The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Bob, welcome to the show. Yes.

Good afternoon. My mom was never pleased with my choice of a mate, and what we've been married now, my wife and I almost 11 years. And consequently, she had said many, many unkind things about her, and consequently, I really had very little to do with her. Now, I find out through third parties that she has a terminal illness, some sort of bone cancer, and I'm just debating whether to go over there and try to, you know, make some sort of amends, but she's never apologized.

Okay, what would be the benefit to you in making amends? What would that give you?

Maybe some sort of peace of mind that I was able to rise above her pettiness.

Was she a good mom in your younger years?

Not particularly. No, no, emotionally distant, cold, manipulative.

So is it fair to you to treat her as if she were a good mom?

I never looked at it that way. You're probably right. It probably isn't.

One of the hardest things we need to do is with the people closest to us is to try to figure out, are they a value to us or not, and to what extent. It's hard to judge people accurately. So if you gave me a different answer, Bob, if you said, you know, my mom was such an incredibly involved mom, and she was so warm, so nurturing. I can remember going to sports games with her, and she was never pushy. She was always my best friend. And I can remember how encouraging she was in school, and I can remember how I never felt negative around her. I just felt like I could always speak with her. And when I got married, she was disappointed because she made a mistake. She, you know, she wanted my wife to be the same religion that we were brought up with, and my wife wasn't, even though my wife is a wonderful woman, and my mom had this wrong idea, and she held it against us, and we just had this cold cutoff. If you told me that, Bob, I would say it may be worth connecting because she was such a nice mom to you in your childhood that both of you share that memory. And there's some justice in just saying thanks for that period of your life, but you're saying that's not the case.

Emphatically, none of the above, none of the above. So what emotions were you feeling as I was saying that? Wouldn't it have been nice? Tell me, what has she said? Give me just a little snapshot of what she said about your wife over the years.

Oh, leech, parasite.

And I'm assuming none of those are true. I can hear the bite in your voice. Tell me more about the bite in your voice.

Yes, correctly. So my wife, she likes to do all sorts of things with bicycling, cross-country skiing, hiking, camping, outdoor things, kayaking. I mean, she's fun. She's like my best friend. We disagree politically, but you can't get everything.

So the mother that you wanted, the nurturing mother, you got in a wife, yes, wonderful. So the fact that your mother was cruel to her, unjustly cruel, because the leech doesn't describe your wife. It doesn't capture her essence. Parasite doesn't capture her essence. What do you want to do now that your mother has cancer?

You know, my gut instinct is to stay away.

Okay, nice.

What would that give you if you stay away?

Basically no more chances for her to say things that aren't charitable and kind.

See, good shots. So you don't want to leave. You want to leave with your own dignity, saying I didn't sanction, I didn't give a yes vote to her corrupt behavior. I didn't appease her. I didn't lie down and let her kick me one last time.

Exactly. Now, how close is she to death?

Well, she's going to be mugging the Grim Reaper pretty soon, I think, okay, maybe a couple of weeks, couple of...

I can tell you don't love her.

Okay? Siblings?

One sister.

One sister. Close to your mom, or she feels as you do?

Well, she's compromised emotionally and intellectually, so she's been dominated by her. So she's like a whatever she says to do, she's like a puppet.

So your mom didn't raise an independent daughter?

No, not at all. And you escaped that. You made your own decisions.

Yes, yeah, okay. How would your wife feel if you said, I'm not going to visit her? She's got cancer.

She says not. She says I'm wasting my time to go visit her.

So it's a benefit to you, the person that's so wonderful in your life, is your wife, yes, and it's a benefit to you to do what? Be supportive of your wife or your mother?

That's obvious, my wife, right?

It seems like you shouldn't feel any guilt. What does the traditional morality tell us?

Oh, you. Your wet blanket. Just give in, let people steamroll over you, etc.

Right? That you're supposed to turn the other cheek and not judge people independently, that everyone is equal in the eyes of God or whatever deity they want, and therefore you're no different than your wife, than your mother. We're all just the same people, and we all have our flaws, and some bad in the worst of us, and some good in some good in the worst of us, and some bad in the best of us. And you hear all these platitudes, rationalization, and all they are are telling you, don't judge, don't use your mind, don't evaluate, don't discriminate between those who have made themselves into better people and those who are not better people, who are envious or who want to control rather than to value you.

And so it's hard to disentangle ourselves from that morality, which will give you a feeling of guilt if you hold it, but it's unearned guilt. You did nothing wrong. Your mother sacrificed what could have been your son. She could have had a wonderful relationship with you and your wife, and she chose not to.

Indeed.

Yeah. So just to sum this up, what are your thoughts now?

I feel vindicated. As I said, I've never been one to be emotionally driven like logic. That's got a rule. I mean, emotion is part of us. Otherwise, we're robots, but I can't play a role that I don't feel.

Being true to yourself, giving you that peace of mind that you thought you might get by visiting mom, you actually get by being true to yourself, by looking at the emotion that you're feeling and understanding it, considering what underlies the emotion that's telling you I don't want to go visit my mom. And again, if she had been a wonderful mom and you were taking one moment out of context when she called your wife a parasite, but then apologized, yeah, it would be very different. But in this case, because she tried to control you, or because she was not a nurturing mom, because she made the choices she made in her life, she needs to suffer the natural consequences of the choices she made.

And it's not you that's cold, it's your mother that shows the lifestyle she did and made herself into the character that she is, and you're the one that's evaluating that and deciding what your top values are in people, and that will help you make the choice here.

And I refuse to play the role of being a villain, because that's not important to...

Yes, you need to know that from the wrong philosophy, from that turn the other cheek philosophy, you will look like a villain to anybody who's a good church-on-Sunday person, but you don't buy into their moral code. Why would you want an irrational moral code, a self-sacrificial moral code? Why wouldn't you want a rational moral code?

And that, that's why that's the basis of my show. It's the rational basis of happiness.

Making sense.

Okay, thank you. Great talking with you, Bob. Thank you for your time.

Okay, bye-bye.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. I don't stand for that kind of malarkey in my house.

I guess it's a good thing I'm not in your house. Do you want me to slap that smart-ass mouth of yours?

Okay, that's the physical abuse. We talked about that a lot just before the break. What happens if you're living with someone that's very abusive, whether it's your parent or not? Sometimes you have to keep quiet. If you're young and it's your parents, that's a really tough one. I would, when I say keep quiet, I mean that if you've tried the experiment, you keep yelling at dad, or you keep yelling at mom when they, you try to fight back, and they just beat up on you more, and there are more emergency room visits. I worked with kids who had broken bones, rib bones and the rest. Then you are putting yourself at high risk, but then you need to not, if you're keeping quiet in terms of provoking, then you definitely need to be noisy on the outside and speak to a teacher or a family friend. Don't keep it as a secret, let them know and work with them to get you some help, to get your family some help, and to call a spade a spade, to hold the abuser accountable. If it's not that bad, then definitely speak up. Some of the kids, you gain your self-esteem. You gain your independence by saying that's not okay. I didn't like the way you treated me. It stops. I don't ever expect you to lay a hand on me again, dad, you know, something like that. Just come across very forcefully.

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

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Dr. Ellen Kenner. One romance killer is when one or both partners are too often in a bad mood. Sometimes the causes are obvious. Often they're hidden. Hidden issues, psychological orders aside, typically center around one of two things, or both: my partner doesn't understand me, or my partner doesn't value me. Establishing a positive relationship environment presupposes communicating, identifying, and resolving these issues. If you can succeed in this, create and maintain a positive climate daily, not just in terms of important issues, but also in many small ways. A song from the 1950s says little things mean a lot. Small gestures like a hug and wishing your partner a good day at work and later asking how the day went may seem simple, but they make both of you feel valued by the other.

You can download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.