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Chapter 1: What shocking discovery did a wife make about her husband?
sexual conversations with men. We're in a repair process now and we're doing all these things together. It feels weird to like feel so good. Sorry.
But you know it's not real. What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Delonis Show. I'm so glad you're here. wherever you're listening to the show, all over the planet, I'm grateful that you're with us sitting down with hurting people trying to figure out what's the next right move in their lives. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes.
And if you don't know what a show note is like me, Ask somebody about 10 to 20 years younger than you, and they will help you figure it out. Or you can ask someone 60 to 70 years older than you, like Kelly, and she could probably help you figure it out too. All right, let's go out to Tampa, Florida and talk to Becky. What's up, Becky?
Hi, Dr. John. Thanks for taking my call today.
Of course. What's going on?
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Chapter 2: How did the husband's mental health issues contribute to relationship problems?
Well, just to give you a little bit of a backstory here, my husband and I have been together for 23 years. Since I was 18 years old, we have three young kids. About two and a half years ago, he started severely struggling with depression, chronic PTSD, anxiety. During that time, he started exercising. He lost about 100 pounds. Wow. Yeah, I know.
But then a few months ago, I discovered some secret Reddit activity involving sexual conversations with men. And I had no idea. That came as a complete shock. Yeah. He denied it. He denied that those posts were him, said somebody must have hacked into his account. He minimized it for weeks, even when I was completely falling apart and begging for honesty. However, we did start to rebuild.
I thought even though I don't truly believe him, you know, as long as he doesn't do anything like that again, maybe I can move on. I'm not going to throw away our family. And it was actually really good for a few weeks. Like, we were really more connected than we'd ever been before. It was weird. And then I discovered that he'd also been using the Grindr app.
Uh-oh. Yeah.
Yeah. At least once during that rebuilding period that was, like, maybe four or five weeks, there were – and I looked at the history of the messages –
Most of it, which occurred longer ago than during that rebuilding period that we were going through, but there were explicit messages, exchanged photos and videos, plans to meet, and even an address given on a day that he said he went to the gym. Of course, I confronted him about that. I pretty much thought our relationship was over.
At that point in time, I removed the house keys from his key ring, but he denied any physical encounters, begged me to stay and work on it, promised that it was just messages, said that he did it as a way to escape his mental health things that was going on and just try to become a different person than what he was in real life. And he's not sexually attracted to men and it didn't mean anything.
He never actually met up with people. Part of the game he was playing was, I guess, ghosting these men. So he claims, um, but he's lied to me now more than once. So my question is, um,
and again we're in a repair process now and it's actually again like weirdly really good like he's more focused on me and the kids and we're doing all these things together it's it feels weird to like feel so good sorry no you're okay take a breath take a breath but you know it's not real
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Chapter 3: What steps did the couple take to rebuild their relationship?
I don't want to break our family.
Yeah. Take a big deep breath and hold it for a second, okay? Hold it. Take a big deep breath and hold it. And then count it down for three, two, and then exhale all the way out. I'm sorry you're going through this.
Thank you.
So to answer a question you did not ask me, can you rebuild? Yes. To answer your question that you did ask me, can you rebuild with only part of the truth? No, you can't. You will always feel crazy.
I feel like I'm like a PI and I'm trying to uncover what actually happened and I'm looking up passwords and I'm contacting the gym to see when he checked in. I don't want to live my life like that.
Correct. And you shouldn't have to. Okay, so whether you stay, whether you go, whether your marriage makes it moving forward, I want you to hear me directly. You did not blow this up. He did. Okay. Whether you want to be a part of excavating on the site of your former home and rebuild a new home on that land. Great. but you didn't blow this up, he did.
You're trying to hold on to like the tornadoes over your house and it just blew your house down and you're hanging on to the umbrella over the back patio furniture right now. Just let go for a second, okay? Mm-hmm. You're not crazy. And the thing I want to focus on here is what you're feeling, which is I can't trust him. He's not telling me the truth, okay?
I want to, but I don't.
Okay. And I want you to trust that intuition. You've known him for a long, long, long time, since you were a teenager.
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Chapter 4: How does the use of dating apps complicate trust in relationships?
He's generally always been a really good person. We've always had a good relationship. You know, it's been struggling the last couple of years with his mental health. And I've taken on a lot more of the home and responsibility with the kids. thinking that would help him relieve his burden.
But then to find out he was doing this behind my back while I'm drowning more, trying to take care of home and life and paying the bills and kids' doctor's appointments, that is very hurtful. Yeah.
So there is... I've heard this numerous times. There is truth to... whether it's with gay relationships, whether it's with threesome, whether it's just things that are out of the norm for somebody. What used to, for all of human history, been a flash in a person's mind or even a place, a rabbit hole they went down in their own head, now can take place online. So it might be true that
That he's been fantasizing about a thing just to feel alive and to feel like, wow, and to feel like, who knows? Or maybe he's bisexual. Maybe. Who knows?
And that part is not.
I can actually hear that. That doesn't seem to bother you as much as the dishonesty and the safety, right? Like if he's hooking up men or women, it puts you in an incredibly unsafe situation.
I did go get STD tests and they were all negative.
Great. Wonderful. And that's a wise thing for anybody who finds out their spouse is cheating on them. The second thing here is I would love to know about these pictures and videos. Is he sending explicit videos of him masturbating? Is he sending videos of him dancing? What did you see on these videos?
Genital pictures back and forth.
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Chapter 5: What advice does Dr. John Delony give about rebuilding trust?
And again, sexuality is such a mess with people and what they're into and what excites them and what makes them feel alive. That's just such a chaotic, specific thing for every individual person. But the way in my head, and I don't have any science behind this. This is just me sitting with couple after couple after couple after couple. I have kind of layers or levels.
which is thinking about somebody that if I thought these thoughts out loud, it would devastate my spouse to engaging in what I'll call an emotional affair, right? To sending photos and sending videos back and forth explicit and then to actually meeting up. And so this, I want you to hear me say, this is a really big deal. Or take the other men off.
If this was a woman and they were sending videos back and forth, nude videos and photos back and forth, there'd be no doubt in your mind, right? And because this seems out of character for him, just because it's other men, it feels like there's a crack in...
like a way to navigate through that and say, no, no, no, this is just me being ridiculous and like experimenting and what if, but if you replace the man with a woman, there'd be no question. Right.
Right. Uh, the only thing I, I don't even know if comfort is the right word, but like he doesn't personally know these people, no names were even exchanged, no, face pictures or anything like that.
Yeah, and here's the thing. It might protect you emotionally that it's not your sister or your brother or your cousin, but the recklessness with which that activity is happening with strangers to me is an escalation of activity. It is making this a almost more compulsory interaction, right?
It's not just, he's fallen for somebody and somebody else makes him feel alive or there's some, what does he do for a living?
Paramedic.
Yeah. There's like, I got friends and I've, I've run the streets with paramedics before, um, paramedics, firefighters, cops. There is an, there's an extra layer of intimacy because you're doing really wild stuff together, right? And so if this was a paramedic coworker of his, you'd still have the same infidelity issue. You'd still have the same, what am I trying to say?
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Chapter 6: How can couples navigate conversations about infidelity?
The path forward for you will be to go in very explicit. And maybe you tell him on the front end, we're going to have a neutral third party. My expectation is you come fully, fully clean. And he doesn't have to know. I'm not saying play games with him, but he doesn't have to know. He knows you've been looking and you've been digging. Say my expectation is you come fully clean.
I've called the gym. I've checked our bank account records. I've whatever. Looked at your GPS. My expectation is you come fully clean.
Okay. Because this has another, he would be admitting something more than just cheating. It would be an admission of a different sexual identity.
Yeah, but it sounds like you're with him. It sounds like you love him as a person. You loved him when he was 100 pounds up. You've loved him through his depression. You've loved him on his journey back. And if that's the case, regardless of sexual identity, he committed to you, right? And so the commitment he made there, if he wants to break that commitment, then that's his decision to make.
And you and those kids will be left in the aftermath of that decision. But he made a commitment to you.
Yeah.
Right? And, I mean, the conversations with identity are so fraught with electricity and rage and anger and... That's different than... There's an identity piece to this. There is a just like a I am seeking somewhat reckless adventure, man, woman, like I don't care, right?
And so before we get to all these identity layers and before you start projecting out 10 years down the road, I want you to come back to the present, which is I don't believe I can trust the man I'm sharing a home with. And when we started to rebuild, this was still going on.
Right.
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Chapter 7: What strategies can help manage anxiety in new homeowners?
Right. that have been saved and screenshot by other strangers who I don't know and I don't know what they're going to do with it. Right? Yes, that happened, but I never, ever physically cheated on you. And I'm sorry and I was wrong. Right? If he does that, then the next step for you is going to be to decide, A, do I want to give him a path back?
And I would recommend the path back be, you go to a flip phone, brother. Because I'm not going to play the PI detective. I can't live my life like that. I got three other kids. And you get really specific about what path he would have to walk to reestablish trust with you over time. And being really sweet to you, being really kind, doing the dishes, that's not what we're looking for here.
That's part of it. That's the standard for every husband should have for their wife, period. My gosh, right? Right. The path is going to be, I don't trust you on electronics, right? Because while we were rebuilding, you had another account that you didn't tell me about.
You watched me sob my eyes out in our living room and you said everything was fine and you had another account and you were still sending messages to people.
It didn't take me very much to find it. I just had never looked at his phone before I trusted him. But as soon as I, it took me five minutes to find everything.
Yeah. I wasn't hiding it very well. Well, and sometimes people don't think to hide it. Sometimes after 23 and a half years, it doesn't occur to him that you would look at his phone. I will say there is major shifts in personalities when people go through a major life transformation like he's gone through.
With the weight or the mental health or both?
Both. Both.
Both.
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Chapter 8: How can a father raise a confident son while struggling with his own self-image?
And this realization, this clarity should make you mad. Make you real, real angry. Anger's right. And what you have to do is to commit to being the person you want to be as you show up and deal with what's the next right move. I hate that you're going through this, sister. I hate it. You call me back anytime. If he wants to call back, I'd love to talk to him too.
But nothing gets rebuilt without trust. Nothing. When we come back, a man asks how to overcome his anxiety and fear about his home issues and repairs as a brand new homeowner. Oh, God almighty, I've been there. We'll be right back. Hey, it's Deloney for Hallow. What could you accomplish in 90 days? You could get in shape. You could lose weight. You could change your marriage.
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