Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Two of my coworkers have been engaging in an inappropriate relationship. They go to lunch together, they take walks at lunch together, they're dieting together, they're going on personal errands together, sometimes even coming in to work on the weekends together.

Oh, yeah. What up? What up? How are we doing? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Man, I'm glad you're here. It makes me feel not so alone. Actually, I'm not alone at all. There's 14 people in the studio right over there. It seems like it's extra full of people. What's all these people doing back there, Kelly?

Well, we have some people shadowing different jobs, learning how to do different things, and everybody just wants to be here because we're the best.

I think America agrees with you. I think so. They don't. But I hear if you just say America agrees with you about anything- Enough times. You just keep saying it, it becomes truth. Hey, on this show, we talk about your marriage, your dating life, your kids, your in-laws, whatever you got going on in your life, especially your mental health, your emotional health, your relationships. What have you got going on? Here's my promise. I'm going to sit with you and we're going to figure it out. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291, or go to JohnDaloni. Com/ask. A-s-k. All right, let's roll out. Roll out to St. Louis and talk to sweet Caroline. What's up, Caroline?

Hi, Dr. John. Thanks for having me on the show. Of course.

What's going on?

I am calling in for some advice about a situation at work that's been causing me a lot of anxiety, honestly. I have been noticing that two of my coworkers have been engaging in an inappropriate relationship that's been developing. One is my boss, who is married, and one is my fellow coworker who is not. I am just seeking advice on what is my role as a bystander in addressing the situation or calling it out.

Just coming to mind, I think two things play out here. Number one, what is your... What is the, what I would say a moral ethos of where you work? Are you working at a church? Are you working at a place that puts their values on the wall and says, This is who we are? Or I've worked at places where everybody's hooking up with everybody. There's that. The second one is, what's your personal relationship with these two, with their extended family? Are these your friends? Are these people that have given you permission to speak into their life? I got a third one. Do you want to work around this crap? That's the third one. Often people like to let their values be heard, but they don't like that letting their values be heard sometimes comes at a cost. Tell me about what you have deemed inappropriate. Is it like you walk in on them totally hooking up or they go to lunch? Tell me what you think is inappropriate. Yeah.

That's where I think the advice is needed, because what I might think is inappropriate might not be like they go to lunch together, they take walks at lunch together, they're dieting together, they're going on personal errands together during the workday, spending a lot of, sometimes even, like coming in to work on the weekends together.

Oh, yeah.

I do work at a company that is It's faith-based. I'm sorry, it's a private company. We're a corporate America, but our morals and our values are very important to us at our work. Both people are professing Christians, and as am I, and I have developed a close personal relationship with them. That's why I think it's been bothering me as much as it has.

Is this coworker friend of yours Is he or she report up to the person they're with? Yes. Okay. I mean, that to me is anytime a boss is hooking up with or way too close with one of the people that report up to them. Yeah. I mean, that just feel gross work in that environment. I get that. Or it makes you like, Hey, if you're going to be a person who doesn't have integrity with your marriage, where are other areas you don't have integrity in your life? Because there's a really famous study, a social science study after the Ashley Madison leak that showed there was a correlation between people who were cheating on their spouse and people who had ethics violations filed against them. It bears out in the data. Here's the biggest deal. Of all the things you've said to me, these are your friends.

Before I went throwing grenades, I would probably pull my friend aside and say, Hey, dude, here's what I'm seeing.

Tell me what's going on.

Yeah. Yeah.

And nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing's going on. What's the matter with you? I would never just be like, All right, cool. This is just what it looks like. And maybe other people in the office are talking about it, and I'm your friend, and I just need you to know, here's the visual here.

Yeah, I think I've almost done that so many times, but I've been afraid of losing that friendship, losing that relationship in the case that I'm wrong. But it has got to be.

If someone is truly a friend, and you have a booger in your nose, and you let them know they're really grateful. If they're truly your friend and you pull them aside and say, Dude, something doesn't look right.

Yeah.

And either something's going on in your life that you're over your head in something or you're making some just conscious decisions to live a different life, cool. They're going to go, You're right. Or they're going to go, Oh, my gosh, nothing is happening. But yeah, the way you just said that, Oh, my gosh, this looks awful. I need to be more conscious of that. But it's going to be something out of gratitude. If they're not really your friend, they're going to burn you to the ground for calling out them acting stupid, acting the fool. Where I'm nervous to do anything beyond that is, like you mentioned, I don't know, at certain jobs, in certain places, it would have been super weird for me to look at somebody and say, I'm not going to go grab lunch with you because you're a woman. That would be strange, or us four all going out. So that would be weird. I don't want to say this behavior is wrong, this behavior is wrong, this behavior is wrong. I will say, man, you can find yourself in some slippery slopes, right? And I've been there, too. I think the biggest thing is you have a relationship, a personal relationship with them.

I would tell your coworker, probably not my boss. That's probably not where I would start unless you're super close to your boss. But I would start with my coworker and say, let's go out and have a hard conversation. Here's what I'm seeing. Is everything okay?

Yeah.

Here, she might tell you, dude, I'm trapped. I'm trapped. I don't know what to do. I'm stuck in this deal. Boss is predatory. You don't what you're going to hear on that side of it. Yeah. If your boss's supervisor knew that he was potentially sleeping with one of his employees, would that cost him his job?

Yes. Okay.

Well, at some point, you got to make that call, too. I just decided life's too short, and I want to work in a place where I think the leader's got integrity. I don't always have to agree with him. Yeah. There's things I dramatically disagree with my leaders right now when it comes to certain issues. But when it comes to, do I trust that person? Implicitly, with everything I got. Trust, trust, trust. That's just a core value for me. If they look at you and call you stupid and they isolate you, then you can go up the HR chain, you can find a new job. But it doesn't sound like you're sleeping well.

Yeah.

Okay, I threw a lot at you. What are you thinking about it all?

Yeah, and I think it's more so confirmed that I need to have that conversation because I definitely don't want to gossip about it with other people. I know the right thing to do is to go directly to that person first. I think I just need to get over the fear of man and the fear of having that hard conversation. I do think we are close enough that it would be received well when delivered in the right way.

That's awesome. Good for you. Will you let me know how that conversation goes?

Yeah, definitely. Awesome.

Here's one last tip. As little as possible Let me say it. I was about to say it in the double reverse negative, so I'll say it in a more direct way. Use the word I as much as possible, not the word you. If you sit down at a table and you look across a table your friend and you say, You've been doing this and you've been doing this, you've been doing this, you've just started a fight.

Yeah.

If you sit down and say, I'm worried about my friend, and I'm seeing this, and I want your world to have peace in it, and I want you to be okay. It feels to me like the boss is praying on you and using his position of power to put you in a situation you might not want to be. I would start it that way because now you're talking about I'm seeing this, and I is often an invitation. It's not an accusation.

Yeah. Cool.

That's good. All right. Let me know how it goes. Thank you. Thank you for being a person of character, and thank you for being a person who... I don't know. I just really prefer the personal conversation more than the HR grenade. Yeah, definitely. I just think there's a right way to handle these things. And unfortunately, in our day and age, the right way to handle things sometimes cost us such stuff. I hate that, but that's the world we're in. I'd much rather be able to sleep at night, right?

Right.

Awesome. Well, good for you, Caroline. Sweet, sweet, Caroline. Best of luck to you. Let me know how that conversation goes. We'll be thinking about you. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by Better Health. All right, here we are. We're almost halfway done with the year. Can you believe that? 2024 is flying by. Let me ask you something. What's something you're really proud of so far this year? What's something you're still hoping you can change direction on? Is there something that's haunting you? Not including the presidential election that's coming up, but something that's just hanging on that you need help in overcoming. As we get older, life picks up steam and it moves so, so fast. It's so important to take a moment to celebrate your wins. It's also important to stop midstream and make adjustments for the rest of the year. Therapy can be a place where you can take stock of your progress and set achievable goals for the next six months and beyond. Therapy is a safe, effective place to get things off your chest, to learn how to say scary things out loud, and to figure out how to work through whatever has been weighing you down, especially the first part of this year.

I have been personally blessed to have a great therapist who I can talk to and who helps me work through things, analyze what's going on in the past, and create a plan for how to get better in the future. If If you're thinking of starting therapy, give better help a try. It's totally online, it's totally convenient, and it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule. You just fill out a brief questionnaire, you get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time. It doesn't cost you any money. If you're ready to take a moment and be super intentional for the rest of 2024, call Betterhelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/delonie today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/delonie. All right, we're back. All right, we just were talking and talking, so we just off here, so Kelly and I need to have us on air. Yeah, that whole thing, that last conversation was just made me feel weird.

Yeah, I can see going to someone that's my equal, my teammate, and saying, Hey, here's the rumor that's going around. Here's what this looks like, because maybe you're not aware. But going to your boss, it's a bold step.

I mean, that's the nuclear option, right?

Yeah, because If it's not happening, that relationship is super weird now.

I was saying off air, there's been one person that I can remember over 20 years when I went and sat down and said, No, there's two. There's been actually two. When I sat down with that person and said, You can't be on my team. We were on an org chart equal. I had no leadership over this person. What I was saying was, I'm drawing a line here. The things that were happening were so egregious. There's been situations that I have left. I have left. I'm not going to work in this environment. I'm not burning anybody the ground, but this is going to burn down, and I'm not going to be a part of this.

I think that's the only thing you can do is you have to decide if you can deal with it or not. If you can't, then you need to leave. But you can't speak into someone else's life necessarily like that, especially when you don't know.

That's the big thing you don't know. I am constantly reminded of that Brené Brown quote. What have you been looking for in the world, you're sure to find. If you're like, I think there's something going on with them, every time you're going to miss the 999 times, they're nowhere near each other. But you're going to see that one time and they're laughing together and you're going to be like, See? There's another data point for the story you're looking for to find. I'm always, just go talk to the person, go talk to the person. If they say nothing's going on and you're crazy, give that story a spin for a while. If you're still uncomfortable, then you have different choices to make. But the only times I've ever come to that, like I need to go tattle on somebody, is me sitting across the table and looking at them saying, You have a choice to make here because you're not working with me anymore. Both times, that person has resigned, has called it. No, one person was asked to leave, but it all blew up, right? The other person was the thing of integrity and resigned.

But that wasn't me guessing. They were really explicit about what was going on. I don't know. The whole thing just It just feels weird. By the way, I filed an HR report on you yesterday.

It goes into the pile of the many.

It's like a Cold War. We've got mutually assured destruction. Yeah. Both of us want to stay employed.

Oh, by the way, I think you'll appreciate this. We got a comment that you were perpetuating misogyny.

Did that go right next to the comments from all the men who are like, You treat women so much better than men?

Exactly. I just wanted you to know that you're perpetuating misogyny. Stop doing that.

At the end... I don't even know what to say.

I deleted it.

At the end of the show, we're going to have a dictionary section called... I need you to define perpetuate. Just kidding. I know what that means. I'm trying not to say something that's going to get me canceled because people on the internet are so bizarre. Let's go out to Philadelphia, where I was born I've been raised where the playground I spent most of my day and talk to Jess. Hey, Jess.

Hi. How are you?

I was good until Kelly told me I'm perpetuating misogyny, but here we go. What's up?

All right. My question is, how do I talk to my five-year-old about lying while still making him feel like he can come to me and be believed and heard about anything that might be causing him a problem.

Okay. While you're telling me this story, I'm going to look something up because a buddy of mine just texted me about this. All right, keep going.

Yeah. As a little As a little background, I work- This is amazing.

I'm so excited about this. How cool is this? Okay, go for it.

Yeah, as a little background, I work from home, and my kids are mostly my grandparent. I always have a little bit of a pulse of what's going on in the house, how things are being handled, everybody's mood. I am lucky. I know that when he comes to me, that he's safe and he's not being hurt. I don't know how to handle it when he comes to me and says, Mom, no one's being nice to me. My little bit me and grandma punched me or something wild like that. I know because I'm lucky and I have the background that it's clearly coming from his active imagination, but I'm just not sure how to handle that and make him feel heard. If he ever does have a big issue, or God forbid, someone in authority is not treating him well, that he can come to me and be believed, but also teach him that he can't say that.

Well, so now you got a complicated thing, Jess. Anytime a kid tells me somebody's hurting them, somebody's touching them inappropriately, somebody's hitting them, especially an adult, I always want the first words out of my mouth to be, I believe you. If it is grandma's attacking her dragon on me, well, even then that might be… Here's where I always go with it. I believe you. Tell me more about that. Then I'm going to ask for some more specifics. Then, very similar to how I respond with adults and college students when it comes to a suicidal threat, is as your parent, I cannot allow anybody to hit you, and I'm going to have to go sit down with grandma and granddad because this can't happen. Then there becomes an understanding of a consequence if you tell a story. Then sometimes a five-year-old is old enough to begin to grasp what's real and what's not in a more concrete way than a third or fourth grade. They're not fully there yet, but they're getting there. There's a couple of books I'm going to recommend to you. That's just me and my buddy, Dr. Lynn Jennings from the med school there at Tech.

We were just texting about this yesterday, two days ago. I'm going to give you some books that you can read that would be age-appropriate for a five-year-old that you all could read. But if it comes to physical violence or it comes to sexual inappropriateness, I want to sit down and have some more questions. When you do that, you said your background lets you know this isn't true. Tell me more about that.

Right. That's the thing. That's because it is, like you said it in that way, That's how I want to respond. I want to respond with, I believe you. But I also… That's where I'm lucky because I know that in this case, that wasn't exactly what happened.

How do you know that?

Because I can hear everything that's going on. But I still want him to… I mean, it's probably very true that his little sister bit him. That's very likely true.

Give me an example of a lie that's made you go, Eesh.

Well, that's probably the main one that I just used. That's probably the one that was the most…

Is he lying in other places?

He He'll say things that I can tease out are not entirely accurate. He'll say things like, When no one was playing with me, and when I ask more questions, I can understand that he didn't feel comfortable asking to join in a certain game, or there was one moment where he was feeling left out, but Otherwise, things were going okay, that type of thing.

Often, I think when kids put emotional things on the table, it's almost always a skills issue, meaning we hear that as adults as an emotional, over dramatic or sensational story. Those kids left me out. What they are really asking for is, how do I get to play with them. It's a skills issue. Oh, you have to go over there and ask them. You have to say, I would like to play, too. That's nervous, and there's some awkwardness to that. Every kid's got different levels of sensitivity. My son would go barreling into that group, and my daughter would stand on the periphery for seven months. Every kid's differently when it comes to how intense those feelings are. But almost always when a kid is saying, I got left out, they did this, it's a skills issue. My My daughter, my sister bit me. I want her to get in trouble, but what do I do? Here's what you do when sister bites. Tell me about grandma hitting your kid. How did that story come out?

It was the type of thing where I think he came to me because he wanted… He knows I was working, and I think he needs a reason to go. He knows he's not supposed to interrupt. He needed a reason that would be consequential to interrupt and have my attention and everything. I think that's where it came from. I've watched grandma interact with my three little ones a lot and handle things well. I can hear. Like I said, I have a pretty good sense that that was not accurate. Maybe she was, worst case scenario, maybe she pulled him away from Little Sister if Little Sister really was going to bite him or something, and he interpreted it one way. At the end of the day, like you said, I want to make sure that he knows if he feels that way ever, he will be believed.

Got you. Well, that would be a great moment. If that's just how that played out, that'd be a great moment to say, number one, grandma's job is to make sure both of you are safe. She pulled you away from little sister because little sister was hurting you. That's grandma's job. Show me about this punch and let him reenact it.

Okay, that's a good idea.

Let him say, Oh, it looks like she just pulled you out of the way. Yeah. Here's a pull and here's a punch. We're teaching him. These are just tools and skills. Occasionally, this is what a forensic child psychologist will do or a forensics kids therapist will do is through play, they will be able to... A kid will retell a story and show things like, Oh, yeah, that didn't come out of a kid's That happened. That's how they get to it because kids can't just articulate everything. But asking them to recreate it and then norming things. Yeah, that's exactly what a grandma is supposed to do if her beloved grandson is getting bit. Right. Is to pull them out. That's great. That's not a punch. This is a punch. Don't actually hit him, but you know what I mean. It's just teaching. Here's the difference. There's two books that Dr. Jennings sent me, and we'll link to them in the show notes here. One is called The Berenstein Bairs and the Truth, and these are children's books. These are kid, kid, kid books. Berenstein Bairs and the Truth by Stan and Jan Berenstein. We all read Berenstein Bear books when we were kids.

There's another one called What If Everybody Did That? And a follow-up for Older Kids, What If Everybody Said That? By Coleen Madden. I've never read any of these books, but I pretty much trust anything that Dr. Jennings tells me. She said these are great books for sitting down with a kid who is struggling with telling the truth. They're just little learning books that you can read over and over and over again. Here's the beautiful thing about children's books. Same as the book, Some Parts are not for touching. It gives you a conversation that you can point back to. If it comes up, Granddad kicked me in the face, Mom, and really it's your child who's trying to connect with you because he misses you and he knows this is a way you'll stop looking at the computer and stop working and engage him. He's going to have an incentive to come up with the sensational because that's what gets you the thing he wants more than anything in the world, and that's your attention, that you can point back to these books. That might be a cool way for you all to connect it over that.

Is there a point when working from home, maybe going to work at a coffee shop or getting with some buddies and rent in a small place that you can go to?

Yeah, I think we're getting there. For a long time when I was nursing and everything, it was easier to be at home. But I I think, yeah, that might become a more realistic option.

Here's one other thing you might want to try. This worked well in COVID, and I think it's still working well with people who are at home wearing multiple hats, but literally put a hat Oh, yeah. Let him know when I have the yellow hat on, I am working, and there can't be any talking. But when I have green hat on, I am mommy. Or I have no hat on, you can come talk to me and hug me anytime. It's a big signal. That way, they don't have to test the water. Is she working? Is she going to be interrupted? They just quit banging their head on the boundary because when I got yellow hat on, and you can just point to the hat if it comes in, bust into your home office. But I am this right now. I tell the same thing with homeschool parents. When you have red hat on, you're a homeschool parent. When you have yellow hat on, you are working from home. When you have no hat on, I'm just dad. It just helps a young kid be able to differentiate really quick. But for every parent out there, I do like the instant response, I believe you.

Let's dig more into that. Show me what happened. If it is about grandma keeps or granddad keeps touching my private parts or granddad or uncle or whatever, that is instant, I believe you. Thank you so much for telling me. We're not going to ask a bunch of questions then. We're going to hold their hand, we're going to hug them, and we're going to call it professional, ASAP. You can begin to imprint some of those stories. It's a whole thing. If you start doing this tribunal in your house, as mad as you are, as scared as you are, as frustrated you are, that's something that even in my situation, when I know the right questions to ask, because I'm so close to it, I would call somebody, and I would have that done with a professional. There's too much going on there. One last thing. I know you're in the house, Jess, and so this is less about you. Most Most of abuse that happens is from somebody that everybody knows, whether it's a step-parent, an uncle, a mom, or a dad, a grandparent. Most physical and emotional and sexual abuse is from somebody that people know.

Absolutely without question, the most common response is, I thought I can't... It's just this sense of guilt. I can't believe I just put my kid with so and so. Even if your first default setting is they would never, I'm telling you right now, they might. I've been in too many of these heartbreaking situations where it's like, he would never, I could never imagine he Parents let their guard down. If you have any inkling, in this situation, obviously, Jess, it's different because you're in the same house, you're in the same room. You might even have cameras that you're watching this stuff happen. You're right there. But if you ever think, everything's cool, and your kid comes home, and suddenly their mood changes, suddenly their grades fall off a table, suddenly they say, so and so keeps hitting me or making me uncomfortable, or I really, really don't want to be around that person, and they get real clinging and they start weeping really hard. That's where we're going to ask more questions. We're going to ask more questions. I'm not going to be less vigilant just because they have a title like uncle, or they have a title like brother or sister, or they have a title of family member or a friend.

I'm going to be vigilant. Thank you so much for the call, Jess. It's really important. If you're interested in these books, check them out in the show notes. They're available for really low cost on Amazon. Worth going to check out. We'll be right back. It's time to talk about Organify. I love Organify. It's wellness made easy and it's delicious. In addition to my low-calorie, super-low sugar, no caffeine red juice powder for caffeine-free energy, I travel with it. I take it every day. I also have green juice powder that balances stress and micronutrients. I take that every day. When I need a little bit of help going to sleep, the Harmony Hot Chocolate is incredible. But in addition to all that, I am in love with the brand new Happy Drops. I ate two right before I started work this morning, and I'll probably have a few more before the day is over. Happy Drops are a delicious gummy with a unique and powerful clinically studied saffron extract known to naturally elevate mood. They help your body adapt to stress and contribute to calmness. They're the perfect combination of gummy candy without a bunch of garbage in it, and it's got enough good stuff to help you soothe, uplift, energize, and feel good.

As I said, there's no harsh chemicals, there's no garbage in it that can have negative side effects. I could talk about Organify ingredients and clinical studies and all of that. Here's the best endorsement I can make. I take Organify every single day. I was out of town this weekend. I traveled with it. I got home. I had some right before I went to bed, and I took it this morning for energy, clarity, gut health, and more. If it's good enough for me, my friends, and my family, it's worth you giving it a try. Go to Organify Organify. Com/delonie right now or use promo code Delonie at checkout for 20% off everything in the store. That's organify. Com, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I/delonie. Go right now. All right, let's go out to San Antonio, some of the best food on planet Earth, and talk to Vanessa. Hey, Vanessa, what's up?

Hi, how are you?

I'm good. How about you?

I'm doing okay. A little hot out here.

It's just getting started this summer.

Yes, it is.

Are you all going to have another hottest summer of all time?

I would say so, yes.

You all need a break. You all need a break. What a mess. All right, so what's going on, Vanessa?

I am calling to ask. I don't know how to properly interact with my almost ex-husband, set appropriate boundaries, as well as encourage him to, I guess, make more of an effort with our oldest daughter who has some anger and resentment.

Can I make a joke?

Go ahead.

You could have called me and said, I really need to know just the right spell so that I can defeat Volamort just like Harry did that one time. That's basically the question you just asked me. Have you filed for divorce?

I have.

Okay. So it's in process?

Yes.

I'm sure he's being just a ray of sunshine and acting like an adult as you'll separate things?

He is not.

No, he's being a child. Would you Can you sit down and ask a seven-year-old to act like an adult? No. No. You don't even engage in that conversation. The heartbreaking part of the situation you're in is there's not a lot you can do other than to protect your kids.

Okay.

You know how important a relationship with... How old is your daughter?

Twelve.

Twelve. You know. You've been a twelve-year-old little girl. You know how important that relationship is with It breaks your heart to see him burn it down because he's got an ego and an anger issue. That's his choice. I hate that. There's nothing you can do about it. The more you try to force it, the more it just creates more chaos. How is he avoiding her or not being the dad that he needs to be with her?

I think he feels, which is valid, he feels the anger and the resentment. He sees it on her face.

Why doesn't he solve it with love and connection and care?

Because in his mind, she doesn't understand the full story.

She never will. She's 12. She's not supposed to understand the full story.

But he is the type that is proud and stubborn.

That makes him a child.

Yes. So I think he's just given up on trying with her. He's like, It's too far gone now. Whatever.

That's so gross. That pisses me off, dude. Because what you just said in a very kind way is dad quit on 12-year-old girl because 12-year-old girl wasn't singing and dancing in a way that makes his precious little heart feel good. That pisses me off because 12-year-old girls need to be 12-year-olds. Same with little boys. It's the adult's job to act like adults. I'll be ridiculous for a second. If the reason you all getting divorced is because you hooked up with seven of his friends, and he has every reason to despise you and leave you and all that, he still has a responsibility to show up and love that 12-year-old girl as though she's one of the most, if not the most important woman in his life. It doesn't matter what happened to his precious little ego. That's a twelve-year-old little girl, man. I know you know that. I just get mad. I get mad when parents cash out on their kids because they don't even understand. They're not acting right. They're 12. They're seven. They're 17. They're kids.

Right.

God Almighty, I'm sorry. Why are you all getting divorced? Did you get the brunt end of this, too?

We are getting a divorce because, similar, everything's about him, what he wants on in his time. When I was completely 100% ready to commit in our marriage, he was not. He wanted to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. It was very much... I was a yo-yo. I was hazy yo-yo. He would throw me back and forth. He was in the military, so we were overseas. Whenever he didn't want to be in the marriage, he'd just send me home. Then he'd call and say, I can't live without you all, and I'd go back. It would be a constant in our life until I finally said, I can't do this anymore. This is not healthy for our children. I can't do this. I deserve more. Good for you. When I finally did that, when I took that stand, he didn't like it. He didn't like that. Basically, I filed for divorce. We've been separated since 2018. He got out of the military in 2021, and he has been nothing but chaos in our life.

Why in the world- He got out. Why has it taken six years to finalize a divorce in the state of Texas?

He did not want... I knew I wasn't at that point, and so I wanted to give my time to heal. He was still overseas, and I was like, It's fine. He's gone. He doesn't want to file right now because he doesn't want to do a divorce overseas. I'll give him that. I'm going to heal in the meantime and work on me and the girls. And then when he finally came back, I said, Okay, well, you can come around. Possibly, we can reconcile now that you're home. And it just got worse.

What got worse? Anger, outburst, rage, physical abuse, cheating on you? What got worse?

Cheating on me, lies. I lost my dad in 2022. I think that was the one and only time that I probably reached out for him in just a moment of, This is my selfish moment, and I just need you to just be quiet and just be here for me, be present. He said some scary, ugly things, and he couldn't just lay it down and be there for me. I think that's what really broke me and broke any trust I could have ever had in him. I was like, wow, just in that one moment, you just had to be my person, even if it was as a friend, as the father of my children. You I just needed to do that one thing, and it broke me. I was like, I can't anymore. This is beyond over. Yeah.

I'm so sorry. Yeah, that's beyond divorce stuff. That's just cruel, right?

Right.

Because if some random person from your office called and said, Hey, my dad just passed away. Will you just come talk to me for a minute? You would go, right? Yes. Much less somebody you've created lives I hate that for you. Thank you. When's your divorce finalized?

I have been trying to get it finalized. He, at first, didn't have a lawyer, now he wants a lawyer, so he's just pushing back a lot. He doesn't want the kids. I know that he wants them, but he doesn't want them full-time. It's just a lot of push He doesn't want to be worked.

What's there to push back? He doesn't want to pay child support or something?

No, he'll pay child support. He just wants me. Anything he can do to prolong it, he does.

It's just left. I'm struggling to wrap my head around the words. It's a good grief. I'm embarrassed now that I don't know off top of my head because I used to just know it off top of my head. But in the state of Texas, there comes a moment when somebody can just... A strategy is, I don't believe the county that we live in or that I live in has the resources to actually come to my house because I didn't show up for any of this stuff and actually force the sale of this home and split everything up. I call your bluff. I'm not ever going to respond to a letter. I'm not going to respond to anything from the court. I'm not going to do anything. I'm just going to do nothing. There is a point that your lawyer can simply get a trial date and you go before a judge and say, Here's all the times I've tried. Here's all the things, and they can settle it right there. Then they send a letter out, and the person has 30 days to respond or something like that. But if that's their game to just stall, stall, stall, stall, they end up shooting themselves in the foot because the letter says everything's final after that 30 day.

Here's my guess. My guess is there's a teeny, teeny, tiny part of Vanessa that is still hanging on to this thing.

I think I have… I don't like to get into… I mean, I'm very strong. We can get into it with him, but I don't like it when it gets to that point because there's rage text and there's threats and there's all these… But you haven't- It's just the anxiety.

You haven't blocked him, and you haven't filed a no-contact order because the way he talks to you?

I've tried.

And they said no?

They said no. Why? Yeah. They said that the language that he used was not hard enough, and so they couldn't grant That's what I'm saying. I don't need that. Okay, so delete it. It was domestic.

So delete it. You see what I'm saying? I want you to take full ownership of this. I agree, yeah. And by the way, you hired a lawyer, right?

Yeah.

All right. You've hired an assassin. Let them do their job. People hire lawyers, and then they pay this retainer. And in your case, they're probably between 5 and 15 grand you've already paid out. But then you keep texting on the side, and you keep trying to settle things on the side. You've hired your assassin. Let them go do their assassin. That's your husband's job. Let your attorney go fight for you. That's why you hire them. Then you stop responding and be as present and as close and as great as a mom as you know how to be. And grieve your dad because you haven't written him a letter and let him go yet. Because when he finally goes, you're going to feel all alone doing this thing. You're trying to hang on to him, too. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you did everything you could to fight for this marriage. But the bell rang. The final buzzer has already rang. It's over. And you're still trying to shoot layups to try to move the score. You can't move the score. You don't want to play. Right. So you hired a lawyer, let your lawyer do your lawyer jobs, and then you go about creating a new world.

Are you working?

I am.

Good. How's that going?

I love my job.

Awesome. Is it enough to provide for you and the girls?

It is enough, yes.

Okay. Do you have a place to live?

I do.

Amazing. I'm asking you to say these things out loud because you're already taking steps. You're just so in it, you don't realize how far you've actually moved. You're way stronger than you think you are. You just have to let your dad go. My recommendation is write him a letter and tell him how much you love him, how much you miss him. In the letter, talk about what mom and woman you're going to be. Then let him go. He was a good guy? He was amazing. What was his dad? What was his name?

John.

John. It's awesome. It's probably the greatest name of all time. A little bit biased. Don't start it with dear John. Start with, Dear dad. There's a whole thing. Okay. Then let your husband be your ex-husband. Here's the deal. I'm going to fight you. I'm going to extend that. I'm not going to fight. I'm not fighting you. I have hired an attorney. That's their job. You do have to stay on divorce attorney sometimes because they often take humongous caseloads because things can get so routine. There can be, after a while, an economic incentive to keep dragging it out.

Okay.

So say, I want this thing over by this date. I want to be done with this. All the paperwork filed. It's worth if you If you haven't put down a retainer, it's worth getting the best attorney you can get for the dollar amount you can get. There is a class of attorney that will prey on people in your situation. And I know personally attorneys who are incredible, who will look your situation and say, not on my watch. I'm not going to have some big, tough ego maniac shoving around a woman and her little girls. Not going to do it. They'll earn their $10,000 or their $7,500 They will. It's fun to watch. They're amazing. This process always takes longer than you think it's going to, and it's always more frustrating. That's why I say, let your lawyer do your lawyer job, and then you go on about your day. Okay. Okay?

Mm-hmm.

This guy has repeatedly proven he does not want to be married to you. He does not want to love you. He doesn't want to build a world with you. He needs his children to massage his ego. He needs you to sit on the sideline in a chair, and he'll call you into the game when he gets good and ready, and that's not marriage, right?

Right.

You swore to yourself you'd never get divorced, and you got married, didn't you? Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry. Sorry. Vanessa, you call anytime. I'm going to hook you up with a few things, okay?

Okay.

I'm going to send you. I'm just taking a wild guess here just because I look at the data. This is not a directed at you. This is just my understanding of what it looks like when a mom decides to free herself from this madness, and she ends up in an effort to do what's right and to save herself, she ends up a single mom. I'm going to send you Financial Peace University from the Ramsey Solutions where I work. It's going to teach you how to handle your money. You've probably been doing that your whole life, but I just want to give you this as a gift. I'm also going to send you every dollar, the best budgeting app on the planet for a year for free. I'm also going to send you Building a Non-Anxious Life, my book, and I want you and your daughters to go through it. You all can do it together. I handed it to my son when he was 12, probably 13, and he read it in a few days, and we've talked about it since.

Okay.

Okay? Mm-hmm. But it'll be a cool little roadmap you can make for your new reality, your new world. Is that cool?

Yes. Thank you. All right.

Hang on the line here, Vanessa. We're going to get you hooked up, and I'm really grateful that you called. But big picture, somebody's enraged, and they're angry, and they belittle you, and they demean you, and they cheat on you. They are telling you, because behavior is a language, I do not want to be in a relationship with you. I want you to serve me. I want to own you. That's not how relationships should work. There is no sitting down. There's not a thing you didn't say. There's not an action you didn't take. You've tried for years and years and years. There's just that moment that drop your shoulders, drop all of it, and you have to weep. It's called grief. You wanted it to be one way, and it's not. You have to ask yourself that terrifying question, What am I going to do now? I want you to look back and see you've been asking that question, you've been doing it. You're an amazing woman. Keep going. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point.

In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndaloni. Com. All right, we're back. Am I the problem? Go for it, Kelly.

All right, this is from Lacy in Denison, Texas. My husband is currently undergoing chemotherapy, and my mother-in-law is requesting to take my husband to one of his appointments. Is it wrong for me, his wife, to want tell her no because I want to be with him for all of his chemo appointments, or am I just being the worst daughter-in-law?

That one's tough. What do you think?

I don't think there's a clear-cut answer here because I get her, I get where she's coming from. She wants to be the one to take him, but as a mom, this woman just probably just wants to be with her son.

So, yeah. So, I'm thinking through this real-time. There's two layers to this question. One is, oh, now you're showing up. Like, you've been this terrible mother-in-law, and now that something's going on, you're going to make this about you, too. There's that. Like, there's this mother My mom's toxic, and here she shows up to try to save the day. You don't get to do that. The other is a flip of that. No, this is all mine, and I'm not sharing. I'm going to be the caretaker here, and here's my new identity. The question I would ask myself is, Would it bless my husband to have his mom come to one of the doctor's appointments? Would it give her peace? Would it give him peace to see her at peace? That's the bigger question. Is this ultimately going to help my husband? If it is, I need to put my ego aside. If it's not, if being around his mom, everything gets tense, everything gets chaotic, then I'm going to protect him, and I'm going to say, No, we've got a rhythm and a routine. I've got to be in the room to help with the medical decisions because I'm in power of returning, all those things.

But you can come to the house, and when we get home, we'll be right there. That'd probably be the, is this best for him? I think that mom and her don't get a vote on what's best for us right now because he's going through chemo. The job right now is to keep him alive and to keep him as loved as possible. How does that sound?

That sounds good. I think there's because you gave your two scenarios. I think there's probably a middle ground. Of course, there is. Which is just everybody's in a in a happy situation, and you don't know how to handle a situation. You've never been in it before, and they're both grasping at something and trying to do something because what a helpless thing to be the spouse or the mother because you can't do anything. It's Probably, like a lot of these, is just a needed conversation.

I also can imagine a difference between, Hey, sister-in-law, I know this is bananas, and this is going to sound crazy. It would be such a blessing if I could take him to one appointment. I need to see what he's seeing through his eyes. I want to hold his hand. Can I have this one? Versus, I'm coming to town and I'm going to start taking him, and you can just go to work because you're not even here. There's two different things there. If it was, I'm just trying to think if my wife was going through chemo and her dad called and said, I'd love to take her to a visit, I would be so honored by that. Sheila, my wife would be honored by that. But I can imagine there's other situations where you'd be like, No way, no way. But, man, that's a tough one. Again, default to what's going to be the best gift for the person who's hurting. And let's rally around that person, and let's make all the decisions, not about ego, but about how can we best love him. That's a messy one. Hey, love you guys. Stay in school. Bye.