I Don’t Respect My Lazy Husband
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. In the most recent fight, I told him I don't like his work ethic, and that seemed to really hurt him, and I probably said it a little meaner than that. What did you say? Well, I told him since our entire relationship, this has just been happening over and over again, and it's because of your work ethic. What you said is true and honest, and I'm proud of you for saying it.

What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, talking about your mental and emotional health and your relationships, whatever you got going on in your life. I'm so glad that you are with us.

For 20 years, I've been sitting with hurting people trying to figure out the next right move. And if that's you, if you want to sit down and let's figure this out, whatever's going on in your world, we're going to figure out the next right move. Give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291, 1-844-693-3291, or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. All right, let's roll out to Chicago, Illinois, and talk to Kaylee. Hey, Kaylee, what up?

Hi, thank you so much for taking my call. You got it. How are we doing? Oh, we're good. I can't believe I'm talking to you, honestly. I listen to your show all the time. I can't believe I'm talking to you. This is rad. So what's up?

So, in brief, I'll just ask the question quickly and then I'll kind of go into some back info that you have a little bit more to go off of. I'm a little bit afraid that I have developed a sense of feeling like I am better than my husband over the course of our relationship.

This has recently come out in one of our fights just the other day. That's why I called. For the background information, we've been married for three years. We've been together for about eight years. We met at college. I finished with a four-year degree in chemistry. He

He tried to do a four years in mechanical engineering and he struggled through that pretty badly. So the first four years of our relationship were that of him having a hard time getting through that coursework and just trying to finish. And after about four and a half years of that, he wasn't able to finish. It just wasn't going to happen. So he dropped out.

which was really hard for him. And then we got married shortly after that. And since then, we've had a string of jobs for him that haven't really been working out. He's not very happy at any of these jobs. And now he's working part-time and doing a program online. And it looks like he's found something that he really loves, which is great, but it's a hard industry to get into.

And it might take a long time for something stable to come out of it. So I have been having these recurring feelings of back when we were kind of in college of, oh, this isn't going to work. And I, in the most recent fight, I told him, I don't, I don't like his work ethic and that seemed to really hurt him. And I probably said it a little meaner than that. Probably. Right. How did you say it? What'd you say?

Well, I told him since our entire relationship, this has just been happening over and over again, and it's because of your work ethic. Hold on. What you said is true and honest, and I'm proud of you for saying that. Okay. You're not crazy. That's no means saying it, though. I mean, I don't know. I've wanted to build his confidence and self-esteem for a long time. You can only build confidence and esteem through doing the thing. Yeah. Yeah.

And he knows that you haven't respected him for a long time. Right. And so saying it out loud is a relief. Did he like it? No. Did you feel good saying it? No. But was it true? Yes. Okay. I wish it hadn't been in a fight because he couldn't hear it. He could only fight back. Right.

But underneath, go ahead, go ahead. Sorry, I guess it kind of gave him, because it's been a couple days since that, and he's kind of been shell-shocked a little bit. I don't think he knew that's how I felt about the whole thing. That's fair. Which, am I being dishonest throughout our relationship? Did this develop over time? Has it always been this way?

I mean, you have to answer that. My guess is you've either always gotten your way growing up or you have been responsible for everybody around you for your whole life. Can both be true. And so when you, even the way you talked about it, we worked some jobs and we applied for jobs and no, you didn't. He did. Yeah. And what's your, what's your old man do for a living? He was a produce manager for his whole career. Okay.

Can I ask you a really hard question? Just tell me the truth. Yeah. Were you embarrassed by that? I don't know if embarrassed, but he made it very clear to me that he wanted to do something else. Yeah. And he never did? Yeah. Yeah. And you went and married that person? I guess I did. And you can't fix it? Right. So I think the path forward is to sit down and say, hey, I'm sorry that we fought about that. And I owe you an apology because I should have told you that a long time ago.

But underneath all of this, I think you need to be pretty clear about what you want and what you need. Here's where that's hard. What do you do for a living? I'm a chemist. Okay. It's hard for a chemist, like an awesome professional woman to say, this doesn't sound right. Like I'm not even allowed to say this, but I want someone that's going to provide. Yeah. I know I'm not supposed to say this because this is 21st century, but I want a man to show up and take care of me, even though I'm an awesome chemist.

Right. I do. And I don't want to be the husband and the dad and the wife. And I don't want to be all the parties here in this thing. That's true. And you know what else you don't want to be?

His mom. His mom. Yes. Yeah, we've had a couple. I feel like we've kind of worked through that a little bit as we've grown. I mean, we're still really young. I'm 25. He's 26. Okay. So that's probably in progress of working through, but we had the whole video game problem for a while. We didn't. Stop talking like that. Yeah.

He, yeah, he plays a lot of video games. Definitely not as much now because he's listened and tried to make it better. So underneath all of the, I know, but like you're still talking to him like you're his mom. Here's the two big things. Tell me if they resonate in your guts. You have a man that you love, but you don't respect him. And he's not being respectable. And you don't like the life that you have co-created. Yeah. You got to own both of those.

And you, it's, there's going to be some grief because you had this picture in your head when you walked across the stage as a 20 year old chemistry grad and with a job in hand and a, and an engagement ring on your finger that my life and I'm 25 is going to look like this. And you are in that age where people around you are starting to say like, I just got promoted. I'm having a baby. Look at our new house. And your husband's like, I don't like this job. It's too hard. I'm going to go part-time online and play video games. Yeah. Yeah.

I hate that for you. I hate that for him. I hate that for the whole dynamic. I know. I guess I just don't really know what to... Being clear on my needs would definitely help. But... He might be stunned. How do I help him? He might be stunned. I think you help him by you telling the truth and you helping you. Okay. I was talking to my buddy, Rachel Cruz, the other day, and she said that...

A therapist buddy of hers said a couple was in there and they're trying to fix this and this and this. And he said, you cannot have an A plus marriage because y'all are both C plus people. Yeah. And so both of y'all have to work out, not exercise wise, but y'all have to both put your whole self into this thing. Not so you can be the valedictorian, but so that y'all can do something amazing. And he's got to be a part of that.

I know. I think he wants to be. I'm not sure he knows how to. Yes. It's a both in, but you don't know how to tell him and you don't know how to accept it. Right. And if the best way he's learned to love you, the best way he's learned to connect with you is when y'all sit down to do job applications together. Okay. Yeah. And if the way to affection with you, if the way to like any sort of emotion from you is when you're mad at him for playing video games.

Okay. Yeah, I see what you're saying. So there's like, it just gets to be this weird dance and it gets to, everything gets to be both hands. And it's real easy on Instagram to pick on one of y'all. Sure. You just need to respect him more or you got to get off your butt, dude, and go get a job. It's both of those things are true. Yeah, right. But I think the, like the metaphor in my head here is like y'all sitting at a table and you taking your arm and metaphorically wiping it across the table and say, okay, we're 25.

We've been married X number of years. We've been together X number of years. We're starting this. We're building something new. We're not starting over. We're building a new one. Yeah. Here's the life that I want to co-create with you. I want to be so turned on by you, how you are carrying yourself. I want the TV to come on once a week, not once an hour. I like, I want you, like I see this version of you in a suit or in an electrician's out. Like I see this version of you.

And then he gets to say the same, and y'all build that world. - That sounds good. - And by the way, this is not fun. It's not fun, it's hard. - No. - You have to practice. - I know, I know. - It's tough, and y'all gonna, it's like you going to play hockey the first time on skates. You just fall down a lot, it's just part of it, but both of y'all are committed to keep learning how to play hockey. - Right. - Can he handle that conversation?

I think it'd be hard to, I mean, I know this is a hard conversation, but I think he'd be stunned again. How so? If I told him truthfully, you know, it's been hard for me to have, I haven't respected you in a long time. I didn't really realize how long.

And I think he'd love to build a new life. That sounds great. But I think what he'll immediately ask is, what do you want from me to do that? I don't know how to answer that. Yeah. You know, because it's not as easy as just, OK, just go get a job. You know, we've gotten jobs, you know, that they pay the bills and they're fine, but he's so unhappy in them.

And on top of that, it's hard for any of my success at work because it's kind of, it's a weird competition sometimes. Is it with you or with him? Oh, with him. Yeah. Yeah. Like I just got a raise not too long ago. It was a pretty good one and that's hard. Yeah. And it's really heartbreaking to be married to somebody and be building a life with somebody that y'all can't even celebrate together, huh? Yeah.

Yeah, in that area, for sure. Can you put that on the table? Yeah, I could. Because I think everybody deserves to have a spouse that they celebrate with. They weep and grieve with, for sure, but man, we've got to be able to celebrate together. And he gets to say, I'm jealous of you, and I'm still going to celebrate with you. Both of those things can be true, too. You know what I mean? Sure. I think that's a potential future for that. Okay. I think he gets...

Do that. I'm jealous, but this is so good. This is awesome. So yeah, I I'm jealous of my wife She's a better writer than me. I wish I could write like her. I can't sure she's just good at it She does it every single day at the same time every morning. She's amazing at it I can't and we both been writing the same like we both went to the same graduate school We were in different different. I mean we seem college with different like programs, but

She's just better than me. I'm jealous. And also, man, I just can't, I just beam with pride so much what she, what she creates. It's both and right. Right. It's a, it's an inspiring jealousy, not a debilitating jealousy. I know. And I think that, I think that's in there. It just maybe doesn't come out that way. Can you say I'm not going to be your mom anymore? Yeah. I want to be your wife. Gladly. Yeah. You say gladly, but can you do that?

Yeah, I mean, I have. Okay. I guess I keep trying to take ownership of it because there is still this weird role for the modern day woman, it seems, of being all of the household and all of the full-time work. You get to draw the boundaries there. I'm not going to do your laundry anymore. Right. If you're going to stay home all day, then you're going to take care of dinner, you're going to take care of the dishes, and you're going to take care of the laundry. Yeah.

You don't get to play both sides of the fence. The, oh, woe is me. I don't feel like working. And also, you got to do all this stuff. And by the way, you have a picture in your head of what the wife, this picture of what a wife does. And you love being a chemist. You're crushing in that job. Yeah. And you're a part of the modern women industrial guilt complex. You can't win. There's no way to win.

That's why I say unplug from that matrix and you be honest with you about what you want and need in your home. Yeah. Okay. Is that fair? I can do that. Absolutely. So when he says, what do you want from me? I think you flip that question around and say, who do you want to be? Because I want to be with a man who's confident, who is providing, who is strong and believes in himself and you don't do that. Yeah. That's a fair statement. It is. Yeah.

I guess this is just against everything I kind of know. I don't really know anyone who talks to people like this. What, loving and honestly? Yeah, maybe. Yeah. And if you've never seen it done this way, it's hard to watch. Yeah. It feels mean, almost. It does. But if you... Who's your best friend? Actually, my husband. You don't have a best girlfriend? No. No. Okay. Okay.

Do you have anybody to talk with other than him? I have a cousin I'm pretty close with, but I probably wouldn't bring this up. I want making close girlfriends to be one of your top priorities for you. Yeah, that's a separate call, I feel like. Yeah, but I mean, it's critically important. I know you're... Sure. It's oxygen. Because here's what you're trying to do. You're trying to create an idol in real time. He can't live up to that. He can't hold all that.

Right. And it's just easier for him to say, I fail at work. I fail at home. I fail in the roles. I'm just going to sit here and play games. Is that an excuse? No, not at all. God, I wish he was on the phone with me because I'd be letting him have it, but he's not. But you need him to be your everything so that you can be okay. He can't carry all that. Sure. Sure. I see that. But he's got to be something, right? He's coming back.

What's he want to do? Well, he actually wants to make video games. Okay. He can do that on the weekends. What does he else? He works in like a, he works at a paper company, printing, cutting paper. Oh, like a print shop. Yeah. Yeah. Print shop. Okay.

Yeah, so that's what he does part-time right now. He was full-time, but he's... He needs to get a full-time job and co-create a family with you guys because you're all going to make up some goals. Yeah. We're a family who has dreams. That's who we are. We're a family that goes on adventures. We do fun things, and those things cost money. And so by the end of this year, this is how much money we want to have in the account. So this is how much money we got to go make.

And these are the sacrifices that we're gonna make because we have this vision together. And we is made up of me. Here's who I'm gonna be. And we is made up of you. Here's who you are gonna become so that we can go do these amazing things and build this awesome marriage. And that's how it works. But it's not mean to lovingly say, and it's mean to wait and not say anything, not say anything and blow up in a fight. That's mean. And then to say hurtful things, even if you're weaponizing the truth.

That's mean. It's not mean to say, I'm struggling with being attracted to you. It's not mean to say, for eight years, I've seen you start things and quit things, and I'm beginning to feel like I hitched myself to somebody who doesn't want to go anywhere. I'm not okay with that. I believe in you more than you believe in yourself. It's okay and loving to say, I am resigning as your mother. I'm your wife.

And here's who and what I'm attracted to. Men who get up and go and do this and do that. All the things. It's okay to put that on the table and say it. And y'all co-create this thing together. And when he says, well, what do you want me to be? That's him passing the buck yet again and say, I'm not your mom. I'm not going to answer that. Who do you want to be? Who do you want to be? If you have some fantasy about making video games, cool. What are you gonna do tomorrow? You can't keep working part-time at a print shop. What are you going to do tomorrow?

And by the way, I took my first graduate school class at 26. He can become, my wife tells everybody, she bought low with me. I bought when the stock was real low and it's gotten good. Same with you. He can change. He can go build something amazing, but he's just got to have that encouragement. He's got to look in the mirror and say, I'm worth more than this. And so is the world me and Kaylee are creating. Tell him the truth. Tell him with love and treat him with dignity. It's time to hang up your mom hat and be his wife. We'll be right back.

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All right, let's go out to Kelly's favorite place where she gets her gummies, Denver, Colorado, and talk to Catherine. Hey, Catherine, what's up? Hey, John. Yeah, just somewhere between crushing it and waiting for my coffee to kick in. How are you? Dude, it's late for coffee, man. You're a brave soul.

Oh, no. Two cups a day is pretty average, right? Yeah, but I usually have nine of them before like 9 a.m., so good on you. Man, you're flexing it today. What's up? Absolutely. Yeah, so the surface level of my question is really how do I approach my sister about her social behavior, and is it even my place to do so?

Oh, not her social media, but like her like just human behavior, like out in public. Yeah, like her social human behavior. Oh, this is going to be fantastic. All right, go for it. What's wrong with your sister's behavior? I love this. Where do I start? Yeah, really unable to read the room. I don't know if you... I've never met anyone personally like this before, but just kind of like just zero social awareness of how...

Like how her social behavior comes off really speaks like competitively, lots of interrupting, word vomit, kind of like 45 minutes will go by. And her just not even really noticing that you're completely like unengaged or not engaging anymore. Yeah. Does she know...

The folks that I've sat with who struggle with this, they know that people don't like them or that people are frustrated with them, but they don't know how to not do that. And so their way to solve that gap that they feel is just to talk more and faster. Whoa. Yep, that sounds maybe perfect. Okay. I do think there is a moment of extreme and powerful compassion to sit down and say, okay,

If you're willing to listen or if you're interested in listening, there are some things I've noticed that make being a friend of yours hard. And I would love to sit down and talk to you about it, but I only want to do it if you're comfortable with that and if you're interested in hearing it. Yeah. And that might absolutely torch your relationship with her. But here's the thing. You are watching somebody drown.

And I think at some point, it's like somebody having a booger, right? Or somebody like having really bad breath, like a booger sticking on the end of their nose. At some point, someone's got to say something or you kind of turn into that person.

Right. And I'm trying to figure out where my line is between being that person, being transparent versus crossing the line or just being kind of rude. And I don't want to grow resent for her and not invite her to things and not want her to show up at things because of how she is socially. But if somebody... Kelly's done it for me. Like, hey, you got a booger right here. Or come here, your shirt's all weird. Or hey, don't wear that shirt again. I can't tell you how grateful I am for that. I also know some people...

do not or cannot hear that. Yeah, there is a history, actually a long history of her kind of being unsafe in our family. So like leaving and coming back and not consistently showing up for things. So I think that's also where I do just feel a little stuck in like how to approach it with her.

You know your sister better than me. I'm usually pretty direct, but I think most people most of the time know that I love them. The people that I would have this conversation with know I love them. And I do have people in my life that couldn't hear this from me, and I just move on. I do get your sense of like it's frustrating because I don't invite them. I don't talk to them. And you're kind of in a catch-22 because if they ever sat down and said, hey, you've had five parties or five get-togethers. You didn't invite me. Why? And you said, all right, I'll tell you.

Their natural reaction is going to be, why didn't you tell me that beforehand? Yeah. And also, if you know because you couldn't have heard it, then okay, you know that. The other side of that is, man, I'm always so grateful when someone's like, hey, stop talking, be quiet. Or, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, for a long time, I'd ask my wife at parties when on the way home, like, did I talk too much? And she'd be like, yeah, you did.

And I think you have that like self-realization, which I just like she simply and I have had a little bit of it like kind of like the hand-holding where I'm like, yes, sometimes when I'm at parties, I find myself talking too much. Do you ever feel that way? You know, like I've hand-held her a bit. Yeah, that's more passive-aggressive than hand-holding. Totally, yeah. I'm from the Midwest originally. There you go. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

I don't know. It's easy for me to say because I'm on this side of the fence, but it feels like the honoring thing is just to sit down and say, hey, it's hard to be your friend, and here's why. But I also understand not going to hear it, so I'm going to honor her by not resenting her, and so I'll either not invite her or I'm going to go have my own conversations at get-togethers.

Yeah, my fiance and I are planning a wedding, and I think that comes into where it's like, do I invite her? Like, it's a very small ceremony. It would just be his immediate family and mine, and I feel this sense of embarrassment with her, right? Then I think the right thing to do is to say something. That's your sister. Yeah. And I guess the...

Let me think like this. This may be a bad analogy, okay? And I'm sure the internets will let me know if it's a bad analogy. Imagine a truck is driving down the street towards your sister and you run out and shove her out of the way. And in the process of shoving her out of the way of this truck, she breaks her arm, she scrapes up her face, and she scrapes up both knees real bad. She can get up, go to the hospital, get cleaned up, and look at you and say, thank God you saved my life.

Or she could say, how dare you push me down? You're the worst sister ever. Look what you did. At the end of the night, on both ends, regardless of the response, you would sleep better than had you not pushed her out of the way. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. So I think this is going to sound crazy. We're going to help our sister, but we're also going to be, our identity here is we're a person who tells the truth and we're a person of character and integrity.

I can't continue to let you get run over by a truck in these social situations. And I'm not going to invite you to my social situation unless X, Y, and Z. Wow. Yeah, I like that. And I think that's really hard. Yeah. So you need to have some space in your heart for her to look at you and say, how dare you? I'm not coming to your stupid wedding. I hate you. I've always hated you. She gets to choose how she responds to getting pushed out of the way of this truck. But at the end of the day, you'll know I did the best I could to love my sister.

Yeah. And I hate this for you because I know there's no way to win this. I mean, we don't want to win, but there's no way this ends well. I know that. You know what I mean? I can hear it on you. There's no way this ends well. Yeah. And there is just a lot of conversations around her too that... Do you want me to add an extra layer, Dr. John? Why not? Just a large history of addiction and like addictive personality on her side. And just, yeah, just a...

a struggle of like talking to her when she's in that ruminating, I don't know, spiraling. Yeah. And the, the demon is when you get clean, the thing that your body's craving is connection. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I said. She's been showing up to more family things. Like I want to invite her. I want her to be there. Um, how long has she been clean? I don't know that she is. Okay. Totally. Yeah. So maybe that's the place to start. You cannot come to my wedding if you're using.

Yeah. Yeah. And I'll walk with you and I'll love you, but we all know. And I have people in my life that I love who have used in the past. And I know the conversation I'm suggesting you have, I didn't have it. That's just me being honest. I wasn't tough enough to have it. Let me say that. I wasn't loving enough to have it. One of my rules on this show is to...

99 times out of 100 say like, hey, this is what I would do in my house. And I'm just telling you, I didn't. It wasn't in my house, but it was with people that I care about. And I should have had a different kind of conversation. I didn't. Yeah. Cool. I hate this for you. Thank you.

Every once in a while there's calls on the show that don't have a happy ending. I think this is one of them. Not looking for, I have a lot of tips. I think this is helpful. We listened to your show pretty religiously. So, yeah. Will she go have coffee with you?

You know, we don't live in the same state, so it's just hard to navigate, you know, when the holiday is that we'll be together next. Or it's usually like family built. And then by that time, there's so many of us that I'm just seeking asylum somewhere else away from the constant barrage of her communication style. Yeah. And some of it is you get to choose how often you answer the phone and you get to choose how often you respond to texts.

Yeah. And it might be the slow introduction to boundaries, which is she'll just know, oh, sister doesn't always answer the phone or sister doesn't call back or sister doesn't always respond to texts. Or I can't believe you never respond to me. And you can say, yeah, I only respond to texts once a day. Yeah. And then she gets to decide. But you've been trying to keep her safe for so long that I get how scary it is to say something and be afraid that she didn't come back.

Absolutely. Yeah. And then also if I do sit down and have that conversation about like, Hey, part of me being a good friend is, is that I don't want it to come off petty and say like, well, you speak competitively and you interrupt and you word vomit and you're an expert at everything and everything's about you. Like I don't, I don't want to bury her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough. I wouldn't bury her either. I might say something like, um, I love you so much. And as you're working on growing up and cleaning up and all those things, um,

I want to come up with a hand sign. So when it's time to take a breath or it's time to let somebody walk away, I'm going to give you the hand sign from across the room. I'll wink at you or I'll make finger guns or something like that. And I'll do something so you can see it so you can catch your breath. Okay. And it might be able to be framed as I think you're one of the most amazing people. And when you are feeling good, there's nobody in the world I want to spend time with. And everyone wants to spend time with you. But when you're not feeling good, it's pretty tough.

Yeah. Things get real heavy and it's hard to feel ourselves. I watch people. It's hard to feel their full authentic self when you're not feeling good. I want everyone to get to know you the way I know you. So can we come up with some sort of signal or something? I'm just spitballing here. I just know this is so, so, so hard. This one's tough.

But I always think you're within your rights to call somebody that you love and care about and say, you have to be clean at my wedding, at my special event. This event is about us, and you're going to be our guest at our thing, and I need you to be clean. I also know from just years of loving people who struggle with addiction that even calling it out and putting it on the table can be a life-altering, oh my gosh, you're the worst, I hate you kind of deal. And it took me a long time to realize they get to choose what happens next. They get to choose that.

outgoing relationship there. Sorry, sister. Sorry. I wish I had better news for you. I would love for you to reach back out. Let me know how that conversation goes. I know these don't always end perfectly and like with the swelling soundtrack and all that, like Hollywood, it's real life. Make sure to call. 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. And this is especially if you don't consider yourself religious, if you question things, or if you've been burned by a church experience in the past, it's hard to want to get together with other people. And that's another reason why I love Hallow. You can personalize your prayer experience with Hallow and they give you three free months to do it.

You can pray or meditate by yourself, or you can connect with friends, with family, a prayer group, or some other community that you choose. And this way you can share prayers, share meditations. You can even share journal reflections to grow in your faith together with others.

And with Hallow, there are other ways you can personalize the app. They have downloadable offline sessions and links ranging from one minute up to an hour, and you can listen where it works for your schedule. You can choose your guide, your background music. You can create your own personal prayer plan and more. I've made it a personal point to begin my day every single day with the Hallow meditation on the scripture of the day. It's a discipline and it's a practice, and here's what I'm learning. As with anything of importance and meaning,

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three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, we are back. Let's go out to Boise, Idaho and talk to Jewel. Hey, Jewel, what's up? Hey, how you doing? We're rocking on, dude. What are you doing? Oh, just taking care of the littles. Taking care. I'm not. I'm kind of doing that with Kelly, except she's an old...

What's up? Oh, just needed some neighborhood-friendly doctor advice on something that I've kind of been relatively struggling with for quite a while. How do I overcome my habit of being habitually late so I don't impact my children's needs and my husband's feelings? All right.

Are you a Kelly plant? I mean, Kelly's pretty awesome. Cause I may or may not have been 20 minutes to this show late. Oh, well see, I do relate to you there, Dr. John, because I, I, cause I know you've mentioned that on your show and I'm like, and I may or may not have been late to the speaking event. I was at before this and to my court appointment that I was at before that. Maybe, maybe allegedly, allegedly, allegedly.

Good grief, Jewel. Okay, so we'll work through this one together. Tell me about it. Sounds good. So I am a stay-at-home mom, and I am also a former military wife. I'm married to a Marine. Oh, this makes it so much better. So good. It does. It does. And of course, as you probably know, it's the whole if you're not early, you're late. And he still chose to say I do to me.

Man, you must be. This has always been a problem. Yeah, you must be amazing. One time my wife, I came home and I was like for lunch from work. And I came home for lunch and I was eating lunch with her. We were having like a good lunch and I was like, oh gosh, I got to go. I got to go. I got to go. And she stopped and she goes, you must be amazing at your job. And I stopped and like turned and looked at her. That's not really her thing. She's not like a words of affirmation person.

And I was like, really? And she goes, yes, because you are such a disaster in every other part of your life that you must be so good that they put up with that. And I was like, oh, that was not a compliment. And then I left. So yes, you must be amazing at your life. Good for you, Jewel. Oh, thank you. Thank you. I try. Here's the magic question. What does being late get you? Get me. And can you elaborate?

Yes, being late, not paying attention to time. It gets you something. What is it? It gets me something. I honestly don't know because it gets me nothing. All I know is that when I know I'm going to be late, I just feel deep shame and I just feel so bad for whatever I'm having to make that phone call to to be like, I've tried, but I'm not making it. But an hour earlier, what was your body getting?

Because there's some benefit to it or your body wouldn't keep doing it. You know, I don't know. I've never really thought of it like that. I'm not sure. Well, your body gets something. Maybe it's you don't like control or maybe you don't like paying close attention all the time. Who knows what the thing is? Or you like just having fun. Or like I honestly have to be hyperintentional because it doesn't occur to me.

Or here's another thing. When somebody starts talking to me, especially about something of importance, I think it is incredibly disrespectful to cut that conversation off and to end it. And it wasn't until somebody said, hey, when you're late and we're all in this room, that's incredibly disrespectful. And I thought, oh, okay.

Now I have to choose a path of disrespect in my guts, right? I have to pick that. I don't know. What does your body get? Because I spend a lot of time mining my life trying to figure out what it is.

You know, it's interesting because saying what do I get is really interesting turn of phrase because I'm like, I'm not really sure because it really doesn't give me anything except anxiety. But it's the idea that I try to prep as best I can for whatever I have to leave the house for. But yet it seems like no matter how much prep I do, something always kind of gets in the way, whether it's I'm having to break up children fights or it's the constant barrage interruption.

Of me trying to just get ready to leave the house or I also struggle with a lot of sleep deprivation. And so I don't, it's also the fact that sometimes I also, I'm not able to get up when I set my alarms to it, but I don't really know exactly what I get out of it. I get nothing positive out of it. I disagree. No. Yeah. Okay. Because often I get five more minutes of joy or five more minutes of sleep.

Or five more minutes of, we don't have to be there seven minutes early. And it's a little bit of control because it's the only control I got. That's interesting. Yeah, I don't know. And a lot of that is not conscious. It's a body fighting back against a system or fighting back against a river that it feels like it's dragging, getting dragged downstream all the time.

And I'll just, I'm just, I'm making this call about me and I don't mean to, but this is like, this is like one of my nightmare scenarios. Since I was a little kid, I've always felt like I got dropped into a world that I had to accommodate everybody else's everything all the time forever. Teachers, schools, coaches, class, like, and like, I'm feeling it right now. There's times I just want to freaking exhale. And I feel like there's times that my body fights for me. It just slows down.

And that's not an excuse. Yeah. What's your body get? What do you think? I don't know. Honestly, I thought coming into the call I knew, but I honestly, I know that I can tend to be controlling. I try really hard not to, but it's the negative effect that I don't like. And so when you're saying, what do I get? To me, it's like I really don't get a lot. Smoking makes you cough. It makes everything stink, but it also gives you something.

It'll kill you, but you get something from it. Drinking will kill you. It makes you annoying at parties. It ruins your sleep, but it stops the thing right the second. Right. So maybe that's the homework assignment. And maybe, you know, like it was important for me to ask people that I love and care about because they were able to see it. Like, what do I get from being late? And it's less about what I get from being late and what do I get about not planning? What do I get from not paying attention? Yeah.

and what things in my life must be true. You nailed my number one. If I'm going to honor and respect the people around me, I have to end. And that means showing up on time. That means showing up prepared, all those things. I got to get sleep. My brain doesn't function. I've got friends who can just roll out and go. My brain stops. Right. Cool. I just know that about myself. I have to disappoint people, which I hate doing. And I have to leave when I'm in the middle of a conversation.

Because I promised somebody I would be there at their meeting at whatever time. Well, I will say that I do under... I do relate to what you're saying as far as like I... It's hard for me to cut off conversations too when I know it's like it's gone too long or I have to leave. Yeah. You know why? I will say one thing. Why? The whole world rests on your and my shoulders, Jewel. And if we're not there, then the whole thing will collapse. So we just got to always be there. And that's not true. We just distort what we tell ourselves. I never thought of it like that. Yes. I'm not sure if I quite get it. If that...

Yeah. All right. I interrupted you. What were you saying? I said, I'm not sure if I quite, um, as far as like the whole, if we're not there, everything kind of collapses. I'm not quite sure. Or it's not at least resonating. Okay. We'll dig into that and ask your husband, ask a couple of your friends, like, what do you think I get out of being late? And just listen to their, what they have to think about it. Um, I want you to change some of your language too. Okay. You absolutely can get up. Yes.

You are not wrong. It was a direct, private backstage conversation that lasted about 30 seconds between me and Jocko. I can get up. I can go exercise. I can put my crap away the night before and be on time. And I don't know why that was a light bulb moment for me after I was already a grown adult with a full career, but it was. Mm-hmm.

I will say that one thing that's always kind of struggled is one thing that my husband says is I used to work night shift or I guess graveyard night shift, but for two years doing something very specific in the equine industry. And he says, ever since you did the night stuff and you never really bounced back. And

And then we had kids. And I will say that once our kids came into the picture, my being late either was less as far as like less late as far as showing up to things or actually I was on time. But as of late, it's been harder and harder to hit the goal of getting somewhere on time. And

Um, also was one of the things that I've also struggled with is I had two very different parents was one was always on time and one was ungodly late to where it was. I joke about him now as an adult where I'm like, why don't, why even show up at that point? Right. So I had two very different scopes of parents of what that looked like. And you're probably frustrated actually by both of them. Yes, it was. I was. Okay. Yeah.

Cause it felt like it, I don't know if this helps, but it felt like, because my parents were split up is if my father was late, it was somehow my fault. Cause I didn't somehow keep up, keep him in line. Ah, gotcha. Yeah. So all of that is important context. And I'm going to tell you what I tell myself on a regular basis. That's not an excuse. I got to be on time. You're absolutely right. And so the word, the magic word for me has been intentionality.

And the other set of magic words, the phrase I live by is don't forget to remember. And those two things have been the transformation. And I'm not perfect at it. I slept horrible last night. My sleep wasn't good. And I've been stumbling around all day, just fumbling through this and this to this. And I know that. So I have to be hyperintentional about this evening.

so that I can start anew tomorrow. I need to blow up all my systems. I had a rough day. That's fine. I was late a few ways. And by the way, me being late today wasn't my fault. It just was. And okay, cool. I'm going to get up and go again tomorrow. And I think there's a level of intentionality, but I think shifting the language to no, you can't. I can't. And by the way, you're absolutely right. When you're late, you're not the worst person ever.

Oh, but it feels like that. I know. It feels, it's the looks, it's the behavioral change, it's the change in pitch and tone of voices. It sucks. And I personally carry that all the time. So that, there's, this goes two ways, okay? Mm-hmm. I'm trying to think of the right way to say it. Because your house is not my house. Here's the piece that we had to make in my house.

It's when my wife sat down and told me, when we're late to church, I get embarrassed walking in late. Never occurred to me. I'm embarrassed. I don't like everybody turning and looking at me. Well, I don't ever want my wife to be embarrassed. Ever. Right. You're married to a Marine, for God's sake. If somebody's late, everyone dies, right? That's the way they treat you. Exactly. And so I have it in my guts now. We're going to be on time. And on the occasion that I'm not,

She'll walk downstairs if I'm not ready, if I'm dilly-dallying around or sometimes I'm outside because I need to fix a sprinkler 14 minutes before church starts and the kids, me and Josephine, are wrestling about. She'll hop in her car and she'll say, I love you. I'll see you soon. And she'll hop in the car and she'll go. That used to enrage me because I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. And now, cool. I honor that. I drive myself. There's no anger or mad. Nobody's mad. And here's why. She knows who she married.

And she knows I'm working on it. And I know who I'm married. And I know she's working on it. And now it's just about mercy. It doesn't need to be a State of the Union every time. Once every two or three months, I'm late to something. And I don't need to be keeping score on the few times I'm downstairs five minutes before she is. And I'm like, okay, look at this. Who's on time now? That's a waste of time too. Right. I just get to make a choice.

Most of the time I haven't taken care of myself or the thing I'm going to, I don't really want to go to. I definitely feel the second half of that. Okay. You need to be honest about that. That changed my life. Yes. I don't want to go to this event or this dinner or this thing. And what I found is it's much more integrous to just say that out loud and to deal with that level of disappointment. Let's have that conversation and let's not make up some proxy war where I'm dragging out the door and they're mad about it because that's not about the real thing. Is that fair?

That is fair, yes. Okay, you're not a terrible person. I would say, I guess it's just harder when, say, your other half says, well, we're expected to go, and like wheezing, or like backing out at last minute. That's why you back out first minute. Right. And if you're honest, that's probably the conversation you need to have in your home. Mm-hmm.

That now that we have two kids, y'all haven't done the work of saying, okay, our entire life is different now and we got to build a new marriage. Right. And I used to be able to have my full life and build, and we built our marriage and I could go to all these little things that quote unquote we're expected to be at. Our world is different now. Right. We need to have that, that new marriage building conversation. By the way, that could be a fun and adventurous because he doesn't want you somewhere where you don't want to be.

And normally he doesn't, he doesn't actually know. It's a lot of times I tend to be more of a yes person. Like, yes, let's do all the things. Or I tend to over, um, that's it right there. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's. And then you have, you, you, you have two little kids, right?

Yes, I do. And I'm also a part-time horse trainer. So there's that. Because why not? And we have 19 things that you plan to do before breakfast. And then you're, how old are your kids again? You said it earlier. They are almost four and two. Okay. So yeah, your four and two-year-olds are off going blah, blah, somewhere in the corner. And you have, it's 8.15 and you're walking out the door for your eight o'clock appointment and your four-year-old and two-year-old are everywhere. Yeah.

And they're the product. I just can't get these kids. Yeah, okay. Maybe we start at 5.30 a.m. and we don't plan anything on those days when we have those early things. It's just about intentionality. And we're really intentional about, I don't want to be at this thing at 8 o'clock. We're expected to go. Let's talk about that expectation. Because we get to build our life that we want that works for us. And I'm not going to live that life where, well, I just expected your, well, you don't get a vote in our house.

And then when it comes to doing a job, going to work, I got to go to work, then I got to figure that one out. I got to go to court. I got to figure that one out. And so I think it's about having those conversations beneath the conversations. But all of that is I'm going to be intentional. How can I love you? Don't forget to remember how good it feels when you roll in five minutes early versus five minutes late.

And I can, I can, I can get out of bed. I can go exercise. I can skip my workout today so I can get to this important appointment on time. I can, I can, I can. And Jewel, this is me making a pledge. I'm going to keep working on it and I hope you'll join me. We can be on time. And if you're listening and you love someone who struggles being on time, keep loving them. It usually doesn't have anything to do with you. 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. And 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're back. What do we got, Kelly?

All right. Probably the shortest social post you've ever said or ever put up. You don't have to respond. I did do that. You did. Recently. Yeah. I don't know what's happened, but it's just been like a flurry of people being mean on the internets, sending me mean stuff, mean messages. It's been tough. It's just kind of got me down in a weird way that normally I'd just kind of go about my life and maybe it's because I'm tired or blah, blah, blah, whatever. Yeah.

but I felt this need to like, I need to say something and, or I've got 700 text messages that come into my phone or I give it. And it was just a quick reminder to myself, dude, you don't have to respond. Mike, you get to respond to the people who are important to you. Ben, when Will threw out a date for our band to rock, I responded immediately. Sure did.

When Kelly reached out, did not respond immediately. No, you're very, I think you decide which ones you want to respond to when I. Well, sometimes you say like, hey, are you going to be able to, or will you check this out? And so I leave it unread because otherwise I'll read it and I'll be like, yeah, I'll do that and I'll forget. I won't do it. So I leave it unread. But yeah, I don't have to respond. I think more people should heed that advice. Heed, heeded. Heed. Heeded. Yes. You don't have to respond. It's a world we live in.

Where just imagine this, you're walking, I know you are like your favorite restaurant in the world is Chili's and you're there like four nights a week. So imagine you're walking down like to go get your awesome blossom and like you just- First of all, it's not, that's not a Chili's thing. Second of all, no. Okay. I was trying to cover it up, but it's Applebee's. So you're at Applebee's and you're walking down the thing and you hear a conversation at a table. Like you hear some guy telling his girlfriend this thing at a table.

In no world would you stop and turn and go, you, sir, are an idiot. What you are saying is wrong. You know how I know? Because I heard from that table over there that actually no one would do that because it's insane.

Or if you're driving down the road and some like cool guy pulled up next to you, like in a, I don't know, like a sporty Mazda with no top on. Shirt, yes. I meant like the top of the car. Slow down, Kelly. Slow down. He's got his shirt on. Don't be weird. But like he didn't, he was like a convertible. And you heard him and he was singing and you would be like, meh, meh. And he turned the radio down. You're like, you're not a good singer. You're terrible. You wouldn't, no one would do that.

Why? Because it's insane. Yet on the internet, that's how we treat each other. 100%. It's so bizarre. We have that conversation with our son all the time. If you wouldn't say it to someone's face, don't say it. Yes. And when somebody rings your doorbell, they're saying, I would like to talk to you. You don't have to go, well, then I guess I have to. You get to decide. I would like not to talk to you. And that's the same thing with a phone call or a text message. Like, ding, ding, ding, text, text, text, text, text, text, text, text.

Cool. I'm not in a good space for it. I'm busy. I'm doing a thing. Or I just don't want to. I will respond to that when we get there. And I think we all get to do that. We don't have to respond. Near, near. And I still think you planted that call today about being on time. No, but man, as soon as it came in, I was like, you better believe we're taking it. New year, new me, dude. New year, new me. I'm making changes. Love you guys. Bye.