Speaker 1: This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Wall Show on KFI AM six forty, Live everywhere on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app. This week, I got a call from
Speaker 1: a journalist asking me to comment on a relationship that
Speaker 1: has hidden tension. Tensions like it's a little bit rocky,
Speaker 1: but nobody's talking about it. Maybe people are at least
Speaker 1: one partner, maybe both are walking on eggshells and they
Speaker 1: know that there's a problem, nobody's ready to confront it
Speaker 1: right now. Interesting enough, I actually know a couple who's
Speaker 1: going through this hit. I've witnessed it. They don't even
Speaker 1: know that they're in a rocky phase, but I'm watching
Speaker 1: and I'm I'm going to go through some of the
Speaker 1: ways you can tell that you've got hidden tensions in
Speaker 1: your relationship, and I'll tell you the things that they have.
Speaker 1: First of all, there are two kinds of reasons why
Speaker 1: tensions might be hidden in a relationship. First would be
Speaker 1: that there literally are no words. You know, some people
Speaker 1: didn't learn healthy communication skills when they were growing up,
Speaker 1: they may rely on silent and often passive aggressive communication
Speaker 1: to express their negative emotions.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Some people even believe that their partners should be a
Speaker 1: mind reader, and their partners should know why they're mad
Speaker 1: or when they're mad. Uh, you know what, I don't
Speaker 1: know anybody that's a mind reader. I really don't nobody.
Speaker 1: So there are some people who literally were just not
Speaker 1: taught how to express their feelings, especially when they're negative
Speaker 1: or uncomfort And the other reason is that there are
Speaker 1: some people who express, you know, they're very covert because
Speaker 1: they're not even aware of their own feelings. That means
Speaker 1: that when they were growing up, their feelings weren't even
Speaker 1: acknowledged as a child, their feelings weren't mirrored, their feelings
Speaker 1: weren't welcomed. You know. I remember when I was a
Speaker 1: kid being told go to your room and come back
Speaker 1: when you've changed your attitude, Like nobody helping me explore
Speaker 1: what was going on. It's just, you know what, when
Speaker 1: you have a smile on your face, you can come
Speaker 1: back to this table. Okay, that's the stuff I heard, right,
Speaker 1: So I had to learn myself how to be aware
Speaker 1: of my feelings and how to express them. Now here's
Speaker 1: the thing. Even when feelings, when we're not aware of
Speaker 1: our feelings because I've been pushed down for so many years,
Speaker 1: they go into what's called our unconscious, And our unconscious
Speaker 1: is a huge driver of our behavior. It actually knows
Speaker 1: things that you don't know. Right, So you may be
Speaker 1: unhappy in your relationship, and you might not even know
Speaker 1: you're unhappy in your relationship, but you're unconscious. It will
Speaker 1: telegraph behaviors that show the world and definitely your partner,
Speaker 1: that you're irritated or sad. And this will happen long
Speaker 1: before you're fully aware of your feelings. And that's what's
Speaker 1: happening in this couple that I know about. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna say what southern California city they live in. And
Speaker 1: maybe you're seeing yourself in that. So what happens is
Speaker 1: our unconscious will act out in strange ways. Okay, So,
Speaker 1: whether you're aware or not that you're irritated by your
Speaker 1: partner but you haven't brought it up. Here are some
Speaker 1: signs that one partner is unhappy in their relationship. First
Speaker 1: of all, they may become forgetfull. Remember a relationship is
Speaker 1: an exchange of care, so a couple who a partner
Speaker 1: who is displeased may suddenly forget to uphold their end
Speaker 1: of the bargain. They might start showing up late, forget
Speaker 1: to take out the trash, forget to make that dinner reservation,
Speaker 1: say things like, oh, I'm so sorry, Han, I totally
Speaker 1: forgot to pick up your dry cleaning. I have no idea,
Speaker 1: why do you have any other clean shirts? So you
Speaker 1: get married of that important meeting whatever. And they really
Speaker 1: don't even know why they're forgetful. They're forgetful because they're
Speaker 1: unconscious of saying, you're pissed off at this person, so
Speaker 1: let's make them suffer, right, So forgetfulness is a big
Speaker 1: sign that there are tensions in a relationship. That happened
Speaker 1: with the couple. We were literally all out to dinner,
Speaker 1: sitting at a table, and she had pulled the dinner
Speaker 1: together and she was introducing everybody, and she forgot to
Speaker 1: introduce her husband. She just passed by. I'm like, uh,
Speaker 1: are got a husband? Uh? Okay? Number two. Their face
Speaker 1: doesn't match their words. You know, our face has forty
Speaker 1: three muscles and it is deeply connected to our true feelings.
Speaker 1: Why do you think the game of poker is so
Speaker 1: hard because it's difficult to maintain that punk er face
Speaker 1: if you've got a good hand or a bad hand.
Speaker 1: So watch when people talk. Don't listen to their words.
Speaker 1: Watch those tiny muscles around the mouth when they turn
Speaker 1: down instead of up. They might be saying something positive,
Speaker 1: but their face is saying something negative. This is a
Speaker 1: big sign that there are tensions in the relationship. I
Speaker 1: mean when they're talking about their spouse or their mate
Speaker 1: or what have you. And here's my favorite, they gossip
Speaker 1: negatively about other couples. So this is an example of
Speaker 1: Carl Jung's shadow at play. So Carl Jung had this
Speaker 1: theory that there are few traits inside of us that
Speaker 1: are so repulsive we can't even tolerate knowing they exist.
Speaker 1: So instead of taking them out and examining our dark side,
Speaker 1: we notice them everywhere else in the world and we
Speaker 1: point critical fingers. So some people in unhappy relationships act
Speaker 1: like their relationship is great, and they negatively gossip about
Speaker 1: other couples instead of noticing the elephant in their own
Speaker 1: living room. Just saying, all right, if any of this
Speaker 1: sounds like it's been happening to you, what do you do?
Speaker 1: So if your partner doesn't have emotional language or is
Speaker 1: totally unaware of their passive aggressive behaviors, pointing it out
Speaker 1: and asking them to change might only make them get
Speaker 1: defensive and it might make them withdraw more. Instead, stay
Speaker 1: on your own feelings. Just model healthy communication by telling
Speaker 1: them how their behavior felt to you. So instead of saying,
Speaker 1: why didn't you pick up my dry cleaning? You're so selfish?
Speaker 1: You promised you would. You knew I had a big
Speaker 1: meeting tomorrow. How about darling, I noticed you forgot to
Speaker 1: pick up my dry cleaning cleaning. It made me feel unimportant.
Speaker 1: It made me feel like I'm not a priority to you,
Speaker 1: and it made me feel sad. Uh huh.
Speaker 2: See that.
Speaker 1: You just stay on your feelings. No one can argue
Speaker 1: with your own feelings. Anytime you have a conversation about
Speaker 1: your feelings. If somebody says you're overthinking this, you're overreacting,
Speaker 1: You have no right to feel that way. Your answer
Speaker 1: should be, you can't argue with my feelings. They're just
Speaker 1: there and they're my feelings. And of course, hidden tensions
Speaker 1: are best addressed by a licensed clinical therapist, So try
Speaker 1: to get your partner to go to couple's therapy with you. Hey,
Speaker 1: when we come back. You ever heard of the five
Speaker 1: love languages? Well, guess what now there's eight. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: three more they've added to the list. Let's talk about
Speaker 1: them when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor
Speaker 1: Eddie Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Relive everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six.
Speaker 1: Forty Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 1: I have been obsessed with the science of law for
Speaker 1: a few decades, and you know, I really believe in
Speaker 1: that motto that we teach best what we most need
Speaker 1: to learn. And I will tell you that I began
Speaker 1: this journey, this odyssey, this desire to understand why people
Speaker 1: meet mate, separate, divorce, fight love, have great sex, have
Speaker 1: bad sex, why they respect each other, why they don't
Speaker 1: respect each other. I had a million questions, right. I
Speaker 1: began the odyssey because my own love life was going
Speaker 1: so bad. You know, I think I wrote my first book,
Speaker 1: The Boyfriend Test, back in nineteen ninety eight and It's
Speaker 1: filled with lots of anecdotes of my early dating life
Speaker 1: in my twenties and early thirties, and it seemed like
Speaker 1: I was dating so many bad boys. And it was
Speaker 1: only much later and through the therapeutic process, that I
Speaker 1: learned that there was a common denominator in every single
Speaker 1: one of my relationships, and it was me. It was
Speaker 1: the fact that I chose them. What was I doing?
Speaker 1: And I kept saying, well, no, that I always attract
Speaker 1: these types. You know what. We always attract all kinds
Speaker 1: of people, but we don't have to be attracted back, right,
Speaker 1: And so it was me ultimately doing the choosing to
Speaker 1: give myself the gift of pain. You know what. Psychoanalytic
Speaker 1: therapists might say that we are destined to relive the
Speaker 1: traumas of our childhood in different ways right now in
Speaker 1: adult romantic relationships until we make sense of it all,
Speaker 1: until we sorted out. My particular journey began by reading
Speaker 1: so many self help books. I read every self help
Speaker 1: book out there. I will say the very first one
Speaker 1: I read was The Road Less Traveled. If you haven't
Speaker 1: read it, it's classic, you should still read it. It's great.
Speaker 1: It got me into therapy. But I also remember reading
Speaker 1: somewhere along the way that book The Love Languages. I'm
Speaker 1: sure you've heard of it. The weird thing is it
Speaker 1: like it was published and nobody read it, and then
Speaker 1: like ten years later it suddenly became a bestseller. And
Speaker 1: it really got a big boost during COVID because people
Speaker 1: were sitting at home and fighting with their partners and
Speaker 1: suddenly grabbing any kind of love or relationship book they
Speaker 1: possibly could. Now I should tell you it was written
Speaker 1: by a Christian counselor named doctor Gary Chapman, and he's
Speaker 1: a marriage counselor. The book is called The Five Love Languages,
Speaker 1: The Secret to Love That Lasts. Now, let me say this.
Speaker 1: All kinds of researchers have attempted to do research on
Speaker 1: these five love languages to see if a they're real,
Speaker 1: their static, they work, you know, all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 1: and they can't. There's no proof, there's no research to
Speaker 1: back it up, but it feels so logical to the
Speaker 1: lay people. So what doctor Chapman did is he identified
Speaker 1: five different ways that people express love, and he said,
Speaker 1: if you can just have your partner understand how you
Speaker 1: express love, then they'll be able to recognize that as love, right,
Speaker 1: because not everybody, I mean, we all have a different
Speaker 1: version of love. Right. So the five love languages are
Speaker 1: words of affirmation. Somebody gives lots of compliments and encouragement,
Speaker 1: acts of service, doing things right, just helpful, whether it's
Speaker 1: cleaning the house or building stuff or being a fixer
Speaker 1: person whatever, running around doing errands for somebody, acts of
Speaker 1: service gifts. Some people's way of expressing love is through
Speaker 1: material sacrifice. Spending money, buying gifts, bringing on flowers all
Speaker 1: the time other people is quality time. Spending time literally
Speaker 1: talking and connecting other people is physical touch. If I
Speaker 1: had to say, if I had to guess actually of
Speaker 1: my sweet darling Julio, I would say his are acts
Speaker 1: of service. He's very big at Like today, when I
Speaker 1: was prepping for the show and reading articles, I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: the car's so dirty. I want to leave early so
Speaker 1: I have time to wash it. And while I was
Speaker 1: busy doing that, he went out and hand washed my
Speaker 1: car himself. Was it nice? And the other for sure
Speaker 1: for him is physical touch because he's a cuddly guy
Speaker 1: and I am too, so that works out great, all right.
Speaker 1: But who knew that there are many many ways to
Speaker 1: express love. My personal opinion, by the way, is it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how you express love. It's more important how
Speaker 1: somebody likes to receive love. So instead of marching in
Speaker 1: and saying, well, this is how I give love, so
Speaker 1: put up with it instead, Probably the better idea is
Speaker 1: to say, how do you feel loved? How do you
Speaker 1: know that you are experiencing love? What can I do
Speaker 1: or say to help you feel loved? I think that'd
Speaker 1: be a more important question. Anyway. Psychologists have come up
Speaker 1: with three new languages per Can you believe that? Three news?
Speaker 1: So now I guess there's eight love languages. Let me
Speaker 1: go through them real quick. I love this one. The
Speaker 1: first one the love language of patience in chaos. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: there are times of complete stress, times of meltdowns, times
Speaker 1: when the world is spinning out of control. And what
Speaker 1: if you're fortunate enough to have a partner who's one
Speaker 1: of those stoic, calm persons when the boat is rocking
Speaker 1: and the sea is shaking. Isn't that cool? Yeah? Because
Speaker 1: you know, emotions are contagious, and so you might be
Speaker 1: able to calm down because they're calm whenever it's chaos.
Speaker 1: The second new love language, the love language of validating
Speaker 1: each other's worth. Well, this is a little like words
Speaker 1: of affirmation, but it's a little different, right, It's this
Speaker 1: whole idea of being able to look at your partner
Speaker 1: in a positive light, no matter what, valuing them. You know,
Speaker 1: they've done research on long term, healthy, reportedly happy couples,
Speaker 1: and they found that one of the things they do
Speaker 1: is they continue to value their partner, meaning they really think,
Speaker 1: I mean, they look up to their partner, their partner's
Speaker 1: cool and of great value. They don't demean them. They
Speaker 1: don't let thoughts of oh my god, why did I
Speaker 1: choose this loser of a parson. They don't let those
Speaker 1: thoughts enter their head. They're always like, oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: remember she's so smart. Oh yeah, I remember he's so kind. Right,
Speaker 1: And so there really is a love language in being
Speaker 1: able to look at your partner and saying I see
Speaker 1: your worth, I see your value. You are brave, you're worthy,
Speaker 1: you deserve this right, And it can actually help raise
Speaker 1: people's self esteem. Now, I know people say it's not
Speaker 1: my job to raise your self esteem. You should have
Speaker 1: you know, what relationships are dynamic. We feed off each other,
Speaker 1: we work together. Why not help your partner feel good
Speaker 1: about themselves? And the final love language, new love language,
Speaker 1: if we're gonna say there's eight, is the love language
Speaker 1: of small but essential acts. This is a big one.
Speaker 1: Did you know? It's not about the big, sweeping, grand gestures.
Speaker 1: Let me take you to Paris and bring you flowers
Speaker 1: and champagne. No, because that's over in a week. What
Speaker 1: about every day doing small little acts of kindness for
Speaker 1: your partner, showing gratitude, saying thank you. What about that
Speaker 1: small but essential acts? I love that. Hey, when we
Speaker 1: come back. If you believe in soulmates, you're gonna want
Speaker 1: to listen up. You are listening to The Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Walls Show and kf I Am six forty Live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFIXT
Speaker 2: Welcome back.
Speaker 1: To the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy Wall Show
Speaker 1: on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 1: You know, I have always said that the one word
Speaker 1: that drives me crazy, I don't know, like like the
Speaker 1: hair on my spine stands up like nails on a chalkboard.
Speaker 1: Like I feel a little nauseous. Is when people use
Speaker 1: the word soulmate. I'm sorry when they use that word,
Speaker 1: I know they're looking into crystals and checking their horoscope
Speaker 1: and I don't know what else. Look. I don't mean
Speaker 1: to put you down for whatever your faith in life is,
Speaker 1: but there's no such thing as a soulmate. Okay. You
Speaker 1: know what, People with good relationship skills are not only
Speaker 1: attractive to more people, they can be attracted to more people.
Speaker 1: So this idea, I mean, let's think, let's break it down.
Speaker 1: What is the concept of a soulmate, destiny the cosmos
Speaker 1: coming together? That there's one person who will see you
Speaker 1: feel you know you your soulmate, and everything will be
Speaker 1: perfect because you will be such a perfect match that
Speaker 1: you will not have any problems in the relationship if
Speaker 1: only you can find this person. It's a crazy idea,
Speaker 1: this idea that somebody's going to make up for all
Speaker 1: your flaws, all your needs, and basically leave you in
Speaker 1: a place of ecstasy of happily ever after for no
Speaker 1: reason except that they are themselves and they are perfect.
Speaker 1: They are the one you know why. This myth is dangerous.
Speaker 1: It's dangerous for a number of reasons. One is, if
Speaker 1: you believe in the myth of a soulmate, it puts
Speaker 1: you on an endless search for perfection. Right, so when
Speaker 1: you're on dating apps, you're gonna be like, no, no,
Speaker 1: now now, not right, not right, not my soulmate. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't like they said that. I didn't like they've
Speaker 1: texted that. No, no, no, no no. Right. You have
Speaker 1: this idea that you're going to find somebody who has
Speaker 1: no dark side in their personality. You're gonna have no
Speaker 1: conflict at all, You're gonna have great sex forever. Uh uh.
Speaker 1: You know what's going to happen if you believe this
Speaker 1: time is going to run out because this person doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: Then if you start dating somebody and you continue with
Speaker 1: your fantasy that a soulmate exists, whenever there's any little
Speaker 1: bump in the road, you're going to break up instead
Speaker 1: of makeup. Right. If you think that somebody has to
Speaker 1: be perfect, then you believe that soulmates with so ma
Speaker 1: there's never any fights, never any conflict. But you know what,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get really frustrated because they're going to be
Speaker 1: a human being and they're gonna fall short of your
Speaker 1: crazy fantasy. Right, So you're not gonna learn the relationship
Speaker 1: skills by sticking it out. Now, another reason believing in
Speaker 1: a soulmate is dangerous is you will not gain the
Speaker 1: skills of learning how to adapt to change your change.
Speaker 1: There change the world's change. See, here's the sneaky thing
Speaker 1: about life. It's not static, it's dynamic. Life is changing
Speaker 1: every day. You know, they say that every seven years.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is true, but I've heard
Speaker 1: it that every single cell in your body has actually
Speaker 1: replicated to the point that every seven years you're not
Speaker 1: actually the same person you were biologically that you were
Speaker 1: seven years ago. But there are environmental pressures on all
Speaker 1: of us. Kids are born, people encounter health problems, they
Speaker 1: lose their jobs, they put parents in the ground in
Speaker 1: the grave, right. I mean things are changing all the
Speaker 1: time in life. And if you believe you have a soulmate,
Speaker 1: and that soulmate is going to make everything okay, you're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to cope when the world changes,
Speaker 1: or more importantly, when your partner changes and grows. Uh huh.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that you do if you believe
Speaker 1: in a soulmate is you deprive yourself of the gift
Speaker 1: of learning to make a conscious rational choice. I've always
Speaker 1: said love is a drug, but you decide whether to
Speaker 1: take the drug or not. You decide whether to inject
Speaker 1: it and how much and what the dose is. Right,
Speaker 1: You're a human being, you have a brain. It's not like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. I was just taken over
Speaker 1: by this soulmate. No, you are going to be able
Speaker 1: to make a conscious choice. In fact, the best relationships
Speaker 1: are built on conscious choice. You choose to date somebody,
Speaker 1: you choose to move in with them, you choose to
Speaker 1: marry them, you choose to commit to them, you choose
Speaker 1: to make compromises for them. There's no such thing as
Speaker 1: a perfect match where you don't get to do those things.
Speaker 1: And finally, if you believe in the myth of a soulmate,
Speaker 1: you will ignore good enough partners. You see, love is messy,
Speaker 1: really messy. If you've been with me since the beginning
Speaker 1: of the show, you know, even I, with all my
Speaker 1: rich knowledge of the science of love, have sometimes speed
Speaker 1: bumps in the relationship life on that road, right, So
Speaker 1: I don't want you to ignore all the good enough
Speaker 1: partners out there. I often say that relationships are a
Speaker 1: gymnasium for your mind. They're designed to give you a workout.
Speaker 1: They're designed to make you look at your peace in
Speaker 1: whatever conflict comes up. So don't let people go just
Speaker 1: because of small imperfections. Now okay, major abusive stuff, Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: But there are people out there who protect themselves from intimacy, right.
Speaker 1: Intimacy often involves conflict. They protect themselves from intimacy because
Speaker 1: they are looking for perfect, and perfect just doesn't exist.
Speaker 1: This idea that there's this one person, the one the
Speaker 1: soulmate out there is hurting you. It's keeping you from growing.
Speaker 1: And on that note, while you're all quickly going through
Speaker 1: those apps and giving more people a chance. This brings
Speaker 1: the Doctor wendywall Show to a close. It is always
Speaker 1: my pleasure to be with you every Sunday night from
Speaker 1: seven to nine. We're finishing a little early tonight because
Speaker 1: cousin news room the Kfi's got something else exciting for
Speaker 1: you coming up. But make sure you follow me on
Speaker 1: social media. Come on over to Blue Sky if you dare,
Speaker 1: I'm there and the handle everywhere is at doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Walsh wherever you fancy going on your social media but
Speaker 1: I'm always here for you from seven to nine every
Speaker 1: Sunday night. You've been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls
Speaker 1: Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You
Speaker 1: can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on
Speaker 1: demand on the iHeartRadio app