The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com.

Penny: You're worried about your husband's personality. It's not that stable.

Yes. Well, normally he is very nice and the nicest person alive, but he gets these spells where he's a completely different person. Over the last two years, sometimes he's mean, and sometimes he acts drunk or just goofy. I mean, just completely different personalities. And they've checked about walking seizures and hypothesia, and just nothing. Seems they're not finding any answers, and I was just looking at a mental aspect of possibly something being wrong.

Okay, well, you're very smart to have done the first thing, which is to look into medical reasons. Because if there's something—oh, it could be a tumor in the brain, or if there's something going on, you need to know it, and you want to catch it sooner than later. But if he gets a relatively clean bill of health and they can't rule anything else out, then it's really the answers lie within whom? If it's psychological.

Well, usually it seems to happen with lack of sleep, or if he has an eight right that day. That's why we kind of looked into hypoglycemia and stuff with his sugar and everything. But we check his sugar when he has spells like that; he doesn't remember anything. He does it, he'll go to sleep and wake up a different person.

So how often does it happen?

Over the last two years, it started and it's progressively getting worse, maybe once a week to once every couple of weeks, becoming a problem.

Okay, once to—okay, if he's having it that frequently, is when I asked the question earlier, who has the answers? Meaning, if it's psychological, the—you don't—yes, you can go to a psychologist, and that would be great. It's he's the one with the answers. He's the one that needs to become a scientist to study himself and figure out what's going on in his mind. For example, if it were me having these, what you're calling spells, where I get mean or drunk, and I'm usually a very nice person, but you never know when I'm going to turn on you and start acting really goofy when it's inappropriate to do so or acting drunk—and I'm assuming he's not a drink or a drug user, that that's the case.

No. There could be no medication he's on that could be causing this?

No.

Okay, then, if it were me that it was happening to, I would want to take notes. I would want to know what is triggering it? What happened just before this happened? I would want to ask myself, what does it remind me of? Sometimes things can remind you of the past. For example, I was just recently driving in the car with my husband, and he saw a sign, and he says, "Let me tell you a story about that sign," and it really had nothing to do with the sign. It's just a roadside sign, but it brought him back in time to his childhood, to a boat, to being bullied, actually, and it was a story I never knew about.

And so it would be up to your husband to try to really be invested in getting to the bottom of this. Have what is his best explanation of it? I know you said he doesn't remember it. He goes to sleep and then doesn't, you know, have memories.

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What is his best explanation of it? I know you said he doesn't remember it. He goes to sleep and then doesn't, you know, have memories of it. Honestly, that's a problem with us that I'm dealing with, that he's not addressing this as serious as it is for me, you know, because for me, I'm the one dealing with it honestly. And he doesn't know anything, to be honest, until it happened at work one time. He didn't even believe me that it was even happening because he just has no memory of it whatsoever.

So.

Okay, and what? And it only happens—started two years ago. Any history of trauma, or did anything happen two years ago?

No other—well, I mean, we had a child. It started like after, right after then, and the sleep, you know, more lack of sleep after that point. Then that's why I thought that might be a factor. But six years prior to this, six years ago, at a job, he was working a lot. He was working doubles and overnight shifts, and he passed out, and they caught it on camera because they had security cameras. All they caught was his feet, and they moved a little bit. So they thought seizures at first, and they looked all into that, and nothing ever came of it. That maybe happened one or two more times where he just kind of passed out, but it maybe happened one more time within the last six years, and then over the last two years, it's just—it’s escalated, progressively, right?

So it's really him being invested in figuring out what this is because he's got a lot at stake. You've got one child now, right?

Yeah.

How old is your boy or girl?

Two years old?

Oh, that's right, it would be boy or girl, a little girl. So it's really up to him. He's got his relationship with his daughter at stake. I mean, if he were my husband, I would be afraid to leave him with my daughter, our daughter, because I don't know if he's going to start acting mean or drunk or goofy. I would want to know about his history. Not every married couple knows the history of their spouses. What was his—together since what?

Young age?

Okay, so you pretty much know one another. What happened? What are his thoughts about having a child? You see, you know what happened in his own childhood. Was it unremarkable, or was there some trauma in it?

Not that I've ever been told, no.

Okay, so again, the first thing I always rule out is the medical, Penny, meaning I want to make sure that there's not something wrong. I've dealt with clients who have found out, unfortunately, that they had a brain tumor, as you mentioned, epilepsy. So I think you're going in the right direction. I think he needs to take it more seriously. But how do you—you can't force someone to take it seriously. He can just know that a lot's at stake. You know, I love you a lot. You can tell him, "I love you, it's not a lot, but I love you," and I want us to work together on this. This is a real problem for me. Imagine if you were in my shoes, and I suddenly, out of the blue, when you're expecting a lovely climate at home for me to be in a good mood, you come home and you find me acting drunk, or you find me acting mean or goofy. What would you want me to do? You can try to put him in your shoes.

I've been down that road.

Okay, and it's a dead end, yes. Is there anything else going on in the marriage that I need to know about, really?

That this has been our issue for this—the only problem that we've really been having other than everyone's problems, you know, finances, and everyone deals with that, and daily struggles and everything. But, I mean, no more stress than we've ever had before.

Okay, so I would recommend supportive therapy for yourself to help and couples, if he's willing to come in and to try to—if you can get cognitive therapy, that would be excellent. Cognitive—just, are you familiar with that?

No.

It's just a dressed-up word, meaning thinking therapy. You want to get to his thoughts. What happens when he's in a good mood? What's going on in his mind when he gets stressed or when one of these negative moods triggers? What are his thoughts? And he needs to capture those. That's why you can't do that. That part of the work—you can be an observer and give him feedback, but you can't do that part. So I would invite him to work with you on this problem, letting him know that it's very, very, very important to your happiness, for yourself and as a couple. You can also read a book that I wrote with Dr. Ed Locke on what a good romance is about because this is your happiness. This is your life, Penny, and you want to make a decision how, first, how to work with him, to encourage him to get the help, and if he refuses, then what? Then you would want to read our book. You can go to DrKenner.com. Thank you so much for the call.

Well, thank you.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast, 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 Dr. Edwin Locke.

Partners should not let children undermine their romantic relationship. Michelle Weiner Davis writes, quote, "One of the biggest mistakes I see women make in their marriages is that once the children are born, they forget they have husbands." Unquote. Tending to your romantic relationship requires that you plan time alone without the children. There are several options here, such as romance when the kids are asleep, on weekends when the kids are doing things with their friends or staying with relatives, and during short romantic getaways. While children require and deserve a great deal of care and attention, so too does your intimate partner. Don't forget that your partner is your top social value.

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