This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI AM six forty, the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty.
You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show
on a Beautiful Mother's Day. If it is a beautiful Mother's Day, depending
on the mother you had or have, I guess we're going to be talking
a lot about the complicated relationships many of us have with our moms. We
also want to talk during the show today about some phrases that people use very
commonly in their adult romantic relationships that can be very hurtful and not very functional.
And also some things you should be saying. And if you're a mom,
I am going to pull you off the guilt train, because it is
hard to be a good mom in a hostile world that doesn't support motherhood.
I have a researcher at the end of the show from the University of Ohio
who's going to talk to us about a study she did, and of that
study of a thousand mothers, she found that fifty two percent we're not talking
to their adult daughters. We will unpack this. Okay, hang with me.
First of all, I want to say, hello, Raoul in the
booth. You are training a new person. Ed, Hi, Ed,
how are you? You don't have a mic? There you go? Awesome?
How are you good? Welcome to the show. Thank you so much.
Happy Mother's Day to you, Mother's Day to my signific other my family
members out there. Happy Mother's Day to all my sisters. Oh that's wonderful.
Thank you. Mark Ronner. Do you have a mother? My mom
is no longer with us. I hope she is at piece. My grandparents
kind of raised me. So when I think of Mother's Day, I think
of my grandmother. Yeah, it's mother figures, is what it is.
Producer Kayla, how are you hey? Doctor Wendy who also lost your mom
early? I did early Mother's Day bring up for you the sadness, sadness,
sadness. But I do have amazing siblings and we lean on each other
and we always and I love you text messages and just yeah I got my
siblings. But yeah, definitely rough. And you know, Mother's Day also
is one of those Hallmark holidays, folks. Let's just remember it's designed to
sell flowers and brunch and champagne and chocolate and whatever. So let's not make
as much out of it as we think we should. On the other hand,
there is this nice day of the year where it's good to celebrate mothers.
I happen to be at it, like a takeout Delhi getting a picnic
to go hiking this morning, and I was seeing all these dads and kids
buying takeout food and there wasn't a mother in sight. And my friend who
was with me said, I thought it was Mother's Day. Why aren't the
mothers with their kids? And I'd like, no, no, no,
the mothers are at the spas, or the mothers are in bed sleeping in
That's the whole point of Mother's Day, to take a rest. When my
kids were young, they used to make me breakfast and sometimes very runny eggs
and sometimes tea made out of hot tap water. But it was very sweet
for them to bring me back breakfast in bed. Now both my kids are
ones living in Paris and one's up in Santa Cruz, so I did get
some texts and love. But I have to say, you know, last
week I was telling you that I'd moved again, and one of the things
I love about moving. Besides perching and throwing away things, makes me so
great is digging out. You know that Marie Condo woman, that one who
does the whole makeover thing and makes you put all your junk in the middle
of the room. Everything you own, not that kind of junk, Kayla,
and you're stuff. And then she makes you like look at it and
hold it in your hand and say, does this thing bring me joy?
And if it doesn't, throw it away. So her belief system, and
I believe this too, that when we keep stuff on the back shelf down
below, in drawers, in closets, stuffed away, they still exist and
the memories and feelings associated with those items in the background of our brain.
So when we get a chance to pull the stuff out, it can and
if we throw it away, we can throw away the memories and all the
trappings, the negative feelings. If it's meant that to happen. But I
had the opposite thing happen to me. I was going through old boxes and
I found so many Mother's Day cards from my kids. Think of it,
two kids eighteen Mother's Day times two that's thirty six mother cards. Sometimes they
had to make one at school and another one at home, and one with
a babysit or whatever. So and I kept them all so it's not like
they have to do more than a text and a little FaceTime video for me
anymore, because there's nothing more sweet than opening up a card from fifteen years
ago and saying you're the best mommy in the world. And you know the
crazy little drawings they would do of me. I had very weird hair and
weird hands in those pictures, but I spent I shed a few tears reading
some of those because those were really great years. Motherhood is hard, Motherhood
is a burden, motherhood is taxing, and motherhood is one of the most
meaningful things that eighty percent of women do. I say that because I want
to remind everybody that through the history of our human species, evolutionary psychologists will
tell you that twenty percent of human females do not biologically reproduce. Why we
needed a mom and a spare right, We needed extra women in the village.
Anthropologists call them aloe mothers or aloe parents. Those are the cousins and
sisters and aunties and uncles and brothers and other people who don't bear kids who
help us because we are cooperative readers. So I want to tell you a
little bit about the story of my mom. She in many ways was a
single mother because my father was in the Navy, and he was gone most
of the time. He was gone in an inconsistent path at least seven months
a year, right, so she really did the burden of raising the three
of us. We were often living on foreign military bases with no family support.
She often found the church as her base. You know, we'd find
whatever parish. And my mother did two wonderful things for me and a couple
not wonderful things for me. And this is how you can tell somebody had
as a good, healthy relationship with their mother, moll. My mother died
of breast cancer when I was thirty. But is like if you asked somebody
about their mother. Let's say you're going on a date with somebody and say,
tell me about your mother. Or you're a therapist who say you tell
me about your mother. If they do one of two extremes, if they
say, oh, my gosh, I had the best mother in the world.
She was so perfect. I loved it. She baked cookie, she
drove me where we were, actually dedicated herself to me it was so great,
or they say my mother was all rotten and awful and I don't talk
to her. You know, you got two issues there that are both issues.
Right. To have a healthy perspective of parenthood is we start to look
back and see them as human beings and realize that they often did the best
that they could with the tools that they had that they you know, are
humans who are going to make mistakes. So here's what my mom did.
Great. She was really really good at taking care of us when we were
sick. I mean, I have this memory of me that's embedded. When
you're sick, you got wrapped in a little blanket, put in front of
a rocking chair, on her lap, in front of the fire, and
she would sing a lullaby and rock us with a little baby tail in all.
Whatever they gave back that expect then they were giving us two twenty twos
in Canada. Do you know what two twenty twos are? Ka lops?
Sounds like I get your high. They've got codeine in them. Oh god,
I think you can go to Canada Pharmacy dot com right now, you
can. She was getting us high. But anyway, she was really good
on the other hand, she had a little bit of munchhause, and by
proxy she would over rely on doctors. I have since read research on munchaus
and by proxy it didn't even have a name until the seventies. It's not
that mother's deliberately make their kids sick, and they want their kids to be
sick, but it's their overattention to every ache and pain that a kid has.
Naturally that the kid realizes, oh, if I'm more sick, I
get more love. And when I say, the kid realizes, not mentally,
they don't consciously do it. Their body gets sick. Their body cooperates
because the mother and child function as one thing. So there's the downside of
it. Then the other side is my mom was the greatest champion of me.
She told me I could do anything, and that I could. I
mean she would do things like one time she read a biography written by this
woman who is on the West coast of Canada. We lived on the East
coast of Canada. It's like someone in New York right into somebody in La
or So or San Francisco, and so my mom reads it. This woman
started a bird sanctuary somewhere. My mom reads this book, reads it to
us, thinks it's so amazing she's done this with her life. She writes
to her. The woman writes back, Okay, this is the seventies,
right, early seventies. There's no internet, writes back, And so my
mom says, we're going on a vacation there now. We loaded up the
station wagon and we drove three thousand miles. We bought a boat. We
went out to her island. We slept on the boat and visit her in
a bird sanctuary. But what was she teaching me? Everybody's equal, everybody's
accessible. You can go anywhere, do anything if something interests you. That's
the best part. The worst part is she didn't understand that the world could
be dangerous, and she sent me out into places that were often unprotected.
And so again this is a healthy version of looking at your parent. They
did great things, they made a few mistakes. I learned through this they
grew the gap. We're going to talk later in the show more about motherhood.
Also, I was a single mother for eighteen years. I got a
little bit advice of things that worked for me. So, if you happen
to be a new mother or a mother of young kids, I'm going to
give you some Auntie wisdom about how you can do the best for your kids.
We're also going to be talking about your romantic relationships. In fact,
we're going to do that, and later in the show, I have a
researcher coming on who talks about why some mothers and daughters are a strange.
A strange is that the right word? Astranged? Estranged, they're separated,
they don't talk. I'll get them mad at each other. Let's say that.
But let's talk about your love relationships first when we come back. There's
certain things that people say, little phrases that they're not even thinking, very
thoughtless phrases that can be very damaging in an adult intimate relationship. Let's talk
about those phrases when we come back, and why you shouldn't say them and
what you should say instead. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show
on kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I AM six forty KM
six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show. I'd like to welcome my Instagram audience. If you would
like to come into the studio vision, you're welcome to log onto my Instagram.
The handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. That's at Dr Wendy Walsh.
I am live on Instagram now. People that have been telling me they've been
watching all over the country and the continent and indeed the world. That's what's
so cool about social media. You know, I have been a reminder after
this segment, I'm going to open up the phone lines and I'm going to
be taking your relationship questions. Reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm a
psychology professor, but I have been reading about and writing about the science of
love for a few decades. I've written three books on relationships. My dissertation
was on attachment theory. And I'm just obsessed with the biological, the psychological,
and the sociological pieces of love and I love to share the education with
everybody. So I will be opening up the phone lines after this segment and
be taking your calls. I'm just going to throw the number out there now,
but you guys, if your KFI listener, you know it. It's
one eight hundred and five two zero one kfi. That's one eight hundred five
to zero one five three four. But first, I have often said that
relationships are far more about skill than they are luck, and I will hear
people often saying things like, you know, if I could just meet the
right one, or if it happens for me. Well, first of all,
love doesn't just happen, and you don't just meet the right one,
You actually become the right one, and then more people are appropriate for you.
Right. Relationships about learning skills, and one of the most important skills
to get you through your relationships are conflict resolution skills. And I feel like,
you know, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I feel like more
and more people seem to be losing the ability to have good, healthy conflict.
You know, the research shows that the healthiest couples the ones who say
they have the most feelings of well being in their relationships, whose relationships last
the longer, longest, and bring them the most happiness, those relationships actually
have the most amount of conflict. Now bear me out. They're not knocked
down, drag them out battles. What they are are little border skirmishes all
day long, little tiny negotiations of boundaries so that everybody understands. You know,
I always say a relationship is like a ven diagram with two circles.
Right, you got one partner and the other partner, and they overlap in
the relationships in the middle, and so there's always going to be boundary negotiation
on a regular basis. The problem is when you get into conflict with somebody,
if you have not been given healthy conflict resolution skills as a child,
you're going to be treading water and you're gonna have a hard time swimming out
of there. Right. Sometimes people will say that people fight dirty with their
language. Words matter. So let's talk about some of the things people say
in relationships during the heat of the moment, which can cause more damage than
good. Oh this is my favorite. I hear it all the time.
You should know, You should just know, right, like your partner's a
mind reader. Like your partner is supposed to figure out all the needs that
you have. Now this is a fantasy, right, It's like you've got
this loss from childhood. You're mad at whatever parent that didn't satisfy your needs.
You pick this romantic partner and now you expect them to be the mind
reader. I've actually seen people post in their dating profiles. I'm looking for
somebody who just gets it, gets what you and reads your mind. No,
if you don't tell your partner what you need, if you don't tell
your partner where your boundary is, you can't get angry with them that they
were just being them and happen to step on one of your boundaries. You
can't say you should just know, because nobody should just know. Now,
there's two words in the heat of the moment that also cause a lot of
damage. Always and never, right, You always do that because you're never
on time? Okay, really, let's think about it logically. Is your
partner one hundred percent always the bad one in the situation, always making that
same mistake one hundred percent? M Is your partner never attending to whatever it
is you want them to tend to. No, sometimes they do, and
sometimes they miss a beat. But when you say always or never, what
they're hearing is a global assessment of character that they're a bad person. You
know, the saying, can you tell a bad person they're bad, they
get worse? They identify with that, all right, is it probably the
worst thing that you could say to me because I used to have a kind
of anxious, ambivalent attachment style, and I always felt like I was being
pushed away, and I was attached to avoidant people a little. I don't
want to talk about it, That's what they would say. I don't want
to talk about it. And it would be like this thing. I needed
to talk about this thing, and they'd say I don't want to talk about
it, or they change the subject, change the channel, walk out of
the room, be dismissive. You know what. According to the work of
the Gottman's up at the University of Washington and the Marriage Lab, they say
this is the number one thing that will kill love because when a partner is
dismissed, they will eventually find somebody who will listen. And that will a
person will either be a lawyer or a lover. Right, So you can't
You've got to find you. You can say I can't talk about it now
because I'm feeling overwhelmed by this topic. Could we talk after dinner when I've
had some food, or could we can I go for a walk and then
and sort things out of my head and then I'd like to address this with
you. That's what you need to do. Oh, here's a bad one,
you guys. Please, It's along the same lines. If I don't
want to talk about it, it's a I don't care. It's okay,
say what you want, I don't care, whatever, talk to the hand.
It's the same thing. Don't say I don't care, don't say whatever.
Don't say talk to the hand. You can't be dismissive. You've got
to be there in it with the person. And also, don't threaten divorce
in the heat of a moment. Do not threaten divorce. Instead, be
brave, listen, put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Have some empathy for
your partner, you know. Research on long term committed partners who still love
each other finds that they really value their partner. They continue to look up
to their partner. They almost overvalue their partner. So even if you were
like looking at that relationship from the outside, you'd be like, I don't
think that person is that great. As long as the person in the relationship
thinks that person's great, that's all that matters. It's really important that in
the heat of the moment, you don't forget who you fell in love with.
You don't turn them into some evil person in your mind. You've got
to take the moment to talk about stuff that's tender and difficult. Don't walk
away, don't stonewall, don't dismiss them, don't put them down because they
made mistakes. Instead, say hey, let me hear your side of it.
I want to try to understand, help me understand what you're experiencing.
That's good conflict resolution. All right, when we come back, I am
taking your relationship questions. It's my drive by makeshift relationship advice. Remember I
don't have a license. I'm a psychology professor, so it's all in fun.
You can change your name if you want. That's fine. I see
on Instagram a lot of you are posting questions there. Pick up the phone
the numbers one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Producer Kayala
is going to open the phone lines now. That's one eight hundred five two
zero one K five. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show and
KA five Am six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're
listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty Kaye Am
six forty. You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show. Okay, I am taking your calls live and answering your
dms on social media. My social everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh. The
phone number is one eight hundred and five two zero one KFI. That's one
eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Okay, roll, Who
do we have first? Michelle? Michelle? Hello, Michelle, it's doctor
Wendy. Hi, Doctor Wendy. Hi, we're a big fan. Thank
you. What's your question? How long after dating somebody and you haven't met
any of the friends or family? Okay? Should you think that's a while?
Yeah, that's a while. Okay, So let me tell you.
I this book called the Boyfriend Test. How do we evaluate his potential before
you lose your heart? And that's actually one of the questions in the ninety
day Probation Test of my book, where I say, if you've gone like,
okay, it is important to cocoon a little bit. Right. You
just meet somebody, you cozy on down, go into your little cocoon,
but you also want to check them out in terms of their social standing,
their career, their family. You're investigating whether this person could take the job
as partner for life or partner for a long period of time, right,
And so if they're hiding their friends and family, you've got to ask yourself
why. So how long has it been? Can I ask you, Michelle?
Almost a year? Oh ohhh? Okay, too long? And you've
brought it up a number of times. And what are their excuses? Well,
I mean, you know, I understand about the child. I get
that the child's younger, so I get that a divorced person, you know,
I understand not want to introduce, you know, people that you're dating.
However, I'm talking about friends and my just family. Yeah. So
yeah, why do you think he's hiding you? I thought I think he's
trying to figure out if this is a long term as well. Okay,
well it's been a year, Michelle, it's been a year. It's enough
time to investigate. Have you done enough investigation? Yes? And you've learned
that he's not disclosing enough about himself and that's probably not going to work for
you, is my feeling. So I would say this is way too long
to go. This is my opinion, way too long to go, not
meeting friends and family, and if you want to set up a very clear
boundary, it says, Look, if I'm not meeting your friends and family,
you're hiding me for some reason. And this doesn't make me feel happy.
So I'm probably gonna start to look elsewhere and then move on. Yeah,
because this is not don't hang in there. No, no, thank
you so much. You're welcome, Michelle. Thanks recalling. I'm sorry.
I had bad news. Breaks my heart. Give bad news. Okay,
who do we have? Producer? Kayla or raul there roul? Who we
got? Next? We got somebody? I hear Kayla? Who do we
have? Kaylor? Jeremy, Hi, Jeremy. It's doctor Wendy. Hi,
how are you good? What's your question? So my question is I
have a friend, um, and he started dating in a single mom who
is a widow, and he isn't sir if yeah, already has kind of
a little because you know, um, it's nothing personal against her, but
he does. He's not. He's very This is the first person who's ever
dated who's ever lost a spouse, and he really is kind of nervous about
the idea of like she seems very accepting of him, but he's nervous about
is she really ready for a new relationship or is he walking or is he
stepping on toes? Or do you happen to know how long ago she lost
her spouse. I'm about ten years ago. Oh, ten years ago.
Well, I would hope someone's over there grieving. And if they're still grieving
after ten years, then we would call that complicated grieving and they should be
in therapy for sure. And so the children can't be that young anymore.
If it's been ten years since this single mom lost her you know, I
think this is all they're in. They're in there, they're in their teams.
They're teenagers. Yeah, that's usually when mom say, Hey, they're
busy with their friends. I'm gonna get busy with my friend. Uh this,
I don't think this is not a problem. I don't think this is
a problem at all. I give you green light or your friend's green light,
Jeremy, tell them to go for it. Thanks so much for calling.
Okay, producer, Kayla, who do we have now? We have
Sarah with a question. Hi, Sarah, it's doctor Wendy. Hi.
Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Um, I
dated so much for decades and then he moved away and it's been five years,
and um, you know, I spent like half of my life just
going out with him and he did not marry me. But um, I
would thinking that going out. Um maybe, but I, um, what's
stopping you? Well, I'm not working and I don't have enough funny to
go out, and I also I think I'm just not very confident it's about
going out in meeting. So I'm hearing two things, Sarah. One is
I'm hearing that there was this person that you dated for ten whole years,
but that was five years ago, and now you're still thinking about that person
a lot, right, No, I went out with him for a decade,
more than thirty years. Now a decade is ten years, so thirty
years you went out with him decades decades, oh, thirty years. So
this is a very serious, long term relationship. And it sounds like that
you haven't done the full work of getting over the divorce. I know you
mentioned that you're not working and you don't have a lot of self confidence,
etc. You know, you would be a perfect candidate to go and see
a licensed therapist, and there are ways to see a licensed therapist for cheap
or free calling. Every university that has graduate program, for instance, in
psychology, has a counseling center where they work for ten and twenty dollars an
hour. Even because it sounds like you really need to do that personal work
on your self esteem and also to get over that past relationship. So I
really encourage you, Sarah, to reach out and get that help that you
deserve so that you can move on with your life. Thank you so much
for calling. All right, are we do? We have time for one
more row? No, we're going to break all right. When we come
back, I'll still be taking your calls and going to social media. The
numbers one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. You are listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf
I AM six forty. K f I AM six forty, you have doctor
Wendy Walsh with this with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show.
I'm taking your calls. The numbers one eight hundred and five two zero one
five three four. Okay, producer Kayla. Who do we have next?
We have Jeff with the question, Jeff, Hi, Jeff is doctor Wendy.
How are you good? What's your question? So? I have had
a few friends and some of them mad at college about four years ago about
us stalk with pretty too long. Others A been friends, including a girl
that I have met way back when I was in first grade and I have
been best friends ever since, and they want to have been trying to pressure
me into getting a girlfriend recently because I used to be severely overweight and I've
kind of had my goal a period now. This particular girl they want me
to go with is beautiful, but she's an adult film star and a few
times I've declined and trying to like give hints that I'm not interested. Eventually,
I had to tell this world that I was friends with since I was
in first grade, I'm sorry, but I don't think your friend is the
right and one for me. And she, along with a few other her
friends that I've had over various years, has said that I'm just insecure that
I don't want well that and I let me let me contradict your friends.
Jeff. First of all, you have a right to have any requirements or
any boundaries that you would in a partner. Now, while there be maybe
many people out there who are happy to date somebody who works in the adult
film industry, if you have felt, because of your particular value set that
this is not right for you, this has nothing to do with you being
insecure. This has to do with a boundary that you're allowed to have.
And it's perfectly okay to not say, oh, I'll date anybody who does
anything in any way. You know, you have to figure out what you
like and what works for you. So, Jeff, you tell your friend
you're not insecure, you just have boundaries or standards. Thanks for calling,
Jeff. Okay, who do we have now, Producer Kayla, we have
Yasmin with a question. Yasmin, Hi, Yasmin hellos Hi doctor Hi Will?
What's your question? Love? Yeah, I'm kind of shy, but
I was like, I'm going to call her. Good for you, thank
you, So I listen. No wonder full relationship like we had lots of
fun. I was always in my feminine energy. But the thing is we
broke up due to him feeling behind in his life. He was ten years
older than me and so he just had like a lot of financial troubles,
and so I stayed with him. I've been in X with that person for
a whole year, and I was always there for him. But I guess
he became cold because we didn't get We didn't have that connection anymore. He
wasn't messaging me enough. And so I really feel heartbroken because a few days
ago he told me that he didn't have the same feelings. So I truly
feel devastated. From here on out, I know I need to heal.
So my question is like, do you recommend rotational dating? So like meeting
with lots of men practicing just dating but not being sexual. Do you think
do you recommend that? Well, let me tell you. I mean,
I've been through lots of heartbreaks in my own life, and I personally found
that taking a little time to work on things myself, going to see my
therapist always worked better. On the other hand, has somebody who talking about
myself here, who you know had sort of an anxious attachment style where I'd
get too attached to people and the wrong kind of people. There is some
value into interview I call it interviewing, not necessarily rotationally dating, But don't
water down the milk with too many people, you know, date one or
two or three, tell them clearly, you're not going to have sex until
you decide kind of who you want to have a relationship with. That's all
okay, And just practice your social skills. You mentioned at the beginning of
this conversation that you're really shy, so this is a great way for you
to practice your social skills. It could work for you. But if you're
still in heartbreak devastating mode, it means that you have to do some work
on yourself, right, You have to do some healing work on yourself.
And you know, I don't know that going out with a bunch of strangers
is going to be the thing that's going to heal you, but it can
be something that can help you improve your social skills and do it safely,
bring your own transportation, bring your own money, meet in public, all
that kind of stuff. But thanks for calling, Jasmine, and I'm Jasmine,
and I'm so sorry that you're not feeling well. Are we going to
break? Do? We have one more call? So when we come back,
we'll do that last call, And then I want to talk about things
you should always say in your relationships to keep love alive. You're listening to
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I Am six forty. We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walls. You can
always hear us live on kf I AM six forty from seven to nine pm
on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app