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 app kf I Am six
forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. Now, I'd like to welcome my listeners and viewers from Instagram.
If you'd like to come over and have a peek inside the studio,
just go on to Instagram at doctor Wendy Walsh. And after the segment,
I am going to be taking your calls and your DMS. I know these
are private questions and you might not want to say it on the radio,
so that's okay. Producer Kala's going to be checking the dms as well.
Alrighty. Serial monogamy, our culture right now is so accepting of so many
different sexual orientations that many people are even self identifying as a serial monogamist as
if it's a specific sexual orientation like gay straight by It may be for a
few people, but I also think there's another group of people who are relationship
hopping on a regular basis, hardly because the culture makes it. Support the
culture supportive makes it easy, right, but also because it satisfies their insecure
attachment style. Some people who are serial monogamous, I think are actually afraid
of love, or they're afraid of commitment, or they're afraid of emotional intimacy.
Okay, how to tell if you fall into this category? Are you
the kind of person who seeks constant excitement? Are you the kind of person
that doesn't like to be alone? Oh? God, I remember knowing those
girls, Producer Kayla. You know those girls, they go from one guy
to the other and they can't be alone for a day or a week,
The Kim Kardashians and the jos and the Kardashians and yeah, yeah, those
girls, the Kim Kardashians and the Jalo's, Like they need to stop and
be a single woman for a while and then figure out who they are.
Anyway, here I am. They're doing fine. I guess. Are you
somebody who gets bored when you are in a committed relationship? Maybe, just
maybe you become addicted to the neurochemicals of early stage love, the dopamine,
the serotonin, the oxytocin. It's all so exciting, and then when it
calms down a little bit, you're like, Okay, I'm bored. I
want that again with a new person. Are you the kind of person who
gets over breakups really easily? So here's the thing about pain, separation,
pain, any kind of pain, is that the more often it happens,
the more resilient you become. So if you find yourself becoming resilient to breakups,
this is not a good sign. You're supposed to feel sad, You're
supposed to feel lonely. It's okay to feel those feelings. Are you somebody
who moves very fast in your new relationships? You want to get to the
bedroom as soon as possible because you want those neurochemicals right. You're moving very
very fast. And when you do have this new relationship, because you've moved
so quickly, you make this person the entire focus of your life, the
be all and the end all, to the exclusion of other relationships that you
could be building. And I just even mean platonic relationships or family relationships.
Are you know people you need to learn to be close to somebody, to
trust, to love, to trust a connection. I think the biggest way
to tell if you're a serial monogamous relationship hopper is how many victims do you
leave behind? I used to say. I think it was in my book
The Boyfriend Test. I said something like, if you meet a guy and
you find that his relationship roadmap is strewn with the bodies of disappointed women.
Right, if somebody talks bad about their exes and they're always driving them crazy,
or their exes are always overreacting, or their exes, you know,
all the pay attention. Okay, if there's a litany of hurt people behind
this person, be careful if you're starting to date them now. I do
want to say that our society does support cereal monogamy. And again there's a
small population who are totally comfortable with cereal monogamy for the rest of their life.
I do not recommend that they have children, because the one thing kids
need is consistency. That's the one relationship where you just have to stick it
out for eighteen years. That's all. Just stick it out for eighteen years.
But if you're afraid of commitment, if you're afraid of intimacy, then
how are you going to have that commitment or intimacy with a child. So
make a vow I'm not having kids. Get a snip snip whatever, take
some pills, don't have kids, and enjoy your serial monogamy. But if
you're somebody who actually is longing for love, we have a culture that allows
hookups, situationships, ethical nonmonogamy, polyamory, and it can get very confusing
because you can think, well, maybe that's what I am. That's what
they say on the internet. I might be maybe that's what I am.
I'm here to tell you that there are a lot of serial monogamous who actually
have insecure attachment styles and they actually want love and they want commitment. I
do want to say this. Humans are wired to bond. Okay, across
the lifespan, we are wired to bond. It feels good, it is
good for our health. Right where cooperative breeders, cooperative thinkers. Life is
easier when you're in a couple. And so there are many people longing.
So how do you break the cycle? How do you break that cycle of
having relationships that have an expiration date? Well, you start off by going
to therapy. If you don't know my story, I will remind you I
was a full on player chick all the way through my twenties, and I
confused female sexual freedom with my own insecure attachment style. I used it as
well, that's what a girl can do, she can just get it on.
And why don't you judge me with that double standard stuff? A ba
ba bah No. I didn't know how to get close. I didn't know
how to trust love. And those nice guys, those commitment oriented nice guys
that would show up in my eyeline. I would say things like hill,
they're too nice. Too nice, nice is what you want, Okay?
And then I'd be chasing down all those bad boys because they confirmed my internal
idea that love couldn't be trusted. And if they let me down, then
that confirmed that love can't be trusted. All right, So I went to
therapy. I was in therapy for eighteen years, on and off, but
I learned how to healthy relationships. I learned about my own childhood trauma.
I learned about my anxious, ambivalent attachment style. The other thing that therapy
can do is can rule other other rule out other personality disorders, narcissism,
borderline personality disorder, etc. And also it can challenge your beliefs about love.
Where did you get this idea that love was supposed to be exciting forever?
Where did you get this idea that love was supposed to look like a
rom com or some kind of amazing movie Hollywood ending. I see people put
that sometimes in their online profiles. I want Hollywood romance love. Really,
go watch a movie, then that's what you're gonna Real life is not like
that. But the most important thing that therapy can teach all of us is
emotional regulation and good communication skills, because that's where you practice in the therapy
room. All right, With that said, after this break, I'm going
to be taking your calls. Producer Kyle is heading into the room to screen
your calls. You can say hello to producer Kayleb. The phone number is
one eight hundred five two zero one KFI write that down. One eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. Just a reminder, I'm a psychology
professor. I've been studying the science of love for a few decades. I'm
not a therapist. This isn't therapy. This is my drive by makeshift relationship
advice. Let me weigh in on your love life. Give us a call.
One eight hundred five two zero one five three four. 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. K f I AM six forty, you have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show, and
I'm taking your calls. Just a reminder, this is Drive by Makeshift Relationship
Advice. I am a psychology professor, but I've been writing about the science
of love for a lot of years. I'm also going to go to social
media and look at your dms. So if you like the dm ME,
a relationship question you may handle everywhere is at Doctor Wendy Walsh. Okay,
Producer Kayla. Who do we have on the line. We have Jessica with
the question. Jessica. Hi, Jessica, it's doctor Wendy. Hi,
dofter Wendy. This Sessica. So I am twenty nine years old. I'll
be thirty in a few months. I've never been in a relationship and I've
been looking for a while. Now I'm able to get three to four dates,
but then sometimes I feel like they run away. They will say things
like, um, things are going to fast, and I feel like I
tend to focus on my knees and not on theirs. Interesting, So what
do you think the issue is? Um, I'm not. I don't believe
I'm scared to be in a relationship. I'm thinking I'm My biggest fear have
to be that I might lose who I am in one, That you will
lose who you are, that somehow you know. I want to say,
in general, relationships are a way that our identity expands, you know.
I like to think of identity as a relationship as a ven diagram picture two
circles. Okay, I would say my opinion is that an unhealthy relationship is
two ven two circles right on top of each other, where you're so in
mesh that you have lost yourself you're just thinking about the other person, right,
And the other would be where you're two separate circles and you're living like
roommates in the house if you will, right, and nobody's stepping in any
tender areas. There's no intimacy, right, You're just being polite to each
other. I think a healthy relationship is sort of a little bit of both,
where you don't lose yourself, you actually gain a little bit from the
other person. There's some overlap, but you still have a part of yourself
the fact. And also I want to remind you, Jessica, that your
generation, according to the research, is starting later and later. You know,
you guys missed two years or more of getting together because of COVID.
A lot of social stuff was missing in this particular generation. So it's perfectly
okay to take your time. I do recommend that you get into therapy with
a licensed therapist because that person can help you and be almost like like,
I think of my therapist as my guide, like my wingman. Yeah,
I could report back and that kind of thing, but I've been go ahead,
I've been. I've been in therapy since I was like an early twenties,
on and off. But see the past two you're very consistent. I
would say stick it out because there's no rule on how long people take to
heal. There's no rule at all. There's no schedule on this, and
you're doing the work and that's the best news here. Thank you so much
for calling Jessica. All right, who do we have now, Producer,
Kayla, we have Josh with a question. Josh Hi. Josh is doctor
Wendy. Hey, doctor Wendy, thank you for taking my call. I
got a quick question for you. Sure. I've made some mistakes in my
relationship with my fiance. I actually cheated on her a few times, and
we've moved on, we've gotten over that, we've gotten past that. But
now her family, mostly her father and her mother, they really don't trust
me. They don't like me, and they don't want me around. How
do I go about getting you know, winning them that? Well? Time
will heal, you know, earning back trust after a betrayal can take a
long time, and you have to remember that they love her and they want
to protect her. So you need to somehow prove to them that you love
her as much and that you want to protect her as much and that you've
actually changed. Do you guys have a wedding date on the calendar? Yeah,
we do. We're actually supposed to get married in October of this year.
Ah. So are they not being supportive of the wedding? I know
her mother said that she would be very supportive for her daughter, but the
Dada wants nothing to do with anybody, so he's not going to go to
the Are they together? Are they married? Or divorced. You know they
are married. They're married, and he said he's not going to go to
the wedding exactly. Oh, man, you need to have a heart to
heart, man to man conversation with him. You need to go and earn
his trust and bow your head to the great lion as the young buck,
and let him know how bad you feel about all of this. How old
are each of you thirty five and thirty six. Yeah, it's time to
procreate. It's time to get a family going. Is that what you want?
Yeah, we're trying to adult right now. Oh well, it's going
to take time. Stay be steady on the course and have a beautiful wedding.
Thanks so much for college us. I appreciate it. All right,
let's go to social media where you are fast sending in some dms. Dear
doctor Wendy, Oh, this is on the topic that I was just talking
about. I find myself always going from relationship to relationship and I keep backupmates.
The thought of being alone doesn't feel right. Is this an unhealthy attachment
style? Well, only you and your therapist can know to fully diagnose this,
but I will say that evolutionary psychologists say that it's actually pretty healthy for
people to keep backupmates, and that all humans keep backupmates. Now, let
me make clear what a backupmate is. It's not somebody you're actively flirting with.
Okay, that's kind of cheating. That's still a betrayal. If you
would say something to somebody else privately that you would not say in front of
your significant other, than you're emotionally cheating. Right, But a backupmate is
a sort of like, well, you know, if something ever happened in
my relationship, maybe I'd be interested in pursuing this person. And it might
be a work colleague, it might be a friend from somewhere. But there
is a little bit of research to show that when people keep backup mats in
the back of their mind, that they tend to be healthy and to have
less depression. So that is normal to have backupmates. Now, if your
backupmates or somebody you're actively flirting with or actively dating or actively having sex with,
then you don't want those kind of backupmates because they're not backupmates. They're
actually mates. They're multiple mates. Right. And again, if the big
language I hear in what you wrote to me is the thought of being alone
doesn't feel right. Nobody likes to be alone, but we do have to
learn how to be alone sometimes so that we can be more of a whole
person when we come back into relationship with somebody. So it sounds like you're
bouncing into relationships as a reaction to your feelings of loneliness instead of saying,
Okay, I'm ready to join my wholeness with somebody else's whole self. All
right, let's move along. Dear doctor Wendy, I just moved in with
my boyfriend of three years and he's a mess. Oh, what do you
mean mess? We fight all the time because he just doesn't clean, literally
a mess. He always messy. I tell him, and he still doesn't
do anything. I can't see myself dealing with this forever, but I love
him. How can I get him to tidy up? Oh? I have
the best advice for that. Just like you would train a two year old
or an animal or any other organism, we are pleasure seeking people. We
do not respond to nagging, We do not respond to information. We do
not respond to prompts or criticism. You know what we respond to rewards?
You figure out what his reward system is and when he accidentally just like you're
training a dog to sit, they accidentally sit, you give him a treat,
then they go, oh, what if I do that again, I'll
get another treat. Figure out what he likes, figure out what he wants,
and anytime he gets closer to tidy, just be nice, don't don't
nag, don't tell them what you want. You can quietly train anybody in
her reward system. Honestly, it's possible. It's a reward system. All
right. I'll be answering your questions more on social media and by phone if
you call in when we come back. The numbers one eight hundred five two
zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred and five two zero one five three
four. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six
forty with Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from kf I AM sixty Doctor Damaged on the Hard kf I AM
six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show. I'm answering your social media questions, taking your calls.
Remember it's drive by makeshift relationship advice. Let me weigh in with my life
experience. Someone wrote me a very long, very convoluted, very detailed email
that was so confusing. They were a swinger couple who started a relationship with
another couple, and they all had different attachment styles, and somebody got attached
to somebody more than they should have, and they felt some feelings they never
felt. You know what I like to say about a lot of the polyamory
and the swinging that goes around. It's all fun in games till somebody catches
feelings, till somebody gets hurt. You know, we evolved as a natural
thing to have sexual jealousy. We want to be jealous and protective of our
partner if we value our partner. Now. Yes, there are a few
people who men, for instance, are slightly more able to separate sex from
feelings or hight testosterone women or people with an avoidant attachment style, no threat
of intimacy, even if the intimacy of sexual jealousy, those feelings don't happen
right. But for the vast majority of human beings, it doesn't feel good
to think about your partner with somebody else. Now I remember being at a
dinner party once and a woman was telling me she's in a same sex relationship
that she actually likes for her partner to be with somebody else and come back
and describe it to her and it turns her on. Kaylee kind of like,
she kind of likes this idea. This is rare. Okay, this
may be a high testosterone woman, this is rare. The truth is that
most humans, if you value your partner, actually don't like the idea of
them being with somebody else. And the other I'm going to be honest.
The other issue. While there is a small portion of the population who can
have open relationships, who can swing, who can have polyamory, it's a
small portion of the population. Remember we had the woman on our show once
who's the preeminent researcher on polyamory in the world, and she said that,
you know, less than five percent of people can carry it on for any
length of time because of this thing called sexual jealousy. And actually the question
that the listener posed at the end was the most complicated question of all.
How can they maintain a happy four way relationship while keeping their primary relationship completely
happy? And you can't it just becomes a mess of a lot of people's
feelings. It's like wanting your cake and wanting to eat it too, and
it becomes very, very difficult, especially when there are all these feelings flying
around all righty, moving on, Dear doctor Wendy says this person on Instagram.
I am a naturally flirtatious person. Naturally. It's an interesting word there.
I naturally, Oh, they used it again. I naturally flirt with
people I am uninterested in uninterested. Okay, I'm in a brand new relationship
and my boyfriend Okay, this is a she. My boyfriend gets really mad
at how I interact with other guys. But honestly, it really comes naturally
to me. Should I accept this about me? Or should he accept this
about me? Or should I work on not flirting? First of all,
flirting is not naturally showing up. Okay, I want to remind everybody,
especially my first year psychology students. I show this picture of an iceberg on
my slide, tiny tip of the iceberg above the water and the giant mammoth
bulk of the iceberg underneath the water. That is, you're unconscious. All
of us have an unconscious that is well it's unconscious. It's outside of our
awareness. So outside of your awareness is this desire to have other people be
attracted to you, even people you're not interested in. I would venture to
say, but maybe it has to do with low self esteem that you're using
this tool. I know naturally. It's not that it's natural, it's that
you've done it so many times that you do it unthinkingly. Now, So
now what I'm going to say is if you want to preserve this relationship,
that you learn to become more conscious and more aware of your behavior, and
you might want to see a therapist and find out why you naturally flirt with
everybody, even people you're not interested in. Right, it's not just as
natural thing. It's not just born going. Oh, it's just born sexy.
Well, can I say, no, you're doing some kind of behavior
that's trying to draw people in closer to you or trying to make your lover's
jealous. And so why that's the question that you and your therapist can come
up for an answer with. But in the meantime, become a conscious of
what you're doing. And no, your boyfriend does not have to accept this
behavior, not at all. Okay, dear doctor Wendy, I'm having a
very stressful season and decided to try weed for the first time to chill out.
It works really well for me. My boyfriend hates the fact that I
now like to smoke. Is this a deal breaker? Well, if you're
suffering from addiction and your boyfriend thinks is an addiction and you have to check
out in order to deal with him, then it has become a couple problem.
It's become a relationship problem, right. So remember that ven diagram,
that overlapping circles. He's saying he doesn't get enough of the real you when
you're high. So I don't like the word deal breaker, but it's something
for you guys to explore and communicate about. Already. That brings this segment
to a close. We have a very special holiday tomorrow, kay, let
do you know what it is? Yeah? It's June tenth. Yeah,
and is it the first time it's in a national federal holiday? Right?
Is the first year? Last year? Last year? Second year? Yeah,
second year? Yeah, it's our newest holiday yea. Anyway, Okay,
for those who've been living under a rock, I'm gonna explain a little
bit about Juneteenth and then I'm going to ask the expert on Juneteenth, Kayla,
how best everyone should celebrate it. When we come back. You are
listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls 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 sixty k I AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy
Walsh with you. This is the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy Walls Show,
and what a way to end the show. June teenth is tomorrow the
newest federal holiday. Juneteenth National Independence Day is the official title, which is
a combination of June and nineteenth, and it essentially celebrates the end of slavery
in the country. It marks the day in eighteen sixty five when people who
were enslaved in Galveston, Texas found out for the first time that they had
been freed, except it was two years after President Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation.
Now, many states vary and how they observe this federal holiday. This year,
twenty eight states, along with District to Columbia, recognize it as an
official public holiday. Government offices are closed. State employees have a paid day
off. Here in California, it's considered a floating holiday, which means that
you can take it off and get paid in lieu of another personal day.
What does that mean, like if you have a sick day or something.
I guess if you use another holiday, you can get either or but you
don't get both. But I don't know what the other holiday between. So
here's the thing. I saw this woman on social media say very clearly,
if you are white, you should not be celebrating Juneteenth. How do you
feel about that statement. I'm very conflicted. Well, you know, we're
not We're not an anomaly. So I respect her feelings. I do.
I have mixed feelings about it. I do like I compare it in my
mind to Indigenous People Day, which used to be that the Columbus holiday thing.
Oh. I mean, it's not like we run out and go yay
Indigenous People Day. We stop and go, wow, look what happened?
Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, I think I respect that the acknowledgement,
because I'd rather be acknowledged than not acknowledge at all. Well, according to
doctor Coarita Brown, a sociology professor at Emory University. In fact, her
research focuses on race. She says there is no reason to feel awkward about
wanting to recognize Juneteenth, even if you're not Black. You're an American and
this is American federal holiday. She says that she would challenge non black folks
to do less celebration and more leaning into learning about history on that day,
right because it is absolutely everybody's history. It is a tragic history. We
all had ancestors in some way and somehow that were involved in what went on
for four hundred years. Okay, it's a part of the experience of America.
She also suggests that if you want to bring some real authenticity to your
recognition of June tenth, that you educate yourself. There's some other nice things
you can do. You are welcome, she says, as a white person
to attend a stry festival that is predominantly African American, to show solidarity,
to be an ally, just like we all walked during the days after George
Floyd was murdered, we were to other in it. She also suggested it
is a great day to patronize black owned businesses. That's what I was thinking,
Yeah, yeah, do that search. It's very easy on Google.
Black owned businesses near me. It's just a time for everyone to expand their
knowledge. You know. Earlier on the break, Kayla, you and I
were talking about the gaps in education about history in this country. Interesting enough,
I was raised in Canada, and I feel like I got more education
about slavery than many Americans did. I mean we had a lot of it.
Yeah, I feel like I learned a lot of my history in college
based off like an elementary school, high school I wasn't really touched on,
and I actually learned recently. In Germany, I believe they really teach about
the awful history that they that they've done because they don't want to repeat it.
But it doesn't get repeated exactly. So when it's like critical theory and
don't teach this thing, it's kind of like really scary because if you don't
teach and educate, it's it may just repeat itself. Right, Yeah,
already see human rights being shipped away in twenty twenty three, so which is
very very scary. And as we know that just because you have a rule
doesn't mean everything changes overnight or even since eighteen sixty five. Its change must
continue. We must continue to talk about these things more than talk about it.
We must continue each individual American to run their own little affirmative action programs.
We need to hire more blacks, promote more blacks, give raises to
more blacks, more creative opportunities, buy black art. Patronized black businesses.
Don't be afraid to say, you know what, if I have a choice
between a white or a black person, I'm gonna hire the black person.
Because of so many years of discrimination, so many years of lack of opportunity.
It's about making up for lost time. And I feel like some people
say, oh, white people don't need to talk about these kind of things
and they don't deserve to have an opinion about this kind of stuff. But
I hear you preaching about, you know, supporting black businesses and buying black
art, and I've been to your house, I've seen the black art,
and you're one of the reasons I got a job here. You're like,
I need a black woman producer. So not only are you not just doing
this for the theatrics of the microphone, but it's genuinely who you are,
through and through, and I appreciate your allyship doctor. Yes. You know,
someone had the question once saying that they don't trust a white person who
they think is being a savior. And I didn't understand the word savior because
I always thought that as a positive term. But she explained to me performative
right, doing it so other people will see that they are a good person,
and that never feels good, right. But you know, I don't
think it's any secret that I have biracial children. I raised two black women.
They are proud self identifying black women. And you know, hey,
if I work so hard in my life that I'm able to leave two financially
secure black women on the planet, then I think I've done a job.
That's my goal. I want to create legacy money for them. But I
don't know. I'm going backwards lately. I don't know. The bills keep
flying in. What is it? That's my plan, but it's just not
happening. Before we go, I just want to thank everybody for hanging in
there with me over these eight or nine years. I am continuing to enjoy
my time here at KFI. We have a special show next week which is
three hours long, right, so we'll be six to nine. Is that
writer, so yes, six to nine, six to nine. Next week,
we also have a really special guest, doctor Elizabeth Lloyd, who wrote
that famous book The Case of the Female Orgasm. As I say that,
right, yeah, she's gonna teach us all about the female orgasm next week,
right, which turns out it was just a fluke of nature. It's
not like honestly, so when I was youngish, there was this guy and
he was saying, oh, en, if you don't have the same kind
of desire as a man, there's something wrong with you. And they're actually
we're taught in graduate school that they're all these diagnoses for female sexual dysfunction.
Now come to find out that a whole chunk of women just naturally can't orgasm,
has nothing to do with what's going on in their head, has everything
to do with their anatomy. And we're going to explain this next week because
we'll have the expert who actually did the research, which will be very exciting.
Also, if you'd like to follow me on Patreon, Patreon, dot
com slash doctor Wendy Walsh, I have a what do I have? I
have a zoom room. Every Wednesday, we have a great, great group
of people oh, speaking about Juneteenth and racism. We have people from all
over the country and indeed in lots of other countries as well. And and
she was saying that she lives in the South, she's Latino, and she
has not experienced much racism. And then as she started talking, she told
a story that she was driving one day and she ran into a cluclex Klan
rally. Wow, like kind of recently, I'm like, okay, so
it's not over. There's much work to be done. Anyway, It is
always my pleasure to be here every Sunday. Join us next week for a
special three hour show from six to nine. You've been 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 wallsh You can always hear us live
on k five AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app.