The Dr. John Delony Show
Does My Husband Have an Unhealthy Relationship With His Mom?
Wed, 30 Apr 2025
On today’s episode, we hear about: · A wife struggling to set boundaries with her mother-in-law · A woman wondering how to support her disabled ex-husband · A woman envious of her husband’s ex-wife Next Steps: 📞 Ask John a question! Call 844-693-3291 or send us a message. 📚 Building a Non-Anxious Life 📝 Anxiety Test 📚 Own Your Past, Change Your Future ❓ Questions for Humans Conversation Cards 💭 John's Free Guided Meditation 🤘🏼 The Dr. John Delony Show Merch Connect With Our Sponsors: 🌱 Get 10% off your first month of BetterHelp. 🔴 Get 15% off with code DELONY at Bon Charge. 🌿 Get up to 40% off with code DELONY at Cozy Earth. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 🥤 Get 20% off with code DELONY at Organifi. 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🏋️ Go to Trainwell to get started! Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: How can I let go of resentment toward my mother-in-law?
How do I let go of resentment that I feel for my mother-in-law?
Oh, sweet. I say this with all due respect. Your mother-in-law's a cartoon character. So let's be honest about who you're really mad at. Your mother-in-law's bananas. You don't resent bananas. You resent your husband. What in the world's going on? What's up? What is up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.
Taking your calls from all over planet Earth about your mental and emotional health, your relationships, whatever you got going on in your life, your kids, your mother-in-law, your friends, your workplace, whatever you got going on in your life. I'm going to sit with you, and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. I'd love to have you on the show.
Reach out to johndeloney.com slash ask. There's an internet form, and you can fill it out. You can write as long as you want, and it'll go to Kelly and the gang. she builds the show. And if she picks you, she'll holla back girl at you. And even though she ain't a holla back girl, she'll holla back girl at you. And then we'll be ready to rock and roll.
Love to have you on John Deloney.com slash ask. All right, let's roll out to roll out to Tampa, Florida and talk to Nicole. Hey, Nicole, what's up?
Hi, thank you for taking my phone call.
Of course. Thanks for calling. What's up?
Cool. Um, so, uh, I want to know how do I let go of resentment that I feel toward my mother-in-law?
Oh, sweet. All right. What's going on?
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Chapter 2: What are the challenges in setting boundaries with a difficult mother-in-law?
Well, you know, it's like to sum her up in one word, I guess I would say she's kind of like a bully. She starts fights with family and her coworkers often. She's disrespected boundaries that my husband and I have set for our kids. She tends to like ruin family events.
And vacations, if she has tantrums, like she'll have a tantrum if she doesn't get her way, if we don't want to go along with exactly what she wants to do. So part of me feels like I should just not let it bother me. And it didn't until I had kids. Now that I have kids, I feel like I can't let go of the bad behavior because I don't want it to influence my children. Yeah.
So when you say she blows past you and your husband's boundaries, give me some examples.
So a couple of years ago, we asked, my husband's family, everybody, my family too, but we asked everybody to not feed my kids like a specific thing because she was having some, some gut issues that we needed to figure out. And then it turns out my mother-in-law was feeding her that particular thing. And it really upset me.
And then when I talked to her about it, she like screamed at me and yelled at me and said, Oh, other people feed her this stuff, which is not true. She was just trying to deflect, I guess, um, And, like, we've also asked her to not buy our kids as many toys because every time we see her, she's always buying stuff for the kids.
We have three kids, and we live in a very small space, and we don't have the room for it. So things like that, like, she just, for some reason, wants to do what she wants to do.
What's your husband's relationship with his mother?
Question. Good question. They're close, but I think... The closeness is more like guilt as opposed to I really want to spend time with my mom. She's single. She's been married multiple times. And I think between him and his sister, they kind of feel like they have to be responsible for taking care of her emotionally, maybe.
What does close mean? Let me say this way. It sounds like you're being coy.
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Chapter 3: How does my husband's relationship with his mother affect our marriage?
Tell me about the relationship between your husband and his mom.
They talk a lot, but a lot of the, a lot of the conversation is initiated by her. They talk almost every single day, text message, phone calls, sometimes multiple times a day. And that kind of, it shouldn't annoy me, but it annoys me only because I feel like she doesn't have any other, like really like friendships or anything or anybody else to rely on. So she's,
It seems like she's relying heavily on my husband for like, I don't know, male companionship, which sounds kind of gross, but that's what it feels like.
So I want to put something on the table. You tell me if I'm wrong.
Yes.
Your mother-in-law's bananas. And I say that in the most clinical assessed kind of way, right? Sure. She's bananas. You don't resent bananas. You resent your husband. Because your husband talks to this woman every day. He eggs it on. He continues to go to her and to accept it when she comes barging in the house.
Yeah.
Let me put it this way. And I'll get some pushback on this. I don't really care. If my mom was completely disregarding something that was important to my child's health, I'm going to go directly and have that conversation. I'm not going to tell my wife, well, you need to go talk to my mom. I'm not going to do that.
Right.
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Chapter 4: What steps can I take to protect my children from an emotionally unstable grandmother?
Why not?
Um, tell me about it. I think it's because I'm probably the first person that's really pushed back against her. Everyone else kind of accepts the behavior as well. That's just who she is. And that's just what she does.
And I'm talking about you and your husband. When you said, hey, this isn't okay how she treats me. This isn't okay how she treats our kids. I don't like watching another person, I don't care if it's your mom or not, treat my husband this way. What does he say?
He has supported that and he agrees. He sees it more now. It has taken him some time, but he does, he sees it more now. So he has gotten better at, you know, sort of, I guess,
maintaining the boundaries but there's still sometimes where you know he'll say mom wants us to come over for dinner and I'll say and I'll roll my eyes and then he'll get kind of upset about that and I'll say you know I just don't really want to hang out with your mom or and you know sometimes there's like a little bit of an argument there but I think for the most part he has done a better job of of protecting me and the kids and I'll say he hasn't because he still brings to you
Hey, this rattlesnake bites us all the time. Hey, just get bit once this week, please. And you're like, no. And then you act immaturely. You roll your eyes, right? And then y'all start the dance that y'all have. And I promise you, it's not just about her. Y'all do this about other stuff too, fair?
Sometimes. Yes.
He's like, well, can we just, and you're like, ugh.
Yeah, I do go along a lot with what he wants to do.
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Chapter 5: How can I support a disabled ex-husband while maintaining my own life?
So y'all weren't sleeping together?
No, it had been two years at that point. Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah. Very lonely.
Yeah. Yet you've kept up a sexless marriage, right?
32.
Okay. Yeah.
So when you say a great stepdad to your son, your son was 27 at the time?
Yep.
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Chapter 6: What are the emotional impacts of caretaking for an ex-spouse after a stroke?
But I'm definitely enjoying putting myself first for a change. So the thought right now, honestly, the thought of dating is just not... Yeah.
Okay. So I guess this is something to not think about. But I would consider you being honest with yourself. From the outside, you're still married. You just live seven houses down. Right. Let me put it this way. You are playing all sides of the fence. It's like there's four houses that back up to each other and there's four different backyards. And all their fences make like an X, right?
Like make a cross at some point. And you have one arm in one backyard, one arm in the other backyard, one leg in one leg. And you're just straddling this fence. You're kind of his wife. You are kind of on the market. You're kind of married. And you're kind of not. And so you've got a whole bunch of different boats in the water, but you don't have both feet in any of them. Right.
Here's what I'm promising you is going to happen. You're going to wake up and be 60 and be frightfully alone. Because you never went all in on anything. Right. Let me take that back. You did go all in and you got hurt.
Yeah.
Yeah. You sound like a pretty amazing person.
Thank you. Thank you. I try to be.
And an incredibly codependent person too. So I guess my challenge to you would be really being honest with yourself. I guess I reject the notion that you can't date or be married or the alternative is I get to focus all on me. Right. You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I don't think those are in opposition to each other.
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Chapter 7: How do I balance being a caretaker and pursuing my own happiness and dating life?
Oh, 100%.
Because you just don't have both feet in any one boat. Right. And if it's in both feet in, I'm a freaking caretaker. That's my best friend. He's my ex-husband. Trust me, new date person I'm dating. There is no sexual tension at all. Trust me. Right. Then great. Right. Be a great best friend and be a great caretaker. And forget the romance part.
If my buddy Todd had a stroke and moved and I had a house seven doors down, I'd gladly let him move in there. And I'd still get to make jokes, but I'd be happy to help him out. My oldest friend on planet Earth is a paraplegic. When we go out, dude, it's not a chore, right, to wait longer or to sit at special places. Like, that's not a chore.
That's just part of being a friend who loves somebody, right?
Yep.
And if people don't want to be my friend because I have a friend in a wheelchair, then good riddance, right? So, I mean, it's just not going to be a thing. but I want you to, I've got both feet in that. I want you to have both feet in that or I want you to have both feet out. Okay. That's a hard call for you. I know that. And probably you've probably, you've probably never had that call ever.
I mean, you've probably never asked yourself that ever. And that's a tough, scary thing to do to ask yourself, what do I really want at the age of 50? What do I want?
And it's not going to make you a bad person to take, to begin to give a fellow adult autonomy after two or three years of caretaking, of taking care of somebody, of walking alongside them, taking them all to doctor's appointments, bringing them to all your family, like getting somebody back on your feet. You've done an amazing, noble thing.
I just want to make sure you didn't do this noble thing at his expense. For you. But we did the noble thing because it was the right thing to do. And now we're going to let this adult go be an adult again. And that means he's going to have some hard choices to make. Or we're just going to keep both feet in the boat.
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Chapter 8: How can I move forward and decide what I want for the next chapter of my life?
Maybe, because if anything happens in the family, she has to message my husband, even though he doesn't like that, or he doesn't really answer her, or he'll just give a really short yes or no.
Why does that bother you? They have kids together.
I know.
I don't know. I say it bothers you. Not that it even bothers you, like, ugh. And I get that, right? I get that. But it's just not like a ugh. It takes over your body.
Yeah. I don't know, John.
Okay, can we go down the rabbit hole?
That's insane.
Will you come with me?
Yeah, yeah, please.
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