The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free. Doctor kenner.com, George, yes, yeah,

you've been engaged for six years.

It's been over six years now,

yeah, and tell me the situation and what your question is.

Well, my question is, is this lady really wanting to marry me? And whenever I bring up the subject of, are we going to set a date? Are we going to get married? What's going on, she doesn't tell me, and we get into an argument. And this has happened four times, and we don't speak with each other for about a week. Yeah, now it's been I brought it up about a month ago, and we haven't spoken, and I think I should ask for my rings back because she is the one who's broken promise. I am willing to marry her, but she won't commit to a date, and now our friends don't even ask us when we're going to get married,

okay? But well, let me just say this, if I were in your situation, I would have a huge question mark hanging in the air, which would be along the lines of, what is her ambivalence? Does it have to do with me? Does it have to do with some secret in her past that I need to know about? Is she commitment-avoidant? Does she not want to repeat what went on in her family? Is she afraid of having kids? I want to know why.

That's and she just clams up. She will not discuss it. And she's been single for probably over 25 years, and that first marriage ended badly. He was an alcoholic, and I guess she just couldn't take it. And they have a son. He's probably 29 now, 30. Yeah, but she's been alone, and I think she's afraid of maybe giving up some of her control, not compromising. I don't know. She will not tell.

me, okay, but that's curious, isn't it?

Yes. And you know, I'm thinking, if she didn't want to marry me, why did she take my rings? You know, why did she take it? And, yeah, and illness, to marry me. And you know, as far as I'm concerned, she's broken her promise. Six years is a little bit long. And you know, we're not, we're not young people. How most retired? Yeah, just newly retired. But you know, we are retired, yeah, so shall I just go ahead and end it and ask for the rings back? And does she owe me those rings, or does she keep them?

I think it's much less an issue of the rings than the relationship, and you've been with her for six years, so you both have invested so much time and energy, and I'm sure there are things that you value in each other, otherwise it wouldn't have lasted more than a day or a week. And so the question is, what is it you value about her, and do you still value her that much, or has that changed for you, regardless of the rings, regardless of marriage?

Well, you know she's not following through with her promise.

So you feel misled. You feel betrayed by her. Okay? So you have, you definitely can have the conversation with her. If she said to you, yes, I'll marry you. Do you still want to marry her? Given her ambivalence,

yeah. And I've asked her that before. We've had counselors. We went to our pastor, not her pastor or my pastor, but a third party, yeah. And he asked her if she wanted to marry me, and she said yes. And then later on, she didn't want to see him anymore because she felt that he was on my side. We can't even get any counseling. Give her a list of a number of counselors, and she's not selected one. It makes me to believe that she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to find the truth, or, I don't know,

well, she, if that's the case, that she will not introspect to gain clarity of her own inner world as to what the multiple reasons or what the key reasons might be as to why she's hesitant to be with you, then she certainly can't communicate it to you. And if she's avoiding looking at herself, that may not be the best marriage partner for anybody. And the best thing she could do for herself forgetting about you for a moment would be to introspect. And it's very possible she knows her reasons for not wanting to get married but doesn't want to share them. That's another possibility that she's not so clueless. Maybe it has to do with finances. Maybe it has to do with promises people make themselves. George, sometimes when you're in a really bad relationship, you promise yourself, when you get out of it, that I will never get married again. Maybe she's having a hard time with that, thinking that bad things happen once you, in quote, settle in. Would you be willing to have a relationship with her long-range, without a commitment?

Hey, I got to 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. I wish I knew more about what girls 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 selfish romance.com and buy it@amazon.com, huh? The Selfish path to romance that is interesting.

Would you be willing to have a relationship with her long-range, without a commitment, without a marriage commitment, but more of a partnership or companionship commitment?

Yeah, and that, you know, and I suggest that in the past, that we just not, you know, just lay aside our engagement, and just be friends. And, you know, we travel together, we go, we go different places, we, you know, vacation together. We're dancing partners, you know. And all of that is okay. And I'm starting to think that that's really all she wanted. And if that's the case, why did she promise to marry me? Why did she take the ring? So

that's a huge question, because if it's the case that you guys do share a lot of values and have warm moments together and travel together and share activities together, and you have a good bond together, and it's just that she doesn't want to get married, if you could have that conversation, would you be willing to have a companionate relationship? You know, you could ask her that, and what that would mean for both of you without the formality of a marriage, that might be very helpful, if you are willing to do that. And then if you want the rings back, it might be a relief for her. I mean, if I were, if I was ambivalent about marrying someone, and they asked me for the rings back, I might say, can we get a companionate ring? You know, a very different type of ring, a partnership ring. But one of the things I want to recommend, because I know we're winding down on time here, is I wrote a book on romance and how to part ways if it's not working out with a co-author, Dr. Ed Lock, and I highly recommend it. Even though I wrote it, it's called the selfish path to romance, how to love with passion and reason. And it does not mean the mean rotten way to romance. It means the self-esteem way to romance, valuing yourself, George, and making a decision on a partner based on that. So you can get that at my website. Dr. kenner.com, d r, k, e n, n, e r.com.

I'll do that. Okay. Well, thank

you very much for your call. Well, thanks

for your help, doctor.

Okay, you're very welcome.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner,

that's fun getting old, isn't it? Actually, we might be able to help you with what you're going through the aging process. No, no, come on now, stop it. You see this is the problem. I know everything you're gonna say. First of all, you start talking about 65 as being some sort of passage, and then you start spouting these theories and quoting Freud and who knows what else, until by the time you get through analyzing me, I'm going to be 66, right? Dad, you still have a lot of ideas. Look, it's not a problem you can solve, Frazier. It's just a fact of life. People get old,

and that obviously was from Frazier. And have you ever tried to give someone unsolicited advice? I mean, Dad's saying that he's feeling a little bit old, or he's getting old, and it's a throwaway comment, and his kids want to jump into his rescue, and he doesn't want rescuing. He doesn't need rescuing, and the kids think they're helping, and they're not, and we always have to monitor that. Are we helping other people when we give unsolicited advice, or are they tuning us out and feeling very irritated with us? The topic of getting older is a legitimate topic, and if Dad had asked it differently, hey guys, can you help me out? I know you're in the field of psychology, and I'm having a real difficult time dealing with the fact that I'm 65, and then he's inviting them to give him some tips, then they're welcome to say something like, Dad, what would you enjoy doing, or what's going on in your mind? What are your thoughts? And of course, if his thoughts are all what's called stinking thinking, I'm over the hill. I didn't accomplish goals, you know, I let your mother down or whatnot. Then if he's just recycling those thoughts, they can help him develop alternative thoughts that are healthier, and he'll need to come up with them. They hopefully will be something along the line of, you know, this is my life, and of course, I missed out on some opportunities, and I made some mistakes along the way, and I have some regrets, and this is still my life. And what would I like to do? I'm 65 years young. Would I like to start taking ballroom dance lessons? There are people who do that. Would I like to start a new sport? Maybe not ballroom dance, but maybe it's golf, maybe it's tennis, maybe it's fishing, I don't know. Either there's a whole world of sports. Maybe it's reaching out and maybe forming a book group, or just enjoying what you have if you've got grandkids and you enjoy getting together with them, really milking your values. But before you do that, you need to name what's important in your life, what are your top values, and what are the goodies? That's what I call them.