My Wife Refuses to Take My Last Name

This is an ad for BetterHelp. May is Mental Health Awareness Month and the stress you keep pushing down is showing up in your relationships and your health. If you need to talk to a licensed therapist make today the day. Go to betterhelp.com slash D'Aloni for 10% off. She didn't take my last name when we got married. Now we're expecting our first kid and I've tried to have the conversation with her about like, hey just her last name and she's like, well I really want to maintain my name with like the political climate this, that and the other. Like there's some like voting thing that she's concerned about if she has to change her last name. What? What up? What up? This is John with Dr. John D'Aloni's show. Welcome back. Welcome for your first time. However you showed up here, however long you've been here I'm glad you're here. Talking about your mental and emotional health, your well-being, your relationships, your marriages, your kids, whatever you got going on. Pull up a seat and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on the show, don't answer questions and things on social media. I answer them live. Real people talking to other real people. Click the link in the show notes if you want to be on the show and it will get you here. All right, let's go to Glenn in Dubois, Pennsylvania. Hey Glenn, what's up? Hey Dr. John, how you doing? I'm good my man, what's up dude? So I don't know how to really have this conversation with my wife. We've tried to have it a few times over where like so she didn't take my last name when we got married. Why not? We kind of agreed to that beforehand that we were like, hey, she's trying to get into law school so until she gets to law school because she got her bachelors before we were married just so that everything carried over with her maiden name and then she said once I get into law school, I'll change my name and then she got into law school and it hasn't happened. We're going on two years into law school, hasn't happened and now we're expecting our first kid and I've tried to have the conversation with her about like, hey, just her last name and she's like, well, I really want to maintain my name with like the political climate, this that and the other. Like there's some like voting thing that she's concerned about if she has to change her last name. What? That she'll lose out on rights is her concern that way. I'm not sure how to address really focusing on our child because it's our first kid is coming like, how do I have the conversation with her? Hold on. Don't put this on your kid. This is in your chest. Okay. Like your kid is surfacing an issue, but let's don't make it the kid's fault. Let's own it between you and her. Y'all made an agreement and she broke the agreement. She says she didn't. She's like, I never promised that. But I don't know what political stuff is she talking about? She there's rumors on the right about, hey, when you go to vote, your birth certificate has to match your ID. And if you've been married, your ID no longer matches your birth certificate because you changed your name when you got married. And so the people on the right left are saying that, hey, they're trying to take away women's rights to vote. And so I'm not going to make that argument at this point. I've kind of let that ship sail at this point, but I'm not sure how to address that with like, hey, our kids about to come into the world, our first baby. Are we giving her my last name? Are we giving her your last? What are we doing? Because I'm already getting the side eye from people that find out that she has a different last name than me and we've been married for five years. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know where to go with that with our own kid. Like it. Like, does my name not worth that? You know, she's she's sticking to her family's maiden name. And I'm like, well, what about my name, Karyna? I'm like. Yeah. What does she say? I'm so sick of both political camps being so insane. So insane. So insane. So insane. So insane. So insane. So insane. So insane. I don't know what to say. And here's the thing. My first reaction is there's no way someone's trying to take away a women's right to vote. But you know what? I can't logically say that anymore because they're probably freaking is. Right. They're probably freaking is. Right. They're probably is. There's so many things that I said, there's no way that they're going to do that. And then these things have happened. That's exactly right. So reason election. Dude. And and. The conspiracy theories run amok. I mean, like so. Bro, I don't know what to tell you. I'm trying to separate like the political side and just focus on like, hey, this is like between you and I like, yes, yes, and yes, and yes. Here's what here's the thing. Whenever I feel like I feel right to second, which is I just want to pull all my hair out and go screaming into the night. And it's the daytime here and I want to go screaming into the night because evidently I can make up what time of day it is now. You know, I because there's no such thing as a fact anymore. Here's the thing. I double down, triple down, quadruple down on what I can control. And I married my wife. And if her and I together ride or die, have to face some political side on the right or the left or some new thing that color from AI. I and we have to choose. I choose her. Right. 100%. The way you've rolled out this story is your wife doesn't has some ideological reason for not wanting to take a man's name. And she's going to keep giving you another excuse and then another one and then another one and another one. And so I think drilling down to the bottom of this thing. Right. Because first it was well entry into school. Then it was well entry into like I need to graduate and I need to get to the bars. Can you pay in the bus chain? And now it's well, there's this rumor that they're trying to take away women's rights to vote in Pennsylvania. Right. Like it's always going to be a thing. And bad has only daughters and so that's another one. There you go. So it's going to be exactly. And so getting to that. Hey, is the real move here you want your family name to carry on? Is that what we're doing here? Because like have the, it just all this theater and all these proxy conversations and excuse after excuse. We got to drill down to the bottom thing. And it might mean you forcing the issue and it always dignified, always respectful be the man you want to be. Regardless of how she's responding. I'm going to be a person of character integrity. But is your main goal here? I'm going to push this issue and we got to solve it. I need you to look me in the eye and say, I will never do this ever. And that way I can make my grown up decision. Whether I'm going to stay in this thing or I'm going to say, I feel like from, from the outset, you've not been telling me the truth for this many years. Yeah. Right. But I need you to, I need you to, I need you to be fully transparent with me. Because my bigger concern is what else is on the fringes and margins of your marriage that are just, I'll talk about that later. Well, we'll think about that later. And it, and you're feeling like I'm trying to, to grab on. I'm trying to hold, hug, love this person. And I feel like I'm just grabbing a vapor because she's dodgy. She keeps moving. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I think you have to have the courage to be clear and say, I want my child to have my last name. I've seen like a big conversation. I just, I really don't know how to even start it. I know, but you're not being honest with her if you don't say that. Yeah. Because that's what you believe. Yeah. And you want to put it on her and you want to put on your kid now. I want you to take ownership with her and say, I want to have my child have my last name. I want to have my child have my last name. And she can say, I want my child to have my last name. Well, then now you'll have to deal with this thing. But right now you're dealing in abstractions and moving parts and excuses and conspiracy theories. Like you see what I'm saying? Let's get to the thing beneath the thing beneath the thing. Where else does your relationship with her feel slippery? Honestly, no. Like we, there's something like as soon as I finally, the light turned on for me that I was like, you know what? I really need to pull the trigger and marry this girl. It has, there has been like zero anything. Like it's been, I've never been happier in my life. Even if I lost my job tomorrow, I'd still be the happiest I've ever been in my life. Like she has been like the best thing that has brought more joy into my life and helped me to see like, oh my gosh, those things don't matter in my life. And so like it's, this is like the one thing that I'm like, ah, it still grinds on me, but it's like the only thing. And so everything else is just in the back burner because. Okay, say that to her exactly as you just said that to me. What you just said is poetry, brother. But if you go, if because she's given you so much light in your life and because she has helped you see things and because she is helping you on a day by day basis, become the man you want to become. And you're doing that for her, helping her become the woman she wants to become. That's a world class ride or die marriage. But in the process of doing that, if you start hiding things that matter to you to keep that peace, your insides will turn to ash. And so being able to look in her in the eye and say, you have given me new life. You've given me light. You've taught me things. You've shown me things. I know that you love me till the end of time. And I want my child to have my last name. Be it tradition, be it faith, be it any just cause. I just want to say it out loud. This is what I want. And I want to hear what you want. Because here's the thing, Glenn, that conversation, it's a common. A nurse in a hospital is going to hand you all a birth certificate. And one or both of you are going to have to sign it. I forgot how it goes. That conversation is common. Have it now. Yeah. Especially when you are psyched. I could tell how much you love this woman. Does she love you this much back? I would be astounded if she didn't. Okay. If I was talking to her and I was like, do you like this guy? Would she say things like you just said about her? I would think so. Yeah. In her own way, of course. Of course. She's a law student, of course. Yeah. I spent my career with law students. I get it. I think a part of being fully you is being fully honest. I guess I'm curious as to why you're scared to say that out loud. Because it does happen and it gets like being honest.哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎哎 All right, so one of my rules for conflict is, it's your job to speak in a language your spouse can hear. And so what if you tried this? Because I'm a withdrawal and my wife is a shutdowner. And the few times we've had to have either or conversations in our marriage, like both of us have called out before the conversation, we both need to stay at the table on this one. And a couple of times I have said, here's what I want, here's what I want to talk about. And I'm gonna give you, you tell me 24, 48 hours, we're gonna have this conversation. And my wife graciously has said, okay, we'll do it on Wednesday. And it's Monday when I'm talking to her. And so you telling her, here's the deal. I got us dinner reservations on Wednesday. That way you can get out of class and you can still study for 111 hours like law students do every night. And we're going to dinner. I wanna take you to dinner. And here's the conversation I wanna have. I wanna have, I want my child to have my last name. And I know that's a huge thing. And so I'm gonna give you a couple of days to think about it. And if Wednesday's not good, we can go Friday. I made a reservation on that night too. All right, but I'm gonna give you a couple of days. And that way you can metabolize it, get your response. And then we're gonna come and we're gonna have that conversation. Okay. I'll put the onus on you to have the conversation in a way she can hear it. And the way you've tried in the past, we're just gonna keep hammering away at this thing till we solve it. That's not working. And so let's say, cool, I'm just, at some point you become the American in the Mexican food restaurant. And the waiter comes up and says something in Spanish and you say, I want two burritos. And they say, okay. And they start, they respond back in Spanish. And you're like, I said, I'm gonna talk louder and slower and still in English, right? Yeah. Like at some point, all right. I'm gonna talk in different language then. All right. And if she won't have the conversation, that in and of itself is something you'll need to address. Because man, you think naming a kid is tough. Every decision after this just gets harder and harder and harder. I'd love to be a fly on the wall in your house and you'll have the vaccine conversation when you all have the school conversation, when you have the religion coming. There all those things are common, man. So coming up with a way, we can learn together to be on the same team or we tackle a problem. It's on the other side of the table. And it doesn't become you versus me. It becomes us versus this problem. Yeah. And the problem here is the baby's name, we're on the same side. I want it to be my name. I want it to be my name. How are we gonna solve this problem? Cause we're gonna have a million of these over the course of our marriage. You know what I'm saying? I think so. Yeah. I feel like I just hit you. Well, it's gonna be a lot of thought to try and recalibrate from the, beating it into the ground until it's worked out versus trying to speak her languages. But do you see how both of those solutions are within you? Yeah. Absolutely. Okay. What do you do for a living? I fix printers. Okay. Why'd you say it like that? Well, I was thinking about giving you a similar, about fake job. Oh, okay. I thought you were like, you're not, don't apologize. Like dude, they'll take my job, AI will take my job before your job. All right. You got some runway on your job. Yeah. That's rad, dude. But say that you are a repairman with your head held high. The world needs you, okay? Yeah. Cool. And if your job is, I'm gonna stay at this printer until I solve this problem. Just know that often the things that make us good at our job are the exact same things that really cause rifts in our relationships. Her skills as an emerging lawyer are gonna make her really hard to argue with sometimes. I already know. Yeah, I know. And your commitment to, I will solve this problem before I take my gear and go home. Will also cause problems. Yeah. All right. And so it's like, I'm so good at this skill set over here and I look at problems this way over here. She's not a problem. We together have a problem and the problem is, what's that baby's name gonna be? And I want it to be this. Yeah. That birth's coming. We need to have an answer really quick, pretty soon. Yeah, we do. So. You got a few months left. Bro, you're gonna sneeze and those months are gonna be here. So it comes quick, man. And you're in for the ride of the lifetime. I'm jealous of you because I missed those months with being so anxious and being so busy and yada. And so I'm jealous of you. I wouldn't go back, but I'm jealous that you're in that excitement. What are we gonna do? How's this all gonna play? I get all, that's awesome. Awesome, awesome, awesome. And by the way, do some, I hesitate to say this, I do my own research, but do look into the ID versus the birth certificate versus getting married. I've got some very liberal friends and I got some very conservative friends. You're the first person I'm hearing that they're trying to take away a woman's right to vote. But you know what? They just might be. And that's wild to me and insane, but who knows anymore? But do dig some digging into that. And that way we're not making big decisions based on rumors, on social media, on conspiracy theories. We're making informed decisions based on data, on truth. Wherever it still remains. Thanks for the call, my brother. I'm grateful for you. 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Let's go out to Los Angeles, California and talk to, well, well, well, my Michelle. What's up, Michelle? Hi, hi Dr. John. How's it going? Thanks for taking my call and then thanks for what you do. Well, thank you for calling. I'm really grateful you're here. What's up? So I've been married to my husband for over 20 years and my husband is very close to his brother. Okay. And his brother is currently facing serious health issues and he's needing kidney transplant really soon. And so the thing happened was my husband and his brother decided to be potential kidney donation between them without confirming myself or family. Okay. And I understand his respect and the willingness to help his brother. However, I was very upset about how this decision has been handled. Because you were left out of it? Correct. And I felt so, I just felt like I was a little bit emotionally disconnected right away when he told me. And I expressed my husband's response was his relationship to his brother is over 40 years which is more than our marriage, it takes priority. I was really, I don't know how to explain it, but I was really sad and heard my feeling. Yeah. Yeah, he didn't say that in a good way. If he had called into my show and him saying, I want to help my brother. In fact, I've decided I want to do this. It's my body, I want to do with what I want with my body and I need help communicating this to my wife. I would not have said, tell your brother's more important. I would, yeah, he didn't say that in a good way. Do you believe in your guts? You've been with him for two decades. Do you believe that he believes that? Or do you believe he said that? He didn't say that in a good way. He is out of town right now for work. This conversation happened when we are apart. Was it via telephone or was it text message? Over the phone. It happened over the phone. After this conversation, we didn't talk to each other two weeks, which happened two weeks ago, exactly two weeks ago. And then I just wanted to make sure, are you still feeling the same way? Or is this, was that a really true you told me, like your brother's priority? He said, no, I didn't mean that way, but I'm still struggling. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. So before I dig in here, I don't want to be presumptuous. Okay. Tell me what your husband's ethnic and cultural heritage is. Like how he grew up? Well, no, you don't even have to answer that. I just want it, different cultures have different relationships. Like the weight of the relationship has different meanings. Right? A traditional white American listening to this and might not understand my brother, like that's my dumb brother. Whereas folks from other cultures like, no, no, my brother is an extension of me, right? And so is there a cultural aspect to this that would be different than what I might consider my relationship with my little brother? I think I'm believing it coming from their childhood. So they grew up really harsh childhood, being abused by multiple step-bads. So like they survived together, that kind of bond. Okay, so in many ways they're one. Right. Okay, okay. And so that's super helpful for me. So here's what I want to do if it's okay. Is I want to untangle this a little bit. Okay. Okay, because I don't want to put words in your mouth. So stop me anytime I'm wrong, okay? Okay. But there's issue number one, which is, I love my husband with all I've got. And this scares me that he's going to undergo this surgery. I'm worried about the man that I love, his health, his wellbeing, how he's gonna, if he's gonna be okay. That's number one. Yeah. Number two issue is you made a decision that is gonna impact our entire family. And you didn't even bother to talk to me. That's number two. Number three is in an emotional exchange via the telephone, he said something in a pretty stupid way that really was like a knife to your chest. Mostly one and two. Mostly one and two. Okay. One and two. Okay. I know how he is. I mean, we've been together for over 20 years. Sure. You know, there's no perfect relationships always, go back together. The fact that he said something like really hurtful, he said something dumb. Yes. When you called him out on it, he was like, no, no, no, that's not what I meant. I didn't mean it like that. But you believe him when he said, I spoke out of frustration or anger or exhaustion or whatever, that's not what I mean. And you believe him when he says that, right? I did that time. Okay, okay. And it's been in my head for quite a while. So let's deal with the health part, okay? The health part, is my husband gonna be okay? I think you're right to be worried and concerned. I would think something was weird if you weren't. Okay? Right. So that concern and worry, that's very super real. And my guess is, you married him because he's the kind of guy that if you're on his inner circle, he'll give up an organ for you. I believe so. Like that's one of the things you love about him, right? That he is ride or die in the realest sense of the word, right? He's a great guy. But like- He's wonderful. Okay, and so the second thing here is, how do we navigate, it's your body. And you can do what you want. And like, so let's say he called me on the phone and said, my wife is getting a hysterectomy. She's got a lot of pain, a lot of struggles, whatever. And she wants to make this decision. I would ultimately end with, it's her body, brother. And so on the flip side, it's his body. But do y'all have the kind of relationship where you can say, I would prefer you to not do this. And, but I'm gonna be in full support and love you. That you give him, say like, I wanna say what I need to say. And I want you to know I'm gonna be right next to you with whatever you decide to do. And he can say, I wanna do this with my body. And I also will love you, even though you're scared and frustrated with me. You get what I'm saying? That's the thing beneath the thing, beneath the thing here. And so you're right to be frustrated that you weren't consulted. Like he even talked to you about it. Didn't say, hey, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? Man, I totally get that, totally. And I don't wanna spend time fighting proxy wars, right? Like focusing on the kidney. The real thing is, hey, I love you with all I am. And I know you love me with all you are. Your unilateral decisions affect all of us. And I would need to be a part of those, at least the conversation part of it. You get what I'm saying? Correct, yes. Can he hear that? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yeah, you exactly got it. Tell me about what's going inside your heart and spirit right now. I just felt so excluded. And then I talked to my grown children, our grown children about this too. And they, they're on my side. They believe that, that that should talk to all of us. So what to expect or what might be possible or come worse, you know, post procedures. Sure. And he, I mean, they didn't talk to us, none of those. Yeah. And so, yeah, I just did a Google everything. Yeah, okay, so don't do that, don't do that, right? Here's an avenue back together. Cause I want to be compassionate to his side, which is this, when he heard from his brother, his brother that has literally been arms locked with him through multiple layers of hell. Right. Right, right. And when he heard his brother needs a kidney, that wasn't a thing he needed to think about. Right. That was a decision. So I can see his thinking, I'm not asking anybody, I'm not, I need to talk to anybody about this. This decision is made. But so I think for you being able to say, I know you love your brother, I know this is happening. The story I made up in my mind, when you just announced this was happening without even letting, I didn't even know this was going on. The story I made up is you don't care about me. Right. The story I made up is you don't care how this is going to impact all of us. Right. And that makes me feel small and sad and left out. And I'm your wife. Right, exactly, that's how I felt. Okay, so instead of saying you made me feel like this, cause if you start pointing your finger and say you made me, well now you're saying you choose between that brother and me, and that's not really the issue here. The issue here is I married you, I love you because you're that kind of guy and I'm your wife. I want to be a part of these conversations. I want to sit with you and I'll hold your hand. I want to call out things you might not be seeing cause you're blinded by just pure unadulterated loyalty. Right, like I want to call some of the stuff out, right? And you saying I made these stories up. This is how I feel. It gives him a chance to say, oh honey, that's not, I'm sorry, or I didn't mean to say it like that or you're right, I should have, like it gives him an opportunity to come in there. He didn't have to just immediately defend himself. Right. Okay. And here's the big thing I want you to take with, away from this call, okay? I want you to use these words. Here's how you can really love me and the kids moving forward. Okay. Talk to us about the medical procedure, the recovery, the risks, the complications because we're all in this with you. Okay. When you're in the hospital recovering, my heart's in there too. Okay. Right? And give him a path to reestablishing trust with you and reestablishing trust and doing what he can in a scary situation to at least we're gonna go through the facts of what is gonna happen and what potentially might happen. Okay. Okay. Does that sound good? Yes, sir. It's based on what you're telling me. He sounds like the kind of man who's gonna want to really love his wife well. Is that fair? He's wonderful. Okay, okay. Okay. And when this is all over and you all are hugging and you're probably have tears coming, maybe him too. I want you to step back and look at him and put your forehead on his forehead and tell him, if you ever tell me your brother's more important than me, you better watch out. You okay? I want you to like, like, let him know, hey, that was mean and he'll say, again, I'm sorry. Right? Yeah. I mean, I understand. Like, I mean, their bond is like unbreakable. Like when we have our family gathering together, like you can't get in. Yeah, they just go back to their childhood together right away. Yeah. So I respect it and let them, but this time was not acceptable. Got it. And let me paint a weird picture for you, okay? When you get married to somebody, y'all are creating an exclusive club that only has two members. Right. And he has another exclusive club with his brother. Yes, exactly. And that's okay. But when he married you, he chose to step out of that club and create one with you. I believe that. Okay. Yes. And so he will always have that bond with his brother. Yes. But he chose you. Right. And so I want you to hear me say you're not crazy and forcing him to choose. Like, well, you can't, you can't ever have those memories and you can't have that connection with him. That's silly, because that's part of him, right? Right, right. But when he goes into brother land and they go back and they start telling old stories and bonding, he can still hold your hand. Right. Right. Right. Or when you see him heading down that path again, you can grab his hand. Okay. And sometimes a great, great wife sees their husband heading down dark memories, dark paths, and just a hand on the back of their neck, just a hand on the inside of their arm, just a hand grabbing their hand, keeps them rooted in the present, keeps them alive and well and whole today. You know what I'm saying? Yes, sir. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. We'll be thinking about you guys. When's the surgery? Not, it's not a schedule yet. Okay. Yes. Okay. But yeah. So let's get as much data and facts as we can, moving forward, but couch it under this. Here's how you can love me moving forward, and I'm gonna be right here by your side. I'm not gonna make you choose it's your body. If you choose to do this, just know I don't like it because I'm worried about the health of my husband. But I'm gonna be right here, but the way you can love me is, let's get every piece of information. I wanna go to the doctor appointments with you. I wanna hear the recovery schedules with you. I wanna be in this with you. I am in this with you. And if you all have this type of relationship with your kids, you all are gonna be in this thing with me too. So, man, thank you so much for sharing that. I wish you guys the best. I wish your husband a healthy recovery, wish his brother a healthy recovery. And I wish, I hope this helps you and your husband communicate at a deeper level when things like this and they will pop up again in the future. Appreciate the call. When we come back, a man asks how to cope with feeling disconnected and distant from his wife. 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 suffer from mental illness every year. And nearly half of folks never get any kind of help. And these aren't just statistics. These are your brothers and sisters and parents and kids. These are my family members and friends and neighbors. These are real people. These are you and me. And we're living in this nonstop noise, screens, comparisons, constant notifications world and our bodies are on high alert all the time. We're overwhelmed and lonely. It's so, so much. And this dress shows up in our relationships, our sleep and our health. We were never meant to carry all of this madness alone. Talking to somebody can help. I want you to talk to my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist based on your goals and your preferences. Their therapists are fully licensed in the United States and they follow a strict code of conduct. You can message your therapist in schedule sessions right in the platform. And if it's not the right fit, you can switch anytime at no additional cost. Cut through all the noise and stop carrying all of this alone. 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, let's go out to the playground in Philadelphia and talk to James. What's up, James? Dr. John, good to hear you. You too, my brother, what's up? So looking for some tough love on this one. So essentially my question is, my wife feels like she's trying to disconnect from our life. She's pouring a ton of herself into her work in the go into the gym, but it feels like when I come home with the kids after the day, she's either in her phone scrolling social media or even more reading romance novels, which is great that she's reading, but even when she's with us, it feels like she's not really there with us. But yeah, it feels like I'm doing a lot of this on my own and it's lonely and it's just tough. Yeah, I hear this a lot, brother. So you're not crazy. You know tough love for me on this one, this one just hurts. How long have you all been married? Almost eight years now. Eight years, how old are your kids? Five and three. Five and three. Are you watching them experience this too? I am, yeah. One of the tough parts of this is when she has head down in her phone, seeing the kids look at her, ask her a question, and then she's not here at the first time and then have to either look to me or repeat it until she hears them. And when she does respond, it's usually with a kind of an irritation. And again, I'm not trying to paint her as like. Bro, you're being honest. You're being honest. I'm hearing this story all over the country, man. I hate it for you. I hate that your three and five year old have the fear part of their brain lit up that somehow they're not as beautiful or not as important as that shiny little metal box that she's staring at. I hate that. I'm guilty of it too. I do it more often than I should. So how has she responded? Have you brought this up to her? Have y'all gone out for dinner and talked about it? How has she responded? I've tried to talk to her about it in the past. And usually what she says is, you know, she doesn't think it's really that bad of a habit because, you know, to her, she's reading a book in front of the kids. And I've told her like the kids can't tell the difference. I can't tell the difference across the couch, you know? But yeah, she doesn't see it the same way as like, is it she's not there or if she's not spending time with us, she feels it more as she's with us. She's just not doing the things that the kids are doing. Again, this is usually during like, after work time, the kids are trying to eat dinner in front of the TV and just trying to get to the end of the night sometimes. Yeah, another piece of it is I just, I'm not a very good communicator. You can tell when I talk that I take some pauses or I repeat myself. And in that space, a lot of the time she'll jump in and dominate that conversation. So when I try to have a hard conversation with her, she is much better with her words. She's a lawyer. So it feels very one-sided. She comes up with a good point and I don't know how to respond right away. And so I just kind of shut down and I just go, yeah, I guess you're kind of right. And we just kind of go from there. Oh man. A couple of things are going through my head, okay? Thing number one, like your fear, she is uncoupling from this relationship. She doesn't like the life that she has co-created with you, with her kids, with herself. 100%. So she's out of it as much as possible with work, going to the gym. And then when she's even home, she's found like a little cocoon and she hides it inside of her own life. Right? Maybe that's it. Maybe she's seeing somebody else. Maybe she is unwinding internally and doesn't know what to do with it. And instead of drinking a bottle of wine, she scrolls her life away. It's different chemically of course, but it is the same. I am going to be here in body, but not here in mind or spirit. All right? All of these things, the challenge for you is the only thing you can control is you. And so my questions for you are, what do you need to do to show up in your marriage as the guy you wanna be? Yeah, it's a good question. Because it sounds like you feel trapped in a cycle of responding to her absence, to her disconnection. You're constantly on defense. What does it look like to get in the driver's seat of your life? What must I do to be a guy who's present with these beautiful five and three year old? What must be true for me to be a guy who's full of joy inside my own skin, inside my own house, even when I have somebody who's actively pulling away? That doesn't mean happy, right? You get what I'm saying? Absolutely, yeah. And I definitely have my own work to do there. I've got my own issues that I've been therapy for, but yeah, it's, I guess real quick on my piece, I didn't have a good father figure specifically, but a good parenting system as far as an ideal to shoot for for connecting with kids. So this is all brand new to me. Awesome. I'll give you, I'm gonna give you a hack. You ready for the hack? Yeah, hit me. Time and attention. Laser focused attention. So if you don't know what to do as a dad, you look at your five and three year old and say, come outside in the yard with me and you'll spray each other with a hose and they'll tell that story at your funeral. We weigh way over complicated. Way over complicated. I'm gonna pick up a bag of $3 water balloons on the way home from Walgreens and the way home from work and me and my five and three year old are gonna throw them at each other. Right? Like time and attention. Do you see me? Do you know me? And do you like me? And so I don't want you feeling like, I don't know what to do. And then I should be doing this. I should be time and attention, man. Digging a hole in the backyard? Baring? Like you name it, kids will do it with you. How do I respond if I try to do these things with the kids? Just try to go have some fun, silly time. And she's either not with us or just still kind of disengaged. It feels more decoupling to go like build our own little like three person family and her not be there. You already have that. I know that. I know I was gonna say, I know it's like realistically what's happening, but it feels almost worse to have it physically happen. It might, you as her husband might feel it more acutely, but it's already happening. And right now you're the casualty, but those kids are the casualty. Yeah. You will feel a more of a sense of ownership of what do I want? Cause that's the next question. After you start implementing things in your life, and here's what I mean. You get home from work and your phone goes in a drawer. And I'm going to spend 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour laser with these two kids. And by the way, nobody tells you this. It will be mind numbingly boring sometimes. Absolutely. Yeah. I've experienced that. Catastrophically boring. Like I want to set myself on fire just to see if I still feel something boring, right? And when you're playing some version of Wolf Dragon, my little pony, whatever they're thinking, right? Or we're just coloring together outside or whatever. It's not going to be action packed, but what you'll find over time is, it gives you life from the inside out, not the outside in. And we're also overstimulated all the time that we're going for outside stimulation all the time. This thing will make you full and whole from the inside out in one year, in four years, in seven years, right? So that's number one. Who are you going to be in the second answer? The question that you're going to have to start to answer is, what do you want and what is your line? Yeah. And I don't know the answer to that right now. I think you do. And I think that answer scares you. All of it is scary for sure. I think I'm willing to put up with a lot more than I would the kids. Yeah. I don't... Why? I love them more than I love myself, I guess. No, no, no, I get the... Fair, fair. But if you think of it, my buddy, Will Godera, taught me this, like, if you are a waiter in a restaurant and you're always walking around refilling all the water glasses and you never go back into the kitchen and refill your pitcher, eventually you're going to have nothing to put into your customer's glasses. You're going to be out of water. And so if you don't love yourself, if you don't think you're worth being loved, if you don't think you're worth more than just staring at your phone and being frustrated that your wife isn't... is disconnecting, then you're not going to have anything to give your kids. It's going to be shallow. If you think... That's what I feel like I'm doing right now. I'm a guy worth playing with for an hour. Let's go outside, kids. Wait till I... You see what I came up with now. You know what we're going to do? We're going to throw mulch in the air. And they're going to go, Ah! Right? Like, if you don't think you're worth spending time with, your kids will feel that. Yeah, that's fair. And so I want you to have a regular practice of... I'm going to go refill my water pitcher. And the biggest challenge I think right now, right this second, for most American families, is they think that I'm refilling my pitcher when I just scroll for a while. And it's not. You're actually smashing that pitcher. Scrolling is not benign. It is... It's a constant drain, right? It's like drilling holes in the bottom of your pitcher. It's not refilling it. And so... That makes sense. What you... Like you deciding what I want to do is... Here's the... I'm not going to wait around for her to become the spouse I want her to be, the mother I want her to be, the parent I want her to be. I'm going to be the spouse that I want to be. So if she is cheating on me, if she is pulling away, if she is planning on leaving me, et cetera, I want to be able to look in the mirror and say, I gave everything I had to this thing. And that started with me making sure I was whole and well and good. I was strong enough for her to even anchor to in the first place. And number two, I can look her dead in the eye. I can look her lawyer dead in the eye. I can look myself dead in the eye and say, I loved with all I had. Right? And I'm not going to wait for you to be the parent that these kids need. I'm going to become the best version of myself for them that I possibly can be. And when you're out in the yard, when you're on a walk, when you're having a picnic or whatever you're doing with your five and three year old, and your wife won't come because she's laying on the couch, reading a romance novel, that's going to hurt like bloody hell, dude. Yeah. But it's going to expose what already exists inside your house. But are you giving her a path? Clear as kind, right? You working through, what do I want? Who do I want to be? And you giving her a path? Hey, let me read this thing out to you. I miss you. I feel I am experienced. The story I'm making up in my head is that you're pulling away from us. That you don't want to be here. You don't like the life we've created together. We get to create whatever life we want so we can create something different and something awesome. The story I'm making up is you don't like our kids. You don't like me. And all that makes me feel sad. So here's what I'm going to do. I would love it if you joined us. And she might look at you and say, am I doing any of that stuff? But at least, you know. You're scared of. Okay, but look, man. If that's going to happen, it might happen five years from now, two years from now, or it might happen tomorrow if you have this conversation. And so let's say she does walk out the door. I hate to say this in this class of a way, but you've just saved yourself five years of slowly suffocating. You not addressing this elephant in the room, both the one inside of your chest and the one inside your marriage, isn't going to make it go away. It'll just keep eating and getting bigger and bigger and bigger right there in your living room. Have you asked her the question recently? Do you still like me? I haven't. I'd say about maybe two or three months ago, we had a fairly serious conversation where she told me that she doesn't like the way that I love her. And so, you know, I got to ask her, you know, what does that mean? How can I love you the way that makes sense to you? And she kept pointing back to like the pursuant nature of the guys in these romance novels. And it's like, I get, I think what she's trying to get from that is that, you know, we met in college and she was the thing that I was tracing in college. But that was before I had pets and kids and a job and bills. Like she was the thing that I could focus all of my attention on. All right, I can't do that anymore. I can't love her that way in 2026. Now it's time for tough love, Homie. She should be your singular focus then. Okay. Singular. Okay. Wake up in the day, how can I love this woman? The best way I can love this woman, number one is to make sure I'm okay. Make sure I got my picture completely full. And you looking at her and saying, how can I love you today? Oh, shut up, leave me alone. I'm late to work, right? How can I love you today? Cause it's common, baby. I think what keeps me from doing that is the fear of the rejection in her of just saying, I don't know. I'm tired, like I don't wanna talk about it. I don't know. That's what I get a lot when I ask her what she needs. She goes, I don't know. Cool. Like dismissively. And it's like, I don't know what to do with that. All right, then cool. Then when you get home tonight, I want us to put our phones in the drawer and I've already made reservations, you and I are going out. I'll send you all of the questions for humans cards for couples, okay? Thank you. We're gonna go out. We don't even know what to talk about. We have to rebuild our marriage. We have a whole new marriage. You made partner, we have two kids. We have a different life now. And I'm still gonna spend every moment pursuing you. And if she feels like, and this now I'm like, turn the tables, if she feels like, oh, now I'm sixth place behind the dog, the pets and the kids and his job and our bills, then yeah, dude, she's gonna go find fantasy somewhere. I'm not saying that's right. I would tell her to close the stupid book. That's every bit pornography is visual pornography. It just packaged differently, right? But it's fantasy. That's fair though. She is right that I haven't made her the focus that she needs to be. Okay, if you lead with that, brother, that's a key that might just open her heart up. The letter you write and read to her, if you tell her, hey, without meaning to, you were my number one for years and without meaning to, I've let the world get in between us. Work, pets, kids, worries about the house, that ends today. You're now my new number one. And I've got some tools in my toolkit and they're all coming your way. If you can give me a path to how I can love you, I would love it. Otherwise, I'm bringing it. And here's what I want that to look like. No phones in the house or phones after the kids go to bed. I want us to put sex on the calendar three nights a week. I miss you. I want us to have one date night a week. I want you to skip one morning workout a week and go to breakfast with me before I go to work. And I'm just making stuff up. I'm sipping it right here off the top of my head, but you get to make up and decide what happens next. And then she can look at you and say, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing that. But if you say some big amorphous thing, and she says, I don't know, cool, I'm gonna give you a list of nine things, 10 things. But you're my new number one. You're my number one again. And it will never happen again. And my close number two is my kids. Then I'll worry about this other stuff. I'll sell the pets. I'll move to an apartment. I'll get a new job like you are my number one. And these kids are my number two. So yeah, game on brother. My guess is y'all just gotten a dance man. And she's opted out. You've kind of opted out. And so somebody's got to say, I'm going all in. I hope you'll go all into. Hang on the line here. I'm gonna hook you up with those questions for humans. And I'm gonna hook you up with the Together app. As a, you can use it in one player mode and you can offer it to her. I would love it if you would do one thing a day too. And maybe she will, maybe she won't. But it will help, if you do it in one player mode, it will help you become the guy you wanna be inside your own marriage. And if she comes along, maybe in two weeks, three weeks, one month, three months, now we're talking. Now we're doing one thing a day to come back together. Yeah, write all this stuff out man. Take her out, read it. Take a half day retreat together, rebuild this thing. Your marriage is worth fighting for my brother. Thanks for the call. 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So if something happens to you, your family can have peace. Term life insurance is a way of saying, I love you when you can no longer say it yourself. Go to zander.com or call 1-800-356-4282 to get term life insurance the right way. That's zanderwithaz.com. All right, we're back. All right, who still calls their dad? What do you call your dad? Good on the list. Oh, dad? Okay. Oh. Yes? Yeah. Okay, we call him doday so that we don't say daddy. Dode? Great. Okay. Dad, like a normal person. All right. Kelly, what do you call him? Well, my father's no longer with us. So I'm gonna pull that out. Yeah. Do you call him father? I don't call him anything. But- When he was still with us, what'd you call him? Daddy. Like a good Southern girl? How old were you? What's the last time you called him daddy? My father passed away the week after my 21st birthday. So as a 21 year old? Yes. Mom and daddy. That's very Southern. Or Texas, I guess. Very gross. Now, I can't say 100%. Would you still call him daddy? I don't know. I really don't. Like if we're talking about, like my sister and I are talking about him, it's daddy. No, really? Yeah, because that's what we always called him. But that was normal. I'm gonna make a public commitment. And my parents don't listen to this show. My dad's in his mid-70s. The next time I go home and see them, I'm gonna start calling him daddy. But see to me, I'm very weird if a guy does. I wanna see how well we get last. Why is it weird if a guy does? I don't know. I don't have a valid reason for that. You're the one that's always telling me how equal we all are. You're the one always telling us we're all equal, John. I never said that. That's true. You haven't, you think- Don't always say I'm better than you. I was gonna say you think you're superior. You know you're superior. I'm just gonna start ripping, hey, dad. I can't even do it without going- No, it'd be really weird. Without my gag reflex going. Which is probably the reason I can't stand the- When grown women call their dads daddy? No, but the idea of calling your significant other or a male dad just, I mean, that makes me throw up in my mouth. And it's probably because I'm like, no, you don't. I can't stand that at all. And that's probably why- There's some other people on my team that call their dads daddy. And they are married, they have kids. And I- I'm almost 52 years old. I can't. You know what, America? If you have a relationship with your father, call them whatever you want. I shout out, call them whatever you want. I mean, I had a great relationship with my dad. I love my dad. I'm gonna say it the right way, Kelly. No, but what I'm talking to other people about my dad is just dad. It would be only what I would call him. I wouldn't talk to other people about and say that. That would sound weird to me. I don't know why, but like if I was talking to you, you know, talking to you about my dad, it would just be my dad. It would be like- And then my daddy said, I wouldn't do that. No, that would be weird. Why is it so weird? I don't know, but only if I was saying something to him would I use that, but not talking to somebody else. I don't have a valid reason for that. You don't need one. You can call them whatever you want. I'm fully aware of that. I wasn't asking any kind of permission. All right, listen, Kelly Kay-Lynn Fletcher. Oh God, see, John just learned that my middle name is Kay-Lynn. Can you imagine this? Just imagine this listeners. Kelly Kay-Lynn Fletcher, you can't even say that without the accent. It's like, it's an accented long- It was funny as my mother didn't have an accent because she's from California. I know, but it came out when she said it. Yeah, but oh, when my dad did, it came out, there was an accent, trust me. When who? When my dad said it. When your daddy said it? When my dad said it. I love you guys, bye.