(upbeat music) - Brought to you by my friends at Churchill Mortgage. If you're looking to buy or refinance, check them out. I've used Churchill and they are great. Go to Churchill Mortgage.com. - He was watching a TikTok on his phone and it was some woman and he was like, "Oh, see, she could do what you could do it." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" And he was like, "Well, this woman right here, "she had six kids." And look at her, she's been able to snatch herself back and-- - Once you tell them to take his TikTok phone and shove it up to-- (upbeat music) - What's going on, what's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Take in your calls. Real people going through real challenges. And we're not chatting with each other. Like on a bot, we're actually talking. Not in person, but second best thing on the phone. Real people with real challenges. Struggling with their mental and emotional health, their marriages, their kids. Whatever you got going on in your life. Pull up a seat and we're gonna figure out what's the next right move. I'd love to have you on the show. Click the link in the show notes and fill out the form and it goes to Kelly. The show's overlord and she will get you on. And hey, before we take the first call, check out the Together app. It is the best marriage app out there. It's only available for folks in the Apple Store but we're working on the Android. It is an action oriented app designed to get you off your phone and back into your marriage. Go check it out in the App Store. It's got to fresno California and talk to Shelby. What's up Shelby? - Hi there. - How are you? - All I'm doing good. I'm just watching my kids play. - Oh, that's a good thing. That's a good thing. What's going on? - Well, I am, I'm just living in constant chaos but I've got a six-year-old, a four-year-old and a three-year-old. And then we got unexpectedly pregnant. - Hello. - Yeah, with our fourth and anyway, I-- - Are you pregnant right now or did you have the fourth? - Yes, no, I'm pregnant. I'm about, I honestly, I don't even know, 27, 28 weeks. I don't even matter anymore. - Yeah, I don't matter, fuck. - Yeah, there you go. - Very much, but yeah, I know I'm just, I'm just, I'm just big and pregnant as all I am. - There you go. - Well, glad you called. - Yeah, we're getting there, thanks. - If you have to drop the phone and go run, save a kid from falling off a slide or something, all good, all good. - Okay, okay. - So what's up? - Yeah, I am, my husband, I love in the desk, but he does have a tendency to be a little bit critical of me, of my kids, but he's critical of himself too, but he's just made a couple comments over the course of my live-ish pregnancy, and maybe just before I got pregnant, kind of more so about my body, and I am like probably the heaviest I've ever been, and I'm not exactly like proud of that, and it's not the happiest that I am with my body, but I was trying, I was just getting on the track of feeling like I was gonna be able to get back in my fitness and get this and not going, and then I got pregnant, I was so sick, and then I broke my foot during my pregnancy fees, so I haven't been able to kind of tend to myself the way I want to, and he just made a handful of kind of insensitive comments in my opinions about my body and about my looks in a way, and I'm already insecure about it, and I've voiced these concerns to him in the past, and he says he's sorry, and I usually, you know, I feel like he says he's sorry, and I forgive him, and we move past it, but I feel like sometimes it's like, I just don't know where to go from here, like the bell's already been rung with some of the things he says, and-- - Give me some examples of things he said. - 'Cause here's what I think, I think you are, and I'd love to be wrong, but I think you are dramatically underselling, how much you're hurt, and I think you're underselling what kind of ask this guy is. - Can't be. - That's my hypothesis, so what are some things he has said? Well, you are dealing with the third kid in six years, managing his house, oh, and I'm pregnant too, and he walks in and says, "You know, the old body's gone," like every bit of the Texas Tennessee male in me is coming out of my skin right now, just with the thought of that. So I'd love to know what he said. - Well, it's, I don't know, there's the most hurtful one that has been recent, and this is probably the one that kind of catalysted my phone call was. He was watching a TikTok on his phone, and it was some woman and he was like, out of nowhere, he goes, "Oh, see, she could do it, you could do it." And I was like, "What are you talking about?" Like, "What are you watching?" And he was like, "Well, this woman right here, she had six kids, and look at her, she's been able to snatch herself back." - Why don't you tell him to take his TikTok phone and shove it up his butt crack and actually get to work being a father? - Well, he was like, "So she can fix herself, you can fix yourself." - You had else he could fix? - His singleness. - Well, it hurts. - No, it should, because it is insensitive and it's completely uncalled for. And dude, the. - Well. - But stop defending him, stop defending him. You have to let it sink in for a second, which is hard to do at 27 through 30 weeks pregnant, whatever you happen to be, like. - Yeah. - This is. - I just, I told him it hurts to make, to feel like my husband sees me as something that needs to be fixed. - Yes. - And that I'm a problem. - Yes. - And that my body isn't lovable the way it is. - And. - And that he's sitting there scrolling TikTok instead of being present with his three little kids. - Yeah, yeah. And so I just. - Hold on, hold on, let's back out, let's back out. 'Cause I don't want to, I'm feeling myself get over-emotional and I don't make good choices whenever I get super-over-emotional, okay? Tell me back out. Let me ask a bigger question, okay? - Yeah. - Where else is he critical of you? If you look back over the last six years of your life, or 10 years, how long you open together? Where else is he critical besides your body? - Yeah. Well, it varies, but we've gone to therapy. - Hold on, Shelby, Shelby, Shelby, Shelby. It's okay, it's all right, go for it. - Okay, I need you to stop for just a few minutes. Stop defending him. - Yeah. - And just tell me, what are other places where he's critical of you? - Oh, what I would say, oh really, out of bounds critical. We all need people in our life who call us out. That's what a good spouse does, right? But you can only call somebody out if you're seen and known, and if they spend most of their day looking for the good, if they're celebrating you, all of those things give you permission to challenge, right? - Yeah. - Where does he call you out about? - I would say a little catalyst of it was probably when we sat our first child six years ago with our daughter. And I became a stay-at-home mom 'cause that's life. And I was the homemaker and stuff, and he was raised very Southern, and I wasn't, but not that that is exactly matters. But if the house had like I cook home cooked meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, we lived on a ranch for years, and we lived two hours from the close grocery store, so I cooked every meal. So the house was messy because bellies were full, but kitchen was dirty, and I had my baby, and then I got pregnant with my son, and I was struggling to keep up with just everything, like the dishes and the kitchen and all the things, and like it wasn't filthy. We didn't live in like filth, but it was just like clutter on the counters and things like that. - Hey, Shelley, you know why? - Because you had a toddler and you were pregnant and you were running the home of a ranch. It's supposed to be messy. It's called human life. Life isn't a TikTok reel. - Yeah, my mom tends to say, I need to lower my expectations a little bit. - Yes, but it's hard to when you have, it is hard when I have someone that brings it up every time. I feel like I have a weak moment. Or the house looks a certain way. And instead of just coming in and seeing dishes and thinking, wow, she must have had a wild one today. I'm going to grab those dishes and the laundry too. - Yeah, yeah. People's not as TikTok on his phone, and then he starts scrolling and he just says, you golly, this house, look at this woman. She's keeping the house up. - Well, yeah, and I've brought up before, if you don't like the kitchen, the way it looks, there's the dishwasher, then this is how about it. I've said things, and then it gets brought up that, well, I've had a 12 hour workday outside and now I have to come home and pick up this flat. - Yes, yes, that's part of being a good teammate. That's part of two people building a life together. It's never 50/50, ever. - Yes. - There are days when it's 80/20. There's days when it's 99/1. [BLANK_AUDIO]
It's called being in it together and there are lots of days. You work a 12 hour day and you come home and because here's the thing, if you were gone, he'd have to work that same 12 hour day and then come home and make dinner and then put the kids to bed and make sure they're ready to come up in the morning. That's called life and when your partner's struggling, when your wife is there, pregnant, sick, dealing with a newborn breastfeeding also and cooking three home cook meals or having to drive five hours' round trip to the grocery store, yes, you work a 12 hour shift and you come home and you work another one because that's called being together, building a family. Yeah, and I tend to feel a little bit like that and I think a little bit is, and I'm not saying this is a good excuse, but he was definitely raised with like the woman sits and cooks and cleans and is barefooted and pregnant and does all the things and the men just come home and they're the king. But here's the thing, that's true, I was raised a certain way. My wife was raised a certain way and they're both different and I always give a ton of grace to both people, especially after the first kid is born because it's natural, it's normal to just say, oh, it's going to be like, it's like your first Christmas together. It's like, oh, we're going to do Christmas like I've always done it and it's like, well, we're going to be like, I've always done it and there is some navigation headaches there. That's part of it. So if he came home after baby one and was like, man, it's places, like I would say, dude, don't say that, pick up, but I get the impulse, right? But that's when a ride or die husband sits down with his wife and says, man, I had this picture and this is not our life. And so let's us build something that we want together. Yeah. Right? Not you got to run back what my mom did. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. I just have a hard time because I feel like we get to a place where he gets critical. And then I express it to him in little ways, like all say stuff, like don't talk to me like that or I don't appreciate that tone or, you know, this is hard for me to and we're all doing our best and or I'll even say, like, you know, that might be a big deal to you, but like, I don't care if there's some laundry on the floor. So if you have a problem with it, start the load, like yeah, or if you don't like the toys on the ground in the living room, I'm not bothered by it right now, but like you can pick them up. And I'll say things and I kind of stand up for myself and that's how I feel I'm standing up for myself. And I'm good. And I kind of feel like I've spoken my piece and I shut it down and then we move carry on, but then the jobs are there. And then I will hit ahead where he will criticize me about something and it's just like all of it comes flooding and then I just am crying and crying to him telling him how hurt I am and how mistreated I'm feeling and he will apologize and say, I'm so sorry, I don't mean it that way. I just, I don't know, he'll say, like, I just don't understand what's wrong with having standards in our home. >> Dude, every time you talk, I'm thinking less and less of him. Yeah, you should have standards. You should. Everyone should have standards. But when it comes to be married, especially in different seasons, standards are something that we negotiate. We work through together and we create them together. They're not imposed on one another, right? >> Yeah, that's a good point. >> And so, like, yes, y'all should have standards. But it's something like, hey, we're about to have a fourth kid. And so things are going to get even more bananas. And only one of our kids can quasi go to the bathroom on their own, right? She can, but she doesn't flush regularly, like, we're there, right? And so, yeah. And so, like, it's going to be bananas. Let's talk about standards and let's talk about what each one of us, like, and I think this word, and it protects us. We say the word, I need a lot. And what we all need is food and water and shelter and human interaction. But we want, though, what you want is a guy who's a part of your life. >> Yeah. >> A guy who is underneath this home, you can talk about standards. Standards for a guy whose wife is on kid number four and four kids in six years. That's a guy who gets up an hour before his 12-hour shift and does work all that he can in the house to clear the deck for his wife, because she's raising four humans. I don't care what job you're doing. It's not that. And then you get home from work and you sit in the driveway in his big truck and he exhales and maybe plays a game on his phone to clear his head and then he walks in and he's got another eight hour shift ahead of him, because that's the world he co-created. And I can be wrong here because I know that words hurt. They do and especially if you're sensitive about certain things and you're like, we all have the things that other people may not notice about our bodies or about our personalities that drive us bananas, right? We all have those things. But like my buddy Jefferson Fisher says, when you're married, you give each other the nuclear codes and we, like, that's part of being married and you hope your spouse doesn't use them. And your husband does, right? And so I have to believe that beneath the things he's saying, however hurtful those are, the real pain here is, he's not on your team. He expects you to be a puzzle piece in the life he's created for himself. He was like that sometimes, Shelby, let me, if you don't hear anything else I say, hear this. Not crazy. The only thing I would ask you to do is, and this is hard, is to stop minimizing the things going on in the middle of your chest. And what I mean by that is, it's not a little hurtful. If you go back and listen to this call, you preface some of the hurts you have with, it's not that big a deal. But he's also good. And also this, I want you just to take full ownership of how much this hurts, to feel like you're doing it all alone. I want you to find somebody who can come watch those kids for a few hours on a Saturday morning. And I want you all to, if you have to go for a walk, if you have to make a two hour drive, whatever it is, but we're not going to wait until there's a fight to have this conversation. We're going to be directive about it when things are relatively at peace, right? And we don't have peace here. We have an arms agreement, right? And so we're going to go out somewhere, or we're going to go to somebody's house who's got a ranch or something, or we're going to go out to the back barn or whatever. And I want you to have written down. Here's some of the things, and ask him, I'm going to ask you to not respond. I've written this letter, and I want to read it to you. Here is some of the things you said to me over the last six years. Here is the stories I'm making up about what you've said about me, and that I'm never going to be enough, that I don't have a spouse who actually loves and cares about me. What he cares about is the presentation of his precious little living room. Yeah. He doesn't care about the heart and spirit of his wife. He cares about how hot a woman on TikTok is. And I want you to be honest about how you feel about that, how lonely that feels, how embarrassing that feels, how shameful that feels. And then I want you to look across the table from him and say, you get to choose, do you want a ride or die wife, because I need, I want some help. I want you to be a part of this house, or do you want to sit in your almighty recliner with your cell phone, scrolling, and bark orders. And if you have to look at him and say, I'm not your mom, that's not the house you're going to have. But we can build something amazing that both of us want to be a part of. Yeah. Because the other alternative is, this keeps happening, and here's the worst part of it. Your daughter's going to hear it. Yeah, that's what scares me. I know it does. Because you've probably been people pleasing for a long time, and one of those nagging things in your spirit is, I don't want my daughter to ever have to deal with this, and she's going to learn it. No, well, she kind of has already heard my husband talk to me, and she's come up to me privately and said, well, I think you're beautiful. God almighty, dude. That breaks my heart, and she's even told me, don't talk to my mom like that, and I just, I don't, I've told him, like, I don't know how that's not, how that is a bother you. But what does he say? Nothing. He just says, I think your mother's beautiful, I don't know what you're talking about, or if I ever say, you know, your daughter's going to hear things you're saying, right? And you know, he's like, they're not, they can't hear him, like, they hear more than you think. They hear everything. All of it. All of it. They internalize all more than you think. I hate this for you. This should be the most exciting, fun, crazy time of your life. Yeah.
and I want you to when you're writing this letter, I want you to remember this. There is some data that I found when I was working on my latest book that kids, there's a U-shaped happiness curve that's actually really flattened out and kind of gone the other way, but it basically said like couples are happy then they start having kids and their happiness takes a pretty deep dip and then it comes back as the kids age and then leave the house. What researchers have found is often kids simply expose the cracks that were already there. Yeah. And so I want you to be honest about the lifetime of your relationship with him because I bet the criticism started early. I bet the comparison started early. Yeah. But he's also a hard worker, he does provide, he does have some of those values that you really kind of anchored to. Maybe he's a smoke show, right? Like there's some, whatever happened, there were things that allowed both of you to wallpaper over the cracks and kids just burst to that wallpaper. So it's not the kids that are making us unhappy, it's that they are bringing to the surface the issues in our relationship that have been there for, they may be systemic, they may have been there a long, long time. So anyway, thank you for sharing, sorry for getting, I'm not sorry, I'm not sorry for calling men to a higher standard for God's sakes. And men, if you're listening and you think, man, my house has really gotten messy, pick it up. If you think, man, my wife who's got three kids, six and under and is pregnant with a fourths really let that body go, hey, shut your freaking mouth. And two, ask your wife how you can love her well. And God help you if you ever scroll TikTok and show your wife a picture of a woman and say, look, look, come on, man, we got to be better than that. All of us. Thanks for the call, Shelby. 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I mean, so I'm just trying to work through, I guess, my mom, I guess, just like, I just just like ruining my finances. Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. I want to back out. Okay, I want you to do me a favor. Okay. I want you to not say I guess. I want you to, I know this is hard because I don't even know what's going on here, but it involves your mom. And it's like she did something and that's hard. I want you to straight forward just say my mom did the following. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yep. Okay, so what happened? Okay. Well, I guess I should preface this by saying that all everything I'm about to tell you was I was recovering from a traumatic brain injury that I've suffered. Okay. And then everything I'm about to tell you is like everything that she did to ruin my finances is like in the in the aftermath of my recovery, like through the process of my recovery. So she, so your mom ruined your finances. Yeah, we can unpack that, but you had a traumatic traumatic brain injury. You got hurt. And then during your recovery, then what'd she do? What happened? Yeah. Yep. So I guess multiple things. So here I got it. So basically the first thing I guess is that. So she, so I guess the first thing is she, she took out a credit card in my name. So my brother is a huge Kansas City chiefsand. And they went to the Kansas City chief parade because they, they won the superbowl. Yeah. Yeah, they won the Superbowl in 2023. So they flew to Kansas City to to for the for the parade. And she wanted to take my brother there. And she, she wanted to, you know, put it on the credit card and ultimately pay it off. And she, she obviously, you know, looking back on it. She obviously didn't have the credit to open a credit card in her own name. So she asked if she could open a credit card in my name. So I said, okay, I mean, that's fine. As long as you just put the flights on that, I mean, that's fine. So she did that. And it turns out it was a 15,000 limit. And she pretty much maxed it out in a month. Oh my gosh. Yep. Yep. And then also, then that would have been, that would have been, I mean, that would have been like what, like February of 2023. And then also she bought a house in August of 2024. So basically her and her husband, they hadn't been up their job for longer than a year. So basically the bank that they were working with, they weren't comfortable giving, giving them a loan unless they had a year's worth of payments sitting in their bank account. That's obviously, you know, if they, if they, um, they're, they're a big, they're a big credit risk. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. So what did your mom do? So I loaned her $23,000 of my own money to help her meet that requirement, as well as I also took out a personal loan of $18,000 to help her like meet that requirement. So you gave your mom $41,000? Yes. On top after she stole $15,000 from you fraudulently committed a crime. Yes. Yes. That's correct. Yep. And then also, um, and she didn't even, I literally took me involving a lawyer. Um, she didn't even pay me back until March of 2026. So like over 19 months later, she ultimately, you know, pay me back the money that she ultimately owed me. So she's paid you $15,000 on the credit card and she paid you $41,000 for the house loan. No, no, no, no, no, no, basically it's just like auto drafts, you know, the monthly payments of the credit card. Okay. So she hasn't paid you back crap. She's making payments. Yes. I mean, yes, it's, it's technically yes, but I mean, it doesn't come out of my bank account, I guess. Yeah. But she hasn't paid you back. That's, that's not, that's not right language. If she wrote you a check for $41,000 and wrote you a second check for $15,000, then she would have paid you in full. She's not doing that. She's on some sort of janky payment plan. Yes. And that's correct. She has not done that done. I guess, I guess what she has paid me back is the original $23,000 that I loaned her of my own money. She did pay me that pay me that back. Okay. So, so, so bring me to the conclusion here. Like, how can I help you today? Um, I mean,
I guess she tried to approach me and try to rebuild the relationship in April I want to say, but it's like, I don't even know if I even want to even rebuild the relationship honestly, because I feel like that's just such a breach of trust, honestly. Hold on, hold on, hold on. It is. It's an incredible breach of trust. And again, my oldest friend on the planet is a traumatic brain injury survivor. So I know there's a spectrum here and there's varying degrees, right? And so I'm assuming, because you're calling me, you're having a good conversation that you've got cognitive capacity back, is that fair? Yeah, I mean, obviously, I'm back to work. I want to say that of the spectrum of traumatic brain injury effects, I'm obviously, I'm back to work. So it didn't, I'm not like, I live on my own, I have two dollars a day of like, I live a very independent life. Yes, I live a very independent life, I'm obviously thankful of the life that I live. But it wasn't, it was a very difficult recovery, obviously. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a nightmare. So here's what the tension you have to hold, okay? And then I'll get to your, your big question. Tension number one is with varying degrees of cognition through a really tough recovery, every step of the way your mom has asked you and you've said yes. And so she did the digging, but you handed her the shovel and said, you could dig in my yard. And so part of you taking ownership for your role in this thing is important, because then she took that shovel and she turned and tried to bury you with it. Yeah, right? So my, if she was to call me, I would be super frustrated and upset that she asked her child to borrow money that she fraudulently broke the law and opened a credit card in your name and ran it up fifth, max it completely out. And my hypothesis, my hunch is she's trying to rebuild a relationship with you because she wants more money. And so yeah, and and honestly, I mean, so the house that she bought is in my brother's name, because she, her credit is, yeah, cool enough that it's my, my brother to, to basically own the house and use her income. Okay, Isaac, I don't like talking about people's moms. Okay, I'm prefacing this with the, I'm prefacing this by saying that your mom is a terrible person. Okay, I know. Okay. And that's how come to realize that I'm not saying that there's no glee in my heart here. It hurts to say that. I hate saying that. But I want to be that strong to tell you, I would not, and I could not sleep with myself in any way shape or fashion. If I encourage the reunion of this relationship here, it's parasitic. And the fact that she would try, she would take on this type of behavior with you and your brother, instead of taking ownership of the financial mess she's made for herself, and that she would take her burdens and dump them on her sons, especially the son who's going through a really tough rehab process to try to get out on his own. Like that's, that's terrible at a level that's hard for me to wrap my head around. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I, if you listen to my show ever, I'm always railing against people who cut their parents off because they're annoying or cut their parents off because they're under the runway. I mean, I, I, I, I, I frequently listen to you. Okay, so hear me say, it's rare for me to tell somebody, no, you should not reunite. And I'm telling you that here. If your mom comes to your house in a few years and says, Hey, I was a terrible person. I took advantage of my son after a medical incident. I used him. I violated your trust. I bait an essence stole from you. And you had to turn into a legal matter because I, I, I, I, I so lacked character. And I'm sorry. I'll take full loan. If she, if she does that in a few years, maybe, maybe okay, I wouldn't do this job if I wasn't so sold on the idea of redemption. But that's not what's happening here. You know what I'm saying? And I also like Isaac, this, this is hard for you because like you have to exhale and think about, I had this picture of having a mom that's going to be by my side during this stuff. And my life's still hard. Right? Exactly. Like, I, exactly like this was, this was supposed to be the girl that I'm supposed to, you know, whenever I eventually get wet, whenever I eventually get married, they are supposed to dance with at my wedding. And, and you're going to have to come up with a new picture because she may not, she may not be at your wedding. And that, and that's, and that's, that's, that's the really hard part. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's just straight up grief, brother. It's, it's spending some time being sad. That the, I mean, when all everything comes down in the world, the one person that should always be right or die you as your mom, and yours is not. And I hate that for you. I hate it for you. Yeah. And so spending time being sad, spending time making commitments, I will never loan family members of money ever again, ever again. Yeah. I mean, I, I obviously, I obviously, you know, will come to the realization that if I, if I ever do loan, no, no, no, I said, no, money. Don't never, ever make it a rule. I have a rule. I never loan friends or family money. I'll give it to you if I have it. But I'm never going to loan it because it is instantly changing our family relationship or our friend relationship. And it's putting me above you because you owe me now. And I'm not going to change the dynamic of the relationship. Yeah. I mean, it reminds me of, I know whenever, I, I think I remember Dave Ramsey saying that, um, you know, if, if, um, if I loan my, my dad money by the Thanksgiving dinner rolls, you know, exactly. Yeah. It's all, yeah. It, it, it makes relationships hierarchical in relationships like true family or friendships. Don't work with hierarchy. They work with acceptance and curiosity and love. And when you add, you owe me to that mix, it changes it. It, it forever disrupts it. So you have to come up with a core Isaac value. I do not loan family members money, period. And I do not communicate. I do not act in relationships with people who steal from me, who lie to my face, who take advantage of me when I'm in a vulnerable state. I don't do that. And that person happens to be your mother. And that's terrible. I hate it for you. So now your adventure in life is a to grieve this because everybody needs their mom by their side. And the second action step you got to take is begin to find adults who are down the road from you that you trust. Someone you can have coffee with once a week. Somebody you, who will, um, come over and look at life insurance policies with you to help you teach you about them or whatever. Like, but you can't just go through life with nobody. And so you have a step to take that, hopefully more people than not don't have to take, which is, I gotta go find some wise adults in my life that will be down the road. It might be a boss. It might be a co-workers father. Um, it might, any number of people and but having people in your life that will give you wisdom. I hate this has happened to you, man. But no, I cannot encourage all to rebuild a relationship or you to take her calls. Um, I will encourage you with all of my guts to never loan family money again. Love them enough to not do that. If they have a real need and you've got some money, give it to them so that they can get up the healing or help or whatever they need. But man, and I would put a freeze on my credit report because your mom has shown herself to be somebody who will steal from her, um, son. And so I'd put a freeze on my credit report so that if somebody tries to open a new line of credit in my name, it will show up and it will send me something and it will not allow that to happen. And I would also pull all three of the credit reports and see if there's any other credit cards out in your name. Thanks for a call, brother. When we come back, a woman asks how to navigate a long distance marriage with a baby on the way. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Alright, so the folks at BetterHelp just released their annual state of stigma report. It's full of all sorts of data about why people avoid getting help for their mental and emotional health challenges. 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[email protected]/deloney. All right, we are back. Hey, I have created a rundown. It's a PDF. It's simple. It is something for you and your spouse to go through once a week, just run through this weekly rundown. It's the same rundown that me and my wife do every week just to make sure on the same page of their calendars with our priorities, with our finances. Let's free download, click the link in the show notes wherever you're watching or listening to this. It's just a gift. People ask me like, what do we do at these meetings that you always tell us to have? I put it on a PDF for you and we'll ship it out to you. So click the link in the show notes and go check it out. It's got the Cleveland, Ohio in talk to Nora. Hey, Nora, what's up? >> Hey, thank you so much for taking my call. >> Of course, what's up? >> I am a little nervous, but I will just get into it. Thanks for calling. Glad you're here. >> My question is, how can my husband and I navigate our newly long distance marriage with a now unexpected baby on the way? >> What's the reason for the long distance? >> He took a new job and it is a very long plane ride away. >> How long is this new job? >> The whole time is going to be two and a half years, but he's gone 20 days at a time working 12 hour days for the full 20 days and he'll be able to be back home for 10 days. So that's kind of the rotating schedule we'll be on. >> Can you go with him? >> No, I have a business here that requires me to be in the state. >> Is he getting deployed by any chance? >> No, it's a travel construction job. >> I'm assuming the finances on this thing are pretty amazing. >> That is the only reason we're taking it because the only debt we have is our house. And after these two and a half years we will just be able to pay off our house. So it's really to be able to set us up for our future. >> Okay. So y'all are really biting the bullet for two and a half years. And this is a short term, it's a long, but it's a short term way out of the box discomfort for an entire rest of our life. Freedom. >> Yes, that is exactly our plan. >> Okay. So people can do all sorts of wild things, okay? And it's really helpful when they're heading into doing a wild thing that there's a finish line. My concern number one for you all is, and I'll talk through the relationship stuff, but my concern number one for you all is, that money will be so good and your husband will get home and he'll already have three other offers on the table. >> That is a little bit what I'm afraid of. >> Yes. And also, yeah, I'll just leave it at that. And so navigating a planned like this is going to be awful for a while. Anybody can do that. We can all do that, right? Your particular, this is going to be awful, it's going to be extra awful, right? But it's going to be hard, but you all can do it. But you're going to have to put to bed the lingering doubts underneath this thing. Because if you know I'm doing this thing and there's a finish line, every day you can get closer to it. But if there's a finish line, but that finish line has a ellipsis after that dot, dot after it, man, that can get real harrowing real fast. That's the recipe for burnout. This is never going to change. That makes sense. >> Yeah. When we moved to where we're at now, we moved here for the travel job. But then we initially were going to stay here longterm and that's still the plan. But after a year, that's when he got another opportunity that was just too good to pass up. >> Yeah. I had a supervisor, she's one of the most important mentors of my life. And she told me this one was 26. I was worked for her for a year and I got another opportunity from another university. And I didn't know what to do, right? I'd never had somebody pursue me. So I asked her because I trusted her and she happened to be my boss. And she told me something important at that young age. She said, you're talented at what you do in a pretty unique way and you're always going to have opportunities. You are going to have to choose commitment. And she painted me a picture. She goes, or you're going to be this guy who is 38 years old or 40 years old, who's worked at 10 different places, who's kind of wishy-washy and always got a deal in his back pocket. And maybe or maybe not is still connected with the spouse and yet, or you're going to be a person that says, I'm investing in this home, in this marriage, in my kids, in my community, et cetera. Now, I've lived two different times. I've lived apart from my wife for six months, while we were moving jobs or doing research or whatever. That's part of it, right? So, if you all stick to this and it's one time, this is the thing. But part of me thinks you're calling because he's a guy that makes a plan with you and then immediately starts thinking about another plan. Not necessarily. Okay. I just know that it's the money is always really good. And I think that will change once we have no debt. And we already live a very minimal debt-free life and have plans to have our own business when he's back. It's just the money is always good. So, I'll reiterate what one of my mentors told me. He's always going to have opportunities to go do construction jobs on the other side of the planet and make a whole bunch of money, always. You're going to have to and he's going to have to decide being in one place together, raising our family, raising our kids being present with each other is more important than any other opportunity that might come along down the road. Or if an opportunity comes as good enough, then I'm going to leave my job and I'm going to go with you. I think that we're both on the same page that is, you know, it is only temporary. We're on the same page about being together for our family and our future businesses here. Cool. It's awesome. All right. So, here's the things I would wrap your head around. Number one is make sure the time is intentional. Okay. Here's what I mean by that. Don't leave it to chance on those 10 days he's home. Have a plan for when he arrives, how of a plan for what connection looks like, like the pictures and words thing I'm always talking about, like we think in pictures, but we speak in words. He's going to say something like, I can't wait to get home and just unwind and you're going to say, I can't wait for you to get home and you can unwind and you're going to have a picture of what unwind is and he's going to have a picture of what unwind is and you all got to align those pictures. I can't wait to be with you. I can't wait to see you. I can't wait to like those words we use all the time, but they have pictures associated with them. So, being intentional about aligning the pictures of what our together time looks like and our separation time looks like. Are you going to text me every night before you go to bed? Are you going to text me in the morning? Are we going to face time? Are we going to send each other gross text back and forth internationally that hopefully nobody ever sees, but they're just for us and so you can't like, y'all set the ground rules for that stuff and then stick to it. But the goal here is intentionality, okay? The second thing is, is you have a mission and that is to get two or three or four women in your life who will be there for you for support, for birth, for doctors appointments, for inevitable hiccups that come up before or after babies born for helping you when it's month four after the baby's been born and you don't know what date is and you're exhausted and postpartum and and and that you have a gang ready to sit by your side. Yeah, I've I'm starting to think about that. I have a few people in mind, but I'm we don't move here about three years ago, so getting those people that I feel really comfortable and close with is just still. So I would say you can this is going to sound nutty. You can't afford comfortable and close right now. You can't afford that luxury. You don't have it, right? You're going to have to afford like who's close like close enough, right? And hopefully yeah, if they're like if you invite four or five women over to your house one night and say, Hey, I'm
designating y'all. I'm gonna be doing this alone because husband's out of the country and I'm gonna need a couple of women in my life that I can reach out to. I've picked y'all. If that's too much, you know, I want to carry that. I totally get it. But man, I can really use your love and support and you'll find one or two of those women who goes above and beyond and y'all sync up. And that will become somebody that you are comfortable with moving forward, maybe for baby number two. But right now, you can't afford to just be like, well, I couldn't find anyone super this or super that or she votes like that or that she's always like, that's a luxury you don't have because you have no one else. Right. Yeah, the closest family I have is like three hours away. Exactly. And then the third thing is making sure y'all have a once, man, I'm making this up. There's no date on this like once a week, once every two week, a visual check in whether it's on zoom or whether it's in person. How are we doing? Right. And it might be that y'all write each other notes and read them to each other like while they're gone and then you read them to each other when you're in person or whatever. But checking in on the health status of the relationship as you're going, you're going to have to have that that it's a step beneath intentionality. This is just an emotional check-in, a feelings check-in. We still like each other check-in. Are we still on the same page? Hey, we're only 24 months left. Hey, we're only 22 months left. We're only 16 months left. And we're not adding any more jobs. We're not going to another country after that. Like we're on the same team. But a weekly or monthly check-in just to say eye contact, holding each other's hands. Are we still both in this thing? So that inside those three things is a huge range of, it could look different for every couple on the planet. But let those three things be your guide, but you're going to have to get a gang. You and your husband are going to have to be highly intentional about logistics. What do we want this thing to look like when you're gone? When you're here? Who's paying what bill? All the money is it depositing into this one single checking account. And I'll take the light bill and the water bill and all those things. And how do you want departure to look like? How do you want to rival to look like? And finally, how are you? Here's how I am. You still like me? I know you love me. You still like me. How can I love you better this month? And we're going to do that for 30 plus months. Thanks for calling Nora. Good best of luck to you. And I hope everything goes awesome with this brand new baby. We'll be right back. HALO is the number one Christian prayer and meditation app in the world. And it's one of the most important things I do to start almost every single day. And HALO wants to give you this amazing app for free for 90 days. You can change so much of your life in 90 days. You could commit to exercising and begin to transform your health. You can start doing one nice thing for your spouse and begin to transform your marriage. You can do so much in 90 days that will transform your life. And this is why I want you to try HALO for free for 90 days. I usually listen to HALO on the way to work or sometimes even when I'm exercising helps me slow down and prioritize what actually matters in my life. And for me, that's my faith practice. Before the world comes at me full force. HALO is simple and it's guided and it meets you wherever you are. And if you commit to using it for 90 days, it will help you build a habit of reflection and prayer and peace. I want you to give HALO a try. Try HALO for free for 90 days at HALO.com/delony. That's three months for free at HALO.com/delony. All right, we're back. I'm either problem Kelly. Yes. 1000% to you are. Hamas, are you editing this show? Yep. You got a lot of work on this one. Sorry, brother. Yes, I do. Sorry. What's up, Kelly? So Mackenzie in Columbia, South Carolina writes, am I the problem? My husband has a good job with great benefits, but describes his role in company as solace. His dream job is law enforcement, which he would be great at. If he makes the move, his salary would be cut from 100,000 to 60 to 70, depending upon the state he decides to work for. It could potentially mean a move for us and our three kids. I don't want to be poor. I don't want to move and I don't want him to get hurt or worse on the job. But I also don't want him to continue at his solace job. Am I a problem? Am I the problem for discouraging him from pursuing his dream? No, in fact, the opposite. I think you're not the problem. If you have the courage to put all of the complexities, you just laid out on the table. I think the cultural lie is there's up half. And if you take that up half, that right, the path, everything works out perfectly. And you get all the money you want, you get the stay at home you want, you get the house you want, you get the state you want, you get the city you like, and it's just not reality. And so no, I think you're like, you're right to have become accustomed to like, hey, we make this much money. And there's a far difference also between we're going to be poor. That's dramatic too. We're going to have to change how we live. That's not dramatic. That's true. Right. And also, I grew up in the home of a police officer. One of the things my mom asked me privately before I went to college was, don't be a policeman because I said, why not? And she said, because every day your dad goes to work, I have to ask the question, what if he doesn't come home? And I don't want that for your wife. And so that's a real thing. And on the other side of it, it like, you don't want the person you love the most in the world to go to work every day. And we all have had those jobs. We've all seen our spouses in those moments where they're, we see them losing a part of themselves in an effort to keep the house going. That's hard too. I would challenge your husband on this solace part because you can find passion and soul in a lot of different places. So all it to say is he may hate his career, but I always want folks to ask them like, this place is just like, man, is it really because for a lot of human history, people were in coal mines to make sure their families lived. And like, is it that bad? Or can you find passion in other places in your life and just go to work and be excellent in your job? Do a great job, clock in, clock out, go home and then find passion and hang out with your kids, find passion in a new hobby, find passion in whatever. I think the workplace has become this, I don't know, it's been kind of a cool thing over the last 25, 30 years. Like your workplace should be your destiny. Am I crazy on that Kelly? Like, I don't know. Like, I want to work at an awesome place, obviously. And I work at a place with a mission that I'm aligned with, obviously. This whole passion at work thing, it just drives me crazy a little bit. No, I don't think you're crazy. I also can imagine how soul-sucking it is to work at a place that you despise all day. That's true. I didn't hear that though. Well, I mean, if he said it's soulless. Yeah, but that might just mean he's doing accounting for an engineering firm. Yeah. I wonder if you know, maybe it's not one or the other. Exactly. Maybe there's a third path that they just need to talk about, something different. But I think that her concerns are very valid, all of them. All every concern is valid. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So I think the beauty is you having the courage to put it all on the table and say, here's all the problems here. Here's all the challenges I'm seeing. What challenges do you see? And you'll navigate it. And it might be picking the best of not optimal situations. But if you all make that decision together, then you can co-create a plan together for how are we going to live a life given this decision that we just made? And y'all get to choose. Thanks for a call. Oh, no, not call. You have to edit this out too, Thomas. That's so great. I won't mind it. Love you guys, bye.
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