My Husband Disgusts Me

he will go days without showering he won't always brush his teeth won't wash his hands i catch him wearing the same boxers for a couple of days in a row our sex life is non-existent if it does exist it's because he showers that day what up what's going on this is john with dr john deloney show commenting from national tennessee taking your calls real people going through real challenges in their marriages in their mental and emotional health in their lives struggling with addiction trying to love people well i'm glad that you're here if you want to be on the show i would love to have you click the link in the show notes and it will send you to kelly you and she will get you on the show she actually links her personal cell phone number in she doesn't she no that does not happen you know what i don't even give you my personal that would be a great auction no thank you yes if you ever mean to me i'm that would be so great don't forget i have yours as well mine's not real both of them one of them's real one of them is not dude what a game of what a game of mutually assured destruction we could play how about we just both not all right let's go to biloxi and talk to liz hey liz what's up hi how are you i'm doing all right how about you i'm okay awesome well thanks for calling what's up um so um my husband and i have been together about 10 years married since 18 and as much as i love him and everything like that his hygiene is awful oh man i like hygiene can mean a lot of things but it sounds like it it's taken it's just ground you down to the point where you're like it's awful like what do you mean when you say the hygiene is bad um he will go days without showering he won't always brush his teeth won't wash his hands and i catch him wearing the same boxers for a couple of days in a row and you're in mississippi it's not like it's hot he doesn't yeah i mean if you walk outside to get the mail you need to take a shower yeah wow so how can i help i hate this for you i don't know i have tried a gentle approach i have asked him why and i never get a response um i have asked him why and i never get a response um i have asked him why and i never get a response even gone as far as asking because as a teenager he played sports and i asked if like he was maybe assaulted by a coach back in the day he told me no um his mom has also said that his hygiene as a teenager was bad so it's not like it just developed okay i don't know does he have any diagnosable mental health issues i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know i don't know health issues and i'm not talking about just emotional but i i've part of my job over the years has been to sit down especially in educational settings with college students sometimes graduate students and say hey like your hygiene we gotta work on this like and that's always an awkward hard conversation but i've had to do a number of times um but almost always there was a there's a surrounding issue right with mental or emotional health challenges is he struggling with anything like that or is he just literally not care i nothing diagnosed um when i say he's depressed yes um he won't get help for that um but yeah y'all have kids we have a four-year-old four-year-old is this getting passed on to your four-year-old um i notice like he's not getting his teeth so i work early and i know that he's not always brushing his teeth before going off to daycare um is your husband and i just he does he's a great provider hard worker um so you know i i try to look at his wonderful qualities but this is affecting our sex life of course it can't be spontaneous i've suffered with utis throughout the years and i've tried to talk to him about that and now it's just like our sex life is non-existent or if it does exist it's because he showers that day so the hard part for me here is he's not on the phone you are and so i guess what i want to ask you is with your limited scope of what you can do what do you want to do next and here here's like a broad array of things um if you if you if if i'm going to be ridiculous for a second okay but just go with me if you put a pair of clean underwear on his bed in the morning and say you you have to put this on and you got to go shower will he do that or no will he just walk right past you no he'll probably walk right past me he does what he wants okay where else does he completely disregard what you want or what you need in your relationship in your home um again he's a wonderful provider hold on i know a lot of men who make a lot of money who are not people i would want my daughter around um i mean i don't ask him to do much for me he's i mean he's he does the dishes he does laundry you know so he takes the burdens off of my life um but when you say he's a good provider what does that mean he brings home i mean i work too but he's a good provider i mean i work too but he's a good provider i mean i work too but he's a good provider he pays the bills he will go grocery shopping he will do the laundry he will do the dishes i don't ever have to ask him to do that stuff but if there is something that i do need help with if i ask him it won't be done right away or i just don't ask you sounds like you're kind of living in his world yeah and what i i don't i hope i don't make plans because i don't want to take away from the stuff that he needs to do yeah it's not much of a marriage no it's it's definitely more of a roommate situation yeah but it's a roommate situation where you're living in somebody else's house right it's not like two roommates went and got an apartment together it's like he has a house and you live in it and you have no rights you have no um you have no relationship there he comes and goes and does what he pleases doesn't shower doesn't bathe are you safe yeah oh yes yes yes yeah that there's no question about my safety okay um so i guess you have to ask yourself what kind of world do you want to live in do you want more for you and your kid than this i i can't see myself waking up without my child in my home i don't want split custody okay um it's it's not one of those things where like my son has a great household he has a great childhood i'm telling you right now he doesn't he does the single greatest predictor of your kid's future success is that his parents have a great relationship together it's not horrible it's not horrible it's not horrible let me let me back out and let me ask you this is the way your husband treats you and disregards you where are ways you are becoming somebody you never thought you would be i want someone else okay that looks at me and tells me i'm pretty and wants to touch me wants to hold my hand wants to hug me okay can i tell you that's not crazy liz okay can i tell you that's not crazy liz okay can i tell you that's not crazy liz i mean i know it's not crazy the question you have to ask yourself and I can't answer it for you is are you going to settle for that for not having that for this? Is there a way I can help him to build our marriage, to get him help to build my marriage, our marriage? I mean, it sounds like, I don't know how direct you've been with some of these conversations. I have. Okay. And does he just blow you off? He never has a reason. I've cried to him. I've said like, I've asked him to shower. I've asked him how many days it's been since he showered. And sometimes he doesn't even know the answer. Yeah. But that, I mean, that's a huge deal. Hygiene's a huge deal. No wife should have to tell their husband more. I mean, on occasion, yes, fine. But no, no wife should have to regulate. I mean, you're talking like, that's how you talk to a four-year-old or a 12-year-old, right? A 12-year-old boy. You say, Hey, did you shower today? And they're like, Oh, come on, mom. And then they come out of the bathroom. And you're like, is that the same underwear? And they're like, come on, mom. Or come on, dad. Like, yeah, that's a 12-year-old. But that is the tip of the iceberg is as far as I'm concerned, because underneath it, you have a marriage where your spouse doesn't look at you, doesn't touch you, doesn't care about you, where you can't ask things. You can't do things. You get what I'm saying? And so the first thing you have to do is to reckon. I don't know, there could be any number of reasons and it would take us a couple hours to probably dig through them. But in the same way, you're telling me these things, these are all real. And these are all heavy, hard things. And you, you wallpaper over all of that with this story that everything in your home is great. And it's not. And your son is absorbing all of this. And in a way, not in a way, and with a ringside seat, he's absorbing what being a husband and a father looks like in real time. I can do whatever I want, whenever I want. And this wife of mine is an accessory to the life I want to live. It's not us co-creating and building a thing. And so until you allow that wallpaper to fall off and you sit in the reality that is your home. Because what I don't want you to do is, is to start to become a person you never thought you would be. Never thought you'd be a person who's bitter and resentful in your own house, where coming home was not your safe place, where your husband wouldn't look at you and tell you that you're dirty and want to hold your hand. My gosh, if the barrier to first sex is a shower, my gosh, there would be millions of men running to the shower, right? And that's what I don't understand. Right. And so, but the next layer here is, I don't want you stepping out on your marriage. Because then you're going to add a layer of, oh my gosh, now I've become somebody that I never thought I would be. I've become somebody I don't respect anymore. Yes. And so I want you to put everything out on the table. And if he looks at you, I mean, I haven't seen it work other than to say, here's the truth. I'm about to leave. Or I feel unloved in my own house. And if shower becomes the proxy war, then he's going to say, I don't have to shower. But underneath all of that, if he's as good a guy as you says he is in quote unquote providing, he needs to provide a space where his wife feels loved. Providing is way more than just a dollar amount. I get it. And if you don't want to do that, if the thought of, I'm worth more than this. Let me put it another way. My husband's left me. He just lives in the house. Fidelity is not just not having sex with somebody. Fidelity is I'm all in and you're all in and he's not, he lives his own life. Honestly, the biggest thing that keeps me here is the fact that it's just financially, it's so hard to live on your own these days. It is. It is. It's brutal. And women who leave abusive relationships, women who leave, um, relationships, um, where their spouse isn't a person of fidelity, uh, the data tells me that they often bear the brunt, especially in the short term. And I don't have a support system down here. Yeah. Do you have some girlfriends you can talk to or do you have nobody? Not really. Okay. The next right step for you, I think, is someone to walk alongside you and help clear the cobwebs. I'm going to, and at least give you some, some clarity on what my options are, what your options are. Because right now it feels like you've, you're hemmed in, right? Yeah. And I honor that. Like you sound hemmed in, but I've, I believe there's always a path, multiple paths out of a situation. None of those paths are easy. I'm going to hook you up with three months for free with my friends at BetterHelp. Okay. And get you a licensed counselor that you can talk to on your phone that you can talk to with your laptop and you can talk to them in the parking lot of a Walmart. Okay. You can FaceTime with them, but I want you to talk to a licensed professional wherever you happen to be and I'll, I'll, they'll cover it for three months. Okay. Okay. Thank you. But I want you to talk to somebody because you're not as trapped as you feel, but I can tell by talking to you, this has been going on a long time and 10 minutes with me, isn't going to, isn't going to free you from that. I just want you to hear me say you're worth more than this life. Thank you. Okay. I shouldn't have to say this, like I'm going to say it, but I will. Anyway, you're worth freaking showering for. I thought so. You're worth getting dolled up and going out. Providing is not just a big muscle and cash. It is providing a space for a wife to feel insanely prized and loved. Thank you. Call me anytime. Okay. Okay. Thanks. Hang on the line here. We'll get you hooked up with better help. We come back. A man asks how to want to become a better husband when his wife feels like he checked out years ago. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Taloni. 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What's up? So, my wife and I have been married. We just hit four years, six years together total. And there's been a lot of the same problems come up where she feels like, I guess, for lack of a better phrasing, she's like, you're checked out. You don't want to be married. You don't love me. You resent me. Is she right? I mean, it wasn't like that the entire time. We had a great relationship. Hold on. Answer my original question. Is she right? Have you checked out? Yeah. Okay. I have. Tell me about it. Yeah, she's entirely right. Tell me about that. So, there was a situation that happened that she always puts, to use your words, a GPS pin. And back when we first started dating, maybe a few months in, my sister got a divorce. She left an abusive situation. She had a spare room in her apartment, and we talked about it. We invited my sister in, and we thought, okay, we're going to give her some space, let her kind of get back on her feet, and signed a lease. She did the whole legal paperwork and all that, and it turned into an absolute nightmare. During that time, we didn't think to consider the trauma that she was going through, because we had no idea the extent of it. And she was basically being the worst roommate possible. Cleanliness, there was boys over, constantly rules-breaking. We asked her to take care of her dog while we went out on vacation. That was already pre-planned, and she completely neglected. And just overall, just being a very negative person to be around. And so, being that she was my sister, I was put in the middle of this, and having to be the liaison between my wife and my sister. About what's going on, how to move forward, the expectations and all that. And my wife is very outspoken, and she will very clearly speak her mind. And so, it was a lot of, it felt like a barrage, just like a, oh, what now type of deal. And as a result of that, we're starting to think that I've been holding on to that. Even though my sister's in a better place now, she's remarried, she's much, she's in a much better state of health, and these problems haven't been resolved, or at least the feelings of resentment or, I guess, contempt. I don't know if I'd go that far, but that comes to mind. So, why are we still complaining? It feels like we're still back in that same position we were years ago. And I feel like that carries on in how I look at her, how I want to. Mm-hmm. How I want to treat her. And, like, I've become very dismissive of whatever she has to bring up, especially if it has anything to do with me directly. Mm-hmm. She's claimed where I've been very defensive, and if anything gets said, like, to me about, even something as simple as, hey, I saw you did this, can we do this in the future? It turns into this big old thing. And once we start getting heated and started getting elevated in conversation and arguments, then she recognizes where she's at her limit for a conversation. She has her boundaries, and I just barrel right through them. And we talk about it later. I realize, hey, you know what? You're right. I shouldn't have done this. And then it happens over and over and over again. Do you want to break the cycle? Do you want to stay married or no? No, I do. Absolutely, I do. Okay. So, all of this will start with you saying, I still want to be married to this woman. Mm-hmm. You're in? 100% in. Okay. Does she still want to be married to you? She does. Okay. She just told this to me. Okay. So, if one person in a relationship changes, the relationship changes. And so, you called me, and so I want you to have the courage to say, I'm going to make the first step. I'm going to make the first change. Are you in? I'm in. Okay. So, the process here is relatively straightforward and, dare I say, simple. It's really hard to do. It's hard to check yourself, and it's hard to break out of a relational pattern. This is me explaining in real time what I mean by, I always say, someone's got to stop the music and turn the lights on. This is that moment. But I'll walk you through how to do it, okay? But it only works if you're 100% and want to stay married. If you want to, you could back out of this thing 30,000 feet and have this perspective. We first got married after knowing each other for a couple of years. And then we did a really hard thing. We invited a woman who'd been abused that happened to be my sister into a legally binding contract into our home. And it went real bad. And we learned that we've got some things we need to do to practice for our communication. We learned that, man, if we ever invite somebody else in who's hurting, we need to ask more questions. We need to have stronger boundaries. You may have learned. I have to practice stepping up and defending my wife because she is my number one because I married her sometimes in between her and my family. Your wife may learn, like, just berating and beating up my husband does nothing except hurt him, right? So if you look at this as a set of skills that y'all, like, y'all joined a basketball league and you both sucked at basketball, instead of she's terrible, he's a loser, he loves his sister more than me, my wife, like, you see what I mean? You know what I'm saying? You can moralize this and put character assassinations all over this thing, or you can just say, man, we tried a hard thing when we first got married and we were terrible at it. And one of those, viewing it one way takes all the pressure off of it and really points out, highlights some skills we need to work on so that we can continue to come back together. The other one is a constant way for each one of us to feel powerful in a situation, in a marriage where we both feel powerless. One of these paths will end your marriage. One of these paths will make your marriage stronger than you ever thought possible. But that's going to be you letting go, opening your hands up and hope to God she does the same. And so if you're willing to take that frame on it, I'll give you a very simple yet complicated, I mean, a very simple yet hard path to walk. Are you in? I'm in. Okay. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to schedule three hours. Three hours at a breakfast place this weekend or next weekend, depending on what your schedules are. Do y'all have kids yet? Yeah, we're actually in the process of adopting a newborn. Amazing. Amazing. So this is the most important thing you can do because you don't want to bring a brand new baby into this kind of like communication conflict chaos, right? Agreed. And I've been listening to your show a long time and I hear and I'm out. And I'm seeing that like the kids absorb the tension. And the last argument that we had actually ended up turning out to be a pretty bad one where she's like threw all her clothing out of the closet and she's like, I'm done this and that. And I'm over there, I'm looking at my son, he's six months now. And I stopped, stopped in my tracks and like she let her just kind of go through whatever she was, whatever she needed to get out. But we were done for the day. And we went our separate ways, like figuratively speaking. And then I remember thinking the entire day, I'm like, he doesn't deserve to feel this. I know, but listen, you don't either. And she doesn't either. You can't make these, a kid may be the impetus for change, but you can't make the change because of the kid. The kid can't bear the weight of that adult relationship transaction, transformation. You have to say, "I'm worth more than this," and she, my wife, is too and the kid will be the beneficiary of this no question about it but so will y'all - but you have to decide I'm worth living in a marriage where I cannot wait to get home just I can drop my shoulders and your wife has to say I can't wait to get home because I got a guy at home who loves me to the end of time and together we created this world where we brought we went and picked a kid and said we choose you to come live in our home with us that's amazing right but actually we were picked I mean even more amazing somebody looked at y'all and said we pick you for to raise our flesh and blood amazing so here's what I want you to do I want you to clear the deck and I want you to sit down with your wife and whether whether you feel this is justified whatever I want you to go first and I want you to say I love you and over the last three or four years ever since my sister moved in with us moved out I've not been the man that I want to be I'm sorry I've made up several stories about you about us and I want to share them with you and I want to tell you about the stories I've made up and how they make me feel and more importantly here's what I want to do next and I want you to be honest I've made up a story that you think that I'm fill in the blank I've made up a story that you're volatile and that you are outspoken and you beat me up all the time because you think it makes you feel powerful I make I don't know if that's true I just made that up and then that makes me feel angry and resentful and then I try to defend myself when we get in this loop I don't want to be in this loop anymore and then I want you to ask her are there stories about me you've made up I'm here and I'll listen to him and I won't fight you back I won't respond because I want to connect with you and y'all have to take all these like just imagine you and her carrying these Home Depot buckets full of just bricks y'all been carrying them around for years dump them all out on the table with that with the understanding I want to be married to you and I want to build a new marriage and here's the thing we get to decide what kind of marriage we build in the final step of this process is you say here's what I want here's what makes me feel loved here's how you can connect with me and I really wanted to get to know you and celebrate you how can I love you better and here's the thing this is a super vulnerable exercise because she may come at you like guns of guns a-blazin but at least you'll know because what's the other alternative y'all just gonna keep doing this she won't let that happen if honestly I don't I don't if I don't make a change soon and like keep it I don't think at them I don't think she'll allow the marriage to continue okay then use her language and give her a gift and say I've checked out and this is me checking back in 100 percent I love you too much you and I would I would frame it up I want to say some things first and then have you come back and respond but if you'll allow me I want to say these things first and just go first man because my guess is both of y'all have co-created this she responds over the top you get mad defend yourself and then you barrel through her what she wants a needs and then she responds over the top and just this loop-de-loop right yeah yeah that's about how it happens every time the intensity only increases the more the more happens over the years okay and where you'll land is you're still gonna have disagreements you're still gonna have like conflict that's part of life that means something matters conflict is the path to connection man like but you'll learn because you know each other and you see each other well I know that when my wife and I are in big in like in a big conflict I will say hey I want to talk about this big thing I need to talk about it within the next I want to talk about it within the next 24 hours will you let me know when a good time for you is my wife's like yeah I will and sometimes she'll say let's go right now and then sometimes she'll say let's talk tomorrow morning right we're still gonna have the conflict but she'll say I'm gonna go to say let's talk tomorrow morning right we're still gonna have the conflict but she can prepare herself I'm not just coming in here guns a-blazin I'm not over emotional like I tend to get right so it's just you get to know each other and she might sit down and say hey we need to have a big conversation can we talk about this and I can say yeah I need an hour give me one hour to get my head in the right place you know I'm saying because now we're gonna actually try to solve a problem we're not just gonna blow up on each other and try to have some cathartic moment and then just limp along to the next part of our day because we're both worth more than that I feel that like it's I've heard you say plenty of times like getting back to the way things were like that but it doesn't work yeah you have a new marriage you can't go back to before your sister lived with you and you felt attacked by your wife and you felt embarrassed that your sister was blown up and then you felt ashamed because you finally start to realize what had happened to your sister like all that stuff right you can't go back before that but you can move forward and say from this point forward I choose you over all my family members over everybody because you're my wife and then I got to do whatever whatever I need to do to to honor that right and the best the best way forward is to ask her for a path how can I love you today and this is not gonna be you're gonna leave this breakfast together hopefully y'all spend two or three hours and y'all get frustrated and there's some tears shed and you know laugh cry together and then you'll have some sort of a of a in pencil plan how can I love you and both of y'all are gonna have to decide we're gonna give each other grace because we're practicing a new way of doing this relationship that we've gotten in a really rutted dance with it's gonna take time it's okay and you leave that with the signal wink at me um stick your tongue out at me will you come up with a thing so that if I blow it if you see me heading down a path you can catch me because you know I'm on your team y'all have to get used to saying hey I said that wrong can I say that again and the other person exhale and say yeah go ahead and you know I'm on your team you'll have to get used to saying hey I said that wrong can I say that again and the other person exhale and say yeah go ahead it won't take the sting out of what was said but it will be a bid to come back together and you accept each other's bids like this is a choice man hang on the line here I'm gonna send you the together app and I don't want you introducing this until after you have this clear the deck we want to build a new marriage and by the way y'all have a reason to build this thing now one for y'all and two because another family is handing you their baby and y'all are doing an amazing thing by going through the adoption process taking a child that's awesome amazing wonderful the best the best the best the best but y'all got a reason to reset the marriage you had is over let's build something new and that starts with you going first and saying I'm sorry you're right you've told me I'm checked out and I did some soul-searching and you're right and this is me checking back in 1,000% I'm gonna be honest I don't fully know how to do that so I'm gonna ask you every day how can I love you this is not gonna be fixed in some big firework show it's gonna be decision by decision day by day and sometimes you're gonna have to swallow your pride swallow your frustration swallow your ego and then just go do the dishes go to the next right thing it's gonna be you choosing to put a note on your windshield or on your on your steering wheel so when you pull into your driveway there's a little note that says put your phone away and walk in the door and hug your wife and find one thing to do to help around the house these are tiny little things you're gonna do they're all choices and she's gonna have to do the same I'm in the middle of a thing my husband just drove up I'm gonna put this thing down for a second and we're just gonna hug when he walks in the door I'm worth that he's worth that or whatever the thing is you know I'm talking about you get to choose man both of y'all get to choose you want to keep doing what we're doing we want to split this thing up or do we want to build a brand new marriage I've got all the hope in the world for y'all but let's set down those bricks that we've been carrying about what happened when this thing first started let's set down these bricks of resentment and let's go till some new soil and build something amazing thanks for the call brother we come back a woman asks how to support her daughter while holding to her beliefs and her boundaries we'll be right back hey it's Deloney for hallow listen what could you accomplish in 90 days you can get in shape you can start losing weight you could change your marriage you can play games with your kids and change your relationship with him you can do so much in 90 days and that's why I want you to try hallow for free for 90 days hallow is the number one Christian prayer and meditation app in the world and I think it's one of the most important things I do to start every day of my life anchoring myself in my faith helps me slow down and prioritize what actually matters before the whole day grabs me and swallows me up hallow will give you 90 days for free to do the same thing building a habit of reflection and prayer. Hallow is simple and it's guided and it meets you wherever you are. Whether you're a brand new believer, whether you've still got questions about all this belief stuff, or you've been practicing your faith for decades. It'll help you anchor your faith practice with daily reflections, scripture, music, special series, and most importantly, peace. Ask yourself, where do you want to be and who do you want to be 90 days from now? If you want more peace or you want to get more grounded in your faith, give Hallow a try. You can try Hallow for free for 90 days at hallow.com slash Deloney. That's three months for free at hallow.com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to Houston, Texas, home of the Strohs. I'm ride or die, dude. If they're not having a great year, I'm still team Strohs. Only thing that matters is we are one place above y'all right now as the Rangers. That's literally, we're both awful. I mean, we're in last place, aren't we? No, you're in fourth of five. Oh, okay. And we're in third. You're telling me there's a chance. We're both awful, but we are one place, like literally one win above y'all. Just wait. Just wait. All right, let's go out to Houston and talk to Emily. Hey, Emily, what's up? Hi, thank you for taking my call. Of course. What's going on? So I recently found out that my daughter, we've been letting her friend come over and sleep over and letting her go to her friend's house. Okay, how old is your daughter? She's 15. 15, okay. Yeah, and I recently found out that they are dating. So I'm just, I'm trying to figure out, my husband and I are Christians, and that's how we're trying to raise our kids. And I'm trying to figure out how to talk to her about it, like what boundaries to set, and also how to talk to the other girl's parents about it, or if I should. Okay, how'd you find out they were dating? My daughter got her phone taken up a while ago, so she was texting her friend, or I guess girlfriend, on my phone. And she just forgot to delete the messages, so I read them, and I found out that way. So I want to say good for you for being a parent that checks on the text messages of their kid. I applaud you for that. Thank you, because I was kind of feeling bad for it. No, you're a parent. Okay. You're a parent, and we've handed these kids these magic wands. We've, like, as my buddy Sean Ryan says, we're not giving our kids access to the world. We're giving the world access to our kids. And so if parents are going to hand their kids smartphones, they better be on the alert and going through those things. There's a couple of layers here, okay? So often things like this get really big, and it feels like everything all at once. And so what I want to do is pull it apart a little bit, okay? Okay. Thing number one is they're dating. Okay. So let's put that in its own category here. We'll put your moral beliefs and your convictions and your faith, all that stuff, we'll put that in a separate bucket for a second, okay? Okay. Bucket number one, in no way in a million years would you let your 15-year-old daughter, if she had a boyfriend, spend the night, come over, go on dates, whatever. Right. Right? So that world ends immediately, because you're a caring, wise parent, okay? Yeah. We put a stop to the sleepovers immediately. Yeah, but I want her to know the sleepovers are not ending because you're gay. The sleepovers are ending because you're dating somebody, and I wouldn't let you have any partner over here. Right. And so that, again, you're asking a 15-year-old to get the nuance here. They're not going to, but I want you to be super clear as you're laying this out, okay? Okay. And if you and your husband already had dating, rules and regulations and age limits and whatever y'all's regulations are. Some people let their 14-year-olds go on dates. Some people say, you can't date until you're 16. Some people say, you can't date until you leave my house or whatever. Every parent's going to do their own thing, but I want y'all to be clear about, here's our rules for dating, period. Okay. Okay? And if you're telling me this is your girlfriend, then those rules apply. Then we get to the faith part of this, and anytime, somebody lays down, here's what we believe, and here's what our boundaries are going to be. Every belief and every boundary comes with what I, I mean, it sounds negative. It doesn't have to be negative, but they always come with consequences. Okay. And so what I don't want, I can tell you on the other side of this conversation, I cannot count the number of conversations I've had because I spent several years at multiple faith-based. Universities in addition to public universities, the number of parents who have come to me and said, I would do anything to have that first conversation back because I didn't just give them my opinion on their sexuality. I lost my kid. Yeah. We haven't talked to her yet because I was waiting until I talked to you. Yeah. Yeah. So I think I, it's hard for a 15-year-old to parse this, especially with the messaging they're getting from all over the planet. But the first and most important thing I would tell any parent in any hard situation, any situation where they find their kid, their teenager is doing something that they don't agree with is to say, you are my daughter and I will love you till the end of time, period. Okay. You will always, that front door will always be open to you. Okay. And I would tell any parent in any hard situation, any situation where they find their kid, their teenager is doing something that they don't agree with is to say, you are my daughter and I will love you till the end of time, period. And I would even go one step further. I'll tell you the things I tell my kids. There's not a thing you can do that I won't love you and that I won't storm the gates of hell to come get you. Okay. Now, my 16-year-old's driving. He's out and about. He's a way better driver than me. He's more responsible, right? But I've told him, hey, if you, like, you've now, you're now out in the world, man. You're moving out in the world with adults, wild teenage drivers, everything. If you do something that violates the law, I'll hold your hand. I will sit right next to you in court, but I can't protect you from everything now. Like, you're entering into a new world, right? Right. And so, it's like, I can't, but I want my son to know there's not a thing that you can do on this planet that I won't still love you. I can't protect you from everything, but my God, I love you. And then we're going to get into the values conversations. Here's what we believe, because we're of this particular faith, and we're of this particular belief about this thing. We don't agree with it. We think it's wrong. We think it's a sin. Whatever you want to say about it. And then you can go one step further and say, while you're in our house, here's going to be our rules and regulations about it. That's really helpful. That's kind of what I was wondering. Like, I don't want to force my kid to be a Christian. You know, like, I don't. If she wants to be, I want it to be of her choice. And so, I just don't want to shove this stuff down her throat. But then we have three other kids that we're raising also, and they're watching everything. And they had already kind of noticed, like, the closeness between her and her friend and kind of, like, pointed it out. And so, I want to make sure that we're, you know. So, you think it's okay, like, for us to be sticking to our values, I guess, while she's in our house? I take a hard line that I will not get between people and their values. Okay. I don't have to agree with your values, and you don't have to agree with mine. But what I want, the thing I want people to do is to, if you're going to own a value, you got to own it. You got to drive it right to the bottom of the ocean. And so, if this is a value to you, let's take her being gay off the table for a second, okay? Let's take something, like. Smoking. Okay? You can sit down and say, like, we think smoking's bad for you. We think it's wrong. And you can even go one step further. We think, I've heard this used before. We're a people of faith, and we believe that the scripture says a body is a temple. And we think smoking is destructive of that temple. So, we think it's wrong, and you can't do it. Okay? Okay. Your kid can look at you and say, the second I can walk out of this door, I'm walking, and I'm never coming back. Okay? Yeah. And so, because at some point, they become an adult. And my hope is the love that y'all have for her, the safety you have for her, the welcoming hospitality you have for her, and you holding the line on your values, that over time, I don't expect a 15-year-old to, I don't expect a 15-year-old to be able to be able to metabolize that. But over time, she's going to know, they disagree with, I disagree with them big time on this thing, whatever this thing happens to be. But I can't argue with the fact that my parents love me. Okay. And I've talked to a number of gay young adults who have told me, no, my parents, they think what I'm doing is wrong. They think what I'm doing is, but man, I got good parents. Okay. That's kind of where I'm trying to, I don't want her to feel, like I'm rejecting her for who she is. Like, I don't know if this is just a phase or she's going to grow out of it, or if it's going to be like a long-term thing. I wouldn't spend one second worrying about that. I would spend every second. ounce energy i'm loving my kid okay and loving your kid does not mean whether they're straight it doesn't mean you love every decision they make right it doesn't mean that you protect them from every consequence of every decision they make it just means like in not just in one big big conversation but in word and deed you know i love you you're always welcome here okay right so us sitting down and saying you may not date your girl while you live in our house is okay that's for y'all to ride or die on okay that's for you to write okay um i would not start the conversation like that start with all the love and like like i i would yeah um because because here's here's where any of us would go with that oh so i have to be alone i can't feel connection you're you're it you're you're one of those people who hates first are you get what i'm saying and so sitting down with somebody and saying i understand that my values because you live in my house are going to cost you this and this and this again sexuality is so charged i want to take it away from that i've had multiple conversations with my son over the years i've had multiple conversations with my son over the years telling him i know that my stance that i've made public because of my job i know that my stance on technology costs you friends i know that and i'm sorry okay i hate this for you i hate it but i believe in this moment in history in this moment in time i'm doing what's best for you okay that's super helpful to like take it away from the the whole sexuality conversation and yeah think of it that way yeah and i have different opinions and different beliefs on this than the number of my friends okay and i've tried to do my outside of abuse and a couple of big things i've tried really hard on the show i want to show up here as a good um coach would and say i want you to own your choices okay yeah if you sit down and say you will never date a woman in my house a girl in my house like that's not who we are i'm telling you right now i've sat with that child forever i mean for for 20 years and you will have severed your connection with your child so okay so um okay so we need to kind of decide if we want to say that or if we want to say like if you're is this someone you're dating because i mean because she kept it a secret now we feel like we can't let any girls stay the night because we don't know we're kind of like gonna do it right now and i'm like okay i'm gonna do it right now and i'm like i'm gonna do away with the sleepovers i think that's just a wise thing to do yeah i mean not because of sexuality just teenagers sleeping over that's just a recipe for getting in trouble and how do i know that right because i was a teenager that went to a lot of sleepovers like i just know that yeah you know what i mean okay so we i guess my husband and i need to decide if that we want to draw that hard line or if we just want to say like you want to date a girlfriend but no no i mean she can't sleep over well that's a no-brainer right because you wouldn't let you wouldn't let her date boys and sleep over right exactly right i i'm saying if you're going to get to the place where you say as for me as for me and our and your husband as for our house um you're not going to go on dates with other girls other young women um if y'all are going to get to that if that's your line then let that be your line but god almighty you better double and triple and quadruple down on your our daughter and we'll love you to the end of time and we know that this is going to be painful for you for us and we will sit with you through this discomfort yeah the hard thing is like we don't really necessarily know so it's like because i was telling my husband we still have to let her have friends like but we're not going to know like which ones of them she's dating because she she just hides everything from us well and so but some hiding from teenagers is normal they're trying to they slowly develop their autonomy that's part of the process okay and so that's it's developmentally appropriate to say it like a nerd would say it and the less anchored or safe is a dramatic word i don't mean safe from getting hit or getting fed i mean safe like you're allowed to have your own opinions in my house and we have healthy debate and we have a lot of laughter in this house and we have a lot of shared um we do hard things together as a family kids who feel that feel less need to hide stuff okay and so i want you and your husband to take some reflective time and say have we created a world where our teenager knows um uh we are hard liners and we don't we don't we don't love we don't answer the question we we just say no get away and that's who we are or is some of this secrecy because she knew my mom and dad um are gonna judge me on this thing and they're not going to hear me out they're not going to be connected to me it might cost me my relationship with them well the number of young people i've talked to over the years can i tell you what their biggest this is what they've reported to me right the number of kids up to art i would say young adults 18 to 25 18 to 30 young adults can i tell you what their biggest fear is was coming out to their parents like you won't love me yeah i can't have thanksgiving at your home anymore no we'll never you get what i'm saying say that can you imagine the terror of any child believing if my parents know this one thing they won't love me yeah that's trauma right that's the definition and that's why that's why i can't tell you how many parents have said my god i wish i could have that over and let my kid know i will i will burn the buildings down to come get you because i love you you're my kid i want you and your husband to be aligned on the same page before i walk in there okay okay who's here who's here's who we're going to be as parents who love our kids well here's who we're going to be as um parents to this young woman here's who we're going to be as people of faith are we confident that we're on the same page with this okay and here's what love is going to look like and these are going to be our boundaries and every boundary comes with consequences yeah i guess we're gonna have to really talk about that and make sure we're in agreement before we talk to her yeah i felt like we were but now i'm kind of thinking i might need to think over it okay um do you think that we should talk to the other girl's parents about it um i had planned to but now i'm not sure um i will tell you i would talk to the parent not because i found out their kid is attracted to my dating my daughter i wouldn't run to say oh my gosh guess what i found out about your kid oh no no i would talk to you're gonna be wondering i would talk to the other parent and say hey i found out our daughters are dating and we can't do sleepovers that was pretty much yeah because i know they're going to be wondering i would do that especially if they're close family friends if you don't know this family i i wouldn't feel an obligation um but i wouldn't i wouldn't feel the need to run out and be like oh my gosh guess what i found out about your kid i wouldn't feel that obligation but i would say hey we found out our daughters are dating and they're in a relationship together and they've been spending the night with each other and we're drawing a hard line on that okay that's yeah the mom and i have kind of become friends through the girls being friends and they've just been really good to our daughter so i just don't want to leave them in the dark like wondering why we all of a sudden decided to stop letting her stay the night sure yeah so and and okay and you can sit there open-handed with her and say here's what i found out about our daughters and she be prepared for her to go yeah i knew that i know i'm like if she knew and didn't tell us that's not to me that's not cool but right all right yeah and i'm way more concerned about the sexual activity of my teenagers than than than anything else at this point same yeah i just don't want to put her in the position in that position yet at 15 to be like experimenting and whatever whatever gender it is i just don't think yes yes yes because you're a good parent okay so yeah get with your husband and get real clear and we can go from there thank you for talking through this with me yeah thank you thank you for wanting to love your daughter well yeah i appreciate your help so much yeah you bet and if you want to call me back or you come back with your husband or you can come back with your daughter um i won't talk i won't talk to kids under 18 on the show but if they call their parents i'd be happy to um our kids man parents out there our kids got to know on a on a not a regular basis a daily basis there will never be someone on your team more than me that doesn't mean i'm going to approve everything you do like depend on your values that's not going to be mean that you're not going to have a consequence free life of course not especially that doesn't mean I'll let you do whatever you want, whenever you want to, based on safety concerns, et cetera. But my gosh, every one of those decisions is going to be made because I love you forever and ever and ever. We'll be right back. All right. It all started with Cozy Earth towels. These amazing giant comfortable towels that survive the dryer. They're amazing. And then I got a Cozy Earth comforter and then I got some Cozy Earth blankets and then I got the Cozy Earth socks. And now Cozy Earth is in every nook and cranny of my house. I even recently got a pair of their everywhere pants. I was not looking for another pair of pants. As my wife says, I don't need any more pants, but I got the everywhere pants and like all of the other Cozy Earth gear, they rule. And of course, I want to talk about Cozy Earth sheets. These are not normal sheets. They're the best. They're made from viscose from bamboo. Do you know what that means? I don't, but I do know this. Cozy Earth sheets, they're soft and breathable and somehow they keep me cool without freezing me out and I don't sweat all night. They're just perfect. Cozy Earth sheets help me sleep better. And here's the deal. Cozy Earth will give you a hundred night sleep trial on all of their bedding and a 10 year warranty on everything else. So there's no risk trying out Cozy Earth gear. Try them for yourself. Go to CozyEarth.com slash Deloney and use code Deloney and you'll save up to 20% off your entire order. That's Cozy Earth. Go to CozyEarth.com slash Deloney with code Deloney. And if you get a post-purchase survey, tell Cozy Earth you heard about their amazing gear right here on this show. All right, we're back, Kelly. All right. So I have a question about the Together app. Rip it. And this one's a little more personal than like the ins and outs and the how it works things. So I want to know, first of all, what's your favorite part? And then how have you and Sheila used it? And what have you seen from that? The favorite part for me, and my wife was, if you'd ask both of us, do we do it, what I would call small, this is a dorky way to say this, small attenuating bids. Do we do those things every day? We've both been like a thousand percent. Nobody does them better. This app was like, oh, I don't do them like I thought. And especially I don't ask, I don't do the work to find out what are the best bids for her. I do bids as I would want them. Right. And so I'll tell you, man, when we first got the first prototype in and we started using it at the house. And again, I was doing this just because I thought I need to be able to say I use this app too. I'm telling you what, man, it changed my house. Getting home and finding a note about my wife seeing me do a certain thing with the kids that she just said, I want you to know, like, that's awesome. And I love you. The other day when we were at the beach, I went from, I flew down to Orlando, did that event for three days. It's a super intensive with 2,700 business leaders. It's on never like all day, all night. It's a wild thing. I flew back to Nashville, threw my stuff in a bag and we drove to Knoxville for my son's state track meet. We spent the night in a hotel there. We drove back and we didn't stay at home. We immediately jumped in and went to Alabama for a family trip we'd planned. And after day two or three, my son's just getting up before God and being like, let's go fishing. She saw it on me. And I was just like, I'm out of gas. But I told this kid, we're going to fish till we can't walk anymore. And so we're going. And she caught me on the way out the door in a way she's never. And she held me and said, I'm watching you be the best dad I've ever seen. Like, like, but that is the daily, that's us doing that app over and over and over again. And, and so, yeah, it's changed us even. And I wrote it, right. But it's changed us in a pretty powerful way. And I think that's a powerful way just to constantly be paying attention to how can I love you? And man, it was pretty cool. It gave me some extra, extra gas in the tank. Just seeing her see me, right. I felt seen and it was awesome. So cool. You should do it too, Kelly. I do it, but my husband, and I'm so ashamed to admit this, has an Android. I know. You're married to someone with an Android? I know. I know. We'll talk about that. I'll call him at the next show. I'll call him at the next show.