Speaker 1: This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k
Speaker 1: I AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on
Speaker 1: demand on the iHeartRadio app. Welcome to Doctor Wendy Wall's show.
Speaker 1: I'm KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. So,
Speaker 1: I have a PhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology professor,
Speaker 1: but I'm really obsessed with the science of love. I've
Speaker 1: written three books on relationships and did a dissertation on
Speaker 1: attachment theory. In today's show, I want to talk both
Speaker 1: about our relationships and also our mental health. We have
Speaker 1: a guest coming on later who is going to talk
Speaker 1: to us about a kind of dreaming that I do
Speaker 1: a lot, lucid dreaming. Apparently it's something you can learn
Speaker 1: to do. It's kind of an out of body experience. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It's used to treat all kinds of things. You'll take
Speaker 1: it for what it's worth. I'm really curious to talk
Speaker 1: to him. Also, this week, I have to share something
Speaker 1: with you. A really big thing happened in my life,
Speaker 1: something I've been planning for for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: I got lens replacement eye surgery. I have worn glasses
Speaker 1: since the fourth grade. I have twenty twenty vision right now.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. Kayla, you're so beautiful, Actor one, congratulations.
Speaker 2: You look beautiful without your or you look beautiful with
Speaker 2: your glasses, but without those eyes are just hot.
Speaker 1: Well, I can't wear makeup for a few weeks and
Speaker 1: I don't look like Pamela Anderson. You look better. So
Speaker 1: let me tell you. I here's my theory that as
Speaker 1: we get older. Well, first of all, let me tell
Speaker 1: you the phenomenon of why people need They used to
Speaker 1: call it and still call it cataract surgery. It just
Speaker 1: means that your lens get cloudy, and it is a
Speaker 1: lifetime of everything black coffee, red wine, too much food,
Speaker 1: too much pollution, antibiotics. I don't know all the things
Speaker 1: of clouds your lens, but tons of them, and you
Speaker 1: don't realize it. It's just subtle. You start turning on
Speaker 1: lights more and more and more. Night driving becomes a
Speaker 1: little harder, you know. And I would go to my
Speaker 1: eye doctor every year and I'd say, oh, And then
Speaker 1: the other thing is I used to wear contacts for years,
Speaker 1: and then my eyes got pretty dry and I couldn't
Speaker 1: keep contacts in for many hours, and I would say,
Speaker 1: can I get Lasix? Can I get la siks. I
Speaker 1: used to say that all the time because everyone's getting Lasix.
Speaker 1: And he said, no, there's a good chance it could
Speaker 1: disqualify you for the other kind of surgery. That's what
Speaker 1: he would tell me. Anyway, who knows what the latest
Speaker 1: news is. But he was so cute because he would
Speaker 1: say to me, you know, the longer you wait, the better.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you why. The technology keeps getting better
Speaker 1: and better, the surgeons keep getting younger and so weird.
Speaker 1: Just so I just you know, probably for five years
Speaker 1: I've been asking for this surgery, and then this year
Speaker 1: he came to me and said, okay, you're there. You're
Speaker 1: finally there. You qualify. I'm sending you to a surgeon.
Speaker 1: There are lots of great eye surgeons here in the city.
Speaker 1: I happen to go to a woman named doctor Nicole Fram.
Speaker 1: She didn't pay me to say that. I'm just saying
Speaker 1: I love her. But there are lots of great eye surgeons,
Speaker 1: and the technology has advanced. And I got the kind
Speaker 1: of lens that insurance doesn't cover, you pay a little
Speaker 1: extra for and so that I can see up close
Speaker 1: middle and far away. So like, literally the day after
Speaker 1: my surgery on my first eye, I could look at
Speaker 1: my iPhone without glasses, which was really cool. So here's
Speaker 1: my theory that as we age, you know, our brain
Speaker 1: at all times is taking in sensory information. Right, It's
Speaker 1: pulling in information from site, sound, smell, touch, It's pulling
Speaker 1: in data constantly, And as we age and our equipment
Speaker 1: starts to filter things out and we're not getting the
Speaker 1: full story. I think the neurotransmitters start to shut down.
Speaker 1: I think it's probably the best thing, certainly for my
Speaker 1: health to be able to see clearly, because it's sending
Speaker 1: more information to my brain. I don't know why, but Kayla,
Speaker 1: when I put my headset on here, wasn't I saying
Speaker 1: to you, like, can you turn me down? Can you
Speaker 1: turn me down? It's too loud?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're You're never like that either, Like you're always
Speaker 2: perfectly fine with the value.
Speaker 1: So do you think my hearing got better because my
Speaker 1: eyesight got better?
Speaker 2: I do think all the senses affect each other, so
Speaker 2: that might be a thing.
Speaker 1: It's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 2: Honestly.
Speaker 1: I gotta try touch now, I gotta hug ulio closer.
Speaker 1: You gotta report back to us, so even though I've
Speaker 1: been Okay, so you get one eye done, right, they
Speaker 1: do one at a time, your non dominant eye, and
Speaker 1: then you have a week to recover, settle in and everything,
Speaker 1: and then you get the other eye done and the
Speaker 1: other eye. You know, I just did this week, and
Speaker 1: but I was still able to watch TV and look
Speaker 1: at my phone like a day after. Uh So we
Speaker 1: started watching White Locusts and we're on season three. Now,
Speaker 1: have you ever watched that series.
Speaker 2: White white lotus, lotus, Locus, lotus, lotus, lotus.
Speaker 1: It's a flower, a locus. Well, it feels like a
Speaker 1: locus coming in. Okay, let me just say that. Oh gosh,
Speaker 1: all right, so there. It is such a study in
Speaker 1: dysfunctional families, dysfunctional relationships. I could literally just quote from
Speaker 1: that show all day long and tell you about what
Speaker 1: not to do in your love lives. Like the family
Speaker 1: that's visiting from North Carolina with it's Arnold Schwarzeneger Maria
Speaker 1: Shriver's son is the actor who plays are you allowed
Speaker 1: to say on the radio?
Speaker 2: I'm going to bleep that just in case?
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, that's what he's actually called. On the show.
Speaker 2: Well, it isn't like a thing that you used to like.
Speaker 2: It's a cleaner.
Speaker 1: It's a thing that women use to clean the internal
Speaker 1: part of their genitate.
Speaker 3: You shouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't do it. Yeah, just saying that's what my
Speaker 1: doctors told me. So anyway, he is referred to as that. Basically,
Speaker 1: he's a player kind of guy, and I think he's
Speaker 1: supposed to be in his mid twenties, and he's got
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old brother who he's trying to, you know,
Speaker 1: have introduced him to sex and trying hard. And then
Speaker 1: there's a girl who's clearly separated from the family. She's
Speaker 1: about to graduate from college and she is not aligning
Speaker 1: with their values at all. And you find out wants
Speaker 1: to actually stay in Thailand and become joins some monastery
Speaker 1: with some monks. The dad, his entire identity is just
Speaker 1: around wealth and finances and I can't give it away,
Speaker 1: but that's all about to fall apart. But the more
Speaker 1: interesting relationship for me was the girl. I don't know
Speaker 1: the name of this actress. She was in that series
Speaker 1: Sex Education, and she has the big buck teeth. And
Speaker 1: I can say it because at one point in the show,
Speaker 1: she meets another girl and she says to the girl, Oh,
Speaker 1: I like your bathing suit or whatever. The other girl says,
Speaker 1: I like your teeth, So it's clear her teeth come
Speaker 1: in the room before she does it. And she's so cute. No,
Speaker 1: she's so adorable, and I'm so glad she didn't get
Speaker 1: them fixed. I think they're so sweet anyway. That actress,
Speaker 1: she's English, is in a relationship with a totally emotionally
Speaker 1: avoidant man, and she plays like the cheerleader all the time.
Speaker 1: She's trying to cheer him up, and she's extra up
Speaker 1: and extra happy. And I see people like this all
Speaker 1: the time in life. Here's one partner doing all the
Speaker 1: emotional work, trying to be the cheerleader, and the other
Speaker 1: one feeling engulfed or grumpy or angry. I want to
Speaker 1: see what happens to their relationship down the road. Because
Speaker 1: he started to see some Thai therapist and start to
Speaker 1: get into his child we're learning about his childhood on
Speaker 1: the show. You know they don't dump all the episodes
Speaker 1: at once, Kayla. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: I hate.
Speaker 1: You gotta wait week week, week, week week. I think
Speaker 1: we're only at week four or five.
Speaker 2: Now that's when I let him build up and then
Speaker 2: just get a good binge in and then when it's
Speaker 2: all there, just go.
Speaker 1: In, get that bingein. Yeah, all right. When we come back,
Speaker 1: here are some questions that this girl clearly did not
Speaker 1: ask this man. I'm talking about the characters. I'm white,
Speaker 1: not locus Lotus. When we come back, let's talk about
Speaker 1: some things that if people are meeting for the first
Speaker 1: time in the early stages of dating, some really important
Speaker 1: questions they should be asking each other to find out
Speaker 1: if somebody you know is commitment oriented, has the mental
Speaker 1: health and the emotional health to have a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about these questions when we come back. You
Speaker 1: are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on k
Speaker 1: I AM six forty. We're 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: Welcome back to the Dodor Wendywall Show on KFI AM
Speaker 1: six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know,
Speaker 1: the first book I wrote was called The Boyfriend Test.
Speaker 1: How do we evaluate his potential before you lose your heart?
Speaker 1: And it was a series of questions that people should
Speaker 1: be asking themselves about the dude they're dating, and this
Speaker 1: could apply to any gender. By the way, the reason
Speaker 1: why I talked about boyfriend test and questions to ask
Speaker 1: about him was because apparently men don't buy relationship books,
Speaker 1: although they should, and gentlemen, if you're listening, the one
Speaker 1: book you should buy isn't mine. It's a book called
Speaker 1: Attached The New Science of Love, And then you'll learn
Speaker 1: about attachment so that you'll know what I'm talking about. Okay,
Speaker 1: So in that book, the Boyfriend Test, I talked about
Speaker 1: a number of questions that you might want to ask
Speaker 1: on a new date, or information that you might want
Speaker 1: to find out about somebody in the first few weeks
Speaker 1: of dating that will give you an indication of whether
Speaker 1: you know this is going to be a thing, not
Speaker 1: necessarily if you're compatible with them, but if they're healthy
Speaker 1: enough to have a healthy relationship. Now, I just want
Speaker 1: to remind you of a few statistics. So the average
Speaker 1: age of first time marriage has been going up every year.
Speaker 1: It's actually thirty point five thirty and a half years
Speaker 1: for men right now, twenty eight and a half for women.
Speaker 1: But hold the train here and listen to what that
Speaker 1: number means. That means that by the time a woman
Speaker 1: is twenty eight and a half, half the men are
Speaker 1: off the market, right, Because that's the mean, that's the average.
Speaker 1: They're already married.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: The other half that are left are marriageable and marrying late,
Speaker 1: or they have an avoidant personality style and attachment style,
Speaker 1: they're afraid of intimacy, or they have trauma in their
Speaker 1: early life and are going to bring that trauma right
Speaker 1: into the relationship with you, or they're a player and
Speaker 1: are never going to settle down. Whatever. There are all
Speaker 1: kinds of people out there, but the fact that half
Speaker 1: of them are married means that the most healthy, commitment
Speaker 1: oriented ones are off the market. So I would venture
Speaker 1: to say that the pool of potential mates once you
Speaker 1: get over thirty becomes well, it's a prickly path, right, Kayla.
Speaker 1: I mean you've been doing some dating and you're like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, oh, don't you crying? All right, So listen up,
Speaker 1: Kayla and anybody else. Here's some questions to ask on
Speaker 1: a date. All right, here's the most important question you
Speaker 1: should ask on a date. And I love to ask
Speaker 1: you still love to ask it on a first date.
Speaker 1: Here's a question, are you in a relationship right now? Now?
Speaker 1: I know it seems like a totally strange question because
Speaker 1: you're asking somebody who's clearly behaving like a single person.
Speaker 1: They're on a first date with you. But it's their
Speaker 1: reaction to this, I think kind of silly question that's
Speaker 1: really important. If they get defensive, if they get angry,
Speaker 1: it indicates that they might actually be dating someone, or
Speaker 1: living with someone, or even married to someone. If they
Speaker 1: get mad that you ask that question, then you got
Speaker 1: to wonder, why are they defensive right now? If they
Speaker 1: find the question humorous, then they're going to see it
Speaker 1: as a really cute joke. This tells you they got
Speaker 1: a sense of humor.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 1: And sometimes you might get lucky and they might answer
Speaker 1: honestly like, yeah, actually I'm dating two people right now,
Speaker 1: and then this can open up the whole conversation to well,
Speaker 1: are you looking for monogamy? Are you looking for one person?
Speaker 1: And how's it going with those other two? Is one
Speaker 1: in the lead or the other? I mean, you could
Speaker 1: almost be their wingman at that point asking about it.
Speaker 1: But you can find out information because it opens up
Speaker 1: the conversation and look when you do ask the question,
Speaker 1: are you in a relationship? Now? Make it fun, Just
Speaker 1: pretend like to be deadly serious this, lower your voice,
Speaker 1: look them right in the eye, and then you know,
Speaker 1: I have a really important question to ask you. And
Speaker 1: they lean in what And then you pause and you say,
Speaker 1: are you in a relationship? Right now? Again? They might
Speaker 1: do a belly laugh, and then you can feel safe
Speaker 1: and they go, why are you asking me that? What
Speaker 1: a crazy question? And they get all defensive. There's information
Speaker 1: in that. Okay, here's another important question to ask, maybe
Speaker 1: even on a first date. What's the longest relationship you've
Speaker 1: ever had? Remember what I said about the mating pool
Speaker 1: over the age of thirty, right, you're going to have
Speaker 1: a lot of people who can't have a healthy relationship.
Speaker 1: They're the leftover group that are still out there single.
Speaker 1: So the answer to this question indicate someone's ability to
Speaker 1: be faithful or at least make a commitment to someone.
Speaker 1: And here's my theory, and this is my opinion, just
Speaker 1: my opinion. There's no research on this. Here we go
Speaker 1: personal opinion, Auntie Wendy. Here, if that person is over
Speaker 1: thirty and they haven't had a solid relationship, of at
Speaker 1: least a year or more. Raise your eyebrows.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: People who have a secure attachment style, they may not
Speaker 1: marry in their twenties, but they do practice monogamy and
Speaker 1: they play house on their way to making a commitment
Speaker 1: to a long term mate. People with an insecure attachment style,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. They're prone to relationship instability, drama, frequent partner
Speaker 1: changes and so and also those kind of people off
Speaker 1: and don't look within. They tend to blame their partners
Speaker 1: when things go wrong. Right, So here's the question. What's
Speaker 1: the longest relationship you've ever had? Don't ask it in
Speaker 1: an accusatory way. Just make it fun and exploratory, like
Speaker 1: I have a question, So I'll tell you. The longest
Speaker 1: relationship I've been in is two years. What's the longest
Speaker 1: when you've been in? You know and get the information?
Speaker 2: Are you laughing at me?
Speaker 1: Ka? I can't go. It's so cute when I do
Speaker 1: my real laugh, though, Julio says, I laugh like a witch.
Speaker 1: Apparently I I can hear that. Ye, apparently I do,
Speaker 1: all right. Third question, This is the most important question
Speaker 1: you could ever ask. I wouldn't ask it on a
Speaker 1: first date. It certainly should not be a conversation opener,
Speaker 1: but it's the most telling. How would you describe your
Speaker 1: relationship with your mother? This is so informative because people
Speaker 1: tend to model their romantic relationships after the relationship they
Speaker 1: had with their opposite gender parent. So there are two
Speaker 1: extremes in an answer here that should raise a bit
Speaker 1: of a red flag. The first is if they say
Speaker 1: I hate her, I don't really talk to my mother,
Speaker 1: I don't like her. Whatever, you got to run because
Speaker 1: soon that is how they're going to feel about you.
Speaker 1: The second extreme, though, even though you think this sounds good,
Speaker 1: is they say, oh my god, I love my mother.
Speaker 1: She's amazing, she's my best friend. I call her every day.
Speaker 1: I do my laundry at her house. She still cooks
Speaker 1: for me sometimes. No no, no no no. If that's
Speaker 1: a dude, he already has a wife, you will only
Speaker 1: ever be his mistress. He'll never be able to separate
Speaker 1: from her. And I do want to say, when I
Speaker 1: was dating, I used to notice a lot of single
Speaker 1: moms with only child males they almost become the boyfriend.
Speaker 1: It's very interesting anyway, not a conversation starter. So those
Speaker 1: are the big three questions. Are you in a relationship now,
Speaker 1: what's the longest relationship you've ever had, and how would
Speaker 1: you describe your relationship with your mother? Hey, have you
Speaker 1: gone through a breakup recently? I'm sorry it hurts, I know,
Speaker 1: whether it's divorce, whether it was just time you had
Speaker 1: to expel that. Mate, Let's talk about how long it
Speaker 1: really takes to get over an X and the process. Okay,
Speaker 1: when we come back, you're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Hi am six forty Everywhere Radio.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that probably the biggest pain I've
Speaker 1: ever felt in my life was not physical pain. It
Speaker 1: was emotional pain. There's actually some research to say that
Speaker 1: emotional pain hits the brain in the same place as
Speaker 1: physical pain. It's terrible, and unfortunately, many people are cautious
Speaker 1: about getting into relationships, not because they're afraid of love,
Speaker 1: but because they're afraid of the breakup. Right, Remember, nobody
Speaker 1: is going to very few people, Okay, are going to
Speaker 1: meet early in life. They're going to date the first
Speaker 1: person they meet, and they're going to stay together until
Speaker 1: they die. The truth is that our love lives are
Speaker 1: filled with learning, filled with lessons on how to be
Speaker 1: a better partner, how to choose better partners, how to
Speaker 1: relate to partners in different ways, and we have to
Speaker 1: do that experientially, and part of it is a breakup
Speaker 1: right now. I often hear that people say, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: you should just get back right out there, or you
Speaker 1: need to take some time to grieve. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any one right way to do it, because some
Speaker 1: people who quote unquote take the time to grieve actually
Speaker 1: aren't doing the work of going to therapy and learning
Speaker 1: about their peace in it and learning better relationship skills. Instead,
Speaker 1: they're just avoiding, right, And you don't learn anything by avoiding.
Speaker 1: I always say that relationships are like a gymnasium for
Speaker 1: the mind. You got to have something to push against, right.
Speaker 1: You need some resistance in order to be a better person.
Speaker 1: So there is some research to show that if you
Speaker 1: do spend some time thinking bad things about your ex,
Speaker 1: I don't mean wishing them bad things. I mean when
Speaker 1: you go back through your memories, take off those rose
Speaker 1: colored glasses and literally say to yourself, well, she did this,
Speaker 1: and she did that, and he did that and da
Speaker 1: da da daha, because that helps your brain. You're constantly
Speaker 1: being reminded of why it's not good for you, because
Speaker 1: if you're not doing that thought process instead what your
Speaker 1: brain is doing, or things like maybe I'm not good enough?
Speaker 1: Why did it have to break up? Right? Because you're
Speaker 1: in your pain. I also want to want to explain
Speaker 1: why breakups hurt so much. So a relationship actually becomes
Speaker 1: part of us, literally part of our identity. It's like
Speaker 1: two brains. They cooperate and collaborate, and they share the
Speaker 1: thinking and they share the tasks. And so when you
Speaker 1: break up with someone, you lose half of yourself. Your
Speaker 1: brain literally has to grow these new areas, both as
Speaker 1: a social identity and also as an internal sense of self.
Speaker 1: So it takes a while to get over an X.
Speaker 1: Now there's a new study that investigated how long it
Speaker 1: takes to get over an ex partner. It was published
Speaker 1: in the scientific journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, and
Speaker 1: it was trying to ask the questions, is you know
Speaker 1: if you were with somebody for a long time? Does
Speaker 1: it take longer? Volunteers answered a range of questions about
Speaker 1: their emotional bonds with their exes, because remember, some people
Speaker 1: are a little more emotionally entwined than others. And you're
Speaker 1: going to be surprised by how long it took pe
Speaker 1: people to get over their ex Kayla, if you had
Speaker 1: to guess, what would you say?
Speaker 2: I was actually at a girl's dinner not too long ago,
Speaker 2: and this one girl said that she broke up four
Speaker 2: years ago from her ex.
Speaker 1: And she's still still talking about.
Speaker 2: Him, she's still on him, she still misses him.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. I used to think you should be over
Speaker 1: it in a year, like it's just like losing your
Speaker 1: baby fat after pregnancy. You got a year Like I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I'm wrong, I am wrong.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: There were three hundred and twenty eight volunteers in this study.
Speaker 1: Their average age was early thirties. They were about fifty
Speaker 1: percent women fifty percent men. On average, they had been
Speaker 1: together with their exes for four point six years, So
Speaker 1: four point six years is how long they'd been together.
Speaker 1: And guess how long it took these people to get
Speaker 1: over four point six years? Nearly four point one eight years.
Speaker 3: That was the average.
Speaker 1: Oh my goodness's crazy. And it also said for the
Speaker 1: t hypical person, the bond to an ex didn't completely
Speaker 1: fade away until eight years later. Eight years they've been
Speaker 1: together four and a half. That is a long time.
Speaker 1: I want to tell you if you have to stay connected,
Speaker 1: like because you're sharing a dog or kids or a
Speaker 1: mortgage or whatever, it's gonna take way longer. If you're
Speaker 1: able to literally go no contact and defriend them, unfriend them,
Speaker 1: unfollow them, all that stuff online and even like choose
Speaker 1: not to socialize with some of the mutual friends in
Speaker 1: case the friends drop information about the X. So it's
Speaker 1: kind of like make it out of sight, out of mind.
Speaker 1: I know that if you can do that, you will
Speaker 1: get over it faster. But for those of you having
Speaker 1: gone through a divorce who are still dealing with children,
Speaker 1: like in my case, for instance, I remember it taking
Speaker 1: so long to get over the breakup with the father
Speaker 1: of my children, mainly because I they'd angry for so long.
Speaker 1: Is like I found motherhood so hard. I found motherhood
Speaker 1: just exhausting, trying to be everything right, a provider, a protector,
Speaker 1: a nurture, etc. My kids were really little one was
Speaker 1: still breastfeeding, and so in my exhaustion, I would blame
Speaker 1: his absence, like it's all his fault. You know, he's
Speaker 1: not paying money and he's not here and blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah. And then one day, you know that
Speaker 1: saying resentment is like drinking poison and hoping somebody else
Speaker 1: will die. One day I realized that my anger wasn't
Speaker 1: helping the situation, and I literally said to myself, Wendy,
Speaker 1: what if you were a widow, what if your husband
Speaker 1: had died and there was no choice? This is what
Speaker 1: you had in front of you, and you just had
Speaker 1: to figure it out. And as soon as I had
Speaker 1: that thought, everything got easier. Like it was like I
Speaker 1: was angry because I was. I was wishing and hoping
Speaker 1: that there'd be more participation. And then once I was
Speaker 1: able to get over the breakup much easier after that,
Speaker 1: once I let go of my own anger. So note
Speaker 1: to you, let go of your own anger. Hey, when
Speaker 1: we come back, I am going to my social media.
Speaker 1: I'm going to answer some of your relationship questions. If
Speaker 1: you'd like to send me a DM, go onto Instagram
Speaker 1: producer Kayles checking it out the handle is at Dr
Speaker 1: Wendy Walsh. That's at doctor Wendy Walsh. You're listening to
Speaker 1: doctor Wendy Waalsh Show and I AM six forty Live
Speaker 1: everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six forty. Welcome back to.
Speaker 1: The Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 1: my social media. I'm going to be answering your relationship questions. Reminder,
Speaker 1: I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. However, I've
Speaker 1: had a lot of life experience in these areas and
Speaker 1: I've written three books on relationships and did a dissertation
Speaker 1: on attachment theory. The first thing I want to address
Speaker 1: is an email I got from a listener who I
Speaker 1: want to clarify something she wrote to me because I
Speaker 1: thought to myself, if she thinks I gave this advice,
Speaker 1: then maybe other listeners think I gave this advice. So
Speaker 1: all she said is, dear doctor Wendy, because of your advice,
Speaker 1: I withheld sex to punish my boyfriend for his behavior,
Speaker 1: and he was flabbergasted that I would do that to him.
Speaker 1: I didn't think men were actually that easy to control.
Speaker 1: There's some words in there. I don't say, when did
Speaker 1: you say that? I don't say that I talked about
Speaker 1: I know where the misunderstanding must have come from. One
Speaker 1: of the things I do preach is that in the
Speaker 1: early stages of dating, it's a good idea to delay
Speaker 1: the onset of first sex while you get to know
Speaker 1: somebody emotionally, because there's research to show that the longer
Speaker 1: you wait, the better your relationship outcomes later. But within
Speaker 1: a relationship, there's two words here. I don't like, punish
Speaker 1: and control. Our job is not to punish someone we love,
Speaker 1: nor is it to control someone we love. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm glad it worked out for her, I guess, but
Speaker 1: probably manipulation is not something we should be doing in
Speaker 1: our relationships. We should be setting boundaries, so I know
Speaker 1: what she might have been thinking. Well, I set up
Speaker 1: boundary with my body, which is a little different than
Speaker 1: punishing somebody. Protecting yourself from feelings of loss after sex,
Speaker 1: or feeling of pain or hurt that they're not pulling
Speaker 1: their weight in other parts of the relationship. Protecting yourself
Speaker 1: from those feelings is a very different mindset than I'm
Speaker 1: going to punish them and control them. Just wanted to say,
Speaker 1: all right, dear doctor Wendy, I am forty five and successful.
Speaker 1: I decided to this a woman. By the way, I
Speaker 1: decided to propose to myself. My friend and family think
Speaker 1: I'm crazy. Can I tell them to back off? Or
Speaker 1: should I listen to them and wait for the man.
Speaker 1: I bought myself a very expensive and beautiful ring. I
Speaker 1: love it personally. All right, there's a lot to unpack here.
Speaker 1: First of all, we are all different, and we all
Speaker 1: have different attachment styles. And you may be absolutely happy
Speaker 1: being alone and single in your life. And maybe you
Speaker 1: have a really great support group of friends, although ones
Speaker 1: that don't like that you've proposed to yourself. Or maybe
Speaker 1: you're actually feeling angry about the dating pool that you've
Speaker 1: been in, and so this is a way to reward yourself,
Speaker 1: as a way to say, I don't need a man.
Speaker 1: They're all awful. I'll just marry myself, and you're welcome
Speaker 1: to do that. You can certainly tell your friends and
Speaker 1: family to back off. It's none of their business. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely you and your decision and your life, and you
Speaker 1: have every right to buy yourself a beautiful piece of jewelry.
Speaker 1: You've worked hard in your life, and why not treat yourself.
Speaker 1: What I find interesting is that there's a piece of
Speaker 1: you from the language you're using here, that it seems
Speaker 1: is saying that's it. This is closure for me. I
Speaker 1: am never going to date again. I'm never going to
Speaker 1: have a relationship. And that's the thing. I think. We
Speaker 1: need to stay open. We need to stay open to change.
Speaker 1: We all change across a lifespan. You need to stay
Speaker 1: open to meeting new people.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: Staying open is very different than being addicted to longing
Speaker 1: right and feeling lonely. I do not suggest that you
Speaker 1: are any less of a person by being a single person.
Speaker 1: I was a really cool single chick myself. I was
Speaker 1: a player chick back in the day. I had some fun.
Speaker 1: I will say that. Okay, so you have every right
Speaker 1: to do that, but don't practice foreclosure where you're just like,
Speaker 1: that's it for the rest of my life, because you
Speaker 1: never know. I met the love of my life at
Speaker 1: the age of fifty eight. Can you believe it? A
Speaker 1: friend of mine commented the other day she goes. I
Speaker 1: drove by my car. I saw you guys walk in
Speaker 1: on the street and you were holding hands like teenagers. Like,
Speaker 1: of course we do. We love each other, right, So
Speaker 1: just stay open. You never know what is coming your way.
Speaker 1: And yeah, buy yourself that ring, and yeah, tell your
Speaker 1: friends and family to back off. But never say never. Okay,
Speaker 1: never say never. All right, moving on, here's a good
Speaker 1: DM Hi, doctor Wendy. I connected with a man and
Speaker 1: I adored him. When we hung out at his house,
Speaker 1: he talked so badly to his dog. He said, it's
Speaker 1: just a dog. Is that indicative of his character?
Speaker 2: Actually?
Speaker 1: When I wrote that book, The Boyfriend Test, that's one
Speaker 1: of the questions. How does he treat children, dogs, and waiters? Right?
Speaker 1: Like seriously? I mean, if it's his pet, is it
Speaker 1: something he's controlling or something he's caring for? And if
Speaker 1: you enter his life as his partner, are you something
Speaker 1: he's caring for or something he's controlling. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 1: big red flag, and that is indicative of his character.
Speaker 1: I will say that. All right, If you would like
Speaker 1: to send me a question? Three have time for one more? Nope,
Speaker 1: we don't next week, Okay, send me a question online?
Speaker 1: You just go to Instagram. That's where we look mostly
Speaker 1: at Dr Wendy Walsh. At doctor Wendy Walsh, I keep
Speaker 1: it anonymous whatever. I don't let people know who you are.
Speaker 1: Send me a relationship question anytime as you can tell.
Speaker 1: I love weinging on your love life. When we came back,
Speaker 1: I have a very special guest for you. You're listening to
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy Wallh Show on KFI AM six forty
Speaker 1: live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on
Speaker 1: KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on
Speaker 1: Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app