The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Debbie, the selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and @amazon.com

Debbie, welcome to the show.

Hi, hi.

You're dealing with neighbors. A name problem with your neighbor? Yeah, I call it a bad neighbor. It's not a drug addict or a noise maker or somebody who's making our life intolerable. But I guess they took issue with a basic misunderstanding, neighbor to neighbors, and they're right across the street from us, and it's really been bugging my husband that they are close shouldering.

And they what? I didn't hear the word.

Cold, cold, cold, cold shoulder and giving you... okay, their nose up in the air when you walk by, or when they see you, wait.

So when the car goes, we wave, they don't wave back.

Okay, so they're taking an air of moral superiority. Is it this a husband and wife team?

Pardon?

Is this a husband and wife team across the street, or is it just a single person? Who is it?

It's a husband and wife, and they have two young boys. Then it seems to us that the young boys may have even been instructed to show some moral superiority.

Okay, you like that term. It captures what they're doing.

So there's... right? And people, when people feel hurt, then many times, if they don't feel it's... if they say to themselves, it's not... you see, there's no use even trying to get through to Debbie. You know, it doesn't make any sense. She and her husband are just unreachable, or they hurt us so badly, I don't even want to try. Oh, we know their type of people, you know, we know it. They did this to us, and that's the end of the story. Then communication breaks down. It's like someone cuts the telephone wires. And I know there are no more telephone wires anymore, huh? We all have cell phones.

I get your point, though. Yeah.

So tell me what the misunderstanding was and who's first. Tell me who's in your home. Is it you and your hubby? Do you have little ones too?

No, just my husband and I with two older children that are in and out. And we've known these neighbors for a number of years. They've been in our home.

Okay, so these were former friends. And how old are your kids? Just so I get a visual.

25 and 26.

Okay, their children are probably 12 and 14 or 11 and 13 somewhere.

Okay, that's fine, yeah. And what was the misunderstanding? You've known them for many years, and you've gotten along for quite a while. We thought so. It was a joking call that my husband placed to them saying we're having a party. We understand that there's a fight on television and we're coming over for the party. And oddly enough, they gathered people and never called my husband and said, Come on over to the party.

Which sounds very... this sounds very petty when I'm saying it.

Yeah, I'm not following it quite. You called them and said that... who's having a party?

My husband jokingly said, you're having a party, and the fight's going to be on your TV at the party, and we're coming over. He was joking with him.

Oh, okay, playing around, like something, playing around.

Yeah, a guy-to-guy, kind of joking, playing around thing while they organized a party.

They did, so they took your husband seriously and planned a whole party. And it was a spontaneous party. It's like in the old days, I can remember people used to say, Come as you are. You had to... you call somebody up and said, come the way you are dressed right now. And so it could be rollers in the hair or pajamas on. So this was like a spontaneous party.

Well, it wasn't that day. It was about a week later, okay? And then we never... my husband never heard from them, so we didn't know that they had actually acted on his joke and they expected him to be there, yeah. So, long story short, they called us last minute and said, the fight stopped. Come on, or you're coming. Are you coming over? Yeah. And at that point, my husband could not because, long story short, again, he happened to have invited an old buddy of his over who was going through a nasty divorce. He was sort of nursing him through the situation. Yeah, so our neighbor across the street took offense. We tried to explain, but the explanation I got got lost. Somehow my husband sent a note, and again, offense, because my husband sent a note on his business stationery. So they took offense.

And now your husband sent a note on what? On...

His stationery, which is business stationery, but that's sort of a guy thing too. He didn't do that purposely to show any kind of...

Yeah, you know.

Okay, you're wondering what to do at this stage, right?

Yeah, I would like to make... I would like to make the neighborly feeling come back.

And why don't... and I am. My guess is because you've had a long-term history with them. It isn't like you just walked, moved into this neighborhood. My guess is that they're missing it too, but they've painted themselves in a corner, this moral superiority corner, and they don't know how to get out of it either. So sometimes what helps is to say, Hey...

I gotta 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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So sometimes what helps is to say, I miss us getting together, or I miss that camaraderie we had, or you remind them of a fun time you had together, where you were in hysterics because, oh, maybe the lawn clippings were dumped on someone's lawn, you know, something funny that happened, or when the kids were young, you remind them of one or two fun events and say, I miss those times, and then put the problem in their lap. What? Tell us what you... we would love to make amends somehow. Help us understand what... how to go about doing that, because you don't know what they're wanting. The note didn't help. The personal apology didn't help. You can't continue to joke about it because they're hurt. I mean, they're hurting, so you need to hear their hurt without over-explaining when someone's hurting. The worst thing to say is if I'm feeling hurt because I went and arranged a whole party so psych, because you were coming over, it was your idea we're going to watch the fight together. And now I arranged this party, and you're nursing somebody, and you don't even care about me. And I did this thinking we were buds, we were buddies. You know, I am really put off, and there's nothing you can do. I am just so hurting. Sometimes they just need to go through a period of feeling hurt, and then they start to remember the better times. If you say, My gosh, you know, I was just tossing that out as a guy thing, and they say, well, listen, we did the party. We ordered the food. We got ribs and we got chips and we got, you know, all this delicious food, and you say, oh my gosh, I had no idea you went through that. You need to be there as what do, what's called active listening, rather than saying, Yeah, but we really didn't mean it. With a minute, you go, Yeah, but you're shifting the focus to yourself, rather than really, really hearing the pain that they're going through. If you can hear the pain they're going through and summarize it back to them, oh my god. I can't believe that you ordered shrimp and you went through all this work and invited my best buddies there too, and we weren't there for you. I apologize. I can see how upset you've been. So you can give those, some of those ideas a shot, but even ask them, What does it take? You know? What would you like to do? And maybe plan? Say, you know when you feel like connecting again, or when you... when you... when something comes to your mind. Give us a call so you don't... they don't need to answer you right away. Give them some thinking time.

Listen. I like that.

Okay. Deb, thank you so much for your call.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this that. Here's an excerpt from the selfish path to romance, the serious romance guidebook by doctors Kenner and Locke.

Here's an example of how gender differences can cause conflict. Jeffrey loved Cindy, but he was frustrated with her when she would relate a bad experience with her family or boss. Why didn't she take his advice? And she was always trying to pry him open, asking him how his day went, what he was thinking, what he felt about this or that, things he never thought much about or even felt compelled to think about. He felt more at home with the guys on the basketball court, where there was no pressure to talk or analyze everything. He felt drained by Cindy's conversations about their relationship. How would they address this common pattern among partners? Cindy would need to learn to be clear about what she needs, and Jeffrey could learn how to be a sympathetic listener.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and buy it @amazon.com.