April 28, 2025 • 23 mins
Dr. Wendy is covering icks, getting over an ex and questions couples need to ask each other. It's all on KFIAM-640!
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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 wallsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Can we talk about the ick?
E the ick? Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall
Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio App. Now, it's a new dating term. It's called
the ick, and it's a slang term for a very visceral,
(00:27):
sudden feeling of disgust or repulsion. And this feeling comes
it's directed towards somebody that you were previously attracted to.
Now it can be triggered by you've just learned something new,
or you've witnessed something about them that just turned you off.
But it's always the ick is when you're all you're
(00:50):
you know, thought the person was great and then there
was this one thing. Now, as far as dating goes,
let me tell you the top things that give people
of all genders the ick. Number one. Bad hygiene, Okay,
dirty fingernails, bad breath, body odor, greasy hair ew. I
(01:12):
remember my husband Julio told me once he had a
date with a very beautiful actress who shall be unnamed.
And on the second date she had dirty fingernails. I mean,
she could have been gardening, we don't know, but he
said he couldn't see her again. Just turned him off
so much. He's very clean guy. Dirty fingernails that did
it for him. But sometimes it's something emotional like an
(01:32):
ick might be somebody who's just overly eager. They're acting
too obsessed too soon. They're love bombing and using the
words I love you after just a few texts, a
few dates and non stop texting planning a wedding in
their head. Ladies, are you doing that? Some guys do
it too. Here's one that used to drive me crazy.
(01:54):
Pour table manners like chewing with their mouth open, slurping,
talking with food in their mouth, and along the same lines,
being rude to service personnel. That is a particular tender
spot to me because I spent a lot of years
waitressing in my early life and when people treated me
(02:15):
as less than ugh, I hated it. So I'm really
triggered if they don't treat weight staff well. But also
another ick might be like cringey social media behavior, jim
selfies stop it, you guys, stop it? And the empty
shirt off in the bathroom mirror selfies no stop it okay,
(02:35):
or awkward TikTok dancers that you shouldn't be doing. Nope, nope,
nope okay. So some people say, well, is that a
red flag if they do that? And we're talking slang
terms in modern culture. Now, there's a big difference between
an ick and a red flag, And the biggest difference
is the feeling of repulsion. So a red flag is
(02:58):
looking for signs that somebody's not really mentally healthy and
might not have the capacity for a long term committed relationship.
But the ick. Having the ick means that you've suddenly
lost sexual attraction to them because of something you've observed, right,
And it can be very like instinctive and visceral and
(03:20):
all of a sudden, and sometimes it's hard to pinpoint
about where this ick feeling is coming from. Now, the question,
when you feel the ick, should you always consider it
a red flag and leave or should you ignore it
and push through? Well, that is the million dollar question.
(03:41):
Is it you or is it them? There are people
out there who are afraid of intimacy, afraid of commitment,
and so what they're doing is looking for this one
little thing that drives them crazy about somebody's then God,
they're not for me, right, So ask yourself if you
had a pattern, are you getting the ick a lot?
(04:02):
Because if you are, then maybe the problems you not them.
So let's say, maybe, maybe maybe this does sound like
you you do have a feeling of the ick. I'm
going to give you a little bit of advice about
how you can move on from it and kind of
get over it. The first thing you need to do
is ask yourself, is this a shallow ick or a
(04:26):
deeper incompatibility ick. A shallow ick might be a cringy
texting style, a bad outflit, a weird laugh. A deeper
incompatibility thing might be you know, emotional immaturity, really bad values,
or somebody with such an anxious attachment style that the
(04:48):
neediness feels just engulfing. Right, So, if it's a deeper
incompatibility thing, I understand, red flag, move on. But if
it's a shallow ick, let's try to reframe it a
little bit, maybe give it some time. I got to
remind you that in the early stages of dating, people
are hyper sensitive and if you can just relax a
(05:13):
little bit, get to know the other parts of them,
then it might kind of fade away, And while you're
doing that, you better shift your focus. You know, whatever
we watch grows bigger, So if you've now become obsessed
with that ick and trying to catch it and see
it again, then it will just grow bigger and bolder
and drive you more crazy. So yes, you can ignore
(05:34):
it and focus on all the new positive things that
you see that are emerging. So maybe you're finding that
they might chew with their mouth open, but they're really
emotionally available, or their values really match yours, or they're
just really kind. The ick can kind of fade, right,
(05:57):
And is it okay to say, hey, you're doing this
thing is driving me crazy? Be cautious. I mean, if
this is a habit, like something like, hey, you know,
in my family, I've always been taught to chew with
my mouth closed, let's try that together. That's one thing.
But if it's something they can't change about themselves, like
bad teeth. Although I did refer one date to a
(06:19):
dentist once, I didn't go out with him after that,
but I did refer him to the dentist, I don't know.
I'm just saying, tender, be tender, Okay, hey, when we
come back, Can it really take eight years to get
over an ex? New research says, perhaps you are listening
(06:39):
to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
To the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six
forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know, I
get asked about breakups a lot, and usually it's by
people who are having undergone a breakup, are being triggered
by thoughts of their ex, or seeing their X somewhere
or seeing their social media and they say, doctor Wendy,
(07:12):
how long does it take? How long does it take
to get over this pain, this feeling of loss, this grieving. Well,
a new study has just come out that says, are
you sitting down that it can take eight years to
fully get over an X. The researchers found that there
(07:34):
are two major factors that impact the timeline of breakups.
Number one is a partner's attachment style, and number two
is how much contact somebody has with their ex. I
should say that the research showed that the average amount
(07:54):
of time and nobody's ever averaged, but the average amount
of time it takes to completely get over somebody is
about four and a half years. Honestly, Look, when I
broke up with the father of my children, there were
two years of anger, two years of struggle, and it
was only like literally like about the maybe like the
fifth year. Well, I remember thinking, stop being so angry,
(08:18):
because that's staying in connection with him on some level.
Now it's with anger, not love. But if you imagine
that he wasn't alive and you know something happened to him,
and you were all on your own, how would you
behave what would you think? And as soon as I
got to that place then I knew I was over him.
I was just like, Okay, it's all on me, this
(08:38):
single motherhood. I'm gonna figure it out, right. So let's
talk about, first of all, how much contact somebody might
have with their ex. They are all kinds of reasons
why people have to stay in touch with their ex.
Maybe they're raising a family together, they're co parenting, maybe
they're still running a business together or working together, or
(09:00):
maybe they're even just sharing a dog, right, sharing a
mortgage there be. I've heard of couples breaking up and
even trying to live in the same house. I don't
recommend it, I really don't. So people who have a
lot of reason to stay in contact, the length of
their full detachment is going to take a lot longer. Now,
(09:21):
I just want to pause here to say, sometimes people,
especially when it's marital divorce, stay connected with their partner,
but now through conflict, they go back to court over
and over. I'm telling you, the family lawyers make a
ton of money off people who have an anxious attachment
style because they don't want to fully let their partner go.
(09:42):
So there's always some court case coming up. There's always something, right,
it's it's staying in touch through conflict now instead of love.
So people who have an anxious attachment style might find
themselves slipping into a lot of back and forth, right,
because their anxiety makes them create bids to bring their
(10:05):
ex closer.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So maybe there's one of those late night drunken texts
you didn't need to send, but you did because you
had that moment.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Some people even slip up and have sex with their
ex and then the whole thing starts again, right, so
it depends on your attachment style, and it depends how
much contact you have with your ex and those people
that you hear about they get emotionally stuck. Guaranteed they're
on the side of having an anxious attachment style. They
(10:35):
have a lot of anxiety around abandonment, fear of abandon
men even if they wanted to do the breaking up,
even if they weren't happy with the relationship, they still
don't like the feeling of losing that mate right. And
one of the reason, one of the ways, by the
way that people with an anxious attachment style, I don't
know how I know this except that I used to
(10:55):
live it inside of me, is they might sort of
keep a cadre of potential mates around so that there
are people they can call whenever they're feeling lonely or abandoned.
So it might be some incoming mates, it might be
the current person they're dating, and they might keep a
loose string attached to that X as well. It's because
(11:18):
they want to maintain Psychologists would call it proximity seeking behaviors.
So so they want to keep their X and these
other potentials all in one orbit, so if one falls
out they've got another one they can rely on in
some way. Now, some people will say to me, is
(11:38):
the breakup worse because I didn't see it coming? Because
I was completely blindsided? It was a surprise. Well, I
gotta say. Research on breakups shows that there's pretty much
always one partner who psychologically checks out before the other one,
and then the other partner feels blindsided, right that they
(11:58):
didn't see the early signs that were there. What was
happening is one partner was checked out, and what do
they do when they're being checked out? It could go
on for years, by the way, they could be going
to the gym and getting ready for the mating marketplace.
They could be building more social support by hanging out
with their same sex friends more. They could be working more,
(12:20):
just bearing themselves in their work. They could be out
getting plastic surgery to getting themselves ready for the mating marketplace.
But they're all these things that might happen over a
couple year period before the breakup actually happens, and the
one who's feeling kind of alienated and seeing this happening
is kind of like, you know, this is going to
blow over. Things are going to get better because there's
(12:42):
no actually active fighting. The reason why is because the
other persons made their decision. They're on their way out
the door, right So I will tell you that always
somebody feels blindsided, and I don't think necessarily that that
makes the breakup take life longer. I do want to
(13:02):
say that if you are ruminating about an AX, if
you can't get them out of your head, see a
licensed therapist. Remember when we're hurting the most, we're usually
growing the most. My therapist used to call it fertile ground.
It's fertile ground to be able to excavate to figure
(13:22):
out what's going on inside. So you know, make sure
that you attend to those feelings. Those feelings are telling
you something. And I want to end with two important things.
One is research supports the idea that after a breakup,
going completely no contact does speed up healing. So that
(13:43):
means unfriend unfollow block might mean changing coffee shops, jim gyms,
health clubs, dry cleaners if you risk running into your ex.
There's no timeline on personal growth. Some people heal for
the first time in their life weeks before their death.
Some people do it in their twenties. Some people tend
(14:04):
to get over things quickly. Other people take much more
time to process and heal. Nobody's keeping score here. I
want you to take I want you to take the
time that you need to get better. But I do
want to say, don't isolate yourself. Get surround yourself by
people who love you, and go see a therapist. They
(14:25):
can really help you sort things out. Hey, when we
come back, assuming you're not in a breakup, there are
some questions that long term, happy couples ask each other.
A version of these questions and let's talk about these
five questions that couples should always be asking each other
when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on
(14:47):
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show I AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You know, I was talking to my husband
Julio this morning, and actually we were on an airplane
this morning, and I was reading this article that said
(15:18):
there are five questions that couples rarely ask each other,
and they should continue to ask these questions for their
whole relationship. And so he and I quickly asked the
questions to each other. Interesting enough, there were no surprising
answers for us. So it's because we have similar kinds
(15:43):
of conversations on the regular. But I want to share
with you. I'm paraphrasing some of these questions. I'm putting
some doctor Wendy wisdom into them. But I want to
talk to you about these subjects that we should be
talking about as our relationships progress. The first question is
(16:06):
during times of conflict, the question of simply, how can
we solve this? I want to break this down for
a reason. How can we solve this? There are two
very important words to that question. How can we solve this?
Three words? Actually, how as soon as you get your
(16:27):
brain out of the painful emotional place of blaming you
did this, and you said that, and you promised you
would do that, and you didn't even and it wasn't
my fault. I didn't meant. When you can get out
of that place and put the issue at hand in
your prefrontal cortex as a problem to solve, how huh?
Now it's a math problem. It's a realis cube. How
(16:48):
can let me think? How can we do that? Okay,
but the other next important word is can? How can?
How can we? Can? We? We can? We can? Can?
We remember the mind Here's words were basically hearing that
we can, we can fix this. But the biggest, most
important word in the question how can we solve this
(17:11):
is the word we. And I have to share something
with you. This week, my husband and I were talking
about an issue, an issue having to do with me,
my family, my life right because he's second marriage, late
in life, he's got his family, I got my family.
(17:31):
We keep everything separate. But when I brought up something,
he said, well, we've got some work to do, and
all of a sudden, I felt this relief come over
my body with the word we, because I thought I
was sharing a problem that was all on me to solve,
and there he was taking some ownership of this problem.
(17:54):
So there is lots of research to support the idea
that couples who share the work of problem solving within
their relationship and believe that they both have a role
in conflict resolution are much more healthy. Okay, that's question
number one. How can we solve this? Write that down.
Number two, how can I help you feel emotionally safe?
(18:17):
You know, people all the time will say to me, oh,
you know, my husband or my wife is so avoidant
and they won't talk about their feelings. And you know,
if you nag them and say, you know, talk, I
need you to talk, you know. But instead simply say
how can I help you feel safer? How can I
help you feel emotionally safer? They might say, stop asking
(18:37):
me so many questions, that's what you're supposed to do.
But when we talk about emotional safety, we mean feeling seen,
feeling heard, and being respected. Right, So if somebody is
trying to explain something, you might say something like, oh,
I hear you, I hear how hurt you are, or
(18:58):
oh it sounds like you're feeling really overwhelmed at work.
Give that empathy so that they can feel safe emotionally
opening up all right? Question number three, how do you
feel loved these days? That's a good one, right, because
at the beginning of somebody's relationship it's all about touch
(19:19):
and sex and compliments and everything else. Then you get
into the work of life and relationships, and also people
are changing and growing. Maybe your partner needs something else,
some kind of instrumental care, you know, like I need
you to run more errands, I need you to take
the kids to school once in a while. I would
feel really loved if you just made the bed or
(19:42):
did the laundry once in a while, took some burden
off me. That becomes the expression of love. How do
you feel loved these days? I will tell you that
one of the ways that both Julio and I I
express love to each other. And I know it sounds
(20:02):
so sappy, but it's just really true. We're just maybe
we're raised with good manners, me being the Canadian whatever,
him being raised well by his mom. Is that we
just express gratitude a lot for even the smallest things.
We say thank you, we say I appreciate you, and
that is how we express love more than but you
might have your own way. Question number four. You need
(20:24):
to ask your partner this, how do you think you've
changed since we first met? And how can I support
that change? You? See, the thing is, relationships are dynamic.
They're moving and changing at all times. I like to
think of them as a ven diagram, you know, those
two overlapping circles where you've got two autonomous, independent people
(20:44):
and then overlapping in the middle is the relationship. But
it's important that somebody is allowed to change and grow
because that makes the relationship more interesting and exciting. So
ask your partner, how do you think you've changed since
we first met? And how can I support that change?
And here's one of my favorites. I love this question
(21:05):
so much. If you've been with somebody for a long time,
you know, at the beginning you are filled with hopes
and dreams and plans, and you guys talked about it
all the time. And now you're in the business of life.
Do you still dream together? What are your current dreams?
What do you talk about building or growing or moving
(21:26):
or doing together? And if you haven't been dreaming together,
I'm afraid your relationship is going to start to die.
Human beings love to look forward. We love hope, we
love change, we love novelty, we love newness. And when
with your partner, the two of you can dream and
(21:47):
plan together, even if it's a small thing, planning a vacation,
or maybe it's planning a move, planning a new business,
planning to redecorate the house. I don't know. Whatever your
dream is to do together then that can help sustain you.
I wish you the best love this week. After you
(22:08):
finished listening to my show, I want you to go
to the person in your life who you love the
most and thank them for being them. It's always my
pleasure to be with you every Sunday from seven to nine.
Sometimes we end a little early because we have bigger,
better stuff to do. But you can always listen to
any part of the Doctor Wendy Walls Show that you
miss by just going to the iHeartRadio app downloading downloading
(22:29):
the app and then just searching my name, doctor Wendy Walsh.
And there's a little button at the top called the
preset button. Just hit that preset button and then anytime
you open the app, there's anything you missed. There's the
shows you missed. But I'm always here for you every
Sunday night. You've been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls's
show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the
(22:51):
iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You
can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
from s seven to nine pm on Sunday 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 wallsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. Can we talk about the ick?
E the ick? Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall
Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio App. Now, it's a new dating term. It's called
the ick, and it's a slang term for a very visceral,
(00:27):
sudden feeling of disgust or repulsion. And this feeling comes
it's directed towards somebody that you were previously attracted to.
Now it can be triggered by you've just learned something new,
or you've witnessed something about them that just turned you off.
But it's always the ick is when you're all you're
(00:50):
you know, thought the person was great and then there
was this one thing. Now, as far as dating goes,
let me tell you the top things that give people
of all genders the ick. Number one. Bad hygiene, Okay,
dirty fingernails, bad breath, body odor, greasy hair ew. I
(01:12):
remember my husband Julio told me once he had a
date with a very beautiful actress who shall be unnamed.
And on the second date she had dirty fingernails. I mean,
she could have been gardening, we don't know, but he
said he couldn't see her again. Just turned him off
so much. He's very clean guy. Dirty fingernails that did
it for him. But sometimes it's something emotional like an
(01:32):
ick might be somebody who's just overly eager. They're acting
too obsessed too soon. They're love bombing and using the
words I love you after just a few texts, a
few dates and non stop texting planning a wedding in
their head. Ladies, are you doing that? Some guys do
it too. Here's one that used to drive me crazy.
(01:54):
Pour table manners like chewing with their mouth open, slurping,
talking with food in their mouth, and along the same lines,
being rude to service personnel. That is a particular tender
spot to me because I spent a lot of years
waitressing in my early life and when people treated me
(02:15):
as less than ugh, I hated it. So I'm really
triggered if they don't treat weight staff well. But also
another ick might be like cringey social media behavior, jim
selfies stop it, you guys, stop it? And the empty
shirt off in the bathroom mirror selfies no stop it okay,
(02:35):
or awkward TikTok dancers that you shouldn't be doing. Nope, nope,
nope okay. So some people say, well, is that a
red flag if they do that? And we're talking slang
terms in modern culture. Now, there's a big difference between
an ick and a red flag, And the biggest difference
is the feeling of repulsion. So a red flag is
(02:58):
looking for signs that somebody's not really mentally healthy and
might not have the capacity for a long term committed relationship.
But the ick. Having the ick means that you've suddenly
lost sexual attraction to them because of something you've observed, right,
And it can be very like instinctive and visceral and
(03:20):
all of a sudden, and sometimes it's hard to pinpoint
about where this ick feeling is coming from. Now, the question,
when you feel the ick, should you always consider it
a red flag and leave or should you ignore it
and push through? Well, that is the million dollar question.
(03:41):
Is it you or is it them? There are people
out there who are afraid of intimacy, afraid of commitment,
and so what they're doing is looking for this one
little thing that drives them crazy about somebody's then God,
they're not for me, right, So ask yourself if you
had a pattern, are you getting the ick a lot?
(04:02):
Because if you are, then maybe the problems you not them.
So let's say, maybe, maybe maybe this does sound like
you you do have a feeling of the ick. I'm
going to give you a little bit of advice about
how you can move on from it and kind of
get over it. The first thing you need to do
is ask yourself, is this a shallow ick or a
(04:26):
deeper incompatibility ick. A shallow ick might be a cringy
texting style, a bad outflit, a weird laugh. A deeper
incompatibility thing might be you know, emotional immaturity, really bad values,
or somebody with such an anxious attachment style that the
(04:48):
neediness feels just engulfing. Right, So, if it's a deeper
incompatibility thing, I understand, red flag, move on. But if
it's a shallow ick, let's try to reframe it a
little bit, maybe give it some time. I got to
remind you that in the early stages of dating, people
are hyper sensitive and if you can just relax a
(05:13):
little bit, get to know the other parts of them,
then it might kind of fade away, And while you're
doing that, you better shift your focus. You know, whatever
we watch grows bigger, So if you've now become obsessed
with that ick and trying to catch it and see
it again, then it will just grow bigger and bolder
and drive you more crazy. So yes, you can ignore
(05:34):
it and focus on all the new positive things that
you see that are emerging. So maybe you're finding that
they might chew with their mouth open, but they're really
emotionally available, or their values really match yours, or they're
just really kind. The ick can kind of fade, right,
(05:57):
And is it okay to say, hey, you're doing this
thing is driving me crazy? Be cautious. I mean, if
this is a habit, like something like, hey, you know,
in my family, I've always been taught to chew with
my mouth closed, let's try that together. That's one thing.
But if it's something they can't change about themselves, like
bad teeth. Although I did refer one date to a
(06:19):
dentist once, I didn't go out with him after that,
but I did refer him to the dentist, I don't know.
I'm just saying, tender, be tender, Okay, hey, when we
come back, Can it really take eight years to get
over an ex? New research says, perhaps you are listening
(06:39):
to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six
forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
You're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty Welcome back.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
To the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six
forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know, I
get asked about breakups a lot, and usually it's by
people who are having undergone a breakup, are being triggered
by thoughts of their ex, or seeing their X somewhere
or seeing their social media and they say, doctor Wendy,
(07:12):
how long does it take? How long does it take
to get over this pain, this feeling of loss, this grieving. Well,
a new study has just come out that says, are
you sitting down that it can take eight years to
fully get over an X. The researchers found that there
(07:34):
are two major factors that impact the timeline of breakups.
Number one is a partner's attachment style, and number two
is how much contact somebody has with their ex. I
should say that the research showed that the average amount
(07:54):
of time and nobody's ever averaged, but the average amount
of time it takes to completely get over somebody is
about four and a half years. Honestly, Look, when I
broke up with the father of my children, there were
two years of anger, two years of struggle, and it
was only like literally like about the maybe like the
fifth year. Well, I remember thinking, stop being so angry,
(08:18):
because that's staying in connection with him on some level.
Now it's with anger, not love. But if you imagine
that he wasn't alive and you know something happened to him,
and you were all on your own, how would you
behave what would you think? And as soon as I
got to that place then I knew I was over him.
I was just like, Okay, it's all on me, this
(08:38):
single motherhood. I'm gonna figure it out, right. So let's
talk about, first of all, how much contact somebody might
have with their ex. They are all kinds of reasons
why people have to stay in touch with their ex.
Maybe they're raising a family together, they're co parenting, maybe
they're still running a business together or working together, or
(09:00):
maybe they're even just sharing a dog, right, sharing a
mortgage there be. I've heard of couples breaking up and
even trying to live in the same house. I don't
recommend it, I really don't. So people who have a
lot of reason to stay in contact, the length of
their full detachment is going to take a lot longer. Now,
(09:21):
I just want to pause here to say, sometimes people,
especially when it's marital divorce, stay connected with their partner,
but now through conflict, they go back to court over
and over. I'm telling you, the family lawyers make a
ton of money off people who have an anxious attachment
style because they don't want to fully let their partner go.
(09:42):
So there's always some court case coming up. There's always something, right,
it's it's staying in touch through conflict now instead of love.
So people who have an anxious attachment style might find
themselves slipping into a lot of back and forth, right,
because their anxiety makes them create bids to bring their
(10:05):
ex closer.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:06):
So maybe there's one of those late night drunken texts
you didn't need to send, but you did because you
had that moment.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
Some people even slip up and have sex with their
ex and then the whole thing starts again, right, so
it depends on your attachment style, and it depends how
much contact you have with your ex and those people
that you hear about they get emotionally stuck. Guaranteed they're
on the side of having an anxious attachment style. They
(10:35):
have a lot of anxiety around abandonment, fear of abandon
men even if they wanted to do the breaking up,
even if they weren't happy with the relationship, they still
don't like the feeling of losing that mate right. And
one of the reason, one of the ways, by the
way that people with an anxious attachment style, I don't
know how I know this except that I used to
(10:55):
live it inside of me, is they might sort of
keep a cadre of potential mates around so that there
are people they can call whenever they're feeling lonely or abandoned.
So it might be some incoming mates, it might be
the current person they're dating, and they might keep a
loose string attached to that X as well. It's because
(11:18):
they want to maintain Psychologists would call it proximity seeking behaviors.
So so they want to keep their X and these
other potentials all in one orbit, so if one falls
out they've got another one they can rely on in
some way. Now, some people will say to me, is
(11:38):
the breakup worse because I didn't see it coming? Because
I was completely blindsided? It was a surprise. Well, I
gotta say. Research on breakups shows that there's pretty much
always one partner who psychologically checks out before the other one,
and then the other partner feels blindsided, right that they
(11:58):
didn't see the early signs that were there. What was
happening is one partner was checked out, and what do
they do when they're being checked out? It could go
on for years, by the way, they could be going
to the gym and getting ready for the mating marketplace.
They could be building more social support by hanging out
with their same sex friends more. They could be working more,
(12:20):
just bearing themselves in their work. They could be out
getting plastic surgery to getting themselves ready for the mating marketplace.
But they're all these things that might happen over a
couple year period before the breakup actually happens, and the
one who's feeling kind of alienated and seeing this happening
is kind of like, you know, this is going to
blow over. Things are going to get better because there's
(12:42):
no actually active fighting. The reason why is because the
other persons made their decision. They're on their way out
the door, right So I will tell you that always
somebody feels blindsided, and I don't think necessarily that that
makes the breakup take life longer. I do want to
(13:02):
say that if you are ruminating about an AX, if
you can't get them out of your head, see a
licensed therapist. Remember when we're hurting the most, we're usually
growing the most. My therapist used to call it fertile ground.
It's fertile ground to be able to excavate to figure
(13:22):
out what's going on inside. So you know, make sure
that you attend to those feelings. Those feelings are telling
you something. And I want to end with two important things.
One is research supports the idea that after a breakup,
going completely no contact does speed up healing. So that
(13:43):
means unfriend unfollow block might mean changing coffee shops, jim gyms,
health clubs, dry cleaners if you risk running into your ex.
There's no timeline on personal growth. Some people heal for
the first time in their life weeks before their death.
Some people do it in their twenties. Some people tend
(14:04):
to get over things quickly. Other people take much more
time to process and heal. Nobody's keeping score here. I
want you to take I want you to take the
time that you need to get better. But I do
want to say, don't isolate yourself. Get surround yourself by
people who love you, and go see a therapist. They
(14:25):
can really help you sort things out. Hey, when we
come back, assuming you're not in a breakup, there are
some questions that long term, happy couples ask each other.
A version of these questions and let's talk about these
five questions that couples should always be asking each other
when we come back. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show on KFI AM six forty Live everywhere on
(14:47):
the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (14:56):
Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy
Walsh Show I AM six forty Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app. You know, I was talking to my husband
Julio this morning, and actually we were on an airplane
this morning, and I was reading this article that said
(15:18):
there are five questions that couples rarely ask each other,
and they should continue to ask these questions for their
whole relationship. And so he and I quickly asked the
questions to each other. Interesting enough, there were no surprising
answers for us. So it's because we have similar kinds
(15:43):
of conversations on the regular. But I want to share
with you. I'm paraphrasing some of these questions. I'm putting
some doctor Wendy wisdom into them. But I want to
talk to you about these subjects that we should be
talking about as our relationships progress. The first question is
(16:06):
during times of conflict, the question of simply, how can
we solve this? I want to break this down for
a reason. How can we solve this? There are two
very important words to that question. How can we solve this?
Three words? Actually, how as soon as you get your
(16:27):
brain out of the painful emotional place of blaming you
did this, and you said that, and you promised you
would do that, and you didn't even and it wasn't
my fault. I didn't meant. When you can get out
of that place and put the issue at hand in
your prefrontal cortex as a problem to solve, how huh?
Now it's a math problem. It's a realis cube. How
(16:48):
can let me think? How can we do that? Okay,
but the other next important word is can? How can?
How can we? Can? We? We can? We can? Can?
We remember the mind Here's words were basically hearing that
we can, we can fix this. But the biggest, most
important word in the question how can we solve this
(17:11):
is the word we. And I have to share something
with you. This week, my husband and I were talking
about an issue, an issue having to do with me,
my family, my life right because he's second marriage, late
in life, he's got his family, I got my family.
(17:31):
We keep everything separate. But when I brought up something,
he said, well, we've got some work to do, and
all of a sudden, I felt this relief come over
my body with the word we, because I thought I
was sharing a problem that was all on me to solve,
and there he was taking some ownership of this problem.
(17:54):
So there is lots of research to support the idea
that couples who share the work of problem solving within
their relationship and believe that they both have a role
in conflict resolution are much more healthy. Okay, that's question
number one. How can we solve this? Write that down.
Number two, how can I help you feel emotionally safe?
(18:17):
You know, people all the time will say to me, oh,
you know, my husband or my wife is so avoidant
and they won't talk about their feelings. And you know,
if you nag them and say, you know, talk, I
need you to talk, you know. But instead simply say
how can I help you feel safer? How can I
help you feel emotionally safer? They might say, stop asking
(18:37):
me so many questions, that's what you're supposed to do.
But when we talk about emotional safety, we mean feeling seen,
feeling heard, and being respected. Right, So if somebody is
trying to explain something, you might say something like, oh,
I hear you, I hear how hurt you are, or
(18:58):
oh it sounds like you're feeling really overwhelmed at work.
Give that empathy so that they can feel safe emotionally
opening up all right? Question number three, how do you
feel loved these days? That's a good one, right, because
at the beginning of somebody's relationship it's all about touch
(19:19):
and sex and compliments and everything else. Then you get
into the work of life and relationships, and also people
are changing and growing. Maybe your partner needs something else,
some kind of instrumental care, you know, like I need
you to run more errands, I need you to take
the kids to school once in a while. I would
feel really loved if you just made the bed or
(19:42):
did the laundry once in a while, took some burden
off me. That becomes the expression of love. How do
you feel loved these days? I will tell you that
one of the ways that both Julio and I I
express love to each other. And I know it sounds
(20:02):
so sappy, but it's just really true. We're just maybe
we're raised with good manners, me being the Canadian whatever,
him being raised well by his mom. Is that we
just express gratitude a lot for even the smallest things.
We say thank you, we say I appreciate you, and
that is how we express love more than but you
might have your own way. Question number four. You need
(20:24):
to ask your partner this, how do you think you've
changed since we first met? And how can I support
that change? You? See, the thing is, relationships are dynamic.
They're moving and changing at all times. I like to
think of them as a ven diagram, you know, those
two overlapping circles where you've got two autonomous, independent people
(20:44):
and then overlapping in the middle is the relationship. But
it's important that somebody is allowed to change and grow
because that makes the relationship more interesting and exciting. So
ask your partner, how do you think you've changed since
we first met? And how can I support that change?
And here's one of my favorites. I love this question
(21:05):
so much. If you've been with somebody for a long time,
you know, at the beginning you are filled with hopes
and dreams and plans, and you guys talked about it
all the time. And now you're in the business of life.
Do you still dream together? What are your current dreams?
What do you talk about building or growing or moving
(21:26):
or doing together? And if you haven't been dreaming together,
I'm afraid your relationship is going to start to die.
Human beings love to look forward. We love hope, we
love change, we love novelty, we love newness. And when
with your partner, the two of you can dream and
(21:47):
plan together, even if it's a small thing, planning a vacation,
or maybe it's planning a move, planning a new business,
planning to redecorate the house. I don't know. Whatever your
dream is to do together then that can help sustain you.
I wish you the best love this week. After you
(22:08):
finished listening to my show, I want you to go
to the person in your life who you love the
most and thank them for being them. It's always my
pleasure to be with you every Sunday from seven to nine.
Sometimes we end a little early because we have bigger,
better stuff to do. But you can always listen to
any part of the Doctor Wendy Walls Show that you
miss by just going to the iHeartRadio app downloading downloading
(22:29):
the app and then just searching my name, doctor Wendy Walsh.
And there's a little button at the top called the
preset button. Just hit that preset button and then anytime
you open the app, there's anything you missed. There's the
shows you missed. But I'm always here for you every
Sunday night. You've been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls's
show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere on the
(22:51):
iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You
can always hear us live on KFI AM six forty
from s seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime
on demand on the iHeartRadio app,
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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