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 AM six forty. You
have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show.
If you knew to my show, I have a PhD in clinical psychology.
I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor and I'm obsessed with the science
of love. And we have Route. Oh, we have Mark, we
have Kayla. I have one question I want to ask all three of you.
Let me start with raut Ule. How much anxiety do you think you
have in the general? None? None. I love that he's a calm,
happy person. I can see it on your face unless I'm running the
board at Mark Ronner. How much anxiety do you have in your life?
I've kind of dealt with anxiety for quite a number of years. Actually,
yeah, See it's a thing. It's partly genetic, you know, part
it's not the way we're wired. Kayla, how about you? I thought
I had none, but then I realized my high energy and NonStop talking is
a form of anxiety. So I think I have a lot. Oh interesting.
Yeah, had a conversation with a friend this week and he works remotely
from home, and he was saying that spending too much time alone gives him
more anxiety, only because he only has the sound of his own thoughts,
and he worries and worries and worries. So in a minute, I want
to talk more about anxiety. Let's see what else we have coming up.
How we lie to ourselves about our relationships. Oh, and do you have
a work crush? Are you actually thinking of maybe letting that person know?
I've got some advice for you. And if you've maybe woven a tangled web
of a romantic alliance at the office and you want to get out of it,
I've got some advice for you too. Plus later I'll be taking your
calls and answering your social media questions. Okay, this week, Okay,
I saw Barbie again? No you didn't again? Do you love? Because
I am stereotypical Barbie and I hate it being stereotypical Barbie my entire life,
And now all of a sudden, I have a role model for it.
I'm like, it's okay to bereotypical Barbie. But I went with if you
can imagine this, two of this century's greatest feminists. I went with attorney
Lisa Bloom and her mother, attorney Gloria Allred. Oh, I love it,
and we all wore pink and it was so I said, we had
dinner after a nice said to Gloria, I said, you know, and
to Lisa both, I said, you guys have spent decades laying the groundwork
for a movie like this to be greenlit. Right it could This movie couldn't
have happened in the seventies, eighties, nineties, or even two thousands.
They couldn't. We got to a place where we can talk about patriarchy,
talk about feminism, and tell all the canons that you're can enough, knough.
You're knough, you guys, you don't have to well. I actually
teach us when I teach developmental psychology and we talk about gender stuff. I
talk about the man box that so many men are trapped in, which is
a very narrow bandwidth of acceptable masculinity, right, and guys have a wide
range of being a dude too. And there's this, you know, this
idea that if you're a quote unquote a feminine man, you're less of a
man. Or if you're a feeling man, you're less of a man.
Or if you're less aggressive or competitive, you're less of a man. Or
if you don't want to take all sex, any sex, at any cost,
you're less of a man. And the truth is, you know,
anthropologists would say we have the widest range of masculinity, male behavior, paternal
investment. We know that some guys are really really good dad's and really involved,
lots of you guys, and then there's the others. So anyway,
it was great to see Barbie again. And coincidentally, the night before with
my twenty year old daughter, we watched this movie on Netflix called Moxie.
Have you seen that one? It's at his Simi Polar wrote it, directed
it, and she has a role as the mom in it. It's so
it's like you got a lot of Moxie. Yeah. It's about high school
of girls who are living in the patriarchy and don't know it, and she's
trying to She's an introvert and scared and trying to come up with a thesis
for her college applications and ends up doing an underground magazine called Moxie that she
leaves in the girl's restrooms that basically calls out all the guys because the guys
were, of course doing the most. I can't even say the words on
radio. Let's see, don't you see? I spensible? I don't know.
I'm sorry. We're listing women girls at school on their sexual prowers.
But let me tell you the one thing about the movie, you know,
has a Rara girl power ending, of course, but the one thing about
the movie that really struck a chord with me. So there's this scene and
Marsha Gayharden plays the principle and she's totally colluded with the patriarchy, of course,
and she comes in and there's a very attractive girl in a spaghetti straps,
you know, like a little top with spaghetti straps. But she's quite
endowed, this sixteen seventeen year old girl. So she calls her to the
office and she suspends her for it. And then the same point, she
points to the girl sitting next to her. She goes, she's wearing the
same top. It's a totally flat chested girl and so it looks very She
goes, it's different on her. You come to the office, right,
so it's like you're being disciplined for your own body. And I remember in
the eighth grade, mister fort Jay YEP Saint Thomas Elementary. I got called
to his office because I you know, when you have one of those collared,
long sleeve denim shirts and you it's eighty degrees outside and so you tie
it up at the bottom and reveal one inch of white, skinny abdomen.
That's what happened to me, because I was hot and the teacher said,
untoie your shirt and I said, no, I'm hot, and she sent
me the principal's office and I got suspended for that. Is that crazy?
That's so crazy. Pay attention to your work and not my middrift. I
did say at the age of fourteen, I said, sir, are you
saying that I'm responsible for another for a boy's erection? You are always meant
to be doctor. And he said go home, and then he called me
into his office. After I came back, like a few days later,
whenever I can, probably just for a day I come back. He called
me into his office. He goes, you know, I called your mother
and she told me that if we just gave you the time, you would
come to my office and you would apologize all on your own and I'll never
forget that moment because I looked at him and I said, well, sir,
since you're an older person and you're in a different position of power than
I am, I guess it is appropriate that I apologize for my tone and
apologize for maybe the way I said, But I will not apologize for my
ideas or opinions fourteen years old. I said that, good for you,
doctor Nding. I was ahead of my time anyway. That movie Moxy got
me. All right, let's go to anxiety. Shall you wonder why I
have anxiety? I was having this conversation, you know, I shoot those
lawyer commercials TV commercials, right, and the makeup artist and I were chatting
and and then we're talking about all kinds of things, real estate, whether
to buy a house. The cameraman was jumping in about this or that,
and they started talking about the what if, Well if I do this,
what if if I do that? What if? And I stopped them and
I said, you guys are busy worrying about problems that don't exist. And
I said, that's exactly what anxiety is. You know, we as human
beings all evolved to have anxiety. If we had any ancestors, well we
don't. Our ancestors all had anxiety. But if there were any humans on
the planets who did not have anxiety, they walked right up to a lion,
you know, and pettit them then got eaten for lunch. So as
a result, we have a very important survival instinct, which is, oh
my god, am I going to die right now? Oh my god,
this is dangerous? Right, Oh my god, this could be bad.
Oh my god. Right, So this is going on in our heads all
the time. It's a normal amount. Now. In our history, our
entire history, there were real things to be afraid of, from lions and
tigers and bears back in the old old time when we were hunters and gathers
to the Middle Ages where if you looked at your neighbor wrong, they clubbed
you on the head, right, I mean, there was You know,
people think there's so much violins in our culture right now. We actually have
the safest culture we've ever had in the evolution of human history. You know
what we do have. We have a lot of media reporting on the very
few incidents that do happen. Okay, I does want to say that so
we live in this safe time. There's actually nothing to worry about, or
very little to worry about. So we do use our anxiety, sometimes appropriately
by doing cathartic things to experience fear. They would be scary movies, roller
coasters, driving too fast, all that, and so we cathartically will do
stuff and those are healthy places, I think, my opinion, not for
children or for adults, especially males with a lot of testosterone. Violent video
games opinion only, I'm not ridden research here. Violent video games are an
act of catharsis, like, just get it out with your little what is
it called the control joys to head set. Don't get it out in the
real world, right, act it out in that way. So we go
to a scary movies, violent video games, roller coasters, bungee jumping,
all that stuff. But if we don't do those things, we have an
excess of anxiety that's just left over. You know. An example a comparison
might be, you know, babies who are not breastfed need a pacifier more
often than babies that are breastfed because babies are born with a certain amount of
sucking reflex and it needs to be used very strongly and aggressively to get the
milk to let down in the mother and to come out. And so if
you give it a bottle and the milk just flows down, it's got to
do something with its sucking reflex. So in the same sense, we've got
to do something with our healthy fear and our healthy anxiety. And here's what
we should do. Focus send the problems of today, not the problems of
yesterday or the problems of tomorrow. I wake up every morning this is my
personal little guide for life, and I say to myself. Life is a
series of problems to be solved. Hey, universe, what do you got
for me today? I'm ready and I focus on what I need to in
that day. I try, you know, we plan for the future,
but I try to not worry about the future. So if you are feeling
a lot of anxiety, I'll tell you what works for me. Distract yourself,
call a friend, listen to some music, just get it. You
know, you can also schedule anxiety. Remember we had that therapist on a
few weeks ago, and she was saying, if you're trying to ruminate or
get over your boyfriend or your ex, you just say no, I'm going
to do it at seven am until seven fifteen every morning. That's my time.
You can do that. You can schedule your anxiety. But more than
anything, get together with your friends. Social support so important. All right,
when we come back, let's talk about your relationship. There are some
lies we tell ourselves every single day out our relationships. I just did one
to myself the other day. I'll explain. You are listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walsh Show and kf I Am six forty but live everywhere on the iHeartRadio
as you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty.
Kf I Am six forty, you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. It's amazing how much is in our
mind. Literally, we manufacture stuff that isn't even there, and then we
worry about it on the break. I was telling Kayla that during my whole
life, not just with my current boss Robin Bertolucci, when I hear from
any manager or boss a text that says, hey, can you give me
a call? Whatever, all I think is I'm going to be fired.
That's all I think. Sometimes I say it out loud when I get back
to them. You know, it's really funny is that recently Robin sent me
a text and all it said is, did you see my email of the
exit? Remember that? Okay? Oh my god, my heart dropped.
I saw the word of exit, and I like, what, Well,
the exit is a potential client, right, I heard who has a website
that helps people divorce healthfully or whatever? That's what it was called. But
immediately I'm like, that's it. That's it. It's over. So this
week I imagined a couple times that my boyfriend was leaving me for no reason.
I'm like, just like if he took a little too long to get
back to me. Well, as it turns out, there was one day
where his location services were off, he was out of town. He didn't
respond to my text for a couple hours. Now, you guys gotta understand,
we've been together three years. I should have some sense of security at
this point. Well, unbeknownst to me, he was getting a new iPhone
at that time, and he was transferring over all his data. So one
was off and one was on, you know, turning it in, that's
all it was. But you know, I had two hours of worry because
that we make up these stories. At least this time you didn't. You
think he was dead and called the cops. So yeah, I've done that
in the past too with boyfriends. Yes, I've called the cops. So
there was this great article this week in the New York Times. I tried
to get the author on as a guest, but Kayle, maybe in the
future we can try to get him. A family therapist named Terence Real.
He writes a lot of books about relationships. His new book is called Us
Getting Past You and Me to Build a More Loving Relationship, And in this
synopsis in The New York Times, talked about this relationship sabotaging technique that people
do all the time, and he calls it the story I'm making up or
the story I'm telling myself. Right now, I love that bren Brown did
that toolf The story I'm telling myself is so when Julio had his phone off
for a while, I'm like, the story I'm telling myself is he's preparing
for the breakup all never hear from him again or whatever. Right, And
so what happens is when you start to have that story, then you start
to really key into it. You start to believe your own delusions, and
you start to get defensive, critical, and you have problems obviously, right.
So according to Terrence Real, author of us Getting Past You and Me
to build a more loving relationship, he tells them to use something called the
feedback wheel. I still want you to buy the book because it looks really
good. I'm going to read it too, but I'm just gonna synopsis for
you because we can also use these techniques. All of us can use these
techniques. They're really great. So let's say it's time for you to express
something having to do with your frustration. And I should say, according to
all the research and the data out there to people who've been studying healthy marriages
for a long time, but you don't want to dismiss problems. You don't
want to just hope it'll go away with time or silence. They don't.
They build up under the ground to get worse. Okay, So what you
want to do here are his four steps. Number one is you basically describe
in a very factual way what you heard or saw. So this is what
I heard or saw. So if we're using the example of Julio with the
phone off, I will say I did not see any text from you for
a few hours. Let's it. There's no judgment there, just I did
not see this is a behavior at I didn't see anything. That's just a
fact, right, And you say it as calmly as possible and as briefly
as possible, and then you say, this is what I made up about
it. I imagined that you were never ever going to text me again in
your life and that it was over between us. So using the phrase this
is what I made up about it, according to this therapist, is it
lightens the load. In fact, you'll probably both laugh about it because some
of the stuff we make up is pretty cuckoo. Okay, pretty nuts.
That's a technical term, all right. But here's the important thing, the
facts. This is what I this is what happened, is what I experienced,
This is what I made up about it. And number three, this
is how I felt about it. Oh feelings, remember those. Yet you
got to get into the insight. So my third if I were having this
conversation with Julio would be I felt scared, I felt abandoned, I felt
worried. Now again, at this point, you guys might be laughing your
butts off over this, because it just will seem silly when you actually start
to take apart those stories that you've made up. But here's the most important
thing. And I've always said that this works too. This is the best
advice I think I've ever heard in my life. This is what will help
me feel better. You see, we can't assume that our partners ever,
ever, ever can be a mind reader or should be a mind reader.
According to Terence Real, And the book again is called where's the title of
it? I love the title so much us. It's called us. Where's
that subtitle? I must have turned the page on it. Of course I
did us getting past you and me to build a more loving relationship, he
says. I love this quote. You can't complain about not getting what you
never asked for. Isn't that great? That is great? And there are
people that I've heard women say, well, I shouldn't have to tell him.
I mean, if I have to do all that work, then why
am I in a relationship? You know what. That's the work of love,
That's the work of a relationship, is tell them. So if in
our fictitious conversation with Julio that I didn't have that I should have. I
would probably say, you know, I'm sorry, I made up that silly
story, and I'm feeling really sad and scared but a little relieved right now.
It would help me so much if you said to me right now,
I love you, or something right, just something, so, just whatever
it was. So you want to shift from feeling angry and ticked off to
being vulnerable, because the power position in every relationship is vulnerability. It's being
able to be real, authentic, and that's not weak. That's the power
position. Anyway. I love that. This is what I saw or heard,
this is what I made up about it, this is how I felt
about it, and here's what I'd like you to do to help me feel
better. So simple, we all need to do this, all right,
when we come back. Do you have a crush on a co worker?
Did you know three out of four people, according to one survey, have
had a romantic relationship with somebody they work with. I've had a few in
my life. I'll tell you when we come back. So should you tell
them? Should you not? Should you engage in this? I've got some
tips, tricks, rules, and also later, if you're in a tangled
web at the office, and you want to get out of your romance.
I've got some advice for you too. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show and kf I Am six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeart
radio app. You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I AM
sixty six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Kayla, have you ever had a crush at work?
Oh? Yeah, how about this work now? No? Um,
I try to make the mental note at I heeart to not do that because
this is my career and there's not enough I candy to risk it. It
gets messy. Yeah, justn' it. Yeah yeah. But it's interesting because
you and I on the break we're talking about how many people who work here
met their spouse here. There's a lot of married couples, and that that
we're founded in iHeart, that's for sure. I'll tell you it's always been
a mess for me the few times that I've had in my life. I've
had a long life, Okay, so I've had lots of time to make
mistakes and uh, let me tell you it's never worked out for me,
So I regrets though, right like I ha fun, I don't regret any
of it, No, yeah, yeah, because I wanted to. I
should have just focused on the job. That's okay, You're right, it
makes it exciting. So the data three and four people supposedly I have had
a romantic relationship with someone they work with. Let's see what else I got.
Seventy percent of people have flirted with a colleague. According to a Google
Customer Surveys data report, eighteen percent of couples in America met at work,
and that apparently is more than via Tinder and social media. And then let's
stop froze frees that for a little minute. So all those dms on Instagram,
all those matches on Tinder and everywhere else is not even adding up to
twenty percent of marriages that work placed us. Why because those apps are get
you caught in the trap of paradox of choice. Apps do not make money
if you find a mate and get married. They make money by your eyeballs
being clued there, thinking that there's a bigger bet or deal, so you
better keep swiping right. So it's often not the best. According to one
survey, seventy eight percent of respondents believe that you could find true love in
the workplace, and about ninety percent of people in this study said that right
now they feel attracted to somebody at work. I don't know, I'd have
to think that one through. So, you know, well, that aligns
with that idea that doctor David buss Out of the University of Texas said that
we all keep backup mats, right, so maybe there's like some little work
person you think, well, you know, if it didn't work out with
my partner, maybe there'd be a backup mate there. And if you're working
in your career, they have similar interest to you. So that's also a
nice little spark. Well, yeah, let's talk about the psychology of why
we fall in love at the workplace. First, of all, FaceTime time,
you're just spending time with someone. The research says it takes about two
hundred hours to become best friends with somebody two hundred hours, and most adults
spend a minimum of about sixteen seventeen one hundred hours a year at the office,
so they're likely to spend more time with their coworkers than anyone else,
including their spouse and that's why you get affairs. Think of it. Okay,
So let's say their at work for eight hours a day. Then they
got drive time, they come home, they eat, they do their hobby,
they netflix and chill whatever, they deal with the kids, whatever.
They got four or five hours with their spouse, but eight hours with the
coworker. Ooh, that's how affairs happen. Also, here's another interesting thing
about coworkers. When you meet somebody on a dating site, they are putting
on their very best behavior because they know you are judging them to be a
potential long term mate or short term make whatever, to be a mate,
and not at work. You can vet somebody without them even knowing. There's
no pressure, right. You get to see how they respond to problems,
how they act when the pressure gets hot, how they interact with other people.
Are they so you can just sit there watching them all day long and
go, oh, that's a good person or that's not right. Now,
here's another psychological thing about workplace friendships. Everybody commiserates. Everybody hates their job,
by the way, you should know that everybody does. That's how they
bond over, you know, so that they all get around the water cooler
and they complain about bosses, they complain about all kinds of things. Well,
as soon as you start commiserating with somebody, you start to share personal
information. You start to share personal information, and you start to talk about
that over lunch or drinks after work, and before you know it, there's
that slippery slope to emotional intimacy. Another reason why people fall in love with
work is because it might be forbidden. Maybe your HR has a very strict
no love, no dating policy at work. And sex researchers have long known
that the perfect way to have hot, hot, hot sex combination is attraction
plus obstacle. Think about it. Think about the hottest sex you ever had
in your life. Was that? Was it intergenerational? Was it interracial?
Was it intersocial? Somebody living on the other side of the tracks, there
was some reason that you weren't supposed to really be doing it with this person
made it better? It does. And another reason where you might be falling
for people at work is because they are unavailable. Oh maybe you have a
little anxious attachment style. I'm talking about me here, and maybe maybe you're
always attracted to people who can't love you back. And if you're not allowed
to have a workplace relationship, then throwing your longing there might work, all
right. I have a few Doctor Wendy rules for dating at work in the
post me Too era. This should go without saying, date someone on your
same level, not a direct report. The power dynamic, if anybody has
any control over anybody's career or paycheck is too dangerous, and it's best if
they're not even in your department. Maybe you ran into them at a larger
company function that makes sense, you're around the same level, they're in a
different department, no problem. Also, I want you to ask yourself if
the feelings that you're having are actually real or they only belong in the workplace.
Is it just because you've been spending so much time together, Like would
this person really work out in the real world, Like you get them out
of the office and you're suddenly like they don't fit in with white people.
Usually the answers no, yeah, right, it is. And from the
beginning, I want you to think about the consequences of a breakup, because
workplace relationships are never the problem. Workplace breakups are the problem. Also,
find out if your workplace has a romance policy and you might need to ask
human resources if necessary. Many employers are getting people to sign what's called a
love contract to try to make sure that they don't get in trouble for things,
and that might include a love contract might say things like you state that
the relationships voluntary and consensual, that you both parties have read and know and
understand the company's policy on has harassment and discrimination, That both parties are free
to leave the relationship at any time. You know, lawyers wrote these.
These are not like wedding vows. This is what a lawyer wrote. That
the parties will keep their workplace interactions professional. Yeah, we don't need cuddle
bunnies at the office, right, And that you will inform your employer if
the relationship ends. Yeah, a lot of companies are making you sign contracts
like that these days. I know it's not romantic, is it, kayas
like crunching up her face like yeack, yeah, and that on one my
employers involved in my love life. That's weird. Yeah, But they're getting
sued so much. That makes that workplaces, so they've got to protect them
at their bottom line. All right, when we come back, maybe you're
already in a workplace relationship and maybe you're like, oh my goodness, I
want to get out of this, But how do you get out of it
when you're working with the person all day every day. I've got some tips
for you when we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walsh
showing kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio apunue.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I AM sixty kf I
AM six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Wealsh Show talking about workplace love, workplace relationships. You know,
there are some workplace relationships that I would call completely forbidden fruit. And that's
if the power dynamic is just too great. Dating the boss d We had
a call once a few months ago, Kayla, I don't remember. A
listener called in and he was saying that he's having a relationship with his boss,
a woman, and she's making his life miserable for some reason, and
he feels he can't break up with her now. And it was just a
tangled rough Yeah, it was not good. So again, if the power
dynamic is too wide, you shouldn't be dating bosses underlings, it's not good.
And also a married co worker. You know. I'm gonna tell you
a story my first job. When my first job was at the Ponderosa Steakhouse
in Belle's Corners. Anyway, I was fourteen. I made I think it
was two dollars and ten cents an hour as a bus girl. And then
I got an upgrade. I got a job at the Canadian Tire, which,
folks, is like the Pep Boys. It's basically a big automotive store
but giant, but a kind of hardware store, and where I learned that
people buy too much cocking. I don't know what it is. They'd buy
tubes and tubes and two. I'd be like, dad, I'm a cashier.
I rang in like four hundred things of cocking today. What do people
use it for? Well, now I know, and I'm very good at
cocking. Anyway, So I was up in the break room. I was
fifteen years old. I'm making two dollars and thirty seven cents an hour or
something, and this dude walks in, who's like old. He must have
been like thirty two, like old when you're fifteen, that's like grandfather.
Right, maybe it was thirty three and totally married to only married, and
he started really hardcore flirting with me and wanting to take me out to lungement
in the break room from the break rooming one. And I was just shocked
because I was just in my parents nest. I was a baby, I
was a virgin. I was a baby, and then here's this like grown
man flirting with me and married. I didn't. I was just being kind
of like, I felt uncomfortable. But at the time, you know,
girl didn't have voices back then. But you know, that was just weird.
So don't do it with a married that's so weird. And then I
can see how girls fall for it all the time though, the charm and
itself, especially if the dude has power because of patriarchy. Oh yeah,
remember what the Barbie movie says. A lot of girls are brainwashed by patriarchy.
All those kids out there are manipulating them anyway. So just don't do
it with a married co worker, and don't express your feelings. Don't bring
it up because it's leading them on to say, well, you know,
we shouldn't be in the same room together because I have feelings for you.
That's flirting. They're they're gonna turn it up. They're gonna try to turn
it up. You should privately acknowledge your own little feelings and then go distract
yourself. Distract yourself with a romantic potential of somebody who's not a colleague.
All right, let's say you are already tangled in a workplace romance and you
want to get out of it. First of all, do not waste any
time. It's not going to just you. See, everyone has this dream
that the relationship will just wean away. It will just slowly die. If
you just call them less, text them less, be less available, it'll
just gently go away. Kayla, has that ever happened to you in your
life? No? No, no, it gets angry. One person gets
mad, and the more you think you could just wean them off, the
angrier they will. Yet, so do not waste time. As soon as
you sense that the ship is sinking, then you need to have the conversation.
And where do you have the break up? Not at the office,
thank you very much, Find a neutral place nowhere during business hours. I
assume if you're in a relationship, you're together somewhere outside of the I mean
I hope you're not consummating things at the office, although some people have done
that. That's a fantasy somewhere. Yeah, I know somebody shall go unnamed
who recently witnesses working at an ice cream shop recently opened the freezer and saw
two co workers like, Okay, how do you do it in the freezer?
You make it? Hat? Oh you melt the ice cream. Yeah.
Anyway, So pick a neutral spot off campus and just be very clear,
now, be compassionate. You know, here's the problem. If you're
breaking up from like a normal relationship, you switch coffee shops, you switch
dry cleaners, you switch grocery stores, you defriend them and follow them,
you know, you block them, you just go somewhere else. You can't
do that if you're going to see them at the office every single day.
So you have to know that this is going to take way more more time
than the average breakup, okay, which means that they are going to come
back often and want to hash it out again. Like you know, Okay,
So when you've gone through a normal breakup and you're feeling sad and you're
out, Let's say we're out with our girlfriends and we're drinking whatever, and
they're like, no, don't drunk text damn, don't do it, and
you're just like, yeah, but I want to know about that night that
we were doing and what happened. Then like we're like overprocessing everything I've actually
had And don't blame this women on this. I've actually had ex boyfriend guys
who call me like, you know, two months later, going, can
you tell me about that timing? What was really happening there? Right?
And the problem is when you're seeing the person every day, you don't get
the luxury of completely you know, blocking them and going no contact. You
have to still have contact, so they're gonna want to hash it out.
And again, you can't just shut them down. You got to allow them
that space. Kind of good in a way, everyone gets to process their
feelings right now. You should also avoid them at the office. That's one
hundred percent sure, Like, try as hard as you can to go no
contact. But if you're actually working together and you're on projects together and you've
got to be in meetings together, oh you know who, it's most uncomfortable
for everybody else in the room because they all know what's going on, even
if you haven't told them everything. Changed from where you sit to where your
eye contact is, and everybody knows, and it just makes everybody feel uncomfortable.
So just know it's going to take a long time for closure to happen,
and both of you might have to go and hash it out a few
different times. But here's your job. Just hold your head high and don't
lose it right, have composure. What you want to do is conduct yourself
with class, with dignity. You know, the rest of them can gossip
about you, guys. Your other person can be in the bathroom crying about
what happened. Don't get into it. Okay, you take the high road
and go into total professional mode. Now, as a very last resort,
you might have to go to HR. When I was young, I had
a girlfriend and she was having a relationship with someone at the office, and
when they broke up, he got weird and stalkish and at the office no
less, you know, like just hovering like Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton when
she was talking, just sort of there in the background, hovering, and
it just felt so uncomfortable. So she had to go to HR and they
actually moved her to a whole other floor. You know, they know how
to do these things, but that's kind of a last resort. I'm all
about keep your head high. You know. When we come back, I
want to talk a little bit about something that social media and the internet is
a twitter about trauma bonds. Oh boy, people love the term trauma bonds.
Let me come back. Let's talk about if your relationship might need a
trauma therapist or whether you're just pulling words from the Internet. You are 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 Walls. You can
always hear us live on kf I am six forty from seven to nine pm
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