Caller: “My Husband Blames Me for Getting Pregnant”

How do I move forward when my husband still blames me for our fourth baby? I knew he wouldn't be thrilled, but instead he was actually very angry. He ended up saying that it was all my fault. I could have known myself better, I should have been distracting myself better. What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloni Show, coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, taking your calls on your mental and emotional health, your families, your marriages, your kids, whatever you got going on in your life, pull up a seat, and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on the show, I would love to have you. Real people with real challenges, click the link in the show notes and we will get you on. I'm so grateful that you're spending your time with us. Let's go to Washington, DC and talk to Ann. Hey, Ann, what's going on? So my question is, how do I move forward when my husband still blames me for our fourth baby? Tell me about that. So, before we got married for like over 10 years and before we got married, we talked about kids. You know, we kind of played the back and forth game between three and six and four and five. We kind of settled on four and every time we were ready to have another kid, like we were actually ready for ready for our first, our second, our third, first, we were pretty easy. The third took a good long while. And then when our third was over a year, I guess he said, you know, I think we should wait on the course. We hadn't had an actual conversation about having another one at that time. But I was like, okay, that that's fine. There's no conversation about not having any more or anything like that. And then a couple months after that, lo and behold, I'm pregnant with a horse. And I knew he wouldn't be thrilled. I knew that their D-shock and probably some initial disappointment and all that, we kind of have to work through that together. We felt that I was hoping for, but instead he was actually very angry. He initially had the stock, but you know, obviously it wasn't happy shock. And then he started to get sarcastic and kind of mean. And he initially accused me of getting pregnant on purpose, and that made me mad. And I obviously denied that. And then he ended up just turning around and saying that it was all my, this is all my fault. I could have known myself better. I should have been tracking myself better. Okay, so bring me to right now, is the baby been born yet? Yes, he's almost here. Okay. She is lovely. Okay. And I brought it up to him like maybe the beginning of the summer. And I had told him that we've had other issues before this, but that like I, when I want to tell him something that's bothering me or that I feel he could know, like that blame now physically sit there and I can physically feel it, and it makes me pull back. What does that mean? You can physically feel it, like it sits in my chest, like I physically feel that heaviness. And it actually makes me go. And then I don't tell him anything. Okay. What are some other things besides finding out about the fourth baby, who of course now she's personified, right? She's this amazing person. Yeah. And it's hard. It's easy. Let me say this way. It's easy to see the joy and amazing human being in front of you bouncing on your knee that you're holding at night, whatever. And to begin to reverse engineer things that were said in a really heated moment over a year and a half ago now, like and through that lens of who would say this about this little, you get what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah, and I mean, when I brought that up, he, he kind of stopped me and he's like first off. Like I love first so much, he is amazing. I mean, he obviously takes care of her so well. He's a great dad. But also the way that he ended up kind of treating me through the pregnancy, he very much hold back and left me alone. Okay. So let's deal with that challenge. Okay. The underneath, so here's what I'm gonna say, what he said was wrong, stupid, dumb, whatever. Okay. And, and this is an uncomfortable land, right? I have a, I have a lifetime, but especially a professional lifetime of giving people grace in huge emotional moments when they say stupid things. But I want to see and you can't unsee them and there's not that they go away. But I have said things in big, heated emotional situations that I didn't mean, I didn't, I didn't want, they just, I mean, I'm just my body, I view it as my body exploded. Imature? Yes. Wrong, hurtful. Yes. Did I mean it now, right? And so it's, it's, it's not that there's any past whatsoever. What matters to me is who are you after you say that thing, right? And do you do the work so that never happens again, ever? And like I said, like putting in the work for 10 years now, like I have almost none of those, right? I'm pretty controlled, most of the time, like wherever happened to be. What, you have four kids, you'll have, you see him being a good dad. But underneath that, you'll have this thing called, y'all are married. Where's the fracture there? Is it that this thing has been festering for 18 months for, for two years and you'll just haven't had it out yet. You haven't cleared the deck because you're, because it's still, it's still in your spirit and you want to just say, I want to work through this thing. You weren't here for me. You left me alone. Is it that you realize, oh, that guy can do that now? Is it this realization that you might be married to somebody different than you? Not that who's going to say something stupid. But he'll go nine months and leave me all alone if he, if he gets in enough of a timber tantrum. Like what is the thing, what's underneath it, where's that fracture? Yeah. Well, because when I brought it up to him at the beginning of the summer, just in like, I feel like I can't actually talk to him, you know, and he said he loves her and everything. He did say he seems to be like, I still think it's your fall. Okay. Um, so I mean, we've had, I think partially for him, just based on the fact that our three other kids, we were okay with having them. Is that loss of control? That we just, I mean, I don't know so many of our friends have had this happen, but we hadn't. So for him to suddenly feel like I didn't have a say in this, which I mean, I was more okay. So like a baby, a baby to me, you know, right, right, right. But I don't want to dismiss his like, you're at, you're not shalons. I don't want to dismiss. The big deal for him, but what, what the challenge is that you don't have a structure, you don't have a place, you don't have a safe place that's just y'all's where y'all can say things and even disagree on things and that's okay without it being blame one loss. I'm over you. You're over me. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because there's been, there's this hovering. You did this to us and it feels like there's been 24 months of trying to reclaim your power position. And however that's worked, that exchange of no, this is all you, this is all you, somebody has to say, I'm not, I'm not against you. How do we heal this thing? You hurt me, right? Yeah. Otherwise, it just, it will just go like, it will just go back and forth and back and forth forever. Yeah. We've tried to heal other things and it definitely becomes more of a like he broke it, but then he expects me to fix it and he doesn't really want to participate in the fixing of it. So, let me just, what are you going to do, Anne? Are you going to leave? Are you thinking about leaving? Well, no, okay, but I don't really don't, because just based on past things, he doesn't really get involved, it doesn't really want to, I guess, because he doesn't, in trying to actually heal and move on something, and I don't know, like, how I'm supposed to move on from it if it's just kind of always going to sit there. And then I do wonder, the next thing that happens that he doesn't like, is that going to turn into my fault all of those? Of course, so the. I guess I'll say a few things here. The first one is, this is an uncomfortable, frustrating, vulnerable position to find yourself when everybody in any sort of relationship work in like boss employee, romantic relationship, kid and parent, any relationship at the end of the day, when all of the smoke is cleared away, all you can control is you. And so if you're married to a guy who said something pretty awful 24 months ago, and then all but abandoned you during the pregnancy, whatever that means, and you and I could spend a couple hours digging into what that means. But just went radio silent on you for the duration of a fourth pregnancy. Well also, like as you said, he's a great dad, so we showed up for the other three kids, and he's been good with this new baby who's come, but you felt left on the sidelines. If you're saying to yourself, I'm never going to leave him, I'm in this thing. Then the, and I know that he is probably, and I want to hang on to that word, not going to dot dot dot, whatever. Ever come back and say, you know what, I screwed that up. You know what? It wasn't your fault. It just happened and we were both having unprotected sex, and this thing, it happened and thank God it did because she's amazing, right? If you think that's never going to happen, then every day you wake up scratching and clawing and fighting for that thing to happen is a, is a strange choice for you to be miserable in your own skin, because you can't make it happen and you even said, I don't think it's ever going to happen. So the question becomes, what must be true for you to show up and become the person you want to be? Joyful. Well, laughter. Full of whatever. Yeah. That's hard. It's very hard because that's because that's all you can control. Now what I, what I, what I do want to challenge you on is, and not just you challenge him, challenge all married couples is almost always these conversations start with a goal in mind. I want to feel better about a thing you did to me, or I want you to do something different. And anytime conversations are approached with those two mindsets from the outset, it can only be a one or lost situation. The real solution to bad word, the real healing here is you looking at him saying, I want to be married to you and I'm going to stay married to you unless you leave me. And since I'm doing that, I want us to build the greatest marriage in the world. What do we want that to look like? And part of that conversation will be practical. Part of that conversation will be existential. I want this place to feel a certain way. And some of that will be I want to be able to have something happen and you not blame me for it. That is a us doing a thing together, not a me versus you. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. There's real, real vulnerability there because he might look at you and say, no, I like things where they are. I don't want to have another one of your long conversations and then he goes to the next room and turns TV on. That could happen. But my guess really when we had conversations like that, it doesn't, you know, it ends up being like me talking and then nothing changes, but I guess it's him. And the rhythm is, I kind of like my life, I've got a weather and storms every once in a while, all weather them and then we'll go back to the way things are. Even if the storms get bigger, if they get louder, it doesn't matter. I got to weather these storms. And then both of you over time settle for what I think is the worst sentence, not the worst, one of the worst sentences in the English language, which is this is just the way things are. I've got to go back. It starts to feel that way. Yeah. And I've got a great, a great buddy, Justin McGrabber, she's a brilliant thinker and writer. But he says like, no, that's almost never the case. It's the way things are the way you all decide they're going to be. What should be, hopefully, is the most empowering thing I could tell anybody. But here I'm talking to you. And so you've already decided he would want to build something new with me. Being curious about like, what is it about us? What is it about me that makes it, what about you that makes it so hard for you to accept it? Sometimes things just happen and we're going to roll with it. What is it? What's so hard about looking at your wife and saying, I'm sorry, I was wrong. See the difference. There's a curiosity to that that's different than you never say you never like one, the one of those is judgment. One of those is curiosity. Yeah. You can get off this phone feeling super defeated, like, oh, he's not going to change, right? Or you could get off saying, a, I can only be responsible for me. So what must be true? Friends, coffee dates, exercise, I'm going to run a marathon, I'm going to write a novel, like whatever, I'm going to start a garden in the backyard, like whatever you be honest with you about what must be true for you to show up as the person you want to be. I want to be a person of joy. So when you start, I'm just going to back away and walk out of the room. I'm not going to engage in the fight because it's just you're going to weather my storm and then I'm going to feel a little bit better, but then worse and then tomorrow will be the exact same. I'm going to break that cycle. Yeah, except exactly how it goes. Exactly. So the one person you can change is you. So when it starts, just stop it. And take radical ownership, I'm about to start one of my and diatribes. I'm not doing that. I'm going to go for a walk and leave off the, because you don't listen to me anyway, leave that part off. Go write down what you want to say and then tear it out and throw in the track, like get it out of your body. Yeah. And then you start to over time become the person you want to be, which is calm, loving, after filled, fun, adventurous, what, I don't know what words that you want to describe you, right? I'm giving you all the words I like for me, but my life's words would be totally different, right? But everyone's got their own things. But what do you, how do you want to enter the world? And have you and your husband backed up and said, Hey, we have a family of six now. The marriage we had does not exist. It is over. And we get to do whatever we want next because I promise you, he's not super happy. Either is he? Maybe he is. No. Okay. No, I finally got him to admit that. Okay. So, instead of saying, like, why can't you and what, have you all had that conversation? Like, what do you want? What do you want the house to feel like? How do we get there? How can I love you? I mean, I've tried, I've tried often on through the years. Well, we'll kind of talk about things that we can eat through the things or like what I'm looking for, what you're looking for, what we can do to actually follow through on that chain. And he just doesn't change. Like, he doesn't actually do it. He doesn't do what he says he's going to do. So then we end up just literally stuck where we've been. Okay. In that scenario, who can you control there? Oh, just me. Yeah. And if you're only doing your part of what you committed to because he said he would do his part, then yeah, it always, it always just stopped. One of y'all stops. The other person stops. Yeah. But if you say, like, no, I made this commitment, I'm going to be a person who keeps my promises to myself. That's really hard to do. It's so hard to do. It's really hard to do. It's so hard to do, especially when it could be so different. When that guy could wake up every day and open his eyes and think all of my day is about how can I make her life a little bit better or a lot better so that we can both have the house that we want. And he crosses his fingers that you open your eyes with the same exact thought, except towards him. But when you get in a standoff of what about me and what about this and you did this a long time ago and you never do this in the present, it just gets in that big loop, de loop, de loop, de loop, and it never ends. It takes one, like, a marriage is made up of two people. It takes one person to change a relationship, one person to change changes the relationship. Thanks for the call, sister. We come back. A woman asks how to help her husband see the reality of his struggling business. We'll be right back. One of the most overlooked aspects of women's health is how hormones affect almost everything in their body, energy, mood, sleep, physical health, and so much more. I talk to women all day. all the time who are dealing with brain fog, sleep issues, mood swings, and they don't know why. That's exactly what joy and blocs exist to support. They offer science-backed care to help you feel better and live longer. 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Or click the link in the description. All right, we've got less than 90 days until the full weight of the holiday season is upon us. And you know how it goes. Every year, as the calendar starts filling up, you tell yourself, I'm not gonna let the holiday madness get to me this year. I'm gonna slow down and actually enjoy the holidays. I'm gonna actually be present, not just physically in whatever room. I happen to find myself in. And then you're racing around the dinners, parties, kids' activities, it's madness, and you're drained, and the holidays become a burden. I've done the same thing. But here's one thing I've learned. One of the best ways you can slow down and work on being present long before the holiday season hits is staying grounded in your spiritual life. Howl is the number one Christian Prayer Meditation app in the world, and I use it almost every day of my life for that very reason, to ground myself in my spiritual life and my spiritual practices. Some mornings it's five minutes on the drive to work. Some nights it's a sleep prayer before bed. Whatever the moment is, HowlO helps me practice presence. Before the holidays takes everything from us and makes us all super busy, I'm gonna stay committed and I'm gonna invite you to stay committed to practice being present with HowlO. You can try HowlO for free for 90 days at HowlO.com/Deloney. Start now and HowlO will be free for you to try through the holiday season. That's HowlO.com/Deloney. All right, let's go to Detroit, Michigan and talk to Deer Marie. What's up Marie? - Hi, how are you? - Awesome, how are you? - I'm here, I'm live in-- - There we go, there we go. I'm glad you're on this side of the dirt. It's awesome to talk to you. - Yeah. - How are you? - All right, what's going on? - I'm going okay. - I just asked you that question, what's going on? - Yeah, so my husband is a through and through entrepreneur and his business is struggling and it is affecting so much of our marriage. And I don't know where to go, what to say or what to do. - When you say struggling, tell me about that word. Was that mean, paint me a picture? - So he's been in business for himself for different categories of business. For the last, last 10 years has been the same company that he's been doing and in 10 years, at the last six months, he has not paid himself. Any living wage is just enough to get by. I don't count on his income to come home. Everything goes back to the business. It's invasive, it's so invasive, it's just daily life. For me and my son, him and Arson, yeah, it's a struggle. - Has it always been a struggle with all of his different businesses or you'll just get an rough patch? - No, he has kind of struggled with a lot of things, I don't know what to do, but I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, but I don't know what to do. I kind of struggled with them from the get-go. - So he's not what I would call a true entrepreneur. He's somebody who desperately wants to wear that identity. - Yes. - Right? - Yes. - Like I've known law enforcement agents of all different agencies who they walk in and they've got nothing, they've got no badge out or nothing. You know, oh, that guy means business. And I can buy a blue and yellow FBI jacket off Amazon today, right? So I'm gonna put that on and walk around. That doesn't make me that thing, right? - Right. - So how long have y'all been together? How have you been married? - So we've been friends for, I can't even tell you how long we've been friends for. We've been married for, this is almost 11 years coming up soon. We were dating for about two years, two, three years before we got married. - So have y'all sat down and had the, not the business fight or the money fight, but the, I'm losing my husband and I feel like I'm losing my family discussion? - Yes. - How'd that go? - Yes. It did not go well. - Tell me about it. - It did not go well. - I tell him, you know, I'm feeling like this is very, you know, just becoming so invasive that I disconnect. - What does invasive mean? That he's always on the phone, he's always got his laptop up. He's always stressed. - Always on the phone, always stressed. Always like the only conversation that he has is work. Work, business, work people, like his, you know, his life, I don't even know where his life is anymore. It's just work life. - And when you said, "Hey, I miss my husband," what did he say? - He thinks that he's making like these big improvements and there are, there are a few improvement improvements in the past 10 years where maybe he can adjust his schedule a little bit more to, you know, go get our son from school or, you know, do a couple things here and there, but it's, I think the picture that he sees is a much bigger picture than what I feel. - Okay, and I think what would help him out and would help you out tremendously would be you getting some true clarity on what do you want. If you were to give him a map that said, this is the path towards the home I want us to have. What would be on that path? Quit your job. Go take a quote unquote, I'm saying this jokingly 'cause I'm a 100% commission in my job. Like go get a real job, like with salary and benefits and like vacation, I want you off your phone, the moment you walk in the house. And if your business can't survive, you having dinner with your family, then it's not much of a business. I want the business to be in service to the life that we're building together, not the other way around. And by the way, there's gonna be always seasons in every business, whether you're a 1099 employee or a W2 employee or you're just a straight up entrepreneur, you, if you don't, if you don't make a sale, you don't eat, right? Every business has seasons where it's just wild and it's busy, but it's not life, right? It's part of, it's just winter. I put the codes on and then spring's coming. But that, but what would, what, if you were clear 'cause I'm, my fear for you is what you're looking for is you wanna feel a certain way. And that feeling that you're looking for, if you try to get it first through feeling, it will continue to move the finish line on you. And you'll say you never picked the kids up from school and they'll be like, got it. I'm gonna pick the kids up from school that are sun up twice a week. He'll do it, he'll do it. He'll figure it out, he'll do it, and he'll get home. And he might be on the phone, the hallway in the line, the hallway out the line with the kid in the car, like whatever, and really you have to then go, oh, that's not really, I actually want you engaged. I want you off your phone. I wanna be more important than the next deal you think you're gonna make. I'm worried about our bills. I want us to bring home X amount of dollars every month. So that I can breathe. But if you're always like, I want to just feel like he likes me, I want to feel like he's a part of his family, that will always be a target that you can never nail down 'cause it's always gonna move on you. Right? So if I was just to, like, call you right now, what do you want? Like, be specific. What would you rattle off the top of your head without thinking too much about it? - I want to feel important. Okay. Tell me what does that look like? Pay me a picture of what he would do to make you feel important. Just to turn off the phone. Okay. There you go. Great. That's the biggest thing. Okay. To have a conversation, that's not involved with work. Okay. What would you like to talk to him about? Anything, anything. Like he is going through therapy finally in the last six months that's been helpful. He's ADHD, anxiety, depression, all of those things he's got going on. And he's realizing that he doesn't have any hobbies. He doesn't know what his interests are. And that's what I want to know. I want to know who he is. Like to rediscover who he is. There you go. Would he invite you to therapy with him? I mean, if you asked, would he let you go with him? Um, his therapist did offer and he said he wasn't ready yet. So I said, that was okay. So I would circle back to that and say, I'm really proud of you for going. I would love to go with you one day. And if you told him what you told me, that's just what you just had softened me up. Like I want to rediscover this amazing man I married. Because, because, man, listen, he could be a total jerk, a total business first, family second. I know those guys, I speak to those guys all over the country. Those guys come to my house as their marriages are blowing up and stay at my house. I get it. And I talk to way, way, way more men who feel completely trapped. They, they feel like a failure at home. They feel like a failure with their kids. They feel like a failure at their job and their job as a metric, which is how many dollars are you making? And it's never enough for them, for their employees, for their people, for taxes, like right. And so they live in a failure factory. And the only, I'll say for me, the only tool I knew was a gas pedal. Hit it harder. Get more jobs, more deals, more things, more business, more this. And that's the only thing I knew to do to help my family. And then it becomes a very tight racetrack that I'm zooming around, but it's actually a spiral down to the bottom, right? Yes. I feel like that, that's where he is. Okay. From from my perspective. Do you think he, does this man love you? I think so. No. I think he does. Do you think he does or do you, you know, this man loves me? He loves me. Does he love your son? Oh, more than anything. Okay. I heard this, I think it was Alex Hermose the other day said this and it really like was a light bulb moment for me. So much so that I texted my own wife. And man, this can get over dramatic and overplayed, but man, it was really powerful to me. He said, a man's capacity is his wife's belief in him. You believe in him. And if you believe in him as a lover, as a husband, as a best friend that you're desperate to get to know all over again, who you know is hurting from a bunch of different angles and his only solution that he thinks he's protecting you by walling you off and keeping you out. And you want to know him. But you don't believe in him in his business acumen. Those are two different things, right? A lot of it. A lot of folks get those mixed up. You know, I got a lot of friends that are the best guys right or die and they are awful at business. I wouldn't hire them. You know, I mean, so that's hard. But like if you're honest about here's the places I believe in him and I can look him in the eye and hold his face and say, I believe in you. I believe you're a good husband. But I want you to know that like I'm you know what I'm saying? I'm just I'm I'm I'm wondering if the path forward here and I can be way off base is from the inside out from his spirit out to the business, not all the business problems back inside the middle of his chest where you really want to be. But all that I think starts with you being as honest with him as you were just were with me. What you said to me was really powerful. I want you to put your phone away. I just want to talk to you because we're friends. I want to get to know you and I want you to want to get to know me. I'm your wife. For God's sake. Yeah. Right. And like making no mistake. Okay. This is really a scary vulnerable exchange because he might look at you and say, I don't want to get to know you. Right. Yeah. My challenge before you before him before anybody who's in a romantic relationship is that's the greatest risk a person could take. You want to be like Arthur Brooks talks about this. You want to be an entrepreneur. Open your heart up. That's the biggest risk with the biggest return on it possible. But when it comes, I mean, you can, I've sat with business owners and said like, here's the numbers. You don't have a business. You have a hobby and this hobby is killing you. I've sat with talk to God. I can't count the number of business owners. I've talked to who always have a scheme, a deal of this. If this this, if this next thing next thing just hits, then we'll all get to and it's tough to get people out of that mindset, especially when they've identified themselves by the by the badge they put on their chest that says entrepreneur. This is what this is who I am. I would challenge him if he was to call me and say, no, no, no, you're your husband and you're a dad. In the job you have taken on that supports those two main roles is one where you're in business for yourself. How's that working out for you? That's really hard to hear from a wife who's heartbroken and sad. Path forward for for you right now is be very clear about what you want. Specific tactical things you'd want him to do and be very clear about being open to, how can I love you well? What are some specific things I could do for you? And with those things in mind, then what must be true about work and then what must be true about our finances? Who do we want to be? I think it's great that he's going to counseling. I think it would be even greater if you continue to say, hey, I'm really interested in getting to know you because I love you. I want to re-know you. You're different man than the guy married a decade ago. I want to get to know this guy and I would love to come to your counseling session if you would have me. And I hate this for both of y'all because I can hear him struggling. I can hear you struggling. Just ask, don't give up on him and don't give up on you. Thanks for the call. We come back. A man asks how he can forgive his wife after her affair so they can co-parent well after the divorce. We'll be right back. Here's something I've learned over the years, sitting with young men who are struggling with trauma, addiction, mental health challenges or other destructive behaviors. One 50-minute session a week might not be enough to turn things around and to help facilitate major change. This is where capstone wellness can help. 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That's capstonewellness.com/delony. All right, let's go out to Salt Lake City, Utah and talk to Brady. Hey, Brady, what's up, man? How's it going? Doing all right, man. How are you? I'm doing pretty good. Excellent. What's going on? So you talked to my wife, Emily, a couple of weeks ago about an affair that she had and how I wanted to divorce and stuff, but the divorce proceedings and everything, you know, they take time. Okay, so I've talked to your wife before. Yes. Okay. Two or three weeks ago. Okay, when you first said, you talked to my wife, I was like, my first thought was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I didn't. Okay, no, no, no, not like that. So she called into the show. Yep. Okay. And what was the call about? She had an affair? Oh, yeah, she had an affair and everything. Okay. And what was over the road trucking? came home and there was a guy here. Oh, okay. And so what was the consensus to the call? Basically to allow me to get a divorce and something about three months, but I really wasn't listening to her. I mean, I can barely stand to look at her. I'm going to be real. Okay. I, it's coming back to me slowly. You were an overtruck road trucker. You were gone a lot providing for your family and she hooked up with a neighbor. Is that right? No. One of her high school friends. There you go. Okay. Um, and you wanted, you said I'm out and she wanted to work on it. Is that right? Yep. Okay. Um, so now I'm up to speed. How can I help you, brother? All right. You ready for this one? Bring it. How do you forgive your spouse when you have kids together? I mean, on all honesty, like she took the kids down to, uh, she took them out of state. She's down there as I want to somewhere. I'm not going to say where, but, uh, it's just hard because now it's like we don't have the court orders or anything with custody time and I mean, I'm not really, I'm getting to night access. So my question is, how do I forgive her so I can be cordial with her so I can have that relationship with my kids? Cause first and foremost, I'm always a dad. Yeah. Um, several, several big issue, big ticket issues here, okay? Um, big ticket issue number one, if she is taking your kids from you, then that could be kidnapping. I'm not seeing that's where so you can't just take kids out of the state out of state. She doesn't stay at home, mom, okay? And she had nowhere to go here. So I know me, allowing her to move down to Arizona to be with her parent. Okay. Was the best place for my kids other than with me and the way that we were communicating after the affair was not healthy for anyone. Okay. Okay. So you have signed off on her taking the kids into a more stable situation. You're an over the road trucker, so you're gone a lot and I'm local now. Okay. Look, cause my first thought would have been, well, she needs to go get a job, three jobs and get a one bedroom apartment for everybody. Right. But you signed off, said, okay, you can go halfway across the country to stay with her parents. That's going to be a better situation for them in the short term, right? Yep. I'm just going to take however long your state takes to navigate the divorce proceeding. So you filed and you're going through with it? Yep. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's a red line, dude. You're like, oh, yeah. All right. So here's a crazy concept. I want to throw at you. Okay. Okay. Forgiveness is for you, not for her. Forgiveness, think of, think of what she did as handing you an oil drum of cement. She blew your life up, brother. Oh, yeah. And she probably, she probably, well, I'll just leave it at that. And so, so, and so doing, she handed you a big oil drum of cement and said, you carry this now. Forgiveness is you setting that down and saying, I'm not carrying you what you did to me anymore. I got to deal with it. But if every day I opened my eyes and all I feel is rage and anger and every time I walk by my kid's empty bedrooms, I want to punch holes in the sheet rock. Then what you're, you might as well be waking up every morning and looking at a picture of her and saying, you know what? I'm going to let you ruin my day today. Yeah. Forgiveness says, I'm not carrying your stuff anymore. I'm setting it down. And I've got to go do the work to clean up my household, to clean up my mental and emotional health, to clean up my emotional maturity. Like, I got to go do a bunch of work because you blew this thing up. But the last thing I'm going to do while I'm re, like trying to go through all the rubble that was of my former house is, have you stand in the street and tell me I'm doing it wrong? You don't get to speak into the cleanup here. Yeah. It's that old A.A. saying, you wake up every morning and you drink a glass of tall glass of poison, hoping that she gets sick. No, I do want the best work because I know that if she thrives and the boys thrives, that makes sense. Yes. And I also know that when you, when you say that out loud, that's the right thing to say. It is. And it also makes you feel weak in your chest. Fair? Oh yeah. Yeah. A masculine response here is holding that tension without going over the edge. Yeah. It is. I feel like I wake up and you walk by the rooms and they're empty. Yes. And it's the house that's just quiet. Yes. And it would not be that way. No. It shouldn't. For no. And so the question before you is, when you wake up, what are you going to do with that? When you walk by the room. No, I'm saying when you walk by the room, I'm bringing this really practical, man. When you walk by the room, do you go right to, I can't believe and you go back to imagining her with this other guy? Well, do you do that or can you just put your forehead on their door frame and whisper a quick prayer for them? Hope you have a great day today. I should try that. You don't say that I walk by the room and it just flashes everything back. There you go. Like, yeah, words that aren't appropriate. Of course. Of course. And that's you just taking shot, like a shot after shot after shot of poison because the other greatest gift your kids could have is a regulated dad who picks up the shovel and starts cleaning up the mess that mom made. And then when it comes to court, I'm going to fight like buddy hell for my children. Absolutely. You know what I mean? But they're trying to think of a non-dorky way to say it. There's something that feels emasculating about just being freaking sad for a bit. Well, yeah, I was on Father's Day when I found out. Yeah. And you should be sad on any given Tuesday when you walk by and you kind of have forgotten. And you open the door and the house is silent. Let yourself weep, brother. Your kids aren't at your house, man. Your marriage is over. Nope. Grief is not emasculating. Grief is right. And on the other side of that, as you travel that harrowing hell that is grief, that is the family you had, the picture you had of what this thing was going to look like in five years and 10 years and 20 years it's gone, it's over. As you travel through that, you begin to say, okay, what's the thing I can do right now? I can go for a jog. Yeah, that was the hard part, like me deciding to move forward with the divorce. It wasn't like not forgetting what she did. It was, I had to grieve the life that we built, the life that we talked about in everything. And that was like the hardest process I was like, I'm not gonna lie, the first two weeks I was back and forth, mentally like I woke up and I was like, you know what, we're gonna divorce today. And then the next day, I'd go to bed, I was mad, I'd go to bed, pissed off, hating the world one, the lighted on fire. Yes. And I'd wake up and it'd be like, all right, maybe we can make this work. That's right. And it was just, that's grief. It was just, it's not going to work. It's grief. Even after I caught her, she continued. So here's the thing, grief, you're not in the past tense yet, brother. You got a ways to go. Oh yeah. And so not rushing it, not trying to flex through it, but also not laying down before it. It's attention. What are three or four things you can say, I'm Brady, I will keep my promises to myself. When I think of my kids, I'm going to write them a quick postcard and just drop it in the mail. Like 50 postcards off of Amazon or that's too much money. I'm going to go buy a spiral notebook and draw one silly stick figure, put it in the mail and mail it to them. Every time I think about it. Actually did that at office max the other day, but amazing. Good. So I'm going to give myself a routine and if you will stick to this thing for 30 days, for 60 days, what you'll do over time is you change your default setting. To every time you think about your kids, you don't think about the big hole in your chest right now, you smile, your shoulders drop. Because your body's got an action that it takes after it has that thought. It doesn't go back to, I can't believe she did and what did it look like and who's this guy and it just, that's forgiveness is, I'm going to set that oil drum of concrete down because I'm the one that, it's my back that hurts, it's my shoulders that hurt. And of course, she's got her own, but she picked hers up, right? But forgiveness is, I'm not carrying it anymore. And I'm going to treat you with dignity and respect because you, not because you technically deserve, well, I think every human deserves it, but because you're the mother of my kids and I'm going to treat the mother of my children with dignity and respect. is that's the kind of man I want to show up in the world as. And that doesn't mean you don't get in the car and bang on the steering wheel and turn the music up too loud and get angry. That's life. But it is, who do I want to be? I want to show up in the world as who? - The provider. - And it's the ability? Freedom? - There you go. And that's hard. - I don't envy you, man. - No offense, but I wouldn't try to play this with you. - I don't envy anyone I go through this, man. - It's brutal. - It's round two. That won't be a third. - Yeah. - And grief will continue for a season. - Oh yeah, oh yeah. - And by the way. - I do appreciate you taking my call. - If you ever meet somebody and y'all go out, your every alarm will go off. Everyone, every alarm you have. And so being honest about, I'm a little overzealous with phones. I'm a little overzealous with connection. Checking in, 'cause somebody blew my life up once. - Yeah. - Right, this is my new world for a season. - Yeah. - But that's for future, you right now, man. We're getting into it. I wish I had a different word, but you're in the grind season. It hurts, it sucks, it's a bummer. You changed your shift so you could be at home just in time for your kids to leave the state, right? The whole thing. - Yeah, I changed my shift before I even found out. And the day that I called the teller was basically the day I found out, was just like, damn. - Well, and so, what are you gonna do in the evenings with that time off? You gonna sit on the couch and scroll TikTok? Are you gonna go doing a softball? - Oh no, bud. - What are you doing? - Holy kickboxing. - Done. - It's much lower. - Great. Get up, sign up for a local competition. Get out there, keep having fun, right? Go out with the guys, Andrews. - Right, go out with the guys, y'all gonna be silly. Go be ridiculous, go laugh, go to an arcade, like I'm just thinking of stupid stuff to do, but like begin to ask yourself, okay, this is my new life, what do I, since I'm the only driver now, 'cause my wife got out of the car. What do I want, this one life I got, what I want to look like right now, not forever, never amen, but for right now, in this season, what I want it to look like, 'cause I'm driving, I'm gonna go to kickboxing, I'm gonna go to MMA, I'm gonna go to Jiu-Jitsu, and I'm gonna burn off that energy, I'm gonna get in shape, I'm gonna feel good about myself, I'm gonna meet brand new people, I'm gonna make friends, it's gonna be awesome, it's gonna be awesome. But man, it's a slow day by day grind, to not give in to rage, to not give in to anger, and to forgive, forgiveness is for you. Give yourself that gif, man, thanks for calling homey, we'll be right back. The advancement of AI has made it easier than ever for scammers to get a hold of your personal information. And with technology like voice matching, scammers can now use what they know about you in ways that are almost impossible to detect. The scammers already have your home address, your kids' names, your past jobs, and listen, AI is helping them get better at using that information against you. That's where delete me comes in. Delete me goes to hundreds of data broker sites that exist just to buy your personal information and sell it for profit without your consent, and they remove your information, and then they keep removing it month after month. They've already removed my information from thousands of sites, and they keep monitoring so my personal information isn't floating around out there everywhere for scammers to continue to grab. Listen, AI is changing the game. Delete me, make sure you're not an easy target. Click the link in the description or go to joindeleteme.com/delony to get 20% off an annual plan. That's J-O-I-N, joindeleteme.com/delony. All right, we're back, Kelly, let's talk. How are you? - Good, how are you? - Awesome, can I tell you something? - I have a feeling you're going to. - Last night, I feel like the new segment at the end of the show is Deloney's concert reviews. Social distortion came to town. - Oh, that's right, last night was the show. - They're my number one of all time ever. - Just so everybody knows, we had a really long day yesterday. It was a lot of each other. - A lot. - A lot. We had a brainstorm meeting for the show that was four hours, and then we went straight into a three and a half hour audiobook recording, and it was a very long like taxing, mentally taxing day. - Well, it was awesome at the end of the day, we happened to walk by each other in the hall, and you just were like, don't speak, don't say a word. - I just saw my hand, I was like, no. - I can't hear your voice. I don't want to see your face. - Yeah, so I said less, before we left yesterday, I was like, "John is earning this concert, so tell me about it." - It was, they just showed up to Nashville man, and they're in their 60s, and I tell you what, they ripped. It was incredible, it was incredible. And my favorite thing was in a roundabout way, I'm not happy that this happened, but he was the lead singer who's literally the coolest guy. - I don't know, did you, I don't think you said this was social distortion. - Yeah, I did, yes, and they're my number one of all time, favorite band ever. But Mike Nest is like, if you just look up cool anywhere, it's that guy, he's just cool. I can't describe, he came out of white pants, and like a black shirt with a deep V like you, we usually have gold chains, tattoos, all of it. He's 60 something, and he just ripped. - Now you know where I get my style from. - I know, I know. - I had a white pants yesterday. - You're rocking 'em. I own zero pair of white pants. - And we should probably keep it that way. - We're gonna keep it that way. - Yeah. - But he said after the first song, I just woke up at seven, I've been really sick. But old punk's don't cancel shows at seven o'clock, so I'm gonna need you all to sing with me Nashville. And it was a choir service last night. - So next time you tell me you're sick and canceling a show, I'm using that. - Well, you just get the answer to the calls then. Awesome. But dude, it crushed. - How were the descendants? - Do what? - Descendants were also incredible. They played 45 minutes and probably played 98 songs, 'cause their songs are like 16 seconds. And there's a few songs that are long. I will say a couple of times I was joking with the guy. I went with Pete Young and my buddy, he's a local comic, Carnot Larson, we all win. It was a blast. Pete is still my, we're too old to be in the mosh pit, but we're here, buddy. - And Pete keeps getting, I mean, Pete is constantly getting hurt, it seems. - He's the best, he's the best. But he's the one guy can count on. You want to go get wild? He's like, let's get wild. But, oh, I kept my streak. I have 100% streak, by the way. - You did your mile today? - I do my, I've kept that going. That's great. - Oh god, what streak? - My more important streak. A hundred percent since I started this job, every mosh pit I've been in in National Tennessee, somebody has been like, are you the guy on that show? - And I'm like, yes, I am. And they're like, you're for real. And I guess the internet's are so inauthentic that people think this is like a stick, like that we got in a room and planned. Like, hey, have this vibe. And it's like, nope, I'm way too old to be a mosh pit, but that's where we are. But it made me smile last night. The descendants though, they crushed. They are wild because every time I've seen them in the last few years, I've seen them a few times, they turn all the house lights on. They have no backdrop. They have no cool laser lights or whatever. They just turn the lights on. And it's like watching a high school band in a cafeteria. - That's weird. - It's super awkward, but they just get up and rip. And they're in the room. - I mean, that's the joy of like a concert. It's like, you just get to dance and be stupid because you're crashing into people and not, it's not dark. And you're like, sorry, sorry, sorry. Like yeah, I was just ramming into each other and you're like, my bad, ow, that hurt. Like when it's in the dark, it's awesome. But not them, but dude, yeah, they were great also. So it's good night all the way around. I am way too old for this, man, but I'm gonna keep going till the old beauty wise says no more. We're getting close, we're not getting on the door. I'm just gonna be one of those old guys in the back that nods a lot, but not yet, not yet. So there you go, there's the lonely concert review. - Yeah, I'm glad you had fun 'cause I know you were really, really, really looking forward to this one. - I needed it. I didn't realize I needed it, but I needed it. And I gotta stay this. I needed to spend time with my friends. Just spend too much time with me. - Yes, yes. And I love my wife more than life itself, but we've spent a lot of time together recently. And with my kids, like there was fun just to meet dudes and say, how's your family? We talked about gardening, all three of us liked to garden. I mean, stuff that 18-year-old me would have fought me over. It's cool just to hang out with dude. - Pete has an amazing garden. - It's unbelievable. Yeah, and Conner's got it as a sounding garden too. It's just cool to go hang out with you. - You're so lucky with me. - Oh, dude, I'm the lamest. - Yeah, let me run that one back to 19-year-old me. So we're gonna go get burgers at an upscale restaurant and then talk about-- - You're gonna pay $30 for a burger and talk about gardening. - Talk about gardening, and then we're gonna go kick ass. I'm so stupid, we're idiots. But dude, it was awesome, it was awesome. Listen, if you're listening to this, wherever you find yourself, go to the show, go to the show, go to the comedy set, go to the movie, go hang out with your friends, go do fun stuff with your life. That's what I got. You mean you talk about this weekly rundown? - If you want to, I don't think anybody's listening anymore, though. - They're not. Let's stay there for the next show. - Sounds good. - Awesome. Love you guys, bye.