The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Anna, you are living in a codependent relationship, and your partner is blind.

Yes, yeah, tell me what's going on.

Well, I'm wondering how I can best go about trying to establish healthy boundaries when the very nature of the relationship involves a high degree of codependency because of the circumstances, because my partner is totally lost, meaning that you are basically a caretaker.

Okay, are you in a car?

Yeah, I'm about to alleviate that situation. Sorry.

Okay, when you say codependent, can you give me what? Tell me what you mean by that? Because people can mean different things, and also an example of it.

Well, basically, my partner has to rely on me for a lot of assistance going anywhere, going shopping. They buy their own clothes and food, and they make the choices, but everything has to be described, labels read, you know. Okay, go ahead. The circumstances create a really dependent situation. I think it would be easy for that to go to unhealthy places pretty quickly.

Okay, when you say unhealthy, what are you referring to?

I mean, being too dependent. The person really has more ability, but they may not use it. They may just become dependent on you and let you do many things that, even being blind, they could do for themselves. But it's also, you know, as a woman in this culture, I have a natural helper thing going on that's going to, you know. I mean, I have my part in that as well. I mean, I'm going to be wanting to help, probably, possibly too much and more than what would be appropriate.

How do you know when you have crossed the line? You know, all of us? I am a helper. I'm that type of person that reaches out, and I have realized increasingly over time that sometimes people really resent my help. They don't want it. They want to do for themselves. So I've become a puller-back too, but sometimes it's really hard to know when the help is proper, when I respect their mind much more when I pull back a tad or completely. And how do you know? What cues do you get as the helper that you feel you are doing too much? What emotional feedback do you get inside yourself that this is too much?

I, um, say the truth, I don't know. I know that periodically I will ask. I will say, "Do you need any assistance from me?" And then they will say yes or no, and I'll go with whatever that is. Or I'll say, "Would you like me to help you with that?" as opposed to just simply going over and helping, okay? Which I think I did do at first, you know, but now I'm trying to be more conscious of. You know, I mean, some days, I'm sure, though, that line goes in different places on different days, depending upon how tired they are, you know, what the circumstances are, whether it's a totally new place.

Okay, let me, so what I'm hearing there, Anna, is that you are pulling back yourself. You realize that at first, you were attending to their needs like you would an infant, in a way. You don't ask them whether they need something; you just rush to do for them, right? And now you're realizing that the person, your husband—your partner, I'm assuming it's your husband, right? Or partner?

Yeah, a partner has some flexibility and capability, and they can do more for themselves. So you respect their mind by first asking if they want the help. A third layer, a third level that you might consider is, 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. I wish I knew more about what girls want from a relationship. Well, 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. Come, huh? This selfish path to romance—that is interesting.

A third layer, a third level that you might consider is telling them when you need help. Let me know, meaning you don't even have to monitor their every move, right? You back off a smidgen more, and that helps you get used to it too. I found that that's much more—I like it much more if someone says, "Ellen, if you need any help, let me know," rather than "Ellen, do you need help now? Can I help you more with this?" And it's like, "Get out of my face." You know, I feel like a—I feel like a cripple or an invalid or something, you know? I can do for myself. And even if you are crippled or you have, like, you've got the blindness, there's a dignity in doing for yourself, absolutely.

So, you said that you have a need to be that help, and you mentioned that you're a woman in this society, and that many of us are trained to be selfless. We feel guilty if we do for ourselves. In any healthy relationship—a non-codependent one, if you want to use that term—but in any healthy relationship, it involves a private life also. Time when you can have just for yourself. Now, it's hard if you've got someone who's dependent on you. If you could get respite, if they're capable of being alone for a few hours, and you could go out and do something on your own, maybe to a movie that they couldn't enjoy because they're blind or couldn't enjoy as well, you need to experience yourself as an individual, unapologetically.

And that, I don't know if you do that.

Sometimes. I haven't so much here lately with holidays and stuff like that, but occasionally, yeah.

Give yourself permission to be yourself, to enjoy yourself, to have time apart. Even partners who have no problems between them need mini vacations from one another, whether it's a few hours or—for some people, they need a longer time. They need a mini getaway, and then you refresh, recharge your batteries. It's just like parents getting a babysitter, right? You could be with your kids 24/7 for a decade, and it destroys the relationship. If you take breaks and come back, or a mini vacation or vacation, you recharge your battery, so it's the same for you.

Was your partner always blind?

No, it happened in an automobile accident five years ago.

So sad. Okay, so that—that's always hard for partners to get accustomed to. Your partner, is it a man or a woman?

Woman.

Okay, I assumed a man for that. First, my apologies. You need to decide, is this a good relationship for you? It is still your life. Nobody owns your life but yourself. If you want to stay in the relationship, then you want to figure out a way to make it more your relate—more something you enjoy. If you're building bitterness and resentment, then you want to work that through. And I wish we could do it. We don't have any more time, but you could go to, you know, have some private counseling where it's not like talking to a friend who could gossip or something. You have your own private person to chew things with and to decide what you want.

And I've written a book on relationships with a co-author. It's called The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason. And even though we have it as heterosexual couples, the same principles apply to anyone, so you could—you might look at that book too and listen to The Selfish Path to Romance. You can go to DrKenner.com and check it out.

Listen. Thank you so much for your call.

Thank you so much.

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

Look at history. Everything we have, every great achievement, has come from the independent work of some independent mind. Every horror and destruction came from attempts to force men into a herd of brainless, soulless robots without personal rights, without personal ambition.

And that's from The Fountainhead. In your own life, think of your own history. Was there a time in your life, maybe it's still there, where you just felt like you didn't have a right to speak your own mind? You felt insecure. You didn't know how to say, "Oh, I love that movie," or "Ooh, that wasn't my favorite at all. I really don't like that one." But instead you said, "Well, what do you like?" And if someone said, "Oh, I really like that movie," even if you hated it, you'd say, "Oh, yeah, me too." And you just betrayed yourself in that moment. If you have had a history of betraying yourself, you can turn that around. You can start to learn how to think for yourself, to value yourself more, to be more assertive. And that doesn't mean mean. You can say, "Oh, I hear you like that movie," and "It wasn't my favorite," or "I reacted very differently to it." You can do it tactfully. You can speak up tactfully.

But how do you do that? 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 Drs. Kenner and Locke.

In his book The Great Sex Secret, veteran sex educator Kim Marshall notes that women often lack intimate satisfaction because neither partner understands the essential role of specific body stimulation in achieving satisfaction. It is essential that partners openly communicate their preferences. Once you both accept that intimacy is pleasure for two, let yourselves experiment with variations in technique and style. Find out what you each like, and then ask for it in a mutually respectful way. "I'd really like to try X," or "It feels really good when you do Y." Partners need to banish embarrassment about intimacy. Remember, intimate pleasure is one of the greatest gifts of being human, and it is both good and important in your lives together.

Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com, and Amazon.com.