The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

This is a question that I'm being asked about cyber friends, cyber friends and a male-male relationship here. So listen and see what you think about this.

Hi, Dr. Kenner. My partner cheated on me twice during the month of May. I found out by asking if anything happened because he was acting suspicious. Since then, he has continued to have cyber relations with men. He is pretty open about it. He doesn't call me, but he will call his cyber friends. They send him very pornographic pictures. He keeps them and thinks that there is nothing wrong with it. He tells me that I am overreacting, that these are just friends of his, and he intends on meeting them, and it scares me that he's going to continue this behavior.

Okay, what happens if you're in a romantic relationship or a partnership? In this case, it's two men, and your partner has cheated twice on you, and he wasn’t up front about it. He didn't tell you in advance that, you know, I'm really attracted to this person, and what do you want to do about our relationship? He deceived you. The essence there is deceit. And then he couldn't hide it completely. He's acting suspiciously, and then you find out that he's having relationships, cyber sex, or cyber relationships with other men. He didn't say sex, but you assume that if he's there, sending him very pornographic pictures, and he doesn't see anything wrong with this. You try to speak up and tell him, "Hey, you're not calling me, and you're involved with these other people." And he says, "You know what, I may even meet these other people, and you're just overreacting." Well, that is the biggest catchphrase for any deceitful person. They just like to tell you that you're overreacting because you caught them. They're caught in a lie, and that's very telling about his character, your partner's character.

So the goal is, you want to be happy in this relationship. You are not happy in this relationship. Will your partner change? Well, you've tried to speak with him, and he shuts you out. He doesn't even call you, and he tells you you're overreacting, that you're being unreasonable. So boy, he's got different standards than you have. So as you sit back and look at what your partner is like, you may notice that not only are you not romantically attracted to him anymore, but you may notice that you dislike him, or you even hate him. The type of person he's allowing himself to become—a deceitful, promiscuous person who is going to put himself at higher risk. I assume, if these are strangers, he puts himself at risk for AIDS or other diseases, and you're at risk too if you stay with him.

So the one question is, you've been there. You said that he did this in May. You've been staying with him since then, assuming you haven't broken it off in the interim since I got your phone call. I would recommend that...

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 Ellen will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, 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. Hmm, The Selfish Path to Romance, that is interesting.

One question is, you, you've been there. You said that he did this in May. You've been staying with him since then, assuming you haven't broken it off in the interim since I got your phone call. I would recommend that you learn how to judge character well, and try to use this as an opportunity to say to yourself, "How did he deceive me? What did I miss? How can I be sharper in a future relationship, and detect deceit earlier on? How can I be more self-respecting and refuse to even engage in this? And if someone tells me I'm overreacting, I set them straight and let them know I'm not overreacting. And how do I know my own standards?" Well, you need to be very clear on your own standards. What you want in a relationship, what type of decency you want, what character traits—honesty, integrity, a sense of being productive, and a sense of justice. This guy is not being just with you.

You also need to be able to be a keen judge of character in any romantic relationship or partnership. You need to know that you just don't want to sleep with anybody, or have a relationship, or even befriend just anybody, because a bad friendship can hurt you. A bad friendship can even kill you, with AIDS in this case as an example. So you want to learn how to be proud of judging a person's character, especially this partner's character right now. You can't fake his character. You can't put your wishes of what you wish he were above the facts. You've got enough red flags that you can dump him right away. If he then says, "I want to change," you can give him a hearing, if there are a lot of good traits that he has. But if not, move on, find someone much better, and just let him be. You can't force his mind. You're not going to be able to change him that way, but you certainly have every right to judge him and make your own independent decision and leave this relationship.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner.

Right now I'm going to read a question I got from a mother who's concerned about her 10-year-old daughter. Dear Dr. Kenner, my 10-year-old daughter, Kristen, has difficulty sleeping. She fears someone will break in, or she fears being hurt or even dying. But she has no other problems. She's on the student council at school. She makes straight A's on her report card. She tutors other kids. She has great friends. She's an outgoing, normal child, but she will go for several months without having difficulty sleeping. Then all of a sudden, she'll go through a phase where she can't sleep in her room, and it may last for one or several nights. Now she's not alone in her room. Her sister sleeps in the bunk bed below her. She has a nightlight on, and I try to show her that all the doors are locked and all the windows are locked. But I'll put her to bed, and she repeatedly says, "Mom, is the door locked?" I get aggravated, and I don't know what to do. I've tried everything. I let her sleep with me. I let her sleep on the couch. I try to make her deal with her fears, but then she has a panic attack. She'll stand in the hallway and she'll cry until I give in to her. Her doctor said, "Just give her anxiety medication," and she prescribed it, but she didn't even evaluate her. I'm not going to give her this medication. What do I do?

Okay, pills don't teach skills. Your daughter needs skills. Now, Kristen, your daughter—you said Kristen is a good kid. Teach her how to introspect, how to find out what's bothering her in those moments. Instead of being a parent and yelling at her or punishing her or letting her get into bed with you, teach her how to think. And when we come back, I'll give you some introspective skills, how you can help a child or even yourself think more clearly.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast episodes, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this:

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Dr. Ellen Kenner:

The main virtue that makes you lovable is rationality. Attempting to have a romantic relationship with an irrational person is a living nightmare. You cannot reason with an irrational person. Facts and logical arguments have no effect on this person. You cannot understand them because they are full of unresolved contradictions. They are unpredictable because they often act on whim. You cannot feel fully understood because they don't consistently use reason to understand you. All this is anathema to romance. Furthermore, irrationality will undermine all the other virtues, because they are all aspects of rationality. Irrationality at the deepest level amounts to the rejection of facts and logic, which means the rejection of reality.

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