The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish paths are romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com. This is from Bethany, who is having a lot of problems with her mother, who is trying to rip her away from her siblings and the siblings away from one another. Usually, parents want siblings to connect, and they just feel very warm inside when their kids get along. So this is a very peculiar situation, dear.

Dr. Kenner, I love my mother very much. Now there's a psychologist who said, any time he's treated to that as an opening, "I love my mother very much," you know you're going to be treated to a vicious attack. Excuse me, after that, so it's not quite a vicious attack, but I don't know whether the word love applies here, because you can love what your mother could have been, or could make of herself, but doesn't. But this mother I'm about to describe isn't someone that I could love.

Dear Dr. Kenner, I love my mother very much, but she has some very strange ways. I'm 21; my two brothers are 17 and 22. We all love her, and we are mature. My older brother and I have moved out of the home. Mom says we abandoned her, so there could be some empty nest syndrome going on here. My mother called me a month ago and screamed at me, accusing me of talking negatively about her at her job. She doesn't know how to talk with someone as an adult. She said I was telling people she was a bad mother and that all three of us are mean to her, which is not true. I asked her to check it out first before accusing me or my brothers of anything. I blame myself because in the past, I've always apologized to her just to keep the peace, even when I knew it was not true. I gave in to her every time.

So notice your integrity is at stake here. You always want to look at the facts and state the facts rather than state what other people want to hear. My mother's 44 years old but acts as if she's 72. She makes up nonsense stories to get attention and to be pampered by us. Now she's fabricating stories to pit me and my brothers against one another. She never apologizes. This started four years ago and has only gotten worse, so I'm assuming before then, she was a decent mother, and that's what you loved.

After another ludicrous accusation on the phone, I told her that I'm going to act like this conversation never happened and I'm hanging up. Well, she showed up at my apartment 15 minutes later, barged through, and started yelling at me and my boyfriend. We that we were using her, neglecting her, ruining her name, and she demanded that I give her everything she ever gave me back to her, and told me she never wants to talk to me again. So I figured out it was another one of her acts, and I would never do this to her. I would never tell her to give me everything back that I gave to her.

It's been three to four weeks now, and she still hasn't called me. I wonder every day, should I call her again? Or should I wait it out? If I keep giving in to her, she'll keep making up these stories for our attention. It shouldn't be this way. I have not called, but my mother, my brother, is begging me to apologize to her, to suck up to her, to make her happy. He said, Mom is making him choose between me and her. He has—Mom says he has to hate me and agree with everything Mom says for her to talk with him or to treat him nicely. He hates this.

I'm very close to my brothers, and my older brother lives nearby. I told him I refuse to do it until she finally learns to admit her mistakes, swallow her pride, and apologize to me. I didn't do anything wrong. I love my mom with all my heart, but I can't deal with it anymore. It's driving me and my brothers crazy. Please respond ASAP, respectfully yours.

Bethany, Bethany, okay, you don't want to. You want to do what you're currently doing, which is maintain your own integrity. A couple of thoughts. One is that Mom may be going through the empty nest syndrome very badly, but it sounds much worse than that because two of you have left the home at this point, and the third one's on his way out, probably sooner than later, if she keeps up her antics.

Mom may have an empty life. Well, it's her responsibility to make her own life interesting. She can't lean on her kids her whole life. You do not owe her that. A second possibility is that she's just a vicious, highly manipulative, envious person, and it's hard for you and your brothers to recognize that because you want to love your mother. If she is envious of your success and your happiness, you need to dump her. You need to treat her at arm's length. You can see her, send her a birthday card occasionally. That's it. She may have an organic process going on.

For example, she may have a brain tumor. This happened to George Gershwin, who wrote Rhapsody in Blue and the American in Paris, very good music, but he started to act very weird, and the family didn't know he actually had a brain tumor. So I'd check that out. I'd also check out drug or alcohol abuse, and I hope that helped.

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

I can deal with this with what table manners? No baby with you telling me what to do every second of the day with you, rearranging my entire apartment, making the bed every morning, so mad because I misplaced your papers. It's not just my papers, you know. I don't know where anything is anymore.

You can really picture that a young married couple. This is from Tatius Soup, a very enjoyable movie if you've not seen it. A very young married couple. Were they married or just dating? Just dating, and they're living together, and she just is making all of his decisions. She's so overbearing, so controlling. She's a real—I mean, she might experience herself as a do-gooder, but she obviously has crossed the line because unsolicited do-gooding is not do-gooding. So she needs to understand that it is his life.

When you try to mesh two lives together, you need to listen to one another to find out what type of help the other person genuinely wants and what is crossing the line. What is interfering or controlling 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 co-author Dr. Edwin Locke, who's world famous for his theories in goal setting.

A note on selfish romance: Of course, you can do non-sacrificial favors. Let's look at this issue from a genuinely loving perspective. If you adore your partner, you will selfishly enjoy doing things to please him or her. This doesn't just mean ceasing the annoying negative things, such as calling your partner "fatty" or refusing to help around the house. It also means giving your partner positive values, such as listening attentively, writing love notes, and bringing flowers. This is such an important topic that we devote all of Part Four to how to nurture your love for one another.

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