January 26, 2026 • 27 mins
@DrWendyWalsh Hour 2- Dr. Wendy is offering Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice. PLUS we are talking to Julie Menanno, MA, LMFT, LCPC, a licensed couples therapist who is going over 7 things to know BEFORE taking the next step in your romantic relationship. It's all on KFIAM-640.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
My next guest is a like mind with me. She
and I are on such the same page. Maybe we
are sisters from another mother. Not sure. Her name is
Julie Manano. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist
from la but now in beautiful Bozeman, Montana. But she
(00:26):
has an amazing new book called Secure Love, Create a
relationship that lasts a lifetime. Julie, Am I gonna say
it right? Manano? I got it?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Banana, you got it.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
There's a little bar in my neighborhood called Hanano, so
I'll just think of that bar and I'll think of
you Manano. Hanano.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
There you go. No, No, I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So before we get going, I just want to say
something I have always said, because I am the living
example of it, that love can be learned. Do you agree?
And why? How how do we learn it?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I absolutely do think love can be learned. I think
that you know, we think of a lot of people
think of love as an emotional experience, and the way
I like to describe it, and I'm sure you'll agree,
is it's an emotional experience that motivates action and the
actual love is the act of behaving toward a person
(01:24):
in a way that helps them feel valuable, cherished, heard, understood,
cared for, interested in, delighted in, and wanted. And we
can absolutely learn how to you know, the words to
use to basically pass that message along to someone, pass
(01:47):
the feelings along to someone. And if we don't do that,
then what's going to happen is you're going to bring
tension into the relationship and then that person will not
feel loved, and then their behavior will you know, reflect
that toward you and cause you to actually lose your
feeling of love potentially, you know, or.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You'll have multiple bad relationships that don't end well because
you haven't haven't learned that. You know. I talk a
lot on this show about attachment theory and that our
model for love. I hate the psychobabble, the working model
for love. I basically, our idea for love gets formed
in the first few years of life. But you know,
(02:29):
it gets formed because we learned it then, and we
can also unlearn and learn things. What are some of
the most common things that couples present to you that
help that helps you teach them how to love better?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, one of the things that I get a lot
of is you know, people coming to me after years
or decades even of just chronic emotional abandonments. And you know,
these things don't have to be big affairs or you
know the things, you know, physical.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Violence, none of that. It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
You know, people can be just as distressed through chronic
emotional abandonment. And when I say emotional abandonment, I mean
you know, their their attachment needs have gone unmet for
so long that they experience the relationship as you know,
threatening and they're on a nervous system level or just
not fulfilling. And so the way that we get there
(03:31):
is just chronically misunderstood, chronically invalidated, emotionally chronically not comforted,
chronically reaching for help and not having that loving response, feeling,
you know, like you're not seen as a.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Good partner or appreciated. Just all of these these.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Things that you know, we we tend to take for granted,
especially when life is so busy and you know, we're
so distracted by so many different things. And so what
I do is I just teach people, hey, listen, let
me help you start communicating with each other in a
(04:09):
way that isn't just words, it's actually you passing along
felt sense of safety, giving your partner a felt sense
of being cared for and understood and nurtured. And let's,
you know, let's start to undo the damage. Let's start
to have conversations about how both of you have been
impacted by years of not feeling like you were there
(04:32):
for each other.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And what do you say to those people who say, hey,
their feelings are not my responsibility, or they're overthinking this,
they're overreacting, they're so you know, hyper sensitive. How do
you respond?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Well, I think that's one of the saddest things that
can happen to a person is to have spent their
entire life, you know, from their childhood, and then in
their present day relationship not feeling heard, not feeling understood,
not feeling validated, and then feeling crazy over that because
our bodies are wired to not have a good reaction
(05:12):
to that experience, and then trying to reach and get
that need met and sometimes people don't know how to
reach in a healthy way and then get a response, well,
you're just crazy. You want too much, like you said,
And I just have to teach people like, look, this
is not abnormal for this person to be crying out
because their attachment needs aren't being met. And you know,
(05:35):
I've got to get you guys to a place where
what happens is is people stop crying when they start
getting what they're crying for. And so I tell, you know,
just to kind of answer your question simply, if someone
tells me, well, I'm not responsible for their feelings, I say.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, yes, that's true.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
But if someone dedicates their life to you, they give
themselves to you, they give you their time and their
inner You are responsible for helping them be emotionally comfortable
in life.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
It is not all of.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Your responsibility, but it is your responsibility to do your part.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You talk about emotional coregulation and creating emotional safety. What
does that look like in a practical sense, Well.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
It looks like if one partner comes to the other
and says, hey, you know, I need to talk to
you about something I'm not you know, something happened, I'm.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Not happy about it, and I want to put it
out there. Let's have a talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
And the other partner says, well, I don't have time
right now. Why do you have to bring things up
all the time? Why can't you just be happy. What
happens is is that creates a felt sense in the
person who brought this up.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It felt. It creates a felt.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Sense of their body of fear, and it causes their
nervous system to get tight and they go into kind
of a fight or fight reaction. And that is a disregulation.
It's a place in your body that says something is wrong,
something you know, we need to get some safety here,
and so that's a disregulating response as opposed to if
(07:12):
that person's response is okay, you know, yeah, it always
makes me a little nervous to know there's a concern,
but you know, I'm here, I'm open, you know, let's
let's take a deep breath, let's sit down, let's talk
about this. And the differences is that creates a safe
feeling in the other person's body. It feels like, Okay,
(07:32):
I'm going to be hurt, I'm going to get my
needs met. And so they're co regulating as opposed to
disregulating when we're just elevating each other.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And I loved how you just use the example of
the person who's being sort of criticized for not giving
enough compassion or love or empathy gets to start by
talking about their feelings like this is kind of uncomfortable
to me. I was never taught how to deal with
this kind of stuff. So they get to lead also
being heard for what their experience is at that moment.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Absolutely, you know, everybody gets their needs met.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Everybody gets to feel hurt.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I mean, I think partners really get in trouble when
they start trying to do it both at once. When
partner brings something up, and a lot of times the
other partner maybe just chronically doesn't bring stuff up, and
so when the first partner brings something up, they use
that as an opportunity to now.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Bring their stuff up. I think partners get completely stuck.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
It's just it becomes an arms race of unmet needs.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Absolutely exactly great term for that.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Right now, Julie, we have to go to a break.
When we come back, I want to talk specifically about conflict,
and I'm going to share a story about the first
time my now husband and I had conflict early in
our dating life and something that came of it that
was a positive. My guest is Julie Minano. She's a
licensed marriage and family therapist. Her book is called Oh
(08:56):
Where Did It Go? It's not on this piece of
paper there.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
It is.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Create a relationship, secure love, Create a relationship that lasts
a lifetime. You're listening to the Doctor Eddie Wall Show
on k I AM six forty Live Everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
My guest is Julie Minano, a licensed marriage and family
therapist and author of the book Secure Love. It's what
we all want, isn't it a secure love? Julie? Conflict
is normal, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Very much? So?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Absolutely, it's the only way we grow.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
In fact, I think I read a study one time
that said that the healthiest couples have the most frequent conflict.
But it's not big wars, it's tiny border skirmishes. Well,
they're just constantly gently negotiating their boundaries. And I love
that thought. But I want to share a story.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, when I first met my husband, we were only
like a few dates into it, maybe four or five
dates into it, and I was in the passenger seat
driving in the car with my adult daughter driving, and
she drove very fast and was speeding, and as all
mothers get permission to do, every once in a while,
I yelled at my kid. I was like, slow down, right,
And at that time I was on the phone with
(10:11):
the hot guy I just met, and he overheard this,
and by the time I met him later for dinner,
I felt him withdrawing. I felt him moving away, and
I said, like, what's up, Like you're different tonight, and
he said, I just I don't like yelling and I
don't like angry women. And rather than me defending my
(10:32):
action like why I yelled at my daughter, or that
all mothers yell, or or feeling like apologizing, it was Zwerry,
you know, still like me. Instead, I just did a
little body scan and I found myself saying I have
like a running feeling right now, like I want to
run out the door because I feel embarrassed. And he
(10:56):
moved toward me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, no, no,
it's not that bad. And it was that moment where
we had intimacy. I got to express my feelings, he
got to express his. But he's saying we're not it's
not over. Because of this, I don't yell around him anymore.
Now I know he has a tender spot there. So
(11:19):
let's talk about how wonderful, how people can have conflict
and still stay emotionally connected. What do you say to
your patients?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Well, you know, I always say, look, it's not the conflict.
I mean, everybody has conflicts, you know, different ways of
doing things, different ways of seeing things. It's how are
we communicating through the conflict?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
How are we?
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Are we sending messages dislike with you and your husband?
Are we sending messages Hey, I'm going to be vulnerable
with you. I'm gonna you know, I want to hear
what you have to say about this. I care you know,
I'm open. I'm not maybe going to end up agreeing
with you at the end of the day, but you
know that and that what I'm just is communicating in
(12:01):
a way that keeps emotional safety intact. It keeps those
bodies regulated, and it keeps us in a state of
a vulnerability, which you learned firsthand was bonding, you know.
And when you were able to soften and not defend
yourself and not get big and prickly and show your vulnerability,
(12:23):
you opened up your husband's caretaking system.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Oh right, that's why he reached towards me, and I
realized he was a caretaker which.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Is yes, and that's good the caretaking system in a
good way, you know, the positive version of that. And
that's what happens when couples start to get vulnerable, is
they start to open each other up to caregiving and
care receiving, and it's just so much easier to work
through all these you know, details of life that we
argue over when we feel emotionally safe. I mean, I
(12:56):
always like to tell my patients much rather see you
you be motivated to, you know, accommodate each other through
empathy instead of fear and anger.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
And so when.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Couples come to me the stress, one hundred percent of
the time they're motivating each other, they're trying to motive
each other with fear and anger as opposed to empathy.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And is it true that every argument does not need
to have a winner?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I mean I yeah, I think I think the best
arguments don't have a winner. I mean, I mean that
might be obvious, but you know, to me, the best
arguments are the ones that that might start off with
two people seeing things differently, but you know, we just
kind of talk it through and it doesn't necessarily mean
that you walk away with a changed mind. But you
(13:47):
walk away just kind of like from oh, you know,
we both kind of put down our our microphones and
our megaphones and just really kind of hurt each other
out and let's just kind of process on this. I mean,
have you known that in your life that like it
seems like you know, when you when you go into
an argument with someone, but you both are in a
really healthy, flexible place, you come out of it like
(14:10):
that wasn't even an argument at all. That was kind
of us leaning in and trying to understand each other,
you know. Feeling like that happens with my kids a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, I say that feeling heard is very
different than feeling that you've convinced somebody right, feeling heard
is them just going I saw a really fun TikTok
video one time and a girl said, you know what,
my husband and she was a young woman and she said,
you know what, my husband and I just learned that
(14:40):
every argument doesn't have to winner or a loser, as
long as both people get to say their piece. And
once they've said their piece and they feel heard, then
you just say, let's go get brunch.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yes, that's exactly what I was kind of trying to
say you just said it better than I did. It's like, yeah,
once you feel hurt, it's like you're really you're like, wait,
what what.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Were we talking about?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, we disagreed.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Wait what now, let's talk a little bit before we
go about repair. So sometimes we say things in the
heat of the moment that we regret, and sometimes those
arguments may injure the other party. What are some of
the ways that couples can make repair.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
After well, you know, everybody needs to recognize, Hey, you
know this, this is what we did or what I did.
It wasn't it wasn't okay, I mean it hurt. It
hurt your heart, right, or we're not even a judgment.
We don't even have to put a judgment on it, right,
It's just that, look, I get that when this thing
(15:45):
came out of my mouth, you know, it impacted you
in a deep way. I think that a lot of
times what people miss with repair is they don't lean
into the other person. They stay inner focused. And inner
focused is anything that's talks about you. I'm even I'm
sorry can kind of be too inner focused.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
We do need to apologize, but.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
If someone's just sticking with I'm sorry, I shouldn't have
said that I'm such a bad person, or I'll just
never learn, or I'm really trying.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
To be different. That type of dialogue.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Usually doesn't work. It kind of can work, but it
doesn't work nearly as well as really stepping into the
other person and saying, help me understand how that impacted you.
Help me understand what feelings that brought up in you. Wow,
that must have really hurt. Tell me share with.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Me how that hit you.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
And that's when people really just kind of melt, you know.
That's when people really feel like repairs are so much
more full and rich and solid when they're really about
leaning into what the other person's experience was.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
And then you get to have great makeup sex. Just
say it.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Absolutely, it really is it is you know, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yes, that's a good reason. There you go, if you
want that, get into your partner's feelings and you'll have
great makeup sex. Julie Minano, licensed marriage and family therapist,
Thank you so much for being with us. Please get
her book. It's called Secure Love, Create a Relationship that
lasts a lifetime. So wonderful. I'm a psychology professor, so
(17:28):
it's so great to talk to a clinician who's in
the trenches and sees the real stuff happening every day.
Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Julie, you are so welcome.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And when we come back. Maybe you're a person of
a certain age, maybe you're over fifty, over sixty, maybe
you've been married for a long time, maybe you're in
a new relationship. Is there a reason your age to
go to couple's therapy? Well, the data says yes, let's
talk about it when we come back. You're listening to
the Doctor Wendy Welsh Show on KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the I Heart Radio app.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Okay, So we talked about how we can have better
conflict resolution skills. We talked about how love is something
that's learnable, teachable. But maybe you think you're on autopilot.
Maybe your relationship is going just fine. Maybe you're a
(18:27):
person of a certain age who's had enough life experience
and you're thinking, why would I need marriage counseling? We
got it figured out. Well, let's talk about some of
the reasons why people who maybe have been in a
relationship for decades and are now partners of a certain
age I mean over fifty, over sixty, over seventy. And
(18:50):
let's talk about why now might be the time for
marriage counseling. First, it's off in the case where it's
finally time to rewrite the marital contract. You see many couples,
whether it's conscious or unconscious, get together to share in
(19:12):
the joys and labor of life. So that might include
things like raising children, building a business, remodeling, or maintaining
a home. But then when the nest gets empty, or
the business is sold, or both people or one or
both have retired, it's time to reevaluate your relationship and
(19:35):
ask each other what the purpose of the relationship is now.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
A marriage and family therapist can help you rewrite your
contract when you go through changes. Remember, if you've stayed
together for decades, you're probably not typical, right, I say it,
all the time went till death to us. Part was evented,
death was pretty imminent. But because of our very long
life expectancies, people are having these extremely long marriages, those
(20:02):
that have secure attachments, and sometimes that contract needs to
be rewritten, all right. Second thing, this is also a
time in life where people think a lot about autonomy,
like individuality versus unity. So during the third act of
our lives, many people suddenly have this sense of freedom.
(20:24):
They might feel free from those constraints of raising kids.
They may be experiencing some financial freedom. Finally, if they've retired,
it might literally be the freedom of having new time
on their hands. In any case, when people hit the
home stretch of life, sometimes they ask themselves, like who
(20:44):
they are as an individual, what they'd like to personally
accomplish before they kick the bucket. Right, So, when two
people in a relationship have those same feelings at the
same time, they may discover that their individual goals h
don't line up. That doesn't mean the marriage is over.
I want to be very clear. That doesn't mean the
(21:06):
marriage is over. It means the marriage now has to
make space for the growth of each other. So going
to therapy can be helpful. A couple's counselor can help
partners make sense of their individual feelings and help them
and provide space for you know, I call it individual growth,
right while you still maintain the secure base of your marriage.
(21:30):
Now here's a big one, and I often get people
send me questions about this one too. People of a
certain age who have been married a long time, suddenly
the gender roles become glaring. So many couples who married
decades ago might have entered partnerships that contain gender roles
(21:50):
that were very clearly defined right.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
But over the.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Course of their marriage, well, our culture changed, and many,
especially women, suddenly feel the burden of domestic labor. And
I should also add that this feeling might be compounded
by the fact that when both partners retire and are
suddenly both at home, the woman sometimes feels like she
(22:14):
can't retire from her home job if she was doing
two jobs. You know, this can be a big point
of conflict. So some long term marriages because the woman
simply wants to retire from domestic responsibilities. And I mean
people just divorce. I actually know a couple this way.
She was just like, he's home all the time. He
(22:35):
wants me to make him a sandwich for lunch. I
never had to do that before. He was at business lunch.
He wants me to get him this and that, and
I'm not going to wait on him. And anyway, they
ended up divorcing. But a marriage counselor can help couples
articulate their feelings and renegotiate the labor contract within the house. Yeah, dude,
so if you haven't been doing it, fold some laundry
(22:56):
load that dishwusher make the bend. Right should say that
this doesn't only apply this idea of entering couples therapy
later in life. This doesn't only apply to couples who've
been married for decades, because this also is the age
of finding new love. I mentioned that many people it's
(23:16):
not that their marriage failed when they divorced, it's that
their marriage culminated the work of their marriage. The purpose
of their marriage was over. And so there are plenty
of people who find a second or even third partner
and are now entering into a new world as an
(23:37):
older person. Right now, these newly married gray people, grey divorces,
gray marriages have some other prickly things that they might
need to be I can't get it out that they
might need to consider, and a marriage and family therapist
can certainly help them do that. For instance, they might
(23:59):
need out making the money conversation a little easier. So
when people find what I call mature companionate love, there
could be a disparity in income or assets. One partner
might be making sizeable payments to an ex spouse. There
may be one or two houses. They might prefer to
(24:21):
leave some of their assets to their biological children rather
than their spouse. There's also social security benefits to think
about when someone is in a new relationship and falling
in love. These are really difficult conversations to have, and
a marriage and family therapist is trained to help people
talk about the heart stuff right now. The other big
one is to manage the tribe. And it is a
(24:42):
big tribe once you're older. Remember, a relationship is a
bridge between tribes. And when you're young and in your
twenties and you get together, the tribe's not that big.
Now there's kids, and there's grandkids, and there's aging parents.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
People who marry later in life don't come alone. They
might come with those aging parents, adult children who might
still have needs and strong opinions. They might even have
relationships with ex spouses my maybe emotional friendship kind of thing,
or maybe financial. So dealing with all these extra relationships
(25:19):
can be really complicated. It can be difficult to put
your love relationship first when you also have responsibilities to
other humans, right, a counselor can help partners set boundaries
or make room for the needs of the tribe if
that's what happens. And I think the biggest reason why
people of a certain age might want to see a
(25:41):
therapist is to break the old patterns. Sigmund Freud once said,
we have a compulsion to repeat. So if someone has
been in a previous marriage and has ingrained ideas of attachment, gender, roles, communications, sexuality, whatever.
Some might be functional, some not so functional, a marital
counsel counsel can help a new couple create new, healthier
(26:03):
ways of being together. As you can tell, I'm a
big proponent of therapy. I'm the beneficiary of years of
therapy and I really feel my mental health is as
good as it is and my joy of life is
that way because of the therapy I've been in and
that my darlings brings the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show to
a close. It's always my pleasure to be here every
(26:25):
Sunday night for you. If you haven't done it already,
follow me on my social media at doctor Wendy Walsh
at d R Wendy Walsh. And if you do have
any relationship questions, I can read them out in future shows.
I'll keep your identity anonymous, don't you worry. But in
any case, I'm always here for you. You've been listening
to The Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on KFI AM six
(26:47):
forty live everywhere, on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (26:50):
App KFI AM six forty on demand
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
My next guest is a like mind with me. She
and I are on such the same page. Maybe we
are sisters from another mother. Not sure. Her name is
Julie Manano. She is a licensed marriage and family therapist
from la but now in beautiful Bozeman, Montana. But she
(00:26):
has an amazing new book called Secure Love, Create a
relationship that lasts a lifetime. Julie, Am I gonna say
it right? Manano? I got it?
Speaker 3 (00:37):
Banana, you got it.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
There's a little bar in my neighborhood called Hanano, so
I'll just think of that bar and I'll think of
you Manano. Hanano.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
There you go. No, No, I love it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So before we get going, I just want to say
something I have always said, because I am the living
example of it, that love can be learned. Do you agree?
And why? How how do we learn it?
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I absolutely do think love can be learned. I think
that you know, we think of a lot of people
think of love as an emotional experience, and the way
I like to describe it, and I'm sure you'll agree,
is it's an emotional experience that motivates action and the
actual love is the act of behaving toward a person
(01:24):
in a way that helps them feel valuable, cherished, heard, understood,
cared for, interested in, delighted in, and wanted. And we
can absolutely learn how to you know, the words to
use to basically pass that message along to someone, pass
(01:47):
the feelings along to someone. And if we don't do that,
then what's going to happen is you're going to bring
tension into the relationship and then that person will not
feel loved, and then their behavior will you know, reflect
that toward you and cause you to actually lose your
feeling of love potentially, you know, or.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
You'll have multiple bad relationships that don't end well because
you haven't haven't learned that. You know. I talk a
lot on this show about attachment theory and that our
model for love. I hate the psychobabble, the working model
for love. I basically, our idea for love gets formed
in the first few years of life. But you know,
(02:29):
it gets formed because we learned it then, and we
can also unlearn and learn things. What are some of
the most common things that couples present to you that
help that helps you teach them how to love better?
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Well, one of the things that I get a lot
of is you know, people coming to me after years
or decades even of just chronic emotional abandonments. And you know,
these things don't have to be big affairs or you
know the things, you know, physical.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Violence, none of that. It doesn't have to be.
Speaker 4 (03:08):
You know, people can be just as distressed through chronic
emotional abandonment. And when I say emotional abandonment, I mean
you know, their their attachment needs have gone unmet for
so long that they experience the relationship as you know,
threatening and they're on a nervous system level or just
not fulfilling. And so the way that we get there
(03:31):
is just chronically misunderstood, chronically invalidated, emotionally chronically not comforted,
chronically reaching for help and not having that loving response, feeling,
you know, like you're not seen as a.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Good partner or appreciated. Just all of these these.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Things that you know, we we tend to take for granted,
especially when life is so busy and you know, we're
so distracted by so many different things. And so what
I do is I just teach people, hey, listen, let
me help you start communicating with each other in a
(04:09):
way that isn't just words, it's actually you passing along
felt sense of safety, giving your partner a felt sense
of being cared for and understood and nurtured. And let's,
you know, let's start to undo the damage. Let's start
to have conversations about how both of you have been
impacted by years of not feeling like you were there
(04:32):
for each other.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
And what do you say to those people who say, hey,
their feelings are not my responsibility, or they're overthinking this,
they're overreacting, they're so you know, hyper sensitive. How do
you respond?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
Well, I think that's one of the saddest things that
can happen to a person is to have spent their
entire life, you know, from their childhood, and then in
their present day relationship not feeling heard, not feeling understood,
not feeling validated, and then feeling crazy over that because
our bodies are wired to not have a good reaction
(05:12):
to that experience, and then trying to reach and get
that need met and sometimes people don't know how to
reach in a healthy way and then get a response, well,
you're just crazy. You want too much, like you said,
And I just have to teach people like, look, this
is not abnormal for this person to be crying out
because their attachment needs aren't being met. And you know,
(05:35):
I've got to get you guys to a place where
what happens is is people stop crying when they start
getting what they're crying for. And so I tell, you know,
just to kind of answer your question simply, if someone
tells me, well, I'm not responsible for their feelings, I say.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
Well, yes, that's true.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
But if someone dedicates their life to you, they give
themselves to you, they give you their time and their
inner You are responsible for helping them be emotionally comfortable
in life.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
It is not all of.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Your responsibility, but it is your responsibility to do your part.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
You talk about emotional coregulation and creating emotional safety. What
does that look like in a practical sense, Well.
Speaker 4 (06:23):
It looks like if one partner comes to the other
and says, hey, you know, I need to talk to
you about something I'm not you know, something happened, I'm.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Not happy about it, and I want to put it
out there. Let's have a talk about it.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
And the other partner says, well, I don't have time
right now. Why do you have to bring things up
all the time? Why can't you just be happy. What
happens is is that creates a felt sense in the
person who brought this up.
Speaker 3 (06:49):
It felt. It creates a felt.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
Sense of their body of fear, and it causes their
nervous system to get tight and they go into kind
of a fight or fight reaction. And that is a disregulation.
It's a place in your body that says something is wrong,
something you know, we need to get some safety here,
and so that's a disregulating response as opposed to if
(07:12):
that person's response is okay, you know, yeah, it always
makes me a little nervous to know there's a concern,
but you know, I'm here, I'm open, you know, let's
let's take a deep breath, let's sit down, let's talk
about this. And the differences is that creates a safe
feeling in the other person's body. It feels like, Okay,
(07:32):
I'm going to be hurt, I'm going to get my
needs met. And so they're co regulating as opposed to
disregulating when we're just elevating each other.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
And I loved how you just use the example of
the person who's being sort of criticized for not giving
enough compassion or love or empathy gets to start by
talking about their feelings like this is kind of uncomfortable
to me. I was never taught how to deal with
this kind of stuff. So they get to lead also
being heard for what their experience is at that moment.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Absolutely, you know, everybody gets their needs met.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
Everybody gets to feel hurt.
Speaker 4 (08:06):
I mean, I think partners really get in trouble when
they start trying to do it both at once. When
partner brings something up, and a lot of times the
other partner maybe just chronically doesn't bring stuff up, and
so when the first partner brings something up, they use
that as an opportunity to now.
Speaker 3 (08:22):
Bring their stuff up. I think partners get completely stuck.
Speaker 2 (08:26):
It's just it becomes an arms race of unmet needs.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Absolutely exactly great term for that.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Right now, Julie, we have to go to a break.
When we come back, I want to talk specifically about conflict,
and I'm going to share a story about the first
time my now husband and I had conflict early in
our dating life and something that came of it that
was a positive. My guest is Julie Minano. She's a
licensed marriage and family therapist. Her book is called Oh
(08:56):
Where Did It Go? It's not on this piece of
paper there.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
It is.
Speaker 2 (09:00):
Create a relationship, secure love, Create a relationship that lasts
a lifetime. You're listening to the Doctor Eddie Wall Show
on k I AM six forty Live Everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
My guest is Julie Minano, a licensed marriage and family
therapist and author of the book Secure Love. It's what
we all want, isn't it a secure love? Julie? Conflict
is normal, isn't it?
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Very much? So?
Speaker 4 (09:30):
Absolutely, it's the only way we grow.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
In fact, I think I read a study one time
that said that the healthiest couples have the most frequent conflict.
But it's not big wars, it's tiny border skirmishes. Well,
they're just constantly gently negotiating their boundaries. And I love
that thought. But I want to share a story.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Oh interesting.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, when I first met my husband, we were only
like a few dates into it, maybe four or five
dates into it, and I was in the passenger seat
driving in the car with my adult daughter driving, and
she drove very fast and was speeding, and as all
mothers get permission to do, every once in a while,
I yelled at my kid. I was like, slow down, right,
And at that time I was on the phone with
(10:11):
the hot guy I just met, and he overheard this,
and by the time I met him later for dinner,
I felt him withdrawing. I felt him moving away, and
I said, like, what's up, Like you're different tonight, and
he said, I just I don't like yelling and I
don't like angry women. And rather than me defending my
(10:32):
action like why I yelled at my daughter, or that
all mothers yell, or or feeling like apologizing, it was Zwerry,
you know, still like me. Instead, I just did a
little body scan and I found myself saying I have
like a running feeling right now, like I want to
run out the door because I feel embarrassed. And he
(10:56):
moved toward me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, no, no,
it's not that bad. And it was that moment where
we had intimacy. I got to express my feelings, he
got to express his. But he's saying we're not it's
not over. Because of this, I don't yell around him anymore.
Now I know he has a tender spot there. So
(11:19):
let's talk about how wonderful, how people can have conflict
and still stay emotionally connected. What do you say to
your patients?
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Well, you know, I always say, look, it's not the conflict.
I mean, everybody has conflicts, you know, different ways of
doing things, different ways of seeing things. It's how are
we communicating through the conflict?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
How are we?
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Are we sending messages dislike with you and your husband?
Are we sending messages Hey, I'm going to be vulnerable
with you. I'm gonna you know, I want to hear
what you have to say about this. I care you know,
I'm open. I'm not maybe going to end up agreeing
with you at the end of the day, but you
know that and that what I'm just is communicating in
(12:01):
a way that keeps emotional safety intact. It keeps those
bodies regulated, and it keeps us in a state of
a vulnerability, which you learned firsthand was bonding, you know.
And when you were able to soften and not defend
yourself and not get big and prickly and show your vulnerability,
(12:23):
you opened up your husband's caretaking system.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Oh right, that's why he reached towards me, and I
realized he was a caretaker which.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
Is yes, and that's good the caretaking system in a
good way, you know, the positive version of that. And
that's what happens when couples start to get vulnerable, is
they start to open each other up to caregiving and
care receiving, and it's just so much easier to work
through all these you know, details of life that we
argue over when we feel emotionally safe. I mean, I
(12:56):
always like to tell my patients much rather see you
you be motivated to, you know, accommodate each other through
empathy instead of fear and anger.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
And so when.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Couples come to me the stress, one hundred percent of
the time they're motivating each other, they're trying to motive
each other with fear and anger as opposed to empathy.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
And is it true that every argument does not need
to have a winner?
Speaker 3 (13:22):
Absolutely?
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I mean I yeah, I think I think the best
arguments don't have a winner. I mean, I mean that
might be obvious, but you know, to me, the best
arguments are the ones that that might start off with
two people seeing things differently, but you know, we just
kind of talk it through and it doesn't necessarily mean
that you walk away with a changed mind. But you
(13:47):
walk away just kind of like from oh, you know,
we both kind of put down our our microphones and
our megaphones and just really kind of hurt each other
out and let's just kind of process on this. I mean,
have you known that in your life that like it
seems like you know, when you when you go into
an argument with someone, but you both are in a
really healthy, flexible place, you come out of it like
(14:10):
that wasn't even an argument at all. That was kind
of us leaning in and trying to understand each other,
you know. Feeling like that happens with my kids a lot.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, I say that feeling heard is very
different than feeling that you've convinced somebody right, feeling heard
is them just going I saw a really fun TikTok
video one time and a girl said, you know what,
my husband and she was a young woman and she said,
you know what, my husband and I just learned that
(14:40):
every argument doesn't have to winner or a loser, as
long as both people get to say their piece. And
once they've said their piece and they feel heard, then
you just say, let's go get brunch.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yes, that's exactly what I was kind of trying to
say you just said it better than I did. It's like, yeah,
once you feel hurt, it's like you're really you're like, wait,
what what.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Were we talking about?
Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, we disagreed.
Speaker 2 (15:04):
Wait what now, let's talk a little bit before we
go about repair. So sometimes we say things in the
heat of the moment that we regret, and sometimes those
arguments may injure the other party. What are some of
the ways that couples can make repair.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
After well, you know, everybody needs to recognize, Hey, you
know this, this is what we did or what I did.
It wasn't it wasn't okay, I mean it hurt. It
hurt your heart, right, or we're not even a judgment.
We don't even have to put a judgment on it, right,
It's just that, look, I get that when this thing
(15:45):
came out of my mouth, you know, it impacted you
in a deep way. I think that a lot of
times what people miss with repair is they don't lean
into the other person. They stay inner focused. And inner
focused is anything that's talks about you. I'm even I'm
sorry can kind of be too inner focused.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
We do need to apologize, but.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
If someone's just sticking with I'm sorry, I shouldn't have
said that I'm such a bad person, or I'll just
never learn, or I'm really trying.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
To be different. That type of dialogue.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Usually doesn't work. It kind of can work, but it
doesn't work nearly as well as really stepping into the
other person and saying, help me understand how that impacted you.
Help me understand what feelings that brought up in you. Wow,
that must have really hurt. Tell me share with.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Me how that hit you.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
And that's when people really just kind of melt, you know.
That's when people really feel like repairs are so much
more full and rich and solid when they're really about
leaning into what the other person's experience was.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
And then you get to have great makeup sex. Just
say it.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
Absolutely, it really is it is you know, Yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Yes, that's a good reason. There you go, if you
want that, get into your partner's feelings and you'll have
great makeup sex. Julie Minano, licensed marriage and family therapist,
Thank you so much for being with us. Please get
her book. It's called Secure Love, Create a Relationship that
lasts a lifetime. So wonderful. I'm a psychology professor, so
(17:28):
it's so great to talk to a clinician who's in
the trenches and sees the real stuff happening every day.
Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Julie, you are so welcome.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
And when we come back. Maybe you're a person of
a certain age, maybe you're over fifty, over sixty, maybe
you've been married for a long time, maybe you're in
a new relationship. Is there a reason your age to
go to couple's therapy? Well, the data says yes, let's
talk about it when we come back. You're listening to
the Doctor Wendy Welsh Show on KFI AM six forty
live everywhere on the I Heart Radio app.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Okay, So we talked about how we can have better
conflict resolution skills. We talked about how love is something
that's learnable, teachable. But maybe you think you're on autopilot.
Maybe your relationship is going just fine. Maybe you're a
(18:27):
person of a certain age who's had enough life experience
and you're thinking, why would I need marriage counseling? We
got it figured out. Well, let's talk about some of
the reasons why people who maybe have been in a
relationship for decades and are now partners of a certain
age I mean over fifty, over sixty, over seventy. And
(18:50):
let's talk about why now might be the time for
marriage counseling. First, it's off in the case where it's
finally time to rewrite the marital contract. You see many couples,
whether it's conscious or unconscious, get together to share in
(19:12):
the joys and labor of life. So that might include
things like raising children, building a business, remodeling, or maintaining
a home. But then when the nest gets empty, or
the business is sold, or both people or one or
both have retired, it's time to reevaluate your relationship and
(19:35):
ask each other what the purpose of the relationship is now.
Speaker 4 (19:38):
Right.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
A marriage and family therapist can help you rewrite your
contract when you go through changes. Remember, if you've stayed
together for decades, you're probably not typical, right, I say it,
all the time went till death to us. Part was evented,
death was pretty imminent. But because of our very long
life expectancies, people are having these extremely long marriages, those
(20:02):
that have secure attachments, and sometimes that contract needs to
be rewritten, all right. Second thing, this is also a
time in life where people think a lot about autonomy,
like individuality versus unity. So during the third act of
our lives, many people suddenly have this sense of freedom.
(20:24):
They might feel free from those constraints of raising kids.
They may be experiencing some financial freedom. Finally, if they've retired,
it might literally be the freedom of having new time
on their hands. In any case, when people hit the
home stretch of life, sometimes they ask themselves, like who
(20:44):
they are as an individual, what they'd like to personally
accomplish before they kick the bucket. Right, So, when two
people in a relationship have those same feelings at the
same time, they may discover that their individual goals h
don't line up. That doesn't mean the marriage is over.
I want to be very clear. That doesn't mean the
(21:06):
marriage is over. It means the marriage now has to
make space for the growth of each other. So going
to therapy can be helpful. A couple's counselor can help
partners make sense of their individual feelings and help them
and provide space for you know, I call it individual growth,
right while you still maintain the secure base of your marriage.
(21:30):
Now here's a big one, and I often get people
send me questions about this one too. People of a
certain age who have been married a long time, suddenly
the gender roles become glaring. So many couples who married
decades ago might have entered partnerships that contain gender roles
(21:50):
that were very clearly defined right.
Speaker 4 (21:53):
But over the.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Course of their marriage, well, our culture changed, and many,
especially women, suddenly feel the burden of domestic labor. And
I should also add that this feeling might be compounded
by the fact that when both partners retire and are
suddenly both at home, the woman sometimes feels like she
(22:14):
can't retire from her home job if she was doing
two jobs. You know, this can be a big point
of conflict. So some long term marriages because the woman
simply wants to retire from domestic responsibilities. And I mean
people just divorce. I actually know a couple this way.
She was just like, he's home all the time. He
(22:35):
wants me to make him a sandwich for lunch. I
never had to do that before. He was at business lunch.
He wants me to get him this and that, and
I'm not going to wait on him. And anyway, they
ended up divorcing. But a marriage counselor can help couples
articulate their feelings and renegotiate the labor contract within the house. Yeah, dude,
so if you haven't been doing it, fold some laundry
(22:56):
load that dishwusher make the bend. Right should say that
this doesn't only apply this idea of entering couples therapy
later in life. This doesn't only apply to couples who've
been married for decades, because this also is the age
of finding new love. I mentioned that many people it's
(23:16):
not that their marriage failed when they divorced, it's that
their marriage culminated the work of their marriage. The purpose
of their marriage was over. And so there are plenty
of people who find a second or even third partner
and are now entering into a new world as an
(23:37):
older person. Right now, these newly married gray people, grey divorces,
gray marriages have some other prickly things that they might
need to be I can't get it out that they
might need to consider, and a marriage and family therapist
can certainly help them do that. For instance, they might
(23:59):
need out making the money conversation a little easier. So
when people find what I call mature companionate love, there
could be a disparity in income or assets. One partner
might be making sizeable payments to an ex spouse. There
may be one or two houses. They might prefer to
(24:21):
leave some of their assets to their biological children rather
than their spouse. There's also social security benefits to think
about when someone is in a new relationship and falling
in love. These are really difficult conversations to have, and
a marriage and family therapist is trained to help people
talk about the heart stuff right now. The other big
one is to manage the tribe. And it is a
(24:42):
big tribe once you're older. Remember, a relationship is a
bridge between tribes. And when you're young and in your
twenties and you get together, the tribe's not that big.
Now there's kids, and there's grandkids, and there's aging parents.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
People who marry later in life don't come alone. They
might come with those aging parents, adult children who might
still have needs and strong opinions. They might even have
relationships with ex spouses my maybe emotional friendship kind of thing,
or maybe financial. So dealing with all these extra relationships
(25:19):
can be really complicated. It can be difficult to put
your love relationship first when you also have responsibilities to
other humans, right, a counselor can help partners set boundaries
or make room for the needs of the tribe if
that's what happens. And I think the biggest reason why
people of a certain age might want to see a
(25:41):
therapist is to break the old patterns. Sigmund Freud once said,
we have a compulsion to repeat. So if someone has
been in a previous marriage and has ingrained ideas of attachment, gender, roles, communications, sexuality, whatever.
Some might be functional, some not so functional, a marital
counsel counsel can help a new couple create new, healthier
(26:03):
ways of being together. As you can tell, I'm a
big proponent of therapy. I'm the beneficiary of years of
therapy and I really feel my mental health is as
good as it is and my joy of life is
that way because of the therapy I've been in and
that my darlings brings the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show to
a close. It's always my pleasure to be here every
(26:25):
Sunday night for you. If you haven't done it already,
follow me on my social media at doctor Wendy Walsh
at d R Wendy Walsh. And if you do have
any relationship questions, I can read them out in future shows.
I'll keep your identity anonymous, don't you worry. But in
any case, I'm always here for you. You've been listening
to The Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show on KFI AM six
(26:47):
forty live everywhere, on the iHeartRadio
Speaker 1 (26:50):
App KFI AM six forty on demand
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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