The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Here is a question I received on having a baby. For those of you who have had a baby or are pregnant right now, can you remember back to your first child? If you're just pregnant right now, this will be your first child. And what went through your mind? Were you prepared for having a baby or not prepared for having a baby? Do you wish now, if you've already had your kids, like I have, that you could go back and tell your young self, "Hey, don't worry as much"? Well, here is a woman who I don't think she's pregnant yet, but she has a question.

Hi, Dr. Kenner, my boyfriend, Carla, and I are planning on having a baby. So it sounds like it's in the future. However, the next sentence says, "It will be my first child." So I don't know if it's present, but I'm going to assume that they're planning on having a baby. It will be my first child, but he already has two kids, and it makes me very sad that I won't be able to give him his first child. Listen to those words: "I won't be able to give him his first child." I always wanted to experience that with my child's father, having our first child together and learning together. I keep breaking up with him, and I think this is the reason.

Kara, first, I'm going to take this as if you're planning on having a baby, and then I'll talk about it as if, oh my gosh, you're pregnant now, and what do you do at this stage. So if you're just planning on having a baby and you're not actually pregnant, you want to understand your ambivalence. In therapy, we call it exploring your ambivalence. Why am I feeling so mixed up? Why am I breaking up with Carl and then getting back together with him, then dreaming of having a baby, then integrating the fact that he already has two kids, and this isn't going to be a lot of fun? It isn't going to be a lot of fun because he's already been there, done this, and this is all old news for him, and I want it to be fresh and exciting for both of us. And, oh, you know what to do. There are two things that strike me.

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.

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.

There are two things that strike me. One is that you're saying that you won't be able to give him his first child. And that, to me, raised a little red flag. Honey, this is your first child if you're planning on having one, and you want to keep the focus that this is your first child, whether or not it's his first, second, or third. And if you truly love him and plan to marry him, hopefully, so you have some commitment there. If you truly love him and want to be with him and have already integrated the fact that he's got the other kids, maybe even like the kids, then you can reframe the situation as, "I can learn from him. He's been through this before, so it will be a new experience with me." And you can make it more exciting for yourself. You do need to do that work of letting go of expectations that you can't have, that he has no kids, and just rethink the whole thing, putting it in a new picture frame. We call it reframing.

If you are ambivalent because you don't know if you want the whole package—maybe you love Carl, but maybe not enough to marry, and maybe not enough to have a baby, and maybe not enough to take on the responsibility of his older children—if that's the case, then your subconscious may be saying, "Honey, Honey, don't. Don't get pregnant yet." So you have every right to break up with him if you're feeling that this is not the type of relationship you want, because you'll even have the, probably the kids' mother in the picture too. And I'm not sure if you want that. Some people, many people do that. Obviously, there are many second and third marriages where the families have already been established, and people "blend" their families, so to speak. Sometimes it doesn't blend that well, but that's something to work out.

You can get the book that I wrote with Dr. Ed Locke. It's got a provocative title, The Selfish Path to Romance: How to Love with Passion and Reason. And by "selfish," we mean that you never lose yourself in a relationship. You don't do things just for him. You wanted him to have his first child, to give him his first child when you're not focused on yourself. It would be your first child too.

So here's the second situation. If you are pregnant already, this is a 24/7 job. And if you're pregnant, the question is, why haven't you married? Are you considering marrying? And you really want to do a lot of thinking about where the ambivalence is coming from and get yourself some therapy. You can go to the website Academy of Cognitive Therapy at cognitive therapy.org, and find a therapist in your neck of the woods. If you're deciding, "Do I want to be a single parent, or do I want to integrate my life with him?" Do a lot of thinking.

There is a very interesting therapy card deck. It has 52 questions for before having a baby or if you're planning on having a baby. This is by John and Julie Gottman—G-O-T-T-M-A-N. I think their website is fivesisters.com, and there are two decks of cards: one is questions before marriage or moving in, and the other is questions before having a baby. Let me just read one question: "How will having a child change your lifestyle—smoking, drug use, sleep hours, work hours, spontaneity, free time?" And I'll do another question: "If you have a partner, how will you nourish your relationship as a couple when there is a child vying for your attention and affection?" So these are cards that you take, one at a time, and you sit down and talk about them. You can look at them first by yourself, and then talk about them with each other. They're very good introspective cards.

Also, I highly recommend getting some professional help for yourself, because you don't want to make the wrong choice. You want to minimize any problems.

Here’s a little more from Dr. Kenner:

I'm sorry, I'm just getting fed up with this nonsense. I'm getting names all the time, even last week, twice, I forgot where I parked my car. Join the club, pal, you're getting older. Oh, well, of course, I'm getting older. We're all getting older. I'm not that old.

And have you had that problem? Have you said, "Oh my gosh, I just met her. She told me her name twice already, and what was it again? Marie? Mary? I forget. Maybe it was something different." And, "Oh, what's wrong with me? I don't know what's happening to my mind. Am I losing it? Oh, my God. Am I getting dementia, or am I going to have Alzheimer's like my mother?" We torture ourselves like this.

Or how many times have you walked into a parking garage or a parking lot and said to yourself, "Oh, where did I park the car? I have no idea." And then, if you have one of those keys that beep, you're pushing it, hoping you can find it. And if you're in Disney World, forget it—such a huge parking lot.

So many times, we really damn ourselves. And there are times when you do need to attend to it, because maybe there is something going on memory-wise, but most of the time, it’s normal—it’s just everyday forgetting. We're not focused that much when we meet somebody, or we attend to what they're saying. We don't listen to their name. It just floats off our awareness. Or we're not focused when we park the car. We're just focused on getting into the movie theater, or doing some shopping, and not focused on where we parked it.

So we can either make a little effort to learn how to park better or to retain names, or just not beat up on yourself. I have a policy. I'm a clinical psychologist, and because I've worked with so many people who've come to me with worries about their memory, which are really ungrounded—they have good memory, they're in very good health and fitness—I have decided for myself, "I am not going to play that game with myself. I am not going to torture myself with 'Oh my God, what ifs.'" And here's what tends to happen: when I forget something, when I say, "Oh my gosh, I forgot his name, and we used to be good friends," I just say to myself, "It's okay, Ellen, the name will come to you a little bit later." And I just relax my mind, let it go, and guess what? It pops up a little bit later. If I say, "Oh my God, I'll never remember that name. What's wrong with me now?" my subconscious is hearing, "Oh my god, there's something terribly wrong with you. You have a bad memory," and you make it worse. You introduce increased anxiety, and now it's going to be harder to access that name.

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

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by Drs. Kenner and Locke:

A number of factors undermine sexual arousal and enjoyment. Anger and resentment are romance destroyers, so obviously, they are sex destroyers too. In a Newsweek cover story, No Sex, Please, We're Married, one woman said, "I get angry because he doesn't help around the house enough or with the kids. He sees the groceries sitting on the counter—why doesn't he take them out of the bag and put them away? How can I get sexy when I'm ticked off all the time?" Observe that helping is one of this woman's love languages.

It is important to have a mutually agreed-upon division of labor regarding household chores, career, financial issues, and parenting responsibilities. This sets the proper context for a healthy sex life. When each partner feels that the other is fair and supportive, romance is much more likely to flourish.

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