The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com

Dear Dr. Kenner, I am 50, and my wife, Heidi, is 10 years younger. We've been married 20 years with no kids. We have an unusual relationship. My wife accepted a job in another state, and we are only together about nine times a year. Years ago, we tried marital counseling. My wife complained of job stress, and I was disappointed with her health, her obesity, which has continued to get worse. She's intelligent, and I enjoy talking with her, but nothing more. I am ready to divorce, to move on, to find a more satisfying relationship. Here's the catch: I feel stuck due to house payments, bills, and lots of belongings that I've accumulated over the years. Divorcing now would cause me major headaches. So I see two possible options.

Number one, I can tell my wife that I want a more fulfilling relationship and hope for the best. As far as her reaction, she might want to divorce me immediately, which would be a disaster, although I think the odds of that are less than 50%. I think her family sympathizes with my situation, and if so, how do I approach her?

Number two, find a new woman and then tell my wife. I expect this could take a year or two, and I can't use Match.com or other services because I'm still married, and I don't want to lie.

Jason, okay. Jason. Number two, zip, just dump. Option number two, you're going to be lying to everyone. You're not going to make anything better. Many men want to find another woman before they move on. Of course, some women do too, but it's more typical with men that they find it easier to move out of a bad marriage or an unsatisfactory marriage when they've got a woman on the side. Don't do that to yourself. You're in a good place now. You don't have another woman, so you don't have the problems of her feelings and trying to meld a life together, lying to your wife, cheating, dating behind the scenes.

The wonderful thing is that you guys don't have kids, so in divorce, you avoid one of the biggest obstacles, which is kids. The fact that you have a lot of belongings and you have financial ties to one another is something that you need a plan for. But I would go with option one, though you're not ready to tell your wife yet. I would advise getting my romance book that I wrote with Dr. Ed Locke, L-O-C-K-E, called The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason. The book is about how to maintain a loving relationship, how to cherish one another, but we do have an appendix. The appendix discusses how to part ways if you're in an unsatisfactory relationship and want to move on.

So I'm going to review some points from that, and you can always go to SelfishRomance.com for more information on this. That's our website. Just as it sounds, SelfishRomance.com.

Number one is you want to write down on paper—she's not with you guys, so you can write without censorship—all the reasons you're wanting a divorce. Ask yourself the question, "Would I be happier without my partner? And in what ways?" Let it rip; write down all the reasons. You may have several pages filled up. Then, at a different time, go to number two: Look at all the barriers that are keeping you in an unsatisfactory relationship, such as your belongings, house, and bills. People stay in bad relationships because they feel guilty about breaking their wedding vows, they don’t want to hurt their partner, they're afraid of change, they worry about being alone, they have financial issues, or they feel nostalgic. There are multiple reasons why people stay together.

Then tie all the evidence together: the reasons you want to divorce and the barriers for staying in it. Make your final decision. That's point 3.

Point 4 is how you break the news to your partner, which takes a lot of thought. You want to let her know that you think she's intelligent, and that you can be good friends, or at least friends, and that you want to part ways, maybe on an equal footing. Maybe she's not happy either; maybe that's why all the weight. Then you set up an atmosphere of respect together, and you go public with family and friends.

Then you make a detailed action plan for your divorce, and you learn to live independently before finding a romantic partner.

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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, who's world-famous for his theories in goal setting:

"Another reason why the view that sexual pleasure is only physical, unrelated to your mind, your values, or your character is very wrong is that if its expression were only a physical instinct, no experimentation or discovery would be required to fully enjoy it. But both partners benefit from learning what techniques work to arouse and give pleasure to one another. This requires thinking and communication."

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