The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Hey there, Doctor, my boyfriend is very happy, and we are very much in love. However, every month or so, he gets very depressed for a week. He feels self-hatred, and he gets intense headaches. He feels like giving up, and he doesn't talk much to anyone, but he texts me occasionally. He used to be bad. He sold drugs. Three years ago, he became religious and changed. As soon as he became religious, this depression began and reappears every month or so for a week at a time. It comes unannounced and in the midst of us in love. I want to help him, but I don't understand what's happening to him or what I can do. Please help me. Jody.

So first, Jody, whenever I hear intense headaches, they could obviously be stress headaches. He's made some pretty bad choices in his life, and you do want to rule out medical causes. So he should first see a medical doctor and see if he can get a clean bill of health. And if it's not a medical reason, then you're looking at psychological causes.

This is where you want to see how your own mind is your top value in life. Everybody's own mind is their top value, and so many times we abuse them, we misuse them, or we're clueless. We don't know how to think clearly. We don't know how to think longer range. When you abuse your mind, when you make poor choices, and you have some awareness of it, you're going to be your own first victim. I think that's what might have happened to your boyfriend. For example, if he made bad choices over and over again to sell illicit drugs, the questions have got to come to his mind: How many individuals were harmed by me? Did I use strong-arm techniques to collect my money? Do I remember the faces of the young kids I was pushing drugs on?

You know, I don't know his private information, but your boyfriend privately lives with the knowledge of his own past choices and his actions. How do you repair that? It's not that someone who's done drugs in the past has to go through life with self-hatred forever. If they want to gain some self-esteem, it's that you need to know how to turn your life around, how to make amends where it's possible, how to make a commitment to yourself that you won't repeat those errors, how to see that your better choices take hold and stick over time, and how to learn to value your own mind, yourself.

Some people would call that selfish, and I think that type of selfishness is great when you build good moral character, meaning you're honest, you have integrity, you work for a living, you have a good sense of justice, you think for yourself, and that's how you earn your self-esteem. You take pride in what you do well.

So his solution, which is many people's solutions, is that they turn to religion. Well, you know, religion can always provide warm people or a sense of community that can be encouraging. People turn to AA too, and there are many different ways. "Sober for Good" is a terrific book, but that's a different situation. He was selling drugs. I don't know whether he was using them too, but becoming religious won't erase his hard knowledge of the choices he made and his past actions. If they try to just forgive him, it's very hard for any of us to forgive ourselves.

We need to do the thinking; we need to thoroughly understand what led me to sell drugs, what type of poor choices did I make, how could I act differently? For that, you need a pro-self-valuing moral code. Now, he is your partner. He is your boyfriend. So when you think about it, you also want to consider: Does he love me? Is he capable of love? If he feels this very strong self-contempt at times, he gets very depressed, you said, every month or so for a full week, and it's unannounced.

So love is an emotion based on a self-valuing moral code. I mean, people use it loosely, but if you want genuine love, you need to value yourself first. My favorite author, Ayn Rand, said to say "I love you," one must first be able to say "I love you," meaning I value myself. To love yourself, you need what we were talking about: that good moral character.

So the big question, if you stand back a little bit on this, Jody, and look at it, is this guy the right person for you? You don't have to make his problems your lifetime problem. You don't have to become his therapist. If you want to, what they say, hang in there and work with him, you could try that for a little bit. The other option is understanding what love is and learning the skills, the introspective skills, in judging a prospective partner. I recommend the book I wrote with Dr. Ed Locke, "The Selfish Path to Romance," and that's at DoctorKenner.com.

Here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. Think about your own life and when you felt the happiest in your life. Maybe it was in childhood. Maybe it was just a moment in childhood. Maybe it was more in your teen years. I always think of myself as 19 years old, even though I'm a little bit away from that age, and 19 was a good year for me.

So psychologically, do you live in the period of your life, or do you live in that zone where you feel happy? How can you achieve that? If you find that you live in the stress zone, or you live in the overloaded zone, or you live in the pressure cooker zone, or you live in the angry zone, or you live in the guilt zone, how do you turn that around? Well, you can do that with thinking skills. You can't just take a pill and turn your life around. I mean, a pill—there's a saying: Pills don't teach skills. They can help you focus better, but basically, it's up to you to learn the skills and to learn how to appreciate and value your own mind.

When we don't do that privately, we know that we feel insecure. We feel a little dent in our self-esteem, or maybe a big one, and privately, we may try to compensate and just get ourselves all in tangles, trying to make it look like we feel good to others and try to soothe ourselves inside. It's much better to learn the skills and to face the facts.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DoctorKenner.com and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance," the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologists Dr. Kenner and Dr. Locke.

When you are in a sexual mood, how can you invite your partner to join you? Find out what your partner likes, for example, their favorite time of day. What arouses your partner? A bubble bath and wine, dancing in the living room, cuddling and kissing, a sensuous massage, watching romantic videos. It helps create the mood. If you make your partner feel sexually visible, tell your loved one what you like about him or her sexually, including physical attributes you adore and the physical movements you enjoy. Let your loved one know what other things you enjoy, being kissed on the neck or wearing certain perfume or cologne, how to eliminate turn-offs like tickling or kissing during periods of important concentration, and what special ways your partner can dress and undress that excite you.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DoctorKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com.