Caller: “Should I Leave My Cheating Husband?”

[MUSIC] >> Have you followed for divorce? >> Yes. >> Tell me about it. >> I have agonized over every decision that I've had to make because of how it will hurt him. It's just that I know what he's been through as a kid. >> To some degree, your kids are re-experiencing his childhood. [MUSIC] >> What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Delone show. So glad that you're with us. Taking your calls from all over the planet, real people going through real challenges. If you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you on the show. I don't answer personal questions on social media or anything. I only answer them right here talking to two people who are real people talking to each other. If you want to be on this show, I'd love to have you click the link in the show notes, and we will get you on. Let's go out to Phoenix, Arizona and talk to Beth. Hey, Beth, what's up? Oh, hey, Beth, so you're a return caller, right? >> Yes, hi, Dr. John. Thanks so much. I know you have a lot of people who want to speak with you. So thanks for taking my second call today. >> No, I love it. I always ask people, okay, call me back. I'm hoping that you're not calling to say that I messed everything up. >> No. >> Okay, but if you are, I'll take it. Okay, so what's going on? Okay, here's my new question. How do I stop seeing my husband through the lens of his childhood trauma and release myself from the guilt that I feel about drawing boundaries and moving forward with our divorce? >> Yeah, I felt like you asked two or three questions there. Okay, yeah, I tried to make it concise, so it's a lot. >> Let's start with the last question first. >> Have you followed for divorce? >> Yes. >> Tell me about it. >> So he, okay, he pushed a lot, but I'll try to do it in summary form because this is kind of what we talked about on the first call. >> Okay. >> He started using marijuana, hepatitis testosterone when he started doing Jiu Jitsu a few years ago, then last summer, he went full, he went full bro, huh? >> Yes, it was really the testosterone first that really was damaging our relationship, and I was feeling really emotionally dominated. And then the weed came in into play, and that actually seemed to make it a lot better for a while. But then he started having episodes of paranoia, accusing me of cheating on him. And I feel like that was very mentally abusive because I was constantly having to defend myself and make sure he knew where I was. I found hidden cameras and listening devices spying on me, and I stay at home mom, and I have a homeschool mom of four. You know, I wasn't doing anything. And so then last summer, he confessed to me that he had actually been unfaithful to me, but couldn't, he said he couldn't remember a lot of the details because of the weed. And he thought maybe he has this associated identity disorder, and at first he gave me all of these reasons and excuses and a plan. What he was going to do about it, go to this brain clinic, and that was going to fix all the problems, and that didn't happen. And so after about three months of him not following through on that, and we were in marriage counseling, I initiated a two month physical separation and moved in with my kids to an Airbnb. And then during that time, we had kind of some mental breakdowns and confessed to me more infidelity that had even happened during that, which should have been a restoration period. And so at that point, I asked him to move out of the house when my Airbnb time was up, and the kids and I moved back into the house. And then I, is this that I, I know what he's been through as a kid? I've made a lot of excuses for his behavior. And I've, I have, um, agonized over every decision that I've had to make because of how it will hurt him. So let me, because we have limited time together, I'm going to sound pretty abrupt, okay? I want to reframe this conversation from you knowing what he went through as a kid, right? And the stories he's told you about his childhood. And also the pain and hurt. You've experienced inside your own house, okay? I want to, this is going to sound strange, but I want to park that for a second. In real time, to some degree, your kids are re-experiencing his childhood. And so at some point, you have to stand up and say, this is my husband, but he is a man who is hurting my children. He's unsafe, he's unstable. Because my gut tells me what you, what you just laid out is the G-rated version of what's been going on in your house for a while. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Right. And so they're going to, they're growing up in real time with the electricity, with the inside the house. Two parents that can't be in the same room together because he's not safe. The instability, the infidelity. So that's their lived experience. And so the first thing we're going to do is we're going to keep his kids safe. Yes. Right? Yes. And so let's think through that lens first. Second, own the reality in front of you, which is, I'm married to a man who continues to cheat on me, continues to not get well, continues to put my health at risk. And also continues to fill his body with all sorts of substances. That are affecting him in profoundly negative ways. Right. And then own it from there, do I want to be married in this situation? Right. Right. What happened to him as a kid? I don't even know what that stuff is. We may have talked about it last time, but I don't know what that stuff is, but I will tell you as an adult, that is a context, not an excuse. You can't walk around and be abusive. You can't walk around and cheat. You can't walk around and dishonor. You can't walk around and punch holes in the sheet rock, because you're roared, raged out, because you're taking too much dust to us around. You can't drag your family behind you and say, "Oh, but one time this happened." Right. Or a bunch of times this happened. As an adult, it's my job. It's his job. It's your job. It's our job to go do what we need to do to be well, so that we can be starting enough for our wife, for our husband, for our kids. And for him, that's going to probably mean some halacious work. But he doesn't want to do that work. Right. Right. And you've given him opportunity after opportunity. Right. I mean, he then gave him what you say, like a pathway back to trust. And he would tell me he's working on it. And my expectations are just killing him, because I expected him to be completely silver from all substances to get a mentor so that someone else would hold him accountable. I wasn't holding him accountable. And he wasn't reporting to me. And I asked him to get back involved in a church. And I mean, these were things that they shouldn't have been that hard. And he would tell me they're so hard. He can't. He feels that he has no agency. And then a couple of weeks ago, he did come to me and say he's in AA, part of the steps he wanted to be more honest about something, and that when he's been telling me he's sober from marijuana, actually, no, he's still been doing read the whole time and talking to him in the whole time. And I know my decisions are right. But he's also said that, like, I'm abandoning him, and that he's needed help and he's going through the darkest time in his life. And that I've just, like his wife has abandoned him. And I feel like. And the East had to call the suicide hotline. And all these things that I lay up at night in fear. That he's going to harm himself and it will be on me, even just at least in my kid's eyes. So let me reframe this one over and over and over again. He abandoned you. And he abandoned his kids. And he's forced your hand to go do the next run. right thing. And so you get to decide every morning, not how you feel. Feelings are going to do what feelings are going to do. But you get to decide the pair of glasses you put on every morning to view this situation because it's a nightmare. And I'm protecting my children and I'm protecting myself in them. I doing the next right thing in an impossible situation. And none of that's going to feel good because I mean you're talking about him but you've had this picture of a family, right? Right. You didn't blow that up. Right. And you've spent the last however many years like think of just a family portrait. He shredded that thing and you've been trying to tape it together. Right. And every time you come home it's more shredded. So if you decide finally just to put that those shredded pieces of that photo in a dustbin and thought in the trash, he can't sit on the side. I mean he can but kids that they're in yell at you for cleaning up a mess that he made. How ever heartbreak in it is you can wear that that set of glasses or you can put another set of glasses which is oh poor him. I'm going to sacrifice my kid safety. I'm going to sacrifice my safety. And hopefully for the the the 999th time he'll do something different. And this isn't about love. This isn't about being respectful. This isn't about compassion. And I will ask you on behalf of all kids to fight like bloody hell for full custody. Especially for a season. Yeah that's it's so hard. I know it's hard. None of this is the way it should be. And it is. Right. And so if you rely on your feelings to give you the next right move you're going to be trapped because you've been doing that a long time because none of this feels good. I'm just I am constantly like trying to talk logic to myself. I just don't want to get to a point where I don't have this battle like this more going on in the inside me. Where part of me is like help him help him. And the other part of me is like you can't you have to help you have to protect yourself and your kids. I just want it to be settled and stop eating at war. You may have to walk through it and get to the other side of it before you have any semblance of that kind of peace. Or let me let me say it a more direct way. You can't save him. You don't have that kind of power. Yeah. You can appease him. You can make it to where he doesn't have to deal with the full consequences of his actions. And in turn you take the consequences. You can do that. Your kids can take the consequences. They can do that. But you can't save him. None of us have that kind of power and there's a heart. There's a heartbreak there. I want to save my wife. Right? I'm her husband. I want to save her. I can make space. I can make margin. I can I can do all sorts of things. But I can't I she's got to make choices. Right. Right. So I don't know I don't know on this side of going through a really hard season. If you're going to have that peace, I think you have to put peace as a place you want to get to. Okay. And then know it's coming. Yeah. And it's going to be awful when you put the text messages in front of your attorney where he said, if you do this, I'm going to kill myself. If you do this, I'm going to go smoke a bunch of weed and sleep with a bunch of people. Like your attorney needs to see those texts and your attorney is going to use those texts in a court hearing. Right. And you're going to feel terrible. You're going to feel awful. And he's going to say things like I can't believe you betrayed me or whatever. Forgetting the fact that none of y'all would be here. If he hadn't have betrayed you over and over and over again. Right. Yes. And if he was calling me, I'd have so much compassion for him. I know he's sick. I know he's not he's not well. Right. Right. I get that. But how dare I would tell him how dare you drag your wife and your kids through this? Like a man, what I would, what I would, the image I have in a true husband in this moment, a true father in this moment, dare I say a true man in this moment says, I need 90 days of inpatient. I'm over my head. I'm not well. And everything I'm trying isn't working. But I do know this. I don't know what to do. But I do know I'm hurting y'all. And that is here. Yeah. I wish he would. I know. And here's the thing he won't. He's not going to. And if he goes and makes a decision to do a reputable damage to himself to somebody else, that won't you'll feel it and you'll be devastated of course. All of us will. That won't that won't be your fault. And I want to encourage you every time he makes a suicide threat, I call the crisis line every single time. You're probably going to have to get to a place where you block his number. All of this stuff is, is damn you're impossible. It's hard. But that old saying you've heard it a million times, you have to put your oxygen mask on first before you can help your kids and especially before you can help another adult who's self-destructing and blaming you for their self-destruction. My hope is the next time he says you're abandoning me, your first impulse is to respond. No, I'm responding to how you abandoned us. But I know that's a tough one. I know that's a tough leap. I don't see a path where you can do this by yourself. Do you have some women in your life that you trust who are wise, who will walk with you? Yes, I have a really good, I kind of like say that they're my counselors, people close to me that I call and send screenshots of almost everything that happens and I do follow their input. Having people that can see above the smoke when everything's on fire is really important to have in your life. It sounds wild to sometimes find yourself in a situation where you outsource your next decision. I do that regularly with folks. You might not have to outsource, hey, I don't know the next right move here and both of them are three of them are like, yeah, you got to do this. But when you make that decision, I want you to say I am choosing this. There's something you lack ownership here. It's been taken from you. Agency is the nerd word. You lack agency in your own life. And part of you saying, I'm choosing this and this is hard. It's killing me. But I'm making this decision. Over time, you will find yourself standing up taller and stronger. You'll realize you're stronger than you think you are right now. Okay. But there's something powerful about, now I know what to do and it's going to be awful. But I know what to do. And I'm going to sob my eyes out. And there's going to be a season where I can't control what this man who's really underwater is going to say to my kids about me. And my goal is when they turn 21 and they turn 25 that they look back and have a picture of a mom who just kept doing the impossible next right thing. Yeah, I want that. How old are they? 9, 8, 5 and 4. I hate this for you. I hate this for them. I hate this for everybody. Thank you. Yeah. You've heard me say this on the show before. There's a winner season and you're in it now. You're in the blizzard and the Antarctic. It's not the time for warmth and peace. This is the time to just keep putting your head down. Keep walking forward. Okay. And you get to decide what you do next, if you get off this call and you're like, you know what? I'm tearing up the divorce papers. We're gonna try to make this work on it. Just say, this is the choice. I'm an adult. I can tell you what to do here. I want you to have the empowerment of making your next right choice. Thank you for the call. We come back. A couple asks how to disinvite one of the mothers to their wedding without causing yet more drama. This will be a good one. We'll be right back. We all have a million decisions to make every day between what to have for dinner, who's gonna drop off the kids, where to get an oil change. Listen, the last thing I want to think about with all that chaos going on is what to wear. And with poncho, I never have to agonize over what shirt I'm gonna put on. They're lightweight, they're breathable, they're stretchy, they're fast drying, and they're super tough, and they look awesome. 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I'm going to pick up Ella first. Ella, are you there? Hi, yes, I am. Awesome. All right, now I'm going to pick up Chris. Hey, Chris. Hi, how you doing? I'm doing great. Great, great. Okay, so are you all in the same house? No, no, we're in different cities. Okay, great. You're all in different cities. Yeah. So, um, who rode in? I was the one who rode in actually. We kind of did it as a joint thing though, but I was the one to like, type and submit it. Okay, so whoever wants to go first, go first. What's going on? Yeah, so yeah, thanks for having us on our big feds. I appreciate you calling. So, yeah, over the over the past year, my mother has just been creating lots of problems in our relationship. She's just always been looking for problems in Ella and she'll come and talk to me about these random theories that she's made up about. It can be really any aspect of Ella that still just ran to me about them and I'll tell them like, no, this is like, it's just not based on reality. It's not true, but she'll just continue to repeat these things to me like the after day. And you know, once it gets to the point where we have to set up boundaries and say like, okay, let's distance ourselves a bit. That's when she has this pattern of apologizing and trying to roll things back so that she can like come closer to us again. And inevitably, every time then, let me let her close closer and again, she'll just resume her old ways. And things escalated eventually where she just blew up at Ella and in public and just kind of verbally attacked her for two hours. And it was at that point where like, okay, we just can't have her around. We don't even feel comfortable with her at our wedding because we can't trust that she won't be causing problems on that day either. Now you can, you can guarantee it. Yeah. Yeah. So Chris, is that all right? If I challenge you a little bit, is that okay? Of course. Okay. Um, so I'm assuming y'all are, you'll get married to y'all are engaged now. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's just for a month out. Okay. This is just guy to guy. Okay. I don't care who. Whether it's my 10 year old daughter, my dad, my mom, I don't care who it is. Nobody's going to berate my wife for two hours. Where were you in that moment? After 30 seconds or 60 seconds that you don't step in and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is over. So yeah, I was, I was, I was, I was there. I was trying to you kind of like, like tone her down or get her, get my mother like under control, but it just, like I just was not, was not able to. And my, my dad was there as well. They're not, my parents are not together, but he was, he was there and just on the sidelines. And yeah, I think I really just let that go on for, for too long. You're going to have to make an L. I don't want to speak for you. So tell me I'm an idiot. But Chris, you're going to have to, you're going to have to make a commitment, an apologetic commitment to Ella that from here out, nobody ever again. We'll disrespect you. That makes sense because right now, I'm imagining if I'm, if I'm you Ella, I'm still feeling like I'm second place to this lady. Absolutely. No, just because after, before and after when she like verbally attacked me, she was really good about it. And like afterwards, you promised that that would never happen again. And it's been wonderful. I'm like, you know, like putting me first, like prioritizing me and all of this. It was just part of that conversation like the two hour, like, beratement and all that was us trying to like get through to her in terms of like having to see the lights and like trying to resolve things, but it just didn't go anywhere because you, it's as if she's operating like just in a different reality. Yeah. Okay. So let's never try to get her to see the light again because she's not interested in seeing the light. And she might not even be able to. She's interested in one thing. Keeping her precious son hers, not somebody else's. Yeah. Yeah. And so the heartbreak here is for you, Chris and you Ella is everybody wants their mom to like, I mean, my mom regularly tells me that if me and my wife ever broke up, they're definitely team her 100%. But like, everyone wants their mom to approve of the person they're going to marry. That's like, well, that's like human 101, right? I get that. Y'all are going to have to agree the fact that it will not happen in your life. Yeah. Like the fact that you're even entertaining that she's coming to this thing. She's got one goal in mind and that's destruction of this relationship. Yeah. Yeah. She's, she's basically fed as much. Yeah. I mean, so, so it's less about, let me say this way, I don't see any way y'all are causing drama here. You're simply responding to it. And I would recommend not using overly therapeutic language like we have to put up more boundaries. I would just say, I'm not going to have somebody at my wedding who's trying to destroy my wedding. I'm not going to have somebody at my wedding who hates my wife. And so as heartbreaking as it is, you're not welcome at the wedding. And that's not you causing drama. That is you responding to it. Yeah. And I hate this for both of you. I really do. We're just like practically with moving forward with this, which is what we know is the right thing to do. We're just we're just dreading like having to deal with, you know, like the rest of her family who, you know, they're traveling, they haven't seen them in so long. And like we just don't know how to break that news to them of like, this is what's been going on. And this is why she's not here. And we're just afraid that, you know, we don't want her at the wedding because we don't want it to like crash the day and ruin the day. But now we don't want all the family just the whole day asking like, where is she? You know, where's your mother? What's happened? Every family dynamic is different. And so I'll leave that for y'all. I would send something to my mom in writing and probably call and say, this is on its way. And that conversation should be two minutes max. It's not a discussion. It's not an argument. It is a statement. And then I'm going to let you go. And then y'all decide whether you want to send extended family email or call each one of them or what I mean y'all can every family is different. My guess is much of the family will be like, yeah we totally get this, right? But maybe not, maybe not, maybe there'll be totally team mom and it'll just be all kind of dominoes falling. Who knows? Sorry, I'll cut you off. Go ahead. No, sorry. I keep going. I was just going to add that it's trickier as well because Chris still is with his mom until like, like once we're married and all that. So it's trickier as well because he hears about it like every day from Chris, move out brother. Go find a buddy's couch to crash on for a month. Go get a 30 day lease on apartment. Get out of there, man. Yeah, that's what it, that's what it seems like we're going to have to do. Well, I mean, and by the way, this is a conversation, Chris, that you have to have with your mom. Yeah. And so it, since you live there, when you're packing your stuff up, you can sit down and look here in the eye and say, you're not welcome at the wedding. And I know this is hard on you. This is very hard on me, but you're not going to be welcome at the wedding. I wish you the best. I'm going to go marry the love of my life, Ella. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it will make it so much easier when it's not just in the, in the day to day. Yeah. But this is taking up, I mean, you open your eyes and you think about this before you go to bed, you think about this, the, the, what's he old saying, conflict deferred is conflict amplified. The longer you don't have this conversation, the worse it's getting. Yeah. And you're, you're the one paying the price for it. You're just waking up every morning. Boom. Take a shot of poison. Yeah. That's really, that's really how it is. Like it just has taken up so much of our mental space and it's such a busy season like preparing for any wedding. Of course. And, and for keep busy, this is an awesome time. Y'all are about to do the, I, what I, I'm biased, but what I think is the awesomeness thing a person can do. And that's to commit the rest of their life to another person. Y'all are about to like go on the grandest adventure of your life and it's going to have enough crap to it. You don't need this. You don't need something trying to shoot holes in the boat from the inside. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. So for the sake of your soul, for the sake of your own emotional well-being, for the sake of getting some, I don't want you to get through this wedding. And I'm kind of on a high right now. I just came, I just went to a buddy of mine's daughter got married and I just flew back in from Texas yesterday. I got to tell you man, it was incredible. It was joy on top of joy, on top of laughter, on top of the DJ pulled out some of the oldest OG rap songs. And we, I hope there's not a video of me dancing because I'm terrible at dancing. But dude, I was shaking like a soul shaker. Why? Cause it was awesome. I don't want you to get through this wedding. I want this to be a magical time for you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think as long as she's still like in the picture, that's really what's like preventing us. You're actually looking forward to it. Cause yeah, like if you want to plan and, and be joyful about it. But then there's always this, this problem in the background of like, oh, this is, this is an issue. This is not getting better. Okay. So, you know what I'm saying? You have to throw your shoulders back and stand up and take charge of what you're going to do next. And part of that is you can't keep eating her food and using her laundry and using her electricity and water. You got to go to your own place. And part of that is, I'm going to, it's going to cost us some money. It's going to cost me some inconvenience. It's going to be a paint, whatever, but yeah, I just, I can't be around somebody for five minutes who's talking about my wife negatively. I can't imagine living with it. Yeah. You know what I mean? And by the way, Chris, I'm making this sounds so simple. None of this is simple. This is, this is so hard. And you probably know better than I do that the moment you do this and you pull the trigger on, you're not welcome to come to my wedding. I'm used to nothing but run my fiancee down for the last year. We're out. I wish you the absolute best. And I'm moving out today. You know as well as I do that may be, man, she may pull every pin on every grenade, right? And then Ella, you're going to have to be a grown-up and you might have to block her, so she's not texting you anymore. Chris, you may have to block her, so she's not texting you anymore. Yeah. Right? I wouldn't wish this on anybody. Yeah, I guess it's also just like letting go of the, yes, the image we had of how we, yes, even just aside from her, like that we thought we wouldn't, we wouldn't have to deal with, you know, talking to family about this and all the other work that that's going to cause, like, yeah, but you're letting the weight of the emotional experience just bury you. Make a list of the four people you have to call or the two people you have to call and let them know. If you think other people need to know, go ahead and reach out to them. You own what you want to own, but it's not your job to go make sure everybody's okay and everybody gets their side of this to it. You know without a doubt your mom's going to say things that are not true about you and about Ella to her family. They get to be grown-ups and decide, this is just like her, or then we're not coming to the wedding either, all right, they get to, they're grown-ups, they get to make that choice and you can't, you sitting here in this moment trying to anticipate what might happen and who might respond and this person might like it and this uncle's going to get mad and this uncle's cousins, I've already got plain tickets. Dude, that is your mom blew the thing up and now all you're doing is trying to clear the site. Yeah. All right, and so it's like somebody a year ago came and planted flowers and you're trying to clear the site because you don't have a house anymore and you're worried that they're going to be in the street being like, don't touch my flowers and it's like, dude, this house is gone. All right, it's gone. And your mom blew it up the moment she attacked Ella. Yeah, yeah, she really did. And you can't control her pattern. The only thing you can control is you giving into the fantasy that this conversation she's finally going to change, right? That's the apology she's finally going to mean it. Yeah, yeah, I guess the only way forward is just to right through it. Well, we know it's right. Right. Yeah, and you know, yeah, we can't control my mother, but we can't control the family either. Nope. And so here's what looking, moving forward, looks like Chris, you, and again, I'll put this on you because you're, it's your family. And you are the man standing up for the woman who's about to be your wife. You make a list of who you need to call and just go down that list and keep every call as direct and like simple and if you're like, wait, what happened when I'm not, I'm not going to talk about it. My mom is not in favor of this wedding and she's made her opinions very well known. And so we've asked her not to attend. Just want you all to know, we can't wait to see y'all and we understand that if you don't want to come now, we understand, but we hope you'll be there. Period. I'm not going into any gossip. We're not going to drama. What happened? Tell me what happened. No, it's been a, it's been an ugly year and I'm, they're talking about it. It's one to let y'all know. Right. And so it's you just owning this thing. It's been very short. And with your mom, this has got to be us a quick conversation because you know she'll apologize, she'll sob, she'll tell you that you're breaking her heart, all these things. You already know the script she's going to run and you also know that after that script is run, there's not going to be any convincing her. There's not going to be any looping back around. And so say what you need to say in a concise way and then you accept her home. None of this is joyful or fun. It's miserable. But I want you guys to not just get through this wedding. I want y'all excited to be doing some, this miraculous thing called sharing your life with each other. Wish I had, I wish I had better news for you guys. Thank y'all so much for calling and I wish y'all the best of luck. If you'll do, send us some wedding photos and Kelly would probably get one or two of them tattooed on herself somewhere, but we'll post them up for you. Thank you guys so much for calling. We come back. A man asks if he should try to repair a broken friendship before his wedding or just let it go. We'll be right back. As you know, I'm a big believer in therapy done well. It can be a powerful way to dig into patterns. personal challenges and practice new ways of relating to other people and living life in the presence of a trained licensed professional. But sometimes challenges take more than a traditional 50 minute session once a week or once every two weeks, sometimes pausing the grind of everyday life and digging into a multi-day intensive experience with your spouse or your kids or even by yourself can transform everything in your home, in your marriage, and in your life. This is why I want to tell you about capstone wellness and their vine and root program. Vine and root is a deeper level of care. It's a three to five day therapy intensive for couples, for families, and individuals who need more than once a week sessions to change their life. Whether it's trauma, addiction, marriage challenges, burnout, or anything, they will give you tools in a plan that you can leave with and apply to your everyday life. Capstone wellness is a Christian organization, but they help people of all faiths, all backgrounds, and all experiences. They don't push anything on anybody and they follow a strict code of ethics. Vine and root is a real investment of your time, your energy, and your money. But if you're serious about getting well, change can require serious commitment. Go to capstonewellness.com/delony and click on Vine and Root to learn more. That's capstonewellness.com/delony. All right, before we go out to Phoenix, Arizona, don't forget the greatest marriage retreat on planet earth, money, and marriage. It's October 22nd through 24th here in Nashville. It will sell out you and your spouse put away responsibilities for a weekend and calm, spend a weekend with me and my great friend Rachel Cruz and some amazing special guests. We're going to talk about sex. We're going to talk about communication. We're going to talk about conflict. We're going to talk about how to build the best marriage you possibly can come out here to Nashville. It's going to be incredible. Tickets are 740 bucks for the couple for both of you for that price. That's about half or a quarter of what marriage retreats cost, especially one that's as big and awesome as the one we're putting on here. Get your ticket today at ramseysolutions.com/events or click the link in the show notes. Hope to see you there. All right, it's got to Phoenix, Arizona and talk to a Ron. What's up, Aaron? How's it going? All right, brother, how are you, man? Not too bad. What's up? Yeah, so I was just really just curious. You know, had this friendship for going on 22 years since we were really little kids getting married, coming up here in 2027. The friendship itself has kind of just been thrown apart over the last few years. I think for a normal friend, it probably would be whatever let it go, but this is almost like a brotherhood. And so just kind of wondering, you know, is it what length should I go to try and repair this or, you know, kind of just let it go? You use two contradicting phrases. So dig into it. One is it's falling apart and one is is my brother. So tell me what falling apart means. Yeah, I mean, just to give kind of the backstory, you know, so the the woman that I'm actually going to marry, we had a little break, you know, we had a rough patch a couple years ago. And I really needed support from the fellows and didn't really receive it at the time. You know, this would have been a few years ago. And, you know, namely him, he kind of just fell off the mat for me like, you know, and, and I kind of confronted him and asked him, you know, why that was. And he said that he just didn't know, you know, I've always been someone he looks up to and he doesn't know that, you know, how to help me in that situation. So that was kind of the first strike. Fast forward a little bit. Let me pause you. Let me pause you. Let me think through this for a second. So you had a need and your friend that, I mean, at that time had 18 or 19 years of history with you, after you talked to him, your friend said, I don't, I don't have the skills to help in the situation. Right. So if I think about it, let's take it out of the, now guys can show up and be like, dude, I don't want to talk about it. But I'll sit here and I'll play video games with you. I'll drink a beer with you. Like, like, there's that, right? But I'm thinking of if I called a buddy for investing advice and he just quit returning my calls, and finally I confronted him and he was like, dude, I don't, I don't know anything about investing. I'm not good at it. Like, I want your family to be like, I wouldn't, my first thought wouldn't be, that's a strike. Sure. That would be a, I've got friends in my life that when I have relationship issues with my wife, that I go to, but I don't go to my closest friends for everything. You get what I'm saying? Sure. Now, my closest friends, if I call them and say, dude, me and my wife are in a blow up right now, they would be like, I'll come over. Right. So there is that, right? But I, so anyway, keep going. Yeah. So, so fast forward a little bit, kind of a weird situation then. So we hadn't really heard from him in a while. And he kind of does this thing where when he starts to date, and he really falls off the map again. Yeah. I think we all know guys like that. Dude 101. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But so his, his parents had actually called me and been like, hey, you know, we're, you're his, like an older brother to him, because I'm a little bit older, like, you're like an older brother to him, he's always looked up to you. We don't like this girl, will you get involved? God, dude, why are they trying to eat me like that? Right. Right. So it was a, so that was another added weight to where it was like, I don't really want to get involved. No, my business. Well, and even if I do, I'm still team him. I'm not going to be team him's his parents. Right. That's what I said. All right. Whatever. All right. So keep going. Sorry. You got dragged into that man. Let's talk it. And then, you know, most recently he started dating a different girl. And we, you know, we've had a really tight knit group. Most of us have been friends for 20 years, 15 years. And she just doesn't jive with the group. So now, you know, essentially she's completely taking him out of where he's not even being kind of the same guy. But he still wants to, you know, call me and text me and, you know, send over, you know, Instagram, real things like that. But for me, it's like, man, I don't even, you know, five years ago, you were the best man in my wedding. And now it's like, I don't, you know, I don't even know if you're going to be there. So that's kind of the situation that we're in. Yeah. How old are you? 27. Okay. I get that. Here's a couple of things just rolling through my head. Okay. Um, thing number one is, you're in the, what I call the first window. And it's the worst. And that is when childhood buddies, when we all start getting our first jobs and we all start getting serious, somebody's going to get married, somebody's going to have their first kid. And you start to realize what was a friendship of you live next door? Or we sit by each other in class that blossomed into. Oh, I know that guy in middle school, then in high school. And then as you said, it turns to a brotherhood, like, we're right or die. We go to some college, whatever. It just starts to, people just start taking different paths. And that stinks, man. Yeah, it just does, right? Like one of my greatest friends on planet earth ever. And when I say right or die, I mean literally right or die. Um, I haven't talked to him in years. And it makes me sad. I miss him. It's awesome. But also our lives just went different ways. Yeah. And so, um, I don't talk about him on the show. Like it, it was a magic season for me. And it's just different. Now that's a bummer, right? It's heartbreaking. And so that might be the case here. The way you're in a, and I'll give you the benefit of the doubt. The way you're talking about him is he needs to do and say what you want him to do or say. And he needs to like somebody that's going to keep him a part of this thing. And he, like, it feels like you have a lot of opinions on how he should be living his life. Instead of, no, that's my body. And he has my body, dot, dot, and he's an idiot with that girl. Or he's my buddy, dot, dot, dot. Yeah, he took this job. I can't believe that. I would have moron, but he's still coming over my house for notches, right? Sure. It feels like you've got a path for him lined out. And when he doesn't live up to that path, you're like, want to blame him for not living up to your picture of what he should be doing. You know what I'm saying? That may not be the case. But that's the way I'm hearing it. Sure. And I think that that kind of, that, that almost reflects what we're seeing on the other side too. So it's almost like a, you know, because he's gone completely different from when we knew him. So it's like, you know, I can absolutely see that we've got kind of two sides that are like, you know, we want him to go this way. She wants him to go that way. So I understand what you're saying. But also, I mean, y'all are really tight when you were 15, 16, 17, 18. Y'all are 27. He's 25. Like. It's just life just like takes us in different places Yeah, and I remember did I remember I remember oh so and so's Dayton's somebody But I also remember I had a core group of buddies. I remember once I'm God, I think it was Paul Paul was the was the one of the best people I've ever known I've talked to him in years. I can't believe I even just thought of him He's the literally the best But I think it was him that one time we're all sitting around just Gossiping and talking trash about each other and he said You really not want him to go be with her instead of us like of course we want him here, but I Want my friends to find girls that like make them not want to be around us anymore You know, I mean and we're all like oh, yeah, I guess that's kind of fair. You know, I mean And so there's something about like I miss the guy sitting here and I miss his what he brings to the table literally and also Man if you meet somebody the not just socks off. It's kind of awesome, too Yeah, and I guess in a perfect world like everyone All Mary somebody and all of the spouses are great friends and we're all great friends And this one big happy family goes on for our 50 years. That'd be awesome It's just not it's just not reality. You know, I mean it's not the world works Right so are you gonna invite him to your wedding or no? I Leaning toward Yes And you know just kind of Seeing how it goes Do you think he's gonna go there and act the fool and ruin it? No, it's I mean she doesn't she doesn't jive with anybody. I mean seriously like a constant like You know, there's even that's one of the first meetings my mom is trying to show her pictures of us when we were four or five years old and She's just looking away doesn't care like Yeah, this is like a That's more what we just don't you know, you don't want somebody there on your wedding day. It's gonna You know make my wife upset. You know, I mean I I guess the question I would ask you and you're about to be a new wife. Why in the world would you outsource? Your feelings to a stranger Sure, you know what I mean like this is y'all's wedding. Yeah, this is amazing like Yeah, my old buddies new girlfriend doesn't get a vote on my joy that day Now she's gonna like right get all drunk and trash the place or start screaming and object or whatever. Yeah, you're not welcome But I she has to be an adult whether she wants to a come and be have a good attitude about it. That's between You know, you know, I'm saying I do I do I I'll say this I invited buddies friends to my wedding That we're a varying degrees with that at one time we were like I mean The tide is a chain and it had morphed and shifted over the years and some friends were literally guys I would pick up the phone and call if I needed help and some folks I invited and I wanted to be a part of that special day almost in honor of the friendship we used to have You know, I'm saying like it was in memoriam too if you will like we've been through enough. Yeah, I want you a part of this thing You're not somebody I call a few of my buddies Who I love to death. I don't want them around my kids right like They they would go to war for me, but I don't want them around my kids like But I There was just an honoring of of friendship there if you think he's gonna come and be a distraction Then but it sounds like he's still trying to reach out. I was still trying to be a friend Right I feel like I'm missing something here am I missing something? Well, it's the it's the degree of the change that's happened so it's like You know, he we used to You know have a lot of a lot of good times and things and it she she just come in and he's just a completely different guy What would you say completely different guy? What does that mean? I mean his you know sense of humor has changed his you know his willingness to you know She so basically, you know not to give away too much of her information, but she obviously has a checkered pass without a hole and so he now by proximity Is it's not that he cannot drink when he's alone with us like I saw him for the first time recently? And it was just him and the guys like we had a blast like we had some beers. We had fun all that stuff But as soon as you know, it's he's he knows he's being kind of watched Then it's no beers no fun sit quietly so it's kind of it's it's a kind of almost a jekyll and hide situation depending on whether she's present or not I guess I guess I would I would flip it around And so I'm thinking about the other side of this thing like you know your buddy a 21 year friendship his Daytona woman He used to struggle alcohol and he doesn't drink when she's around which is a way of honoring her then dude We're gonna extra include him We're gonna put that we're gonna put the drinks in the other room. We're gonna be extra Hospital because we love our body and he's trying to be honoring of this person You get him like you get him saying like there's this goes both ways like it's what I'm saying and yeah I understand if he's being deceitful if if she thinks he's just sober now too and he gets with you guys and just like Gets after it then call him out on being deceitful right because you know this relationship's not gonna last because he's being two different people right, but man there's just a I don't know there's a there's a way to look at what he's doing and be like he's not the same guy And there's also another way to be like man He loves that woman and we're gonna help him love her well Yeah, you get what I'm saying I do I do and I appreciate that perspective But all that comes down to if y'all can't sit down. I have a conversation anymore That's tough right or if he feels like every time you'll sit down He's like you said like the little brother and he's getting judged by big brother That's not ever been much of a friendship anyway. That's just been Like you kind of tell everybody what to do right you're like Johnny of Cobra Kai like It's your dojo, right instead of it's all of our dojo. We all are playing roll here I I just I hold friendship sacred and like super sacred and I also Because I hold them so sacred. I have to give space for Everybody changes people have different values and people make different life choices and people go through addictions and Devourses and all sorts of different things that are different than my life and so I Can't walk around with expecting everybody to Live in a cookie cutter like you will be this kind of friend for me I can do that, but I'm just gonna have very few friends and I'm gonna increasingly cut people out Or I can say no, no, no, I value you. I like you. I like value as a person come on in and Let's hang out And how can I love you? Well, right? I guess my body and so I I don't know I If it was me, I would invite him to the wedding. That's just me and if his girlfriend wants to just Fold her arms and sit grumpily in the background She gets to she gets to decide to have a boring night or a miserable night But there's a wedding dude. We're gonna cut loose and have a good time and Hopefully you and your wife won't be like looking past each other to see If your old buddy's girlfriend is having a good time. That's for her. She's a grownup You're all gonna set the table for she gets to decide whether she eats or not. So that's my thought on it Thanks for the call brother. We'll be right back I talk to people every day who are anxious and overwhelmed and one of the things that can send people straight into panic mode Is having their identity stolen when your identity gets stolen? 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No, it's actually just something I want your opinion on and again I take this with the greatest all because I felt it on social media every everything on social media is true of kind of percent So it's called the 92nd theory Okay, something you're familiar with no, but I can already tell you it's stupid. It might be but go ahead I just want to know if there's any truth to it. Okay All right, neuroscientists say I don't know which ones it just says in general. They say that an emotion only stays in your body for a about 90 seconds. That's how long the chemical reaction lasts. After that, if you're still feeling it, then you're the one keeping it alive. Sometimes it's not the emotion hurting you anymore. It's the way you keep reliving it. You're allowed to feel everything, but you don't have to stay there. Let it rise up, let it pass. Don't keep replaying the moment that cost it. Let it go. Is there any truth to, I know you're not a neuroscientist, but is there any truth to that? If you just gave what I think is the perfect cancer of social media, okay? So if I reverse what you read, that is wisdom as old as time. It's in all the ancient wisdom. It's in the stoic literature. It's in proverbs. It's in Michael Singer wrote a great book. It is, you have this thought, you have this feeling. And it is powerful. And you get to choose whether to meditate on it or let it slowly pass, right? And you get to choose what you do next. That is ancient wisdom. Then what social media does is A, it layers on the current currency of our time. So I heard a talk by somebody and it was like, oh gosh, A, I got convicted because I'm guilty of this. But they said like for all of human history, everyone just thought God's did everything. God's plural. So the way they would enter into conversations was the God's told me. And then it became in the Enlightenment science says, and we saw vestiges of that. The current ethos of right this now is neuroscience says. And you put that phrase in front of anything and you can say whatever the hell you want about anything. Neuroscience says adults should drive big wheels. And like, I would actually be told that. I think actually neuroscience says say that actually. But like, you get what I'm saying. So then there's this, I honestly don't know enough about the biochemistry of emotions. It doesn't initially pass my smell test simply because that assumes that all emotions are, I'm trying to think of an undorquated status. All emotions are run by one chemical response that only has 90 seconds. And that's, I don't, come on. But like the idea that yes, feelings are huge and heavy and or joyful and whatever. And that you get to manufacture whether you're going to replay it, whether you're going to meditate on all that, that is very true. The 90 second thing cannot confirm. Can't deny, so I can't say it's stupid. It might, it might be totally true. It doesn't pass my smell test. But I do like the sentiment, which is the feeling I have right now will pass. The action that I take next may have serious consequences. And I get to choose that next action. Is that fair? Yeah, I just saw, and it was this the, the told just of the, the post was five theories. It'll change your life or something like that. And it was all these different. And I use the term theories real, like real loosely. And that was one of them. And I was like, I mean, again, I saw it on social media. So I'm pretty sure it was BS. But I was like, is this a theory that I've never heard of, you know, in this neuroscience world, 90 second theory? But my thought process, my thought was, this is a social media thing. And this proves that you just can't read something on social media. And be like, oh, that's this is one of those things. Some things I believe need the weight of neuroscientists say that's about fill in the blank. This is one of those things that is such deep wisdom. It doesn't need that tag on the front, right? It doesn't need that prefix of neuroscience says, the idea that you can't control your feelings, but you can control what happens next. You can control whether you just keep repeating the story and control that that's a powerful sentiment. And it needs no five theories to, it doesn't need any of that. It just needs somebody to sit with you and say, all right, what are we gonna do next? Hey, keep doing, I like this, Kelly. Find other cool stuff on the internet. This will be fun. And by the way, if I'm completely wrong, if you're a neuroscientist, and there is a 90 second rule, and it's some sort of, ah, geez. Some sort of, nor adrenaline is none. I'm just gonna get mad now. Love you guys, bye. (rock music)