The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

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

And now let's go to our after hours line. Dr. Kenner, my question is this: My husband, five years, has recently taken a job that calls him out of town five days a week. It's a fabulous job, and he loves it very much. But I, myself, I can't seem to cope with the fact that he's out of town. All I do is cry. I'm completely unproductive. I hate being away from him. I feel selfish, but at the same time, I can't make myself get over...

So the first thing, when I hear you talking about this, I can hear how sad you are. I can hear that it feels uncontrollable, and the first thing you need to do is have enormous empathy for yourself, that this is a major change and you're not both experiencing this exciting moment in his life equally. It's like having a kid graduate and the kid's so excited to go off to college, and you're so sad because you're going to miss your child.

So your husband?s not leaving like a child would. Your husband?s going to be coming back on weekends if he's gone five days a week. But still, I would be devastated myself if my husband were to leave five days a week. You know, he got a fabulous job. Okay? So he's all excited about his life, and now what do I do with my life?

So the first clue that you have is your tears, these uncontrollable tears. I would get some paper out and a pen and just let those tears speak. If my tears could speak, what would they say? And initially you might say, I don't know. But then you might say, I feel so alone. I miss his touch. I miss having him next to me in bed. For five years we've been together. I miss that rhythm of our days. I have no one to share my thoughts with during the day.

Whatever the thoughts are, you pull them out of your head, uncensored, and you might say, this is not what I was thinking our marriage would be like. And he's so happy about it, and I don't think I could take this for a long time. And I wanted to start a family, and how are we going to do it? Because even if I did get pregnant on some weekend when he's home, I'm not going to have him with me during the week for that excitement of starting a family and the support. And it just makes me feel very empty.

So you need to get all those types of thoughts out in the open, and you need to mourn the loss. You need to respect it. It's a grief process that the rhythm of your days, the way they were, won't be the same going forward if he loves this job. And if you try to say, you can't keep this job, you know, you're going to become a source of guilt for him, and that's not going to do much for the relationship.

And you could ask yourself some introspective questions too, which is like, what does his accepting this job say about him? You know he's excited about you. What does it say about me? Is there a self-esteem issue, maybe some abandonment issues, or just a drastic change in life? And what does it say about your life together? You may be thinking, maybe I'm not important enough that he can take this job. So if you're having some doubts like, maybe he doesn't trust me, or maybe he doesn't love me, maybe you don't trust him, those are things that you want possibly some short-term supportive therapy for.

Or you could get the book Mind Over Mood by Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky. They have a wonderful exercise that has helped me through such difficult times, and it's called a thought record, where if your thoughts are running away and making you enormously sad, like there's no sunshine at the other end, it can help you see which thoughts are realistic and you need to accept and which are maybe off the wall. You know, they may have some facts or maybe no facts at all.

So what else can you do?

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. 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.

So what else can you do? Well, you want to stay connected with him. You love him so you can send each other quick funny texts throughout the day, or little emojis. You can keep in touch with him by phone, by email. You can ask for his suggestions. You know, ask him what he thinks you could do to stay really closely bonded. And you could ask him short stories about his day and share stories about your day. And maybe you can even travel with him at some point. It may be just once or just to get a feel for his life.

So another thing I thought of is that possibly you could plan things during the weekend so you have something to look forward to. He will be home on weekends.

Another point is that you can remember times when you were very resourceful. You came across some bumps in the road, and you were able to manage them. Well, this is a bump in the road. It's a very difficult bump for your marriage. If you can draw on your own personal strengths, that helps.

And finally, I would say, build a life filled with things that you enjoy. So think of what hobbies or classes or exercise endeavors might I love that would make me excited to get up in the morning. Maybe I want to connect with a friend I haven't seen in a while, and you can look at it as an opportunity to create a little wider scope of living for yourself since he won't be around, and you'll also have some stories to share with him.

So again, you want to have a lot of empathy for yourself. Mourn the loss of what your relationship was like. You want to be able to, in some sense, cheer him on because he's got a job he loves. If you don't have a job you love, maybe it's an unmet need of yours that you want to go back to the drawing board and see if you can find something that you would love too. But you want to create a day for yourself each day of the week, the weekdays of what you're looking at, that make you want to take on the day, that have something fun in them.

And I hope that helps you.

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 and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke:

One skill necessary for effective communication between romantic partners?and anyone for that matter?is to listen attentively and politely with full focus for clear understanding. If you're tired or distracted, let your partner know that this isn't the best time to discuss anything important. Such consideration sends the message that you value your partner. However, sometimes you need to listen even when you're tired, because your partner may be in great need at that moment. Give suggestions only if it is clear that your partner wants them. Often, your partner simply wants to feel understood.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com