Speaker 1: This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf
Speaker 1: I Am six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on
Speaker 1: demand on the iHeartRadio appf I Am six forty.
Speaker 2: You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
Speaker 1: This is the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: We have so much stuff coming up tonight. As you know,
Speaker 1: I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor.
Speaker 1: I've written three books on relationships and I am obsessed
Speaker 1: with the science of love.
Speaker 2: On tonight's show.
Speaker 1: What to say, What to say during the next argument
Speaker 1: with your partner? There are three phrases. I made them up,
Speaker 1: but they're good ones. Okay, that can actually smooth things over. Also,
Speaker 1: can long distance relationships ever really work? And do you
Speaker 1: remember that side raw walk rule where the guy's supposed
Speaker 1: to stand on the outside near the traffic on a
Speaker 1: sidewalk when you're walking down the street. Well, it's causing
Speaker 1: some controversy online because some people think it doesn't deserve
Speaker 1: to be around anymore. We're gonna talk about that as well.
Speaker 1: I'll be answer your social media questions. If you do
Speaker 1: have a relationship question, send me a DM on my
Speaker 1: Instagram at Dr Wendy Walsh. But I have some romance
Speaker 1: news about myself. I just got off a plane today
Speaker 1: from my honeymoon, my honeymoon in Sydney, Australia, and let
Speaker 1: me tell you, I don't understand how there are two
Speaker 1: Sundays in my life this week, because on Sunday I
Speaker 1: got up and went to the beach and it was beautiful.
Speaker 1: And then at one point thirty in the afternoon on Sunday,
Speaker 1: I got on a plane and then I landed in
Speaker 1: la at nine am on Sunday. So this is the
Speaker 1: Sunday that just won't end for me. It is very bizarre.
Speaker 1: And if I step over my words and my tongue
Speaker 1: gets a little thick, it's.
Speaker 2: Jet leg, that's all it is. It's jetlag.
Speaker 1: But here's what I love spending time in any other
Speaker 1: country because you always get to compare the American model
Speaker 1: of people's relationship with their country to you know, compared
Speaker 1: to America and other places. So let's break it down
Speaker 1: what I learned in Australia in the last ten days.
Speaker 1: First of all, they have a much better relationship with
Speaker 1: their food and their food industry than we do. I
Speaker 1: did not witness much obesity. The food quality was off
Speaker 1: the charts. I found out that there are more than
Speaker 1: a thousand chemicals in our foods here in beautiful America
Speaker 1: that are not allowed. They're full on illegal in Australia,
Speaker 1: so that's kind of cool. And mostly the foods are
Speaker 1: fruit and vegetable and protein of fish, mostly seafood because
Speaker 1: we were on the coast. Although I did try Producer Kayla,
Speaker 1: I did try some kangaroo.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'm sorry, but how was it? You know what
Speaker 2: it was like.
Speaker 1: In a boolonnaise sauce, So it just tasted like beef
Speaker 1: to me. But you they said you can't not try
Speaker 1: it because it's like a delicacy there, like it's like
Speaker 1: venison or deer, and apparently kangaroo there like roadkill everywhere.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I try it too, honestly, Yeah, I
Speaker 2: try it. It was fine.
Speaker 1: The other thing is the people there have such a
Speaker 1: good relationship with their government because when you turn on
Speaker 1: the TV, the government has public service announcements for health care,
Speaker 1: free health care or health information, free public gyms.
Speaker 2: They're just always telling you how to be healthy.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I also found out that the minimum wage is twenty
Speaker 1: five dollars, So there are very few people living in poverty.
Speaker 1: They could manage to get through their life.
Speaker 2: Well, think of it this way.
Speaker 1: Not only is the minimum wage twenty five dollars, but
Speaker 1: parents get five months off for parental leaved paid their
Speaker 1: whole salary. You get subsidized childcare for when you do
Speaker 1: go back to work. Health care is completely free, including
Speaker 1: mental health services. Very few homeless people, I should add
Speaker 1: that to very few homeless people that I did see
Speaker 1: were so neat and tidy.
Speaker 2: There was no trash around them.
Speaker 1: They had a neat little mattress, laid out acute little
Speaker 1: they made their beds. I mean it was Honestly, I've
Speaker 1: never seen anything like it. And I also want to
Speaker 1: let you know that more men or practice PDFs, PDFs
Speaker 1: public displays of fatherhood. The men wear the babies, the
Speaker 1: men hold the babies. They're like the penguins.
Speaker 2: You see a lot.
Speaker 1: Of men practicing childcare. The men that we hung out with,
Speaker 1: we have friends there, and they invited friends, tended to
Speaker 1: be more open about talking about their feelings. The gender
Speaker 1: thing is less. This is masculine, this is feminine. Well,
Speaker 1: guess what turns out new Zealand was the first country
Speaker 1: in the world to give women the vote way back
Speaker 1: in eighteen ninety three, and then Australia came next at
Speaker 1: nineteen two. More than twenty different nations gave women the
Speaker 1: vote before the US.
Speaker 2: By the way, I just want to throw that.
Speaker 1: In, but nearly half of all members of Parliament in
Speaker 1: Australia are women, and so the gender roles tend to
Speaker 1: be a little more egalitarian, if you can say so.
Speaker 1: You know, they got this robust social welfare system I
Speaker 1: mentioned universal health care paid parentally subsidized childcare, and that
Speaker 1: helps reinforce these more equal roles between the genders. It's
Speaker 1: also I found this really interesting compulsory to vote. If
Speaker 1: you do not go to the polls to vote, you
Speaker 1: have to pay a fine.
Speaker 2: Could you imagine if we had that here. You should
Speaker 2: have that here, We should have that here.
Speaker 1: Everyone should have to vote. And also no one ever
Speaker 1: ever talks about politics. It's just like that one thing
Speaker 1: you do once a year and then you go back
Speaker 1: to your social life.
Speaker 2: The people seem very happy, oh and also fit.
Speaker 1: They're exercising everywhere. Every time you turn around. There's groups
Speaker 1: of people. In fact, yesterday well it's really today is
Speaker 1: the Sunday that won't end. So this morning Sunday, I
Speaker 1: went to the beach because our flight was delayed and
Speaker 1: I had a few more hours. And there was a
Speaker 1: group of a and it was an exercise class led
Speaker 1: by a guy with a bullhorn. But what was interesting
Speaker 1: about it is they were doing child's play. So this
Speaker 1: group of maybe thirty adults. One of the games was
Speaker 1: four adults each holding the corner of a beach towel
Speaker 1: with a big ball in the middle like a volleyball,
Speaker 1: had to bounce it onto other people's towels and they
Speaker 1: had to carry it all the way down the beach
Speaker 1: that way, so you're running in the sand bouncing this ball.
Speaker 2: They had remember.
Speaker 1: Potato sack races. They had them all the way down
Speaker 1: the beach, relay races with grown ups doing them. They
Speaker 1: had this ice bag toss thing, like these people were
Speaker 1: sweating and working so hard doing this in the sand,
Speaker 1: but they were having so much fun. It was just
Speaker 1: child's play. They were just enjoying it. And even when
Speaker 1: I went to the National Art Gallery, there below the
Speaker 1: gorgeous statues of modern art in the entrance plaza, there
Speaker 1: was a guy yelling and people doing a full on
Speaker 1: aerobics class. I mean they exercise everywhere, everywhere you go.
Speaker 2: Probably a lot easier to doing. Your food's not poisoning you.
Speaker 2: You probably have all the energy in the.
Speaker 1: World and their mental health is better because of it.
Speaker 2: Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 1: We don't mention how important nutrition is to our mental health.
Speaker 1: Not only the chemicals we're eating here, the sugar, the
Speaker 1: high carbohydrate food. There's an area of psychology founded at
Speaker 1: Harvard called nutritional psychiatry, and researchers there at Harvard have
Speaker 1: learned that you can change people's neurochemistry as easily with
Speaker 1: diet as you can with medication, you know. And so
Speaker 1: when you see a government who says we're not going
Speaker 1: to allow these chemicals into our people's minds, We're not
Speaker 1: going to allow these bad foods because we're going to
Speaker 1: save money on health insurance, We're going to save money
Speaker 1: on sick days, we're going to save money on prisons.
Speaker 1: Even though the country started out as one big prison,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot. We did all the historic stuff too.
Speaker 1: If you want to know things to do in Sydney,
Speaker 1: by the way, I did. I just posted on my
Speaker 1: Instagram today ten top things to do in Sydney, and
Speaker 1: if you're thinking of going, you should know this right now.
Speaker 2: The American dollars really really, really strong. It's like thirty percent.
Speaker 1: I mean, we used our frequent Flyer points to fly there,
Speaker 1: so we're there for free.
Speaker 2: And then the dollar was like thirty percent more.
Speaker 1: And they were in the middle of their summer sales
Speaker 1: because they're heading in to fall soon, so all the
Speaker 1: summer clothes were on sale, and then I also had
Speaker 1: a strong dollar. It was just amazing. So I'm just
Speaker 1: advertisement go to Sydney, you guys. If you can get
Speaker 1: through the fourteen hour flight, okay, just have a good
Speaker 1: neck pillow. That's all you need is a good neck pillow.
Speaker 1: So maybe while you're there you're going to meet somebody
Speaker 1: and get into a long distance relationship. In fact, I
Speaker 1: did a segment on Australia's version of The Today Show
Speaker 1: nine network because I've been doing it for on and
Speaker 1: off for a decade, and I finally got to meet
Speaker 1: everybody in person. And the woman who's like the guest
Speaker 1: hostess services who walks around, she told me she met
Speaker 1: a guy from Wisconsin who was on vacation and Sydney
Speaker 1: and they had two seven hour dates. Now I did
Speaker 1: not weigh in. I did not say, you know, if
Speaker 1: you've been listening to me, you know what. I would
Speaker 1: have said, too much, too soon, Okay, But he was
Speaker 1: on vacation and now she's planning to meet him in
Speaker 1: Hawaii halfway and it could turn into something. And so
Speaker 1: she had questions about a long distance relationship. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people are entering long distance relationships. Can they
Speaker 1: work my wisdom on this topic when we come back.
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty one thousand miles.
Speaker 2: Really just to see him tonight.
Speaker 1: I don't know everybody, Doctor Wendy Walsh. Here, this is
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy Walls Show. We're talking about long distance
Speaker 1: relationships very common now because of dating apps.
Speaker 2: People go on and they think, well.
Speaker 1: The problem is city, The problem is there just aren't
Speaker 1: good mates in my town. When I'm just going to
Speaker 1: tell you the problem is your relationship skills. You're saying,
Speaker 1: you know, now there are some mating marketplaces that are
Speaker 1: a little rough, like LA and New York for educated women.
Speaker 1: Just going to throw that out there, that's just a
Speaker 1: statistical fact that there are far more single educated women
Speaker 1: in LA and New York than there are single educated men.
Speaker 1: So there's the mating marketplace is a little bit imbalanced.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, unless you're a minority, sexual minority,
Speaker 1: or ethnic minority living in a small town with very
Speaker 1: few choices of mates that you want to date, then
Speaker 1: dating outside of your town is a setup for failure.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to say it, okay, because what happens
Speaker 1: with these fantasy long distance relationships is well they're a fantasy,
Speaker 1: is what it is. It's really important to realize that
Speaker 1: the skills it takes to have a long distance relationship
Speaker 1: are really different than the skills that it takes to
Speaker 1: have a daily face to face relationship. And also if
Speaker 1: you try to convert one to the other, that can
Speaker 1: be problematic. You see, what a real relationship is is
Speaker 1: about the tiny, you know, problems that happen on a
Speaker 1: regular basis, when you're overtired, when you're stressed, when you've
Speaker 1: had a miscommunication, and then you learn how you can
Speaker 1: have better communication, you can learn how to have better
Speaker 1: conflict resolution. But with long distance relationships you miss a
Speaker 1: lot of those opportunities. Now, one of the questions I
Speaker 1: get asked a lot is what about this saying that
Speaker 1: absence makes the heart grow fonder. Now, remember I talk
Speaker 1: a lot about the science of attachment, and yes, people
Speaker 1: who have who you know, think of attachment style as
Speaker 1: a scale. So people who are more on the scale
Speaker 1: of an anxious attachment style, they are in love with longing.
Speaker 2: They love long.
Speaker 1: Distance relationships because for them, they're in Psychologists call it
Speaker 1: the internal working model of love. I just like to
Speaker 1: say their idea of what love should feel like should
Speaker 1: be mixed up with feelings of longing and loss right,
Speaker 1: and that goes back to their early childhood, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And so even though you hear this adage, absence makes
Speaker 1: the heart grow fonder, long sustance relationships can be particularly trying,
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, because they don't involve those day to
Speaker 1: day negotiation of boundaries or practicing communication skills. But they
Speaker 1: also have the unique element of having a convenient time lag,
Speaker 1: and that helps people avoid conflicts. So it's not real,
Speaker 1: it's not authentic. So if there's a text or a
Speaker 1: call from your partner at a time when you're just
Speaker 1: not at your best, not in the mood, you don't
Speaker 1: have to immediately take that call. Or if you're a
Speaker 1: comfortable with a question they've asked you, you can take
Speaker 1: time to formulate your response. And so I think long
Speaker 1: distance relationships function as kind of a string of honeymoons.
Speaker 1: There's really little opportunity to test compatibility because compatibility comes
Speaker 1: in the doldrums of daily life. Now I mentioned attachment style.
Speaker 1: I bet you that people with an anxious attachment style
Speaker 1: love long distance relationships. Also, long distance relationships tend to
Speaker 1: attract people who have an avoidant attachment style. These kind
Speaker 1: of people are happy to meet for like small pockets
Speaker 1: of love, but growing real emotional intimacy or moving in
Speaker 1: together in one city can be terrifying. Now, they don't
Speaker 1: say this right because people who have an avoidant attachment
Speaker 1: style don't have a lot of insight. They're not even
Speaker 1: aware of their own feelings. So if you have to,
Speaker 1: if you try to say things like how do you
Speaker 1: think it would feel if we live together in one apartment,
Speaker 1: they'd go cool, it would feel cool? Because they're not
Speaker 1: even aware of their feelings, right, but inside they they
Speaker 1: do this tender dance of bringing people close, close enough
Speaker 1: to obtain sex and pockets of admiration, and then they
Speaker 1: kind of push them away.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: So what's really interesting is if long disiness relationships are
Speaker 1: attractive to people who have an anxious style and people
Speaker 1: have an avoidance style. The research shows that people have
Speaker 1: an anxious style are most sexually attracted to people who
Speaker 1: have an avoidance style because they trigger them in the
Speaker 1: way that they like.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: If people who are anxious or addicted to longing, they
Speaker 1: love the idea of pining away for someone, and then
Speaker 1: the avoidant person loves to be able to go into
Speaker 1: their compartment and hide away. Now, can a long distance
Speaker 1: relationship work?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: If, okay, and there is research on this. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about what the research says can help a long
Speaker 1: disiness relationship work. The first, it is frequency of contact,
Speaker 1: whether it is text, audio, phone, call, video. It's important
Speaker 1: that you talk daily and that you're in the trenches
Speaker 1: with the day to day stuff.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So if you're only talking, you know, a couple times
Speaker 1: a week and you're talking about plans for the next honeymoon.
Speaker 1: When you get together, you're not learning about each other's
Speaker 1: day to day life, right. I mean, I'm married now
Speaker 1: and my husband and I still talk probably it depends
Speaker 1: on the day, two or three times a day, however briefly.
Speaker 1: And I know if something some news happens in his day,
Speaker 1: it's usually when we're in the car, both of us
Speaker 1: going not together, but going to different places in between
Speaker 1: our meetings or whatever. And when he starts a phone
Speaker 1: call like this, he literally goes, I go hello, and
Speaker 1: he goes.
Speaker 2: Get this.
Speaker 1: It just starts with get this, and he starts into
Speaker 1: a story of something that happened. Right, Because we have
Speaker 1: emotional intimacy and we share all the emotional beats of
Speaker 1: the day. I mean, we don't talk about every single
Speaker 1: detail of the day, but anything that's emotional we do
Speaker 1: so speak at least once a day. And here's where
Speaker 1: the research gets really interesting. Couples who talk about their
Speaker 1: feelings that literally grow emotional intimacy from AFAR do better
Speaker 1: when they convert it to an in world. If all
Speaker 1: you're talking about is when you're gonna meet, where you're
Speaker 1: gonna meet, what you're gonna do to each other, whatever,
Speaker 1: that's not the same as feelings, right, tender feelings. Moments
Speaker 1: of it really hurt me. When this happened today, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe what happened, right, talk about feelings and the
Speaker 1: third thing according to research, so I want to speak regularly,
Speaker 1: talk about feelings, and always have a plan on the
Speaker 1: calendar of when you'll meet next. If you leave things hanging,
Speaker 1: it increases feelings of relationship insecurity. Right, nobody knows, like
Speaker 1: when is going to happen again, it's you're committed, Okay,
Speaker 1: We're not talking about just a dating relationship. We're talking
Speaker 1: about people who are saying we are exclusive, we're in
Speaker 1: a relationship, we are trying to grow something together here.
Speaker 1: Then you have a schedule of when you're meeting, and
Speaker 1: I do want to add one other thing. Have an
Speaker 1: exit strategy. And what I mean by that is have
Speaker 1: a timeline on it, like we're going to move in
Speaker 1: together in the same city within a year or two
Speaker 1: years or whatever, or when you finish law school or
Speaker 1: when she finishes medical school or whatever, that's when you're
Speaker 1: going to do it.
Speaker 2: Right, So you have.
Speaker 1: A plan and you know that there's an ending, a
Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel you can both
Speaker 1: look to. But let me say this, there are some
Speaker 1: red flags when a long disiness relationship isn't working. If
Speaker 1: you are just meeting for romantic fantasy trips like dinners
Speaker 1: and sex and there's no talk of a future together,
Speaker 1: that's probably a pretty big red flag. And when you
Speaker 1: do talk of a future together, if it's just some
Speaker 1: vague idea that might happen somewhere down the line, it's
Speaker 1: another red flag.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Every long distance relationship, in my opinion, should have a culmination.
Speaker 1: That's the time when you both plan to live together
Speaker 1: in the same city. So get that on the calendar,
Speaker 1: all right, when we come back. This is for anybody
Speaker 1: who's ever been a relationship, is in a relationship, is
Speaker 1: marriy divorce, whatever, if you've ever had to interact with
Speaker 1: somebody in a romantic relationship, three things to say during
Speaker 1: a fight. I made them up, but they work in
Speaker 1: my relationship, so I want to share them. You're listening
Speaker 1: to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI AM six
Speaker 1: forty were live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 2: AFI am six forty. You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you.
Speaker 2: This here is the Doctor Wendy Walsh show. All right.
Speaker 1: So I have always said that relationships are far more
Speaker 1: about skill than luck, and I am living a proof
Speaker 1: that you can learn relationship skills. I didn't go to
Speaker 1: school for this, well kind of I did. I was
Speaker 1: a patient in therapy for many, many years where I
Speaker 1: practiced these skills. But also I ended up going and
Speaker 1: get a midlife master's and PhD in psychology, and every
Speaker 1: class I would take, I would be like, everybody needs
Speaker 1: to know this, They shouldn't save this for hidden information.
Speaker 1: And I learned that at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: a couple things we need to all learn to do
Speaker 1: with each other. First of all, learn to have emotional communication.
Speaker 1: And what that means is the first step in that
Speaker 1: is just becoming aware of your own feelings. And that's
Speaker 1: hard for a lot of people because so many people
Speaker 1: were raised by well meaning parents who said, suck it
Speaker 1: up or change your attitude or whatever, and so they
Speaker 1: weren't their feelings weren't mirrored, they weren't given language for
Speaker 1: their feelings. And a lot of if you do go
Speaker 1: to therapy for the first time. A lot of the
Speaker 1: work that therapists do is called psycho education, where they
Speaker 1: literally give you words to describe your feeling. You'll go
Speaker 1: in and talk about this happened, and that happened, and
Speaker 1: then they'll say, and you felt embarrassed or you felt
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and they will give you language for it.
Speaker 1: So the first step of having good, healthy communication is
Speaker 1: just become aware of your own feelings. Second step finding
Speaker 1: the language to express it to somebody else in a
Speaker 1: non defensive way.
Speaker 2: Here's the other thing.
Speaker 1: When people are not accustomed to setting boundaries or expressing
Speaker 1: their feelings, they do it actually in a kind of
Speaker 1: often in an angry, defensive way because they feel uncomfortable
Speaker 1: about it. So learning how to express your feelings in
Speaker 1: a healthy, honest, calm, vulnerable way is number two. But
Speaker 1: number three is having empathy, because once you become aware
Speaker 1: of your own feelings, then you can start to see
Speaker 1: it in others. Now we do know that genetically we
Speaker 1: all have a range in our ability to have empathy.
Speaker 1: There are some people who are you know, neurodiverse, who
Speaker 1: have very very little empathy, and they have to watch
Speaker 1: for all kinds of facial cues or body language and
Speaker 1: translate it because they just don't naturally sense things. Then
Speaker 1: there are other people like me who I can feel
Speaker 1: people with in my stomach. Like if I see someone
Speaker 1: fall down and bump their head, I feel it in
Speaker 1: my head.
Speaker 2: I mean, I really I have a lot of empathy.
Speaker 1: But we can all learn to have a little more empathy,
Speaker 1: even if all we learn to do is to inquire, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's going on, how are you feeling, et cetera. Now,
Speaker 1: probably the most challenging thing for people when they're learning
Speaker 1: relationship skills is learning how to have healthy conflict. Many
Speaker 1: people believe that if a relationship involves lots of fights
Speaker 1: or conflict that it's a bad relationship or you guys
Speaker 1: shouldn't be together if you're fighting all the time. Well,
Speaker 1: I will say, if you're fighting, it's never comes to resolution. Maybe,
Speaker 1: but this shows that the healthiest couples actually have a
Speaker 1: lot of conflict. Now it is not the knockdown, drag
Speaker 1: them out big arguments. It's tiny little border skirmishes all
Speaker 1: day long where they're just reinstating their boundaries. They're renegotiating
Speaker 1: their boundaries. Right, So no matter what you should know
Speaker 1: that you can be deeply in love with somebody and
Speaker 1: they can love you back, and you will still have conflict.
Speaker 1: Everything is not supposed to be rosy all the time.
Speaker 1: Relationships are a gymnasium for your mind, and you don't
Speaker 1: go to the gym and just watch. You have to
Speaker 1: push on the machines and have a little bit of resistance, right,
Speaker 1: And that's what happens during conflict. So I've come up
Speaker 1: with three things that I would like you to write
Speaker 1: them down.
Speaker 2: Okay, just write them down.
Speaker 1: The three simple phrases that if you can say when
Speaker 1: you're in the middle of an argument, it will make
Speaker 1: things easier. So the first one is I imagine that.
Speaker 2: I imagine that.
Speaker 1: Now, what this is you getting to explain your feelings.
Speaker 1: But using the word imagine is important because you know
Speaker 1: there's not one truth in the room, So you get
Speaker 1: to explain your feelings through a story that you have
Speaker 1: made up about the situation. For example, you know when
Speaker 1: you forgot about our dinner plans, I imagined that I
Speaker 1: was going to die alone.
Speaker 2: And you would never come there. You would forget to
Speaker 2: come to my sickabad.
Speaker 1: Now this can often turn into comedy, which is great
Speaker 1: if your imaginings and your fantasies are just outrageous. But
Speaker 1: the more infantile you can make them, the more deep
Speaker 1: and tender you can make them. What are you really?
Speaker 1: What are the feelings really saying that this person did
Speaker 1: something that hurt you? But it's not oh, you hurt me,
Speaker 1: it's oh, I imagined that you would hurt me forever,
Speaker 1: or you would leave me forever or whatever. All right,
Speaker 1: I imagine that?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Now, So that first one gets you in touch with
Speaker 1: your deepest feelings and helps both of you understand that
Speaker 1: all conflicts are infantile in some way. But the important
Speaker 1: and tone is really important. Right. You don't want to
Speaker 1: sound defensive or angry. You much just want to softly say,
Speaker 1: you know when you did that or you said that.
Speaker 1: I imagine that?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Number two, ask a question, and here's my favorite question
Speaker 1: when there's conflict, How should we solve this?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Listen to this how should we solve this? When someone
Speaker 1: hears the word how, it takes them out of their
Speaker 1: emotional brain, their ancient emotional brain, and takes them into
Speaker 1: their prefrontal cortex, and they go from emotions into problem
Speaker 1: solving mode and listen to this how should we solve this?
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, the word we is in there.
Speaker 1: It's not you need to do this to fix this,
Speaker 1: or it's not my fault, it's how should we solve this?
Speaker 1: So now there's collaboration, Now there's cooperation, how should we?
Speaker 1: And it's a question that how. Now it becomes a
Speaker 1: math problem? Right, So if you can somehow take emotional
Speaker 1: defensiveness and transform it into kind of a math problem
Speaker 1: or a Rubric's que to be tinkered with, and make
Speaker 1: sure that you add we, because that makes the problem
Speaker 1: a joint problem and it implies that no one's to blame, right,
Speaker 1: that both partners can now be part of the solution.
Speaker 1: But I do want to say, watch your body language,
Speaker 1: all right, If you're going to sit there with your
Speaker 1: arms crossed your chest or on your hips and go so,
Speaker 1: how should we solve this? It sounds very sarcastic. Okay,
Speaker 1: get gentle, Maybe touch your partner's arm and just say, hey,
Speaker 1: I understand what you're experiencing.
Speaker 2: How should we solve this?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Looking for the resolution? All right?
Speaker 1: The third thing that I think you should say when
Speaker 1: you're in an argument is I love the way you.
Speaker 1: And here's what this is about. Make that communication, sandwich.
Speaker 1: Start out with something loving so that it lowers somebody's defenses.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You always begin a criticism with a compliment, and that
Speaker 1: enables them to hear what you're saying. So after you
Speaker 1: spread that layer of love, then a layer of something
Speaker 1: that's a little harder to chew on, so there's the
Speaker 1: ensuing criticism, and then follow it up with another compliment,
Speaker 1: another layer of love. So it might be something like, Honey,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons I fell in love with you
Speaker 1: is I just love your ambition and how hard you work,
Speaker 1: and I really appreciate what a great provider you are.
Speaker 1: But I noticed you're missing a lot of the kids'
Speaker 1: sports games. And we all love you and we love
Speaker 1: to show you off, and we'd love to see you
Speaker 1: there more often.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Isn't that different from saying when is the last time
Speaker 1: you drove to this practice?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Because now you're keeping score and you're counting, right, So
Speaker 1: remember that communication, sandwich, I love the way you. That's
Speaker 1: how you should begin any criticism.
Speaker 2: Got it.
Speaker 1: How should we solve this? That's another good one too,
Speaker 1: all right, when we come back, remember that old fashioned
Speaker 1: sidewalk rule where the man walks close to the street
Speaker 1: and the women walk on the inside. Well, apparently there's
Speaker 1: controversy about it. Let's break it down when we come back.
Speaker 1: You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the things I get asked about
Speaker 1: a lot are what I call gendered courtship behaviors, things
Speaker 1: like should a guy open a car door for a woman?
Speaker 1: Should a guy pull out her seat at the restaurant?
Speaker 1: Should a guy open a door? Is it demeaning to women?
Speaker 1: Does it make women look like they are somehow? And
Speaker 1: my answer generally is about whatever's most practical makes the
Speaker 1: most sense. For instance, one time I dated a guy
Speaker 1: and he had this thing where he had to be
Speaker 1: allowed to be the man. So when he would pull
Speaker 1: in and park, he would literally say, don't touch that
Speaker 1: door till I get there. That didn't feel good. It
Speaker 1: felt like control, not a gesture of let me help you.
Speaker 1: The other thing is car seemed to have gotten bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger and bigger, and sometimes I'm measured at once.
Speaker 1: To walk fourteen feet around an suv to get to
Speaker 1: the other side seems pretty unpractical when she could jump
Speaker 1: out anyway and be there by your side after a
Speaker 1: few steps. So no pressure to open car doors is
Speaker 1: my feeling, except maybe when you're getting into the car.
Speaker 1: Right when you're first walking up to the car together,
Speaker 1: he might go, why does she roll your eyes? Producer, Kayla,
Speaker 1: you don't think a guy should ever open a car.
Speaker 2: Door for well, no, I definitely do. I was thinking
Speaker 2: about some thing, but.
Speaker 1: Oh, somebody who didn't do it for you? One time
Speaker 1: she goes right into her red flag. She's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that guy went out with last night. He had me
Speaker 1: stumbling into the car opening my own door. Yeah. Then
Speaker 1: there's the pulling out the chair. I think it's a
Speaker 1: lovely gesture.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 2: It makes me feel special.
Speaker 1: And then there's the standing the men stand when the
Speaker 1: woman need to get up from the table. That's a
Speaker 1: little bit formal and a little bit wild. But the
Speaker 1: one thing I've been asked about a lot lately by
Speaker 1: journalists actually, and they're talking about it like crazy on
Speaker 1: TikTok and Instagram debating going back and forth. Is something
Speaker 1: called the sidewalk rule. It's that old fashioned sidewalk rule.
Speaker 1: It's still widely practiced today all over the world. I
Speaker 1: think it's just American, even though the conditions that invented
Speaker 1: the rule are long gone.
Speaker 2: So here's what the sidewalk rule is.
Speaker 1: It's basically a social expectation that when a heterosexual couple
Speaker 1: walked together on a sidewalk, the man should walk on
Speaker 1: the outside near the traffic and the woman should walk
Speaker 1: on the inside near the buildings. Right, I'm really amazed
Speaker 1: that there's so much controversy controversy about this, really, so
Speaker 1: some people are on social media are saying this is wonderful,
Speaker 1: chivalry isn't dead. And other people are saying, oh, it's sexist,
Speaker 1: it's demeaning. We don't need protection. Right, all right, let
Speaker 1: me just break down some pieces of this sidewalk rule
Speaker 1: so we can understand it. I call it a simple
Speaker 1: gendered behavior. But there are three sides of the story.
Speaker 1: Let's begin with history. So folklore has it that the
Speaker 1: practice of men walking on the outside of the sidewalk
Speaker 1: began back in medieval times and maybe even earlier, and
Speaker 1: At that time, there were only horse drawn carriages. There
Speaker 1: was no pavement on the streets. There were physical dangers
Speaker 1: of things like carriages careening out of control pulled by
Speaker 1: wild horses. Men were expected to be at the ready
Speaker 1: to protect a woman by putting themselves between a lady
Speaker 1: and any danger. And the second had to do with cleanliness.
Speaker 1: I mean, think about it. Picture this cobblestone streets, poor drainage,
Speaker 1: mudern animal waste, some pretty unsanitary conditions. And did you
Speaker 1: know this, I hate to go there. Before indoor plumbing,
Speaker 1: people dumped their buckets of human waste right in the street.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it didn't smell lovely back then. Just saying
Speaker 1: talk about biohazards, okay.
Speaker 2: And also picture this.
Speaker 1: Women were wearing those long dresses and dainty little ankle boots.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Obviously, it's understandable why the sidewalk rule had to be around,
Speaker 1: very practical. So I'm going to throw in a little
Speaker 1: science behind this sidewalk rule. There's been so much research
Speaker 1: to support the idea that most men have a higher
Speaker 1: threshold for disgust. The feeling of disgust women will sense
Speaker 1: it earlier. Many men, not all, many men are more
Speaker 1: willing to do the dirty jobs in life, and many women,
Speaker 1: not all, become nauseous.
Speaker 3: At the thought of it.
Speaker 1: So evolutionary psychologists say that this inherited trait is related
Speaker 1: to the fact that men had to do a lot
Speaker 1: of dirty jobs hunting, cleaning, skinning, butchering animals. Not that
Speaker 1: there weren't women hunters, and not that women don't do
Speaker 1: it today, but in our hunter gatherer past, when the
Speaker 1: infant mortality rate was very, very high, women had to
Speaker 1: protect those infants from biological pathogens germs. So women today
Speaker 1: are particularly sensitive to feelings of disgust, right, another reason
Speaker 1: why they want to stay away from those nasty streets
Speaker 1: of the past. I know you're saying, but in today's
Speaker 1: time and doesn't matter, right, So in today's times, I
Speaker 1: don't think any guy could prevent any woman from a
Speaker 1: careening suv coming out or at sixty miles an hour. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's gone. And also supposedly we have good street
Speaker 1: cleaning equipment. The rule just seems super unfashioned, right. But
Speaker 1: I think what's going on online, the conversations that are
Speaker 1: happening have to do with the gender role police that.
Speaker 2: Are out there.
Speaker 1: There is this idea that gender is one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of cultural construct. Actually it's a biopsychosocial phenomenon like every
Speaker 1: other human thing. But they think that if a guy
Speaker 1: is kind, that somehow they are insulting a woman, that
Speaker 1: somehow they're saying this woman needs protection, that this woman
Speaker 1: is needy, is vulnerable, is weak, We need to help her,
Speaker 1: she can't stand near the cars. I call those the
Speaker 1: side woke rule folks. Right, if they're ignoring the research
Speaker 1: that shows that the vast majority of men are clearly
Speaker 1: stronger than the vast majority of women. Okay, exceptions, Selena Williams, Uh,
Speaker 1: Serena Williams, I mean pee wee herman, right? Uh? But
Speaker 1: also think about this human mating strategy involves sacrificing, sacrificing
Speaker 1: for somebody else. Relationships are an exchange of care. So
Speaker 1: there are some gestures that just send the message that
Speaker 1: a partner is willing to offer care. So these male
Speaker 1: gendered behaviors like opening a door for a woman's sliding
Speaker 1: at her chair, I think should be interpreted not as
Speaker 1: a message that women are feeble, but that women are
Speaker 1: prized and women are valued. I think this demonstrates care
Speaker 1: and respect. And I think this is sexy. So if
Speaker 1: you're a dude and you're listening, stand on the street side.
Speaker 1: My Julio does always do you guys do that stand
Speaker 1: on the outside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a right flag. If they don't, oh, don't go.
Speaker 1: She does not go out with them again. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go to break. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Walls Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh.
Speaker 1: You can always hear us live on KFI AM six
Speaker 1: forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime
Speaker 1: on demand on the iHeartRadio app.