The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com. Tara, you're wondering where you're going with your boyfriend.

Yes, what's going on?

Well, he's 56, I'm 42. He was never married. I was married to my husband maybe a year and a half ago, and I had a wonderful relationship with him, and I think I have a wonderful relationship with my boyfriend. But when we first started dating, he told me that he never wanted to get married, he was never going to move in with anybody, and he was never going to do anything commitment-wise. And I just, I don't know what to do. He tells me he loves me, and if we go away, he says he'll miss me or whatever. And I don't know where this is heading. I mean, I feel I have enough love to share with someone else, and I'd like to spend my life with someone. I'm tired of being alone.

Okay, so I can feel the pain. I can feel that you're wanting a committed relationship, one like you had before with your husband. And it won't—it would be unique. It wouldn't be the same relationship, obviously. And you know what that feels like, and you know that's possible, and you think that your current boyfriend's a good candidate for that. And on the other hand, he's got his own personal story. I mean, at the age of 56, never married. He has his own reasons for that. And the question is, do you know his story?

He's had bad relationships, and he works all the time. He works split shifts and everything. So I don't know if that's it. Yeah. And he's just, I guess I asked him one time, I said, "Were you ever engaged?" He said, "No, I just never found the right person."

So, okay, so then if that were the case, I would feel, if I were in your shoes, I would think, "Well, you mean I'm not the right person?" Just if he said, "I never want to marry because, you know, my parents went through a difficult time, and I just promised myself I would never do that." That's one thing. Another option that you know you have, but it may not sit well with you, is that you can have a partnership. I mean, many people I know—I know one couple that I was always sending Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so on the Christmas cards every year. I always thought they were married, and then one year, they pulled me aside, just very sweetly, and they said, "You know, we never married. We're partners, we live together, and it feels like a commitment. It doesn't feel like, it feels like what people call a marriage. But we never wanted all of the baggage that comes with marriage." A lot of people get married, and it doesn't work out. So we wanted to have the relationship minus that label because it brought such baggage into it. So if that were his story, then it's almost the equivalent of being married for him, not for you, right? But if he did say he knew the right person never came along, there's a little more explaining to do in that corner. Your thoughts? What are you thinking that you want to do?

Um, I don't know if I ever—I mean, if he would ask, I probably would say yes because I do. I swore I would never find any—I would never date anybody after my husband passed. I mean, we were connected at the hips. We had a wonderful 18 years in marriage. I mean, it was out of this world. And yeah, he came into my life, and I couldn't believe it. I told him when we first started dating that I didn't want to—I didn't want to get married, I didn't want nothing really committed, and the more I'm with him, the more I realize, wow, I really like him, and I'm in love with him, and I enjoy being with him, and I miss him when I'm not with him. And I realized I don't like being alone. And he says he misses me, and he loves me and everything, but he just doesn't want to get married. I mean, I mean, like you said, I would be content with being engaged for the rest of our lives and never getting married, but I don't even think he even wants to live together. I think he's content with me just being a neighbor lady.

A neighbor lady? Yes, I live right across the street.

Oh, okay. I've never heard that term before.

Yeah, he calls me the neighbor lady.

Okay, how long have you dated?

We're together a little over eight months.

Okay, so it's still really early on, right? You know, here, I'm going to sound a little odd, but it's always good to know a person longer than that, and you bring on all of your rich history of having had a good relationship. You really need to keep your eyes open. And if there are—you said the never that you would never—you're just opening up to the possibility that this will work out. But there is a relationship breaker, and the potential relationship breaker is that he's not moving in the same direction that you are. You want to move toward marriage, and he likes you as the neighbor lady, right? And if you're not willing to—if you're not interested in just being the neighbor lady. I don't know if that's a term of endearment. Maybe it is. My husband calls me some terms that I think he calls me wench occasionally, and I absolutely love it. So sometimes one term for one woman or another woman might hate it, but if you love neighbor lady, that's one thing. If you feel that you don't love that and you want something that has a different feel to it, that would fit your needs differently, then that's another thing.

So let me recommend I wrote a book with Dr. Ed Locke, and it's about how to keep yourself, how not to lose yourself in a relationship. And it's really about romance from soup to nuts. How do you make yourself lovable? It sounds like you've already done that because you've had so much good success, Tara, in your first marriage with your hubby. The second part is, we talk about how do you find the right person for you, and how do you know that they're the right one? Well, you never have 100% certainty. Even when I married my hubby, I said to myself on my wedding day, "If it doesn't work out, you can get divorced." And we've been married almost five years, wow, happily. So you need to give yourself permission that you can't know for certain what anyone's carrying. People can change. People can grow in different directions, or they can grow closer, too. So we talk about how to choose your soulmate, and that's the stage that you're in now, and you come with a rich history, a good history, so you want to really look at him and explore any emotions as you're doing that are not fitting, such as why doesn't he want a little more commitment? I think there are more stories behind it for you to discover. You know, you've only known each other eight months, but go ahead.

Okay.

Oh, it sounded like you were about to say something.

No.

Okay, so eight months is not a long time. You know, people, I'm kind of rushing it.

Oh, yeah.

I think you need to see him under a lot of different circumstances, with different— you know, in stressful situations and relaxed situations. What type of vacations do you both like? What interests do you have? Where might you clash? What's your view on money? What habits do you have? What's your view on fitness and health and their, you know, the most fundamental values? Is he honest? Does he have any hidden skeletons in the closet? Hopefully, he doesn't have one. But, you know, was there any gambling? Is there any drinking? Or is there anything that you raised a little eyebrow with? But in the heat of passion, you pull the eyebrow back down. You want to explore all of that, and that's just to keep your eyes open because this isn't another hopefully lifetime choice for you, but it doesn't have to be. You know, as I said, if it doesn't work out, you can part ways, and we talk about that in a book.

Let me give you the name of the book. It's got a title, "The Selfish Path to Romance." It's a hard title to forget, and we basically mean self-esteem, self-valuing, not the mean, rotten way to romance, "The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason." And it's got little exercises at the end of all. We've got short chapters and exercises. So you could do the exercises and a couple of chapters on how to choose a soulmate, and I think it will inform you more deeply to help you make the decision.

Listen, thank you so much for the call, Tara. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

I can get this at any bookstore.

You can go to Amazon. That's the cheapest. Some bookstores I've walked into—one in LA, I found it. I found one in Florida, but the best is just the cheapest route is to go to amazon.com.

So listen, thank you so much for your call.

Oh, thank you so much too.

Oh, you're welcome.

You helped me a lot here.

Oh, thank you.

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

Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance" by Drs. 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.