I Left My Husband but He Won’t Leave Me Alone
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I recently left my husband. He won't leave me alone. He interacts with me constantly. Is this your first marriage, second marriage, third marriage? Are there kids involved? How complicated is this? No, it's my second one. I have a hard time picking on my guests. Was your previous one abusive also? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Welcome, welcome. What's up? This is Dr. John Deloney Show and I'm John Deloney.

It's the Dr. John DeLong Show, and I'm John, your hapless host. I'm so glad you're with us, talking about your emotional health, your mental health, whatever you got going on in your life, your relationships, your parenting, kids, schools, all of it.

If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. Or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. And hey, Kelly, we need to say this at the top of this show. So we've had two or three or four different shows. What do they call it? They spin up or get virusy, whatever. It just kind of takes off. They went viral. They've been ill, right? Yeah.

As the Beastie Boys used to say. Yeah, licensed to. That's right. We haven't, unless you tricked me, we haven't ever

staged a call on the show. Zero times. In fact, we've pulled calls that after the end of them were like, there's no way that was true. I can recall at least three times since we've been doing this show that we pulled a call because we were like, something felt weird. Not true. So for people who are commenting like there's no way, trust me. We get off the phone and we all look at each other and we're like, there's no way. And after 20 years of sitting with people, there is a way.

If you think, really? The answer is probably yes. Or none of us would have jobs if everyone just acted like a kind person and was like, sure, go ahead. I'll do what I said I would do, and I'll pay my bills, and I won't cheat on you. We'd have no jobs. But yes, there's been some calls recently that have been, but we've never staged one, ever. No, never. We don't have to. Okay.

And we check to make sure. I mean, we talk to them beforehand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, we reach out to their email. I mean, we... We vet people pretty good. If it goes on the air... You're pretty confident. We're very confident that it is a real situation. And you've been doing this for a decade. Yeah. I know when people are full of crap. I was in middle school back when you started. Really? That's how we're just starting right off right there. God, you're old. All right, let's go out to Sedona, Arizona and talk to dear Marie. What's up, Marie? Hi. How are you?

Good, how are you? I'm good, I'm good. What's happening in your world? Yeah, so I recently left my husband and I've been struggling to move past it because he won't leave me alone. Like, he harasses me constantly and belittles me and I'm just trying to figure out how to move past it so it doesn't bother me anymore. Oh, I think those are two separate things, sweetheart. I'm sorry. Why'd you leave him?

Um, because he has a drinking problem and he hasn't been able to get control over it. And he's really, he's just mean. Has he ever hit you? No. No. Has he made your house unsafe? He doesn't get aggressively like outward like that. It's more of like just towards me. And I mean, he'll yell sometimes, but he doesn't get mad at the kids or anything like that.

What happened that you said this is enough? The lying. Like, I can't take the lying anymore. Our relationship was built on love and trust. And I can't be with somebody who's going to lie to me about everything. Well, to answer your question, often doing the right thing hurts real bad. Yeah. And often doing...

Even if it's not the quote-unquote right thing, doing the thing that you feel is the next right step doesn't quote-unquote feel right. And your body knows that you're all on your own. Is this your first marriage, second marriage, third marriage? Are there kids involved? How complicated is this? No, it's my second one, and I have a hard time picking on my guests. Well, I heard this recently. It sounds like you've had...

One relationship, two times, right? Was your previous one abusive also? Uh, yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Thank you. So here we are again, right? Yeah. Um, have you put in a restraining order or do not contact order? No, I haven't. Okay. Unfortunately, the only way to get somebody to stop harassing you is to get the authorities involved because people who treat each other with dignity and respect don't harass people. Right. Even when they're mad or they're frustrated. Um,

They'll fight for relationships, right? But they won't harass people. And people who cross over usually need some outside assistance. Yeah, it's the abuse towards me that really gets me. You said he wasn't abusing you. What do you mean abused? Just how he's talking to you and treating you? I mean, yeah. He calls me horrible things. He lies. He lies about me. Okay. You have a place to live?

Yeah. Do you have little ones? Yeah. Not too little, but kids. Are they with you? Yeah. Are they his? One. One. Okay. How are y'all splitting that up? We just kind of did like what you're supposed to do. We figured out the days that he wanted and then I get my days and we just were able to come to an agreement on that. Yeah. That's not a good idea because he's violating that agreement by how he treats you, right?

I feel so. Yeah. Were you all married legally? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you need to separate this thing legally if that's your choice. For sure. But living in the middle ground is no good. And wanting to be adults about something with somebody who's acting like a child is just impossible and it's heartbreaking, but it is what it is. And you have to protect yourself and you have to protect your kids. Okay. Okay.

So none of this will feel good. If this is your second rodeo and you got burned in any way last time, your body's just going to, it's been down this path and it's going to try to get your attention. Yeah. That's the struggle is dealing with like the anxiety. Yeah, of course. Your body's working perfectly, Marie. I'm like stuck in the fear mode all the time. So work with me real quick. Make me a path out. Step number one. Do you have a lawyer? Yes. Okay. Have you called that lawyer?

Yes, I'm working on it. Okay. Have you served papers yet? No. Okay. Step number two, do you have one or two or three women that you can talk to on a regular basis and see face-to-face there in Arizona? I do. Okay. That needs to be number two. Before all other things, you've got to have a group or at least one, but hopefully more than one person that's going to anchor you that you can sit down and here's a gift you can give them.

Say, hey, over the next six months, I'm going to go through hell. And if y'all want to walk with me, that would be awesome. And even if you can't walk with me, if I just text one of y'all, if I text all three of y'all in the middle of the night, one of y'all please respond and just tell me I'm not crazy or tell me we hear you or tell me if I am being crazy. But give them the gift of allowing them to love you. Okay. But be explicit. Okay. And then number three, you got to make sure you've got your four walls taken care of. Rent, food,

electricity and water and transportation. Do you have all those things? I do. Okay. So you're hunkered down and now the next few months are not going to be pleasant. You've been through this before, right? Right. Okay. Any avoiding of the unpleasant will make the anxiety worse. Okay. If you get anxious about something, I want you to write that something down and either get with your attorney or get with one or more of your friends and figure out a map right freaking through it. Okay?

Okay. Are you safe right now? Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry you're going through this again. Well, I appreciate it. Yeah. Hang on the line here. I'm going to hook you up with a... I want to connect you with my friends at BetterHelp and give you some free counseling sessions so that you can have a professional therapist walk with you through this. Hang on the line here and we'll get you a code and you can call and at least have somebody that you can talk to just to bounce things off of. It's unmooring.

When, A, when you're going through a divorce of any kind, it's traumatic, it's just tough. It's extra traumatic when you go through it again and you thought you'd figured out what happened last time. And it's easy when you have been in multiple abusive relationships to look up and go, oh my gosh, is the common denominator me? And the answer is yes and no, right? Nobody asked to be abused, nobody deserves to be abused. And sometimes we jump into the same patterns over and over again until we get some pretty clear insight and guidance from

and practice to not go into those same relationships again. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, sorry, sorry, Marie. Get a group of people around you, get the right professionals around you, and let's head straight towards those alarms, okay? And I don't see a way, based on what you're telling me, I don't see a way that you can go through this without some very clear in writing and text messages and emails work. Do not curse at me. Do not threaten me.

Or else I'm going to get the police involved and then get a restraining order or get a no contact order. And then he's going to be fighting for his rights in court. And it's going to not play well in a divorce settlement that he has a no contact order in play because of how he's talking to you. And by the way, all your text messages, all those emails, all the ways that all comes out in these settlements. So let them know, stop. You can't talk to me like that. And I know that might be just spitting in the wind, but

Sometimes the right thing to do is to begin to stand your ground and say no more. I'm sorry, Marie. Call anytime while you're going through all this. I'll be with you. 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, let's go out to Denver, Colorado and talk to Jared. Hey, Jared, what's up, dude? Hey, Dr. John, what's up? I'm just rocking on to the break of dawn, brother. Just got in from Charlotte, North Carolina and landed here in Nashville. What are you up to? I'm taking my lunch break at work right now, actually. Awesome. What's up?

So my question is about work in a way. How can I prioritize sleep when my job requires getting up at early hours? Tell me more about it. Well, I've had this job for about a year now, and I thought I was adjusting to the sleep schedule okay. In order to get really ready for work and everything in the morning, I got to get up around five, which is new to me. And

I've been having just recently, I've been having some trouble prioritizing sleep, I guess. I'm trying to take steps in my life to prioritize my health, but I'm finding it difficult to get a good night's sleep. Even if I, you know, I head to bed when I say I will, sometimes I'll just wake up and...

I have some trouble falling back asleep. And then I get frustrated and start overthinking things because I promised myself I'd get seven hours today. And I promised myself I'd be ready for work and be ready to put in a good day at work. And it just didn't work out that way. And I'm coming off of being kind of a night owl too. So that's part of my issue is I enjoy...

Sure. So what's this new job you've taken?

It's delivery. So I show up early in the morning, my truck is all ready for me, and I get sent out kind of all over the place, all over the state of Colorado. Yeah. Well, I mean, at the end of the day...

Couple things going on here. There are sleep chronotypes that are just shifting and there's some pretty fascinating evolutionary psychology about those and I just love geeking out on it, but I get up at 5:00 every morning Plus or minus 5 or 10 minutes and I love it and I go to bed at Super geek if I'm lucky with an 8 in front, but usually I go to bed 9:00 9:30 at the latest 10:00

unless I'm going to a concert and then I know it's just gonna cost me and it's worth it, right? So it's intentional, but it is what it is. That's how my body was designed and I love it. But I feel for people who don't man, 'cause it's a hard on the flip side, hard, hard, hard. I guess the question before you is, do you wanna quit your job?

Or are you able to look for work that allows you to work and stay up into the night that wouldn't require you to be up and at them and on the job at 6 a.m. or whenever you actually have to be there? Or do you want to begin to, and I don't know, I'm going to be honest with you, I don't know, I'm going to get out over my skis. So I don't know about shifting chronotypes. I've heard up or down. I would get into Matt Walker's podcast and Matthew Walker's book, Why We Sleep. That'd be where I'd go. That's the gold standard.

And he's been on Dr. Atiyah's podcast, he's been on Hebron's podcast, he is the guy. But what I have found in my life is I've been able to shift it over time and maybe not shift my chronotype, but shift my sleeping patterns to where now it's really tough for me. I was at an event last night and I left early and went to bed. I was just tired. My body's just like, dude, it's time to go to bed. And I popped right up this morning.

All I can tell you is you have to put in a series of practices and say, I want this to be part of my life. And even when I don't want it to be, even when I don't feel like it, I'm going to act like it. And over time, I've just, this is just N equals one. I felt my body shift. So talk to me about when you get home.

Okay, sure. When I get home, the first thing I do is meal prep because I'm still kind of riding work motivation and work energy. And so when I'm still in that work mindset, that's the best time to get things done. And I'm trying to prioritize meal prepping. But after that, it's kind of, you know...

If you put your feet up for 10 minutes, you might be there for the rest of the night. Yeah. Do you exercise? Irregularly. Okay. So here's a couple of things I would shift. Number one, I would make exercise a everyday practice. And you can lift three or four days a week, and that's important, but just movement of any kind. Do you have any kind of supplementation that you take?

Uh, protein powder for what that's worth. Okay. I would follow up with some of those guys. I have a, I have a, um, I've been knickknacking around my, I've been messing with sleep supplements forever. I would stay as far away as possible from pharmaceutical aids that are hypnotics that knock you unconscious basically. Um, but, um, man, I've seen some really sick, like personally, I've seen some incredible success, um,

Um, something as simple as the Organifi gold stuff. And yes, they're a show sponsor and yes, they, they pay us to be on that show, but that's what I use. Um, and Thorne products, phosphatidyl, phosphatidyl, sterine, and again, GABA and, um,

and melatonin there's all kinds of things out there that are pretty low risk um depending on who you ask and depending what instagram follower you follow but there's lots of things that can help begin to inch you towards things another thing i would tell you is um do you have friends community family uh i have them but i don't see them super frequently okay it's gonna sound counterintuitive but are you by yourself are you are you single uh yes sir okay

trying some sort of regular dinner practice with some friends. Because here's what I think happens to a lot of us. We have no friends. We've got no community or connection, except we're just texting people every once in a while. Or we'll talk on the phone while we're on the road or whatever. We owe a lot of money. We've got a house. We've got a mortgage. We've got a car payment. We've got some credit cards here and there. We're just kind of out there. We don't move very much. And I can go on and on and on.

I'll put it as simply as I can. Your body would be failing you if it let you sleep knowing you're the only person in your tribe. Your body would be failing you if it let you sleep knowing you alone are responsible for protection, provision, for safety, for gathering. It would be failing you if it knew that if one boss...

decided to let you go, they're going to take your home, your cars, your food, right? Because you're leveraged with your finances. So all these things that we do on a regular basis, that's when you put your head on your pillow and it just starts spinning. A lot of us are just have podcasts in our ears all day. Every day we got music, we've got phone, like we're just jam packed. And so when we put our head on our pillow, that's the first time our body can exhale and go, hey, you're not paying attention. We're about to die. You're all by yourself. And what is going to happen in that? You know what I mean? And it just spins and spins and spins and spins.

And that's that adrenaline and that's that cortisol dump. And then you're back up and you're back at them again. Yeah. And so a lot of thoughts. Yeah. So I'll tell you a great exercise. You get home, you meal prep, you go lift. Okay. You meet a couple of friends. What time you get off of work? Usually afternoon, two to four, let's call it. Perfect. Get home, meal prep, or you know what? Don't meal prep, go straight to the gym.

I'm going to tell you right now for the first 30 days, it's going to be hellacious because you're going to be tired from driving and you're gonna be all stiff and wonky. Um, I'm going to hook you up with any workout from my buddies at mind pump. Okay. They're the best of the best workout programs. I got 5 million of them in there. They're, they're the ones I use on it. I just did one before I came here.

So I got off the plane, went home, exercised, and I came up here to the office. They're amazing. But I'll hook you up with those, and I want you to go straight to the gym and do it. Okay? And then come home, meal prep, call a buddy, and then y'all go out and have dinner. When you get home, I want you to – this is going to sound so cheesy and nerdy, just two dudes talking here. I want you to have some sort of journal that you write out how the day went, how you're feeling, what you're scared about, what you're happy about. Do what?

That I can do. I recently started journaling. Awesome. And here's what we're doing. We're getting those, we're teaching our body that there's a process for these thoughts. That it doesn't need to spin us up. It doesn't need to get our attention with these anxiety alarms. It doesn't need to drag us underwater. You're driving. You're good. You know. My guess is after 30 days, your body will be so tired from exercise, from intentionality and movement, you'll begin to fall asleep sooner and sooner and sooner.

Yeah. Well, that, that sounds pretty good. Yeah. And again, um, I'm not, I'm in, I know my supplement routine. I want to be in the habit of, of, I don't get out over my skis. I'm not a nutritionist. I don't have a PhD in nutrition and I'm not a medical doctor. So, uh,

You can get online and find some of these guys protocols that they put out there Lane Norton, dr. Norton, dr. Huberman. Dr. Atiyah. Those are some great guys. Dr Walker some great guys you can you can listen to and They put out some all of them have different protocols and they're all valid and they're all good minds different It's kind of a combo of all theirs and it changes with some regularity Last night I was on the road and I had a different one that I'd have at my house But all that's just me tinkering with it. Okay? all that to say is

Be hyper-intentional for 30 days. Be hyper-intentional for 30 days, 60 days. Just give yourself two months to try. And if your chronotype is so set that, man, you just... Life happens for you between the hours of 9 p.m. and midnight, then you might need to think about, as a single guy, I'm going to start looking to shift either my delivery schedule or can I go to the warehouse or...

I might need to start going to night school and I'm going to cash out on some sleep for about a year and then I'm going to get trained in something else. I'm going to go do something else. But all of this rests on this one moment. Good for you for trying to prioritize sleep and recognizing how freaking important sleep is to every facet of your life. And if your body won't let you sleep, it's one of those core, core functions.

Often, in my experience, the body is not the problem. The body's trying to get your attention and let you know there's other stuff that's unresolved. Relationships, finance, safety, professional work, purpose, whatever it may be, time, always shoving new info in your head over and over and over and over, right? Having no space. There's no prayer and meditation. There's no time for stillness. So if your body's trying to keep you awake, honor it.

And here's one last thing. If you go to sleep, you finally get yourself to bed at nine o'clock, you crash and you're back up at 1030 and you lay there for five or 10 minutes, just get up. Have a chair that you go read in, that you go watch an office episode rerun and get out of bed and let your body start over again.

Have another cup of tea have another cup of organified gold and then go back to bed And then we'll do this thing again But if you stay there in bed Then your bed becomes a source of anxiety and tension and you don't want to go get in bed It starts frustrating you and ah, and by the way, don't go to war with your body If it wakes you up in the middle of the night, you can ask yourself. You can go this sucks I was gonna try to prep Dude, then your body's off to off to war or you can go Man, you woke me up again

I wonder what you're trying to protect me from. You can go grab your journal. You can go grab, you know, the office or whatever. And just reset. Be curious with yourself. Don't be judgmental and angry. Hope that helps, my brother. I've wrestled my entire life with sleep. And after about a year and a half, two years of freakishly devoted attention to it, man, I could fall asleep just about anywhere now. So thanks for the call. I'm confident you can get there.

Check out, again, Dr. Matthew Walker's work. We'll link to it in the show notes here. And be really curious with yourself. Thanks for the call, brother. 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, we are back. Oh, I forgot to say with that last caller, Kelly, you know what has been transformative with sleep is magnesium.

You know, it's funny because I was in here going magnesium. Yeah, I don't know why. I just lit my mind. But magnesium, magnesium, magnesium. And he can find that on Thorne as well. Yeah. And Thorne does not have, they've got the, I don't want to get into all the labels. I don't want to be nerdy, but check out magnesium. It's been a game changer for me recently. It's been awesome. I've just kind of like overdone it to the point that I'm in a meeting and I'm like, I got to go.

But it's been pretty amazing. All right, let's go out to Manitoba, Canada and talk to Madison. Hey, Madison, what's going on? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm great. How about you? I'm okay. What's up? So my question is, how do I guide my daughter in her relationships while handling my own heartbreak? Oh, man, what happened?

So when I was 17, I got pregnant. Her dad was in and out throughout her first year of life. And then I got pregnant by him again when she was a year old. So we moved into an apartment. I ended up

Within 21 days, there was a restraining order because of physical assault. And then fast forward, I focused on myself and my kids. I got a degree. I met the man of my dreams, got married, had another baby, got pregnant again, had another baby. And when I was four months pregnant, my husband separated from me. Good Lord. I'm sorry. Yeah. Jeez. It's hard. So that's...

My daughter's only five months old. Hold on, hold on, hold on. Sit with it, sit with it, sit with it, sit with it. Don't run. Sorry. It's okay. Don't be sorry. That's still right up there, up top, huh? Oh, yeah. It's not what I want at all. No, wanted. Can we never, ever, ever, ever call him your man of your dreams again? Yeah. Yeah. Let's never refer to him that again. Here's why.

There's a part of that that makes you, the cognitive dissonance that makes you feel crazy because he wasn't the man of your dreams. He's a guy who pretended to be and then he left you. Okay. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. I've never thought of it that way. I know that's why you didn't call, but if you keep calling him my man of my dreams and then this happened, there's a gap of reality there. He wasn't, he's a terrible human being that left a pregnant wife and his baby. I'm sorry that happened. Yeah.

You're like, yeah, wait a minute. Is that cool? Yeah. Okay. Never again. Deal? Okay. Okay. Deal. All right. Okay. Now, so then what happened? So your baby girl was five months old.

Yeah. Okay. So, but my, my oldest is 14. Um, and she is now exploring relationships and she's in her first relationship. And though I know relationships are good developmentally for them, I am having a hard time, um, accepting it. I feel like I want to protect her. 14 is too young. 14 is too young. Okay.

14 is too young. Okay, so I'm not... You're not crazy. It's not just me being anxious and fearful. My kids, I mean, I'll just put it out there, and people can, they're going to blow me up on the comments, and they're allowed to, but I don't care, and I'm allowed to do that. My kids won't date until they're 16. And even then, it's going to be strongly, strongly preferred that they date in groups.

Okay. My son or my daughter could probably make me a compelling argument, but I would want to meet the person they're going to go out with and call me old-fashioned, but I'm going to reach out to the parents of the person my kid's going out with also. This isn't a game for me. These are my kids. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and I feel that way too. I just feel like this whole separation has put a lot of...

I'm stressed because I feel like I'm doing it all by myself. You are. So I feel like I'm failing. Madison, you are doing it all by yourself and you're not crazy. Okay? When somebody leaves us, they don't ever tell us. If somebody leaves you, they don't tell you. They tell you like if that guy leaves his wife, his pregnant wife and their little baby, that he's a terrible guy and whatever. They don't tell you the other part of that, which is you look in the mirror and you say, how did I miss this?

And then you are unable to trust you, right? Yeah. And you don't know what to buy. You don't know where to walk. You don't know when to go to bed. You don't know anything. And your gut is saying, don't let my 14-year-old go out into the world because your body still remembers you at 17. How old are you now? I'm 33. Yeah, you're in the thick of this. You're not crazy. Okay. Okay?

And here, that's a tough cat to put back in the bag. Have you sat down with your 14-year-old and just kind of laid it all out for her about life at 17? Pregnant, scared, abused? No, because I don't want to hurt. Her dad is still in the picture, though, very seldom. It's time. So I don't want to ruin that relationship. You didn't. He did when he hit you.

You didn't. He did when he left. You have to protect your daughter from guys like him. And I'm overstating it here. You don't have to say he was abusive and he was evil and he was awful. You can tell him I had no business being alone with an older guy at 17 years old. I had no business being sexually active at 17 years old. And I wish an adult had protected me from myself.

For crying out loud, the government wouldn't even let me buy cigarettes, and here I was creating a human. Right? Yeah, absolutely. And so you can tell your 14-year-old. Is your 14-year-old already sexually active? No, I don't think so. Okay. You need to know so. You'll need to have that conversation. Your mom. Okay? Okay. Repeat after me. I'm not crazy. I'm not crazy. It's my job to protect my daughter.

It's my job to protect my daughter. That's right. She's a kid. She's a child. Can I also tell you something wild? Yeah. Say, repeat after me. It can be both and. It can be both and. You would never wish getting pregnant on a 17-year-old ever to anyone. And also, you look at that 14-year-old and thank God she's in your life, right? Absolutely. It's both, and you feel crazy. Both are true. It's okay.

I know I've told my kids multiple times that I wish they, that it's very important that they don't go down my, my path in life because this is not, it's not easy. I know, but listen, when a parent tells that to a child, a child doesn't really know what that means. It's a parent's job to do the best they can to keep them from going down that path. Okay. And telling a 14 year old not to be curious.

Not to have their, his or her entire body taken over by being just infatuated with somebody. Not to be curious about what body parts look like and feel like. I mean, that's madness. That's what their, I mean, their whole bodies are on fire. That's why they have adults. Well, and I just worry because I know I, I didn't have a good relationship with my dad. And I,

And I feel like that's kind of what led me into searching for that love. And I worry about that with my daughter because she has now had two men come in and out of her life. Two men or two boys? Two boys. Okay. We're about to have a whole other conversation. Hopefully it's two boys. Two males. Yeah. Open permissiveness is not the path to your kid's heart. Being seen...

believing them, letting them be heard, and then giving them firm, connected boundaries is how you love a teenager. And your job is not to be liked. It's not the goal. She's not your friend. And that means she's going to get mad when you say, hey, I'm sorry, I blew it. No more boyfriends until you're 16. I blew it. I'm sorry. I'm going to take you out for pancakes. I'm going to tell you what happened to me. Okay. Okay? And, oh my gosh, are you serious? Yep, I am.

And by the way, if she's 14 with a smartphone, it's time for that to go too. Okay. And if she starts getting mad, just be like, hold up Instagram and be like, it was this guy. He told me it was him. He told me to do this. But here's what I want you. I want you to take back your home. I want you to take back your children. Cause I think you feel out of control and like your vote doesn't matter. It feels like your vote doesn't matter. And I'm telling you right now, your vote is the only one that matters in their life. Period.

Okay. And you're also though, Hey, listen, you're not just going to be able to cut everybody off. You're going to have to backfill that and it's going to be exhausting. Okay. Yep. Like if she can't go out on Fridays with boys or can't go, whatever, then you take her phone away. She's going to stare at you and then y'all are gonna have to play dominoes or y'all are gonna have to go. I'll even say that y'all go get video games or go to concerts or go for walks or do go to the gym, do something, but y'all got to figure that out.

I think parents sometimes realize they're over their heads, they cut everything off, and then they make their kids crazy on the other side, right? Yeah. Are you raising four kids by yourself? So my younger two, like my ex-husband, is in the picture. We're going through separation lawyers at the moment. But the older two, I am on my own with them. Okay. So will you split custody with the younger two?

Eventually. With my two-year-old, yes, but with my five-month-old, it's not there yet because she's so young. Okay. Okay. Given your 14-year-old a purpose in that home, like a mom looking at her 14-year-old and saying, this is not your job in any way, shape, form, or fashion, but I'm going to need you around here and you can be mad at me, you can be frustrated, but you're too smart and you're too capable and you're too creative. I need you.

I want you around and I'm going to show you. That's going to be really tough, but I think that's a cool thing. Okay? Okay. You're not crazy. I promise you. Okay. Will you call me anytime you need something? Absolutely. Okay. Thank you. Hey, listen, I'm sorry this is happening. Me too. I'm real sorry. And if you ever want to call back, I won't talk to minors on this show, but if you ever want to call back and have her on with us, I'm happy to talk to you all together. That'd be fun.

Okay. She's going to be like, no chance, no way, no. But I'm willing to give it a whirl. There's a phenomenal book by Dr. Matej, G-A-B-O-R-M-A-T-E. It's called Take Back Your Children. Kelly, will you Google that real quick? Take Back Your Kids. Hold on to your kids? Hold on to your kids. There it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on to your kids. That's a phenomenal read. Phenomenal, phenomenal read.

If any parent there is feeling crazy, like I feel like I'm losing something in my gut says, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This isn't right. But there, you know, some teacher or some school thing or Instagram is telling you something else. Read that book and read Jonathan Hyatt's, Dr. Hyatt's book, The Anxious Generation. It's just time as parents, we take back our kids. Stop outsourcing that to other people, to other teenagers, to other whatever.

If we don't stand up for our kids, I'm telling you, they will become fodder for other people and companies. My kids and my house. That's our job. Make sure to call Madison. Stay in there. Stay in the fight. Stay in the fight. Stay in the fight. We'll be right back.

Hey, what's up? Deloney here. I am just super excited to announce I'm hitting the road with my buddy Dave Ramsey this spring on a brand new tour. Just us two. And we're putting a new twist on this thing. We're going to talk about money. We're going to talk about relationships. We're going to tell stories y'all have never heard before. It's going to be an incredible, fun night. But every night is going to be totally different because you, the audience, are going to help choose what we talk about.

You heard that right. It's going to be like no event you've ever been to. We're kicking it off in Louisville on April 21st, 2025. And then we're going to Durham, Atlanta, Phoenix, Fort Worth, and then Kansas City. You're going to laugh. You're going to learn. And if we do our jobs right, you're going to change your life. Get your tickets for the Money in Relationships Tour today at ramseysolutions.com slash tour. All right, we are back. Kelly, am I the problem? Go.

All right, this is from Steph. She says, hi, Dr. John and Kelly. I have an am I the problem question. I would love to know if I'm the problem of the scenario in my life. My husband obsesses over the gym constantly. He is always needing to go almost every single day and I am growing very tired of it.

I understand going to the gym is important for his mental, physical health, but I can't help but feel both jealous and also very angry over it. Here's some context. We have four kids, eight, five, two, and three months. He is always, quote unquote, needing to go to the gym after work. Bye, Felicia. And it always hits on the kids' witching hour. I feel like he's leaving me to the wolves while he goes and enjoys his nice gym time, and I desperately want his help.

I have voiced my concerns many, many, many times to no avail. Even going to the point where I gave him my rings back and told him it was either the gym or his family. He straightened up for a week or two, then bam, he needed to go to the gym again. Am I the problem for needing this time, his time and energy to be put into the kids? Or am I acting selfish for needing his time and help around here?

He's always been an avid gym goer and I used to be as well, but I had to put that on the back burner for quite some time and I find it super unfair that he gets to go anytime he feels like it. He will choose going to the gym over sitting with his family for dinner and I'm extremely fed up with the situation. Sorry if this was long. I don't know. Well, that doesn't matter. She said a bunch of other stuff too. There we go. There's your question. No, she is not the problem.

I, as a guy who liked to go to the gym, especially to go hide at the gym from life and responsibilities. Um, yeah, he's very much the problem. And by the way, um, I don't even, I'll, I'll even back out. Yes. It's easy to pick on him. Y'all are the problem. This isn't about going to the gym. This is about a world that neither of y'all have created that neither of y'all want to be in. And that's what needs to be addressed. Just stopping the gym. You're going to get a jerk at home.

stopping the gym, you're going to have a guy dropped in the middle of your world where he doesn't know the rules, he doesn't know how things go, and you're going to be frustrated. You're not doing this right, you don't...

Y'all have to recreate a world where both of you can exercise. Where both of you, and it's not going to be two hours this time. You're going to have to get over it. Y'all are in this season. Y'all made four humans together. That's a choice y'all made. So you're going to have to cut in on gym time. Merry Christmas. It's called adulthood. And y'all are going to have to have some sort of, like, y'all got to become friends. Y'all got to reconcile your friendship together.

You all made a home. You made a family. And having two parallel lives where you all hate each other, it's not going to work, man. These kids are going to absorb that. It's not fair for them. It's not fair for you all. Stop. Stop. Both of you, stop. But yes, as you pose the question, he needs to quit going to the gym and replug in with his home. You have to have a place where he can plug in too. And that means you all both have to get away and say, okay, what we had is over. We had lives where we all both worked out forever. We were both smoke shows. We both did this, blah, blah, blah. That's over.

Over. It doesn't exist. Now we have four kids. Eight. What? Five, three, two, one, zero. There's a million kids in this house. Now we get to build a new world. What does exercise, what does body stewardship, what does our friendship look like? What does us sleeping together look like? What does us laughing together, what's home look like? Y'all got to build that up quick. This house is going to catch on fire. All right, that's it for that one. Kelly told me in my 101 to be punchy. I'm trying to be punchy today.

It's like a 17 minute show. You're actually doing great. I love this. I'm so happy right now. This is happy. I'm so happy right now. This is it. I'm Kelly. Yep. So happy. I'm overjoyed. I'm so happy. Love you guys. Bye.