The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Doctor kenner.com, and I want to welcome and to the phone, and you're having difficulty with your brother.

Oh, hi, Dr. Kenner. Thank you for taking my call. Yes, I'm actually moving home. I'm having problems with my brother, probably because I haven't ever directly confronted him or talked to him.

Okay, a little bit of background.

Okay, so my brother dropped out of college when he was 19, and he moved home to live with my parents. Since then, my parents have supported him. He doesn't pay rent or bills.

How old is he now?

He's 40.

Okay.

And he worked part-time for my parents, doing what?

They have a small business.

Okay.

So he just did graphic art, work, and design. But with the economic downturn, they're thinking of closing their business and then selling their house and moving to a smaller condominium. But the problem is, they asked him to find or start to look for another job, but he's not doing it, and he refuses to, or he doesn’t want to talk about it. And it's in actuality, my dad told my mom to tell my brother because my dad himself can't even confront my brother to tell him, "Look for a job."

My mom sort of reinforces this denial. She acts like there are no problems and everything will be okay.

Why do you think she's doing that?

I think it's because, in reality, he's my half-brother, so he spent the first 10 to 12 years just with my mom. And then my mom and dad remarried each other. So I think my father feels like he's not really his son, even though he's been supporting him for so many years. And I think my mom has a very close relationship with him, like it will always be just the two of them.

You mean your mother and your brother, more than with your father?

Yeah.

So what would you like some help with?

What I need help with is just the way he speaks to my parents. He’s like abusive all the time, saying I can’t ever really say anything about the situation because then he'll start yelling at me.

What does he say?

He says, "It's none of your business. You haven’t lived at home for so many years. You’ve never really worked. You don’t know the real world."

He says that to you?

Yeah.

Okay.

To my parents, he’ll just yell and be like, "I'm working on it," or "You don't understand."

Okay, so he makes himself into a victim. Let's imagine your brother was a different type of person, a much better person, and he said, "I haven’t been that good to you guys over the years. I want to thank you so much for having given me a roof over my head and a job. I made a mistake. I should have been searching for a job on my own. I would have felt more independent and less dependent on you, and you wouldn’t be in this bind." Had your brother acted like that, he wouldn’t need to yell or claim that nobody can understand him or that he has this special problem that just can't be solved. But he's not that way. So your goal is—there’s an elephant in the room, and nobody talks about it. You all dance around the main issue.

There’s a dynamic in your family that you’re piecing together, and it sounds like your mother and your brother lived together for over a decade, and it seemed like they were a unit. Then, when your mother found a romantic partner, it displaced your brother. He was dethroned. He was no longer king of the house. And it seems like the undercurrent in the family is that he uses that dethroning to guilt-trip you. He implies, "If you loved me, you would take care of me. I will stay in this house. You can’t make me leave, even though you got remarried. Don’t give me any advice," he says to your dad, "because you’re not my real dad," which weakens the father's authority, even though he’s supporting him. If that dynamic were openly exposed, he would get angry, deny it, and run away, as people typically do not want to face the truth.

Does that sound right?

Yeah, that sounds right on, but the problem is—

Hey, I have to interrupt this because we have to pay some bills. Thirty 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. The Selfish Path to Romance—that’s interesting.

Yeah, that sounds right on, but the problem is he’s living there, and I feel bad for my dad in the whole situation, so I don’t know what to do when I go home because I know I’m moving home. I’m doing fieldwork, so I have to move home. Well, I could get an apartment, but my dad’s Asian, and in the culture, you don’t really leave the house until you get married.

Oh, with your father?

Yeah. My father and my mother wouldn’t understand if I moved out of the house.

So, you’ve been living at home?

No, I live on the East Coast now. I went away for college, so I’ve been gone for over 10 years. Now I’m going back to California for fieldwork because I work on ethnic communities.

Okay, so it may make sense financially, but if you’re doing it because you feel obligated due to family expectations or cultural norms, you might want to rethink it. You want to do what's best for yourself and avoid falling back into the same family patterns that may not be productive for you, which might add stress. If you’re living at home, you may want to bring a boyfriend or friends over, but if you’re dealing with the family dynamics and abuse, you could talk to your father gently. You could say, "Dad, I’ve observed this situation for years, and I know I’ve kept quiet. It seems that Tom (or whatever your brother's name is) has held you guys hostage, that Mom is afraid to abandon him, and you’ve been so generous. He hasn’t thanked you appropriately. He looks at you as an outsider, but you and Mom have every right to move into a condo without him, and you need to. I hope you’ll have the courage to stand up to him because you have done a lot." This moral support could give your father some food for thought. You can’t force him, but you can be supportive.

Yeah, definitely. The thing is, if I do move home too, I think it will make my dad happy as well because there’s one other person in the house.

Okay, but then you’re returning to family dynamics. Your role in life is not to fight his battle at the expense of your own happiness. You can support your father from a distance. Invite him to visit you. Give him courage. If things get physically abusive, you could report it. But let them fight the battle on their own terms. Thank you so much for your call.

Thank you.

And for more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to drkenner.com and please listen to this.

Now, here’s an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by Drs. Kenner and Locke:

Everyone you date gives you more opportunities to fine-tune your knowledge of what you want to avoid and what you want in yourself and a partner. If you discover flaws that make you less lovable, correct them before looking for another potential soulmate. Put the past behind you. Don’t wallow in self-pity, self-doubt, or fantasies of what could have been. Don’t pursue the unimportant or unattainable in your search for a soulmate. If you’ve been rejected by someone you truly know and love or have broken off a long relationship, give yourself reasonable time to grieve, just as you would if a loved one passed away. Healthy mourning involves reinvesting in your own life, motivating yourself to look for a better match.

Download chapter one for free by going to drkenner.com, and you can buy the book at amazon.com.