I’m Afraid That My Husband Will Eventually Resent Me

With all of my help stuff I've had to take a more lack approach to kind of just everything in my life, my job, my finances, my marriage, I'm just wondering how do I prevent him from presenting me? There's a lot in that question right there. What's going on? This is John and I'm so glad that you're with us. Talking about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you got going on in your life, your kids, your marriages, all of it. People all over the world show up to the show, pull up a seat and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on this show, go to johndalone.com slash ask and for the millions of you who DM me, I don't answer questions on social media when it comes to individual family life situations. But I will take your call on the show and walk alongside you as you figure out what we're going to do. What you're going to do next. It's got to lead summit Missouri and talk to me. Remerry. What's up, Mary? Hi, John. How are you? Beautiful. Good. I'm okay. It's been a month. I struggle in a little bit, but I'm fine. No, you're not. And you know what? At least for the 20 minutes we're going to talk, it's okay to not be fine. I'm glad you're here. What's up? So with all of my health stuff that I've been having going on over the years, I've had to take a more lack approach to kind of just everything in my life, whether that's my job, my finances, my marriage, my household duties that I took on when we first, me and my husband first got together. And one of the things that kind of just eats away at me is I'm trying to balance all of these new changes without my husband resenting me in the future. And I'm just wondering how do I prevent him from resenting me, you know, like five years down the road? There's a lot in that question right there. Yeah, there is. So tell me about your health. What's been going on? Um, so about three years ago, I had some major health issues come up where there was no end in sight. It was just doctor appointment after doctor appointment after doctor appointment and nobody knew what was going on. I get fast forward about a year and a half. We finally figured out what was going on, but they're like, we don't know why you have this. Like it doesn't make sense. What's the diagnosis? Um, there's actually three. So the first diagnosis is LR Damlose Syndrome. Okay. And then the second one is HOTS and then the third one is endometriosis. You're in a lot of pain pretty regularly, huh? Yeah. I kind of over the years, I was a very active person, um, big into dancing and things like that. I've ended up not being able to do dancing anymore. Me and my husband did ballroom dancing for years. And now I can't do that. I can't really go on hikes. In fact, like my doctor is ordering me a walker and I've had used like meal, chris and stuff. So I've completely lost a lot of my mobility. What is the prognosis look like? Is this degenerative or is there a treatment plan that you can be a part of? It's genetic, so it's progressive. Okay. So, um, basically my connective tissues in my joints are just superlacks. Um, the collagen is not formed correctly in the joints and pretty much anywhere in my body. So it causes a bunch of health problems, but the big issue is my joints are just not stabilized. So I have a lot of falls. And with each dislocation, it just gets worse. Sure. Yeah. I hate this for you. Yeah, it's been hard. Yeah. It's not been hard. It's been like reorienting, right? It's like control, all delete on the person that you used to be. Yeah. Um, sorry. No, you're okay. It's one of those things that I, you know, I listened to your show pretty frequently. And you always talk about like how you have to kind of like grieve the loss of things. Like whenever you have a baby, you have to grieve your old marriage, you have to grieve everything. I find that I struggle. I'm struggling like with grieving the loss of my old life because I won't be able to get what I had back. I can do physical therapy and try like experimental surgeries and stuff, but that's not going to fix the problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's tough when grief is like a slow moving train, right? There's not a period at the end of the loss. It's like a, like a slow drip loss, right? And I guess it's, it's almost, I don't know because I've never been in your shoes from the outside. If somebody had done this to you, at least you have somewhere external to point at. And it's got to be even further disorienting, dealing with the reality of the loss of the things you used to be able to do. And in many ways, the person quote unquote that you were when the enemy is your own body, right? I can't. It's very disorienting to fail. It's like you're daily, but being betrayed by the one thing you're supposed to count on, which is your body, right? Do you have kids? We want to have kids, but with everything going on, we've had to put kids on the back burner for the last three or four years. Yeah. Are you even able to have kids at this point with pots and in intubitriosis? We are actually going to be having some experiment, not experimental, but like exploratory surgeries to see in December. Just how tough stuff is? I'm sorry, what? Just to see how, what the damage is internally, right? Yeah, pretty much. The endometriosis, we don't really know how, like how bad it is. On basis. They know like the MRI showing that I most likely have endometriosis in quite a bit of different locations, but until they do that exploratory surgery, they don't really know for certain. But it's like, yeah, you have all the symptoms. You have the whole little criteria list and your MRI showing it. So tell me about this guy you married. He is fantastic. I'm honestly, I'm so lucky because he always puts me in front of everything that he does. And he's very goal oriented, which is nice because during this time, like it was really hard to kind of see the light at the end of the tunnel. And he is not really, like I wouldn't say that he's optimistic, but he's like very like, okay, well, you know, we don't know yet if this is going to be causing infertility. We don't know yet if you're going to end up having to have this replacement, that replacement, if you're going to have to have this joint surgery. So he kind of keeps me sane when my head just goes towards like catastrophe, which is very lovely. Yeah. It's almost sometimes even better than optimistic is realistic. Yes. Yes, he's very realistic. That's a good word. Maybe even different than realistic, he's very present. Like this is what we know today. We might have things to be said about tomorrow, but let's be here today. Yes. Yes, that's a very good way to describe him. But he also is, you know, he's kind of like me where sometimes when things get to be too much, he can spiral. Sure. And so then we're kind of spiraling together. Yeah. And he unfortunately, because of my health, he's had to take over like a lot of like cleaning the house that used to be something that I did. And then he has to like work more hours because, you know, we, we max out our health insurance if he'd never done that before. So he has to make up like the money that, you know, I'm losing by not being at work because I have to take a lot of work off with my health and everything. Like it, I think everything just piles up. I don't want him to resent marrying me. If that makes sense, like I know that's not not at all. Doesn't sound, doesn't sound silly at all. In honor of your husband, let me ask you this question. Like what evidence do you have that he's heading towards resentment? I don't have any for him, but I grew up in a very tumultuous household. And like if like all the, all the men that I had in my life when I was growing up, like my dad, especially if something went wrong, he would just leave. And so like it's not that I think that he's going to be a good man. He's going to leave. I feel like it's a little child brain in Madison from when she was a kid. That's what she seemed like all these morning signs are popping up. And I don't know how to handle it. And I feel guilty because I feel like I'm going to be pushing him away from me when I need him with me. So I would even transfer like it's not even little girl. It was a revelation to me that adult romantic relationships simply reuse the, the, I'm trying to say this in a not dorky way. It uses the same roadmap that was established when you were a kid. And so if you have a like with your, with your parents, your mom and your dad, however that relationship was formed, the, the highways that were developed in your head that was that relationship, your brain doesn't make new ones with your husband. It just reuses those roads. And so if you have exits built into that highway system because dad would just bail on you, then it's not just an inner child. It's a grown up with real fears baked into your nervous system, right? Mm hmm. And I'm telling you that just so you know, you're not crazy. And that doesn't make him bad. And it doesn't make him like your dad. But it just, I know he's not my dad. Well, I know, but, but I don't want you because here's where it happens. You start to feel a certain way in your body. Oh, this guy's going to do it too. And then you feel guilty that you had that thought about this guy. And so you pull away a little bit or you overcompensate a little bit, right? And then weirdly, you create an environment that makes it hard for him to get to you. And then it's how patterns recreate themselves. And then he begins to feel not that I don't have the honor of a lifetime to take care of a hurting wife, but that I can't get to her. She keeps bailing on me. Or when I get close, she's electric. She comes at me. You get what I'm saying? I do. And so some of this is dropping your shoulders and saying, the way I feel is exactly right because my body's run this script before. I feel that. And then I'm going to consciously go through on a minute by minute, sometimes, hour by hour, sometimes, day by day. Is this true now? And for you, it's not. And so I think the scariest part, the scariest thing for me you can do in this relationship at this moment is to have any sort of secrets between the two of you. Is when you're feeling that you don't have an opportunity that the closeness you're going to have is you putting stuff on the table and honoring him enough to let him respond to it. And giving him permission to be super frustrated. That's okay too. That's right also. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I get what you're saying. And I know you don't want him to be frustrated. You don't want him to be sad. That his crazy, fun, super sexy, dancing, hiking life is here. He gets to be frustrated there. I would think something's wrong with him if he wasn't like, and does he get up and feel that and then go do the next right thing, which is to lean back in towards loving you recklessly. And that in and of itself is amazing. It's when either of you get hung up on the, I shouldn't have felt this way. Now you should. And are we going to go do the next right thing? And so the scary thing for you is, and I'll just put this in the ether. And here's my hope for saying this out loud. Is it frees you? Okay, it could immobilize you. No pun intended. My best, my best oldest friend on the planet is in a wheelchair. So I'm just trying to have some fun here. Is this right? You can do nothing to prevent him from deciding he's going to resent you. Which stinks. Hi. And so I know my hope is that frees you. Because if you start right now trying to quote, unquote, prove that you're still worthy of being his wife and worthy of having his love, then that fundamentally alters your marriage way deeper than I don't dance anymore. I don't hike anymore. Do you know what I'm saying? The challenge for you is to show up and say, I'm still got, I still have both feet in this boat. Until you show me behaviors of language. Until you show me that you're not all into, I'm all in. Okay. And on those days I get scared like I'm too much, I'm afraid you're just going to walk out and leave. I'm not going to hold that inside. We're going to have a weekly meeting just to see like how are we doing? We still love each other, right? We're even even deeper than that. We still like each other. And then that becomes you. Okay. These things are off the table now. I can't do these things. I physically can't do these things. And you hear me on my show a lot. I'm always telling people like, no, you can. You can go not be angry or not screaming. Yeah, I'll let you. You can't do this. You can't, right? You can't go hiking. Yeah. And so that's off the table. Then you look across the table with this guy and say, how can I love you right now? And in this new bounded context we have, what does love look like? And let him speak to it. I can tell you as a husband who's had to take care of a wife who's had medical complications over the years. It's my single greatest honor in my life. More so than having kids. Be honest, honest with me. Do you think he's going to leave? No. Okay. Are you almost more worried that he's, yeah, do you almost, are you almost more worried he's going to stay? No, I want him to stay. I know you wanted to stay, but are you almost more worried that he's going to stay and just resign himself to sadness and resentment? I think he would if he was sad and resentful. He would stay anyway. Okay. But that's because I know that he loves me more than anything. Yeah. But I don't want him to get to that point either. Okay. The challenge for you is you can't stop him from feeling how he's going to feel. The thing you can do is keep both feet in your boat and set up a daily, if not weekly, especially weekly, especially monthly. Do we have a practice where we put everything on the table? This week was a good week. Let's celebrate that together. This week was a good week for me. Not a good week for me. Let's celebrate that together. Okay. He's going to maybe need to go hiking with his buddies. Because that's who he is. He's an outdoors goofball, right? Just like me. And that means you're going to have to say the best way I can love you today is to tell you, go get your friends and y'all go hiking. And when he walks out that door, you get to be sad and weep. Not at him. But for you, because that stinks, man. And when he comes back in, you can choose to take that frustration and angst up and stuck inside all day and dump it on him. Oh, it must be nice. Or you can say, dude, I'm so happy you got to get out of here. That's the part of this you get to manage. I definitely need to work on that. Right? And I don't want you to ever feel sad. I told the guy recently, we were walking through a park in lot after a show late at night. And I looked at him and I said, hey, he's a friend of mine. I said, hey, there are no bad feelings here. He's going through a tough time with his spouse. So there's no bad feelings. You're allowed to have him. You're allowed to feel helpless. You're allowed to feel frustrated. You're allowed to feel angry. You're allowed to be pissed off. All those things are right and good. What matters in those moments is what's your next right move? What's your next right action? Thank you for the call. I'll be here all the way through. If you want us to call me, tell me. I love to talk to him. You're both a pretty special. We come back. A woman asks how to talk to her daughter about her weight without hurting their relationship. All right, I've got three dogs. And me and my wife and my kids, we love our dogs. And when they're not okay, nobody in our house is okay. Everything gets thrown off when a pet gets sick. And we can't find the help that we need. And this is why I love Dutch. Dutch is the leading pet telehealth service. Gives you 24-7 access to licensed veterinarians anytime, anywhere on the road, at home, wherever you happen to find yourself. There's no waiting rooms. There's no, oh yeah, we can see you in three weeks. Just real help for your pet fast. 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That's the lowest price they've ever, ever offered and is only for my audience. Go to shopbeambaam.com slash Deloney and use code Deloney and start sleeping better tonight. All right, let's go out to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and talk to Jill. What's up, Jill? Not much. So I was just get started. So I have a beautiful, amazing 14-year-old daughter who from the time she was little was always been average to slim and then she hit puberty and wasn't anymore. I get it. So the further past three years, I've just tried to lovingly support her but I can just feel it every time I try, it doesn't go very well. I don't feel like so I backed off and I just don't want. I feel like in 10 years from now, she's either going to say, you know, how can you didn't help me more or you helped me too much and now I have any news in the shorter and I just don't know how to how to help her. So how old is she? She's 14 now so she's gained a lot of weight all of the sudden. Yeah, I would say the last three years, yeah, she hit puberty and just went from being slim and she just gained weight and quickly like stretch marks and I would like ask, like, you know, does it bother you? Do you want help? No, no. And I just can't believe that's true. I feel like she already struggles with like self-worth stuff and I got in top like schools of struggle making friends is struggling like and then this on top of it and I just I don't want to push too hard. I don't want to not help. I don't because I know she's beautiful but I just want her to feel like that. What makes you feel like she doesn't think she is other than you pointing out specific things. I just feel like she's always down on herself. She's just always kind of had that glass half empty and I don't feel like she feels confident and she'll she'll make comments. I don't like the way I look in this. I don't like so I know that that and I always tell her she's beautiful but I just don't know how to make her feel it. Well, hey, you can't make her feel anything. That's better. You can root yourself so deep into your own self-securedness that she feels loved. Okay. And seen and known. But if kids grow up real fast sometimes like they shoot up like at different paces and kids get stretch marks and I grew what seven inches and seventh grade I still have that. Like it's a part of my life. Right. I can tell you if my mom or my dad had been like, whoa, does that bother you? That would have been when it started bothering me. You hear what I'm saying? Yes. But she would make comments. I can she does make comments. She's like, I hate these stretch marks. So I try to just like, do you want help with your way? Because I know like and it maybe comes from me. Like I listen, like my sister's really struggled with the way my parents helped them. I didn't personally struggle a lot. I could have always had to watch what I eat and whatever. But and I want that because but let me ask that. I don't want to ruin my or what do you have a house where everybody's been on a diet for a long time? No. Okay. So I write wrong or indifferent when a teenager, especially a young teenager and especially a young girl teenager, put something on the table like. I don't like ex about me. I don't like I got too big of a forehead or I don't like my skin or my hair is too stringy or whatever. Okay. A, if you lie to them, they know it and they lose your trust. And so if you have a kid with a ginormous forehead and you go, no, you don't, no, you don't, they are the meta there is. I can't trust that person. Okay. And the second thing piece of this that I always hang on to tightly is those are questions of do you still love me? Not can you fix this? Do you know what I'm saying? Okay. So if your daughter comes in and says, I've got these stretch marks and I hate them, you can say, yeah, do you want to help with that? Or get over here. Let me hug you. Okay. Yeah. And if she asks, I wish there was something we could do. Maybe the question is, as you get older and your body settles into itself, I'm always here for you. Yeah. Or maybe you say, look, have you seen my toes? They've driven me crazy since I was a kid, right? Because they're my, my third and fourth tour webbed or I'm making something up here. But, right. But what you what we're doing here is we are entering into, I'm with you, not because you have a thing wrong with you. And I could see that it's wrong and man, I've got some money right now. I can fix it for you. And more, the question that's being asked really is, do you still love me? And have you felt this too? Okay. So like when she does, like so she's kind of mean, you know, after a while, it's like, okay, I do want to help. I kind of like try to like, hey, let's be more active. Like what can you do after school or whatever. And then she just kind of doesn't do those things anymore. And I'm like, okay, should I make her? Should I push it? Or just... I would ask the question to my 13 year old or 14 year old. Tell me what help looks like. Okay. Teach me about the help that you would like. And you allow them to begin to unpack. Or actually the help I need is just more hugs. Okay. Yeah. Or actually the help I need is, will you still tell me I'm beautiful when I don't think I am? And I think for fixers like you, like me, we jump to, all right, here's a nutrition plan, and here's a, here's a whatever. Right. That's what I want to do. But it doesn't seem like maybe that's what she wants. Well, and let me ask you this, you've probably heard this saying, Morris caught and taught, what does healthy living look like with you and your, and you're, are you married? Yes. Okay. What does healthy living look like with you and your spouse? So both of us, like my husband and avid, like he works out every morning, he's very disciplined in that way. Mine looks a little different. Mine's more physical therapy because I don't walk well. I've got my own, but we do, and like we always have healthy options, have good meals. But we enjoy stuff too. Like I would say it's pretty average. Okay. Is there any part of your husband's crushing and killing it, disciplined that rubs off on her as failure? He, like he does bring it up a lot, not to her, but like in his own, like, oh, I shouldn't have eaten that or oh, I need to do better. And we'll just, just know that kids metabolize those type of sentiments and their feelings are bigger roller coasters and their emotions at that age are so amplified. Yeah. That, yeah, it gets, it can get internalized in a really profound way. And I'm not even trying to shame your husband. He's probably trying to help. Yes. And I really think he is. Well, I will tell you as somebody who's struggled with just sort of eating most of my life, I'm super grateful for when I would say things like, I look fat in the shirt, that my wife at an early, if my kids early age would say, stop, hey, that's not true. And B, if that's how you really feel, keep that to yourself right now. Okay. Yeah. Because I don't want a 13 year old, their default setting to am I fat in this shirt. Right. So we can make those comments, we just need to keep them with ourselves and not in front of her or her brothers. Well, even deeper than that, if there is a belief that those are true, that air is what your home will breathe. Yeah. And so if your husband genuinely thinks I should not have eaten that, because he got up and worked that works out every day and he mostly eats a healthy food all the time and then he had a piece of cheesecake. In his first response as I shouldn't have eaten that, then he's got challenges he needs to deal with. Yeah. Because that's actually not true. Right. I've had ice cream with some of the fittest people on the planet. Right. Yeah. So that in and of itself tells me there's the air that's being breathed in that house. Now, that doesn't change the fact that you're watching a 13 year old girl whose body is changing so fast, so quick, both internally and externally. And you know this from your childhood, especially girls bodies change in really remarkable wild ways, she could just as easily grow three more inches and suddenly transform again, right? Yeah. Maybe not, but that's all that could happen. I'm way more concerned about A, the actions and behaviors and words of the adults in the house. B, that my kid knows they are anchored in love, period. And I'm not going to put my concerns, my personal issues with myself, with my body, with my mind, with my discipline, my actions. I'm not going to dump it on my child. I'm going to live it out and you get the difference? Yeah. Yep. And so if you look and see my goodness, if I had those stretched marks, I would be truly super embarrassed about it. A, that doesn't make you crazy or a bad mom. Right. Right. That doesn't make you somehow dysfunctional. And B, that's not something you pass along to a 13 year old girl. Okay. Right. And so the question I have for you is what does repair look like now? If there are things that you go, oh god, I wish I didn't have said it like that. I would, I didn't mean it that way. I was trying to be helpful and I tried to fix something and really what she was asking is do you still love like right? Yeah. If you could think of a few things, I would take your daughter out to breakfast, take your daughter out for a walk and say, I'm trying, I'm trying to love you in real time and I've messed up a few things. And so can I have a control all delete on this? What are you talking about mom? Okay. And be like, I need you to understand from the depths of my being. And by the way, if you can put your hands on both side of her face and stare directly into her spirit through her. Your eyes. Okay. And say you are the beautiful woman, you're turning into a beautiful woman and I think you're stunning. And when you are uncomfortable, I love you so much I get uncomfortable. And I need you to know that I love you to the moon and back. And so does your dad. And we both say dumb things sometimes because we have our own insecurities. And if you ever want to know about them, I'm happy to tell you. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. And then say, I will help you. I'll walk alongside you. I will love you. The any way you need me to show up for you, I will. But I'm going to default to what I know to be true, which is you are beautiful and you are 13 and your body's gone haywire. Right. Has she started a period yet? Oh yeah, a couple of years ago. Okay. How did that conversation go with you too? Good. We've always been very open. And I had it in her backpacks. She had like a little zipper thing. I said, when this comes, you know, if it happens at school, call me or you have the stuff to take care of it. Yeah. Perfect. And so that's a great, like you can say, like, hey, remember we talked about this? And remember we talked about those things. We talked about this thing. And the first time we had to go brush, I think like all those things. Right. Let this be another one of those developmental conversations, which is you need to know. Okay. I've got your back. I've got your, I am the foundation with which you can anchor into. And then maybe she's 13 so that she's old enough to say, my parents messed this up with Aunt Judy and Aunt Susan. And they still are complaining about it to this day. I don't want, I don't want to, that's not going to come between us. So just talking about, I guess I've just been scared to like, so I just made like little comments and I've been just scared of it. And I just need to just say it. Okay. I mean, you just hit it right on the head because teenagers especially, little kids especially and teenagers, especially especially. They enter into my saced into my love and my still okay. In little, rarely in these big blowups, it's usually little, like the, like the gotmins in in in terms of marriage, we'll call them bids. Little tiny bids for my still okay here, my still okay here. And so I hate these stretch marks mom. Ugh. I hate that you are frustrated with parts of your body. I've been there too. It's the worst. Come give me a hug. And then the next question if it is more than likely, she'll just drop her head in the middle of your chest and you can hold her. But if she says, ugh, I wish there was something we could do, you can say, well right now I'm a hug you because I think you're beautiful. And then later on when the emotion of that moment has distilled, when you're tucking her in at night, you'll have a coffee together because starting now, y'all are going to start having coffee once a week or breakfast once a week. Yeah. And then you're going to say, hey you said is there something you can do? I want you to tell me about that. And then if she says, my goodness, I wish there was a surgery, I wish there was a thing. You could tell her, hey you're going to grow up and you're going to keep growing and these stuff will fade over time. There's parts of my body. I wish I could walk. You know, you can be really vulnerable with her. Yeah. And then give her a lifeline. When you're 18, and your body's kind of settling into itself, maybe. But right now you're an amazing 13 year old girl and it just stinks that it's awkward for us. Right. Right. Okay. All of that is telling her one major thing, which is I'm right here in this mess with you. And I love you. And there's not a thing you can do where I won't love you and think you're beautiful. And yes, I, I have parts of me that I'm not super happy with either. All of us are like that. All of us are like that. And also, I'm not going to lie. Be like, I don't see those stretch marks at all. I don't see them because that's not true. You do. And I'm not going to also make a face and be like, look, right. I can do that. So it's anchoring all the way back. And then yeah, have a hard conversation with your husband. I am grateful eternally that my wife had that conversation with me multiple times because I was taking my challenges with who I saw in the mirror and I was handing them to my kids and say, hey, y'all carry this too. And that God help them. That's not their job. It's not their job. And I'll tell you, there's been seasons when my son will look a little pudge here and then he grows seven inches the next two weeks, right. And so those concerns I had with kid number one, I'm not going to have those with kid number two because their bodies are just changing so quick. And their emotions, all of it. But I just want to say this, thank you for loving your daughter. I want to get this one right. It says a lot about you as a parent. That's awesome. This is a time for connection and vulnerability, not for the right weight loss program. And when a kid comes to a teenager, come soon, says, can you help me with X? The next question should always be, talk to me about what help looks like. Like, when you say the word help, what does that mean? And let them answer that. Let them give you some clues as to what they want to work out plan or they want a nutrition plan. They want mom to sit by them on the couch and remind them I still love you. They want dad to come in and just be like, my goodness, 13 year old daughter, you're so beautiful. I can hardly stand it. Ugh, so glad I'm not 13 anymore. Thank you for the call, Jill. You're amazing. When we come back, a woman asks how to tell her mother, she's no longer comfortable with moving her in. All right, those of you watching are listening to the show right now probably fall into one of two camps. First, you've never used a home security system. Maybe you've thought about it, but it's too expensive. You think you need a degree in IT to work it or you don't want to strange your drilling holes in your walls. I get it. Or second, you've had a security system, but you're tired of long-term contracts having to buy a bunch of nonsense that you don't want or need and your sick of big monthly bills. Cove is for both of you. Cove is smart, affordable home security that you can trust, whether you're a stay-at-home mom with kids or a business traveler who wants to check in on the house while you're 500 miles away. Set up with Cove is totally DIY and it's way quicker than you would think. And listen, Cove is the only system that streams a live video right to the panel in your home, so you can see who's at the door without even looking at your phone. That kind of clarity gives you real peace of mind. If you're at first time home buyer, a renter, or a comparison shopper who wants more value and fewer headaches, Cove is for you. Go to CoveSmart.com and use CoveDeloney and save up to 80% off your first order. Protect your home and the people you love with better home security. That's CoveCOVE. CoveSmart.com and use CoveDeloney. All right, let's roll out to Baltimore, Maryland and talk to Elaine. Hey, Elaine, what's up? Hi, Dr. Dunn. How are you? Hi. I'm doing pretty good. Excellent. What's up? Well, I was hoping you could help me to figure out how I can tell my mother that I no longer feel comfortable moving her into my home after some recent events revealed a major misalignment of what I consider some pretty core values. Oh, tell me, why was she going to move in? Well, my mom is financially unstable. She has, she lived with her mother for a long time up until my grandmother passed away. And my mom has been able to kind of live on her own for a few years through her employment and through other means that she's able, but she has lost her job and has some physical problems where she's not able to work full time anymore and she just doesn't bring in enough to live on her own. And I have told her for years that, you know, she'll never be without a home that as long as I have a home, she'll have a home. And now I'm feeling conflicted in that. And I was hoping you could help me. Yeah, what what happened that you just flipped that switch and you're like, no, that's not going to happen. Well, I have a young adult niece, my mother's grandmother or my, excuse me, my mother's granddaughter, who she, she, that hurt was due to have her second abortion. And this came to light. My mom called me when I was in the road and mentioned that she was going to be taking my niece that afternoon to have her second abortion. And I was shocked and I mean, I knew that this had happened before. And when it did happen, I prayed on it and I promised myself that I would say something that I would try, that I would reach out to my niece and do whatever I could to try to convince her otherwise and to explore support and some other avenues to save her baby. And when my mom failed to reach out to any of the people that love my niece and that who could potentially support or help her when she just decided to go ahead and take her to do that. Um, I, goodness, I mean, I remember my mother holding my babies and I just, I can't, it's like, it just can't be the same person. And so I'm just feeling so conflicted. And I, I did speak to my mother since writing you. And tell me how that went. Um, yeah, it didn't go great. I feel like my mom isn't willing to pretty much say anything, just to kind of have peace back between us. I know that I'm a lifeline for her. Um, and I, I love my mom. I love being with her. I want my children to have a relationship with her. But this makes it feel almost unsafe. Like if she had taken my daughter without getting exploring every avenue to help her to help save her great-grandchild. I, and um, she just, she kind of stands on, she's doubling down. Like it's, she says it's not her place. It wasn't her place to, that it's my niece's decision. And I agree it's her choice. Um, but my mom feels it wasn't her place to reach out beyond. I don't know. To anyone, it seems, and then it just feels like, you know, weren't it? Yeah, I mean, this is one of those, um, I think this is the reason or one of the reasons why this is such a flashpoint issue, which is you have people on one side of the building saying, hey, I cannot participate in the death of a child. And then you have somebody on the other side saying, um, in this purse, in this adult, your niece and her moment of need, I'm not going to leave her stranded. I will, I will be here with you. And in your mind, you go to, I have a picture of my mother holding my kid. And your mother may also have pictures of herself standing so alone in certain scary moments of her life. And so it's, you end up having a war, but two people are holding different pictures in their mind. That's what makes us so complex. It's so black and white on either side. Yeah. All right. And so the question, I think for you is, you may be having a conversation about this unborn child. And your grandmother, I mean, your mom is having a conversation about her own terrified scared to death, 22 year old self. Yeah. Right. And you'll just look into the exact same issue from different, different places. The question you have to answer is, there is, what I thought you were going to say is, you found out your mom has like a major drug addiction or something. Like there's an ongoing behavior in presence that I cannot have in my house for the safety of me and my kids. This sounds like, and I don't want to distill it so much, but a punishment. You did this thing, and that disqualifies you from this thing I was going to give you. And here's the deal. You can 100% do it because it's your house. And if there's a secondary issue here, or maybe it's the first tier issue, which is, I can't put you in proximity to my kid because you have proven to me that if one of my kids comes to you, you will default to them and not to their support network. That's a legitimate concern. Just happened right in front of you. Yeah. But it's getting to the deeper thing, which is, I don't want her here because she did this thing, and I can't forgive her for it. Or in your mind, I can't reward you with the room in my home for it. If that's the case, own that fully. Or if it is, you have said a precedent now, let's take abortion off the table because it's such a third-real topic. She bought beer for other teenagers somewhere, and she can't figure out that it's wrong. She just wants them to have a good time. And you're like, Mom, I can't bring you into this house. I've got teenagers here. Yeah. That was her way of thinking growing up. I don't have to do it here than somewhere else. There you go. And so you're looking at the same problem from two totally different issues. It's why we're having so much division culturally right now. It's because at some point, one person or the other has to go around the issue and sit with the person next to them. And either say, I can't be in your life because you did this thing. You crossed a line that you can't uncross. Yeah. Or... I definitely want to be in her life and want us to be part of our lives. I just don't... I feel hesitation in welcoming her into my home. We... When you say that... When you say that, is it? I can't welcome somebody who has pro-choice into my house. I can't... I can't invite somebody who would... when a child... when a young adult... I don't know how this... this... this... your niece says, but when a young adult is reaching out for help that doesn't bring in everybody and just tries to solve it on her own. Like, what's the... what's the... I can't bring that into my house. What is the... that? Be specific. That for me is her unwillingness to seek support, to seek the people support. And when I'd mentioned that in our telephone call, she said, well, what were you going to do? You weren't going to help her. And that for me was heartbreaking because it's like... I feel like she doesn't even know me. Of course, I would help her. I would reach out. I would do internet searches and find, and her... And she says that, you know, my niece is in a bad financial way. She does not take good care of herself. And that she wouldn't be able to support a pregnancy. I challenge that. I think that she would be able to... I know that it would be hard, but I think that... you know, I'm trying to think about her in the future and like her child and adoption and an open adoption. But, you know, and it's... it comes down to it. I just feel like it's not my place to say, but at the same time, like, if it were my daughter, like, that's... that's our lineage. That's our family. And like, it goes against... it goes against what I feel is inherent in us to protect our family. Okay, so go... go and layer deeper. Can we go one layer deeper beneath this? How many times over the course of the last 30 years has your mom completely blown you off? Can you tell me what you mean by completely blowing me off, like, just disregarded my feelings or... I'm trying to think of a... no, let me say it like this. This woman who is your mom now, you've been struggling with your relationship with her since you were little fair. Me. Okay, and you've made a whole bunch of really clear decisions over the years to not be like that. Fair? Yes. And now, are you married? Yes. Okay, you have a good marriage? I do. Okay, you worked your butt off for that good marriage. Because you didn't have a picture of what one even looked like. Fair. That is true. Okay, you have made choice A, choice B, choice C, all the way to choice Z. And your life is bearing the fruit of that. You have a good marriage. You got to... You're not worried about where your next meal is going to come from. If one of y'all were to get laid off, y'all would be okay because you got each other. You have a relationship with your daughter that you dreamed of having with your mom. Fair? I'm trying. Yes. Okay. And so pretend you are a car mechanic for 25 years and everyone in the community came to you for car care. And then you got your mom over here that's like, I ain't going to you. You just got to lecture me about the brakes. That's devastating. Because the fruit of how hard you have worked is right there and your neighbors eat from that tree and your kids eat from that tree and your own frickin' mom will. And now we have this huge, huge issue that goes against your core who you are. We take care of the kids in our line. And she's like, nah, I'm going to take my car somewhere else. But she wants the parking mic around. That's exactly right. And you've told her for the last 20 years you always have a garage to park it. Yes. I've had that picture in my mind of my mom. I've made room for that picture in my mom and my home and like us helping each other. I know, but in that picture, that picture was 2D. It wasn't 3D. And when you painted the picture, you left out the part. I feel like to make it work, I will have to ignore this part of myself. There you go. And my husband is very supportive. He's, you know, this is what we do for family. You know, we promise early on that we would take care of our parents, that we would not put them away, that we would not, you know, that we would do everything we could to make sure our parents were safe and comfortable and well cared for. Point blank. And I feel like I'm going against that. And so I have to compartmentalize this, this, I don't know. And so anytime I forget stuck in an either or position, I always force myself to back up. I have to take this job or not take this job. I have to move here or I have to not ever move again, right? Anytime I back myself into a corner like that of an either or, I force myself through an exercise of putting at least 3 to 5 other variables on the table. And they might be nuts. But at least force myself and what that exercise proves to me is, I'm not backed into an either or. And so here's what some of those might be for you. Okay. We can get you a one bedroom apartment and we're going to do that for 24 months. But you can't be here. We are going to cover your health insurance, but you can't come here. You can come here and if this particular X, Y, Z happens in my house, then you are choosing as an adult to leave my home. So I'm going to bring you here, but I have to fully be myself in this house. I forget the abortion issue. I don't think like talking to you now, I think her moving in makes you brings you all the way back to 12-year-old you. I've always been a peacekeeper in the house. That's right. I've witnessed a lot with my siblings and that more so their struggles with my mom. I've always just kind of like gone along to get along. And nothing ever seemed like important enough to really rail against her. This however just feels so much heavier than anything else. And I can't, I promise myself I wouldn't be silent. Okay. And you have to ask yourself, what is being silent here mean? Because you're at a crossroads with core values. I have a core value that I will always take care of my mom no matter what. Yeah. And I have another core value which is, if a child is in distress, we bring in everybody to help. I have another core value which is, I'm adamantly pro-life. Especially when it comes to my family. And so these are all crashing together. Yes. And so I guess I want you to hear me say that for a peacekeeper you're not going to have quote-unquote peace, especially initially in any decision you make moving forward. Right. Yeah. So make peace with the fact that there's not going to be peace moving forward here. Right. Right. Right. Right. And so you have to choose your heart here. I think if I was in your same situation, I would be honest about, and I intentionally, nobody knows where I stand on a lot of these quote-unquote issues because I care a lot about the hurting person in front of me. So I'm not making an issue statement. I'm saying if there was some things in my life that violated core core values, I'm going to be honest. What I hear the deepest fear is, this big flashpoint thing. With taking care of your niece, reignited in you, I'm about to bring this woman into my home and she's going to have direct access to her granddaughter, my daughter, and I can't get her access to another child again because I've worked too hard. I've seen too much of the damage this woman leaves in young people with my sister who refuses to talk to her, my other sibling who is in and out of jail. And so this is a moment where the fantasy, that 2D picture you had created, you had painted for yourself, which is one big happy family. It proved, yet again, this isn't one big happy family. And then we got to grieve like a bloody hell that picture that we painted because it's not true, it's not real. And now we got to paint another one. And that's where dumping these things out on the table and somebody who's awesome, whether it's a couple of good girlfriends or your husband, can hold it with you while you just kind of, it's like, I'm dumping out of puzzle pieces and you're kind of separating them into the ends and to the middles and the picture of the giraffe and the picture of the lion, you're separating these pieces out and that's you just kind of sifting through your values. Who are we as a house going to be? And we are somebody who fill in the blank. And that sounds to me like you might be somebody who's going to spring for half of a one-bedroom apartment or someone who's going to spring for a one-bedroom apartment for this many months. I can't have you run my daughter. I'm not going to put her through what I've spent 25 or 30 years healing from. And it's still right in front of me. I just saw it happen with something else. Or you say one of my values is, I can be deeply disgusted by somebody and they can still pull up to my seat at my table. That's when your value's cool, knock your lights out. But I want you to own the depth of it and understand there's not going to be just a lot of, when you come up with this quote-unquote next-right move, the next right move is often very painful. The next right move is often uncomfortable. And that's what I see in your future here. Values are tough, especially when those we love and have promised ourselves we take care of, crash up against them. It's the messiness. But congratulations on changing your family tree. It's pretty impressive what you've pulled off and what you continue to do. Seek to be whole, moving forward for you, for your husband, for your daughter, and for your mom. We'll be right back. This time of year, everybody's talking about getting more organized, with less clutter, less stress, and why are we doing this? Because we want more peace. And here's one area I want you to focus on this year, your digital footprint. And that's why I recommend delete me. Every time you fill out a quick form, grab a discount, or sign up for something quote-unquote free online, your personal information, things like your name, your email, your phone number, and your address, all that gets collected, sold, and shared behind your back by data brokers. Over time, this turns on the fire hose of spam calls, weird text, and scam emails. Delete me's team of privacy experts finds your personal information and it gets it taken down. And they keep it gone. It's like setting healthy boundaries for your digital life. Because protecting your privacy is part of protecting your peace. This year, start fresh, get organized with fewer distractions, and find peace. Go to joindeleteme.com slash Deloney for 20% off an annual plan. That's join J-O-I-N. Joindeleteme.com slash Deloney, and start protecting your peace this year. All right, Kelly, I'm I the problem. Go for it. Again, yes. Disagree. Answer this question a lot. Go ahead. All right, so this is from Rosanne in Somerset, Pennsylvania, and she writes, I've been married 37 years. Recently, my husband's brother has been dating a woman that my husband had a one-night hookup with before we were married. So we're talking. Yeah. Like almost 40 years ago, they had a hookup. Yes. It's still awkward her showing up after all these years, and now my family events are not comfortable. We have not attended any of them since they started dating. Everyone says it's in the past, but it's not quite in the past when it's back in your face. I feel this is disrespectful as his spouse for me to have to be in the same room. My husband feels the same as well, same way as well, but he's still not sure that I'm being reasonable. Everyone else sees this as no problem. So am I the problem? Oh, man, I have a knee jerk with reaction, but you go first. What do you think? It's been 40 years. Yes, you're the problem. Let it go. Yeah. I mean, at this point, we just laugh about it and move on. Don't hold it back anymore. Yeah. Let it go. We're done. I mean, it was a one-night stand. She says one night hookup. 40 years ago. Let it move on. He's been with you for 40 years. You won. You won. You got him. Now, to me, this is different. If he had an affair with her 10 years ago, and well, they were married, that's a different discussion, but it's not. They had a one-night hookup 40 years ago. 40. I mean, do we all want to be, you know, I mean, I don't want to be held accountable for what I did 20 years ago, you know, or 30 years ago, or whatever, because we're different people and we make mistakes, or even if it wasn't a mistake, it was 40 years ago before they were married. Yeah. You got to just exhale on this one. Just exhale on this one. Let it ride. Roll your eyes. You won. You won. You got him. 40 years. You got him. And maybe they need to just get it out the open. Let's all make the joke. Say the funny thing. You know, let's call it out. Dude, I've tried to, uh, 40 years. It's time. You were 50 at that age and I hate you. Yeah. 40 years. Like, yeah, let it, let it ride. Let it ride. If you, if you, if you, there's not even any ifs, let it ride. Go on about your life. You're hanging on to stuff. You're, you're picking up 40-year-old bricks and choosing to carry them in your present day. You won. You got the guy. Just roll your eyes and when you make eye contact with your brother-in-laws new girlfriend, you can just wink at them and be like, I got them. Ha.