The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

you have a question about a friend of yours who prefers, who likes animals more than people?

Yeah, that's just my fiancé, but he's—

oh, it's your fiancé.

Yeah, he just—

I hear him say, "Just be a promise." He's what I'll hear and say, "word promise." That's a nice, hilarious.

You've said that your friend, like your fiancé, likes animals more than people. Tell me about that.

Marshall, you'll see on TV that will be like false sad music. There'll be one about kids starving, and then there's one about animals being abused, right?

Right? I've seen that. I always say—

every time he hears one about the kid, because he was here, basically a CS to him. And when he hears about the animals, it's like, he's like, "Oh, poor things." He doesn't want to watch it because it gets to him like that. And then, like, if you'll hear of somebody being just—like he'll say just how he feels that his animals won't stab you in the back like humans are, you know.

Okay, so let me pause for a moment. First, I just heard you a little better. So whatever you were just doing is working. If there's a way to continue to keep the microphone near you, that would be ideal. Okay, and yet, and maybe talking a little slow too would make it clear because I'd love to give you some advice. This is something that I've heard of and worked with quite a bit: people who have been damaged, people who have been hurt by people that they trusted in their life from their past, and I'm not sure, obviously, I don't know your fiancé, but sometimes people have been wounded very badly. I used to work with a lot of abused children, and they felt more affinity towards a dog or a cat or even a pet turtle because why? They can't hurt. I mean, they can bite you. Yes, a dog can bite you, but it doesn't do it the way a human can. A human can betray you. A human can betray your love, your trust. A human can turn on you and really ruin your life if you let them. I mean, hopefully, he can recover from—

that all the time because his dog will not—will not belittle him and make him feel like that like other people will. And so he's dealing—what you're dealing with is trauma. I mean, not you personally, but with him. You are—that your feet, that there's a story to uncover. Maybe you guys already have—with the trauma from whatever injury he suffered with people, however he's with you. And so the fact that he's trusting you sounds good. I'm assuming. Do you feel trusted by him?

Yeah. I mean, I do. Like I feel trusted. Like I feel comfort. I feel like if I could always—if anything happens, I know I can rely on him and trust him, like, okay, in the sense of just, there's like—the way he thinks about people. He thinks all people are bad, all people are evil. No, like, right? When he needs people, he'll be mean to them. And I'm like, "You should always give them a chance to know if they're going to be nice people." And he says, "Why? Give them a chance for them just to stab me in the back."

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.

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You don't even give them a chance to know if they're going to be nice people. And he says, "Why give them a chance for them just to stab me in the back?"

Okay, so he's got the policy of hurting people before they hurt him, so he's mean to them. And many people have that—not obviously, not everyone. Otherwise, we wouldn't have a civilized society. But let me back up a little bit. We have basic ideas that we hold, and they're formed early on in childhood, and can be molded or adapted by the degree of our thinking and by our life experiences. Our ideas are, number one, what's my view of myself? And I'll give you a few views. Am I capable and able to achieve some of my dreams in life, whether it's career or good relationships? So that's one idea about yourself. Another idea about yourself is, "I'm unable to succeed; therefore, I need to cling to people." So that would be more of a clingy person. Can you see how they can have different ideas? Another idea about people is, "You have to be mean to them before they're mean to you because everyone will hurt you." Excuse me, this would be an idea about other people. And if he's holding an idea—not about himself, but about other people—that, "I don't want to go through that pain again, and so I've got to hurt them before they hurt me," kind of putting a shield up and putting out a sword to hurt them first, then if he's got that policy rather than a policy about people that says, "You judge them as they come," some people are very nice, some people are so-so, and hey, some people will betray you, and you do need some psychological defense for those. But if he's just making a global generalization about people, then it's no wonder that he would turn to animals as a source of comfort. You know, you can talk to your dog, your dog can listen, and you feel comforted. The only problem is, can your dog really listen? Right? Your dog can't listen. Your dog has no—I mean, your dog can sense emotions.

If you'd rather talk to a dog, right? But because the dog won't judge him, that, right?

But he can't—if he's worried about being judged, then that goes back to the self-esteem issue, his view of himself. If you have confidence in yourself, then if, for example, maybe you have some good confidence, and if someone said to you, "You're the biggest idiot in the world," you would just laugh at it, like, "Where's this person coming from?" Right? You would dismiss it. But you—

you want to be more like, "I don't care; they don't just—I care about them," and say something like that to me, which is my fiancé or my family, the people I love, right? So—

he needs—he needs to build—if you guys want a good relationship with each other, and this is a little bit getting in the way. There's nothing wrong with his love of animals, and I know we're just winding down on time. There's nothing wrong with his love of animals. However, you want him to increasingly, just a little bit at a time, gain more confidence that he can trust people, starting with you. And if he learns better communication skills, if he can work on his premises—and I'm going to recommend a book that would help. The book I'm going to recommend is on my website, Jessica. It's "Mind Over Mood," and you can look that up on my website, DrKenner.com, and it's a great workbook. And starting at chapter nine, it talks about how to change core ideas that have been there for a long time, but it's a wonderful workbook for everyone, including myself and yourself. Listen, thank you so very much for the call, and I wish you the best with this.

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

Can't think for himself. She's right. Do you guys know what I did to get in here? That was you, and the bizarre thing is, I did it for my old man. I tortured this poor kid because I wanted him to think that I was cool. He's always going off about, you know, when he was in school, all the wild things he used to do. And I got the feeling that he was disappointed that I never cut loose on anyone, right?

And that's from "Breakfast Club." Pretty poignant. Can you imagine that your father wants you to role model him in how to bully, how to cut loose, how to cut someone else down? And to get your father's affection, you have to—it’s kind of like being in a gang. You have to hurt somebody else; you have to bully them. And then guess what? That's indelible in your mind. You know the damage that you did to that person. You know that it's intentional, and you know it's by your choice, and you know it's by a very dependent act, a second-handed act. It wasn't by any rational thought. It was to please your father, to meet up to his irrational standards. And you know, those are very tragic situations because the damage—the primary damage done—is to yourself. I mean, it's obviously done to the other person too, to the person you're bullying, but they're the victim, and they did not perpetrate anything, so they don't have to live with that guilt. They may be suffering from other problems, you know, trusting people, but you know that that's something that hopefully they'll find better people and recover from. For more—

Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DrKenner.com, and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance" by Dr. Kenner and Locke. Be—

aware if you selectively focus on negatives in your partner, exaggerating them in your mind, and ignoring genuine positive traits. A tip-off that you're doing this is finding yourself using global words—words that are all-encompassing: never, always, no one, everyone, nothing, everything, all. Look at the following statements for the global tip-off words. You never do anything right. You never listen. You're always late. You always try to hurt me. You find fault with everything I do. Nothing ever pleases you. I'm always left doing all the work. These statements are usually overgeneralizations. It's rarely true that your partner never does anything right and always tries to hurt you. If this is really the case, you are clearly with the wrong partner. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com.