The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at drkenner.com and at amazon.com.

And right before the break, I was talking with Anna. Anna, you're still there.

Yeah.

Your situation is that you had, past tense, a dear, dear friend. She's been a friend for 10 years, or you said eight or nine years, but over that time, the friendship has morphed, it's changed. She's gone from being a good friend, or potentially good friend, to going through some difficulties in her own life—two divorces. But the way she handled it was to turn to the bottle, and instead of facing facts, facing reality, she tried to drink them away. She became aggressive, and she's even become violent towards you. You see yourself as the helper, and your goal in life is to turn her around, right? To rescue her?

Yes.

And you feel like a failure if you don't rescue her.

Yes.

And right before the break, I said what?

You told me that why am I still helping her? Why do I still have her as a friend, knowing that she's been aggressive towards me? Why don’t I get a better environment with better friends, positive friends, right?

Yes. And the one person you're not being a friend to by staying with her and subjecting yourself to her every single day of your life is yourself. I would love for the first friend you have, if you want to call it that, to be yourself. To value yourself so much that you decide which friends you learn to choose better. Which friends are good, which friends are not good. Which friends bring you joy and pleasure, and aren't a problem to fix. Sure, you always lean on one another’s shoulders, but you don’t want to go out there finding problems to fix. Otherwise, if you feel like it’s in your court to make her a better person, you could be doing this for another decade and feel really depressed.

Let me give you the circumstances under which a reasonable person would reach out to help someone. And these are from my favorite author, Ayn Rand. If you haven’t read her book The Fountainhead, I highly recommend it. It’s on tape, mp3, CD, and I think you can even rent it from libraries, but never get the abridged version. Her book is such a wonderful eye-opener. It’s on my website too, at drkenner.com. So here are the circumstances: You help someone when—

Hey, I’ve got to 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.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, 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. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance—that is interesting.

So, here are the circumstances: You help someone when it’s through no fault of their own. Drugs and alcohol are their choices, aren’t they?

Yes.

But if a person, for example, got in a car accident and it wasn’t because they were drunk at the wheel—it was an accident—and you love the person, it’s your mother, father, or good friend, then you go visit them in the hospital, bring them flowers, make them chicken soup. That’s loving. Or if they just had a baby and you want to help out, that’s fine. The death of a loved one, a house fire, a hurricane—those are very different from self-made difficulties. You also only help a person out if it’s not a chronic, lifelong thing. Assuming it’s not your kids—if you have a disabled child, for example, you’re not just going to say, “This is long-term, I’m out of here, honey.” But if you have someone who’s going to mooch off of you, who’s going to use your kindness as a weapon to get money or sympathy from you that they haven’t earned, that’s not good. If it’s just short-term—say they had a house fire—you help them get back on their feet, they buy a new house, get back to their job, or it’s a hurricane and they’re genuinely appreciative. Then it’s proper to help them out, not because you feel you owe it to them, but because they’re genuinely thankful—not groveling, but just saying, “Thanks so much. I’m so glad you were here.”

If you value them—and this should have been number one—if you value the person. It could even be neutral—someone stuck in a snowstorm. But if it’s somebody who’s out to hurt you, drop them like a hot potato. If this woman has threatened to kill you, if she’s been violent and very angry, you can just say “sayonara” to her. You don’t even owe her an explanation because she could explode and blow up at you. You’ve been her punching bag. How dare her punching bag leave her!

Another point: You help a person when it’s not a sacrifice on your part. For example, if you don’t have any money, and the little money you earn is going toward furthering your education, and she needs money because she got into another car accident—this time because she was drinking and driving—and you give her the money, bail her out, and give her more, you’re throwing away your future. Choose yourself. It’s your money. You’re not a sacrificial animal.

Also, it’s very nice when people want to reciprocate. Sometimes they can’t pay you back in kind, meaning they can’t return the money right away, but maybe they can help out with your house or your kids. So those are the circumstances under which you help someone.

This author, Ayn Rand, wrote The Fountainhead, and she said you need to make a fundamental decision in your mind—it’s either one way or the other. She said, “Those who grant sympathy to the guilty”—your friend is guilty; she could do more for herself but she’s not—“grant none to the innocent.” So you want to look for healthier friends, better friends, and cherish the friendships. Judge your friends accurately. You get to know people in layers, so you may find that someone who seemed to be a friend turns out not to be a friend.

So, what are your thoughts in listening to this, Anna?

My thoughts are that I know what I have to do. I know what I had to do, and I have no excuse to go back and talk to her or help her. It’s just, I see something good in her. In the beginning, I saw something really good in her. I saw a person who was very positive, a really good friend, and really helpful. We were there for each other—she was there for my family, and I was there for hers. It just hurts that she let herself go down so badly, to such bad standards now.

Yeah, it’s very painful. You go through grief when you see a friend self-destruct. You can give me a call back and let me know how things go with this. It’s really about being good to yourself long-range because you don’t deserve to be in an abusive relationship.

That’s true.

So I wish you the best of luck with this.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to drkenner.com, and please listen to this excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Drs. Kenner and Locke:

The experience of shared sexual pleasure is important because it greatly strengthens the bond between partners, as long as there’s a bond to strengthen. Sex can reinforce romantic love, but it cannot create closeness from thin air. It is the expression of love, not its cause. Sex cannot create self-esteem that is lacking in one or both partners. As a celebration, sex expresses self-value, but it cannot fill the void of non-self-value. Lack of sex, or unsatisfying sex, often undermines a romantic relationship by weakening the existing bond between partners. Sexual dissatisfaction can undermine feelings of closeness and intimacy and send the relationship on a downward spiral, one that spreads far beyond sex—especially when one or both partners' frustration and anger lead to progressively less sexual satisfaction for both.

Download chapter one for free at drkenner.com and at amazon.com.