On today’s episode, we hear about: · A woman feeling violated by a recent discovery · A father who is angry about time lost with his kids since the divorce · A mother struggling to explain to her son why he can’t go to sleepovers 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: What shocking discovery did Renee make about her stepdad?
I found a picture of myself on my stepdad's phone. He had put a picture that I had posted on Facebook through an app that made me look completely naked. I'm just absolutely gutted. Ugh.
Ugh.
Chapter 2: How did Renee feel after finding the inappropriate photo?
God.
Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking your calls... from real people all over planet Earth about whatever's going on in your lives, your mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you got going on. I'd love to have you on the show. Give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. All right, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Let's talk to Renee. What's up, Renee?
Hi, nothing much. How are you?
I am running a scam called being a YouTuber. What are you doing?
Yeah, nothing much. Just enjoying the sunshine out here in Raleigh.
Amazing. It's a beautiful part of the world, man. That's fantastic. So what's up?
Yeah, I had an unfortunate situation where I... Found a picture of myself on my stepdad's phone and he had put a picture that I had posted on Facebook through an app that made me and the friend that was in the picture as well look like we were completely naked. It's my world kind of shattered.
in that because I don't have a great relationship with my dad and my stepdad has been in my life for, you know, 10 plus years. And he's really been an answer to prayer for me in so many ways. So I'm just absolutely gutted and shattered. And I, I don't know, I don't know what a relationship with him would look like moving forward. Um, I don't know if I want that. I don't know. I just,
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Chapter 3: What advice did John give Renee regarding her feelings?
Yeah.
Hold on. You're holding back. Don't do that. Well, I don't want to tell you what to do and what to feel right now, but if you'll honor yourself, don't hold those tears back. Because right now, if I've sat with enough people in this situation, there's a sense that if you start crying, you're never going to be able to stop. Is that fair?
Yeah. Yeah, I just feel like if I actually show emotion, it'll be like completely the end of a relationship with him at all.
Okay, but listen. He ended it. And you have always known. You ever heard of the turkey problem? No. It's an economics... but it works here. A turkey is born the day after Thanksgiving and is moved into the family yard. And every day the farmer goes out and pets that turkey and feeds that turkey the best of the best of the best.
And over time, that turkey knows and would tell everybody, this is the greatest guy who ever lived. He feeds me every day, he pets me. He brings in mates for me until Thanksgiving morning. And so maybe you have been caged with a predator for a long time and your instinct, your genetic line, and your just grit and determination. Because let's say before him, your life was rough too, right?
Yeah.
Yeah. You're very tough and pretty gritty too, correct?
Yeah.
Like you get stuff done, you figure it out, right?
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Chapter 4: What are the emotional challenges faced by Jay after his divorce?
If they go to the hospital, we're all going to be there because we're the three adults in their life. Like it or not, that's the way this is. Right. And that olive branch, he may take that olive branch from you and stab you with it. Maybe. Or he may take that olive branch from you and just exhale. And if you say, I want to do what's best for these girls. Right. And so I want to trust you.
I got to know your name. You got to be able to text me and say, Hey, eight year old just started her period when she was 12 and mom's struggling with it. Just know we got to be able to text each other or some boys around here, you know, trying to talk to her just FYI. Y'all got to be able to do that for her. Right.
And he may tell you to go to hell, dude, but at least, you know, I did the right adult thing for my kids.
Yeah, yeah. I've actually had thoughts about just saying, hey, let's throw the hatchet, what happened happened, and kind of move on from there.
But if you've been an anxious mess fighting the whole way, and by the way, he only, only has an earful of how evil you are and how dumb you are from her. Right. And she has shown the world what kind of character and integrity she has. None, right? Right. And so you've dated people in the past who was like, my ex-boyfriend was this and this and this. Maybe you got one side of that story.
And so calling him and saying, hey, let's bury the hatchet, that's a step, a better path towards connecting because this guy's going to be in your kid's life a lot is starting with, hey, I was wrong. I messed this up. And if you get to a point in that conversation, you can say, bro, you slept with my wife. Like, of course, this is hard. Right? Yeah. I mean, it's just putting it on the table.
He knows it. You know it. Not saying it doesn't make it go away. And then maybe putting it out there. Only seeing my girls 50% of the time is like guts me. But you're not able to move to sad yet because you're still so mad. And you're still so mad because I think you're still hanging on to this marriage in a weird way.
Right. Yeah. I mean, I do feel like if she was trying to come back, I wouldn't. You think about it. Yeah, I only say that because within the first nine months of her being back with this guy, I took her back twice out of about six or seven times. And told her to take off again. And so I told myself, you know, I would never do that.
And just seeing how heartbroken my older daughter was when she did it again, I was like, I'd never put him back. That's right.
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Chapter 5: How can Jay cope with the anger and separation from his children?
So I'm 100% behind you. I think no sleepover rule is fantastic. And we'll get into a little bit of the downstream stuff, but I want to answer your big question up front. You cannot manage the frustration of a 12-year-old. You can't. And to try to do that is futile. What you can say every single day of his life is my job is to keep you safe and my job is to love you.
Yeah.
And that comes with some of these hard decisions. And I always give my kids permission to tell their friends that their dad's a moron, outdated idiot. I don't need him. I always felt the need, and my dad never said this explicitly, but I always felt the need to protect my parents when they gave me these, what I thought at the time were crazy boundaries with my 13 or 14 year old brain.
I don't want my kids to ever feel like they have to protect me. Right? So tell your friends that your dad's the worst, that your dad's lame. That's no skin off my nose. Right?
Yeah.
And then occasionally, maybe your house becomes the sleepover house. but that's a conversation for after 12.
Yeah. Yeah. We've had those conversations where we are, we are totally open to the sleepovers at our house, but that kind of makes me feel a little hypocritical. Nope. Nope.
Because it's not, the concept isn't, isn't sleepover. The concept is environment.
Right. It's our values. That's right. Yeah.
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Chapter 6: What strategies did John suggest for Jay to move forward?
Yeah, I don't know if protecting, I guess that's the right word. For some reason, when you said that, it rubs me the wrong way. I don't know that it's protecting them as much as it's my job to make sure they remain as much as possible in environments where they can make successful choices.
Yeah. Yeah.
I don't want to, my goal isn't to make all the choices for my kids. My goal is, especially when they're younger. And of course this, this increasingly opens up as they get older. I want to make sure that I'm curating environments where they, if they make a wrong choice, it ends in a broken arm, not a pregnancy.
It ends in somebody, I don't know, falling out of a tree and breaking their foot or their ankle and not them having to go see a sexual abuse counselor 15 years later.
Mm-hmm.
Or seeing things in their mind that they can never unsee.
Yeah.
Right? So I'm not going to pick the movie for them, but I'm going to make sure that I, it's like, it's like Vore Dyer and for jury selection. I'm not going to pick the movie I'll watch, but I'm going to get rid of these because you're not watching those. Right? So I just want to give them environments where they can make successful choices. And after 11 o'clock, I mean, really?
The only thing to do is to watch a movie you're not supposed to watch or stay up so late that you're useless the next day.
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