The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

On the selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com

Jerry, you've been through a tough time, huh?
Yeah, I have. I didn't know you're on every day, because I only get it once a week.
Oh, it is only once a week.
Oh, yeah, you are correct.
Yes, we know. We get it on Sunday night on WV, MT.
Oh, okay, yet. No, it's played, it's syndicated, so it's around the country.

So, Jerry, tell me what's going on in your life? I know you've been through some pretty... just your wife died, right?
My wife passed away three years ago. She had myasthenia gravis. You ever heard of it?
Yes, I have, but I couldn't tell you exactly what it is, a muscle weakness, yeah.
And what? And she had it in the breathing, but that's not what caused her to die, yeah. What happened was she had pneumonia twice, okay, and the first time she had it, she went into a hospital in Washington, DC, because that's where we were. We were living in the Washington, DC area for over 30 years, and the prednisone she was on caused her to have ulcers.

So then she got better, and then she was rehabbing at home, and then got pneumonia again, and I had to call 911 to get her to a hospital. Then she came back home, and she was on oxygen a little bit, and she could take it off when she wanted to, yeah. And then one Saturday morning, she just said she thought she was having a myasthenia attack, yeah. And I said, "Are you breathing all right?" She said, "Yeah." She asked me to give her water. I gave her water, and she just collapsed and died.
Oh, my God. So that's a major trauma that you've been through.
Yeah. And you were married for 30 years, you said?
40 years.
Oh, 40 total. Yeah.

And so your question is that your—Is it a son or a daughter that won't talk to you?
Son.
That lives in—he's a rabbi, okay, is in Teaneck, New Jersey, and he hasn't talked to me.
What do you know about that? Why do you think that's—
I don't know. The only thing I know is that he had cancer also, yeah, a few months before she got sick, and he tried pulling getting power of attorney from her, and I have no idea why, and she had no idea why, and she said no, and hasn't talked to me.

Okay, so you have no clue at all. Are there any other siblings? Do you have any other children?
No. So it's just your son who is a mystery to you, and has been since for three years?
Yeah, and no clues at all from relatives or anybody, friends.
No, no. My in-laws—I'm in Montreal, as you know—and my in-laws don't talk to me either, and they don't... my son doesn't talk to them either.

So, okay, and I'm assuming you made some effort to reach out to both your in-laws and your son?
Yep.
Okay, so you're left with a major trauma—not just your wife suddenly dying in front of you—but what goes through your mind? Because here's the problem, and I'll pause to ask you that in a second again. Here's the problem: when I don't know, when I can't make sense of my world in two major areas. Why did the in-laws cut me off? Here I've gone through this awful trauma, and my son's cut me off too. And I don't know why.

When you've gone through a trauma like that, your own mind goes searching. Why might they have cut me off? What is your mind feeding you?
I don't know. I have no idea. Just no idea. So there's not... there's no big issue going on, like I had affairs or that, you know, I ran away with money, or I was an alcoholic or something like that. So if that's the case, what do you know about them that might help shed some light on it?
I have no idea.

You still don't. So how are you dealing with it then?
Not dealing very well. And not only that, I have other problems, like when the movers moved me, they just... they didn't fulfill their contract. They double charged me. I can't find an attorney in Virginia to help me out.
My place is a mess.

Okay? So it's been really, really hard for you to move on in your life, right? So here's a piece of advice.
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 selfishromance.com and buy it at amazon.com. Huh? The Selfish Path to Romance, that is interesting.

My place is a mess.
Okay? So it's been really, really hard for you to move on in your life, right? So here's a piece of advice that I actually came from a book, and that's that you don't—when you have a trauma like the one you've been through with your wife, you can look at it as the end of a chapter, and now you're starting a new chapter in your life, and you're the one that is the author of this new chapter, and you want to make it your life.

You can't do anything about choices that are outside your control—other people's behavior, whatever is going on with them. If there's something they could explain to you, it would be fabulous, because even if you didn't like it or agree with it, at least you could evaluate it to make sense with it. When people do what's called an emotional cutoff—just that stonewalling—you can't get through to them. They won't speak to you.

Typically, our own minds just go hunting. You're saying you're not doing that. You have no—I am sure you're doing it a bit, but you have no idea. When you can't... you don't come up with anything obvious, like, "Oh yeah, I was an alcoholic my whole life, and my son's angry with me," or "I ran off with the money," or "I, you know, as a womanizer." If there's nothing obvious like that, then what can you do but look at it as three deaths—four deaths: the death of your relationship with your son, not the death of your son, but the death of your relationship with your son, because you can't do anything about it. That's the death of your relationship with your in-laws. What can you do?

I mean, you can reach out only so much, and you can't force their minds. I mean, you can reach out assertively. There are ways to do that, and you don't have to throw in the towel right away. You know, you can make a few more efforts, but the main... if I—if you could leave with one point, it would be whose life is it? Now, it's your life, and it's your happiness and it's your values. It's up to you to design what can bring you pleasure.

Now, whether it's in—and I'm going to name four areas—whether it's in your work. Are you working now?
No, I'm retired.
Okay, so if it's in your purpose, you want to find a focused purpose, whether you have hobbies or anything.
No, okay, you—that would be number one on in my book that I... if I were in your situation, I would spend my time—I can't do anything about the son and the in-laws. I would spend my time focused on what have I always wanted to do? What would I enjoy? Do I want to do some hobby that I've never had an opportunity to do? Would I want to—I don't know. You don't want to wrap yourself around someone who's not here anymore, or people who are unavailable. You want to liberate your mind to move on, and that takes some time.

Have you gotten counseling at all?
No.
Okay, I would highly recommend getting a very good cognitive therapist, because they'll teach you thinking skills that might help you recapture a feeling for your own life and a motivation to move on. Move past this chapter, or put this book down and only look back occasionally—put it on a shelf so you can move on. But that takes a lot of thinking work on your part.

So, you know, I wish I could—I wish I had more time. The best advice is for you to grasp that it is your life and you can't control other people's actions. And I wish you the best with this, Jerry.
Thank you very much.
Oh, you're very welcome. Take care.

For more, Dr. Kenner podcast. Go to Dr. Kenner.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.
Observe that people who are chronic sacrifices appear selfless in the sense that they want to gratify everyone else's wishes.
Observe that narcissists appear self-centered in the sense that they want everyone to gratify their wishes, but they lack genuine self-esteem, any real sense of themselves or their own worth, and they desperately need other people to relieve them of their doubts. This relief is short-lived, because others cannot create the self-esteem they lack, so their desire for reassurance from others is insatiable and unremitting. The most accurate description of such people is not that they are selfless or self-centered, but rather that they are self-doubt centered.

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