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. Welcome back to
the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio app. Just a reminder, I have a PhD in clinical psychology
and I'm a psychology professor, not a therapist, but I have written three
books on relationships. I am really obsessed with studying the science of love and
sharing the information as a journalist to you. I know that many of you
send me lots of messages on social media with your relationship questions and I'm happy
to answer them with my wisdom and also, as you know, regularly refer
you to a good therapist because some of you it's time and maybe this is
the way by reaching out to me. So if you'd like to send a
message in a DM on social media, I'm on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook,
Twitter, that other one, Instagram, and producer Kyla will go to
the dms and find some for us. The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy
Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh Okay, without further ado, let us begin my
drive by makeshift relationship advice. Okay, this from Instagram. Dear doctor Wendy,
Me and my girlfriend of seven months took our first vacation together. I'm
more of a chill vacation person and she's very adventurous. We have completely different
vacation styles. What's a good compromise, Well, this is a great exercise
for you guys to work out in your relationship. You know, we fall
in love with people because they're different from us. They're like our matching peace
in some way. That's just makes us feel complete and we love all the
things about them that are different. For instance, Introverts like extroverts. Extroverts
like introverts. You're a chill person, she's adventurous, right. But then
what happens is we get into the day today of the relationship and we try
to make the person our clone. We think there's something wrong with them if
they're not like us. You know, every day in your relationship there will
be opportunities to compromise, and this is one of those. So the answer
is, you guys should work this out together. My personal opinion would be
that you find a kind of vacation that involves both kinds of activities. If
you want to have a my tie on a beach, then she will have
a day like that with you, and you will go hiking in the mountains
to a waterfall with her the next day, and you will just figure out
a way so that both your needs are met. I also know people that
you know. Some people are traveling and one likes to be on their computer,
either because they're working still on the trip or whatever, and they'll go
out and do things separately and then come back for dinner. That's all okay
too. You don't have to be with each other twenty four hours a day
when you're on vacation. It's nice if you're in love and want to do
that, but you don't have to, Alrighty, moving on this one over
on TikTok, Dear doctor Wendy, When my relationship become predictable, I lose
interest and leave. It has happened in my past five relationships. What attachment
style is this? Can I ever find lasting love? Oh? Oh,
I see you want me to pull out my crystal mall here and tell you
your future or you want me to try to diagnose you look you're seeing the
pattern right, You're seeing that you're the one that leaves. Now, the
question is are the relationships becoming predictable or are you just not accustomed to the
change that happens after the exciting part of the beginning of relationship where you get
assaulted with a cocktail of neuro hormones, dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, neurope
and nephron it's the best drug we have, honestly, and then after a
while your brain gets accustomed to that, and then things sort of settle down
and become a lot more normal. If you call that predictable and you get
bored, then you know, maybe we need to talk about what kind of
stimulation you need in your life, or whether you need to learn how to
put novelty in your relationship so it doesn't feel stagnant and it doesn't feel boring.
I do think, though, the fact that you've told me about a
pattern past five relationships you bailed on when they got a little bit predictable tells
me that before you enter number six, you go and enter a relationship with
a therapist, so you guys, can figure out what is it about you
that makes you do this? Because you're right, you did the most important
step, which is becoming aware of your own pattern. So thanks for writing
in. Okay, Heading over to YouTube, Dear doctor Wendy. I don't
like to tell partners I have children until I feel comfortable with them. My
last partner said, I broke his trust. How can I start to tell
people I have children and be comfortable. It's natural to want to protect my
kids. Okay, let me this is You've opened up a big can of
wording for me because I was a single mom for a lot of years.
And you're right. It is good to protect your kids. It is good
to not drag your kids through your romantic life. But I feel like you're
concealing and lying to partners about the makeup of you and your family by not
saying that you have kids. That should go in your profile from the beginning.
You know. I remember when my kids were little and I went to
see this therapist and I said, well, when do you tell them you've
kids? And she goes, from the beginning, tell them you're a three
pack, and you come as a three pack, and that's the deal,
right, Like, relationships aren't supposed to be the separate little romantic compartment away
from your family. They're a bridge between tribes. Now. I ended up
not having a long term relationship until my kids were nearly grown because I had
read some of the statistics. One of the most disturbing ones I read showed
that a child living in a house with a non biologically related male mommy's boyfriend,
husband, stepbrother has eight times the rate of abuse either emotional, physical,
or god forbid, sexual abuse. I saw that, and I was
raising little girls, and I was like, Okay, I'm just not gonna
do that, right But as far as like, I almost feel like the
way you say you're concealing your children feels like you feel like your children are
something to be embarrassed about, something to be ashamed of, and they're not.
It's who you are, and reproduction is the whole reason why we're on
the planet. I say, go forth, proudly, go forth and tell
people that you're you know, you're a very fabulous mother. Tell them the
exciting things you do with your kids. If they move away because they don't
want to take on the burden of your kids, you should turn around and
do the touchdown cheer because you got rid of them early. But stringing them
along and I can see how you said that last partner said you broke his
trust. You did you know? There's research out of the Kinsey Institute that
says lying on dating profiles, whether it's about your age, your weight,
your height, or your family composition, is a big turn off and people
will run because they think of they're lying about this, what else are they
lying about? Building trust means honesty and authenticity from the beginning. If you'd
like to send me a direct message on social media, please do. The
handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh. When we come back, I'll continue to
answer your questions. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I'm KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're listening to
Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I am six forty. Welcome back to
the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I'm KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app. Right now, I am answering your social media questions.
If you have relationship questions, you're welcome to put them in a DM
to me on my social The handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy Walsh reminder,
I do have a PhD in clinical psychology, but I am a psychology perfect
certain not a therapist, although I've written three books on relationships and a dissertation
on attachment theory. I like to think of myself as a journalist who provides
the science to you. But I'm also a woman, and I've had a
life of experience and wisdom that I'm happy to share with you. So if
you want to send me a message and get some of my drive by makeshift
relationship advice, I'm happy to. Okay, here we go, Hey,
doctor Wendy, I've been holding the financial weight in my marriage for two years.
Whenever I suggest that my husbands start looking for work again, he gets
so upset and we get into a huge fight. I want him to start
working again. Am I being financially abused? What can I do? Well?
Here's a clarification on what financial abuse is. Financial abuse is a kind
of a version of domestic violence, where the person who has the money,
who has the income, controls the other person with it, so they don't
give them an allowance, they don't give them access to the bank accounts or
the credit cards, and they make them behave in certain ways if they're going
to pay for things that would be considered financial abuse. What's happening here is,
for some reason that you didn't explain to me, your husband has lost
his job and may have I don't know for sure, fallen into some kind
of depression. If unemployment doesn't make it depressed, I don't know what else
does. So I think at this point it's about you and your boundaries and
how much you can tolerate. You know, it's not your job to heal
him. It's also not your job to support him while he does whatever he's
doing. It is your job to set up boundaries. You didn't mention whether
there are children in the house, whether this could potentially be the breakup of
a family. But this is another time when finding some time and call your
health insurance find out what they pay, finding some time and some money to
get into therapy to help you be clear about your boundaries. Boundaries are you
know, they're rules for you so you don't get hurt, but they also
always involve consequences. Boundaries aren't just talking lip service. You need to get
a job or else. There's no or else boundary would be I'm giving you
ninety days. If you don't get yourself healed and find some contribution to this
household, I'm going to move out or we're selling the house or whatever.
I mean, those are huge, big boundaries. But I think that you
need to spend some time figuring out what your boundaries are because and also you're
not helping him by supporting him. That's called enabling, right, You're enabling
whatever he's going through and letting it be the status quo. So my advice,
see a therapist, figure out what it is. Dear doctor Wendy,
my ax is trying to get back with me and I'm in a brand new
relationship. I really love my ex, but our relationship got out of control.
I wonder what's behind those words out of control. I wouldn't say it
was toxic, but we stopped hearing each other. I feel like she only
wants me back because I'm in a new relationship. Yes, of course,
that's why we want people get all interested in us, you know when we
get somebody else, because all of a sudden, our value goes up in
their eyes. So you know, my advice is, if you're in a
new relationship and if you're happy in that new relationship. Don't muddy the waters
with all this back and forth thinking and looking back with rose colored glasses.
There's actually research to show that when we look back in history we see things
more positively. When we look forward to the future, as a natural survival
instinct, we see things as more terrifying, more scary. So I think
that this is a time for you to go complete really no contact so you
can focus on your new relationship, because this is not fair to your new
partner. I will say that, dear doctor Wendy, Oh, I get
this kind of stuff alone a lot. I found some weird porn history in
my boyfriend's phone. It wasn't anything like what we do. How can I
talk to him about this? Should I say something? Okay? So,
if you're a woman, I just want to tell you this. When guys
watch porn, it's no different than a woman getting a pedicure. Okay.
It doesn't mean their relationship shopping. It does like they're getting a little massage
for their brain. I do. I am unhappy with increasingly violent porn,
misogynistic porn, etc. Because it starts to wire men's brains into thinking women
are that, etc. But everybody has a right to their own autonomy when
it comes to their sexuality. So what someone does with the privacy of their
telephone, if it's not bleeding into your relationship, like, come on,
baby, I want to do this. They do it in the Bourne movies
and you don't feel comfortable. Who cares, Let's do it anyway. Okay,
it's not bleeding into your relationship. Then the next question is what are
you doing in his phone? Huh? Really? I mean I've had a
boyfriend for three years. We know each other's pass codes to our phone.
I don't go digging around for fun. I might he's driving, he might
say, answer this text for me. But the fact that you're snooping tells
me that you feel insecure for some reason, either about the relationship or about
your value in a relationship. So my advice woman to woman is stops snooping
and then you won't hurt yourself. And if it's not bleeding into your relationship,
then he has a right to whatever sexual fantasies, even if they include
visual assistance that everyone does. It'd be like, okay, here's the flip
side. What if a guy wrote in and said, my girlfriend will not
tell me her fantasies. I don't think we can have a healthy sex life
unless she tells me what's going on in her head at the same Sorry,
dude, you don't get to know what we do to make our bodies respond.
Is our business? All right? If you would like to send me
a DM, I answer questions every week here on the show. The handle
everywhere is at Doctor Wendy Walsh. All right, when we come back.
There's a famous couple. I'll tell you who they are if you don't know
them. As she's a new mom. She wore a provocative costume on stage,
and her boyfriend who she's been with a few years, the father of
her children, tweets out to the world or put somewhere on DM. It's
the outfit though you're a mom oh moralizing her clothing because she has a baby.
We need to talk about this when we come back. You are listening
to The Doctor Wendy Wealsh 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. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
kf I am six forty. We are live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
I always have to say that because so many people follow me on social media
from all over the country and indeed the world. And I want to remind
everybody that you can download the iHeartRadio app. If you've missed any part of
this show, you can go back and listen to it all. It gets
put up like an hour after the show. But also if you've missed any
in the past, you can always listen to Doctor Wendy on demand. All
right, So there's some gossip, celebrity gossip. Do you remember who the
actress Keiki Palmer is. Remember she's young and hip and cool, and she
announced her pregnancy on Saturday Night Live last year. I think it was She's
from that beautiful actress from Aquila and the b And let's see a lot of
media's family reunion jump in long shots, True Jackson, She goes on and
on. So she's a successful AMOS actor. Now she has a boyfriend,
a living boyfriend of a few years named Darius Jackson. I had to go
look him up because I had to figure out, like, where is the
status? Who has the power here? They have a baby. Baby was
born in February. She announced her pregnancy on Saturday Night Live. He's a
personal trainer. Okay, that's fine, you can be a good personal trainer.
And he played football in college. He's gorgeous and all that stuff.
So she's a new mom with a baby, and she goes out to an
Usher concert. It's not clear whether she was with him or not in Las
Vegas. Gets up on stage, Usher pays homage to her, sings a
little bit, etc. And she's wearing a beautiful see through, sheer black
dress with some lacy leggands underneath, and she looks gorgeous. All fine until
after on social media when people were going crazy on how beautiful she looks.
He writes, it's the outfit though, you a mom. I'm just reading
it directly. I'm not mocking, just reading what he wrote, put it
on Twitter, and then he doubled down, basically saying in his family,
they have morals and this isn't right for a new mother to dress like this.
Oh right, what's really happening, folks? So I want to remind
you there are all kinds of things that contribute to your status in a relationship.
For women, it is often how beautiful they look, but in today's
times, it also may be level of celebrity. This guy her partner is
not famous or just as gorgeous as her, etc. They're not married,
she's got the baby now. And he sees Usher with his arm around his
girlfriend up on stage and his girlfriend's looking very sexy. There is not any
man on the planet who wouldn't feel a little threatened by at let alone a
personal trainer who's married to a famous celebrity actress. So this was his little
kind of jab to get hurt, to be in line right, He's afraid
that Usher could be a mate poacher. I don't even know Usher's relationship status,
so it doesn't matter. But the point is, this is why we
do this, and it is very, very common with men to try to
control women psychologically. We know there are men out there who try to control
women physically through threats of violence or indeed violence, but the other ones when
men feel insecure or they have an anxious attachment style. I'm not saying he
does, but in general, they're more likely to try to put down their
mate because if a guy can make a woman feel insecure, then she's less
likely to go out into the mating marketplace and try to find somebody else.
Okay, so that's what's going on. Now, let's go to the subject
at hand. Is it okay for moms to dress sexy? Yes? Have
you ever seen the video with is it the Kardashians and Fergie called milk Money
and it's all about breastfeeding moms and how sexy they can be and the milkman
chasing them. You really should see this video. It's fabulous. You know,
women have every right, at any stage of their life span to use
their greatest power, which is their physical prowess. It will be like saying
to a man, you know what, now that we're married and we have
a child, I really don't think you should drive a flashy sports car,
and I don't think you should be going to the gym and working on those
muscles all the time. That's the same thing, right, we are always
going to be have to make guard everybody in every relationship. I make guard
in my relate. I like where you been, who you with, who's
that girl, what's happening? I need to show up there. If you
value you your partner, you will mate guard them. This is a natural,
normal part of human mating strategy, human evolution. So he's doing a
little mate guarding by trying to put her down. Unfortunately, the Internet came
to kekeep Palmer's side, and they're not happy with him, because the Internet
right now is very feminist right and women have every right to use their body
however they want. I always used to say when I was talking, for
instance, about sex workers who get paid to do certain fun things. You
know, if a man is qualified to do some physical jobs that involve heavy
lifting that a woman couldn't do because of her just her upper body strength,
then she's qualified to do some other jobs that he might not be qualified for
because he's missing some parts. So just saying we have a right to use
our body, now, was she deliberately trying to taunt him, tempted?
We don't know. We don't know all the details of their relationship. But
in my opinion, women can dress however they want, whenever they want,
across the lifespan, and that also stands for older women. I cannot stand
here young women on social media put down older women for dressing sexy. Who
cares? She doesn't care what people think about her now because she's old,
She's graduated. She's smart, she's wise, just saying, all right,
this dude loses in this case against the school of public opinion. When we
come back, let's talk about love. Let's talk about why it's important,
let's talk about how to create it, and let's talk about the most important
things you need to do to keep your relationship alive and healthy. 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. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show
on kf I Am six forty. It is the home stretch of my two
hours with you here on KFI every Sunday. It's always my treat to be
here with you, and I wanted to spend a moment to kind of go
back in history and talk about the beginning of how I got to where I
am regarding teaching people about the science of love. I'm a psychology professor at
California State University, Channel Islands, and when I teach developmental psychology, I
talk about, especially in the age twenties or thirties, building intimacy. That
that is the ultimate challenge and conflict. You know, we are wired to
bond. We are wired to reach out and connect with people, whether that
connection involves a sexual relationship, or romantic relationship or a close friendship. We
don't do well in isolation. In fact, as a surgeon general says,
loneliness is the big epidemic right now. But I thought I came from a
leave it to Beaver family. In fact, of a friend of mine told
me he was the first person to ever get me into therapy many years ago,
and he said, when anybody says they came from an idyllic childhood,
a perfect childhood, or leave it to beaver family, you know, there's
a lot of baggage buried there, pretty deep, because the very act of
going from pre verbal, completely dependent infant to you know, fully effective adult
is a painful one. It's a lot of losses along the way, a
lot of losses, and a healthy person learns how to manage those losses and
grow from them. But I compensated for them. I became anxious, I
became avoidant. I chased around a bunch of bad boys for a lot of
years, and I had all kinds of opportunity because I was on television.
I was a local news anchor here. I hosted TV shows, you know,
And so I had opportunity to date a lot of people, but always
the wrong ones, the ones who would reignite my early abandonment issues. And
it's like, those bad boys made me crazy, But I wanted to make
one of them love me. This was my crazy little challenge in my head.
If I could somehow get one of them to turn into a good mate,
then somehow I would be lovable, be a good person, be valuable
to myself. I don't know, but that was my challenge. In the
meantime, I met people who had a secure attachment style. I met great
guys who were ready and available to be intimate. I remember actually sitting at
a lunch table on like a third date with a guy, and he said,
I just want you to know I'm attracted to you. I think you're
fabulous, and I would like to go forward and get to know you better
and have a real relationship. And I was like, I guess, all
right, I gotta go take this call. I was dashing away from restaurant
tables and out of places. I was this hard to attain woman because in
some ways I was terrified or if somebody was available to me, emotionally available,
then somehow there was something wrong with them in my mind. It's like
I thought, well, they're too nice, why do they like me?
I need to prove that I'm likable by having somebody who doesn't like me like
me. It was the craziest, craziest way of thinking. So anyway,
this friend of mine eventually got me into therapy. I went to a number
of different therapists. I tried all kinds of things. It was only later,
you know, once I settled down to nurse my babies, that I
went to graduate school in my late thirties to get a master's and PhD in
psychology, And then I learned that there's a whole science to love, and
that love isn't about luck. You hear people say all the time, you
know, if it happens or if it works out for me, No it
doesn't. You make it work out, like everything else in your life.
You plan it, you execute it, you make it happen. Love is
about skills, not luck, and you can learn those skills if you don't
have people around you who can shape you and help you learn to be intimate.
Then go to a therapist who can teach you how to be intimate.
You know, I'm a very long slow boat on the way to love.
I don't think I found a true, secure attachment and a feeling of deep
love until well into my fifties. Well into my fifties, I kept learning,
but all along I kept reminding myself that every relationship wasn't a failed relationship.
It was a learning opportunity for me to get smarter, to understand what
I didn't want to leave earlier. For many people, I say, you
know what, it might be progress for you to see the red flags early
and move away and just be like, Nope, that's not going to work.
One of my videos that went viral online, it is about me just
telling a little story about somebody I saw for a short period of time and
the sex was great and they were a nice person, and then I could
feel them withdrawing a little bit, and the old Wendy would have chased him
down or tried to be extra sexy and cool and tried to reel him back
in with all my tips and tricks, because I was very good at that
but this time I didn't. I called him and I said, hey,
you know, we've lost our rhythm or whatever. I had a little conversation
about it, and I could feel him not having a clear answer for me,
and so I said goodbye, Darling, goodbye Darling, and I moved
along. Doesn't mean I didn't feel sad. It didn't mean that I didn't
feelings of loss. It didn't mean that I didn't feel even a little bit
abandoned. But I could tolerate those feelings and know that there was something else
out there for me. You know, love has biological pieces, pheromones,
gene matching, Love has psychological pieces our attachment style. Love also has social
pieces. And that's pretty much all we put in the dating app. The
social thing like what food you eat? Are you vegan? Are you a
paleo? Or you know? Or political or education or zip code. That's
the social stuff because in practicality, relationships are a bridge between tribes and so
it's all those things. It's psychology, biology, and it is sociology.
And I encourage you to keep trying. If you're still single, I encourage
you to keep trying because the person is out there and the person by the
ways in you. Once you have good relationship skills, you'll find there are
many more mates around. That's the first thing. But if you're in a
relationship that is un of filling to you, you have the ability to improve
that relationship or find a new relationship. Don't beat yourself up because it's not
working. We just all keep trying. Stop judging, stop shaming yourself.
Love will be there. We're wired to bond and I wish you love and
happiness in your future. You can always find me every Sunday from seven to
nine pm right here on KFI AM six forty. You can also follow me
on my social media at doctor Wendy Walsh. It is always my pleasure to
share the research and the science of love with you. You been listening to
the Doctor Wendy Welsh 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.