The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

This is confronting a spouse's unethical behavior. How do you do that?

Dear Dr. Kenner, A few months ago, my husband said he cleaned off our porch. Yay. I didn’t ask what he did with the garbage. It was a couple of mattresses, old toys, and clothes. We live in the country, next to an empty 20-acre lot. A few days later, I happened to look over into the empty lot and noticed my husband had dumped the garbage there. The landowner never visits the lot; he just sends landscapers every six months to clear the brush. I don’t know what to do. Should I report my husband to the county for illegal dumping? My husband is a pastor, so his behavior bothers me even more because I feel we’re held to higher ethical standards. I have a hard time confronting him because he makes excuses or argues with me.

Mary, the first thing to know is that you are in the right. Your husband is not respecting individual rights. Picture this: picture looking out your window one morning and seeing someone dumped mattresses, old toys, and clothes on your property. How would your husband respond? My guess is he wouldn’t say, "Oh yeah, the landscaper can clean it up in six months. I don’t care." I think he would be outraged, and he himself should feel very guilty for what he did. His hypocrisy as a pastor should eat at him, and if it doesn’t, that raises questions in my mind as to his motives for becoming a pastor. Some people do that because they want to help others, and some people want power over others—and sometimes it’s a mix of both. Only your husband knows his own motives, and that’s if he allows himself to explore them. He might be making excuses in his own mind, and I suspect he is. So it’s very healthy for you to judge him in this case, negatively, and it’s very important for you to know that his actions do not reflect your character. He is solely responsible for his actions.

The fact that your husband is defensive and evasive, making excuses and arguing with you, makes me wonder: how happy are you in your marriage, Mary? I think, more generally, this one issue is probably not isolated, and he’s probably acted irrationally at other times, because you know that he makes excuses and argues, right? If this is the case, you may consider some supportive therapy for yourself, and then you can ask yourself, "What can I do?" I mean, you’ve been dealing with this inner conflict for a few months now, and you have to look out at the mattresses every so often. I don’t know what window they’re near, but you see them, and it’s a chronic reminder of your husband’s character and a conflict that you have.

So, should you report him for illegal dumping? Well, what’s that going to do to your marriage, and what’s that going to do to your life in general? If you’re looking to separate from him or divorce him, well, you could go ahead and do that and take the hits. But I have another idea.

Hey, I gotta interrupt this, because we’ve got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

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If you’re looking to separate from him or divorce him, well, you could go ahead and do that and take the hits. But I have another idea: since it’s your garbage too, you can independently hire and pay a private trash collector to remove it. You owe your husband no apologies, no excuses, because your choices and actions will speak for themselves. This is your integrity, and he’ll have to deal with it, and you can observe how he handles it, and that will be a very good test. You definitely want support in doing this, though, because if you’re isolated—assuming you have people in the parish that you’re friendly with, not that you want to talk to them about this—I would suggest a therapist. But you definitely want to keep your friendships vibrant, because if you are heading towards separation, conversation about divorce, or questioning your relationship, you want to be building a network for yourself that feels solid and grounded.

I have some stories to share about garbage dumping. The first one is that my husband, many years ago, routinely found trash in his business dumpster. So what did he do? He opened up one of the bags and returned the trash to the owner by ringing the doorbell and giving it back to him. My husband is very polite, so the guy must have been mortified. My husband was taking a chance, because the guy might not have been mortified and might have punched him out.

More recently, we had a huge storm, and there were downed trees and a lot of vegetation around. And what did our neighbor do? We didn’t know about this, but our neighbor cut down a lot of his trees and vegetation and threw it onto our property. We have a private lot with some frontage, and he threw it right in front of our property frontage, so it was pretty obvious. I don’t think he knew that we owned it. Another neighbor saw this and came to us, saying, "Did you know so-and-so dumped their vegetation on your property?" We looked, and there was quite a bit of it—it was really piled high. So my husband just very politely knocked on our neighbor’s door, saying, "Hi." We don’t know them, and he just mentioned that it’s our property and asked if they would mind removing it at their convenience. He was very polite. My husband is always polite. And sure enough, a few days later, some of it was removed, and then a little bit later, more of it was removed. So there are different ways to handle situations like this.

In this case, I think this is really a relationship issue, Mary, your case with your husband. I think that you would build your own self-esteem and confidence by acting independently and removing that trash on your own—not physically, obviously, but hiring someone to do it.

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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:

To use introspection to become a better romantic partner, learn to understand your emotions; otherwise, you’ll feel moved by mysterious forces that you can neither comprehend nor control—in other words, subconscious ideas. Nor is it attractive to your romantic partner if you have no idea why you respond to them as you do. Don’t expect your partner to understand you if you do not understand yourself. Demanding that your partner spend hours upon hours probing your subconscious when you have no idea what’s in there creates an impossible burden. If you expect this from your partner, consider consulting a therapist to help learn about yourself.

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