The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

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

Dear Dr. Kenner,

My wife and I are divorcing, and I don't want it to happen. I know I can't stop it, but I'm having much trouble accepting it, and it's made me an emotional cripple. It's making my life miserable. I know she doesn't love me, and probably never has, but I love her more than she will ever know. I just can't stop loving her and thinking of her. I've been receiving the typical advice from well-meaning sources, but it's nothing that I didn't already know or try. Can you tell me something tangible that I can use to stop this emotional pain and suffering that I'm experiencing? If I don't do something soon, I fear I will just lose control and react in a very irrational way. Please help me take the pain away.

Ron

Okay, Ron, first thing is, if you are losing someone you genuinely love, you've got to go through the grief process. So I'm not going to take your pain away. I mean, that part of your pain you've got to deal with. It's a loss, it's a legitimate loss, and you're very sad about it. You've got to let yourself cry and feel the pain. If you try to repress it, you'll do more damage in the future, because you'll be afraid of your own emotions. The second thing I would stop immediately is don't tell yourself you're an emotional cripple. Don't frame it as that you will act in an irrational way because your subconscious hears what you say. It's like sending an order down saying, act in an irrational way if you can't get out of this and now you're an emotional cripple. Instead, reframe it as you're a person going through a lot of stress, and you want to have empathy for yourself. You want to treat yourself as your own best friend. My guess is you wouldn't tell your friend to act in an irrational way or that he or she is an emotional cripple.

Next, recognize that it’s very possibly a self-esteem wound. If your wife has good character traits, which I'm assuming, and she's leaving you, you may feel, "I'm not a good person if she doesn't love me," which will make you want to cling to her. If you know you’re already a lovable person, then you need social support. You need to see it in the eyes of those who admire and love you. If you’re not a lovable person, make yourself more lovable. Use this as an opportunity for self-growth. Also, you wouldn’t want your wife to stay with you if she genuinely doesn’t love you. If she stayed, she would be resentful of you. You would know that you were an object of pity, and that's not going to help anyone.

So I highly recommend that you give yourself some help, maybe get some therapy to help yourself through the grief process and manage this better.

Here's a little more from Dr. Kenner:

"Dad and I had another fight, so I'm afraid if we stay under the same roof together, we'll do irreparable harm to the relationship we have as it is."

You might remember why you moved him in, in the first place. You wanted to get closer to Dad.

"I still do. There isn't anything I'd like more, but he makes it impossible. I can't read my book, I can't have my coffee, I can't have any peace in my own home."

So what you're saying is you want to be closer to Dad, but you don't actually want him around.

Okay? Now that was Niles, obviously, that's from Frasier. Niles equivocating, meaning he's trying to make Frasier feel guilty. Niles doesn't want to take Dad in, and so he's trying to say, "You know, you want to get closer to Dad, but you don't want him around," meaning you're full of contradictions, buddy. You know you want Dad, and you don't want Dad, but that is not the case. Niles is wrong. There is not a one of us alive that doesn't enjoy our privacy, that doesn't enjoy downtime, time alone, especially if the healthier you are. You enjoy your own mind, you enjoy your own company, and your style of living may be very different from your father's or your mother's, even if they're very good people. One may be a little messier. You may be messier than your parents, or your parents, like Dad, his dad, Frasier's dad, loves his old, torn-up chair. And so Frasier's got this very good, this gorgeous apartment—very clean, very modern apartment—and Dad comes in with a dumpy old chair with duct tape on it. Or, I think it's duct tape, and it just…you know, it doesn't mean that you mesh with style.

So what I'm saying is, it's totally legitimate to value your privacy. It's totally proper to be able to say, "I love my father or mother, and I would never want to live with my father or mother," meaning you have a different pace of living, a different style of living. Not that the parent’s immoral, and that you want to stay close to that parent. So if you're struggling with that, if you feel like you have caretaker responsibilities, and you wish your… if it’s an elderly parent, were in assisted living, it's good for the parents sometimes to be in assisted living because they get their own dignity back. They’re not barging in and living off their children. If they want to live off their children and ruin their lives the way their children ruined their lives, then I wouldn’t go for that. I don't think that's right. I don't think anybody has a right to be an unwanted burden on somebody else. Unless you have very young kids—if you're a parent and you have kids and you don’t want your kids because they have bad character traits, then you obviously need therapy. And family therapy, I would recommend there, but you don't have to take on, if there are other alternatives, the unwanted applications.

Of course, Frasier and his dad…you know, they get along so well at other times that this is just an out-of-context moment for them.

Right now, I want to turn to our after-hours line for a parent who's struggling with potty training. Toilet training. We’ve all been there.

"I've got a problem with a three-year-old child. He sometimes goes to potty, and sometimes he doesn't go. What could be the problem? We do all kinds of things to try to get him to go, but he does it one day, and then another day, he does it on the floor."

What could be causing this?

Okay, when you're talking about potty training, first, you want to rule out any mechanical problems, which are doubtful. But you can talk to the pediatrician and see if he's in good working order. If all his parts are working well, then what it could be is anxiety or anger, any emotions. Very often, kids and parents get into power struggles over potty training. Parents, as you say, do all kinds of things, but you didn’t name what you do. Sometimes they try to bribe, and when bribing doesn’t work, they get angry. Then they get frustrated. I mean, if he poops on the floor, you can be really frustrated if you’re late for a doctor’s appointment, or you're late for getting to some event that you want to go to. And if the kid’s doing it, if you belittle the kid, which makes the kid more anxious, he’s more likely to do it more and more. Or he may get angry at you because you're belittling him, and then you enhance the problem rather than diminish it.

So several things: sometimes parents treat an accident that a kid has as a crisis, and they make a mountain out of a molehill. You don't want to do that. Sometimes kids have been traumatized, and it’s a cry for help for kids. I doubt this is the case, but it's always good to rule this out. If there's been any sexual abuse, sometimes kids will act up to get their parents' attention as a way to say, "Hey, please pay attention to me. Something bad is happening in my life, and I can't tell you." Sexual perpetrators often try to keep kids silenced by either bribery or threats. If it's just anger, and you may be angry back with him, and you feel a power struggle developing, then you want to get the book How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk, which is on my website. It helps you avoid all those power struggles and to work with your child to help them. You respect their mind. You don’t try to force their mind, you don’t try to humiliate them. You don’t make it a big crisis, but you do set boundaries. You’re not one of those parents who are like doormats, letting your kids walk all over you. And that book will give you a lot of good tips. Again, that’s on my website, DrKenner.com. It’s by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish: How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologists Dr. Kenner and Dr. Ed Locke:

Look at what a potential partner likes or doesn't like in the arts: greatness, mediocrity, or depravity. Ask what this person aspires to, and observe if there's any action taken toward these goals. Note how this person views his or her work. Is this person passionate about it, or is it just a job? Do they resent the responsibility of earning a living? See whom this person chooses for friends—admirable individuals or people who are empty or just no good. Romantic partners don't have to and should not share all values. It would be boring to marry a near replica of yourself. You want your soulmate to be another self, but only in a fundamental sense—not in every detail.

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