The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Maria, you're having some difficulty with anger.

Yeah, yeah.

Tell me what's going on.

My anger, I think, is a result of an affair that my husband had three years ago. Yeah, I have not been able to move on with it. And I think also because during the dating part of the relationship, prior to us getting married, there were a couple occasions where he did — I did kind of catch him in some sneaky little moves, you know, with other women and so on and so forth. And I think I moved that anger into the marriage currently. So then, you know, I guess as a result — well, I don't want to say that it was on me, but he ended up having an affair, and I cannot move on in the relationship at all. I have tried. I've tried. I've taken anger management classes and any little thing, despite anything — it could be, you know, you didn't wash the dish — and I just throw the dish across the wall.

So something's going way deep inside of you.

Yeah.

You know you're laughing, but it's very painful.

Yeah, private, yeah.

And so there's something that probably didn’t just begin with your husband, although he had an affair. How long was it? A one night stand or—?

No, it was a three-month affair.

Oh, that's what you meant — a three-month affair three years ago.

Three years ago. Yes, a three-month affair.

Okay, that's a long time to be betrayed. So one of the questions I have for you is, do you want to stay with him?

My situation is a lot more complicated than it seems. I — you know, I'm pregnant now, and we have a little boy. This was an onslaught pregnancy and my last pregnancy. So right now, you know, I'm due to have this baby in a couple of weeks, so I'm just trying to focus on that. But you know, because I'm trying to deal with the issues of the marriage, it's making everything more complicated. It's just turning everything upside down for me.

Right now, if you were — yes, I understand. So what you're saying is that there are a lot of people who will say, "You know, I would love to walk away from my husband or my wife. But you know, these financial times, one of us lost our job, and we want to retire," or "We want the house together. We would both lose the house," or "We would lose our friends or the in-laws" or whatever. So there are so many other considerations. Figuring out what to do when a marriage is broken is really, really hard thinking.

One of the books that I would recommend reading — and I'll give you some tips too — is a book called After the Affair.

And you wrote it?

No, no, no, I wish I did. It's a cognitive therapist who wrote it — that means a thinking, very good therapist. And it's the same woman who wrote the book Forgiveness, Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring. And it's how to rebuild — the subtitle is, I’m paraphrasing it now — how to rebuild trust when a partner has been unfaithful.

Right, right.

And one of the contexts is to see what happened that led to the affair. And you said that you did think he was sneaky in advance. So you were kind of vigilant. You were looking out for that. Is that possible?

I mean, I'm trying to make this brief as possible, but it's just a lot of theories of events, you know? And like I said, when we were dating, there were a few times when I did catch him in some sneaky moves with the women. So I was always — yes, very watchful, you know. And as a result of my watching is how I found out about this other woman three years ago.

And of course, he denies everything?

He currently denies it — he still denies it, yeah.

But — and you have hard evidence? There’s no chance?

I spoke to her.

Oh! And she said what?

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. The Selfish Path to Romance — that is interesting.

Yeah, but — and you have hard evidence? There’s no chance?

I spoke to her.

Oh! And she said what?

That, you know — I said, you know, I'm just calling because I saw my husband’s cell phone bill, and your number’s very frequent on there, and I just want to know what your relationship is with my husband.

Yeah.

And she said very bluntly, "I've been having sex with your husband for the past three months." And it just shattered me at that point.

Yeah, yeah.

And I said, "Oh, well, it's nice to hear." I said, "Well, I guess that's all I need to know." You know? She wanted to go on and on about detail. You know what? I don't need the detail.

Yeah, yeah.

You know. And then I confronted him with it, and he just swore that nothing happened.

When he swore that nothing happened, did it look like he was lying?

Oh, absolutely. I actually — I think he's a pathological liar, because he lies about everything.

Oh, man.

I’ve caught him in so many different lies.

Okay, listen. I want to tell you what anger is, because you're treating it — it sounds as if it's a problem that you're having, that you're needing to get over the anger. And I think it's the reverse. I think that the anger is a huge signal from your subconscious saying that things are grossly unfair, that you have married a person whose character you don't admire. You may like some other things about him, but the essentials in any relationship are honesty and communication. They've got to be able to talk.

And he's not validating your own — the facts that you found out. He's not validating what you've discovered. So he is destroying his own character. He is not going to end up being a good partner, and I question how he'll be as a father if he has self-contempt for himself.

And on top of all that, you—

You know, I'm currently home due to the complications of the pregnancy. So I’m the man, you know. I'm the head of house here economically, and I'm just doing everything on my own. And he's — he got fired from his job.

Okay. I would love you to have the justice. And I can think of no better justice, number one, than reading the book After the Affair, to see if you even want to stay with him. I know you're pregnant. I know that's a huge complication. But that doesn't bind you for life to somebody who has hurt you — who has profoundly hurt you. And the feeling that we get when we feel an injustice is anger. Anger is your injustice detector.

I have asked him for a trial separation.

Yeah. So you may want to go that route, but I would read that book first. You will not — yeah. But you have an option.

The second — the second point. You need a strategy on how to do it. I know we're wrapping up right now too. We have less than a minute left, so I may need to touch base when we get off the air.

But another thing that you could do is read the books that really I thought — I felt — rescued me. And they’re books — they’re novels — Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. And all of the three books I mentioned you can get at my website, DrKenner.com.

Okay.

Because they are novels, but they give you — will give you — a tremendous sense of justice and help you gain perspective on the moral issues involved. And your anger sounds justified. It sounds grounded. I don't know all the details, but from what you told me, it did.

So listen, Maria, I want to thank you so much for calling, and I want you to give yourself a big hug, because I think you're going through a heck of a difficult time in your life. And hopefully things will get better. And stay on the line, and I'll talk with you during the break.

And here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner:

"You weren't so damn stubborn, you'd apologize to Roz, but everybody would be happy."

"As usual, you're overlooking a key psychological component in this whole issue."

"You'd have to admit you were wrong."

"Exactly."

"See? What's so hard about telling Roz you were wrong?"

"You don't understand. You see, it's not the same as Dad being wrong, or you're being wrong. I have a degree from Harvard."

And that's from Frasier. And that is Frasier trying to get out of making an apology.

And have you done that? Have you been afraid to say "I'm sorry"? And do you know how to say "I'm sorry"? Do you give what Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring, who wrote a book on forgiveness, calls the two-second apology: "I'm sorry." End of story?

Or do you give the sanitized apology: "I'm sorry for whatever I did wrong." End of story?

People want understanding with an apology. They don’t want excuses. They don’t want “Yes, but I'm sorry — but you did something wrong too.” They don’t want to be told that.

You're sorry for — let's say, "Can you ever forgive me?" You don’t want somebody groveling. You really want them to sit and listen to you, to understand your pain, to be honest with you and to see — if they did misstep or if they did do something wrong — to own up to it. Not to deny it. Not to try to whitewash it.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

And please listen to this:

And here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner:

People want to be loved for specific reasons. It’s up to each partner to identify why they love the other and to say so.

This last point raises a new question. Granted that love has causes, will just any cause do? No. Does it matter which traits you value, and on the other side of the coin, which traits you possess? Yes.

There are very personal causal factors involved in love, but certain core traits are required to make any romantic relationship successful in the long run.

If you want to be loved, you have to do things to make yourself lovable. Egoistic love — the only real kind of love — is not a selfless gift. It is a trade, which means it has to be earned.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.