Our Kids Are Destroying Our Sex Life

This is an ad for BetterHelp. If you've ever said, I'm not in a crisis, I don't need therapy, I want you to reconsider. The time to take care of your mental health is before things fall apart. Talking to someone can help. Get started at betterhelp.com slash D'Aloni and save 10%. Intimacy in our relationship is kind of always being a struggle. It's something we talk about, we communicate about, you know, I think my biggest struggle is I don't necessarily feel like I have a seat at the table. Almost always when somebody says, I want to work on my communication and my marriage, what they're asking is, how do I get my spouse to do what I want them to do? What up? What up? What up? This is John with the Dr. John D'Aloni show. I'm glad you are here talking about your mental health, your emotional health, your relationships, your marriage, your spiritual life, your kids, whatever you got going on in your life, we're going to cut through all the noise, cut through all the scrolling memes and nonsense and all the opinions of everybody everywhere, all the, I'm going to pull up a seat and have a real conversation, two real people talking about real challenges in our lives. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes. Let's go out to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and talk to the BEN. What's up, Ben? How we doing, man? I am doing well. Thanks for taking my call. I appreciate your time. You got it, man. What's up? So I am, I'm 30 years old. I've been married for eight years. I've got two kids, a four-year-old and a one-year-old. I would describe intimacy in our relationship as kind of always being a struggle, but never being a huge struggle. Intimacy, are you talking about, intimacy, you're talking about sex or you're talking about just, just overall romantic connection? So I, the interesting thing is it's not sex. It's kind of connecting A to B, if that makes sense. So getting to sex is kind of a struggle of ours in terms of the day-to-day routines. The sex is great, I would say, and obviously sounds silly me saying that, but you know, we've had conversation about that and we've communicated about this concern. But I would say after the birth of our most recent one, the one-year-old, this has been a bit, a bit bigger of an issue, kind of getting there. And it's something we talk about, we communicate about, but you know, my biggest struggle is I don't necessarily feel like I have a seat at the table. And what I mean by that is, you know, we talk about it, we acknowledge it's a concern, we acknowledge that it's something we want to work on, but I don't have the same struggles that come with motherhood, you know, breastfeeding, the body image stuff. So, you know, I'm totally aware and understanding that that is a huge sacrifice and a huge part of, you know, my wife's mental, mental health, but I also feel like, you know, I'm still struggling in that, but I don't necessarily feel like I have a seat at the table. So I think my question is, how do I approach this, you know, with empathy, love and respect for her, but kind of get my point across, you know, and kind of how do we communicate about that? So almost always when somebody says, I want to work on my communication and my marriage, what they're asking is, how do I get my spouse to do what I want them to do? And so I want to back out of that question, okay, and we'll get to some practical tips and some practical ways. But I guess the overarching big picture here I want you to hear me say is more than likely, you're on the tail end of what has been about a four or five year season. And it's frustrating because you, how long ago I married before you had your first kid? About four years. Okay, so you have a very real picture of life with your wife before you had kids, right? You could do what you wanted, whenever you wanted, y'all could navigate struggles and yada yada. And but you had this thing that you don't have anymore time, right? You had margin and time and energy. That's right. There you go. And then second one, energy. Yeah, good, good addition there. And so then she gets pregnant and there's excitement and then everything begins to change. And then you have a kid who is what, two and a half? And then she gets pregnant again. So she's got a toddler and she's pregnant going through the, all those changes again, right? Internal and external changes. And then you have this kid and they have a four year old and a one year old. And you have a woman is looking at you saying, I don't even know what day it is. My body's not mine. It's the jungle gym, right? And I can't handle any more touch. And you're looking at this as it's been five years since I had that woman who we had time and we had energy and we had spontaneity and we had arrows in our home. And now we have a bunch of duty in our home, right? Like literal duty, do, O, D, Y and duty, D, U, T, Y, right? And so what I want to tell you is this season is about to come to an end unless you all decide to have another kid. So it does feel like this is going to be the way it always is going to be. I want to tell you 23 years into this thing. It's not. Okay. But I do want to honor where you feel right now. And I think your question about why do I not have a seat at the table? Meaning this is kind of common knowledge among marriage therapists and among people who study sexuality. And that is often the person with the lowest libido has the driver, isn't the driver seat, right? Because their partner would do it whenever they wanted, right? And this person saying, we're going to do it on my schedule. And that can feel isolating and lonely on your side of it, right? So you told me when you'll do have sex, it's great. Talk to me about what you mean getting from A to B. Well, I think I'm a bit of a bit in my head at times because, you know, I don't want to say it feels like a game, but in some ways it feels like I'm like, the stars aligned, can I do something? Can I not do something? It's now, you know, and so I think the struggle is when I get into my own way in that regard, I think she realizes it and then it, you know, it kind of nips it in the butt at that point. So I think getting from A to B in terms of like, how do we initiate physical intimacy? And it doesn't even necessarily have to be sex, but that leads down that path. Because I think it's, I'm playing the game like, how's she feeling? What can I do? And, you know, so I think connecting, maybe I'm not articulating much. No, you're actually, you're articulating it perfectly. Okay. So I want to challenge you. Is that cool? Not in a, you're messing anything up, but I want to, I want to set a series of challenges in front of you. Okay. I want you to like completely do away with dismantle the idea that there is any game whatsoever being played. Okay. Let's, let's get, because here's, here's what games do. Well, let me say it like this. Often guys, men, they have two methods of initiation, either the boob honk or the butt grab, right? The brush up against, right? Or the, the joking kind of, so are we doing this tonight or what? And they do it in a way that if they're shut down, or if tonight's not a good night, or if they, you know, grab their wife's butt while they're walking through the kitchen or whatever, and she swats it away and she goes, stop, right? We, we feel like we have this out. Oh, I was just playing. And what we're really trying to avoid there is the sense and feeling of rejection. Because when I walk up and say, I want to be with you tonight, and she says, I'm too tired. For most men, that hurts so deeply because what we're really saying is, do you want me? Do you like me? Do you like being with me? Right? Yeah. And so we have all these games, we do all this, this maneuvering, this kind of sideways stuff. And A, it's a total turnoff. And B, we feel like it's protecting us, but it's not. And so, like challenge number one is, let's commit to stop trying to make this all a game. And what that means is, the next challenge is, commit to just saying what you want. And saying what you want revolves or like involves saying it what you want in a compassionate, kind way. Saying what you want at the right time in a language she can hear. Right? If she's breastfeeding a baby and also trying to change a diaper and she's like, right, doing all the stuff and you're like, are we doing this or what tonight? Not a good time. Right? And if she has said, I don't like the way you jokingly do this, then say, okay, cool. What's a way that you feel loved when I want, like, what's a way you can hear it when I tell you I want you? Right? And she might say, I just assume you always do. And that's not a true assumption. That's a story she made up, right? But let's do away with the games. Let's start thinking about how do I directly say I want you. And here's the third one. And this one's going to be a thing that you have to work on not her. And it feels like it's her job and it's not. Does this woman love you? She does. Do you think she is trying to starve you out sexually because she doesn't like you or she's trying to use it as like something like a way to retain power in your marriage? No, I genuinely don't. Okay, awesome. Perfect. So I want you to begin to practice. And it's just a practice. It's not a moral issue, a character. She's just a skill set. Practice putting it out on the table. I would like to be with you tonight. I want to sex tonight. I want to make out tonight. I want to cuddle tonight, whatever and or whatever funny ways y'all have what words y'all use, right? And every couple has their own little language. And then I want you to practice choosing to not meditate on I'm being rejected to depersonalize it. Does that make sense? Yeah. And that's really hard. But if you can lean in and say, this isn't a rejection of me, this isn't a rejection of her wanting me, this is her saying with all honesty and integrity, I'm cooked, I'm fried, I'm exhausted, then you can then say, okay, how can I love you right now? Right? You can stay in it. And inside that little exclusive club of membership two that y'all have co-created together. And all of this is hard. Because at the end of the day, you want to have sex with your wife, right? And that doesn't make you crazy or weird or whatever. Now, let me ask you a bigger question. I'm confident y'all have probably already had these conversations, but what is she carrying, experiencing on a daily basis that you could step in and take a huge load off for her? The mental management of the house is a, because I'm pretty good at doing physical stuff. You know, I'll do the dishes, I clean the house, I do all that stuff. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Shout out to you, brother. Shout out. Good job. Like I'm proud of you for that. Yeah. I think that stuff comes easy to me, but she is a better thinker, more analytical than me. So, you know, we joked the other day that I said something that needed done before her. And it was a big celebration on my end because that never happens. But I think that's a huge draw of energy for her is the mental management of the home. So, I think stepping into that. Okay. So, I was recently sitting with a couple behind closed doors and actually I went over to their house. They called me and said, Hey, would you come over and talk to us? And I was sitting with them in their house and we were having a similar discussion. They've got like 50, not 50 kids, they got more than two. And anything more than three for me is 50. And they had several kids and she was talking about this very thing. I'm carrying so much in my head all day long. And then when he comes and says, Hey, are we doing it tonight? It feels like the feather on top of like the load I'm carrying that finally just breaks the camel's back, right? And I asked her, I said, Hey, would you be willing to write down the things that you're carrying in your mind, the doctor's appointments, the schedules, the we're going to about to run out of diapers, the I've got to go to this appointment, I got to do this checkup. I said, Would you be willing to write those things down and share that with him and see what of that list he could take from for you? And she got real quiet and she said something really powerful. She said, Then what will my job be? And I found this over and over and over again, which is there is a sense of overwhelm with all the things we're thinking about. But it also becomes a sense of identity. And so she'll have a role to play here too, which is will you do will you love me in a way to write down the things that you're spiraling about, you can text them to me one at a time, you can put them in a notes app, you can carry a little notebook with you. Would you be willing to write these things down and for five minutes at night, share them with me and see what I can carry? Sometimes it's as simple as I'm going to put all the schedules on a piece of paper, we're going to print it out on the computer and we're going to put it on the refrigerator so that I will always know who our kid's dentist is, who the doctors are, what time school starts, what time pickup is for daycare, all that stuff. But she's going to have to release some of that out into the wild and give you an opportunity to show up. And if you've not shown up before in the past, I get the reluctance, but it sounds like you're a guy who like, man, if I can see it on piece of paper, I'll knock it out. I want to be I want to be more than a team player. I want to take ownership of everything in this house while she's carrying this other significant burden. Right. And so would she be willing to offload some of that spinning stuff that's going on in her mind? I think she would if we, if we had an open, you know, an open dialogue and conversation about it, that is interesting. You mentioned about the identity though, I do want to, you know, make sure I love her and that because that is something she's known for almost to a joking sense with all of our family and friends. And, you know, so what was she not known for what, carrying it all? Well, no known for being the one who remembers everything, you know, all the, a car goes out for everybody's birthday every single time, you know, all that kind of stuff. She's just, she always, she's really good at showing up every single time for everything in like an intentional way. And so I just want to make sure that I, you know, respect that for her too. I love that. And this is, this is the, the big picture thing here. Okay. The marriage you had your first four years is over. Doesn't exist anymore. And so every ounce of energy you spend wishing, I wish you could just get back to, why can't we just like we used to all that any, any time spent ruminating on that is a, is a use of energy to draw you out of the present and to hamper moving forward. That's for you and for her. So if her whole identity has been forever, I'm going to be, I will know when I love will ever have a birthday like getting a card from me. She's a new person too. And it may be that in this season, I'm going to send an email reminder. Is that as personal? No. Is that what she's known for? No. Is that as cool? No. But my husband and my marriage and after my marriage, my kids, they come first now. And so what, what has to happen here is y'all get, y'all get away for half a day and it would be really rad if you brother went and made the arrangements for childcare for half a day. And y'all had the conversation that starts with we have a brand new marriage and we can make it look however we want. We get to decide. And we're going to put us first. And then we're going to put the kids and then we're going to put everything else. And that's going to be a season of grief. Like I used to be this guy. I used to be this woman. Cool. Those days are over. We had kids. We have each other. Who do we want to be now? And what can we do together to build whatever we want to move forward? I'll never forget my wife and I and we were sitting at the table trying to decide whether we were going to stay married or not. After hours of talking, it was, we were laugh crying. And one of us, I think it was her, maybe me, but one of us said, well, I guess, I guess since we've chosen a crappy marriage, we could choose to have a great one. And that was the light. That was the light bulb that came on at the end of a very dark tunnel, which was like, oh, I guess we could choose to do something awesome. But Hollywood didn't set us up for that level of intentionality. The busyness of every day doesn't set us up for that level of intentionality. And then the constant feeling of, I just want to be with my wife and feeling rejected. When really she's not rejecting you, she's just exhausted. Right? You get what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely. And can I be honest with you? Just, just, just me and you at the table, sharing a beer in front of a couple million people. None of this stuff in the short term may lead to more sex with your wife. Okay. It won't immediately alleviate that problem. But this is a bid in the right direction, a new direction that will over time create margin. And in that margin, the exhaustion, the energy that feel like I don't have any time. In that space, then y'all can decide how you want to spend that time and energy that you've now found. And almost always it's, it's, it's, hey, I want to be together more cool. Hey, I'm going to hook you all up with a together app. It's going to radically transform your marriage. After you have these conversations, it will just give you a thing to do every day towards her and give her a thing to do every day towards you. And y'all can both say, I don't have time out of the energy. If you don't have two minutes for each other or six minutes for each other or 20 minutes for each other, your marriage has bigger issues. You do, but this stops you and says, all right, I'm going to do this one thing towards my spouse. So hang on the line here. I'll hook you up with it free for a year and both you and your wife can log into it. And if you don't want to do it, you can do it by yourself. One player mode. It's awesome. Hang on the line here. Thanks for the call, brother. I've got, I, I've got high hopes for you, your marriage and this incredible exclusive club y'all too have created called intimacy. Moving into the future. We come back, a woman asks how to handle her son rejecting her new relationship after she was widowed. A lot of people I talk to are doing the right things. They're working hard to build routines. They're working hard to set boundaries in their relationships. They're trying to create this non anxious life that I'm always talking about. But I rarely hear people talk about what's going on behind their computer screens in the unseen digital world that most of us are living in all of the time. We pretend that if we can't see it, it's not there. It is. There are people buying and selling your personal information. 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If you'll just take a few seconds and do that, I'd be super grateful. Even Kelly would be grateful. She's grateful about nothing. All right, let's go out to Vancouver and talk to Janine. Hey, Janine, what's up? Hi there. How are we doing? Ah, not too bad. That doesn't sound convicting. What's up? I know. Sorry. Don't be sorry. Don't be sorry. That's very Canadian of you to already be sorry. Yes, absolutely. I'm glad you're here. What's up? Yeah, so I was happily married for just shy of 30 years and unfortunately, my spouse passed away. Oh, no. What happened? What happened? Actually, we both got COVID. Oh, no. He passed away with COVID. When did he pass away? Yeah, four and a half years ago. Four and a half years. What was his name? His name was Louis. Was he awesome? He was amazing. Yeah. Would you honor me and you don't have to do this? This is purely for me. Will you tell me a funny memory you have of Louis? Well, I have the funniest memory. And I still have it on his feeds. He has a dog, buddy. And he was laying on the floor fixing the washing machine and the dishwasher. And buddy kept sitting on his face to play with him. And I videotaped the whole thing and I'm just howling. And it was hilarious. And I actually still have the dog, buddy. And buddy is an amazing extension of Louis. He went by Louis the last number of years of his life. And we base four adult children together. And we have four sons. I have four sons now. Hey, can I tell you, thank you for sharing that. That makes my day brighter. Thinking of a guy named Louis in Canada trying to fix the washing machine or whatever and having a dog saying like, what about me? What about me? I love him. Well, he was just, it was hilarious. I just, I'm howling. And it's still, and I'm biting that cough. So you'll have to forgive me. Oh, good. You cough away, sister. All right. So the great Louis passed away four and a half years ago. And here we are today. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, I mean, full disclosure, I six months or five months after he passed, my mom passed. Oh my goodness. Yeah. COVID also? No, she had a neurological disorder that took her and the Lord took her quickly. And so that we ended up having both services with two days apart because you know, everything was just opening and we don't know if, if it would close and family was able to travel and such. And so, so that affected everybody, right? Not just me, but the boy, my boys, they lost their dad, they lost their grandma. And that's a lot of grief. That's a, that's an avalanche of grief. Yeah. Um, before that, um, so about three years before that, my oldest son started having grandma seizures. And, um, and so he was living with me at the time that, that my, my husband passed. And so I was kind of caring for him at the same time and advocating for him. And, uh, So bring me to the present. What's going on today? The present, the present today is, is, um, I, I didn't want to be alone. I was 52 when, when he passed and I did do some dating and that didn't wind up well. And I went from soul searching and did a, um, went to Zambia for a missions trip and came back and, and tried one more site and, and found my now fiance. Oh, gross. You found somebody on a dating site at 56. Awesome. Awesome. Isn't that about, you know, um, I just, I just know that it honestly was God that brought us together. We have so much in common. He worked with somebody that, um, my late spouse, spouse and I actually were, um, pretty good friends with. Very cool. They used to work together. So tell me, tell me what's going on with this engagement. So we, um, we've been together actually just, um, on Saturday of the year we've been together. Okay. And we are just inseparable. We're both the same age. We just get along so well. Um, all of my boys have met him. Um, all of my boys are on board with him except for my oldest. My oldest really doesn't want to have much to do with, um, the relationship itself. Okay. Um, he, uh, he says he has no problem with him, but we realize it's a problem with us. Yeah. He won't, he won't acknowledge us. Um, my oldest, him and his girlfriend had a baby. And, um, before, like we would have a get together and, um, at my place and we'd have a get together half an hour later, I get a message from him. By the way, I don't want him at the shower. Gotcha. Um, by the way, oh, we have baseball this weekend because my boys play ball together. My oldest and youngest, or I don't want him at baseball. Well, it's a public event. You can't say when somebody can show up. Well, he can't say that he can't, but he can say I don't want him to. Well, he can, I guess he, yes, he can, he can say what he'd like, but that's right. It's a, what, what, what it sounds like you're faced with is this. Um, you, uh, the story I'm going to make up here is that your son doesn't want to can't whatever words you want to use. Um, metabolize somebody, not Louis with his mom. Yeah. And, and there's nothing zero things you can do about that particular feeling inside of your son's chest. And so the question for you is, and the question for your new fiance is, um, what hills do we want to die on? Right. And do you want to look at your oldest son and say, this is my new husband, and if he can't come, then I'm not coming. You can do that. Or you can look at your new husband and say, this is really hard on my oldest boy. You're mine. You're my new ride or die. We're going to get old and crickety and gross together, and it's going to be awesome. But my oldest son's having a hard time and I don't want to miss out on my grandkids life. Yeah. And so I'm going to go to the little league game and you go, do whatever you want to do. You can choose that. And, but what I don't want you to spend energy on is trying to convince him, change him, because it's just going to entrench it. It's going to give him ammunition or gasoline on the fire that's already burning inside of him, which is there will never be, you can't replace Louis and he can't understand that you're trying to say, I'm not trying to replace Louis. I want to have somebody that I share a life with and get old with and have as much fun as possible before I get called home. Right. Yeah. And it's, it's, it breaks my heart for you that you have to make this kind of Sophie's choice. Right. Yeah. But if you take some of the, if you let go of the thought that somehow you can do something different and you'll change your son's mind, it will free you from a lot of the hurt. And then you have to deal with just the reality. Right. Yeah. And in a perfect world, all your boys would be like, yeah, go mom. Like no one's ever going to replace dad, but this, this goofball seems like he's all right. So yeah, like that would be ideal. It'd be perfect. Yeah. And three of your boys are like that. Yeah. All right. But at the end of the day, you get to choose. What are you thinking? Well, I'm going to see him today. And I'm going to see my granddaughter today. Awesome. We had asked, we'd gone away for a vacation and asked to go see him together. And he said, no. Okay. Have you, have you had a private just you and him sit down? And say, tell me about it. He didn't want to talk about it. No, he doesn't want to talk. Okay. I think it's just, he's so hurt me, he hasn't done any counseling and. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry, he's hurting. Yeah. Yeah. And I think tell him that. I'm sorry you're hurting, bud. I miss Louis too. Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're, I think it's right and good. If you, if you will found somebody that you want to spend the rest of your life with, that you're, you go down that track. Because if you try to manage your son's happiness, you try to manage your son's healing, you're going to drive yourself crazy. Yeah. Because it's his job. Right. Right. But you can hurt for him and you can hurt with him. You're a good mom. Of course, you're going to hurt when your son's hurting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I understand that. The choice for you is, am I going to wake up every day and have a little journal by my bed where I write down four or five things I'm really grateful for in this new season? Yeah. Or am I going to open my eyes every morning and just be sad and try and try to take my son's sadness out of his chest and I'll just, I'll just carry it in mine. I can't wear that for him. There you go. There you go. But you can't also, you can't wear it for him, but that means you have to do something affirmative to show your body that you're not doing it. Right. Right. You can intellectually say, I don't want to carry that, but if you're not doing things to not carry it, your body will pick it up because you're a good mom. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Cause it actually, I actually asked my other son, you know, is there something that I've done? You know, it made me question myself as a mom. Of course. Because it's like, okay, is he mad at me or is it, did I do something wrong that, you know, he's not, he's hard to even talk to me and dad's not here, but I am. Yeah. You know, and I think that's a part that hurts. And I think he'll come around. I do. Well, we, yeah, we're told that it just, I guess we just have to be just give it more time. Yeah. And if I'm in your exact seat right now, I can tell you your new husband coming into this, he's opting into this. Okay. Oh yeah. So he knows what he's signing up for. Oh, he does. Yeah. And if I'm him, I would regularly tell you the best way I can love you is for you to go see that grandbaby and go see your son. Yeah. Because I think that relationship's going to come around. Right. And if you're this new guy that's coming into your life says, you, you choose them or me, I would question his emotional stability or his emotional integrity and the strength of this new marriage you're creating. So if I was in your exact seat, I would probably, especially for the first year or two, say, I'm going to go, like, we're going to have our three boys, we're going to have everybody over and I'm going to go see my son and my grandbaby. Yeah. And my hope for him is that he's like, absolutely. Yeah. And he can be sad that he's not invited, I get that, but it's not about him. Yeah. It's about your son, your oldest son missing his father, especially when he's got a a youngster. Exactly. Exactly. We wanted to be a grandpa so bad. Exactly. But I think your son's healing will come from relationship, not from disconnection. But you, I want you to do what you think is right. And you're, you're, you've nailed it on the head. You can't own his healing, but you can own your happiness, your joy, your march towards meaning and purpose in this new relationship. And so shout out to Louis for 30 awesome years with you, creating four awesome boys, and shout out to you for grieving a really gnarly season, and then choosing to reconnect, choosing love, choosing to not be lonely. And all those choices come with just messy things. But I'm proud of you. Thank you so much for the call. When we come back, a man asks if it would make him a bad son if he didn't fly home for his dad's retirement party. Been there, brother. Can't wait for this call. We are now in outdoor season. And what does that mean? That means me and my family are going to be outside fishing, doing some turkey hunting, just being out in the woods. And what are we all going to have with us? Our Montana Knife Company Knives. Why? Because Montana Knife Company Knives, they rule. They're designed, and tested, and built right here in the United States by real hunters, real fishermen, and real chefs. And we get back home, we use Montana Knife Companies in our kitchen to cook and prepare all of our outdoor stuff that we caught. Why? Because their knives are awesome in the kitchen too. They're razor sharp right out of the box. They're tough enough to be used on meat, on vegetables, on fruit, on everything. And we use them every day. But here's what really sells me about Montana Knife Company Knives. Montana Knife Company stands behind their work for life. So when your knives need sharpening or if they ever need to be repaired, you just send them back to Montana Knife Company and they'll take care of everything. These are the kind of knives that your grandkids are going to fight over someday. If you're looking for knives that are built to work and built to last, go to MontanaKnifeCompany.com and see what's available right now. That's MontanaKnifeCompany.com. All right, let's go out to Frank the Tank in Seattle. What's up, Frank? Hello, hello, Dr. Deloni. How are we doing? I'm doing fantastic. And as the wise man once said, better than I deserve. Excellent, excellent. What's going on, brother? So first of all, I want to take a moment, thank you and your team, to giving me this opportunity to speak with you. This may not be as heavy of a call like your other calls, but thank you. Thank you so much. I respect everything you guys do. Well, thank you. And I need some non-heavy call sometimes. And so do our listeners. So thank you. I'm really grateful that you reached out. So what's up, man? Of course. So coming to the point, I need your help in deciding if I should go to my dad's retirement party or not go to protect my peace. And if I do so, am I being ungrateful and a bad son for not being there for him on his big day? Talk to me about protecting your peace. What does that mean? So any event growing up, there's a lot of drama and big fights, not physical fights, but a lot of yelling and fights. About what? About my dad usually like, and it gets upset with something and he creates a big fight with relatives, friends. It could be anything and everything. And anything could take him off like, you know, and then he just blows up, ruins everything. And there were so many events for weddings for our cousins and all we were about to go, but he got angry and we didn't end up going. So there were a lot of events like that growing up. It was a lot of trauma. And I don't live near my parents. They live in a different country. I haven't visited home in the past 11 years from the time I moved away. I still talk to them. They visited me once, but I don't know. Going back to visit for another event brings a lot of anxiety and yeah, no-nose. So the word trauma gets tossed around a lot today in modern parlance. When you say trauma, do you mean he would get ferocious and mean and belligerent, drunk, hit people, scream, yell, or is he just a hotheaded goofball? Do you get the difference? Everything you said, yes, yes, I understand. Everything you said except he doesn't drink, he's sober and he doesn't hit people. At least in front of, well, he did, but not like in public. Sure. Okay. So how much of this that he does in public, did you have to absorb trapped inside of your house growing up? Oh, all the yelling happens in public. Okay. Not in your home? He was a gentle kind man at home? Absolutely not. Our home was every day, however, he was feeling. If he's feeling good, then we're acting normal. But if he's stressed or tired, we used to act like we are almost non-existent so that he doesn't notice something and yell at us or like, you know, scream at us. Okay. So you live in a different country and for more than a decade, okay. Tell me about who you have become. Yeah, I've become a lot more aware of myself in the, all my twenties, I've lived in America, came here and most of my life, all the good things also come from my parents, also from him. How to like, you know, be disciplined at work, like be financially disciplined and take care of people around you who matter most. I learned a lot of good things from him. And I tried to improve on that. What's good. I believe at least what's good inside me. And try not to like, and hurt anyone on purpose and stand for my values. That's who I've become. And I made a life out here. I met a beautiful person. I married her. And we are peaceful. Anytime there's a disagreement or a conflict arises, we approach in a mature way instead of yelling, oh, but like, let's talk it out. Let's take a minute. Let's calm down. That's who I wanted to be. And I'm not 100% there, but I'm like an almost there. I would say. So I want to applaud you because this is how family trees change. And you've done something really important. It took me years to get here, which is this idea of blaming fairly. If I'm going to say all the things I struggle with are because of my parents, I also have to be honest about the good stuff I got from them too. They're full people also, right? And you have, you have mind that and I'm proud of you for that. Okay, it's good. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that. I'm going to throw something out here. But with the caveat that you have to own the decision of what you do next, okay? I think you have a... Do you play video games? Do you ever play video games? Not so much. Maybe as a kid. Okay, okay. There you go. Meet me too. Like as a kid. I think you have one final boss for your healing. And it's father adjacent, but the final boss is not your father. The final boss, the final bad guy you have to defeat, if you will, is who you are going to be in the face of whatever version of your dad shows up. Because he is still has his hooks in you. And I know this because thinking about even being around not just him, but the environment that the volatility of that environment makes you anxious. So much, yeah. Right. And yet there's probably cultural reasons. There's probably familial reasons. There's a question inside your chest, which is, with all the good and all the bad, am I a person who honors people who have had influence in my life? That's the real question here. Not do I go honor my dad. My dad's going to retire and he's going to have a big old party. But am I a guy who shows up and I can remain calm and I can remain at peace? And I am a guy who's not going to be swayed by those around me. And I'm a guy that gives honor where I believe honors do. That's the question to answer. You're spot on. And there's definitely a cultural aspect to it. Sure. There's, my mom literally told me, hey, like you're the eldest son. You have to be there for him kind of way. And let's change that. You don't have to do anything. But are you a kind of guy who does the next right thing, especially when it's going to be uncomfortable because I am well enough inside my own chest that I can look at a man who has taught me some great things, but also is highly emotionally like dysregulated. He's not going to hurt me physically. He's probably going, is he going to hug you until your chest hurts when he sees you? Or is he going to start lecturing you out when you show up? The first time he hugged me was two years ago when he visited me in America. My guess is he's going to treat you like a prodigal. Like you, when you get home, he's going to give you a huge hug. Probably. Is he the kind of guy who all of his friends, he talks about how proud he is of his son. He just can't say it to you. I hope so. Yeah. Yeah. So let's free ourselves of a few things. Okay. You flying across the world to wish him well as his eldest son with all of the cultural expectations, the familial expectations, which a lot of our American listeners won't get, right? But there's a different layers here for you. And he's not going to look at you and say, I'm sorry. Right. Those words aren't going to come out of his mouth more than likely. The words, I'm so proud of you, son, are probably not going to come out of his mouth. So I guess what I'm saying is if you have some inkling of a fantasy that maybe this will be the thing that gets this and this and this and this, I want to free you from that. It's probably not going to. Yeah. But if you're looking to complete the circle of the connection between you and your father, what I would probably tell you is that, and I can be wrong on this, but this is the way I navigate the world, it's my job as the dad to always be trying to connect with my son, not sitting here with my arms crossed, waiting him to connect with me. And so the reconnection here is going to be with you inside of your chest, doing the next right thing. I'm a guy that I can count on. Not, I'm going to do all the stuff. I'm going to take time off of work. I'm going to go through all the expense. I'm going to take my new wife into possibly a culture. She doesn't understand what you're walking into. But we're going to go through this thing together. And maybe then he'll finally say those magic words. I'm proud of you. I love you. I'm glad you're here. He might, he might, man. He might, but probably not. Probably not. The most nicest thing he said to us, I'm happy you made a life out of here, which in his way probably is like an I'm proud of you. That's a huge, yeah, that's probably a huge statement. Right. And maybe you can with some reflection say that guy felt trapped in a caste system. That guy felt trapped in a, in a cultural system. That guy felt trapped economic, like who knows what he felt trapped. And he just always had that rage. I want something better for my family, better for my family. And it came out as anger all the time. Right. Exactly. That's what he, I believe like, and I know my parents did the best they know. And again, we're all human and our best is sometimes not enough. And sure. Or sometimes our best still hurts other people, right? That doesn't make it right. You know what I mean? And if you ultimately say, I don't want to go. And I don't feel like this will serve him. I don't feel like this is serving me. That part of my life is over. I'm glad, I'm glad he's retiring. I'm glad. Good for him. I'm happy for him. I want him to go be happy. I don't want to be a part of that. You can make that choice. Okay. Yeah. Just talking to you, you're so wise and you're so thoughtful and reflective. And you've done so much daily practice work to have a different kind of marriage, a different kind of, like, inner spirit about how you deal with conflict and frustration. I mean, you moved from another, like, when I was moving from Texas to Tennessee, my dad's, my grown dad was like, are you sure this great? You, right? You went across the world, the planet. And so my only concern for you is not that you're always going to wonder, was he really proud of me? No, it was, did he love me? Not, I'm going to stay angry and bitter at him. Sounds like you've metabolized a lot of that. My only concern for you is when you get the note, the text, the call, the whatever that your dad has passed, will you feel in your chest? I didn't close that loop for me. That's the question I was battling with and reached out at the end of today. Like, you know, if I will regret like, you know, not being there, like, you know, in his last days, not being there on his like, in happy times and again, it's not, I don't think that's the end. I don't think that's the question. The question is, will I regret not being a guy that could wade through his temper tantrums as an adult, his awkward making everything weird, that there's still a place that I can't go because I don't trust me. And I got an example, if I may, when he visited the pogos, I made seemed helpful, but it got to a point after a couple of weeks, I needed to step away and take a walk. Of course. So being next to him. So that's when I felt I was really tested of all the work I did. And being in the completely different society surrounded by like, you know, differently, like, you know, thinking people and relatives who hasn't seen me grown up in my 20s. Now I'm in my 30s. It's a lot of pleasure and added like drama and unpredictability making me. That's the despite all this, I want to like, you know, be stoic enough to like, be there for him. But I don't even I don't even know if it's being stoic as much as because like, I don't want you to shove anything down. I here's an exercise I want you to do offline. Okay. I want you to write this stuff down and share it with your wife. What pressure do you feel? And is this pressure real or not? There's probably five or six or seven pressures you're going to feel. And if one or two of those pressures is real, let's say a pressure is like, you have to be present all the time. There's going to be five zillion kids and there's going to be singing and dancing and drinking and fun and like, and I need an off switch. Is there a possibility that that becomes a boundary? And I hate that I'm going to hate that word now because everyone uses that word is cutting people off. That's not what I mean. What must be true? But boundaries should connect you with other people. It just says this is mine. And in this case, if you pack up and fly across the world, you're entering into somebody's home. So the thing that is yours is your emotional like reactions, not even your feelings, right? But your emotional responses, your ability to have a good night's sleep, your ability to, or I'm going to forego a week's worth of sleep and just jump into the drama of both feet. Like what that's your bad. That's what you can control. And so you and your wife's, they don't say what must be true. Right. And write down the pressures you feel, write down the obligations you feel are these true. And then ask yourself this question, who do I want to be? And if you're a guy, I want to be a guy who intentionally does not go into dramatic situations ever, you can be that guy. It's awesome. Great. Just own it fully. Personally, I want to be a guy that can wade into all kinds, not all of them. There's just some situations, some groups, some I don't want to be associated with that. I'm going to be a part of that. Right. Right. But I want to be a guy that honors people in a moment of time, even if they weren't perfect, even if they caused me a lot of whatever chaos and whatever. For me, I want to be a guy that can wade into some of those situations. That's just me. Yeah. But I want you to do that depth of situation. If your dad had been psychologically abusive, physically abusive, if going there is not be dramatic, but it's going to be unsafe, I would say don't go. But now I think you've got a choice. And I think the choice is not going to be how do I close the loop with him. It's going to be how do I close the loop with me. Thank you so much for the call. And now I'm kind of invested in this thing. I'm living vicariously through you. I would love to know what you decide to do. So shoot us a note back and let Kelly know or Alex know what you decided to do. And I'd love to have you back on the show and either talk about why I didn't go or why I did and how it all went. I think that'd be amazing. Thank you for the call, brother. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. And according to the National Institute of Mental Health, more than one in five U.S. adults experience mental illness and mental and emotional challenges every year. And nearly half of that group never gets any help. And these aren't just statistics. These are real people. And look, we're living in this nonstop, everyone's screaming, political, noise, screens, nonsense, all this comparison, constant notifications. We're communicating more than ever with everyone all over the planet. Yet we're not connecting with anybody. And we're more anxious and more lonely and more overwhelmed than ever. And this stress is showing up in our physical health, in our relationships, in our sleep. Listen, we were never meant to carry all of this alone. Talking to somebody can help. And that's where BetterHelp comes in. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals and preferences. Their therapists are fully licensed in the United States and they follow a strict code of professional conduct. You can message your therapist in schedule sessions right in the platform. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch at any time at no additional cost. Cut through the noise in your life and seek to reconnect. Go to betterhelp.com slash DELONI to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P, dot com slash DELONI. All right, we're back. What's up, Kelly? All right, I have an am I the problem? And this is from Joy in Aptos, California. And she writes, Dr. John, help, am I the problem for wanting to move out of state when my husband retires even though I have an aging mother with no stability? I grew up very poor with parents that made terrible financial mistakes and otherwise. My husband and I came from nothing, worked our butts off and have spent the last 20 years building a great life. I already financially helped my mom. My husband is getting close to retirement and our dream has always been to leave California for another state where we can comfortably retire. We currently live in the Bay area, one of the most expensive and highest tech brackets in the country, which is not conducive to retirement. However, I have an aging mother with health problems that will soon retire with nothing but social security and unstable housing. How do I balance the resentment at my parents, my duty to them and not sacrifice our dreams? It's a nice light one for you. Good gosh, Kelly. Thanks for that. I mean, there's so much here, I would need to talk to her more, but here's my high level. High level one, are you the problem for what she asked, feeling this way? No. Your feelings are your feelings, right? You're right to have these big dreams with your husband. You'll work your butts off, you've done a bunch of like family tree changing stuff and your parents didn't. So you're not wrong for feeling trapped, for feeling frustrated. All your feelings are good. The question you have to ask yourself is, can you look yourself in the mirror? Can you be a person who says, I'm going to send a check? Can you be a person who says, Mom, I want you to move in with us. Can you be a person who says, screw you, I'm out. You have to look yourself in the mirror and what she's continuing to do is to outsource how she feels to her mom. I don't think that's a fair move. I think the fair move is to look in the mirror and take full ownership of what you're going to do next. I won't go into personal stuff. You have to make your decision and then you have to decide what an invitation looks like, what take care of your parents look like, what honoring your father and mother looks like, and then you got to be able to sleep at night. And so I won't let her off the hook with telling her what I think, but there's also so much to this, right? Is mom abusive? Is she like a financial drain? Is she just not wanting anything to do with her kid? It is what it is on those things. So I don't know the details of that, but I think most people want somebody else to do something different so they feel different and you just get in this loop-de-loop. And what I want more people to do is to take ownership of your next right action. And in this situation, very few things are going to quote unquote feel good. She's not going to be a move where she's like, I feel great about this next move. That doesn't make it wrong though. What do you think, Kelly? It says she already financially helps her mother quite a bit. And I'm like you, I mean, I kind of wonder, has it been one of those, I've been financially helping mom for years and she's been making poor choices or whatever. I think that, yeah, she has to make her decision and then figure out how she feels about it. But she doesn't, I don't think it's a black, black or white. It could only be this or only be that. There's a lot of things, a lot of gray area in between where they can make decisions. And she and her husband need to figure that out. Her husband need to make those decisions together because they're co-creating this quote unquote dream, whatever, together. But yeah, honoring father and mother, that's a tricky one. That's a principle I live by, but it's, it can be tough. And honoring does not mean doing whatever somebody else says. Yeah, I think that's the kicker. That's the kicker. And that's really tough. Love you guys. Bye.