This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf I Am six forty,
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio appf I Am six forty.
You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Welsh
Show where I love. You know. I just had a latte in the
afternoon, late afternoon, early evening. Does this mean I'm going to be
up all night? I can feel the cream in my throat. Sorry about
that if you are new to my show. I have a PhD in clinical
psychology, but I'm obsessed with the science of love. I've written three books
on relationships, did a dissertation on attachment theory, and I love love.
I love how difficult it is, how challenging it is, how euphoric it
is, how exciting it is, and how it involves a lot of thinking
and problem solving. That's what I like about it. One of the things
people ask me from time to time is is ever too late? You know?
I remember my mom actually died of breast cancer when I was thirty.
A little did we know that my dad was going to die of lung cancer
a few months later? But I remember coming home from the funeral of my
mom and saying to my dad and he was, I think the ripe old
age of fifty nine, and saying to him, are you do you think
you'll ever marry again? And wrong time to ask, but you know nothing
like the present, and he said, oh no, not at my age.
You see. Back then, that was this idea that if you lost
your first mate or your primary mate, or your secure attachment figure and you
are of a certain age, that maybe there was no chance for you.
But things have changed, you know. I always say that because of our
very long life expectancies, even the most monogamous people might find themselves having one
or two or even three long stints of monogamy because we're living so long and
very few people meet their quote unquote soulmate. Hate that when they're in their
early twenties and then stay together until death, do they part. In fact,
I hate it when people say that a relationship is a failed relationship.
You know, the only failed relationship is the one that you stay in when
you're being hurt and you're failing to grow within it. That's a failed relationship.
If you look at duration as the only litmus test then you're not understanding
intimacy. But I digress. The question is is it too late ever to
find love? Well, I'm about to get married in a few weeks.
Oh my gosh, ron like the one month countdown now, and there's so
much to do. I've been printing menus and folding ribbons around napkins, and
I made my own big wedding garland at a preserved eucalyptus I had. I'm
doing a real diy thing. It's so much fun. And I noticed that
Remember I always say that relationships are a between tribes, and even if you
don't have like a traditional tribe, when two people marry or divorce for that
matter, when the bridge is blown up or when the bridge is extended,
it impacts how everybody in your orbit relates in their own social world. They
have an impact in some way. I am literally feeling certain friends moving away,
like in other words, they needed to me, need to be their
single girlfriend. And then I'm feeling these other friends moving forward and getting closer
to me. So it's really fascinating, and pay attention to that. I
was up at my wedding venue a couple of weeks ago doing a tech walk
through. That's we've got to do nowadays, a tech walk through for the
wedding. Where the speaker is going to go, there's going to be a
mic, it's a hardwired bluetooth. Where's the music coming from? iPad whatever?
Anyway, So I'm doing a tech walk through with the person who's helping
me, and I happen to meet the owner of the vineyard and the wedding
facility and he said to me, by the way, he said, I
am getting Mary or I think he'd just gotten married, but he had planned
to hold the reception on the same day as my wedding, and he said,
I had to give up my wedding day for you. Now, this
was a very spry man of age eighty five. And I said to him,
where did you meet your new wife? He said, women are everywhere,
especially at my age, and I needed to get a wife. Actually,
a cute little story. You know why he owns a big wedding venue
because he's a good dad. And once upon a time he built a vineyard
and a tasting room for his adult daughter because she wanted to have a tasting
room, and she did and he goes in. Then after three years she
got so bored with it, she left. She'd know what to do,
he said. So I decided I'd just keep reducing grapes and put weddings in
there. Anyway, eighty five years old, a newlywed, very happy.
And then the other day I made an eighty seven year old woman and she
is going through a divorce. I guess at any time, you could just
go enough, right, And she whispers to me, you know, I
reconnected with someone that I dated forty five years ago. And I said,
ooh, did you get a tingle? She said, I did. This
is my point that the feelings don't have an expiration date. Come on,
if you're listening to me, I want you right now to think about the
first love of your life. Huh, you feel it in your stomach a
little bit? Right? The feelings are real now. Across the lifespan,
we do change. We change who we are, what role we're playing.
We change our type and who were interested in. I mean, when I
was a young woman, I just wanted gorgeous tall athletes, didn't we all
right? Evolutionary psychologists would say that that would be my reproductive urges getting into
play there. But now I like nerdy intellectuals right, So why is it
that people change their romantic type? And your type might be like what people
look like, what kind of personality they have, what your shared interests are
like to do together, or your core values. You know, there are
tons of people who might, in a different time of their life, been
like I only did blanz, I only did tall, duck and handsome,
and then all of a sudden, it's something completely different later. So why
do people change their type sometimes? And I would say this is the case
for me. They just decide to make a conscious change. Here's an interesting
little piece of research I came across. Did you know that the more extroverted
you are and the more open experiences, the more likely you are to change
your type. Makes sense if you're open to new experiences. So people who
are extroverts and more open, that's me. They're open to meeting different kinds
of people and getting out of their comfort zone. But you know, sometimes
we make a conscious change because we've evolved. Our values, change, our
hobbies, change, our career changes, our priorities shift. Maybe we've done
the work and gone to therapy and said I'm not going to pick that type
again. That type hurts. I don't like that. But also you might
have a different type later in life just because your life circumstances have changed.
I mean, think about it. In young adulthood, you're looking for a
mate if you want to reproduce, who you can raise kids with. Right,
So it's a different set of things that you're looking for, maybe financial
stability or somebody who's family orient right. As people move into midlife, it's
more common that they're looking for emotional intimacy and good companionship. And later in
life it's all about companionship. It's all about mutual care. I have always
said that a relationship is an exchange of care. The care can take many
different forms, but as we age, it is often instrumental care, taking
care of each other as our bodies start to slowly fail us. So,
but if you have been choosing the wrong kind of person forever, I think
you need to talk to your therapist and make one of these conscious choices.
Hey, producer, Kayla, you with us? Alis here? You are?
There? You are? Do you remember your first love? Of course?
And do you get a little tingle in your tummy? Mmm? No,
I mean we still talk. He's cool. He was like, oh,
but oh you wouldn't go back with him at all. Now you're tip
to change, No, but I still care about him and I always check
in and make sure that he's good. That is so nice. Yeah.
Well, when we come back, if you're meeting somebody new or you wanted
to rekindle with the old, let's talk about how you can actually jumpstart emotional
intimacy. I know I've talked about the thirty six questions to fall in love
before, but I'm gonna tell you which ones if you had to narrow it
down to like ten of them, which ones you should actually be asking in
your dating life. Also, I was on a podcast this week and the
podcast person who interviewed me said, what are the most common questions if you
will ask you and I'll share them with you. And in addition, she
said, is there any one question that completely stumps you? Yes, and
I'll share that with you too. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls
Show on k I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AM six forty AFI
Am six forty. You have Doc Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Missy, That's what I think love is being able
to really see someone and accept them for who they are, but most importantly,
knowing that your intimate can see you completely, even with your flaws,
and still love you, and maybe most of all, you still love yourself,
knowing that you're real. I want to remind everybody that there are very
few rights and wrongs. There are a lot of lessons we learn along the
way. Someone said to me the other day, Doctor Wendy, I don't
know how you put all that personal stuff out there on social media. Don't
you feel shame? And I said, why, It's just human experience.
It's just me trying to understand in this case past relationships, and I roll
in it and everyone's roll in it. There's been a lot of research on
what it is to fall in love, what does it take, and what
are the things people should be doing and talking about in the early stages of
dating. I should pause here to say you could do it at any time
of your relationship. In fact, us thinking about it. Four years ago,
when Julio and I met, we did the thirty six Questions to fall
in love. I think we are ready for a reboot. So back in
nineteen ninety seven, a psychologist by the name of doctor Arthur Aaron at Stonybrook
University in New York came up with thirty six questions to fall in love.
He formulated this list back in nineteen ninety seven. It was published in the
New York Times. It became so popular around the world that the New York
Times even made an app Now what is the goal? The goal was to
speed up the creation of emotional intimacy between two strangers. So he tested it
on one heterosexual man heterosexual woman. He gave them this list of thirty six
questions. It takes about ninety minutes to complete. So good first date thing,
maybe second or third date. At the end, he did another experiment
which has been replicated all over the place. They've put people in a lab
strangers and said, all I want you to do is look into each other's
eyes for four minutes. Do you know how that squeamish that is? Oh?
Yeah, it makes people feel like, oh my goodness, they can
see into my soul. And I guess what they found is that people will
report feelings of love. So what doctor Aaron did is he took this couple
total strangers, had them ask each other the thirty six questions. Then he
had them stare into each other's eyes for four minutes, and guess what,
the couple got married six months later. So what is it about these magical
questions? And I'll tell you, And I'll tell you what he did was
brilliant because it's kind of a slow build. If you go on a date
with somebody and the first thing you say is you know, tell me about
your trauma. What do you fear most in the world, somebody's going to
go running, because that's way to TMI. It's way too intimate, too
soon. So it starts off with what you might perceive as lightweight rapport building,
things like, given the choice of anyone in the world, who would
you want as a dinner guest and why? I often ask that as an
icebreaker question in some of my classes that I teach, because it tells you
who they're a fan of, something about their value system, et cetera.
You might ask somebody you ever thought would you like to be FAMS? And
if so, for what you know, there are many people would be like,
no, I don't like to speak in front of crowds. What did
you just learn there? They're an introvert or maybe they just have a lot
of shame about public stuff. Right then positive things again, just rapport building.
What would constitute a perfect day for you? So you're getting into their
imaginations and you're sharing your answering. You're both answering both questions. By the
way, I love the long getting the brain to go into long term thinking
because if you're on a first or second or third date, you want someone
to be thinking what could happen down the road. So one of the questions
is, if you were able to live until the age of ninety and retain
either your mind or your body of a thirty year old for the last sixty
years of your life, which would you want? Isn't that a cute question?
Mind or your body? Because if somebody's as my body, then you
know something about their values and what's important. Right. Maybe they're highly sexual,
Maybe they believe in the youth culture we have that they would choose their
body over their in my head is just swimming with that idea. I would
never in a million years choose my body over my mind. Mind always comes
first, and then somewhere even just in the first date, you might One
of the questions is name three things that you think you and I already have
in common. So the brain is already getting into couple life. It's looking
for reasons to be together. Then it gets a little deeper, right the
thirty six questions to fall in love go to things like what do you value
most in friendship? What's your most treasured memory, what's your most awful memory?
See what roles do love and affection lay in your life. I remember
years ago I was on a date with somebody and he wouldn't ever touch me
in public. And I realized after we talked about it, it was just
a cultural thing. His family didn't and he didn't and they didn't. He
just hated PDAs public displays of perfection. Also in the section two is things
like how close and warm is your family? And then moving into the third
section, it's again getting into the WII make three we statements for us like,
for instance, we're both in this room and we're both feeling fill in
the blank, maybe nervous. And then it gets deeper and deeper. Of
all the people in your family, which death would you find most disturbing?
And why now you know who their primary attachment figure is. Right, if
your house suddenly caught on fire, after you got out your loved ones,
after you got out your pets, and you had time to go back for
one more thing, what would be that thing? Oh? I love this
one. If you were going to die tonight with no opportunity to communicate with
anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? And why haven't
you told them yet? So you're already getting into the tender secrets that we
hold close to our breast. By the way, later in the show,
I have a guest on and he is a researcher on secrets and how secrets
are so dangerous for us. Well, there are total of thirty six questions
in thirty six questions to fall in love, And if you were actually to
take it's on an app you can just downloaded. If you're actually to be
alone with somebody in a room and you were to both answer these sets of
questions, as I said, it takes about ninety minutes to two hours,
So you know, have a drink, have a meal, keep chatting,
and then take some time to really stare into each other's eyes. The vast
majority of people report feelings of love because it's emotional intimacy. And why do
I harp on emotional intimacy because there's so much research to show that it is
the ultimate glue that holds a relationship together. It's not about the sex,
it's not about the money. And if it is about the section and the
money, for you, you're not in a real relationship. It's about the
emotional connection. It's like our intimate relationships are. If you be my mommy,
I'll be your mommy. Right, we all get baby like in those
moments, all right, when we come back. I was on a podcast
this week and the host asked me, what are the most common questions Dr
Wendy that you get asked? And I rattled them off with the answers I'm
gonna share with you when we come back. 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 KFI AM six forty.
No, it's it smelled bad. I wouldn't be loving you, I
wouldn't be hugging you. Not if you smell bad. Kay if I am
six forty, you have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show, wishful thinking gentlemen. In fact, the number one reason
that people say they don't like a particular partner is poor personal hygiene. So
take your showers, folks. We're in a heat wave. Take a shower,
stay cool. Uh, Kayla, do you know who? Jenna Kramer
is a country in western sing She has an iHeart podcast. Oh, I've
never heard of her. Well, she has a podcast called a Wine Down,
but the wine is spelt like I'm whining to wind down. And I've
been on a broadcast a few times. She's very bright. But she wanted
to talk to me this week about weddings because she's getting married and so.
But at the end of the interview we chatted for quite a while, she
said, h are there any questions like you don't know the answer to?
Wait? Wait, let me first say one of the most common questions people
ask you. And so I thought, and I rattled it down to three.
And Kayla, maybe you agree with me because you go into my social
media and get all those dms and get those questions and I know there's some
So if there's one I'm missing, let me know after I tell you what
I think. My top three questions are that people ask, okay, uh.
The first one is one hundred percent, I guarantee. It's when to
begin the sexual relationship in a brand new relationship that came out. Yeah,
that's always it. And you know, I used to say, well,
you should have sex when you have trust. It shouldn't be one week or
two weeks or thirty days. You know. I wrote a book called The
Thirty Day Love Detoks based on once. The title was based on one study
that said that if you have sex within thirty days of meeting somebody, you
have a ninety percent chance of being broken up within one year. If you
wait only ninety days, then you have a one in four chance you'll be
together a year later. This has to do that with the fact you use
those ninety days to build that emotional intimacy. Right. So my answer now
is kind of like, you know, because people are like, well,
I don't know, I don't have a good picker, and my stomach doesn't
tell me, and I don't know when I can trust them, And so
you can't trust somebody until you've tested them. And I say this to people
of all genders, not that you're going to openly manipulate somebody and set up
these weird situations to see if they pass or fail. But life will do
that for you. All you have to do is be observant, right and
stop letting your brain go. Well, you know he was away in New
York and they don't have phones in New York. I understand he'll call me
when he comes back. You know that's rationalizing forgiving whatever. No, you
should instead be like, uh, he failed, You left me for two
weeks and hasn't checked in, so obviously he doesn't want me to share my
body with him in the future in my heart. So you see, what
you need to do is watch, be a watcher, and then you'll know
when it's safe to have sex in a new relationship. It is the oldest
trade in the history of mankind. Women attempt to trade sex in exchange for
love. I will remind you that men do not fall in love through sex.
A dude can have sex with the same woman every week for six months
and not like are one bit more than he did the first week? If
in her his mind that's the category all right. I would say the second
most common question I get is a couple question, and it is can a
couple recover from an affair? We get that a lot, don't we,
kayleb cover someone finds out that somebody else cheated and we get back into love.
And the answer is yes. But both people have to want to Both
people have to want to do the work, so it can't be like one
person. I mean, some people use an affair just to exit the relationship.
They don't know how to break up, so they just act out until
the other person pushes them out. I was actually on a set, you
know, I shoot these videos for this wonderful app called Local Now, and
I do a bunch of you know, relationship and self help and stuff and
talk about the research and uh. It was a set with all guys like
guys at lighting, audio, teleprompter, camera, guys, whatever. And
I said, hey, gentlemen, how do you guys, what's the most
common way that guys break up with a woman? And I swear like half
of them said, you just start dating somebody else, like you don't even
tell them. I'm like, oh, so sometimes that's when a fair is.
But if both people, you know, want to keep the relationship.
If there's a good reason, like there's children in the nest, it is
possible. You need a therapist, and it's going to take time. But
both people have to want you, all right. And the third one is
also a couple of one. I get uh. People say, you know,
doctor Wendy, I love my spouse, but I'm not actually in love
with them anymore. What do I do? And I always say, you
have gone from lust to love and you're in companionship love or intellectual commitment love.
And what you're really saying is what can we do to feel more passionate
about each other? And there are all kinds of things you can do,
which I'm actually going to talk about in the next segment after the break.
I want to talk about what if your wife doesn't seem to want sex anymore?
What can you do? There's some things. This is all psychology,
folks, basic psychology. Kayla. Is there any major question you think I
missed that gets asked a lot? The only thing I can think about is
communication questions. How often reach out or like, all right, it's my
partner, and yeah, the timing about reaching out well, how often and
whether the text or phone thing always has to do with attachment style, right
If somebody has an anxious attachment style, they want to they're going to be
wanting to be in constant contact right away. They're going to be like,
they didn't text me, four hours have gone by, Oh my god,
what am I going to do? What's normal? They say, what is
normal? What's a normal amount of communication? And the truth is, there's
no such thing as a rule that this must happen for every couple. There's
no normal. It's how do you feel about it. If it's not enough
communication for you, then it's not a good match. Right then, before
we got off, Jana Kramer asked me, is there a question that often
stumps you, doctor Wendy, And the answer is, yeah, the questions
about polyamory. Because even though we've had guests on the show who are polyamorous,
who have researched polyamory, we do know, Okay, the research is
clear, it's not for everybody. In fact, it's for about five percent
of the population because the rest of us have sexual jealousy that we are not
putting to bed. It's there. We are passionate about our partner and we
don't want to share so. And I also worry and protect those who may
enter into an open relationship because a fear because they think their partner will leave
them if they don't. And that is no reason to do it. But
if two people manage to control, manage whatever they're sexual jealousy and it works
for them, who am I to moralize? But it does stump me.
I don't understand it, Kyla, do you understand it? Could it ever
work for you? It's too new and I'm way too jealous. Yeah,
yeah, I think I'm way too jealous too. I can't put that away.
It's there, Uh, speaking of voice, I wonder where Julio is
right now? No, I'm joking, all right, when we come back.
There is some research on why in long term monogamy, long term heterosexual
monogamous relationship, women's sexual desire often but not always, often declines. Let's
talk about why and dudes, what you can do about it. You are
listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on
demand from KFI Am six forty, Hem I am six forty. You have
doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I
want to remind everybody I'm not a therapist, and I'm certainly not a sex
therapist. I'm a psychology professor, but I read the research intently. It's
funny. One of my students said to me one time, Oh, my
mom loves to listen to you, said, oh, your professor is that
sex doctor on the radio. And I'm like, I don't talk about sex
that much except when I do, and everybody remembers it then. But it
always has to do with my interest in the research and educating people on what
happens out there according to the data, so that we can handle our own
lives well enough. So I wanted to talk a little bit something that is
kind of common question that's always put to me, and it's often by heterosexual
men who say, my wife doesn't want to have sex anymore. What do
I do? So, first of all, it's normal. Women's sexual desire
often declines during long term monogamy. Now not always. I can hear you
hear the emails flying in right now, because I myself have been in a
relationship where I had the high desire and the partner had the low desire.
But it's never going to be equal and matched all the time. I mean
that would be like some romantic comedy movie, you know. So let's talk
about what the research says of some of the reasons why women's sexual desire tends
to decline during long term monogamy. So you might be surprise to hear this,
guys, but women often find sex boring. Not all women and not
all the time. There is research to support the idea, yeah, that
women actually need more novelty than men do in their sexual relationship. For men,
it is a little more like a physical act. It's a cleaning of
the pipes, if you will. It's something that just happens. It's more
spontaneous. However, with women, we may need a new candle, a
NIGHTI, new sheets, a new room, a new position, a new
place. It doesn't have to be a new partner, folks. Okay,
it doesn't have to be that. When we talk about novelty, but something
different and that can ignite things for women. The other thing is women's sexual
desire, according to the research, tends to be responsive, meaning that it
goes underground until something shows up that turns us on. Now, we are
not visually wired, so that's something that shows up that turns us on.
Probably isn't you walking into the room, dude. It could be reading fifty
Shades of Gray, or reading a Harlequin romance, or going on a vacation
to a balmy beach wearing a bathing suit and feeling the warm wind tickle our
skin. Right, that's a response and a trigger that might make something show
up. And another thing for women, not all women again, Okay,
I can hear you high testosterone emotionally avoidant women who are like I could just
have sex for sex's sake. I don't care about all this other stuff.
Okay, fine, right to me, I got it. But for most
women, sex is also deeply intertwined with their emotional life. And nothing will
kill a sex drive faster in a woman than anger, especially unspoken anger if
she's unable to have a voice to express it or fear. Fear is not
a good thing. How do you get your body to relax if you're afraid
of a guy, intimidated by a guy, or if you're angry with him.
So ask yourself what's going on emotionally for her? Another thing Sex for
women is often about body image. It's deeply connected to their body image.
How beautiful we feel. Just like note to dudes out there, Instead of
saying you never give me sex, I want it more, why don't you
just help her feel beautiful, Tell her she's gorgeous. That might create a
spark. And finally, and this is true, women are exhausted. We're
tired. If your wife is working full time and raising kids and maintaining the
house and getting taking care of everybody, at the end of the day,
she has to attend to your needs too. Uh uh uh. She just
wants to get some sleep, right, she just wants to get some sleep.
So what do you do? Well, the most important thing is you
want to openly communicate, not blame, not a hughes, not guilt somebody.
Just say things like, just observe, Hey, I noticed in the
last year or so, we've been having a lot less sex. How do
you feel about that? Or what's that experience like for you? Just these
open ended questions that get her to talk for sure, for sure when you're
communicating this, please do not beg There is nothing more un sexy than someone
begging for sex or getting angry about not Like, who's going to look at
a guy and go, oh, I see you're so mad at me because
I don't have sex with you. Okay, I'm going to relax and open
up for you doning. No, it's not gonna work that way, So
just talk about it. Talk about what your experience liked and your feelings,
and talk about what they're feelings. But do it with a licensed sex therapist.
There are lots of psychologists out there who hold a license. You can
talk candidly, safely, comfortably in their office. Together, make your lady,
your woman, your wife feel special and desired. You know. There
are some guys out there who think if they can make her feel afraid that
they will leave, then maybe she will worry about their needs. But it
usually doesn't work that way. So saying things like well, if I don't
get it from you, you know I might get it somewhere else, or
just teasing her with us. It's a new girl at work, you know.
If you do all that I'm telling you, her body shuts down more
than ever because she starts to feel angry. Instead, say things like,
not only don't only I see the other thing? When you're helping her feel
beautiful, It shouldn't only be about her physical beauty. And I'm going to
share something with you. So when I was young, I was a ten.
I'm sorry I can say it because it is true. You can find
modeling pictures of me on life and I'm sure I was a ten. I
was so sick and tired of every guy in the world telling me, Oh,
you're so beautiful. I'm so attracted to you, You're so beautiful.
It's nothing I did to make that happen. It's just I was a member
of the Lucky Jean Club. Okay, nothing I did when a guy said
to me, Hey, you're really smart. I love the way you thought
that. Oh you're so articulate. When I hear that, I go,
oh, I feel special, I feel desired. And finally, I have
to say this, gentleman, do your share of the household labor. Do
what you need to do, because if she's too tired, she's too tired.
So you know what four play is for a woman watching a man load
the dishwasher, Just saying that's what the research says on this, folks.
Hey, when we come back, I am going to go to my social
media and I'm going to answer a few of your questions, not the ones
that I told you are common I got some new and quite interesting questions coming
up. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy
Walsh. You can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty from seven
to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app