The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

(this is raw unedited text, computer transcribed directly from the audio, without voice inflection, pauses etc. Sometimes this results in the text implying the opposite of the intended meaning.)

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The Selfish Path to Romance - download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com or at amazon.com.
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Dear Dr. Kenner. My lying is a problem has affected my love life and my friendships. I have had this problem since I was a child. And now I feel like it's a habit. I don't know how to let this go and stop the lying. I love this man. But he does not want to be with me because of my lying. We've been together for six years. And now it's over because of my lying problem. I need help quick to save my relationship. And my friendships helped me please, Tiffany.

Tiffany, you are absolutely right that you need help. But it isn't with your love relationship primarily. And it isn't with your friends, the relationship that you have to save. Not your romantic one, not your friendships. But your relationship with yourself, Tiffany. So imagine this imagine going through life. This is what you've been doing. You've been lying to the boyfriend, the boyfriend asked you have you taken out the garbage? And you said yeah, I just took it out just like you said, and then he walks in the other room and there's the garbage, he's not going to trust you. Or he said, Did you go to work today, but you blew off work, you went to the beach instead. And when he finds the sand on your shoes, he's going to not trust you. If he says have you ever cheated on me? And you said no, I've never cheated on you. And then he finds out that you have Forget it. And he's been with you for six years. And if he's gone through injury after injury, reaching out trying to rescue you hoping that you'll change and you're not changing. You're damaging your relationship with him. But as I said earlier, You're damaging your relationship with yourself. So if you go through a lifeline, you don't love yourself. All you can feel about yourself, Tiffany is self contempt. And you can't escape that you know your own character, that you're a habitual liar. So the question is, can you change that?

You know, in the past that you may have put in some effort to change it, but it hasn't worked. You are now reaching out for help. I want to tell you, it will take a lot of effort on your part, a lot of self understanding, a lot of taking some psychological risks to tell the truth. And not just to periodically tell the truth. But to observe what happens when you tell the truth inside yourself. You'll feel more relief. And then you need some introspective skills. When you do lie. You want to figure out what triggered those thoughts. Why did I lie? For example, . . .

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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 Ellen 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 selfish romance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Hmm, the selfish path to romance. That is interesting.
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Why did I lie? For example, let's say your boyfriend asked you? Did you ever cheat on me? And you say no, I never cheated on you. So you're thinking to yourself, but I did cheat on him. And you're remembering that you slept with his best friend and you slept with who you name it. Who else some some random stranger that you met. And so you obviously would have other problems rather than just the lying would be your choice making across the board. But let's say that you did cheat on him. You have those facts in your mind, the fact that you cheated on him. But what's coming out of your mouth is something very different to your boyfriend is so how do you go about changing that will write down? Why? What motivated you to say those words where you were afraid that he wouldn't love you if he knew the truth? Well, if he doesn't love you, then you're just what he doesn't love you anyway, all he loves is the faked Tiffany that you're presenting to him and that's not help The so the big question is, can you change? Yes, you can, I would get a cognitive therapist I would get professional help because you've been lying as you said, for for forever since you were a kid. There were probably reasons why you lied as a child, perhaps you had a very authoritarian father and you feared his weapons or you feared his mean look, or you feared his nasty mouth or you feared being grounded. And if that's the case, you can have some empathy for yourself that actually lying to an irrational person might have been a coping strategy. But it isn't when you deal with regular people with healthier people. So you need to get the professional help to help yourself, will it save the relationship, I will tell you, if you were in therapy with me, I would not make that the focus. Because this guy that has been with you for six years has every right to leave you to have a life free of your lying. And he's got no moral obligation to stay with you. I would say clean up yourself first. So you love yourself. And then you will make it you will be able to make a much better partner with anyone including this guy if he does want to hang around or if it comes back into your life. So I would go to the website Academy of ct.org. And it's that's the Academy of cognitive therapy.org. You can also go to my website, Dr. kenner.com. I have a link to it. Dr. Dr. K nn er.com. So it's your relationship with reality that's most important. So you can go through life with saying I can lie and fake things and get away with it. And it leaves you inside with a sleazy feeling of contempt for yourself. And for those who are taken in by you're lying. And you live in chronic fear of being discovered. So I recommend that that Well, I would say that's a lose lose situation. And I recommend getting the help. I'm glad you're reaching out. And in the long run. Tiffany's faking reality pretending things are other than they are. Puts you fundamentally at war with reality. No good for you. No good for any partner. No good for any friendships. And I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner. My shows the rational basis of happiness. And we had a quick phone call offline. Somebody said that his son lost a dog in a car accident and what should he do? Well, there are things that you shouldn't do. You shouldn't say, be a big boy grow up, don't cry, I talked about that earlier. Let your son cry. Let your son help you have a burial service if you want in respect to the the dog but don't have you gotta be careful about saying, well, now he's in heaven, because the child may think, well, I want to join Him in heaven. I recommend telling your son exactly what happens that when life ends. It's a gnat. It's an unnatural end in this case, but it's a natural fact that the dog could not survive the accident.

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

(Audio clip from TV)
I've had our difficulties before but never anything too serious. I really feel terrible having her mad at me. It's times like this. I wish I knew how to cry. Oh, don't be embarrassed of my account notes. No, no, it's not that I'm just not someone who cries. It's not my nature. When Mara says Uncle Lyle died, I had to shut my hand in the car door just to make a decent showing at the funeral.

And that's from Frasier, obviously. And think of that in your own lifetimes. When you've had difficulty crying such as as of at a funeral. Well, you might want to think a little bit about it. Because sometimes you don't love the person who died. And so you don't feel any great loss. Let's say it's an abusive parent, and the parent dies and you're feeling like not like you want to cry, but you feel relief, like you want to celebrate, or someone that you really hated the bully of of your childhood dies, and you just don't have it in you, you don't feel it? Well, you want to be able to understand yourself and to respect yourself. And if you can't cry at all, you need to challenge that premise. You need to be able to feel profound sadness when profoundly sad things happen to you. For example, with a kid if if their pet dog dies, they love the dog. You want them to be able to experience the tears. Or if there's someone that you love, who dies, whether it's in a war or whether it's in a car accident, or whether it's from old age, just natural causes. You want to give yourself the freedom to be able to cry, it doesn't have to be publicly but give yourself the freedom to cry. I have dealt with many clients who just don't give themselves permission to cry and when they finally do cry. It is such a wonderful release. It's such a wonderful release for them. And it's such a privilege for me to be able to see them being true to themselves not trying to have to run away from the tears when they feel that.

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For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to Dr. Kenner.com. And please listen to this ad . . .

Here's an excerpt from the selfish path to romance the serious romance guide book by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co author Dr. Edwin Locke, who is world famous for his theories on goal setting:

Don't let money issues undermine love. Money is a common source of conflict in many romantic relationships. Many households have burdened by considerable debt, often caused by the loss of a job or undisciplined spending. Sometimes money problems are due to overspending or spending behind a partner's back, both of which constitute a lack of character. spending more than you can afford is irrational. Money conflicts can be a serious problem, even in partnerships that are otherwise promising. Both partners should know how much money they have, where it is, how its invested, what future income to expect, and the details of their expenses and debts.

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