On today’s episode, we hear about: · A woman frustrated by her husband’s choice to stay unemployed · A young man unsure how to stop watching porn for good · A husband struggling to help his wife, who’s dealing with mental illness 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 Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🔴 Get 15% off with code DELONY at BON CHARGE. 🌿 Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 🥤 Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi. 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🏋️ Go to trainwell to get started! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why is Christine frustrated with her husband?
I'm wanting to get help to understand if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband financially until he gets a job.
I imagine there's a lot here, huh?
You shouldn't have any confidence in him.
Good morning, good afternoon, good night. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so grateful that you're joining us. On this show, we talk about your mental and emotional health, your marriage, your kids, local schools, whatever you got going on in your life.
My promise is I'm going to sit with you and we're going to figure out what's the next right move for you, for your family, whatever y'all are working with. If you want to be on this show, this is real people going through hard stuff. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. Leave a message and we'll holler back at you or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K.
All right, let's go right down the street here in Nashville, Tennessee, and talk to Christine. Hey, Christine, what's up?
Hey, good morning, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call.
Of course. Thanks for calling. Thanks for getting up early with us. What's up?
Absolutely. So I am hoping to get some help with making the next right move. Quickly getting into my question, I'm wanting to get help to understand if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband financially until he gets a job.
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Chapter 2: What challenges does Christine face as the sole provider?
Yes.
Okay.
How'd that go? He understood.
Okay.
He apologized, recognized me. you know, the failure in providing for the family and, you know, needing to find a job and turn things around.
How have y'all paid the bills the last three years?
Me. Okay. Yeah. So I am the sole income for our family. He has a daughter and we are not receiving any child support from his ex-wife. So everything is sitting on me financially from end to end.
Is she not your daughter also?
No. I mean, she's my stepdaughter, but no, she's not my daughter biologically.
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Chapter 3: How can Christine approach her husband about his lack of employment?
I'm trying to figure out if it's reasonable to stop supporting my husband, to cut up the credit card, to cut up the debit card, and almost force him to go get a job at Home Depot or something like that to help bring in income. So we'll actually support himself as well.
So the answer is you can do whatever you want. You're an adult. You're a grown-up, right? I would suggest that is essentially an in-home divorce. Okay. That is you choosing to formalize the separation that has already taken place. And it wouldn't be a legal formalization, but it would be a financial formalization. These are your bills. That is your kid. This is my house.
Yeah, and I don't want to do that. But then the next step is he won't, right? Forcing him is not going to work. It hasn't yet. You've tried all sorts of ways. I can almost guarantee it. And I don't know any married couple in this situation where the wife has lost the amount of respect you've lost. And I'm trusting you that it's not about a dollar amount. It's about like, this is three years.
And like you said, fine, you don't have your dream job, but Like you haven't been working at Home Depot and then going to throw boxes at Walmart until midnight and then getting up at 5 a.m. to drive Uber to make – and then getting up the next – just as I know men across the country get up and grind it out on behalf of their families. Forget their dream job.
Forget their purpose and passion or whatever other BS that is on Instagram. Like they get up and they make things happen. They mow lawns. Then they –
go clean up the church i remember my dad being a policeman who made hardly anything and then would clean the church on the weekends and then we go mow lawns and even like you do what you got to do and um i've never met a couple in your situation where your sex life is great where y'all are exercising together going for walks or hikes or your dating life is great you get what i'm saying so it's just like the whole relationship's in ash
Yeah. And so I, it sounds like you're at an or what moment. So I guess I'd ask you, are you done being married to him?
Not at all.
Okay.
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Chapter 4: What are the implications of financial dependence in a marriage?
And what I want to tell you is that you only holding part of reality. The reality is behavior is a language. Your husband said, I'm out.
I was afraid you were going to tell me that.
Until you rest in that, because now you have impetus to act. You have to do something. Actually, you don't have to do anything. You can live like millions of couples do, which is a completely lifeless, bloodless marriage. Yeah, yeah. Where you watch TV and scroll, and he watches TV and pornography, and he's just waiting to get the girl out of the house, and he found somebody to pay the bills.
Because, by the way, he probably doesn't want to be in his skin right now either, does he? No, not at all. I don't think so. Is he struggling from depression? I'm assuming he hadn't gone to see somebody, right?
No, he hasn't. Okay. I think there's an element of it there.
What does he do all day?
Well, it's really weird. So I guess technically he has a job. but he hasn't been paid for anything that he's done.
And so he has a hobby.
Yes. Yes. Um, I'm in my office upstairs. He's in, in his makeshift office in the bonus room, doors closed. I don't know what he does. I don't hear him on the phone. Um, if I, you know, walk in to ask him a question or whatever, he's sitting at his computer, but I don't know what he's doing. There's no tangible evidence that,
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Chapter 5: How does self-worth relate to employment?
Yeah.
And you probably heard me say that a million times and I know it gets hard when it's something's like this.
Yeah.
But if you say I'm tired and I'm getting the message loud and clear, you don't want to be married to me anymore. I'm ready to go. Like if that's what you want, I'm ready to have that next step conversation. It's going to break my heart, but I'm not going to hold you here anymore. And I have to have something different in my home.
I have to have a husband that contributes that I can anchor into also.
Okay.
And for whatever it's worth, I know often women know this intellectually, but just from, just speaking from my guts, I don't know that It can be overstated how much dull-eyed men walking around have been told explicitly, implicitly. It's the air we breathe that you, I mean, the question is, what are you worth? That's the question. And men answer that with a number. I am worth this much.
I make this much. Not I make furniture, not I make people have more peaceful lives. I make this many dollars. And so I'm not defending him, but I'm providing a context that sometimes when a wife grabs her husband and says, I don't care about the number. I care about watching the man I love have no purpose. And ultimately the house is, the life is leaving this home because the life has left you.
So I don't care what the number is right now. I don't know what your financial situation is. That can be a whole other call, but I don't care what the number is right now. I'm assuming you'll have money for groceries, but you got to do something. You have to go regain purpose. And for most people, regain purpose is done in tiny steps, tiny wins.
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Chapter 6: What steps can be taken to regain purpose in life?
I'm going to stock shelves so that some exhausted mother comes in off her night shift at 6 a.m. and she can get the food she needs and she can get back to her kids. I'm going to go do that. I'm going to go provide some value somewhere. The money will follow. But maybe sitting down and say, I know you're not making what you used to and I know you feel trapped and yada, yada, yada.
But forget the money. I'm watching my husband lose purpose and this has to happen. But at the end of the day, here's your boxed in, Christine, and I want you to unbox yourself. And that's either accepting what it is, making peace with it and deciding I'm not going to complain and whine about it. This is what it is, what it is. Or here's my line.
And then your husband gets to make a terrifying choice. Is he in or is he out? And if he's going to be in, here's what that means very clearly. Let me know how that conversation goes, Christine. And if y'all have that conversation and he wants to give me a call and ask for next steps, I'm happy to walk alongside him too. Thank you so much. We'll be right back.
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Chapter 7: How can boundaries help in a struggling marriage?
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you're like, oh man, my friend needs to hear this or my mother-in-law needs to hear this. Please send the show their way. It makes such a huge difference with all the internets and the computers and the algorithms. And by the way, it just helps people. And here's another cool thing. Big announcement. We just had our money marriage get away here and it was off the chain like always.
We're running it back like we do every fall. Every marriage needs intentional time, a way to disconnect from life's busyness, reconnect and build a life they love together. here's what we're doing. We're running the Money in Marriage Getaway. It's going to be in November 6th through 8th, 2025.
Three days here in Nashville with me and my good friend, Rachel Cruz, and a couple of other super special guests. We're in Nashville, so you never know who's going to show up. Three days of laughter, hard conversations, maybe some tears, intentional time together, and lots of practical teaching. We talk about money. We talk about sex. We talk about communication.
It's kind of like if you listen to the show and you want to be like, yeah, but, but, but, but. That's what this retreat is, is us getting into the details. And my favorite part is we intentionally keep this small. We intentionally don't put it in four or 5,000 seat places because we want people who show up to have access, to ask their questions, get their questions answered.
So if you come to this and you leave without your question answered, that's on you. We try to get to every single question that we can and make sure people are heard and seen. Early bird tickets for the entire weekend. And by the way, we keep it intentionally below market value because I know people are struggling financially. It's $750, $749 for three full days.
And every time we launch this event, tickets sell out fast. So hurry up, get on it, ramseysolutions.com slash events, or you can click the link in the description if you're listening on the tubes or on podcast. All right, let's go out to Dallas, Texas and talk to Fletcher. Hey, Fletcher, what's up? Hey, how's it going? Doing great, brother. How are you, man? Good, good. Can I give you some context?
You can do whatever you want, man. Cannonball.
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Chapter 8: What is the importance of communication in relationships?
But what's beneath this is something I want to dig into more. What's the thing beneath the thing? Is she having doubts about marrying you because you looked at pornography before?
No, she's all on board. We're both on the same page. But just looking back on those times, I don't know really. Really hurt her, you know. And I just don't want to do that again.
Okay. Then I'm going to tell you something crazy. All right? You have a pen and paper. Write this down. Okay. Don't. You know what I mean? Right. If she truly forgives you, then you need to do the hard work of forgiving yourself. You messed up. You violated y'all's shared trust. She said, pornography is infidelity as far as I'm concerned, and it makes me feel less than. And you said, I hear you.
And it sounds like a couple of times you broke that trust. And you're a courageous 23-year-old. Most 23-year-olds are just a ball of hormones and cowardice. You're not that. You went and told her, hey, I messed up, and I'm sorry. And you had to deal with the consequences, which is her telling you, that breaks my heart. It makes me feel less than. It makes me feel not beautiful. Whatever she said.
Right. And if she says, I forgive you, I still want to marry you, then you need to stop carrying those bricks around.
Yeah, she's been nothing but what she should be. She's been nothing but loving and supportive. Okay, so why do you hate Fletcher? I think when I was younger, like you're saying, there wasn't a lot of talking about all that with parents and everything, and definitely didn't feel like guys were dealing with that anyway. Here's the thing.
You grew up in a generation where 99% of sex ed came from pornography. It's how – it's because parents sure as hell weren't having that conversation because they were raging cowards. And they either didn't know how to do it or they refused to go get the tools to do it. So they had this awkward super talk one day and then called it good or they never had that talk.
They put a pamphlet on, you know, in your backpack and said, go on about your day. Or they outsourced it to some 25-year-old youth minister who – Don't get me started, dude. So here's the thing. You were set up to fail as a 13-year-old. And your parents may be amazing and wonderful, but most parents handled this terribly. Okay? It is what it is what it is. But here we are.
Now, your adventure moving forward is to learn how to not blush when you hear the word penis. To be able to stand in front of your wife and And say, this is all of me. Do you still love me? Because I love you. And to be able to have frank and fun and erotic and hilarious and awkward conversations with your wife about sex. And nobody taught you about that.
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