Can Our Marriage Survive This Devastating News?

This is an ad for BetterHelp. You work hard to be the strong one for everyone else, but you're running on empty. That pressure just doesn't disappear, it takes over your life, and talking to someone can help. Go to betterhelp.com slash D'Aloni for 10% off. How do I navigate a life-changing diagnosis when my partner has an invisible disease? And I guess the other part is how do I grieve the known? What's the diagnosis? Try Geminal Neurogias. Oh man. So you look it up and it's, you know, number one most painful diagnosis that someone can get. What up? What up? What up? This is John with Dr. John D'Aloni's show, coming to you live from Nashville, Tennessee, taking your calls on your mental health, your emotional health, your marriage, whatever you got going on in your life. All of us are trying to figure out what to do in a world that's lost, it's freaking mine. That's why I'm here. Pull up a seat and we'll figure out what's the next right move for you, your marriage, your kids, whatever you got going on. Let's go out to New York City. New York! We can talk to Lee. What's up, Lee? Hey, Dr. John. What's up, Homie? Oh, not much, brother. I'm in it right now. Let's hear it, man. What's going on? Yeah. I guess, um, I'm not sure. What's going on? Uh, yeah, I guess, um, you know, listened to you for a long time, really, really love all the wisdom you give and thank you so much to you guys and the team. But, uh, my question, you know, how do I navigate a life-changing diagnosis when my partner has an invisible disease? And I guess the other part is how do I grieve in unknown? Oh, man. What happened? What's the diagnosis? Trigeminal neuralgia. Oh, man. So you look it up and it's suicide disease. Um, you know, number one, most painful diagnosis that someone can get. Um, you know, she was diagnosed a few weeks ago. Um, I work in healthcare in New York and kind of seeing the other side of the system and how, you know, um, for context for everyone, it's a severe shocking pain to one side of the face that is debilitating, put the people on disability and, uh, you know, navigating, say people thinking it's stress and thinking it's a period and thinking it's everything else except for, um, the diagnosis. And so we have a diagnosis, um, you know, but the short term, she's going on short term medical leave. Um, so kind of mourning, you know, the next month, um, but not knowing if this is something that's going to respond quickly to therapy or if we're looking at years, you know, and this is somebody, um, incredibly healthy, no medical problems, works two jobs, um, step mom to my, my two beautiful kids, best woman I've ever met in my life. And we're kind of having to deal with the hand grenade dropped a little bit. Yeah. Um, man, she's lucky to have you. Thanks, Matt. She's pretty fortunate, man. It's awesome. Uh, those things you said to me, have you told them to her? Yeah, man. We, good. We sit on a big couch every night and, uh, we talked through all of the, all of the stuff. I, I called a doomcastle. We fit the doomcastle and we worst cased for a second and then get out and we shut the door and try to focus on the treatments and how early we're getting workups and yeah. So what is your, um, I remember a comic saying this one time and it stuck with me and I found it to be true every time I'm in New York. They said, um, the reason most comedians, long-term comedians come out of New York is humor is in the air. Like even the trash guys are funny. Like even when people are like, get out of here. Like they're funny. Right. Um, yeah. So you and your like wife's, what, what is y'all's tolerance for eye rolling laughter? Very high. Okay. All right. Perfect. We, uh, the first night she was having, she actually, um, she had passed out on me and I, I thought she was gone first. I can't, which therapy for a long time. Yeah. I'm not looking healthcare is very scary. And we got to the ER and he asked, you know, Hey, what'd she look like when she woke up? I said, what she looks like Michael J. Fox. She's kind of arms going everywhere. And, um, but, you know, we've tried to make light of, of a lot of it. Um, yeah, it just seems like the, um, I don't know, the darkness has a little bit easier time hovering lately. Yeah. Yeah. I want to do it. And it's a strange thing I'm going to tell you to do. Okay. Cause it feels impossible when I say it and I want you to practice it and you're going to realize that you can. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I want you to bind the, the darkness. Yeah. Here's what I mean. I want y'all to have not every night in a doom castle. Yeah. I want you to have a once a week, you've kept a list and she's kept a list seven minutes. Here's that game we played when you were kids called seven minutes in heaven where you go French kiss in the closet, right? Yeah. I want you to play seven minutes in hell once a week. Okay. Where you read your list and she reads hers. And I want you to intentionally put some ridiculous things in there. Yeah. But what I want you to, here's what I want you to do. Y'all are going to have to do something hard, which is celebrate life recklessly. Yeah. And grieve at the same time. And the third thing that's even more scary is fear the unknown. Yeah. Right? And so when you put all these fears down, when y'all have this time of seven minutes in hell together once a week, my hope is it's a time of high honesty and high dark humor. Yeah. And I want you to understand that y'all will take a pin and mark off the things that you cannot control. You're not going to make these things go away. But what you're going to do by being intentional about putting a time limit on it by writing it down and by going through these together and saying, can we control that? We control that. What you're going to do to your nervous system is remind it. I'm driving. Yeah. And I can't see that far ahead of me. So we're going to slow down, but I'm driving. And we are going to turn up the 80s like hair metals and sing our guts out until otherwise. Right? Yeah. And so when you bind it and seven, that's a total arbitrary thing. It can be 15 minutes. It can be 30 minutes. There might be days when she needs less doom castle and more just, I need you to hold me. Yeah. And so where I'd love you to spend the rest of your energy is how can I love you this week? And you are going to get a ringside seat into how true change in marriage happens. It doesn't happen with these huge declarations. It happens minute by minute. And you're forced into this, but y'all are going to develop a language of what do you, how can I love you right now? Yeah. And she might say, I can't be touched. I'm in so much pain. And y'all will already talked about what are the three or four things she wants you to do or not do when she's hurting. Yeah. And then you're going to have to wrestle with your emotional reactivity, your grief, your frustration, your feeling of powerlessness, right? Yeah. And that's all good. None of it's fun. It's all, I mean, actually it's all awful, but it's a thing you can control. You can't control her pain. Otherwise you just hover over the shadow of powerlessness, right? I know. And that comes out in anger and rage and frustration. I'm going to own it, man. I'm going to own it. I'm going to bind it. I'm going to own it. And I'm going to do what I can in these moments when I feel powerless. Okay, cool. I can go for a walk. Yeah. I can actually walk out the door when she's in this much pain because this is what she asked me to do when she wasn't in pain. I have had such a hard time since we spent like five days in the hospital overnight and the care she got, I feel like this is the strongest woman I've ever met, Dr. John. If you met her, man, you would. I had such a hard time going past like a month, you know, and I think I'm trying to just be on hope and we can do everything. I'm going to go, you know, all gas, no brakes on appointments. And we're going to see this. We're going to see that. But I, but hold on, hold on. Yeah. You're in healthcare. She's not, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is going to be hard to hear. She's got to drive. Yeah. And so if she doesn't want to go on these, on 50 different appointments, then she gets to choose that. Yeah. Because the worst thing you can do for somebody with an autoimmune disorder is to drag them around. Right. Right? Yeah. I know. I know. Yeah. I know. So part of reconnecting here is you saying, here's what I would love. I would love to do all this stuff. I'm putting it on the table because I love you and I'm honest. Yeah. And I'm also surrendering to this is your body. This is your pain. Yeah. And I will be ride or die. However you want to navigate this. Every day, man. I take this from her a hundred times out of a hundred. It's tough to not be able to, you know, I see stories of people not touching their wife's face for a decade on one side. Right? Yeah. And like, I want to think everything's going to be great when X, Y and Z happens. And I feel like the dam is going to break when the summer comes and it's not better in the winter or. Okay. But here's the thing. I know it feels so tough. Yeah. There's a famous Amos Tversky quote. He's a famous psychologist. Yeah. And essentially the quote is, and I'll mess it up here, but pessimism is stupid. It's a waste of time because if what you're worried about comes true, you've experienced it twice. And so what I would challenge you to do is to not cash out on living and loving and touching her face every moment possible now. Yeah. For the fear it might go away later because when it goes away later, there will be no hedge against how much that hurts. It's just going to hurt. And so. Don't grieve what's not lost. That's right. Yeah. That's tough. So let's live into what we got and when it, if the dam breaks, we're going to deal with the dam then. And we're going to take care of our finances. We're going to take care of our living arrangements. We're going to live a life that we can afford this. Find it. Like, I'm going to take care of all the variables I can. Right? Yeah. So like if I live on a house that's underneath the dam, I'm going to have an escape route. Right. And I'm going to, I'm going to weed eat that thing so that if I ever need it, I'm going to use it. And then I'm going to go on about my life. I'm going to do a lot of fishing. Yeah. Yeah. And when the storm clouds gather and they tell me it's going to be a big one, I'm probably going to head up that escape path. Yeah. Right? But I'm not just going to go out on my front porch every day and stare at the dam and say, please don't break, please don't break, please don't break. Right? Right. Because I'm going to miss out on all of the life that I've got in front of me. Yeah. The hardest thing you can do here is surrender. Yeah. But loosening your grip on this thing will let you open your hands for hugs, high fives, such in her face, combing her hair. Yeah. Right? All the good stuff. The good stuff. Yeah. And that's, that's a, yeah, we were trying to navigate this past few days of like just telling each other we miss each other. I mean, we've been with each other 24 seven or not. I'm not at work or she's not in an appointment, but just like getting out of do mode and just getting back into, to sit in the mode and it's just really tough when the falls feel like they're closing it around you. Of course. Yeah. And, and, and, but no, I, I, I, I, in your seven minutes of hell, give yourself seven minutes of heaven on the other side. Yeah. Yeah. I need to look at you in the eye and say five things I love about you. Yeah. And cause y'all are, y'all are funny people like me and my wife. I'm going to tell you four things. You're really driving me crazy lately. Yeah. Right? And it keeps those simmering frustrations and resentments from taking over. Yeah. Cause they'll burn from the right. They'll burn from, from underneath the leaf pile and then all of a sudden it's an inferno and you didn't realize there was, there was ash down there. And so I'm going to tell you, I think you're kind of, kind of ridiculous for not, you just kind of just quit making dinner, right? And y'all can both laugh about that as she's on an IV drip, whatever. And then she can be like, well, I actually think you're letting yourself go a little bit. I think y'all, and it becomes a, we're still one. We're still speaking our language, right? And that's not for every couple, by the way, right? But if that's who y'all are, then let's not lose our humanity. Yeah. Here's the, here's the best way I can pass it along. My oldest best friend on the planet, a guy I've known for 47 years, got in a life altering car wreck the week after he graduated college and he's been paralyzed ever since. A massive traumatic brain injury. And I remember me and one of our other best friends and his little brother, who's also a close friend, we were in a, it was a Denny's or an IHOP or something like that in the middle of the night. And we actually had the conversation, hey, we all ruthless on each other. We can't keep doing that. Yeah. And I'm confident it was his brother that said, no chance. We're not going to start treating him differently now. He's been one of our brothers. He'll always be one of our brothers, right? But we had the humanity conversation. Yeah. We're going to be who we were, right? And so I have taken him to the bathroom and public things. I spoke at his dad's funeral and you can better believe I made fun of him the whole time. Yeah. Right? Because he's, that's our language. Right. Always has been. That let him know this guy's, A, doing the thing and this guy still loves me, for me. Yeah. But the... We have a high tolerance for jokes that don't leave the house. That's man. That's perfect. Perfect. And it's not losing that under this dark, dark cloud of grief. This fear of what may come. You know what may come? Nobody knows. Nobody knows. And so we're going to live big time now. We're going to hedge every bet we can. And we're going to retain our humanity in the middle of the unknown. And that's scary and it's hard and it's day by day, minute by minute, week by week. But we can bind this stuff up. And that means you're carrying a spiral notebook with you. And so when you have these feelings, I'm not going to text her. I'm not going to come home every night and be like, oh, what if this happened? I'm going to write it down. Oh, and Thursday night when we have seven minutes of hell and seven minutes of heaven. Here's my list. What's your list? Right? And then we're going to go through the, I love you. I need you to hear me say that right now. And then we'll have a funny way to come out of that thing and go be human again. So, man, you're a beautiful guy, dude. And it's an honor to get to talk to you. And by the way, you have a picture of her as this really strong, powerful, powerful woman. You may need to grieve that that picture has changed. That now she is a strong woman who's also in the fight of her life. And trying to constantly compare who she is now to who she was last week, last month, last year is a disservice aid to who she is now, but B, it's exhausting for you. And so let's celebrate who she was. Let's grieve what's happened to her. And then let's celebrate who she's becoming amidst all of this stuff and who you're becoming to. Thanks for calling me. When we come back, a woman asks how to navigate marriage when her husband avoids responsibility, but says he wants to stay married. All right, I'm excited to tell you about a brand new sponsor of the Dr. John Deloni show, Capstone Wellness. I've spent the vast majority of my career working with teenagers and young adults and their families. I know from personal experience that finding help and care for teenagers and young adults can be a nightmare, especially when your teenager or young adults need significant care. 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So the majority of the time, I would say our marriage is pretty good. What does that mean? What is pretty good? We have fun together. We do life side by side well together without like much arguments. I mean, of course, there's little tips here and there, but the majority of the time it doesn't turn into anything big when there is like a small issue. Okay. But every once in a while, most of the time, I believe this is surrounded by times when my husband is already stressed because of probably work. But sometimes I do bring up like, hey, this has been happening and I'm not really liking it. Could it change? And that's kind of when he's like, well, you're asking me for too much. What are some things you're asking for? One example is that I'm always looking forward to seeing him every day at the end of work. And there's some days where he comes home and he says hi to me, but it's not lovingly. And I don't know, just not necessarily ignoring me, but it kind of feels like he's ignoring me. Okay. Do you stay at home with like, are you staying at home, mom? We don't have any kids. Okay. So you work full time too? Yes. Okay. Does he have a picture? Have you been clear with him on what feeling loving looks like? No. Now that I think about it, I don't know if I've been extremely clear about what exactly it looks like. But I have. Okay. So here's a loop I see so many couples get in, including me and my wife. You have a long, hard day at work. So does he. Yeah. You'll both come home with various things on your mind. And this sounds dramatic to what I'm saying, and I know that. But also in your body, you're frustrated, you're tired, you're exhausted, whatever. Yeah. And you come home hoping he will make you feel a certain way. Right. And what that's doing is that's putting your internal state on an external situation. And so if you tell me that he's abusive, if he never shows up for you, if he dismisses you, that's a different, totally different story, totally different call. Yeah. But if you tell me, no, no, I know this guy loves me, but I'm expecting him to make me feel a certain way when I walk in the door. And I've told him, please, when you walk in, say hi to me. Yeah. And he walks in and says hi, and you don't feel a certain way. The natural bent is to blame. You didn't do this right. The question I would pose to you is, what is it inside of you that you are either unaccompanied or unable, unwilling, don't know how to self-soothe? I'm not sure. What do you feel? Right. Feeling is an alarm system, right? Right. Notification system. It's not truth. What is your body wanting to feel when he walks in? Cared for. What does cared for feel like? I'm not quite sure how to explain it more. Okay. Well, and I want you to use that as a guide, because often when we want other people to make us feel a certain way, it becomes a moving finish line for them. Okay. So, what are you worried about? Do you think he's going to leave? I think maybe my brain goes there. Tell me about that. But I don't know why, because he's never threatened. Well, I wouldn't say he's threatened it. He's mentioned things in the past, but he doesn't think he could stay in a relationship if this certain thing was not there. And it has to do with sexual intimacy. Okay. And I sometimes have difficulty fulfilling that for him. Okay. So, I think maybe that's kind of why the fear is there. Tell me about difficulty. So, in the past, he's brought up the fact that the frequency is not as much as he would like. Okay. But I don't want to make excuses, but I do work a full-time job. And I also have a connective tissue disorder that comes with fatigue. So, some days, work is really all I have energy for. But I've tried to make some changes in my life, like how I spend, what energy I do have. To make sure that I am prioritizing our marriage in that way. And I'm not great at it necessarily, but I try. But then, after that, kind of got better, the next complaint was that the quality of it wasn't what he wanted. And it feels like a lot of pressure on me. Well, it's an extreme amount of pressure. He's given you a threshold. Right. And I've expressed these things to him. And in the last few months, he's told me that he's just kind of trying to come to the reality of what it is instead of what his ideal was. And that's hard to hear because you want to be his ideal, huh? Yeah. I do. Yeah. My guess is that he's doing the same thing that you're doing on the other side of this coin, which is I, of course, he likes sex and he likes being with you and all that. That's a given. But he feels like he needs to feel a certain way. Right. And if he doesn't feel a certain way, then he's going to do X, Y, or Z. And instead of taking ownership of, of course, I want to be with my wife. Of course I do. I want to be with that woman right there. That's why I married her. And I made up a story in my head about what this, what this was going to look like. And more importantly, how I was going to feel. Right. And I thought it was a frequency issue, not that. Now I think it's a quality issue. Yeah. Not that. So now it's a, well, I just got to grieve it and make, and all of that is saying I'm not willing to deal with my sense of not feeling alive in my own skin. I'm not willing to deal with what is it about me that shows up here that's not well and whole so that I can see this woman in front of me who loves me, see this woman, know this woman in front of me and knows she's going through health issues, stress issues, all these other things. And I'm seeing how hard she's working for me. Right. And I'm going to celebrate the crap out of her, which has a strange reciprocal effect of you feeling like you've got more margin, more peace, which allows you to have more energy to, right? Right. Less stress, less, less, like, it just gets in this really circular, weird dance. Yeah. Right. And so anytime somebody comes to me with, I'm going to give you like a tiered response here, okay? Okay. You've got some really big fears in your chest. Those have to come out on the table because anything else is just going to be you playing whack-a-mole with feelings and with stories and you're going to start looking at everything he does to backfill the story you've already made up, which is he's probably going to leave. Or maybe even worse, he's going to stay. He's going to stay and be miserable and it's going to be my fault because he told me so. Right. Right. I want to set up a meeting with y'all. Y'all too set up a meeting and you're going to have to go first and say, I have a couple of huge fears based on what you've told me in the past and I need to put these on the table. I believe I've already told him that. Okay. How did it go? I don't really remember his response. I think most of the time when I do say that I'm scared that he's going to leave me, he does say, I'm not leaving you. I love you and it's not to that point, right? I don't know why the fear is still there. I wouldn't dismiss it because he might not leave you in body, but he might leave you in spirit. Right. And I think that's why when he pulls away the affection, it feels like he's doing it in spirit. Right. But the story you've made up in your mind is he's doing this on purpose. And so I want to give him an offer. I tried to be compassionate about the fact that he is stressed about work and stuff, but at the same time, I can only be neglected for so long. I want to hear those. You've used the words, he avoids responsibility. You've said he's neglecting you now. Those are big, big things. I want you to be honest. Is that what's happening? Do you feel neglected? At times, yes. Okay. And so I want you to be specific with what you're asking of him. And I want you to... I'm trying to think. It creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. Right? Here's what I mean. Most of you are creating self-fulfilling prophecies in your house in real time. You have this sense that he's going to leave based on stuff he said before and probably the things he said touched a real nerve with your life experience. Fair? Maybe you got left as a kid. Maybe your folks left either physically or in spirit, emotionally. Maybe a previous boyfriend left you. Right? You've been down this road before, so your body knows what this feels like. And so the story you tell yourself is, I can only be okay if I know for certain he's not going to leave. But you have already convinced yourself you're worth leaving because you don't think you have enough sex and you don't think you do it right. And so if he says, I'm not leaving, your body registers that as a lie because you don't believe it. And so then what do you do? You ask more. Are you sure you're not leaving? Yeah. And he gets further and further away. And at the same time, he's convinced himself she doesn't do this enough. She doesn't do this in the right way. She doesn't make me feel dot, dot, dot, dot. Right? And that sense pushes you further away. Right. And so this is a classic case of somebody has to turn the musical out. Like turn the music off and turn on the lights and just say, hey, let's stop this dance. Yeah. Because we're actually creating the thing that both of us are scared of. Right. Right. And this is where it gets very unholywood very fast. But it's being as specific as possible. Right. And I've tried to be in, I recently had a conversation with him about like, because he told me that he's burnt out with work and with a relationship, I guess. Okay. So I tried to, you know, tell him that like, I think you're putting an effort in areas in our marriage where, like, I appreciate it, but it doesn't help me to feel the love, the way that I prefer to. So maybe you could switch the effort you're putting in this way in a different way. So that I actually feel it more. It just impacts me more. I almost know the, I can almost guarantee you, I know that his response, but what did he, how did he respond? He was okay with that. Okay. I want to change the way you say that. Okay. Okay. I want you to, instead of setting up a challenge meeting, because you've done that. I want you to set up an invitation meeting. Okay. Okay. Here's what I mean. Honey, I love you so much. I want to give you four really clear ways that you can love me in this particular season we're in. I'm stressed. You're stressed. We're both carrying a ton of mental load. We're both got, we're up in our heads a lot. I want to give you a path for me and I would love a path for you. Yeah. Right. Right. And you can look at him and say, you know how much I'm working on the, the, like my health. Right. Right. You know this. Yeah. What are some things outside of the bedroom I can do to love you well? Yeah. Okay. And what we're doing, that's different than you are doing this wrong, you're doing this wrong, you should do it like this. One is, can I give you a path? It's an I statement. And then you say, hey, how can I love you? Yeah. But I think you're both chasing a similar, a similar, um, Horcruch if you will. Is that what it's called? Not a Horcruch. What's the, what's the little ball with the, with the wings on it that flies around in Harry Potter? I've never seen Harry Potter. Okay. Let me ask one of my nerd friends. What's the, what's the little ball with the, with the, with the golden snitch, the golden snitch? You're both chasing this thing and it's very hard to catch. And the thing you're trying to catch is if they would just, I would feel right. And so what I want you to begin to ask yourself is what must be true for me to feel loved in this home? What must I do to feel okay in my own skin? And a path forward for you is taking some time to truly write down and celebrate yourself. And I know if you grew up in a faith community, they say, never do that. I know our culture says that's just narcissistic. I want you to be honest about the last three or four years. What have you done to become a healthier, more well, more whole version of yourself? Okay. Probably a lot, huh? Yeah. Okay. Think of it this way. Think of it as you all two are hugging in the kitchen, but if he let go of you, you wouldn't fall over. Okay. Can I stand on my own two feet inside my own skin? That doesn't mean you're not going to be sad. That doesn't mean you're not going to be heartbroken. That doesn't mean you're not going to grieve it if he says, I'm not doing that. Of course you are. All those things are real. Yeah. But it's you saying, I'm okay with who I am. And just because I have less of a spontaneous libido than he has, just because I have chronic pain doesn't mean I'm not worth being married to. I am. I guess my meta message here is this. At the end of the day, you can only control you. You can only control how well and whole you are before you step on that field, that team sport that is being married and say, we are going to try to win this thing together. What do you need to do so that you walk in feeling whole on your own two feet standing up so that you can give yourself over to this marriage? That's a lot. All right. We come back. A woman asks how to help her son develop healthy relationships when his father doesn't model them. Oh man. I recently had some people come stay at my house for a weekend and we're all sitting on the couch hanging out and one of my friends called out, dude, I'm sitting under a cozy earth blanket and you're wearing cozy earth socks. Is everything cozy earth in your house? And I said, yes, it is. My house is loaded with cozy earth gear, sheets, pajamas, blankets, towels, socks. We got it all. One of my favorite cozy earth things is their cozy earth comforter. It's humongous. It's big, but I don't know how they did this. They must have built it at Hogwarts. It's not hot or heavy. It's like sleeping under a cloud and it helps to regulate temperature so I stay comfortable throughout the night. And I got these cozy earth essential socks. They rule. I've never really been a sock guy. These are my socks. Cozy earth essential socks come in four links and they're all incredibly comfortable. And don't forget cozy earth offers a hundred night sleep trial on all bedding and a 10 year warranty on everything else. So there's no risk in filling your house with cozy earth gear. Try cozy earth for yourself and for your family. Go to cozy earth.com slash DELONI and use code DELONI and you'll save up to 20% off your entire order. That's cozy earth.com slash DELONI use code DELONI. Hey, listen, if you get a post purchase survey, tell cozy earth that you heard about their amazing gear right here on the Dr. John D'Aloni show. You're going to love cozy earth taken over your home just like they've taken over my. All right. Sacramento, California. Let's talk to Mother Teresa. What's up, Teresa? Hi. How are we doing? I'm doing fine. I mean, life is beautiful. Life is hard. It's a mixed bag, you know. I'm talking to Pollyanna. It's good to talk to you. So what's going on? Okay. So we are a family of four and my son is 10 and he has a younger sister and he's amazing. He's academically advanced. He's very kind, very sweet. He's a fantastic big brother, but he is struggling emotionally and he's struggling to find his place and his work. And I think that has a lot to do with the relationship he has with my husband, his father. And I mean, just to start, he, you know, my husband's not a social guy, so he doesn't have any male friends. So he doesn't see like the model of male friendship. He also doesn't, you know, play sports with him or video games or go out in the backyard and build stuff. And my son is very like eager for his attention and his love and tries to please him and even fawns over him a bit, which really just kind of rubs him the wrong way. And he's just sort of stopped kind of maturing emotionally, I think my son has, because he's looking for that responsibility to be given to him, for trust to be given to him, for him to sort of be taken under his father's wing and shown things. And it's just, I see it really affecting him because about 95% of their relationship is my husband saying stuff like, not enough, what are you touching? Not doing this, who left the light on, you know, stuff like that. That's almost not 100%. I don't want to exaggerate, but that's a lot of their interaction. And I just, it's a lot of scoffing, you know, at him and he doesn't yell. He's not like mean otherwise. He's just sort of like low level disapproval all the time. And I just really see it affecting him and I'm not sure what to do about it. I don't normally say this, but your husband sucks. Oh, no, he doesn't. And I would tell him that if he called me. Oh. And here's why. You're right about all the responsibilities, all the things boys need from their dads. You're right. But the thing that is destroying your son from the inside out is this nagging, never ending question. He'll chase this question for the rest of his life. What was so bad about me? Yeah. That that guy wouldn't look up from his phone. That that guy wouldn't come outside with me. That that guy wouldn't play with me. That 98% of what he said was criticism. What was so bad about me? And here's the thing. It wasn't until I was doing an internship with a pretty extraordinary psychologist, when his famous line to me that really resonated and stuck with me forever, he looked at me once after we were working with some traumatized kids and he said, Hey, straight A's can be a trauma response to. Yeah. Right. Some kids will sing and dance and do whatever they have to do to get their parents to say, I see you. Right. And I guess. I'm going to try to rehabilitate him now a little bit. You're going to have a hard task because here's the thing. Your son is the job. I said those exact same words. This is the work. This is the hard thing that we're supposed to do. Well, hold on. I guarantee this and I'm happy to be wrong, but I almost positive I'm not. He does the same thing to you. Um, does he do the same thing? I think my husband is really in a rut to be fair. I mean, he's present. He's always present. He's always doing the hard things. He's just not doing them happily. I think I should say. And a lot of it is I feel like he doesn't know how to take him outside and play with him because the relationship is already kind of fractured. So when he says, okay, I say, Hey, go play soccer or something, you know, go have goals. I'll do whatever we got to do to get into this time. Like it just doesn't go well because they don't have a foundation of like, I don't say trust. No, but that's how you build the foundation. You go do the stuff. Yeah. Yeah. You go do those things. And you, you very like astutely worked around that, but he might be in a rut and he might have mental and emotional challenges he's working through. Maybe totally cool. Right. But the work is I'm going to go outside. I'm going to close my laptop. I'm going to put my phone down. I'm going to go do the next awkward right things for my wife because the greatest gift I can give my kids is to love their mother recklessly. And then I am going to give myself over to the work that is learning how to do things I don't know how to do. Doing things I don't like doing, but showing or it sounds like he doesn't do anything else, but I'm going to bring my son along with me on things that I like to do. Yeah. It's more that he's not a lazy man. He's always like busy with something, but like he'll choose to go do the grocery shopping Well bring your son with you. I guess. Yeah. Make him part of it. Make him your sidekick. That's what I've told you. I know, but listen, if he does all the right things, but he's doing them to avoid being with y'all, those aren't the right things. Yeah. I'll get the grocery shop and I'll go to this. I'll go to this. I'll go to this. That's just that's going around the issue. And the issue is I got a wife here that's like, Hey husband, I miss you. Hey dad, do you like me? What's so bad about me? He's asked him that question. Does he like me? He's asked me that. God of mind. I got to tell you man, that breaks my heart. And I also have to just be super honest with you. I've dealt with teenagers and young adults my entire career and that's a ghost that will haunt them forever. Yeah. What was so bad about me? It doesn't sound like that's a good deal, but it's pretty rough and it's constantly like, because he's not a yeller. He's not violent in any way. He's just, you know, he's very, he's very gentle man actually. He's just very good at disapproving in a low volume basically. And can I tell you something? Can I tell you something that's, I, I in no way is what's happening in your home worse than if he was abusive. Okay. I don't want you to hear me say that. But if he was abusive, there will come a moment when your son will go, oh, he was the problem. The fact that he's quiet and seemingly doing all of the right things will further dig your son into sight himself to mine for, oh, it for sure is me. I think a big problem is my husband has a pretty big, I don't know how to say, ick reflex. And so everything. So what, so what? Do you know what I did today? I'm going to tell you what I did today. I have a pet snake. Yeah. And I fed that snake a mouse and the mouse died. And you know what I did today? I took a dead mouse out of a snake cage and went and fed my son's snapping turtle. Uh-huh. Okay. It was a deal over there. Yeah. Here's the deal. I have a high ick factor too. I've got an OCD diagnosis. I am as close to a germaphobe as you're going to find. Yeah. And man, I love my boy. Yeah. We find a lot about habit breaking because, you know, he wants him to stop, you know, eating with a finger. They're doing normal things that 10 year olds do. And I was like, we can't shame him into breaking a habit. We have to build like a strong relationship and remind him gently and just hope that he does it. But for him, he wants results. And I don't think he kind of, you can't get results out of, out of relationship without coercion or demand. And coercion and demand might get you a result you want for a season. It might get a report card full of straight A's. It might get a kid who does everything right. And that's a kid who will walk out your door and never walk back in. Yeah. So I keep telling him just to accept that it's going to happen. The habits they're going to break when they're going to break. Like we just have to love him and remind him, am I doing the wrong thing? Because it's a big part of it. It's a big like, oh, you left your shoes in the wrong place. You're touching your hands in a place. I don't want you to touch them. You know, stuff like that happens a lot. And I can't talk him out of the idea that we have to do something to stop it. Like there's nothing we can do to stop it other than love him and remind him. This is colloquial. And so I don't have data behind this, but this is a good rule of thumb. Seven to one. Seven positive connecting things to every criticism. Yeah. And by the way, criticism nagging, complaining, that's never about the person who is, you're criticizing or complaining or nagging. It's about you. You are the hero of that story. I don't want you to put your fingers in your mouth. And the kids like, well, I do. Yeah. Right? Right. In a relationship, when he knows that there's nobody on the planet that loves me more than that guy does, then you can say, hey, I want you to become a man. I want you to grow up as a man who has gotten good manners. Yeah. Right? And when you're with me out by the fire, when you're with me out on the hunting trip, and you're me out in the fishing trip, we can eat with our hands all day long. We're going to be in the house. We're going to use a napkin. We're going to be polite people. We're going to be people with manners. And then in a relationship, you can go, oh, sweet. I want to be just like that guy because that guy loves me. Right. Yeah. Not. I want to do what that guy says so he hates me less. So I've talked to my husband every way I can about this. I've talked to him about coddling versus attending. I've talked to him about the Gottmans and their bids. I've gone down the whole gamut trying to solve it. He's not going to change. What can I do? How do I make things just controlling my own behavior or anything I can do? Because I can't be the dad. But if there's anything I can do, I'll do it. Yeah. There's two important things. One is you're going to be tired. But for the sake of your kids, you're going to have to fill more of that gap. I'm going to go out and play soccer with them. I'm going to go out and throw the ball. I'm going to take him fishing. And you don't have time for that. It's frustrating. It's going to surface more of your frustration with your husband because you do a great job of bearing your relationship issues. It's going to surface all that stuff up. But I'm going to choose to be present with my son. The second thing is you're going to have to put him in proximity of other good men. I'm going to sign you up for leagues. I'm going to sign you up with good coaches. I'm going to put you around other guys that will look at you and say, I believe in you. That's harder than it sounds. It's real hard. Real, real, real hard. You know why? It shouldn't be that way. Yeah. And I put him in Boy Scouts. It's all run by the moms. I'm going to intentionally... Every teacher is a female. He's just surrounded by females everywhere. I'm going to Boy Scouts. That's right. And I'm going to find places. Okay. Because yes, the skills he's going to learn in Boy Scouts are great. What he needs is his certain nervous system regulated by a man that looks at him and says, I care about you. Yeah. And I know that my nervous system is on edge when they're just talking. And mine is on edge and my son is way more sensitive. He's a very sensitive kid. So they're kind of like oil and water. And then my husband. And my nervous system is just on fire when they're next to each other, around each other, interacting. I know his is like a thousand times worse. Yeah, it's his dad. Yeah. It's his dad. And this is going to be hard, but you got to avoid talking bad about dad. Okay. Because he knows half of him is his father. So if you're like, well, your dad's lazy, your dad just doesn't seem to care, then he's going to internalize that too. No, no, no. I will say things like, you know, nobody's perfect. Look at people. Other ways he loves you. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. You're like me. And you're like, he does look at all this stuff. Not affirming him. Yeah. You're going to make him feel, you're going to make him feel crazy for the feelings he has. Right. Right. Right. I will sit with him and say, I wish dad would go play soccer with you too. Dad's going through a hard season right now. It's not about you. I want to play soccer with you. You're my favorite soccer player. And let's go. Right. Okay. All right. Dad's really, dad's really struggling right now. Yeah. And he does not do a good job of telling you that he loves you. I need you to know he does love you and I love you. We're going fishing. Okay. This is, this is his son, man. Yeah. It's the number one job. The number one job is you. That's true. Loving you really, really well. The number two job is... I could love him better too. So I could, I could, I could up my game. I'm so focused on the kids and the parents have to be like the primary thing. And so maybe sitting down with him, an act of just incredible generosity and compassion might be sitting down with your husband and saying, hey, I feel the story I'm making up is you're not doing well. And that makes me feel powerless. I would love three or four things that I could do on a regular basis to show you how much I love you and care about you. And I've got three or four things I'd love to offer you if you want to hear them. I think he sounds like a guy that doesn't really care what you think or feel, but maybe you could have them. Very specific things. I think he cares, but I've over communicated this so much to this point that I soon as like the conversation starts, like he shuts down. And maybe lead with, I've beat you up with science and books and authors and I'm sorry. I probably have. Yes. I would, I would commit that. I would put that on table. Yeah. I've tried to connect with your head and I've overdone it and I'm sorry. Now I'm going to connect with your heart. Here's how you can love me right now. And the story I'm making up about you is that you're not well, that you're not doing okay. Yeah. And he'll say that, he'll say that, you know, he's like every day is a grind for him. It feels that way to him. And that he doesn't have the emotional space or time to like have time with the kids or like build that relationship because he can't just jump in and have the best day ever because today he has time. It really just, it has to be that, that time never goes well because they don't have that fundamental relationship. What does he not have time for? Like what, what is he going to have time from? I don't know. Like it's off work and then immediately does something outside and the kids go with him sometimes, but he's not really interacting with them. And, or he'll come in and he'll say, I got to go grocery shopping or, you know, like there's a lot of stuff to do. There's always something broken, but I mean, he's not really a fix that guy, but I don't know. I just feel like he feels sort of grind down, you know? It sounds like a guy who has lost meaning and purpose and who doesn't like himself. I don't think he thinks that deeply. He's lost himself, but yes, possibly. What folks who don't think deeply about themselves, it comes out as I'm always burnt out. I'm always this. I'm always this or if I just had, then it would all be okay. And there's no amount of time, money, whatever that makes you look in the mirror and finally feel like you're okay. Yeah. I don't feel, I've tried those seasons of like, okay, I'm just going to take care of every thing there is to take care of. That's not the issue. After work and it never helps. No. Yeah. I'm just going to leave it at that. I know it sounds like an ad here. That's going to be anything other than me speaking ill of somebody who's not here. And that's, I just don't want to be like that. But man, dads put down your phones. Put down your awkwardness. Put down your, I don't know how or I don't want to and go be present with your kids. in your kids. Find constantly find the good, constantly catch them doing awesome things. And if you can't go see a professional. Cause they hate hard to work. I am running a thousand miles an hour in a thousand different directions. And this morning when I got in my car, I was tempted to just put on the craziest music I could put on to just fry my brain into some sort of energy, but I didn't. I went to my Hallow app and I put on some scripture. I put on some prayer. I put on some gentle music and I showed up to work with peace. I don't just advertise for Hallow. I use it in my own life to help me be whole and well and show up as the person I want to be. Hallow is the number one Christian prayer meditation app in the world for a reason. And it's one of the most important things I do to start my day, especially when the world's in chaos. Anchoring myself in prayer helps me slow down and prioritize what matters before the world just takes everything else from me. Hallow gives me space to breathe, reflect and pray. And listen, it's guided, it's simple, and it meets you where you are to help you anchor your faith practice or even start a faith practice with daily reflections, scripture, music, special series, and most importantly, peace. There's no pressure here, it's just practice. You can try Hallow for free for three months only through my link. Go to hallow.com slash D'Loni and sign up for free today. That's hallow.com slash D'Loni for three months for free. All right, we're back, Kelly, what you got? All right, I have a question about the Together app. Let it rip. All right, so one thing we've been hearing is, like why should I pay for an app that tells me to hug my spouse? So why should people pay for that? Why do people need to be told? What's the benefit whenever, like I can hug my spouse for free? I think we've had several calls on the show today that articulate that perfectly, which is so much of our lives are led by what I feel. And I feel like I don't feel like I would feel this way if they would just or I won't feel this way if they would stop. And so having a daily reminder of a small thing I can do, I can take control of this thing and I can step forward and regardless of how I feel, I can take the next right step. I can do a thing that will bring us closer together. And by the way, you're not just paying for hug your wife. Like there's jillions of activities in this thing. It does start that way with very basic stuff. And what we found is most people are like, I didn't realize we don't stop and hug without our phones in our hands. I just like, if you'd said how many times do we hug, I would have been like, oh, like a hundred. It was more like two. And so people realize, oh, I miss this. And there's been a few who realize, oh, he won't hug me or she won't put her phone down. And instantly out of the gate, you realize we've got bigger challenges in our marriage than this app's gonna help us with. We need to go talk to somebody now because there's big stuff going on here. But the app starts slow, but it starts getting wilder and wilder as the more to use it and unlock next levels. What I don't wanna do is just, and we were intentional about this, I don't just wanna come out of the gate and throw the most complex plays at you, like you're like a NFL football player and you've never, you don't know what the basics, the blocking and tackling is. And so we're gonna start from ground zero. And by the way, my wife and I use this thing and it's awesome. And so like as sophisticated as us two nerds are, and as long as we've been trying to figure out how to do this thing right, still the daily reminder of sitting your wife and note right now and put it somewhere where she can find it. And I go, oh gosh, I'm so, and I grab a piece of paper and I write her note and I put on her pillow. I still, it still matters, right? Because I would have thought about it and I wouldn't have done it. And so this thing is just daily habits. And I'm now finding myself, when I see a great picture somewhere or somebody texts me a picture they took of me and my daughter out somewhere, I'll send that to her and be like this picture or of my wife and my daughter, I'll send it to her and I'll say, this is why I think you're the best mom in the world. Like it's now it's not just happening in the app. I do the app daily exercise, but I also do three or four other things throughout the day. Cause now it's starting to prime you. So anyway, you're not just paying for a hug your spouse app. Well, and so much bigger than that. One thing that makes me laugh about that question, people asking it is, you know, why should we do that? Well, cause clearly you're not doing it. So yes, you're right. Should you need an app that tells you to, or an app that tells you to hug your spouse? No, but you're not. So. Well, that's like, that's like, how the questions for humans were found, which is like, oh, you don't know how to talk to your kids. And he was like, shut up dude. No, we shouldn't know. We shouldn't have this product, but we need it. And that's okay. It is what it is. It's awesome. So there you go. Go get the together app. If you are an Apple iPhone user, download it in the app store. And if you're an Android user,