The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free. Dr. Kenner.com,

Becky, you're wondering, how much is too frugal when you're dating frugal slash cheap, cheap. So are you dating a cheapskate?
I think so.
Yeah, tell me about it well,
and it may be my perspective, and this is where the conflict comes because I am very generous and gift giving, and he's always likes it, doesn't feel, seem to be uncomfortable with my gift giving, and he does give things. But gifts is a big deal to me, and we've talked about it a bit. Yeah, the biggest example that has come up recently, well, the holidays, that even though we talked about gift giving that didn't kind of fall through on that, but he redeemed himself and but then I just had a birthday, and as we did go away, but it was a trip that he had already planned and paid for before he knew me. Yeah, I didn't really feel like it was specifically for me, but my only gift was a regifted bottle of perfume. Okay, I can go into how I know it's re-gifted, but he didn't present it like that, yeah, he didn't come out and say he bought it, yeah, but it, sir, he certainly presented it as if, and to me, that was a little misleading. And yeah, so and he is a man of means and has no problem spending money on himself and drives an expensive car and takes expensive vacations. And I'm not someone that needs a lot of the glam and the glitz, yeah, but I do that is, like my love language, my primary one. So I like think about, you know, I like that.
Okay, so what you're describing to me is that one of your love languages, one of the ways that you experience feeling cared for and cherished, is some personal attention, giving you a gift that's meaningful, not so much to him, but to you, or maybe to both of you. You know, there's no reason why he has to be left out of the equation. So in terms of your birthday, if he's designing a trip, it would be taking what you enjoy into account, working with you, and if you already had the trip planned, to own up to that. So it doesn't look like it's your birthday trip. Maybe to add something special in it that's a little generous, a little above and beyond, so that you don't feel like it's perfunctory. So one of the I drew a line on paper, as you were talking, just maybe a five-inch line, and on the left side, I put clueless, meaning the guy is clueless. Maybe he just needs educating. You know, maybe in his family, gifts weren't a big deal, or maybe they were frowned upon. Maybe he was only a recipient of gifts. I made that mistake with my own kids. I would give them gifts, and I'd say, oh, no, no, no, I don't want anything for me. I don't want anything for me. So what did I train my kids to do? It's a one-way street, and I wish I could go back in time. I you know, I meant it at the time. But then when my kids left the nest, and Mother's Day came and I didn't get any gift, I burst into tears, or I didn't get a card, and my daughter said to me, Mom, are you having a malevolent universe moment, meaning are you having? And I looked at her, yeah. She said, Mom, of course, I love you. She just didn't know that it had suddenly become important to me because we were no longer together. So on one end, he's clueless. On the other end of the scale would be what cold and kind of just yeah, hair, yeah, that he is a me-only narcissistic type of person. Me only there, and for sure. And so what's really good that you're doing, Becky, is that you're allowing yourself to look at red flags. The biggest mistake that people make when they're dating is they, they so want the relationship to work, because there's some good. I mean, you're not a fool. You're in the relationship because he has some good qualities. And then when people notice red flags, they just say, Oh, it can't be true, or oh, it's probably not the way I'm seeing it. So your red flags are reason to get more information. Where can you get more information?
I would say family, but I'm not sure I can trust them yet to be confidential. Okay,
so that is exactly one source you could be at a party or a family event, and you could say, so tell me some stories about, let's say his name is Joe. Tell me some stories about growing up with Joe, and you get a breadth, a breadth of knowledge that you otherwise may not have access to. There are funny you know, tell me some funny stories. So, tell me some stories that I might not know about. You know, this is a huge investment. If you were buying a car, you would definitely want, what do they call it? Fact checked, or you can so you want a background check. I mean, people even go to lengths today. They have a criminal background check on the people they're dating if they think there's anything suspicious going on. I mean, I wouldn't just randomly go do that, but if you're very serious about someone and you just see something shady, hey, it doesn't cost you that much to do that. And I've heard, I know of cases where it's turned up things, but this guy may just be clueless. My husband, I had to guide him as to what I liked and didn't like. He saw me when we were first dating, buy a gift from my parents like yourself. I was very generous, and I got my father some cufflinks that were Opal cufflinks. And I was, you know, I was just relatively young. They were relative they were $200 at the time, which was outrageous. And my husband said, What do you not like your father, really? Yeah, because what is he thinking?
I'm not sure that he that you don't give big gifts to someone like that. You just give a small, personal, meaningful gift. You don't have to go over the top. And if you do, what is there something going on in your family that I need to know about? Okay,
yeah, yeah. And that's something I don't have a big clue about, but I do see some kind of self-focused things going on that seem to go in line with it. But I would say outside of that, there's a lot of really good there. Okay, well, let me know how much they need to. It's very hurtful when it happens, right? To make a big deal,
right? So again, he might be the clueless, in which case you can educate him. My husband sent me flowers. I'm not a flower person. You know, they die, and it doesn't thrill me. It's like, don't waste your money. So I had to gently educate him that that's not my love language, that I tend to like small, funny things. So for my 50th birthday, oh, I'm a real odd boy, he gave me a dirty rug bathroom, rug from a bathroom, and I absolutely loved it because it was an example that I used my co-author, and I wrote a book, The Selfish Path to Romance, how to love with passion and reason. And that was one of the negative examples. So my husband, it was just such a fun, fun play on something from our book. So listen, I want to you could get our book The Selfish Path to Romance. It really means self-valuing. It doesn't mean self-destructive. And that you could get at Dr. Kenner.com or on Amazon. It's Dr. Ellen Kenner and Dr. Ed Lock, and we have a whole section. I'm looking at it page 110 attitude towards money when you're choosing the right partner, and that should help. Okay, thank you so much. Thank you so much. Oh, you're very welcome. Becky.
And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. Do me a favor and stop saying that I'm pretty and then I'm not fat, okay? Because it makes me uncomfortable. I'm the girl who, you know, gets really good grades and is not afraid to be funny, and I'm the girl who has a lot of friends who are boys and no boyfriends. I'm not beautiful, okay? And I never will be, and I'm fine with that, you know,
but when you go around saying that I'm something that I'm not,
it's just it's not nice.
And so that's from Shallow Hal and if you've ever had somebody give you praise, and you just sense that they're not being genuine, that they're just trying to buddy you up or say something to deal with your insecurities. It's insulting. It's very painful, and most of us see right through it. On the other hand, sometimes or not, sometimes, many times, a lot of us have trouble accepting genuine praise. Maybe she is pretty in this person's eyes and she's shooting him down because she just won't accept the fact that somebody finds her attractive. And you want to be sensitive to both. You want to be sensitive to not accepting phony praise. You know, you want to call a person on that. And yet you also want to be aware that if you do have good character traits, that you can value them in yourself too, and you can earn a sense of confidence and pride and accept praise and say thank you. Thank you very much, or Thank you. I know I see myself that way too. For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to Dr. Kenner.com and please listen to this. NAD,
Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Dr. Ellen Kenner. Another way to nourish your relationship is by spending meaningful time together, giving full attention to one another. How you spend your time together is a volitional choice. Quality time says to your partner. Important to me, another way to nourish your relationship is giving gifts. We do not recommend buying expensive gifts, even if affordable, except for special occasions, and especially not for the purpose of making up after an argument or for a neglect or poor treatment to fix that you need to change a whole pattern of behavior. Small thoughtful gifts as a symbol of your love are ideal. If you've discussed this, you'll know what type of gifts your partner values. On a special occasion, buy something that your loved one truly wants but would never buy, but usually just a card, flowers, candy, or a love note on the pillow is the perfect gift. You can download chapter one for free at drkenner.com and you can buy the book at amazon.com.