The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com, and @amazon.com.

I have a peculiar question from Mike. This is Hi, Dr. Kenner. I am mentoring my daughter's best friend, Megan, from high school. Although I shared with her parents the subject we'll be working on, Megan was completely uninterested. The subjects included character building, purity, principles, dating, and peer pressure. I persisted since I knew that Megan had numerous character flaws. I got to a point where she told her parents that this mentorship thing is putting a lot of pressure on her. I was shocked because we didn't have anything like homework, and we had nothing beyond our 90-minute per week meeting in a coffee shop. They asked me to discontinue for a while. A bigger animosity arose from Megan, and now I feel betrayed, broken, disappointed, and basically a failure. I put so much energy, time, and money into it. What should I do now? Thanks, Mike.

Mike, this is a case where you would benefit from introspecting. Here are three questions you might ask yourself. I'll go over each one in a little detail.

The first question is, why is mentoring your daughter's high school friend in the areas of character building and sexual issues, purity, principles, and dating so important to you? This sounds like it was unsolicited, both by Megan and by her parents, because you had to tell them what you planned to mentor her on, and Megan was uninterested, and she complains that it is putting pressure on her. What can you learn about yourself in the context of your own life and past experiences that cause you to want to mentor Megan?

The second question is, why would you feel betrayed, broken, disappointed, and a failure when you learned that this endeavor was not enjoyable for Megan? Why would your sense of self-worth be conditional upon fixing what you perceive as someone else's child's character flaws? You are getting feedback that something is not working when you try to impose your moral code on Megan in a way that you’re doing. So you want to introspect and ask yourself, why is it not working?

To do this, you can put yourself in Megan's shoes. Imagine that your best friend's mother, Matilda, decided to meet with you when you were in high school for 90 minutes per week to fix your character flaws and teach you about sexual purity, dating, and so on. It’s hard enough for me to focus in a piano lesson for 90 minutes, or when I think back to when I was a teenager, let alone having your friend's mother try to tell you that you need fixing and lay out their purity principles for you, which include the highly sensitive and private areas of sexuality. Remember, you're a teenager, so let’s say that you're not interested, but Matilda doesn't listen to your needs to the extent that you have any respect for your own autonomy as a teenager. You would dread getting together with Matilda and listening to her unsolicited intrusion into your private life.

Even though Matilda would not give you homework, the psychological and emotional pressure of these sensitive meetings at a coffee shop and the awkwardness might cause you some sleepless nights. I know they would for me. So you want to ask yourself, why is it not working? Sometimes, if you put yourself in the other person's shoes, so to speak, you can get some insights into yourself.

The third question to ask yourself is about what's called boundary issues. If Megan was voluntarily in therapy with a trained psychologist that she trusted, she may be more open to exploring her confusions about dating or sexuality versus purity. She may feel that there’s more trust, and hopefully, she’d have a good therapist who would teach her how to think clearly on her own about her confusions based on some good grounding, some good moral standings. But to have her best friend's father jump in and mentor her weekly raises eyebrows and questions around boundary issues.

I recommend being very good to yourself and to Megan. You want to learn from this experience. Rather than dubbing yourself a failure, you want to respect her decision to stop these meetings and recognize that she is really important as an individual. Recognize her autonomy.

In a more general point, it’s true that teenagers, and I know this was true for me, are often struggling with choice-making around character issues, around dating. Who do I date? Is it okay to date one guy one night and the next week date a different guy? Peer pressure, sexual exploration. How far do you let them go or not at all? Sexual enjoyment versus the sexual purity that you're talking about.

In the best cases, as a teenager, they are learning how to value themselves, how to think rationally and independently, and how to think longer-range, so that when they make choices, they end up more likely to flourish in life. You can’t guarantee that, but they’re more likely to, so that’s the goal. My co-author, Dr. Edlock, and I do offer very healthy guidance in this area in our book on romance.

We focus first on how to make yourself lovable, how to develop good character traits. They're not duty traits; they're not guilt-ridden traits where you feel guilty doing anything for yourself. They’re not traits where we tell people to run roughshod over others. Really grounded, good character traits like being honest or having integrity or finding a career path that you like.

We focus on how to introspect, you know, to think inwardly, to understand yourself, so that you just don’t fall for anyone, but that you choose well in the area of romance. We talk about how to communicate honestly with a partner, with friends, with anyone in life in ways that respect yourself and the other person.

We also cover what you said you were covering with Megan, which is self-respecting decisions regarding intimacy. When do you become intimate with someone? Do you become intimate with them? Do you buckle to peer pressure or not? How do you stand up to that? This book is available as a resource for anyone from their late teens on through adulthood, late adulthood. You need to sit down to hear the title.

We titled it "The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason." By that, we don’t mean the “my way or the highway” way to romance, the narcissistic way to romance. We mean the self-esteem, self-respecting, self-valuing, self-loving way to romance for both partners. If they truly learn how to be honest with themselves first and then honest with one another, they have a much more likelihood of having a wonderful, passionate romantic relationship. You can check it out on amazon.com. Again, it’s "The Selfish Path to Romance." You can also go to selfishromance.com.

Here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner. Trust is very important in a relationship. It’s also very important in a clinical situation. Why is trust the most important thing in making a breakthrough with a client?

If I were in therapy, why would trust be one of the most important things in my therapist making a breakthrough with me? I think if I can trust my therapist, if I feel like my therapist has my back, my therapist is my ally, my therapist is honest with me, they’re not being phony. They’re not saying, “Oh, you’re so good. Don’t worry about anything. You’re right.” If they’re honest with me, and they help guide me to introspect, not tell me what to do, I want them to respect my mind, my autonomy, my independence.

If they share that with me, and I feel like I can let down my hair and share my inner world, then I can make better progress because I can learn skills from them. I can hear my own thoughts. They can hear my thoughts that are leading to maybe some anxiety or some feeling bummed out or depressed or feeling betrayed. They can help me understand how to introspect, how to analyze my emotions so that I understand myself better, and that’s a lifelong gift for anyone.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to Dr. Kenner.com and please listen to this.

Here’s an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance" by psychologists Drs. Kenner and Locke. If your romance suffers from fatigue in either partner, discuss ways to ease your daily burdens you face. Is there an agreed-upon division of labor for housework and child care? Would hiring a babysitter help? Are the children old enough to pitch in more around the house? Can you just say no to some of those volunteer activities you feel obligated to do?

Find time to rest and be alone with each other when you are least fatigued. Find places to get away together. These don't need to be elaborate or expensive getaways. Sometimes a surprise lunch date or an overnight at a bed and breakfast helps tired couples reconnect and re-energize their romance. It is often easier to recharge away from home, where all the chores are temptations that threaten to distract your focus from one another.

Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com, and you can buy the book at amazon.com.