I tell my therapist this every week. And, you know, it's like now I'm talking to you and it's like, you know, like what you said, I think I do know what I need to do, but I don't want to do it.

And listen, I can't make you do it. And I'm not even going to tell you what it is. I just know that you have this path in front of you. And for some reason, you won't walk it. You just keep looping back around to the parking lot. You've done it like four or five times on this call. The fact that you have a therapist that you see every week and you tell him, hey, I'm going to call this goofball on YouTube and ask him, you know what I mean? Like, you know, and I don't know what it is in your world or in your life that makes you so terrified of walking this path.

I think it's the idea of the life that I thought I'd have. It's over. And the life that I wanted, and it's gone. It's gone. It's not there anymore. It's right. And so it's like your house has burned to the ground, but you're scared to call the fire department because they're going to show up and let you know that your house is gone. Like you not making that phone call to the fire department doesn't make your house any less gone.

And here's what really breaks my heart. I've seen situations this bad off where both people get in a room and they say, we made a covenant. We're going to rebuild this thing. And I've seen it happen and it's staggering. But you don't have someone who wants to rebuild with you right now.

Maybe, probably never. Even if she said, the problem is it goes back to trusting. She left last night to go and do something and I thought laying in bed when she was doing whatever she was doing, I thought, man, I don't even trust her right now. Of course not. The thing is, I don't trust her because there was holes in our relationship and instead of talking to me and saying, hey, I'm struggling with this and this and this, she outsourced it to someone else and then it led to whatever it led to. But it's like there's no trust there because

I don't know in five years if I'm a knucklehead and I do something stupid, she's not going to come to me and say, hey, I'm struggling with this. And so there's no trust there either. What's the best predictor of future behavior? The past. Past behavior. And behavior is a language, right? You say it all the time and I wear that around my neck. She's so clearly communicating to you, brother. And everybody listening to this is going to hear it and see it. I'm literally heartbroken for you.

But why move back home? Why, why, you know, she went and rented this house on the other side of town. Like, why, why all of this? Like, why not? Why is she back? That's what I don't understand. You know, you are a, you're a gravy train. You will do, you will put up with anything she does. You go, she sleeps with another guy at work and you go try to figure out what you did wrong.

Your money keeps depositing in the account. You keep taking care of the kids. You're a catch, man. For somebody who lacks complete and total integrity, you're a dream partner. I feel like a sucker. Like, there are a lot of days I get up and it's like... You said it, not me. No, and I thought even this morning getting up, getting the baby ready, like, and it's like...

You do it all. You do it all. You get the baby ready. You go to work. You put the money in the account. You pay the rent. You make sure the bills are paid. And she sleeps with her coworker and he's like, well, two separate things. It's not even that big a deal. Why do you make such a big deal about it? And then you go off going, God, why am I making such a big deal about this? I don't know how to forgive her either. That's not for right now. That's not for right now. Right. That's what my therapist said. It's not for right now. So right now,

what must be true or have I've heard you say it in the past, like the path back to trust. The path back to trust, brother, is down the road. It's way down the road. Like your house is burning to the ground and you're wondering where you're going to put the new sectional. We can get to the path back to trust and all that kind of kumbaya, like counselor language. You need to decide as for me and my house, what must be true.

And if you're going to keep contacting and sleeping with and hooking up with a coworker or trying to, and he won't even return your calls anymore, you cannot be in this home. I'm worth more than that. And our kids cannot see that this is what love looks like played out in real life, period. And I'm allowed to get my feelings hurt if you cheat on me.

I'm allowed to be enraged and angry and frustrated and disappointed and heartbroken. And I'm not wrong for having those feelings. And you see what I'm going on and on. Somehow you turned off your ability to feel. And I don't know how long that's been turned off, but it's been turned off a long time. And somebody redirected that ray gun right into the middle of your chest so that every feeling you have comes back to something you screwed up and you did wrong.

Never in a million years that I think this person that loved me and cared about me and was so loyal to me would change, but that person's not there anymore. Own, choose reality. Choose it. Right. Choose it. And the best you can do is go make the next right move. I want you to write down, spend a couple of hours, and often, you hear me say this all the time, there's something about casting these stories in a narrative.

stories cast in a narrative in the form of a letter they tend to get our brains just flowing and flowing and flowing so maybe it comes out as dear wife this is never a letter that you're gonna send but it will clarify things I did this to you four years ago five years ago six years ago and we asked for forgiveness here's who I become since then and then here's what I've experienced with you

If we are to rebuild something, what we had is effectively over. And I liked our old life, but it's gone. If we are to regain and rebuild, not regain, but rebuild, here's what this looks like. Here's what must be true. And I don't want you to do this at arm's length and keep circling around the parking lot. I want you to head off into the woods on that path that you know you got to go down. And I want you to feel this as you write it.

You may have to make a... Give me an example, like what must be true, like in John's world, what's one thing that must be true? As for me and my wife, we do not have sex with other people that we're not married to. Okay. As for me and my wife, we don't actively talk on the phone, go visit, hang out with, go to hotels with old boyfriends and girlfriends. As for me and my wife...

If one of us has feelings about something, the other person doesn't make fun of them, call them dumb, say those aren't real, blame them.

When she says, though, I have feelings for this guy still, but it doesn't matter because we don't talk or see each other anymore. We see each other at work, and that's it. I don't know what to say to that. It's like I don't have feelings for anyone else. I'm not talking to anyone else. You can look at my phone. You can check anything you want. I don't have any of that. Here's a path back. So let me put myself in your situation. Let's say I'm you, and this is my wife. Okay. Step number one, quit your job.

or don't be married to me, period. Here's life. We have feelings for each other. That's why most outside of dating apps or right on top of dating apps statistically, marriages are found between people at work. That's also the number one place where affairs happen because people have a common purpose and they laugh and they tell jokes. They spend hours and hours and hours and hours together. Feelings happen.

And then it's your responsibility to take yourself out of a situation where those feelings can get gas dumped on them 24, seven, three 65. How committed are you to the covenant that you made till death do us part? And if it's turned back on me, that's, that's what you call gaslighting. Well, you don't seem very, there's days where you don't seem like you want to do this, but that's a fishing expedition to see if you will go ahead and cash out because she doesn't have the courage to actually leave. You know why? Because you're a gravy train.

That'll be my next tattoo. Gravy train. Don't get that tattoo. That would be awesome, but don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Maybe make yourself a list. I am heartbroken about like, I'm heartbroken about what I am angry about. What I'm so confused about, or sit with your counselor and say, I've lost an ability to feel you have turned off the spigot so hard, man, but for whatever it's worth, you're not crazy.

I appreciate that. You're not crazy. This is hard. And this is the, you know, especially kicking off the year in January, this is the heaviest, worst thing I've ever lived through in my life. Like I know I haven't lost, lost a child or a family member, but this is hard. This is hard losing your whole life. And just, and everything I thought, um, I got a tattoo on my wrist after she left and said, this too shall pass. And I look at it every day, but it's like, man, like I don't,

I don't know what I want to pass here. Like, I know this will pass. This won't, these feelings won't last forever. The thoughts of her having sex with somebody else is not going to, not going to be in my mind forever, but. Well, if she keeps doing it, it will. There has to be a period on the behavior. It has to stop. We haven't even made it three years. October will be three years. I know. You have this wild inability to hold reality. And that's your, that's your, that's your assignment, man.

What is true? What is true? What is true? Call me anytime, Sam. This is, I mean, this path is hard and it's just going to get harder and more complex as you make decisions on what you're going to do. And I'm not going to tell you what to do or how to do it or final choices. But I think you know, when you called in, you knew what comes next here. And you know there's a hill you got to climb and it's in a dark forest and you got to go anyway. Find somebody to go with you. Stop circling the parking lot. Get your flashlight and let's get going.

Call anytime, brother. We'll be right back. Hey, good folks. Let's talk about hallow. All right. I say this all the time. It's important to get away for times of prayer and meditation by yourself with no one else around. But one thing you might not think about, though, is maintaining a sense of community when you pray or meditate.

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Three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, we are back. Listen, me and Rachel Cruz, Rachel Cruz and I is the right way to say that, are doing a new virtual event. It's a Money in Marriage date night, October 29th. And if you're not available October 29th, you can watch it for up to a week after the actual event. And you can attend this anywhere, even from your couch.

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All right, let's go out to the home of Alice in Chains in Soundgarden, Seattle, Washington, and talk to Breanne. Hey, Breanne, what's up? Hey, Dr. Deloney. Nothing much. I'm just here talking to you, I guess. Me too, except I'm talking to you. I'm kind of a poet. I didn't even know it. What's up?

So I'm just calling because I want to know if my boundaries are fair or if they are preventing my kid's dad from being the father that he wants to be. All right, let him rip.

So, a couple months ago, I got custody and full decision-making of my now nine-month-old daughter. And my ex appropriately got supervised visits at an institute a couple days a week. Wait, why supervised at an institute? Is he a not very nice person? To summarize, yes. There was some, I want to say mild...

I'm too proud to admit this normally, but I want to say like mild domestic violence and some substance abuse in our relationship, especially pregnancy and postpartum. What is mild physical abuse? I guess I would... Overpowering, blocking an exit, um...

yanking keys from my hand or out of the ignition of my car while it's running and throwing things and yelling. And I just, I mean, you didn't technically cross like any lines where you would be like,

he hit me or he hurt me, but I mean, he's, he's a blue belt in jujitsu and he knows how to like calmly, but inappropriately, like physically overpower someone. Um, and you know, just kind of like up, up, I'd say up to where you would think that what would be next would not be good. Will you do me a favor? Just, just friend to friend, but you never apologize for being scared again.

Ever, ever, ever. In a weird way, it feels like that's giving you some sort of power in the situation. It's not. It's taking reality from you, which takes power from you. You're right. Is that fair? Your greatest strength in this moment is the truth. I've rolled with blue belts before. In fact, the last time I got tapped out bad was by a guy who was probably 40 or 50 pounds less than me.

Who was a blue belt. No, he was a brown belt. He was tough. I know personally. Don't ever apologize for that again. Okay? Okay. Because there were moments when you were pregnant and right after you had an infant, you were scared for your life, weren't you? Yeah. And you knew without a shadow of a doubt, if he set off, there was literally nothing you could do physically, right? Yeah. That's abuse. Okay? Yeah.

Okay. I think I'm too proud to like, I'm, I wouldn't label myself as one of those like stereotypical patriarchy, like, or sorry, I just wore, but you're fine. You're fine. Strong, strong women. But, um,

I'm used to kind of, I want to be in control of myself in situations and I want to make sure I like being in situations where I know I've got me because I've been able to trust very many people in my life. And you've also learned a lot of that textbook insight and a lot of the podcasting and 21st century, like, yeah, all that is well and good. Yeah.

But when you get run up against a male who has the training and the strength to hurt you, all that goes out the window real fast, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I also spent most of my pregnancy because I didn't have a car most of the...

Oh, actually, no, that was after our kid was born, but I didn't have a whole lot to do and it was cold outside. So I spent a lot of time actually in there watching. So I knew. All right. So how can I, how can I help right now? Your husband gets, gets very limited supervised by a professional visitation with his child on a limited basis. Go ahead.

Um, so while also another like plot twist is we were never technically married. We were never married. That's fine. He, he, um, so the substance abuse, that was one, but also just, so he has these supervised visits, the commissioner ruled on it and everything. And when he wants, um,

Um, and he has been threatening legal battle, more, more legal battle. If I don't comply, um, he wants to see her on his own. He wants to see her, or he wants to start off by seeing her with me. Um, the answer is no. The commissioner ruled period. Yeah, exactly. If he wants to take you to court, he can take you to court. But with these things that he's threatening, it makes me afraid that he's going to somehow, uh,

Like, he has this... And this is funny. He has this recording that he got right as he was about to walk out the door into another girl's bed. She knew I wasn't going to want to happen. So he...

What did you say, Brianne? What did you say, Brianne?

What did you say? I admitted to slapping him a couple times. Okay. I, you know, went on and on. I don't even remember. Oh, this is just kind of what he's telling me. Okay, two things, two things, two things. Number one, have you heard this recording? No. Okay, I don't believe it. I know he has it. I don't believe it exists. That's number one. Number two, if you're worried about getting choked out and killed, which is language used in jujitsu gyms,

and you slap somebody, I'm going to call that fair play. It's called self-defense. I think that's what I would call it too. So listen, stop. Just stop. Okay? If he wants to take you to court, you can go to court. The commissioner's already ruled. A new court would have to overrule a previous ruling with new evidence.

And if there has already been proven to the point that he has to have supervised visitation in an institute and you, a smaller person, try to defend yourself. You see what I'm saying? Like it's you conjuring up stories to try to keep you safe in these imaginary worlds and it just spins and goes. And suddenly you're not dealing in reality anymore. Okay? Yeah.

Here's the best thing for you to do. Exactly what the court has told you to do. Until you find out that that is no longer safe. And then you get an attorney and you go make sure your child is safe. That is your number one priority. Safety of your child. Safety of you. Oh, yeah. Well, part of what I experienced triggered this primal need to protect her from all this stuff. Whether you experience something as a kid or not, don't bring that stuff back.

Well, with him, I mean, the stuff I experienced with him. Okay. Do you think he's going to hurt this baby? I don't think he would intentionally. I think that's also where part of his substance abuse comes into play. That's right. Because some of the most extraordinary, calm, gentle people I've ever met were in a jujitsu gym.

Yeah. But you throw substance abuse in there and who cares about the training that goes out the window that just becomes a weapon at that point. Right. All that to say is this, your boundaries are about safety and about what you need to be whole and well, and then get on down the road. And if you get calls and threats, then I want you to do the right thing and call the authorities.

If you get calls and threats and texts and things like that, then let the commissioner know or let your attorney know. And living in this constant state of, well, this might happen, this might happen. I said this thing and I admitted to this thing on some imaginary recording. Maybe that recording is real. Okay. You're not going to blackmail me into violating what this judge has already said. If you want to change what the judge says, take me to court and we will go do that again. And we'll keep going.

This person is going to be in your life forever because you all share a child together. If this person's not safe, it's best to call it out now. If this person's using drugs around your kid, the person's not safe, etc., etc., and on and on and on and on and on. Let's exhale. Let's exhale. And let's start living in reality. Let's do the next right thing for the safety of the child, the safety of you. And if dad stops using drugs and dad goes to a treatment program and dad starts making some strides, then we all go back to court.

and we make peace with this relationship moving forward. And that'd be ideal for the baby. It'd be ideal for everybody. But he's got some decisions he's got to make and threatening and blah, that's not the way to do it. It's not the way to do it. Thanks for the call, Brianne. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life, and it's the worst thing.

If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life.

Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost.

Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney 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 Biloxi. Biloxi, what a cool name for a city. Talk to Lucy. Hey, Lucy, what's up? Hi, how's it going? I'm doing great. How about you? Good, good. I'm glad to be talking to you. I'm glad to be talking to you. What's happening?

I'm super nervous. So just if you could help me that way. No, you're good. I'm glad that you're here. I'm glad that you're here. What's up? Thank you. My question is, how do I know if quitting my job is the right next step right now for me? I feel like I've given this a lot of thought and I feel like I know that's the right next step, but there's a lot of fear attached to, you know, making such a big decision.

And so just trying to work through that and make sure, you know, it is the right next step. So take me to the fear. What are we scared of? I think there's fear in making a choice, you know, such a big choice, a decision that will impact me and my family and ending up in a worse spot than I am right now. So I'm not following through.

with making changes. Have you ever not followed through before? Um, no. Okay. I didn't think so. I can, I, I'm going to be super honest with you. I'm fishing here, but I don't think that's the real fear. Who in your house is going to be mad at you or disappointed in you if you change careers? I don't, I don't think anyone would be except, um,

Except myself, if I make this decision and I, you know, end up in a worse situation than I'm in. Why are you in a worse situation? Why are you in a bad situation now? I'm just, uh, just feel broken, you know, and I wouldn't want to be, uh, I guess financially broke and broken. Okay. Um, tell me about being broken. Um, yeah.

I don't know any other way to explain it except broken and lost, I guess. What broke you? I think I broke myself. Ironically, by the grace of God, led to your talk with Chris Cook yesterday. And I struggled with even how to pose this question to you or what my question even was. And

Listening to that podcast and the way he described the cycle, so going through this cycle of pain and loss, and then you isolate and you end up with broken spirit and kind of that whole cycle repeats, it kind of gave me a context for, I guess, I feel like that's what I've done my whole life is just kind of...

live through these cycles and you get to a point where you just kind of exist. And, um, what are you grieving Lucy? Um, what has been lost? God, I don't know. Is it a person? Is it a marriage? Is it children? Is it, is it just, you just thought being 50 would look different. You thought being 40 would look different. You thought 30, I mean,

I think it was a lot of loss and disappointment over the years. Tell me about it. Like, who have you lost? What has been lost? So I guess it started with I lost my dad when I was 10. Okay. Shortly after that, I didn't physically lose my mother, but she was gone for a long time. Sure. Can I stop you real quick? Sure. Okay.

I have an eight and a half year old daughter. I've put in a ton of work and she's been working hard too. I'm seeing uncovered through just, it's almost getting broken out of concrete, a connection with her that is so powerful. I can't even wrap my head around it. And the thought of me leaving when she's 10, a year and a half from now, I can't even think that. I'm sorry that happened.

It seems like it was so long ago, it almost feels silly, but I think- No, it's still right there at the top. It's still right there. For a long time. And then you turned to hug mom and mom was a ghost. And I'm not even going to blame mom. She probably did what she had to do to survive, but you turned to hug her as a 10-year-old and she was gone. It was a vapor. 100%, yeah. Yeah. So you've been on your own for a long, long, long time. Yeah. How old are you now?

I'm 50. And I think that's part of it is I really feel like I want something different, something better, something more. And I don't want the next 50 to kind of look like the 50 I just lived. I totally get that. But you got to know that that's not out there. That's inside.

Yeah. So I, uh, I'll just say that like my dad was a homicide detective and a SWAT hostage negotiator. And over a single weekend in his forties, he started working for a local church. He just quit. Yeah. And I was the, I was the chief student affairs officer at a billion dollar university. And now I'm a YouTuber for God's sakes.

Yeah. In my 40s. You did good things with your life, you know? No, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. My mom was a stay-at-home mom and she took her first community college class at 42. And she got her PhD at 57 and she got tenured as a professor at 63. Yeah, that's awesome. I know, but here's what I'm telling you. You can do anything. But your conversation, and I'm just putting those things out there is, don't be scared of the job thing.

Just because you're 50, don't be scared of that. You can go make anything happen you want to make happen. Okay. That's not true. I kind of overstated that, but you know what I mean. Right. Or let me say it like this. I wrote about this in my first book, but it was a conversation with my wife. She had some friends that were like, I don't remember. I'll forget their age, but they were like 35 or something like that. And they were talking and they both were like, man, we always want to go to med school. Always want to go to med school.

But by the time we get done with residency and everything, we're going to be 42 years old. Right. And my wife so wisely said, that's not the question. Like, that's not the issue. The question you should ask yourself is, I'm going to be 42. Do I want to be a doctor at 42 or not a doctor at 42? That's the question. And it was like, whoa, I guess if we frame it like that, right? Yeah. And so, yeah, go do whatever you want to do professionally at 50. More importantly than that, whatever it is you want to do,

is not going to solve that big hole inside your chest. Right. That one has to heal from the inside out. Yeah. I guess the hard part is figuring out how to do that. I feel like I've tried different things along the years, you know? Are you married? You have kids? I'm married. We don't have kids. Okay. How's your marriage? It's good. Yeah.

I just feel like there's a, he's a very good man. I feel like there's a, I disconnect. There's a lot of things. I feel like he doesn't know about me and that we don't talk about, which I think creates even more loneliness, you know? Yes. And I need you to bifurcate those two things. That was a nerdy language. I need you to separate. He can be the best man in the world and your marriage can be a wreck. Yeah.

Yeah. He can be awesome and you can be awesome. And y'all could have made choices to not be awesome together. Yeah. And I'm increasingly, increasingly, increasingly hearing the phrase, I'm lonely in a bed I share with my partner. I'm lonely at a kitchen table with the person I'm married to. It's true, yeah. We did a big survey here where I work. I think it was seven out of 10 people said,

Is it seven out of 10? Yeah, 70% or 80% their romantic partners did not know them. They reported that their person didn't know them. Didn't know they were struggling with their spiritual life, with their sex life, with their decreasing ways they looked at themselves in the mirror. They didn't like who they were becoming, how they looked. They didn't know. The person who's right there. My guess is the healing starts from inside out of you deciding I can be seen and known.

Because what you've been carrying for a long, long, long time is I have to make sure everybody else is okay. And that kept you alive as a 10-year-old, by the way. Yeah. I got to make sure everybody's all right. And I need to be unseen. Yep. For sure. And you can't carry that anymore. Yeah. I'm kind of tired. Yeah. I can hear it on you.

At 50, it's one of those magic seasons when you realize like best case scenario, I'm halfway, right? Yep. Statistically speaking, I'm way past halfway, but just like in my fantasy life, I'm halfway. Yep. And I love that. Go ahead, love. I was just going to say, I just want it to be different. There you go. I was going to say the beautiful thing about you and this phone call

is you have a realization that very, very few people come to. And that is this. You get to choose what happens next. You get to choose what happens next. And that should scare you and that should energize you at the same time.

It does. It does. It scares me. It scares me almost to not make a decision. You know, I feel like to leave my job because I feel like it, for whatever reason, it is, I put everything I have into it. So much so that at the end of the day, I don't have anything, I don't have anything left. So it's some, and it's a vicious, vicious cycle. I will always give my job. What are you for living?

I'm just generically manager of operations for my company. So we provide analytics reporting data to our customers and process improvement. Can I tell you something crazy? I travel the country and sit with business leaders behind closed doors. Often when people say what you just said, it's less the job.

If you're a surgeon, a trauma surgeon, or a police officer, you get home and your body goes, ugh, right? Because you've almost died throughout the day or life and death has been in your hands. What I hear from business leaders and business owners and those who are running and running and running and fighting the marketplace and trying to keep a team together and trying to be a good leader and on and on and on is that the lives they have created outside of the workplace are so devoid of life.

that they clock out and their spirit is gone. Yeah. So it's less the job. It's more about let's address this life we've created for ourselves at home. That feels like we're acting in a play that doesn't have a script anymore. Okay. Let's begin to sit down with somebody that says, Hey, we got married. We have, we have best case scenario. We got 50 years left and 10 of those are going to be us sitting on the front porch, making fun of how skinny these jeans are getting.

Right? And so let's pretend we have 40 years of rambunctious life left. I need you to know some things about me. And I believe I'm worth putting those things out on the table. And by the way, I want to know about you.

My wife and I did an exercise. She did it for me. I didn't do it back. I'm pretty vocal, so I run my mouth a lot. So she already knows, but I asked her to make a syllabus for me. I know that sounds like lame. That's just two college, old college professors being lame in our own house. But I said, I don't know what podcast you listen to. I don't even know what books you like. I don't know what theological things. I don't know what sex stuff. I don't know anything. I just know we're getting up every day and running through the motions.

We have two kids and we're doing great in our business of our home. We're making money. Like our life is fine. I don't know you. Can I tell you something crazy? She, it took like 30 days went by. I don't remember a month or two went by and I was like, Hey, you never sent me a syllabus. And she said, that's the scariest thing you've ever asked me to do. She said, I'm afraid I'm going to write this stuff all down and you're not going to like me.

Yeah. And I exhaled. After a quarter century, we're still wondering if each other likes the other person. Yeah. That's intimacy. It's true. Yeah. And the only way to not avoid that is to sit down and say, all right, here I am. Do you still like me? Yeah. What I told her was, I may think your books are dumb. I may not like your music, but I'll always like you. Right? And we laughed and, you know, and I've got some books I'm trying to get through. They're pretty tough. Right? But here's the thing. It's that exercise.

What job are you thinking about quitting and go on? What job are you thinking about going to? I really, I haven't, I was afraid to even think about that because I didn't want to just jump into kind of the same thing where it's just something that I've, you know, pour myself into and because, you know, I want to be a success and, uh,

I'm just afraid of repeating this again. That's the most brilliant thing I've heard in a long time. I wish people would have that same thought about dating. I've had my sharing theories there too. I want you to spend some time doing this. Here's your homework assignment. Are you ready? Okay, yeah. And you may have heard me talk about this because it was so revolutionary in my own home.

Pick any random Tuesday in October. Okay. And I want you to spend some time with your eyes closed, and I want you to actually go there to any random day in October. What would you want your house to feel like when you walked in the front door? Drop your shoulders. What would you want it to feel like? Just sunny. There you go. That's a start.

And I want you to make your way around the room to the dogs in the house, or if you have a cat in the house or to your husband in the house. Here was mine. The word I used was warm. I love sunny. That's awesome. I walked around this morning and opened all the windows in the house. Just I wanted the light in there. I wanted it warm. And I wanted my wife, I wanted to be able to look across the house and see that she was happy that I just got there. Yeah. And I wanted my middle school son making fart noises because he just can't stop. And I wanted my daughter to come running at me in some kind of sword fight I was in that I didn't even know I was in.

Right. And when we did this exercise and my wife had hers, we had to reverse engineer it. Okay, what must be true? It wasn't that I quit my job, but I had to be intentional about not bringing that last meeting home. And I had to start exercising again. And I'd have a group of friends that I went out with once a week just to do ridiculous things like go to punk rock shows or go to comedy shows or just go have chips and queso and be an idiot.

and my wife and I had to have a date night. And it went on and on and on. But you see, we just reverse engineered it. What must be true? You're somebody who's very analytical and you think through things and you protect other people and that's just who you are. What I want you to do is to be analytical and begin to protect Lucy. And the word I'm using for protect right now is love. I want you to love Lucy, man.

And success, I want you to redefine what success is. Success is, yes, it's making money and it's being successful. Great. But what does success look like in your chest, in your own home? Yeah. And be ridiculous with it. Like actually create this picture. And then I want you to sit down and share it with your husband and say, can we make this thing become true? Can we make this real? Because I think you can. Yeah. Part of it is, you know, he's such a happy, easygoing guy and, you know,

He deserves to be happy too. Both of you do, but here's what a happy-go-lucky guy really, really, really wants is a roadmap to his wife's heart. Yeah, it's true. He does. And it's not sexy, but it's practical to give him one. Right, right.

Honey, when I get home, I want all of the dishes put away and I want you in the kitchen with no shirt on just playing weird Lionel Richie music. I don't know what your thing is. Put your thing. You know what I mean? Yeah. Everyone's got their things. I want you to put them down a piece of paper. Honey, I just want to not watch The Office ever again. I want to just read books with you next to me. Why? I don't know. I just do. Yeah.

I want you to buy me one small gift because that makes me feel loved. I want you to leave me one note on the kitchen counter when you leave in the morning because it makes me feel loved. Everyone's got their things, but I don't know what those things are. But I want you to begin to, for the first time in 50 freaking years, what does success in the middle of your chest feel like? And then what actions must take place? What must be true for this to work out that way? And then, yeah, if you want to get another job, get another job.

You know this about you. You work really hard. You know this about you. You're a good steward of people's paychecks. And you know this about you that if they give you a team to lead, you will sacrifice yourself on the altar of leadership. That's what a leader does. You get underneath the whole thing and lift it up. That's what a leader does. That's amazing. And you know that comes at a cost. And so the work to be done is at home. And if this job is killing you, yeah, of course, get another job. You're going to be amazing at it.

But I don't think the workplace is where the poison is. I think the poison is in your reluctance to look in the mirror and put your fist in your chest and say, Lucy's worth being loved too. And so what must happen? What must be true for me to feel that way? For me to know this? For me to act on this?

And the key here is specific. Be very, very specific. Try things out. Be honest so they don't work and keep going and keep going and keep going and keep going. I want you to write, this is your last homework assignment. I want you to write a letter to 60 year old Lucy. Dear 60 year old Lucy, here's the things I did at the age of 50 so that you could have the life you wanted at 60. I started exercising. I got a personal trainer. Me and happy-go-lucky husband started being super weird at

He started cooking. I started whatever, a karate class. I don't know, whatever y'all started doing. And then at 60, this is the life we got. It's an amazing investment in the one person that can bring you peace. You. I'm proud of you, Lucy. Thank you so much for this call. Call anytime. Hopefully we're still here in 10 years. You can call back when you're 60. We can all celebrate together. That'd be amazing. We'll be right back.

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Today, okay.

I'm becoming more integrated into my home, and I found the well of gratitude for my wife growing deeper and deeper. Try it. One small chore that you normally don't do in the morning and in the evening. Yeah. Gosh, I can reverse engineer this whole post. Long story short, my wife got to experience firsthand and see firsthand some of the vitriol that I have in this job. People send me messages. They get a hold of my...

email. It's tough. Like for as wonderful and gracious as this job is, it carries a lot. And so I remember her saying, I had no idea. So that started me asking myself, I wonder what I don't have any idea about. Right. And so just this year, all the 17,000 portals that my wife had to navigate to get kids in school, like there's a lunch portal and an athletics portal and a

medicine portal and a doctor portal and a portal for portals. And then there's anyway, by the way, technology people, you said it would make our lives easier. It, you did not tell the truth. Yellow pads are still where it's at. Okay. So, um, I also was finding myself increasingly frustrated. I'm grumpy, tired, et cetera, et cetera. And so I just, I knew I could not think my way out of this. And so I thought, what's one action I can do every day. And I'm just going to do an experiment and see what happens.

And so before I leave every morning, I look around and see, is there something I can do three to five minutes? It could be as simple as there's some dishes in there. I'm just going to put the dishes in the dishwasher. It takes three minutes. It literally takes three minutes. I'm going to sweep up real quick. I'm going to take this laundry basket. It's just something so small.

And then the first week or so, my wife noticed it. And I actually got a little more frustrated because I started seeing other stuff left out. And I was like, hey, I started getting that indignant, righteous dad attitude. Like, hey, I finally did one thing right in 30 years and everyone should get on board. But once I got past that indignation, then I started looking forward to being present with my family because I feel like I was a part of the system instead of just this appendage that just would show up. And...

Then I started adding in the evening. And so it's just a strange thing that I like being there and I feel more and more like they like me there. And I can't, this is all can be placebo. I can't think of anything else that I've changed other than what's one quick thing I can do in the morning and one quick thing I can do in the afternoon. And I can say to myself, hey, quote unquote, that's not my job. My wife and I have sat down and decided who's doing what this week. It's all of our job. And so what's one little thing? And it's just been crazy.

bizarrely transformational. It's been strange. So how do you do it when you're the one that does those little things already? How do you do that kind of the opposite direction then when you want to help your spouse out with something, but you're already the one that does all those things? How do you find that thing to do for them? I mean, several years ago, it started with me and my son, and we'd just go for a quote-unquote drive on Sunday evening. What we were doing is we were going to fill up mom's car for the week.

I got frustrated that I was getting the car and it had no gas in it or whatever. So instead of complaining about that, I just said, let's solve it. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to over, over, I'm going to make sure my son sees this is what a husband does. Just gets in a car on Sunday night and goes and fills a car up for gas. Right. So I think that has nothing to do with division of labor. That has nothing to do with what we've agreed on. That was just me trying to keep my eyes open for stuff. Right. On the other side,

I, last week I was gone for, I don't like to be gone more than one or two nights. And that particular trip last week took longer because of the travel where the city was. It was a small town outside of a big city. So travel is just tough. Just walking in, my wife found a couple of things that normally I take care of and it just made the whole thing smoother. And I could see now she's looking for what's one little thing I could take. And so it's just finding that thing, whether it's, um,

I like to empty out my suitcase when I get home. I tell you what, man, if you walk in and that suitcase is just empty and everything, it just, you just go, ah. So it's just finding a thing and everyone's got things that they are quote unquote responsible for. If you just go try it for 30 days and see what happens. It might just make you super angry and you hate everybody in your house. It has been so bizarrely transformational. It's just this continual reminder. Lane Norton, Dr. Norton always is saying, just shut up and go lift. Just go, the,

Just go exercise, right? Just go do it. Chris Williamson says like the success you want is found in the work you're not doing. Just go do something. Go read a book. And similar to your marriage, like we want to do all these big extravagant things. Just put the dishes away. Just vacuum. Instead of walking like nobody vacuum, just grab it. It takes five freaking minutes.

And I don't know. So far, so good. It's been a pretty transformational thing. So that's my challenge. Find one thing in the morning, one thing in the evening, three to five minutes, and it just changes everything.