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Pablo, you're having some difficulty controlling your anger. Yeah, yeah. Tell me what's going on.

I just have, sometimes I'm with my ex-wife, and I go pick up my son, and she's always trying to provoke me or, you know, to put the bad attitude towards me in front of my son, and I sometimes explode, you know, we've been through a messy divorce. I've tried to get more time with my son, and she doesn't give him to me, and she knows how to push my buttons, you know.

Okay, so the best, and I want to control, yeah, the best revenge is learning how to not let those buttons matter anymore to you. So there are certain things that she says, certain things that trigger your anger, right? Great. Can you give me a sampler of one or two things, a quick sampler of one or two things that she does that absolutely gets to you every time?

Well, like, when I'm asking for more time, yeah, you know, I asked her, like, this Friday that just passed, let me go at 5:30, you know? And she goes, no, because it's my mom's birthday, so you need to get there, like, at 5:45. And I get there at 5:45, at her mom's house. She opens the door, she goes, "Wait a minute," boom, and she slams the door. Yeah, she left me waiting there outside for five more minutes. Yeah? Then I go pick up my son, almost at normal time, you know, yeah? I asked her just this one time because I wanted to go to the keys. And she's always, you know, doing things like that. She shuts the door, slams it, and I hear her saying, you know, "What's his problem? He needs to wait anyway."

So she makes you wait for how long?

Five minutes more. I usually have to pick him up at six, yeah, and it was already 5:50. Yeah. Wait a minute. He needs to say bye to everybody. She knows. She's always, you know, it's been a hardship with her. You know, I'm asking for more time, and she doesn't give it to me. You know, she doesn't give it.

So she's fighting the— you guys still have the power struggle going, and it boils down to 10 minutes. So she's asking you, she wants you to be there at six, and if you get there 10 minutes early, she freaks out.

If I asked her, yeah, no, no. But if I asked her at 5:45, that's fine, but, but she's just, she doesn't, you know, every time I ask for a little bit more time, it's always no, no, no. And I have my son very limited

and, oh, very limited amount of time. Yeah, yeah. Like I went

to court and I spent like almost $41,000 getting time with him, yeah, because, and, you know, and then I, after I didn't get more time with him, I only have him Wednesday from six to eight, and then every other weekend I have to return Sunday night. And he's already seven years old, okay, always been trying to push my buttons. And then now I have to pay her court fees, you know. Okay, so it's been a struggle.

So one of the triggers is time. Another one is, what else? What else would be a trigger? And then I want to give you some tips on how to control the anger.

No, like I told her, look like this Sunday, you know, I always pick them up and drop them off. Pick them up and drop them off. And she's like, can I go? Can you pick them up? Because I took some medicine and I'm drowsy, and she just texted me back, like, "Oh, good one. Good one." Yeah, I'll be right there. You know, she's always like, you know, it's always a dilemma, a problem with her, because she's, you know, she's a very, you know, she's a lonely person. You know, she doesn't have a boyfriend or anything, and she doesn't have— and she has a strong, independent, you know, independent woman type, which is fine, but she is super strong character, and she's always trying to control me, even though we've been divorced already for five years.

Okay, so it sounds like she's insecure because sometimes people come on with that very strong persona when they feel insecure, and so she feels vulnerable. If you can remember that it's most likely that she feels vulnerable, then you can somewhat reduce that anger because if you look at her as a mean, controlling woman who just wants to destroy you, Pablo, man, you feel angry all the time. Hey,

I 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 selfish romance.com and buy it@amazon.com, huh? The Selfish Path to Romance, that is, didn't. Interesting.

Man, you're going to feel angry all the time if you look at her as a sad person who's hurt, who's lonely and who is lashing out desperately at you when she's really probably more upset with herself that she doesn't have her own life put together a little better and is, you know, a little happier, then it might reduce your anger towards her. I don't know. What do you think about

that? Yeah, no, it sounds very good. Very good. Okay,

so think of her as hurt, as lonely and as a bit insecure. Don't tell her that because of course, she'll get angry with you. But that's a skill called reframing. Instead of looking at her as this evil person, the enemy out to get you, you look at her as almost— Did you ever see? Oh, what is the movie I'm thinking of, The Wizard of Oz, where everybody's afraid of the wizard, and then when they pull back the curtain, what do you get? Right, a little old, wimpy man. So if you can have that imagery, that can help. Another thing with anger is you can prepare yourself in advance. You know what her triggers. You know what the triggers are. You know that time is a big issue. So you can coach yourself just as if you were coaching yourself on a sports team to not let the time get to you. That's her issue. And she may respond, she may slam the door in your face. And if you look at it as if you were writing a sitcom and someone slams the door in your face, what do we do when we see something like Seinfeld and Seinfeld or Frasier and someone slams the door in the face, right? We laugh, right? Well, yeah, of course, right. So if you could look at it from a little bit of a moat, what you're doing with that sitcom view is you're not depersonalizing it. You're just giving yourself some emotional distance and saying, this is really her problem, not mine. When she answers you with sarcasm and says, "Good one," you know, sarcastic, you could just gently say to her, you know, I think we'd get along better without the sarcasm. You can just name what she's doing gently. Now she may, she may retort with sarcasm. So those are some of the things I think you had mentioned to the person that was screening that you also have yelled in front of your son. You lost it, yeah, yeah. Tell me what happened. Well,

I was just telling her that same, you know, issue with my girl, my girlfriend. I was telling her, you know, the problem that I can't believe, you know, that this, you know, my ex-wife does this to me and, and why does she do this to me? She's always, you know, tormenting me and, and, and, you know. And I was saying all these things, you know, yeah. And crying in the car, and my son, my seven-year-old, was there, you know, yeah. And I was like saying, "Why does your mom do this to me?" And I'm, you know, that's, yeah.

Good for you for recognizing that because you can coach yourself there. You're not doing any—it's her issue. He has to deal with her, and to put him in the middle doesn't help. There's a very cute kids' book, Dinosaurs Divorce. It's a kids' book that could help him, where he can see not to get in the middle of mom and dad. And for you, I want to recommend a book. It's called The Anger Control Workbook by Matt. You could just Google The Anger Control Workbook, and it's got a list of coping skills such as, take a deep breath, relax and talk to yourself the way I was helping you listen. Thank you so much for your call, Pablo.

All right, thank you so much. Okay, you're

welcome for

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excerpt from The Selfish Path of Romance by psychologist Dr. Kenner and Locke.

It is very important to communicate constantly, even on difficult topics, such as thoughts of flirting or worse, some benefits of