My Boyfriend Dumped Me After 7 Years
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. Two weeks ago, my boyfriend unexpectedly and abruptly after seven years together, he said, we need to talk. I want to break up with you. And that was pretty much it. Basically, it's in a spa of discomfort, right? Just hot, bubbling water of discomfort. Yeah.

What's going on? What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so grateful you are with us talking about your emotional and psychological health, your relationships, your kids, your marriages, whatever you got going on in your life, the good stuff, the bad stuff, just the dark stuff, whatever it is. Here's my promise. I'll sit with you. I'll sit with you and we will figure out what's the next right step. And at least in this little moment of time, you won't be by yourself. You won't be alone.

I'd love to have you on this show. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. You can leave a message and let us know what's going on. And Kelly and Taylor will create a show and they will holla back girl at you. I ain't no holla back girl. Or you can go to johndeloney.com slash ask and fill it out. And I, the show is like, I am always telling people like, here's what I would do next and whatever. And sometimes it can sound like I've got it all together. I assure you, I do not.

I don't. And so this happened yesterday. Or actually it happened this weekend, Saturday. This is Tuesday recording. This has happened Saturday. I was having to take my daughter to a soccer game. Big shocker. I was late and we were hustling and she had not eaten breakfast. And because I'm trying to expand my father of the year application, I'd forgotten to make her breakfast and she's eight. And so I was running around the house and I said, hey, we got to make breakfast. You cut the cucumbers up and I will cut the cheese. And then I started laughing and

And I kind of just stopped and she looked at me like what's so funny and I was like cut the cheese She didn't get it. So I explained Actually cutting the cheese is not about cutting cheese. It's It's about letting them rip and my eight-year-old daughter Was holding a knife in one hand and a cucumber in the other and she just gently put the knife down And looked up at me. She's very very little she looked up and paused and she said dad How many years till I get to move out?

I have never identified with Joe more than I have in this moment right now. She said, how many years till I get to move out? And I said, 10. And her eyebrows went up and she was like, oh. Then she said, I thought you meant like when I was 10. And then her shoulders dropped and she just went back to cutting the cucumber. And I went online and filled out, updated my LinkedIn profile to amazing dad.

I don't know how to log into LinkedIn, LinkedIn, whatever it is. Stupid internets. All right, let's go to New York, New York, New York, New York and talk to Taylor. What's up, Taylor? Hey, thanks so much for talking to me. Of course. Thanks for calling. What's up?

All right. So two weeks ago, my boyfriend broke up with me unexpectedly and abruptly after seven years together. Oh, wow. Yeah. So the breakup was really, as I mentioned, unexpected, but it also was super quick and careless, kind of like the rug being pulled out from under me. And I'm

In the waves of heartbreak, kind of really wondering how best to move on from something so disorienting and what closure could look like and if something like that's even worth it. We're not in the same room, but I'm just picturing myself just sitting there with you. Thanks. I'm sorry. Yeah. Tell me what happened.

Yeah, so I think, you know, about two weeks ago, I thought we were meeting up for a date and... Oh, man.

It was in my neighborhood and I went out to meet up with him after kind of like saying like, oh, I'm so excited. We can have dinner or whatever, like all these things. And then I went outside to meet up with him, like just at like a park near my house that we go to a lot. And I had no idea. And I just sat down and he said that we need to talk. I want to break up with you. And that was pretty much it. Like no prompting, no nothing. Yeah.

Yeah. And we had just a month before had a really amazing trip together, our first time traveling in a really dedicated way. And then since we got back, things were good, but I also felt like he was kind of pulling away in certain ways. And so I was just sort of open saying, I...

want to talk to you or like, I want to, you know, just kind of trying to be positive. But I had no idea. Like, I thought that maybe like eventually there were things we could talk through, but every time I talked to him about like, is everything good? Or is this just in my head? He would be like, no, everything's good. Everything's good. Um, and so, you know, that day I really just expected to like have a fun date and like reconnect because we hadn't seen each other in a couple of days.

And he just decided to end it. And it was just not a conversation. There were no specific issues pointed to, there was no care. There was no, like, it felt like he had just come to deliver the news and like, couldn't wait to get out of there. Yeah. I mean, uh,

I always want to see the, try the best I can to put my, myself and somebody else's pants on the other side of that, of that conversation. And so I get, I get like seven years of something's been building and building and building, like doing that compassionately. And I would even say honorably means sitting in series of conversations and basically just in a spa of discomfort, right? Just,

hot bubbling water of discomfort. And there can be a, like, I need to do this. I've got to do this. And you kind of amp yourself up for it and just rip the bandaid off and you're left there just exposed. Have y'all had any follow-up conversations? Y'all were together seven years, the better part of a decade. Yeah. Any follow-up conversations? Y'all go have coffee? I mean, like I deal with exes who,

They file for divorce, then they go sit down at a diner somewhere. Not everybody, of course, but then they say, okay, here's reality. And it sounds like you didn't get that at all. Yeah. So basically he was about to leave town the next day and I was so like,

I didn't really know so much what to say. Like we probably talked for like 30 minutes and maybe that was like longer than he even intended to stay. And then we said, you know, maybe we'll need to have another conversation, but it was definitely not like, let's put a pin in this and talk later when you've had a little time to process. And so a few days later he texted me saying, you know, I'm back in town if you want to talk again. Um,

Let me know. But also I understand if you don't or whatever, or you need more time. Like, of course we got to talk seven years. I mean, later, I think, so I decided a couple of days later, like, I don't know if a conversation right now feels most helpful to me because I don't really know like what,

This person has told me that they don't want me in their life anymore. So am I meant to go sit there and say, can you actually try to come up with some more reasons to tell me to my face why you don't want to be with me? Yeah. And listen, you're angry. I've been trying to protect myself. You've gone to anger. So I want you to treat this as though somebody died or something died because something did die. And it's not just, here's a few things that died. Your relationship, your trust in yourself,

Yeah. Because I heard you saying like, man, I had this sense. And if you go play CSI, which it is not time to do that right now. No. If you went and played CSI and reverse engineered this, you would start to see little breadcrumbs. Yeah. And you might remember, man, he started just flipping his phone over about a year ago when I walked in. Or the response time on texting got longer and longer. Like whatever, you'll start seeing things. But also, you know what else died? Like tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah.

Because whether we like it or not, we all of a sudden have these pictures that our bodies begin to rest in. And it's like what Thanksgiving is going to look like in 20 years. Yeah. It's what the holidays are going to feel like in 15 years, the next vacation we're going to take. And so all of these things die at one time abruptly, like somebody got hit by a car, right? And it doesn't surprise me that you're in it or you're about to unload on the anger part.

of like the disbelief and the what in the world. And you kind of feel like a sun is out, but you don't really, everything's gray. Right. And then the sun, the kind of, you feel a sun rays and then you just get pissed. And I spent seven years and I didn't do what I wanted to do. And I silenced my own voices. Like all that stuff will come out and it's all right and good. It's all good. Um, here's the best, like walking through it step by step. Here's the best things I can tell you. Okay. And, um,

No one's going to tell you what I'm going to tell you. And it's not like I got some secret formula. It's just that I care about you enough to be honest with you. Okay. I want you to be really hyper, hyper committed to grieving this. And I want you to be hyper. And what does that mean? Don't try to avoid the black wholeness of it all. Yeah. Being real, real, real sad. Being real, real mad. Don't run from that.

It's easy to hide behind anger. It's easy to go hook up with somebody else. It's easy to go. I'm not like, it's easy to do all that. The hard yet healing part is to say, I was super vulnerable and somebody ripped my heart out. I don't even know why. They just did. And then the last thing I would tell you to do is be hyper, hyper committed to like the discipline, which is another word that people don't like in grief, doing the four or five things every single day that will keep you healthy.

Is that a walk? Is that calling a friend? Is that meeting a girlfriend for coffee in a diner? Like, you know what I mean? Like, what are the things that you know? I need to go see the sunshine every day. I need to turn off Netflix and go to bed. Because this is just going to be, I mean, you got a broken heart. It's just going to be hard for a while. Yeah. And none of that is pleasant. None of that's fun. And none of that's right. But I want you to play a two-year game or three-year game. Who are you going to be in two years or three years? Not me.

how do you make this go away or how do you get all the answers or how do you go play CSI New York or whatever. Right. And none of that makes you feel better today and I'm sorry. I think that will be good. Do you miss him? Or do you miss what y'all have? Yeah. No, I really miss him and I think...

That's what's really hard. It kind of feels like, you know, you're like a kid and you have like a best friend and they just like decide they don't want to like hang out with you anymore. And I think that's obviously like the loss and I feel committed to like processing that. But I think one of the really hard parts about the way that it happened and I'm finding myself like really focusing on how it happened so abruptly is that, you know, we were partners I thought for so long and, you know,

for him to kind of make this decision without letting me in or talking to me or having any kind of compassion. Like he basically, I feel like my agency and like my voice was sort of stripped. And so I'm wondering if eventually, like when I feel like I'm in a stronger position, if it might be helpful for me to kind of reinsert myself in the narrative and be able to kind of

close it and speak for myself and say, you know, like this was. For what? Rough. But yeah. Because here's what you're experiencing. You're experiencing the collision of what I would call theoretical proposition and reality. And did you go to grad school? No. Okay. You speak as a grad student, which is awesome. That's, that was my world. But you speak in the way of things, the way things should be.

And every hard, brutal, ugly conversation, I deserve a voice in it. And I go with you theoretically. That's just not how the world works. The way the world works is true longstanding romantic relationships and love and partnerships and growth takes one terrifying foundational pillar, risk. I'm going to put it all out there and you can rip my heart out of my chest.

And unfortunately, if you try to quote unquote insert yourself and have agency and power, then it becomes this tug of war and it never truly settles into one ship.

And I think all of our modern dating and relationships has turned into a chaotic mess because people are trying to self-actualize in a marriage and that's not what they're for. They're trying to self-actualize, become the best you inside of a romantic relationship. And the reality is the only way to get to the best life is to fully say, this is all of me. Do you still love me? Please don't hurt me. And there's something about getting your heart ripped out

it feels powerless it makes you feel small it makes you feel dumb it makes you feel all those things all those feelings are right but it doesn't mean you are wrong to risk it just means somebody broke your heart don't do this by yourself set up a regular get a group of three girlfriends and just say i'm gonna text you over the next month because i'm heartbroken and if i text you at 11 o'clock just text me back please or if i say i need an emergency coffee please and whatever your things are

I'm not going to go hook up with anybody. I'm not going to date anybody. I'm not going to just sit there and watch Netflix. I'm not going to drink. Whatever boundaries you need to put on your grief, seven years is a long time. Seven years, you had plans. I think this was your guy, and he just bailed. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Now's not the time for power and strength and all shit. Now's the time just to sit and go, I loved and I lost. It just stinks. Thanks for the call, Taylor. Call any, anytime, anytime, anytime. Don't do this by yourself. We'll be right back.

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three free months of the app when you go to hallow.com slash Deloney. Go right now and change your life. All right, let's go out to Seattle, Washington and talk to Ryan. What's up, Ryan? Hey, John, how you doing? I'm good, brother. What's up? Oh, man. You know, hop into it. Wife and I have some patterns that we need to break and kind of get our marriage back on track.

It's a little, it's been a little difficult recently. Um, tell me about it, man. You know, two and a half years ago, we had a, we had our first kid and, uh, you know, before that, just like everybody else, you know, relationship was good. Marriage is good. Um, but then after you have the kid, like it, um,

For me, anyways, it's kind of tough to find that balance of being good husband, good father, and your wife starts putting a little bit more attention on the kid, obviously, because that's what you have to do. The kid can't do anything for itself. And so it just kind of... I think we...

Kind of got away from each other a little bit too much and just kind of lost our way. And, you know, it's, but we never really kind of got back on track. Yeah. You know, we, we, we lost all the time together. Can we speak in active, in active language, not passive voice? What do you mean by that? What I mean is one of the way out of this is through it.

And when we speak of things, either A, to protect our partner, we don't say anything mean about the wife of our kids, right? Or of our wife or of ourselves. Or we want to not, we don't want to not, but the weight of 100% full responsibility is really heavy. And so we say things like we kind of lost our way instead of saying we made some daily intentional and unintentional choices and here we are.

Because when you take ownership like that, like in my life, I remember, hey, we're about to get divorced and we have actively chosen a chaotic, not good marriage. The beauty of that is we can choose something else. But if we walk around as this just happens, we just had a kid and this is just kind of way it is. And there's just no sudden, then it feels like,

It feels like this perpetual just the way it is, and it's very hard to slog your way out of that with any sort of autonomy. Does that make sense? Yeah, exactly. So we actively chose this, and that sucks. And what's rad is we can actively do things to choose our way out of it if we're both aligned that we need to do something different. Right. I'll speak to you because you're on the phone.

Have you done things? Have you become somebody that you never intended to be on the back end of this? Yeah. Okay. Tell me about that. You know, that's, that's the hardest part. Um, you know, I, I never wanted to be the person that, you know, got super angry with my wife, yelled at her. Um, like it's, it's just not who I wanted to be. I'm not, I'm not this angry person, but I miss my wife. Yeah.

And, you know, and it's just a hard, it's a hard situation. I mean, for, for me and her, I mean, you know, she's got all these different responsibilities and somebody that wants to cling on to her 24 seven, you know, so she might be touched out at the end of the day, you know? And so on the back end, you know, that makes it a little difficult for me. Cause it's like, you know, I want to hug on my wife, you know, kiss my wife, do all that. And,

Some days she's just not, that's just not her at the end of the day. Do you feel like after two and a half years, and let's be honest, a lot of the connectivity, the marriage dynamic shifts a couple of weeks into a pregnancy, right? So this might be three and a half years. 100%. Are you beginning to feel like with a two and a half year old, like an infant, a newborn? Of course.

But I've seen two and a half year olds, three and a half year olds, four and a half year olds used almost as a shield, as an excuse. I just have to, I've got to, I've got to. And it begins to feel like you don't have to anymore. Like now you're not drawing boundaries or you're choosing one over the other. You get what I'm saying? Right.

I don't necessarily feel like that's really the case as much now. I feel like definitely in the beginning stages more so than, yeah. I mean, now I feel like it's kind of, we're taking steps for things to be different. And so, yeah, no, it's a lot better than what it was before.

but it's still kind of not where we want it to be. Yeah. So I think you have to start first with putting all the cards on the table. Right. All the ugly. And she's got ugly about you too, right? 100%. Yeah. Everybody's got to put everything on there. And what you find is we can survive this. We can build something together.

If you try to build something new, and by the way, getting back to the way things were, that's over. It doesn't exist anymore. And any attempt to try to get back to the way things were is just honestly, it's a choice to be miserable because it's gone. You can remember it as so fun and so cool and yada, yada, but it's over. It's not there. And so it's living in that reality.

What we can do is build something new right now and we have to put everything on the table. We have to put all the ingredients on the table. So let me ask you this. Have you, either of you cheated on each other? No. No? Is there anything, any other secrets y'all are holding from each other? No, not that I'm aware of. You know, we've,

Both within the last five or six months, both sought out professional help from different therapies and stuff like that. Let's move past some of that. Like y'all sitting at a table right now. Right. What must be true to love each other well today?

I think a lot of well-meaning therapists in these moments want to talk about stuff and relive stuff and go through feeling inventories. And I'm becoming less by the day, I'm becoming less convinced just both from the data and from just anecdote after anecdote after anecdote that a couple that wants to rebuild their marriage into something amazing, it starts with a set of practices. Similar to if you just want to go lose 100 pounds,

You're not going to feel like it ever. You just got to get up and go do the next thing. And then over time, you start to come alive. But we wait to feel alive and then we end up going to pornography or somebody at work or we just shut the whole system down. Right. And so what does it look like on a daily basis to wake up and say, how can I love you today? And to be honest with each other. Here's what I need. And the other person says, all right, I'm in. Right. Yeah.

Well, it's a little difficult right now. How come? You know, we're living separately for the time being. Did she kick you out? No. Did you leave? No. Why are y'all separate? She doesn't feel like we can break our patterns that we're in together because in the past we haven't been able to. The plural we or are you being abusive?

No, it's plural we. Okay. I mean, I'm not great by any means, right? I'm not abusive, but our arguments that we get into or disagreements that we get into, it could be something small and ridiculous or it doesn't matter. It just kind of escalates. We go fight or flight immediately. Okay. And I don't think that separation is always the right answer, but y'all are here.

It could be a great place for you to practice this. Do y'all have any communication with each other? Yeah. Okay. What does the communication look like? You know, we talk every day. Okay. And I was against her leaving. I wanted to fix it under, you know, our roof. But at the same time, like, you know, I didn't want to completely disregard what she was saying. So...

You know, I was just like, hey, if that's what you want to do, like, that's fine. Based on just our past and everything, it was, I mean, she was kind of right. Like, hey, living here, we go three weeks a month and things are really good. And we're really putting that into each other. And then we get comfortable. And then it's revert right back to normal.

The same things we were doing that were harmful to our marriage. And be careful about your language, dude, because home should be a place where you can drop your shoulders and be, it should be the warmest, most comfortable place on the planet. So I want, instead of not, we just get comfortable. I want that. I don't want home to be like a third job. I want home to be the place where, and it has to be a place where you're highly intentional. And those don't have to be mutually exclusive.

Right. Or maybe y'all on week four, y'all get real selfish or maybe on week four, you get kind of entitled or she gets kind of entitled, like speak in that language because it's just about ownership. So here's, here's the two things you can do now that you're separate for a bit. Is there a date on the end of the separation? Uh, no, not really. Um, no, not really. Where a date becomes very important is everything becomes about feelings.

I don't feel this. I feel this. I feel, and feelings are terrible barometers for reality. It's not their job. Their job is to keep you alive. And so these are just going to have to be something that we practice our way into. I'm taking you at your word that you haven't hit anybody, you haven't punched holes through the sheetrock, you're not screaming and cussing at her. That this is just about, dude, it just gets electric in the house and there's too much and we're just taking a break. Yeah. Okay. So I'm trusting you on that.

Um, here's the two things that you can do in this moment. Number one, you can make yourself the best version of you. What does that look like for me? I have to get up an hour earlier than I want to period. I wish that wasn't true. I do. And I have to spend time in prayer and meditation. I have to spend some time reading like my faith practice. I have to spend significant time exercising, lifting weights, doing something heavy.

And I have to honor myself and eat well in the morning. If I don't do those things, I have made a choice for the day to suck. And then I have to wrap it up at the end by going to bed about an hour earlier than I want to. And over time, I've become so, when I get out of that rhythm and routine, I get out of sorts. So now it's not so much discipline anymore. Now it's a gift. It's a blessing. But those are the things for me that I've got to do

So that I can show up. And by the way, also I'm going to include in there, I have to have a few blowups. On Friday, I'm going to see the Avett brothers. On Saturday, I'm going to see Frank Turner. Those are my two number ones on planet earth in the world. And I'm going to go see them both. And I'm going to get in at 2 a.m. It's going to be late nights. That's fine. That's kind of part of it, right? Right. I don't fall off the wagon, but occasionally I get off the wagon, I roll around in the mud, then get back on there.

That's what I'm talking about. And I don't know what that is for you, but that's number one. What are the things that must be true for you to be the best version of yourself? Because at the end of the day, that's all you can control. And maybe going to counseling is part of that for you, but I want to implore you, it's got to be more than just sitting in a room chit-chatting about it and talking about it and talking about it. You have to come up with a set of practices and go do them. And here's the second thing. Every single day, I want you to ask your wife, how can I love you today? I don't know. How can I love you today?

And it might be sending a kind text. It might be dropping something off at the house. It might be writing a letter or a note and sending it. But I want you to get in a daily practice of asking that question. Okay? Okay. And follow through. And probably she is going to say, I don't know. I can't think of anything. I don't know. And it might be incumbent on you to, how far away is she staying from you right now? 30 minutes. Okay. Talk about a pain in the butt, dude.

But drive over there and leave a card in the mailbox. Mail something from your house every single day. Have food delivered if y'all can afford it. Drop food off if you, I don't know what this looks like for y'all to go pick up her clothes and take them to dry cleaner. And I'm not making you a sucker. I am trying to get you in a mode of getting your eyes out of your own belly button and looking up and saying, okay, I'm a husband. I'm a dad.

How can I be of service and love these two women incredibly well, my wife and my daughter? And I would really love for your daughter to wake up and have 60 letters that you mail her every day. It may be a silly picture you drew or go get yourself a coloring book and just color a picture and mail it to her. But something that is a practice that is I spend intentional time with my daughter even when she was not sitting with me. And those are all choices you can make.

And it's not sexy and it's not on YouTube and it's all by yourself, all that stuff. Yes. But it's real and it's true. The last thing I'll ask you, do you have a group of men that you hang out with? Yeah. Who? Tell me about them. Buddies from work. You know, we all pretty much, all of us but one, we all pretty much had kids at the same time. Okay. So, you know, we all got to...

kind of chit-chat about that. Is that a good group? Because sometimes that can be a complaint group. No, it's a good group, man. There's no doubt that we drop whatever we can for each other if somebody needs us. So you've got nobody at your house right now except for you? Well, we kind of got off a little bit there. No, my...

My wife and daughter are here right now. She watches my niece for my brother and his wife, and they do the same for us. So there's a couple days out of the week where, like I said, things have been getting better, and she is here a couple of days during the week. We don't want to throw a wrench in their

um, in their lives because, because we're kind of going through it. So that tells me that she wants to make it work and you do too. Absolutely. We've, we've, we've, we've put the cards on the table and we, we both want it to. Um, I think we're just both a little obviously scared. Just, you know, no, we don't want to be divorced. We don't want to,

any of those things to happen. We don't. Okay. Then you have to, you have to, have to start taking action. How can I love you today? Here's a, here's a more elevated version of that question. What can I do today to make you feel loved, to help you feel loved? I can't make you do anything. How can I help you feel loved? And sometimes it's as simple as putting the dishes in the dishwasher and

A buddy of mine that I was out with till late last night said, come to find out it's grabbing a cup of coffee from Starbucks and dropping it off. Him and his wife work at the same business, dropping it off by her office. He's like, dude, I wish I'd known that 10 years ago. It's amazing. Right? Right. What must be true? What must be true? For her, it's the local chips and salsa. Okay. Make that a thing. Make that a practice. And,

In 30 days, in 60 days, if you feel I am on the road, I'm on the path, I am doing the things every day that make me feel well and whole, the things I know I need to do. And I'm starting every day with how can I love you?

And i'm leaning into that i'm going to get chips and sauce I'm finding child care so me and my wife can just go for a walk around the neighborhood in the evening when she's at home And when she's not she's going to go home She's going to open up her bags to unpack wherever she's staying and she's going to have a letter for me Just letting her know. I love you. I love you. I love you I'm going to practice my way into this and then in 30 or 60 days if she hasn't reciprocated anything Then you can sit down and use the words. I I would feel loved if

and then she can opt in or out but hopefully she'll see the initiative you're taking and then she'll reciprocate and if you're just like sex that's not going to be helpful at this stage what must be true for you to feel loved can you cover a walk with me can we hold hands can i go store with you and let's re-establish connections in our chest their guts and then the sex will follow i think you're on the right path man i think you're going through a real common ups and downs and oh my gosh i think you'll write in thick of it man

I want y'all to slowly move past talking and talking and move past. I don't feel, I don't feel. Let's just start acting anew. And all of that starts with how can I love you today? You're worth it and so is she, brother. Thanks for the call, man. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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

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

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

Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, let's go to Indianapolis, Indiana. So unoriginal, they just duplicated it. Talk to Ellie. What's up, Ellie? Hi, Dr. John. What's up? How are you? It's actually Elle. Oh, Elle. Oh, that's such a beautiful name. I just got caught up in thinking.

a group of people were trying to create a new town in the state of indiana and they were like i got it

Indiana. Opelous. And they were like, yeah, that sounds great. So unoriginal. All right. Yeah. Elle, what's up? So my question was, how do I heal my relationship with my postpartum body and lose weight from a place of self-love? Oh, man. Rather than like self-frustration. Yeah. Dude, this is going to be a conversation between the pot and the kettle, my friend. I'm still wrestling with that. Yeah.

Tell me about it. How old are you? I am 22. 22. How old is your baby? He's almost nine months. Almost nine months. Tell me all about it. So...

My husband and I have been married for almost two years. So we found out we were pregnant six months into marriage. So not a planned pregnancy, but a blessing. What'd you say? It was a blessing? Such a blessing. Oh God. That's what people who are hanging on by their fingernails say.

Oh my gosh, it's such a blessing. And I'm just trying to still be alive. Man, okay. So you got a 20-year-old Ayo and here we are.

Yeah. I had just celebrated my 21st birthday and then we found out we were pregnant. So we had our son and he's awesome. And in a lot of ways, pregnancy, I feel like gave

gave me some really healthy views on like health and weight and stuff like that. But I'm finding like as more time goes on postpartum, you know, I feel like I see, and I know comparison's bad, but I feel like I see so many women that like, you know, nine months in, nine months out, and they look like just the same before they had a baby or better. And I feel like I just haven't like changed

changed all that much. Like I, I'm only like eight to 10 pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, which I know isn't a lot, but it's just like different, you know? And so I think I'm just kind of learning how to accept that. And also like, if I, you know, want to lose weight, like how to do that without like hating myself into losing that weight. Of course. So, um, man, I'm going to get into some thin ice here.

Postpartum, I'm not going to go down that road. I mean, it is catastrophic. It's real. I've held people who are sobbing. I mean, it's real. It's real. It's real. It's real. Okay? Two common themes that I hear from women who are devastated in the throes of postpartum, any number of things. Okay? Two common recurring themes I hear over and over is this idea that

That I'm supposed to be at home by myself with a baby doing all this by myself. And anthropologically, that's insanity. It's madness. Women weren't designed. No one's designed for that. So my first question would be, who do you have in your life that is full team L that you get to laugh with, tell all the crazy things that are happening to your body with that you can experience life with? That's number one.

Number two. Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. I was going to say we have a lot of support. We live really close to family and my husband's amazing and he's like super supportive. So I do feel like I have a good support system. Okay. Support is different than lonely. Okay. My wife knows that I will burn somebody's house down for her.

And my wife knows that she can come to me with any news. She knows that I can handle the burdens of X, Y, and Z. She knows that. But I'm not a group of two or three or four close, close girlfriends that she can go exhale with. It's different. Right. And so support is very, very important. The scaffolding and structure is so important. And so is a group of women that you can just text and say, here's what just happened to my body today. And they all laugh at it. Right? Yeah.

I remember one time my wife and a friend of hers had children, had babies, very similar times. And her friend was jogging and just ran to the house. And this is a few months after she'd given birth. Ran to the house and she was like, I just peed my pants. And this woman's hilarious. She's just a riot. My wife started laughing and I was like, what? And I didn't know that. I didn't know. I didn't know. Having somebody that you can text and be like, well, this just is a way to feel seen and known in a different way.

Okay, so that's number one. Number two, again, anecdata. As the great Andrew Huberman says, I don't see this in any studies. It's just what I keep seeing over and over and over again. Somebody wakes up nine months, one year, one and a half years after giving birth, having this amazing baby that they love and they wouldn't trade for anything in the world. And they suddenly realize, I don't love the life that, I don't feel alive in my own skin. I don't feel alive in the life that I have.

And from that comes a sense of obligation. I have to do this. I have to do this. I have to do this. And then suddenly sex gets put on a chore list. Exercise gets put on a chore list. Feeding myself gets put on a chore list. Putting on makeup and showering gets put on a chore list. Like all these things that used to bring you joy and excitement and aliveness. It's just this dysthymic. It's just this low level. Everything's gray. This low level. I just, here's my life. This is it.

And then what's the option? Have another baby? Like, you know, just do it again, right? And so that'd be my next question for you is if you peel back all the layers and all the obligatory, I have to say it's so great. And I'd say my husband's awesome. I have to say, yeah, I got family. What do you think about the life you're inhabiting? Do you feel alive in your own skin? I feel like I try to. That's not the question. Because again, that makes it a chore list. It makes it a bunch of a duty list. Yeah. Yeah.

Peel back all the things you're supposed to say as a new mom with a good husband and great family support. I mean, I feel like... Sorry, I'm going to cry. You're all right. You're all right. I feel like it's...

A lot of work. Yeah. And I think it's just hard sometimes, you know, like there's just so much to think about. Elle, it's hard all the time. All the time. Yeah, it really is. And yeah, I do feel like there are so many things that like if I don't keep

you know, like running on this treadmill, like I'm going to eat it, you know, like fall on my face and this is going to fall apart and that's going to fall apart. Can I confirm something with you? Yeah. You're 100% right. Yeah. If you carry all of this on the same treadmill you were running on, you're 1000% going to fall off and everything will come crashing down. Here's two important truths about that.

Number one, 99.999% chance that if everything falls, it'll be all right. All right. Number two, you can turn the treadmill off and just climb down. What most of us, and again, dude, I didn't have a kid. My first kid was late, late 20s, I think, maybe even 30. I was an old man, okay? Way older than my other buddies. It took me a long time.

And I'll tell you this both like with excitement and both with just grief, the life you knew is over. It's over. The rambunctious early twenties, y'all got married young. We're going to have sex all the time. We're going to have no money, but we're going to hang out. We're going to do this and we're going to be, that's over now. And you got a kid and it doesn't have to be the end of the story. You get to write whatever comes next.

So y'all can still be young and 20 and rambunctious and having sex everywhere. You're gonna have less money because you have a kid, right? You could still build this life. It's just gonna look different, but you have to put a period at the end of the old sentence. A lot of folks that I've worked with over the years that have kids, especially very young, just want that kid to come along with this life they wanted to have. They kept saying things like when things just get back to normal or the way they were. We remember dating at 19 and,

We're teenagers, like two years, right? Two years ago, we were teenagers. And now you have another human that you're responsible for. That's a lot. If you don't put a period in that sentence and say, okay, it was six months, it was brief, but it was fun. And now we get to have a new adventure. And that involves you and your husband saying, okay, I'm on a treadmill right now. I'm trying to keep up the way things were and this new thing and whatever's coming next, too much, too much, can't do it.

So let's reset. Here's what's intentional. Here's what must be true moving forward. How can I best love you today? How can you best love me today in this new world that we have? What do we want our marriage to look like and feel like? And then you start to feel this spark of aliveness come alive in your own life because you have this magic psychological and emotional ignition switch called autonomy, agency. Suddenly you get back in the driver's seat of your own life. Right now you feel like you're in the trunk of your own life.

Everyone is telling you what to do and you're just getting dragged around the neighborhood. Yeah. It's like just so much has changed. And I know that that's...

Obviously, but our life looked so different and we had like all these crazy things happen in our first year of marriage and even like our engagement and stuff. And I feel like life has just been going like we got, I feel like hit with stuff that you don't normally have to deal with engaged in, in our first year of marriage. And then like what we're in like the, um, um,

Well, so when I was engaged, I ended up leaving my family's house after a really big fight with my mom and it wasn't planned. And we weren't, my husband and I weren't living together because we wanted to wait till we were married to live together. So I was like,

living with a friend and then we got married and some really big crazy stuff happened with his business. He's an entrepreneur and

Then he was, like, having to figure out so much, and that actually, we got news of, like, the stuff with the business happening on our honeymoon. Good stuff or bad stuff? Lost the business? Bad stuff. Okay. All right. Yeah. Like, yeah, big team stuff that happened that shouldn't have happened. Okay. And that was on our honeymoon, and then we were still, like, dealing with the aftermath of that when we found out we were pregnant. Okay.

And yeah, just like financially, we were pretty worried. And then we found out we're having a baby and then preparing for that baby. I feel like we just like haven't had our feet really under us like this whole time. And then like right now, like things are stabling out and that's really nice. But I feel like now that things are stabling out or stabilizing, it just feels like,

It's all kind of catching back up with me. It is. It is. So think about this. The tornado sirens started going off in your town and you've been under a mattress in a bathtub and finally the all clear is happening and you knock the mattress off the bathtub and you get out and now y'all are walking outside and you know, you're squinting when you've been inside for a long time and suddenly the sun is real bright and you can see the extent of everything. The thing that was your life is now all over your neighborhood. Yeah.

And you grieve that. Nobody's supposed to find out they got fired on their honeymoon or their business imploded. Y'all were two, like we know it all, 20-year-olds. And having a baby when you don't have any money wasn't part of that plan. Here we are. Everybody has this fantasy in their head, like my mom and dad are going to be my ride or die, especially through our wedding and help us launch. Nobody has a plan for, I got to walk out of my own family home.

and not look back, right? That's not anybody's plan. Your house is scattered all over the neighborhood and you all survived. You made it. And those nights that you couldn't breathe and you couldn't sleep and you were looking for ways you could feed your baby without your husband having a job, all those things, like you made it, you're here. Here's the beautiful thing. You get to decide what happens next in a context. You get to rebuild your house because another storm will come

You get to rebuild your house smaller, bigger, stronger in a different location. You all get to decide what that looks like. Right. I feel like, I feel like, sorry, I keep, I think thinking of things. Um, I feel like we've done a really good job with like everything else in our life. Like, you know, our, our home and our baby and parenting and our marriage. Like we have the intentional time set apart. I really just like, this is the reason that I called about this. What about you?

Yeah. I just feel like with my body and stuff, I just, I don't know why it's such a point of contention for myself. Like, I just feel like I'm really mean. Yes, you are. But if you think about it, you're underwater holding your breath, trying to make sure everybody else's head is above water. Make sure this marriage is above water. Make sure everything's above water and you're going to drown in the process. I've been trying that too. I know. I know.

I've got a class I'm taking to have time away from the baby and do something I enjoy. I try and work out regularly and eat well. As you're leaving, all those things are good. Those are good actions. But as you're leaving and that baby's crying and it's got arms outstretched, it's the story you tell yourself from letting your baby go till you get to the class. Good moms don't leave screaming babies.

If I would just do X, Y, and Z, I wouldn't have to leave my baby and go to this stupid class. Right. If I could just, I'm not pretty enough for my husband, he's going to, and now it's 10 o'clock at night, he's asleep, or 11 o'clock at night, and he's down a rabbit hole, or you're down a rabbit hole. When we get off this call, I want you to put your fist in your chest, and I want you to go look in the mirror. You may have heard me tell people to do this before.

But I want you to put your fist in your chest and I want you to go into your bathroom mirror and I want you to look yourself dead in the eyes. And I want you to say the words, I love this woman. And if you're like me, that's one of the hardest, weirdly hardest things I've ever done. It was bizarre. And I had to start keeping a small journal, writing down things that I respected and honored about myself.

And some days it was harder than others. And some days I just went and did the next right thing because I knew I would be a different guy for my wife or my kids, people that I quote unquote cared about more than myself. I feel like I do things that I know that I would respect, but I feel like they're just kind of on autopilot. You know, it's like, I don't feel like I could write down things that I respect because I don't know if I do them like authentically, you know? Cause you're too stuck in feeling right now. It's the curse of your generation.

How do I feel about this? How do I feel about this? How do I feel about this? Well, I thought this was going to feel different. I thought being a mom was going to feel different. I thought being eight pounds overweight and not being so amazed at what my body just did, it made a human. And I thought it was going to feel all different, and it doesn't. You often act your way into feelings because feelings are just a response about safety. Right.

And so I hate to say this, but sometimes fake it till you make it's a good thing. And so the mission is, A, I have to commit in a discipline type fashion to talking to and about myself in a different story. I've got to. I've got to talk to myself at least as good as I talk to the woman working the counter at the Kroger.

And I've got to be honest about the things that make me feel alive in my own skin, in my own home, in my own house. And I have to negotiate those with my husband. We have to sit down at a table and say, hey, here's what this is. And you're doing a class. You're doing this. You're doing this. But that's not what makes you feel alive. That's what you think 22-year-old moms are supposed to do so that you lose eight pounds. So suddenly the world, the sun comes up. That's just not going to work that way.

And it might be getting to the bottom of the way your husband used to look at you or might get to the bottom of, man, I've struggled with disordered eating for a long time. I need to go see a specialist because that is a truly devastating journey, struggling with disordered eating. It's being honest about that. You're going through the motions in a really admirable way. And my challenge to you is let's get beneath the motions. Let's get beneath the feelings. What is actually true here?

Spend some time with yourself, with a journal, with your husband. Let's get beneath the thing. What is it about the life that we have right now that we can reignite and find aliveness and sensuality and Eros in our own home, in this world that we're building? And surely in that world, I'm worth an hour so that I can show up and be the person I want to be. And the whole thing flips on its head. Those eight pounds will do what those eight pounds are going to do. But more than that, when you lose eight pounds and you show up, you'll be who you want to be. Thanks for the call, Al.

I'm excited to hear about your adventure here. Call me back anytime. Anytime. We'll be right back. All right. Have you ever had seasons of chaos and busyness and madness? And then one of the most stressful things in those days is the fear of going to bed because you know you're just going to lay there and be uncomfortable and have racing thoughts and be frustrated and be hot.

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Dude, I always want to bring the Humpty Dance back, but it's just not great. It's not very PC now. There's a lot of lines in it that you just can't. But if I'm ever in a meeting and I'm just like, hey, let's just stop what you're doing because I'm about to ruin it. And one person looks up, I'm like, you're my people. So whenever we went to see Rubik's Groove on my birthday, and I don't think you were there yet, but they played it and they sang the whole thing. They rocked it? Like, as is. Yeah. That's the only way to do it.

Different times. All right, here is the thing. Big news. For the first time ever, this spring, Dave Ramsey and me, us two, we are doing a live theater tour. Just the two of us. It's going to be something that I don't know that we've ever done here at this company. I know it's certainly not something I've ever been a part of. We're going to Louisville, Durham, Atlanta, Kansas City, Fort Worth, and Phoenix. Some of the most amazing theaters ever.

in the country, in the world, some amazing places. And it's going to be the two of us. It's going to be an evening with both of us. And I'm going to tell you what, Money Marriage is my favorite event. I'm excited and nervous. These are new stories, new ideas, new ways of, normally it's like lasers and this will be very much like

A totally different vibe and I'm very very excited about this. I hope you will join us go to Ramsey solutions comm slash events It's me Dave Ramsey and some of the coolest theaters in the United States on a six says a six one two three four five six city tour this spring Come check them out. Come check them out Ramsey solutions comm slash events. Here's I promise you it will be a party and it will be like nothing you've ever been to and

Nothing you've ever been to. Thank you so much for joining us. Be kind to one another and don't ever forget. I was gonna say don't remember, but don't forget. If you own where you have ended up, if you just own it, me, my wife, my kids, whatever, we made a bunch of choices and here we are. When you take that ownership, you can own the path out. We get to choose what happens next. Don't let anybody take your power away. You choose what comes next. Love you guys. Be cool. Stay in school. Don't do drugs. Bye.