This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k I Am six forty,
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand on the iHeartRadio app AFI Am six forty.
You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Welsh
Show. Okay, there's a challenge tonight, everybody. I am so jet
legged. I got back last night from visiting my daughter in Paris. I
I'm gonna tell you all about it. And I'm not good with no sleep.
I was up for twenty four hours and then I was able to sleep
five hours last time is not enough. And I asked my sweet Julio to
drive me to work today because I read those statistics that it's like drunk driving.
Like my even typing, I'm making so many typos, so I gotta
get my tongue to cooperate for the next two hours. Hey, if you're
new to the show, I'm doctor Wendy Walsh, known as America's relationship expert.
I got a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm not a therapist. I'm
a psychology professor and I've written three books on relationships. We're gonna be talking
about your relationships tonight producer Kayla, do you know how to have a fair
fight? Uh No, We're going to talk about how to have a healthy,
healthy fight. I need to learn that because I'm not nice in fights.
And also tips for how to date somebody who's emotionally avoidant, how to
deal with that. Plus I'll be answering your social media questions. You can
send them in on my social at Doctor Wendy Walsh is the handle and I
have a very special guest coming later in the show who's a marriage and family
therapist as she she's a licensed clinical social worker, but she does couples and
family therapy all day long, and she's got some inside love hacks for us,
which is fun. Okay, So I am a psychology professor at California
State University, Channel Islands. You know what that means? Tomorrow we're going
on strike. It's the first time that the cal States Faculty Association is going
on strike in the history of forever, every single campus all over California.
So do you have your signs? Like are you going to be outside picketing
houses? Wargo register for my time. There's like a link. But here's
the funniest thing. I get an email from sag after because here I am
on iHeartRadio and this is my sag after a job and it says, if
you're a sag after a person, we would like you to go out to
campus and support the teachers strike tomorrow. I'm like, who should I go
as? Should I go as the radio host or the teacher? You gotta
gets exactly. We are fighting for things, including a small pay raise.
I think they're asking for twelve percent, but the things that I care about
not so much the more money. The big one is more mental health services
for students. We're dealing with a population of students now who I'm going to
do the math correctly. Seems like they were on zoom for grades ten and
eleven or nine, ten and eleven somewhere in there, and they a lot
of them are struggling, a lot of them, and we want our campuses
to have put more allocation towards helping a lot of these young people in California.
And also one of my other pet A favorites that we're asking for is
more lactation rooms for the breastfeeding moms. Remember I am a full on dairy
queen. I nurse for six years. Okay, two different kids, so
it's three years each. But I was always just whipping it out everywhere in
public. Did you just make up that dairy queen? No, I love
that. I'm a dairy queen, love that full on dairy queen. Six
years I was there and I felt, since I have a very high shame
tolerance, I'm not afraid of being ashamed, I just whipped it out anywhere
because I thought I had to be the one to show the world we shouldn't
have to hide this. But you know it is easier to do if you
have a quiet, comfortable lactation room. And the other is more gender neutral
bathrooms as our growing population of kids who are non binary or in transition or
what have you. All Right, so that's tomorrow. I won't be going
to work. I'll be following it closely. I'm in a registered ticket.
I don't know do I have a sign or to make a sign? Maybe
just go there with a picture of a breastfeeding mom. That's all I needed.
Like that? Yeah, that's powerful. Yeah, I mentioned I got
back from Paris last night. So you should know if you are a mother
of daughters, that there is a developmental stage called mom hating sorry, it's
not in the textbooks, but it's a thing. So when young girls are
so close to their moms, I hope they are. They're all wrapped around.
I mean, well, we start out as one body, but then
we slowly separate. But we're just so close. And in order to fully
individuate, there's a psychobabble term for you, individuate. Sometimes girls have to
have conflict with their moms. That's why they fight with their moms often as
a teenager. My daughter was deeply, madly in love with me, my
oldest one, until her twenties, and then it was nasty. For a
while. It was Cayla. I would come here almost in tears telling you
stories about the things she said to me. Yeah, it was a rough
you too have had. Yeah. So she has been living in Paris a
year. Hadn't seen her in a year. Well, she came home Christmas.
But then I went back anyway, and I made a little comment when
I booked the trip last fall, and I was kind of like, uh,
so you're gonna be nice to me, write some little mom dig She
goes, why wouldn't I be? You know, what do you mean?
So I go over there, this girl twenty five years old, surprises me
and takes me out to an elegant chateau in Bordeaux. Buys me Champagne,
pays for it, tells me she loves me. I'm ready to break up
with Julio and marry my daughter again. She swept you off your feet and
pally. She was so sweet. I love that. It was a best
trip you both deserve. It's the best trip. She wasn't grumpy once.
She carried my bag up and down all those subway stairs, metro stairs and
everything, and my thing was heavy. She was dragging my luggage everywhere.
She misses her she's in Paris. It's so sweet. Anyway, here's what
I learned about the French. When you're comparing cultures, it's so much fun.
Do you know why none of them are obese? O ghetto? That's
a bad generalization. There might be one or two. I just didn't see
any, not a one. And yet I ate more fat and more bread,
and more cheese and more butter at every single meal. How is this
possible? Well, I did a little slothing. I'm gonna stumble all over
my words because I got chat like slouthing. And turns out well, I
knew this. I teach hell psychology. High fat diet's the best thing for
us, folks. It makes you eat less because you're so satiated. And
did you know the butter in Paris which my daughter pulled out a brick of
and pulled a teaspoon of and said, eat this, mom. You won't
believe how good it tastes. The butter's so amazing to here actually has higher
fat than our butter. It's so creamy and good. It's tasty. Did
you eat this ppoonful? Oh? Yeah. In fact, one night for
dinner, we had this thing called reclet. This is the cool meal that
everybody's eating in Paris. They actually serve it at the hotels. They serve
it. Even KFC has reclet right now. It is basically nothing but melted
cheese, full trays of it. Everybody's got like a fondu thing. You
got your own little tray of it and boiled potatoes and you just dip your
potatoes in the cheese. And I'm like, we're the green vegetable. She
goes, oh no, there are none with herklet. It's just cheese and
potatoes and warm mulled wine with spices. Sounds like a party. We did
have a party with all her friends. We had all her girlfriends eating riklet.
It's all online. I posted the video. By the way, Okay,
so that's why they're skinny. What else did I want to say?
Okay, they hoddle in third spaces. You hear a lot of talk about
we're not having enough of a third space. We have our workplace, we
have our home place, but our third space used to be of all embarrassing
things. Them all for consumers in America, But I'll tell you in France,
the apartments are so little. They don't spend much time there. They're
in so many third spaces. Whether it's outdoor games they're playing, whether it's
parks and it was cold, but they were bundled out there. Whether it
was bestros, whether it was pubs, bars, they are out there,
and when you look at them, nobody's on their phone. They are talking
to each other, They're animated. They're squished in these tiny little bestros,
all packed in and everybody is talking and talking. And I've never seen so
much social connection. We just don't have that here. I also want to
say that when I finally got to the airport to leave Charles de gaul Airport
yesterday. It was startling to see and hear the Americans getting on the plane.
I was startled by how we mutilate our bodies, the puffed up lips,
the injected that the fake, but they don't exist among even the most
high fashion in Paris. It was like a crazy looking, deformed group of
people. I'm sorry, I'm gonna say it. We look nutty, nutty,
and the vocal frye off the girls. I couldn't believe the vocal fry.
They've been listening to Kim for too long. Yeah, would you don't
hear it? In how it's like a culture shock. It's a culture shock
just to come home. And I want to close by saying I went to
the most beautiful art exhibit. Of course, my daughter got us tickets at
the Eve Seller Rayl Foundation Museum, the roth Co exhibit. It was so
beautiful, all his bright colors, and then of course he got into all
this dark stuff at the end, and then he died by suicide. I
did no one see the writing on the walls. There was big giant murals
that were all black folks saying he's being of art remember when we had the
guy on from the Van Go Exhibit. Yeah, if anybody missed, it
is on the future segments. The case is, well, we're going to
do Van Go Giveaway right now, so you know it's here in LA.
It's an immersive experience that uses state of the art technology that combines projectors,
animation, and it transforms Van Go's timeless masterpieces into breathtaking living canvases that will
surround and engage you as a visitor. We are going to take call.
Looks she's running the phone already. Call her number third seven. You know
why because that's how many years Van Go is on this earth. The numbers
one eight hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. We got a couple tickets for the
Van Go Exhibit if you're caller number thirty seven one eight hundred five two zero
one KFI when we come back, Why are our girls having precocious puberty?
Yeah, some of them are getting breasts as early as age six. Let's
delve into this. When I 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.
KFI AM six forty you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is
the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. I want to talk about a very sensitive but
important topic, something that's happening in our culture, right under our very own
eyes. If you're a mother of a daughter, you might be aware of
it, maybe not. During the last few decades, girls are getting their
periods younger and younger and younger, and some people chalk that up to,
oh, well, is this better nutrition, isn't it. No, Actually,
we have worse nutrition now, I think than we did for a long
time. There's a researcher named Marcia Herman Giddons. Back when she was serving
as director for the Child Abuse Team at Duke University Medical Center. That was
back in the late nineteen eighties. That's when she started to notice this phenomenon.
She found when she was evaluating girls sadly who had been abused physically or
sexually, she noticed that many of them had started developing breasts as young as
the age of six. It made her think, so she started doing some
research, and ten years later she published a study of more than seventeen thousand
girls who underwent physical examinations at peace theiatricians' offices around the country. So to
do that kind of research is pretty easy. I mean, it takes time.
You got to communicate with a lot of doctors, but you get a
bunch of pediatricians on board, a good sample size of pediatricians across the country,
and you basically say what age are your girls growing breast brad buds,
when are they starting to get their periods? And those numbers revealed that on
average, girls in the mid nineteen nineties had started to develop breast, which
is usually the first sign of puberty, around age ten. The decline was
even more striking for black girls, average age around nine. If you're new
to my show, you might not know that. My two daughters are biracial
African American and Irish Canadian, and my oldest daughter got her period at the
age of nine, and I wasn't even It's like elementary school. You don't
even prepare them, you don't have the stuff for it, and you know,
and she developed so early. I actually worried about the social stuff for
her because she was way taller than everybody. She had bigger you know,
m h and the guys were kind of harassing her more. And I noticed
this. Maybe this was in my own head, but it felt like some
of the moms stopped doing the playdight thing, Like it's almost like my girl
was scary to them because she was so developed, and it was just kind
of weird. I wasn't entirely wrong because if you're if I'm aligning with the
research, girls who go through puberty early are at a higher risk of depression,
anxiety, substance abuse, other psychological problems. They have actually a higher
risk of developing breast cancer or uterine cancer in adulthood. And that's because they're
just getting more periods that's starting earlier. It's the assault on their breasts of
all that estrogen every month. We're not meant to have periods every month,
by the way, you know, we had that doctor Sophia Yan from Yale
University on our show before Kaylea. She's, uh, what is her app
called where you can order birth control app? PANDEA health, and her her
slogan is hashtag Period's optional. Because she's trying to mimic what happened in our
anthropological past. When people say what's natural and normal, I'll tell you what
it is to get your period relatively late. Back in our anthropological past,
girls were sixteen seventeen eighteen getting their first period. They were, you know,
not very consistent for the first year. By the second year they might
have been pregnant. Then they're pregnant for a year. Then they're nursing for
three to five years, which tend to suppress ovulation and works as a natural
birth control. Don't try it in today's times, by the way, because
those ladies nursed around the clock in the night all the time, so it
kept as long. If you go five hours without nursing, your estrogen can
start to go up and you can start to ovulate again. Anyway, you
know, I wrote my dissertation on attachment theory, and I followed this and
breastfeeding outcomes. I followed this group, so I have all these data in
my heads. I followed all these pregnant women for a year. But anyway,
so then we would wean that baby, have a few more periods,
get pregnant again. By the time a woman hit menopause in her forties,
she probably had five pregnancies, of which three lived and survived. That's like
what's normal for us, right, instead of getting a period every single month,
which makes sure estrogen go up, can assault your breast and then you
delay having babies till well into your thirties. That's so, that's why,
that's why the rest of rates of cancer can go up, all right,
So why are the reasons that girls are getting precocious puberty? First of all,
obesity. There's a ton of research that dates all the way back to
the nineteen seventies that girls who are overweight or obese start their periods earlier.
It raises your estrogen levels. Right, But here's the big one, chemicals.
In two thousand and nine, there was a study done in Denmark of
a thousand school age girls. It found that the average breast development had dropped
by a year since a study just ten years before that. And what they
found is in their urine they had levels of these fathylates pathylates. Basically,
they're the chemicals used to make plastics firmer, more durable, and they're in
everything from vinyl flooring to food packaging. So we call these endocrine disruptors,
right, who disrupt the behavior of hormones, So chemicals from plastic can be
making a difference. Here's the one that really disturbs me. Sexual abuse.
What we do know is that sexual abuse in early childhood has been linked to
earlier puberty onset. But here's what we don't know. What comes first the
chicken or the egg. Does sexual abuse amp up everything in the body because
the child is aroused and hormones change, and therefore they get puberty earlier.
Or are girls who develop earlier more likely to be sexually abused. We don't
know the answer there. And finally, emotional distress. Girls who have mothers
that have a history of mood disorders also get their puberty early. You know
I look at and also those who don't live with their biological fathers. So
let me explain it. First of all, let's talk about evolution and what
might be happening. I'm speculating here, but I'm interested in the topic.
So what if you have a mother who has mental illness and your home life
is not so great. Remember, the body informs the mind, the mind
informs the body. What if your body says, you know what we're getting
out of here? We are growing up, We are getting out into the
field and ready to reproduce. This is not a safe haven for us.
Maybe it pushes early puberty. Then this other fact, girls who don't live
with their biology fathers. There is some speculation by researchers that is the pheromones
the smell of fathers and brothers who suppress periods because it tells the brain don't
reproduce here. This is not safe. These are your own genes and it's
only once you're out of the house that your body goes, oh, hello,
look at that boy in class. He smells delicious. Maybe I'll go
there right now. We're picking up pheromone information all the time unconsciously from people.
I also personally want to add that our highly sexualized media could also be
triggering stuff in kids because you know, humans again in our anthropological past most
often have sex in private. So the proliferation of not only pornography which kids
are getting access to, sorry folks, but also the highly sexualized advertising that
they're being exposed to on a regular basis. And let's add Instagram, they're
sexualizing themselves and each other with the filters and everything they're doing. I mean,
it's the first thing you'll see a twelve year old girl has put up
a picture of herself in a bikini doing all the sexy stuff. Right,
So who knows that that environment isn't triggering the brain to go, hey,
we're mature now, so to go out there and find a mate. I
don't know, but I do know. We need to keep our girls safe.
And when girls do develop early, it doesn't mean their brain. They're
not a young adult walking around. They still have a childish brain, and
we need to treat them like girls, no matter how old they look.
All right, when we come back, let's get into some couple stuff.
How to have a healthy fight. According to me and one woman on TikTok
actually had a really nice husband who left her a post it by the dirty
dishes that I'm going to share when I come back. You're listening to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI AM six forty with Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio
app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from k A sixty I
AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Dr Wendy Walls Show. Well, unlike the lyrics to that song, you
have my full permission to go to bed mad, because there's nothing worse than
two overtired, maybe drunk people bickering with each other. Get a good night's
sleep, and then tackle the problem. That's my advice. Okay, let's
talk about how to have a healthy fight before we do. Though. There
is a video that has gone viral on TikTok about a woman, a wife
who wakes up in the morning her husband has had I guess, all his
buddies over to watch the game the night before, and she shows the entire
sink filled with dirty, gross food dishes and she doesn't get upset. Listen
to this. My husband had people over for like a big game last night,
and I like, look at all these frikin dishes in the sink.
And then I get this note. What a good guy? See the thing
is just because he left me. The note makes me want to like tackle
it right, like I have mourning energy. It's fine that I just love
that he acknowledges that you left a mess in the sink and like, don't
worry, he'll take responsibility for it. But anyways, we've come so far.
Isn't that great? So the note said it was a little posted and
in handwriting, he just wrote I got this and an arrow pointing towards the
dishes. And why she was thrilled was that he realized that it would be
a burden for her, so he wanted to take that burden off her shoulders.
But what did she say? She said, I got mourning energy makes
me want to do it because he realizes it was him. You know,
I think one of the things that works well with Julio and I is that
we're always trying to outdo the other in kindness. We're always trying to like
take care of each other's needs. Although I'll just be honest when I'm tired,
which like he's been really really nice to me. He made me breakfast.
I tried to go to sleep and I couldn't. I was grumpy.
It was like he was being I didn't do anything today. He did it
all. But I'll make it up for you know, after I finally catch
up on my sleep, I'm gonna make it up. So did you know
that one study found that happily married couples actually do not argue any less than
unhappily married couples, But what they do is they argue differently. One of
the things that secure, healthy couples do is somehow in the midst of their
arguments, they're actually problem solving. They're finding an end to their disputes instead
of endless bickering that seems to go nowhere or escalates into insults. Right,
So I did a little look deep diving at the research and I have a
few ways that I have come up with on how you can have a healthy,
happy fighter. It's never really happy, but healthy. Okay. The
number one rule is long before you fight, be positive in your relationship.
So in your day to day operations, makes show in general that you say
more positive things to your partner than negative things because what this does is it
creates a healthy foundation. And then when conflict does come up, you both
know you basically have each other's back. You're basically in love. You're just
having a fight. You don't ever forget that, right, So make a
point of think of it as a pot of gold. That's your investment that
you put into your relationship. So put compliments and gratitude on every every single
day. So when conflict comes up, you know you've got that big pot
of gold you can dig into, all right. Number two, when you're
not fighting. Set some ground rules for your fights. So you might want
to set some boundaries that say, you know, you can't call me names,
you can't walk out of the room, you can't break anything, you
can't be completely rude. The other thing is, once you set up these
ground rules, when you do get into conflict, be a little bit patient
and flexible. Because when people are upset and they're hot headed, they say
things that they might not say at other times. So they're just emotional.
So you gotta sort of let some of that stuff slide a little bit.
All right, now you're in the fight. Now, I want you to
focus on listening closely. You see, when your partner's angry, it's so
easy to just get defensive, and then your brain is just focusing on your
next comeback, what you're gonna say. Instead, I want you to really
key into what they're saying, empathize with them, put yourself in their shoes,
and even verbalize it. Say it back what you think they're saying.
But when you do talk, stay on your own feelings rather than their behavior.
Right, you never do you always do? You don't do these y
how about I felt this because of that? Right? So instead of saying
you didn't clean up the dishes. Let's say that guy hadn't left the note
and she ran into his room and said, you didn't clean up the dishes.
What if she said instead, you know, when I see dirty dishes
in the sink, it makes it feel like you don't care about me or
my time. Right, So different, Stay on your feelings. Avoid those
taboo words, the ones I just used, always and never, because nobody
always or never does anything, okay, And then you get sidetracked arguing about
the facts. Now later, we're going to have a therapist on and I
definitely want to ask her about this. If this is really common with couples,
if you get into the same fight over and over and over again,
I think it's because it doesn't even have to do with this current relationship.
It has to do with some early childhood conflict that you have. So starting
to realize that is a big step forward. If you're continuing to fight about
the same thing and it never gets resolved, it probably doesn't belong in this
relationship. It belongs in you, in some that happened in your past.
But above all, don't avoid things, no matter how uncomfortable some subject is.
Stay with it. Try to understand. There's so much research to show
that if you are dismissive of your partner's feelings, or you just change the
subject, or worse, you give them the silent treatment. This is a
prescription for a breakup and take a cool down break if you need to.
If you need to stop yourself from saying something awful that you can't recover from,
if you need to stop yourself from breaking something or hitting somebody, then
it's okay to go for a walk or run, go to the gym,
meditate, whatever you need to do. But you need to tell your partner
clearly when you will be able to talk again. And keep this promise.
Don't use it as an actagism. I'm going to get out of this situation
and maybe this situation will disappear. Okay. These are how people have healthy
arguments. It is not you don't judge your relationship's health based on how much
they fight, but the quality of their fights. And then do you have
great makeup time? You don't have to have makeup sex, but you can
that's always fun. But do you have time when you come back into relationship
and say I'm sorry I said that Annie, I love you. We got
it figured out right, then you know you're having healthy, healthy conflict.
It's important, all right when we come back, because I get people write
me about this all the time. Are you dating somebody who's emotionally avoidant?
I've got a user's guide for you how to date somebody who's emotionally avoidant.
You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI AM six forty We Live
Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from
KFI AM six forty. KFI Am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh
with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. Okay, So a
lot of my knowledg I came by through reading textbooks, reading self help books,
continuing to read stuff, but most of it is through life experience.
And I have to tell you I used to have what I would call an
anxious ambivalent attachment style. You know what an anxious ambivalent attachment style is.
It is, oh my god, when is he going to call? Oh
my god, I can't wait, Oh my god. I'm going to be
attached to guys who aren't really interested in me those bad boys, I Am
just going to fall in love with them. But if one of them turns
around and shows love, I'm going to go go away, and I'll do
everything I can to make them go away. Right, the come forward,
go away girl. That was me, And I got myself attached to this
playboy, bad boy, nightclub owner guy who's so gorgeous, so gorgeous,
and he would come and go based on his own avoidant thing. What's avoidant,
you ask, Well, there are people out there who feel really uncomfortable
talking about feelings. In fact, when they have a feeling it's nice,
they're not even aware they have it. If you take an attachment test,
and there's lots of them online attachment style test, but the best one here
at Google it is by Chris Frayley fr L. E. Y. He's
a researcher and he collects data all the time on attachment style. You can
go on and take Chris Frayley's attachment test and if you have an avoidant attachment
style, you're probably not listening to this radio show. But if you are,
sometimes you will get a false positive for secure because you not you.
But someone like that is so detached from their own feelings that when the questions
are saying something like when my partner's away, I have feelings of longing or
distress when they're not around, you're like, no, I'm good, and
you have a whole bunch of those, right, And so it sometimes comes
off as secure because people who have an avoid attachment styles, partly genetic,
partly what happened early in life, learn to be completely self sufficient because the
little child inside them they're unconscious, doesn't trust relationships, doesn't trust that they
will be loved if they reveal their true feelings to somebody. So I get
direct messages and emails from people all the time asking me how to handle somebody
who's avoidant. Because what's interesting is that people who have an anxious attachment style
who are in love with longing are unconsciously really attracted to people who have an
avoidant style. Now, they don't like the feeling that they're in and they'll
say things like it's just the chemistry's just there. I don't know why I'm
drawn to him and he doesn't call me back, right, is like,
unconsciously they're drawn. So is it possible for somebody who has an avoidant attachment
style to have a healthy relationship, yes, under one of two circumstances.
One is if they're in a relationship with another avoidant person. They have great
relationships, no thread of into me to see. They act like perfectly well
behaved roommates, nobody has to worry about any feelings. They're never touched on.
Or they meet somebody who has a secure attachment style who can tolerate them
their withdrawal, et cetera and not crumble and fall apart, And maybe maybe
the avoidant person learns that it's okay to open up, that it's safe,
that the person with the secure attachment style isn't going to run away make fun
of them for their feelings. They're just going to be there and be solid.
So maybe you're somebody who does have a secure attachment style, which means
you can give and receive love comfortably, that you have a solid backbone,
and you can be honest about your feelings, and you can tolerate shame and
say you're sorry sometimes and not fall apart. Right, You're not overly proud,
you don't have a big ego. You just kind of you like yourself,
but you realize that you're human and sometimes you make mistakes. That's somebody
with a secure attachment style. So if you're that and you happen to be
dating somebody who's avoidant, here's some little tips for you. Number one,
don't take anything personally. People with an avoidant attachment style are not deliberately trying
to mess with you. They're not deliberately trying to hurt you. In fact,
what they're doing is practicing self preservation. You see, emotional intimacy makes
people who are avoidant feel extremely uncomfortable, So sometimes you have to respect that.
If they withdraw, they're not hurting you. They're just going into their
little safe place. Right. However, my second bit of advice is still
model healthy feelings yourself. Don't let them create the rules over your honesty.
All feelings are normal, All feelings are welcome. To express your feelings through
honest emotional language. Just because your partner can't express their feelings doesn't mean that
there has to be a moratorium on the healthy modeling of emotions. Maybe they'll
learn something from you modeling, meaning they'll learn right they see the model of
it. Third thing, please limit your prodding. Okay, Avoidant people get
easily engulfed smothered and they withdraw even more when they're pushed. So instead of
asking them, well, what are you feeling and why don't you talk to
me about this? You need to open up. You are emotionally avoidant.
Nope, doesn't work. In fact, if you're going to use any word
to ask them, how, how should I'm feeling a little left out here?
How should we fix this? Because that's like a problem to be solved
rather than a feeling to be dealt with. Also, let's think about you
and your emotional health. Find other places of emotional support, close friends,
family, Those may be the people where you get most of your emotional intimacy
from. And that's okay. And above all, don't reinjure yourself if you
have an anxious attachment style and every time your avoidant partner withdraws or dismisses,
you, don't take it so personally, but go see a therapist, a
licensed clinical therapist, who can help you understand that this person today is a
convenient object that's replicating what probably happened early in life, maybe even before you
were verbal, and you can't remember it right. Eventually I learned to leave
avoidant people. It was hard, I had to go completely no contact to
give myself self control. I had to like block them, change my phone
number, you know, change my email, do all that stuff. Also
understand that when you're breaking up with somebody who's avoidant, you're going to have
vulnerable moments where you're going to want to reach out anyway, don't do it.
Find another backup person that you can call, a close friend, a
relative, somebody who you can console with when you're feeling lonely. And above
all, go to therapy so you can change your patterns. When I learned
to be attracted to somebody who was kind and loving and secure and available,
everything changed in my life. It made my life so easy. Hey,
when we come back, I'm going to go to social media. Remember I'm
not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. But I've written three books on
relationships, i did a dissertation on attachment theory, and I've had a lot
of life experience. Okay, but if you want to send me a direct
message, the handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. I think we're checking Instagram
today, so head on over to my Instagram at doctor Wendy Walsh. Send
me a question because I'll be answering them when we come back. You are
listening to the Doctor Wendy walshow on KFI AM six forty were 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