The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

And right now I want to invite Joseph to the phone. Joseph, you're having difficulty just making a decision in a relationship, yeah, yeah. What's going on?

Well, here's the thing, I'm in love with her. You. I am in love with her completely, 100%, and I don't know what to do because I'm trying to take her out of my mind. I'm trying to just completely take her out of my mind. But I can't because she's not letting me.

Okay, this is somebody. How old are you?

I'm 34.

You're 34, and you're in love with a woman who you've been dating or married, oh, two to three years, you've dated her.

We did, we did it for two years. We lived together, okay? In California, yeah. And we broke up. The reason we broke up is because her mom made up some story saying that I had a Facebook account, okay? And everything just completely got destroyed.

So you feel sabotaged by her mother. You've got to have a lot of anger towards the mother.

I don't know. I mean, everything was so fine, and her mom just, for some reason, decided just to sabotage us. And by the end of the beginning of our relationship, I did lie to protect us. I did lie.

You lied to the mother, you mean?

No, to her.

What did you tell her?

I told her that I didn't have a child because I used to be married and I do have a 10-year-old, yeah. I was scared to lose her, so I told her I didn't have that.

You didn't have a 10-year-old?

Yeah, and she, when did she find out about that?

She found out was a long time ago. It was about two years ago.

But she still moved in with you. It seemed like you were able to repair that, and she loved you. What do you, your decision now is, whether to stay friends with her? Does she want to stay friends with you?

She does, more or less. But then yesterday, she called me because she had a relationship. She went out with this guy, yeah, and they just broke up.

Okay, so let me get this straight. You dated this lovely woman whom you adored. You lied to her at the outset because you loved her so much that you were afraid that she would reject you. That's a mistake you don't want to make again. Give people the facts up front, which you already know, that I'm sure. And then she knows you, she loves you enough that she moves in with you and you moved in with her for two years.

And did she give you any indication near the end that she was unhappy with you, forgetting about the mother who made up some stories about Facebook?

Well, sometimes our sex life was very, very good because sometimes she's always angry at work because she's a teacher, yeah. So she brings, sometimes she brings her anger back home. And sometimes just these choices just makes us insane because I try to help her, and she doesn't want my help, so that makes it complicated and hard.

Okay, so she's a teacher, an elementary school teacher, a high school teacher?

Elementary school, second grade. And so you're saying that your sex life was not good because she was angry a lot. She had so much stress from work that she would bring it home.

And so what went on? What did you do for two years? Did you become celibate?

We did that. We didn't hit love and everything. Yeah, for some reason, every time we made love, she didn't actually enjoy it. Maybe she did, but she doesn't actually show it to me that she did. So that makes it a little complicated.

Okay, that's a very different situation. That is an extremely common situation. Joe, there's a wonderful book called The Great Sex Secret.

Yeah.

Why is it that it's so uneven that so many women seem unsatisfied in relationships?

Hey, I gotta 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.

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.

Why is it that it's so uneven that so many women seem unsatisfied in relationships? That's a very good book. If it's not on my website, I'll put it up on it. That's DrKenner.com, you can go there. There's also another book, The Sex-Starved Marriage. Great title, Michelle Weiner Davis. That's her book, and that is also on my website.

The difficulty in having a good sex relationship is not easy. It requires people to enjoy sex for themselves and to be able to openly communicate with one another.

Now, so you're saying what to do at this point? Do you stay friends with her or not?

If I stay friends, because it hurts a lot because every time she talks sometimes about her ex or whatever, it hurts me because she's dating someone else, and you're getting the graphic details. So she, why does she want you in her life?

I don't know. I do not know.

Okay, listen, there's not much you can do at this point because if she's decided to move on for whatever reason, she may have just used her mother as moving on, that's the pain. But where do you live now? You don't live with her?

No, I don't live across the country from her.

Oh, okay, I live in Georgia. Now she lives in California.

Okay, so you don't have clarity in the relationship. What have you thought of doing?

I did a couple of weeks ago, I think it was like maybe three weeks ago. I drove, thinking that I have, you know, have, I drove there. I drove there to California exactly, thinking that she would take me back and she didn't.

Okay, so she's giving you, yeah, so you drove all the way back.

Then I drove back.

Okay, let me give you because we're at the end of time here. Let me give you some tips. Number one, if you get the clear indication that she's not mixed, that basically she doesn't want you, even though she loves aspects of you, and those, what those, she'll never stop loving those particular aspects, you still may not be her top choice in a romantic partner, then you need to grieve the losses.

You need to ball your eyes out. You need to realize that she's no longer in your life and let your mind come to grips with that fact.

And then the more you stay involved in her life, the more you're feeling sad because you can't have her as a partner, and it keeps it prevents you from finding somebody else.

And so partly, give yourself some space, some time to grieve the loss, and then give yourself permission when you feel ready for it to move on, to find somebody else and take a call.

And the third thing, well, you can tell her, you can write down the pros and cons of taking her calls. If you find you get way too sad after you take her calls, you may need to put them on hold and just say, listen for the period of time.

I need to just be alone because it's too sad to talk with you, and then she might miss you, and maybe things will change. But you don't want to play games with her, but you do want to take the data she's given you now, which is that you've listened.

You traveled across the country. She didn't want you there, that she doesn't want you as a romantic partner, that's what your relationship has been based on.

So I would recommend grieving the loss and giving your mind time to make sense of it and then to move on. And if she ever comes back into your life, then that's frosting on the cake.

Listen. Thank you so much for your call, Joseph. I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner on the Rational Basis of Happiness. Toll-free, 1-877-DR-KENNER. For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

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

Your first impression of any person is always an automatic emotional response to various cues, some of which you may not even be aware of at the time. Beyond what a person says, many cues are non-verbal, including tone of voice, facial expressions, laughter, eye contact, and body language.

Intuitive reactions are, of course, very personal. If a man says to a woman he just met, "Hey, you're a cute babe," one woman would be repulsed, thinking subconsciously that the comment implied she was a brainless sex object.

Another might be flattered, seeing it as a compliment to her attractiveness. Others might think the remark was humorous or perhaps trite and superficial and so on. The same personal reactions also occur in response to non-verbal cues.

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