My Husband Won’t Initiate Sex
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. When you tell him, hey, I'm here. I miss sex. What does he say? You know, he wants to know that I care about him. If I don't follow up on things that I say I'll do, it takes a hit to him. He doesn't want to do anything with me. So is he giving you a chore list and punishing you by withholding intimacy from you? That's not cool. What up? What up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm really grateful that you're here.

Like for real, just taking a minute just to exhale and say thank you. Thank you for being here, talking about your mental health, your emotional health, your relationships.

In relationships at work, with your family, with your kids, with in-laws, whatever you got going on in your life, my promise is I'll sit with you and we're going to figure out what's the next right move for you. This show's real people going through real stuff in real time. It's a lot of real, actually. The only thing that's not real is Kelly's hair color because she dyes it a lot. That's not real. Do you not dye your hair? I've never dyed my hair. And the other thing that's not real is honesty because one of the people on this show doesn't tell the truth.

Really? You never dyed your hair? No. We joke because my sister got my mom's. My mom grayed really early, and my sister got that. And my dad passed away at 54, and he had no gray hair. She always does this. Whenever she starts telling the truth, she's like, well, my dad passed away. It's lovely that I got his side, so I give my sister lots of crap about that. That's impressive. I've never met someone as old as you with no gray hair. That is impressive. There's a couple in there, but luckily the curl is kind of a...

Kind of hide it. There's a few. I did see a box of Just For Men. Not Just For Men. Hey, if you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. Kelly does not use Just For Men. 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask ASK. All right, let's go out to right down the street here, Nashville, Tennessee, and let's talk to Hope. Hey, Hope, what's up?

Hi, I have a question for you. I am struggling with physical intimacy with my husband. I feel like in the three and a half years we've been married, I'm the one pushing for it. And I don't know how to get him to take the reins. Have y'all talked about it? I'm surprised. Well, we had...

Sorry, we had a miscarriage and then our daughter was born soon after we got married. And so that took a hit on the physical level as expected. But... Hold on, hold on. Things haven't... Not as expected. Not as expected. Keep going, keep going. Well, things just never pick back up after that. And I have tried to ask him about it, but he's...

He's shy, and I kind of am too. I've never had to take the position of initiating physical intimacy, not in a sexual way, but he doesn't really reach out to me and initiate often. I mean, we could go a month and be intimate like one time. And so I don't know. That's just not the... So when you tell him, hey...

I'm here. I miss sex. I want you. What does he say? He just says things are stressful at work or it's, you know, he wants to know that I care about him and he's a very loving, great provider for our family, but he's,

If I don't follow up on things that I say I'll do, it takes a hit to him. And then he's not, you know, he says he's not unattracted to me by any means. But when he feels like I don't care, it's a problem. And then he's not, he doesn't want to do anything with me because he doesn't feel like I care about him. So is he giving you a chore list and punishing you by withholding intimacy from you?

I have felt like that some. Yeah, that's not cool. It's not good. I feel like if I agree to something and then I forget, I get caught up in, you know, day-to-day stuff or whatever, and I don't remember. How old is your baby? How old is your baby? I have a, she's two, and then I have a nine-year-old also. A two-year-old and a nine-year-old? Yeah. Okay. Hope you have my permission to forget things every once in a while.

Thank you. You also have permission to co-manage a household with somebody. Here's what I found, and this sounds woo-woo, okay? And just know there's going to be people listening to this that roll their eyes. I do think I'm right, but here we go. Okay. I'm going to use this in the reverse. Well, no, you know what? I'm going to leave it here. So number one, it's a common thing. It's more common than you would think.

Um, and if you haven't had this conversation with some of your girlfriends, I made it some social norming, you feeling not crazy and having them nod at you and be like, yep, been there. It will be good for your soul. This sounds like something you've bottled up and kept as a secret. Is that right? Maybe I'm wrong. Uh, no, I, I just shared it with, um,

a couple of my sisters, but I don't have many girlfriends. So I, other than that, I'd say sisters have one job and that's to kill everybody on your behalf. So they're not always the, they're not always the best, right? No, I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's got some division too. Um, but having, having some friends, but I've talked to just, I can't even count how many, um, married couples over the years where the wife kind of talks herself up.

you're going to be the wife that's always ready to party, is always down, is never going to tell their husband no because they get this message, this cultural message that all men want to sex all the time and they've got to be ready. And then they marry somebody who's trying to start a business and he's exhausted all the time. Yeah. And it ends up being this, it's hard not to take that personally, right? Because if you've been told all he wants really at the end of the day you for is this, and he's like, dude, I need to go to bed. It's hard not to take that personally. Like, oh, he doesn't want me.

He doesn't think I'm desirable because men are supposed to never want anything other than this, right? And it's hard. Are you feeling that? Yeah, but I also feel like the priorities are different. Like he might want to decompress by watching videos on his phone or playing PlayStation or something. And then I just feel like a housemaid. Well, and that's the bigger issue that I've seen over the last two decades. It's just, I mean, all the...

psychology nerd friends of mine, everybody's talking about it, is how anthropologically it's a crazy moment in human history to have two people sitting on a couch that could be hooking up and yet they're both just sitting there on their device or one of them's just got a video game controller in their hand. Yeah. Like, anthropologically, that's madness. That's insanity. Yet that's where we are. Another thing underneath it is this idea of feminine and masculine energy. What I mean by that is

the maternal energy, this idea I'm going to take care of, right? If he shifts into, I am taking care of everything, then I have to do this. I've got to do this. I've got to do this. I've got to do this. Then it's easy for sexist to become another chore. Instead of we're on the same page, we have the same values. We're building this house together. The shy argument, y'all have made a human together. Y'all have been through loss together.

The shy argument is out the window. It's not an excuse for either of you. It blows my mind. Now, I am admittedly crazy on the other side, right? When it comes to talking about sex, I just don't have a filter for it just because I didn't realize how awkward I made dinners until my wife told me a few years ago. She's like, yeah, you make everything pretty awkward. But this idea of we just, we can't talk about it. I'm kind of embarrassed. Y'all made a person. We're past that now.

Oh, I know. And we used to like get kind of spicy at times when we were dating and. Hope you should get real spicy a lot. Y'all get to decide to do that.

And it's like, yeah. But then, you know, right after we had our honeymoon, I found out that he was addicted to porn and that took a massive hit for me. And then lead with that next time. Cause I was about to head into that. He's y'all need to have the conversation. Is he seeing somebody or is he struggling with pornography addiction?

Yeah, no, as far, yeah, he's not, he's not been seeing anyone, but I found it on his computer and I found that there was like a thousand dollars worth of charges to OnlyFans and he had quit it for like a year by that point, but I'd still seen a couple of things on his computer after that. And when I addressed it with him, he said he was like, I guess he was just trying to figure it out on his own. Like it was his own battle and he wasn't going to tell me about it, but

I mean, that was after the honeymoon when I saw him looking at an Instagram model. My truck is not great. The morning after. My truck's not great. It's not great. But I'd be willing to bet my truck that he is over his head right now in that same trash.

And that's what I wonder because like, I mean, I'm trying to do what I can, but at the same time, I'm like, if it's a month that you can go without being intimate with me, what is that telling me? It's deeper than that. It's deeper than just sex. You're looking at your husband and say, I desire you and I want to be with you. And he's saying, I would rather play video games. Sex is an out, it's an outcrop of a couple who want to have sex.

playfulness and connection. And as you, as you put it, spiciness, like that's, that's an outcrop of that. That is fruit of a well watered tree. And sometimes there are seasons when, Hey, both of us are working like crazy. We have two little kids, we've got crazy jobs and we're just going to hook up to get all like, that's part of it too. And there's some nights we plan it out.

And there's some nights, oh, I know he's really into this thing. And I text him early in the morning and I'm like, hey, tonight, we're gonna have to, tomorrow we have to repair the wallpaper because it's getting peeled off tonight and vice versa. Right. It's this idea of creating a world where there's no ons. I'm sorry. There's no offs in the house and they're all ons. This idea of like a sex drive has been debunked. It's not real. The idea is, I love Dr. Emily Nagoski says it's a series of gas pedals and brakes.

And how do we create a home where that's mostly gas pedals and no brakes? Because the world's going to throw brakes at you. You're going to experience profound loss with the loss of a pregnancy. A parent's going to call and say, I'm sick. That's going to be life. So how do we together decide let's make a home that is all gas pedals? And he is choosing. I can't even imagine the devastation. Can I tell you something? I don't want to hurt your feelings. Can I tell you something?

And all my years of doing this, you're the first person to ever tell me they caught their husband the night after their honeymoon on an OnlyFans account. I've never heard that. Yeah. And for me to hear a new one is almost impossible. That's a new one for me. Yeah, it's pretty hard. Yeah. It's not something just to blow off. That's something to dig into. And three years later...

Behavior is a language. He is telling you, I do not desire you. I don't want to be with you. I don't care what you need. I don't care what you want. I don't care what you experience. I want you to do my chores and leave me alone. Is that about right? That is how it feels. Yeah. Hey, hope, hope, hope, hope, hope. That's you trying to dismiss it. I want you to sit in it for a second. That's not how it feels. That's what it is. And I'm not telling couples that they have to have sex more than once a month. Every couple has to figure that out for themselves.

But I'm going to tell any couple that it is abject, stone-cold cowardice for someone to choose to die inside their own marriage, to die inside their own house, especially with a partner like you who's willing to have the conversation. It's cowardice. I just can't wrap my head around choosing a video game controller, not over having sex. I can't wrap my head around that, by the way, but I can't wrap my head around choosing a video game controller over...

Looking at my wife and saying, how can I love you today? And I'm not the best husband. Make no mistake. I'm a clown. Yeah. Right? So here's the million-dollar question. What's the or what? What do you mean? It sounds like you've sat down and talked to him. And he's like, well, I'm just really busy. Blows you off. Goes back to his OnlyFans account. Well, he told me he deleted them. And I haven't checked since because it was a breach of trust the way that I found out about it.

you know on his part and so what are you talking about what does that mean uh i looked on his computer when he was gone were y'all married yep that's y'all's computer you don't have a his computer and her computer when you're married that's y'all's computer that's y'all's phones that pay into the same phone account that's y'all's checking account that you'll share together don't you dare feel get sucked into this this sense of guilt because you found a gross violation

The morning after your freaking honeymoon, Hope. Oh, well...

Sorry, I don't think I explained that correctly. I found out about it at the end of December this past year. Oh, this year. Okay, okay. But I had seen him looking on a suggestive profile on Instagram the morning after our honeymoon. Oh, gotcha. Okay. So I knew about it then, but it was supposedly stopped. And then I found out that it wasn't stopped. It had started right before we...

Began talking and dating. And then through our first two years of marriage, it was going on. So it's still going on. I would be stunned beyond all belief that it's over now. And as you mentioned, as you know this, it's not uncommon for there to be gaps in intimacy when there's a young toddler in the house, when there's unprocessed miscarriage and pregnancy loss. Like that happens. It doesn't have to, but it does.

But it takes some adult in the house, and it sounds like it's going to be you. And you've probably heard me say this on the show before, to turn all the lights on, stop the music. I will not live voluntarily a life of quiet desperation. And that's the life your husband is choosing. That's the life you're choosing. And it has to stop. You're worth more than that. Your little baby's worth more than that. Right.

That little baby is absorbing that daddy's relationship to these imaginary women on the phone and his computer games is more important than mom, than me. And that's getting encoded into a child's nervous system. So if I could ask, I feel like when I've brought it up in the past that I've wondered if he's had an issue or if, like, is it still an issue, you know, whatever he wants to look at or do.

I feel like it shows that I don't trust him, but at the same time, I feel like that's illogical because... He's untrustworthy, Hope. You're not the bad guy here. Because you know deep in your bones he's not telling you the truth. He is not choosing to be intimate with you twice a year or twice every few months over the course of one, two, three years, right? You know that. Maybe it's not OnlyFans or maybe it's not pornography, but he's not telling you the truth. And you know that.

I just don't know how I can ask him or get updates on like how he's doing without him thinking that at any turn, I won't trust him. I don't, I don't know how to build that trust with him. You don't trust you. You don't trust you. No, it's probably true. It's a hundred percent true. Here's what, here's what I mean. Hope you have to stop fishing for his affection. Hmm.

And you have to walk into your home, into your marriage and say, I am not going to live like this anymore. And by the way, over the course of my 20, I don't know, 22 years of being married and five years after that, we dated. My wife and I think we're on marriage number six. I have to go back and count six or seven where we have sat down and said, we cannot be married like we have been married. We have to make choices. Are you still in? I thank God she has said yes. And thank God I've said yes every time.

The marriage we had cannot continue. And I won't go into details, but I remember horrific tears after pregnancy losses when we had to rebuild our marriage. I remember us getting to, I won't go into all the details. They're very personal, but there's been multiple times we have to sit across the table and say this, this, the way we've been doing this is over today. Are you willing to build something new with me? What you have to be ready for is him to look at you and say, nope, not doing it. Okay.

But that means you have to do the work to say, here's what I am worth. Here's what I need in my marriage. Here's what love looks like for me. Give your husband a roadmap to your heart and be ready for him to take it and be ready for him to say, I don't really care. Not doing that. You haven't been getting the car oil changed on time. So no sex for you this month. It's ludicrous. It's nonsense, Hope.

Yeah. Yeah. From the outside, it is very hard to hear that. I know. But then like in the middle, you know, it feels totally different. But I see what you're saying. And sometimes our feelings don't tell us the truth. All feelings do is try to keep us safe. Yeah. And can I tell you one more thing?

We don't talk about it enough, but when our bodies know we're not safe, everybody knows about fight, everybody knows about flight, everybody knows about freeze. We don't talk a lot about fawn. You know what fawning is? It's the fourth one. It's nuzzling up really close to the person hurting you and covering up, trying to affection your way into safety.

Wow. It's an unwillingness to see reality for what it is because reality may cost you everything, right? Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I hate this for you with all my guts, man. My hope is this can be one of those moments in his life, maybe for the first time that somebody flips on the lights, but I want you to sit down and spend some time by yourself or with a close friend. And if one of your sisters is one of your ride or dies, that's fine.

But I want you to paint a picture for yourself about what love looks like and what love is worth and what you want your home to feel like when he walks in the door every day. And I want you to paint a picture of here's some non-negotiable behaviors that cannot be a part of my house. That might mean when you walk in the door, you cannot walk past me and get on your phone and sit down there and pick up the game controller.

if you need to decompress swing by the gym if you need to decompress come home go for a walk you need to decompress come give me a hug for 35 seconds and let's just exhale for a bit but you get to decide that and he gets to decide that too if he's going to be in or not and if he's got some courage man i hope i'd love for him to call i'd love to talk to him and get his side and by the way for whatever it's worth i know this won't make you feel any better but man there are millions of couples stuck right in that situation you guys are stuck in i'm sorry it's hard

It just takes one person with courage and strength to say no more. I want to recommend to you a book by Dr. Emily Nagotsky. It's called Come As You Are. I think that book is worth y'all checking out and reading together. It's really a remarkable book. It's awkward at times, and if y'all are both quote-unquote shy, oh man, she drops a grenade right in the middle of shy. But I think it's worth reading. And if you'll read it with you, it'd be worth reading together. Thanks for the call, sister. I'm really grateful you called, man. And I wish you the absolute best.

It's going to be a hard season of truth telling. Call me anytime. 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...

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All right, we're back. Let's go out to Des Moines, Iowa and talk to Amy. Hey, Amy, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you? Good, good, good. So what's up? So my question today is how should I navigate my mother's reunion with a son she gave up for adoption years ago and a potential impact this can have on my family? Well, we'll get into the particulars, but I think at this point,

Geez, I would say step one is the impact on your family is not the number one priority here. The number one priority here is your mom reuniting with her son and you've got a brother. Yes. I think that exhale is the most important thing right now. Or let me say it this way. Everything is now different and the quicker you can live in that reality, not the easier, but the less anxious everything that comes after is going to be.

If you head into this new world trying to protect what you have and what has been and try to get back to normal as soon as possible, you're going to make yourself an anxious wreck. I can see that, yes. Everything is different now. You have a brother.

Yes. And a little backstory with my family. There's a lot of ins and outs. I can imagine. I can imagine there's a ton of marriages with my mom and four divorces and some boyfriends in between that have been live-ins for a few years. So I think some of this comes from the, you always expect it to go away because it doesn't stay forever. Mindset kind of hits me, if that makes sense. Say that one more time.

If that makes sense, just that mindset of, okay, if he comes now for a little bit, he's here, but is it going to leave just like the other marriages or the other step siblings? Or I do have three other half siblings with her.

So I think that's the hard part to navigate for me, that emotional, like, do you latch on and, okay, let's go all in on this relationship? Or is this just going to be another, in a couple years, it'll kind of taper off and slowly leave like other relationships, if that makes any sense at all. Totally. One of the core features of anxiety is trying to reach out into the future and control it in the present. And you can't.

And the frustrating, crushing, awful thing about relationships is the only way they work is if you're vulnerable and you say, this is me. Do you still love me? And when they work, it's transcendent. It's the heartbeat of planet Earth, of all people. And when it doesn't work, you can get dreadfully hurt. Right. I made the decision a long time ago to stop trying to hedge my bets when it comes to meeting people.

it's too exhausting and it makes me too anxious i'd rather risk somebody disappearing on me or i'd rather risk me having to say yeah i need to draw a boundary here this this relationship's not healthy for me or i just don't have time for it then to walk around trying to predict what song is going to be playing in two years it's exhausting and by the way i've got a way easier path than you do i don't have a bunch of half siblings and another one's popping up and another one's popping up um what's the story with this particular brother

So not a lot of that has came out. Slowly learning about a horrible childhood that my mother had. And this was not a good situation. And it was actually not consensual sex when this had happened. Oh, geez. How old was she? And instead of protecting 14. God almighty, I'm so sorry. Yeah. And instead of protecting her, her mother protected 14.

the man and they sent him off to the army and just to be away so that nothing was punished for him. So there's a lot, a lot to, and it explains a lot about how my mother was, I think growing up, it kind of put some light into some of her actions and how maybe a little distant she was as a mother versus loving and

I shouldn't say loving. She was a loving mother, but didn't know how to show that necessarily to a child. So can I process two things with you? Sure. If we were just meeting in person and we had a couple hours to sit and talk together, I would do this much slower, okay? So I'm going to be pretty abrupt, okay? Sure. Yes. You have 100% permission to be deeply and powerfully enraged at your grandmother.

And I do. Good. That anger is right. Yes. And this is going to sound sideways. You're going to have to forgive Amy for how angry you've been at your mother for all these years. You didn't know. Right. You didn't know. And these are these moments that pop up that we find out later that suddenly humanize our moms and our dads doesn't make our pain go away. It doesn't make our childhood any better, but it provides a context and it makes us a lot more

Filled with mercy and grace, right? A hundred percent. But you have to go back and be honest about how angry and how the judgment you've had and the letters you've written and the conversations you've had and the times you've gossiped with your brothers and sisters about mom, if she just, and then these moments like, oh, she was raped as a child and her mom covered it up for the guy. You couldn't have said it any better. Right. And so I want you to forgive Amy. You didn't know. Yes, I do. Okay. Yes, for sure.

So here's your two homework assignments before you even get going. I want you to write your grandmother a letter. I'm assuming she's long past, right? Unfortunately, no. God almighty, she's still alive? Still hanging on forever. Like just making life miserable for her children, for everybody. Like the never-ending Energizer bunny. Well, I never wish anybody to pass, but I can imagine she's casting a long shadow over your family.

100% yes. Okay. Yep. Shadows go away when somebody turns the lights on. You don't have to live in that shadow anymore, Amy. And your mom probably does none of the skills to get out of that room that's cast in darkness and shadows, but you do. Right. Yep. So I want you to write a letter to your grandmother that you will never ever sin, but I want you to get that rage out of your body onto a piece of paper so you can go along with your life. I also want you to write Amy a letter and tell Amy, I forgive you. You didn't, we didn't know.

But I want you to write in the third person to Amy. Okay? I can do that. And I want you to be specific about some of the things you've said, maybe you've done, maybe the times you've slammed the door and flipped her off behind, whatever's happened over the course of your lifetime. Times she didn't show up for your kids or whatever. But I want you to release that. I can do that. So when it comes to this brother, I don't know how it's going to be. Who knows? He may come running into your family with open arms. I don't know.

I really think that is how it's going to be. The little I do know, his adopted parents are no longer with him. And I think he's going to hear three half siblings and aunts and uncles. And I'm going to walk into this family, not realizing the amount of chaos. He'll know. He'll know. Every family's chaotic. Yours, especially. Right.

He'll know. He'll know. So here's what I, whenever people have these reunions, here's what I think is important. Are you married? Yes. Okay. Are you married to somebody that's trustworthy? I am, yeah. You like your husband? I do, most days, yeah. That's exactly the answer my wife would give. All right, so I think it's important for you to, y'all two to go out and have breakfast together. No kids. And it doesn't have to be expensive breakfast. It can be Waffle House or a local coffee diner or something like that.

But I want you to verbalize out loud. I want you to tell him, hey, I just want you to listen to me. I just need to say some things out loud. This new guy's coming into the family. I got another half brother and your dad's going to go, oh my gosh. And I mean, your husband's going to say, oh my God, all that. But I just need to say this out loud. And then I want you all to be very specific about what boundaries will look like. I want you to say it out loud. I'm committing now. We're not going to give half brother any money. Half brother will or will not be allowed to stay with us in our home. And if you've got young kids, I would recommend no. You don't know this guy.

Half brother will be invited with everybody to whatever. I want you to set some of those boundaries. And once those boundaries are in place, it's kind of like having a budget with your money. Once your budget's spent, you can go eat wherever you want. You just got to do it with that much money. Right. But once you decided, here's our lines we won't cross, then you can just go welcome him with open arms because you already have the walls set up. Right. That's where I struggle. Boundaries. Yeah, I figure. It's always been a huge struggle. You know why?

Because your mom was a ghost. She had to be to survive. She disappeared inside her own body because her own mom didn't stick up for her. And as a kid, your whole life, you've been trying to hug a ghost. She's right there, but she's not there. And when you grow up in a family like that, that can happen with parents who struggle with substance abuse as well. They're right there. I see them, but they're gone. It's especially this day and age when parents are sitting there on their devices all day long.

And their kids are trying to say, do you see me? And they're like, no, I'm looking at my little box. It's more important than you right now. Right? But here's the deal. Boundaries go away because we're going to take any and all shreds of relationship we can get from our parents and loved ones and caregivers. And we grow up as adults wondering what was so bad about us that we couldn't be loved. And so we'll take it from anybody, anywhere.

We'll say yes to everything. We'll show up to everything, even if it kills us. We'll spend money we don't have. We'll do whatever we got to do to make those connections. That's all our nervous system knows. And the path towards peace for you, a non-anxious path, is you got to set up boundaries. Here's who we're going to be with this new half-brother, especially initially. Does that sound right?

That does. Yes. A hundred percent. Like I said, I always say I'm a fixer. You've had to be. That's like, that's my mentality. I want to fix things. You've had to be. You can't pick other people. But you can, you can love Amy. You can love Amy. Yes. Yes, I can. You can love your mom in whatever weird way she'll, she can, she can accept it and you can stop carrying around that anger and that rage towards her. And here's what's true. Your childhood was a mess, wasn't it?

I mean, yeah, there was a lot of ins and outs. If you've got four or five or six men coming and going, it's a mess. Yes. If you randomly have different brothers and sisters popping up every few years, that's the definition of a mess.

Yep. Between my mom and my dad, five marriages and four divorces. Amy, that is a mess. That's a mess. And listen. A little messy. Like, who's what when? And when they're divorced, are they still considered? Yeah. So listen. We've been through that many times. Listen, your child is a mess. Your adulthood doesn't have to be. You get to choose. Right. And it's going to be hard for you, but you get to choose. As the great Rage Against the Machine sang, take your power back.

take it back you and your husband get to decide you'll get to co-create what happens next and almost always that starts with a commitment to each other and it starts with setting up boundaries so that we can head off a hundred percent in the same direction and we know the guard rails we know who we're gonna be hang on the line i'm gonna send you a copy of building a non-anxious life just my gift to you as you i want you to read it there's a chapter specifically on this moment but i want y'all to walk i want you to turn the lights on i want you to get rid of some of those shadows with what you can do and that's a light switch on the wall or a flashlight

And I want y'all to head into a non-anxious life together. And then, cool, you got a new brother. I'm going to smile. I'm going to wave. I'm going to welcome him home. And I'm going to be smart and not put myself at risk. But I got a new brother. Very, very cool. Thanks for the call, sister. Call anytime. We'll be right back.

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I'm doing good. I'm excited to talk to you. I respect what you're doing. I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to you, brother. What's up, man? So my question is, how do I navigate and I guess work through and really come to a more common ground with political issues, specifically with my wife?

Probably have your eardrums surgically removed. That'd probably be the best thing for both of y'all. If you figure this out, man, you should write that book because you'll sell a trillion copies. What's going on in your house? So we have a great household. I mean, I want to start there. I mean, I love my wife. We have a great relationship. But kind of like you talk about when you have kids, kind of everything changes. And so we had...

A daughter eight months ago, which has been awesome. Congrats, man. But through that process, thank you. Through that process, you know, me more specifically, I've kind of started to want to come to more of a common ground on some of these issues and present more of a united front as we start to raise our daughter. Okay, real quick. She's eight months old, right? Yeah. You're good for a while.

You're good. You're good. Fair. My kids are 14 and 8, and you know who my wife voted for last time? I don't. I don't either. Okay. I don't. I literally don't know. She has a sense of who I voted for, but I have no idea who she voted for.

Because we don't talk about it. And part of that is kind of a move. So I can tell people and they're like, who'd you go for? I can say, dude, I didn't tell my wife. Like that is a thing. We talk about issues and we talk about how our home is going to feel and what kind of people we are going to be. And that's the difference between values and beliefs, right? Like we share very similar values.

our beliefs are going to be all over the place. And I want her beliefs to change as she learns new things over the course of her lifetime and me too. That's what, that's why we read books. We'll listen to podcasts. That's why we have conversations with great friends and with cool mentors so I can learn new things. Cause if I, if I just hang out with people who believe what I believe, what a lame life, that's a boring life. Right? So give me an example of an issue that you feel is already dividing your household with the, with an eight month old. No, yeah. And I, I appreciate all those things and I agree. I,

For me, it's less about who we're voting for and more about, yes, I guess specific issues. Give me one. Let's have some fun and make everybody uncomfortable. Yeah. So one example is specifically with the issue of the second amendment. I grew up in Salt Lake City. She grew up in San Diego. Okay. And so obviously very polar opposite views and opinions on that and just a general view

uncomfortableness for her. So she doesn't like having a gun in the house with a kid there? Yes. Okay. So that's a very common conversation. I'm from Texas. I've even heard it in Texas. When Texans marry foreigners, like somebody from California or somebody from Seattle, right? That kind of foreigner. Yeah, I've heard that my whole life. So tell me how the conversation goes in your home. Like it was probably cool theoretically until a little baby walked in, right?

To be honest with you, she's never been comfortable with it. Okay. But it's been more of an issue since the baby, definitely. Okay. And so my question for you more is like, how do I have a conversation? She seems to, it seems to be really emotional for her, which I understand. And I try and navigate that, but we don't, we have a hard time making progress with,

Because it just becomes really, really emotional. Sure. And we can't really, like, work through it. You know, I guess, yeah, it just gets really emotional is where it kind of comes to a head and it doesn't make good progress. Yeah, absolutely. I remember a—I'm glad you brought this one up because gun stuff is a touchy subject all across the board, right?

And I remember a college professor of mine, she brought this up and the way she said this was a light bulb moment for me. So the challenge with the gun conversation, now this is before all the mass shootings and they were so commonplace, right? But so I want to add that variable because I get that that elevates things. No question about it. I've been in a school during an active shooter experience. Like I get it. It's terrifying. I, she said,

The problem with the conversation in the country is when someone says, like, you shouldn't have guns, people maybe in Texas or in Tennessee or in Salt Lake City, they picture their grandmother, right? Like, my grandmother may have grown up on a chicken farm and had to shoot varmints with a .410, right? But the idea, like, what do you mean? You're talking about my grandmother. And your grandmother may have a tiny little, you know, like a .380 in her purse, right?

Whereas in maybe Chicago or maybe in San Diego, I don't know anybody with a gun. I don't know anybody who has one. The only people I see are on the news and they're doing horrible, awful things with them. Right? Yeah. And so you end up talking past each other. So I always want to get to the issue beneath the issue here because the idea of a gun is third rail, right? Yeah. My guess is she wants her house to be safe. And my guess is you want your house to be safe. Is that fair? Yeah.

Very, very fair. How would y'all go about having that conversation? Because that feels like a different conversation. And here's what I mean. What must be true? Is it gun safes and locks and digital, you know, fingerprint boxes and things like that? Are there places or avenues you could take so that your wife would feel safe? Courses, classes y'all could take together? Like, is there things that could happen so that she feels safe?

Or the other side of that is, are there things that could be in place in your house without a gun that you would feel safe? That's the real question here. Yes. Is that possible? Definitely. Tell me another one. You know, um, we, we, you know, we talk often about how to navigate the conversation, um,

you know, surrounding the gender ideology of these days. And that also seems to get pretty emotional. How so? You know, more specifically, I guess it always comes to a head about what is okay and what is not and kind of how we want to present that in our household. And we've had a hard time coming to

to an agreeance on how we want that discussion to go in the future. - You're kinda talking high level. Be really specific. Your wife wants to what versus what you wanna do? - My wife is very inclusive of all different gender ideologies and those types of things, which is she's amazing, compassionate, and I'm a little bit more traditional on some of those opinions.

And that seems to always come to a head as far as, you know, how we want to present that moving forward. But, you know, that goes back to the start. We have a lot of time to. Yeah, you got plenty of time on that one. The one thing to remember about kids is they hold way less baggage on stuff. They don't have it. Does that make sense? Yeah. Like I remember like in my mom's lifetime.

When she got married, she was not allowed to go to the bank and get a mortgage on her own without my dad's signature. This is in 1970, by the way. She wasn't allowed. And so for her in 73, I think it was when the court case came through and she was allowed to get her own checking account. That was a landmark event for her. It was a landmark event for my dad. It was a landmark event for our families, a landmark event for our culture.

It never occurred to my sister that she could not have a checking account when she became 13 and started babysitting or whatever. That make sense? And so when my mom sat down to say, like, okay, now here's the deal. Here's what a checking account is. My sister didn't get the baggage behind that because it's something that my mom had not been able to be a part of for so long. Or in my lifetime, gay marriage was not a thing, and now it is.

And I remember, like, my son was four or five, and we were going somewhere, and we had some friends over, and they were married, and it was two women. And he said, two women can get married? And I said, yep. And I was bracing for it. I was like, all right, here's the conversation. And he goes, hey, can we go get—and he just—it went right back, because he didn't have that same heat on it. Does that make sense? Yes. And so I think what's important is to find out what the values are.

And what those what we're trying to communicate and to understand that they don't have that same heat on it. And you mentioned something that I want to double click on. You said my wife is very compassionate and I'm traditional. I don't think traditional values have to be absent compassion. And I don't think compassion has to be absent common sense when it comes to things like gender identity and things like that. Does that make sense?

Yes, yes, it does. So let me, let me ask you this. I, I feel like I am guilty of making these things more of a debate and in turn, she's guilty of making them very emotional and it's hard to have progress with those two ways of going. How do I, how long have y'all been married? Uh, three years. Okay.

Okay. All right. Speaking of gender, I'm going to overly gender this in a way that's not fair. And people are going to be mean to me on the YouTube comments and that's fine. This isn't for everybody, but this is just seems to be a generalization like inside the bell curve or inside like one standard deviation inside the bell curve. Often men like to solve things with facts. Let's get to these facts. Let's debate these facts and let's move on.

And often one standard deviation with inside that bell curve, women like to be seen and heard and experienced. So possibly she sits down and says, I want to make sure our daughter knows her two pronouns, that she's a he, her. Okay. And you might say, well, duh, she is a young girl. And you read off a bunch of facts. And it may be that your wife is saying the thought of my daughter,

Being ostracized in school makes me so sick because I remember being ostracized too. And the thought of any kid feeling like somebody doesn't love them for whatever wild reason, right? And so there is a moment when an adult has to be an adult. Like we took, I took a call several months ago about someone, a child who identified as a fox, right?

I want my kids running around and dressing up and being maniacs. And also, they need an adult in their world to say, you are not a fox. You are a human being. You have to sit down at the table and you can't wear a tail. You see what I'm saying? It's both and. But it starts with an adult saying, I see you and I love you. Come sit down. Versus, let's get to the facts. Let's get to the issues. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And so, my recommendation to you as a young married guy is that when your wife wants to discuss something and it begins to get emotional...

Say the following words, I believe you, and just let it hang. Or maybe ask, are you asking for my opinion on this or do you just want me to sit with you? And if you can get that down three years into your marriage, man, you've got a whole different marriage trajectory. Many men treat their wives like car engines, something to be fixed. And it's been my experience. My wife just wants to be heard, man. Most of the time she's smarter than me anyway. She doesn't need my info. She needs my presence. Does that make sense?

It does. Yeah. And so if she says like, Hey, I need to know like, what's our stance on this as a family? All right, well, let's get into the nitty gritty. Here's who we're going to be. And if you say, Hey, what do we want people to feel like when they come into our house, then she's going to be right there with you. But it's getting to the thing beneath the thing. Like gun means what for you? It means we're all going to be safe for her. It means we're going to be very not safe. So let's, let's address what is, makes us feel safe.

When it comes to inclusion, she believes nobody should feel like they don't have a place to go where they belong. And inclusion for you means people got some facts out of order here. So let's get to that deeper part of the conversation. That's the problem with politics right now is it's all about what team are you on, not about, hey, how do we solve some of these major issues? Does that make sense?

It does. Yeah, I like that. Thank you. The thing below the issue. And let me tell you ultimately how we manage this in my house. It's just how I teach it all over the country. I want my wife and I to be aligned on our values. Who are we going to be? In the Deloney house, anybody is welcome in our house, period. End of story. And my kids have seen a cascade of great, wonderful, amazing, very eclectic people come into our home.

Right? That's who we are. And we're also very curious. Curiosity is a thing. We say yes to adventures. That's who the Delonys are. And we have a few principles that we stand on that we will not violate. Period. And I want my beliefs about how we get there to change all over the place. Sometimes, Kelly and I, we both align. We want to help people.

We both align in that value. That's why we do this show. I believe you should tell the truth and be kind to people. Kelly believes you should lie a lot and be mean. We both are like, I'm just kidding. She doesn't at all. She's very kind too. But we both have different beliefs on how we're going to accomplish the thing, which is our value, which is we want to love people well.

And so that's where we do our debating and negotiating around the beliefs, man. But those values are anchored in there. The exercise you and your wife, I think, would be valuable for y'all to spend some time on is who are we going to be? Who do we want to be? What do we want people to feel like when they walk in our house? What kind of home are we building? And then you anchor those value statements in there, man, and your beliefs will begin to backfill. And expect over the course of your marriage lots of tension around the beliefs.

I believe our kids should be able to, uh, I'm just making something up. This isn't me, but I believe our kids should eat at school lunches so that they can be, uh, fit in with their peers. I believe a kid should never eat a school lunch because they are, it's mostly toxic sludge and I'm going to get organic foods. And I believe we should never borrow money. I believe we should borrow money and have the nicest brand new Tahoe's in the parking lot. All right. Our values are

freedom. No one will ever own this family. All right, now we're going to get to the beliefs then. So spend some time with the values part. And then, man, have a fun time in your marriage negotiating and complaining and fighting and debating the beliefs part. That stuff should change a lot. And at the end of the day, this is how I do it in my house. So for whatever it's worth, if my wife draws a red line,

and says, I can't have this. Let me do something that's silly. My wife said, I cannot have another guitar brought into this home. We have too many. I could say, I make a bunch of money. I can have as many guitars as I want. I need this guitar for this particular sound, for this particular song, for this particular band. I'm trying to, I can do all that. My wife says,

I can't have another guitar in this house. She does that so rarely, like every five years, 10 years, I'm not bringing another guitar in the house because my covenant to my wife is more important than my, I get, than my ego. And so if my wife, I'm a big hunter. I grew up in the house of a, of a police officer. Um, I've been around guns my whole life. Um, I'm a Texan. Um, and I just, whatever that's worth. And my wife grew up in the home of an avid, avid outdoorsman. Um,

If she came to me and said, this is a no-go forever, period. We're going to have that conversation because my commitment to my wife is deeper than my how dare you. And she also knows, hey, my husband hunts a lot. He's out in the woods a lot. Him and his friends do competitive shooting together. I'm not going to draw that red line, but I am going to draw some really thick red lines when it comes to safety in the house.

John, you can't leave guns laying around. John, you got to put stuff away. Everything's got to be locked up. So some of those basic safety things, right, that make her feel comfortable. But that's just us being married and managing our values and our beliefs in our home. And every couple is going to be different on those things. Spend some time together locking in those values, man. And then always get to the thing beneath the thing beneath the thing. And often don't try to fix your wife with facts and data unless she asked for it. Unless she asked for it. Most of the time your wife wants you to sit with her and say, I believe you.

It's a wild world we live in, isn't it? And then exhale and then don't say anything else because your presence often is enough. And then we'll get to the big issues. Thanks for the call, brother. We'll be right back.

It's time to talk about Organifi. All right, here's one of my main life goals. I want to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible. I want to be that old semi balding guy in the back of the mosh pit. And I also want to be that old guy dancing with his beautiful wife into my 80s. And I want to be able to roll around with my grandkids and some WWE style wrestling match into my 90s.

And that's why right now I exercise, I work on my friendships, and I try to eat and drink things that only have safe, high quality, high integrity ingredients. And this is why I love Organifi.

They're incredibly selective about what goes into their whole food blends. And Organifi gives you ingredients with integrity. Plant-based, certified organic, vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, and glyphosate residue-free. By the way, that's a pesticide you don't want anywhere near you.

And it's simple to get the health benefits with Organifi. You just mix with water or your favorite beverage and drink it down. You can take their green juice first thing in the morning to balance stress and get ready for your day. And you can take Organifi red juice in the afternoon or before a workout for natural sustained energy and endurance. And I love my happy drops every day for natural mood support with saffron extract.

Go to Organifi.com slash Deloney right now to save 20% off at checkout with code Deloney. That's Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash Deloney and code Deloney for 20% off. All right. So what's something cool that happened, Kelly? All right. This is from Leslie in Alabama. She said, I recently had a very hard and honest conversation with my husband about some resentment I've been harboring towards him. Roll Tide. Yeah.

That's a resentment. He's an Alabama fan. Roll Tide. All right. He listened and did not try to throw things back in my face. What? He thanked me for expressing these things because he knows how hard it was for me to talk about my feelings. And since I talked to him about the resentment, I've been able to let some of them go. The ones I'm having a hard time with, he knows I'm working on, working through them, and he is here to listen as I am doing that work.

We are both Deloney listeners, and this conversation could not have happened without the skills that we've learned from listening to your show and reading your books. Thank you so much. Yeah, dude. Way to go, Leslie. And way to go, husband. Man, I wish it didn't take me 20 years of being with somebody before I figured out just to be quiet. It'd be so great. And hey, in 17 more years, Kelly, whenever you're angry with me, I'll learn to be quiet by then. Dude, that makes my heart feel good.

Good for you, Leslie. I'm proud of you. That's amazing. And good for your husband. And as you all figure it out together, one thing that people, that is fun about dealing with resentments, and I know that sounds weird, but when you start dealing with resentments, you also get to start dealing with, okay, what do we want this thing to look like? We get to build something brand new together. What is that going to look like? And man, that can be such an adventure. I'm proud of you. I'm proud of you. Kelly, we're doing good work sometimes. We are. Yep. Good work. I'm glad to be on the team with you.

Well, I'm glad you're here so we have a team. And I'm glad that you keep dying that gray hair. You don't. That's pretty amazing, actually. Thank you. Love you guys. Bye.