I Don’t Trust That I Can Stay Faithful to My Husband

What this episode is about

A newlywed mother grapples with unexpected feelings of attraction to another man while adjusting to the challenges of marriage and parenthood, expressing concerns about fidelity and the pressures of her new lifestyle. She seeks guidance on navigating her emotions and maintaining trust in her marriage despite her fears and frustrations.

Key takeaways

• Attraction isn't betrayal; it's a reminder of your humanity, not a one-way ticket to infidelity.
• Transitioning to parenthood may trigger identity crises; it's normal to grieve the loss of your old self.
• Healthy relationships require frequent tune-ups; familiarity can breed distance if communication isn’t prioritized.
• Your feelings are valid—just don’t let them steer the ship; it’s about where you choose to anchor.
• Trust your instincts but don’t let past mistakes define your future; every day is a new choice.

What is discussed, and when

1. 3:00 – 6:00: Better Help

Notable quotes from "I Don’t Trust That I Can Stay Faithful to My Husband"

• More help is needed. That's why I recommend people go to therapy. And if you're thinking about therapy, try Better Help. It's 100% online, so it's affordable and convenient.…

  about Better Help · at 4:13

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

Sponsors

• Better Help — Product · Sponsor · 1 mention · first at 4:05
  Promoted as a therapy service to help individuals dealing with personal struggles, mentioned during an ad segment.

Full transcript with timestamps

0:06 I am struggling. I've been married a little over a year and I am finding myself attracted to someone who goes to the gym that I'm at and I I just didn't think it would be like that being newly married and I have a new baby and just trying to figure out how do I deal with this? How do I um how do I I change that? How do I not be that person? I'm scared of cheating.

0:35 Okay, so there's a big there's a lot of leaps in here. You get um so um Jeez, let me back all the way out. Tell me about your marriage right now.

0:48 Um yeah, I mean it's it's generally it's really good. we're adjusting to having um you know, another another little person in our lives. Um it's it's generally like textbook great. It's just I'm just struggling with uh figuring out, you know, what what marriage really looks like as as we move forward.

1:14 Tell me about that. Um, so I I was used to traveling a lot and being kind of a jet setter. The baby was a surprise. And um,

1:27 is the baby why y'all got married? No, no, it was a honeymoon baby. Um, she's super cute.

1:33 Hey. Yeah, I'm surprised. Um, which you know I'm so grateful for that. But it Okay, let me stop you there right can I tell you you can be super grateful and be holding a baby that's the like suddenly is the reason you're alive right all that stuff and also you can grieve the fact that it wasn't in your plans for it to come like this.

2:00 Yeah. It doesn't make you a bad mom for you to go, "Good God, I wish this had happened four years from now. Yeah.

2:07 And it doesn't make you a bad wife and him a bad husband if y'all are both scrambling now because this is not the picture y'all drew up.

2:17 Yeah. I mean, I I didn't think I would I would feel this way having a baby either. And I

2:24 Okay, listen to me. Listen. There's no bad feelings, okay? Okay. There's no bad feelings. You're allowed to be frustrated. You're allowed to be annoyed. You're they pop into your mind. And I think most of our pathology these days is because when the thoughts hit, we are so uncomfortable with them. We want to blame somebody else for them or we want to beat ourselves up for them

2:54 and then we feel dead in our own skin because we have to numb ourselves out. And then somebody walks by us in the gym and they say, "Hey, I think you're beautiful." And all of a sudden we're like, "Oh, that makes me feel alive again."

3:07 Yeah. Yeah. I I don't feel like myself most of the time. And I Yeah. I You don't feel like the the the version 3.0 of yourself. And now you're at version 5.0.

3:22 Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I um I just don't I don't know. Like I feel like my identity is just completely flipped and I don't I don't know how to deal with that, I guess. And yeah, as having these feelings really scares me because I I do love my baby and I love my husband and I I want that to work. I'm just so terrified like what if I what if I do something stupid? What if I respond to it? Um, generally I just like keep my distance from that person. But I'm

4:00 Have you done this before? Scared. Have you cheated before? This is an ad for better help. I talk to hurting people for a living. And yes, I can help out folks in tiny chunks of time here on the internets. But often more help is needed. That's why I recommend people go to therapy. And if you're thinking about therapy, try Better Help. It's 100% online, so it's affordable and convenient. They've got over 30,000 therapists and they're great at finding just the right one for you. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney for 10% off your first month.

4:35 Have you cheated before? No. So, what makes you so untrusting of yourself? Um, in the past I had really poor taste in men, I would say. Okay. And so I don't trust that I won't fall for something that's stupid. I I guess I don't trust that I'm going to always make the wisest of choices.

5:03 Okay, so let me clear the deck on a couple of things. Number one, um there would be something wrong with you psych I would there would be something wrong with you all of you if you suddenly stopped finding attractive people attractive. Okay.

5:21 Okay. There would also be something innately wrong if um there weren't lightning bolts of like like electric desire. Okay, that just means you're human.

5:38 Okay. What you what you can control is whether you choose to meditate on that and fantasize about that and let it consume part of you.

5:53 Okay? Like the whole room should be lifted up when a beautiful woman walks in the room. Period. End of story. There should be a spirit that lifts in the room. Right? There should be a spirit that lifts in a room when a fireman walks in, right? Or like a a good-looking guy in the gym just walk like

6:13 Yeah. Everyone should go ah right. Yeah. And then it's the switch flips is I wonder if or I'm going to turn on the flirt a little bit or I'm going to receive his flirt a little bit. And man, my husband doesn't. And that'd be so cool if And reminds me of when. And that's when we get ourselves in trouble.

6:41 Yeah. And so if you honestly think in your guts and what I what I can't parse here in 15 minutes is, are you wrestling with I'm a new version of myself? and my husband and I have found ourselves, you've heard me say this, like six inches apart on the couch, but 6,000 miles away from each other. Then what we need to do is go out for a half day and completely wipe the deck and say, "Hey, we got a brand new relationship."

7:10 Yeah. We have a brand new partnership. We have a brand new marriage because now we have a we never been together. We've never been romantically involved and had a human to take care of.

7:19 Yeah. and we've never been in love and trying to do life together and build something together. And I was the wild fun jet setting jump up on the table girl and now I'm covered in throw up and changing diapers and breastfeeding and also watching you be disappointed that I'm not right. Like all of that has happened all at the same time.

7:42 Yeah. And so the question is who are we going to be? H like so that's that's part one. Part two is everywhere you go there's going to be attractive people and there's going to be hilarious people and there's going to be poets and there's going to be people with jobs that your spouse doesn't have and you wonder what that would be like. That makes you human. Great. Appreciate it and move on with your life.

8:07 Okay. If you think I am at risk of blowing up my marriage and becoming somebody I don't want to be, then quit the gym. and go to a new gym. It's that simple. There is no pulley machine that's worth your marriage.

8:23 Yeah. Right. But almost always that my goodness, that guy's good-look. But more than more than that, what's what's attractive about him is that you see him noticing you.

8:42 Yeah. And that feels good. Yeah. And is it happening at the same time that your husband's got his head down trying to figure out how to be a husband and a dad, too?

8:51 Yeah. Okay. That's the conversation that needs to happen. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

8:57 And it's not I need you. I want you to use these words. I want you to be intentional about noticing me.

9:07 Yeah. It It feels like right now if we get one-on-one time, the TV's on and it's not That's just not And I fall asleep and he's working on on starting his new job. And there you go. It's

9:22 Yeah. And just because it's winter doesn't mean summer's broken. And so it might be a season of winter right now. He's got a new job. You have completely your identity that you knew. Everything about you that you knew is gone now. And so it might be that we need two or three months or five months or six months of snuggling up on the couch under a blanket and there's not fireworks and it's not July 4th and we're not running around in tank tops and swim trunks, but the roots of what our relationship is growing deep.

10:02 Yeah. But I want to ask you like what can you control about feeling alive again in this new season? What about old you are you missing? I I feel like I used to be driven and fun and adventurous and I I don't feel like I I don't feel any of it anymore.

10:39 Okay. I um I don't feel anything. Okay. Tell me about that. Um, I just don't think Yeah. I It's like I The only time I feel like a piece of me is there, you know? Like I'll have moments with my son, but just every day I just look in the mirror and I don't recognize myself and I don't um Yeah, I just feel really really empty. Okay. Will you exhale on that? Hold on. Grieve that.

11:25 Sorry. Grieve that for a second with me. Like the woman that you were so proud of and the woman that you spent years curating and creating. She has a baby now. She's a wife now. Right. Listen to that sound. It's one of my favorite sounds in the world. Right.

11:51 Yeah. And I'm glad I don't have that sound in my house anymore. Right. Both are true. Both are true.

12:02 Yeah. So my question is that emptiness that who am I? That what is my purpose now? because my purpose was being so hot and sexy and my purpose was adventure and my purpose was passion and driven and all that and all of that. By the way, she's still there and she'll return. She's just going to look different. It's a different kind of awesome now.

12:24 Yeah, she was rad, dude. And now you're entering into a different kind of rad. The question is, are we going to remain empty and let somebody else from the outside come try to fill that for us? Cuz I'm telling you, that's a bottomless pit. or or am I going to be intentional about asking who am I going to be now and looking at my husband and saying who are we going to be now

12:47 and then I'm going to reverse engineer that with we don't turn the TV on at night we have to have even if it's if it's six minute survival sex and I've got spit up on my shirt and by the way I'm not taking my shirt off yet but like we're turning the lights off and we're getting this done right like like like what does it look like and hey I know you're trying to start a new business. You can take 5 minutes. And by the way, it's not even going to take you five minutes, but close the laptop. We're doing this. Or I need you to close the laptop and keep the kid cuz I'm going to go do something silly with my girlfriends right now.

13:22 Yeah. What came so easy now has to become intentional. And just because it's intentional doesn't mean it's less than and doesn't mean it's not valuable. In fact, I think the more intentional it is, the more valuable and precious it becomes. H I guess yeah, that does make sense because yeah, everything everything is a half hour and a and a a list to to get out the door now.

13:48 Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes, and yes. So the reality has changed. Trying to pretend reality has not changed is not is not real. It's just dumb, right? It has.

13:58 Yeah. And so what does it look like to put sex on the calendar? What does it look like to put adventure on the calendar? What does it look like to put exercise on the calendar?

14:12 It's different. It's different. Yeah, definitely different. It's just a different kind of awesome.

14:21 Yeah. Let me promise you having sat with people on this very issue. If and when you sleep I don't say when if you sleep with the Hawkeye at the gym. I I can't imagine a scenario where you don't wish that you had that back.

14:40 Yeah. But to me it's a it's less about that guy who just noticed you and more it is a signal for where we need to lean in inside our home. You and your husband.

14:53 What is that revealing? What is that feeling of oh my gosh there's he recognizes me as old me. What is what is that signal that we can head towards in our own house and put on the table is a moment of honesty. We're a year in and I've got a toddler and I have to be honest with your husband like a guy's noticing me at the gym and it feels so good. It feels so good. I'm not going to do anything with it, but it's making me realize. I don't notice you anymore. I feel empty inside. I feel so empty that some stranger at the gym with big abs makes me feel seen again.

15:36 And I want you to begin to see me again. And here's what that looks like. What if we didn't have phones up? What if we had our laptops down? What if we What if we What if we What if we Let's just co-create that thing together. You'll have a brand new marriage. So clear the deck. The tower is fallen of your old marriage. Clear it and let's rebuild it. And to reiterate, you're not a bad if you're not a bad human if you think somebody else is attractive. If you think they're super good-looking, you're not a bad person if somebody handsome or beautiful walks in the room and you feel alive. Great. That's wonderful. That's life. That's what beauty does.

16:16 where you begin to cross over as you begin to imagine what would it be like if and those thoughts and feelings we can control. And if you don't feel like I can control those, then you got to remove yourself from the situation. Thanks for the call, sister. I don't think there's something wrong with you. I think there's alarm bells going off and I think there are big spotlights pointing you in the direction you got to head. It's just going to be uncomfortable. It's just going to be different. But adventurous, fun, driven, purposefilled Christa, she's still there.

16:46 just her purpose and her adventures and her drive are going to be pointed in different directions now. And that's incredible.

Questions about this episode

What is "I Don’t Trust That I Can Stay Faithful to My Husband" about?

A newlywed mother grapples with unexpected feelings of attraction to another man while adjusting to the challenges of marriage and parenthood, expressing concerns about fidelity and the pressures of her new lifestyle. She seeks guidance on navigating her emotions and maintaining trust in her marriage despite her fears and frustrations.

What is mentioned in this The Dr. John Delony Show episode?

1 people, works and ideas are mentioned. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "I Don’t Trust That I Can Stay Faithful to My Husband"?

The episode runs 17 min; the transcript is about 2,679 words in 48 timestamped sections.

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