🇺🇸 Watch United States of Anxiety Exclusively on the Free Ramsey Network App! On today’s episode, we hear about: · A couple wondering if staying married only for their children is the best idea · A woman struggling with fear of failure and finding a career · A woman seeking advice on how to move forward after a traumatic event 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 up to 40% off at Cozy Earth with code DELONY. 🔒 Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. 😇 Go to Hallow for a 90-day free trial. 💤 Visit Helix Sleep for special offers! 💪 Get 25% off your order at Thorne. 🥤 20% off at Organifi with code DELONY. · 🏔️ Head to Poncho Outdoors to check out all their styles! Listen to More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 💰 George Kamel 💼 The Ken Coleman Show 📈 EntreLeadership Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy https://www.ramseysolutions.com/company/policies/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Should we stay married for the sake of our kids?
Instead of getting divorced, would staying married and being friends with my husband be helpful or more harmful to our four children?
I've come to hate that question, so tell me more. That question is very surface-y. So, I feel like there's something you're not telling me. Like there's a thing beneath the thing. What am I missing here? What up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad that you're with us. So glad, man.
Every day I wake up and I'm like, man, I'm running a scam called a podcast and a YouTube show. It's so great that you're with us. and helping me with my scam. We're talking about your mental and emotional health. We're talking about your relationships. For 20 years, I've been sitting in the messy lives of hurting people, trying to figure out what's the next right move.
And now I get to do it on the internet with all of you. So grateful that you're with us. If you'll take one second, real quick, and just stop, collaborate, and hit subscribe, wherever you happen to be. it makes a huge difference. We're so close to the million subscriber mark. And man, every one of you guys, men and women who are out there who hit the subscribe button, it makes a huge difference.
So thank you so, so much. All right, let's roll out to Las Vegas, Nevada, home of the great Michael Easter. And we're going to talk to Brittany. What's up, Brittany?
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Chapter 2: What are the effects of staying married when there's infidelity?
Hi, Dr. John. Thank you so much for taking my call. I'm so excited to talk to you today. So my question for you today is, instead of getting divorced, would staying married and being friends with my husband be helpful or more harmful to our four children?
Hmm. I've come to hate that question, so tell me more. And it's not you. I don't hate you. I think you're wonderful. Good to meet you, Brittany.
Nice to meet you.
I think that question is very surfacy. So walk me through what's going on in your world.
Okay, so me and my husband, we've been married for 12 years. Right after I gave birth to our first child, my husband found himself addicted to pornography and looking at other women's social media profiles. So he would kind of start a cycle of looking at that for about a year, and then he would secretly stop for a year. And then he would do like a trickle down confession to me over a few weeks.
So we did that cycle like every year for nine years. So just a lot of loss of trust and stuff over that time.
But you're also like, one second, that's always symptomatic. So that also means you're married to somebody who is a shell of themself or who is, doesn't like the skin he inhabits, right?
Yes.
Tell me about that guy.
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Chapter 3: How can a couple rebuild trust after betrayal?
So this last time that he came and confessed of what he'd been looking at and stuff, I asked him if he could just move out. I needed some physical space. My body was like fight or flight mode. I was breaking out in rashes and I couldn't sleep at night. I just, my body just needed some like physical separation from him. And it was, and that was really good.
I was able to just like come back down to myself. And I just kind of realized, I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. And I felt like at that time, I was like, I think I deserve to be treated a little bit better than this. And I don't want my daughters to settle to be treated not like a queen. And so I told him that, you know, after we've been doing therapy for a while, I just don't...
I don't trust him, and I've lost respect for him, which has made me not trust myself and lose respect for myself because I never know if he's telling the truth or if he's not. And I just emotionally, I can't get back there with him. He's been doing great for three years. He's made so many changes. He's become the man I always wanted him to be, and I'm so proud of him. And he's my best friend.
I just don't feel like I emotionally can get back to that point in a marriage with him. It just feels like there's just been too much deceit and hurt and emotional hurt from things he said. And so I just said I want a divorce. And he said, over my dead body, I'm not doing that. And I said, okay, I... I would love to stay married and be friends and raise the kids.
And he said, that's a terrible thing to do to our children. And so we're just kind of stuck in this place where we don't know where to go from here.
I feel like pornography is a distraction here. And I feel like because it's sexualized and because it's a form of betrayal, it's easy to put everything on top of that. But you've been married to a guy that you have been a figurine in his action figure fantasy.
Yeah.
Y'all have never truly been a partnership. And if I hear you correctly, so tell me if I'm wrong, Three years ago, he said enough is enough, and he stopped treating you as a figurine, and he started getting to the bottom of why he was hurting so much, and you stayed. In fact, y'all made another kid together. And he has, in your exact words, become the man of your dreams.
But now you're choosing to not reengage.
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Chapter 4: What should I consider before deciding to divorce?
Yeah.
Right?
Yep.
And so in a perfect world, y'all swipe the deck clean. If you're saying, I don't want to do that anymore, or we've swiped the deck clean three times, four times, five times, and he keeps blowing his side of the table up, and so I'm going to end this marriage, own that step. I just don't like the – because our culture says words like, well, this marriage just ran its course. I just don't buy that.
I just can't get back there. I'm going to choose to not do those things. I'm going to choose that, and that's okay. Make your choice. But I want it to be something that everybody owns, not this inevitable, well, it just is what it is what it is. You get what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah, totally.
So you standing tall and saying, I deserve to not have 10 years of somebody cheat on me. I deserve 10 years of not being gaslit and yelled and screamed at in my own house. I deserve to not be a action figure in somebody's fantasy life where they're going to have all this money and I'm going to be a trophy. And oh my gosh, my body changed because I have four kids, four of your kids, by the way.
And now suddenly I'm less than, I'm not good. I'm worth less. So I feel like there's something you're not telling me. Like there's a thing beneath the thing. What am I missing here?
No, it just kind of feels like... Do you have somebody new? No, no, no, no, no, not at all. Okay.
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Chapter 5: What are the signs of emotional safety in a relationship?
Yes.
The only way you ever find out if this is for real is if you risk getting hurt again. Here's why I'm pushing around the edges. I don't hear somebody that wants to be divorced. I hear somebody that's so freaking tired of not having their home be a place of peace. Be fully honest with me. What is it that still makes you feel unsafe? Does your gut know that he's still cheating on you?
I feel like... My gut thinks that he's not, but my brain is like, you idiot. He lied for 10 years. You can't trust what you think.
Have you laid out on a map for him the things that you still need to do to make sure trust is secure?
Yeah. I mean, he's deleted all his social media. Do you look at his phone? Occasionally, but I don't like doing that.
I know you don't. none of us like doing the things that we got to do to rebuild trust. It's one of the worst things, but I'm asking you what, what, what would it take to rebuild trust? What's the roadmap there?
I mean, I think it's just more time. It's just consistency.
Okay. And you don't feel like he has that right now or 90% of it. And then he gets upset and frustrated because he's working so hard and it's just not enough.
Yeah, no, he does. He, he, that's why I feel so bad is he's, working so hard and I just wish that I could get, get that trust back right like that. And it's just, I don't know exactly how, because he's done and changed and done all the things that I've asked him to.
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Chapter 6: How to find your passion and career path?
I'm going to send you a copy of Own Your Past, Change Your Future. It's your arc. I wrote that book for you. I'm going to give you a free copy of it, all right? But go get a job. Go get an 8 to 5 job clocking in, making half of what you've been making, a third of what you've been making to learn some new skills. You're still in the investment phase. And...
Go take a couple of classes on child studies. Get something that will lead to a certification, not just mindless family studies. It's going to lead you to a certification that you can use in the marketplace. Go pick up those skills. Kids are going to be lucky that you did. We'll be right back. All right. Hey, listen, I'm excited to share three major updates.
My show is put out by the Ramsey Network, and there is a new Ramsey Network app. So first, the newest episode of my docuseries, United States of Anxiety, is available. It's available exclusively in the Ramsey Network app, and it follows real people from my show as they embark on a 90-day journey to transform their lives, and I personally walk alongside them. Everybody always wonders, like,
does this stuff actually work over time? So this is that show. It's just like calling my bluff. I walk with somebody for 90 days, give them homework assignments. It's the show lived out over three months and we watch people transform and it's amazing. And my full show is now in video. It's on video in the app and the episodes of the Dr. John Deloney show.
If you just can't wait, you just can't wait. They're now available a week early in the Ramsey network app. So So you can get everything early, exclusive, and for free. Click on the link in the show notes, and you can download the Ramsey Network app today. All right, let's go out to Asheville, North Carolina, and talk to Katie. Hey, Katie, what's up?
Yeah, so my question is, is how do you cope with anxiety and panic attacks while still processing grief in a constant, impending feeling of doom after going through a regional national disaster?
Oh, man. Your body's telling you the truth. You make peace with your body.
Yeah.
Did you lose everything?
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Chapter 7: What are the benefits of serving others in your career?
Okay.
The thing that most people skip in this process is grief.
Yeah.
Just being sad.
Oh, yeah, absolutely. And I think the grief... I'm glad you mentioned that part because I did... My grandfather did pass away in the middle of the storm.
Good gosh. Hold on, hold on. Start with that first.
What's his name? His name was William. Yeah. Good guy? Very good guy. Yeah. How did he pass away? They put cardiac arrest on his death certificate, induced probably stress from the storm. He was in the... Between like where he lived was between two of the massive landslides you probably will hear about on the news. So we were actually not able to access him at all to find out if he was okay.
And his wife during the storm, I was able to talk to someone via like a Starlink during the whole mess of things in the first few days. And someone on foot got to his house to confirm that him and his wife were safe. And then that night we got a phone call via satellite phone from first responders that he had gone into stress cardiac arrest and had passed.
So that grief side of things is like when the panic attack really started, I think. Just not knowing how to process the loss of the grandparent. On top of knowing that not even getting up to his house at the time was possible. Hey, Katie.
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Chapter 8: How to navigate feelings of insecurity about education?
And the people I know in Asheville, I know there's an extraordinary, just magical arch district in Asheville, but my friends who live there.
Yeah.
in an ironic twist of fate, picked Asheville because it feels disconnected from the world.
Yeah.
This is our haven, away from all you crazy people. It's a pretty great place. But it's not supposed to happen there.
No, it's not. Mountains are supposed to protect you from storms.
That's right. That's why we moved here, so that y'all suckers would have the storms. Here's, I don't want you to think about managing this.
Okay.
And I want you to think about processing this.
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