The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Dear Dr. Kenner, I'm 20, and I've been with my boyfriend for about a year. We have a good intimate relationship, but I know in the past, he used to look at local escort ads and fantasize. Now he tells me he hates escorts and hookers, and he thinks they are filthy. He says this often without me even asking him. Then I found him searching for local escorts online. He said he was led to the site accidentally. Why can't he admit the truth? He always tries to act perfect. Now I'm not speaking with him. I don't feel the same about him, and I don't know why. I'm worried he'll use an escort service if he hasn't already since it seems so important to him.

Melissa.

Melissa, people are so conflicted when it gets into the area of sexuality and fantasies, and when you're in a committed relationship. The most, the best gift you can give yourselves, each partner can give themselves, is honesty with their partner. If he gets turned on by something, you know, maybe it's Playboy magazines; it doesn't have to be escort ads. If he gets turned on by something, why can't he share it with you? Well, people feel very embarrassed around sex, and they hide it and they lie, and it does damage in relationships.

Now, sometimes the fantasies are totally, totally, totally harmless. A person would absolutely never act on them, would never dream of acting on them, but the taboo tends to be a turn-on. Sometimes they are not harmless. Sometimes a person is planning to act on them, is playing with temptation, and sometimes a person already has a history of acting on them. The problem in your relationship, Melissa, is you don't know where he stands. You don't know it because you know he's lying to you, which is the main problem in the relationship. But you don't know what's going on behind the scenes. Why escorts? Why local ones? Why hookers? Why does he keep mentioning it? It sounds like guilt. You know, if you keep mentioning "I didn't take that cookie. I didn't take that cookie," it certainly sounds to me like you did take that cookie.

Why does he keep saying that without you even soliciting it, that he hates escorts and hookers? Is he trying to convince himself of that? Did he have an earlier experience, maybe with an escort or a hooker, and she just latches onto his mind, and he doesn't know how to manage that? Or is it, as I said earlier, just fantasy? But you need to know your partner, and you've been together for a year, and it does feel women, or in your case, I'll say women, but they can go the other direction too obviously, but it can feel like he's having an affair even if it's not because you can't independently fantasize. It's because you don't know him; you don't know what's going on behind the scenes.

So what I recommend is helping him open up. If you want to, number one, you always have a choice to leave him. You can say, "I don't want to go through this work. You know what? It's his problem. It's his issue. What he does with it in the future is totally up to him, whether he acts on it or it's just fantasy. It's his issue. I'm out of here. I'm going to search for a partner who doesn't have this baggage." If that's not the case, if the rest of your relationship is fairly robust and he just lied in this situation, would he be willing to open up? Would you even maybe consider couples therapy? He can talk about it, and you can talk openly about how this is messing up the relationship.

Is lying. Essentially, if he continues to lie, lies tend to grow. They're not stable because people have to make more lies to cover the first lie. Then you definitely want to look closely at the relationship because moral character is the foundation of a good relationship. And I don't mean a sexless moral character; I mean honesty and integrity, and having a purpose in life, a focus in your life. You don't want to be with someone who's lying to you for sure.

So will he come clean and tell you what actually happened? Will he cover up and continue to play perfect? Could you both have a new alternative? Maybe create some safe fantasies together and let it enhance your intimacy. I would recommend getting the book that I wrote with Dr. Ed Locke. It's called The Selfish Path to Romance. That means self-valuing, how to love with passion and reason, and we talk about the importance of moral character. We talk about how to make yourself lovable, how to choose the right partner, and how to do what you're doing in asking me this question, which is introspecting—you're thinking on paper, "Is he good for me or not?" We have a whole section on intimacy and sexuality too.

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

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.

For romantic love to be successful and enduring, it is absolutely critical that each partner feel visible to one another. You should feel especially visible for what is most important to you, and ideally, you'll want to feel visible as a whole person, not just for a few narrow traits.

One important type of visibility is emotional visibility. Emotional visibility means understanding and empathizing with each other's emotions. Another important type of visibility is philosophy of life. Visibility philosophy of life means understanding and acknowledging your partner's deepest values and sense of life.

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