The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

In The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com. Here is a question I received on romance. The person is asking, am I being a perfectionist in my relationship? And I think that's the wrong question to ask. So you think, oh my God, is he being really petty? Is he upset because maybe the pillows are put on the bed the wrong way, or, you know, the proverbial the toilet seat is left up or down or whatnot. Here, see what you think about this.

Hi, Dr. Kenner. About a year ago, I was meandering through life aimlessly. Then I began dating my girlfriend, Megan. We connected because of a strong sexual attraction and some minor similarities in hobbies. We are both looking for a lifetime relationship. So so far, all looks good.

Soon after, I started reading Ayn Rand's novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead, and I realized the importance of sharing deep values with a potential lifetime partner. I love my girlfriend very much, and we get along swimmingly 99% of the time. So when you hear, I love my mother, what comes next? I love my kids, but here comes the but. But we are night and day when it comes to important values. She's in her early 20s, a socialist, and she thinks everybody ought to live to serve others. She makes choices based mostly on her gut emotions.

I have changed after reading Ayn Rand's works. I am no longer meandering through my life. I am setting goals and working to make rational, longer-range choices. I am enjoying my own growth. I am worried about our differences. I'm afraid they will lead to unresolvable conflict and an unhappy relationship. The differences are not cropping up often enough to move us apart, and this is the longest and most successful relationship I have had so far. I would hate to ruin a good thing by overly focusing on negatives. Thanks, Michael.

So your question is, am I being a perfectionist? And I think you need to reframe that to: are we a good fit for a long-term relationship which we both want?

And here are some of my thoughts on that. So your differences concern you enough that you are reaching out and wanting to explore your own ambivalence, and that is a skill. Exploring your ambivalence, if you feel two ways about the same situation, bring it out in the open, shine the light of day on it.

So on one hand, you're very attracted to your girlfriend sexually, and you enjoy some minor hobbies, and you sound proud of your own success at having a relationship last for almost a year. But what else?

On the other hand, you're increasingly recognizing the potential conflict arising from what you call night-and-day differences, and you have those in critically important areas. For example, how you use your mind, making choices. She just goes by emotions, by gut, unanalyzed emotions, and the goal, and this would be good for her to know if she wants to, would be to understand your emotions?not to dismiss them?but never to just act on pure emotions. You know, I'm going by my gut. Understand what the thoughts are underlying your emotions to see if they are valid or not.

You know, I just think I'm going to pour a lot of money into the lottery because I feel like I'm going to win. That's not a good choice. That's not a good guide for your own action.

The second area is your view of yourself with respect to others. It is very important if your goal is to value your life, to help yourself flourish and to embrace those you love and to encourage everybody else that you know and want to encourage, to enjoy their lives too. So it's win-win. But she selflessly feels like she has to serve others.

Those are red flags that your mind is sending up, saying, ?Think about these more, Michael.? And here's the great thing about what you're telling me: you are growing. You are taking your own life more seriously than you did when you meandered. You're setting personally rewarding goals, and you're enjoying the process of using your own mind better, and you're taking pride in your own progress.

Now you want to take the next step, which is not brushing these night-and-day differences under the rug. You want to learn how to introspect. You want to ask yourself, what is essential in a partner for my happiness and hers too? And so look at your choice-making going forward. If you decide to have a long-term relationship or a marriage with her, how you relate to family? Will she always be focused on others? How will you relate if you do any volunteer work and she gets very involved in socialist movements? What about friends? If she's always doing for others first? What happens when you guys become very comfortable with one another? Will she put others ahead of you too, because you're kind of part of her? Now, that typically happens.

So I recommend a book that Dr. Ed Locke and I wrote. It is possible to grow together. She could change her ideas. I don't think you will, but you could give it a shot. She could read some of the books that are so important to you and see if she wants to embrace any of them. And if not, it's better that you find out now than later.

It is possible to grow together. My husband and I did that. There are deal breakers in relationships, and in our book, we call it The Selfish Path to Romance, and we're very proud of that. We mean the self-esteem, self-nurturing, mutually self-valuing path to romance. How to Love with Passion and Reason is our subtitle. You can get it?the first chapter is free online. You can get it on amazon.com.

In that book, we talk about deal breakers, which you're not saying that she has any of these major problems of poor moral character or psychological problems such as substance abuse, or she's not abusive. You guys get along well with each other. But there should be no no-go areas in a relationship. So do not sweep those important differences under the rug. You want to analyze your emotions.

The goal is, are we a good fit for one another? And you want to really?in a great relationship?you share the same fundamental values, and the minor ones can differ. My husband can enjoy taking classes that I don't enjoy on history, and I can enjoy taking classes on teaching that he may not love. So you can have minor differences.

But man, if you differ on how you're going to bring up the kids, whether you're going to bring them up religious. What religion? Or no religion? If you differ on other major issues, sex won't be enough to hold it together.

I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner. I don't avoid thinking about the situation. Embrace it and talk with one another about it too.

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 by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner:

Many people lack the communication skills needed to maintain a thriving romantic relationship. If you don't communicate effectively, you make yourself less lovable and you undermine romance. What are the signs that someone isn't communicating well? The most obvious is that the person is unwilling to listen or refuses to make any effort to understand you. Some of the most common methods used to avoid dealing with problems in communication include sarcasm, verbally attacking you and then playing it off as a joke, not being fully focused on you, bossing you around, nagging, screaming, being unjustifiably critical, interrupting you when you speak, using the silent treatment, walking out on you or being indifferent to you.

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