Was I Right to End My Engagement?
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. She comes into this with debt. I've come into this with going through Financial Peace University three times. I still love her and I think we can make it work, but she's so far behind. She doesn't have the same intensity. You think you're better than her, Isaac? You think you've got this thing all figured out and if she would just get her crap together, then she'd be worthy of marrying you.

What in the world's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I hope you are doing fantastic wherever you happen to find yourself, and I hope you got a group of people that you're doing life with. This show is about relationships, mental, emotional health, whether it's your OCD and your ADHD and your anxiety, or you're wrestling with where to find joy and where to find warmth and laughter and relationships.

Your marriage is falling apart. Your marriage is doing amazing. Or you're not even married yet. Whatever's going on in your life, I'm here to help. If you want to be on the show, write us to John, write, write in to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K.

Write in your question and send it in. Kelly gets a bunch of them. And she helps craft the show. No, she doesn't help. She does. She's the craft master. She crafts the show. And you can also give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message and we'll get you on. Kelly, I know we got to get to the show real quick, but I have to say this at the beginning. I posted on the internet the other day a...

Just a picture. We had a bunch of middle schoolers at the house. Yeah, I saw this one. And everyone knows at the house that the Delonys don't let kids run around with cell phones. And so most kids, when they come over to the house, and by the way, our house, I love it being kind of like one of the go-to places. Kids, they don't even bring their phones with them or they leave them with their moms. Or they bring them and they just put them in a bowl and it stays on the bowl, stays on the counter, and they just drop it in there and then they go run off to play.

So the post goes bananas with support. I just needed to post something that day and I was like, hey, this is kind of interesting. This is how we do this in our house. But the backlash as well has been insanity. I would never let a man take my kid's phone from them. Too much abuse and whatever in the world. And I mean, on and on and on and on and on. I would never let my kid go to a place where I couldn't get in touch with him, etc. So just to clarify, planet Earth.

We are not running a prison at our home. I don't want kids running around with unfettered access to the internet. I want them to go play in the woods and to go catch critters and to build fires and to eat and to be silly and play ball and go seek and build trails and read books and play music, which is all things that happened that day that the kids were over at my house, a whole house full of middle schoolers. And good God almighty, if a kid needs to go use the phone, they go use the phone.

My wife or I have everybody's cell number. I don't take the phones. My wife is the one I'm using. I've been there. My wife is the one who collects these phones in the bowl or kitchen. They just drop them in because they've been coming over for so long. She used to take them when they walked in, but good grief. If a mom needs to get ahold, they just text us. Ta-da. Or the kids, kiddies to get to the mom. They just grab the phone and text him. Kidneys to go get picked up. They text him. And I get like the, if things get sideways and scary and whatever, I'm like,

My wife always reaches out to folks and lets them know, hey, we don't let kids run around with phones here. This is my number if you need to get a hold of your kid. Here's my husband's number if you need to get a hold of my kid. So just everybody, everybody who was in support, and it was thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands. So awesome. For those of you who instantly got worried that I'm running some sort of prison in my home for children, I'm not. What I'm trying to push forth is your kids –

would love a break from the phones every once in a while and i know my house isn't for everybody right but good night people there can be good in the world without everything instantly going to worst case scenario it's all evil it's all coming down i need my kid to be safe because otherwise i'm not okay it's cool it's cool all right let's go to cleveland ohio and talk to isaac what's up isaac hey john thanks for taking my call you got it brother how can i help man

Hey, you got relationship question for you. Bring it on. My fiance and I, we've been dating for about a year and a half. We were engaged for about four months. And last week, I don't want to call it cold feet, but broke off the engagement due to some concerns. So your ex-fiancee?

Ex-fiance and still... How's that sound? Still best friend and, you know, the love of my heart here, too. How does saying the word ex-fiance say it? Don't like it. I don't like it. Car ramrod, say it. You don't like it? I don't like it. Okay, so why'd you break up with her? Or she broke up with you? Who broke up with who? No, she's very much still...

100% in my court and would like to go forward into marriage. I had some concerns with twofold. One would be some

kids slash household responsibilities. We both have kids from previous marriage and I think we can work, work through that. Finances brought in some, some red flags and we're different in there and I'm struggling with that. Okay. So y'all both, y'all both have kids from previous relationships. Correct. Y'all are blending the family.

Blending the family. We haven't moved in yet with each other for the sake of our kids. We kept that separate. And until we got engaged, we didn't really talk serious about some categories until we were engaged. She wasn't comfortable going very deep into finances until that commitment was made. Was her previous relationship pretty abusive?

Okay. Yeah. Control issues with money. There you go. And I, I openly admit to that. I, I like things a certain way and I, I know I'm, I'm a, I would call more of a high anxiety than high control type person, but I don't want to be controlling and I don't want to change her. If a finance finances, uh,

She comes into this with debt. I come into this with going through Financial Peace University three times. And so her and I actually, we went through Financial Peace as soon as we started to get engaged, had a great class. And we were looking at each other's budgets and some things were still just

being missed. She's so new into this that she thought she was at one place, but finding bills on the table and bounce checks and not quite giving me full picture. And some of this is just coming out of a place of overwhelm for her. I come from a different financial perspective. I would follow almost a pretty

Pretty close to the Dave Ramsey plan as far as how I do it. I've moved away from cash envelopes since, but follow that principles and bowl pretty well. I'm struggling with this because I still love her, and I think we can make it work, but she's so far behind. She doesn't have the same intensity about the debt she's bringing in. Hold on. You think you're better than her, Isaac. You think you've got this thing all figured out, and if she would just get her crap together, then she'd be worthy of marrying you.

And I promise you, she is sitting with her friends right now saying he has no clue about those kids. And if he would just X, Y, and Z with those kids instead of running their lives on a spreadsheet or whatever, however it works. But here's the thing, y'all are bringing your challenges together and you're both deciding we're gonna work as one. Not you fix your crap and I'll fix my crap so that we can have no crap in our house moving forward. That's not how relationships work. You like to handle things very particularly.

Yeah, I do. I will agree with that. But underneath that is where she's trying to connect with you. Or maybe she's not trying to connect with you. She's just bouncing off your, this is the way we do it because it's the one right way and this is the only way to do it. And my guess is you've come at her with a spreadsheet and you've come at her with a plan. There's already a plan. It's an established plan. Millions and millions of people have gone through it. And for somebody who has been in a controlling, abusive relationship before, every red flag she has, every alarm she has, it's ringing off in her body.

And so she probably says things like, I'll never share an account with anybody. I'll never be unsafe again. That was the conversation about a week and a half ago. And your response to that was, but just follow the plan. The plan will make you safe. Well, yeah, it will. I hear what you're saying. But here's what's underneath it. I also hear the side of...

Hey, the number one reason relationships fall apart, according to Dave, the divorce is financial problems. Well, I don't ever want to walk through that again or put her or I through that either. So think of financial. Dave also says finances is just a reflection of what's going on in your home and in your heart and in your actions. And so instead of telling your wife, I've got this perfect plan. Why don't you follow the plan? It'll fix all your problems. It is.

Hey, the thought of entering into a relationship and we're not on the same page across the board scares me to death. And I got hurt before too. And I love you too much. I love my kids too much. And I have too much honor and respect for myself to enter into a marriage where somebody's got their little pocket of thing over here. That's different than trying to shove a plan down somebody's throat. And then you're coming at her, not with all of the answers. You're coming at her with vulnerability. I'm scared of this.

Yeah. Right. Okay. That's a place where somebody can plug into. Someone who's been hurt before may lean in that way as opposed to you being right because everything in her body is telling her to run from you. And she loves you and you're probably a pretty cool guy. And so she knows cognitively that you're a good person, that you're a good man, that you've got things together, but you have too many traits like the old guy and vice versa. What happened in your relationship or relationships, plural?

Yeah. Disaster with that inability to communicate, essentially. Tell me more about that. What does that mean? About previous relationships? No, no, no. Usually people who say there was an inability to communicate means they wouldn't do what I said. Oh, we spent three years in counseling together and...

We weren't able to make it. There wasn't any marital affairs or anything like that. It was just very different planets without a parent, kids. What'd you learn from that about yourself? I have been the type that would say,

It's fine. I can adjust. It's fine. I'll do it your way. It's fine. It's fine. I can adjust. And I didn't articulate what I saw as problems along the way and concerns and advocate for situations that I thought was right. It just all appeased. I'll do what you need me to do to...

I'll do what you want me to do to make you happy in this situation without being hurt, just to avoid conflict. And would you shove it down and shove it down and eventually it erupt? Yeah, essentially. Do you love this woman? Yeah, I do. Okay. I do. If you have a set of values, which is we share everything. I lived a parallel life with my last wife, my last partner, my last girlfriend, whoever she was.

I lived a parallel life with her. We were never on the same page. I never spoke up for myself. And do you hear my voice tone, my language? This is not coming at her accusing. This is coming at her with you hands open. Saying I've lived a life where we're just co-managers of a household. I don't want to do that again. I want to be all in with you. And the thought of you having a secret account over here or your own account, your money that's different than our money, it scares me.

And there was a study that just came out that says couples who share the checking account and have to deal with the conversations and the vulnerability and the lack of safety and have to put that lack of safety on the table and discuss it, they do better financially, emotionally, psychologically, and relationally over time. That's the data. That is a very different conversation than saying, you're wrong. I can just make you safe if you just follow my plan.

So if I'm vulnerable about it and she still wants, says for my own safety, I need separate accounts, then I'm in the choice of loving her through it regardless. Then you have to make a grown-up decision. Am I going to stay or not? Because by the way,

um if that's her value if she's put her if she's chained herself to that anchored into the bedrock i will never be unsafe again and she doesn't believe she can find safety through connection which is the true place you find it and she thinks that safety can only be found in a secret or her own quote-unquote checking account then i don't know that she's ready to re-engage in a new relationship and

If you're not, haven't demonstrated that you are safe enough for her to fully open to that way, you'll need to have that conversation. It's both and. But what most people, not most people, what many people do is they outsource the hard conversations, the gap in their marriage or relationship, and they dump it onto the Dave Ramsey plan. It's like people who want to buy a house right now and the market is, it's insane. It is insane. And interest rates aren't insane, but they're higher than they've been in years.

And wages are relatively flat. And so instead of getting mad at math, instead of getting mad at supply and demand, it's easy just to get mad at Dave, right? It's easy just to get like, well, he's out of touch. He doesn't know how hard it is. He does know how hard it is, but math doesn't care how hard it is because math is math. Risk and being exposed doesn't care how expensive houses are because that metric never fails. And so in your house,

Don't put it onto the plan. Put it onto us. Are we still far away or can we come together on this deal? And when you sit down with her, it has to be, you have to lead with, here's what I'm experiencing. Here's I'm scared of. Here's what I want. Here's what I need. Not you need to be doing these things because if you do that, she, her body will go right back into defending herself, putting up walls. However she does that fight, flight or freeze. And she learned that through her last relationship. Yeah. Right. And,

She may look at you and say, vulnerably, I'm not doing that. And then you have to decide, is this a deal breaker for me? And you had another thing about kids, like, I don't know how we're going to handle kids. Listen, when you're blending families, one thing is certain. It's going to be chaotic and there's going to be lots of disagreements. Cool. We know that going in. That's not a bug in the system of a blended family. It's a feature.

Disagreements. It's the same as people who are 35 and 35 and getting married for the first time. They both created their own lives. Disagreements and where we put the coffee maker and but I travel and you don't travel and I don't do this on Saturdays. They've had 15 years of being on their own. And so that disagreement doesn't mean something's wrong with the relationship. It's a feature of the relationship. It's part of it. It's cool. What y'all have to decide is are we willing to come back every time to this one idea that

One plus one now equals one. We are always going to do what's best for our relationship, even if it's scary. And if it is scary, we're going to put scary out on the table. I'm going to say this really scares me. And then you can say, all right, absent keeping your own separate account, because we know the data isn't in favor of that. But I do understand that you want to keep yourself safe because your body's been through it. What are other ways I can help provide safety in this relationship and in this home? What does that look like for us?

Here's one quick example, Isaac. I'll just put this out there. I bought my wife a car. We have a joint checking account. We've saved up. It's not like I surprised her with it. I went to pick it up and I bought the car. Stupid me. I just bought it, saved up for it, wrote a check for it, got the car. And when the title came in the mail, it had my name on it. And it didn't say John and Sheila. It just said John Deloney. And she came to me and said,

My name's not on that title. I was like, oh, it doesn't matter. Like if I die, it's your car. And she said, I know, but it's our car. It's our car. And that really mattered. That mattered. And so she felt one centimeter edged out because this had my name on it. And that was a little thing. And she had the courage to put on the table and say, hey, this bothers me. And I had the compassion to go, well, duh, I'm an idiot. I left it off. And then we fixed it. And so those are little things that,

When someone doesn't feel edged out of a relationship, sometimes we just blow by, we don't even think about it. If you're sitting there going through all of her budgets and all of her bills, and you're doing this wrong, and you're doing this wrong, and you should be having this here, maybe that's not the way to go through somebody's underwear drawer, which is what going through somebody's budget is. Maybe it's more compassionate. It's kinder. It's slower. It's, here's a challenge here. Let's work through this one. Or tell me more about this one. But I want you to hear my voice. I'm not attacking you. I'm with you. It's an invitation, not a confrontation.

It is, I'm seeking reconciliation in a relationship. I'm not seeking to be right and in power. And you're not smarter than her, man. And you're not better than her. You do money different. And I would say you do it the right way, but you know what I mean? Like she's doing it the safe way for her right now. And it may cost her the long term. And that's what relationships are about. But tell her, hey, let's sit down and talk. I did this the wrong way. I love you. And I want to do this for the rest of my life with you. I can't even say the words ex-fiance. And here's what scares me.

about losing you, about trying to build a life with you. Start there. That's often where a connection is found. And vulnerability, not in being right. Thanks for the call, my brother. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

So my wife and I were meeting the other day about the back-to-school madness that is about to be on us. We've got my travel schedule, her work schedule, our daughter's new school and clothes and forms to fill out and all these online portals and my son's sports schedule and he's got to have shoes every two weeks because his feet won't stop growing and how are we going to pay for all this and on and on and on.

And when we step back and look at our schedule, it's so packed and we haven't even put in the things like exercise, date nights, counseling appointments, church and holiday trips and big home projects. And these are the things that make life worth living. And I listened to y'all. This is your life too. And here's what I've learned. When it comes to taking care of me, my family and my work, I have to begin with the things that matter most and the things that keep me well and whole so I can wade into the chaos and be sturdy and present and strong.

you too. So as you're planning your upcoming end of summer and fall plans, make sure you don't skip date nights, don't skip regular exercise, and don't skip your regular therapy appointments. Yes, therapy can be hard work, but it can also help make the rest of your life possible.

When it comes to therapy, I want you to consider calling the team at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule.

With a good therapist, you can learn things like positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, how to deal with all the chaos going on in your life, and how to be the best version of yourself. In this upcoming season, make sure you put on your oxygen mask first. Never skip therapy day. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney.

All right, we're back. Let's go out to Overland Park, Kansas and talk to Amber. Hey, Amber, what's up?

I'm here, and I'm really excited to talk to you. I'm here, and I'm excited to talk to you. Fantastic. What's happening? Okay. Well, I'm suddenly nervous, so I'll just kind of get started. Okay, so the question I wrote in with was, can a surgeon successfully balance work and family, or are my kids screwed? Okay.

Either this or that. Right. Yeah, a little bit. So are you a surgeon? What kind of surgeon are you? My husband is a surgeon. Okay. So background, we've been together 16 years and been married for 12. We have three kids, a five-year-old, a four-year-old, and a two-year-old.

Um, so yeah, it's just kind of, we've gone through all the stuff, you know, the medical training, the residency, the fellowship, the landing, the, the job, uh, near family and everything. And so it's just kind of, you know, I feel like we should be good and, uh, I guess we're not. So, so I guess the caveat to the question would be advice on kind of enduring the grind a little bit. Hold on. I want to sit here in this discomfort.

You were ride or die through med school. Were you all together in undergrad too? Yeah. Yeah. You did a biology degree. You dated somebody getting a degree in chemistry or biology. You dated a guy that went to med school. You went through residency. I bet you're pretty tired of being a single mom. Yep. And there was supposed to be this big payoff. I was going to be married to a surgeon, and I have a picture of all these surgeons' wives and kids and lives together.

And the day-to-day is I'm a single mom and my husband works 25 hours a week, 25 hours a day. Yep. I mean, a short day is 10 hours. Yeah. And then he's usually coming home and planning cases on top of that. Yeah. So let's move your kids to the side for a second. How's your marriage?

Um, I would say, um, good because we're both committed to making it work. That's the most ridiculous answer I ever heard. That's like saying, Hey, how's traffic? And you're like, good. I'm committed to keeping the gas pedal on the floor. Just crashing into everybody. Good job. How's your marriage? I mean, we're actively working on it. Um, say out loud. It's not good.

Or say out loud, it's not what I had pictured. A cornerstone of getting well and healing things, whether they're relationships, whether you're emotional health, is you choosing reality, being honest about where we are. And you have been such a cheerleader for so long, and you have buried how you feel about things for so freaking long that it's hard to say, I put in all this time and all this effort, and I sacrificed 15 years of my life, and I didn't expect this. Right? Yep. Why can't you say that out loud? Why does that scare you to say it? Um...

I guess it's just a chronic optimist in me. I just... I think you feel embarrassed that you have everything and you don't have anything. Tell me, I might be way off on that. No, that's a good part of it. You have a nice house and you got healthy kids. He would feel like that. Well, I mean, you got everything, right? You're the envy of everybody. You're the envy of you 15 years ago. And I just miss my husband and I just want my kids to have their dad around.

Or I want to be at least as important, if not more important than some stranger. Yep. I mean, the nature of the beast is that work gets the best and then it comes like kids and then me. And then honestly, maybe even just him, his own mental health is getting the scraps. That's exactly right. That's why I started my whole entry into mental health stuff was looking at the mental health of attorneys and then medical professionals. Yeah.

And quite frankly, this is not about you and your husband, but it's until the medical profession realizes that their staff has to be well before they can anchor in and go help other people. Yeah. We'll continue getting the mess that we've got. So your original question, go ahead. Yeah. No, you're fine. I mean, we've tried to be proactive. He has, you know, and choosing where to work. I mean, even for everything we just did with less and tried to do, you know, we didn't rely on moonlighting. We didn't do anything, you know,

You know, again, I mean, he has Q8 call. That's probably about the friendliest call you can get as a surgeon. Sure. Is he happy? He's not. And that's what's hard because it's like he climbed up Everest and doesn't like the view or something. That's okay. And he's got, I mean, he's got the added challenges. I mean, his ACE score is a four. Yeah. But I don't know. I just want him to be happy.

And one of the most powerless feelings for anybody who's married to somebody, ride or die, is that he has to want that for himself. Yeah. So to answer your question, is it possible for a specialty surgeon, for a special kind of surgeon to be successful at home? Yeah, absolutely. It looks different, but yeah, it absolutely is. Well, then what are some trends, like strategies to help with that transition? Hold on, we're not there yet. Okay. Also, it's okay.

to say, I really want to be a surgeon and get there. I really want to be an accountant. I really want to be a stay-at-home mom. I really want to be a working mom. And to declare that to the world and go through five years and 10 years of training and get there and go, whoa, this is not for me. And it's scary and it's frustrating and it's annoying and it's heartbreaking and all those things. And it's still true because you only get one life. And as a specialty surgeon, he's been through so much rigorous training

that he'd have to swallow his ego. He'd have to deal with all of the backpedaling. And I don't know what it takes to go from surgeon to internist, but, or family practice, family medicine, like just a general practitioner. I don't know the path there. I know the salary's way different. I know the life is way different, but here's what I'm saying.

There's a difference when somebody says, I was put on this earth to be a surgeon and I've been around those people and they are laser beams. And people who marry them, they know what they're getting into. It comes at a cost. And it's a tough sled. And I also know countless people in the legal profession, the medical profession, who got all the way to where they wanted to be and realized they didn't want to be here. And I need you to hear me say, that's okay, but he has to choose that, not you. You can't nag him into that. You can't complain him into that. You can't love him into that. He has to decide that.

Oh, this isn't for me. And then grieve it because we wanted that. And it's not. But if he was spending all this year and all this money and all this training and all this time thinking that happiness was going to lie once he got there. Oh, that's tough. Yeah. And so to answer your questions in a hard way, in a direct way.

Y'all have to reverse engineer your marriage. What does that mean? Y'all have to come to the table and say, what do we want this home to feel like when you walk in the door? And he gets to say what he wants it to feel like, and you get to say what you want it to feel like. And he might say, I want it to feel warm and full of laughter, and I want there to be music playing. Cool. Here's what has to be true for that to happen. I need you home. Or when you're home, I can't have you walking in the door with seven other cases you got to deal with.

I need you to be honest about you don't want to be a surgeon. And I will still love you and I'll still be ride or die. We may have to do it for two years because we got a whole bunch of student loans to pay off. Yeah. And we'll drive junky cars and live in an apartment if that's what we got to do. But we'll get a path out of this. Are you mad that he doesn't like it? Are you disappointed in him? Are you angry at him? I feel like you've got some, you're close to resenting him right now. And I can't figure out where it's coming from.

I think it's just, I fight resentment. And we started marriage counseling in January because he was kind of resenting me and I was starting to resent him. And I just wanted to nip all that in the bud. Because, I mean, I do, you know, I am the financially stable single mother, essentially. And, you know, I've come to terms with the fact that, okay, he's not going to,

Help much around the house, okay, fine, hire some help. Or if I need some help with the kids, then we hire something or send a kid to daycare for part-time or something. And I'm good with that. I think really what's frustrating is just this is what you've been working toward and we've been working toward, and I just want to enjoy the accomplishment, I guess. What does that mean? Um...

You know, we just are having these successes. And even when we were doing the... You know, we've been paying on student loans and we've been cleaning up debts and things. And I have this optimistic view and he has a pessimistic view. So I'd be like, oh, wow, look at this. We paid off this car or we paid off this thing. And instead of being... He's never been able to really celebrate the wins. It's always like, oh, but we still have so much to go.

And then now I feel like, okay, well, we've paid off my student loans. You know, we have the house and his student loans left, and we're working on that kind of thing. And so then it's just, I feel like, you know, there's a light at the end of the tunnel, and I want to enjoy that with him. But, I mean, half the time he says things like, well, this is going to sound crazy, but he says that, you know, work is no longer challenging. And I'm like, you are in the specialty area.

you know, specialty part of surgery that is just, and then within that specialty, he has set himself apart from even the specialty. Right. That means that's not an uncommon thing to hear. That means he's real good. And I hear this all the time. I don't know if it's true, but I hear once you kind of figure out how an organ works and how it connects and disconnects, like I hear that I've heard that multiple times. Ah, it's easy. And I'm like to take out a kidney. And they're like, yeah, it's easy.

Okay. I don't know. You know what I mean? I don't know what that means. I also walked into our parking lot a few years ago and there was somebody in a car having a panic attack and there were seven people leaning into the car trying to help and person was hyperventilating. And I pulled up next to him and said, Hey, will you come with me for a second? And we hold my hand and we like transitioning out of that panic attack took like 30 seconds. It was the simplest thing that went into my job. And you would have thought I was at Hogwarts, right?

People were like, you sorcerer, right? So whatever you're good, and you, with your three kids, you could probably get those three kids into wherever they need to go and out of wherever they need to go. I mean, they're kind of feral, but yeah. Well, I'm saying, you know how to, it's like magic for me, like watching it. It's like, how did you do that, right? So that part's okay. I think the surgery part and the busy part and all that, all that is adding a lot of window dressing to you love a man.

who is choosing pessimism over optimism. He's choosing glass half empty over glass half full. He's probably dealing with significant amount of secondary traumatic stress. And that is people who work in the pain of other people, whether they think they're above it or not, aren't. The way I describe it is we all have a backpack and if you break your leg or you get in a car wreck, someone puts a brick in your backpack. But if you're the surgeon sewing up the little kid who got hit,

That's not a brick in your backpack, but it's a little rock. And over time, all those people's little rocks, room to room to room to room, all those little rocks add up. And so it's especially important for somebody in a helping profession who people only go to, they only go to you when they're having the worst time of their life.

Nobody goes to an attorney because they're having a great day. Nobody goes to a trauma surgeon because they're having a great day, right? Yeah. And so when that's you, you have to extra do the work to do the things to keep you well and whole. And that starts with relationships. It starts with healing from traumas. That starts with seeing somebody. That starts with an exercise, a nutrition. It starts with being present with your family. That's where whole begins so that you can repel in and do the hard work of healing.

Being a good, connected, present trauma surgeon. And if he has an ACEs score of four and he's been running his whole life, I'll show you. It's not about trauma. It's not about surgery. It's not about the top of the mountain. It's that he had told himself a story that when I get here, wherever here is, six figures, $5 million, surgeon,

Get to Harvard, get married, get up. When I get here, then everything will be okay. And you get there and you realize the finish line just moves and it just moves. And you're looking, we're here. We're on top of the mountain. Look at this house. We just paid off all these loans. And he's like, yeah, that line just moved. So I think the conversation begins in therapy and counseling. Marriage counseling is, I want you to write him a letter. I want you to write him a love letter that says, I love you and I miss you.

And I want you to find peace more than I want your money, more than I want you to be the best surgeon. I want you to have peace. And I'll walk with you as you find peace. And if that means you have to go be a gen prac, fine. If that means you go be a nurse practitioner, fine. But I want peace in your heart. I want peace in our marriage. I want peace with these kids. It's hard to be a single mom. I want my husband and they want their dad. Is that easier said than done? God, yes.

Is unwinding all of the ego and training and professional credibility and all that from a top tier surgeon. Yes, I get all that. You only get one life. You only get one. What are you going to do with it? I got to the top of the mountain. That's amazing. That means you can get to any mountain you want to. I want you all to pick up David. I think it's David Brooks book. Second Mountain. We'll link to it in the show notes. I think that's it. Yeah. David Brooks. Second Mountain. Pick that up. It's masterpiece. I think it'll be instructive for you, too.

Hang on the line. I'm going to send you building an unanxious life. That's for you and your, I'll send you on your past, change your future too. I want y'all both to read those two books together. It's got enough winks at the, at the smart, smart kids. And it's also accessible enough for a high school kid to read it. I want y'all to read those two books together and see if it doesn't spark something in your husband. I'm grateful for you. We'll be right back.

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And for Deloney Show listeners, Thorne is providing 25% off everything in their entire lineup. Go to thorne.com slash the letter U slash Deloney to open up your digital dispensary and the discount will be taken at checkout. That's thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E dot com slash the letter U slash Deloney. All right, let's roll out to Cleveland, Ohio and talk to Madison. Hey, Madison, what's up?

Hello, how are you? I could not, I mean, literally couldn't be better. How are you? I'm doing okay too. Awesome. What's up? How can I help? Okay, so I think you are the perfect person and I'm very excited to talk with you. I just started watching some of your videos and I like that you are direct to the point and I think you're going to help me. Okay, let's do this. This could be awesome. There's no chance I can help you. There's no chance.

So I just turned 24 and I am very busy. I feel kind of weird after listening to the last call because I sound a lot like her husband, which kind of worried me a little bit. But basically my big question is, I have major issues when it comes to relationships, friendships,

romantic, platonic, whatever, family. I have a very emotionally manipulative family. Friendships have consistently always been a disaster and I've never dated any... There's only been like two guys I've been interested in. Wasn't a healthy situation, so I never even pursued it. And even people that I thought were friends, it would end up in court. So

There's just a lot of like in real court, real court. Yes. Um, I just finished a court case. So there, there's a lot of your friends. Yeah. Um, you got, you got friends like I used to have good on you. That's awesome. Okay. Well, he, he was a 60 year old man who was married with children who decided to become obsessed with me. So not a friend, but okay. All right. So relationships are a mess.

They are. And I used to be some... So you can assume my trust levels are at zero. They've been like that for years. This is not like a new problem. I mean, this has been going on since middle school. I was in...

ninth grade or eighth grade when my dad's entire family decided to have nothing to do with us anymore. Um, so I have no communication with them. I only have my parents, my grandparents and my aunt and uncle, my brother. And even that is an extremely unhealthy situation. I mean, I know they love me and you know, they helped me financially cause you know, I'm in law school, but I'm also working full time. So I live there. Um, but they are not people I can use as emotional anything. Um, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.

Okay. Before you get to your question. Okay. Exhale. I feel bad saying it out loud. I do love them. I know it feels hard. It feels hard. Um, I'm writing something down here. So I just want to keep up with you a little bit. Okay. Thank you. And what year are you? You want L2L? Um, I'm graduating in May. Oh, you're almost done. All right. So as any good, especially as a good 3L man about to enter and out, uh, leave Hogwarts and head out into the world. Um,

I'm excited to be done with school. And I'm, yeah, because I've been doing full-time work and full-time school. So I'm excited to enter a new phase. You need to hear me say, that's insane. Yeah, I know. I'm drained. I've repeated this on the show several times. My buddy, Ian Simpkins, he is a minister at a church down the street. We were having lunch one day and he said this.

If busyness is your drug, rest will feel like stress. Okay. That's number one. Yes. You're a crack addict, except your cocaine. I mean, your drug of choice is not crack. It's busy accomplishment achievement. And let's don't talk about trust issues because trust issues sound like a character issue. It sounds like a morality thing. Let's talk about nervous system.

Your little girl body learned it put GPS pins in people because people hurt you. People didn't show up. They weren't reliable. And you're giving me the sanitized version I can tell. People hurt you. There's probably stuff that you've never told anybody ever, ever, ever.

And you can move on and cross the stage. I used to call names out for law students at graduation. I'll call your name out as you walk across the stage, hand you a diploma. You go into a hole for three months to study for the bar and come out and you're free and you're an attorney. But your body, as Vander Kolk says, your body's keeping the score. It remembers, it knows. And it put GPS pins in people. And it's like you had a drowning accident and your body got scared of water. And the problem is you have to drink water or you die.

That is correct. Your body is terrified of other people. Rightfully so. It's not a trust issue. It's a nervous system issue. And you can't do life alone. Oh, this is why I called you. Can I ask you a scary thing? Yeah, you can. I have to ask this and you're going to get mad. Don't hang up on me. Okay. And this isn't moot court, so don't law me. Just be honest with me, okay? Okay. Or not moot court. It's more like mock trials. Not mock trial. Just answer me straight up.

You are the common denominator in all of those stories you told me. Correct. Yep. What is it? There's got to be something. What is it? Why are you an electric fence to love? That is the question I have tried to ask myself. I mean, for years, if I just really am like unlovable. Nope, you're not. I mean, here's what's so great.

As a good law student, you tried to solve that question cognitively with your mind. Yes. And love doesn't work like that. Love works like, this is all of me. Will you love me? Yeah, and I guess that answer is no. Yeah, exactly. Well, here's the deal. Your body's gotten that answer repeatedly over the course of your life.

And you see how it becomes like a sick cycle where other people are scary. So you put up a little more walls, you get a little more electric and then people try to come in and they get, and they're like, I'm out of here. And your body's like, see, I told you they're all bad. And it gets more, right?

And I definitely know that that is true. I would say, except for my family, I'm very vocal there. I mean, my mom tells me all the time, you just hate humanity and you've totally given up. She does that by 24. And she's not wrong. I mean, she's not. I don't

I wouldn't say I'm a pro-people person, but I do think when it comes to friends, because it's gone so poorly, I am willing to bend over backwards where I used to be to the point where it was constantly hurting me so they wouldn't know I had an issue just so they wouldn't leave. I know, but that's not connection. That's still performative. Yeah.

Correct. It is. And I think that's why I always find people so draining. Well, and they find you draining because they know they're not getting you. They're getting some version. Right. Some, I'm just taking it like you're talking about this politician that I think is the evil, the antichrist. And you're like, you were all like, we love him. And you're like, yeah, they know their bodies know that she's not with us.

Right. And vice versa. Instead of being like, man, I don't I totally disagree with that. Let's go get nachos and figure this out. Your other response is the other end of the pendulum. It's the other end of the of the barbell, which is you're an idiot. Y'all are wrong. I hate humanity. And you run away. Right. You run away. And life is in between the barbells.

It's not squashing who you are, and it's also gently connecting with other people. And that – I want to give you so much grace. That sucks for you because you tried that, and it got you hurt. And I guess the only – the worst part I have – the worst thing I have to tell you is that's the only path to freedom. Right. Ugh. And you picked a profession that weaponizes human connection.

Well, I'm going to say it's going to make it even worse. So I actually don't really want to be an attorney. I actually want to work as a special agent for the FBI. That's always been my goal. So I really want to work with human trafficking. So it's not like I'm going into something

Have you ever met with someone who does human trafficking, like actual for real FBI special agents? I've met with many agents. They've been in violent crimes because I'm also interested in homicide and I'm a police dispatcher. So I've done that for three years. Good God. There are a few more stressful jobs on planet Earth than dispatch.

Yeah, I'm at max capacity. You could say that, and I've been at that for three years now. Hey, I want you to Google, when we get off this call, I want you to Google secondary traumatic stress. Okay. Okay? I was just talking to a previous caller about it. Right. When you work adjacent to other people's pain, this is a law student, this is a lawyer, this is a surgeon, this is a policeman, this is a dispatch. You carry a little bitty piece of that home with you.

And your backpack was already pretty full of rocks from your childhood. You can't carry it anymore. And it comes out in loneliness. It comes out in anxiety. It comes out in all these different maladies. And we play whack-a-mole with the maladies. But you're a pretty amazing woman, Madison. Thank you. And you're worth being loved. I hope so. I'm telling you. And also, special agents spend nine hours a day in a car by themselves.

They spent nine hours a day in a car, three hours writing up a report. Like you picked the loneliest job on the planet. Or my dad did homicide for years. It's an amazing profession. It's such a gift. And it shapes the way you see the world. It shifts your bell curve. Right. Right. So you have to go over and above and being in relationship with other people.

to connect? I guess. Yeah. I mean, like this. Yeah. I mean, my biggest question, I mean, is, I mean, family is kind of what it is. You know, I'm in counseling separate from this to try to help learn how to manage those types of behaviors. What types of behaviors? Hold on. What are you managing? So, I mean, like, I don't want to just throw away my family. Of course. You know, I want to make it

work as best I can. Let me give you, let me give you one line. It'll be worth most of your counseling. Okay. They don't get a vote. They don't get a vote. Oh, could you tell them that? Hey, listen, their job is to, they're your mom and dad. Their job is to lob bad advice at you all day.

They love you. That's a parent's job. It's just always like, oh, you know about this and I would do that and I can't believe. That's your job. It's your job as the adult, as the 24, about 25 year old, about to be a licensed attorney or maybe an unlicensed attorney, but a law student graduate, a jurist doctor, a full-time police dispatcher. It's your job to create boundaries. Right. To say, hey, mom, I know. I love you. You need to come home. You never call your dad. You are so ungrateful. Hey, mom, I got to go.

And knowing my mom doesn't get a vote. And I'll tell you, Madison, my mom is amazing. My dad, incredible. They do not get a vote in my life. I'm a grownup. I decided where my family's going for holidays or when. And then they, as adults, get to decide if they want to be a part of that. I get to decide when they say, hey, here's when we're doing it. I get to decide if we're going to be a part of that. But they don't get a vote. And in fact, part of me loving them is not giving them a vote. Because love doesn't mean I'm just doing whatever they say, whenever they say it.

Right. But you still are trying to figure out how to please them and you can't. Yes, and I know I get... I'm trying to not get angry because they show...

They're very fearful people. The family that I talk to are. So everything when it comes to love is shown through fear and worry and stress. Sure. So they are not supportive of my plans. I mean, I live at home, so they do support me in that way. But it's not like I could have a conversation about my future because I don't want to talk about it. But this is part of being an adult. Right. You live in their house, and so you live by their rules. Right. And if you don't want them to have a vote,

Then you go get your own apartment. Exactly. And that's part of the growing up part. And I do love them. I know, I know, I know. You can love somebody dearly and say, I need some space. Both of those are true. Right. Right. Those aren't incompatible with each other. But what I'm saying is you wake up every day and you outsource how you feel to other people. And then you get upset with them because they're not, they don't, you're asking them to love you in a way that don't even know what you're asking them.

And they're trying to love you by giving you rent and by giving you their fear scare stories. And they're trying to love you by saying, watch out. And unless you say, hey, I have heard very clear that you think going to the FBI is a dangerous and dumb idea. I have heard very clearly that you don't think I'm capable of X or Y or Z. That's fine. I appreciate you sharing your concerns. From this point forward, either I want to hear that you accept my job choices and you're excited for me, or I don't want to talk about it. Is that okay?

And then what you've done is you put a boundary and then they can opt out. Nope. We're going to keep telling you. Okay, well then I'm going to choose to go get my own place or yeah. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So one of our things at our house over the holidays, even still Madison is we don't know politic talks, no politics because we, my family, we are all over the place when it comes to politics and it gets preheated pretty fast and somebody will pop in with something. Everyone will look at them and they'll go, Oh yeah, we're not talking. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. We're not doing that. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

Because we totally just talk about it. And if one person won't shut up about politics, I will say, because I'm an adult, I'm going to go grab something to eat. I'm going to head out and go get some ice cream. And that is me not expecting them to do my job, which is to regulate my emotions. It's my job. You see what I'm saying?

I do. And I definitely think I've been, I definitely was never doing that before. I do think I'm trying to get better about that. Of course you are. I'm so proud of you, dude. I'm so proud of you. Like walking away or I'm just, I'm going to go upstairs or like, this isn't worth trying to prove to you sort of a thing. I know, but Madison, your whole life right now is trying to prove. Yeah, it is. Stop, stop. You're good. You're an amazing young woman who's dedicating her life to serving everybody. Stop, stop running.

Because you're going to get that law degree and you're going to go to bed that night. You're going to wake up. You're going to look in the morning and you'll still be you. You'll realize you went with you across that graduation stage. And then you'll get accepted into Quantico and you'll go out to the FBI training and you will realize, oh, I went with me here too. And what's wrong with you? Nothing. You're amazing. You've had a tough row. You're tough. But you don't believe that. And you keep going back to your parents for that belief and they're not giving it to you. It's not going to come from them. So they don't get a vote.

You have to decide I'm worth being loved. And if somebody hurts you, okay, fine. But you're in a classic trap that I'm seeing it from like a band of 21 year olds to about 30 year olds, 35 year olds, which is I want all of, I want everything that I want all in a row, all at the same time. And I don't want anyone to,

make me uncomfortable anyway at any point in this journey so i want to live with my parents and have no rent but i want them to do whatever i say and to love me exactly in the same way that i want it even though they've never been able to do that and i want to work full-time and i want to go to law school and i don't want to get anxious and i don't want to lose sleep but i don't want to have to sleep it's going to come at a cost man your body's going to go all right i quit you're getting close to that madison maybe go down to part-time on your dispatch job maybe graduate and since you're not taking the bar take a summer off

Maybe look at how much you're making from the dispatch job and see if you can replicate that at a coffee shop for crying out loud for right now. Maybe look in the mirror and say, I'm worth being loved. My mom and dad don't get a vote. I'm taking their free rent. So I've got to, I got to be home when they say I got to be home, but I'm not going to go to them for that refill anymore because they can't. That tool's not in their toolkit. That's cool. You're worth being loved, Madison. Thanks for the call. I'm going to send you a copy of building a non anxious life is my gift to you. I want you to read that book.

I want you to begin to look around your own life and say, where am I out of whack and where's my body trying to get my attention? I'm really grateful that people like you are out there, Madison, making our lives better. I want you to make your life better too. We'll be right back.

Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com.

All right, we're back. Let's talk social, Kelly. Yes. So I was off social media for Lent. So I'm just now back on. So I'm scrolling through and see what all you've done. You were so lovely and pleasant when you were off. Actually, I will tell you, it was wonderful. I bet it was amazing. It was great. And so I'm just scrolling back through and here's one that I found that I loved. You cannot think yourself into being well or into good mental health. You have to act.

Connect with friends, love, lift weights, seek purpose, laugh, work, write down negative thoughts, rest, play, heal, eat well, pray, serve, do hard things. These are all actions. Go make it happen. Yeah, I think that's a line from the book. I think the way I wrote it was the great lie of our mental health community over the last 150 years or 200 years has been

Mental health is just getting all the right thoughts in the right order. And bipolar, schizophrenia, OCD are just a disordering of those thoughts. And so you just got to get all the thoughts in the right order. And I think we've known this intuitively. And I've talked to some psychologists and like, no, we all know that. That's not what we preach. We preach, come sit in our office for an hour. We'll talk to you for an hour and then go think about these things and implement them.

I think often, go do. Go serve somebody. Go lift weights. Go for a run. Go for a walk. Go do something. Go be active and let some of those stress chemicals cycle through your body. Give your brain a chance to go be in nature. Go get some sunshine. We're just a walking solar battery. Go get some sun. Go do. And often, I find when I go do, my thoughts get a little more clear and my path gets a little more clear.

lightened and sometimes the path is go see a counselor i need to talk to somebody about that but it just doesn't feel all jumbled up all over me all at the same time right so yes thinking about things is important but more important is writing them down yes being reflective is really important but so is creating an actual plan and then actually going to do the thing so good call on that one kelly appreciate you hey love you guys for listening thank you all for watching listening and riding with us man we're so so grateful have a good week bye