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 k BYE Am six forty.
You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walls
Show. Sit back because for the next couple hours, I want to talk
about your love life. Whether you're married, whether you're single, whether you're
a mate poacher, whether you're worried that your mate is going to be poached.
I've got news for you on the science of love. If you've been
with me for a while, you know that I've got a PhD in clinical
psychology and I am obsessed with the science of love. I'm a psychology professor
at California State University, Channel Islands, and I have a mission in life
for everyone to learn healthy relationship skills. I don't care what you think.
Love is not about luck. Love is about skill. Producer Kayla, how
are you this? How you're doing this week? I'm all right, doctor
Wendy. How are you good? Do you have any love interests you want
to share that I want to share? But I'm not a lonely girl.
Oh I'll oh, just take one look at producer Kayla and you know she
is not a lonely girl. So good to know we have Mark Ronner with
us in the newsroom. Always a pleasure. Nice to be back with you.
Good to see you. Rowell. Is that who we have on the
board. Yeah, I'm here squitting at the camera there. How are you
doing good? How are you good? Good? Well? I had a
week. Remember last week I was talking about helping my daughter launch right and
I said she had this big job interview. I'm not going to say it's
where, but okay, it's at a store called Feature and Calabasas. She
did her first interview, she was very excited. She did the follow up.
Now they told her, well, we're interviewing other people and you know,
look for an email if we progress. So we had to do two
days of depression because she thinks that's the blowoff, and I said, it
is never too late. They are hiring salespeople. If you cannot sell yourself,
then how are you going to sow? Anyway, we do some stock
in on LinkedIn. We found a company owner. You know, I'm teaching
her things whether she gets the job or not. These are very important life
lessons. And my biggest point that I want to make is more than sixty
percent of young adults aged twenty to twenty four do not go to college.
They do not go to community college. There's all kinds of reasons they don't
go to university, community college, trade school, all kinds of reasons.
They may have learning differences, they may just be more creative and artistic and
have great visual intelligence. And so we as parents need to still look at
this time, this period of their life as a stage of development instead of
I know Chris was saying earlier that he's got one that's having trouble launching.
It's not having trouble launching. They need If if we want our if we
allow our college age kids four years to launch, why do we expect the
high school graduate to launch in one year. I don't understand, but that's
sort of the thinking out there anyway. So I had a great week.
It's been fun helping her launch. And I was thinking about my relationship this
week, and so, okay, has this ever happened to you? Kayla?
You're my boyfriend and I were in separate cities for one night and he
called around dinner time, like around six o'clock or something. We chatted for
a little bit and then I said, Okay, well I'm gonna go do
this this this, I'll call you before I go to sleep. And then
like five minutes later he called me back and he said, Hey, I'm
gonna go see the new Denzel Washington movie. So just go to bed.
It'll be too late and i'll talk to you tomorrow. Kayla. What does
a woman feel when she gets a call like that that he's lying and doing
something else and doesn't want to talk to me? And where are you that
you can't talk to me? So don't you think first thing this morning?
But luckily he is a good guy and he called like seven am. I
was like, so what theater did you go to? And I'm like on
the on my phone checking is it playing at that theater? Oh? What
time was the show? How was the movie? What was the blot?
Like that's on the nose? Just but you know, I didn't I didn't
say it the way I'm saying it to you. I was just kind of
like, oh, this was a movie, good, Like what was it
of? How you know? And I was just being in inquiry. Play
it cool, yeah, play it cool. I think the truth is he
worries about me and what will happen to me. So he thought, well,
if the movie gets out late, I don't want to wake her up
if she's gone to bed. And Julio's sweetest. Of course he is sweet,
but it's still I wish you'd called that. I could have called.
I was just like, here's the thing, no matter how long you're in
a relationship, if you value your mate, these are natural, normal feelings
to have every once in a while. Now if they're chronic feelings and you're
being triggered all the time, that's a whole different thing. So I came
across a few articles this week on how to tell if your own relationship is
healthy, and you know, because I got into the business of psychology if
you will, I mean, I started studying psychology like many many people do,
to heal myself, and so I apply everything to myself. So I
looked at this little desk and I was like, okay, so let's see
if all the boxes get checked off here. So first is do you have
trust in one another? Well, in general we do, but last night
was just me being triggered a little bit, and it's important to understand that
how much we trust somebody isn't just about their behavior and what they do.
It's our own attachment style and our attachment organization. So if you had a
lot of instability in your early life relationships and you have anxiety and fear of
abandonment around attachment, you know your partner can be the most loyal, the
most devoted, the most communicative, but you're going to be triggered anyway.
So it's important to understand that sometimes it's your peace. Another good question,
do you respect each other? If you're in a relationship with somebody you don't
respect, I have a couple of things to say to you, mainly why
are you there? I mean, we try to get a mate because we
value that mate, because we look up to that mate. And then if
we spend our time in the relationship looking down on them or thinking there's a
bigger, better deal out there, then we're not going to be happy.
And here's the thing our relationship. The amount of happiness and security in somebody's
relationship, actually you can't look at from the outside. It's really just your
perception. And there's all kinds of research to show that couples who believe that
they're in a healthy, happy relationship. Are happy because they believe it.
It doesn't matter what people think on the outside. Well, I mean,
excluding if there's abuse, but I just mean, you know, the regular
run of the mill stuff. Here's another test for whether your relationship is healthy.
Do you support each other's interests and efforts. And I should say that
we in my relationship support each other very much. We're interested in different things.
He's interested in Formula one and classic cars, and I walk around early
in the morning on Sunday mornings a classic car shows with my coffee and one
eye open, and he comes to do the things that I like to do.
I'm developing property and I'm always decorating and designing, and he's there to
support me. So yeah, we pass on that one. Here's a big
one. Do you two talk about your feelings, including your hopes, your
fears, your dreams. You know, this has to be an ongoing conversation.
You can't like date somebody get engaged, get married, and they go,
Okay, we're on autopilot. Now we both have the same goal,
the same plan. No, because everybody is a constantly changing organism. We're
all growing and changing so it's important that you understand that having a healthy relationship
means continuing to get to know your partner as they change, and feeling safe
to talk about feelings, to talk about your hopes and the big one fears
and dudes, I know it's hard for you. I know you've been acculturated
to not express fear use you have this idea. Young men are doing a
much better job at it, by the way, but older men have been
told that sharing their feelings is somehow weak. Meanwhile, women are craving it.
We're craving emotional intimacy. It's like we're banging on your hard chest,
going come on out of there, tell us what you're feeling. Although I
have a friend who said women love a man who can cry, but not
too often. Right. I actually did data guy once who cried all the
time. It was like a manipulative tactic. I mean the first few times
I was all consoling and all into it, and then near the end I
just roll over and go back to sleep, and he'd be sobbing away.
I'm like, I'm not gonna, not gonna fall for it. He learned
that somewhere somehow to manipulate people here's a good litmus task for how healthy a
relationship is. Do you express fondness and affection? Do you remind your partner
why you care about them on a regular basis? Are you guys still holding
hands, are you hugging? Are you touching toes in bed? It's very
important that we think about these things because every relationship must be nurtured, it
must be worked on regularly, or else it becomes vulnerable to a mate poacher.
A mate poacher, and that is exactly it means, exactly what it
sounds when we come back. There is new science on mate poaching that I
want to share with you. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wells Show
on kaf I Am six forty with Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You're
listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I Am six forty a I
Am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. You know, the first time I ever heard the
term mate poacher, it was probably in doctor David Buss's famous book, The
Evolution of Desire. He's an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas, Austin,
and that book blew my mind because he puts a scientific eye on all
kinds of human mating strategies. And as it turns out, a very natural
common mating strategy is to be a mate poacher, which is wanting somebody else's
mate. And you know, we talked last week about the fact that there's
research to show that if a mate has already been previously approved by another mate,
then it reduces your chances that the person you know maybe unhealthy or have
mental health issues or Ceas's sort of like and I always used to say when
I was a young single woman, it'd be nice to have a man who
was already trained by a woman, Like that'd be great. So I think
about mate poaching because it's it's not only about that these partners who are already
partnered look attractive to others, But who are the ones who take the cultural
risks? You know, society says you're not supposed to steal other people's mates.
Who are the people that try to take other people's mates? Now,
you might remember the Feeler in Chief or whatever he was called, the grab
him by the in chief back in you know, when NBC leaked those tapes.
Do you remember what he said? Well, in case you don't,
this is what the world heard when those tapes of Donald Trump releaked in twenty
sixteen. Listened closely. I moved on her. Actually you know, she
was down upon beach. I moved on her. N I failed all a
minute. I did try, and because she was married. Oh no,
Nancy, no, this was And I moved on her very heavily. In
fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture.
I said, I'll sell you. We that's some nice furniture. I
took out furniture. I moved on her like a beach. I couldn't get
there. And she was married, And all of a sudden, I see
her. She's now got the big phonys and she's totally changed her look.
Okay, who I forgot to warn you, for haught to give you a
trigger warning about some of that. Uh. It is reported, or it's
gossiped, that he may have been talking about Access Hollywood anchor Nancy O'Dell,
who was married at the time. But you see how brazenly he mentioned the
word twice. She was married. She was married. You got to say
to yourself, like, why was this an important piece for him? Mate
poaching, also known as partner poaching, is when someone deliberately and knowingly pursues
those who are already in a committed romantic relationship. Now, remember what anthropology
says we do as human mating strategies may be very different than what our culture
accepts or condones. Right, So it's always been thought that mostly men do
the mate poaching, but as it turns out women single women are actually more
likely to increase their efforts toward pursuing a partnered man rather than a single man.
Here's a little aside for you. Did you know that when a wife
wears expensive jewelry reduces mate poaching. It keeps other men away because they think
she's out of his league. He could never afford to keep her in all
those bobbles and rocks. And also it keeps women away from the man because
they think, oh, he's super committed. He's invested all this money in
her diamonds. So that's one of the unconscious reasons why women love to have
jewelry from their men. But listen to this. There's new research that showed
that, let's say, one hundred and eighty seven Headtersexual Couples revealed that men
who engage in poaching the mates of other men tend to do so when they
have low conscientiousness, high machiavellianism. That's not a good that's a dark behavioral
trait, the goal oriented behavior if they are manipulative, insincere, callous,
and self centered. Hey, I'm just quoting the science, Okay. Men
who are successful at poaching show higher levels of psychopathology, lower levels of agreeableness.
Interesting. Meanwhile, women who poachmates tend to be extroverted and little psycho
too. I'm sorry, it's true. Look, I want to tell you
a story. So back when I was anchoring on Extra, I did a
Day in the Life of Donald Trump, I don't know what year, it
was, maybe ninety six, and followed him around for a day doing just
a day in the Life of with a crew. And you know, he
was sort of mildly hitting on me, but he was trying to investigate.
And his biggest problem because he was confused because he needed me to tell him
who I was dating and could they be a big name? Like He's like,
who have you dated? Who have you did? That was always.
In other words, to him, I was a possession of a man.
I was an object. I was a trophy to steal from another man.
Then when I didn't drop celebrity names at him, he started asking me,
like where I sat at the Laker games? Whose seats I sat in?
Like somehow if I was attached as an extension to some wealthy or famous man,
then I would be more attractive to him. I remember taking great note
of this, because I'd never been flirted with by a guy who clearly wanted
names. He wanted to know whose stuff he was taken. I know,
I find it very fascinating, all right, But basically, how do you
prevent mate poaching in your relationship? You treat your mate well so they aren't
vulnerable to make poachers, be nice, compliment them tonight. Speaking of which,
if you're thinking of breaking up, are you nearing an empty nest?
Because there's a big trend in America called the empty nest divorce. I want
to talk about this when we come back. You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from kf I am six forty am six forty. You have doctor
Wendy Walsh with you to see is the doctor Wendy Walls show. You know,
look, when till Death Do Us Part was invented, death was pretty
imminent. The truth is, and this is good news everybody. We have
really long life expectancies. Life is not short. Life is long, and
the idea of staying together until you both pass away happens for a very small
minority of human beings. You know, if you got married in the year
nineteen hundred and stood up and said we're gonna make it go until death do
us Part, the average length of that marriage was about twelve years. And
if you got married in nineteen ninety and said yep, forever and ever,
the average length of that marriage is about twelve years. You know, we
separate from divorce now. One of the main reasons why people have traditionally gotten
married, of course, is to raise a family. And there's so much
research to show that this is a really good idea, that we still do
not have enough cultural supports for single parents. And as a result, if
you have two people in a nest who are both committed to investing in those
kids, whether it's time, whether it's money, whether it's just contributions to
the household, and the roof over their head. The kids will do better.
Okay. Now I am speaking as somebody who was a single mom for
eighteen years, and so I know how hard my life was. I know
how hard it was for my kids. I tried to do the absolute best
that I possibly could. It's funny today. Today I had this conversation with
my daughter, she's twenty now, and we were talking about that woman that
I guess was really big on social media and TikTok, and she's from Utah
and she's a very strict parenting person. She believes in strict parenting, and
one of her kids recently climbed out the window with duct tape on his risk
and ankles and scars and whatever. Anyway, she's now charged with child abuse.
Turns out her strict even involved making them making food a privilege. Okay,
but it made me think, like there are no perfect parents. But
I thought about the stressful, stressful times as a single mom, and I
said to my daughter, you know, I you know, you drove me
so crazy. I once hit you on the butt, but your butt was
so hard that I actually bruised my hand instead. And she laughs, she
goes, yeah, I bit you a bunch of times, so it is
hard. It's hard to be a single parent. However, if you've been
fortunate enough to have a partner with you and raise those kids, get ready
because a huge chunk of marriages dissolve just when the nest is approaching empty or
has become empty. And this makes a lot of sense for many people,
I mean, at least to understand. Right, it's that you feel like
your business together, the contract you had was to raise those kids, and
now it's time for you. I think about former Mayor of New York Bill
de Blasio and his wife Shirley McCrae that announced that they're not actually divorcing,
but they're going to start dating other people. They're sort of like being happily
undivorced in some way. Their kids are now twenty six and twenty eight,
they've been together thirty years. They're bored with each others. It is true
that divorce rates are highest when kids leave the nest. I want to say
this, if you're considering this, first of all, applaud yourself because even
if your relationship wasn't perfect, but nobody's is. You know, you made
that effort. You did the important thing, which is staying together for the
kids, which is the thing I preach all the time. But there are
non traditional arrangements that are okay too, because who cares what culture thinks at
this point. Some ideas I don't know if I'd go so far as the
Di Blasio's where they're gonna live in one house and one family and just go
out the door and date every night. Well, who are these partners?
Are they just like hooking up with people because eventually it's all fun and games
until somebody falls in love, and then they're gonna have to go and revisit
this arrangement. I'm sure you might consider not divorcing, but living apart.
Maybe you decide, well, you know what the truth is. I don't
want to divorce you. I just want to be me and I want to
travel more. I want to go to this place or do that. Let's
downsize into a tiny little apartment. Let's sell the house and each of us
split the money and travel separately, or take up whatever hobby we've always wanted
to do. Maybe you find a way to keep one foot in that relationship
because the attachment is so fulfilling to you. I do want to remind you
that the bills are not over yet. When the kid turns eighteen, you've
got college payments, You've got retirement plans to consider, So you do need
to sit down and talk about how you can be creative. And I also
want you to think of instead of thinking of it as the end of a
marriage, how about it's the evolution of your marriage. It's time as long
as you keep communicating, as long as you stay respectful. I know that's
the hard part. You're going to have to discuss the tender subjects like holiday
and family celebrations, especially what happens if one of you gets another partner and
the other doesn't, and now a holiday shows up, is the other partner
invited? I would think you have to have open arms and be welcoming.
Also, remember to keep your greater support system intact, work, friends,
family, other friends, and explain to your friends. Your friends are going
to be confused and they might move away from you because they think it's all
too weird. So you have to explain to them how you would like to
socialize, especially if you've got new partners. Do you want to socialize as
a couple with your old couple friends or do you want to bring the new
partners in or one or the other at each side. You got to tell
people otherwise you're going to be ostracized. All right, Hopefully this empty nest
divorce isn't showing up because suddenly you've been eat it on. But sometimes that's
how people do announce that they're leaving a relationship, right, infidelity. So
when we come back, let us talk about, according to research, things
not to do. If you've recently been cheated on m you're listening to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on kf I AM six forty. We're live everywhere on
the iHeartRadio Appum, you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from kf I
AM six forty AFI Am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show producer Kayla. Have you ever been
cheated on? Yeah? Of course. How would you describe the feelings you
had? Oh, it hurts your insights so like they're falling out, you
start to shake, you can't eat, you can't sleep. It's awful times.
How'd you find out by the way, going through the phone, going
through the social media, girls coming up to me, I have all the
stories. See, I have never been cheated on, which means I just
refuse to acknowledge that I've been cheated on. In other words, my fear
of abandonment is so great that I'm not intrusive. It's like I could never
go through the phone because what if I found out? And so it is
my fear of cheating that allows them to flip and get away with it.
Problem probably, I mean, I don't know. I just try to I
can't. I can't even go there. It's so distressful to me to think
about it. Turns out, according to research, about fifty four percent of
monogamous adults have experienced a cheating episode, and, like producer kaylage Is said,
this sense of betrayal, loss, jealousy, sadness, rage insecurity like
what's wrong with me? Mistrust of future relationships that can go on forever.
You have to know that extra pair bonding, as evolutionary psychologists might call it,
has happened since the beginning of time with humans, and it is sadly
a mating strategy to For men, it helps them spread their seed. For
women, it helps them cuphold have a you know, maybe they have a
rich husband, and so they get better genes from the pool boy or the
actor model, whatever trainer, and then they have the rich husband unknowingly raise
that's why these guys design paternity tests. Okay, to try to keep off
it. But the feelings you have are real. Because we value our mates.
We have invested in them, hopefully they've invested in us. We may
have children together. In maintaining a household together, it's a big sense of
loss. Now, I do want to say this. There have been couples
who have told me that their episode of infidelity was the best thing that ever
happened in their relationship. In the sands, Well, if they broke up,
it's because now they know. Why be the walking dead walking around not
knowing your relationship Just Okay, I'm busted, it's over. But other couples
use it as a gift to get closer. It's a wake up call.
It's a chance for them to go to couples therapy and do the work right.
And some couples have said that they've eventually built greater intimacy and closeness through
learning how to forgive, through making amends. But I will say this,
it's really hard to get to that place of forgiveness and love again. If
you do any of these things right after you've been cheated on, Okay,
Kayla, did you do this? Did you hurt yourself by getting too much
nitty gritty detail about what happened? Yes? Yeah, so we do.
It's like we can't stop ourselves. But if you're focusing on who, how,
when, etc. Instead, if you care about the relationship and you
wondering whether it can be salvaged, your focus should be saying to your partner
what part of you were you chasing? What were you hoping to find there
that doesn't exist in our relationship? And also, how do you see our
future? Now? Put it on them right. Also, if they can't
have constructive communication about this, you've lost your intimate bond or maybe you never
even had one before, so you're gonna have a harder time. All right,
here's another thing not to do besides don't get too much information. Don't
retaliate. I know, retribution sex feels like it's gonna feel so good,
but it only makes things worse. Because my mother would say, two wrongs
don't make a right, because then there are now two affairs to recover from.
Here's a big one. I see a lot of people doing it nowadays,
so wrong. Don't process on social media. Publicly shaming your partner is
going to make an any kind of reconciliation and any kind of healing almost impossible
because then you've got to get past that other wound. And speaking of processing,
also, don't process with your single friends who don't support your relationship.
I mean, if they're invested in keeping you single or getting you back on
the single market, these are not the people you should be talking to.
But I do want to say this, don't forget to grieve because you know
what has just died your old relationship. There may be the birth of a
new relationship. It may be coming, whether it's with a new person or
or reviving your relationship with your significant other. But if you are constantly pining
away for what was I remember one time this woman friend of mine, her
husband had had an affair on her, and like two years later, she
was still crying about it and whining and complaint like she was stuck in the
pain. Take the time to grieve and know that something new is growing.
Also, don't believe the saying wants a cheater always a cheater. That's a
stereotype. Now it'll be different if the person is a chronic cheater. Okay,
if this is the tenth time they've cheated, you have my full permission,
go go, go, what do you do it? And stay in
there. But however, if it's the first time it's happened in your relationship,
I like to think of it as a messenger. It's a wake up
call. It's telling you that your relationship is in crisis and something needs to
happen. And during this time, while you're trying to heal and grow,
don't think you're stupid for staying. You're staying to do the work. You're
trying to do the right things to rebuild the relationship. But I want to
addwin caveat if you want to get to a place of forgiveness, forgiveness isn't
about forgetting and pretending like it didn't happen. It's about now understanding all the
vulnerabilities in your relationship, making changes together as a team to avoid these vulnerable
situations. It might mean that nobody goes on a business trip without the other
accompany them, or it might mean that you don't have separate single friends to
go hang out with. What you're doing now is you're building a whole new
house because the house has crumbled down, it has fallen apart, and if
you value this partner, it is a unique opportunity to build it again,
brick by brick, hopefully in the hands of a licensed couples therapist. All
right, when we come back. I cannot believe, Producer Kayla, some
of the questions that were sent to me this week on social media. I
have to answer them. You won't believe some of the things that people wrote
to me. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI AM
six forty with 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 on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.