Hey, good folks, I'm John Deloney, and I am jazzed to welcome you to the first ever episode of the Dr. John Delonas show. We are talking about your relationships, your relational I.Q., your mental health, parenting, being a good neighbor, your idiot boss, all of it. And in today's episode, we are talking about trying to save a marriage with a cheating husband, helping estranged family members financially surviving cancer. And I may lose my mind about another stupid crosthwaite mean.

So here we go. And the first ever and maybe the last doctor John Deloney show starts now.

Hi, good folks, I am John, and I'd like to welcome you to the doctor John Delonas show. This is a color driven show. We will talk about your relationships, your life, your parents, your mental health, your weird neighbor conspiracy theory, anything and everything. Right. The world is gone and lost its mind. And we're all defining our communities by who we hate together instead of what we're for. Right. People are struggling with their mental health.

Divorce rates are up across the world. People are out of work, divided. Things are just generally a mess. And I'm here to help. I'm here to walk with you and provide you with wisdom, wisdom from emerging science and research and experience, as well as ancient wisdom and truth and insights that we've just forgotten in route to becoming faster and bigger and more arrogant and more impressed and satisfied with ourselves. And look around at that. What that's got us right.

We can all feel we've entered into this season of transition and I'm here to walk with you. So give me a call at one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one. That's one eight four four six nine three three to nine one. You can also email me and ask John Ramsey Solutions. Dotcom, leave your number. Tell me what's going on and we will get back in touch with you. So my hope is that you're asking yourself, why does the world need another new podcast, for God's sakes?

There's like a billion of them. Right. And who is this Dulaney dude? He has no fancy books. He's cohosted the Dave Ramsey Show with Dave a few times, and now he's fancypants enough to get his own podcast. Is he shooting this from his mom's basement? Like, what's the deal? So here's who I am. For the past two decades, I've walked alongside countless people during their most challenging and darkest moments. I've been there and I've actually done the stuff.

I've sat with people in the aftermath of destructive life choices. I've held mothers and fathers after losing a child or a loved one, and I've walked alongside both young and old folks crushed by heartbreak and loss, anxiety, depression and other mental health challenges. I've officiated both funerals and weddings, and I've seen both love and heartbreak. And along the way, I've wrestled with my own mental health and relationship demons. I've earned two PhDs and I've spoken and studied with folks across the country, from Harvard to tiny little faith based universities in the southern United States of partnered with parents, families, businesses, anyone you could imagine, employees to senior leaders to help everybody live lives of dignity, joy and purpose.

And here's the deal. Through it all, I'm an eternal optimist. I believe there's joy, meaning, relationships, laughter, all of it on the other side of disconnection, mental illness and pain. That's why we're starting this podcast. It's a color driven show about you where you can call and get real answers, real truth to the stuff going on in your life. So give me a call. It's one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one.

All right. First up, we're going to my home state of Texas to talk to Jessica. Jessica, how in the world are you?

Hi, John. I'm good. How are you? Outstanding. Good morning. How can I help?

Good morning. So I've been dealing with some issues in my marriage regarding infidelity. I've been married for ten years and we have two kids. And I just I saw your post the other day about mercy and forgiveness, and I was just wanting to get some guidance on, like. When to keep giving mercy and forgiveness are when, you know, is it enough? So tell me about your the history of your marriage. Ten years. Tell me about it.

So, I mean, everything we've, you know, had multiple times like everyone else, but everything was pretty much OK. And I was like, you know, happy. We just had a child last year and our second baby and I thought my family was complete and everything. But I went out of town with the kids and came back and found out that he had been, you know, going out and partying and seeing other women. And I'm just, you know, struggling with this a lot.

So this is this reason it has been going on for the arc of the decade you have been together.

So that, you know, I just found that out recently. But when he came clean about everything, he did say that he had been with at least three women during the 10 years of marriage.

Hmm. And so we were working things out. I forgave him and I. Was trying to work things out with him, but a couple of months ago, I just found some emails where he had gone to meet up with a prostitute. Hmm. So I was kind of just shaken by that. And I'm not sure if I was able to continue with him or not.

So what do you want to do? I feel like I'm ready to move on. And when you say ready, I feel like I'm ready to move on. That sounds pretty benign, finding out that somebody's after a decade has been cheating on you, hiring prostitutes. Yeah.

Tell me how you feel. I feel like at first I was really ready to forgive, you know, I thought it was just like, you know, we've been together for a long time. We got married young, but you kind of I don't know, I guess his attitude about it, like the days where I didn't feel good. I felt like he didn't give me like. You know, a shoulder to cry on or like listen or with compassion, you know, well, a compassionate person isn't going to have serial affairs and called prostitutes, right.

So somebody who cares about your feelings isn't going to do that. So I wouldn't expect that in your moment of need and crisis that suddenly this person is going to show up and be the knight in shining armor that you've thought he was for the last decade. How old are your kids? Well, the youngest one is only one year old and the other one's a first grader. Yeah, so you're in it up to your eyeballs already, right? Yeah, I mean, like I said, everything seemed OK, I thought our family was complete, you know, it's just kind of came as a shock to me that it came at this time in my life whenever everything was good, like had it been at a time when we weren't so good, like, I could understand, but, uh.

So what what can I help you with? Well, I guess I mean, he's, of course, asking for forgiveness and, you know, I just. Don't know if I should keep giving forgiveness at this point. So forgiveness and tolerating unhealthy unsafe behavior are two totally different things. And so I'm a huge proponent of forgiveness. I'm a forgiveness is baggage that we carry around. Other people hurt us, right? It's like punching yourself in the nose and hoping somebody else will bleed when you don't forgive somebody.

It just it's just a waste of your own energy. But that doesn't mean that you allow yourself to repeatedly get bit by the same rattlesnake. Right. That you keep sticking your hand back in the bag hoping the snake won't bite you again. It's going to bite you. It's shown it's going to bite you. And it's told you I'm going to bite you. It's demonstrated over and over. This is what I do. And so I'll forgive the snake.

The snake is what it is. I'm going to stop, but I'm stuck. Put my hand in the bag and I'm going to tie the bag off. I'm going to give it to somebody else because I'm going to quit carrying that bag around. And so forgiveness, mercy, those are different than continually letting yourself get kicked right in. And here's the other thing. One of the most damaging moments of this besides the betrayal coming from your husband, right, that sense of just utter what do I do now?

I've got this perfect little family also. It is not what I thought is this frightening, scary moment where you, Jessica, no longer trust Jessica because Jessica thought everything was good and Jessica thought I had a great little family with its own little ups and downs, but that things were great and you've lost trust in yourself. And these are really critical moments when you've got to have people around you that can help you see clearly and help you plot out what the next point's going to be, because it's not as simple as just saying, you know what I'm through, I'm moving out tomorrow.

If you don't have a place to move, if you have a if you're a stay at home mom and you've got a kid that you're home schooling in first grade and or half quarantine, schooling or whatever, and you've got a one year old still toddler around the house, it's not so easy. So you're going to have to get some folks to walk alongside you. Are you convinced that the marriage is over?

I mean. I see, like, you know, the man that he is that, you know, takes care of his responsibilities and his family and lives and cares about it. Hold on. Hold on.

There he is. That's not a man who's going to be hiring prostitutes and his wife is not taking care of his responsibilities, is not.

He says he considers it progress that he didn't actually he says he got there and he was there, but then he felt bad and left and didn't do anything. You obviously don't have any proof that he didn't do anything.

Nonsense. Nonsense. This is it. That's progress. That he's trying to get better.

Nope. I'm going. One hundred percent disagree with that. And you can give him the number of the show and tell him to call me. No, absolutely. Zero percent progress to call a prostitute and just go hang out in the hotel and just be like, hey, what's up? I'm just this is part of my halfway house. I just call prostitutes, pay them for their time and we play cards and then I go home. That's not progress.

Progress would be coming to you on hands and knees saying, I have failed you. I've failed our kids, I failed our marriage. I've broken the vows that I swore before our friends in our family and our community. And if we're people of faith behind in front of whatever deity we pledged ourselves against, and this will never happen again. And here's my credit cards. So I'm not going to be stupid. Here's the number to a marriage therapist.

Here's the number to our financial adviser. Here's all the credit card statements. That's what. It's like submission looks like that's what humility, that's what I screwed up real, real bad, and I'm going to do everything I can to make it right. That's progress, nonsense. Progress.

I'm only I didn't inhale. You know, the cheese, the you're going to get me all fired up. And it's the morning here, Jessica. So here's the deal. Not progress. I'm never going to be in a position where I'm going to tell somebody this marriage is over. If somebody is not safe, that's going to be a call that you're going to have to make. I will tell you that somebody who is does not come back from doing something stupid, from having an affair and is not utterly repentant on their hands and face, ready to partner with you and a professional therapist or a pastor, a couple of of married couples in your lives that you know well that you trust and is not ready to turn over everything and be totally clear and transparent.

I'm not buying it. I'm not buying it. Somebody is good, that's not going to let you have really hard days and pick up the slack with the kids. That's not going to give you a shoulder to cry on, is it? Going to let you leave the house for some time because you're going have to reorient yourself to a new marriage, to a new partner, to a new you, because you don't trust yourself anymore, man. That's just the wrong attitude all the way across the board.

And somebody who's been a serial cheater over the course of a decade, who see prostitutes, you see prostitutes in the middle of covid, for God's sake, you're not supposed to go outside right. Where you like meeting a prostitute in a hotel with a mask on. God almighty, dude. Yeah, I'm not buying it. I'm not going to be the one that tells you to pull the trigger. That's going to be a decision you make. I'm going to tell you that I'm not seeing any sort of repentant behavior, any sort of you know what?

I was wrong. Let's make this different. Let's change it. Sounds like he doesn't think you're going to do anything. And I want to also publicly acknowledged women in these in these awful situations because there's economic ramifications to just walking out the door. Right. It sounds all cool to say I'm Martun. Right. But you have a one year old and a first grader and you've got to think about rent and you've got to think about food and you have to think about child care.

And all of those things take wisdom. All of those things take careful, careful planning. And so please get with somebody today, get with somebody that you trust that you can be vulnerable with. Have them go to an attorney with you. If that ends up being your next step, have them sit down with your husband if you decide you want to have further conversations. But I'm progress. Nonsense, man. Nonsense. One eight four four six nine three three two nine one.

Dude, you call me progress.

Oh, my God, dude, I was going to be a great morning and I'm all fired up here. I got somebody sent me this this morning and it I'm going to show this up to the camera. It's one of these Pinterest to Instagram me why I cross fit I being like the letter I because everything's cool since it's like an iPhone.

Why I cross fit to you. Take a cult and then you make the cult hipster by putting an eye in front of it. That's just ridiculous. Here, here's what it says. Because I can go and you can't go any further because easy will no longer suffice, because I just don't get better. I get better than great and strive for perfection. What does that even mean? Because I know my limits and defy them daily. Because I don't stop.

When I'm tired, when I'm tired, I stop what I'm doing. When I'm done. I gave it to is a straight face because I know pain is weakness. Leaving the body, leaving the body or pain is just a signal. Your body tells you that Kraft's breaking. But whatever dude, because I have what it takes, even if it takes all that I've got, I don't even know what that means. Here's my favorite. Because I don't you because I don't use machines, I have become one.

No, you have it, dude. You're just a person. Here's the thing I hate. I hate analogies that describe people like machines, like, dude, I'm just letting off some steam or I got my wires crossed like you're a person, man. You're a person. Yes. I think people quit too soon. I think that most people go through life not finding out what they're made of. I think people are not intentional with their days.

I don't think I think a lot of people don't set goals and they don't go through the hard, hard things to solve them. But this kind of nonsense makes the author look goofy and makes why I cross it. I being why I have my iPhone and my iPad and I cross it because I'm greater than my obstacles. You know what? That may be the only grain of truth here. We are greater than our obstacles when you work hard and you have a community around you.

But also pain is a signalmen. Pain is a signal that you need to get in better shape. Pain is a signal that maybe I need to take a day off and rest. Maybe I need to have a gratitude journal. Maybe I need to get with community, with people. And for God's sake, stop referring to yourself as a machine. You're not a machine. You're a person. We are not machines to fill oil into and to fix the gaskets, bro.

We are people that need to love the need to have goals that have community and the need to work together, stumbling and bumbling and sometimes sprinting and sometimes resting towards whatever it is we're headed as a community.

To Jessica, you got me fired up. All right. Let's go back to the phones. Go to Stephanie in Richmond, Virginia. Stephanie, good morning. How can I help?

Hi. Good morning, John. Thanks for taking my call. Thank you for calling. Absolutely.

So I wanted to call and get your opinion. My father just passed away, and I'm so sorry. Thank you so much. It was an extremist relationship for about 15 years. And right now he's survived by his father and two brothers. And all of them have very, very bad financial situations. So at this point, there's really nobody except for me to pay for a burial. And I'm just not sure that I really want to and kind of looking for guidance on how to how to go about thinking about this and deciding this.

Oh, thank you so much for the call. First and foremost, I'm sorry for your loss. Even a strange relationships and messy relationships. There's something about when our mom and dad passes away, right.

That hits us in our guts. So why was the relationship estranged?

So he and my mother got divorced when I was about five years old and it was due to alcoholism and drug use. And then he just never actually made it past that and unfortunately passed away due to those circumstances. And all of those elements are present in the other family members lives as well. So it's really the bad situation with all of them. And unfortunately, my father passed away from it. So we've spoken maybe three times in the last. Ten years for just a couple of minutes at a time.

So the way I first of all, let me give you a couple of things here, kind of stumbling over my words a little bit.

First and foremost, you've got no obligation to pay for anything. OK, I want you to there is no rule. There's no hard and fast character issues here. If I mean, he gave up his right to be a dad, he left us when you were five. And he spent most of his life in devotion to drugs and alcohol, other things. And so there is no no requirement that you pay for this. Right.

The way I like to look at these situations is a saying that I heard years ago, and that has stuck with me across a number of different issues, which is not by my hand, but in my lap, meaning there are a number of things in my life that I have to deal with that I didn't cause that aren't my fault, that I technically don't have a responsibility to deal with.

But they are in my lap and I didn't hit a guy on the side of the road, but he's bleeding. He's in the right thing for me to do right now is to help him up. The thing that I'm not sleep tonight unless I don't do it. And so the question you have to ask yourself is, five years from now, 10 years from now, 15 years from now, or 30 minutes from now, what is who is Stephanie?

What is the character of Stephanie? And are you a person that would step in if somebody at your local church needed some help to pay for a funeral or somebody that would pitch in five years from now and help a brother who is struggling? You just got to ask yourself that and what you're going to be able to sleep with and not sleep with. And that that is the character question that ends up dictating a lot of my present day behavior on not I'm angry right now, but who do I want to remember myself as years from now?

So do you have little kids? I do, yeah, I have I have a six week old and a two year old.

Did they ever meet their grandma?

My two year old did one once. How did that go? It was OK.

It. He, you know, wasn't overly involved, but he was happy to see and meet my son. So what do you want to do? I don't know, I think, you know, I'm open to probably paying for something simple and helping out in that regard, I just I might be maybe a little overly pragmatic, but it's hard for me to really see what purpose it would serve at this point, which. With him already being gone, it doesn't actually help the reconciliation there or the relationship, but in the same way, I don't want to seem cruel or to violate my own character and regret that later.

Yeah, and I think thinking about reconciliation as a as a two sided way, you're right. He's passed away.

What a ceremony can do in the grieving process, even in a painful grieving process. Again, however big, small, medium size the ceremony there is. Right. Even if it's a the least expensive cremation in a tiny urn that you deal with on your own.

Mark. This the reconciliation comes from your side, it's it gives you a process to set the bricks down. It gives you an opportunity to say you can't hurt me anymore, you can never hurt my grandkids, you can't abandon me anymore. And in my last moment, I took the high road. I forgive you. I'm setting the stuff down and I'm going to be the mother. I'm going to be the parent, I'm going to love my kids, I'm going to love my husband, I'm going to love the people close to me like you never did.

And then you're going to set this stuff down and then you're going to move on. And again, that doesn't mean you have to pay for a funeral. It absolutely doesn't. You can do that with a letter to yourself in an open field somewhere in Nebraska for all I care.

What I don't want you to do is let your anger in the shortsightedness and the it doesn't have an immediate ahli. It doesn't solve stuff right now. I don't want that to pain you five years from now, 10 years from now. And you think, man, for a thousand bucks. For five hundred bucks. I don't I don't know how much these things cost anymore. For twenty five hundred bucks. I could have taken the lead in my family once again as the only one who's not an addict, is the only one who sticks around, is the only one who does their commitments.

I paid for dad's a small little get together. I bought the cheese platter and I got a minister and to say a couple of nice words, I did the right thing. I honored my dad even when my dad didn't honor us. And then I put those bricks down and then I got about the hard work, the challenging work of moving forward, right. Of living into my family, my partner, and making sure that we're all on the same page moving forward.

So that's still up to you. There's not a right or wrong here. You don't owe the man anything. If I'm in your position, I would pay for it. I would find the money. I would pay for it because it's at this point, it's about my character. It's about the demand. I want my kids to see me be not by my hand, but in my lap. And I'm going to that's the way I would handle Stephanie.

So thank you so much for the call. That's a hard, hard one. All right. Let's go to emails.

Remember, you can email me and ask John at Ramsey Solutions dot com. Millions of you are already emailing. That's not true. At least like eleven of you have already emailed so far. Keep them coming. More than eleven, but. All right, let's go to places. Hey, Susan Rice. Last December, I was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer in late stage three four, and I was told my survival chance was below 10 percent.

I'm happy to say that I am now cancer free. I was scanned in July and it is gone, brother. Hey, man, that's awesome. Now the world looks and feels different and people closest to me say that I'm different and I don't feel that's a bad thing. How do I best communicate to my family and friends that this is me now? Wow. So first and foremost, man, what a gift. That's awesome. I'm glad you're cancer free, man.

Getting a rare form of cancer diagnosis that says your survival is less than 10 percent can really clarify things for you. What's important to you, the things that you loved about your current life, the things about your life that you wish were very, very different. Right.

And then all of a sudden. Brother, you get a second chance. I'm just trying to put myself in your shoes, I walk into the doctor with my head held low, holding the hand of a kid, both of my children holding the hand of my wife. And we walk in and I get to get the results back of my skin and my doctor walks in shaking his head.

And he's just like Deloney, you have no cancer and you are cancer free. I don't know what happened. This thing is gone and I would just try to imagine the burden I would feel leaving my shoulders like my heart expanding, hugging my kids, hugging my wife. And all of a sudden, yeah, man, I think everything would taste different. I think the things that I think are important, like getting the latest Netflix show or making sure all my emails are answered or the lines got to be I mean, the lawns got to be mowed perfectly.

I think all that nonsense great would go out the window. Right. I think I'd probably be a lot more optimistic, a lot more interested in looking people in the eye and asking them how they're doing and making sure people felt loved and connected and making sure that I was doing what I was passionate about and what I felt I could contribute to my neighborhood and my family and to my country. And so how do I best communicate to my family and friends?

This is me now, Hatzius. I'm just wrestling with this in my own mind right now. I think first and foremost, you're going to best communicate this. Through I contact, through smiles, through generosity, through handshakes, through post covid hugs, if we ever get to do those again, I think it's going to be less about communicating in words and more about demonstrating an action. Let them see the new generous Hatzius. Let them get to know the guy who doesn't lose his temper as much anymore, who shows up to help on Saturdays and Sundays and Mondays before work.

The guy who shows up after hours helped move people's couch, the guy who loans them their truck without even thinking about it, because it's just a piece of metal on four rubber tires, right? I think you best communicate by living differently. And if you've got some folks that you hurt in the past or that you are short with or angry with or that knew you as this rough and tough dude. And I'm just making this up because this isn't written here.

But I think it'd be a gift to write them a letter, an actual handwritten letter on paper with lines on it, with a pen and just say, hey, you know what? All this was a jerk. And for whatever reason, the God of the universe has given me round to give me a second chance and I'm not going to blow it. And part of not blowing it is making amends for who I was before. And I know that this is just words.

I know this is just me writing notes and you have to watch me live differently. But I want you to know that I'm a different guy and I'm going to demonstrate that every minute of every day for the rest of my life. That's how I would handle it. The most important thing is that we remember that people don't listen to us. They watch us. That's what communicates what what matters to us. That's what communicates what we're about is how we treat people.

Man So haziest, man. Congratulations, brother, on a second chance at life. Don't squander it and make sure that you love those people close to you. So we're going to transition to one of my favorite parts of every Dr. John Delonas show, and that is the song lyric of the day. Today's Song of the Day comes from the classic probably of the best albums ever recorded by one of the greatest bands who ever lived.

And some people say, I love the Beatles. I love Jay-Z. Wrong, all of you wrong. The greatest band of all time is Poison. And one of their seminal records is Flesh and Blood back in the 90s and the lyrics. Ah, from the song Something to Believe In, and it goes like this, I drive by the homeless sleeping on a cold, dark street like bodies in an open grave and underneath a broken old neon sign that used to read Jesus Saves.

A mile away live the rich folks and I see how they're living it up, and while the poor they eat from hand to mouth, the rich is drinking from a golden cup. And it just makes me wonder why so many lose and so few win. Just give me something to believe in. Just give me something to believe in.

If I had a lighter, I would be holding it up. The folks in the booth are holding up the lighters. Give me something to believe in. Good folks. It's been awesome being with you today. This is the Dr. John Delonas show.