The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner, and right now I want to welcome Levi to the phone. Is that your name?

Yes.

Welcome to the show, and you've got a different problem. You're worried about your wife, that she's cheating.

My wife was cheating on me with another man.

Yeah, I'm newlywed.

Oh, you're a newbie. You're newly married to her?

Yeah, and she cheated before you got married, during the process, yes, during the process of getting married.

When you say during the process, you mean while you were engaged, or during the wedding itself?

We just got married.

Okay, you just got married. And let's get to the main point. Your wife is cheating on you, and you're deciding, what do you what choices do you have at this point?

I don't know.

Yeah, what's going through your mind?

I was thinking of getting divorced.

Of getting divorced. And you're certain that she's... How do you know that she's cheating? Rather than just someone telling you, "Hey, I thought I saw your wife talking to this guy. Maybe she's cheating."

What happened?

Because when I was going to the bathroom and back, yeah, to the playing games, I heard her saying on the phone to this guy, "I love you. I want to marry you. I want to have sex with you." Yeah, that's what hurt me the most.

But you didn't catch them in bed together, right?

No, but she's cheating with you in terms of the emotional intimacy is going elsewhere, and you're hurt. What is, what's your main question? How can I best help you, Levi?

I don't know.

You don't know? Are you wondering whether to stay with her or not? Is that the question, or how to confront her?

How to say to her what's going on?

So to confront her and this guy, because when I do, he wants to kill me for getting divorced.

He wants to kill you for getting divorced?

Yeah.

Well, listen, if he's threatening your life, what do you need? Is he really threatening it? Or do some people just say, "You know, I'm gonna kill my kids, they're driving me crazy." Is he just throwing it off, or does he mean it?

Sounds like he means it.

Man, what do you need to do if someone's threatening me? What would I need to do?

I don't know.

You need to get protection. If you think... do you think he...? Do you know the person?

No, I don't, but she knows him because she went through high school with him.

So they're long-time buddies. She's married, and you've been married for how long? You said, a few months or a few weeks?

About five months.

Five months, okay, one year. Well, which is it, five months or one year?

Yes, those two.

Oh, you've been married for one year and five months?

Yes.

Okay, so a little over a year. And he's saying that if you divorce her, why wouldn't he be happy that you would be divorcing her? That doesn't make sense to me, because then he can have her, right? Then they can sail off into the sunset together.

Mostly, Mom wants us to be happy, but you're not.

No, we're not.

Are you happy with your wife as he's doing things?

No.

No. Would you like a divorce?

Yes.

Can you see therapy? Have you ever been to psychological counseling?

I have not.

Would that be something that's available for you?

Yes.

I would recommend that you, because it's such a huge decision for you, and because you may need to get protection from the police if he's threatening your life. You... if you could call your insurance company. You have an insurance company?

I don't know.

You don't know? Like, okay, either go to a community center or call your local psychological center in your phone book, or you can Google it online and see if you can find a therapist in your area that can see you. Or... Do you have a medical doctor?

His name is Dr. Manny.

Okay, I don't need his name, but can you give him a call tomorrow and ask him if he could recommend a counselor for you? And then you could go talk with a counselor, a therapist, make an appointment. It's called talk therapy because you'd be talking just the way you are with me now, and this is a very difficult decision to whether or not to stay with my wife or to leave her. I'm worried that this guy may kill me or hurt me, and if you work with a therapist, you can get guidance, and you can do your own thinking to come to a conclusion that will be better for you. Because you'll be doing a lot of thinking about it with a therapist, okay? And you'll be dealing with the safety issues too.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

You've heard me preaching it for years, but you didn't have the wits to know what you were hearing. Why do you suppose I denounce greatness and praise mediocrities like you? Great men can't be ruled. Why did I preach self-sacrifice? If you kill a man's sense of personal value, he'll submit.

And that is from the villain in The Fountainhead. He is pure evil. And think about people in your life who have tried to take greatness, maybe the great things you've done, or have thought of doing, and have made fun of them or put them down, and then they raise someone up. They say, "Oh my gosh, isn't it wonderful? Tilly is working at McDonald's, and here you are. You went back to school, you got a degree. You hope, you started your own company, and you're not seen, but Tilly is working at McDonald's." They're trying to kill your spirit, and they're trying to make you feel guilty for your successes if you didn't earn it, man, when you work hard, hold on to your knowledge that you're a value to you, and that life is not self-sacrifice. Life is valuing yourself, valuing those dear to you, your friends, your family, being decent to those around you and recognizing those people who are evil, who want to take you down, who hate you because of the good in you.

And I highly recommend that clip was from The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. She's my favorite author. I highly recommend reading her books. It can be absolutely life-changing. You can get rid of that whole feeling guilty, and you don't know why. You can either... if you've earned the guilt, you do something about it. If you haven't earned the guilt, if you're feeling guilty because you did something good, something's wrong with that picture. Something's wrong with the moral code that drives that. And the moral code that drives that is the code of self-sacrifice, the idea that life requires you to martyr yourself, to always put yourself last. That's not the case, and it doesn't mean that you'll run roughshod over other people. You'll treat others fairly.

So I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner, and my show is The Rational Basis of Happiness.

And right before the break, I was talking to Marilyn, and just a quick follow-up on that, she told me during the break that her husband was very embarrassed. He's now, in quotes, "addicted to porn." He's using porn quite a bit now, and it's like, well, how does this come about? Well, actually, she said they were... they tried to make love at one point. She's in her 650s, late 50s, and he couldn't perform as before. I'll be very tactful on radio, but he couldn't perform as before. He got so embarrassed, felt like a failure, and so turned to porn. I mean, or it actually escalated it more, and then couldn't turn back to his wife. And if you don't know that it's normal to not be able to be able to respond as a man when you get to your 50s and 60s, but Cialis and Viagra and the other medications out there can work wonders, if your doctor okays them, then you don't feel ashamed of taking them. She said she thought her husband would feel ashamed of taking them, and he's fighting off this image that he's a failure.

So I talked about... she said she's so willing to kiss and cuddle and have some sweet talk with him, and she would like to have sex again. She would like to be romantic again. So to have that conversation will be fabulous for both of them. And he needs to deal with both the medical and the psychological, the idea that he feels like a failure because he can't perform.

For more, Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who's world-famous for his theories in goal setting.

When looking for your soulmate, you want a partner you are attracted to both physically and mentally. You will spend most of your time with this person. Why would you want to be with someone whose appearance displeases you? Does this mean you can never let your hair down and have a casual day? Of course not. But if you don't value yourself enough to care how you look, you're not making yourself fully lovable, and you are announcing your lack of self-value in a revealing public manner.

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