The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Tammy, I want to welcome you to the show. You're having some difficulties judging your husband.

Well, see, my husband just told me before Christmas that he wants to separate, okay? And it's kind of confusing me, because he goes, I care about you—because he just got counseling like two weeks ago and didn’t even tell me about it. And he goes, “Well, you know, sometimes I hate you, and I can't figure out why I take my anger out on you,” and that. And then he tells me, “I deeply care for you.” And then he ends up wanting me to go to West Virginia, where I'm from, for six months, and him stay up here for six months.

So he's sending you home?

He wanted—he wants to send me home. And he's been sleeping on the couch for the last three weeks, and he says that’s to get me motivated, to get me to go to school and to better myself, more or less.

That's what he said—to better yourself or to better himself?

He said to better his self, plus to better myself.

Okay. Who did he want to go to school?

Me. I didn’t finish my education.

Yeah, and he wanted me to go—he wants me to go to school, finish my education.

What do you want to do?

I want to do it.

You do—so you’re both on the same page with that. How long have you been married?

10 years. Four kids.

Four kids. And we're—you know, it's kind of hard on them, because they're taking it really hard. And I was like, “Why don’t we go to couples counseling?” It doesn’t make sense, you know, me going down there and getting counseling and getting my GED and all that down there, when I can do it here at my own house.

Is he having an affair?

That's what I think. But he claims he's not.

Okay. Give me—what's crossed your mind? You have any evidence?

I don't have any evidence, except for he’s sleeping—well, I do have a little bit of evidence, because last night, I snuck outside, and I’ve seen him on the internet in a chat room, and there’s like a picture of a girl on there.

Okay, one particular girl? Or was he just looking at nude pictures or something?

No, no, it was one particular—one girl.

Okay. So he’s betrayed you. He's not letting you in on what's going on. Which would fit the picture that he doesn't want you to go to couples counseling. You know, he—he wants to get you removed. How far away is West Virginia from—from—

It's an eight-hour drive.

And he wants you to take the kids?

Yeah, he told me. He told me that I can take my kids.

So he wants to be a bachelor again.

Hey, I gotta 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. Well, 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 selfishromance.com and buy it at Amazon.com. Huh. The Selfish Path to Romance. That is interesting.

And he wants you to take the kids?

Yeah, he told me. He told me that I can take my kids. So he wants to be a bachelor again. I'm assuming that’s what he wants. He said that he had to sort out his feelings and get his head screwed on right and all that.

Do you have any—any other evidence? Let me give you a sampler of the type of evidence that partners find—now, I'll just use that wives find, just to make it simple here—that suddenly they’re going back to the gym, the partner’s looking a little better, dressing a little better, wearing a cologne but not doing it at home, being angrier with you, or maybe doing more for you—just out of guilt. Just some different signs of an affair. Absences that are unexplained. Staying at work very late.

Go ahead.

Oh, he has been—well, he said he's going to counseling. But I asked him, I said, “Well, you know, why can’t I go to your counselor?” He goes, “No,” and he kind of said really neat, “No, I'm finally opening up,” and I think his counselor is a nurse, which is his best friend’s wife.

Yeah.

And I'm like, how could she counsel you when she's a nurse?

So there may be boundary issues there, yes.

And he—late today, he left at 10 o’clock, walked, and he didn’t get home. And the kids were like, “Where’s Dad, Mom? Where’s Dad?” You know, it breaks my heart.

Yeah, it’s really hard. If he’s not leveling with you, what—I have had both men and women come in and tell me, “Listen, I’m having an affair, and I don’t want to tell my husband or my wife, and what do I do?” And I—but I can’t live with myself. It’s awful, because they’re basically living a lie. They’re tortured—they’ve earned that torture—but they’re tortured because they have to fake that they’re not seeing anyone. This is assuming that he’s having an affair—I want to just really put that out there, that we don’t know for sure that he’s having an affair. It’s just a question that that you’ve—or I’ve raised and you’ve raised too, independently. I—I would—I would actually ask him that straight out. Or have you done that?

Well, he wouldn’t even talk to me. And it sounded like, you know, I was—I was shaking. I was crying. I mean, you know, this is my first marriage. And I was like, “Oh my God, my world has just blown up.”

Yeah.

And I looked at him—I finally got tired of it when I seen that on the internet. So I waited, and he was in the kitchen, and I looked down, and I was shaking and stuff, and I said, “I want to know—”

Yeah.

“Do you want a divorce?”

Yeah.

And he goes, “I can’t talk to you now.” So we wait like a few minutes, and then he come back in. And then he started talking to me, and he started giving me reasons why we got married. And he said the reason—the first reason why he married me was because, for one, for medical benefit—or yeah, for medical benefits.

Why would you want to stay married to him?

You’re a free—you’re a free ride.

No, no, no. It was for me.

Oh, for you—to give you that?

Okay. I had a kid. So he felt—

Okay, so he felt guilty, and he married you.

And then, well, he gave me, like, a couple of them. And then he said the second one was because after our fourth kid, he said that he did that because he didn’t want no more kids out of wedlock.

Yeah.

And then I forgot the—

Okay. You're going to need to get some help for yourself. So I would get a counselor for yourself if you can.

I already did that.

Wonderful. I know we only have 30 seconds left, so there's a book After the Affair. You can go to my website, DrKenner.com—D-R-K-E-N-N-E-R—and just read that. Even if he hasn’t had an affair, it gives a lot of good information. And if you want to rebuild the trust, that book will help you. If you decide that there’s no way you could ever rebuild the trust, that book helps you too. It’s by Dr. Janis Abrahms Spring. So I want to thank you so much for the call. I want you to get the support and to really work with your kids to help them make sense of it. And I hope he will level with you and tell you some of the things that he’s been telling his counselor, because it’s awful to be kept in the dark.

Thank you so much for your call, Tammy.

Uh huh.

And here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner:

Who’s this?

I’m Mr. Bosnick’s anger management therapist.

You’re in anger management temporarily. Dissembling is a common tool of the anger junkie. Dave, you have a disease. Would you apologize if you were a diabetic? Of course not. So why do you feel you have to apologize? Because you're suffering from TAS. TAS: Toxic Anger Syndrome.

I don’t have TAS!

He's angry. It's a sickness, not a crime.

And so many psychologists will say that actual choices that you've made, actual problems that you're having are just a sickness that you have. It's similar to diabetes, and you just need to take your medication. Well, I gotta tell you—I, as a psychologist, I love cognitive therapy because they challenge that medical model of psychological problems. And they say, hey, there’s a difference between psychological and medical problems. And even though some medication can help psychological problems, typically the core—and I would say almost all the time—the core is your thought processes, that your thinking does affect your moods dramatically. You think good thoughts, or you think reality-based thoughts, and you're going to feel more connected in your life. If you feel—if you're catastrophizing, or if you're engaging in “stinking thinking,” you're going to feel really confused or depressed or guilty—maybe where you shouldn't feel guilty.

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, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologists Dr. Kenner and Locke.

Here are a few assertiveness tips that may help you express yourself more effectively:

Be as clear as possible when expressing your viewpoint. Give a specific example, which helps your partner much more than using global language, such as “You always” or “You never.” Mentally paint a picture of what you experienced, such as, “I was waiting at the restaurant for an hour when you didn’t show up or call. I felt abandoned, angry, and embarrassed.” Your partner can easily visualize this, and you are communicating your message much more skillfully.

Get to the point quickly. Your partner will appreciate your directness, and you will have a better chance of resolving your conflict without further misunderstanding or harm.

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