May 19, 2025 • 34 mins
why the word settle is keeping us single, PLUS we are getting some Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice. It's all on KFIAM-640
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Waalsh Show. On tonight's show, Let's talk about the meaning
(00:22):
of big rituals and rites of passage psychologically, also how
quest love. If you don't know who questlove is, I'll
explain stays mentally healthy and why human brains make us
so darned stupid. Welcome to the show, Producer, Kayla, Nice
to see you, you as well, Doctor Wendy Richiteta. How
you doing. Hello, Hello, Hello, good to see you. Great
(00:46):
you too, love hearing your show. We have a new
face on the board. Whoosh, you're not new, but you're
new to me. Weekend night. Well, I know, welcome to
the show, all right. I spent yesterday at the Loyola
Marormount University graduation because my god daughter, not my daughter,
my goddaughter graduated, so this would be the daughter of
(01:08):
my best friend from childhood who lives in Miami, and
so she came out with her Miami family and we
sat there for four hours. It was the longest thing
you could imagine, and it was spitting rain. My friend
was dressed in Miami clothes, which means she thought she
was going to be a tropical beach resort because it's California.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I gotta say, I think Baywatch was some false advertising,
sent it all around the world, and they did not
advertise the May gray and the June gloom. So anyway,
spitting rain, shivering, sitting in the seat, waiting, But we
did it because it was a ritual. It was important
to have a large gathering of people and to have
(01:51):
this one moment that we waited for while they called it,
I don't know, a thousand graduates names one by one
by one. Oh God, my heart went out to the
president giving out all those diplomas. But if you've ever
sat through a long graduation ceremony, maybe you were squinting
into the sun instead of dodging rain drops. Maybe you
were wondering why everybody was wearing Harry Potter robes. I
(02:15):
want to remind you that all this matters. Psychologically, it matters.
These ceremonies aren't just tradition. For tradition's sake. They're actually
deeply wired in our psychology. You see, humans tend to
be meaning makers. We turn moments into milestones, and we
do that through rituals. So, whether those rituals are birthdays, anniversaries,
(02:40):
weddings or funerals, whether they're transfers of political power, peaceful,
I hope they're still a ritual. That's how we mark
life's transitions. But here's the fascinating part. Research shows that
our brains actually perceive rituals as causing real change in
(03:01):
the world. That's why the speakers at yesterday's Loyo Lamiramount
ceremony talked about going forth in the world, making change,
doing things right. Even when those students went up those
steps and had that awkward, probably sweaty and filled with germs,
handshake with the person giving the diploma, their brain said,
(03:24):
something big just happened to me. When I turned to
my goddaughter, caught her on the big screen doing her
you know, the peace sign and the tongue out on
the side. I don't know why they do that. Why
did they do the tongue out on the side, Kayla,
We'll never let it go. What is that? She did
it too? She said the peace sign and the tongue
out of the side. Yeah, what does it mean. It
means it's cute. Okay, it's just cute. That's her graduation
(03:47):
picture and it was on a big screen. But at
that moment something happened, right she changed her brain was
told this is important. Now we augment that by having
things like fancy dinners, and we did. Oh my god.
One of my favorite restaurants in Venice is called Paloma.
We ate there after the graduation ceremony. The day before,
(04:09):
we ate a catsu yah in Brentwood. That was great too,
but there might have been there was, there's music, singers,
whatever it is. They're not just show their signals to
our community that something sacred has happened. And psychologists like
to call this rights of passage, and believe it or not,
(04:32):
these rights of passage follow a three step structure. First
one is separation. This is where you leave behind your
old identity. So this is when students are packing up
their dorm room. Interesting enough, my goddaughter the day before
her graduation, became obsessed with cleaning her apartment. Knowing she'd
be leaving soon. There was a cleaning of her apartment.
(04:54):
Maybe somebody heading off to the military. That's the day
they get their head shaved and they change their clothes. Right,
it's a clean break. You know that separation is happening.
Step two. Psychologists call it the liminal stage. It's just
a fancy word for the in between stage. It's that weird,
wobbly phase where you're not who you were, and yet
(05:14):
you're not who you're becoming. So a cadet is no
longer a civilian, but not quite a soldier. A bride
certainly isn't single, but not a wife yet. A college
senior sitting at a commencement not quite a student, not
quite a graduate. And the longer we stretch out that
liminal phase, that's why the four hours it is uncomfortable,
(05:38):
but it's necessary. The more discomfort the audience and the
parents felt waiting for their kids name. I actually felt
sad for the parents whose kids' names were called first,
because then they still had to wait for the four hours.
You couldn't get up and leave, and nobody was actually
a graduate until the president conferred the degree on them
in the final speech. And so you sit there in discomfort,
(06:03):
but it's worth it because you know this is important
and then step three. Psychologists call it reincorporation. That's when
society welcomes you back with your new, shiny status. And
when we went to Paloma for lunch, my goddaughter wore
her full robes and the what is that big scarf
thing they wear around their neck, and there were other
(06:24):
graduates there with their families, wearing their robes so that
they were identified as something shiny and new a graduate.
The waiter came up to the table and immediately said, congratulations.
Not sure how I knew, wink wink right. But here's
where it gets really interesting. When people miss these rituals,
(06:47):
something feels off. Remember during the pandemic, remember the drive
by graduations, the drive by birthdays, Remember how it just
didn't feel the same. Well, this isn't about vanity. It's
really about biology. Because rituals are what hold our social
fabric together. So if you're going to graduation this month
(07:08):
or next maybe you've got a high schooler graduating next month,
whether it's your own, your kids, your neighbors, your grandkids, whatever,
soak it up, be uncomfortable, and also cry out. We screamed,
you know when she got up there. We were the
four family members yelling for her cry at pomp and circumstance.
Snap a million blurry photos. It's just a ceremony, but
(07:32):
it's not a ceremony. It's a psychological upgrade. You're literally
witnessing human transformation in real time, and human beings need
this and it's always worth celebrating.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
There were a number of speakers at the event. The valedictorian,
of course, was amazing. She was of Indian heritage and
talked about her religion and how there was a saying
in her religion to not fear or not no fear,
no anger, and how to turn feelings of fear and
anger into action, so that going forward message. But the
(08:11):
commencement speaker was Questlove and he's now called doctor Love.
When we come back, I'll explain why.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Dr Wendy Waalsh show. You hear that music that is Questlove.
When I was at the Loyola Marra Mount graduation all
day yesterday in the spinning rain, feeling uncomfortable doing the
most important work that we do as a community, which
is create a ritual for a young person. I do
(08:50):
want to give a congratulations to outgoing President Timothy law
Snyder and his wife Carol Costello, who's an acquaintance of mine.
You may recall her as a longtime anchor on CNN.
She has taught in their journalism department, and of course
her husband's leaving end she's leaving, and they gave her
an honorary doctorate, So congratulations Carol Costello. They also gave
(09:13):
the guest speaker an honorary doctorate. His name is Questlove,
and if you don't know that name, I'll tell you this.
I love people who defy boxes, people who aren't just
one thing. And that's why I'm kind of obsessed with Questlove.
He was born Amir Khalib Thompson. Now he's best known
(09:33):
as a drummer and frontman for the Roots, That's that
cool band on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. But
if you call Questlove just a drummer, it's like calling
Beyonce just a singer. Right. This man is a cultural force,
a Grammy winning musician, a DJ, a professor at NYU,
an Oscar winning filmmaker. Yeah, he won for Summer of Soul.
(09:56):
That was him and a walking encyclopedia of music history.
I mean, if Spotify were a person, it would probably
be Questlove. But here's what makes him really special. He
doesn't just play music. He curates emotion. He understands how
rhythm builds identity, how shared music rituals like a dance
(10:16):
party or even just vibing Di Vinyl help us all
feel like we belong. And he turns beats into belonging.
Let's not forget he brings radical kindness and depth into
everything he does. So Questlove now has an honorary doctorate
from Loyola Marramount University. And so I was a little
(10:38):
uncomfortable when he stood up and said, Okay, so it
looks like now I'm doctor Love. I felt a bit
threatened at that moment, but I loved his talk, and
his talk moved me so much. I'm going to ask
mister Questlove. Oh I'm sorry, doctor Love, to please forgive
(10:59):
me if I paraphrase inaccurately. But I'd like to share
with my KFI audience some of the most important points
that you made in your commencement speech. Because me with
a PhD in clinical psychology had my eyes opened, and
I was moved by some of your words. The first
thing he said, which was cute because he's performer, is
(11:23):
that when he got the phone call to be potentially
the commencement speaker in front of thousands of people, he
had always lived his life being behind something, behind the drums,
behind Jimmy Kimmel, behind the band, behind, behind, behind. He
was never the front man. And he said there was
a reason for it. He was afraid. He had this
(11:47):
deep fear of being out front, and so he very
cutely said, so when I first got that phone call,
every cell in my body was trying to say no, dog, thanks,
But he decided to face his fear and come out.
And so he used his stories of his life to
(12:08):
share four things that he wants all the graduates to
do every single day to have a better life. And
they are things proven in science, proven in psychology. They
are a great reminder for me. But also he told it,
of course in a brilliant way, because he's so articulate,
and it was just amazing. And the first thing he
(12:30):
talked about was learning to be grateful every single day,
every morning, finding three things to be thankful for he said,
sometimes he runs down his list and he can't find anything,
so it's like, thank you for this perfect bull of
Captain Crunch peanut Butter. He also told a story that
when he was growing up, his parents had enough money
(12:51):
to either pay for his school tuition at a fancy
private school or pay to keep the gas on, and
they chose to send him to school. And he looked
out at the audience because we're pretty cold, sit in
the rain. He goes, the way you feel right now
was barely one of the mornings in our house. Okay,
growing up cold. But he said, at that moment, I
sure didn't feel grateful. I didn't know to feel grateful,
(13:13):
and I look back and I do, right. So he
talked about how it changes the brain, and we know this,
if we can just stop thinking about, you know, what's
missing in our life and instead focus on what is
in our life, then we can change our mental health.
So that was the first thing he said, every single morning,
(13:35):
just think of three things you're grateful for to start
your day. The second thing he said to do is breathe,
and he said something brilliant. He said, you know, the
only difference between excitement and panic breath the only difference.
And of course he made this entire audience do the
big breath seven seconds in, hold for three five seconds
(13:58):
out like I do with my house psychology. These duds,
I'm like, dude, have you been in my class? This
is great. We did our deep breathing. He said, you
feel the difference. He said, at any moment when you
feel fear, just dig into that breath in a deep,
deep way. The third thing he said we should do
every morning is stretch and move our bodies. But he
(14:19):
turned it into an interesting story about emotions. He told
a story that when he was growing up, his parents
were not cruel. They were protective, and in their protective desire,
they told him not to show any emotions. If you
were happy, you were being too proud. If you were
showed anger, you would get in trouble for that. If
you showed fear, it was weakness. He had all these
(14:42):
and he said one day he woke up and he
could barely get out of bed because his feet and
ankles were swollen so much and they were sweating. And
he used the brilliant metaphor that they were crying the
tears of emotions out of his whole body because he
was never allowed to cry. And he said, when I
change things, and I started talking about my feelings, writing
about my feelings. When I started getting up in the
(15:03):
morning and moving my body every day and stretching, I
got better. And so, by the way, I have no
idea what his diagnosis would have been, but everything, many
things are psychosomatic. That doesn't mean they're imagining them. It's
a lesson in the fact that when any illness has
emotional roots, the body cooperates with the emotions and actually
(15:27):
become sick. Right, But that's what psychosomatic means. And finally
he said, to be kind. And you know who, he said,
The most important person we need to be kind to
is ourselves. He said that we have voices inside our
heads who say things to us that we would never
(15:48):
allow anybody else to say to us. That we literally
and he told stories of him feeling less than an
undeserving and he said, you have to learn to say
I am, I am, I can and I deserve this.
And he said, and once you get past that, you'll
be able to say I feel this, I feel that,
(16:10):
and it's all okay. The way he told it was
a thousand times better than the way I've told it.
But it's a lesson for all of us. We all
need to be thankful. There's science behind this, you know.
Great example. I said to my husband Julia this morning,
did you know that Kaylea sent me an article that
(16:31):
are five things that healthy couples do every weekend? And
we do four of them. Now, you know what my
first thought is, and what he was supposed to say
is what do we not do? But he didn't say that.
He said, really, what are the four that's so cool?
(16:54):
And I said I was only concerned about the one
we didn't do, and he goes, well, you're a glass
half empty, girl, I'm a glass that fall. We're doing
four the five. That's great. We need to shift our
attention to the positive, and particularly we need to do
it in our darkest days. We need to do it
(17:16):
when it's hard. We need to do it to save ourselves.
And we do need to breathe. I know it seems
so California woo woo to just take a few deep breaths,
but I'm telling you, our breath is deeply connected to
our feelings.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Kayla.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I don't know if you remember, but during COVID when
we were all all of us were in deep, deep,
deep deep fear, and we were doing our show from home,
and I had a breath expert as a guest on
the show and he had us, all us, all meaning
our KFI listeners, doing deep breathing on the radio. And
I got like the meanest call from my program director, going,
(17:56):
never have a meditation on our air, Like, we're all
stressed out, we're under COVID. We just need to take
some deep breaths. It's a hard time. We all think
we're gonna die. There's danger in the air breathing. We
all need to breathe more often. And yes, we all
need to move our bodies and stretch. And finally, we
(18:18):
need to forgive ourselves. We need to raise our shame tolerance.
Stop feeling like we're being judged all the time. You're
worth it. Every single person listening right now is equal.
Nobody gets out of here alive. Nobody gets out of
(18:38):
here without pain. Some people have more money or less,
their pain's not less. Trust me just has more zeros
at the end of it. But we need to love ourselves,
forgive ourselves, and stop letting other people judge us. That
is how we have good mental health. All right, when
we come back, let us begin to talk about our relationships.
(19:00):
There's a word that I hear, especially young women, use
all the time, and that word is settle. It drives
me flippin' crazy when I hear it, and I'm about
to go off.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
When we come back, you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I have been obsessed with the
science of love for quite a few decades. I was
struggling to find a healthy relationship myself, went to a
lot of therapy to figure things out. Eventually went to
graduate school, got a master's a PhD in psychology, wrote
three books on relationships, wrote a dissertation on attachment theory,
(19:43):
and have been reporting as a journalist on the science
of love for quite a long time. So one of
the things that kind of bothers, Oh, you want me
to say something, don't you? Kayla? Okay, how do I
make your phone go open? First of all, if you
are listening and we'd like to see us here in
(20:04):
the studio, you're welcome to log onto Instagram because we're
live on Instagram right now. Hi, Instagram, How are you?
I just want to let everybody know that on Thursday,
May twenty ninth, I will be speaking about the science
of Love at a women's wellness event. I believe it's
in West Hollywood and oh dear, I know the tickets
are only thirty dollars. There's a movie screening called The
(20:25):
m Factor. There are talks by a cardiologist, a menopause specialist,
a women's health and fitness coach, and doctor Wendy Walsh
talking about the science of love. It's a lot about menopause.
It's got great doctors. Now where do they go? What's
the website? Can you look at that QR code? Kayla?
I'll give you the website in a minute. Actually, we're
(20:46):
going to post it on the KFI website. So if
you just go to kfiam six forty dot com, Kayla's
going to post the flyer on the doctor Wendy Walsh page.
So there you go, May twenty ninth. That'd love for
you to come out. It'll be fun, all right. Having
said that, let's get into the relationship questions in a minute.
I am going to put out the phone number and
I'm going to have you guys call me with your
(21:08):
relationship questions. I'm going to say the number now, but
Kayla's not going to open the lines for about ten minutes.
So it's one eight hundred and five two zero one
five three four. Okay. There's one word that I hear
young single women say a lot, and that word is settle. Literally,
they say, well, I don't I just don't want to settle.
First of all, they're exhausted from dating. There is a
(21:28):
oversupply of successful single women in the mating marketplace. There
are an undersupply of commitment oriented men, and as a result,
this group of highly successful women are vying for a
very small group of men. And when I hear them
(21:48):
say I don't want to settle, I want to remind
And I want to say this so carefully because people
get offended when I say this. This is basic data
and basics to tis we are outliving our relationships. The
purpose of a relationship fifty years ago was two almost strangers,
(22:10):
because the average time, say in nineteen fifty, between meeting
and marriage was about six months. Two almost strangers make
a deal between families They were like a bridge between
tribes that they would survive together and probably raise some kids.
Most of them stayed in their own lane, and they
divvied up the jobs that needed to be done, whether
(22:31):
it was financial and bring home resources or farming labor,
whether it was raising kids or whatever. They split up
the survival chores of life, if you will. They weren't
looking for their soulmate. They weren't looking for romantic love.
They weren't looking for somebody to complete them or fulfill them.
(22:52):
Did you know, if you got married in the year
nineteen hundred and you professed, we will be together until
death do us part, the average length of that marriage
was twelve years. If you got married in nineteen ninety
and you did the same thing till death do us part,
the average length of that marriage was twelve years. Now,
(23:13):
in nineteen hundred, people were dying from famines. They were
dying from diseases. They were dying from wars and fights
and infections and all kinds of things. Long before vaccines,
you know, people were dying of all kinds of stuff.
They died. Women died in childbirth a lot. In nineteen ninety.
Despite all the medical advances, people are now breaking up
(23:35):
because of divorce. Relationships have become more fragile. And the
reason they become more fragile is because our expectations have
become so high. Now I should also his something else happened.
Modern Western capitalism needed a mobile workforce, needed people to
(23:55):
be moving around the country all the time chasing new jobs.
So people were torn away from their villages, they were
torn away from their extended family, and then they expected
their partner to replace the work of all those people,
the emotional work. So they lost their important support structure,
of which their mate was one piece of it. But
(24:15):
he or she wasn't the whole thing right. So as
a result, we now expect our mate to be our
best friend, our lover, our intellectual stimulator, everything, Yet we
break up when they're not that. I'm going to make
a case for the fact that you need to go
(24:36):
back to your grandmother's time because we're outliving our relationships.
You may have another chance. If you're a woman who
wants to be a mother, go out and look for
a good father. Don't love for a guy that's just
hot looking, who's good in bed. Look for somebody who's
kind and caring and a good father. There are a
lot of great, great guys out there. They're wonderful men,
(24:59):
and you are not looking at them, ladies, because you
have patriarchy swimming in your own head that says, if
I make this amount of money, if I have this
amount of education, I want a guy that makes more.
I deserve more now. But sorry, they are actually more
women in the American workforce than men. For every two
women that are are two guys that graduate college, there
are three women. You're getting ahead. So you've got to
(25:22):
open your heart to a guy who may not fit
old fashioned patriarchy. That's all I'm gonna say. Hate the
word settling. You're not settling. You're getting a good deal,
at least for parenthood. Okay, when we come back, I
am going to take your relationship questions live. Producer Kayla's
going to open the phone lines now. The number is
(25:43):
one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one
eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Give
me a call and I will weigh in on your
love life.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six four.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You have Dr Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. And this is the time of
the show where I am taking your calls. Just a reminder,
I'm a psychology professor, not a therapist, but i have
a lot of life experience and I've been reporting on
the science of love for a few decades. The number
is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
(26:22):
That's one eight hundred five two zero one kfi. Okay,
Producer Kaylage, we have somebody on the line. We do.
We have Aaron with a question. Aaron hi Erin is
doctor Wendy.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Hi, Doctor Wendy. I've always wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Oh how nice? Have you been a listener for a
long time? Erin so long? So what's your question? Is
your lucky night?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Okay? So I've been seeing this guy for like two
three months maybe maybe three, yes, Oh my god. And
he sleeps with his dog in the bed and I
can't stand it. And a dog is like and it's
not like a small dog, it's like a really big
dog that's like snores as well. Oh, I just don't
(27:07):
know if it's too soon for me to say anything,
because I hate it and I don't even like being
over there, or sleeping over this.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
This is this is a big promeno. Erin, I have
to tell you a story. So back, a long time ago,
I met this guy who was quite wealthy, who was
good looking, nice, had a beautiful, big house. But these
two giant German shepherd dogs. And I literally said to myself, well,
this guy's great, the house is fine, but these dogs
(27:35):
have got to go. I'm gonna work my way in
here until those dogs are not the main thing in
his life. Well, Eron, I have to tell you something.
By the time those dogs had to be put down
because they had hip displasion, it was many years later.
It was me and the vet there because I was
more in love with those darn dogs than he was.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Oh so I'm gonna say, give it a chance, Eron,
give it a n You could bring it up and say,
you know, when I'm over, I don't want a dog
sleeping in the bed because there's some hygiene things, right,
there's the smell and the dog hair and if you're
not used to it, and yeah, some.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
People have dogs in the bed, some people don't. So
don't be shy and just say, hey, I just have
a boundary when I'm over dog sleeps on the dogbed
on the floor, not in our bed. And also let
them know to change the sheets before you come because
you could have leftover dog hair from the night before.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Yeah, right, exactly. You never know that that dog.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Might grow on your air and you just never know.
Thank you for Colin. Thanks for Colin. All right, take
care by Okay, who do we have next, Kayla? We
have Jeremy with the question. Jeremy, Hi, Jeremy, it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Hi, doctor Wendy. How are you good?
Speaker 1 (28:44):
What's your question?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So I'm near thirty and I have had kind of
a turbulence twenties. I haven't really had a whole lot
of financial or career success, and I'm just trying to
put my life back together. And so I have a job,
and i'm currently and I'm currently going to school to
get my CDL, and I'm planning on and I'm planning
(29:07):
on actually going back to college, not this year but
next year. But here's the thing. Someone I've been talking to,
we've been talking for a while. She's much more successful
and has had a very successful career from her from
ever since she was nineteen to now. And we're about
the same age, I have a lot of the same
(29:29):
interests and a lot of the same values. Should I
go for someone like that who has clearly been in
a much more successful field for a long time versus
somebody who maybe is in a similar financial situation.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So, Jeremy, thanks so much for that question. You are,
You're definitely in a situation like many many young men
in America today. You are just launching even though you're
near thirty. You're getting your education, you've got a job.
But the women you're meeting, including the one you're talking
about now, to be more financially successful. I think it
(30:02):
is less important about who you quote unquote go for
and more important that you understand who you deserve and
that you're okay talking to them openly and honestly. They're
all kinds of ways that you can care for a woman.
Besides financial care. There are literally a million fix ites
you can do in their house. There are things that
(30:23):
you can do, you'd be emotional support. There are so
many things you can do that increase your value. And
if you think your value is only about your income,
that's an old fashioned male way of thinking. So thank
you for calling, Jeremy, and good luck to you, all right.
I also want to go to social media because I
have a few questions that came in some DMS. Just now.
If you want to give me a call, the number
(30:44):
is one eight hundred and five two zero one five
three four. All right, Dear doctor Wendy says a listener,
I caught my wife texting someone, and she was texting
some flirtatious messages. She says, it's harmless? Is it cheating? Okay?
So this is the new language, right. There is this
(31:05):
idea that somebody has to physically have sex with somebody
else for it to be considered cheating. But we now
know that there are emotional betrayals. And at the very least,
if the texts were flirtatious, then they are on the
way to physical cheating. But at the very least they're
emotional cheating. And if you're feeling confused about this, I
(31:29):
want to be really clear with you. This is a
form of cheating, right, emotional cheating, betrayal, betraying a confidence
because as soon as you have a close emotional relationship
with somebody that you might be planning to have sex with,
that means you might be disclosing secrets about your relationship, right,
And so it's really important that we all have self boundaries.
(31:53):
I know that we all have our own social media accounts,
we all have our own telephones. It used to be
back in the day it was really hard to cheat.
Could you had like one family phone in the house,
et cetera. But now everybody has ways to contact each
other privately, so it's really incumbent on us to have
those very clear boundaries. Now I should tell you that
(32:13):
my husband and I of course have the passwords to
each other's phones and computers, and we're on each other's
accounts all the time because we're not worried about cheating.
But we can help and support each other. You know,
he can say, oh on my computer or your computer
and I saw a text come in or whatever. Right.
So anyway, I think more couples need to be open
(32:37):
about all of this, and you shouldn't be able to
have private relationships somewhere. But anyway, I'm sorry you found that,
and I'm sure it's quite painful. Okay, here's another DM
from a listener. Dear doctor Wendy, every time we argue,
my boyfriend threatens to break up. Is this emotional manipulation? Yeah?
(33:00):
Of course it is. This is one way that people
try to stop an argument because they don't know how
to have healthy conflict. So what they basically say is,
if you continue to voice your feelings, your truth about
who you are, then I'm going to leave you. And
(33:23):
if that partner knows that their partner fears abandonment more
than anything else, then they'll hold it over their head.
Using breakups as a threat is not healthy ever, So
I think what you need to say to him is
we need to learn how to argue better so that
you don't use a breakup as a threat, because it's
(33:44):
really not fair to me. And you know, what you
don't want to say is fine, break up with me.
Let's see if you can do that. Nope, that's not
going to work. Also, don't say you don't mean it,
you wouldn't really do it well, cause he'll do it
just to show you you can. I think what you
need to say is I'm trying to express my feelings
(34:04):
and it feels like it's hard for you to hear
some of the things that I'm saying, but you can't
threaten me with a breakup. That's not a healthy way
of arguing. And I highly recommend the two of you
get into couple's therapy so that you can learn some
healthy conflict resolution skills. Those are the most important thing. Okay,
when we come back, I'm going to continue to go
(34:25):
to social media. A whole bunch of dms just came in,
all you private people who don't want to be on
the radio. That's okay. You are listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor
Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear us live on KFI
AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday
(34:47):
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty, the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app KFI AM six forty. You have
Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the Doctor Wendy
Waalsh Show. On tonight's show, Let's talk about the meaning
(00:22):
of big rituals and rites of passage psychologically, also how
quest love. If you don't know who questlove is, I'll
explain stays mentally healthy and why human brains make us
so darned stupid. Welcome to the show, Producer, Kayla, Nice
to see you, you as well, Doctor Wendy Richiteta. How
you doing. Hello, Hello, Hello, good to see you. Great
(00:46):
you too, love hearing your show. We have a new
face on the board. Whoosh, you're not new, but you're
new to me. Weekend night. Well, I know, welcome to
the show, all right. I spent yesterday at the Loyola
Marormount University graduation because my god daughter, not my daughter,
my goddaughter graduated, so this would be the daughter of
(01:08):
my best friend from childhood who lives in Miami, and
so she came out with her Miami family and we
sat there for four hours. It was the longest thing
you could imagine, and it was spitting rain. My friend
was dressed in Miami clothes, which means she thought she
was going to be a tropical beach resort because it's California.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
I gotta say, I think Baywatch was some false advertising,
sent it all around the world, and they did not
advertise the May gray and the June gloom. So anyway,
spitting rain, shivering, sitting in the seat, waiting, But we
did it because it was a ritual. It was important
to have a large gathering of people and to have
(01:51):
this one moment that we waited for while they called it,
I don't know, a thousand graduates names one by one
by one. Oh God, my heart went out to the
president giving out all those diplomas. But if you've ever
sat through a long graduation ceremony, maybe you were squinting
into the sun instead of dodging rain drops. Maybe you
were wondering why everybody was wearing Harry Potter robes. I
(02:15):
want to remind you that all this matters. Psychologically, it matters.
These ceremonies aren't just tradition. For tradition's sake. They're actually
deeply wired in our psychology. You see, humans tend to
be meaning makers. We turn moments into milestones, and we
do that through rituals. So, whether those rituals are birthdays, anniversaries,
(02:40):
weddings or funerals, whether they're transfers of political power, peaceful,
I hope they're still a ritual. That's how we mark
life's transitions. But here's the fascinating part. Research shows that
our brains actually perceive rituals as causing real change in
(03:01):
the world. That's why the speakers at yesterday's Loyo Lamiramount
ceremony talked about going forth in the world, making change,
doing things right. Even when those students went up those
steps and had that awkward, probably sweaty and filled with germs,
handshake with the person giving the diploma, their brain said,
(03:24):
something big just happened to me. When I turned to
my goddaughter, caught her on the big screen doing her
you know, the peace sign and the tongue out on
the side. I don't know why they do that. Why
did they do the tongue out on the side, Kayla,
We'll never let it go. What is that? She did
it too? She said the peace sign and the tongue
out of the side. Yeah, what does it mean. It
means it's cute. Okay, it's just cute. That's her graduation
(03:47):
picture and it was on a big screen. But at
that moment something happened, right she changed her brain was
told this is important. Now we augment that by having
things like fancy dinners, and we did. Oh my god.
One of my favorite restaurants in Venice is called Paloma.
We ate there after the graduation ceremony. The day before,
(04:09):
we ate a catsu yah in Brentwood. That was great too,
but there might have been there was, there's music, singers,
whatever it is. They're not just show their signals to
our community that something sacred has happened. And psychologists like
to call this rights of passage, and believe it or not,
(04:32):
these rights of passage follow a three step structure. First
one is separation. This is where you leave behind your
old identity. So this is when students are packing up
their dorm room. Interesting enough, my goddaughter the day before
her graduation, became obsessed with cleaning her apartment. Knowing she'd
be leaving soon. There was a cleaning of her apartment.
(04:54):
Maybe somebody heading off to the military. That's the day
they get their head shaved and they change their clothes. Right,
it's a clean break. You know that separation is happening.
Step two. Psychologists call it the liminal stage. It's just
a fancy word for the in between stage. It's that weird,
wobbly phase where you're not who you were, and yet
(05:14):
you're not who you're becoming. So a cadet is no
longer a civilian, but not quite a soldier. A bride
certainly isn't single, but not a wife yet. A college
senior sitting at a commencement not quite a student, not
quite a graduate. And the longer we stretch out that
liminal phase, that's why the four hours it is uncomfortable,
(05:38):
but it's necessary. The more discomfort the audience and the
parents felt waiting for their kids name. I actually felt
sad for the parents whose kids' names were called first,
because then they still had to wait for the four hours.
You couldn't get up and leave, and nobody was actually
a graduate until the president conferred the degree on them
in the final speech. And so you sit there in discomfort,
(06:03):
but it's worth it because you know this is important
and then step three. Psychologists call it reincorporation. That's when
society welcomes you back with your new, shiny status. And
when we went to Paloma for lunch, my goddaughter wore
her full robes and the what is that big scarf
thing they wear around their neck, and there were other
(06:24):
graduates there with their families, wearing their robes so that
they were identified as something shiny and new a graduate.
The waiter came up to the table and immediately said, congratulations.
Not sure how I knew, wink wink right. But here's
where it gets really interesting. When people miss these rituals,
(06:47):
something feels off. Remember during the pandemic, remember the drive
by graduations, the drive by birthdays, Remember how it just
didn't feel the same. Well, this isn't about vanity. It's
really about biology. Because rituals are what hold our social
fabric together. So if you're going to graduation this month
(07:08):
or next maybe you've got a high schooler graduating next month,
whether it's your own, your kids, your neighbors, your grandkids, whatever,
soak it up, be uncomfortable, and also cry out. We screamed,
you know when she got up there. We were the
four family members yelling for her cry at pomp and circumstance.
Snap a million blurry photos. It's just a ceremony, but
(07:32):
it's not a ceremony. It's a psychological upgrade. You're literally
witnessing human transformation in real time, and human beings need
this and it's always worth celebrating.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Now.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
There were a number of speakers at the event. The valedictorian,
of course, was amazing. She was of Indian heritage and
talked about her religion and how there was a saying
in her religion to not fear or not no fear,
no anger, and how to turn feelings of fear and
anger into action, so that going forward message. But the
(08:11):
commencement speaker was Questlove and he's now called doctor Love.
When we come back, I'll explain why.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Dr Wendy Waalsh show. You hear that music that is Questlove.
When I was at the Loyola Marra Mount graduation all
day yesterday in the spinning rain, feeling uncomfortable doing the
most important work that we do as a community, which
is create a ritual for a young person. I do
(08:50):
want to give a congratulations to outgoing President Timothy law
Snyder and his wife Carol Costello, who's an acquaintance of mine.
You may recall her as a longtime anchor on CNN.
She has taught in their journalism department, and of course
her husband's leaving end she's leaving, and they gave her
an honorary doctorate, So congratulations Carol Costello. They also gave
(09:13):
the guest speaker an honorary doctorate. His name is Questlove,
and if you don't know that name, I'll tell you this.
I love people who defy boxes, people who aren't just
one thing. And that's why I'm kind of obsessed with Questlove.
He was born Amir Khalib Thompson. Now he's best known
(09:33):
as a drummer and frontman for the Roots, That's that
cool band on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. But
if you call Questlove just a drummer, it's like calling
Beyonce just a singer. Right. This man is a cultural force,
a Grammy winning musician, a DJ, a professor at NYU,
an Oscar winning filmmaker. Yeah, he won for Summer of Soul.
(09:56):
That was him and a walking encyclopedia of music history.
I mean, if Spotify were a person, it would probably
be Questlove. But here's what makes him really special. He
doesn't just play music. He curates emotion. He understands how
rhythm builds identity, how shared music rituals like a dance
(10:16):
party or even just vibing Di Vinyl help us all
feel like we belong. And he turns beats into belonging.
Let's not forget he brings radical kindness and depth into
everything he does. So Questlove now has an honorary doctorate
from Loyola Marramount University. And so I was a little
(10:38):
uncomfortable when he stood up and said, Okay, so it
looks like now I'm doctor Love. I felt a bit
threatened at that moment, but I loved his talk, and
his talk moved me so much. I'm going to ask
mister Questlove. Oh I'm sorry, doctor Love, to please forgive
(10:59):
me if I paraphrase inaccurately. But I'd like to share
with my KFI audience some of the most important points
that you made in your commencement speech. Because me with
a PhD in clinical psychology had my eyes opened, and
I was moved by some of your words. The first
thing he said, which was cute because he's performer, is
(11:23):
that when he got the phone call to be potentially
the commencement speaker in front of thousands of people, he
had always lived his life being behind something, behind the drums,
behind Jimmy Kimmel, behind the band, behind, behind, behind. He
was never the front man. And he said there was
a reason for it. He was afraid. He had this
(11:47):
deep fear of being out front, and so he very
cutely said, so when I first got that phone call,
every cell in my body was trying to say no, dog, thanks,
But he decided to face his fear and come out.
And so he used his stories of his life to
(12:08):
share four things that he wants all the graduates to
do every single day to have a better life. And
they are things proven in science, proven in psychology. They
are a great reminder for me. But also he told it,
of course in a brilliant way, because he's so articulate,
and it was just amazing. And the first thing he
(12:30):
talked about was learning to be grateful every single day,
every morning, finding three things to be thankful for he said,
sometimes he runs down his list and he can't find anything,
so it's like, thank you for this perfect bull of
Captain Crunch peanut Butter. He also told a story that
when he was growing up, his parents had enough money
(12:51):
to either pay for his school tuition at a fancy
private school or pay to keep the gas on, and
they chose to send him to school. And he looked
out at the audience because we're pretty cold, sit in
the rain. He goes, the way you feel right now
was barely one of the mornings in our house. Okay,
growing up cold. But he said, at that moment, I
sure didn't feel grateful. I didn't know to feel grateful,
(13:13):
and I look back and I do, right. So he
talked about how it changes the brain, and we know this,
if we can just stop thinking about, you know, what's
missing in our life and instead focus on what is
in our life, then we can change our mental health.
So that was the first thing he said, every single morning,
(13:35):
just think of three things you're grateful for to start
your day. The second thing he said to do is breathe,
and he said something brilliant. He said, you know, the
only difference between excitement and panic breath the only difference.
And of course he made this entire audience do the
big breath seven seconds in, hold for three five seconds
(13:58):
out like I do with my house psychology. These duds,
I'm like, dude, have you been in my class? This
is great. We did our deep breathing. He said, you
feel the difference. He said, at any moment when you
feel fear, just dig into that breath in a deep,
deep way. The third thing he said we should do
every morning is stretch and move our bodies. But he
(14:19):
turned it into an interesting story about emotions. He told
a story that when he was growing up, his parents
were not cruel. They were protective, and in their protective desire,
they told him not to show any emotions. If you
were happy, you were being too proud. If you were
showed anger, you would get in trouble for that. If
you showed fear, it was weakness. He had all these
(14:42):
and he said one day he woke up and he
could barely get out of bed because his feet and
ankles were swollen so much and they were sweating. And
he used the brilliant metaphor that they were crying the
tears of emotions out of his whole body because he
was never allowed to cry. And he said, when I
change things, and I started talking about my feelings, writing
about my feelings. When I started getting up in the
(15:03):
morning and moving my body every day and stretching, I
got better. And so, by the way, I have no
idea what his diagnosis would have been, but everything, many
things are psychosomatic. That doesn't mean they're imagining them. It's
a lesson in the fact that when any illness has
emotional roots, the body cooperates with the emotions and actually
(15:27):
become sick. Right, But that's what psychosomatic means. And finally
he said, to be kind. And you know who, he said,
The most important person we need to be kind to
is ourselves. He said that we have voices inside our
heads who say things to us that we would never
(15:48):
allow anybody else to say to us. That we literally
and he told stories of him feeling less than an
undeserving and he said, you have to learn to say
I am, I am, I can and I deserve this.
And he said, and once you get past that, you'll
be able to say I feel this, I feel that,
(16:10):
and it's all okay. The way he told it was
a thousand times better than the way I've told it.
But it's a lesson for all of us. We all
need to be thankful. There's science behind this, you know.
Great example. I said to my husband Julia this morning,
did you know that Kaylea sent me an article that
(16:31):
are five things that healthy couples do every weekend? And
we do four of them. Now, you know what my
first thought is, and what he was supposed to say
is what do we not do? But he didn't say that.
He said, really, what are the four that's so cool?
(16:54):
And I said I was only concerned about the one
we didn't do, and he goes, well, you're a glass
half empty, girl, I'm a glass that fall. We're doing
four the five. That's great. We need to shift our
attention to the positive, and particularly we need to do
it in our darkest days. We need to do it
(17:16):
when it's hard. We need to do it to save ourselves.
And we do need to breathe. I know it seems
so California woo woo to just take a few deep breaths,
but I'm telling you, our breath is deeply connected to
our feelings.
Speaker 4 (17:33):
Kayla.
Speaker 1 (17:33):
I don't know if you remember, but during COVID when
we were all all of us were in deep, deep,
deep deep fear, and we were doing our show from home,
and I had a breath expert as a guest on
the show and he had us, all us, all meaning
our KFI listeners, doing deep breathing on the radio. And
I got like the meanest call from my program director, going,
(17:56):
never have a meditation on our air, Like, we're all
stressed out, we're under COVID. We just need to take
some deep breaths. It's a hard time. We all think
we're gonna die. There's danger in the air breathing. We
all need to breathe more often. And yes, we all
need to move our bodies and stretch. And finally, we
(18:18):
need to forgive ourselves. We need to raise our shame tolerance.
Stop feeling like we're being judged all the time. You're
worth it. Every single person listening right now is equal.
Nobody gets out of here alive. Nobody gets out of
(18:38):
here without pain. Some people have more money or less,
their pain's not less. Trust me just has more zeros
at the end of it. But we need to love ourselves,
forgive ourselves, and stop letting other people judge us. That
is how we have good mental health. All right, when
we come back, let us begin to talk about our relationships.
(19:00):
There's a word that I hear, especially young women, use
all the time, and that word is settle. It drives
me flippin' crazy when I hear it, and I'm about
to go off.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
When we come back, you're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh
on demand from KFI Am six forty.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
You have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I have been obsessed with the
science of love for quite a few decades. I was
struggling to find a healthy relationship myself, went to a
lot of therapy to figure things out. Eventually went to
graduate school, got a master's a PhD in psychology, wrote
three books on relationships, wrote a dissertation on attachment theory,
(19:43):
and have been reporting as a journalist on the science
of love for quite a long time. So one of
the things that kind of bothers, Oh, you want me
to say something, don't you? Kayla? Okay, how do I
make your phone go open? First of all, if you
are listening and we'd like to see us here in
(20:04):
the studio, you're welcome to log onto Instagram because we're
live on Instagram right now. Hi, Instagram, How are you?
I just want to let everybody know that on Thursday,
May twenty ninth, I will be speaking about the science
of Love at a women's wellness event. I believe it's
in West Hollywood and oh dear, I know the tickets
are only thirty dollars. There's a movie screening called The
(20:25):
m Factor. There are talks by a cardiologist, a menopause specialist,
a women's health and fitness coach, and doctor Wendy Walsh
talking about the science of love. It's a lot about menopause.
It's got great doctors. Now where do they go? What's
the website? Can you look at that QR code? Kayla?
I'll give you the website in a minute. Actually, we're
(20:46):
going to post it on the KFI website. So if
you just go to kfiam six forty dot com, Kayla's
going to post the flyer on the doctor Wendy Walsh page.
So there you go, May twenty ninth. That'd love for
you to come out. It'll be fun, all right. Having
said that, let's get into the relationship questions in a minute.
I am going to put out the phone number and
I'm going to have you guys call me with your
(21:08):
relationship questions. I'm going to say the number now, but
Kayla's not going to open the lines for about ten minutes.
So it's one eight hundred and five two zero one
five three four. Okay. There's one word that I hear
young single women say a lot, and that word is settle. Literally,
they say, well, I don't I just don't want to settle.
First of all, they're exhausted from dating. There is a
(21:28):
oversupply of successful single women in the mating marketplace. There
are an undersupply of commitment oriented men, and as a result,
this group of highly successful women are vying for a
very small group of men. And when I hear them
(21:48):
say I don't want to settle, I want to remind
And I want to say this so carefully because people
get offended when I say this. This is basic data
and basics to tis we are outliving our relationships. The
purpose of a relationship fifty years ago was two almost strangers,
(22:10):
because the average time, say in nineteen fifty, between meeting
and marriage was about six months. Two almost strangers make
a deal between families They were like a bridge between
tribes that they would survive together and probably raise some kids.
Most of them stayed in their own lane, and they
divvied up the jobs that needed to be done, whether
(22:31):
it was financial and bring home resources or farming labor,
whether it was raising kids or whatever. They split up
the survival chores of life, if you will. They weren't
looking for their soulmate. They weren't looking for romantic love.
They weren't looking for somebody to complete them or fulfill them.
(22:52):
Did you know, if you got married in the year
nineteen hundred and you professed, we will be together until
death do us part, the average length of that marriage
was twelve years. If you got married in nineteen ninety
and you did the same thing till death do us part,
the average length of that marriage was twelve years. Now,
(23:13):
in nineteen hundred, people were dying from famines. They were
dying from diseases. They were dying from wars and fights
and infections and all kinds of things. Long before vaccines,
you know, people were dying of all kinds of stuff.
They died. Women died in childbirth a lot. In nineteen ninety.
Despite all the medical advances, people are now breaking up
(23:35):
because of divorce. Relationships have become more fragile. And the
reason they become more fragile is because our expectations have
become so high. Now I should also his something else happened.
Modern Western capitalism needed a mobile workforce, needed people to
(23:55):
be moving around the country all the time chasing new jobs.
So people were torn away from their villages, they were
torn away from their extended family, and then they expected
their partner to replace the work of all those people,
the emotional work. So they lost their important support structure,
of which their mate was one piece of it. But
(24:15):
he or she wasn't the whole thing right. So as
a result, we now expect our mate to be our
best friend, our lover, our intellectual stimulator, everything, Yet we
break up when they're not that. I'm going to make
a case for the fact that you need to go
(24:36):
back to your grandmother's time because we're outliving our relationships.
You may have another chance. If you're a woman who
wants to be a mother, go out and look for
a good father. Don't love for a guy that's just
hot looking, who's good in bed. Look for somebody who's
kind and caring and a good father. There are a
lot of great, great guys out there. They're wonderful men,
(24:59):
and you are not looking at them, ladies, because you
have patriarchy swimming in your own head that says, if
I make this amount of money, if I have this
amount of education, I want a guy that makes more.
I deserve more now. But sorry, they are actually more
women in the American workforce than men. For every two
women that are are two guys that graduate college, there
are three women. You're getting ahead. So you've got to
(25:22):
open your heart to a guy who may not fit
old fashioned patriarchy. That's all I'm gonna say. Hate the
word settling. You're not settling. You're getting a good deal,
at least for parenthood. Okay, when we come back, I
am going to take your relationship questions live. Producer Kayla's
going to open the phone lines now. The number is
(25:43):
one eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one
eight hundred five two zero one five three four. Give
me a call and I will weigh in on your
love life.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six four.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
You have Dr Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. And this is the time of
the show where I am taking your calls. Just a reminder,
I'm a psychology professor, not a therapist, but i have
a lot of life experience and I've been reporting on
the science of love for a few decades. The number
is one eight hundred five two zero one five three four.
(26:22):
That's one eight hundred five two zero one kfi. Okay,
Producer Kaylage, we have somebody on the line. We do.
We have Aaron with a question. Aaron hi Erin is
doctor Wendy.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Hi, Doctor Wendy. I've always wanted to talk to you.
Speaker 1 (26:37):
Oh how nice? Have you been a listener for a
long time? Erin so long? So what's your question? Is
your lucky night?
Speaker 5 (26:47):
Okay? So I've been seeing this guy for like two
three months maybe maybe three, yes, Oh my god. And
he sleeps with his dog in the bed and I
can't stand it. And a dog is like and it's
not like a small dog, it's like a really big
dog that's like snores as well. Oh, I just don't
(27:07):
know if it's too soon for me to say anything,
because I hate it and I don't even like being
over there, or sleeping over this.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
This is this is a big promeno. Erin, I have
to tell you a story. So back, a long time ago,
I met this guy who was quite wealthy, who was
good looking, nice, had a beautiful, big house. But these
two giant German shepherd dogs. And I literally said to myself, well,
this guy's great, the house is fine, but these dogs
(27:35):
have got to go. I'm gonna work my way in
here until those dogs are not the main thing in
his life. Well, Eron, I have to tell you something.
By the time those dogs had to be put down
because they had hip displasion, it was many years later.
It was me and the vet there because I was
more in love with those darn dogs than he was.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
Oh so I'm gonna say, give it a chance, Eron,
give it a n You could bring it up and say,
you know, when I'm over, I don't want a dog
sleeping in the bed because there's some hygiene things, right,
there's the smell and the dog hair and if you're
not used to it, and yeah, some.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
People have dogs in the bed, some people don't. So
don't be shy and just say, hey, I just have
a boundary when I'm over dog sleeps on the dogbed
on the floor, not in our bed. And also let
them know to change the sheets before you come because
you could have leftover dog hair from the night before.
Speaker 5 (28:25):
Yeah, right, exactly. You never know that that dog.
Speaker 1 (28:28):
Might grow on your air and you just never know.
Thank you for Colin. Thanks for Colin. All right, take
care by Okay, who do we have next, Kayla? We
have Jeremy with the question. Jeremy, Hi, Jeremy, it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Hi, doctor Wendy. How are you good?
Speaker 1 (28:44):
What's your question?
Speaker 2 (28:46):
So I'm near thirty and I have had kind of
a turbulence twenties. I haven't really had a whole lot
of financial or career success, and I'm just trying to
put my life back together. And so I have a job,
and i'm currently and I'm currently going to school to
get my CDL, and I'm planning on and I'm planning
(29:07):
on actually going back to college, not this year but
next year. But here's the thing. Someone I've been talking to,
we've been talking for a while. She's much more successful
and has had a very successful career from her from
ever since she was nineteen to now. And we're about
the same age, I have a lot of the same
(29:29):
interests and a lot of the same values. Should I
go for someone like that who has clearly been in
a much more successful field for a long time versus
somebody who maybe is in a similar financial situation.
Speaker 1 (29:42):
So, Jeremy, thanks so much for that question. You are,
You're definitely in a situation like many many young men
in America today. You are just launching even though you're
near thirty. You're getting your education, you've got a job.
But the women you're meeting, including the one you're talking
about now, to be more financially successful. I think it
(30:02):
is less important about who you quote unquote go for
and more important that you understand who you deserve and
that you're okay talking to them openly and honestly. They're
all kinds of ways that you can care for a woman.
Besides financial care. There are literally a million fix ites
you can do in their house. There are things that
(30:23):
you can do, you'd be emotional support. There are so
many things you can do that increase your value. And
if you think your value is only about your income,
that's an old fashioned male way of thinking. So thank
you for calling, Jeremy, and good luck to you, all right.
I also want to go to social media because I
have a few questions that came in some DMS. Just now.
If you want to give me a call, the number
(30:44):
is one eight hundred and five two zero one five
three four. All right, Dear doctor Wendy says a listener,
I caught my wife texting someone, and she was texting
some flirtatious messages. She says, it's harmless? Is it cheating? Okay?
So this is the new language, right. There is this
(31:05):
idea that somebody has to physically have sex with somebody
else for it to be considered cheating. But we now
know that there are emotional betrayals. And at the very least,
if the texts were flirtatious, then they are on the
way to physical cheating. But at the very least they're
emotional cheating. And if you're feeling confused about this, I
(31:29):
want to be really clear with you. This is a
form of cheating, right, emotional cheating, betrayal, betraying a confidence
because as soon as you have a close emotional relationship
with somebody that you might be planning to have sex with,
that means you might be disclosing secrets about your relationship, right,
And so it's really important that we all have self boundaries.
(31:53):
I know that we all have our own social media accounts,
we all have our own telephones. It used to be
back in the day it was really hard to cheat.
Could you had like one family phone in the house,
et cetera. But now everybody has ways to contact each
other privately, so it's really incumbent on us to have
those very clear boundaries. Now I should tell you that
(32:13):
my husband and I of course have the passwords to
each other's phones and computers, and we're on each other's
accounts all the time because we're not worried about cheating.
But we can help and support each other. You know,
he can say, oh on my computer or your computer
and I saw a text come in or whatever. Right.
So anyway, I think more couples need to be open
(32:37):
about all of this, and you shouldn't be able to
have private relationships somewhere. But anyway, I'm sorry you found that,
and I'm sure it's quite painful. Okay, here's another DM
from a listener. Dear doctor Wendy, every time we argue,
my boyfriend threatens to break up. Is this emotional manipulation? Yeah?
(33:00):
Of course it is. This is one way that people
try to stop an argument because they don't know how
to have healthy conflict. So what they basically say is,
if you continue to voice your feelings, your truth about
who you are, then I'm going to leave you. And
(33:23):
if that partner knows that their partner fears abandonment more
than anything else, then they'll hold it over their head.
Using breakups as a threat is not healthy ever, So
I think what you need to say to him is
we need to learn how to argue better so that
you don't use a breakup as a threat, because it's
(33:44):
really not fair to me. And you know, what you
don't want to say is fine, break up with me.
Let's see if you can do that. Nope, that's not
going to work. Also, don't say you don't mean it,
you wouldn't really do it well, cause he'll do it
just to show you you can. I think what you
need to say is I'm trying to express my feelings
(34:04):
and it feels like it's hard for you to hear
some of the things that I'm saying, but you can't
threaten me with a breakup. That's not a healthy way
of arguing. And I highly recommend the two of you
get into couple's therapy so that you can learn some
healthy conflict resolution skills. Those are the most important thing. Okay,
when we come back, I'm going to continue to go
(34:25):
to social media. A whole bunch of dms just came in,
all you private people who don't want to be on
the radio. That's okay. You are listening to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor
Wendy Waalsh. You can always hear us live on KFI
AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday
(34:47):
and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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