The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Here is a question I received on a very different topic from Amy, who also wants to know how to speak up, but it's a bit different.

Hi, Dr. Kenner, my husband and I have been married for 10 years and have two beautiful daughters. The problem is I am no longer in love with him, and I don't know how to tell him. Please help. Amy.

Amy, if you've been married for 10 years and you're no longer in love with him, either you've been able to camouflage very well and fake a love that you don't feel, which has done no good for either of you, or he already knows it. Maybe you haven't said it in words, but he's felt the distance just as you felt the distance. You may no longer hold hands, you may no longer look lovingly in each other's eyes. You may not no longer make those phone calls to one another that you did when you were dating, or think of each other and have each other in each other's mind, and bring home that special gift. It might be a small gift. It might be a pizza that the other person likes, or maybe some flowers or something that shows one another that you value one another.

It may be the case that he already knows. So the question for you is, how do you manage this? What you're asking me is, how do I let this man know that I no longer love him?

So, number one, he may already know.

Number two, what happened that changed? Did you love him recently and then that changed? It isn’t that you grew out of love over time. Is there someone else in your life that's immediately what came to my mind? Is there someone at work or someone you met, someone who has just made you feel feelings that you haven't felt in a long while, and you just long for that with this other person, and don’t think you can get it back with your husband, and why bother trying? Since you're feeling it with another person, you need to know your own reasons as to why you're leaving the relationship. Couples do tend to grow apart. The sameness can be dull over time. We take one another for granted, and one of the skills that you want in a good romantic relationship is how to keep it thriving over time. How to keep it flourishing over time.

Know that since you have two daughters, there are consequences to your actions, and it will affect the daughters if you split up. I would recommend getting the book Helping Your Child Through Your Divorce, so you can get a first-hand glimpse of children's drawings, what they go through if their parents do not manage a divorce. Well, even if parents do manage a divorce, it’s never an easy transition for kids.

So one of the consequences of telling him that you're no longer in love with him is that, obviously, you'd be moving towards divorce, or you could go to counseling. Can you get the love back? If there's someone else in your life, it would be hard to get that love back.

How do you tell him? You could just sit down someday, privately, away from the kids, not before he has a big business meeting or something, and just sit down with him and say, "It feels like we've grown apart. I don’t know if you felt it too. I’ve been thinking, how can we connect again? And I don’t see a possibility."

If that’s the case, and I have someone else in my life that I'm interested in, you can tell him. If there's someone else, he will find out anyway. Will he get very upset? Of course he will, but that's part of the consequence of leaving him.

You can let him know what you love about him. You know, these are the things that I’ve always admired in you. We have grown apart. I don’t feel like we’ve been paying enough attention, and I don’t feel we're close anymore. Keep open the possibility that maybe you can both go to couples counseling to try to mend the relationship. If you feel like it’s beyond that, don’t fake going to couples counseling. You can go to divorce counseling, meaning the same therapist can help both of you manage divorce better if he’s open to that.

So Amy, I wish you the best with this. It’s possible to fall out of love with a person, but it’s also possible to not tend to a marriage, both of you to keep it thriving, and then temptations are everywhere.

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

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

George and Diane disagree on where to spend the holidays. George might give her the silent treatment or act annoyingly in some unrelated way. Diane would know that something is wrong, but she wouldn’t know what it is. This is a passive or passive-aggressive approach to communication. Both a passive and an aggressive communication style undermine any chance of having a good relationship. But if George has assertiveness skills, he might say, "Honey, considering all the frustration we go through with our parents on these holiday get-togethers, I wonder why we need to go through the same fiascos again this year? Let’s put our heads together and come up with some alternatives. What do you think about visiting with our parents before the holiday and then going on that vacation in the Bahamas we've always dreamed about?"

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.