April 23, 2023 • 36 mins
Dr. Wendy had the stomach bug and ended up being the DD at a wine tasting. Fathers love differently and a fathers love is so important. There are some myths in love we have to UNLEARN. It's all on KFIAM-640.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to kf I am six forty the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand onthe iHeartRadio app. Doctor Wendy Walsh with
you. This is the Doctor WendyWalsh Show. I sound so hyped up
to night Kala, don't. I'meleven hours sleep. That'll little good.
Eleven hours sleep, no alcohol,woke up fresh, feeling great. I
(00:23):
love it, Doctor Wendy. Weall need to try it. We all
need to try it. Hey,if you're new to the show, I'm
doctor Wendy Walsh. I got aPhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology
professor at cal State Channel Islands.I'm obsessed with the science of love.
I have been reading about relationship healthfor decades, decades and decades. Today
we're gonna talk about how father's uniquekind of love is very good for kids,
(00:47):
and why we need dads and momsstop complaining about him. Really he's
doing a good job. Also,thinking about taking a romantic vacation with your
partner because you're going through a hardtime and you think a vacation's going to
solve it all. Actually, theresearch says it might depending on what the
problem is. I know you wantto listen to this one. Seven reasons
(01:07):
according to science why women cheat.Plus Later in the show, I'll be
taking your calls and answering your socialmedia questions. I'll be going live on
TikTok and Instagram and youtubutub YouTube tubWho we got with us? We got
producer Kayla Hi, doctor you,producer Christina. I don't know if your
(01:29):
mic son is it? Okay?Look at me? All the girls here?
We got Mark Ronner. How youdoing? Mark? Present and accounted
for? Ready to roll? Youever wonder why women cheat? Very different
reasons than men. You're trying toget me into trouble here, Well,
nobody listens to me at home.Anyway, I can answer whatever you want.
Just us shoot the work. It'sgonna make every man think about their
(01:49):
own relationship differently, That's what Ithink. Roll on the board. You're
going to control me. He hasto control the clock for me, asked
control the buttons for me. It'slike, because I'm here with you,
okay, it's just you and Iand I don't think about anybody else,
all right, So the reason whyI slept eleven hours last night is because
the night before I had a bottleof wine with a girlfriend and we went
(02:10):
out to a restaurant who would gounnamed because one of my favorite restaurants,
and they had under the glass somefood you could take home and heat up
in the oven, which we did. However, that food I think was
sitting there since seven am, andthis was seven pm. Will you be
back well? Next day I wassupposed to take producer Kayle out for her
birthday and I had to cancel onthat girl, and I sent her an
(02:32):
emoji that was green and barfing.I didn't even know that emoji existed,
so I started writing the words andthe emojen show out. There's the perfect
emoji for her. So here's thecrazy thing. I had already made arrangements
for other friends to go on aSaturday afternoon to the San Antonio Winery.
Have you been there? You guyshave been there? No, it's in
(02:53):
downtown LA. It's the oldest wineryin LA. Winery is different from vineyard,
right. They get the grapes fromall their various vineyards all over California,
and they make all kinds of privatelabel wine from everything from some of
Trader Joe's brands to various nightclubs,fancy places in Vegas, etc. But
during COVID they're on third generation familyrunning it. Now they expanded, made
(03:15):
this beautiful deck. They do afternoonjazz. In the afternoon, all of
La comes. It's not hoydy toidy, it is Angeline. I mean,
they look they're in their finest.But let me just say it is socially
diverse, it's economically diverse. Itrepresents La. So anyway, I was
supposed to go with these friends,but I was feeling sick and terrible,
and so I said, well,listen, here's what we'll do. I
(03:35):
will be your designated driver. SoI sat there for two hours. Well,
my girlfriends had these big flights ofwine, and then one of the
owners came over and he was pouringwine for them and being so sweet.
It was really nice. And it'sreally nice, and you have a designated
driver because you can go as hardas you want. Just the smell of
wine was making me more nauseous.So I was sitting there chewing on Tom's
(03:59):
favorite restaurant. Made you sick?Are you gonna like? Are you going
to go back to it? Areyou turned off? All right, I
just won't go get stuff out ofthe glass thing late at night. That's
that's not going to happen, youknow. This week also I teach well,
I teach psychology of health counseling,and I teach developmental psychology, and
I teach intro to psychology at calState Channel Islands. But I was really
(04:19):
excited because I had a guest inmy health psychology class. He's the husband
of a dear friend of mine.His name happens to be Scott Seacrest Theory.
I just outed you on the radio, Scott, and he has been
in the fitness industry his entire life, like CEO of companies that manufacture fitness
equipment. He's like at the cuttingedge of all the kind of tech and
the integration between our body and youknow, like the Apple Watch and all
(04:43):
that. He calls it wearables,wearables, wearable tech that record He said,
there's actually a way that they canrecord your blood sugar now justin whatever
a watch. But he also isa former early in his life, former
competitive bodybuilder. He says he doesnnot recommend that life as being a healthy
life because I mean, but onthe breakekay Lo, I'm going to show
(05:05):
you the picture of him when hewas nineteen in Mister Universe teen Universe.
Yeah, he had a little bitof a Billy Ray cyrus mullet. But
it was a year, it wasa time. But but the body is
it is happening. Yeah. Soanyway, the most interesting thing I found
about his talk was first of all, about how wearable tech is changing us.
(05:28):
Because as long as you psychologists knowthis, as long as you get
feedback on your health, whether you'recounting calories, did you know any kind
of diet works to lose weight,even the ice cream diet, all ice
cream, because it makes you awareof what you're eating. Anything you stop
to do and just become aware.So as soon as you do a wearable
that tells you your heart rate,your blood pressure, maybe blood sugar or
(05:50):
whatever, you'll start to be awareof what you're doing to impact that.
Of course, I'm resistant to authority, and my Apple Watch tries to be
an authority with me, and ittries to control me. So I shut
it up. So when it saysstand up some steps and you're like get
out of here, I go,screw you. Yeah, we're done.
(06:10):
Don't you order me around? Idid not put up with that anyway.
I want to thank Scott publicly forcome driving all the way up to Camaro
and giving such a great class.But also I noticed that many of the
students were inspired by his story,and particularly the dudes. Right. And
when you teach psychology, it's probablynot news to you that we've seen in
the last twenty years quite a feminizationof college campuses. For every one man
(06:36):
who gets a college degree in thelast twenty years, there are three women
getting degrees. Like women are gettinghyper educated super fast, and now there
are still more majority males in thehard sciences, right, engineering and math,
etc. And there's argument about whythat is. Is there cultural exclusion
(06:57):
to women all the way along,or is it self at a certain point.
I'm digressing, but I do wantto tell this little story. So
when I was young, like eighthgrade, I was really, really,
really good at math, and Ijust loved p sets problem sets. I
would enter. My teachers had meentering all these math contests that even had
(07:17):
like eleventh graders in them, andI would sometimes win, and I had
trophies, and at the end ofthat year I got the highest achievement.
So then I enter ninth grade,which is high school, and I got
a choice. At this point,we had like three or four levels of
math. It was like Basic,that's two plus two General, Advanced or
(07:40):
Enriched. You know in Canada theyjust divide you right out. So of
course there was no question I wasgoing in Enriched. And I remember this
woman math teacher. She had anEnglish accent and a little white bob and
she seemed so excited about math,and so she would give us these big
problem sets the next year. NowI'm turning fifteen, it's tenth. Hormones
(08:01):
are starting to explode in my brainand in my body, and I'm like,
I really don't want to spend thosehours doing those problem sets every night,
because I have Glamor magazine to readand there are some things I need
to learn about makeup and hair,because this is no I distinctly remember that.
So I dropped back from Enriched toAdvanced. By the time I graduated,
(08:24):
like grade thirteen, I was downin general because I had parties to
go to, I had hair todo, I had makeup, there was
nails involved. There was a lothappening. So the question is did I
self select because of the hormonal changesto my brain that human mating became more
important to me because what was mathleading me to making more money? Well,
you know, we know that whenwomen make more money, they don't
(08:46):
actually it actually hurts there sometimes theirability to find mates and keep mates,
it intimidates men. Right, Sowho knows whether it just on some hormonal
level I self selected. Anyway,back to Scott and the speaking, So
in psychology in particular, there's aneven greater dearth of men, very few.
I mean, if I get threeguys in a class, I'm just
(09:07):
thrilled. I want to put themright in the front row. I'm so
excited to have them there in thishealth psychology class because involves some fitness and
stuff. We have a little bitmore. And I noticed them being really
responsive to Scott, much more thanwhen I'm in the classroom, asking engaged
questions, writing emails to me latersaying that was an amazing guest speaker,
and thank you so much all guys. Right, okay, one girl,
(09:28):
sorry Madeline one. So anyway,so I say to myself, what is
it about what is it about maleenergy? What is it about male energy
that these guys are connecting with?And so I started reading more research about
fathers and sons in particular, butalso fathers and daughters, and I strolled
(09:50):
upon something that was so fascinating.You know, there's a whole new area
of attachment theory, Kayla, that'snew to me, and it's called the
activation relationship theory. And it's aboutmen and how they love their kids.
Wow, we're gonna talk about thiswhen we come back. If you're a
dad, listen up. If you'rea mom, listen even closer. You
(10:13):
are listening to the Doctor Wendy WalshShow on kf I AM six forty with
Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from kf I Am six forty kI Am six forty Doctor Wendy Walsh with
you. Okay, you want totalk about daddy love. If you've been
listening to me for the nine freakingyears I've been sitting in this chair,
(10:33):
you know that I have had someattachment injuries, hardly due to the fact
that my dad was in the Navy, and he was gone in an inconsistent
way, in an inconsistent pattern,and when he would come back, he'd
try to make up for it,good good on him, and try to
be the best dad in the world. So my attachment organization, my model
(10:54):
for love was basically those guys thatcome in and treat you really well and
then to spear a lot. Yeah, the avoidant guys who'd come in give
you sex and gifts and dinner andthen don't call for three weeks. That
was just like it was literally whatmy experience was as a child, except
didn't obviously have sex in my dad, but anyway, just had to throw
that into there. But you knowwhat I mean, pleasure and then disappearance.
(11:16):
So I eventually became a mom.I practiced something called attachment parenting because
I'd read so much of an attachmentand hallmarks include breastfeeding, feed as needed,
not on a schedule, sleeping withyour babies, wearing your babies,
letting them know you know this wholesecure, keeping them close. But also
the other piece of it that Iknew that was important, that indeed has
(11:39):
played out for my kids is thatmy needs for closeness should not be put
on my kids. So as aresult, yes, I practiced attachment parenting,
but I also encouraged them to getout from under my skirts. Now
put a pin in that. Ialso went to various mom groups. There's
was one mom bab group I wentto and they had a very strict rule
(12:03):
because apparently, prior to me joiningit digressed into some bad places. And
the strict rule was you were notallowed to bitch about your husband. Can
I say that word? Like,do you know? Okay? You couldn't
complain about that lovely man at homebecause apparently the mom groups just became a
session of complaining about men the wholetime, and they didn't want to do
(12:24):
that. There's no doubt about itthat most men do not invest in babies
as much as moms. First ofall, their nipples do not give breast
milk, so there's that. Also, they're often with traditional gender roles,
being forced to spend more time awayworking. Secondly, they're just not like
(12:45):
they they don't know what to dowith those babies. Now, I want
to say, there's some guys thatare totally into it. They're diaper changing,
they're sleeping with their baby, they'reholding their into I've seen them.
I saw them out a breakfast arestaurant yesterday and I was like, look
at all those dance we're in theirbabies. That's so cool. They're changing,
but in general they love in adifferent way. So I discovered this
thing today called the activation relationship theory. It's a compliment to my favorite psychological
(13:11):
theory, attachment theory. Now youknow you've heard me talk about it,
I'll tell you again. According tothe father of attachment theory, John Bulby,
there are two behavioral systems that areneeded for attachment. One is called
the proximity behavior system. That meanspeople stay close to their babies and toddlers.
And that's why those babies and toddlerswere the only part of our population
(13:33):
who extremely benefited during COVID because theyhad a secure attachment figure more than one
around and when they go and explorethis So the second part of the attachment
system is the exploration system where theygain knowledge they adapt to unfamiliar environments.
So concretely, this means you goto the park. In the playground,
(13:54):
the little toddler one year old twoyear olds toddles through the little sandpile to
get over to the little slide andthey start to go up the two steps
and they check back because they're afraidit's a new environment, and they catch
mommy, your daddy's eye, anda good attachment parent will say I see
you, I'm watching you. Youcan do this. I'm here for you,
(14:15):
right, go ahead. Now thereare those nervous nellie moms who are
just like, no, be careful, don't crimb up that ladder without me.
That's problematic, right. You wantto be able to let your child
explore and give them the confidence toexplore. The theory is when they get
older and evolve, they will leaveyour nest and fly away as both mind
have so the way they test attachmentis something called the strange situation test.
(14:39):
I know I've talked about this before, developed by Mary Ainswork back in nineteen
seventy eight. They take babies thatare twelve to eighteen months old and they
put them in a strange situation.It's a lab with toys and two way
mirrors and coders look and at acertain point they have attachment figure Mommy or
daddy leave and they watch to seewhat kid does. Like if the kid
(15:01):
doesn't even seem to care, that'sa problem. Kids are supposed to cry
when their attachment for you. Butmore importantly, what happens when the primary
attachment figure walks back in the room. Does a baby look scared, Oh,
that's not good. Does a babyget preoccupied with toys and doesn't even
notice, or does the baby runwith the hands up with glee and so
excited? Right, And so they'reable to actually tell kids attachment style at
(15:24):
that age, follow them through theiradolescence, and they can correlate these scores
with how happy your relationships will be, how much money you'll make, what
your education level will be. Likeit. It's so studied this theory.
Okay, data, data, data. Here's a problem. Father child attachment
isn't as reliable with the state withthe strange situation test. They're not able
(15:48):
to really pinpoint it when the daddoes the leaving and coming back right.
So they came up with this thingcalled the activation relationshipship theory. It says
this fathers matter, but they matterin a different way. According to psychologists,
fathers are like catalysts for risk taking. They actually can ignite children to
(16:12):
like use their own initiative in unfamiliarsituations, to tell kids to explore,
to take risk, to take chances, to overcome obstacles, to be brave.
When there are standards around two strangersare and to stand up for themselves.
You know, there's this meme thatflies around the internet and it's very
cute. It's two pictures. Oneis a picture of a dad throwing a
(16:33):
baby in the air. You shouldknow that every dad throws their baby in
the air and every mom has aheart attack when she sees this. And
what the meme says. It showsthe dad throwing the baby in the air.
The baby is probably three feet abovethe dad's hands that are still up
in the air, and the baby'sfalling back down, and it says what
dads do. And the second picturesays what moms see, and it shows
(16:56):
the dad with his hands up inthe air and the baby is twenty feet
up in the air above the dad, right. So that's what the experience
is to mom's because their kind oflove is more protective. But what we
know that specifically with boys, alsogirls, but specifically with boys, is
that fathers facilitate a kind of learningby teasing them, by destabilizing them,
(17:19):
and kids have to get creative.So I'm going to tell you I saw
this viral video once they asked meto comment on HLN. There was like
a community, small town community paradeand the families were out watching, and
some dads thought it would be reallyfunny to duct tape their kids to a
treat. So of course this videogoes viral. Everyone is shocked and is
this child abuse? I'm like,no, the kids are laughing. This
(17:42):
is fun, and the dads aresetting up a challenge. The dads are
there to cut off the duct tapeif there's a problem. Nobody's abandoning them
and walking away, right, Itwas just a fun thing. Also,
I'll have to tell you my boyfriendJulio tells me a story over and over.
He feels such guilt and shame aboutit. One time he was rock
climbing with his five year old onhis back and they had to call,
(18:03):
like you, who are the peoplethe park rangers to get them down.
They got stuck and he got soyelled at by the park rangers. But
dads do that. He got stuckand he had a five year old on
his back and he couldn't go upany further and he couldn't get down.
And I feel bad enough, sir, don't braid that's what they did.
Okay. All I want to sayis this new theory, the activation relationship
(18:26):
theory should tell all dads don't feelguilty about what you do. Should tell
moms give him a break if he'sinvolved with his kid, that's what matters.
In fact, at that mom babygroup, I remember one of the
moms said, if you're complaining thatyour spouse is not a good enough dad,
you need to learn to leave themalone and you can. Might come
(18:47):
back and the baby bottles in thewrong hole and the diapers on their head,
whatever, doesn't matter. They're workingit out between themselves and that's how
they will grow to have a relationshipand kids need both. Okay, when
we come back, have you everthought of going on a romantic vacation just
to save your relationship, especially whenyou're in crisis. Well, there's some
(19:10):
science to say that sometimes that canactually work and other times when it's a
really bad idea. Let's talk aboutthis when I come back. You're listening
to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand fromkf I Am six forty. This is
the Doctor Wendy Wells Show. Ifyou're a YouTuber, come on over.
I'm live on YouTube right now.Come on in the studio with us.
(19:32):
Just go to doctor Wendy Walsh onYouTube see my channel. Hey, so
it's really common that taking a romanticvacation can actually boost your relationship. It
worked for me in January, myboyfriend Juli and I went to Dominican Republic
actually to see his ailing dad.However, we also took some time away
(19:56):
from our kids, our adult kids. Remember we'd just come off that Christmas
where every competing emotional interests of fouryoung adult humans it was. It was
tragic. Anyway, so we goto the Dominican Republic. By the way,
apparently when you're from Dominican Republic,you don't go to the beach.
So my friends were pretty shocked thatI went to Dominican Republic for a week
(20:18):
and I never saw the ocean orfelt like New York City in Santa Domingo.
But it was fun and they hadgreat, great restaurants. Anyway,
it worked for us, right,We had time to reconnect, time to
be alone. It was a goodthing. So researchers from Texas A and
M University did a meta analysis.They looked at all the research out there
(20:41):
on whether it's worth it to doa romantic weekend away or romanic if your
relationships in the duldrums, and theyfound that for the most part it does
work. Quote, time allotted forfamily bonding is decreasing, so likely attributed
to increased career demands and changing familystructures. So basically, they found that
(21:03):
having a vacation can actually strengthen acouple's bond. And here are some of
the reasons why. Again, notfor all couples and not all the time,
I'll explain. Research has shown thatshared leisure activities are highly correlated with
feelings of well being. Of course, if you've got a best friend and
you're doing something you like to do. Of course, right in our daily
(21:29):
routines, we are just too busy. And when you have that time alone,
you can dedicate it to your relationship. You know, you go to
resort somewhere, spend the day atthe beach, work out at the gym,
get all dressed up for dinner,and you just focus on being together
and talking. Right, Travel ingeneral is highly correlated with positive emotions,
(21:51):
right, So basically the thinking isthat planning a trip, carrying out that
trip gives you feelings of hope andhusiasm and well being, and that naturally
affects how you relate to others.Right, if you're in a good mood,
going on a trip is a timeto improve your communication. You're not
being interrupted all day long. Ihope you're not checking your phone. I
(22:14):
hope when you go on vacation it'sto go on vacation, so you'll be
able to not be interrupted by everybodyelse. And also getting out of a
routine is very good for relationships.Now here's when going on a trip will
not help your relationship. If yourrelationship is in a deep crisis. You
(22:37):
might have like a relative reprieve fora few days, but when you get
home, the same problems are goingto be there. Right, So I
have to tell you the story whenmy daughter, my oldest daughter, was
like I don't know, five sixmonths old, we were on a trip
to Mexico. I was actually it'salways a working trip for me. So
I was walking on the beach carryingmy baby, and this couple came up
(23:00):
behind me and the woman did,oh my god, look at your baby.
She's so cute. Can I holdher? And it was weird because
it's a stranger woman, but shewas nice. We're in a resort and
we're walking on the beach, soI hand my baby to this woman,
but I don't get more than armslike the way from her, and she
was, oh, let's walk onthe beach. I just miss my kids.
They're at home, and it's justso nice to have a baby.
Whatever. So I'm walking just behindher with now her husband, and he
(23:23):
says to me, yeah, wecame on this vacation because we're thinking of
getting a divorce because she's just focusedon the kids all the time and she's
ignoring our relationship. And I lookedat him and I'm like, and Nash
has another kid on her hip andhe's like, yeah, she can't.
And I felt so bad for him. Do you know you were doctor Wendy
(23:45):
Welsh? Now I was sharing.I don't know what I was then.
I was as a mom, Butyeah, he was telling me about how
they were there on this trip torekindle because she was focusing too much on
the kids and not enough on himand the relationship. And now, well
what did she do pick up somestranger's baby and focus on that. So
(24:06):
it's not going to work if you'rein crisis, and what are a deep
crisis, according to me, recentinfidelity? Right, if you're trying to
get over an affair. Not thetime to just go on a vacation.
That's not going to fix everything.If someone's suffering from addiction, a vacation
where there's the wine is flowing isnot going to help. Okay, if
(24:27):
you have financial problems and you're fightingover money, going on a vacation is
going to make the financial problems worse. It costs money to travel, go
on a picnic. Just go toTrader Joe's, pack a picnic and that's
all you need to do. Youknow, if your partnership has serious problems,
being thrown together in a new destinationwithout the possibility of distancing could be
(24:52):
a bad situation. Right. Youmight need your own space. So the
bottom line is a trip is notgoing to fix anything unless you also put
in the relationship work right and thatmeans therapy, etc. However, if
the problem in your relationship has beenthat both of you are just too busy
and you haven't had time for eachother, then that's a good time.
(25:14):
I also want to say this aboutromantic travel. Let's say you're in a
new relationship, and let's say you'rethinking maybe not too new. I mean,
we're not talking about third date,stuff. We're talking about six months
to a year, and you're thinkingof, you know, making this official,
or moving in together or something.Travel is the best litmus test for
your relationship. Go on a trip. See what it's like when one of
(25:36):
you eats bad food and you're sharinga hotel room together. Okay, See
what it's like when the airline losesyour ticket and you're not in the right
seat, and who takes a tantrumbecause they're overtired because of the jet leg
I mean, really, you canreally determine whether somebody can handle the stresses
of life by going on a travel, especially extreme travel. Go somewhere far
(25:56):
away where nobody speaks the language andyou're out in the wilds. Let's see
how you survive. But if you'rein regular, run of the mill relationship
and you need a little romantic boost, it could be good, but not
if you're in crisis. When wecome back. Myths about love that everyone
needs to unlearn. I promise youmost people in our culture believe the things
(26:19):
that I'm going to tell you,and I'm going to tell you that you're
all wrong. When we come back. You are listening to the doctor Wendy
Walls show. We're live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio accum. You're listening to Doctor
Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AMsix forty. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. I'd like to welcomemy TikTok audience. Who are I'm going
(26:40):
to see if I can pin thisphone number, you know, in a
couple of segments, I'm going tobe taking your relationship questions and calls live,
So the phone number can be likearound eight fifteen. But I'll just
tell the number now, so thatTikTok in here. It's one eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five to zero
one K five. But don't go, oh yeah, the phones are not
open yet. They will open ateight fifteen. I do want to talk
(27:04):
about the myths about love that waytoo many people believe. And I am
always shocked because you know, I'vebeen reading the science of love for years.
I love it when people say loveis a science, I'm like,
yes, it has biological consequences,the rush of neuro hormones on your brain,
it has psychological underpinnings, your attachmentstyle. What you learned about love
(27:27):
growing up and has a social piece. You know, what you look for
in your deal breaker list, whatyou put in your profile. That's so
society's idea of what you should lookfor. So it's always a biopsychosocial event
when you find love. But ourculture is full of myths and bad news
(27:48):
about love, and let's start togo through some of them. I want
you to unlearn this. The biggestnot the biggest, but one of the
myths I think a lot of peoplebelieve is this idea that opposites attract,
that if you could find somebody that'sdifferent than you, it'll be exciting and
you will stay together. Well,the truth is, the research shows that
(28:11):
it is not that people who arelike each other. Now that doesn't necessarily
mean racially or whatever, but socioeconomicstatus perhaps values very important. People who
are compatible get along, have astronger emotional bond, they communicate better,
they cooperate more. Oh and researchshows they also invest more in their kids.
(28:36):
So you actually want somebody to belike you. Now, here's the
thing. When you do find somebodywho's different from you, it's exciting,
right, It's always exciting. Soyou think this must be love. But
in the long run, it doesn'tbring peace, it doesn't bring that important
exchange of care, it doesn't bringthose feelings of security. All those are
(29:00):
the most important ingredients for love.Kayla. Have you ever dated somebody who
is completely different from you? Yes? It way, different political beliefs,
different experiences in life. You see. That's a rough one. Yeah,
because it's it's a value thing,right, yeah. See, politics have
(29:21):
become almost of social values of whatyou value in life. And it was
around like the Donald Trump and thekneeling error back then, back in those
days, and I just felt himand I argued way too much about those
things, just like I don't think, I like, he's not going to
work exactly. So find somebody who'slike you and you'll have a longer,
happier relationship. Okay. The secondmyth I want to talk about this I
(29:45):
hear all the time. I've beenon other people's podcasts as a guest and
they've argued with me about this.But I'm right this myth that you shouldn't
settle unless you meet your soulmate.All right, we need to stop.
There's no such thing as a soulmate. What people do when they're falling in
(30:08):
love with somebody they're attracted to andtheir brain gets hit with a cocktail of
neuro hormones. Is they have imaginarythinking that it's a soulmate, that it's
meant to be. No, soulmatesdon't exist. In fact, I'll tell
you this, people with good relationshipskills have happy relationships. They find more
(30:33):
partners. Happy people have happy relationships. It's an inside job, right,
But more than anything, if youlearn good relationship skills that include conflict resolution
skills, or good communication skills,or being able to be authentic and share
your feelings with somebody, you're actuallygoing to find more soulmates. They're not
(30:55):
really soulmates, they're just compatible peoplebecause you know how to be a compatible
person yourself. Oh Kayley, youare not agreeing with me. No,
I am agreeing, you know,because I've learned throughout my years everybody I
like at that time is my soulmate. So maybe maybe there's something the
something to this note. There's notsome mystical thing like Cupid shot an arrow.
The universe is coming together. It'sa magnetic pull. No, you
(31:18):
find the person's hot, your brain'sgetting a high of dopamine, and so
you're calling it a soulmate. That'sall that is, all right. I
will say, though, my boyfriendright now, he's my soulmate. No,
it means I have the imaginary thinking. It means I have the imaginary
thinking. I know logically what heis. We're very compatible. That's what
that is. All right. Here'sanother myth about love. That's time for
(31:41):
you to unlearn. Happy couples shouldn'tever fight. Literally, there are people
out there that believe that if conflicthappens in a relationship, the relationship must
be over. There are people whobelieve that, I get like, what
is fight though? Isn't that it'sbecause well, yeah, let's talk about
(32:02):
the style of conflict first of all, So there is research to show that
actually the happiest couples have the mostfrequent arguments, but they don't have big,
drag down, knock them out battles. I'm not talking about domestic violence.
I'm talking about yelling and screaming andwhatever. What they have are literal,
(32:23):
little border skirmishes all the time,while they're constantly executing their boundaries or
choosing to make compromise so that therelationship will win. Right, So it's
really important when you fight that youask yourself all the time, do I
need to win? How can Ihave the relationship win? That's the important
(32:47):
thing about conflict. I remember thatguy who called in I think I talked
to I wish you call it back, But he said, him and his
wife they've been together, I believenine years, and they do once a
month like, Hey, is thereanything that you that I did this month?
There's anything that bother you? Andthen they have like healthy conversations.
And he said they've never fought sincethe time they've been together, because I
guess these conversations they have monthly checkin. Yeah, And somebody on the
(33:09):
outside might look at those conversations andbe like, that's kind of a little
conflict because they're disagreeing on this,but then they're coming together on it.
I mean, Julio and I donot fight, but we disagree. That's
what I'll say. We disagree aboutthings, and we make decisions about who
gets to sort of be the winner, or we make a decision to just
(33:30):
disagree and have the relationship come first. I mean, I think the important
thing that people understand is that don'tavoid conflict, because conflict is the thing
that makes you keep your feelings insideand be inauthentic. And the more you
avoid conflict, one of two thingsis going to happen. Either it's going
(33:50):
to bubble out at some point andyou're gonna have a huge volcano of an
explosion because the pressure has just builttoo high inside yourself, or worse,
it's going to impact your physical health. Right, so, keeping everything bottled
up is not good. In fact, research from the Gottman's up at the
Marriage Lab at the University of Washingtonsays that being dismissive or stonewalling or avoiding
(34:14):
conflict is the greatest predictor of divorce. Right, So, this idea that
happy couples should never fight is acomplete myth about love. But yet,
people, especially people who you knowwho don't have a good model for love,
so early on in a dating relationshipthey get into a little tiff with
somebody there, it's more quick forthem to go next next. It's easier
(34:37):
to find somebody else than it isto just well, what was that about
and what happened? Now, let'sbe clear, they're really unhealthy ways to
fight. And if somebody expresses toxicityabuse anger like like anger that seemed to
come out of nowhere in the reallyearly stages of dating. Well yeah,
that's a red flag. That's like, okay, you can go next,
(34:58):
but if you've just had a fight. I remember the first time Hulu and
I had a fight. It wasn'ta fight but a conflict. I had
just come out of getting my firstvaccine, where I lined up at Dodger
Stadium for four hours. I wasexhausted. My daughter was driving. I
was on the phone with him saying, we're gonna go have dinner, and
she drove like freaking eighty five milesan hour on the one tent and so
much traffic, and I screamed ather, slow down, right, and
(35:22):
he was We only been dating alittle while and he heard my voice.
And he's terrified of female anger.I learned that about him. Now,
i'd just be gentle with him.But when I finally got to see him,
he was very cold and standoffish withme, and I'm like, what's
going on? And then he wasa little snappy, you know, that's
how he gets little snappy. AndI ordered a Margarite and he's like,
(35:42):
marguerite is twenty dollars. I'm like, really, hey, from my margarite,
what does that snappiness about? Andso then he said, I just
I heard you yell, and Ijust didn't like the yelling, and I
said, and then I got reallysad because this is a guy I was
attracted to. And then he sawa bad side of me, and then
I felt shame about that, andmy stomach all churned, and all I
(36:04):
said to him is, um,I have a running feeling right now.
I just want to get up andI want to run. And I'll tell
you what he did when we comeback. I have also three more miss
about love. You are listening tothe Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM
six forty. We're live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio back rapp app. What is
happening with Me too Much? Whenwe come back, I'm going to Instagram.
(36:30):
You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walls. You can always hear us live
on kf I AM six forty fromseven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you'relistening to kf I am six forty the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand onthe iHeartRadio app. Doctor Wendy Walsh with
you. This is the Doctor WendyWalsh Show. I sound so hyped up
to night Kala, don't. I'meleven hours sleep. That'll little good.
Eleven hours sleep, no alcohol,woke up fresh, feeling great. I
(00:23):
love it, Doctor Wendy. Weall need to try it. We all
need to try it. Hey,if you're new to the show, I'm
doctor Wendy Walsh. I got aPhD in clinical psychology. I'm a psychology
professor at cal State Channel Islands.I'm obsessed with the science of love.
I have been reading about relationship healthfor decades, decades and decades. Today
we're gonna talk about how father's uniquekind of love is very good for kids,
(00:47):
and why we need dads and momsstop complaining about him. Really he's
doing a good job. Also,thinking about taking a romantic vacation with your
partner because you're going through a hardtime and you think a vacation's going to
solve it all. Actually, theresearch says it might depending on what the
problem is. I know you wantto listen to this one. Seven reasons
(01:07):
according to science why women cheat.Plus Later in the show, I'll be
taking your calls and answering your socialmedia questions. I'll be going live on
TikTok and Instagram and youtubutub YouTube tubWho we got with us? We got
producer Kayla Hi, doctor you,producer Christina. I don't know if your
(01:29):
mic son is it? Okay?Look at me? All the girls here?
We got Mark Ronner. How youdoing? Mark? Present and accounted
for? Ready to roll? Youever wonder why women cheat? Very different
reasons than men. You're trying toget me into trouble here, Well,
nobody listens to me at home.Anyway, I can answer whatever you want.
Just us shoot the work. It'sgonna make every man think about their
(01:49):
own relationship differently, That's what Ithink. Roll on the board. You're
going to control me. He hasto control the clock for me, asked
control the buttons for me. It'slike, because I'm here with you,
okay, it's just you and Iand I don't think about anybody else,
all right, So the reason whyI slept eleven hours last night is because
the night before I had a bottleof wine with a girlfriend and we went
(02:10):
out to a restaurant who would gounnamed because one of my favorite restaurants,
and they had under the glass somefood you could take home and heat up
in the oven, which we did. However, that food I think was
sitting there since seven am, andthis was seven pm. Will you be
back well? Next day I wassupposed to take producer Kayle out for her
birthday and I had to cancel onthat girl, and I sent her an
(02:32):
emoji that was green and barfing.I didn't even know that emoji existed,
so I started writing the words andthe emojen show out. There's the perfect
emoji for her. So here's thecrazy thing. I had already made arrangements
for other friends to go on aSaturday afternoon to the San Antonio Winery.
Have you been there? You guyshave been there? No, it's in
(02:53):
downtown LA. It's the oldest wineryin LA. Winery is different from vineyard,
right. They get the grapes fromall their various vineyards all over California,
and they make all kinds of privatelabel wine from everything from some of
Trader Joe's brands to various nightclubs,fancy places in Vegas, etc. But
during COVID they're on third generation familyrunning it. Now they expanded, made
(03:15):
this beautiful deck. They do afternoonjazz. In the afternoon, all of
La comes. It's not hoydy toidy, it is Angeline. I mean,
they look they're in their finest.But let me just say it is socially
diverse, it's economically diverse. Itrepresents La. So anyway, I was
supposed to go with these friends,but I was feeling sick and terrible,
and so I said, well,listen, here's what we'll do. I
(03:35):
will be your designated driver. SoI sat there for two hours. Well,
my girlfriends had these big flights ofwine, and then one of the
owners came over and he was pouringwine for them and being so sweet.
It was really nice. And it'sreally nice, and you have a designated
driver because you can go as hardas you want. Just the smell of
wine was making me more nauseous.So I was sitting there chewing on Tom's
(03:59):
favorite restaurant. Made you sick?Are you gonna like? Are you going
to go back to it? Areyou turned off? All right, I
just won't go get stuff out ofthe glass thing late at night. That's
that's not going to happen, youknow. This week also I teach well,
I teach psychology of health counseling,and I teach developmental psychology, and
I teach intro to psychology at calState Channel Islands. But I was really
(04:19):
excited because I had a guest inmy health psychology class. He's the husband
of a dear friend of mine.His name happens to be Scott Seacrest Theory.
I just outed you on the radio, Scott, and he has been
in the fitness industry his entire life, like CEO of companies that manufacture fitness
equipment. He's like at the cuttingedge of all the kind of tech and
the integration between our body and youknow, like the Apple Watch and all
(04:43):
that. He calls it wearables,wearables, wearable tech that record He said,
there's actually a way that they canrecord your blood sugar now justin whatever
a watch. But he also isa former early in his life, former
competitive bodybuilder. He says he doesnnot recommend that life as being a healthy
life because I mean, but onthe breakekay Lo, I'm going to show
(05:05):
you the picture of him when hewas nineteen in Mister Universe teen Universe.
Yeah, he had a little bitof a Billy Ray cyrus mullet. But
it was a year, it wasa time. But but the body is
it is happening. Yeah. Soanyway, the most interesting thing I found
about his talk was first of all, about how wearable tech is changing us.
(05:28):
Because as long as you psychologists knowthis, as long as you get
feedback on your health, whether you'recounting calories, did you know any kind
of diet works to lose weight,even the ice cream diet, all ice
cream, because it makes you awareof what you're eating. Anything you stop
to do and just become aware.So as soon as you do a wearable
that tells you your heart rate,your blood pressure, maybe blood sugar or
(05:50):
whatever, you'll start to be awareof what you're doing to impact that.
Of course, I'm resistant to authority, and my Apple Watch tries to be
an authority with me, and ittries to control me. So I shut
it up. So when it saysstand up some steps and you're like get
out of here, I go,screw you. Yeah, we're done.
(06:10):
Don't you order me around? Idid not put up with that anyway.
I want to thank Scott publicly forcome driving all the way up to Camaro
and giving such a great class.But also I noticed that many of the
students were inspired by his story,and particularly the dudes. Right. And
when you teach psychology, it's probablynot news to you that we've seen in
the last twenty years quite a feminizationof college campuses. For every one man
(06:36):
who gets a college degree in thelast twenty years, there are three women
getting degrees. Like women are gettinghyper educated super fast, and now there
are still more majority males in thehard sciences, right, engineering and math,
etc. And there's argument about whythat is. Is there cultural exclusion
(06:57):
to women all the way along,or is it self at a certain point.
I'm digressing, but I do wantto tell this little story. So
when I was young, like eighthgrade, I was really, really,
really good at math, and Ijust loved p sets problem sets. I
would enter. My teachers had meentering all these math contests that even had
(07:17):
like eleventh graders in them, andI would sometimes win, and I had
trophies, and at the end ofthat year I got the highest achievement.
So then I enter ninth grade,which is high school, and I got
a choice. At this point,we had like three or four levels of
math. It was like Basic,that's two plus two General, Advanced or
(07:40):
Enriched. You know in Canada theyjust divide you right out. So of
course there was no question I wasgoing in Enriched. And I remember this
woman math teacher. She had anEnglish accent and a little white bob and
she seemed so excited about math,and so she would give us these big
problem sets the next year. NowI'm turning fifteen, it's tenth. Hormones
(08:01):
are starting to explode in my brainand in my body, and I'm like,
I really don't want to spend thosehours doing those problem sets every night,
because I have Glamor magazine to readand there are some things I need
to learn about makeup and hair,because this is no I distinctly remember that.
So I dropped back from Enriched toAdvanced. By the time I graduated,
(08:24):
like grade thirteen, I was downin general because I had parties to
go to, I had hair todo, I had makeup, there was
nails involved. There was a lothappening. So the question is did I
self select because of the hormonal changesto my brain that human mating became more
important to me because what was mathleading me to making more money? Well,
you know, we know that whenwomen make more money, they don't
(08:46):
actually it actually hurts there sometimes theirability to find mates and keep mates,
it intimidates men. Right, Sowho knows whether it just on some hormonal
level I self selected. Anyway,back to Scott and the speaking, So
in psychology in particular, there's aneven greater dearth of men, very few.
I mean, if I get threeguys in a class, I'm just
(09:07):
thrilled. I want to put themright in the front row. I'm so
excited to have them there in thishealth psychology class because involves some fitness and
stuff. We have a little bitmore. And I noticed them being really
responsive to Scott, much more thanwhen I'm in the classroom, asking engaged
questions, writing emails to me latersaying that was an amazing guest speaker,
and thank you so much all guys. Right, okay, one girl,
(09:28):
sorry Madeline one. So anyway,so I say to myself, what is
it about what is it about maleenergy? What is it about male energy
that these guys are connecting with?And so I started reading more research about
fathers and sons in particular, butalso fathers and daughters, and I strolled
(09:50):
upon something that was so fascinating.You know, there's a whole new area
of attachment theory, Kayla, that'snew to me, and it's called the
activation relationship theory. And it's aboutmen and how they love their kids.
Wow, we're gonna talk about thiswhen we come back. If you're a
dad, listen up. If you'rea mom, listen even closer. You
(10:13):
are listening to the Doctor Wendy WalshShow on kf I AM six forty with
Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from kf I Am six forty kI Am six forty Doctor Wendy Walsh with
you. Okay, you want totalk about daddy love. If you've been
listening to me for the nine freakingyears I've been sitting in this chair,
(10:33):
you know that I have had someattachment injuries, hardly due to the fact
that my dad was in the Navy, and he was gone in an inconsistent
way, in an inconsistent pattern,and when he would come back, he'd
try to make up for it,good good on him, and try to
be the best dad in the world. So my attachment organization, my model
(10:54):
for love was basically those guys thatcome in and treat you really well and
then to spear a lot. Yeah, the avoidant guys who'd come in give
you sex and gifts and dinner andthen don't call for three weeks. That
was just like it was literally whatmy experience was as a child, except
didn't obviously have sex in my dad, but anyway, just had to throw
that into there. But you knowwhat I mean, pleasure and then disappearance.
(11:16):
So I eventually became a mom.I practiced something called attachment parenting because
I'd read so much of an attachmentand hallmarks include breastfeeding, feed as needed,
not on a schedule, sleeping withyour babies, wearing your babies,
letting them know you know this wholesecure, keeping them close. But also
the other piece of it that Iknew that was important, that indeed has
(11:39):
played out for my kids is thatmy needs for closeness should not be put
on my kids. So as aresult, yes, I practiced attachment parenting,
but I also encouraged them to getout from under my skirts. Now
put a pin in that. Ialso went to various mom groups. There's
was one mom bab group I wentto and they had a very strict rule
(12:03):
because apparently, prior to me joiningit digressed into some bad places. And
the strict rule was you were notallowed to bitch about your husband. Can
I say that word? Like,do you know? Okay? You couldn't
complain about that lovely man at homebecause apparently the mom groups just became a
session of complaining about men the wholetime, and they didn't want to do
(12:24):
that. There's no doubt about itthat most men do not invest in babies
as much as moms. First ofall, their nipples do not give breast
milk, so there's that. Also, they're often with traditional gender roles,
being forced to spend more time awayworking. Secondly, they're just not like
(12:45):
they they don't know what to dowith those babies. Now, I want
to say, there's some guys thatare totally into it. They're diaper changing,
they're sleeping with their baby, they'reholding their into I've seen them.
I saw them out a breakfast arestaurant yesterday and I was like, look
at all those dance we're in theirbabies. That's so cool. They're changing,
but in general they love in adifferent way. So I discovered this
thing today called the activation relationship theory. It's a compliment to my favorite psychological
(13:11):
theory, attachment theory. Now youknow you've heard me talk about it,
I'll tell you again. According tothe father of attachment theory, John Bulby,
there are two behavioral systems that areneeded for attachment. One is called
the proximity behavior system. That meanspeople stay close to their babies and toddlers.
And that's why those babies and toddlerswere the only part of our population
(13:33):
who extremely benefited during COVID because theyhad a secure attachment figure more than one
around and when they go and explorethis So the second part of the attachment
system is the exploration system where theygain knowledge they adapt to unfamiliar environments.
So concretely, this means you goto the park. In the playground,
(13:54):
the little toddler one year old twoyear olds toddles through the little sandpile to
get over to the little slide andthey start to go up the two steps
and they check back because they're afraidit's a new environment, and they catch
mommy, your daddy's eye, anda good attachment parent will say I see
you, I'm watching you. Youcan do this. I'm here for you,
(14:15):
right, go ahead. Now thereare those nervous nellie moms who are
just like, no, be careful, don't crimb up that ladder without me.
That's problematic, right. You wantto be able to let your child
explore and give them the confidence toexplore. The theory is when they get
older and evolve, they will leaveyour nest and fly away as both mind
have so the way they test attachmentis something called the strange situation test.
(14:39):
I know I've talked about this before, developed by Mary Ainswork back in nineteen
seventy eight. They take babies thatare twelve to eighteen months old and they
put them in a strange situation.It's a lab with toys and two way
mirrors and coders look and at acertain point they have attachment figure Mommy or
daddy leave and they watch to seewhat kid does. Like if the kid
(15:01):
doesn't even seem to care, that'sa problem. Kids are supposed to cry
when their attachment for you. Butmore importantly, what happens when the primary
attachment figure walks back in the room. Does a baby look scared, Oh,
that's not good. Does a babyget preoccupied with toys and doesn't even
notice, or does the baby runwith the hands up with glee and so
excited? Right, And so they'reable to actually tell kids attachment style at
(15:24):
that age, follow them through theiradolescence, and they can correlate these scores
with how happy your relationships will be, how much money you'll make, what
your education level will be. Likeit. It's so studied this theory.
Okay, data, data, data. Here's a problem. Father child attachment
isn't as reliable with the state withthe strange situation test. They're not able
(15:48):
to really pinpoint it when the daddoes the leaving and coming back right.
So they came up with this thingcalled the activation relationshipship theory. It says
this fathers matter, but they matterin a different way. According to psychologists,
fathers are like catalysts for risk taking. They actually can ignite children to
(16:12):
like use their own initiative in unfamiliarsituations, to tell kids to explore,
to take risk, to take chances, to overcome obstacles, to be brave.
When there are standards around two strangersare and to stand up for themselves.
You know, there's this meme thatflies around the internet and it's very
cute. It's two pictures. Oneis a picture of a dad throwing a
(16:33):
baby in the air. You shouldknow that every dad throws their baby in
the air and every mom has aheart attack when she sees this. And
what the meme says. It showsthe dad throwing the baby in the air.
The baby is probably three feet abovethe dad's hands that are still up
in the air, and the baby'sfalling back down, and it says what
dads do. And the second picturesays what moms see, and it shows
(16:56):
the dad with his hands up inthe air and the baby is twenty feet
up in the air above the dad, right. So that's what the experience
is to mom's because their kind oflove is more protective. But what we
know that specifically with boys, alsogirls, but specifically with boys, is
that fathers facilitate a kind of learningby teasing them, by destabilizing them,
(17:19):
and kids have to get creative.So I'm going to tell you I saw
this viral video once they asked meto comment on HLN. There was like
a community, small town community paradeand the families were out watching, and
some dads thought it would be reallyfunny to duct tape their kids to a
treat. So of course this videogoes viral. Everyone is shocked and is
this child abuse? I'm like,no, the kids are laughing. This
(17:42):
is fun, and the dads aresetting up a challenge. The dads are
there to cut off the duct tapeif there's a problem. Nobody's abandoning them
and walking away, right, Itwas just a fun thing. Also,
I'll have to tell you my boyfriendJulio tells me a story over and over.
He feels such guilt and shame aboutit. One time he was rock
climbing with his five year old onhis back and they had to call,
(18:03):
like you, who are the peoplethe park rangers to get them down.
They got stuck and he got soyelled at by the park rangers. But
dads do that. He got stuckand he had a five year old on
his back and he couldn't go upany further and he couldn't get down.
And I feel bad enough, sir, don't braid that's what they did.
Okay. All I want to sayis this new theory, the activation relationship
(18:26):
theory should tell all dads don't feelguilty about what you do. Should tell
moms give him a break if he'sinvolved with his kid, that's what matters.
In fact, at that mom babygroup, I remember one of the
moms said, if you're complaining thatyour spouse is not a good enough dad,
you need to learn to leave themalone and you can. Might come
(18:47):
back and the baby bottles in thewrong hole and the diapers on their head,
whatever, doesn't matter. They're workingit out between themselves and that's how
they will grow to have a relationshipand kids need both. Okay, when
we come back, have you everthought of going on a romantic vacation just
to save your relationship, especially whenyou're in crisis. Well, there's some
(19:10):
science to say that sometimes that canactually work and other times when it's a
really bad idea. Let's talk aboutthis when I come back. You're listening
to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand fromkf I Am six forty. This is
the Doctor Wendy Wells Show. Ifyou're a YouTuber, come on over.
I'm live on YouTube right now.Come on in the studio with us.
(19:32):
Just go to doctor Wendy Walsh onYouTube see my channel. Hey, so
it's really common that taking a romanticvacation can actually boost your relationship. It
worked for me in January, myboyfriend Juli and I went to Dominican Republic
actually to see his ailing dad.However, we also took some time away
(19:56):
from our kids, our adult kids. Remember we'd just come off that Christmas
where every competing emotional interests of fouryoung adult humans it was. It was
tragic. Anyway, so we goto the Dominican Republic. By the way,
apparently when you're from Dominican Republic,you don't go to the beach.
So my friends were pretty shocked thatI went to Dominican Republic for a week
(20:18):
and I never saw the ocean orfelt like New York City in Santa Domingo.
But it was fun and they hadgreat, great restaurants. Anyway,
it worked for us, right,We had time to reconnect, time to
be alone. It was a goodthing. So researchers from Texas A and
M University did a meta analysis.They looked at all the research out there
(20:41):
on whether it's worth it to doa romantic weekend away or romanic if your
relationships in the duldrums, and theyfound that for the most part it does
work. Quote, time allotted forfamily bonding is decreasing, so likely attributed
to increased career demands and changing familystructures. So basically, they found that
(21:03):
having a vacation can actually strengthen acouple's bond. And here are some of
the reasons why. Again, notfor all couples and not all the time,
I'll explain. Research has shown thatshared leisure activities are highly correlated with
feelings of well being. Of course, if you've got a best friend and
you're doing something you like to do. Of course, right in our daily
(21:29):
routines, we are just too busy. And when you have that time alone,
you can dedicate it to your relationship. You know, you go to
resort somewhere, spend the day atthe beach, work out at the gym,
get all dressed up for dinner,and you just focus on being together
and talking. Right, Travel ingeneral is highly correlated with positive emotions,
(21:51):
right, So basically the thinking isthat planning a trip, carrying out that
trip gives you feelings of hope andhusiasm and well being, and that naturally
affects how you relate to others.Right, if you're in a good mood,
going on a trip is a timeto improve your communication. You're not
being interrupted all day long. Ihope you're not checking your phone. I
(22:14):
hope when you go on vacation it'sto go on vacation, so you'll be
able to not be interrupted by everybodyelse. And also getting out of a
routine is very good for relationships.Now here's when going on a trip will
not help your relationship. If yourrelationship is in a deep crisis. You
(22:37):
might have like a relative reprieve fora few days, but when you get
home, the same problems are goingto be there. Right, So I
have to tell you the story whenmy daughter, my oldest daughter, was
like I don't know, five sixmonths old, we were on a trip
to Mexico. I was actually it'salways a working trip for me. So
I was walking on the beach carryingmy baby, and this couple came up
(23:00):
behind me and the woman did,oh my god, look at your baby.
She's so cute. Can I holdher? And it was weird because
it's a stranger woman, but shewas nice. We're in a resort and
we're walking on the beach, soI hand my baby to this woman,
but I don't get more than armslike the way from her, and she
was, oh, let's walk onthe beach. I just miss my kids.
They're at home, and it's justso nice to have a baby.
Whatever. So I'm walking just behindher with now her husband, and he
(23:23):
says to me, yeah, wecame on this vacation because we're thinking of
getting a divorce because she's just focusedon the kids all the time and she's
ignoring our relationship. And I lookedat him and I'm like, and Nash
has another kid on her hip andhe's like, yeah, she can't.
And I felt so bad for him. Do you know you were doctor Wendy
(23:45):
Welsh? Now I was sharing.I don't know what I was then.
I was as a mom, Butyeah, he was telling me about how
they were there on this trip torekindle because she was focusing too much on
the kids and not enough on himand the relationship. And now, well
what did she do pick up somestranger's baby and focus on that. So
(24:06):
it's not going to work if you'rein crisis, and what are a deep
crisis, according to me, recentinfidelity? Right, if you're trying to
get over an affair. Not thetime to just go on a vacation.
That's not going to fix everything.If someone's suffering from addiction, a vacation
where there's the wine is flowing isnot going to help. Okay, if
(24:27):
you have financial problems and you're fightingover money, going on a vacation is
going to make the financial problems worse. It costs money to travel, go
on a picnic. Just go toTrader Joe's, pack a picnic and that's
all you need to do. Youknow, if your partnership has serious problems,
being thrown together in a new destinationwithout the possibility of distancing could be
(24:52):
a bad situation. Right. Youmight need your own space. So the
bottom line is a trip is notgoing to fix anything unless you also put
in the relationship work right and thatmeans therapy, etc. However, if
the problem in your relationship has beenthat both of you are just too busy
and you haven't had time for eachother, then that's a good time.
(25:14):
I also want to say this aboutromantic travel. Let's say you're in a
new relationship, and let's say you'rethinking maybe not too new. I mean,
we're not talking about third date,stuff. We're talking about six months
to a year, and you're thinkingof, you know, making this official,
or moving in together or something.Travel is the best litmus test for
your relationship. Go on a trip. See what it's like when one of
(25:36):
you eats bad food and you're sharinga hotel room together. Okay, See
what it's like when the airline losesyour ticket and you're not in the right
seat, and who takes a tantrumbecause they're overtired because of the jet leg
I mean, really, you canreally determine whether somebody can handle the stresses
of life by going on a travel, especially extreme travel. Go somewhere far
(25:56):
away where nobody speaks the language andyou're out in the wilds. Let's see
how you survive. But if you'rein regular, run of the mill relationship
and you need a little romantic boost, it could be good, but not
if you're in crisis. When wecome back. Myths about love that everyone
needs to unlearn. I promise youmost people in our culture believe the things
(26:19):
that I'm going to tell you,and I'm going to tell you that you're
all wrong. When we come back. You are listening to the doctor Wendy
Walls show. We're live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio accum. You're listening to Doctor
Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI AMsix forty. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show. I'd like to welcomemy TikTok audience. Who are I'm going
(26:40):
to see if I can pin thisphone number, you know, in a
couple of segments, I'm going tobe taking your relationship questions and calls live,
So the phone number can be likearound eight fifteen. But I'll just
tell the number now, so thatTikTok in here. It's one eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred five to zero
one K five. But don't go, oh yeah, the phones are not
open yet. They will open ateight fifteen. I do want to talk
(27:04):
about the myths about love that waytoo many people believe. And I am
always shocked because you know, I'vebeen reading the science of love for years.
I love it when people say loveis a science, I'm like,
yes, it has biological consequences,the rush of neuro hormones on your brain,
it has psychological underpinnings, your attachmentstyle. What you learned about love
(27:27):
growing up and has a social piece. You know, what you look for
in your deal breaker list, whatyou put in your profile. That's so
society's idea of what you should lookfor. So it's always a biopsychosocial event
when you find love. But ourculture is full of myths and bad news
(27:48):
about love, and let's start togo through some of them. I want
you to unlearn this. The biggestnot the biggest, but one of the
myths I think a lot of peoplebelieve is this idea that opposites attract,
that if you could find somebody that'sdifferent than you, it'll be exciting and
you will stay together. Well,the truth is, the research shows that
(28:11):
it is not that people who arelike each other. Now that doesn't necessarily
mean racially or whatever, but socioeconomicstatus perhaps values very important. People who
are compatible get along, have astronger emotional bond, they communicate better,
they cooperate more. Oh and researchshows they also invest more in their kids.
(28:36):
So you actually want somebody to belike you. Now, here's the
thing. When you do find somebodywho's different from you, it's exciting,
right, It's always exciting. Soyou think this must be love. But
in the long run, it doesn'tbring peace, it doesn't bring that important
exchange of care, it doesn't bringthose feelings of security. All those are
(29:00):
the most important ingredients for love.Kayla. Have you ever dated somebody who
is completely different from you? Yes? It way, different political beliefs,
different experiences in life. You see. That's a rough one. Yeah,
because it's it's a value thing,right, yeah. See, politics have
(29:21):
become almost of social values of whatyou value in life. And it was
around like the Donald Trump and thekneeling error back then, back in those
days, and I just felt himand I argued way too much about those
things, just like I don't think, I like, he's not going to
work exactly. So find somebody who'slike you and you'll have a longer,
happier relationship. Okay. The secondmyth I want to talk about this I
(29:45):
hear all the time. I've beenon other people's podcasts as a guest and
they've argued with me about this.But I'm right this myth that you shouldn't
settle unless you meet your soulmate.All right, we need to stop.
There's no such thing as a soulmate. What people do when they're falling in
(30:08):
love with somebody they're attracted to andtheir brain gets hit with a cocktail of
neuro hormones. Is they have imaginarythinking that it's a soulmate, that it's
meant to be. No, soulmatesdon't exist. In fact, I'll tell
you this, people with good relationshipskills have happy relationships. They find more
(30:33):
partners. Happy people have happy relationships. It's an inside job, right,
But more than anything, if youlearn good relationship skills that include conflict resolution
skills, or good communication skills,or being able to be authentic and share
your feelings with somebody, you're actuallygoing to find more soulmates. They're not
(30:55):
really soulmates, they're just compatible peoplebecause you know how to be a compatible
person yourself. Oh Kayley, youare not agreeing with me. No,
I am agreeing, you know,because I've learned throughout my years everybody I
like at that time is my soulmate. So maybe maybe there's something the
something to this note. There's notsome mystical thing like Cupid shot an arrow.
The universe is coming together. It'sa magnetic pull. No, you
(31:18):
find the person's hot, your brain'sgetting a high of dopamine, and so
you're calling it a soulmate. That'sall that is, all right. I
will say, though, my boyfriendright now, he's my soulmate. No,
it means I have the imaginary thinking. It means I have the imaginary
thinking. I know logically what heis. We're very compatible. That's what
that is. All right. Here'sanother myth about love. That's time for
(31:41):
you to unlearn. Happy couples shouldn'tever fight. Literally, there are people
out there that believe that if conflicthappens in a relationship, the relationship must
be over. There are people whobelieve that, I get like, what
is fight though? Isn't that it'sbecause well, yeah, let's talk about
(32:02):
the style of conflict first of all, So there is research to show that
actually the happiest couples have the mostfrequent arguments, but they don't have big,
drag down, knock them out battles. I'm not talking about domestic violence.
I'm talking about yelling and screaming andwhatever. What they have are literal,
(32:23):
little border skirmishes all the time,while they're constantly executing their boundaries or
choosing to make compromise so that therelationship will win. Right, So it's
really important when you fight that youask yourself all the time, do I
need to win? How can Ihave the relationship win? That's the important
(32:47):
thing about conflict. I remember thatguy who called in I think I talked
to I wish you call it back, But he said, him and his
wife they've been together, I believenine years, and they do once a
month like, Hey, is thereanything that you that I did this month?
There's anything that bother you? Andthen they have like healthy conversations.
And he said they've never fought sincethe time they've been together, because I
guess these conversations they have monthly checkin. Yeah, And somebody on the
(33:09):
outside might look at those conversations andbe like, that's kind of a little
conflict because they're disagreeing on this,but then they're coming together on it.
I mean, Julio and I donot fight, but we disagree. That's
what I'll say. We disagree aboutthings, and we make decisions about who
gets to sort of be the winner, or we make a decision to just
(33:30):
disagree and have the relationship come first. I mean, I think the important
thing that people understand is that don'tavoid conflict, because conflict is the thing
that makes you keep your feelings insideand be inauthentic. And the more you
avoid conflict, one of two thingsis going to happen. Either it's going
(33:50):
to bubble out at some point andyou're gonna have a huge volcano of an
explosion because the pressure has just builttoo high inside yourself, or worse,
it's going to impact your physical health. Right, so, keeping everything bottled
up is not good. In fact, research from the Gottman's up at the
Marriage Lab at the University of Washingtonsays that being dismissive or stonewalling or avoiding
(34:14):
conflict is the greatest predictor of divorce. Right, So, this idea that
happy couples should never fight is acomplete myth about love. But yet,
people, especially people who you knowwho don't have a good model for love,
so early on in a dating relationshipthey get into a little tiff with
somebody there, it's more quick forthem to go next next. It's easier
(34:37):
to find somebody else than it isto just well, what was that about
and what happened? Now, let'sbe clear, they're really unhealthy ways to
fight. And if somebody expresses toxicityabuse anger like like anger that seemed to
come out of nowhere in the reallyearly stages of dating. Well yeah,
that's a red flag. That's like, okay, you can go next,
(34:58):
but if you've just had a fight. I remember the first time Hulu and
I had a fight. It wasn'ta fight but a conflict. I had
just come out of getting my firstvaccine, where I lined up at Dodger
Stadium for four hours. I wasexhausted. My daughter was driving. I
was on the phone with him saying, we're gonna go have dinner, and
she drove like freaking eighty five milesan hour on the one tent and so
much traffic, and I screamed ather, slow down, right, and
(35:22):
he was We only been dating alittle while and he heard my voice.
And he's terrified of female anger.I learned that about him. Now,
i'd just be gentle with him.But when I finally got to see him,
he was very cold and standoffish withme, and I'm like, what's
going on? And then he wasa little snappy, you know, that's
how he gets little snappy. AndI ordered a Margarite and he's like,
(35:42):
marguerite is twenty dollars. I'm like, really, hey, from my margarite,
what does that snappiness about? Andso then he said, I just
I heard you yell, and Ijust didn't like the yelling, and I
said, and then I got reallysad because this is a guy I was
attracted to. And then he sawa bad side of me, and then
I felt shame about that, andmy stomach all churned, and all I
(36:04):
said to him is, um,I have a running feeling right now.
I just want to get up andI want to run. And I'll tell
you what he did when we comeback. I have also three more miss
about love. You are listening tothe Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM
six forty. We're live everywhere onthe iHeartRadio back rapp app. What is
happening with Me too Much? Whenwe come back, I'm going to Instagram.
(36:30):
You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walls. You can always hear us live
on kf I AM six forty fromseven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!