On today’s episode, we hear about: · A husband struggling to navigate his wife’s decision to leave their church · A man wondering what boundaries to set in place with his mom · A woman frustrated by her adult brother who refuses to clean up after himself 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 should I do if my spouse wants to leave the church?
My wife let me know that she no longer wanted to attend the church that we've been going to. I just feel like she might share those same feelings towards me, right? That she has in this former church of ours that is a negative experience for her.
The words coming out of my mouth are going to be harsh. I want you to know I'm sitting right here with you, okay? Okay. What's up? What's up? What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show coming to you live with the world on fire. Trying to be a voice of compassion and reason in a world obsessed with just screaming at everybody.
And it feels like all the grownups are sitting in the sandbox, throwing sand at each other and saying, I'm going to take my ball and go home. And the rest of us are trying to figure out how to pay for eggs and try to keep our kids safe and trying to figure out what AI means. Like we're just trying to figure out how to do life, how to be married anymore.
And so cutting through all the noise, getting in under the smoke and sitting with you here, just pull up a chair. Trying to figure out what's the next right move for your marriage, your mental and emotional health for 20 plus years. More than two decades now, I've been sitting with hurting people, regardless of what's going on.
I've literally sat in people's front yard and held them while we watched their house burn down. Sometimes I feel like that's what we're doing. That's what I'm going to do on the show. I'm going to sit with you and help you figure out what's the next right move for you, for your family, for your kids, for your friends, wherever you find yourself. If you want to be on the show, I'd love to have you.
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And if she picks you, she'll hollaback girl at you, even though she ain't a hollaback girl. Let's go to Atlanta. Talk to Steven with a pH the way it's supposed to be. What's up, Steven? Hey, John.
Thanks for taking my call. Yeah. So, um, uh, had a real tough year this past year. Um, my wife and I are struggling through, uh, and we're trying to understand what can I do next. So about a year ago, my wife let me know that she no longer wanted to attend the church that we've been going to for the entirety of our marriage. How long is that? 12 years. We've been going to this... Go ahead.
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Chapter 2: How can I support my spouse's negative feelings about our church?
Oh, yeah. So we've been going to this church, heavily involved. It's been a bedrock of our lives and our marriage and our kids. And then she said that's no longer something she wanted to do. And it took a minute for me to kind of accept that. And really now where I'm struggling is trying to...
I'm wrestling with the fact that she has such a negative viewpoint of a former church of ours and is still very much involved in seeking out others who kind of share in that negative viewpoint. And I can't help but think that she might
um, some way look down on me because I haven't seen the same viewpoint that she has, or, um, you know, it isn't a, um, I just feel like she might share those same feelings towards me, right. That she has over this former church of ours. That is a negative experience for her.
How is she, um, articulated or what is she articulating specifically about why she She left that church while she wants to disassociate herself from it.
I think a lot of it came from what she viewed as how people were treated. I didn't see the same things that she saw, but there was a very conservative viewpoint. So were these women? Were these gay and lesbian folks? Were these children? Were these... Like, yeah, I think she's had a really hard time with what she perceived, how women were treated.
Um, and, uh, you know, I can, I can sympathize with that, but I didn't see the same thing. I'm obviously not a woman, so I didn't see those things. I didn't experience those things, but I didn't, um, you know, I, I didn't see her point of view. Um, and now I, I,
I struggle with the fact that because I didn't come with her or see the same things that she saw, you know, she might look down on me for that.
So I'm going to change the language here. Sure. The words coming out of my mouth are going to be harsh. Okay. I want you to know I'm sitting right here with you, okay? Okay. I'm using your experience to speak to a broader audience listening. Is that cool? Yeah, do it. Okay. So I want you to stop referring to your wife's lived experience as her quote-unquote point of view.
A point of view is an opinion on what I would call a benign topic or it could be a malignant topic. That's probably the wrong word there. But I have a point of view on whether – My old beat up Tundra is a good truck. And somebody else may have a point of view that that truck is not good. Right? Your wife has a lived experience.
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Chapter 3: What does it mean to listen to my spouse's lived experience?
And how could she not share that with towards me? Um, but you know, as you said, she has said she doesn't, um, But I can't get over that story that I'm telling myself that she's linking that with me as well.
Gotcha. So here's how I'd approach this in my house. And by the way, my wife went to church for years without me. I didn't believe in the whole thing. I blew the whole thing off. Yeah. And then when we had kids, when Hank came along, my son came along, I wasn't fully there yet. I wasn't all the way back.
And I went because I didn't want to be that dad who stayed at home while his wife and their kid went to church. So I just went. And that ended up being my path back, which was good. There's been seasons when I went to a different church because sometimes I don't want to be, I just, I'm on a Sunday morning and I don't have the stomach for someone just to get up there and yell at me or lecture me.
and i have found amazing peace walking into an ornate catholic church and just listening to the singing and the chanting and the exhale and the the ritual of it and i'm not catholic right and there's been other times when fill in the blank film i need a group of guys and we all go sit in the woods and we sit on a campfire so whatever the thing is all i have to say is this a really um
important exercise when it comes to faith and theology and spirituality and all those things, whatever words you want to use there is for married couples to sit down and have the values and beliefs conversation. You ever heard me talk about this? Yeah, definitely. Okay. So sitting down and saying, okay, as for us in our household, we believe in a higher power. We believe in God.
We believe in Jesus. We believe in boot. Like whatever you want to say as for us, this is where we are putting an anchor in. And then when it comes to how that is lived out, I want my wife to have different beliefs than me.
It makes things more, it makes things less convenient, but I'm not, I don't want to have a life at the end of, I don't want to die and be like, man, my life was really convenient. I want to have a life where I felt like, I was sharpened as sharp as I could be. And that comes from sitting with people who have different thoughts and ideas and whatever.
And somebody's always gonna have to exhale when they walk into a church. I don't like the band. I don't like the singer. I don't like the preacher. I don't like the Sunday school. Like that's just life, right? And you just, you go and you make that part of your life. So having that conversation can be really instructive.
Yeah, no, and I'll say I've been wanting to have that conversation. Quite honestly, I've been scared to up until now just because every conversation around those sorts of topics has been a struggle for us. Tell me about the struggle. Yeah. I think I have just viewed the conversations as – because I see her in this seeking the poison, as you were alluding to.
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Chapter 4: How do I approach difficult conversations with my spouse?
Hi, how are you doing?
I am trying to figure out what day it is. I hope you're doing well. Hang on here. I'm going to bring in your husband, Daniel. Let's see, Daniel in the lion's den. What's up, Daniel? Hey, how are you doing, John? I'm doing fantastic. All right, so which one of you, Amber or Daniel, which one of you sent in your question?
I did, but then my husband wanted to join the call.
Oh, fantastic.
So he's the one that's actually going to ask the question first.
All right, I love it. Let it rip.
Okay, so some little backstory here. My stepfather, he passed away very unexpectedly back in January 24. Man, I'm sorry, dude. Yeah, thank you.
What was his name? JC. JC. Good guy? Yeah. He was good. He was strong. That's awesome. I'm sorry about your loss, man. I'm glad you got to spend part of your life with him. Sounds like JC was a good man. Thank you.
Thank you. My mom started going on dates with different men about three months after he had passed. One of those men, which she is now dating... was my stepfather's old friend back in high school. But the real shocker is that he's married, and it's kind of been tough going with that. So how do we set boundaries with that?
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Chapter 5: What boundaries should I set with my mother-in-law?
And if I can be selfish on your behalf for a minute, the world is better when you are healthy and whole. So if you're thinking about trying therapy, contact my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy and it's affordable and convenient for your schedule. They have a network of more than 30,000 licensed therapists with a wide range of specialties.
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Visit BetterHelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, Albany, New York. Let's talk to Nicole. Hey, Nicole, what's up?
Hi, Dr. John. How are you?
I'm doing great. Thanks for hopping on last minute this morning. How are you?
Yeah, of course. I'm doing great.
Good deal. So what's up? How can I help?
So I live with my brother. Awesome. Yep. I'm 24. He's 21. Gross. Yes. So how do I manage that he has a higher tolerance to filth than I do? And how can I avoid holding... I know, yeah. How can I avoid holding resentment towards my mom for raising us differently?
No, no, no, no. Leave your mom out of this. I mean, if you're mad at your mom... Okay, 21-year-olds are disgusting.
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Chapter 6: How can I manage my feelings towards my mother's new relationship?
Yeah, you're giving him way too much credit. It was like four or five years into me being married before my wife was like, oh, you don't see that pile of clothes. And I was like, what? In the same way, I would be like, hey, you don't see that sketchy guy that just came in with your back turned in the restaurant. Like, I see him.
Yeah. Yeah.
And so it's just like, I guarantee you didn't see it. I can't guarantee it. Let me say this way. I mean, either he's a terrible human being and he's just doing this to stress out a sister, which is a whole other issue. Or I can take the high road here and just assume he's like most other 21 year olds and he just go bebopping through life and he didn't even notice it.
Well, I think it's true that he doesn't notice it, but that's just frustrating for me because I feel like I'll ask him to do something and then he outright refused. And he'll say, because I didn't say please, but I'll say to him, like, how many times have I done it without being asked? And I don't get a thank you.
Oh, gosh, because he's trying to say, hey, you're just my bratty older sister. And you're trying to say, no, no, no. In this environment, I'm your mother.
Yeah.
And those that tension is not going to work. So at some point, you have to sit down and say, hey, I've been trying to be your mom. I'm not going to be your mom anymore. I'm not going to be our mom anymore. I'm your sister. And for this to work out for both of us, I need your help cleaning stuff up. And sometimes I'll say, please, just know I'm always grateful, but we've got to do this together.
And I'm sorry for acting like your mom.
Yeah.
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