Caller: “My Husband Blames Me for Getting Pregnant”

The Dr. John Delony Show

Dr. John Delony guides listeners through three distinct marital and family crises, emphasizing personal accountability and intentional relationship building over blame. He advises a wife to stop

Key takeaways

• Ann is advised to stop waiting for her husband's apology and instead take radical ownership of her own emotional well-being and marriage vision.
• Marie learns that vague desires like 'feeling important' are unattainable; she must set specific, tactical boundaries regarding her husband's phone use and work hours.

Main topics

• Marital conflict and blame dynamics
• Entrepreneurial work-life balance in marriage

Notable quotes

"The real healing here is you looking at him saying, I want to be married to you... What do we want that to look like?"

Conclusion

The episode delivers actionable frameworks for navigating high-stakes relationship fractures by

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:05) How do I move forward when my husband still blames me for our fourth baby? I knew he wouldn't be thrilled, but instead he was actually very angry. He ended up saying that it was all my, this was all my fault. I should have known myself better. I should have been tracking myself better. Speaker 5 (0:29) What's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee. Take in your calls on your mental and emotional health, your families, your marriages, your kids, whatever you got going on in your life. Pull up a seat and we're going to figure out what's the next right move. If you want to be on the show, I would love to have you. Real people with real challenges. Click the link in the show notes and we will get you on. I'm so grateful that you're spending your time with us. Let's go out to Washington, D.C. and talk to Ann. Hey, Ann, what's going on? Speaker 1 (1:02) So my question is, how do I move forward when my husband still blames me for our fourth Speaker 5 (1:08) baby? Tell me about that. Speaker 1 (1:11) So before we got, we've been married for like over 10 years. And before we got married, we talked about kids. You know, we kind of played the back and forth game between three and six and four and five. We kind of settled on four. And every time we were ready to have another kid, like we were actually ready. We're ready for our first, our second, our third. First two were pretty easy. The third took a good long while. And then when our third was... a little over a year, I guess, he said, you know, I think we should wait on the fourth. We hadn't had an actual conversation about having another one at that time. But I was like, okay, that's fine. There's no conversation about not having any more or anything like that. And then a couple months after that, lo and behold, I'm pregnant with a fourth. And I knew he wouldn't be thrilled. I knew that... There'd be shock and probably some initial disappointment and all that. We'd kind of have to work through that together. At least that's what I was hoping for. But instead, he was actually very angry. He initially had the shock, but obviously it wasn't happy shock. And then he started to get sarcastic and kind of mean. And he initially accused me of getting pregnant on purpose. Speaker 1 (2:43) And, well, that made me mad. And I obviously denied that. And then he ended up just turning around and saying that it was all my, this was all my fault. I could have known myself better. I should have been tracking myself better. Speaker 5 (3:03) Okay. So bring me to right now. Is the baby been born yet? Speaker 1 (3:08) Yes. He's almost a year. Okay. He is lovely. Okay. And I brought it up to him like maybe the beginning of the summer. And I had told him that we've had other issues before this, but that like I... When I want to tell him something that's bothering me or that I feel he said no, like that blame now physically sits there and I can physically feel it and it makes me pull back. Speaker 5 (3:38) What does that mean? You can physically feel it? Speaker 1 (3:41) Like it sits in my chest. Speaker 5 (3:43) Okay. Like Speaker 1 (3:44) I physically feel that heaviness and it actually makes me stop. Speaker 5 (3:51) And then Speaker 1 (3:52) I don't tell him anything. Speaker 5 (3:54) Okay. What are some other things besides finding out about the fourth baby? Who, of course, now she's personified, right? She's this amazing person. Yes. And it's hard. It's easy. Let me say it this way. It's easy to see the joy and amazing human being in front of you, bouncing on your knee that you're holding at night, whatever. And to begin to reverse engineer things that were said in a really heated moment over a year and a half ago now. And through that lens of who would say this about this little, you get what I'm saying? Speaker 1 (4:28) Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, when I brought that up, he, he, he kind of stopped me and he's like, first off, like, I love her so much. He is amazing. Um, I mean, he obviously takes care of her so well. He was a great dad, but also the way that he ended up kind of treating me through the pregnancy. Um, he very much. pulled back and left me alone. Okay. Speaker 5 (4:54) So let's deal with that challenge. Speaker 1 (4:57) Okay. Speaker 5 (4:58) The underneath. So here's what I'm gonna say. What he said was wrong, stupid, dumb, whatever. Okay. And, and this is a uncomfortable and right. Speaker 4 (5:09) I, Speaker 5 (5:09) I have a, for. I have a lifetime, but especially a professional lifetime, of giving people grace in huge emotional moments when they say stupid things. What I want to see and you can't unsay them and there's not that they go away But I have said things in big heated emotional situations that I didn't mean. I didn't want. I mean, just my body. I view it as my body exploded. Immature? Yes. Wrong? Hurtful? Yes. Did I mean it? No. Right? And so it's not that there's any past whatsoever. What matters to me is who are you after you say that thing? Right? And do you do the work so that never happens again ever? And like I said, like putting in the work for 10 years now, like I have almost none of those, right? I'm pretty controlled. I'm pretty controlled most of the time, like wherever I happen to be. Speaker 5 (6:07) You have four kids. You'll have, you see him being a good dad. But underneath that, y'all have this thing called y'all are married. Where's the fracture there? Is it that this thing has been festering for 18 months for two years and y'all just haven't had it out yet? You haven't cleared the deck because it's still in your spirit and you want to just say, I want to work through this thing. You weren't here for me. You left me alone. Is it that you realize, oh, that guy can do that now? Is it this realization that you might be married to somebody different than you? Not that who's going to say something stupid, but he'll go nine months and leave me all alone if he gets in enough of a timber tantrum. Like, what is the thing? What's underneath it? Where's that fracture? Speaker 1 (6:52) Well, because when I brought it up to him at the beginning of the summer, just in like, I feel like I can't actually talk to him, you know, and he said he loves her and everything. He did say, he's like, I still think it's your Speaker 3 (7:02) fault. Okay. Speaker 1 (7:06) So, I mean, we've had, I think, partially for him... Just based on the fact that our three other kids, we were okay with having them. There's that loss of control. Speaker 1 (7:19) Um, Speaker 1 (7:22) that we just, I mean, I don't know, so many of our friends have had this happen, but we hadn't. So for him to suddenly be like, I didn't have a say in this. which I mean, I was more okay with it. Like a baby's a baby to me, you know? Right, right, right. But Speaker 5 (7:39) I don't want to dismiss his, like your nonchalance. I don't want to dismiss it's Speaker 4 (7:45) a Speaker 5 (7:45) big deal for him. But what the challenge is that y'all don't have a structure. Y'all don't have a place. Y'all don't have a safe place that's just y'alls where y'all can say things and even disagree on things. And that's okay. Without it being blame, one loss, I'm over you, you're over me. You know what I'm saying? Speaker 1 (8:03) Yeah. Because Speaker 5 (8:04) there's been, there's this hovering, you did this to us. and it feels like there's been 24 months of trying to reclaim your power position. Speaker 5 (8:17) And however, that's worked that exchange of no, this is all you. This is all you. Somebody has to say, I'm not, I'm not against you. Speaker 5 (8:27) How do we heal this thing? You hurt me. Speaker 5 (8:33) Right? Speaker 3 (8:34) Yeah. Speaker 5 (8:36) Otherwise, it will just go back and forth and back and forth forever. Speaker 1 (8:44) Yeah, we've tried to heal other things and it definitely becomes more of a, like he broke it, but then he expects me to fix it and he doesn't. really want to participate in the fixing of it. So let me ask you this. Speaker 5 (9:05) What are you going to do, Ann? Are you going to leave? Are you thinking about leaving? Speaker 1 (9:11) Well, no. Okay. Speaker 1 (9:14) But I don't really know because just based on past... he doesn't really get involved. It doesn't really want to, I guess, because he doesn't, um, in trying to actually heal and move on from something. And. Speaker 1 (9:36) I don't know. Speaker 1 (9:40) how I'm supposed to move on from it if it's just kind of always going to sit there. And then I do wonder the next thing that happens that he doesn't like, is that going to turn into my fault also? Of course. Speaker 5 (9:55) So the... Speaker 5 (10:02) I guess I'll say a few things here. The first one is this is an uncomfortable, frustrating, vulnerable position to find yourself when everybody in any sort of relationship, work, boss, employee, romantic relationship, kid and parent, any relationship. At the end of the day. When all of the smoke is cleared away, all you can control is you. Speaker 5 (10:32) And so if you're married to a guy who said something pretty awful 24 months ago and then all but abandoned you during the pregnancy, whatever that means, and you and I could spend a couple hours digging into what that means, but just went radio silent on you. Speaker 5 (10:49) for the duration of a fourth pregnancy. Speaker 5 (10:53) Well, also, as you said, he's a great dad. So he showed up for the other three kids and he's been good with this new baby who's come, but you felt left on the sidelines. Speaker 5 (11:04) If you're saying to yourself, I'm never going to leave him. I'm in this thing. Speaker 5 (11:10) then the, and I know that he is probably, and I want to hang on to that word, not going to dot, dot, dot, whatever. ever come back and say, you know what? I screwed that up. You know what? I, it wasn't your fault. It just happened. And we were both having unprotected sex and this thing, it happened. And thank God it did. Cause she's amazing. Like if you think that's never going to happen, then every day you wake up. Speaker 5 (11:37) scratching and clawing and fighting for that thing to happen is a strange choice for you to be miserable in your own skin. Speaker 5 (11:46) Because you can't make it happen and you even said I don't think it's ever going to happen So the question becomes, What must be true for you to show up and become the person you want to be? joyful, full of laughter, full of whatever. Speaker 1 (12:04) Yeah, that's hard. It's Speaker 5 (12:06) very hard because that's all you can control. Speaker 5 (12:10) Now, what I do want to challenge you on is, and not just you, challenge him, challenge all married couples. is almost always these conversations start with a goal in mind. I want to feel better about a thing you did to me, or I want you to do something different. And anytime conversations are approached with those two mindsets from the outset, it can only be a won or lost situation. Speaker 5 (12:41) The real solution, solution's a bad word, the real healing here is you looking at him saying, I want to be married to you and I'm going to stay married to you unless you leave me. And since I'm doing that, I want us to build the greatest marriage in the world. What do we want that to look like? And part of that conversation will be practical. Part of that conversation will be existential. I want this place to feel a certain way. And some of that will be, I want to be able to have something happen and you not blame me for it. Speaker 5 (13:18) You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that is a us doing a thing together not a me versus you Speaker 5 (13:31) Does that make sense? Speaker 3 (13:32) Yeah, it does. Speaker 5 (13:35) And there's real, real vulnerability there. Because he might look at you and say, no, I like things the way they are. I don't want to have another one of your long conversations. And then he goes to the next room and turns the TV on. That could happen. Speaker 5 (13:50) But my guess is Speaker 1 (13:51) when we've had conversations like that, it doesn't, you know, it ends up being like me talking and then nothing changes. But I guess it's him. Speaker 5 (14:02) The rhythm is... Speaker 5 (14:06) I kind of like my life. I've got to weather and storms every once in a while. I'll weather them, and then we'll go back to the way things are. Speaker 5 (14:17) Even if the storms get bigger, if they get louder, it doesn't matter. I got to weather these storms. Speaker 5 (14:23) And then both of you over time settle for what I think is the worst sentence, not the worst, but one of the worst sentences in the English language, which is. This is just the way things are. Speaker 5 (14:36) I've got to start Speaker 1 (14:37) to feel that way. Yeah. Speaker 5 (14:39) And I've got a great, a great buddy, Justin McRoberts. He's a brilliant thinker and writer, but he says like, no, that's, that's almost never the case. Speaker 5 (14:51) It's the way things are the way y'all decide they're going to be. Speaker 5 (14:56) Which should be, hopefully, is the most empowering thing I could tell anybody. But here I'm talking to you. Speaker 5 (15:05) And so you've already decided. Speaker 5 (15:08) Yeah, he would want to build something new with me. Speaker 5 (15:11) Being curious about like, what is it about us? What is it about me that makes it, what about you that makes it so hard for you to accept that sometimes things just happen and we're going to roll with it. Speaker 5 (15:27) What is it? What's so hard about looking at your wife and saying I'm sorry I was wrong Speaker 5 (15:35) See the difference? There's a curiosity to that that's different than you never say. You never, like one of those is judgment, one of those is curiosity. Speaker 1 (15:43) Yeah. Speaker 5 (15:45) And you can get off this phone feeling super defeated, like, oh, he's not going to change, Speaker 1 (15:49) right? Speaker 5 (15:50) Or you could get off saying, A, I can only be responsible for me. So what must be true? Friends, coffee dates, exercise, I'm going to run a marathon, I'm going to write a novel, like whatever. I'm going to start a garden in the backyard. Like whatever. You be honest with you about what must be true. For you to show up as the person you want to be I want to be a person of joy. So when you start, I'm just going to back away and walk out of the room. Speaker 5 (16:19) I'm not going to engage in the fight because it's just you're going to weather my storm and then I'm going to feel a little bit better but then worse and then tomorrow will