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 appf I Am six forty. You have
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Walls Show, and this is the time of the show
Speaker 1: where I go to my social media and answer your
Speaker 1: very personal and private dms. If you send me a DM,
Speaker 1: please know that you will not be identified. We're not
Speaker 1: going to say your name or the name of your account.
Speaker 1: Producer Kayla is very respectful of everybody because I know
Speaker 1: this is tender stuff. So if you'd like to send
Speaker 1: me a DM with a relationship question, you certainly may.
Speaker 1: The handle is at Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Waalsh,
Speaker 1: So Producer Kayla, you're looking at Instagram tonight, right, yes, ma'am? Okay, cool, cool, cool,
Speaker 1: all right, dear doctor Wendy. I away was diagnosed with
Speaker 1: herbie simplix to when do I tell people and what
Speaker 1: are peoples reacts? Typically, Well, there isn't a typical reaction,
Speaker 1: first of all, but secondly, it depends what you're looking
Speaker 1: for in a relationship. If you're looking for a short term,
Speaker 1: fun sexual relationship, then you're going to need to tell
Speaker 1: them at the get go, right, because that's a whole
Speaker 1: point of this relationship. If you're hoping to build something
Speaker 1: long term. I want to assure you that everybody's got something.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got something going on with their health. Honestly, one time,
Speaker 1: I'm not joking when I tell you this, it's got
Speaker 1: to be going back a long time ago. I was
Speaker 1: with somebody who said I want to tell you something
Speaker 1: about my but I'm not ready to tell you yet.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, okay, fine, whatever. So we hadn't started
Speaker 1: a physical relationship. It was going on, weeks were going by,
Speaker 1: and he was like breaking into a sweat when he'd
Speaker 1: finally tell me. And then one time he literally said
Speaker 1: I lost a toenail. I'm like what, He's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I never grew back, Like this is your big health issue. Well,
Speaker 1: I just didn't want you to see it. If we
Speaker 1: got naked, I'm like, for real, Oh my goodness. So
Speaker 1: I would say, wait until you build some emotional intimacy.
Speaker 1: Don't expect any reaction to be typical. But like everything else,
Speaker 1: when you're first assessing a partner. You can find out
Speaker 1: if somebody is compassionate and understanding and smart enough to
Speaker 1: understand how they won't get infected if you take the
Speaker 1: right precautions, et cetera. But take your time build trust first. Okay, uh,
Speaker 1: Dear doctor Wendy, my girlfriend has friends who loved party
Speaker 1: and hook up with guys. I trust her, but not
Speaker 1: her friends. How do I tell her this? Because you
Speaker 1: know birds of a feather, you know, Yeah, so social
Speaker 1: behaviors are highly content ages around social groups. I can
Speaker 1: see why you might have a concern. Now, the problem
Speaker 1: is that if you start to put down her friends,
Speaker 1: that's not gonna look good on you either. Right. So
Speaker 1: I'm also wondering when you say I trust her but
Speaker 1: not her friends, is she running around partying with her
Speaker 1: single girlfriends? Because why she has a relationship, she has
Speaker 1: a boyfriend. Why does she need to go out there
Speaker 1: looking for more? Okay, but that's not what you say
Speaker 1: to her. Okay. I think what you want to say
Speaker 1: to her is something about your commitment and your trusting
Speaker 1: of her. Not I don't want you going out with
Speaker 1: those girls. I don't think that's safe for us. How
Speaker 1: about I want you to know that I am in
Speaker 1: this relationship with you because I love you, care about you.
Speaker 1: I am I committed to being monogamous. I hope not.
Speaker 1: I hope I trust that you will be too. And
Speaker 1: I know that some of your friends are at a
Speaker 1: different stage and in a different lifestyle. But I want
Speaker 1: to know that you and I are on the same page.
Speaker 1: So not confrontational, not defensive. You're just gonna express your
Speaker 1: own you know the fact that you're monogamous, and you're
Speaker 1: gonna trust that she's going to be that way, right, Okay,
Speaker 1: Dear doctor Wendy, I'm a man. Good. We text every day. Good,
Speaker 1: He checks in in the morning, at night in person.
Speaker 1: Though the connection seems dry. Should this be a deal
Speaker 1: breaker or does the connection take time to build? Well,
Speaker 1: let me say why is it dry? Let me ask
Speaker 1: why is it dry? What are you not doing? Are
Speaker 1: you opening up emotionally? Are you trying to make it
Speaker 1: a safe space for him to open up emotionally? Are
Speaker 1: you expecting him to lead in this area? I think
Speaker 1: you need to. You need to express your own vulnerability first,
Speaker 1: and if he's not able to get there, if you're
Speaker 1: feeling a loss, then you've got to say it. You've
Speaker 1: got to say. You know, I'm really attracted to you.
Speaker 1: It's wonderful when we get together, but I'm not feeling
Speaker 1: an emotional connection from your end. And I'm wondering what
Speaker 1: that's about. A text in the morning at night anybody
Speaker 1: can do. I mean, playboys do that just to keep
Speaker 1: a bunch of girls online. So it doesn't think that
Speaker 1: the texts mean nothing, But it's about what's going on
Speaker 1: in the real world that you should be thinking about. Hey, rowld,
Speaker 1: do we have time for one more? All right? I
Speaker 1: haven't been paying attention to the clock. Okay, oh okay,
Speaker 1: let me tell you this question. Hey, doctor Wendy. I
Speaker 1: was friends with this woman for seven years and we're
Speaker 1: pretty close. She's in a terrible relationship, so they're just friends.
Speaker 1: So it sounds platonic. She's in a terrible relationship, and
Speaker 1: I can't listen to her whine about his disrespect anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't think I can be her friend anymore. Am
Speaker 1: I selfish for protecting my Oh this is from a
Speaker 1: woman about a female friend. Got it? Got a two win?
Speaker 1: Am I selfish for protecting my mental space and turning
Speaker 1: my back on her? I want you guys to think
Speaker 1: about it. Think about what Doctor Wendy would say, because
Speaker 1: when we come back, I've got a very clear answer
Speaker 1: for this person. You are listening to the Dr Wendy
Speaker 1: Waalsh Show and KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: So KFI AM six forty you have Dr Wendy Walsh
Speaker 1: with you. This is the Dr Wendy Walsh Show. I
Speaker 1: am answering your questions. Reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm
Speaker 1: a psychology professor, but I'm a woman, and I'm obsessed
Speaker 1: with the science of love. And I've written three books
Speaker 1: on relationships, did a dissertation on attachment theory, and well,
Speaker 1: I got a wealth of information in my head and opinions.
Speaker 1: So this woman writes to me. She says she's been
Speaker 1: friends with this other woman for seven years. That're really close,
Speaker 1: but this other woman's in a terrible romantic relationship and
Speaker 1: continues to whine about how disrespectful her guy is. She says,
Speaker 1: I don't think I can be her friend anymore. Am
Speaker 1: I being selfish for protecting my mental peace and turning
Speaker 1: my back on her. Now, let us please break this down.
Speaker 1: First of all, self preservation is different from selfish. Selfish
Speaker 1: is deliberately hurting somebody to make them have pain because
Speaker 1: you want to eject your own pain out of your
Speaker 1: own body. Self preservation is saying this is not a
Speaker 1: healthy space for me to be in and it's not
Speaker 1: good for me. The other thing is you're calling it
Speaker 1: turning your back on her. I don't want you to
Speaker 1: think of it as turning your back on her. Now,
Speaker 1: if he's being violent with her, I will tell you that.
Speaker 1: The advice from the National Domestic Violence Hotline is to
Speaker 1: not abet and in the person, but to basically put
Speaker 1: boundaries on them, which is, I'm here when you need me.
Speaker 1: I don't support this relationship. So if you do like
Speaker 1: the friendship and there are other things you're getting out
Speaker 1: of it, I would start by simply saying, it's been
Speaker 1: seven years I've heard you complaining about this guy. I
Speaker 1: can't listen to it anymore. I don't support this, and
Speaker 1: so let's have a truce that when we meet, we
Speaker 1: talk about everything else, and when you're ready to leave him,
Speaker 1: tell me if you think the friendship is worth it
Speaker 1: and worth saving. You can do that, but you can
Speaker 1: also tell her very clearly I can't if you definitely
Speaker 1: want to walk away to say it's just too hard
Speaker 1: for me to be friends with you. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: Watching you suffer and you doing nothing about it is
Speaker 1: too hard on me, because that alone might be her
Speaker 1: wake up call, right. I call it giving somebody the
Speaker 1: gift of pain. Every once in a while, somebody needs
Speaker 1: a wake up call if nobody's telling her, Like you know,
Speaker 1: everyone's just putting up with there, and you don't have
Speaker 1: to put up a which drama dumping you don't. You
Speaker 1: can preserve yourself and move along. Move along, all right,
Speaker 1: dear doctor Wendy. I'm single and I met a man
Speaker 1: in an open relationship. Ooh. He was with his woman
Speaker 1: when I met him, and he was meaning like in public,
Speaker 1: like you met the two of them together, and he
Speaker 1: wants us to have a little fun, if you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, just him and I not her. But
Speaker 1: she's open to him having sex with other women. I
Speaker 1: am attracted to him. Should I do it? Should I
Speaker 1: be worried about anything? Yes, you should be worried about
Speaker 1: a lot of things. Let's start with did you really
Speaker 1: meet her in the real world and do you actually
Speaker 1: have her permission? Because remember that episode of Mating Matters
Speaker 1: on Pollyamory or Polly Wantacracker where this woman said, oh,
Speaker 1: I've met this guy and he's polyamorous and he's married,
Speaker 1: but he says his wife says it's okay, and he
Speaker 1: showed me a picture of his family. I'm like, what,
Speaker 1: this is not permission, This is permission to cheat. Potentially,
Speaker 1: we don't know. So you need to get real facts
Speaker 1: right that she's really open to it. Now, the next
Speaker 1: thing you're saying is should I do it? I don't
Speaker 1: know whether you should do it. I don't know what
Speaker 1: your particular rules are around sexuality. I also don't know
Speaker 1: if you're a woman who tends to fall in love
Speaker 1: after sex, because this could get very messy, right, you
Speaker 1: have to be prepared for that. If now, let's go
Speaker 1: with the ifs. If you've got consent from the wife
Speaker 1: that you're quite or girlfriend or whatever that you're quite
Speaker 1: clear on, if you're attracted to them, if you're ready
Speaker 1: to use every kind of precaution, if you know that
Speaker 1: if you start to catch feelings, you're gonna walk away
Speaker 1: and you can do all that, then go for it,
Speaker 1: enjoy yourself. If everything's okay, Who am I to judge? Right?
Speaker 1: All right? Uh? Dear on the other hand, dear doctor Wendy,
Speaker 1: what's the best way to end a friends with benefit situation?
Speaker 1: I realize that I deserve more? Well that saw you say?
Speaker 1: You literally say I deserve more. This relationship doesn't work
Speaker 1: for me. And then you keep your pretty little manicure
Speaker 1: off your iPhone and not respond to any of his
Speaker 1: text because he's going to test you to see if
Speaker 1: you really mean it right, and move on. If it
Speaker 1: doesn't work for you, move on. Uh. Dear doctor Wendy,
Speaker 1: Why when I start using men using men as they
Speaker 1: use us as women? Why does that make me feel
Speaker 1: empty inside? I'm taking control, but I feel more lost.
Speaker 1: This is a great question. I lived this. I used
Speaker 1: to think that female sexual behavior was behaving like a man.
Speaker 1: And by the way, all not all men use women.
Speaker 1: Not all meniproscus just want to say, there's a wide
Speaker 1: range of male sexual behavior out there too. But the
Speaker 1: playboy I had met, so I thought, well, what's good
Speaker 1: for the goose is good for the gander. I'm going
Speaker 1: to get out there and I'm going to be free
Speaker 1: and I'll have female sexual freedom. And instead I felt empty,
Speaker 1: and I felt feelings of loss, and I would have
Speaker 1: sex with people and I didn't even really like them,
Speaker 1: but I'd still wish they'd call me back. Let me
Speaker 1: tell you, female sexual freedom is respecting female biology, your
Speaker 1: particular female biology, which says, which shows that women often
Speaker 1: bond and fall in love through their bodies through a
Speaker 1: huge amount of the neurro cocktail, the cocktail of neural hormones,
Speaker 1: including oxypocin, that make women fall in love and get attached. Right,
Speaker 1: it often doesn't feel good to women, And it's okay
Speaker 1: to say that female sexual freedom is making the choice
Speaker 1: to wait if that's what you want to do until
Speaker 1: you have something that's more real and secure. It means
Speaker 1: access to birth control, it means access to reproductive medicine.
Speaker 1: It means being able to say no. That is female
Speaker 1: sexual power, not this idea of behaving like a man.
Speaker 1: You know, adopting a male model of anything is not
Speaker 1: female freedom. It's not female freedom. And yes, there are
Speaker 1: some women out there who can hook up and not
Speaker 1: get attached, and you know, bless your hearts, ladies have fun.
Speaker 1: But most women can't. And I'll be very clear. They
Speaker 1: act all cool with their girlfriends and say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I hooked up whatever. But what you don't see is
Speaker 1: how many are sobbing in a therapist's office the next day.
Speaker 1: He didn't call me back, right, So respect your bodies.
Speaker 1: And it's very crucial, delicate, vulnerable, important, intelligent biology. Okay,
Speaker 1: I think we have time for one more. Dear doctor Wendy.
Speaker 1: I connected really well with this woman. I like her,
Speaker 1: but something in my gut isn't allowing me to move forward.
Speaker 1: I'm really not sure what it is. She keeps asking
Speaker 1: me to take the next step. Why am I hesitating?
Speaker 1: Is my gut trying to tell me something? Yes, I
Speaker 1: think you know. Psychologists would call our gut the second brain.
Speaker 1: There's a reason, and the reason will become clear if
Speaker 1: you just go slow. It'll be obvious to you eventually.
Speaker 1: So I don't say dumper, I say just keep your
Speaker 1: boundaries intact, go slow, and you will see what your
Speaker 1: gut is. Unless you have this with everybody and you
Speaker 1: just have fear of commitment or fear of intimacy. But
Speaker 1: if it is this one person and you're like something
Speaker 1: saying this isn't right. Well, maybe it isn't right. Wait
Speaker 1: and see. That's my favorite motto. I tell my kids
Speaker 1: that all the time. Just wait and see, Just wait,
Speaker 1: no rush, don't have to do anything all right. This
Speaker 1: is always my honor to wait in on your love lives.
Speaker 1: Moving right along. When we come back, I have found
Speaker 1: some I call it quirky new human research. I have
Speaker 1: actually found some very interesting data that we all need
Speaker 1: to know when we come back. And then I'm going
Speaker 1: to tell you how I used my own advice to
Speaker 1: find a secure relationship. And you're listening to the doctor, Wendy.
Speaker 3: We have to tell you before we wrap up the show.
Speaker 3: Congratulations on your working in the newsroom and you've been
Speaker 3: doing your thing, and I wanted to make sure I
Speaker 3: say congratulations to you, and I'm so thrilled for you.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's just I would have never thought that
Speaker 1: I would have this feeling at this age, because I've
Speaker 1: always been so cynical and skeptical, and to be able
Speaker 1: to trust someone and allow them into the most vulnerable
Speaker 1: parts of my brain is just It's a testament to
Speaker 1: the work I've done it myself. Thank you very much.
Speaker 3: We love it practices what she preaches.
Speaker 1: Everybody right, but he's he's also a really great guy,
Speaker 1: and I feel like I've got a great catch. So
Speaker 1: maybe it was just luck and I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I did some there was some strategy. There was some
Speaker 1: strategy there, and I'm gonna explain that at the end
Speaker 1: of the show. You're listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall
Speaker 1: Show and KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show and KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. So
Speaker 1: you know, I'm a nerd. I'm a little bit of
Speaker 1: a geek. I love research, I love data, and I
Speaker 1: go down a rabbits hole sometimes on the Internet, just
Speaker 1: reading like these new interesting studies, like oh yeah, that's
Speaker 1: so cool. I wonder why, I know some people get
Speaker 1: addicted to Instagram, Amazon. I don't know. Maybe you're trying
Speaker 1: to find new porn to watch. I don't know what
Speaker 1: rabbits hole you go down, Okay, I don't know. However,
Speaker 1: I go down the rabbits hole of human behavior research.
Speaker 1: So I thought I would talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that I discovered just this morning. Now,
Speaker 1: the first study that I found has to do with
Speaker 1: one of the problems I have in my life, which
Speaker 1: is I have one charger. I know I can go
Speaker 1: to the store and buy another, but it's okay. Has
Speaker 1: something to do with the way the plug fits beside
Speaker 1: my bed. I have one charger for my iPhone, and
Speaker 1: then I switch out the cable and have another charger
Speaker 1: for my Apple Watch. So what I generally do is
Speaker 1: I go to bed, I get into bed, I plug
Speaker 1: in my Apple Watch, which charges really fast, by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't know how long, twenty thirty minutes, whatever it's done.
Speaker 1: And then during that time I like to put myself
Speaker 1: to sleep by reading about war. I look, I have
Speaker 1: this dark side, okay, I am light and happy and wonderful,
Speaker 1: and somehow I just go down this rabbit hole in
Speaker 1: Ukraine and Russia and Israel and on the New York Times.
Speaker 1: So I'm reading and reading and reading, and then when
Speaker 1: I start to get sleepy. Yes, it puts me to sleep.
Speaker 1: It's a la la by okay, don't ask, okay, doctor freud,
Speaker 1: don't ask. Then, just as I'm falling asleep, I switch
Speaker 1: out that cable, half asleep, plug in my phone, roll over,
Speaker 1: go to sleep. Julio's already asleep at this point. He
Speaker 1: can't believe that I can look at that little blue
Speaker 1: light before I go to sleep, and I'll tell you
Speaker 1: it's bad for you. It's bad for you, and I
Speaker 1: do it. So here's why this study that I just
Speaker 1: read is so interesting. Researchers in the of course, Canadian
Speaker 1: University of Waterloo have developed a smart fabric. Now wait
Speaker 1: for this, this smart fabric. I guess it's going to
Speaker 1: look like Lululemons because they also come from Canada. This
Speaker 1: smart family fabric can convert body heat into solar energy.
Speaker 1: Oh and solar energy into electricity, enabling continuous operation and
Speaker 1: no need for any external power source.
Speaker 3: Da da da da.
Speaker 1: But get this, it doesn't even more. Apparently it's got sensors,
Speaker 1: this magical fabric that can monitor your body temperature, your
Speaker 1: stress level. It can give feedback, you know, to your
Speaker 1: healthcare provider while you're just wearing your shirt. Okay, so
Speaker 1: your shirt's monitoring your heart rate, your temperature. I mean,
Speaker 1: think of athletes, they could wear it to monitor their
Speaker 1: track performance. Anyway, I think that's cool. It's not on
Speaker 1: Amazon yet. It's just been invented at the University of Waterloo,
Speaker 1: so I guess some venture capitalists has to come in
Speaker 1: and find a way to turn it into business. But
Speaker 1: very soon we're going to be wearing our batteries fabric
Speaker 1: that charges everything. Gone will be the cable for my
Speaker 1: iPhone and my Apple Watch. All right, here's another quirky
Speaker 1: study that made me feel very happy first fall. There's
Speaker 1: a story behind it. As usual, I was home alone
Speaker 1: one night recently. I'm embarrassed to tell you this story.
Speaker 1: I was trying to make the perfect spicy margarita, but
Speaker 1: I had no fire water in the house. And it's
Speaker 1: that thing they serve you on the bar. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a real thing, but they say do
Speaker 1: you want firewater? And do you want a lot of it?
Speaker 1: And I like really spicy margaritas, and I have a
Speaker 1: selfish reason for liking it. It makes me drink slower,
Speaker 1: just saying if it's spicy, it's burning my tongue my lips.
Speaker 1: I take fewer SIPs in more time. That's just my trick.
Speaker 1: But I also like the taste. Probably not good for
Speaker 1: my damaged d esophagus, but okay, we won't go there.
Speaker 1: So I was home alone and I had no fire water.
Speaker 1: So I came up with this idea that if I
Speaker 1: took like dried chilies, you know, like you'd put on
Speaker 1: your pasta dried chili peppers and put them in like
Speaker 1: an inch of water and let them soak for a
Speaker 1: few minutes, and then you said, tea strainer and pour
Speaker 1: this now orange water into your margrita, you get firewater.
Speaker 1: So I was trying to figure out exactly the right
Speaker 1: amount to make the right thing. End of the day,
Speaker 1: I overserved myself drinking alone. It was not a pretty sight.
Speaker 1: It was not a pretty sleep. I didn't feel good
Speaker 1: in the morning. Well onto the study that I just read.
Speaker 1: Did you know if you drink with your friends? Now,
Speaker 1: alcohol impacts your brain in different ways, you know, depending
Speaker 1: on how much you've eaten, how much liquid I mean
Speaker 1: good liquid water that you've had. However, they found that
Speaker 1: when you drink with other people, it will make you
Speaker 1: feel more friendly and more upbeat, but if you drink alone,
Speaker 1: you're more likely to experience feelings of depression. This out
Speaker 1: of the University of Texas, And no, they did not
Speaker 1: do this study on humans, and they did it on
Speaker 1: fruit flies. Fairly, fruit fly flies, shoe fly don't bother
Speaker 1: me anyway. Fruitflies apparently are a lot like us. So
Speaker 1: what they did is had them breathe in ethanol vapor
Speaker 1: and then they measured their speed of flying. But if
Speaker 1: they were with friends, they flew faster and had more fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, why not. If you're gonna drink tequila and
Speaker 1: a spicy margarita, you should be dancing with friends, all right.
Speaker 1: My other favorite interesting study of the day that I found,
Speaker 1: go ahead, vent to a friend rant, go on, express
Speaker 1: yourself now. I want to remind you because I'm sure
Speaker 1: I've said it on the show before. There's lots of
Speaker 1: research to show that venting is wrong. If all you're
Speaker 1: trying to do is get rid of your terrible feelings
Speaker 1: and get rid of anger. Right, it's not a catharsisis.
Speaker 1: It feels good to vent, but the research shows it
Speaker 1: doesn't decrease anger, and in fact, venting sometimes amplifies anger.
Speaker 1: So why would I tell you that you should vent
Speaker 1: to a friend? Well, a new study that literally came
Speaker 1: out this Week from the University of California says that
Speaker 1: people who listened to a friend vent liked and supported
Speaker 1: that person more than those who were vented about dah
Speaker 1: da da da. But there was one key to this.
Speaker 1: If the person venting doesn't seem really derogative and aggressive
Speaker 1: toward the other friend, So what they're thinking is that
Speaker 1: venting could actually be They call it a tool of
Speaker 1: competition for listeners' affections because it's not recognized that all
Speaker 1: this is unconscious. Right, But apparently if you're venting, let's
Speaker 1: call it gossiping about somebody who drives you crazy. But
Speaker 1: the person listening knows that basically you're a good person.
Speaker 1: Basically you like most people, and you don't have huge
Speaker 1: malice to work this person. You just want to get
Speaker 1: it off your shoulders. That person listening is gonna like
Speaker 1: you more. Just saying you'll still be angry. You will
Speaker 1: still be angry. But what can I say? I love
Speaker 1: these studies, Love these studies, all right, when we come back,
Speaker 1: you've waited all the way through the show for this.
Speaker 1: I promised you it was coming. I want to tell
Speaker 1: you how I listened to my own advice in order
Speaker 1: to find a secure, healthy relationship. Let me tell you
Speaker 1: what I did to find and keep the love of
Speaker 1: my life, My sweet Julio. When we come back. You
Speaker 1: are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty we Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 2: AM six forty.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. Now,
Speaker 1: before I tell you what I'm going to tell you,
Speaker 1: which is all the steps that I used to find
Speaker 1: the love of my life, I want to remind you
Speaker 1: that I did not have a secure attachment style. Finding
Speaker 1: love was not natural for me. And one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I'm so good at explaining love to you,
Speaker 1: if I do say so myself, is because I had
Speaker 1: to work through the steps. I had to hit all
Speaker 1: those barriers and figure out how to get around it.
Speaker 1: And before I tell you the steps that I took,
Speaker 1: I want to say something deeply from my heart. You
Speaker 1: know I posted a little bit on social media and
Speaker 1: not a ton yet because there's so much video and
Speaker 1: so many pictures that so many people sent me. I
Speaker 1: haven't had a chance to edit them. And then my
Speaker 1: sweet friend, celebrity chef Katie Chin said, just send me
Speaker 1: the assets, girl, I'll edit it. It's relaxing for me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, you are to sit and edit videos is
Speaker 1: relaxing to you? Drives me crazy anyway, So Katie's trying
Speaker 1: to put one together for me, which really cool. You
Speaker 1: could check my social media at doctor Wendy Walsh soon.
Speaker 1: You don't put pressure on a friend who's doing your favor, right,
Speaker 1: so whenever she gets it to me. But the stuff
Speaker 1: that I did post, I think the most moving thing
Speaker 1: for me were the comments from you listeners at KFI.
Speaker 1: I was surprised by how many people posted that you
Speaker 1: have been listening for the full decade that I have
Speaker 1: been here. I love that so many of you said
Speaker 1: that you've learned so much from the show. We're not
Speaker 1: closing or going anywhere, you guys, I'm just saying, and
Speaker 1: most of all, many of you were absolutely inspired and
Speaker 1: filled with hope by my story, and for that I
Speaker 1: thank you, and I'm honored and just happy happy to
Speaker 1: be here with you guys. All right, So having said that,
Speaker 1: what did I do in the past. Okay, let's talk
Speaker 1: about what obstacle I had in the past that I
Speaker 1: got over with this relationship. First of all, before I
Speaker 1: say anything about what I did, I want to give
Speaker 1: full credit to doctor Zori Zori z aar I head Aat,
Speaker 1: an amazing psychoanalytic psychotherapist who I have been with on
Speaker 1: and off for eighteen years. SA I'm giving her a
Speaker 1: plug on the radio. She's going to be shocked when
Speaker 1: she gets all these calls. Head ay At. I don't
Speaker 1: know how to spell it, h da yat, I don't
Speaker 1: know anyway. She's like my surrogate mother, my emotional mother,
Speaker 1: my replacement mother who really helped me learn about my
Speaker 1: attachment stuff and get stronger and smarter along the way.
Speaker 1: So therapy is the key. I want to say that.
Speaker 1: I also want to say that the attachment parenting that
Speaker 1: I practiced with my kids, keeping them close, breastfeeding them
Speaker 1: each for three years, it actually heals a parent to
Speaker 1: stay close. Whether you're probably not breastfeeding if you're dude,
Speaker 1: but any parent who keeps their kids close puts their
Speaker 1: kids first, is also kind of healing themselves. When they
Speaker 1: separate from their kid and they say, don't worry, Daddy'll
Speaker 1: be back soon. Daddy always comes back, Daddy loves you.
Speaker 1: There's another brain listening, and that's your own brain. Right.
Speaker 1: So parenting helped, therapy helped. But then let's talk about
Speaker 1: the steps. So in the past, I wouldn't have noticed
Speaker 1: somebody who was, you know, in how do I say
Speaker 1: this nicely? Who really showed that they were attracted to me.
Speaker 1: If somebody showed early on in a relationship that they
Speaker 1: thought I was great, I thought to myself, ooh, they're
Speaker 1: too nice. Ew why are they showing this right? Maybe
Speaker 1: they're insecure. I had all these reasons to push away
Speaker 1: good solid love this time, because of all the work
Speaker 1: I've done in therapy, because of my hard life of
Speaker 1: twenty years as a single mother. I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I deserve this, Bring it on. Say that again. What
Speaker 1: did you say you adore me? Come on? Repeat it?
Speaker 1: And so it's not so much that I chose well well,
Speaker 1: I did choose well. It is that I was ready
Speaker 1: to feel love. I'm sure maybe even some people listening
Speaker 1: walked through my life and did adore me in the past,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't hear it. I couldn't truly take it in.
Speaker 1: You have to get to a place where you do
Speaker 1: the inside job of loving yourself. And now I know
Speaker 1: I have flaws. I know there are a million things
Speaker 1: I could improve on in my life. You don't have
Speaker 1: to write to me and tell me all the things
Speaker 1: wrong with me. I'm quite aware of them, thank you
Speaker 1: very much. But I still like myself. I'm a human being.
Speaker 1: I'm fragile like anybody, but I still have kind of
Speaker 1: a backbone. So that was the first thing, being able
Speaker 1: to stick with somebody who liked me. Okay, next thing
Speaker 1: is developing intimacy right away. If you I think I've
Speaker 1: talked about it on the show. On our very first
Speaker 1: coffee date, I said, instead of telling each other like
Speaker 1: how cool we are, why don't we tell each other
Speaker 1: why we think we're completely undateable. And that was when
Speaker 1: I told him a few secrets. He told me a
Speaker 1: big secret. You can go online and look for our
Speaker 1: wedding proposal and hear all about it. But we started
Speaker 1: with emotional intimacy. We started with honesty, not game playing.
Speaker 1: The other thing I did is when I felt, you know,
Speaker 1: like so in the past, if I had abandoned anxiety
Speaker 1: and somebody wasn't calling me back on time, or was
Speaker 1: disappearing or whatever. I would either play some game like
Speaker 1: I would disappear further and make them chase me, or
Speaker 1: I would get angry with them. This time. I remember
Speaker 1: the first time it happened. This feeling came up in me.
Speaker 1: Nothing that he did wrong, but just something that came
Speaker 1: up in me, which was he was supposed to be
Speaker 1: in one city and then the next day texted me
Speaker 1: from a different city, so he had changed cities in
Speaker 1: the night. And we'd on even seen each other, like
Speaker 1: maybe eight weeks or something. But this rattled me because
Speaker 1: when you have an anxious attachment style, if the object
Speaker 1: of your attachment, you know, if there's an an idea
Speaker 1: they might be abandoning you or moving in some way
Speaker 1: and you didn't know, it can just feel a little rattling.
Speaker 1: So instead of getting mad, instead of acting like cool whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, I actually said, hey, can you jump on
Speaker 1: the phone. We get on the phone, I say I
Speaker 1: need to tell you something about me. I get really
Speaker 1: weird inside. If you like, don't communicate with me about
Speaker 1: where you're going or what you're doing. It's just a
Speaker 1: locator thing. Could you just always just shoot me at
Speaker 1: text if you're getting on a plane somewhere. It would
Speaker 1: just help me. And he said, sure, no big deal.
Speaker 1: In fact, why don't I share my location services with
Speaker 1: you too? I was like, what, someone's not hiding anything.
Speaker 1: This is amazing, So I want to say that. I also,
Speaker 1: you know, in the early stages with before I met
Speaker 1: him on the dating app, did what I've told people
Speaker 1: over and over, only match with two people at once,
Speaker 1: because your brain can't handle a whole bunch of potential
Speaker 1: mates on one app. Paradox of choice makes you frozen
Speaker 1: and unable to make a choice, and when you do
Speaker 1: make a choice, you don't value it that much. So
Speaker 1: I focused on kind of one at a time, let
Speaker 1: it play through, and made clear, analytic decisions. Anyway, I'm
Speaker 1: grateful it all worked out for me. I am going
Speaker 1: to continue in the future to tell you not only
Speaker 1: about how we coorded and how it all came to be,
Speaker 1: but also how married life is going and now we're
Speaker 1: dealing with all the new stuff, potentially boredom. He always
Speaker 1: says to me, do we need novelty in our life?
Speaker 1: Do we need to I've been listening to this show,
Speaker 1: this Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I think we need to
Speaker 1: go see comedy or do something different. We need novelty,
Speaker 1: right leasy listens to what I say anyway, It's always
Speaker 1: my pleasure to be here with you. That does bring
Speaker 1: the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show to a close. I here
Speaker 1: every Sunday night on KFI AM six forty from seven
Speaker 1: to nine pm. You can also welcome to follow me
Speaker 1: on my social media at doctor Wendy Walsh. And thank
Speaker 1: you to all of you for all your graciousness and
Speaker 1: all your kind words as I transitioned from single woman
Speaker 1: to married women. You been 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.