My Husband Won’t Fire His Mistress

I caught him having an affair with one of our employees. He would wait till I would go to bed and he would sneak over there. And we bought the house next door to us and we rented it out to her. And that's when things changed. What up, what up, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloni show coming to you live from Nashville, Tennessee, taking your calls on your mental health, your emotional health, your marriages, whatever you got going on in your life. There's a lot, a lot of noise out there. And this show is designed to cut through that noise and actually have you pull up a seat and let's figure out together what's the next right move. For more than two decades, I've been sitting with hurting people of all kinds, shapes and sizes, different kinds of folks trying to figure out, okay, what are we going to do now? And that's what we do in the show. You call in and we pull up a seat. I'll pull up a seat with you and we'll figure it out together. Let's go out to Atlanta, Georgia and talk to Simone. Hey, Simone, what's up? Hi. How's it going? Well, I've had a rough couple of years. What's going on? So my husband and I, we've been married for 33 years. He's retired military. We have five kids together. They're all adults. Three, just a little over three years ago, he, I caught him having an affair with one of our employees. At the time she was 20 and he was 55. And yeah, well, she's been working for us since she was 15. There was nothing going on when she was young. I know that for a fact. Okay. It probably, so... But can I say this? That is, if you've known somebody since you're 15 and that would have put you guys in your early to mid 40s, there is very much a mentor, mentee and not to be gross about it, but there is very much a son or daughter, niece or nephew relationship that forms, right? 100%. Yeah. 100%. Yes. So we kind of treated her like a daughter. Yeah. Because I mean, she was the same age as our kids basically. Yeah. Yeah. What's the nature of your business? It's a bakery. Okay. Okay. So you all are in close proximity. You all are... I mean, it's a pretty tight knit crew, huh? Oh, yeah. At that particular shop, we still have some of the original employees that were there since we've opened. Okay. All right. Yeah. So we bought the house next door to us and we rented it out to her. And that's when things changed. And I was getting up at three o'clock in the morning to go work at the other business. And so I was going to bed at 7.30 at night. And he would wait till I would go to bed and he would sneak over there. Oh, man, I'm sorry. And I found text messages. Yeah. He would go over there and cook her dinner. And when I found out, I took a week to kind of gather information just to kind of see if what I really was seeing was true. And of course, when I confronted him about it, I swear nothing happened. I was just going over there. We were watching movies and this and that. And you know, I mean, the text messages that I found that were deleted but not, they were in his deleted folder. They were deleted, deleted. I have all of them. I mean, you can't read these text messages and think that they were just watching movies. So after a couple weeks of, you know, the initial impact and the anger and the yelling and the fighting, I told him, I said, if you want to fix this, you have to find a therapist. And he said he would. And so probably six weeks go by and he hadn't found one yet. So I found the therapist. In therapy, we came up with a plan to get rid of her and he was on board with that. To fire her, right? Well, we had to be really careful about how we did it because of the stupid thing that he did while she was a tenant. So we had to be really careful with. Well, I'm just saying Kelly listens to a lot of murder podcasts. So when you say we had to get rid of her, I'm just saying like, okay, we had to, we had to get her out of our life, right? Not bury her in the yard. Okay. Okay. So in therapy, I told him, our relation, this is far as our relationship will go. This was my boundary. This is as far as our relationship will go until she's out of her life. And that's perfectly reasonable. So here we are almost three and a half years later. And the words he uses, she still works for us. The word he uses is she's integral to running the business. Okay. Let me hop in here. Okay. Yep. I don't care about what he's doing right now. I don't care about what this now 23 year old, 24 year old woman is doing. Why are you still here? Because I guess I keep holding on to something that probably isn't going to happen. It's not going to. Cause you, cause you laid down your boundary and he stepped over it, brought her with him and nothing for 36 or 40 months has changed. Right. I know, I see that. I know it's 33 years. I know. I'm not taking this lightly. Okay. I understand. It's, it's the way I would, I would say it is like this. A hurricane blew your house down and you're still sleeping in the shell that was once your bedroom trying to pretend this thing still has a roof on it. And you get, now you're getting mad every time you get wet when it rains. Yeah. None of this other action is going to happen. He's looked you in the eye and said, I care more about having her around. I care more about this bakery than I care about you. That's exactly. He, he, he, he justifies it by saying we need employees and she's the best employee that we have and I can't get rid of her. Okay. Then he's, then he's saying with like impressive clarity. Yeah. I care more about this than you. Yeah. I care more about this than our marriage. Period. End of story. Yeah. End of story. Yeah. The fact that she worked there the day after the fact that y'all still had her in this house, like all of that, A is madness, that B, behaviors of language is very, very clear. And so, and so I hate to, I hate to say, and again, if we had longer together, I would, I would give you this much, much, much more gently, right? But the only person in the world you can control is you. Right. And so if you want to settle for this arrangement, I'll still take your call, I'll still be your friend, I'll still sit with you. But you choosing to get mad about it is a choice to be miserable in the arrangement that you're choosing. Yeah. Because your husband's made his, made his decision. Yeah. If you choose, I'm worth more than this, never in a million, billion years did I see this going to be the back half of my life. The wild thing for me in these kind of situations is always this. The thing he thinks he's protecting, his quote unquote business, y'all's business, is about to get sold and divided in half. Or he's about to have to write a huge check, including net present value into the future to you. Yeah. Right? This precious business is about to get blown up anyway. Yeah. And the fact that he won't maneuver, like do the right thing around, anyway, long story short, here we are. Right. So the choice you have to make is do I want to stay married under this set of circumstances? Or do I value myself worth, do I think I'm worth more than that? Yeah. Well, I told him I wanted a separation three weeks ago. Okay. And what he did next is have a business meeting with his sister and brother-in-law and a local business broker about selling the businesses without me present. Are you a co-owner of the business? Oh, I'm 50% owner. Okay. Yeah. Then here's the... And when I confronted him about it, he said, well, I have to protect myself. So, say back to me what is actually happening here. So, his sister and brother-in-law... No, no, no, don't complicate it with other people. What did he just tell you? He told me that... No, no, beneath his words. He's out. He's out. He's out for himself and nobody else. Game on. So, I like to say when somebody initiates divorce, whether they put the paper down, they say, I'm going to file, they say, this is over. They say, I'm out for... I've got to protect myself now. Then everything that happens afterwards is a business transaction, dividing the house, selling the cars, pulling out a 401Ks, all of that stuff, dividing business assets. It's a business transaction. And what I am afraid is happening to you is he is amassing troops at the border and you're still trying to hang on to the relationship. The fact that he thinks he's protecting himself by doing something in violation of your business agreement, he can't sell that business without you. You're a 50% owner. I know. The fact that he would have meetings and try to figure out what's the value of this thing without you present. Yeah. Yeah. I'm telling you, I can't tell you what to do. I'm telling you if I was in your exact shoes, I would get off this call and call an attorney. I called an attorney yesterday. Good for you. Good for you. And how did the conversation go? Well, she told me the exact same thing you did. Okay. Yeah. And so I think for you, it's hiring an attorney and letting the attorney do her job, which is to be an assassin on your behalf, to advocate for you. In a season that's about to get real, real ugly for your spirit, you're going to go through a deep, like season of grief. Yeah. And you've been grieving for a long time. Just telling the story from three and a half years ago, it's like it happened yesterday. I could hear it on you, right? Well, because she's a constant reminder. She's there all the time. And every time I see her or something happens, and it'll be a trigger and it'll bring me right back to that. And I can't, he doesn't understand that with her there. Let me change it. He doesn't care. Yeah. He doesn't care. He doesn't care. He made his choice. Yeah. And that should break your heart. It breaks my heart. It does. Yeah. And by the way, all of his text messages with her that have happened since the quote unquote affair ended. Did he ever admit to anything? Oh, no. Okay. Okay. All of that, all of it will be in discovery. Oh, I know. The signal messages, the WhatsApp message, all that's going to come up in the Facebook messages, the fake, the Instagram they call them, the fake Instagram profiles where people make and then they communicate. All that will come out in discovery. The emails, all of it. The bonuses, the extra money, all of that will come out. Yeah. Okay. And so let your attorney do their job. Okay. And I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Sounds like you already got it from your attorney, but this is what's happening. He is exiting this business. He's exiting your, his relationship with you. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm so, so sorry. I knew, I mean, I knew this was what I was going to hear, but I guess sometimes you have to hear it from other people. I'm just a neutral knucklehead on sitting here in Tennessee, right? Yeah. But I've had the opposite where two people are running a business together. One of them sleeps with a young coworker and they are willing to burn the business to the ground in order to rebuild their marriage. Well, he, I don't, I just don't understand. You won't be able to understand it because it's an irrational act. Yeah. All right. So trying to put together the math problem, what did I do? What could I have done? You're going to spend time there because you're a human being and we all spend time there. That's the way we're wired up. Our bodies want us to figure out what happens. So this kind of hurt doesn't ever happen again. But I'll tell you, it's a fruitless exercise because, yeah, it's a fruitless exercise. You're not going to be able to figure out why he did what he did. You just have to deal with the fact that a hurricane came and blew your house down and now we got to find another place to live. And we got to figure out how to rebuild what we got. And it might mean you imagining a totally new future for yourself where you move in with one of your kids across the country for a season where you find yourself in an apartment. Never thought that would happen where he signs the house over to you and now you have this big empty house next door to this, where this woman still lives. All, I mean, you get to decide all that and that will feel overwhelming. So in addition to an attorney, I also want you to get a couple of girlfriends in your life that are good friends that you can, and don't dump it on your kids. But a couple of friends in your life that you can tell everything to, everything. And tell them, you're going to be my eyes in the sky. You're going to be my wisdom during this really dark season ahead. So sorry you're going through this, mom. It breaks my heart when somebody chooses anything other than their ride or die relationship, their marriage. I'm so sorry. We come back. The woman wants to know how can she stop being bitter? Because she feels like her husband ruined their sex life. All right, I'm not going to lie. My house, it rules. We've got all kinds of rad stuff in there. Guitar stuff, hunting stuff, really cool art projects that my wife and my daughter are into. And we have more band t-shirts in our house than we know what to do with. But my house is also filled with cozy earth gear. Why? Cozy rules, sheets, pajamas, blankets, towels, socks. We've got it all and I love it. One of the things I love is this cozy earth comforter. It's big and somehow it's not hot or heavy. It's like a cloud and I get real hot when I sleep and I still love this thing. It helps regulate temperature. So I stay comfortable throughout the night and sleep better and I wake up feeling restored and I got these cozy earth essential socks. Not going to lie. They're the best. Cozy earth essential socks come in four links and they're all super comfortable. Listen, cozy earth offers a hundred night sleep trial and all bedding and a 10 year warranty on everything else. So there's no risk. Try cozy earth for you and your home. 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 and use code DELONI. And if you get a post purchase survey, tell cozy earth. You heard about their amazing gear right here. Trust me, you're going to love cozy earth taking over your home too. All right, let's go out to Seattle. One of the last few remaining people living in Seattle and talk to Anna. Hey, Anna, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. Good to talk to you. You too. Thanks for taking my call. You got it. What's up? Well, the question that I have is going to sound extremely harsh. Bring it. But bring it. You should hear how Kelly talks to me. You're good. Bring it. I feel like I should say what I'm feeling and not just some platitudes. So how do I help the bitterness and resentment that's growing in me towards my husband for I feel like ruining sex for me? How is he ruining sex for you? OK, so background. I grew up. Hold on. You were like, OK, let's do this. I grew up very religious. OK. Very religious. No fun things in the bedroom until marriage. OK, so you didn't sleep with anybody else until you got married? Correct. OK. I met my husband now husband at 27, married at 30. So a long time, a long time. And awesome. And while I absolutely adore him, and I think he is a wonderful, a wonderful person, when we got married, it was. It just was not at all what you had built it up to be. Yes. And it still isn't. I feel like and I've I've talked to him about it and my thing is our honeymoon was felt like a vacation. OK, it didn't feel like a honeymoon. What does that mean? What does that mean? That means that I had to initiate a lot of the time. OK. That means that he initiated maybe once. OK. And then in the whole honeymoon. And I feel like he was more concerned about booking pool time and. You know, sightseeing than he was with the point of the honeymoon, in my opinion. OK. And that care when we got home, of course, that carried on. It only kind of became a little bit more stagnant. And that aggression, that lust, that passion isn't there. And I've had to initiate a lot way more than I really want to. And I don't feel desired anymore. And this is going to sound so. Stupid, but nothing you're saying. I haven't been having these thoughts where it's like. If this was what it was going to be, I could have been having fun in my 20s. Sure. That's not stupid at all. Not even a tiny bit. I could have been. Don't beat yourself up. What was the point? What was the point is if I was just going to have a regular. Normal, boring. Married marital sex life that I could have been. I could have had fun while I had time, you know. And as horrible as that sounds, and it's how I feel. I don't think it sounds horrible. I don't think it sounds horrible. That makes sense. But I think there's something deeper than this. And tell me if I'm crazy. OK. I'm super OK with being wrong. In religious communities, especially. This is a cultural story at large, but it's especially. Like it's talked about a ton in religious communities. A sex is put on this, especially intercourse, is put on this pedestal. This is this pinnacle thing that will change your life. And women never want it. And guys always do. And I've heard this probably 25,000 times. That's not even an exaggeration, I don't think. From women getting into, especially women in religious group, in religious context. And when their husband is tired or wants to go to bed or doesn't have the libido they expected. They look in the mirror and go, it must be me. What's wrong with me? Why am I not desired? And that starts a spiral that gets really hard to get a hold of. Is there any of that going on in your home? That is correct. All of that is right. OK. So often when that spiral begins, the way we try to get out of those spirals is through grenades. Which is you don't ever. Why don't you? It was supposed to be like this. It was supposed to be like that. And if anybody is getting grenades thrown at them, what they're going to do is act like a rational and a rational response, which is run away from those grenades, or they're going to pick them up and try to throw them back. And so the challenge is, how do we stop this spiral that we're on? What's so bad about me? Why don't you desire me? Why don't you want me? And how can we put that on the table in a vulnerable, scary way? Because we already feel like we're an exposed raw nerve as it is. Right. When you say. Or let me even ask you, do you say you never initiate? Or do you say or do you ask? What makes you feel desired? Like if we were going to create an ethos of of of sex and romance and I love your words, aggression, lust in our house, this has been building up for me for 30 years. What must be true for you? Am I asking him this? Have you ever asked him that? Yeah, yes, I because here's what happens. You're right about the grenades. Here's what happens. I tried to, we did a lot of premarital counseling. Of course, I did a lot of church growing up. So I tried to do this the Christian way. I tried to sit him down and say, hey. You know, and just was like, you know, and use all those words and communicate effectively and he does the whole, what are you talking about? No, what do you mean? You're sexy up? No, you know, and he does that. And then a week goes by and I say, hey, and then he does the same thing. What do you know? And then he's told me that was not what it is. And then I blow up. What does he say it is? And then he had a lot of excuses. He says I've stressed that at work. He said the same jobs and I've known him, you know, and that didn't stop you from trying to get with me sooner. And he says it gets stressed. He's tired. He's tired a lot, which is funny because, you know, we watch a lot of TV. And we get home nine to five like everybody else. You know, he's not working 16 hour shifts here. And we get home and we make, you know, we eat and there's a lot of downtime. And we weekends are open. We do a lot of things together on the weekends. And a lot of it is, you know, our activities we normally do. But then the sun goes down and all of a sudden it's too late. I'm tired, you know, and all this stuff. And so a lot of it's tired. A lot of it he says is he stressed out. And then he's like, well, you could initiate. I've been initiating, you know, I've been, I've been, I don't want to go to what's wrong with you initiating. Nothing, but I just thought that you would be, you know, I just thought it would be a tip for, you know, like you would do sometimes and I would do it sometimes and not just me, you know, and. And I hate to say it. It's boring when it does happen. It's just like, OK, well, have you ever heard me talk about pictures and words because I'm hearing that a lot here. Yes. OK. So you had a very clear picture of what you wanted your honeymoon to be. And he clearly had a very clear picture of what he wanted his honeymoon to be. The problem is you'll both use the word honeymoon. And there wasn't a conversation about, hey, I have this picture of honeymoon that I'm going to have to go replace all of my clothes because they're not going to have any buttons on them because you're going to be ripping them off my body. And he didn't sit down and say, I haven't had a vacation in five years or whatever. I'm just making that up. And I see this honeymoon after planning a wedding with you and you were a bit much in that. I'm just kidding. I don't know if you were or not, but I was, I was. I had a whole like, I'm looking at, I am looking at this as a time to spend time with my new wife just by the pool. Y'all didn't have that conversation. No. And so he's sitting there trying to live into his picture of the honeymoon. And you're trying to live into your picture in your honeymoon and you'll keep using the word honeymoon and you'll fly past each other and you get mad and resentful of each other. He's like, dude, leave me. What is it about me that you don't like and you're sitting there in a night game with a negligee on that you've been wanting to put on for 20 years and you're like, why doesn't what is it about me that he doesn't like? Right. And the challenge you all are missing here, you've used the word I feel, I feel, I feel, I feel a lot. This sounds so unromantic because in Hollywood lied to us in a major way. But there is a level of tactile strategy, clarity that has to happen here. And the real question is, do you want to have wild fun sex in your marriage and plan it? Or do you want to have none and be frustrated and miserable? And what I find most of the time is that when people start planning it and they get structured about how they are planning and I'll walk you through what that looks like in real life, then the magic starts to happen on its own in many cases. OK, here's what I mean by that. Starting this week, honey, I want us to put sex on the calendar three nights. Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Is that how you drew it up as a 19 year old like turning a guy down who's trying to sleep with you in college? Nope, but that's where we are. Monday night, I'm going to initiate Wednesday night. I want you to start at 10 a.m. You're sending me really gross, like off the wall text about what you're going to do to me tonight. And then when I get home, here's what I would love. I would love you to pretend you are feeling the blame. And then he and then Friday night is going to be on our dealers. I'm just making something up. We're going to pull something from the erotic envelope and whatever it says, we're going to try it out. But the problem is every answer he gives, you call it an excuse. And I can imagine and I'm making this up, right? But I imagine he feels like he's sitting in a failure factory. I can't do any of this stuff right. You get what I'm saying? Yeah. And I know at the deepest level here, there's that awful scary question of why doesn't he want me like I thought he was going to? I just it's just like, you know, obviously I've only been with him, but he's had a past. You know, he's recovering. You know, he found Jesus about five or so years ago and then we met and got married. But and he, you know, he doesn't tell me about all the gory details of his past relationships, but from what I from what I've picked up, it's like, why do they get that version of you? Have you asked him? Have you asked him that? Yes, I've asked him. I feel like I get what's left. OK, I want to flip around how you ask that, though. OK. I want you to sit down with him and say, the story I'm making up is you don't, you're not into me, behavior is a language and I'm seeing it and I'm feeling it. The story I'm making up is all these other women in your past got the wild, fun version of you. And I get the tired, exhausted version of you. The story I'm making up is there's something at my core that's not desirable about me because I'm here and I want to be with you five nights a week, seven nights a week. And you'd rather watch TV. That's the story I'm making up and let him respond to the stories you are making up versus the accusations the Grenadier thrown at him. OK, so I want you to take ownership of the stories you're making up because right now you're coming at him with a lot of judgment and not a lot of curiosity. Uh-huh. And judgment shuts people down or it brings up their fist. Curiosity is an invitation. OK. And I would come with some and you might have already done this some real clarity. Like maybe even hold up an outfit and say, I want the buttons to be ripped off of this. Or I want you to dress up in a suit and pretend to be a businessman. And I want to be your wife that's missed you on your trip. Right. And I'm just making stuff up off top of my head here. But give him a picture of what you're picturing. Let him into your picture. And if you say things like all you do is watch TV, he's going to go, no, I don't. I do these other things too. If you say the story I'm making up is your TV show is more important than having sex with me. Then he gets to he's invited into your story that you've made up and then he gets to answer himself. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Have you all tried the erotic envelope system? No, I should have put a patent on it. It's the greatest idea I've ever had. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to go to Walgreens and get a box of envelopes for like 99 cents or whatever. Or with inflation, they're probably $114 now. I don't know. I haven't bought them in a while. And I want you all to get some note cards. That's about two bucks. OK. And I want you to each of you write five to 10 things that you want to try in the bedroom on one of those note cards. And commit to once a week, twice a week, three times. I don't care. Five times. I don't do it every day. I don't care. But commit to on these nights, we're going to randomly pull one of the things out and whatever's on there, we're going to give it the old college try. And if we look at this and it's not, we don't know how it's physiologically possible. Here's the thing. We're not going to judge it. We're not going to go, oh, that's disgusting or that's crazy. I would never do that. We're going to say, wow, what about this is a turn on for you? And often that conversation, I'm in charge all day long and I just don't want to be in charge when I get home in the bedroom or I never get to be in charge. And I have this fantasy about coming in and taking control or you saying, I know I'm your wife and I know that word is triggering for a lot of men. But I want you to come take me. Like I'm giving you permission. And here's what take me looks like. Right. And so some of those conversations, people have reported back to me are the most intimate, fun, like heart rate going quick, like whatever, like conversations any couple can have together. And by the way, the beauty of them is what you're into and what you like and what you don't like will change over time. Same with him. And so you're always getting to know a new person. It's like you are always continually dating and finding out how can I see you and know you better. Here's I'm going to hook you up with. I'm going to hook you up, Anna. I'm going to send you the together app for you and him. And what this is, think of it as a way that you all can do a thing for each other every day. And by the way, there's some great sex stuff in there later on if you will complete some of the earlier challenges, but it's a thing you all can do every day towards each other and it encourages you all to have conversations together and encourages you all to celebrate each other and to do one small thing towards each other every day. And it brings up more and more and more conversations that brings you together from the inside out. And so hang on the lie. I'm going to hook you and your husband up with that for free for a year and you all start using this thing today and you're going to think, but that's not in the bedroom to get started. I'm going to say I know exactly because almost all sex starts way outside the bedroom, way, way outside the bedroom. Thanks for the call. You're not crazy. Nothing wrong with you. I hate to say it this way, but this is a common issue for folks who just get married. It's about saying I'm going to be with you and I want to have as much great sex as possible. Let's do this thing together. We come back. A woman asks how to support her sons after their dad cheated on their stepmom and got his new girlfriend pregnant. Jerry, Jerry. All right, let's talk about Helix mattresses for years. I thought sleep was for losers. And of course, I crashed. It's nonsense. Sleep is critical to everything you do in your life. When you're exhausted, everything feels heavier, harder, more complex. Deep sleep is when your brain resets and when your body does all the work to clean out the junk so that you can be ready to rock and roll the next day, the next week, the next month and for the rest of your life. When I finally started taking my sleep seriously, literally everything in my life changed for the better. And one of the big things that helped me with my sleep was switching to a Helix mattress. I've had mine for a couple of years now and I track my sleep. And Helix has made a huge difference, especially in my deep sleep and in my REM sleep. Helix can make a difference in how you sleep too. Go online and take their sleep quiz. It takes like two minutes and they're going to match you with the mattress that works perfectly for how you actually sleep. It ships straight to your door and you get a hundred and twenty night sleep trial and it's backed by a limited lifetime warranty. Go to helixsleep.com slash D'loni and get 20% off site wide during their spring savings event. That's helixsleep.com slash D'loni for 20% off. And be sure to tell Helix that you heard about their incredible mattresses right here on the Dr. John D'loni show with Helix Better Sleep starts right now. All right. Five one two. Let's go out to Austin and talk to well, well, well, my Michelle. Hey, Michelle, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call today. You bet. What's going on? So I the question it's not the funnest situation I've ever been in. So I'll give you some background. My ex-husband and I divorced about six years ago. We got married super young, managed to be very adults about the divorce. Find friendship. We both remarried, had more kids with our partners, so on and so forth. We were at a point at one section of our co-parenting relationship where he lived far away and he would like come sleep over so he could see the kids. But about a year ago, that kind of fell apart because it came out that he was cheating with he and his wife's roommate at the time, who was also a best friend and an aunt to my kids. Obviously, that blew up. She moved out. But my kids got to witness for the last year, essentially this back and forth of, am I going to stay married? Am I going to go be with her? So on and so forth. And as much as I tried to shield them from that, I can't I can only control what goes on in my house. So are you and I not friends anymore? We're still friendly. Courageous. I don't have an issue with him so much as my 12 year old in particular is really angry at his dad and his dad is not receptive to hearing any negativity about his choices, especially in his words from a child. So I'm wondering how do I support my 12 year old in this sticky situation where he loves everybody involved, but he's 12. You know, and in this case, he's right. Yeah, yeah, agreed, which is hard. Yeah, I think there's a couple of things here. One, we're always always going to default to our kids' safety. And so if they're unsafe or volatile situation, it might be, hey, we need to. I want to do this cordially first and I'll go to court if I have to. But yeah, they need to spend more time with me right now. And we did that. OK, the second thing is, is never, ever, ever lie. Yeah. And so we're not going to defend dad. We're not going to be like, well, not really this happened. Your son's seen it and experienced it. And more importantly, for a 12 year old, he's felt it. Yeah. OK. The third thing we're never going to do is we're never going to run down dad. Your dad sucks. Your dad did this to me too. He's this kind of guy because your 12 year old son acutely knows half of him is you and half of him is that guy. And so if we run him down, we're running our 12 year old down. No, true. And so go ahead, go ahead. I was just going to say, and I listen to your show a lot. I've tried to really embody those things. I've also tried to get him in counseling and he refuses to participate. Sure. That's cool. He literally had three counselors walk him out and say he won't talk. Yeah, that's cool. Well, and that's that means they're not great therapists to go or I mean, that means they're not anyway, I can have my own complaints about that. But here's what I would say is the fourth. And for you, it sounds like you're doing a great job. Here's the big one. There's no bad feelings. OK, there's no wrong feelings. And so you can tell them I want to hear about what you're mad about. Yeah, I'd love to just hear from you. Most twelve year olds won't talk to you, especially twelve year old boys. Often, you know what they will do about that. If you give him a spiral notebook and put it on his bed and ask him to write in it and put it on your bed when he's done before he goes to school. Yeah. And as a twelve year old, when he's leaving, have you brush your teeth? Yes. Have you put on deodorant? No. Have you put the spiral on my bed? No. And what it will give you is a lifeline to what's going on inside of him. In some days, it's just like sick and in struggles with writing. So I've done kind of a voice note version. Perfect. Like you can say whatever you want and send it to me in a voice note. Or you can have five minutes and as much as I hate it, curse as much as you want to. Yeah, let it rip. And get it out of your body. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he's going to go through a season of I hate that man because that man blew up my life again. Yeah. And he's going to go through a season of and who knows? Despite all of the things on the outside, you and I both know nobody knows what's going on inside that house. Who knows what was going on with his ex with his new ex wife? Who knows any of who knows what the dynamics were? A twelve year old sees a twelve year old sees. And so what I want him to know is there's no bad feelings. There are unhelpful responses. OK. So yelling at your father is that is that work? No. OK. Yeah. Is being mad all the time. Is that helping you with your friends at school? Is that helping you feel good? No. So let's write it down here. Or I want you to write dad a letter. We're not going to send it to him. You're going to give it to me, but I want you to write your dad a letter. I'll write one too. And if we're really gangster about it, we can read it to each other. Would you write? Yeah. Right. And you can say things like I'm sad you made this choice. From where I'm sitting, it looks like you're really hurting. And it looks like you made not a good choice. And I know you to be a pretty good man. And what that will do is it will begin not to excuse any of the nonsense that he's done, but it will humanize him for your twelve year old. And you'll also be teaching him. Here's a way to see a fuller picture, which a twelve year old can't do. Their brains are developed, right? Right. But but a middle school kid shooting baskets and the high school kids come in and a couple of them start dunking. They can't do that, but they see, oh, that could be possible one day. Right. And so there's several things, but but you letting him know there are no bad feelings. OK. He's referenced a few times, wanting and he's even attempted a few times to talk to his dad. And like I said, dad's not receptive. Should should I, you know, encourage him to continue voicing his opinions if he feels like he needs to or hold that back for maybe a I don't want to call it safer because he's not in danger, but, you know, a more accepting environment. Um. I can just tell you what I do in my house. And that is I spend a lot of time with my kids saying, asking them, how does this? How did it feel after you did this? And did what did what you did next work? OK. And I like to give him context. And so there may be a time when your son did something dumb that 12 year olds do and you want to talk to him about it and he just put his head down and said, I want to talk about it, mom. Yeah. And you might tell him, hey, you know, remember when your feelings got so big inside your chest, you just didn't want to say anything to anybody? Your dad probably feels shame and probably feels embarrassment and those feelings are so huge. The thought of opening up to his son is too big for him right now. And you can tell him, I wish he would. I really wish he would. But at this point, he's not. So if we keep asking, has that worked yet? No. OK. What if we give it a little bit of time? OK. And I would tell him there is going to be a day when your dad will talk to you about it. Yeah. Yeah. And right now they're going through like the pregnancy and all that stuff. And oh, you got a pregnant? Yeah. Yeah. Girlfriend's pregnant. She moved in the same day. Wife moved out and it happened to be dad's weekend. So they got a front row seat to all that too. And that's where I would I would call dad out. That's not that I'd call both of you out. That's not good. Yeah. They shouldn't have said that. They shouldn't have. No. 100 percent agreed. I was able to because, you know, when you have court order, you have to follow it. Point. So I got dad to delay day so, you know, wife could get out. But when they went over there, girlfriend was there, all wife's stuff is gone. So, you know, it's very confronting for them. And who's this new woman I have to live with now? That's terrifying for a child. Well, and they know her. They consider her an aunt. They're someone that they've known as long as they've known stepmom. So it's it's uncomfortable, I think, for my 12 year old and my 10 year old too. It's uncomfortable for me. I'm a grown man and I'm going across the country like, yeah, he's sitting in that room would be so tense and awkward and weird. Yeah. And my my 10 year old has autism, so he's not all like socially, I guess, adept. So it's not like he can talk to his brother about it. Yeah. But he's absorbing all the tension. He is. Yeah. Yeah. And we've we've definitely experienced that. And we've taken some time and, you know, been flexible and I've directly told that like, hey, if there's drama and stuff, I'm going to come get them. Sorry. Yeah. You know, that they have phones they can call me. That's what they're for. But yeah, my big thing is like, I just want to support my son through this period of anger, but I'll tell you this way. The period of anger, the period of anger is going to last for a decade or more. Yeah. So settle in. OK. This isn't something to be solved because his anger is right. His body is working perfectly. OK. And now there's a newborn that's going to be screaming in the middle of the night while he's trying to sleep. Yeah. And there's going to be a sibling total, including all the step kids. Like, you know, my husband has a daughter and then, you know, girlfriend has kids, so 10 kids total and he's the oldest one. Yeah. It's just too much. Yeah. Right. That's a lot. He's carrying a lot on his shoulders right now. And especially as he heads into, hey, dad, can't come to your soccer game because he's got to change diapers. And that that is a 13 year old or 14 year old is not going to have context. They're just going to know I'm on my dad here and he won't come. And so now I'm mad and that's that's a right. That's a right feeling for that moment. We've had that with a few skipped weekends as well. Yeah. You know, girlfriend didn't feel good or, you know, something like that. They had something going on. So really just kind of let him have his anger and let him have his emotions but try to direct them positively. We're not even going to direct him positively. We're going to give him a safe space for him. And we're going to we're going to really pay attention to his behavior as actions. Yeah. And I will tell you not to freak you out or anything. Statistically speaking, he just got put in a different category of risk. Yeah. For so I worry about for you should be I would be high, high alert for that. OK. And so for all those kids and inside this this situation. And so we're going to pay extra attention to how much screen time I would extra extra not let him have social media or have access to the internet. He can have a phone, but I wouldn't put any put any internet on it. I would delete that off. No. Yeah, we have that. We have a phone locked down. We have a Xbox in our living room so I can literally watch him. This will be hard for you because your time with him has been cut in half and you want to spend extra direct time with him. I would go over and above seeing if he's got some friends that could come over to the house when he's with you. OK. And he's going to have to build relationships that he can begin to lean on because the big one in his life wasn't there for him. Yeah. Not only wasn't there for him, but has continually blown it up, blown up his life. He's super close to my husband, but my husband just got a job traveling all the two weekends out of the month. So it's kind of like a double whammy. You know, the wife is gone and now my husband's there and he's a call away. But that's different. He wants to talk to his dad. Yeah. He wants some nervous system regulation and the adults in his life won't give it to him. Yeah. And that's that's disorienting for a child. OK. And look for a different counselor that I take it won't walk him out after 15 minutes of silence. Yes. Like I mean, I'll keep looking. I've been trying. I started to feel like maybe I was crazy. I mean, having a teen working with teenage boys is hard. Yeah. And it's awesome. When you develop the relationship, but those relationships are take time because young boys are trained. If you show emotion, you're you're you're literally vulnerable, which means you can be killed, you can be destroyed. Right. And so boys are taught, especially in Texas, suck it up. Don't show any cracks in the facade. And so if somebody's going to walk you out in 15 minutes, you know what? All three of those therapists have reinforced in him. I'm in control. I'm running the show here. And yet another adult won't be in relationship with me. Yeah. That's what I was worried about. I'm like, OK, the hundred and fifty dollars or whatever the fee is, just sit with him for an hour. Yes, yes. We're here for this amount of time. And sometimes you sit with a struggling teenage boy and girl. And you don't talk about anything. And a good therapist will. Let's write a letter. Let's listen to music. Let's draw a picture. Let's play with these toys. The 12 year olds a little bit old for that. But let's go for a walk. Let's go like bring in two CDs that you like. Your mom told me you like this song. I'm going to put this music on in here and we can just chill if you need just a quiet place to be. But it's his presence. He knows he's driving and no 12 year old can handle the responsibility of driving the adults in their life. Right. Right. So he's getting toggled from the trunk. I got no control in my life to now I'm driving and I'm back in the trunk and I'm driving and you know what's going to I'm not telling you just to scare you. You know what's going to silence that alcohol? Yeah, it's going to silence that weed. Yeah, it'll turn that toggle, that pain of that toggle, that chaos. It'll turn it way down. Yeah. And the only way to change that chaos is through relationship with close friends, with other men in his life. If your husband is now on the road a lot, then I would be on the lookout for a coach, for a guy, for a local jujitsu gym, a local, I don't know if you're people of faith, but a local youth minister in your community that's not an idiot, but who's really good at what they do at working with young men, a couple of mentors in the world, like for your son, that will anchor them to somebody who will see him and say, I'm not scared of you. You want to talk to me? That's cool. I'll be here with you. Your presence doesn't frighten me. In action, I'm glad you're here. I'm going to listen to this tunes because I like them too. And something in ATL in your son is asking, why am I so unlikeable that all the adults in my life either leave or blow up my world? And we need to show him, not tell him, but show him through action. You don't scare me. I'm glad you're here. Your anger is right. Your frustration is right. Your grief is right. And I'm not scared of your big feelings. I'm the adult in the room. Have them all right here with me. And then we'll figure out what's the next right thing to go do out in the world. So he's lucky to have you loving him, but he's going to need some pretty direct intervention and support from you and other regulated adults and even some knuckleheaded 12 and 13 year old boys you can have over under your ship provisions. So thanks for the call. I hate hate that kids grow up in messes like this breaks my heart. We'll be right back. Hey, I want to talk to you for a second about love, not the I'll never let go kind of love. That's nonsense. 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Then they shop all the top companies to find the best price. Getting term life insurance is a way of saying, I love you, especially when you can no longer say it yourself. Go to Zander.com or call 1-800-356-4282 and get term life insurance the right way. That's Zander.com. All right, Kelly, something cool happened. What is it? Yes. So this is from Peyton in, oh, WeTumka, Alabama. I actually know where that is. So is that where your first date was? No, it's actually the, so my in-laws live in Red Hill. And if we go, which is not an incorporated town and if we want to go to the Walmart, we go to WeTumka. So I just had like a light bulb moment as to why you love murder podcasts so much because that's where you live. I don't live there. Lived. Never lived there. No, my in-laws. That's where you loved. No. You lived, laughed and loved there. Just like your tattoo. Nope. None of the above. None of the above. All right. So in Shama Lama Ding Dong, Alabama. WeTumka. Yep. Peyton from WeTumka. That sounds like a thing you get. Hey, I'll actually, Peyton, if you're listening, I'll be down there in a couple weeks. That sounds like if you eat sushi from a gas station, you get WeTumka. It's like, oh, you got WeTumka. She's got WeTumka. God, poor thing. All right. So. And I would be mad about the comments from folks from WeTumka, but they don't have internet there, so go ahead. Go ahead. Hey, Peyton, obviously. I'm playing. All right. She writes, I wanted to share something cool that happened over Christmas break. I don't have any kids of my own, but I do have eight nieces and nephews ages nine to 18. For Christmas, I gave my family questions for humans. The grandparents deck to my folks, the parents and teens decks to my sister's family and the parents and kids decks to my brother's family. That night after presents, food and festivities, we set around and use the cards to ask questions. Everyone loved it. We had so much fun laughing and telling stories. The big hit of the evening was what nicknames do you have? The next night is my mom was getting the kids ready for bed. My nine year old niece asked if there could be more questions, which they did. I think I think this may be a new tradition. Thank you for a great tool for bringing us together and helping us to celebrate. I love it. Those. Who would have thought those question for humans decks, man, they're awesome. And my kid, my daughter still grabs them when she can. She's like, dad, let's do some of these. And kids are so desperate for connection with adults and adult kids are still desperate for connection with their aging parents too. As much as we don't like to say we are and our aging parents won't connection with us too. So it's awesome. Cool. Pick them up at the link in the show notes. If you know how to work those, somebody with Tumka knows how to work the show notes. So you should know how to do it too. Love you guys. Bye.