My Husband Constantly Lies About Money (Why?)

During the um government shutdown, my husband wasn't getting paid. So I asked him several times, "Are you getting paid?" "No." And then I found out that the whole time he was getting paid.

"Why was he lying to you?"

"I I asked him and he said, 'Oh, every time he got paid, they said it might be the last one.'"

What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad that you are here. New year, new you. New year, new me.

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I'm hoping.

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You look younger today. Look at that. New year, new me.

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And all your tattoo removal surgeries are going well.

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"Thank you. Yeah. I see you're like if if you're just listening to this, she's rocking her deep deep deep V. We're all a little bit uncomfortable, but new you knew her. Bringing it back. I like that. Hey,"

"see you. You for like 10 whole seconds you were there. You were doing great. Proud of you."

Let's go out to Denver, Colorado, and talk to Dear Marie. What's up, Marie?

"Good morning, Dr. John. How are you?"

I'm I'm living um Levita Loca. What are you up to?

"Well, I have a I have a question for you about if I'm overreacting."

"Oh, man. The fact that you asked that question makes you my new friend. Probably. Yes. But let's go with let's go for it."

"Right. I know myself. So, I I know that I do this."

"Excellent. What's up?"

"So, what happened recently? The most recent"

"Oh, I thought you were going to say so what had happened was that would have been awesome. Okay. So, what happened recently? You took a very Denver turn on me there at the end. That's okay."

"I'm almost full."

"That's all right. What's up?"

"Well, what happened was during the um government shutdown, um my husband wasn't getting paid, right? So, I asked him several times during this period, are you getting paid? No. Money things would come up, things to fix the house or whatever, and I'd be like, oh, we can't afford it right now. Let's wait until the government shutdown ends. And then I found out that the whole time he was getting paid."

"Okay."

"He lied to me about"

"Why was he lying to you about it?"

"I don't I I asked him and he said, 'Oh, every time he got paid, they said it might be the last one.' I said, 'Why didn't you just tell me that?' I'm like, 'I'm over here scraping together, you know, money and and everything so that we can, you know, get by and this whole time you're getting paid.' So, let me flip this around. Okay."

"Mhm."

"How long have y'all been married?"

"Almost 10 years."

"Okay. Are you a wife he can tell stuff like that to?"

"Uh, I thought so."

"Tell me about that."

"Well, I mean, he is in our 10 years, he has hidden financial stuff from me that I have then discovered"

"Mhm."

"and confronted him on it. and he always comes up with uh an excuse of why he did it. Okay? And you know, it's come up before. We're still together. I tell him, you know, I thought we were just a I thought we were a team. You know, we'll do things together, but it keeps happening over and over again."

"So, obviously lying and hiding money is is I mean, it's it's it's a form of infidelity, right?"

"Yeah."

"I call it financial infidelity. You're you're 100% right to be freaked out, to be unsure."

"Yeah."

"So,"

"but I'm changing my tune over time,"

"right? Because I guess it's easy to look at this guy and if he was calling me on the phone and being like, 'Hey, dude, I'm hiding money from my wife, whatever.' Of course, just being husband to husband, dad to dad with this guy, I would say, 'Hey, you're being a person who lacks character. He's on the phone. You are.' And so what I want to ask you first out of the gate is are you a person who teamwork is we have money to do what I want. We have money that I panic. I freak out and so I want to make sure we are saving. We're doing this the way I want to do. Are you a person that he can be open with? Cuz if you are, then it's a totally different trajectory. If you can look at at how you are as a teammate and say, 'Actually, teammate means we do what I want.' That's a different that that's what I want. I want to be reflective about before I start throwing grenades."

"I see what you're saying, but I Well, of course I feel this way because it's me."

"Because it's you. Yeah, of course I'm right. But I feel like um for example when he started getting retirement I said it's your you know his first retirement from his first job. I'm like let's take some of that let's put a part of it into savings and it's not for me it's for him."

"I I you but you're answering my question for me."

"Okay. What I would love the question to be is who do we want to be 10 years from now and how can like I want us to paint a picture together and then accomplishing that picture is a simple math problem that you reverse engineer. I want to have a car that cost $20,000 in 5 years. Cool. How many months until then? 60 months. How many how many dollars do I need to put in account? But if he gets this check and you say you need to for you, then what what what you get is he's getting another mom. Do you get what I'm saying?"

"Oh, yeah. And I feel that, but I feel like he puts me in that position."

"Okay. Tell me about that."

"He's so He's so irresponsible with his money."

"Tell me about that."

"Well,"

"because now we're getting into contempt, right? Like I'm watching how he does his thing and"

"Yeah."

"Right. And it's not it's not good. Tell me about that. And you may be 100% right. I just want to lean into the person on the phone with me, right? Not in a not in a not in a coming after you, but just make sure we're all speaking the same language."

"No. And that's fine because Yeah. My need my knee-jerk reaction on emotions is anger. So I know and that's why I called."

"Okay. Awesome."

"Like am I up? Because"

"Yeah."

"It could be me."

"I Well, I it's usually a co-created dance."

"Right. So sometimes somebody like if I'm dancing with my wife, she's wanted me to take her dancing our whole marriage. Mhm. And so when I show up to dance or and by the way, I am to say I'm bad is the understatement of the century. I'm literally the worst dancer that's ever existed. My hips for sure do lie like badly, right? Okay, so here's the thing. when I do dance with her, I want to do it so well that I completely lose the fact that I'm with my best friend and my my quarter century mate, my girlfriend still who happens to be my wife. I lose all of that and I turn into a performance and I try to get every step right and so I step on her feet. I go too fast, too slow because I'm trying. You get what I'm saying? Uhhuh. And so it's a it's a world we've co-created together. And so I you're it's rarely I mean you listen to the show sometimes it's 100% one person right but sometimes it's a co-created you need to you need to why aren't you which then somebody begins to slowly shrink their shoulders and drop draw their arms around okay this is mine then and that doesn't make what they're doing right but it makes it it's a context not an excuse I understand it right okay so tell me about like you're you're watching him do his stuff with his money. Tell me about that. Well, when there's been a couple times where he said things were going to happen, he volunteered it financially and then it just never happened. Like what? Give me an example. Sure. Um, he paid off his car and I had a little bit of credit card debt and he's like, 'I'll give you the money for the, you know, what I was paying for my car. I'll give you that to help pay down your debt.' I'm like, 'I didn't ask for I was like, 'Oh, that's awesome.' Never saw it. When he started getting his retirement, he's like, 'Oh, you can quit your job or go part-time to your job and you can do this, you know, this dream project I had.' And he's like, 'And and and cuz my retirement money is more than you make in a month.' He volunteered that. I was like, 'Oh, well, yeah, we can talk about that.' Never happened. M I said, 'Let's save a little bit of your your retirement check just for savings, you know, a cushion.' He said, 'Okay.' Never happened. So, it's just over and over again. And this time lying to my face and saying that he was not getting paid is just again, yeah, it happened again. And I just feel used like how can you lie to somebody's face like that and carry on in your life like everything's normal, you know, there's no problems here. And when I confronted him with it, he said it was uh he had faulty logic. What's that mean? I don't know. I was like, that's not faulty logic. That's lying to my face. And and you know what? You're right. And you're you are totally right. And and you know, you've listened to my show long enough. If he was on the phone with me, I'd wear him out on that. Right. And the way you're describing y'all's interactions tells me in no way, shape, form, or fashion are y'all a team. Right. Y'all are using team language. But you're saying his car, your debt, his retirement. It's y'all's debt. It's y'all's cars that you happen to drive every day. It's y'all's retirement. And until you get there, there will always be, going back to the dance metaphor, somebody vying for I want to lead the dance. My wife has her own small business, okay? And the way we've set up in our house is that's a small ecosystem that lives within itself. Meaning when she sells one of her books, it goes back into her little world. Okay? And it's awesome. I love that she's like we have sat down walked through all of it together. So at the macro level in our house, she has not worked like her income has not dumped into our family pot. And yet so all the income that we spend on our home, on our investments, on our whatever actually comes from a check with my name on it. But make no mistake, it is ours. We have cars. We have a house. We have groceries. And so we decide how we are going to co-create this amazing picture that we both have. And by the way, part of that picture down the road is our kids um not having to carry the the education burden that her and I had when we graduated. Part of that vision is a gigantic hunting ranch for me and any of my friends that I want to bring in and people who are struggling in their marriages who want to come fly into Nashville and just get away for a bit. That's part of our thing. You get what I'm saying? And it's a thing I really want. So, I put it on the table and we decide, is this a thing that we want to do? And how are we going to get there? Mhm. And when you're vying for power inside your own house, it makes let me say it this way, power the the scratching and clawing of power, and we're watching it happen at the government level. We're watching it happen at the local level, and we're watching it happen in our homes. When you're vying for power, it exposes what you are most scared of. And so if your husband was on the phone with me, I would the first question I would ask him is where did he get burned with money in the past? Do you have an answer to that? Yeah, I think so. And and I've told him this. I think he grew up broke. Okay. Did he was he responsible for taking care of some of his parents' needs? Oh, his mom. Yeah, for sure. And so you see how you've recreated that with him. Yeah, or he recreated it with me. Exactly. It's a it's a figure eight. It's a figure eight. Yeah. Okay. So, here here's the you've heard me say this a lot and I'm trying to do a better job because people ask me what I mean because I throw some of these things out and I want to break it down as far as as granular as I can. Somebody has to stop that dance. But how do I Well, how do I stop it? Here's how. You stop dancing. You can't make him stop dancing, but you have to turn the lights on and turn the music off. What do I mean by that? I want you to make him his absolute insane. Even if you have to leave the house before he gets up and go get it, his favorite cup of coffee. And then I want you to show up and say, 'Hey,' and I want you to have pre-planned this. I need an hour together. and then you have to put on the table here's what I have brought to this dance. So to use my house as a metaphor, my wife saying I have made wanting to dance with you such a big deal that I realize I put so much pressure on you that a you don't want to do you you won't do it with me very often and b you get so nervous when we get there it's not a pleasurable experience. So instead of waiting for dance lessons and waiting for the opportunity at we're at a party to dance, could we just dance in our living room to like an old '8s metal song? You get how the invit how there's an invitation and then we're going to get some reps. And so what my wife has done for because what she wants is to go dancing. What she has done is she has taken quote unquote the lead in not forcing a dance class on me, but she has taken the lead in turning the temperature so low that dancing now sounds fun again. It's an invitation. So you saying hey I here's what I have contributed and then that is an invitation to I have to ask myself have I created a world where you have to lie about your money our money. Mhm. I want us to put our debts on the table. I want us to put our future on the table cuz we have been together for a decade and I'm hoping we got one or two decades left. And then here's the scariest part about that. He may say no. Well, he's uh he's a sweet guy. He'll say yes, but then how do I believe him? Y'all have to wait. Nope. Y'all create a plan. You should know all the login to his retirement accounts cuz they're y'all's retirement accounts. He should have all y'all should have a single checking account that y'all live out of. But he does like everything is like PayPal, PayPal, PayPal. I don't know what that is. Okay, then you say, 'I want you to teach me about PayPal because it involves our money.' Oo. Do you get what I'm saying? You're trying You're trying to play You're trying to be teammates, but y'all are in different dugouts wearing different uniforms. Uhhuh. And that's I'm very combative. So, and and that's why I went back to the original question. Is it even okay for him to say, 'Hey, I did get paid. We may not get paid next month because y'all are so united that you can see that he's carrying a little bit of shame, a little bit of guilt, and a ton of rage because the adults in the room, the government officials are using him as a pawn in their little games.' Oh, I know. I would get so mad. I would get Yep. Yep. But but but but but if you walk in and you y you all sit down, it's kind of the old um interrogator trick, if when y'all have conversations, your seat, you instantly go six feet above him and you're looking down at how he's spending his money and is he doing this and is who I'm not saying he gets a pass. He's being a man who lacks character cuz he's lying to his wife. Mhm. But if I were to dig into his situation, is he is he created a world where he has to do that? He feels very judged by me. Because I I guarantee you cuz he is you've judged him on this conversation with me now. Oh yeah, he I I would judge him. I would hold him accountable. And that's what I'm trying to do to say like I call you on your and it's maybe that's the wrong word, but like I see the right word. I'm still here, but he doesn't have permission to call you on yours. I mean, he can. I I know he can. And you you've told me your default is anger is explosion. Mhm. You get what I'm saying? And here's what I'm trying to get to. If you want to be right here, you you can be. He's lied to you. If you want to be married, and more importantly, you want to have peace and safety inside your chest, which you don't feel right now. Mhm. Then the only path forward is the most courageous um scary thing you can do, which is to say, I want to own my part of the dance that we're in. I'm a judgmental, angry person, and I think I've pushed you into a way that you're reacting poorly, and you may have to swallow your pride and ego and your anger. But it it's it's the path back to connection. Okay? Do you get what I'm saying? I'm not saying become a doormat. I'm not saying once you put this on the table, if he lies again, I want you to tell him not you shouldn't be lying to me. He shouldn't get hear me say, but I want you to say when I don't know where our money is, it terrifies me. I can't I can't breathe. I can't sleep. And then you throw and he knows that's a he knows that's a big issue for me because my previous husband did all kinds of crazy financial stuff. There we go. And so Murray head straight straight into it. Own what you have. Go with his favorite cup of coffee and then just say, 'Hey, we've co-created this thing. Here's what I've brought to it. And also, I can't be in a relationship with somebody who lies about our money. I want our debts to be ours. I just want our money to be ours. I want our future to be ours. Are you in? And then hold your breath cuz he may say absolutely or he may say nope. Thanks for the call. We come back. A man asks how to tell his wife that skipping their baby's legal documents is dangerous. Quote. All right, if you're listening to this ad, you can tell that I sound cool. And if you're watching this on YouTube, you can see that I look cool. Why? cuz I'm wearing my favorite poncho shirt. If you've seen me on stage at events or anywhere else on the internets or social media, you've probably seen me wearing poncho shirts. It's almost all I ever wear. I'm always wearing poncho shirts and especially now because it's cold outside and that's perfect for wearing my favorite denims and flannels. Poncho's denim has that soft, broken in feel with a little bit of stretch. feels like you've worn it a million times, but it still looks amazing. 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Baltimore, Maryland. Let's go talk to Carlos. What's up, Carlos?

"Hey, how's it going?"

"Outstanding, brother. What's up, man?"

"Hey. Yeah. Um, just had a question about uh trying to have a conversation, a respectful conversation with my wife."

"Dude, good on you, man. That's a great way to even frame this conversation."

"Thanks. Um, so my wife has like over the course of our marriage has uh um I guess grown more skeptical of I guess societal norms, I'll say. Um and uh it started off or it has started off with uh pretty normal stuff that's like more accepted. Um"

"give me give me an example. um like kind of like homeschooling, you know, like I believe in homeschooling is is not bad at all and and uh she, you know, she's she's skeptical about like vaccines uh that that the schedule particularly was at first, but you know, now it's grown into all vaccines and then um you know, she's talking about recently has talked about like not paying taxes and uh now she doesn't want to uh give our b get the birth birth certificate or social security number uh for our newborn."

"Oh yikes yikes yikes. Yeah."

"She's down the rabbit hole. She spent a lot of time on social media."

"Uh yes."

"Yeah."

"Yeah. This is a dangerous trajectory for you, your wife, and especially those sweet kids."

"Yeah. That's that's what I believe. And I'm trying to I've tried to bring it up before and talk to her about it, but I get kind of flustered and I think the arguments usually or the conversations usually devolve into an argument."

"Yeah."

"And I'm trying to figure out how to better approach it um so that we can kind of come to a resolution and"

"uh move forward in like a a safe manner. Um, man, that's such a great question and unfortunately millions and millions of people are struggling with the same thing."

"Yeah."

"because we've entered into the strangest uh information environment I think in human history. Um, yeah, the things you're talking about are so insane like on so many levels and I absolutely understand when you have a baby. Is this your first one? Second one, third one. What What What baby is this?"

"This is our second."

"Okay. I remember how scared I was not knowing how to have two kids in the house. Uhhuh. And in our house, I don't know about yours, but our house had there had been a bunch of loss, too. a bunch of miscarriages, a bunch of hospital visit like and so it was heightened. I was just a scared guy."

"Yeah. And I will never underestimate the privilege I had of working with at university systems with like I didn't have social media a and b it would never occur to me to go to some weird influencer who's trying to sell me supplements like the groundup dirt from like some volcano somewhere as an antidote to whatever. I just simply had I could go down the hall and ask a cancer biologist or a epidemiologist or I could go down the hall and ask somebody who works, you know, on the on the measles vaccine or whatever. And I know that um that's an insane privilege that very few people have. So, I want to honor the fact that your wife is scared and she wants to be a good mom and that we live in a world now where that fear is channeled through algorithms simply designed for one thing, to keep you glued to them. And the easiest way to keep you glued to something is to scream you're going to hurt or kill your child. Yeah. Right. And then the powerlessness you feel that you watch and let's be honest, this isn't just about that. You're losing your wife in other places too. Fair. Yeah, definitely. Tell me about that. Um I mean we not very intimate I think anymore and um"

"tell me about that."

"We um I mean it's been a couple years now I think that it's degraded. Um and we um yeah we don't we don't I mean we don't have intercourse. We don't hug, we don't kiss all that much. Um except for, you know, when we're trying to make a baby essentially."

"Sure."

"Um and then, you know, we can't really have a lot of conversations uh in terms of, you know, what I would consider normal conversations like finances and"

"Okay."

"Um and just everyday life really. Uh"

"all right. That's that's what I want to put on the table."

"Mhm. And I'll challenge you the same way I challenged a previous caller. Are you a person who is safe to have scary conversations with? Meaning when somebody picks up their phone and a hundred people tell them that the measles vaccine is going to kill their kid and that and they bring it to you is your instant response is that's so stupid. We're not doing that or you know what measel vaccine is. How that became contentious I will never understand. Mhm. Ever. But let's take that one off the table. Let's say the social security number. I don't want a birth certificate. Mhm. If it's like, 'Hey, I'm starting to question whether we should have these government documents.' Um, are you somebody that's like, 'That's so stupid.' Or are you somebody who goes, 'Hey, I got us a babysitter. I want us to go out. Tell me about it.' Um I I would say for the most part I am the latter, but for the when she brought up the birth certificate and tax also taxes before and social security number uh I was really taken aback and uh"

"Sure. Yeah."

"I was kind of uh confused and I kind of just answered as very bluntly like what are you talking about?"

"Well, and that's the right answer by the way. Don't don't don't hear me say like you need to gently go into that one, right?"

"Yeah."

"Cuz here's here's what you're facing. You're facing a potential um lethal decision for your children. Your wife is now asking, 'Should we start committing crimes?' Mhm. Your wife is starting to ask, 'Should we hide?' Like, 'Should we pretend?' And it's all pretend. Should we pretend that we're hiding? Right. And and what that tells me is you have a wife who's struggling deeply with fear and with anxiety. Yeah. Or let me put it this way. My guess is she is very very lonely right now. Fair. Yeah, that's fair. Okay. And so I want to enter into that conversation with deep compassion. Oh yeah. Um the worst thing for a schizophrenic is to find out someone actually is following them around. Right. was that just because you're paranoid that someone's following you doesn't mean they're not right. Yeah. And what you don't want to do is become yet another like there's research that says like if somebody's super conservative or super liberal and you hand them clear documented evidence about how their position on a particular issue is categorically factually incorrect. It actually drives them further into their position which is so bizarre and strange. Yeah, I think I I tried to I think I I made that mistake because I tried to say like the state, you know, the midwife filled out the birth record. The state already has the record. The birth certificates for us for our legal protection. And I think that it's for your babies. Like I had to take my birth certificate that I still have from Texas Women's Hospital. I still have it in a safe that's inside another safe. It's that important of a document. I I just used it last week, right? And all I have to say is this, those things are proxies to what's really going on, which is your wife is terrifyingly alone, terrifyingly scared. Okay? And she is looking for things that she can control. Okay? And so my my my plea to you is to enter into not trying to solve each one of those issues cuz you're actually going to drive her away. Okay? Is heading into the issue that is I feel like I'm losing my best friend in the world. I'm losing my wife and I'm scared. Yeah. For you. How can I love you right now? Well, you would love me by being on my side that we don't We're not going to talk about that right now. Are you okay? You get what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, I do. I miss you. And when you go into those conversation, that conversation using eyewords, on the whole, those are invitations. If if you sit down and say, 'We're never having sex. We haven't had sex in years. You're not doing this. You're not doing this.' Then you become yet another one of those vaccine pedalling, government supporting Looney Tunes that her entire feed is telling her um is trying to kill everybody. Yeah. Right. So, play this out for me. You sit down at the table with her and and I like breakfast just because the sun is out and people have slept sometimes. Um, you sit down and you say, 'I want Will you hold my hands?' What? Will you hold my hands, please? I just need to say something. And you said, 'I love you and I miss you and I'm worried about you and I'm worried about us.' What would her response to that be? Just play it out. And it might be a super negative response, but play that out. Yeah, I think her initial response would be laughing like and very skeptical of uh of like the genuineess of me trying to be intimate with her. Okay. So, so here's the only thing you can control when she starts laughing is your emotional reactivity. Okay. Could you stay present then? Yeah. to where she felt the weight, not the weight of this is a big heavy conversation, but the weight of this guy that I've created two kids with, this guy that is my husband is rooted. Mhm. Does she have any other women in her life that you could reach out to and say, 'I'm worried about my wife.' Um, she's very close to her sisters of mom. Okay. Are they in the same little tribe where they just send each other crazier and crazier Facebook messages? Uh yeah, sort of. Um, yeah, okay. I think the the mom is uh I think more reasonable and uh yeah. Okay. I I am here today because my wife reached out to a couple of my guy friends. Okay. And they they told me things that my wife had been telling me, but I couldn't hear it from her at the time because I wasn't well. Okay. And I will tell you initially I was like did you you called so so and so? Yeah. Cuz I I'm worried about you. Okay. And for whatever reason that tether was kept me kept me hanging on. Yeah. But this isn't So let me let me back all the way out. Yes. Your child 100% needs a uh birth certificate. He or she already has one for whatever it's worth. Mhm. The fact that y'all don't want to get a copy and your wife thinks she is avoiding something is madness. Yeah. Did y'all have that kid at home? Yeah, we did. Okay. Was there a midwife there that went and registered? Uh, yeah. Okay. Tada. Yeah. Yeah. That's I tried to have the I know. This isn't a logic issue. This is a this is a fight or flight. This is a trauma response. Yeah. Trauma is probably not the right word. This is a terrified mother response. Okay? And so it's getting to that level. So when I was a scared, anxious wreck, when my wife would say, 'Hey, we have to pay bills every month or we look at our bills. We are fine financially. We're okay.' Then what it my body registered that as oh, she's one of them. When my buddy showed up and I didn't know she had called him and he said, 'Hey, you need to go talk to somebody, dude. You're not okay.' That was the very first time that it registered with me that maybe, just maybe, it's me. Maybe it's me. And that started that turned the car I was driving off a cliff one degree. And that started a complete total arc that here I am and my car is completely going a different direction now this many years later. But yes, your kid needs a birth certificate. They they have they have one of some shape, form or fashion. Unless unless you are in the deep Appalachian Mountains and y'all had a baby and your cousin delivered it and nobody like Right. and if there was no prenatal care and there was no no fill in the blank, fill in the blank, fill in the blank. Um, I would be stunned if when the midwife registered, if there's not a social security number somewhere, I actually don't know the mechanics of that all the way down. Um, your kid needs a polio vaccine and your kid needs a measles vaccine. And if you don't want to listen to the show anymore because I said that cuz I'm a part of bit, fine. Go talk to somebody's great-grandparents who live through polio. Talk to parents who have buried their children from measles, right? And I also get the do we need he be the day they're born? I get all those questions. All the questions are good. This is a scared scared mom. Let's start there. And then it might be on you to invite couples over, to invite people over to the house to begin building a world where she's got other people she can reach out to and text and maybe get a human interaction. Maybe you say, 'Hey, at night time I want us to start putting our phones away. Would you join me in that? I'm going to turn my phone off when I walk in the door. A way you could love me would be to turn your phone off.' Little things like that that will slowly turn this tide. But you're right to be scared for your kids both now and in the future. But also going to war with your wife is tough. There will come a moment when you might have to file the paperwork and deal with the blowback. But let's start with connection first. Thank you so much for the call, man. Man, you are you are like millions of husbands and wives whose partners are just scared to death and trying to grasp any straw they can. And there's a return to a rootedness that we all need, especially in our marriages. Thanks, brother. When we come back, a man asks how to cope with work stress after his boss ignored the safety issue. I've got a house full of pets and when they're not okay, nobody in our house is okay. Everything gets thrown off when a pet gets sick or when a pet gets hurt. And it's impossible to get the help we need. We have to make appointments. We have to drive across town. Hope we can fit it in our schedules. And listen, this is why I love Dutch. Dutch is the leading pet telealth service that gives you 247 access to licensed veterinarians anytime, anywhere. No waiting rooms, no, yeah, sure. We can see you in three weeks. Real help when you need it. Dutch can treat over 150 common pet conditions. And with about a 10-minute phone call from home, you're on your way to a treatment plan. And here's the best part. Dutch is super affordable. A Dutch membership covers up to five pets and includes unlimited visits, unlimited follow-ups, and prescriptions. Yeah, that's right. Prescriptions. They're shipped free. And with my code, all of this is less than seven bucks a month. You'll spend more than that just walking into a vets's office one time. The average pet owner saves over $800 a year with Dutch. That's great for your pets, great for your wallet, and great for your family's peace of mind. Go to dutch.com/delone and use code deloney to get 50 bucks off a year of veterinarian care. That's dutch. Dutch.com/deloney. Use code Deloney. See their site for more details. All right, we're back. Take two seconds. Take two seconds. Hit pause on this and then hit the like or subscribe button. It golly, it makes such a huge difference for the listeners, for us, for you, for everybody. Thank you so much for doing that. Whether you're on podcast, Spotify, um Apple, the the tubes, wherever you are, just take a second, hit the subscribe button. Um, it's such a blessing on so many levels and it cost you nothing but like two seconds. Thank you so much. All right, Reno, Nevada. Let's talk to not Bill, but Ted. What's up, Ted?

"What's going on?"

"Just rocking on to the breaking dawn, brother. What are you doing?"

"Um, just sitting here nervous. How are you?"

"Don't be nervous. What's up, man? I'm just kidding. That's That's the dumbest thing you could tell tell somebody. Don't be nervous. That's not helpful at all. Right. So, be as nervous as you want, man. I'm glad you're here. How about that? Thanks so much. Should I just jump into it?"

"Yeah. Swan dive, brother. Or cannonball, either one."

"Okay. So, basically about a month ago, there was um like we had a gas leak incident and I didn't know what to do. So,"

"at your house or at the office?"

"Oh, that was at the at the job cuz it's like a lab, so we had to leave the building."

"I have a 15-year-old son and there's multiple gas leaks in my home on a regular basis. So, Okay. So, at at the at the office. Okay."

"Um Yeah. So, it was at the office and um I didn't know what to do exactly cuz I've never and there was no supervisor. So, we ended up evacuating the building and I thought, you know, I was kind of freaking out for sure cuz it was like a scary thing. Um and uh my boss called me and he like yelled at me. And then following that it um like the week after it was just like I kept getting like reprimanded and like I was surprised cuz I would thought that people would be like you know oh man I'm so glad you're still alive you know but"

"no one ever said anything like that. So but I'm also like stuck on crossroads in terms of jobs. So"

"tell me about that."

"I wanted to"

"um So I've been like applying to things but it's like waiting for like months to like go through application processes. So otherwise I would be like, 'Oh, sweet.' You know, I'm just going to leave this. So"

"Sure. Well, and and let me say this. You're wise to not just jump off the dock without another boat, right?"

"Yeah, for sure. Yeah."

"Are you married? You have kids?"

"Um, no, but I have roommates and rent to pay. So,"

"excellent. Perfect. That's awesome. So, um, I will say it like this. I have my boss is a radio icon and the CEO of a company has a thousand employees. I'm a very opinionated guy and so is he. And we have gotten, shocker alert, we've gotten cross. I also know that after we've gotten cross, I can always always circle back and say, 'Hey, I want to follow up here.' And then we can sit down and have that conversation with and I always enter that conversation with, 'Hey, how can I do this right or better next time?' Or, 'I clearly did something.' I always take a humble approach. Not because I always think I'm wrong, but because humility is always the path forward where you get where you want to be right unless you want to burn something down. And I just have decided in my life I'm going to save burning things down to very rare moments."

"And so, do you have the opportunity if you were to send your boss an email or a text message that y'all could loop back and say, 'Hey, I want to follow up.' Be like, 'Hey, I clearly screwed something up. I thought I was doing the right thing. A, how do you want me to handle this in the future? And B, um, how can I make this right moving forward?'"

"Uh, I mean, not really, just cuz like um, he is like very like strongly opinionated. No,"

"I am too. But I always but but but"

"if he's strongly if if he's strongly opinionated cuz he's a jerk or he he's he's so scared of being wrong that that's how he goes through the world, then yeah, you're right. That's not a person you want to work for. This whole thing will implode on itself at some point financially, safety-wise, whatever. this will implode because that sort of power is based on not being scared or trying to squash down fear, right?"

"Yeah. And I I Well, I think for sure if I had the opportunity or like if he was the kind of person I could sit down and like talk things out like same thing with my supervisor, like I would absolutely do that, but"

"it doesn't feel like I I could, you know."

"Have you done that with your supervisor? Um, no. She just like kept like lecturing me and telling me, you know, what I could have done different."

"Okay. So, let's be reflective. Was she right?"

"Oh, for sure. Yeah. And I told her that, too. I was like, 'Yeah, you're right.' You know, like I could have done that for sure. But it seems like no one respected it on my half that like I didn't feel safe, you know, and I have the right to like stop there, you know,"

"unless your l your feeling safe was not your feeling wasn't factually right and so you felt scared and then you got some new information and they're like, 'No, actually this is the path you should have taken.' And they should have said, 'Hey, we didn't we didn't we didn't tell you this. That's on that's on us moving forward. Fill in the blank. Or maybe they did and you got scared and you didn't follow the protocol. But I want you to hold the tension of I felt unsafe, but actually I was and I pulled the fire alarm and actually there wasn't a fire. Is there any truth to that? Yeah, I think in a way that like I could have like if I reflected on it, I could have reacted differently. But I think the problem is that when I look back on it is it's based on a lot of like assumptions of you know how that gas leak was occurring. So it would be me assuming like okay you know if I stop"

This that you know it's going to be done leaking and I can remove it, you know.

Sure. But do you get how both of y'all had assumptions?

Yeah, for sure. And I, I totally understand that and I told that to them too that, um, but it's just hard because, you know, I feel like I've, it's definitely been a job that I've been like trying to get out of, you know, but the, everything's slow, you know.

Totally. So is there a world where you take your lumps and you just move on?

Yeah, for sure. I, I definitely try to do that. It was just, it was just like a terrible week. But I, I just didn't know how, how I could fix it on my end of things, you know, like,

It sounds like you can fix it in two ways. One, don't let this incident take away your character. And what do I mean by that? You said and you've continued to say, I will show up to your place of work and do my absolute best in exchange for serving a customer and in exchange for a paycheck.

Mhm. And you've also decided, I don't want to work here long term. Great. That's awesome. But now that, like, as the old saying goes, when your spirit leaves your workplace, your body should go ahead and follow it as soon as possible. And so the challenge for you is, how do I keep my spirit here? When I got embarrassed, when I made a call and everyone around me said it's the wrong call and I still think the call in the moment was right, but I get what they're saying.

Mhm. How do you, like, not be buried in shame and embarrassment, take your lumps, stand back up tall, and say, "I, regardless of the environment, I am not going to cash in my character and my dignity. I'm still going to show up here, put my head down, work as hard as I possibly can, learn my, my lesson here, and at the same time, in the evenings, not on the clock, in the morning, I'm going to get up at 5:00 a.m. And I'm going to stop throwing a bunch of LinkedIn stuff out there with AI cover letters, but I'm going to go call actual people doing actual jobs that I wanted to work in and I'm going to up my game in terms of uh getting out of here."

I see what you mean.

Does that make sense? Cuz how old are you?

I am 22.

Okay. Part of working on a team is striking out to end a game. That happens, especially when coach said, "Hey, when you go up there, he's going to throw you a curveball first. Don't swing." And you walk right up. He throws a curveball and you swing and whiff. And then coach goes, "I told you." And and you have that embarrassment.

Mhm.

Part of you moving into like a profession is feeling a certain way, making a call, and it's the wrong call or maybe it was right for you, but it was wrong for the company that you serve and taking your lumps. And I could, if your leaders were calling me, if your supervisors and bosses were calling me, I, I speak at business events all over the country. I would tell them, "Dude, you have a 22-year-old, no, not no disc here, but you have a 22-year-old kid. It's his first job. It's a gas leak. Relax."

Mhm.

Bring the kid in, say, "Hey, I get why you made this call. Don't do that in the future. Here's all this is, and we need to do a better job of a training you all, and b having a hotline that y'all can call." You get what I'm saying? That's what they should do and they didn't.

And so you get to decide.

Am I gonna quiet quit? Am I gonna at 22 decide I'm a person who if I have a strong feeling, even if it's wrong, I am going to take my ball and go home or am I going to take my lumps? By the way, they're going to be on to the next drama next week.

I'm going to put my head down. I will be the best worker humanly possible in this building. I will outwork everybody. And I'm going to prove not only to them but to myself that I can take my lumps even if it's not given the right way. And I'm going to keep showing up here and working to serve the customer who's buying whatever products that we're making. You get what I'm saying? What I don't want you to do here is cash out just because you had a feeling and you made a call and the call was wrong and your bosses haven't handled it. Great. Fine.

Yeah. I think I see what you're. Yeah. So kind of like be the bigger person and kind of move on.

It's not about being the bigger person. It's never letting external situations take your dignity and your integrity from you.

I see.

And and if you want to say, I don't want to be the bigger person here, then the integrous thing to do would be to walk in and quit. I will not work for somebody who treats their employees this way when they make a mistake. And you're 22 and you're probably in a position where you don't have six months of an emergency fund somewhere where you can do that.

Yeah.

And and that's another thing. My hope is this is a moment for you where you say, I never want to be beholden to a boss again. And so I'm going to work for the next four years and not owe anybody anything. I'm going to drive a crummier car. I'm going to pay all my student loans off. I am gonna save and have six months of my expenses in a in in a checking account, a high yield savings account. That way, if anyone ever disrespects me, calls me out and embarrasses like, whatever. If my boss ever shows you're not a person of character, I can walk right out the door. And here's what's crazy about that. As a 22-year-old, when you have that sort of security outside of the office, you stand a little bit taller and you challenge just a little bit more. And I don't know why or how this works, but supervisors and bosses tend to respond to that with, "Oh, that guy's got leadership potential. That guy screwed up." And then held his own, said he's sorry, smiled, shook my hand, said it won't happen again, walked out. I like that confidence. I don't know why or how that works. But when somebody feels like you don't need this thing, everybody, it elevates the interaction. Does that make sense?

Yeah, for sure.

And so, man, this is one of those beautiful moments for you. There's 25, 25 different lessons you can learn here. 30 different lessons here. And I almost think the greatest lesson you can learn, not from anybody else, but for your own grit and resilience and inner strength, is actually, I'm not going to quit. I'm going to keep going in here where it quote unquote feels and I'm going to practice being a person of such high character and integrity. I'm going to work my butt off as long as I'm taking their check. I'm going to go all in every day.

I see.

Does that make sense? I And I know every one of your roommates is like, "Screw them. Get out of here."

And if we look around, there's too many 30-year-old men like us living in their mom's basement still.

Yeah, that is a fear.

Because they have a feeling like, I don't feel safe. I don't feel like my boss likes me. I don't feel. And they just leave because they're letting her feelings run their life. Bro, I have done interviews in this new job I'm in on national media and I have blown it, right? It has not felt good. And I can choose to just be like, I quit. Or I can be like, you're right. I'm going to own it. I'm going to head back in. And I am blessed at a place where supervisors across my company that I work for, even the CEO, the president, those are different people. I, I know I can go sit down with them and that's where I'm here long term. And you, if you don't have that, that's fair. That's a good call out. I don't want to work for that company long term because the leadership's going to crash that place at some point. But you get to decide you're going to be a person of resilience moving forward. Are you in?

Yeah, totally.

I love the. This sounds crazy. I love the spiritual end, um, exercise for you here.

This is how a young man grows in strength and resilience and confidence.

Which is,

I, I, um, I got, I thought it was like,

Go ahead.

Oh, sorry.

No, go ahead. You thought.

No, I was just going to say, um, I thought it was, you know, like such a regrettable experience, but I think, um, you're helping me realize it's like, for my youth, it's something I should be thankful for.

Well, yeah. Yeah, dude. And would I want you to go through it again? No. And you can be regretful, a regrettable experience. It can be an uncomfortable experience. And it can be a refining strength building experience, too. It's who are you going to be after the thing happened. That's character. And maybe you learned at 22, okay, my feelings aren't always right. Or I'm going to make a call when I don't feel safe. I'm going to always default to safety. And sometimes I'm gonna over swing, especially at 22, especially with a gas leak, for God's sakes.

Right? Yeah. That doesn't make you crazy.

But I think two, and by the way, it's going to happen in, in, in a romantic relationship. You're going to do something that you think is right. You're going to have a feeling about something. You're going to make a call and your, your significant other, your romantic partner is going to blow up. They're not going to, they're going to, they're going to withdraw. They're going to run. They're going to break up with you. They're going to do something like, "Ah," and you're going to decide, "Oh, I don't feel, fill in the blank. What's the next right thing beneath that feeling?" Because feelings aren't designed to tell us the truth. They're designed to keep us safe. And so your feelings in this moment, you heard, you heard a twig snap in the forest and you went running. And they're like, "Dude, that was just a squirrel. Could have been a bear. Could have eaten you, but it was a squirrel." And it's almost always going to be a squirrel. All right. I'm going to learn that. That's just wisdom. That is just experience and wisdom. So, dude, I think you're right. I think your, your bosses didn't handle this right. I think you probably overreacted and all that's true. And you probably feel some guilt and you probably feel some shame and you probably feel like, and they're beating up on you cuz you're 22 and you're new. Fine. The question is, who are you going to be now? And I will not let them have my dignity. I will not let them have my integrity. And that means two things. Is one, I'm going to keep show, if I'm going to take their paycheck, I'm going to keep showing up giving my 100%. Because me quiet quitting, me being like that says everything about me and nothing about them. The second thing is I am going to start at 22. I have a goal at 25. I will be completely, completely, I won't owe anybody any money. I'm going to have some cash in the bank that I'm not investing and putting in crypto. I'm gonna have some cash in the bank so that if in the future I need to walk, I can smile and shake their hand and say, "Cool. You'll have my resignation by the end of the day. You'll have a great day." I'm have a smile on my face because I am going to have a foundation that I can anchor into, not the whims of some boss that likes to beat up 22-year-olds. So, well played, brother. The next move for you is going to give you a trajectory on the man you are going to become. And man, these are those, these are those make or break moments for for young men. And I've been there, dude. My suggestion to you is take your lumps on this one. Keep showing up and working hard. If you don't want to be in this business long term, great. But don't let, let anybody have your integrity. We'll be right back. Hey, what up? How we doing? Listen, my family and I traveled a lot this holiday season, and some of the mattresses I slept on were not the best. I found myself counting down the hours until I could get back home onto my Helix mattress. Sleeping on a Helix mattress has transformed my rest. My whole family sleeps on Helix mattresses and we all love coming home and getting into our own beds. I even have a Helix mattress in my guest room and when people come crash at my house, they always, always want to know about this amazing mattress that they spent the night on. Helix mattresses are that good because they make mattresses for real people. Whether you sleep hot or cold or on your side or on your back, Helix customizes their mattresses to you and your sleep style. I got online and took the Helix Sleep quiz. It takes like two minutes and I want you to do the same thing. They're going to match you with the perfect mattress just for you. Plus, Helix is extending their New Year sale exclusively for my audience. Go to helixsleep.com/deloney for 27% off sitewide. That's helix, H E L I X. helixsleep.com/deloney for 27% off sitewide. And tell Helix you heard about their mattresses right here on this show with Helix. Better sleep starts right now. All right, we're back. We got a money and marriage question. And I think by the time this is coming out, the February money marriage will be sold out. If it's not, I would love to have you. If there's a few seats left. Um, ramseysolutions.com/events. Come through the money marriage retreat here in Nashville over Valentine's Day weekend. It's the best marriage retreat on planet Earth in my opinion. And I got the microphone, so I think I'm right. All right. So, here's the question. I have a hard time speaking up for what I want in the bedroom. This is not on my husband. It's me. It's tangled up in my insecurity. So, man, there's so much here that it's hard for me to give just a blanket answer here. But I want you to back out of speaking up for what you want in the bedroom. And I want you to define intimacy as the creation of a secret world between two people. And in this secret world, we do things together. We talk about things together. And he knows what scares you. He knows what makes you feel uncomfortable. Like you know what makes him feel uncomfortable, what scares him, what he likes. And I want you to get inside there. And so learning having a hard time speaking up for dot dot dot, that's the problem we solve here, not just in the bedroom, because my guess is you have problems speaking up about other things, too. And so I want to put that on the table. And it could be that your husband is is great, but he hasn't created a world where you feel safe enough to put on the table. Or it could be that speaking up for what you wanted has been something that got you whapped and ignored and beat up or whatever since you were a little kid. And so what we're going to do in this secret world is we are going to begin to practice speaking up for what you want. And what are we going to, I want you to hear that word practice. And so you and your husband come up with a ritual, a weekly three things I'm going to speak up for. I'm just going to practice. And you have to tell him, "You can't fix this. You can't be, you can't withdraw. Be like, 'Oh, you should have told me you can't do that.' I'm practicing. And I need you to stay present with me and hold my hands while I practice. And I'm going to get all nervous. I'm going to get all scared. And then I'm going to practice three things." Saying three things a week. I have a hard time speaking up about how you empty the dishwasher. What? What? I, let me say it. I have a hard time saying that I don't love intercourse as much as oral sex. Can I just, can I just say it? Okay. I have a hard time saying I don't like our church that we go to. Whatever those things are. And I want you to begin practice not just speaking up for what you want in the bedroom, but practice speaking up. Period. And couples across the country are telling me that the erotic envelope system, you go to Walgreens, get an envelope, he writes down five things he wants to try in the bedroom or likes. You write down five things you want to try or like in the bedroom. And you'll put it in an envelope. And once a week, once every two weeks, once a month, you draw one of those things. And here's the rules. The other person has to be curious about it. No judgment. Even if they're like, "Ah, it's gross or that's weird or I feel." Practice. And then part of the intimacy is not just going to do the act on the card. Part of the intimacy is you telling him why you put that on the card. And now you're talking about total transformation. But this is something you're going to practice. Not just about sex, not just about the bedroom, but about everything. And now you're talking about a fortified secret world. And now your marriage changes forever. Great, great question. Um, thank you so so much for reaching out. I love you guys. Thank you for continuing to show up and listen to the show. Send it to a couple of friends. See y'all soon.