I’m Sexting With a Stranger

I was in a minor bumper-to-bumper accident. Changed information with a stranger, which then turned into a friendly conversation. Then it turned into a sexting conversation. And I think that the only thing that's holding us back is that we're like an hour apart. And that's why I haven't physically done anything to destroy my marriage. Ooh, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad you're with us. Talking about your marriage, your kids, your mental and emotional health, whatever you got going on in your life. Pull up a seat, and we're going to figure out what's the next right move in your life. If this show means something to you, please share it with a friend. If an episode or a call, it makes a difference in your life, send it to somebody. If there's somebody you don't like, and you're like, ooh, this call is going to make them feel terrible, send it to them. That'll be great. Good, that's what Kelly likes. And like and subscribe, all that stuff. And if you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes. Let's go out to Richmond, Virginia, and talk to Carla. What's up, Carla? Hi, how are you? I'm doing okay. How are you? Good. What's up? So, I was in a minor car bumper-to-bumper accident. And changed information with a stranger, which then turned into a friendly conversation. And I don't know what to do at the end, because I'm happily married. And I never would think I would do something like this. But the conversation still keeps going on through the phone. This is like a movie you would find under your neighbor's bed when you were a kid. I know. So, tell me how I can help. I don't know what the question is. I mean, you've already ended your marriage as you knew it. And do you want to rebuild a new one with your spouse? Do you want to be with this guy? How can I help? How can I walk with you? I want to be with my spouse, but I can't. But you don't. Do you want both? I kind of do, but I want more of my spouse because I love him. And I just can't find. I don't know how to end something that I never thought I would do, if that makes. You hit delete and you block him. And you never ever contact him again and receive any contact. And then you sit down with your spouse and you let him. Be honest about, here's what's happened. That's the thing. I don't know if I could be honest with my spouse. I feel like it would open up a jealousy issue or. Of course, it should. I mean, how should your spouse respond? Very jealous and very. Upset with you. Yeah. Yeah. And so, if you don't want to tell your spouse the truth, and you don't want to be honest about who. Who you really, truly have been over this last however many months, I mean, the whole thing is not real, right? The whole thing is a fantasy. From an emotionally charged moment that led to, hey, this person was extra kind. What were the pleasantries exchanged? I got to know. I mean, it started off, you know, just like an innocent text, like, good morning, you know, how are you doing? But kind of like when you're, you know, I guess when you're dating and you're trying to figure out who the person is, and everything. But you hit him on the highway? No, he hit me on the highway. We had to exchange information because I, you know, I did have some minor damage to my car. Right. And then. Why in the world would that person who hit you on the highway text you the next day and say, how are you? I don't know. I guess. And what about that didn't freak you out? I guess because it was nice. It sounded nice. I guess I felt desired that I haven't felt in a while. He hit. He hit you with his car. You know what I mean? Like, I would immediately have gone to this person's trying to CYA because they think I'm going to sue them. That's where I would have gone. Not like, ooh. So let me back at this. How long have you been married? Like two years and a half. Okay. How long did y'all date before that? Four years. Okay. So y'all been together for a minute. What is it about your current relationship? You know what? Even bigger than that. What is it about the life over the last six years that you have created for yourself that is so lifeless that a wreck on the highway led to a text led to you sending naked pictures of yourself to him back and forth to where that off-ramp of aliveness became a place that. where a fire. where a fire could even grow. You get what I'm saying? Mm-hmm. What is it about your life that you've created and with your husband co-created, y'all built this thing together, where it's so lifeless that this was the injection of life that you feel like you need? I guess just going through everyday life with him or, you know, where there's like, I guess, just life. I know, but that. I guess that. But you get to choose what, quote-unquote, this life feels like and looks like and what you'll do. You get to choose that. So at some level, life happens. Life gets boring for all of us, of course. Life is not like one big firework show, of course. But along the way, we make choices to not have aliveness in our house, not have spark, not have fun, not have the erotic, not have. spontaneity. And it's hard when you got young kids. It's hard with life just when bills keep coming. Like, I get all that, but we get to choose that life. Okay. And by the way, wrap your head around this for a second. Just play this out. You sit down with your husband. A, you're going to have a hard conversation with him one way or the other. You're going to tell him I'm in love with somebody else or the idea of somebody else, this marriage is over. Or you're going to sit down. You're going to sit down with him and say, I've been unfaithful. A hard conversation is common. So you just get to pick which one you want to have. But how in God's name could you think you could find stability and connection with a guy who hits you on his car and a few weeks later is sending you dick pics? Like, how can you think like, oh, that's going to be my guy? Because he's just one fender bender away from hitting somebody else. I mean, from this whole thing, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. He knows you're married. He does. Yeah, of course he does. He knew it when he saw your insurance. Yeah. And so I guess I'm more concerned with not who you're going to, but I'm more concerned with the world y'all have co-created that you're trying to escape from. Gotcha. So talk back to me. Um, I mean, I guess just, you know, first year marriage, it's good, but you know, we never lived together before. So living together was a difficult thing to get used to. Tell me about it. What's difficult. He leaves hair, hairs, little hairs in the sink. He didn't flush. He didn't leave it. Like he's a jerk. He won't share the remote. Like what, what's difficult about it? He's, he's a little messy. So it's, you know, I kind of feel like a mom kind of picking up on it. You know, I have to do, I guess I have to do laundry all the time. I have to clean. I mean, he helps out outside. If I ask him, you know, like, oh, can you help me with this or help me with that? But like inside, I guess the house is all me. And I guess that's just a lot. Did y'all talk? It is a lot. It's a, it's, it's, it's a ton. Did y'all talk about this or is it just kind of shifted and happened this way? In the beginning, I mean, I would tell him, you know, can you help me with this? Can you, you know, can you like pick up after yourself or, you know, when you finish, like, you know, like, you know, do the laundry when I'm not home. If I'm working in your home, do it, you know, or, you know, or help clean and everything, find stuff to do that we need to be done. But then it just kind of slowly, like, I guess I just kind of gave up and I just now come home and I'll just do it. Or if it's my day off, I'll do everything on one, you know, on my day off. And so what I would love to express to you is that's a really normal transition to sharing a house with somebody. And the harder conversations that y'all haven't had yet are not about playing whack-a-mole with different chores. Because in defense of your husband, my guess is he'd probably just put on the same pair of dirty shorts again. And then the day after that, and then the day after that. And so in his defense, this, he doesn't see this as a problem. problem. or if he's like me, when I first got married, I did the dishes. When I found myself eating cereal out of a salad bowl, I was like, oh man, I should probably wash these. It never even entered my mind that I needed to have every dish put away either in the dishwasher or back in the cabinet or in the drying rack before I went to sleep every night. That wasn't even in my worldview. And so the deeper conversation is, hey, when I get home and I've been working hard all day and you've had the day off, the story I'm telling myself, the story I'm making up is you don't care about how I feel when I walk in the door. And he would go, oh gosh, because now it's not about dishes. It's about loving my wife well. And that's an awkward conversation. That's a, hey, we're building something together. How can I love you? This is how you could love me. This is what I want. I want to not be your mom. I want you to keep your eyes open. And by the way, when my wife and I had this conversation, our marriage was on thin, thin ice and it changed everything. Now I walk in the door with the intention of, is there a pile I can help pick up? Is there a way I could make this place a little bit nicer for my wife? It's not for me because I'm fine. And, but those conversations have to happen. The challenge is avoiding those small, those small tense conversations leads to now you're going to have to have a really hard one. Because you sought aliveness. You sought excitement. You sought joy. You sought being seen secretly like that heart when your heart rate, that first time you hit send on that picture, your heart was beating a thousand miles an hour, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. You can choose to co-create that in your own home or you can seek it elsewhere. But I think you have to wrap your head around the marriage you had. Your two-year-old marriage is over. It does not exist anymore. You nuked it. And so do you want to sit down with him and build a new one based on trust and aliveness and honesty, or do you want to walk out the door? No, I want to build it. Okay. There is no rebuilding without complete and total honesty and trust. And that means you're gonna have to sit in front of the man whose heart you've broken and whose trust you've broken. And you're going to have to sit in front of the man whose heart you've broken and say, I'm sorry. And if you're serious about rebuilding this, this guy who hit you from behind and wrecked your car and then turn it into a romantic thing. Um, like he doesn't even deserve a, Hey, we're not talking anymore. Like we block everything. I'm getting rid of social media. I'm just ending this because my marriage is that important to me. Otherwise your marriage isn't that important to you and call it what it is and deal with the grief that you've become somebody that you never thought you'd become. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? The solutions here are really hard, but they're relatively simple. You seem unwilling to do the simple, hard thing. Tell me about it. I guess I just don't know. I, I know it's simple. I could just easily block him, but I don't, I don't, I don't know why. I guess. Cause I was, I don't want to, I don't know why I feel like I don't want to disappoint him. But it's like, I definitely don't want to hurt my husband. You already have. I know. Now you're just deciding how deep that cut's going to go. Yeah. And I think you need, you need to do some soul searching on why this you're so intent on not disappointing a stranger, a guy who you don't know at all, but is the kind of guy that will prey on an awkward situation with a married woman and have no remorse about it. Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, this has transcended like, if you were working with this person, you have been working together for a few years and y'all develop, y'all working on projects together and all whatever, and you find yourself really attracted to this person and then you throw on the breaks and what, that's one thing. This is a stranger, man. And y'all shared a moment. It's the thing about Hollywood, man. These things don't work out and it looks like this is how romance starts. It's just, it does. It felt like a movie. Yeah. You know, but movies, I mean, Hollywood's not real because here's, here's my hundred percent promise. Fast forward, end your marriage with this guy, with your, with your husband, end it, move an hour away, quit your job, move an hour away and have this romantic torrid affair. Be with him. Y'all have like the, the tension, the sexual tension y'all have built by exchanging photos back and forth, release it, go for it. And I, I promise you within two months you're picking up underwear again. I promise there's oatmeal left in the bottom of a pan. There's going to be things, or maybe he does all the inside work and won't touch a mower. Like there's gonna be life that happens in relationships. I have a weird, I have like a, like a strong feeling. You're not going to do any of this. You're going to try to ride this out. No, I don't want to, because that's another thing. I feel like that holds me back. It's like, I couldn't quit my job. I couldn't, I mean, I have a family business, so it's not like I can easily just quit and move away, you know? And I'm attached to my husband's family. We're, we're close, you know, everyone, everyone gets along. I get along with them. And you know, I, I feel like I couldn't, that's what holds me back so much that I, I couldn't just pick up and leave. Yeah, dude. I mean, the more you talk, the more heartbroken I am for your husband. Cause it sounds like you don't want to stay with him cause you love him and you want to rebuild the marriage. It sounds like it's going to be too inconvenient for you to leave. Gotcha. And I, I, on, on his behalf, he's on the phone. He deserves more than that. He deserves a wife that will leave a family business, that will quit everything would sell the house because she's right or die with that guy. Not, well, I'm kind of stuck with him cause I it's where I work also. And his aunt is nice to me and she makes good meals. Like your husband deserves more than that. He deserves all of you. And if you're not willing to give all of you, be honest with him about that and let him know where he stands. Cause right now here's the deal. He knows something. Something's up and he's probably doing one of two things. He's walking around completely withdrawing because he thinks he's failing you. He doesn't know what's happening, but he knows something's not right. He knows you flipped the phone over every time. He knows your face is flushed when he walks in the room and you thought he wasn't home. Like he knows, or he's walking around thinking that he's failing you and he's trying to figure out how to better love you. And he can't, cause you're not being honest with him. He deserves better than that. And you do too. Quite frankly, but you can't have your cake and eat it too on this one. Like the world around you is on fire. You lit it on fire and now you get to decide how long it burns. I just asked that you'd be a person of integrity in the process. Thanks for the call. And thanks for letting me tell, tell you the, at least my, my version of the truth. We come back. A man asks how to support his dad during his mom's. Relapse without getting back into all the family chaos. I've seen the data. So many people, including you avoid talking about life insurance, because it forces you to imagine things that you don't want to think about. It's hard and it's scary, but you got to remember this. Life insurance is not really for you. It's for the people you love and you will leave behind if the worst thing happens. I recommend term life insurance from Xander insurance. When a family loses someone they depend on, the last thing they need to deal with is the financial chaos that comes on top of the deep grief. People don't always realize how much they carry for their family every day. Childcare meals, transportation, paying bills, holding everything together. Term life insurance helps protect your family so they can focus on grieving and healing and not figuring out how they're going to keep the lights on or keep the roof over their head. I used Xander long before I had a show because I trust them. I trust them to take care of my family in the event that the worst thing happens to me. Xander makes this process simple. Their team shops top rated companies for you, helps you understand your options in plain language and helps you find coverage that fits your family and your budget without pressure, gimmicks or confusion. Xander works for you, not the insurance companies. You don't need a sales pitch. You need protection for you. your loved ones. Zander provides you that protection. Go to zander.com. today to get a quote. That's zanderwithaz.com. All right. So the other day, my son and I went into a local store. We're getting some junk food and some gum, and I just wanted to buy a few things. And when I went to checkout, they asked for my address, for my phone number. They wanted fingerprints from me and my kid, and they wanted our social security numbers. They didn't really want all that. But listen, I just wanted some food and some gum and they wanted my soul. Every time you give out your cell number, your email address, or buy something online, data brokers are grabbing your information and selling it to the highest bidder, leaving you vulnerable to spam and scams. And even if you go to a store that's recognizable, they're also selling your data. They're not just selling you toasters or gum. They're also selling your data. And this is a big part of why I'm so excited about this. I'm so excited about this. I use and recommend Delete.me. Your phone number, your home address, your family's information, all of that stuff is just floating around online, sitting on data broker sites that you've never even heard of. I didn't know any of this stuff existed. And Delete.me will find your personal information online and they will remove it for you. And not just one time. They keep monitoring for your information and they clean it up month after month. You can close the door, you can call your family, you can call your friends, you can call your family. You can call your friends, you can call your family. You can call your family. You can call your friends. You did a good job. You did a good job. You loved me well in a pretty messy situation. I want you to know as I'm entering into marriage, I see it. You did a good job. You'll set his soul free, brother. Okay. But I think what your dad needs more than anything is, A, to be released of the burden, right? Because there may have been some seasons when he probably should have got you out of that house. And there may have been some seasons where he knew you were shouldering a lot of that relationship because he had to work or whatever. And he has a lot of guilt. And he has a lot of guilt and shame over that. I promise you. Yeah. And so you telling him, hey, I want to continue our relationship. as adult co-adults now, right? We're both adults. I'm going to need some marriage wisdom. I'm going to need you in my corner in my life, man. You extending that back to him will be like water for somebody in a desert, man. Yeah. I see what you mean. Is that cool? Yeah, that's cool. And then whatever work you got to do, brother, to free yourself from those things. If you become a people pleaser over time, if you, a lot of young, a lot of young adults whose parents were struggling with addiction, find themselves pretty reactive with some deep rage and anger that comes out in weird places. Like whatever is going on in your life, I want you to commit to doing the work. And that means going to talk to somebody. It's in a bad mouth, your mom in a bad mouth, dad, this is to set yourself free so you can become the husband, the parent that you didn't have. In some cases, in some areas you did, you got a pretty amazing example from your dad. But you and your fiance as y'all get married can chart your own course for what kind of marriage we want to build. And man, set some pretty cool family values together for who y'all are going to be together. Yeah, man, you're on the right track, brother. It was an honor to talk to you. And yeah, set your dad free. Set him free, man. We come back. A woman asks how to address her sister about how she confronted her daughter. I love family drama. All right. This morning before I came into the studio, I was doing a consult with a physician on some blood work I just had done. We talked about some places where I can optimize and get better. 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Stop guessing what's going into your body. Go to thorne.com slash the letter U slash Deloney to get 25% off your order when you create an account. That's T-H-O-R-N-E dot com slash the letter U slash Deloney. All right. Let's go out and hang out with Pearl Jam in Seattle, Washington, and talk to Angela. What's up, Angela? Hello. So I'd like your advice on how to address my sister, my older sister, in a situation that she confronted my 17-year-old daughter a few weeks ago. Oh, awesome. What happened? So I'm a single mom to a wonderful 17-year-old girl. Um, she's the light of my life, that kid. And, uh, we had some family over visiting for the holiday and kids will be kids. Should her cousins outside the world playing and she's the eldest of her cousin. And they kind of started, you know, snapping back one another. You should have did it. Not talking obviously very nicely, but kids, kids do that. Um, and my sister was outside with them and she got, uh, what I thought was reasonably on upset about it. And she told my daughter to go upstairs. Um, and this was in front of my whole family and she's like, go upstairs. I want to talk to you. And, um, I didn't know until later after I talked to my daughter about it, but she had a pretty angry confrontation with my daughter and was berating her and saying really not nice things. To her and even swore at her at one point. And, um, Nothing helps, uh, a child, especially a teenager who you're mad at for yelling and for, for calling people names to yell and scream at them and then call them names. Yeah. What a great example. Yeah. I don't handle, I don't handle situations like that with my daughter. I, I very, whenever she, no, cause you're a mature adult. Uh, yeah. Yeah. That's why. Yeah. Okay. This situation is electric. I can feel how you're describing this story. I feel it. And by the way, I would feel the same. Okay. Now let's back all the way out. Where else have you and your sister, where else do you sit in the seat of judgment underneath your older sister? Well, everyone likes to joke and say that I'm the older sister because I'm the more mature, responsible one that makes good decisions. And she does not have any children of her own. Oh, nice. Even better. Yeah. Yeah. She's got children of her own. I'm just kidding. Sometimes she can really be a Karen. Um, but I know she loves my daughter, like her own, and she's helped me through some really challenging times and she really has taken on a role of like a second parent, but I just felt like this really overstepped and I want to be a good example for my daughter. Yeah. In everything I do. Yeah. Well, let me assure you, you are, cause you've had a hard row, huh? Yeah. Yeah. Like your daughter has got to see in real life what a strong, powerful, loving, single mom looks like. What a great example on how to be a good woman. And the fact that you're calling and you know, I want to do this right. But nobody's going to talk to my daughter that way. Right. Is, is awesome. And your daughter needs to see this. Okay. Yeah. Um, if you're, if your relationship is strong enough is, is bonded enough is the nerd word. Then you can sit down with your sister and say, Hey, I need to hear what happened the other day. Cause I talked to my daughter and she told me that you said some pretty wild things and I want to honor you enough by getting your side of the story first. Right. And if you come at her that calm and not accusing, but inviting, I want to hear your side. I know my daughter told me her side, but I want to give you, I want to honor you enough to hear your side and to be able to say, if she has the courage to be honest and say, yeah, I use profanity. I swear at your kid. I did this. I couldn't believe she was saying these things or whatever. Then. And as calm away. As possible. If you're able to say, don't ever swear at my daughter again and don't embarrass my daughter in front of our family again, or here's a better way to handle this. Or when that happens, here's how I do this, but give her a path, but the calmer you remain, the more powerful and settled this conversation is. Yeah. Right. And that's hard. My sister can be very overpowering with everyone. Everyone in the family. Yeah. And so it's very hard to confront her sometimes. That's where getting away and saying, I need to hear your side of the story. And if she storms out then, and she throws a fit and she's embarrassed about what she did, or she's indignant. She thinks she's right. Yeah. Um, you're still able to a, know whether I need to draw a boundary. You're not going to, I'm just going to ask you to not communicate with my daughter. Cause you're, you can't control yourself. Right. Right. Right. I have an older sister. I know how hard this conversation would go. Right. And I also know like the thought of telling my older sister, you can't be around my kids would devastate me. It would hurt them, but they're, I mean, they're my kids. Right. Right. And then your 17 year old is going to feel guilt. I shouldn't have told mom. I should have just dealt with it. Cause now they're in a whole thing and she needs to be affirmed that you did the right thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I just don't, I want to teach her that she doesn't have to walk on eggshells around my sister. That's for the longest time. It's sort of how I felt. Here's the hard thing. She might have to walk on eggshells around your sister. Yeah. And so the harder lesson will be we as strong relational, like women, we don't walk on eggshells. And so that means we have to draw some pretty hard boundaries even when it's hard, but I don't want to have to walk. You're not going to walk on eggshells in your own home. You're going to be able to be silly and goofy and talk trash with your cousins. Cause that's what cousins do. What else? Why else do you have cousins except for that? Right? Exactly. And that's why we, we, well, other adults might like my brother and sister-in-law were there. We were like, what happened? Like they're just being kids. I don't understand what, why you needed to have blow up like that. Did anybody confront her? My daughter. No. She ended up actually leaving the house. She left my house and went back home and it was actually her birthday. I think again, we were supposed to be there celebrating her and spending time with her. And she got so upset and I guess was looking for validation from the rest of us. And we all kind of looked at her like, what are you doing? How old is she? She's 40. Oh my gosh. 49. She just turned 49. Can I flip this whole thing around? And you know her better than me by a million miles, right? I don't know her from the man of the moon. But could it be that she's knocking on the door of 50 and she's seeing her brothers and her sisters and their families? And this birthday got real heavy, real fast. It's very possible. We've had a lot of like big life events and not great life events recently. So we're all under a great deal of pressure and it's been very stressful. And so maybe sitting down with her and saying, hey, I talked to my daughter and sounds like you took her upstairs and you had a big blow up. this isn't you, what happened? What's going on? Yeah. And maybe you're like, no, no, no, this is her. This has been her forever. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But I think you just want to touch too far. Yeah. With time. And when somebody's out of control, the greatest gift you can give them is to say that you don't go this far. Yeah. And whether she pushes back, she gets indignant, she yells, she fights, whatever, it may be the greatest gift she could ever receive right now is a really firm boundary. You will not curse at my child. Because I'd put myself in that situation if I needed to reprimand my nephew. I would never have gone that far with him. No, no, no, no, no. But that's where, to get to the root of this thing, letting your sister know, at the beginning of the conversation, this doesn't sound like you. It sounds like you've got other things going on. I'm your sister. What's going on? And that conversation will like, I'm going through this. I don't have any kids. I was dating somebody and we just broke up. Mom and dad are sick, whatever. That will lead y'all to a path where y'all are getting closer and closer connected, where you will have all, I mean, you have all the room in the world anyway, but it will allow you to have the hard conversations which is, hey, you really embarrassed my daughter. Yeah. And nobody's allowed to swear at my daughter. I don't care how mad you are. Yeah, I don't do that. It took a lot. My daughter went through a troubling time and we worked through a lot of stuff. And my sister did see all of that happen, but my daughter and I have only grown much closer over the last four years. And I don't know if maybe some of that is, how my sister feels as well. Maybe she's a little envious of our relationship because we're really close. Possibly, but here's the thing. I wouldn't spend one ounce of energy trying to get in your sister's head and figure out why she did what she did. I would give her an invitation to explain it. Right. And you as a more regulated adult saying, this isn't you, what's going on? Or I've never seen, like, I've never seen you do this. I've never seen you blow up on my daughter like that. And that doesn't sound like you. What's going on? I mean, that's the most compassionate path back. And if she's like, I don't know what you're talking about. She was doing this and this. And then that's when you can know, all right, I'm gonna stop this conversation. You cannot talk to my daughter that way. And you will never swear at her again or you're choosing to not be in communication with her. Yeah. Right. And like, you'll know. I'm ending this back and forth. Here's the bottom line. And you know, if she's emotionally unregulated, she's gonna be all over the place. And you can't control her response to your adult boundaries. And it's not, I think people all over the country are weaponizing boundaries these days. Like, oh, you raised your eyebrow when I walked in. Or one time when you were seven, I think it's kind of gotten madness. But nobody's gonna curse at my kid. Nobody's gonna embarrass my child, especially when they're just being goofy kids. And if you are an adult and you need to correct my kids and you are in my circle and I've given you permission to do that, do it respectfully, do it privately, do it directly, do it in a way that's gonna help not make you feel powerful, but a way that's gonna correct the behavior and empower the kid to go do better next time. And so you're not only well within your rights, you're on top of it. And you're showing your daughter, I'm with you ride or die. But we're not gonna walk on eggshells in the house. And that may mean that certain people aren't allowed in the house. But we're all gonna be connected together 'cause we're in a family, we're in a relationship. Well done, sister. There's a hard conversation ahead, but I would start with an invitation. And remember, facts are your friends. Just tell the truth and as regulated as you could be. The most honest person is the most rooted person here. Thanks for the call, sister. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Summer is a time when people escape. They escape work, they escape school, they escape the rigors of "their regular life". Whether it's relaxing or going on vacation, we've been sold a lie that if we could just get away from it all, everything in our lives will magically work themselves out. But here's the thing, a vacation won't fix what you won't face. If you're anxious, burned out, or struggling, those problems will be waiting for you when you get home. And this is why I recommend BetterHelp. BetterHelp is online therapy that fits into your life, wherever you happen to find yourself. You can talk with a licensed therapist by phone, video, or messaging from anywhere. No commuting, no sitting in a waiting room, just a safe place to process what's actually going on in your life. And you wanna build a life that you don't have to escape from. All of BetterHelp's therapists follow a strict code of conduct. You can message your therapist and schedule sessions right in the app. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch therapist anytime for no extra cost. This summer, don't ignore what's coming up to the surface. Sometimes the strongest thing you can do is stop running from it and start turning and facing it. Go to betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com/deloney. All right, we're back, Kelly in the hot pink. Burning off my rods and cones a little bit. Looks good. Some days I just wanna know what's going on at your house in the morning. It's just, you come to work and you're just like feeling it, it's awesome. It's just a shirt that I put on this morning. Yeah, right. All right, so I have a cool crap that happened from a listener that asked me not to use her name. So we won't. So let's call her Kelly. I'm good with that because this is a great email. All right, nevermind. Let's call her Janet. All right, Janet. Janet writes, important to note that we have a three-year-old and a three-month-old at home. Oh, jeez. Our intimate time has been hard to come by recently. I was listening to- Hey, can we pause real quick? My favorite thing is, the word intimate is like a word that is like an all-encompassing, right? But it's also used- It's used not to throw shade, but particularly people in faith-based communities as a substitute for the word sex. And it's like, we had a three-year-old and a three-month-old. We know you've done it at least twice, right? Like we know, you can just say it. But anyway, but like the- Fair point though, probably any intimate time has been hard to come by. Yes, yes. Anything. We're not talking, we're not making eye contact. I don't know what day it is. Yeah, I haven't showered. Nothing's good right now. So shout out, Janet. Yes. The intimate time. So she said, "I was listening to an episode "recently, and John was talking about how sometimes "you just have to make the intimacy happen. "When I heard that, I sent my husband a flirty text. "It was the day before we were leaving for vacation "and we were still up at midnight trying to pack "when he made a joke about having some 'us' time, "and I just said, 'Let's go.' "After he said he was surprised that I said yes, "because it was so late and we still had so much to do. "So I told him about the Deloney episode I had listened to, "and he responded with, 'Thank you, John.'" You're welcome. "Just a funny moment. "I wanted to share. "Thank you for everything you've given us "to improve our marriage." Yes! Dude, I love this. Sometimes you gotta make it happen, and sometimes call the bluff. Man, it sure would be cool if we were making out right now. I'm in right now. You ready? And almost every time a guy's like, "No, I have my fantasy football draft," or whatever, dude. But good, if you're in a good marriage, if you're in a safe marriage, no abuse, all that yadda yadda, almost never do you regret, and let's be honest, what? Six minutes? You almost never regret those, "All right." You know what I mean? And on the other side of that, it's always like, "I'm glad we did that," or, "That was funny," or, "That was connecting," or, "That was like, dang, I didn't see that coming." It's so good sometimes just to be like, "You know what? "Yep, awesome." And good for her, good for her for going first and being weird and sending the flirty text. Shout out, Janet. Awesome, awesome. And I bet that vacation was a-rockin'. Probably not. Not with a three-month hold. No, not at all. It was just like a paid nap. But I guarantee you it was a better vacation. Oh, for sure. They were more connected.