I Blew Up My Marriage, but I Want to Fix It

My wife and I, we've been separated for about a year now.

We've been trying to work on things, but she is expressed that I'm not able to meet her emotionally. How do you meet somebody else's emotional needs? Um, and man, I got some pretty bold opinions on that. [MUSIC] Let's go in on this is John with Dr. John the Learning Show of Glad you are here.

Fucking about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, your marriages, whatever you've got going on in your life, your kids, all of it. I'd love to have you on the show real people going through a real challenge, just trying to figure out what I do now, what I do next.

“And I think we all need a dose of exhale, whoo, just some clear, honest conversations about what we can do next.”

You're going to be on the show about a John Deloni dot com slash ask A, S, K, we take calls from all over the world. We do change the name, we do change the location, want you to be able to have a safe conversation here. And see if we can get you on a new path. Scott to Vancouver, British Columbia, and talk to Jordan, hey Jordan, what's up? Hey, John, how's it going?

Good brother, what's up? Oh, glad to take glad you could take my call. My question to you is my wife and I, we've been separated for about a year now.

And we've been trying to work on things, but she has expressed it on, basically that I'm not able to meet her emotionally and just would love to get your advice on how I can kind of meet her there.

“Man, there's a lot here, I want to get to this question because I think it's a fascinating question about how do you meet somebody else's emotional need.”

And man, I got some pretty pretty bold opinions on that. But let's back up for just a second, give me some context here, how long you've been married, why do I get separated all that? Yeah, so we have been married for three years and we got separated after like around two years. What happened? Yeah, I would say overall, like I was very emotionally reactive and kind of controlling and I think, and defensive and I think she at the end of the day didn't feel safe being around me.

The way you framed it was, I was emotionally reactive, which might be true, where you punch in holes in the sheet rock or you a yellow, you call it stupid.

“When you say you're emotionally reactive, what does that mean?”

Yeah, I definitely like some yelling and also I think like there are situations where like if I was upset, I would do things that, you know, I think I think just like made her feel unsafe. Do me some emotion emotionally. Like, you know, an example would be like when we, we had like a conflict and, you know, she was like driving after and I was upset and let's say her. Like she had a flat tire one time and she called me and said, you know, like she had a flat tire and I kind of just was like upset and said, well, like, you know, you can just like figure it out.

I was just like upset and yeah, I couldn't help her. Yeah. Yeah, I don't got much for you on that one brother.

So she finally said enough. She moves out or did you move out?

No, she did, yeah. Okay. Let me back up for a second. I don't want to leave you hanging. I hear in your voice telling if I'm wrong and maybe you try to manipulate me. I hear that you are now a few years removed from that and you're embarrassed and humiliated by it. Yes. Okay. That was, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Okay. Have you dug into a, the root of why you were acting that way? Why should you allow her to set you off like that and be? What have you done to change your levels of reactivity? To get some space between stimulus and response?

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. So I think like after in the past year, so like I've dug into kind of, I think a lot of stuff just with my family and my upbringing and I think a lot of it for me was like,

That was so fragile that anything was set it off to the point you'd leave your wife on the side of the road to find for herself.

“What have you done? What action steps have you taken to begin to fill that sense of fragility with concrete?”

I'm now somebody that someone else can anchor into. Yeah. So like a lot of work, I would say with like reflecting around like my parents and like my upbringing, like writing out a timeline of events in my life as well as like writing like a letter to my kind of young yourself and like letters to like my parents. And also just like have read a lot of books around kind of just like emotional I guess like awareness and like recognizing kind of like what I'm feeling like in my body. And just like I think yeah like being more aware of kind of like what I'm feeling and then like kind of strategies around like how to like manage those feelings in healthy ways.

Are you working with a counselor on this? I am. Okay. Yeah. Okay.

So when you first started talking, I thought you were just like wandering around your neighborhood just thinking about stuff but it sounds like you're actually practicing in real life.

Okay. Can I just say on behalf of men everywhere, I'm embarrassed for what happened in the past and on behalf of men everywhere I'm proud of the steps you're taking right now. Like I want you to hear me say that I'm proud of you because you could have been like a lot of folks and blamed her, made fun of her and then gone onto the next person. Well, I did blame her a lot. I'm saying it in maturely, but you would have moved on to the next the next unsuspecting woman and you would just want to repeat it this cycle.

Right, but at some point you chose to look in the mirror and make us some changes and I just want to am proud of you for that, okay.

“I appreciate that. So have you all started talking again? Have you all started seeing each other again?”

You'll move back in together. You'll sleep in together again. Like tell me what has happened in the last year or two. Yeah, so we three months of not talking and then kind of slowly since then we've been hanging out more and more and like wanting to be talking and having conversations. And yeah, I think we've had a lot of good conversations, but I also feel like there's like, I mean, from her there's still like a lot of like hurt and like mistrust and just like, you know, feelings are not not feeling safe around me.

And for me, I feel like I'm often in kind of like an anxious like kind of performance like mode where I feel like I'm like, say the right things and do the right things. Yes. And so I think because of that, I feel like I'm not able to be as like present with her and like as like a tune to her and I kind of watch it's like feeling you like in like a moment or like in a conversation. Yes, and then that makes her feel unsafe and she backs up and then you start performing more and you feel more and it just is a dance. Yeah, and that's that final space faster and faster.

All right, I got I got the solution for you. Okay, and I rarely say it that boldly, but I got the solution for you. Okay. All right.

“You have to have the courage to, and I'm going to use words. They're going to get me lit up on the internet and people are going to call me a simp and call me week and whatever.”

And I think this is actually one of the boldest forms of bravery and courage there is is to go to go to your wife who you wrong and say I was wrong. I need a road map back to trust. And she gets to decide because because you're you're dancing you're trying to get her attention and you're on a stage. I love that you said that you're performing. You don't know what play you're in. So you're just yelling out all the lines from the old Shakespeare plays that you know. All right, you're just like trying like is this it? Is this it? And it feels fake to you. It feels fake to her which to her body feels like, oh, he's not who I don't know him. I still don't know him.

But when you say I want a path back to trust if she's interested in trusting you again, which a she may not be so this will clear up the whole thing.

Then she gets to decide here's what it will take for me to trust him again.

And let me let me take it outside of your situation somebody cheats on somebody.

I need for two months. I want to see all of your email codes and we're going to share one single checking account.

“And then you get to decide whatever she lays out in front of you. Am I going to walk that path or not? And it's it's really that simple.”

But here's what that does. It forces her and I have a an emotional like I just it makes me feel itky the phrase you're not meeting my emotional needs.

And because that is an often 9% of time, it's an amorphous blob of goo. Yeah, that nobody can grab. And it's her saying to herself, I'll know if this is okay to keep going forward because I'll feel a certain way. And feelings are so all over the place. Right. And so I want her to be and say that also I need a path to your emotional needs and especially emotional wants.

“She needs and and I say this a lot like I think we overused the word need a lot in relationships were like I need this I need this now you don't you want that and that's great.”

It's called what it is, but I'll give her this one she needs a husband who will pick her up off the side of the road.

She doesn't need somebody that agrees with everything she says she doesn't need somebody that will never fight with her she wants those things great, but she needs a husband who will show up.

So that's that's a fair thing, but you asking. I need clarity on what are your emotional needs and I need a road map to him. Yeah, I feel like there has been times where I've asked her like pretty specifically and she is expressed me like she wants me to be able to like understand in a moment like what she's feeling and what she's like needing. That's mental. That's all I would it's insanity and I'm not saying she's insane. I'm saying the air the culture has surrounded us with is madness that somehow mind reading is love.

Right, that's somehow he'll just know because the famous actor extra wire z does on the show.

“And the moment he stops knowing that means our relationship has quote unquote run its course, which I think is just nonsense trash.”

We have to we're constantly changing we're constantly learning new things rethinking positions what used to feel good doesn't feel good anymore. Amazing part of being in a relationship, but we have to communicate with those things are to our partner period. And if we won't communicate it, I'm telling you right now what you have is a football coach yelling at you run the play and you're like, I don't know what the play is and he's just screaming run the play. If you know how to play football, you'd know the play and you're like, okay, I'll hand it off and he's like, what are you doing right it's not fair it's just it's a it's you're in a position that you can't win you might get lucky once in a while, but you can't win.

Yeah, that's what it feels like. Okay, so yeah, gosh, I feel like I'm I'm saying this a lot on shows now all just happen to be right in a row I'm going to give you a framework a quick framework from Terrence real Terry real okay. And this is the path forward this is the most humble honest and integral way forward you ready tell that you want to have a serious conversation like an honest conversation great cool sounds like y'all are there right. Yeah, all right so say number one here is the experience I'm having.

Number two here's the story I'm making up about that experience. Number three here's how I feel. Number four.

Either here's what I'm going to do next or I'm asking you what you would like me to do next.

Okay, and so what you would say in this position is hey we've been talking for three months I'm all in on you. And my experience I'm struggling with the path forward I want you to trust me again I want to help me your emotional wants and your emotional needs. I've worked hard to change and my experiences I don't know the path back to trust. The story I'm making up about that is is you're expecting me to read your mind and I can't do that and the other story I'm making up is you don't really want to get back together.

Yeah, right and that is a that that pushes all of the truth on the table you own all of it.

“I'm owning how my experience I'm owning the stories I'm making up about you about us about me.”

And I'm owning how I feel about it and then I've got hands open what do we do next. And when you say the story I'm choosing to make up is you don't really want to get back together with me you don't want to break up like but you're done with the marriage. Let that hang and then she gets to address the stories you made up. Yeah, but but compassion and rebuilding a marriage is you have I mean you can't rebuild a building that's fallen over your marriage is falling over your whole marriage is gone it's over.

If you're going to rebuild a new marriage you got to have a blueprint for it. Right a contractor just can't sit there and look at the client the client be like if you're a good contractor you would know where I want the bathroom or want the building can't you can't you can't function like that. Yeah, right and so. Again on reiterate. I'm embarrassed for what was for all of us for you for her but man I'm proud of you for stepping back up that has changed that's masculinity and proud of you.

And now man we're going to open our hands and say here's. I get a map. And I can't read your mind and if she says then I only want to be with someone who's going to read my mind. I mean you can tell it's not Harry Potter that'd be an emotionally immature response I don't say that but. You can't read minds.

“I think y'all are going to have some hard choices to make.”

I'm honored that you call brother thanks to the call hope that helps and a hard back and let us know how the conversations go. We come back a woman asks how her husband's neuro feedback therapy is going to affect their marriage. Hey if you ever come over to my house you're going to find a whole bunch of cool stuff like guitars and hunting gear but you're also going to find one main theme. My family loves cozy earth we love their sheets their pajamas their blankets their towels they've taken over our house. Why?

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All right so what's up. So I'm calling because I hear you in your introductions a lot of times say the wheels wheels coming off of relationships but have you ever had a caller ask you what happens when the wheels go back on. Oh I like this. What's so tell me all about it. Well my husband's going through neurofeedback treatment for PTSD ADHD and other nerve nervous system dysregulation had a lot of abuse in his past physical emotional all kinds.

And he's found an amazing clinic it's awesome he's had nine treatments out of 40 and it's going super well so far I'm super excited for him.

How's it. I'm I'm fascinated by this because I hear some that it's just junk bunk nonsense I hear some people have miraculous recoveries. What's he doing. So they said there wouldn't be a huge amount of change or you know visible change for probably about ten appointments that he's he's so much happier he's his moves are more regulated. We have two six year olds he has a lot of patients a lot more patients than he had before he's not ruminating as much about things.

So you're seeing like real time change yes yes and it's super exciting.

But I have we have built our marriage around basically me working around his dysregulation.

So I guess my problem is I don't know how much of my identity is me versus who I need it to be for a relationship to just function are you are you fixer. I am and I'm a people pleaser. Yeah. Yeah so part of me is afraid that when he gets better I won't know what my role is anymore.

Well if I'm I want to tell you I would high five you I mean because here's what here's what happens very regularly okay.

Somebody gets well. Mm-hmm. Somebody loses 60 pounds. Yeah. Somebody goes to the doctor and gets their hormones regulated men and women right.

Yeah. And the other partner loses their role. They lose their identity.

“So what do they do they create consciously or unconsciously things to solve?”

Yes. All right. Are you catching yourself already? I am. Yeah.

And I'm kind of worried about being left behind. Yes. I kind of equated it to what you just mentioned about weight loss like two best friends. One loses a hundred pounds and the other one's still heavy. You know, been there done that too.

One goes on with a happy life and then you get kind of get left behind. And I don't mean left behind like I think you'll leave me. But I feel like, you know, we're we're going to be building a life around instead of me managing things. It's more built around mutuality and so. Co-creation.

Yeah. Super super hopeful but also very scary for me. Yes. Okay. So if you look at this moving forward as a new skill to learn.

It will set you free. Okay. If you look at this as a character defect or a flaw or a moral issue, it'll bury you. That makes sense. And what I mean by that in real terms, if you find yourself saying, I should be or I've got to let.

Or I need to. That will crush you. Right.

If you say, oh, man, I've never shot a free throw before and I just totally airballed that one too.

I gotta keep practicing. You'll just get back on the line and shoot more free throw. Yeah. And so the way this happens, dude, I love this. This is one of my favorite questions I've got in a long time.

I love this is this is a perfect opportunity. I've talked about this ad nauseam on the show. For you all to get away. Like the marriage you had is over. It doesn't exist anymore.

Right. And even if you own do something cheesy like get a Jenga tower and just knock it over on purpose and say, I just decide how this thing looks free and rebuild it. And for me in my life, if this isn't the question for everybody, but for our house,

“the question that changed everything for us is, how do you want this house to feel when you come home every day?”

Yeah. And he might say something like, I want to come home and not feel like you're fourth kid. I want to come home and you're happy that our home. Yeah. And you're not staying at your phone, but you greet me with a hug or whatever.

Yeah.

And then you all reverse and you know, okay, then here's what must be true.

And then you say, here's how I want our house to feel when I get home. Yeah. And you all build that world. And you both know we've never built this like this before. So it's going to be clumsy and we're going to give each other a grace.

And if best we can, we'll laugh. And for me in my life, we still do this day. We have weekly check-ins. How are we? Mm-hmm.

How can I love you today? We set a goal this year and how, do you see me holding up mind of the bargain? What's your reflection with me? Right. All right.

Right. Do you think that it's possible for his love to change for me? Because there's because I'm not taking care of him anymore. And he's so used to that? Have you asked him?

No. And he would tell me no. He would tell me no. Okay, but there's one more question beneath that. Yeah.

When you're a caretaker, when you're a people pleaser, it is your job. And you probably learned this as a little girl. I have to anticipate the emotional stability of the people around me before they do, so that we can all stay safe.

100%. And you have a radar that is going off all the time, right? Constantly. Yeah.

“What you have to practice is setting, turn the radar off and looking at him and saying,”

this scary question, how can I love you today? Okay. And when your whole identity has been, I will know how to love you. And by the way, Hollywood has told you, if your marriage is worth a crap,

Right. The use, it's an act of submission. I wish it was another word because that's a gross word, but it's like, it's you setting down your previous weapons of choice and saying, how can I love you today?

Which is scary. It's terrifying. That those weapons. Well, because for your whole life, that's to keep you unsafe. If you asked that question seven months ago, he would have said,

oh, what, Twinkies for breakfast? And if you really loved me, we would have sex all day. And then we'd have a large pizza, and we'd have beers, and then he'd forget you even asked that stuff.

“And you're thinking, we have to feed our children, right?”

Right. And you have to go to a job. And now, so that defense mechanism, kept your safe. Yeah.

And now that same defense mechanism will bury him. Right. And in bearing him, I can tell you love him. It'll bury you, too. Yeah.

Yeah, there's a lot of love. It's been hard. But I wouldn't, wouldn't have stuck around if it, if I didn't love him. Yeah.

And I knew he always, he's always been searching for something

to make him quote unquote better. And he got in touch with this clinic. And it's honestly been a godsend for us. And I'm really excited for him. It works for you all.

But I'm just, you know, it's going to change the dynamic. And so it's anytime, something changes. Even if it's ugly, it's comfortable. Right. That's right.

And we marry what we know. Yes. We marry what we are comfortable with, even if it's very uncomfortable, right? It's so right.

Right. It's, I got friends from up north, and they're like, man, I'm used to grown up, and it was minus 40 degrees in the winter. And I'm from Texas. And if it gets 60, the whole city shuts down.

The state shuts down, right? It's like, that was not comfortable. But it's what they know, right? Right. And so, yeah.

“Similarly, here's the most important path for you.”

A is setting up routines, whether it's once a week, once a morning, especially at the beginning for how can I love you, and how can you love me? Okay. And trusting each other, and then having a path for,

and this is what takes a lot of practice. Him looking at you and saying, I didn't like that. Yeah. And you're not shutting down. You're not going all the way back and being a nine-year-old girl again.

Right. But you say, cool, I got more data. Sorry. I feel bad. How can I love you?

Okay. And you practicing saying to yourself, his vote matters as much as mine. Yeah. Yeah.

He's spent a lot of time in our marriage saying, "Nobody listens to me." Whatever I suggest, you guys just do it a different way, or because I'm just so used to just doing, and being, you know,

and so I guess I discredited his thought process as a lot, because they were brought on by anger or fear or his experiences, and I thought that they were not as good as mine, maybe. And so now I'm finding myself backtracking and having more patients for his thought processes initiative,

which I've never done before, and it's hard.

Two words can guide you. Three, curiosity over judgment. Okay. One simple question, tell me more about that. Okay.

And it's a humbling moment for you, because you've survived on having to be right. Having to shift and filter through tons of emotional data flying at you a million miles an hour from a million different directions and make a call and go.

And now you're going to have to practice saying, I might be wrong on this, and that's okay, 'cause we are deciding where we are going. Right. Tell me more about that.

Or getting to a place now where my wife will say, that doesn't feel right to me at all what you just said. And I'm not going to go, "What?"

“I'd be like, "Okay, let me see if I can sit in a better way," right?”

Yeah. Yeah.

And I've never been able to say those things to him,

because he does get really defensive. Yeah. So I found him lately being more open to hearing me. And if I'm curious about something he'll say, "I understand why you thought that, but that's not what I was meaning." Or something like that.

So that's probably good. If I just totally transparent with those things. Jefferson Fisher gave me a line one time that was really transformative for me. As I'm saying something, when I say it,

"I didn't mean to say it that way," or whatever. A quick line to follow up with is, "Can I say it in a different way?" Okay.

“Or if somebody you know loves you and cares about you,”

says something that just stabs you in the guts. But you know they wouldn't do that on purpose. If you can exhale and say, "Can you say that in a different way?" Okay. That's the most generous interpretation of what just happened.

And you're already asking for a, let's try again, because we're practicing. Right. Right. So if he says, "Hey, we need a quick eating chicken because they're putting a poison in the chicken. We need to start eating eggs, whatever."

You can say, "Tell me more about that." Well, I read this article on whatever, whatever, whatever. And they said that, "Huh, I've not heard that." Right. Right.

And it's like, "Can we let that settle for a bit?" Okay. Yeah. Or I'm going to continue to eat chicken, but I will love the fact that you were drawing a line here.

Cool on you. All that you know ahead of time when I'm making chicken for us and the kids. My kids are eating chicken. Okay. I'm going to cook chicken. You, all that you know, and you'll be responsible for dinner with you and the kids.

Okay. That's great. I didn't eat carbs for years in my life. We just make me a side dish. She just wouldn't put my meat in the noodles or whatever.

Right.

Took her one extra second.

And it was cool. Yeah. And I felt so seen. Yeah. And I was being ridiculous.

I was being stupid. Like, but in my head at the time, I was, I was on it. I understand big, big, big food. I know what's happened.

And I was, I was, it just was what it was. But it was this curious. Tell me more about that. And often, I don't know if he's like me, but I'll talk myself and talk and talk and talk and talk and then I'm like,

"Okay, that's stupid." Yeah. I was laying the plate. Yeah. Yeah.

“He just, I think he just, at this point,”

is, you know, if I, if I question too much, he gets, he gets really defensive and, and that type of thing. But I see him coming out of that. Yeah.

I see him being more interested in why I'm questioning it. Or trying to work with me instead of against me. Yeah. It is, and this neurofeedback thing is the most bizarre thing as ever encountered with anyone.

Yeah. I mean, it's, like I said, it's got, it's got, a human being calls it anecdata. I mean, you got people who are like, "Get changed by life!" And then you've got other people who are like, "Yeah, okay."

And so, like, I'm to a point now, or if it's working for you and your family, awesome. Yeah. Good for y'all, good for y'all.

But hey. It's too early to announce it here. I have a thing coming out. It will be an out and time for Christmas. It is a, it would be exactly what you need right now.

It's just not built yet.

“But they're building it as we speak for couples to get together”

and just on a yearly basis. Say, all right.

It's time to rebuild our marriage and it's amazing.

But that's, get away for four hours. Let's swipe the deck. Let's say, all right. We get to build a new marriage. What do we love about our old one?

What do we want to be different about this one? How do you want to be different? How do I want to be different? How do you want to experience me different? What do I want this house to feel like?

Yeah. And then let's put in some concrete action steps on the calendar to get it going. It's awesome. I'm proud of you guys.

I'm proud of you guys. Thank you. Thank you. When we come back, a woman asks, "How to convince her husband to let her

be a stay at home, mom?" To their new baby. Who? Buckle up. This show is sponsored by Better Health.

I've had some amazing mentors and friends

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That's Better Help, HELP.com/deloney. It's got to Minnesota and talk to Elizabeth. What's up, Elizabeth? Hi, how's it going? Doing great, how are you?

I'm doing well. What's going on? Yeah, so I'm calling because basically my husband and I have a farm-up old daughter, our first

and we're trying to decide if I should

quit my job to be a state home mom.

So I would like to be a state home mom and my husband is not sold on the idea quite yet. Wow, okay. So what's the crux of the disagreement here? Is it financial?

Yeah. You're not going to do anything? What is it?

“I think it's pretty, pretty strictly financial.”

So it's not necessarily a matter of, like, can we afford our lifestyle if I quit my job? We both kind of will acknowledge that we probably could still kind of live the same way. Often, my husband's income is more so.

He's looking at it as giving up my income. For he kind of looks at my income as it would be nice to have in the bank as the security and just building our savings as well as a future down payment on our next home. So kind of mortician opportunity cost thing of him kind of thinking

that money is hard to, hard to give up. Yeah. And so it's time. Yes. And so our little giggles and first steps.

And all that too, right? Yeah. Yeah. So that's definitely kind of in my, my rebuttals to, in these conversations, you know, if he's kind of bringing up the money side of things,

that's kind of my thoughts too, is I don't want to give up time really with my daughter. One kind of piece of context is we have to discuss that we would, or he'd be more comfortable with that after our next kid, just because then the cost of daycare would double and it would be,

you know, more financially. I guess, feasible to him.

But then kind of my rebuttals to that is just you never know how long it takes

to have a second kid and you know, I don't know if I want to give up any time with my daughter. So, so here the challenge for you all is you all have. You all are fighting a proxy war. You don't need to get to the real issue.

Okay. And that's hard. Couples will fight for years to avoid talking about the real real issue. Okay. And it sounds like,

well, there's several issues here that just taught top of my head and feel free to tell me I'm wrong. Okay. I love it. Okay.

I love it when I'm wrong. There's part of you, I guess I'm guessing here that there's part of you that while you're holding your baby. And you hear your husband reduce that interaction to an ROI. To a down payment on a future home that we may or may not even buy one day.

There is a part of you or maybe a lot of you that looks at him. It says, "I don't, I can't, I can't understand you." And there's definitely some of that. If you allow yourself to truly feel it, there's almost a how dare you. Yeah.

And the other side of it is he's looking at you and saying,

“"Do you not see, and this is his lived experience inside of his chest?”

Do you not understand what's happening in this culture economically right now?" If you have a job hold onto it with all of your life, all of your teeth, and do not let it go, because who knows what's coming next? Right. Yep.

I can see that. So he's looking at you saying, "You're crazy." I had a babysitter. You went to daycare, we're fine, but we might not be fine. Yep.

And I think that's speaking of like going to daycare. Another kind of piece of context is for whatever reason. We don't really know anyone else who has a stay at home mom or a stay at home parent. I don't know if it's like a location thing or what, but I think that's kind of why it's a little harder for him to wrap his head around the idea.

Just like if everyone else is doing kids are doing so well in daycare, like what's the, like why would we need to not do that? Sure. So I think that plays into it as well. Yeah, but that's like, you know, hey, look, my buddy's wife lost 10 pounds.

Yeah. Yeah. Does he struggle with anxiety a little bit? Um, he, I'll say he's like a very, he's like hyper productive.

He's always kind of wanting to get things done.

And he's like the opposite of lazy. I don't know if that really plays into anxiety, but he does think about money a lot. And again, it's not really in a sense of like, oh, we can't afford the mortgage or we can't afford this marzo just like,

oh, if we, you know, if we didn't have had to fix the car, we would have X amount more money in the bank and kind of just, you know, it doesn't like the thought of losing money or having less. So it sounds like that's where he's anchored into. The source of safety is a number in a bank account.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I've been there. And I will tell you from personal experience and from sitting with a Gillian people.

That number, it's a, it's an ever-moving finish line. Okay. Now he's considering a down payment for a house y'all haven't even started looking for yet. You got him saying? Yep.

And then after you get that down payment, then it will be like, well, we need the bunker ranch.

Like, it would never stop.

Yeah. And I've kind of tried to get specifics like, okay, what exactly is it we wouldn't be able to afford. If I don't go back to work and, you know, we can never really come to specifics just,

he's pretty blessed with his job. So like, I just, I'd have a hard time seeing like how our lifestyle would be super different. Even if, if I do quit my job. But you're, you're trying to solve a math problem. And he's trying to solve a whole and it's just a problem.

Okay. He's trying to feel safe extrinsically outside. Yeah. And I, and that's something to you. I think about like, oh, I, you know,

I know it's, I would love to prevent him from being stressed. Because, um, yeah, like, if you lose a sleepover, things like this are just thinking of money. Um, you know, obviously, that's not a great, great thing to do either.

Um, so kind of trying to balance like what's best for our family and what is going to like set us both up for success.

“And, um, so I, I think I just need both.”

You have a four month old. So here's, here's the best path forward. It's very similar to what I've told it a call earlier on the show. How long have you all been married total? Oh, you're in half.

Oh, so y'all are new, new, new into this thing. Yeah, we've been together like six years, but yeah, married, you're in half. Okay. So already, you're in two new relationships within two years. So how dated for five years,

y'all got married. You were married for what nine months, and you got pregnant or six months and you got pregnant. Oh, yeah. And so then yet now you have a four month old.

The marriage you had is over. Doesn't exist. Okay. What most people do is they spend all their energy trying to either get back what was, or prepare for what might be someday.

Okay.

And they never just set in the middle and say,

that we get to build this life right now. And so, yeah. I'll recommend with you what I recommend with everybody.

“I do this in my house. This is how much I believe in it is calling that out.”

The marriage we had is over. We get to decide who we are going to be together when it comes to money to time, more importantly, to values. To what scares us, to what excites us, we get to create that.

We get to create our new dating life, our new romance life, our new sex life, our new sleep routines, we get to do all of that. And then we get to decide how we are going to parent this kid. And when you do it that way,

think of it like if you're building a new house, the contractor sits down with a couple. There's a, I have a buddy who got a contractor sit down. They actually sent the husband and the wife quit a quiz, like an online quiz.

And they filled it all out. And then they said like boom, this is the house we think for you. And they were dead on it was awesome. But it's like, okay. Do you value, what do I value?

And if he is a plugged in, want to love my wife, well husband, which he sounds like he does. Yeah, for sure. Often, I'll just speak for my personal experience.

“The only way I knew how to love my wife,”

well, was to make as much money as possible to work 24/7, 365, so that if anything came up, unexpected, we could handle it. Yeah, that's in super. That's really sounds like him too.

Well, and what I missed was, I never asked her, hey, how can I love you? Because she would have said,

I'm going to only buy any money.

You could really love me by just watching TV with me. By going to this museum with me. Yeah, okay. Yeah, definitely relatable for sure. And so your voice matters here.

And you letting him know, I love you. I'm so lucky I get to be married to you.

“How do you want this house to feel when you walk in every day?”

There will come a moment when he's going to have to put on his big boy pants and say, here is the number in the bank that I'm okay with. My wife one day, I've told the story on the show. She met me in the garage. And it was a big show down we had.

But she said, the amount of how much I love you and the amount of money you make is full.

Okay. Yeah. You cannot make any more money to make me feel any safer than I feel right now. You cannot make any more money to make me feel any more loved or seen or known. And I do right now. And then she followed it up with.

So any more money you make is for you and your ego. Okay. And I was like, woo. Right. Yeah. And that was an important call out for me.

And I was like, oh, then how do it? And then she said the scary terrifying thing, hey, we have enough. And then I realized I don't have a psychology for enough. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that sounds super relatable to our kind of dynamic too. She drew a pie chart and just showed like one of the pie pieces was money.

And she says that she colored it in because that one's full. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I like that way of framing it. And but what was what was still empty was quality time. What was still empty was presence.

You're at our house, but you're not here. You're somewhere else. You're in the markets. You're writing a new book. You're thinking about a speech. You're going to give some day. I want you here or you're sitting by me, but you're scrolling on the phone while We're watching a, you're watching your little screen with your medium-sized screen in your lap.

And we're watching a big screen together. Like, that's, you're not with me. Right. Yeah. Totally. And so all the way back to this conversation. This isn't a money issue for you guys.

Some people are in a situation where somebody really wants to stay home. Economically, we have to have two, two salaries, two incomes. This doesn't sound like you're. Yeah. No. Yeah. That's true. What he needs to hear is, unequivocally, I value time with this child.

“Developmentally, I think it's going to be better for our kid.”

I can't imagine sitting in an office, making money to pay for somebody else to raise my kid.

And so here's what I'm proposing this looks like.

And maybe it's all work part time. Yeah. But you're stating a value. It is a core value of mine that we are the chief development officers of our child. Yeah. Yeah. That's definitely something I think about a lot. Just because, you know, if you go out looking for any opinion online, you can find something that's four or two

thoughts or something against it. So it's just always thinking about, like, is they care good for kids. Or is it, you know, better to have a stay home mom? So things like that. People have nothing to do with that on that. Yeah. People have not talked openly about that data because there's a whole swath of people that have no other choice.

The research is clear on it. It's clear. The challenge with it is it can be so. It can be so hard to hear if you're forced into a situation where it's necessary. Yeah. That makes sense.

And so people just don't talk about it. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. And I mean, even just, I mean, you know, without writing any real study, you can just think about it. And that's where the day care we're thinking about. Yeah.

It's a constant sense. It's a constant sense. It's a constant sense. Yeah. That's what I'm thinking.

And then, you know, I kind of started to question myself, like, okay, well, if it's such, you know,

“it seems like common sense to me, if you can afford it and you want to do it, you should.”

But like, well, why is no one, I know doing this? So I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what, but that kind of gets in my head. People make choices. They get to make choices. Yeah. I would rather this life, this house, this career, this status, this identity.

I'd rather all these things than this other thing. Yeah. Or people simply have to have two incomes because X, Y, or we have to have two incomes, because we want these cars in the driveway and we want this house on our driver's license.

And that's why it's such a big deal to me that people take 100, full percent ownership of the choices they make.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's kind of another thing we've talked about as just like choices, making choices is because the money, you know, if we do want to buy a house, we want to buy a house kind of out in the country. And, you know, an argument there would be raising our kids a certain type of way with certain experiences. So that's kind of something we talk about is, even if we do save money, doing one thing,

it's, you know, could be beneficial for the kids in the other way. So, yeah, definitely. Here's how about choices. Underneath poverty, underneath rural, all these different variables we put up there.

“What's going to be best? What's going to be best? What's going to be best?”

Two parents on the same page who are stable. Period. Yeah. And if you're living the country and you all are united and your, your kids have a stable presence where they're known and loved. They can be great.

Let me find.

And they're going to have problems because they're kids are going to do dumb stupid stuff.

They're going to break their arms like that's life, right? So it's going to break their heart. There's that. And if you live in a big city and there's a stable place that we're anchored into. That we call home. Underneath all these other factors.

All right. And so we can get so caught up in. What's the right this and what if we go to this, this and, man. I'm more convinced that ever that a husband, like a true marriage, you and me, right or die. Anchored in same values. We don't have to agree on everything.

In fact, it's best if we don't agree on everything. But we don't share the same beliefs. We got the same values. Right.

“Man, then you can kind of do a kind of liver you want.”

I've lived in the woods on some acreage with my kids. I now live in the city with my kids. I. They're my kids. You know what I mean? They're crushing. They're doing fine. And they have struggles in challenges like every other kid.

Yeah. Yeah. That's good to hear the piece about just, you know, united parents. Just kind of number one because I definitely feel like wherever whatever we end up doing. It'll, you know, we'll, we'll come to a healthy decision. And yeah, stay united in that decision. That's awesome.

That's awesome.

That's, it's, it's, it's amazing.

And I, what, what I don't want you to do, which is again, this is cautionary tale. I'm probably 10 years down the road ahead of you. Don't miss this time. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that.

I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that.

I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that. I'm just going to say that.

I'm just going to say that. I'm going to make great choices today.

“I'm going to do some, I'm not trying to be presumptuous here.”

And I'm not using this word in any sort of clinical sense at all. But I'm going to send you a copy of the book I wrote called Building a Non-Inxious Life. I'm not in any way saying you or your husband have clinical anxiety and any shape from a fashion. But some of the challenges I've experienced. I mean, it sounds like your husband's run on my playbook, man.

And I know what that feels like. And so I wrote the book for him and for people who love guys like him. And so I'm going to send it to you. Stand the line here and we'll get you hooked up. And I'll mail to you.

It would be awesome if you all both read it. Because where if I just get this thing in the bank, if I just get this house, if I just get this piece of land, then then my body will go, ah, it's just not how it works. There's actually another path to take.

If you're looking for peace and it's from the inside out and it's hard and it's counter-cultural. And I wrote a book for it. So, um, hang on the line here. I'm really grateful for the call. Um, let's don't talk about the money part.

Y'all are fine. Let's don't talk about the daycare stuff. The kid number two. Let's have a real conversation, which is, hey, we have a whole new marriage. One and a half years in, we got a brand new marriage.

We get to decide what this looks like. And the foundation, we build it on the values we build it on. We got to put all that on the table. We got to be open. We got to be honest.

It's be curious. Let's unite on those values. And then we'll go build something awesome. Hey, what's up? It's Deloni.

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Go to Hallow.com/deloni today and sign up for three months of Hallow for free. All right, we're back. I've got a money in marriage anonymous question. A question that somebody left at the money and marriage of truth. That me and my friend Rachel Cruz put on a few times a year.

Here's the question that was left.

“How can I be a better communicator with my wife when I am more of a thinker?”

She is very direct and quick to reply, so I feel like I can't be as good at talking with her. I feel like I'm kind of broken or maybe come off is not fully present. This is my house. Just, I talk a lot and real fast and fly and PPU PPU. And my wife is a way more emotionally stable and more thoughtful.

And she hears a problem and rumenates on it and thinks on it. And then we'll come up with a more concrete answer. So a great gift she gave me. This is years ago is when I start talking about a subject, she will ask, "Do you want me to listen or do you want me to my opinion on it?"

And if you want my opinion on it, I'm going to need to think about it. She just stopped the conversation. And what I realized is, "Hey, I was kind of looking for a sparring match a little bit. I was kind of looking to get it like a quick win. I wasn't looking to engage or connect with my wife.

I was looking to just kind of get a little and then move on." And so it stopped me. And so if I want to be a better communicator, I need to seek to connect with the person, understand, acknowledge him. It's Jefferson says. So being a better communicator is

telling the other person, "Here's a path to me. I'm going to allow you to see and know me." Whenever we start talking about big issues, politics, money, sex, all it. I want to fully absorb it and it just takes me a while to process it. I wish I was faster, but I'm not. So that's cool.

“So if you want to talk about a big issue, tell me about it ahead of time.”

Kind of what we're thinking about, and then I'll come ready and prepare it and ready to rock and roll. My wife, when we had big conversation, she bring notes. It's awesome. She's so prepared. She'll bring notes. She'll bring talking points. She'll listen to a podcast or two about it. She's ready to rock and roll. I love that.

But it was her telling me, "Here's what I need if you want to connect."

If you want to fight, I don't want to fight. If you want to just like steamer or me with your facts and your directness, I'll rather just opt out of that. And that was a great challenge for me. So how do you communicate better with your wife?

You're not broken. Just got a different computer. And you may be looking to connect during conversations and your wife may be looking just to wipe each other back and forth for a minute and then go on about the day. So give her a direct roadmap on how she can best communicate with you on big things and on the little things. And don't apologize for your processing speed.

It may not be as fast, but it's probably deeper and more thoughtful. We need way more of that.