On today’s episode, we hear about: A man who has fallen in love with his best friend A mom seeking advice on how to create boundaries with her teenage daughter A woman wondering if it’s time to find a new job Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼The Dr. John Delony Show T-Shirts Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🌿 Get up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🥤 Get 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY. 🏔️ Use code DELONY at Poncho Outdoors. Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happens when you fall in love with your best friend?
I'm calling about my best friend, and I guess that's kind of an understatement. I let her know that I didn't see her as a coworker or a friend, and she told me that she was not gonna be dating anyone until she was at least 40, so I let go.
Wait, wait, wait, hold up. What? Yo, yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Shout out to everybody out there trying to navigate the fall heading into the holidays. Kelly, when does this show release?
November 1st.
Oh, so we're just a few days out from presidential election when this thing's there. Luckily, everybody's being cool about that, so that's good. No drama there. So, hey, shout out to everybody trying to be good brothers and sisters and moms and dads and boyfriends and girlfriends and parents and sons and daughters, whatever you got going on, man, hats off to you. It's a wildcat season.
And I just, as a rule, just don't get super worked up about stuff. I just finding myself getting worked up about everything. I think it's just in the water and in the air. So, man, I'm so glad you're here on the show. We talk about your psychological health and your emotional health and relational health, whatever you got going on, that's the point of this show.
I'm going to sit with you and we're going to figure it out. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 if you want to be on this show. 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask A-S-K and let me know what's going on. Leave a message and we'll call you back and hope you're doing well. Let's go out to Salt Lake City to the Utes and talk to Rick. Hey, Rick, what's up, brother? I'm doing good.
What's up, man?
Well, I'm calling about my best friend. And I guess that's kind of an understatement. My dad used to call her Miracle Girl before he passed away four years ago. And we met at my mom's memorial service. And her mom was trying to convince me to hire her daughter to do graphic design for me. And I ended up doing that.
And while we started working together, I began to see her in a really different light. I realized I was able to have really deep conversations, philosophical conversations, and neither one of us were bored or not on the same page. And she was also extremely supportive in this time of my life where I felt like I'd pretty much lost everything.
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Chapter 2: How do you handle unreciprocated feelings?
Uh, we weren't married, but yeah, it was a, we were, we were living together for 11 years. Okay.
Yeah.
she's a guy that loves her the guy that that takes care of her in every way but she does not have to make the same emotional commitment right and y'all are very very close friends in that you do life together um y'all are not close friends in that you keep burying a part of yourself in order to maintain proximity to this fantasy
and if she truly loved you like a close deep intimate friend not not sexually not romantically but deep intimate friend she would have moved out because she knows she's torturing you and if you if you loved you as much as you love the idea of her um you would have said hey i need to sell this house i need to find my own place or buy this house but i need you to find your own place
This is unhealthy for me and I do want to have a deep, powerful, romantic relationship one day and it's not going to be with you. I've got to move on with my life.
I think the hard part for both of us is that we both value the relationship that we have very much because neither one of us have ever met someone like the other in that we don't have, like she's ever had somebody in her life that has been the kind of person I've been in her life. And that also goes in reverse. I've never met anyone like her.
And I think that's part of why this is such a struggle is because it's like, I don't think either one of us wants to lose this thing that we have. But she also, there's also this kind of, you know, separation in terms of how each of us feel about each other.
You want more, though. Right. And she's got her perfect setup. She didn't want to be romantically with somebody until she was 40. She got the dream setup. She got the provision, the protection. She got the ride or die. She's got the meal provider. She's got the travel security. But she doesn't have to do the next more scary, terrifying thing, which is be vulnerably intimate with somebody.
And I'm not telling her that she has to do that with you. Right. What I'm saying is there's a, there's a, it's almost parasitic. And listen, if you were not every day waking up, seeing her saying, you are the woman of my dreams. And she's saying, no, no, you're the friend of my dreams. If y'all weren't doing that and y'all are just roommates, that's great. Y'all are two like close, close buddies.
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Chapter 3: What are healthy boundaries with friends?
keep you from having to grieve the fact that you've got to move on to find a romantic one for the rest of your life. Right. It's a Xanax. It's a fantasy. Got it. And y'all can still be amazing, close, wonderful friends. But you can't share a house, dude. Because I don't want to date somebody who's like,
This is my super best, perfect, wonderful human, except they just wouldn't marry me, so I decided to bring you home. I can't do that.
Yeah, exactly.
Hey, not to mention, I just cast that out that way. Not to mention you, because every morning you wake up to have breakfast and you're playing theater. Right. Because I want to imagine that this would be us having breakfast. And I want to imagine that I get to see how beautiful you are every morning with no makeup. Right. Yeah.
And she gets to imagine what it'd be like waking up and having a, providing strong man in the house, but not really having to go all in when it comes to vulnerability and intimacy and building a romantic, erotic life together. Right. Yep. I hate that, man. Yeah. Can I tell you more than anything? I want her to be yours.
I mean, not yours, like possession wise, but I want her to be your, your person. Right. And she's told you for seven years, it's not going to happen. Yeah. And ultimately, I would say, keep being roommates, keep being best friends. I don't know that you can right now.
Yeah. I think you're right. And that's a tough, it's really hard for me to have that, to make that admission, I guess.
I know. You know where you got to spend some time? You got to spend some time with grief, brother.
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: How to support a teenager during difficult times?
And you built concrete. And that concrete allowed your kids to have something to anchor into, allowed this new husband to have something to anchor into. But inside, there's a 28-year-old woman with her face between her knees, with her arms around her shins, sobbing. It keeps having to get up and go again. It keeps having to go again.
And until you let that woman stand up and walk out of this concrete prison you've made for her, your kids are going to be banging their head against that concrete trying to get to their mom's heart. Your husband's not going to do a damn thing because he doesn't have to. You have enough concrete in you for a foundation of a six-bedroom house he can sleep in.
I don't even know if it's an act of submission. I don't even like that word in this particular context. I think it's an act of together. It's vulnerability. It's, hey, I got married again, and that means I give you the opportunity to hurt me again like that other guy did. Please don't. And everything in your body says don't do that. Is that fair?
Yes.
Exhale for me. You're not breathing.
No, I'm not.
Exhale.
Okay.
Okay. Take one more real deep one. And he wasn't the first one, was he?
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Chapter 5: What to do when your partner does not want a romantic relationship?
it for me because it was such a bad situation so I was very grateful for that but then with the way insurance is working stuff I'm paying out of pocket for both of those girls because I have four kids but two with my ex so they're both in therapy for different reasons and I've kept them in it because if I feel like that's the next right thing you would say just in case something ever does come out the next right thing is you
Yes, yes, I agree with that. I'll have to figure out how to maneuver some finances to do that.
Check with your kid's counselor and ask if it's okay to go to every other session because you're going to go finally let those women go. And if you went to an intensive where you talked about it and you talked about it and you talked about it, but you didn't go practice it, that's the next move. What is practicing it look like? Here's what it looks like. I say this ad nauseum on the show.
I want you to write 23-year-old you a letter and say, I'm sorry. Because you still have guilt that you had kids with this guy. You still have guilt that you had kids in that house where this was going on. You have guilt that you didn't reach out to this other 14-year-old girl and protect her too. You've got guilt everywhere. Let that girl, let that woman go.
You have guilt for yourself that how in the world could I be so untrustworthy that I got in a relationship with this dude? Is that fair? Yeah. Okay. You got to open your hands to that and let it roll.
I think probably why I struggle with that so much is because seriously, like, It was almost like a midlife crisis, like stuff started showing up that had never been seen before in our over-decade marriage. And it was so bizarre and just so, like it was a shock to everybody. And it was such a public ordeal. It was a very public situation. And it was just strange.
And so I'm thankful she was younger.
It was strange, but it was also shameful and embarrassing and infuriating. All those things.
Yes, I went dark. I deleted everything, and I even come back with different names that people can't find me.
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Chapter 6: How do you navigate grief after a breakup?
Right now, no.
Okay.
Right now, no.
Why don't you trust yourself?
That's a great question. I thought I had it all figured out, but you just hit something. Probably all the reasons I'm in therapy.
Okay. Your knuckleheaded, can't lead boss, he trusts you.
Yeah.
The company that's fallen off a cliff, they trust you. The only person that doesn't trust you in this moment is you.
Yeah.
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Chapter 7: What are the signs of an unhealthy relationship?
Yeah.
You know how to run an Excel sheet and a pivot table, and you can see that the end of the road is coming. And can we say something else? I tend to be kind of catastrophic in my anxiousness. even if the end of the road's not coming, you also have permission to say, you just are a terrible boss. I don't want to work for you. You get to say that too. Yeah. What do you want to go do?
I like the work that I do. What is it? I like accounting. Okay. Yeah, I enjoy leading people. I enjoy leading a team, being part of a team.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you one of those strange accountants that knows how to do numbers and humans?
I do. I do. I've been told I'm weird because I'm happy and not nerdy.
Good God almighty. There's going to be a line of people out there trying to hire you.
Yeah.
And can I tell you when you go for a job interview and they kind of look you over and you're a smart enough woman to know when you're getting judged just externally, you can smile real big and say, my superpowers, I look great. like a young grandma, and yet I can sit with any CFO and any president and talk numbers.
Yeah.
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