The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Dear Dr. Kenner,
I live with my husband, Alan, and my one-year-old, and my in-laws. Almost every day, there are arguments or fights in our home, and my husband gets very verbally abusive with everyone, and sometimes verbally abusive with me, and physically—excuse me—physically abusive with me. He's running a family business in partnership with his brother, and they do not get along. Because of this, he takes out all of his anger and frustration on us at home. He works from nine to two, so figure that out. He's home a lot from two o'clock till 12 at night when he comes home. Our one-year-old tries to run to him, but he rejects him.
Okay, so as a one-year-old, what conclusions are you going to draw about Daddy or about yourself? I'm unlovable. He never gives me attention. I am very upset with his behavior. His parents tell him to treat us better, but he doesn't understand. What should I do?
Mandy.

Mandy, I think he understands quite well. I don't think that he has an out here. I think that he needs to sit back and be totally honest with himself, meaning, if he's angry, that's the main emotion. So that means that he's experiencing things as not fair—not fair with that grit in his teeth, that bite in his teeth. So why is he so angry? Why is he obviously displacing his anger on you and the son, maybe not so much on his parents, but he's very angry. Well, let's think that possibly, he's in a job, the family business, that he doesn't like. Maybe his parents, he felt duty-bound to get into that business, but really wanted to be a doctor or a lawyer or a landscape architect. Maybe there was something else he wanted to do with his life. So he feels terribly resentful walking into work each day, angry with his parents, and there's no escape. He's at work in a job he doesn't like. He comes home and he has to be with the parents that supposedly did him a very nice favor, but he doesn't love the job. He feels resentful, but he feels like he should be thankful to them, and he's just massively confused, but angry. It comes out as angry, and he has no private time for himself, and he's got no time for you and his son, and he still has a sibling rivalry from childhood that goes on every day at work. He doesn't enjoy the job. Now it could be that, hey,

I got to 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? 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.

And he has no private time for himself, and he's got no time for you and his son, and he still has a sibling rivalry from childhood that goes on every day at work. He doesn't enjoy the job. Now, it could be that he loves the job, or it could be that he's a bulldozer. He's just a mean, envious person who wants to run roughshod over people. But whatever is generating his anger, that is his piece that he needs to deal with. But you cannot force another person to deal with their piece. What you can do is try to find some peace for yourself, which means you can set the boundaries you want, arm yourself with assertiveness skills, the ability to speak your own mind clearly, resolutely, and not to just say, "Oh yes, whatever you want, honey," not to live in fear of him. He's definitely showing signs of abuse. And those are, you know, the hitting, the verb—you don't have to go much deeper than that—verbally attacking you. You might feel that he controls you, tells you what to do during the day, and if you don't, he gets even angrier. You're not having a life. You can divorce this guy. You can separate, you can leave, but first, go to a counselor, because you want to think this through clearly. If he can resolve his issues and make amends to you and maybe make some major decisions—if the family business isn't working, you may need to move on—then he can do that. But the bottom line is that you want to deal with the safety issues first. He should never touch you. You may need to report that or at least get to a therapist ASAP so that his hand is slapped, he gets fearful that he'll be thrown in jail if there's a restraining order or something on him for doing that. He may even need to leave the house if it's too violent, but it doesn't sound like it's that way, but the chronicity is pretty bad. And then maybe you could all go in for family therapy too. So I hope that helps you.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.
Okay, right before the break, I talked about—I was actually addressing a very sad situation, a woman who wants to end her life. But the good news is there's tremendous help out there. She can go to a website, the Academy of Cognitive Therapy, cognitive therapy.org, and see if you can find a therapist, a cognitive therapist, in your area. I had mentioned the book that's on my website, Choosing to Live, that's tremendous. I also said that from my favorite book, Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, one of the heroes has to—he's like a secret agent—he has to go around, and he's undercover all the time, and his life is always at risk. So you think of the people who are in the military now who are putting their lives out, always at risk, and one person is asking him, "How can you do this? How can your wife do this? How can she live through 11 months of this sort of torture, thinking at any moment you might be killed or maimed or who knows what?" And this is his answer. This is a quote from the book: "He was smiling, but she saw the enormous solemnity of that which he and his wife had needed to earn their right to this kind of smile. 'She can live through it, Miss Taggart, because we do not hold the belief that this earth is a realm of misery where man is doomed to destruction. We do not think that tragedy is our natural fate, and we do not live in chronic dread of disaster. We do not expect disaster until we have specific reason to expect it, and when we encounter it, we are free to fight it. It is not happiness but suffering that we consider unnatural. It is not success but calamity that we regard as the abnormal exception in human life.'" So even during—"
—That's unquote—so that's by Ayn Rand. Even during your worst moments in your life, you want to look at them not through the lens of, "What's the use? Why bother? I might as well give up. I'll never be happy in life." But you want to look at them through the lens that Ayn Rand had, the lens of saying—and again, she, you don't know this, but she came from Soviet Russia, she escaped there. So you want to be able to say, even when times are really bad, "I am going to fight for my future. I am never going to let myself down. My life is way too precious to ever waste. I want to see how to solve my problems." And there's where you can get some help for yourself.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.
There's one guy who says—asked me the question, "Can you help me realize that jobs come and go and that all will be well?" He's having a problem with his supervisor. HR is involved. He wants to leave and go to nursing school, since it will give him more financial stability, and he loves it. He's always wanted to go into nursing. He said the pressure of the work situation is hard on his family life. He feels unhappy and unappreciated at work. Well, if you don't like the career you're in, even if you were happy and even if you were appreciated at work, it doesn't mean that you would be happy. Yes, you need to think long-range. You need to plan, but yes, you can leave that career. Work with your wife, if you're married, or family, if you're living with family, to see if there's a way to financially manage or to pull back on what you spend so that you can put yourself back through school, maybe take out some loans for yourself, and then realize that you answered your own question. Jobs do come and go, but don't personalize what they said unless you earned it. If you did not earn it, if it's a supervisor's problem, leave it with him when you leave the job.

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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:

Competition is an essential element of sports and capitalism, but it has no place in a romantic relationship. You must never feel that you have to beat your partner at anything, except in pure fun, such as a good-natured game of Scrabble. Sometimes partners unwisely compete over who makes the most money or progresses faster in their career. Take joy in your partner's achievements and have enough self-esteem not to feel inferior, resentful, or jealous when your partner achieves something significant. Your own worth and character can never be enhanced or diminished by your partner's achievements or failures. Your own self-esteem comes from your own choices and actions.

You can download chapter one for free by going to Drkenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.