The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com. Christopher, you have a question on people lying, and what makes people lie and slander someone? What's going on?
Okay, the problem is over now. But I mean, it sort of left some negative feedback, you know, and somebody lied about you.
Yes, they, I've known this person for about five years, or thought I knew him, yeah, you know, he befriended me and everything. And, I mean, it was a relationship in the beginning, okay, you know. And then, then we wound up falling out. But we didn't meet, you know, we weren't really intimate for a long time, but then we fell out. But then I, you know, I'm a mature person, so I tried to remain friends with this person and everything, yeah, and, you know, he started over, over a period of time, saying negative things to me.
And to you, about you?
Yeah, to me and about me, so—
To other people, also?
Exactly. And you know, nothing I could do was right, yeah. And, you know, he started, you know, people would tell me that he would try to distort my image to people behind my back, and, you know, and then what happened was, you know, he was evicted and everything. So I was kind enough. He needed a place to stay. I let him stay with me. Okay, just then he just became, you know, nasty and hostile, and, you know, and I wound up putting him out because he said something really nasty to me. And so I wound up, you know—
Little mouth, he started—
What, Chris, sorry?
Yeah, no, what I'm hearing is that what you've been through, the pain that you've been through, that you had a relationship with this fellow, and then you tried to stay friends with him, and you heard him gossiping about you or spreading rumors about you. Rumors are untrue and you, sometimes he said that you could do nothing right and distorting your image. And then he fell on bad times. You let him back into your house, and he escalated. Instead of thanking you, instead of apologizing, he escalated. So what? What is your question? What would you like some help with?
Well, my question is, why would somebody want to—okay? Imma just narrow it all down. Why would somebody, you know, I thought he was—my conclusion was, I thought he was very jealous of me, but okay at the time, yeah, and because, you know, he would say negative things for no apparent—
Okay, so you came, you came face to face with, you know, I'll take your—let's take what you experienced firsthand many times. If you have good aspects about yourself, if you do handle things maturely, if you kind, if you are a decent or upstanding or a relatively nice person, or then there are people in your life who are not quite that way, and it's sometimes it's a sibling, sometimes it's even a parent who's envious of their child because the child is making better choices or progressing further. And so people who are envious, and you know, everybody occasionally will feel jealousy or envy. Sometimes they're used interchangeably. Sometimes they make a little distinction between them, but sometimes jealousy is okay and I'm going, but not the type he had, assuming that's true. This is the okay jealousy. If I see—
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.
Sometimes jealousy is okay and I'm going, but not the type he had, assuming that's true. This is the okay jealousy, if I see, let's say somebody play the piano really well, and I say, "Oh, I wish I—I’m so jealous of you. I wish I could play like that." Do I sound like I'm going after them?
No, no, that sounds like a compliment, right?
Exactly. It does. Okay.
And go ahead—
See, the way this ended out was, and how I figured out it was jealousy is because he was hanging on to every word that I would say, and then he, then he, the last thing he did was try to slander my name to my family. He didn't even know my family, you know? Yeah, and he never even met—he knew that I had a brother that I didn't get along with and—
Okay, here's when you share an intimacy with someone. This happens with couples who get divorced or break up, or partners, any partners, or even close friends that some you share. It's sometimes when you let a friend into your life and you share some of your inner world with them. You know who you like, who you don't like, what your real feelings are, then that relationship goes sour, and they use that information as a weapon against you. Not good, a good character trait in them if they do that. So what's really good about you is you are judging him. You're using your mind to evaluate this situation and hopefully take away from it whatever cues you saw him using on you. And there are certain methods that envious people use, jealous people use, not the good—not the good jealousy where it's really admiration, but a jealousy that says, "I want to take this away from you." I'm jealous of you, or I'm envious of you, and I want to take it away from you. When someone's doing that, you need to keep your distance, and we all need to evaluate the people in our lives, and when we detect envy, to steer clear of them or just put them out a little farther in our lives, not get together with them as often.
So here are the basic—let me just tell you, because I know we need to wrap up—the basic methods that the envious people use. Number one is they will denounce the good in you. So I remember someone once said to me, "Oh, Ellen, what are you going to hit the books again?" Because I read a lot. That was jealousy. And I thought, oh, that didn't feel very good. You know, when my husband would say something, it's like, "Oh, what book are you reading?" It's more admiration.
The second thing they do is that they will act morally superior, you know, roll their eyes, put their nostrils up in the air, and, you know, and act as if, or would they—
Be quiet, or would they write silent when they're around you?
They can be silent so you can't read their mind. And they can try to induce guilt or self-doubt in you. You don't know what you're talking about. They try to control you. They try to destroy you. They try to make themselves look better. They might take something minor that they did, and compare it to something good you did, and make themselves look superior, or pick someone else who did something that you did that is better than you, and try to always, always that cutting edge, always putting you down. And the best thing you can do is what you did. You evicted him, and learn from it. The lesson not to take from it, Christopher, is that all people are like that. And the quite the lesson to take from it is that you have good judgment. You want to be able to judge the people in your life and remove those who are like that.
And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner—
But this girl is like, you know, beautiful, she's smart, she's fun. It's different from most of the girls I've been with. So call her up from you. Why? So I can realize she's not that smart. I mean, this girl's like perfect right now. I don't ruin that.
Maybe you're perfect right now. Maybe you don't want to ruin that, but I think that's a super philosophy. Will that way you can go through your entire life without ever having to really know anybody?
And that's from Good Will Hunting. And are there any, what we call defense mechanisms that you might have that keep you from pursuing your goal, whether you think, "Oh my gosh, she's so ideal, but you know, I love my image of her, and if I get to know her, I'm going to be crushed. She's going to let me down. I'm always let down." And so he defends against that feeling that he's going to be let down by not meeting her. But there might be something deeper going on that maybe he feels that he's not good enough, and he'll be exposed if he meets her.
So, you know, when you go through therapy or even if you journal or do some good introspective work, many times, you or any of us will come across patterns in our life that have gotten in our way that don't help us enjoy our life. They're those defenses, the things we guard against. Usually, we do them protectively because, you know, maybe in our childhood or earlier on, we needed a coping strategy of not being let down once more, or not letting people see too deep into us because they will be critical, which we have learned to guard against. And sometimes those don't serve us well. Those old coping strategies can mess up relationship after relationship, and it's a good thing to tune into them, not to beat yourself up, but to have some self-empathy and to figure out maybe what's going on, and figure out maybe some better ways of managing your own emotional life so that you can enjoy your life better, make some changes for more.
Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.
NAD, here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Drs. Kenner and Locke. How do you increase the playfulness and joy in your sexual life and keep it from becoming stale? Think of new and creative ways to share sexual pleasure with one another. Creativity isn't something that should be used only in business or home decorating. Use it in sex and keep the enjoyment alive. Over the years, spend pleasurable time finding out what excites you and your partner. A word of caution: Some women might feel unduly pressured if they know that their partner is engaging in these preliminaries. For example, going out to a romantic restaurant, giving her a relaxing massage with the sole goal of having sex afterwards. If she feels this type of pressure, she needs to suggest that these preliminaries might sometimes be done as pleasures in themselves, with no definite expectation of sex. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and buy it at Amazon.com.