The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Dear Dr. Kenner, I am currently in love with a married man. Okay, that's not uncommon, and all three of us believe in polygamy. Does that mean you're going to marry him? I can't figure out why I get so angry and jealous when the husband and wife kiss or take a shower together. So she lives with them, but she's just like an add-on in their house. They can kiss in public, but I can only kiss him or do other things like that. If nobody but his wife knows about it, I have to hide my feelings from everyone; only he and his wife know how I really feel about him.

So I've got a lot of questions here. What the heck is going on? Why did you choose this sort of relationship for yourself? Why did you not want an exclusive relationship with a partner? You're in a situation that's very strange. They're saying, "You can live with us. You can love us, the woman, the husband and the wife. You can share a life with us, honey, but you're a second-rate wife. You're not even a wife, and you've got to keep this quiet."

Now, why? Well, obviously, if everybody knows that you're in this tryst, then you know you can. You will raise some eyebrows. You might lose some jobs, or they might lose some jobs; people may not want to associate with you. So in one sense, this is very private—what you do behind your bedroom doors. However, the question is, are you happy? And the answer is a resounding no. You're angry, which is saying things are not fair, and you're feeling jealous, which means she has something I want.

Now that's really interesting. You're not wanting her because you can only kiss him. You're not saying, "I can only kiss her." So it's not that your main attraction is to her; it's that your main attraction is to him. You're both in love with the same man, and she's agreed to share him.

Okay, I suspect that you need to listen much more carefully to what you're saying to yourself under your breath. You may be saying, "Oh, there she goes again. He's looking at her again. He bought her a new dress. He didn't buy me a new dress." If you're always comparing and contrasting like that, then I don't know if you're recreating some sibling situation you were in, both eager to have dad's attention or mom's attention.

You know, I don't know what's going on in your mind because time-sharing with a husband doesn't work. Now, you may have the fantasy that he will love you more and will choose you over her and will leave her. If so, that's very dishonest—being in this relationship. Are there other gains that you're after? Maybe he's very wealthy, and you want the convenience of a man who will support you and give you a roof over your head and pay for your things, and you really want more than that, but he's not willing to do that.

But they both agree to this if you have sex with them. I suggest that you take a much closer look at your own judgment in this. What have been your choices in the past? What led you to your judgment now?

There's also an association called Tapestry Against Polygamy. I went on the internet. This is for people who get trapped in a polygamous situation, and they have danger signs of abuse within a polygamous relationship. And I'll just list a couple of these because you want to be aware of them. You can go to their website: www.polygamy.org/backslash/danger signs. So these are the danger signs.

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. 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? This Selfish Path to Romance, that is interesting.

So these are the danger signs: control over your private lives. If he's telling both of you—his two women—where you should work, whether you should attend certain church services, dictating what decisions should be made for your entire family, that's a danger sign. If he's making sexual demands, pressure to perform certain sexual acts through coercion, then that's a big one, a red flag, a warning sign. If there are threats or intimidation to take away his attention if you behave improperly, that's a warning sign. And there are many, many more. If he tries to cut you off from outsiders, if he needs to have just totally isolate you from people, if he needs you to have an emotional dependence on him, he doesn't want you to have any critical thinking. He doesn't want you to think independently, then you've got to leave that relationship immediately. So those are also signs of an abusive relationship.

So it's not just in a polygamous relationship, but again, the organization is Tapestry Against Polygamy, and you can look up their warning signs and danger signs of being in such a relationship and how to get out of it.

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

Hello, Dr. Kenner, I am 19 years old, and I have been trying to get pregnant for about one year, but it is not happening. What can I do? Well, I left it. I wrote "left it" exactly as you wrote it for about one year because I think it's important. That shows that you're not as polished or as educated as to make the type of decision it sounds like. You're trying to make a lifelong decision of being a mother for a child at the age of 19, and you've been trying since the age of 18.

So the first thing that came to my mind was a popular teenage song. I don't know whether Madonna did it, but somebody glamorized teenage pregnancy. Well, it isn't the glamor it's made out to be. I've worked with many teenage moms, and they feel like they've lost their entire youth. They're resentful; they see their friends going out and still being able to enjoy life, going to parties, dancing, or going back to college and building a wonderful career or having time with a husband first. And that's absolutely, absolutely wonderful to give yourself those teenage years.

So the question is, why do you want a baby so badly at such a young age? Is it that the case that your boyfriend or husband is going off to fight and you want to firm up your bond with him? Or is this what you've always wanted? Is this a Barbie and Ken doll dream? Or do you have career plans, and you feel like maybe—excuse me—maybe you have no career plans, and you feel like a baby would fill in that gap? Or maybe your older sister just had a baby, and you're feeling jealous, and you want a baby too because your parents are fussing so much over her.

Maybe your parents did a lousy job in bringing you up, and you feel that you'd be a much better mother. And so you have this urgency to become a mother very soon. Or for some people, they've had an abortion at a very young age, at 13 and 14, and they feel so guilty that they want a baby to make up for it because they feel that their God will be good to them if they have a baby and make amends to him.

You don't ever have to get into that trap. My question to you is, where are you in your schooling? What are your life goals? If you're looking for a baby to give you a purpose in life, think again. You want to make yourself solid first, so that you're ready to have a baby. And if you have the opportunity to carry around one of those computerized babies that they do in schools, you need to do that. And you need the version that wets. And if they had one that squirms, I would say, get the one that squirms also.

And also, you need a lot of self-understanding so that you make long-range choices now that are much better for your own long-range happiness. A baby is not like a major in college because you can change majors. Instead, it's a lifetime commitment, and you want to make very good choices in your life.

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.

So how does one actually go about understanding one's partner? Mainly through talking and everyday observation. Partners also communicate by touching and, for the more eloquent ones, by writing romantic letters or poems. Of course, saying that partners should communicate is not an original idea. It's in virtually every book on love ever written. But it is amazing how many couples have problems in this realm. Many partners don't make communication a conscious priority. Some feel their loved one should just know what they're thinking. Communication can be undermined by fear, and partners may lack communication skills.

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