The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Tom, you're having some difficulty with your wife.

Hi, Dr. Kenner, yes, I am, yeah. What's going on?

Well, it concerns my unemployment for the last year. My wife has advanced degrees, like you do, and I don't have, you know, I have just a bachelor's degree. I've been trying to find a job without much success. And that, amongst other things, namely, I have to admit of the two partners, I'm the more selfish. This has caused us to have a major rift this afternoon. I just don't want to lose this woman that I've been married to for 25 years and have a nice grown child with.

Okay, tell me about the rift. What happened, just in essence?

Well, she was fixing dinner, and one of the ingredients was missing, and I ate it.

What was missing?

Oh, she was making brownies for dessert.

And you ate the chocolate?

Excuse me, did you eat the chocolate?

Yes, I did about a week ago.

Okay, you know, it might seem too trivial now, but it caused a major problem.

Okay, what were some of the things that how did it become a blow-up? What were the words that were exchanged?

She basically said she wanted me to get out of the house.

And what triggered that, just finding that you ate the brownies?

Finding out about the chocolate. Like I said, my unemployment problems and just, you know, generally, I've been the more selfish of the two partners. It’s not a situation that became overnight; it's something that's been going on for a while.

It has nothing to do with the chocolate. That was just the tip of the iceberg.

That was the straw that broke the camel's back, right? And now she's saying that she's fed up, that she wants you to get a job, to get on with your life.

Not only that. I mean, it’s become worse than that. She said that she wants me out of the house.

So she wants you to leave today? And is your son… how old is your son?

Our daughter is 24. She lives away.

Okay, so it's not going to traumatize a young child in the house. So she's wanting you to leave. This obviously isn't the first time it's happened, right?

Yeah, but she's never been mysterious about it. I went out for a drive and said I’d be back in a couple of hours. She didn’t say too much about that, but she’s not happy.

And when you say you’re selfish, can you give me three of the most selfish things that you do?

Well, like, you know, I ate the brownies.

No, big things, big, big things that she would complain about.

Well, basically, you know, if it’s going to be somebody out, you know, like my wife or me, I guess, you know, subconsciously or consciously, I put myself first.

Okay, with what? Give me a visual. What type of choice would you put yourself first?

If my wife's not feeling well, then I might be prone not to pay attention to her and not help her out when she's not feeling well.

So you don't help out. Do you think that the marriage is a fair marriage, or do you think that she does a lot more of the work? Is she bringing in the income now, and it’s really lopsided?

Yeah, it is. I would say that I try to help her when she's not feeling well, but she doesn't think that it’s enough.

Okay. Why are you mentioning feeling well? Is she not feeling well? Is she ill?

No, she hasn’t been feeling well for the last three weeks.

Is it something serious?

I don’t know if it’s serious or not. She’s not the type of person to feign illness, but she said she hasn’t been feeling well, and she’s wanting some empathy.

Let me tell you, the essence of a romantic relationship, a really good romantic relationship, is visibility, feeling psychologically important, feeling cared for, feeling valued by your partner. If you're in any relationship, I don’t care whether it’s with a boss or with your kids, where it always feels like it’s a one-way street the other person’s way, you build up a lot of resentment. Some people try to grin and bear it, but guess how long that lasts?

I understand. Until the time comes, like I said, the straw.

So she may have already decided to divorce you, and she wants you to leave. Has divorce been mentioned?

It has. I mean, she wants me to leave. She’s only mentioned this once or twice before, that it’s not natural.

And how motivated are you to work on the relationship? Seriously? I mean, on a scale of one to ten, how motivated are you to really—

I would say I’m an eight for a variety of reasons. Like I said, we have a grown daughter, and I imagine she’s going to be married in a couple of years. I’d like to see our grandchildren.

But if you told me that you wanted to stay married to me, if I were your wife, because you want to see the grandchildren and because we had a kid together, I would still feel invisible.

But that's my personal reason.

What do you love about me? You know? What do you—what do you—

Funny that I love about my wife that I haven’t shown.

What prevents you from expressing your love to your wife, from taking action, from doing special things, from going out of your way to do something that will put a real smile on her face?

Well, you know, I have done it in the past. I’m not saying I’ve always been unsuccessful, but there’s been times I have been successful, and it’s like, you do something, and it’s not appreciated. Even a little something, because—

It’s too little, too late, possibly?

Yeah, listen, this has been in years gone by.

Okay, let me tell you what I would recommend doing. You can book—if she’s willing to go to therapy, you could go to couples therapy with her. That would be something that I’d be down the road, but I’m listening.

Okay, because you're desperate at this point. She did ask you to leave. There’s a book called "Couple Skills: Making Your Relationship Work," by McKay, Fanning, and Peilag. You could go to my website, DrKenner.com, and read that book to see if that will help you see what a good relationship consists of.

And you want to be honest with yourself. If you don’t want to change or don’t think you’ll change, then you don’t want to go through all this work. That might mean the relationship is over. But if you’re willing to use this as a wake-up call to really work hard to get a job and to work with her, to find out where her particular resentments are, and to not yes-but her—"Yes, but I was doing this, honey"—but to really hear her and empathize with her, I think you’d have a much better chance of preserving the relationship.

What about the fact that she’s—

The fact that you know that’s irrelevant. It means that she’s very smart and probably thinks clearly, but that’s not the key point. It’s that you may be a mismatch. I mean, maybe she’s more ambitious than you, and the relationship is coming to an end because of that.

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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.

Intimacy is an important part of romantic partners' lives together. Of course, crises can and do cause long intervals between intimate encounters, but many couples allow such temporary interruptions to become normal. Young couples sometimes ask, "Is it true that sexual attraction normally fades as time goes on?" Many do let other aspects of their lives take priority over intimacy, but they don’t have to. It is a choice. In the most successful romantic partnerships, sexual intimacy is made a conscious priority. Ideally, sexual attraction is enhanced with time, especially as emotional intimacy deepens.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com.