The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Summary

A young woman named Lena writes to Dr. Kenner asking how to forgive her father for severe emotional betrayal and damage in her childhood. When Lena was 11, her father had an affair, confided disturbing intimate details to her, threatened self-harm if she told her mother, and caused years of chaos and fear at home. Her mother broke down emotionally and turned to alcohol and anxiety medications. Lena validated her mother?s suspicions, and the affair eventually ended, but six years later no one in the family talks about it. Lena feels furious and wants to know how to make peace.

Dr. Kenner tells her that she cannot and should not forgive her father for what he did, because his actions were abusive and caused long-term harm. Instead, she should focus on valuing herself, processing the trauma, and learning skills to move forward rather than erase the past. Kenner recommends cognitive therapy, assertiveness skills, and possibly therapeutic exercises like the empty-chair technique or writing uncensored letters that are not given to the parents. She discusses the need to watch for harmful conclusions?like assuming all men are untrustworthy?and stresses that Lena still has the power to design a healthier life.

Dr. Kenner closes by discussing the difficulty in unlearning damaging habits from childhood, and she emphasizes building a life independent from the emotional dysfunction of her parents. The transcript finishes with an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance about valuing oneself and stylizing one?s life.

Transcript

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

And here's an email I received from Lena:

Hi, Dr. Kenner. I don't know how to forgive my dad or make peace with what he's done. I'm 20 years old. My father was attentive to my needs during my early childhood, but when I was 11, he had an affair which destroyed my family. He became emotionally neglectful of my mom and me.

At age 11, he told me about disturbing sexual acts he had with his mistress. He threatened that if I told my mom, he would hurt himself. My mom was emotionally breaking down, suspecting the affair. My dad denied it and accused her of cheating on him. She turned to alcohol and anxiety drugs. I worried I would come home from school and they would kill each other.

I felt the only way to help Mom was to validate her suspicions, so I did. The affair lasted a few years, then ended. It's been six years since the affair, and no one talks about it. I am furious about how my father treated us and how he corrupted my childhood. How do I forgive or make peace with this situation?

Thank you tremendously for your time.
Lena.

Lena, the first thing I want to say is that you want to be your own best friend. You want to give yourself self-empathy. What your father did to you, especially at the age of 11?it's heartbreaking. A good dad doesn't cheat, lie, and burden you at that young age with his sexual intimacies, and then threaten to harm himself if you dare to speak your own mind and get some help, tell your mother what's going on so she's not cracking up.

And you have to watch her. You have to see her live in her anxieties and doubt her own mind, and then self-medicate with alcohol and drugs?not a good coping strategy for a kid to see. And then you have to live in the daily fear that they're going to kill each other. You know, coming home from school?what are you thinking of during the day? How can you focus on your schoolwork?

This is absolutely not the definition of a good father. And even your mom?your mom didn't seek help then. What this is, is the typical pattern of abuse, and it's a tragic fact that your father, as you say, corrupted your childhood, and he has earned your moral condemnation.

And I want to say one thing: you can feel really proud that you had the courage?even with your father's threat?to validate your mom's suspicions. And I think that's amazing. You will have that knowledge of yourself, and that's a wonderful character trait to have, and that's wonderful going forward, too.

So your question is: How do you make peace with your dad? How do you forgive him? Well, there's no way to forgive him. You can forgive the situation, but I'll talk about that in a second. There's no way to erase from your memory what he did or your mom's response to it. You cannot forgive what happened, and it would not be moral to forgive him either, because how could he ever make amends for the years he put you through that high anxiety? And the damage is ongoing, as you know.

So then, how do you deal with it going forward?

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty 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.

So then, how do you deal with it going forward? You have to decide what is within your control and what isn't. Obviously, your parents are not in your control, but being able to put the abuse behind you is so important to you. You need to be able to process it, like reading an ugly book from your childhood, and be able to say: ?I went through that. I dealt with it. And I'm moving on now, and I am going to make my life so much better. I'm the creator of my own life, and I am going to make it so much better.?

So how do you do that? Well, I would recommend seeking out, if you can and if you're interested, a cognitive therapist?somebody who can teach you good skills. And you need to identify: What are the premises that you drew from this situation?

For example, you might have drawn the conclusion that it's not okay to speak your own mind. Dad threatened you. I know you did speak your own mind, but now?here you are, fast-forward six years later?and you still feel like there's an elephant in the room. Your parents don't talk about it, and you want to be able to express that fury. You want to be able to tell your father what you're feeling?and your mother too, I'm assuming.

So you need to make sure you didn't draw any self-sabotaging conclusions, or at least be able to expose conclusions such as: ?I am never getting married in my life. All men cheat. I'm never getting married.? That would be a tragic conclusion to draw because it's going to stop you from seeking a loving partnership.

So you need to know that what your dad did is not typical of all men or of all relationships. And you want some really good coping skills. You don't want to go the route that your mother went, where she turned to alcohol and medications. You want very good assertiveness skills.

Now, you could do something called the empty-chair technique in therapy, where you put one parent?in an empty chair?with a therapist you're very comfortable with, and you express, for example to your dad, exactly how he made you feel. And you can do it uncensored. You don't have to worry about assertiveness skills. Or you can write an uncensored letter?and then I would recommend shredding it afterward or giving it to your therapist so it doesn't get in your dad's hands or mom's hands. But you can learn how to get the feelings out, to express yourself.

And then you can learn assertiveness skills and decide whether it makes sense to expose the elephant in the room to your parents. Now, if you are living with them, that's a very difficult situation. If you're working and have the ability to move out?get a roommate or move out someplace?that may give you more psychological independence. You'll feel like you have some breathing space.

But if you are still living with them and you want to bring this up, you need to first ask yourself: Is it safe? If your father is very irrational, or if your mother is going to? I don't know?if they look like they're going to kill each other again, and your bringing it up will trigger that?which wouldn't be your fault, that would be their fault?but it still would weigh on you and be an issue to deal with. Then you may not want to bring it up to them.

But you do want to process it with a therapist. And you can also go to family therapy?see if they would be willing to do that. Doubtful, if they've been holding it in this long. But you need to know that this is your life, and that value and strength you had as a young child to tell your mom the truth?you want that same strength moving forward with your life.

And you want to be able to let them live in their unresolved mess if they want. But forgiving Dad?forgiving the perpetrator?is treason to yourself. I'm paraphrasing Ayn Rand, but that was such a good phrase that she said. And so you do not want that treason to yourself.

You can become the creator and designer of a much better life, Lena. You're still young, and you can make much better choices than either of your parents made going forward. And I wish you the best with that.

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

In my family we certainly knew the meaning of ?conscience.? That's what my dad called his wooden paddle.
Oh, how awful for you.
Oh, for me brothers, yes. But I knew he'd never use it on me?as long as I was always good, as long as I was always polite, as long as I always had a smile on my face no matter how I felt inside, as long as I was always ready to wait on all the men hand and foot, day and night, year in, year out.

More coffee, anyone?

And that's Daphne from Frasier. She is adorable. And think about the habits in your own life. Your dad may not have used a wooden paddle, but what methods did your dad or mom or your caretaker use so that you were always?in quotes??good,? ?polite,? put on that smile no matter how you felt inside? And you find that those habits are hard to break now, that you still are doing those things?like ?Any more coffee now? What would you like? I had to be nice to the men in my life.?

I know my own dad told me that the most important thing in life?he told me this from when I was a little kid?the most important thing is? fill in the blank? the man's ego. You always need to feed the man's ego. And I am so lucky?
What's wrong with that?
?I am so lucky that I have an amazing husband where we have an equal partnership.

But I had to learn. I had to learn how to change, because when you have a habit, it's automatic. It's really hard to change, but it's possible.

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 psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner:

When you value your appearance, you can enjoy stylizing yourself without being vain or compulsive. By ?stylizing,? we mean creating a unique, integrated way of dressing, grooming, wearing makeup, and body shaping that reflects and defines how you enjoy seeing yourself. When you value yourself, stylizing becomes not a dreaded duty but a treat.

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