The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Here is an email that I received, a question I received about this very crazy, nasty family member. What do you do with a family member who goes ballistic and just ruins family events? I'm sure that all of us have had those experiences. So see what you think about this, dear Dr. Kenner.

I had been divorced with three kids when I met Tom; he also had three kids and had been divorced. We married 10 years ago. I went beyond the call of duty to make his kids feel as good as they could about the situation. His divorce had been messy and bad. It took a few years for his kids to come around to me, to accept me, and my kids had it easier. They were fine with the situation, and they wanted to connect with his kids.

Just as I think things are going well—nice family get-togethers, six grandkids at this stage—my stepdaughter Terry is causing big problems. It all started with an Easter basket. My daughter Karen gave Terry's son and the other kids Easter baskets, a lovely gesture, but Terry's two-year-old son had a different piece of chocolate in it and a different small toy than the other kids.

Now this caused a huge to-do for Terry. She was ranting and raving. Prior to that, Karen, my daughter, had a birthday party for her son and decided to keep it small. She invited 10 of his playmates, no family members. Terry went ballistic because her two-year-old son was not invited. My other daughter, Carissa, had a birthday party for her seven-year-old. It was a girl's tea party. Terry and her two-year-old son were not invited. Carissa was terrified to have this party. She feared Terry's wrath for not inviting the two-year-old son.

It seems that Terry and her sister are interested in what they can get when they have birthday parties for their kids. Get this: they invite 60 to 80 people, and they go out and rent halls. Mind you, their kids are two and three years old. They're all expecting. They're all expecting second children now and are having big second baby showers. What am I supposed to do? How can I keep family gatherings happy? Why is the stepdaughter, Terry, like this?

Thanks for your time, Dina.

Dina, you're putting in way too much effort. You're taking the responsibility on yourself to make things go well in the family, as if one of the conditions of marrying your husband 10 years ago was that the six kids get along. Well, you can't do that, and you can't be responsible for Terry's behavior, but you can protect yourself from Terry.

So what I would recommend doing at the family gatherings is, hey, I've 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.com. Huh? The Selfish path to romance. That is interesting.

You can't be responsible for Terry's behavior, but you can protect yourself from Terry. So what I would recommend doing at the family gatherings is focusing on members that you enjoy, and when you have a family event that will involve Terry, when she goes ranting and raving about a kid's basket, just look at her and say, "You know, next time, I think it'll be more comfortable without you here. I think we'd all have a better time."

And she may then rant and rave even more. And you say, "You know, you're making it harder for us. It sounds like you may be holding something in, Terry, and if you want to talk about it. If there's something that you've been carrying on your back for a very long time, why don't you come out with the real thing? Because when you get upset over these little things, it's very frustrating for all of us, and we don't want to tiptoe around, you know, on eggshells around you. We don't want to have that relationship."

So what that's doing is you are being very assertive. You are putting it on the table how you feel about yourself and how you feel about her behavior, and that you are not going to kowtow to it anymore while still having some empathy. There may have been some real traumas that went on if you say it was a messy divorce with her mother and dad. Right then, it could be that there was some real tug-of-war over belongings. Mom may be still complaining. "Dad didn't give me the house; Dad didn't give me the car. Can you believe he took the sofa? Can you believe that?"

And so it may have made Terry and her sister feel very entitled, like they need to get things, and therefore, they may need the attention. So, therefore, these big parties with lots of gifts, but you don't have to buy into that.

Now, Terry, what? I suspect you have a question: what about Terry? Well, Terry may have what is called a negative confirmatory bias—big words. Psychologists love big words, and let me explain that. She may have come to some conclusion early on in her life that people better pay attention to me; otherwise, I'm not important.

Now, you may have—she may have felt that way during the divorce. "Oh, I've got to make sure that I'm noticed or only good if people give me more or equal to other people." And so then she sees the slightest slight, you know, a chocolate Easter Bunny rather than a chocolate duck, and that triggers—that activates that same negative thought. And so even though it wasn't meant as a slight for her, she's biased to see it as something negative.

So she'll end up going through her whole life feeling slighted by coworkers, by family members, by friends. She's always vigilant, looking out for people who are going to take advantage of her or who are leaving her out, whereas many of us who don't have that premise activated—that idea activated in our minds—don't get bent out of shape if we get a duck rather than a bunny. You know, we may even feel more special because we got the duck.

So what are you supposed to do, is your question? Just name that she's acting irrationally. You can name it tactfully. You can say that I feel real anxious around you. I don't like this feeling. I expect it to stop. State your expectations, and then follow through that if things are really messy in the future, that Terry doesn't get invited to a Christmas party or a holiday party. And, you know, work with your husband, of course, with this; there may be some dynamics there that she's trying to split the two of you apart.

So I hope that helps you. I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner, and here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Right before the break, I mentioned that sometimes people try to take advantage of situations and pretend that they're more ill than they are. And in Time Magazine one this year, they had something called the pot of gold effect—the pot of gold. Now, what is gold? Money? A review of 71 studies in psychosomatics, it means mind and body connection, finds that long-term symptoms of concussion tend to persist when patients are involved in, get this, a lawsuit, and most patients improve after their cases are settled. Fascinating.

I find that in therapy, sometimes people will come in and say, "Oh, I have this ache or pain or these broken bones, or this happened to me, and I got this injury." And then we work, and I give them a lot of rational skills to try to get better, and they don't use them. And then they say, "Oh, by the way, I'm in a lawsuit." And then, you know, the pieces fall into place that this was just a mockery. I'm being used here, and I don't like to be a therapist that's used for somebody else's manipulation.

So I just lay it out on the table and tell them that they want to have more integrity, that the value of integrity is worth much more than the pot of gold, and that they need to pull their act together and work to make themselves better, whether it's a concussion or something else.

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

Talk to my father. He's making me quit the play at Henley Hall. Acting is everything to me. He's planning the rest of my life for me, and he's never asked me what I want. I know what he'll say. He'll tell me that acting's a whim and I should forget it. Just tell me to put it out of my mind for my own good.

Okay, think about your own life. Did your parents try to take control and tell you what you should do, what's best for you, and that the choices you're making are bad? Assuming that the choices you're making weren't bad—you weren't drinking and drugging and gambling and being very promiscuous—but saying, say, you made a decision that you went into a career that was not the dream career that your parents had in mind for you.

How do you stand up for yourself? How do you be your own person? Events against very controlling parents who are going to look at you as morally wrong for using your mind to discover your own values and pursue them. How do you hold your own against that? Well, that's the whole goal of your life: your own happiness. And if you won't get there by following your parents' path—or it's not a parent, if it's an older sibling who tells you what you must do, or a grandparent—

That's the biggest war, the biggest battle that we all fight, which is how to own our own lives, how to own it proudly without a battle, getting rid of the battle and just going forward and pursuing our goals without apology, rational goals. So if that relates to your life and you had to make hard decisions and you made the wrong one, think about it.

How maybe it's not too late to reverse it. For example, some are too late to reverse. If I wanted to be an Olympic ice skating champion at the age of 50, forget it, babe. I can't do that, but I can dance. And I do do that. I do the ballroom dancing.

So that was from Dead Poets Society, a very poignant moment in that movie that sometimes people try to take advantage of situations and pretend that they're more ill than they are. And in Time Magazine one this year, they had something called the pot of gold effect—the pot of gold.

Now, what is gold? Money? A review of 71 studies in psychosomatics, it means mind and body connection, finds that long-term symptoms of concussion tend to persist when patients are involved in, get this, a lawsuit, and most patients improve after their cases are settled. Fascinating.

I find that in therapy, sometimes people will come in and say, "Oh, I have this ache or pain or these broken bones, or this happened to me, and I got this injury." And then we work, and I give them a lot of rational skills to try to get better, and they don't use them.

And then they say, "Oh, by the way, I'm in a lawsuit." And then, you know, the pieces fall into place that this was just a mockery. I'm being used here, and I don't like to be a therapist that's used for somebody else's manipulation. So I just lay it out on the table and tell them that they want to have more integrity, that the value of integrity is worth much more than the pot of gold, and that they need to pull their act together and work to make themselves better, whether it's a concussion or something else.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

Learning how to value yourself is no easy task. It is proper to design your own life. Start by naming what matters most to you. For example, choosing and pursuing your own values, thinking for yourself, speaking up for yourself, tactfully being honest with yourself and with others, setting proper boundaries with family, friends, and associates, going to school to become more qualified to pursue your chosen career, giving your children a good education and moral guidance, yet encouraging them not to obey blindly but to think for themselves, and learning how to communicate well with your partner in order to grow closer emotionally.

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