The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr kenner.com

Here is a question I received from a woman who feels totally trapped in her relationship with her boyfriend, and it's she's from. She does she speaks broken English. So some of this will be in broken English.

Hi, Dr Kenner, I'm from a small Asian country. I came here four years ago, and I'm with my boyfriend. We have a cute little three-year-old son. I'm actually smoothing out the broken English here. The first couple of years, we had financial difficulties. I'm very far away from my mother and my sisters, and there was nothing I can do. There's nothing I can do about that. I was bored so much, and I was tired from hard works. Even in these three years, my husband, my boyfriend, abused me. We had family abuse case, but I can't get separated because of the financial issues. We are a very small group. I can't talk to anyone, and my life is just getting worse. I hate my boyfriend, my son is watching us fight. I just hate my life. What can I do? Please give me some personal answers. Thank you for your time. Shay, I changed her name too.

So number one is safety in these issues, Shay, you need to focus on how to protect yourself and your son. Number one is absolutely safety. And if you think safety means keeping quiet and not doing anything, look at where that policy has gotten you. You hate your boyfriend, you hate your your life, you are traumatized every time you fight in front of your son. There's abuse going on. I don't know if it's abuse of you or your son or both, but if it's a family abuse case, I assume it's not abuse of you. I might have misspoken earlier, maybe of your son, and in which case you need to take action, but it may feel like you can't speak to anyone.

So number one, I need to give you the National Domestic Violence Hotline. You may not be able to use your cell phone if your husband checks your messages. So borrow someone else's. You can go online to 1-800-799-SAFE, they're open 24 hours a day, and you need to get some guidance from them. If you work at all and can talk, if there's a human resources department at work, I would talk to a counselor there. You need to get help ASAP. I would love to say, get counseling—your husband probably will get even angrier with that. So you need to know the signs of abuse.

Hey, I got to 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.

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So you need to know the signs of abuse: their put-downs, the humiliation there. You feel controlled. You feel isolated from your family and friends. He may check up on you all the time. He may be sexually violent or physically violent and guilt-tripping you, and just you may have bruises in non-obvious places. Abusers tend to hide the abuse. So whether he's abusing you and/or your child, they do tend to hide what they're doing. You need to expose it. If your son, you say, is only three years old, he'll be entering school soon, maybe. If you can talk with somebody in the school system, you need to get help ASAP. So number one, number two would be, enjoy your son. You need to hold on to your life and have some values in your life.

You can—you may need to call the domestic abuse hotline and just get the state on board. You can call your family and your sister and your mother. You can email them if you have contact with them, and ask them if there's any opportunity for them to come over to help you or to send you money. Connect with them. You can get a book, Choosing to Live, if you're feeling suicidal at all, if you're hating your life. That's on my website, drkenner.com, that's d-r-k-e-n-n-e-r.com.

So the worst thing to do is to appease an abuser. The best thing to do is to get the guts, some point, hopefully sooner than later, with some guidance, some good guidance, and to extricate yourself from this. You already, and you know you want out of the relationship.

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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.

Moral qualities will make you lovable. Note that most of us have problems we want to fix, and many of us don't know where or how to begin. You don't need to be perfect in every respect to find a partner, but never settle for a deeply flawed self. Making yourself into a lovable person gives you the best chance for a happy, long-term romance. If you have some moral flaws that need fixing, make it a priority to correct them. If a person is untrustworthy, he still has a choice: remake his own character or keep lying and cheating until he irretrievably ruins his own 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.