The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Here's a question I received from a woman who's living in the United Arab Emirates.

Dear Dr. Kenner,

My husband and I are living in the United Arab Emirates. My husband is handsome and has an attractive personality. I am from India. We live in an apartment across from my husband's colleague and his wife. When my husband and his colleague would go offshore, I would spend the day with the wife. However, when my husband has been alone in our apartment, this woman has made dinner for him many times. My husband goes to her place to bring paperwork from the office. Her husband makes her wear the traditional dress, but when he's away, she wears a tight t-shirt or a sexy dress to expose her body. My husband also watches through our door lens to see if she's coming out of her apartment. I no longer talk to her as I think she's interested in my husband. My husband defends her. I am very angry, hurt, and confused. How do I handle this?

Riva, whenever you feel like you're losing your partner, that emotional bond, that connection that the two of you share is being shattered by a third party, it can be excruciating. In fact, Dr. Janice Abram Spring, who wrote the book After the Affair, says, "There's no way to prepare yourself for this crushing revelation." This is assuming they're having an affair or even an emotional bond. Your view of your life and the world you live in may be ripped apart. Whatever self-assurance and security you felt in the past may now seem naive or false. "Where have I been?" you ask yourself. "Do I live on this planet?" Your mind and body are likely to be in shock. So you don't want to beat yourself up for feeling this mass of anger, sadness, and confusion.

The question is exactly what you're saying: How do you handle it? If you're seeing signs that that wonderful emotional bond is going elsewhere to this woman across the hall, you want to first ask yourself, is it accurate? Is it true? Sometimes it’s just a little flirtation, but your husband may not want to leave you. You may want to get the facts. You have enough indication. I mean, if he's standing at the window looking out to see the sexy woman walk out of the door and isn't sharing that with you as a fantasy or something, if he's just doing it because he seems to be spending more time with her than you, then you do have cause to be concerned.

So first, you want to understand your own emotions. And emotions are understandable; they're causal. For example, anger is that feeling of betrayal or deception that you're failing. It's not fair with your husband and with this girl who used to be a girlfriend. The hurt you feel is like you're losing the life you know with your husband. What happens? What does your future look like if he wants to connect with her?

Already, there's confusion. What do you do? Do you talk with him? Do you not talk with him? Do you walk out? Are you not able to walk out because you're in a country where the culture doesn't permit it? You need to make sense of your own emotions, and cognitive therapy is great for that. It helps you learn how to decipher your emotions, or, as I say, read your own mind. You can get the book Mind Over Mood, which is on my website, DrKenner.com.

You also want to have some methods to self-soothe. You want to be able to do things that you enjoy to relax. I know your mind will be in a whirlwind, but if there's something you enjoy doing, some soothing music you like listening to, or a soothing bath, or something, just to nurture yourself. I don't mean stressful eating, where you overeat, but I mean just tending to yourself physically rather than beating up on yourself and focusing on your strengths.

You also want some social supports. I don't know if you have any other friends there that you can lean on. You may not want to share too much. If you want to unload on somebody, it would be good if you could find a cognitive therapist. You can go to the Academy of CT.org and ask if there's anyone in your neck of the woods. I tried Googling it, and I didn't find anyone, but I didn't do a thorough search. But you can also just see if you can do therapy by Skype.

Then you want to understand your relationship. What is good in the relationship with your husband? Where are your strengths together, or where were they before this woman popped into your life? What needs improvement? Many times, when people are going through a suspected affair, they suspect an affair, or they know there's an affair, everything is just swimming in their mind, but they need to figure out what was my role in contributing to this. If there was a role, you know, it could just be a flirtation and maybe wanting something on the side, or something in your husband's character that led him astray, or a woman who was just coming on so hot and heavy that it was a little harder for him to say no.

Then you need to talk with your husband, and for that, many of us just lose control and just use what is called "you" language. "You did this. You did this," rather than talking about how you feel. If you can learn assertiveness skills and be able to say, "I feel hurt. I feel confused," just like you said to me in your email, let him know how you're feeling about this, and get more information. See if you think he's honest or not. You know him, and you can probably detect whether he's leveling with you or not.

Then it's up to you to decide what you want to do. Do you want to stay with him? Do you want to buy time to assess the situation more? If you want to stay with him, and if he's saying that he wants to stay with you, then you want to set boundaries. Maybe there are low-cost behaviors. He just lets you know anytime she's in the vicinity or he sees her. You guys need to rebuild the trust. High-cost behavior would be moving into a different apartment building or getting relocated.

There are books like After the Affair and Getting Past the Affair that are very good and can help you get through a trauma like this. If he has indeed cheated, if he hasn't cheated, they still help, because is emotional cheating an affair? I mean, they're certainly flirting a little bit, but sometimes that doesn't lead anywhere. So you need to put the pieces together, but number one, really nurture yourself—that's critical.

I also wrote a book on romance with Dr. Ed Locke. You can go to my website, DrKenner.com, and check out our book. Our subtitle is How to Love with Passion and Reason, and that might help your marriage if you're looking to strengthen it. The title is The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason.

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

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Doctors Kenner and Locke.

Romantic sex is not at all like hedonism; promiscuous or indiscriminate sex does not, in the end, bring much pleasure, and what little you do get is often followed by painful regrets, guilt, boredom, and possibly sexually transmitted diseases, some of which are incurable. Use your mind to discover which pleasures are good for you and which are against your self-interest, like illicit drugs. Sexual pleasure with someone you value contributes enormously to the joy in your relationship and thus to your happiness with life. If you have contradictory or confused views of sex, it's important to gain a healthy perspective and uproot the damaging ideas learned in childhood from your religious upbringing or from bad experiences or flawed relationships. You don't have to accept your parents' views about love, sex, or any other issue if you judge them to be wrong.

Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and on Amazon.com.