Lee

It's actually Lee, but you are the eight millionth person to get that wrong. So we'll just blame my parents together.

Both from England. It's a more British typical name.

My dad was born in England. My mom's whole family was in England, emigrated to Canada. That's where I was born.

I live in Greenfield, Massachusetts now. Nice.

Two hours west. It's very close to where you've been, Dax. You recorded The Judge in the town next to us in Shelburne Falls.

I love it there. We actually got engaged in that town.

I do. OK, so my story starts in November 2010. I was a junior in college at UMass Amherst. So me and my friends were at one of my friend's apartments. We're partying, drinking, you know, as a junior in college does. Somebody notices our friend Alyssa's calendar on the wall and it says Johnston Family Christmas Party. Alyssa, how drunk are you? Your last name is Johnson.

Do you not know how to spell your own last name? And she was like, wait, you guys don't know this already. My dad was a Johnston and my mom was a Johnson. So she only changed her last name by one letter. Oh. So in our tipsy girlhood state, we all just start laughing and come up with this theory. Her parents were the sweetest couple. We all loved them. So we're like, it's fate, right?

If it's one letter different, fate has spoken and you must be together.

Right? Why not? Continue on with our night. Keep drinking. Mostly forget about this until the next night. My best friend and I, Kate, who was at the party as well, part of this conversation. We go to our shift at the dining hall. Quick side note. You guys have already heard about this dining hall.

It's the same building. Isn't that so funny and simp, right?

When I heard that story, I was like, what are the chances? And then he's describing the building. I'm like, yes, this is the building I worked in. And I think it's around the same time. I want to say he said 2010, 2011. So we're talking could have been the next day. Who knows? Did you work there? Yes, I was a student worker.

So we actually traded texts back and forth trying to remember who this person was.

So much is going down at the dining hall.

So yeah, this is the same place. So Kate and I go to our shift and our shift was late nights, which basically means serving fried food to kids stumbling and drunk or high, you know, on a study break. Very laid back. And there's usually only like one or two cooks who are the supervisors for the night. And then the rest are just student workers. 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.

But a good shift for people watching...

It honestly was the best. And it was also great working because you saw all your friends. They came in and said hi. But you also just got a lot of good stories. So yeah, on this particular night, we're setting up our station, Kate and I. We see someone in a cook's outfit walk past and we're like, huh, I hadn't seen this person before. He's walking by and I definitely clock him.

He's tall, he's handsome, broad shoulders, bright blue eyes. Pooped his pants.

He caught my eye for sure. Kate, of course, knowing me better than anyone in the world, she clocks me clocking him. She kind of gives me a smirk and she's like, okay, we like him. And then that's when she, I think, remembers the joke. She's like, well, you can't date him unless it's one letter different. There's no way, you know, it's the rule. It's fate. We joke about it.

Then he comes over and is like, hey, I'm the cook for the night, which means he was our supervisor for the night. Oh, in power. Not quite a professor, but almost. I'll take it. He's on making the Philly cheesesteaks and he assigns me to the fry later, which is right next to him frying the onion rings because of course, onion rings, Philly cheesesteaks. It's a good night.

We're next to each other all night. And to my pleasant surprise, the flirtation is on immediately. We're chatting.

Three years.

No, no, no, no, no. The cooks were often just out of college. We're flirting and Kate's clocking it. And being my best friend that she is, she's of course going to give me a hard time about this. So she just keeps as often as she can discreetly being like, doesn't matter if it's not one letter different, you can't date him. Joking.

So anyway, the shift goes on, more flirting happens and we're getting towards the end of the shift. And she's just kind of like, all right, I'm taking stuff into my own hands now because we don't know if we're going to see this guy again because he doesn't normally work with us. So we don't know, like, is he new? Is he from another dining hall? Is he just covering?

Next time he walks up to us, she just goes, hey, I didn't catch your last name. What is it? And he goes, Herrick. And we just are frozen staring at him. So he walks away and our jaws are on the floor because my last name was Derek.

So anyway, he walks away and we're like, we're logical girls. That's crazy. We just talked about this yesterday. There's no chance that this is real. So we come up with, he must have overheard her joking with me. He was standing right next to me a lot. And maybe he got given like a list of staff names of who was working with him that night. And so he just decided to pull a fast one on us.

So he walks back and Kate, being the future badass lawyer that she is, immediately pounces on him and is like, there's no way that's your real last name. What is it really? He's like, you don't believe my last name? Like, what do you want to see, ID? And we both immediately were like, yes. He takes out his ID and just right there on his Massachusetts driver's license says Robert Herrick. Oh.

Not then, because our jaws were plastered on the floor. And I don't know how you really explain that in a non-creepy way.

All of my friends have decided it's fate and you now must marry me. And this is now 2 a.m. We're a little delirious. He walks away and we clock out. We go on with our day. But of course, the next day, Kate quickly tells all of our friends, oh, it's fate. Lee's met the love of her life. She's getting married, joking around. And I kind of just blow it off because that's ridiculous. Nothing happens.

Don't see him again at the shift until a month later, he finds me on Facebook and slides into my DMs.

He just was kind of like, how's it going? You want to go on a date? So we did. Somehow that date lasted four days. Sorry, mom. Oh, wow. It was... Just one of those things where you start hanging out and you never stop. I was still in college. So, of course, I continued on college. But as soon as we graduated, we moved in together. And in 2016, Kate told this story at our wedding.

I love that.

Thank you for watching.

I don't know why he went quiet. It could be that I was too much for him. Um, it could be that he wasn't really ready to commit to anything. I don't know.

Low key, but yes. Um, yeah, I mean, all we ever did was just kind of hang out together and watch TV and and enjoy each other emotionally and physically. But, um, that was healing for me though. Cause I honestly thought I was broken for a really long time.

I guess I struggle with, um, I know it sounds weird, but I struggle with putting myself out there. I love people and I love meeting people. And I have no problem on a casual level. Just like the girls at my coffee shop, they all know me and I know them and all of that. But to take it to another level, other than using the dating app, I really would like to try something different.

And I just don't know where to do that.

I feel childish even just asking the question, but... Okay, why? Probably because I grew up in a religious culture that you did not date unless you absolutely planned on getting married. And you didn't do that until you at least were out of high school. Okay, you're 50.

I know.

Yeah.

But I don't know how.

Yes. Yes.

Yes.

I did.

Yeah.

Yes.

Yeah. I have a tendency to put everyone else's needs first.

No. And I recognize that, yeah.

It does. It does. And I've recognized a lot of that. I really kind of deconstructed the way that I was raised and brought it down to kind of the foundations of what I want to hold on to and what I want to let go of.

Oh man, they are.

I do. I've been a massage therapist for the last 16 years.

No, no, no, no. It's unethical. Now I'm the director of education for a massage school.

No.

Not at this school.

And I've been looking at things like cooking classes and different things that I think would be a lot of fun. I just am a little limited in my area. It's a pretty small town.

Yeah.

Hmm.

Oh, that's a little daunting.

Well, you know.

That wasn't as professional.

Yeah.

Well, and I want that. I want to be able to grow that way. I've spent the last two years really exploring my own boundaries in living, I guess you could say. Absolutely. And enjoyed broadening my horizons and everything. That one still makes me pretty nervous.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

It does.

Thank you.

Hey, John. I'm super, super excited to be talking to you.

Well, before I get to the question, I do want to put a shout out there. You've been walking with me for the last two years as I navigated a divorce after 27 years, and my sister turned me on to your show. So I just want to say thank you.

Well, you know, I'm a better me now.

Awesome. But I wanted to, I especially wanted to let your listeners know when you talk about treating it like a business transaction and when you talk about not talking bad about your ex to your kids, you're 100% accurate. And so on this side of things, having done it that way, I don't have any messes to clean up. I have a great relationship with my kids now.

I've lost 80 pounds and I'm in some of the best physical and mental well-being of my life at almost 50, well, 50 years old as of yesterday.

It's all due to you guys helping out.

Well, you know, it's not a bad thing. I'm excited to be 50. I've been running around with fabulously 50 on my car.

Well, I kind of dipped my toe into the dating pool about six months ago using an app, which was good and bad. Um, and it was an incredible six months and I feel like I, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I would, I grew a lot. Um, but I found that when we had our times together, we shared weekends together. It was incredible. It was peaceful. There was great conversation, all of that.

But then the in-between times he would go completely silent. And I know you talk a lot about behavior being a language. And it just got to the place where after 30 days of not hearing at all from him, I decided to call it. And that was very hard. And I'm about a week out grieving all of that. But I just am struggling with a woman at my age.

I feel great where I am in my own life, but I want to share life with someone. And it's not easy to know how to do that.

It was pretty great.

Well, totally different than what I was used to. He smelled so good, and I know that sounds weird, but he did. Gross. Gross. And so, just, yeah, he's a totally different personality. He's very calm and secure in his life. He was 12 years older than me, which was also kind of weird.

The guy that I dated? Uh-huh. No.

I don't know. I really don't. We lived about 45 minutes apart, so... he's a monitor on a school bus just as a way to hang on to benefits until he can retire from a very good job. He's very secure financially. Everything's paid for and he has a good retirement account. So it was everything that, you know, on paper you look for, especially later in life. But I don't know.

Hey, Dr. John. How are you?

I'm doing okay.

Well, so my question is, how do I know that it's safe to recombine my finances with my husband? What happened? So my husband, he has a very big problem with addiction. He has gone through drugs. He's gone through alcohol. He's gone through gambling. It got to a point where we didn't have money left in the bank account anymore. And there was just like a time that

We needed to have stability in our house, and with the kids, I wanted to make sure that we were able to have them provided for.

Yes.

Okay.

Yeah.

Um, well, since then, I mean, we've done a lot of healing. Um, we, um, did therapy and he, is he sober? He is. Yes.

Um, it's been about two years now.

Yeah.

He's still working on it, but it has definitely been a big improvement since it was in the past.

I do. It's more of like, I don't know if I can convince myself of it too, though.

I think it just... Like, I struggle with kind of my mind reminding myself of what it was in the past.

And so it's like the last two years have been, I mean, outstandingly better. Okay. But it's like... I still struggle to know that, you know?

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I think unity.

Yeah. It's... it's kind of like ups and downs, um, especially with not having them combined. Um, like we decided back then that, you know, his money was his money and my money was my money. And I mean, we would kind of work together as the splitting the bills and everything, but it's, it's been a struggle with, I guess, watching him blow money. Yeah. But it, it's like, I, I,

don't want to say anything because I know it's not combined, but it's like, I think I'm a little scared to say something too, just because I've had a lot of those in the past.

Um, yeah, for the most part. Yeah.

I'm thinking that sounds reasonable.

Yeah.

I do, yeah.

Well, it's getting close to three months now.

Oh, I don't know. It's like, I feel like he might. I don't, it's like, we've tried so hard to just not talk about money because it has been like such a big stretcher point.

Yeah.

Yes.

What were the other things on your end? I hesitate to say financially abusive, but whenever we would get a tax refund, The first year that we were married, the first two years we were married, she spent the tax refunds before I had a chance to have any input. And then ever since then, I would spend them without taking any input from her.

And I would justify that because, oh, well, she spent those two tax refunds. So now these other 12 I've spent. How did you share finances? We did full, you know, just all in on keeping everything together.

Um, I would say that, yeah, it was kind of the house was not so much me, but on her end, the house was always hers, and I didn't really get much of a say in what was, you know, like, hey, I need a trash can here. Can I have that? No, I don't want that trash can there. Yeah. Stuff like that.

We talked every day, but we'd see each other maybe twice a month. Okay.

Sometimes conjugal visits. I tried to, you know, when we were able to. We had five kids, so I wasn't always able to do that even. But when we were able to, you know, I'd try to make it a date and, you know, spend some time together.

They live with her now.

They are 11, 10, 9, 7, and 6. Golly. How far away are you? I'm on the other side of town.

How soon is too soon to start dating after a divorce? My wife decided she wanted a divorce and there was some stuff on my end, some pornography addiction and some other things.

Well, I'm, uh, Definitely looking not to make the same mistakes that I did in my marriage. And I'm just looking for a companion, a wife, somebody that I can walk with the Lord with.

Hey, Dr. Deloney. I'm just wondering, how soon is too soon to start dating after a divorce?

Tell me about your world, man. Well, about... Oh, about a year and a half ago, my wife went to live with her folks to take care of her mom. And then about half a year ago, she decided she wanted a divorce. And there was some stuff on my end, some pornography addiction and some other things that I worked on and tried to save the marriage, but in the end, she went ahead with a divorce.

I do have a group that I get together with on Tuesdays to go shooting.

Uh, early in my marriage to my, uh, wife, um, I, uh, I had forced myself on her at one point. Okay. And, uh, I have trouble respecting myself from that.