The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

This is a question from Joe. Hi, Dr. Kenner. I'm Joe, and I'm 22 years old. My girlfriend, Gina, and I have been dating for a year but have known each other for three years. We both cheated on our partners to be together, so our foundation was weak. This year has been so fantastic that I can't even put it into words. So it sounds like Joe and Gina are getting along very well. Recently, I noticed that I am obsessed with Gina, worried that she will cheat. We both found it so easy to cheat in the past. I do not want to emotionally hurt her, so I've decided to break up with her. Now, did you expect that? I want to be a dad and husband someday. How can I deal with my insecurities and trust issues? Gina would boost my confidence, and I'd become my pompous, old, arrogant self again.

Joe, okay, Joe, there is a lot to unravel in everything that you're saying. The good news is that you're 22 years old, you're relatively young, and you're reaching out. You're aware. I mean, even to call yourself a pompous, arrogant self means that you have raised your awareness that there's something about yourself that you want to change. Even to name them, even to be open and say, "I have insecurity and trust issues," even mentioning that you had affairs and that was not a good foundation, and recognizing the method that you use with Gina, which is becoming so insecure and obsessed with her that it's not working. Certainly, you don't want to have a baby or get married when you are feeling inadequate inside.

So where do you begin? The first place to begin is with yourself. You want to learn what makes a person lovable, and the first person you make any of us make ourselves lovable to is ourselves. We call it by various names: self-esteem, self-nurturing, self-worth, pride, and earned pride. I don't mean that pompous, arrogant self. That's always bogus pride. It's a phoniness. It just reeks of insecurity, not only inside yourself but to everybody you're around. They see it as pompous and arrogant. So that is not the route to go.

Skill number one is to be very supportive of yourself as you start to change; it will make change a whole lot easier. Being supportive of yourself doesn't mean that you don't look at the things that are off track, that you want to improve. You definitely want to expose them, look at your own patterns, and know that change is possible for you and that you can get better.

So how do you make yourself lovable? Well, you want to use your mind well, and you want to look and see what patterns are undermining your happiness. Whether you feel like you some people drink or use drugs, they take actions that undermine their happiness. They try to make it look good to themselves and okay, but they're hurting inside. Other people will use defense mechanisms such as denial. You know it: "I'm not feeling any pain at all. I can handle it." Or they push stuff out of awareness or evade. That's not a good idea.

Pushing things out of awareness, like if you have a toothache, we can't push a toothache out of awareness. So that's not a good example. But if you have a patch on your skin and you say, "Oh my God, it looks purple and orange and green," and you think to yourself, "Oh, I just don't want to see it, so I'm going to wear long sleeve shirts all the time." Well, guess what? That patch is still there, and that may need attending to, and it may do you in. That may be a very dangerous patch, so it doesn't do you any good.

In the medical and physical side, to ignore warning signs, signs in your body, is the same psychologically. Our subconscious feeds us emotions: guilt, anger, frustration, anxiety that says, "Pay attention. There's something going on in the world or in your own psychology that you want to tend to." And so the good news is that you can make yourself lovable. I've written a book with Dr. Ed Locke. It's called "The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason." We don't mean the mean, rotten way to romance. We mean the self-esteem, genuine self-esteem way to romance: how to build confidence.

We mean building moral character. By moral character, we don't mean giving up everything in your life. We mean pursuing your dreams, your goals, without ever stepping on anyone else and building into your own character a cleanliness and honesty, thinking for yourself, rather than always saying, "Oh, whatever you say, dear."

It's building a good sense of fairness, of justice, and being productive, pursuing a career that you enjoy, and having integrity—saying what you mean, meaning what you say, and following through. You know, "I want to take care of my health. Okay, what am I doing? Oh, nothing." Instead of saying, "I'm going to the gym."

So you want to take care of yourself so you can make yourself lovable, and cheating on you, the fact that you've had a history of cheating does take that type of toll. You mentioned that both of you cheated; it wasn't a good foundation. Now you're obsessed with her, which is not good for either of you. You're going to create what's called the distance or pursuer relationship.

Joe, you know, at the age of 22, you're still young. You're pursuing your girlfriend, Gina; she's going to distance from you because it's too much. It's overwhelming. So if you can build your... just stand back a little bit and build your own self-esteem and learn what it takes. Again, our book is a wonderful guide. You can go to my website, Dr. Kenner.com, the book with Dr. Ed Locke. I think that will give you a very good guide to romance, helping romance endure, helping pick the right partner, and helping you communicate.

How do you resolve conflicts in a way that's much more self-respecting? Those are all skills. I didn't have those. I had to learn all of those myself. Otherwise, you go by the seat of your pants, and that's not great.

So you can see the consequence. Getting back to the cheating, that cheating will make you doubt yourself and your partner, and obsessing doesn't create a strong bond. But you can build the skills to make romance work, and I wish you the best with that. You can build trust; you can discover what emotional intimacy is. And I hope you both find that—maybe with each other, maybe not.

For more, Dr. Kenner podcast, go to Dr. Kenner.com, and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance" by psychologists Drs. Kenner and Locke.

There are approaches to having intimacy that do not work in relationships. For example, one-way satisfaction or pleasure between partners—the man achieving satisfaction while the woman feels used—that doesn't work. A man may believe that because he enjoyed the experience, the woman must have enjoyed it.

He also fails to grasp or understand her frustration or irritation, or he may be keenly aware that it is one-sided, lacking mutual joy, but feels helpless in knowing what to do or how to talk about this openly and comfortably. If the woman meekly replies with an edge of resentment in her voice, "I wasn't satisfied, but it's okay," her meekness will spell dissatisfaction for both and relationship trouble for many years to come if the relationship lasts.

Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.