The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr Kenner.com and right now I'm turning to our after hours line.

Hi, Dr Kenner. My name is LaTonya, and I have a question regarding blended families. My daughter's father just recently got married, and he and I had a lot of unfinished business. It's almost like he wants me to just adapt to the fact that now he's married, and I'm having issues with that. I don't want it to affect our daughter. So I just wanted to get some insight in terms of how to handle that now that he is married, and I feel like I'm being rushed to just get over it and adapt. I'm having difficulties with that.

Okay, you have no choice. You are being asked to rush to get over it and adapt. And what's the alternative? To make it hell for you, hell for your daughter, and hell for everyone. You can't do anything. He's already married. If you're really angry with him, then you definitely want to get yourself some psychological help. You want to speak to a therapist at minimum, at least keep a journal and write down all your thoughts. Hide it. This is not something that you want your daughter or any family member or your husband to find, or you can shred it afterward so nobody can ever find it. But you need to be able to articulate what precisely that unfinished business is, what is bothering you so much. Is it that he had an affair with this woman and you'll never forgive him, and you want to get him back by keeping your daughter away from him? Is it that you still love him? Is it that unrequited love, and how dare he marry her when you still want to run into his arms? You've got to deal with that, and you need to deal with it independently. He may or may not be willing to talk with you. Sometimes couples will have a session together. It's very awkward now that he's remarried, but it's your job. It's not his responsibility to deal with your unfinished business. If he's not paying child support, or if there are unfinished loose ends around custody issues, then of course, you need to talk about that with him. But you can't. What can you do at this point? It's like you've got to treat your mind well. And once you realize that it's a fact that he's married, then you need to work within those bounds. And here's a little more from Dr Kenner.

For a while there, you try kidding yourself that you're going with an unmarried man. Then one day, he keeps looking at his watch and asks you if there's any lipstick showing, then rushes out to catch the 714 White Plains. So you fix yourself a cup of instant coffee, and you sit there by yourself, and you think it all begins to look so ugly,

and that's from the apartment. It looks so ugly. What looks so ugly? It's the kidding yourself. Yes, she's having an affair, and yes, he's a married man, but the deepest pain is that you've been lying to yourself the whole time. You've been trying to pretend that he'll leave his wife when it hasn't happened, or you're trying to pretend that he isn't married, or the wife doesn't exist. But guess what? Your mind constantly integrates. It constantly is attempting to connect facts to make sense of your world, and if you're working against it, if you're using your mind to disintegrate, to fake reality, to fake facts to make it seem like you've got, he's a wonderful man, and he's not married, and there isn't a lot of baggage here, and that you're not making a fool of yourself, or spinning your wheels, or wasting your romantic life on a man who's unavailable or only half there for you, then you're really self-destructing. So think about that idea of kidding yourself, and you can ask yourself a question. It's just a quick check: is there anything that I'm aware of where I'm kidding myself? I'm faking reality. I'm trying to pretend that something is not so because it's very painful to look at, and I don't want to know the truth. People who are overweight do this a lot. They'll say, "I want to pretend it's, you know, fat is beautiful." People who are drinking will say, "I can hold my drinks." You're kidding yourself. You don't ever want to do that to yourself.

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

Genuine self-esteem does not depend simply on your practical successes and failures, but on your method of thinking and your choice to act on the basis of your best thinking. It means being in mental focus. You're in charge of whether and how you think. How you think affects the practical outcomes you achieve. But outcomes are not always fully in your control. What's important is that you do what is possible with what is in your control. If you earn your own self-esteem, you make yourself more lovable, and in the end, you'll attract more and better individuals as potential partners. 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.