The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com, and at Amazon.com

What are you doing?
Nothing.

Is that the incinerator?
Yes, what is it? It's just some things you totally throw away.
You see what?

How are you coping with the stresses in your life? Whether it's your kids driving you crazy, are you going out and drinking and gambling? Are your husbands bugging you so you go out and spend? How are you coping with the stresses in your life? What are good methods of coping, and what are methods that are going to mess you up royally?

It's my pleasure to welcome to the show Dr. Ed Locke who is an expert on stress and coping. Dr. Locke is a Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Business Management at the University of Maryland. He's a Harvard alumnus with a Ph.D. from Cornell, he has written so many articles and books and edited many books, and he's got wonderful courses from self-esteem to setting goals to improve your life and happiness. I want to welcome you to the show, Ed.

Thank you for having me.
It's a pleasure to have you on.

As always, today, we want to talk about coping with stress. How do you cope with stress? I mean, we know what stress is. Everybody feels it. You go through life with it. But I want to give you the following scenario and tell me what this woman is doing that's not good, and what she could do that's better.

"I'm a 60-year-old with grown, married children, and I'm alone. I work many hours each week, and I've been alone for a long time. I've had three bad marriages. I want companionship, but I don't know where to go, and I'm afraid I'll meet a real Butte. It's just my luck, and I'm so stressed out. On the weekends, I sit home and drink. My kids don't even know I do this. Your advice would be welcome."

60-year-old, male, female—
Woman.
Woman, okay, all right.

Well, here's what strikes me. First, she's had three failed marriages. So one of the questions I'd ask is, does she have any idea why they failed?

And that can be—
His husband cheated on me and my— I mean, there can be reasons.

Number one, you have a bad way of choosing people, which might need to be corrected with professional help. Number two, you might have flaws in your own character or actions which cause people to lose affection for you, and it would be very important before suggesting what to do next to find out what are factors that led to the failures of your other marriages, especially if you've made bad selection decisions, or you have flaws in yourself.

Now, given that you've resolved that problem, the issue of how to meet people: What I would do is go on the internet—there are many, many internet sites for romance. Some are age-specific, some are education-specific, but you can go on one that fits your profile and work out ways that you might meet people in your area in a safe manner, you know, such as meeting them at a café so they don't know your phone number or your address, and getting to know the people and seeing how that will work out, but taking it slowly.

So in addition to meeting people for possible later romance, there are a lot of other activities in most towns that you could get involved in based on your personal interests, too numerous for me to bother listing. But there's many, many activities you could get involved in so that you wouldn't sit at home drinking all weekend, which is not a very healthy thing for you to do.

So basically, if I'm just sitting home and drinking all the time, and I'm avoiding going after what I want, I'm stressed because I want the value, the goody, and the goody is I want a romantic partner.

So you're trying to drown your bad emotions with alcohol. In other words, you're focused on what we call emotion-focused coping, which doesn't really cope in the end, as opposed to what I call action-focused coping, which is taking the action to remove the underlying cause. And the reason you're drinking is because you're alone and probably depressed.

So badly for myself, I mean, I think I ruminate about it all the time. I'm always thinking about the first marriage and what he did to me with the affair, and then the second marriage. And, you know, it's just—it's so upsetting to me, I can't tell you. And I keep it from my kids, so I can't even get along with my kids.

Professional counseling, you know, might be called for here, because there might be things about yourself you don't understand.

Yeah, well, why do I ruminate? I mean, why am I always thinking about—
Because you're unhappy and your life didn't turn out like you wanted. So the question is, what can you do now to turn it around?

That means—
Hey, I gotta interrupt this, because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Ah, here it is—The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

The question is, what can you do now to turn it around? That means taking actions, and I think the first, in this case, is to understand yourself and your past relationships, to see if you've made mistakes in judging men, and if you have flaws in your own character or personality that makes men want to love you?

Yeah, well, I think I've got a lot of guilt too.

Well, I mean, it may be that you're fine and you just picked the wrong people. But if you did, you need to know why you picked the wrong people and what qualities that you need in a good partner that you didn't pick before you go out and date again.

And if it's flaws in you, you know, as a last resort, you could call one of your partners and say—

"Tell me all the flaws you saw," and he'd love to do it, yeah.

And then ask yourself with your therapist, "This is what my last husband told me, and I know he's a little bit hostile toward me, but let's just see if any of these things are objectively true. And if so, what would I do to correct them?" Some of them may be biased, but it's good to get a perspective like that.

Well, I think just talking it through, if I could get rid of some of the guilt, maybe that's what's really keeping me back, because that's why I keep thinking about it, and it's just so painful. I mean, my first husband, I'm so angry with him. And my last husband—I cheated on him, and so I think I've just kept all my feelings—

Repressed. If you cheated on him, it suggests that it was a very unsatisfying relationship. So a question to ask is how you got into a relationship that worked out so badly.

He was a good guy too, so that's why I feel so guilty. But—
Obviously something was missing if you were tempted.
Yeah, well—

I think I'm punishing myself too. So basically, what you're saying is that you want to use rumination not to just sit and ruminate, but to resolve the guilt in therapy, and if you need—

Professional help,
Get it so you can start doing something proactive instead of just sitting and feeling sorry for yourself, right?

And when I feel sorry for myself, I compound it because I'm keeping it from my kids, so I don't even have them as what they call social supports. So basically—
And you're also giving me some points on how to be action-oriented, how to get on the internet. I mean, at the age of 60, that's not easy—

No, but it's certainly very common, and really, it's a blessing for people as a way of meeting people. Of course, it's true that it's harder for 60-year-old women to meet others than 60-year-old men, but on the other hand, there's a lot of older single men out there. So not something you should give up about.

Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Dr. Locke. And again, you can go to aynrandbookstore.com to get tapes and books by Dr. Locke.

Thank you for having me.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com, and please listen to this next—

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

Imagine you're a woman on a first date with a dashing, handsome man. You're immediately sexually and emotionally attracted to him. The chemistry seems solid. But then your friend in the police department warns you that this man is a well-known con man who has left broken and domestically abused women in his wake. What do you feel now?

Notice what happens to your so-called chemistry—your new knowledge changes your appraisal of him according to your value standards, and your emotions change as a result, from admiration and pleasure to disgust. Instantaneously. Chemicals did not cause your new knowledge.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.