The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance.

Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com

And right now I want to welcome, is it Sandy to the phone? Yeah, hi. I guess you have a custody situation and you're the child. Am I right?

I'm not, but I'm the daughter of my mom, who has custody over my niece and nephew.

Oh, okay. So let me slow this down. Your mom has custody. How old is your niece, nephew?

My niece is 11 and my nephew is 14.

Okay, and your mom's got custody. And go ahead.

And while she has this custody, since they’re babies, really. And when my brother, he needs to learn how to grow up and kind of get responsibility. He's—

How old? These are his kids, yes. And he's how old?

He's 37 now.

Okay, and you're how old?

I'm 22.

Okay, so your brother had two kids. They're now 14 and 11, and mom has custody. Your brother lost custody. How did he mess up? Just in a nutshell, what's one or two things he did to mess up?

Well, not really he messed up. It was just he was married at the time they divorced, and he didn't want to fight for custody due to just being conscious about the ex feeling he didn’t want to feel like he was taking the kids away from her, so my mom felt like she needed to do something, so she ended up fighting for custody so that the kids can stay in the family.

Okay, so Mom's got custody of your niece, your 11-year-old niece, and your 14-year-old nephew. And what's going on with mom that made you want to call up?

Well, it's just a predicament that recently, my niece got in trouble in school. She got suspended, which ended up having where the cops had to take her to the police station, and the cops called my mom, not my brother. I mean, he's been taking care of the kids, not my mom.

Oh, so he's doing that out of—so the court said mom, she has the custody, but she's been allowing, she's been allowing your brother to take care of the kids, against the court advice, right?

That's right.

Okay, so the cops called your mother, who's the custodian. I mean, she's taking care of them, right? And what happened?

And so they find out, well, you're the legal guardian, so she has the—she’s going to be taken to court the end of this month, sometime. But my brother right now has been giving her guilt trips because my mom said, No more—the kids are staying in my house. You kind of ruined the privilege of having the kids, you know.

Okay, so your niece got into trouble when she was living with your brother, and so your mother took them back after the cops called her?

Yes.

And so mom is now feeling torn because on one hand, it's her son, her 37-year-old son, with the two kids, and she would like him to be able to have some time with them, I'm assuming, and to grow back into the role of a responsible parent. And on the other hand, she legally has to take care of those kids, and the kids are messing up under your brother's care, is that—do I have the picture, right?

That's about right, yeah. And he's got a girlfriend right now, and so my mom's feeling like that's where the bad influence is coming from.

Okay? So he's in an on and off relationship, right?

Okay, so you would like me to help you talk with your mother then, or how to help her from feeling guilty? Is that the question?

Yeah, that could be. And like recently, I think it was last night, he came over like—she's been keeping the kids, but she lets them see the kids, and she lets the kids go with my brother only for a few hours, but they need to come back home at night. He didn't return the kids home at night.

Okay, so he's pushing—is this an agreement not made with the courts? This is an agreement between your mother and your brother, correct?

Yeah.

So your mother's really going against court orders by doing this.

She kind of is, yeah.

So she's putting herself at high risk, then, in terms—

Yeah, yeah.

We keep telling her that, but she's feeling guilty.

How to—okay, we're gonna really listen. Yeah?

Let me jump in, Sandy, when you're trying—if you look at a situation and you're not the main person involved here, and it's so frustrating to sit on the sidelines. It’s like watching a football game or your favorite game, and it's like, "Go for it, go for it!" And they don't do it, they don't make the right moves, or they feel guilty when you think they shouldn't feel guilty. You can be supportive of your mother, and you can say, "You know you're between a rock and a hard place because it is your son." Parents can often feel guilty. You know, if only I had been a better mother, or if only I had done X, Y, Z, my son would have turned out better. And so she’s both trying to take care of your brother’s kids, and she’s upset with him, and he’s making bad choices and is having a bad influence on your niece, or at the 11-year-old. And so your mom's feeling guilty. I would recommend that she—

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that’s it. A very quick ad, and then Alan 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? Ah, 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 your mom's feeling guilty. I would recommend that she get some support for herself, to see a psychologist so she can figure out how to think more clearly, so that she doesn't take on unwarranted guilt and so those choices become a little clearer to her. And how wonderful that she has a loving daughter like you, Sandy.

Yeah, so you want to take care of yourself. You want to recognize that there are some things that are outside of your control. This is an important value—it’s your family, it’s their sanity. And it's always wonderful to see family members making good choices. You're in an unlucky situation because your brother’s not making good choices, his girlfriend—what he's doing with his kids. Your mother’s making choices that are really iffy. You know, she's taking risks legally. You can stay connected with your brother's children, and you can enjoy being an aunt to them. If you feel close to them, you can be a loving aunt, and that can be a wonderful influence in their lives. But you want to keep in mind that you have your own life, and to wrap your mind around their stressful situations that are mostly outside your control is unfair to you. Your brother, his girlfriend, his choice in girlfriends, your mother's decision to get legal custody of the children, her choice to let the kids stay with your brother, your niece's poor behavior in school. You can offer your advice, but ultimately they are going to make their own decisions, good or bad. So liberate yourself a bit and focus on your own boyfriend, your own life, and what you enjoy in life. You know, you can watch what they're doing, but you can't wrap your mind around it. Your mother needs a psychologist, and you don't want to be her psychologist. That's not fair to you. Thank you.

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

I told a guy, "I love him." What I meant to say was, "Oh, I love that." But I got so caught up that I yelled out, "Oh, I love you." And then all of a sudden he got this look on his face like Indiana Jones running from the big ball.

Well, Roz, do you love him?

No, but I said it, so he should have said it back. It's just polite.

There is no more emotionally charged phrase in the language than "I love you." Some people are just incapable of saying it. It makes them too vulnerable. And I can remember times when someone said, "I love you," and I'm on automatic pilot, and I said it back, and I just felt like I betrayed myself. It robs me of the meaning of those three words, "I love you." And so you want to learn how not to have those knee-jerk reactions. If somebody said, "Oh, you look absolutely stunning," and you look at them and say, "Oh, you do too," when they know it’s not the truth, and you know it’s not the truth—they may be in dumpy clothes—you’re just not able to properly accept a compliment that maybe you've earned. That's hard for many of us. And how do you do that? That’s one of the many things we can talk about. How do you give praise and how do you accept it? How do you say loving things to people only when you really mean it? And how do you resist that polite temptation to respond in kind—maybe to an alcoholic uncle or something, and he says you’re the greatest thing ever, and you look at him and say you are too, and you're not feeling that way. You don't want to do that. You want to coach yourself in advance so that you can stay true to yourself and still be cordial, still be nice, without saying words that you don't mean, because then it makes your words empty.

For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DrKenner.com.

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

A big romance destroyer is emotional repression, which is a psychological defense mechanism that prevents painful emotions from entering into conscious awareness through a standing order to your subconscious: don't feel. This works in the narrow sense, in that it’s possible to not let yourself feel emotions. The result, however, is a deadening of your emotional vibrancy. The mechanism of repression is a Trojan horse. It seems to benefit you, but in the end, it works against you. Why? Because the standing order "don't feel" cannot discriminate between positive and negative emotions. It can only block emotional responsiveness as such. Thus, a repressed person becomes an emotional cripple who cannot fully experience feelings and therefore does not show much emotion at all.

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