I’m Married, but It Doesn’t Feel Like It

We've been together for seven years,

America for King decided that she wanted to be the sole provider and family and delegate the job of parenting to me. And what? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what do you mean about you're the sole parent? [MUSIC]

What up, what up, what up, this is John with Dr. John Deloni's show. Comedy from Nashville, real people with real problems. Pull it up a seat and figure out what's the next right move in your marriage, your mental and emotional help, but every got going on in your life, your kids, everything.

Politics that, oh, oh, give me a bus.

“If you want to be on the show, actually don't give me a bus,”

because this is the 21st century as some of the guys on the team say,

click the link in the show notes, whatever that means. So let's go to Birmingham, Alabama and talk to Joshua. Hey Joshua, what's up? How are you doing, man? Doing great, brother, how are you?

I'm all right, I think I'm just going to go right in my question. Let it rip. All right, so me and my wife, we've been together for seven years, marriage and four. And in that, she decided that she wanted to be the sole provider of the family,

and delegate the job of parenting to me. And what time together? Wait, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Like the sole breadwinner, the sole earner.

I don't have a, that's fine, couples decide that all the time. Yeah. What do you mean about your the sole parent? So I'm, I may say that it's a little wrong. So where it comes to our children or our child,

I am the one who is the stay home parent, and I'm the one who does all of the things with our child, which means appointments, anything like that, cooking, cleaning, everything like that, she said, hey, you, you, you can fill that role. And I said, okay, okay, hold on, I'm great. Do you want to be doing this?

Because you've said a couple of times, she told you, she decided.

“And, all right, did you all agree on this together?”

Yes, sorry, sorry, sorry, I was clear, so we did agree to this, and I didn't have a really good father in my life, so I wanted to make sure that I was there for my son. And when my wife was like, hey, I'll be the sole breadwinner. I was like, yeah, I'll follow that role in the problem. And I love to do it.

It's one of the greatest things I've ever done. But with that being said, since we've had our son, our intimacy is essentially with nothing, and when you say intimacy, you don't have a sex anymore? No, no, no, no, no, okay, whatever, I mean, I would say probably once every three, four months.

Oh, okay, okay, so also, I like to back out, intimacy is bigger than just sex. Yes, yes, it includes laughter, it includes eye contact, it includes handholding it, includes having fun together is all that gone to pretty much, okay. And I've watched a show and I've done a couple of different things to, you know, I'm trying to implement, I've got, come as you are, I've purchased two copies, one for me,

one for her, I encourage her to read it, she got three, maybe a chapter, and then completely put it down, I have, to the example of going to therapy, we've done a couple of therapy, she quit that, anytime she's done her own therapy, she's quit that as well. And I'm at a spot where I've done all the things she's acting to do, for instance, more dates, make sure the house is clean, make sure, you know, taking care of all the domestic

things, even once I've done that, nothing has improved, and then whenever I bring it up, she says, oh, we're on this again. I'm sort of at a loss of what to do because I feel like I've communicated pretty clearly, but it just doesn't seem like it's very receptive. Yes, she doesn't care.

Okay. Do you disagree with that? Slightly innocent, I know that, I know that she cares overall, I know that she cares about me, she wouldn't work as hard as she does, I know that she cares about our family. Disagree, disagree disagree disagree.

Go ahead, go ahead, okay. Man, I love this call because it flips the gender norms of this question that usually

“I get called with, so this makes this much more, it makes it much easier to talk about, right?”

So, you are grasping for scraps of emotional connection.

My job, my earning, my world is mine. Here's the role you can play in my world.

“In any time you poke your head up above the wheat, to say, can I have a vote in this world?”

You're met with, oh, that again, won't you just, you never, why how come you don't?

And so, she's not working so hard for you, for y'all, she's working so hard for her. To maintain this world that she has created alone, images only work if they're co-created. You know what I'm saying, and the hard part for you, I think, is metabolizing how bad this really is. Yeah.

She doesn't respect you. Yeah, and that's kind of what I've been feeling in the sense of, she goes above and beyond her part, I go above and beyond on my part. What is above and beyond on her part? It's not going to be on on her part would be that she makes sure everything in the house

stays on.

She makes sure the car insurance is done and she's done and she's done and she's done and she's done.

That's not above and beyond. That is the bar. That's the, that's the, that's the lo thing.

“Above and beyond is I'm so tired, but everything in my life is in service to my spouse.”

And I'm going to hope to God that everything in their life is in service to me and we're going to constantly be trying to out-serve each other, only to find out we just got out served. She's not going above and beyond. Never told me that way.

When you were the sole bread winner, putting bread on the table is the bottom run.

Yeah, going above and beyond is saying, I'm exhausted and I'm still going to love you anyway.

I have more of a responsive desire instead of a spontaneous desire. But I know that I like having sex with you, I know when we get done having sex, I'm glad we did that. So even though I'm not feeling it, I'm going to, I'm going to get that ball rolling because I know I'm going to get there.

It is constantly trying to see and know and this is important, celebrate you. I'm not just with patting you on the head or paying for a nice dinner out, but celebrating you in ways that you feel celebrated. Right. None of that's happened at home.

No. No. And if I'm being honest, this is going to sound pretty bold to be honest. It's a, she's not being a partner of fidelity. Right.

And that's something I mentioned because I usually mention to her, you know, whenever we took our vows, we made, you know, we made certain promises to one another and I'm like, hey, I don't, I don't feel like this is being fully fulfilled on one side. On my side, I definitely feel like an ailment, but the other side, on her side, I'm like we're falling short and her response is typically just, I don't know.

I don't know what you want me to tell you. Okay, so here's the deal, guys, this is, this is hard, I'm about to tell you. The only person on planet earth you can control is you. Yeah. That's it.

And so my question for you is, and this is a question I ask all couples in this kind of situation. Yeah. Is there a chance you're going to leave? Personally, no, probably not.

Is there a chance you're going to leave?

“No, or have you made peace that this is going to be your life?”

Yes, yes, simply because I have a, I want to do, I want to stay here because one, even though we have this problem, I do still love her, but also I have a duty to my son to make sure that he rose up in a stable household and I know most people's reaction is, well, given a certain chance you're in, that's not a stable household because of the circumstances, but I do feel a little bit different in that.

The greatest gift you can give your child, and this is buried out in the data, the greatest gift you can give your child is a good or great marriage, not time, not more stuff, right?

Right, agree, okay. All right, and so the question, I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to get you to leave or

not leave, here's what I want you to, to land on.

If this arrangement, being with somebody who is having an affair on you with work, with their world, who's not building a secret intimate world with you, but who is, built their own world, and you get to be an employee in that world. If that's the world you're okay with, or you've made peat, you don't be okay with it. That's the world you are choosing to live in until death do you part, then what I want

you to do is to grieve like bloody hell, what isn't going to happen and make peace, because choosing to wake up every day and try again and do new things, it's making you miserable, it's making her miserable, and your kid is growing up in that tension. Yeah, if you believe that you're worth more than this, then I want you to begin asking

“what steps do you need to take so that you begin to respect you, because I think underneath”

all this, you've lost respect in yourself too. So back out of the stay at home dad situation, is there a job or a career you'd be interested in pursuing?

Well, that's the other part, is I also have a career of my own, I just don't work

normal hours, I typically work night. What do you do? Oh, security. Okay, do you want to be a professional security guy forever? Yeah, yeah, I actually quite enjoy it.

Okay, do you want to have that as a job, like I mean, do you want that to be your career? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I want you to explore that more fully than just doing it on the side, okay. And that might mean childcare, that might mean your kid going to school, that might mean you altering the arrangement, but I want you to begin to do things that make you feel alive

in your own skin. Okay.

“Do y'all share a single checking account or does she give you an allowance?”

No, no, no, we, we, everything's going. Okay. Do y'all have regular meetings about calendar and about budgets and about how we're doing the life together? Yeah, that we do.

Yes. It just comes to emotional and physical intimacy, she's just shut your mouth, I don't want to talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, that really is it.

Man, I got to tell you, brother, it almost never is just that.

All right. Well, and, and the thing is that when you say that, it, in my mind, I quite literally cannot think of any other aspect of our relationship that we do have any sort of problem. Well, it's because you're, you're too busy taking care of everything. Okay.

You're too busy burying yourself to try to live up to this arrangement. Okay. Okay, let me ask you, let me put it a different way. All of this question, all of your line of questioning has had one central premise. There's something that you're not doing right.

Yes. That is the tale of a man who's been beaten down. Being now trying to do the right thing. No. No.

You're conflating what you're told with the right thing. No. No. Okay. What do you, let me put it a no way.

What do you want, man? I mean, to be completely frank, I just want to be able to be intimate with my wife on a semi-regular basis. That's it. What's beneath that?

Yes, everybody, people want sex. I get that. You're not crazy. What's beneath that? Good.

Connection. Connection. But it'd be more specific, like be more vulnerable, and put that way. What does that mean? No, what that means is feeling care for, feeling care for in a way that's tangible and

not just a, all this stuff that's saying care of, I want to feel like, hey, you actually like to be with me. There we go. There you go. I want my wife to like me.

“What's so bad about me that you don't like me, that you don't want to be with me?”

Yeah. That you don't value me beyond what I fold and what I wash and what I mop. Have you asked that question? What is it about me that you don't like?

Okay.

“That's the level of vulnerability I want you to be at.”

There's a framework I'll give it to you. Here's the frame, okay. I need to have a hard conversation. Give her a heads up and it sounds like according to you, she's all in, she's great about that.

Sure. Let's talk. And I need you to stay present and not dismiss this conversation. Got it. You think you'll do that?

I think so. Yeah. The story I'm choosing to make up is, you don't like me. There's something unappealing about me. You don't want me emotionally, you don't want me sexually.

You don't like me. And followed by the story you've made up is, here's how that makes me feel. It makes me feel less than alone, used, not a part of this marriage.

Followed by, here's what I would love to be different.

Yeah. And then you open your hands and she might say, that's never going to change. I think you're attractive. I think you're great. I just don't want to talk about this anymore, conversation's over.

“And then you have to ask yourself, do I have an or what statement?”

I need this to change, or I'm going to leave. I need this to change, or I'm going to stay, and I'm just going to make peace with this, with a sexless marriage. And not only sexless marriage, but a marriage devoid of emotional connection of intimacy. Yeah.

Of play, of laughter, of eye contact, of, I genuinely just like how I'm fun with you. Right. Right. Well, that would be an interesting conversation. Well, that's the conversation underneath all of the you need to go to marriage counseling,

or we need to do some different, or let's try this in the bedroom, or want you wear this. Like, all of those are proxy for the real question is, why don't you like me? Yeah. Or what's so bad about me? Am I bad at sex?

Do you not like it? Do you have things in the bedroom you want to try? Yeah, and I'm boneheaded. I don't like, you hear what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah.

I'm 100% yeah. Okay. But I want you to be able to look in the mirror, brother, and not be respectful of the things you do, but be respectful of your standing in your marriage. And right now you have none because she won't allow for it.

Yeah. She's treating you like a great housekeeper. Yeah. You're worth more than this. And by the way, she is too, man.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Your kid is. But it starts with you asking in that framework, or saying in that framework. Here's what's happening.

Here's the story as I'm making up, and here's how it feels, and here's what I want to

be different. Yeah. Give her a chance to respond to all those things, and hopefully she'll treat your vulnerability with the care and respect and love that it deserves, and she won't just rub your nose in it.

And if she does, you got a hard choice to make. I'm going to live with this, or I'm going to decide I'm worth more than this. Both of those paths are really, really hard. I would challenge you to choose the path that's going to get you and your child and your marriage, where you want it to be down the road.

This is a hard one. But man, it takes a lot of courage to make this call. So I'm grateful for your brother. Thanks for reaching out. I wish you the best.

And if she wants to call, if you all both want to call back in, I'd love to have you.

“Call any time, man, when we come back, a man asks if it is important to stay connected”

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because they're awesome. That's Monten and Knife Company.com. Let's go out to Columbia, South Carolina, and talk to James. What's up, James? Hey, I was going.

How's it going? I'm doing great brother. How are you?

I don't live in the dream.

I think. Anytime somebody tells me to live in the dream, that means your life's miserable. It's a dream or a nightmare, nightmares of dream as well. There you go. What's up?

Hey, I've been wondering if it's unwise for me to not consume pretty much any news media at all, or do I need to stay better informed. I think those are two different things. The news media is not how you stay informed because I said this on a recent show. Use media companies, particularly the traditional news media companies, are all publicly traded.

So what that means is they have one job, and that is to maximize shareholder returns to make money. Their job is not to give you information that helps you in your day. Yeah, I make that. It is to get clicks, right?

And so when you understand that, you realize part of their job is to work with neuroscientists and techno wizards, and to come up with the most compelling format to keep your attention in eyeballs glued to them. That's it. And one of the primal ways to keep somebody's attention is letting them know you're about

to be killed, and I have the answer, right? That taps into like a very primitive neurosurgery. And so I would suggest that consuming that sort of media is different than being informed.

“Yes, I think it's important to know what's going on in the world, and I think it's important”

to hold that, like it takes about three to five minutes to actually get some information about what's happening in the world that can inform you what you do on a minute by minute hour by hour day by day basis. And the rest of it's just talking heads and noise and opinions, and this could happen, and this should happen, and this might happen, and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, but that makes sense for sure. And so I consume media from two places. One is, and I've talked about them openly, I check in with the marginal revolution, Alex Tabrach and Tyler Cowen every day, and they have a, they're economists who are just brilliant and wise, and I don't agree with them 100% of the time, but their take is almost

always accurate, it's, it's staggering how accurate it is at times.

How, a staggering how accurate it is often, but that's not news media. That is a big picture and a little picture on how the world is operating in real time. The second I subscribe, I haven't skinned in the game, I pay for news, and I'm going to keep that private because it will just send people into a, a frenzy, and so, but all to say is the reason I pay for it, and by the way, I'm a cheap skate dude, I don't, I don't

like pay for anything, is I want to have skin in the game, okay. I don't want to just be a passive guy sitting at a buffet, and it's just a stream of slot food that I'm just eating without thinking about it. I want to say no, no, no, I'm paying for this meal, okay, yeah, that makes sense. Does that make sense?

So tell me what you're struggling with. You know, I've just, I've gone through different times of my life where I'll, you know, not really, media probably was the wrong word, but the wrong term to use, you know,

“just different podcasts and different ways of consuming news, and I believe I've heard”

you say in the past, you know, you can control what happens in your house, but you know, not what happens in the White House, some along with, and I'm kind of taking that to heart, you know, and so the past, I don't know, you're probably lowering that, you know, around my collection cycle, you know, and I got the bare minimum just trying to make sure I'm new who wanted to vote for, but for a couple of years now, I've pretty much paid attention

to, like, almost nothing to the point where, you know, I'm job sites or, you know, my

what about this going on?

And I haven't heard about it. And some of it, most of it is stuff I'm like, it almost reaffirms my stance, it's like, you know, just that I've, you know, dumbself to be like a better term, just celebrity this, matting the other. But some of the things do sound pretty important, and so lately it's been on my mind.

Yeah. And so, so I agree with you, and I've had a new wrinkle from, for me personally, it was easy for me to just opt out of the whole thing period, right, and to just get news either directly from the source.

And again, I've said this before.

And privilege to know some folks who work at media places and high and high position to have

“actual data, actual information, or people on the ground, like military people folks, right?”

Like I can call and get the information I need and then be on about my day. But a new wrinkle, I got a 15 year old. He hears all kinds of wild mad stuff all day long. And so I've, have found myself paying more attention to, um, I'll call them, sips, right? I'm not drinking the full drink down to the ice cubes, but I do click through everyone

so well now, because I want to know what he's getting. Okay. And more importantly, I ask him as a part of an ongoing, us getting together, us just talking, us driving together, us having breakfast together, hey, what are some things you've heard about the Iran war? What are some things you're hearing at school about, film the

blank? And if I don't have a good answer for him other than an opinion, I'll tell them, I'm going to go find out about that and I'm going to get back to you. Hmm. And that gives my search a direction, right, actually go looking for a thing, a topic and idea, some truth about something versus me just consuming whatever they're going to just

dump in front of me, but that also shows my son, hey, your concerns matter to me, and I'm going to teach you how to be a thoughtful consumer of things. And I'm going to tell him how I got the information where I got it from. And we're going to talk, so I'm trying to teach him how to be a good consumer of media as well. Or not media information, right?

Information. Yeah. Yeah. So I also have a 15 year old, and I'm sure your son, like my daughter, will sometimes come in and tell us, you know, here's some stuff from school. And it's something that's just off the wall, or something that really isn't important at all, that you're saying to everybody that all the time, and so what do you do with

“it? Do you just tell them to ignore that? Or do you also want to do that?”

Such a question. So my tendency is my, my, it, my gut reaction, my impulses to say, that's stupid. If I do that, I'm cutting off a really important teaching opportunity. And so if my son comes home and says, Dad, did you hear fill in the blank? Trump did this. The, I randed this, or China's doing like whatever news of the day filtered through whatever nonsense media through to teenagers, right? Or actually news me to their parents

to teenagers, right? Um, I can cut them off. That's dumb. No way. Which, by the way, none of us can say the words, that's not right. That didn't happen. Not anymore, because who knows what's happening, right? Yeah. Um, we're, we're, we're living in a cartoon right now, a scary scary cartoon. Um, but what I can say is telling more about that, what parts of that do you think are true? What parts of that doesn't sound right to you? What parts about that scary? What part

about that do you want to know more information about? And so what I want him to do is to hear a big scary thing or a wild thing. And I want to give him some steps. It's called scaffolding. That's the nerd by Gatski word. I want to be with him as he processes this information. And it's stunning how often I'm about to say that's stupid. And then when I ask him deeper questions, he lands on, yeah, that didn't make any sense. But I want him, I want to be with him as he's coming to

those conclusions. And I also want to honor the fact he may have a different quote unquote opinion

“on something that I do. Yeah, right? This sounds like a good idea. And I can say I think it sounds”

like a terrible idea. But I can honor the fact that I get from your 15 year old seat where you think that's a great idea. And he can say I get where you were your old man's seat. You think that's a bad idea. And I wanted to teach him, hey, I ain't going to lose me. You're not going to lose our relationship over a difference of opinion. And opinions are not the final answer

truth is. It's always be about looking for truth. But I never want to, the more I say that's

stupid. No way. That's only idiots think that. That's a liberal thing. That's a conservative thing.

And I'm never, ever, ever going to do that. Yeah, that makes sense.

I don't understand. Letting your daughter hear the words, I don't know. I need to go get some more information about that. Or if that's true, that scares me to death and here's why. Man, that is gold for a child because it makes them feel not crazy. Yeah, because they're scared too. So you said earlier that you get familiar with your news from marginal revolution. And you said, well, how do you let that impact? Maybe your next step or what do you let that impact

your decisions that makes sense? Yeah, I mean, I've got some boundaries. I don't do well when I read that stuff within an hour or going to bed. And I'll spin up and I'll think about it all night

and it will impact my sleep. I know that about myself. And I always am framing things

“through this lens. How does it impact? What can I do about it in my home and my work?”

And my work is unique, right? Because I got a big platform here. And in relationships with people in my community. And I'm always asking, so what? Like, so what am I going to do with this? And some things are just good to know. So for instance, Tyler Cowen's been talking about the radical impacts AI is going to make. He's been talking about for years. Way before it hit the headlines. And so I also get overwhelmed and scared to death about it all,

mainly because I don't understand it. I don't understand the impact it's going to have. It seems to me moving really fast with people not knowing what what it actually all means.

And that all way, like, a mob of people running for a door always makes me nervous, right? And so

how can I, how does that impact my day? I read an article or two a week

“by curated sources about actual things that are happening with AI. Things are not happening with AI”

and how it can, it might impact me along term. And what can I do right now? And so those are, that's an example of things. Yeah. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't have a bunch of, I don't have any crypto or any, like, I don't buy gold. So I, those big things when it comes to commodities or big picture markets, I don't have oil futures. And so I just don't live like that. I solve for peace. I don't solve for all that madness in nonsense. And so those kind of things

don't impact me at all. But there is times when it, when they have called for, hey, this is happening with inflation that's different than the numbers because they're, they're economists, they're luxury, actual data. And I might put more money into savings than normal. I might not buy a big fancy thing or something like right, but it, again, it comes back to, or I might be extra, extra, generous. My wife and I may have a conversation about, we're going to be obnoxiously generous this month.

“Right, but that, but again, it comes back to what can I actually do about this?”

Yeah, that makes sense. I might have a conversation with an actual politician. I'm not going to post about something on social media because that's just about, that's, that's a whole, it's, it's a different thing. But if I, if I have concerns over particular policy, I'm going to call somebody. Yeah. I'm going to go meet with folks, right? My wife may go mart, right? Like, what can we actually do? We can go to these things. Yeah, awesome. Does it make sense? 100%. I appreciate the

question. Man, it's a great question. No, I, I appreciate your time. I, I should have led the call. I, I consider myself one of the OG 17. Yeah, and I've put a lot of the, the things you've talked in my marriage and, and I know that it's made my marriage better and so I really appreciate that. Well, I'm grateful for your brother. I appreciate you being with us for so long and hopefully I've gotten better over the last four, five years. I've got some, I actually had the woman who does

most of my tattoos. She's designed an amazing, rad OG 17 shirt. And so I'm going to get him, I'm going to get him printed up here in the next month or two. They're pretty, it's pretty amazing which he came up with. So, but I, I appreciate you being with us. And if you don't know what OG 17 is, I'm sure AI will tell you. When we come back, a woman wonders, should she tell her ex husband she's found out he's taking pills again. Some of my favorite days in the world are getting out on the

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“Hey, Lindsay, what's up? Hi, who are you? I'm doing it all right. How about you?”

I'm doing good. Excellent. What's going on? It's kind of a long, I'm going to try to make this as short as I can. My husband, he's my ex husband now. We got divorced about two years ago because he had a problem with prescription pills and he was abusing those and I myself and 10 years sober. So I can't really, thank you. I really don't want that in my life and I don't want

that kind of a lifestyle. And so I basically told him that he had to either leave or go to rehab.

He went to rehab for three days, but he got out and then he started using them again and we ended up getting into divorce and now we just got back together and I just found out that he's

“abusing them again. So I don't know if he ever really stopped. No. No. Why do you back together?”

We have a seven-year-old son and the way that, I mean, it seemed like he was clean and my son loves that we're back together. And your son loves the idea of you all being back together? Yeah. Yeah. But his nervous system is trying to attach to a father who's struggling with addiction. Did you grow up in a home like that? I did, yeah. Yeah. Let's don't recreate that. Yeah. That's why that's one of the reasons why I got sober. I have a 22-year-old daughter and

she was the reason that I got sober. So I just hope that there is a reason for him to want to get clean, but I can't make you. Right. Yeah. You've got to have the conversation that you've found out. He's using, you're using again and the same boundaries still apply. He's unsafe to be around your son. Yeah. He's unsafe to be around you. You're worth more than this, your son's worth more than this, and your ex is worth more than this. And I hate this for all of you. I know. I hate it too.

I thought this was over, I thought. I know. I know. That we were getting a fresh start. I know.

“I'm going to rebuild my life. And can we call out what I think is a big pain here? Like a de-perte?”

That, and I don't want you to beat yourself up for this, okay? Because you're going to, and I don't want you to. I'm trying to call it before it happens, but it's probably already as happening. Yes, you're going to be disappointed. You're going to be heartbroken that he's using again. You're going to be heartbroken that your son is going to have to not be around his father. Your heartbroken that you're going to have to go through all of this breakup and pain separation,

and all that again. But underneath all of that is that nagging question, can I trust me? Because I did it again. And I want you to give yourself some grace and compassion for trying to seek reconciliation, trying to seek wholeness, trying to keep your family together. You wanting this to be true. Does it make you a bad person? Okay. Does it make you an untrustworthy person?

if you know that it's unsafe and unwise for your son and for you to be around,

this guy who's struggling with addiction so badly, and you do nothing about it, then you are a person you can't count on. You can't trust. Because you don't keep your promise

“as to yourself. But I think you're a trustworthy person. I think you're going to keep your promise”

as to yourself. Yeah. And your son. Yeah, that was one of my things if he would have just been honest and told me, hey, I'm struggling. Yeah, but you've been around, you've been around people who's struggling with addiction in your whole life. I mean, they don't tell the truth. They can't. Right. It's like telling somebody with a stomach virus, like if they would just stop throwing

up, like it's part of it. Yeah, lying is like part of it. Yeah. It's part of it. Yeah.

And so many things you wanted to be true, I get it, and they're not. So we have to deal with that reality. We have to choose reality. And then do the next right. Hard, hard, hard things. And we're going to resist the urge to tell our son, dad screwed up again. And we're going to say dad's still sick. Right. They're not going to talk bad about our exes. It's much as we want to. Especially not to our son. Right. And by the way, you can be your husband, your exes number one

cheerleader, which is the way to love your son, by the way, to see him rooting for your to his dad. And that doesn't mean you'll have to give back together. Okay. You kind of tell you through all this health. Just so proud of you. I am for staying sober and clean through all this mess. Mm. Thank you. Yeah. How often are those old demons come hollerin? Um, once in a while, but my mind was alcohol. And he does prescription pills. So,

“I mean, that was never my cup of tea, but watching somebody out, destroy their life is very”

touching. Yeah. And watching it is, I mean, going to sound horrible, but it's disgusting. Yeah. It's not horrible at all. Somebody watching somebody else be like that. It's yeah. And watching a young child trying to hug a ghost. Mm-hmm. And somebody can't pick their eyelids up. Yeah. You're nodding out all the time. Oh, dude. Yeah. Get your son away from that stuff. Yeah. Dad's sleeping again. Yeah.

Get your, get your son away from that. Because he's going to try to backfill that and solve that problem, and that's not his to solve. Mm-hmm. And he's going to be mad at you. He's going to be upset with you. I don't who knows what your ex is going to say about you. Right. All of that is part of

“the hard, hard, gritty. You know, stub your toe in a concrete kind of pain and grit that it takes to be”

a parent. Mm-hmm. I hate this for you. Yeah. Me too. But thanks for calling. Thanks for doing the next right hard thing. I'm proud of you. I'm really, really proud of you. And I'll walk if you any time you want, call me back anytime. Okay. I'm really grateful for you. We need more parents to go all in on reconciliation and also be willing to wait through the grief and the heartache and still do the next right hard hard thing.

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When life feels super overwhelming therapy can help visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's a better help. H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney. All right, Kelly. Am I the problem?

"I'm a married mom of three, 14, 12, and 9, and I have planned every single family vacation we've

ever taken. I've returned to school and asked my husband a January to plan something for spring break." Well, spring break starts tomorrow and we have no plans. I know I could plan something but I am drained and feel like he should take the reins on in capital letters at least one trip. The childish side of me wants to dig in my heels and not plan anything until he does it, but at this point who knows how long it will take before that happens. Quality time is my

love language, so I have clearly expressed to him my expectations and desires. I have a very hard time accepting his "I am not a planner" or "I am not as good as this that you are" stances. Should I give in and accept the family vacations or my burden alone or should I hold out until he plans something? Read it that last sentence again, that last question? Should I give in and accept that family vacations or my burden alone

“or should I hold out until he plans something? I think neither of those are a good option.”

Both of those are like, I'm going to take my ball and go home or I'm going to stand in the middle of the street and just with my arms crossed. Neither of those are helpful. So in these kind of moments,

I always want to start with the mirror, be reflective, okay? So here's what I mean by that.

In the past, if he has planned something and think back to the earliest stages of your relationship, was his plans met with, I didn't like this, why'd you pick this restaurant? I didn't like it here, this wasn't fun or I wish we should have gone like so, has he learned implicitly or explicitly that you don't like his plans? That's number one. Number two, has it ever occurred to you that his love language may be just being at home and chilling with the family?

Or number three, has he heard you say over the last few months over and over and over again? I'm so tired, I just want to sleep, I just want to rest, I just want to chill, I just want to sleep,

“I just want to rest, I just want to chill and he thinks, I'm stretching here guys, I know.”

He thinks, ah, the greatest spring break ever for her is we're just going to chill as a family. I'll take care of meals this week. Maybe. So we're going to go to the mirror first and ask if any of those things might be true, because if they are, they're going to frame the way we have this conversation. Next, we're going to have a conversation which is, hey, it's spring break. I asked you to plan this and, ah, and you hear me talk about this framework all the time now.

I don't see that we have any plans that we're traveling in here. We're not going anywhere. The store I'm choosing to make up is you just don't care enough about us going on vacation together, you don't care about how much this means to me. This makes me feel less than. It makes me feel like

all of this falls on me, like everything else around here. And so here's what I want to be different.

And give him a chance to respond to those stories, give him a chance to respond to your feelings. And he might then say, I'm sorry. I blew it. I forgot. He might say, I want to be able to do this, but every time I've planned something in the past five years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, all you did was complain about it. You don't like the things I like to do. And you like to have everything just the right way. And I don't know how to do that.

Or, or, or, or. Let's have that real conversation and get to the bottom of, I gave you this, I asked you to do this thing for us. And you just didn't. Also, when we ask our spouse, hey, I want you to plan the vacation. Man, that's a, you have a picture of what vacation is. They have a picture of what vacation is. You're both using the word vacation. And you have very different pictures. A much more helpful approach is,

I usually plan all of our trips. I'm overwhelmed and busy and exhausted. I want you to take the lead in planning vacation. Here's the picture I have in my head. I want to hear the picture you have in your head. Let's align pictures. And then people can go plan those things together. Is that take a little bit extra work? Yes, but it takes away all of the mental drain of all the feelings you're having.

“On top of all the work you have to do, all top of your school schedule, on top of being a mom and a wife,”

is also this feeling of he doesn't care about me. Doesn't love me. This all falls on me. That's exhausting. Let's have the upfront conversation, aligning pictures. And then we can have a roadmap for where we're going to go. Is that how less Hollywood? Yep. Is it more practical? Yep. Is it get you what you want? Which is a plugged in husband and engaged husband and a vacation? Yep. Yep. And yep. So that's my thoughts. What do you think, Kelly?

Nothing. That's right. I don't think she's the problem or not the problem here. They're just not communicating well. And he may suck. He may be the worst. Like they may have this conversation.

And then she has to decide if she going to just be like, you know what? This is just something I take on.

“Or, and to deal with it, she has a choice to make at that point.”

You know, my husband's not the planner. I know that. That's my forte. I love doing it. But I also know that if I asked him to, he would step up and hell. Of course. Yeah. So.

And like my wife and I were talking recently, the hardest part of thinking about being a parent

and a spouse is that you feel both things at the same time. She was talking about how I was right in the chapter on being married with children. And she was, we're talking about the early days when she was, um, when Hank had just been born, my son, and she was feeding Hank in the

“middle of the night. And she said, I remember feeling so overwhelmed, so tired. I couldn't breathe.”

And also, if you had come in and said, I'm taking this feeding, I would have stabbed you because that was my, that was my special, only us two time. And so she's like the hard part was I was both of those, I was feeling on both at the same time. And so the hard part is I really like planning.

“I like being in control of these vacations. I like everything. A certain way I'm staying in a certain”

place, eating certain meals. And also, I'm so exhausted right now. Sometimes it's just feeling both of them and not trying to outsource both feelings onto somebody, but just taking ownership of them. It's sometimes, in this case, husband just a lazy bomb and he's a good office butt and plan something awesome. You know what your wife likes. You know what, you can make phone calls and arrangements stop being a whiny brat and just get it done. So sometimes it's all of it. But anyway,

yeah, don't just fold your arms up and be like, and don't say, I'm taking my ball and going home. Don't, don't be like that. Put it on the table. Let this conflict be a point of connection for both of you. Let it finally get to the thing beneath the thing, which is where you say,

here's a story as I'm making up. And here's how I feel. And here's what I really want to be

different next time. Love you guys. Bye.