Speaker 1: This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You have
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Speaker 1: Waalsh Show. On tonight's show, Let's talk about the meaning
Speaker 1: of big rituals and rites of passage psychologically, also how
Speaker 1: quest love. If you don't know who questlove is, I'll
Speaker 1: explain stays mentally healthy and why human brains make us
Speaker 1: so darned stupid. Welcome to the show, Producer, Kayla, Nice
Speaker 1: to see you, you as well, Doctor Wendy Richiteta. How
Speaker 1: you doing. Hello, Hello, Hello, good to see you. Great
Speaker 1: you too, love hearing your show. We have a new
Speaker 1: face on the board. Whoosh, you're not new, but you're
Speaker 1: new to me. Weekend night. Well, I know, welcome to
Speaker 1: the show, all right. I spent yesterday at the Loyola
Speaker 1: Marormount University graduation because my god daughter, not my daughter,
Speaker 1: my goddaughter graduated, so this would be the daughter of
Speaker 1: my best friend from childhood who lives in Miami, and
Speaker 1: so she came out with her Miami family and we
Speaker 1: sat there for four hours. It was the longest thing
Speaker 1: you could imagine, and it was spitting rain. My friend
Speaker 1: was dressed in Miami clothes, which means she thought she
Speaker 1: was going to be a tropical beach resort because it's California.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I think Baywatch was some false advertising,
Speaker 1: sent it all around the world, and they did not
Speaker 1: advertise the May gray and the June gloom. So anyway,
Speaker 1: spitting rain, shivering, sitting in the seat, waiting, But we
Speaker 1: did it because it was a ritual. It was important
Speaker 1: to have a large gathering of people and to have
Speaker 1: this one moment that we waited for while they called it,
Speaker 1: I don't know, a thousand graduates names one by one
Speaker 1: by one. Oh God, my heart went out to the
Speaker 1: president giving out all those diplomas. But if you've ever
Speaker 1: sat through a long graduation ceremony, maybe you were squinting
Speaker 1: into the sun instead of dodging rain drops. Maybe you
Speaker 1: were wondering why everybody was wearing Harry Potter robes. I
Speaker 1: want to remind you that all this matters. Psychologically, it matters.
Speaker 1: These ceremonies aren't just tradition. For tradition's sake. They're actually
Speaker 1: deeply wired in our psychology. You see, humans tend to
Speaker 1: be meaning makers. We turn moments into milestones, and we
Speaker 1: do that through rituals. So, whether those rituals are birthdays, anniversaries,
Speaker 1: weddings or funerals, whether they're transfers of political power, peaceful,
Speaker 1: I hope they're still a ritual. That's how we mark
Speaker 1: life's transitions. But here's the fascinating part. Research shows that
Speaker 1: our brains actually perceive rituals as causing real change in
Speaker 1: the world. That's why the speakers at yesterday's Loyo Lamiramount
Speaker 1: ceremony talked about going forth in the world, making change,
Speaker 1: doing things right. Even when those students went up those
Speaker 1: steps and had that awkward, probably sweaty and filled with germs,
Speaker 1: handshake with the person giving the diploma, their brain said,
Speaker 1: something big just happened to me. When I turned to
Speaker 1: my goddaughter, caught her on the big screen doing her
Speaker 1: you know, the peace sign and the tongue out on
Speaker 1: the side. I don't know why they do that. Why
Speaker 1: did they do the tongue out on the side, Kayla,
Speaker 1: We'll never let it go. What is that? She did
Speaker 1: it too? She said the peace sign and the tongue
Speaker 1: out of the side. Yeah, what does it mean. It
Speaker 1: means it's cute. Okay, it's just cute. That's her graduation
Speaker 1: picture and it was on a big screen. But at
Speaker 1: that moment something happened, right she changed her brain was
Speaker 1: told this is important. Now we augment that by having
Speaker 1: things like fancy dinners, and we did. Oh my god.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite restaurants in Venice is called Paloma.
Speaker 1: We ate there after the graduation ceremony. The day before,
Speaker 1: we ate a catsu yah in Brentwood. That was great too,
Speaker 1: but there might have been there was, there's music, singers,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. They're not just show their signals to
Speaker 1: our community that something sacred has happened. And psychologists like
Speaker 1: to call this rights of passage, and believe it or not,
Speaker 1: these rights of passage follow a three step structure. First
Speaker 1: one is separation. This is where you leave behind your
Speaker 1: old identity. So this is when students are packing up
Speaker 1: their dorm room. Interesting enough, my goddaughter the day before
Speaker 1: her graduation, became obsessed with cleaning her apartment. Knowing she'd
Speaker 1: be leaving soon. There was a cleaning of her apartment.
Speaker 1: Maybe somebody heading off to the military. That's the day
Speaker 1: they get their head shaved and they change their clothes. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a clean break. You know that separation is happening.
Speaker 1: Step two. Psychologists call it the liminal stage. It's just
Speaker 1: a fancy word for the in between stage. It's that weird,
Speaker 1: wobbly phase where you're not who you were, and yet
Speaker 1: you're not who you're becoming. So a cadet is no
Speaker 1: longer a civilian, but not quite a soldier. A bride
Speaker 1: certainly isn't single, but not a wife yet. A college
Speaker 1: senior sitting at a commencement not quite a student, not
Speaker 1: quite a graduate. And the longer we stretch out that
Speaker 1: liminal phase, that's why the four hours it is uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: but it's necessary. The more discomfort the audience and the
Speaker 1: parents felt waiting for their kids name. I actually felt
Speaker 1: sad for the parents whose kids' names were called first,
Speaker 1: because then they still had to wait for the four hours.
Speaker 1: You couldn't get up and leave, and nobody was actually
Speaker 1: a graduate until the president conferred the degree on them
Speaker 1: in the final speech. And so you sit there in discomfort,
Speaker 1: but it's worth it because you know this is important
Speaker 1: and then step three. Psychologists call it reincorporation. That's when
Speaker 1: society welcomes you back with your new, shiny status. And
Speaker 1: when we went to Paloma for lunch, my goddaughter wore
Speaker 1: her full robes and the what is that big scarf
Speaker 1: thing they wear around their neck, and there were other
Speaker 1: graduates there with their families, wearing their robes so that
Speaker 1: they were identified as something shiny and new a graduate.
Speaker 1: The waiter came up to the table and immediately said, congratulations.
Speaker 1: Not sure how I knew, wink wink right. But here's
Speaker 1: where it gets really interesting. When people miss these rituals,
Speaker 1: something feels off. Remember during the pandemic, remember the drive
Speaker 1: by graduations, the drive by birthdays, Remember how it just
Speaker 1: didn't feel the same. Well, this isn't about vanity. It's
Speaker 1: really about biology. Because rituals are what hold our social
Speaker 1: fabric together. So if you're going to graduation this month
Speaker 1: or next maybe you've got a high schooler graduating next month,
Speaker 1: whether it's your own, your kids, your neighbors, your grandkids, whatever,
Speaker 1: soak it up, be uncomfortable, and also cry out. We screamed,
Speaker 1: you know when she got up there. We were the
Speaker 1: four family members yelling for her cry at pomp and circumstance.
Speaker 1: Snap a million blurry photos. It's just a ceremony, but
Speaker 1: it's not a ceremony. It's a psychological upgrade. You're literally
Speaker 1: witnessing human transformation in real time, and human beings need
Speaker 1: this and it's always worth celebrating.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: There were a number of speakers at the event. The valedictorian,
Speaker 1: of course, was amazing. She was of Indian heritage and
Speaker 1: talked about her religion and how there was a saying
Speaker 1: in her religion to not fear or not no fear,
Speaker 1: no anger, and how to turn feelings of fear and
Speaker 1: anger into action, so that going forward message. But the
Speaker 1: commencement speaker was Questlove and he's now called doctor Love.
Speaker 1: When we come back, I'll explain why.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: Am six forty.
Speaker 1: You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Speaker 1: Dr Wendy Waalsh show. You hear that music that is Questlove.
Speaker 1: When I was at the Loyola Marra Mount graduation all
Speaker 1: day yesterday in the spinning rain, feeling uncomfortable doing the
Speaker 1: most important work that we do as a community, which
Speaker 1: is create a ritual for a young person. I do
Speaker 1: want to give a congratulations to outgoing President Timothy law
Speaker 1: Snyder and his wife Carol Costello, who's an acquaintance of mine.
Speaker 1: You may recall her as a longtime anchor on CNN.
Speaker 1: She has taught in their journalism department, and of course
Speaker 1: her husband's leaving end she's leaving, and they gave her
Speaker 1: an honorary doctorate, So congratulations Carol Costello. They also gave
Speaker 1: the guest speaker an honorary doctorate. His name is Questlove,
Speaker 1: and if you don't know that name, I'll tell you this.
Speaker 1: I love people who defy boxes, people who aren't just
Speaker 1: one thing. And that's why I'm kind of obsessed with Questlove.
Speaker 1: He was born Amir Khalib Thompson. Now he's best known
Speaker 1: as a drummer and frontman for the Roots, That's that
Speaker 1: cool band on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. But
Speaker 1: if you call Questlove just a drummer, it's like calling
Speaker 1: Beyonce just a singer. Right. This man is a cultural force,
Speaker 1: a Grammy winning musician, a DJ, a professor at NYU,
Speaker 1: an Oscar winning filmmaker. Yeah, he won for Summer of Soul.
Speaker 1: That was him and a walking encyclopedia of music history.
Speaker 1: I mean, if Spotify were a person, it would probably
Speaker 1: be Questlove. But here's what makes him really special. He
Speaker 1: doesn't just play music. He curates emotion. He understands how
Speaker 1: rhythm builds identity, how shared music rituals like a dance
Speaker 1: party or even just vibing Di Vinyl help us all
Speaker 1: feel like we belong. And he turns beats into belonging.
Speaker 1: Let's not forget he brings radical kindness and depth into
Speaker 1: everything he does. So Questlove now has an honorary doctorate
Speaker 1: from Loyola Marramount University. And so I was a little
Speaker 1: uncomfortable when he stood up and said, Okay, so it
Speaker 1: looks like now I'm doctor Love. I felt a bit
Speaker 1: threatened at that moment, but I loved his talk, and
Speaker 1: his talk moved me so much. I'm going to ask
Speaker 1: mister Questlove. Oh I'm sorry, doctor Love, to please forgive
Speaker 1: me if I paraphrase inaccurately. But I'd like to share
Speaker 1: with my KFI audience some of the most important points
Speaker 1: that you made in your commencement speech. Because me with
Speaker 1: a PhD in clinical psychology had my eyes opened, and
Speaker 1: I was moved by some of your words. The first
Speaker 1: thing he said, which was cute because he's performer, is
Speaker 1: that when he got the phone call to be potentially
Speaker 1: the commencement speaker in front of thousands of people, he
Speaker 1: had always lived his life being behind something, behind the drums,
Speaker 1: behind Jimmy Kimmel, behind the band, behind, behind, behind. He
Speaker 1: was never the front man. And he said there was
Speaker 1: a reason for it. He was afraid. He had this
Speaker 1: deep fear of being out front, and so he very
Speaker 1: cutely said, so when I first got that phone call,
Speaker 1: every cell in my body was trying to say no, dog, thanks,
Speaker 1: But he decided to face his fear and come out.
Speaker 1: And so he used his stories of his life to
Speaker 1: share four things that he wants all the graduates to
Speaker 1: do every single day to have a better life. And
Speaker 1: they are things proven in science, proven in psychology. They
Speaker 1: are a great reminder for me. But also he told it,
Speaker 1: of course in a brilliant way, because he's so articulate,
Speaker 1: and it was just amazing. And the first thing he
Speaker 1: talked about was learning to be grateful every single day,
Speaker 1: every morning, finding three things to be thankful for he said,
Speaker 1: sometimes he runs down his list and he can't find anything,
Speaker 1: so it's like, thank you for this perfect bull of
Speaker 1: Captain Crunch peanut Butter. He also told a story that
Speaker 1: when he was growing up, his parents had enough money
Speaker 1: to either pay for his school tuition at a fancy
Speaker 1: private school or pay to keep the gas on, and
Speaker 1: they chose to send him to school. And he looked
Speaker 1: out at the audience because we're pretty cold, sit in
Speaker 1: the rain. He goes, the way you feel right now
Speaker 1: was barely one of the mornings in our house. Okay,
Speaker 1: growing up cold. But he said, at that moment, I
Speaker 1: sure didn't feel grateful. I didn't know to feel grateful,
Speaker 1: and I look back and I do, right. So he
Speaker 1: talked about how it changes the brain, and we know this,
Speaker 1: if we can just stop thinking about, you know, what's
Speaker 1: missing in our life and instead focus on what is
Speaker 1: in our life, then we can change our mental health.
Speaker 1: So that was the first thing he said, every single morning,
Speaker 1: just think of three things you're grateful for to start
Speaker 1: your day. The second thing he said to do is breathe,
Speaker 1: and he said something brilliant. He said, you know, the
Speaker 1: only difference between excitement and panic breath the only difference.
Speaker 1: And of course he made this entire audience do the
Speaker 1: big breath seven seconds in, hold for three five seconds
Speaker 1: out like I do with my house psychology. These duds,
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, have you been in my class? This
Speaker 1: is great. We did our deep breathing. He said, you
Speaker 1: feel the difference. He said, at any moment when you
Speaker 1: feel fear, just dig into that breath in a deep,
Speaker 1: deep way. The third thing he said we should do
Speaker 1: every morning is stretch and move our bodies. But he
Speaker 1: turned it into an interesting story about emotions. He told
Speaker 1: a story that when he was growing up, his parents
Speaker 1: were not cruel. They were protective, and in their protective desire,
Speaker 1: they told him not to show any emotions. If you
Speaker 1: were happy, you were being too proud. If you were
Speaker 1: showed anger, you would get in trouble for that. If
Speaker 1: you showed fear, it was weakness. He had all these
Speaker 1: and he said one day he woke up and he
Speaker 1: could barely get out of bed because his feet and
Speaker 1: ankles were swollen so much and they were sweating. And
Speaker 1: he used the brilliant metaphor that they were crying the
Speaker 1: tears of emotions out of his whole body because he
Speaker 1: was never allowed to cry. And he said, when I
Speaker 1: change things, and I started talking about my feelings, writing
Speaker 1: about my feelings. When I started getting up in the
Speaker 1: morning and moving my body every day and stretching, I
Speaker 1: got better. And so, by the way, I have no
Speaker 1: idea what his diagnosis would have been, but everything, many
Speaker 1: things are psychosomatic. That doesn't mean they're imagining them. It's
Speaker 1: a lesson in the fact that when any illness has
Speaker 1: emotional roots, the body cooperates with the emotions and actually
Speaker 1: become sick. Right, But that's what psychosomatic means. And finally
Speaker 1: he said, to be kind. And you know who, he said,
Speaker 1: The most important person we need to be kind to
Speaker 1: is ourselves. He said that we have voices inside our
Speaker 1: heads who say things to us that we would never
Speaker 1: allow anybody else to say to us. That we literally
Speaker 1: and he told stories of him feeling less than an
Speaker 1: undeserving and he said, you have to learn to say
Speaker 1: I am, I am, I can and I deserve this.
Speaker 1: And he said, and once you get past that, you'll
Speaker 1: be able to say I feel this, I feel that,
Speaker 1: and it's all okay. The way he told it was
Speaker 1: a thousand times better than the way I've told it.
Speaker 1: But it's a lesson for all of us. We all
Speaker 1: need to be thankful. There's science behind this, you know.
Speaker 1: Great example. I said to my husband Julia this morning,
Speaker 1: did you know that Kaylea sent me an article that
Speaker 1: are five things that healthy couples do every weekend? And
Speaker 1: we do four of them. Now, you know what my
Speaker 1: first thought is, and what he was supposed to say
Speaker 1: is what do we not do? But he didn't say that.
Speaker 1: He said, really, what are the four that's so cool?
Speaker 1: And I said I was only concerned about the one
Speaker 1: we didn't do, and he goes, well, you're a glass
Speaker 1: half empty, girl, I'm a glass that fall. We're doing
Speaker 1: four the five. That's great. We need to shift our
Speaker 1: attention to the positive, and particularly we need to do
Speaker 1: it in our darkest days. We need to do it
Speaker 1: when it's hard. We need to do it to save ourselves.
Speaker 1: And we do need to breathe. I know it seems
Speaker 1: so California woo woo to just take a few deep breaths,
Speaker 1: but I'm telling you, our breath is deeply connected to
Speaker 1: our feelings.
Speaker 4: Kayla.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember, but during COVID when
Speaker 1: we were all all of us were in deep, deep,
Speaker 1: deep deep fear, and we were doing our show from home,
Speaker 1: and I had a breath expert as a guest on
Speaker 1: the show and he had us, all us, all meaning
Speaker 1: our KFI listeners, doing deep breathing on the radio. And
Speaker 1: I got like the meanest call from my program director, going,
Speaker 1: never have a meditation on our air, Like, we're all
Speaker 1: stressed out, we're under COVID. We just need to take
Speaker 1: some deep breaths. It's a hard time. We all think
Speaker 1: we're gonna die. There's danger in the air breathing. We
Speaker 1: all need to breathe more often. And yes, we all
Speaker 1: need to move our bodies and stretch. And finally, we
Speaker 1: need to forgive ourselves. We need to raise our shame tolerance.
Speaker 1: Stop feeling like we're being judged all the time. You're
Speaker 1: worth it. Every single person listening right now is equal.
Speaker 1: Nobody gets out of here alive. Nobody gets out of
Speaker 1: here without pain. Some people have more money or less,
Speaker 1: their pain's not less. Trust me just has more zeros
Speaker 1: at the end of it. But we need to love ourselves,
Speaker 1: forgive ourselves, and stop letting other people judge us. That
Speaker 1: is how we have good mental health. All right, when
Speaker 1: we come back, let us begin to talk about our relationships.
Speaker 1: There's a word that I hear, especially young women, use
Speaker 1: all the time, and that word is settle. It drives
Speaker 1: me flippin' crazy when I hear it, and I'm about
Speaker 1: to go off.
Speaker 3: When we come back, you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
Speaker 3: on demand from KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1: You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I have been obsessed with the
Speaker 1: science of love for quite a few decades. I was
Speaker 1: struggling to find a healthy relationship myself, went to a
Speaker 1: lot of therapy to figure things out. Eventually went to
Speaker 1: graduate school, got a master's a PhD in psychology, wrote
Speaker 1: three books on relationships, wrote a dissertation on attachment theory,
Speaker 1: and have been reporting as a journalist on the science
Speaker 1: of love for quite a long time. So one of
Speaker 1: the things that kind of bothers, Oh, you want me
Speaker 1: to say something, don't you? Kayla? Okay, how do I
Speaker 1: make your phone go open? First of all, if you
Speaker 1: are listening and we'd like to see us here in
Speaker 1: the studio, you're welcome to log onto Instagram because we're
Speaker 1: live on Instagram right now. Hi, Instagram, How are you?
Speaker 1: I just want to let everybody know that on Thursday,
Speaker 1: May twenty ninth, I will be speaking about the science
Speaker 1: of Love at a women's wellness event. I believe it's
Speaker 1: in West Hollywood and oh dear, I know the tickets
Speaker 1: are only thirty dollars. There's a movie screening called The
Speaker 1: m Factor. There are talks by a cardiologist, a menopause specialist,
Speaker 1: a women's health and fitness coach, and doctor Wendy Walsh
Speaker 1: talking about the science of love. It's a lot about menopause.
Speaker 1: It's got great doctors. Now where do they go? What's
Speaker 1: the website? Can you look at that QR code? Kayla?
Speaker 1: I'll give you the website in a minute. Actually, we're
Speaker 1: going to post it on the KFI website. So if
Speaker 1: you just go to kfiam six forty dot com, Kayla's
Speaker 1: going to post the flyer on the doctor Wendy Walsh page.
Speaker 1: So there you go, May twenty ninth. That'd love for
Speaker 1: you to come out. It'll be fun, all right. Having
Speaker 1: said that, let's get into the relationship questions in a minute.
Speaker 1: I am going to put out the phone number and
Speaker 1: I'm going to have you guys call me with your
Speaker 1: relationship questions. I'm going to say the number now, but
Speaker 1: Kayla's not going to open the lines for about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: So it's one eight hundred and five two zero one
Speaker 1: five three four. Okay. There's one word that I hear
Speaker 1: young single women say a lot, and that word is settle. Literally,
Speaker 1: they say, well, I don't I just don't want to settle.
Speaker 1: First of all, they're exhausted from dating. There is a
Speaker 1: oversupply of successful single women in the mating marketplace. There
Speaker 1: are an undersupply of commitment oriented men, and as a result,
Speaker 1: this group of highly successful women are vying for a
Speaker 1: very small group of men. And when I hear them
Speaker 1: say I don't want to settle, I want to remind
Speaker 1: And I want to say this so carefully because people
Speaker 1: get offended when I say this. This is basic data
Speaker 1: and basics to tis we are outliving our relationships. The
Speaker 1: purpose of a relationship fifty years ago was two almost strangers,
Speaker 1: because the average time, say in nineteen fifty, between meeting
Speaker 1: and marriage was about six months. Two almost strangers make
Speaker 1: a deal between families They were like a bridge between
Speaker 1: tribes that they would survive together and probably raise some kids.
Speaker 1: Most of them stayed in their own lane, and they
Speaker 1: divvied up the jobs that needed to be done, whether
Speaker 1: it was financial and bring home resources or farming labor,
Speaker 1: whether it was raising kids or whatever. They split up
Speaker 1: the survival chores of life, if you will. They weren't
Speaker 1: looking for their soulmate. They weren't looking for romantic love.
Speaker 1: They weren't looking for somebody to complete them or fulfill them.
Speaker 1: Did you know, if you got married in the year
Speaker 1: nineteen hundred and you professed, we will be together until
Speaker 1: death do us part, the average length of that marriage
Speaker 1: was twelve years. If you got married in nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: and you did the same thing till death do us part,
Speaker 1: the average length of that marriage was twelve years. Now,
Speaker 1: in nineteen hundred, people were dying from famines. They were
Speaker 1: dying from diseases. They were dying from wars and fights
Speaker 1: and infections and all kinds of things. Long before vaccines,
Speaker 1: you know, people were dying of all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: They died. Women died in childbirth a lot. In nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Despite all the medical advances, people are now breaking up
Speaker 1: because of divorce. Relationships have become more fragile. And the
Speaker 1: reason they become more fragile is because our expectations have
Speaker 1: become so high. Now I should also his something else happened.
Speaker 1: Modern Western capitalism needed a mobile workforce, needed people to
Speaker 1: be moving around the country all the time chasing new jobs.
Speaker 1: So people were torn away from their villages, they were
Speaker 1: torn away from their extended family, and then they expected
Speaker 1: their partner to replace the work of all those people,
Speaker 1: the emotional work. So they lost their important support structure,
Speaker 1: of which their mate was one piece of it. But
Speaker 1: he or she wasn't the whole thing right. So as
Speaker 1: a result, we now expect our mate to be our
Speaker 1: best friend, our lover, our intellectual stimulator, everything, Yet we
Speaker 1: break up when they're not that. I'm going to make
Speaker 1: a case for the fact that you need to go
Speaker 1: back to your grandmother's time because we're outliving our relationships.
Speaker 1: You may have another chance. If you're a woman who
Speaker 1: wants to be a mother, go out and look for
Speaker 1: a good father. Don't love for a guy that's just
Speaker 1: hot looking, who's good in bed. Look for somebody who's
Speaker 1: kind and caring and a good father. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of great, great guys out there. They're wonderful men,
Speaker 1: and you are not looking at them, ladies, because you
Speaker 1: have patriarchy swimming in your own head that says, if
Speaker 1: I make this amount of money, if I have this
Speaker 1: amount of education, I want a guy that makes more.
Speaker 1: I deserve more now. But sorry, they are actually more
Speaker 1: women in the American workforce than men. For every two
Speaker 1: women that are are two guys that graduate college, there
Speaker 1: are three women. You're getting ahead. So you've got to
Speaker 1: open your heart to a guy who may not fit
Speaker 1: old fashioned patriarchy. That's all I'm gonna say. Hate the
Speaker 1: word settling. You're not settling. You're getting a good deal,
Speaker 1: at least for parenthood. Okay, when we come back, I
Speaker 1: am going to take your relationship questions live. Producer Kayla's
Speaker 1: going to open the phone lines now. The number is
Speaker 1: one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one
Speaker 1: eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Give
Speaker 1: me a call and I will weigh in on your
Speaker 1: love life.
Speaker 3: You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Speaker 3: AM six four.
Speaker 1: You have Dr Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Speaker 1: Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. And this is the time of
Speaker 1: the show where I am taking your calls. Just a reminder,
Speaker 1: I'm a psychology professor, not a therapist, but i have
Speaker 1: a lot of life experience and I've been reporting on
Speaker 1: the science of love for a few decades. The number
Speaker 1: is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
Speaker 1: That's one eight hundred five two zero one kfi. Okay,
Speaker 1: Producer Kaylage, we have somebody on the line. We do.
Speaker 1: We have Aaron with a question. Aaron hi Erin is
Speaker 1: doctor Wendy.
Speaker 5: Hi, Doctor Wendy. I've always wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 1: Oh how nice? Have you been a listener for a
Speaker 1: long time? Erin so long? So what's your question? Is
Speaker 1: your lucky night?
Speaker 5: Okay? So I've been seeing this guy for like two
Speaker 5: three months maybe maybe three, yes, Oh my god. And
Speaker 5: he sleeps with his dog in the bed and I
Speaker 5: can't stand it. And a dog is like and it's
Speaker 5: not like a small dog, it's like a really big
Speaker 5: dog that's like snores as well. Oh, I just don't
Speaker 5: know if it's too soon for me to say anything,
Speaker 5: because I hate it and I don't even like being
Speaker 5: over there, or sleeping over this.
Speaker 1: This is this is a big promeno. Erin, I have
Speaker 1: to tell you a story. So back, a long time ago,
Speaker 1: I met this guy who was quite wealthy, who was
Speaker 1: good looking, nice, had a beautiful, big house. But these
Speaker 1: two giant German shepherd dogs. And I literally said to myself, well,
Speaker 1: this guy's great, the house is fine, but these dogs
Speaker 1: have got to go. I'm gonna work my way in
Speaker 1: here until those dogs are not the main thing in
Speaker 1: his life. Well, Eron, I have to tell you something.
Speaker 1: By the time those dogs had to be put down
Speaker 1: because they had hip displasion, it was many years later.
Speaker 1: It was me and the vet there because I was
Speaker 1: more in love with those darn dogs than he was.
Speaker 4: Oh so I'm gonna say, give it a chance, Eron,
Speaker 4: give it a n You could bring it up and say,
Speaker 4: you know, when I'm over, I don't want a dog
Speaker 4: sleeping in the bed because there's some hygiene things, right,
Speaker 4: there's the smell and the dog hair and if you're
Speaker 4: not used to it, and yeah, some.
Speaker 1: People have dogs in the bed, some people don't. So
Speaker 1: don't be shy and just say, hey, I just have
Speaker 1: a boundary when I'm over dog sleeps on the dogbed
Speaker 1: on the floor, not in our bed. And also let
Speaker 1: them know to change the sheets before you come because
Speaker 1: you could have leftover dog hair from the night before.
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, exactly. You never know that that dog.
Speaker 1: Might grow on your air and you just never know.
Speaker 1: Thank you for Colin. Thanks for Colin. All right, take
Speaker 1: care by Okay, who do we have next, Kayla? We
Speaker 1: have Jeremy with the question. Jeremy, Hi, Jeremy, it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 2: Hi, doctor Wendy. How are you good?
Speaker 1: What's your question?
Speaker 2: So I'm near thirty and I have had kind of
Speaker 2: a turbulence twenties. I haven't really had a whole lot
Speaker 2: of financial or career success, and I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: put my life back together. And so I have a job,
Speaker 2: and i'm currently and I'm currently going to school to
Speaker 2: get my CDL, and I'm planning on and I'm planning
Speaker 2: on actually going back to college, not this year but
Speaker 2: next year. But here's the thing. Someone I've been talking to,
Speaker 2: we've been talking for a while. She's much more successful
Speaker 2: and has had a very successful career from her from
Speaker 2: ever since she was nineteen to now. And we're about
Speaker 2: the same age, I have a lot of the same
Speaker 2: interests and a lot of the same values. Should I
Speaker 2: go for someone like that who has clearly been in
Speaker 2: a much more successful field for a long time versus
Speaker 2: somebody who maybe is in a similar financial situation.
Speaker 1: So, Jeremy, thanks so much for that question. You are,
Speaker 1: You're definitely in a situation like many many young men
Speaker 1: in America today. You are just launching even though you're
Speaker 1: near thirty. You're getting your education, you've got a job.
Speaker 1: But the women you're meeting, including the one you're talking
Speaker 1: about now, to be more financially successful. I think it
Speaker 1: is less important about who you quote unquote go for
Speaker 1: and more important that you understand who you deserve and
Speaker 1: that you're okay talking to them openly and honestly. They're
Speaker 1: all kinds of ways that you can care for a woman.
Speaker 1: Besides financial care. There are literally a million fix ites
Speaker 1: you can do in their house. There are things that
Speaker 1: you can do, you'd be emotional support. There are so
Speaker 1: many things you can do that increase your value. And
Speaker 1: if you think your value is only about your income,
Speaker 1: that's an old fashioned male way of thinking. So thank
Speaker 1: you for calling, Jeremy, and good luck to you, all right.
Speaker 1: I also want to go to social media because I
Speaker 1: have a few questions that came in some DMS. Just now.
Speaker 1: If you want to give me a call, the number
Speaker 1: is one eight hundred and five two zero one five
Speaker 1: three four. All right, Dear doctor Wendy says a listener,
Speaker 1: I caught my wife texting someone, and she was texting
Speaker 1: some flirtatious messages. She says, it's harmless? Is it cheating? Okay?
Speaker 1: So this is the new language, right. There is this
Speaker 1: idea that somebody has to physically have sex with somebody
Speaker 1: else for it to be considered cheating. But we now
Speaker 1: know that there are emotional betrayals. And at the very least,
Speaker 1: if the texts were flirtatious, then they are on the
Speaker 1: way to physical cheating. But at the very least they're
Speaker 1: emotional cheating. And if you're feeling confused about this, I
Speaker 1: want to be really clear with you. This is a
Speaker 1: form of cheating, right, emotional cheating, betrayal, betraying a confidence
Speaker 1: because as soon as you have a close emotional relationship
Speaker 1: with somebody that you might be planning to have sex with,
Speaker 1: that means you might be disclosing secrets about your relationship, right,
Speaker 1: And so it's really important that we all have self boundaries.
Speaker 1: I know that we all have our own social media accounts,
Speaker 1: we all have our own telephones. It used to be
Speaker 1: back in the day it was really hard to cheat.
Speaker 1: Could you had like one family phone in the house,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But now everybody has ways to contact each
Speaker 1: other privately, so it's really incumbent on us to have
Speaker 1: those very clear boundaries. Now I should tell you that
Speaker 1: my husband and I of course have the passwords to
Speaker 1: each other's phones and computers, and we're on each other's
Speaker 1: accounts all the time because we're not worried about cheating.
Speaker 1: But we can help and support each other. You know,
Speaker 1: he can say, oh on my computer or your computer
Speaker 1: and I saw a text come in or whatever. Right.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I think more couples need to be open
Speaker 1: about all of this, and you shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: have private relationships somewhere. But anyway, I'm sorry you found that,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's quite painful. Okay, here's another DM
Speaker 1: from a listener. Dear doctor Wendy, every time we argue,
Speaker 1: my boyfriend threatens to break up. Is this emotional manipulation? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Of course it is. This is one way that people
Speaker 1: try to stop an argument because they don't know how
Speaker 1: to have healthy conflict. So what they basically say is,
Speaker 1: if you continue to voice your feelings, your truth about
Speaker 1: who you are, then I'm going to leave you. And
Speaker 1: if that partner knows that their partner fears abandonment more
Speaker 1: than anything else, then they'll hold it over their head.
Speaker 1: Using breakups as a threat is not healthy ever, So
Speaker 1: I think what you need to say to him is
Speaker 1: we need to learn how to argue better so that
Speaker 1: you don't use a breakup as a threat, because it's
Speaker 1: really not fair to me. And you know, what you
Speaker 1: don't want to say is fine, break up with me.
Speaker 1: Let's see if you can do that. Nope, that's not
Speaker 1: going to work. Also, don't say you don't mean it,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't really do it well, cause he'll do it
Speaker 1: just to show you you can. I think what you
Speaker 1: need to say is I'm trying to express my feelings
Speaker 1: and it feels like it's hard for you to hear
Speaker 1: some of the things that I'm saying, but you can't
Speaker 1: threaten me with a breakup. That's not a healthy way
Speaker 1: of arguing. And I highly recommend the two of you
Speaker 1: get into couple's therapy so that you can learn some
Speaker 1: healthy conflict resolution skills. Those are the most important thing. Okay,
Speaker 1: when we come back, I'm going to continue to go
Speaker 1: to social media. A whole bunch of dms just came in,
Speaker 1: all you private people who don't want to be on
Speaker 1: the radio. That's okay. You are listening to the Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live
Speaker 1: everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor
Speaker 1: Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear us live on KFI
Speaker 1: AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday
Speaker 1: and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.