Dr. Wendy is offering her Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice. PLUS how to have a "normal" love life. It's all on KFIAM-640.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k
I AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio App. Welcome back to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio App. If you have not downloaded the
iHeartRadio app yet, you really should because if you miss
any episode of the Doctor Wendy Walt Show or part
(00:21):
of it, or you want to send a segment to
a friend, you need to get on that app because
it's there permanently afterwards and you can listen to it
at your leisure whenever you want. All right, I'm about
to answer some of your dms that you're sending in
on Instagram. My handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh at
dr Wendy Walsh. Reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm a
psychology professor. But I did write a dissertation on attachment theory,
(00:46):
wrote three books on relationships, and been to a lot
of therapy myself. So let's get into it. Dear doctor Wendy.
I don't want to spend hours and hours with someone
every time we hang out. I'm ok. With seeing someone
for two to three hours once a week. I don't
know how to communicate this without sounding awful. It's just
(01:08):
my preference to not immerse myself in a man. Oh
this woman writing this in a man right away? Or
alter my life too much? How should I tell him?
I don't know you, and I don't want to diagnose you,
but this shore sounds to me like the voice of
somebody with an avoidant detachment style. You see, people who
(01:31):
desire a secure relationship are not afraid of intimacy, not
afraid of closeness. I will agree with you on one thing.
If you're just beginning to date somebody, you don't need
to spend more than two or three hours with them
on any given date. I heard recently from someone who said, oh,
I met the greatest guy in our first date lasted
(01:53):
seven hours. I want to smack her across the face. No,
I wouldn't really, But has I had that thought like,
oh my god, she should not? Kayla, you just looked
at me like I was a mean mom. I thought
you're talking about me. No, No, it would doesn't mean
did you have a date? I told you how to
date that last of six hours? You're like, that's way
too much time. It is too much time. But I've
met someone else, so you're not alone. Other women make
that same mistake. I met another woman who said she
(02:13):
did it for seven hours and then she met him
the next day for another seven hours. Too much, too much,
way too much, way too much. So I like the
short dates, but the frequency, this whole thing of I
don't really want to alter my life for a man.
I don't want to get too close. I feel awful.
I don't know. You know, if you're comfortable, then I
(02:34):
would just say it. Just tell people, because it's not
like having an avoidant attachment style is dysfunctional for you.
It's working for you. But what you need to do
is find another person who has an avoidant detachment style.
You guys will be perfect together. You will live like
polite roommates in your life. There'll be no intimacy and
you'll be fine. There won't even be a lot of fighting, probably,
(02:55):
So you just gotta be honest with those people. Honesty
is the best policy. I already talked about that, all right.
Moving on, dear doctor Wendy. I dated a guy in
twenty twenty. We dated for a long time, but we
never became official boyfriend and girlfriend. Well that's your fault,
just saying okay, so I had to throw that in.
He told me he was healing himself with his therapist
(03:17):
and didn't want a relationship until he heals. So I
just want to pause and interject something here. You said
we dated for a long time. Then you said he
didn't want a relationship until he healed. I have some
news for you. You were having a relationship, and so
(03:38):
was he just throwing that out there. I realized that
was an excuse and moved on with my life. We
are still friends. This week, he told me he loves
me and he thinks about me every day. Should I
give another chance? I do love him, but he never
moved forward with me the last time. Oh this is
(03:59):
a good one. I have a good answer here. Okay.
First of all, in general, the best predictor of somebody's
future behavior is always their past behavior. If you go
back to the same system you had before, he will
behave the same way. So the answer is if you
(04:21):
do choose to give him another chance. I actually kind
of think it's a good idea, especially if he's working
with a therapist, that you're gonna say, okay, but we
need to do it differently, this way, this time, and
here's how I want it to be different. You might suggest,
because you said we dated for a long time, you
might suggest, why don't we go to couple's therapy together
so we can create a different system together as we
(04:44):
build this. Or you could say, hear the things that
bothered me about last time, how it never moved forward.
Or you could say, hey, if you say you love
me and I have those feelings too, then from the
get go, let's be boyfriend and girlfriend. Let's not I
have undefined nonsense. You already know this person. Remember you
dated for a long time, so I would set up
(05:07):
the boundaries definitely, and I might give them another chance.
Do went to therapy? That's good, all right, dear doctor Wendy.
My husband quit his job to become an actor. Oh god,
this is heartbreaking. As soon as I read that sentence,
I'm heartbroken. Quit his job to become an actor. You
(05:29):
know what, I had a friend. I'm none even reading
the rest yet until I just jump in and say this.
I had a friend. She and I had modeled together
when we were young, and then she moved to Texas
and she married, you know, to a typical story of
a model. She married a successful guy, had three kids
once they became teenagers because she married young and had
them so she was still youngish. And she came out
(05:52):
to LA and said, I don't know what it is,
but I just got the bug. I got the acting bug.
She's from Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
She can talk like that.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Am I making fun of her? She got a book? No,
I you do Texas very well, but she got an
acting book. And so I remember she came over to
LA and she called some of her high flutin friends
who had contacts, and she had a lunch with like
Mike Ovitz or something at his private Malibu house. I'm like,
I don't know if that sounds like all business, but
okay whatever. So I sat her down to lunch one day.
(06:24):
You know again, I'm a truth teller and a heartbreaker.
I'm such a mirror and reality check. And I said
to her, why do you really want to become an actor?
And she said, well, I just had the book. And
I said, you know, acting is about having a limelight
sean on you. It's about having a little entourage around you.
It's about having a people applaud you. I'm wondering if
(06:47):
you're feeling unloved in your life at home, if you're
feeling ignored, if you're not getting enough attention. Look, it
wasn't therapy. I was being a friend and I had
a wondering. Okay, so I said it to her anyway.
She said to me, you're so deep. I think you're right.
Started crying. Went back to Texas, got a therapist, patched
(07:10):
it up with her husband, and seems, I'm just looking
at her on social media, seems beautiful and happy. So
there you go. All right, back to this couple. Dear doctor, Wendy,
my husband quit his job to become an actor. Wait,
there's another sentence, Kayla, you're gonna love. We are in
our late fifties. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm
heartbroken for her, heartbreaking. And then the next sentence, he's
(07:34):
not very good at acting. I'm sorry. If you're listening,
I'm sorry, if you're listening, it's just so painful, it's
so heartbreaking. Wait, next sentence, I'm gonna review. Okay, everybody,
my husband quit his job to become an actor. Point
number one, point number two. We are in our late fifties.
You all know it's a young person's game, all right.
(07:55):
Point number three, he's not very good at acting. That's
her opinion. We don't know the truth there. Point number four,
this is stressing me out. And then the question how
can I gently tell him to get his crap together? Okay,
the word gentle doesn't need to be there. Okay, you
(08:15):
need to say, dude, make yourself happy. But I'm not
hanging around while you run around to a bunch of
auditions and go to parties and meet starlets and whatever.
Why are you doing it? What is up? Right? You guys?
Should you should demand if you want to keep the marriage,
demand you go to couple's therapy and go what is up?
I mean, I understand it's time to find yourself. But look,
(08:36):
I went through a phase in my late forties where
I thought, maybe I still could join the New York
City Ballet. Maybe there's a chance, right, I mean, we
have these fantasies. Look, the chance of a young hot
person in their twenties becoming successful and earning a living,
not even famous, just earning a living in the entertainment
business is very slim. In your fifties, It's even slimmer
(09:00):
there are fewer parts. It's hard to break in. You
don't have the contacts. They would rather hire an actor
in their fifties who's had thirty years of experience in
the business. So I'm sorry to burst your bubble. You
know what's gonna happen, Kayla, She's gonna take this segment
from the iHeartRadio app. She's gonna send it to her
husband with all the laughter, Wendy, he will cry. I
(09:21):
know we can't.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Don't send it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Sometimes you have to give people the gift. Oh JESU.
All right, when we come back, I'm gonna continue answering
your relationship questions. Thank you for trusting me. I promise
I'm gonna try not to laugh next time, but I
know I'm laughing out of It's like Yallow's humor. It's sad,
breaks my heart. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Wells
Show on KFI AM six forty with Live Everywhere on
(09:44):
the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wells Show on KFI
AM six forty, Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app I
am weighing on your love life. You send me a
DM on Instagram, follow me on Instagram at dr Wendy
Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh, and send me a private message.
I do not disclose your name. I try to not
reveal any details about your identity, and I try really
(10:16):
hard not to laugh unless it's so heartbreaking that I'm
going to cry. Unless I giggle. That was last segment. Okay,
dear doctor Wendy, I have been with my wife since
we were teenagers. Oh that's so sweet. I don't know
life without her. We just aren't compatible. In our forties.
We tried therapy and nothing changed. She doesn't understand that
(10:38):
I don't feel appreciated. Is there any way to save us?
I have only one thing to say. That's a question
for the two of you to ask each other in
a therapist's office. This might be the beginning of you
guys doing some conscious uncoupling. I know you said and
(11:00):
you don't know life without her, but that doesn't mean
that life without her might not be great. You also said,
she doesn't understand that you don't feel appreciated. Your therapist
is going to help you figure out whether it's about
something she's doing or something that's going on internally with you,
(11:21):
Like no one could make you feel appreciated because you
don't appreciate yourself. I don't know. I don't know the answer,
but I think the two of you need to talk
about whether to go forward or not together. And don't
be afraid of the future. Don't be afraid of change.
You've been together like twenty five years. That's a successful
(11:45):
relationship even if it culminates, So never feel like it's
a failure. But people change across a lifespan. They do.
Dear doctor Wendy ah, very honest, simple listener wrote this
to me, my son is gay. I never would have
(12:07):
guessed what are the best ways to support him? You know,
I was reading the New York Times writes these things
called tiny love stories, and there was one from a
actually a couple of years ago. I was took a
deep dive into some backstuff, back pages, and this young
woman said that it was so hard for her, at
the age of eighteen to tell her mom that she
(12:31):
was gay. She said, coincidentally, her mom had always called
her her rainbow child's and she was little because she
thought of rainbows as happiness and pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow. It had always been her nickname,
and her mom's reaction was sort of nothing, not positive,
not negative. She really wasn't sure how her mom took it.
(12:54):
And one time she was away at college and for
her birthday, her mom sent her a huge box of
rainbow colored goldfish crackers to snack on. Don't ask me
about the dies and those things, and her mom said,
did you get it rainbow crackers for my rainbow child?
(13:16):
And she said, at that moment, I knew my mother
loved me deeply, no matter what. So the answer is,
your son is your son, and love is love. There's
no when you say how do you support him? You
support him the way you would support any other child
you have. You love them, you care about them. You
(13:39):
don't necessarily have to be intrusive about their love lives
if you don't want to know, or you can say, hey,
I'm supportive, I love you. I want you to choose
a partner who loves you as much as I love you,
and whatever whoever you are, your mine. You do you
(14:01):
remind your kid that they are loved unconditionally, all right? Uh,
Dear doctor, Wendy. I found out that a guy I
was dating went through my phone. He confronted me about
someone else I am dating. I feel this is a violation.
How do I tell him never to ever do this again?
Or should I just leave him? We've only been dating
(14:24):
for four months. Well, there are a few things here
I want to talk about. First of all, he's testing you, right,
he's testing the control things. He violated your trust, he
violated your privacy. You should be very upset about that.
On the other hand, you said you were dating somebody else.
(14:44):
I don't know if this guy who went through your
phone thought he was exclusive with you, had you had
the conversation. So how much is it on you that
he had this perception? Now if you say, well, we
just never had the conversation. So if we don't the conversation,
maybe I could be dating more people. Right. So, I
(15:04):
think what's really important with everybody out there is that
when in the early stages of dating, especially once you
enter a sexual relationship, is you start to be clear.
You start to be clear about you know, what the
boundaries are, what the rules are, whether you're exclusive or not,
whether you're public, blah blah blah, blah blah, and if
you haven't done that, So let's assume. I'm just going
(15:28):
to assume here that the two of you never had
the conversation about exclusivity, and so you assumed it's okay
to date other people. He went through your phone saw
that indeed you were dating other people. It's a big
mess right now, Okay. I will say that this was
a test to see what you could tolerate because you've
only been dating in four months, and there's obviously somebody
(15:50):
else you can be dating. I would, this is me,
me and my personal opinion in my life, I would
call it a red flag and leave him because if
he's go I went through your phone already, later he's
going to become your stalker. Like that is such a
violation and such a betrayal. So for me, I'd be like,
(16:11):
you know what, dude, we were not exclusive, if that's true,
and so you had no right to violate my privacy.
So I don't think we could see each other anymore
because it's only going to get worse. Trust me. Hey,
when we come back, people often ask me what's a
normal love life? What is typical? Right? Let me tell
(16:33):
you what I think A normal love life is when
we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy
Wall Show on KFI AM six forty with Live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. You know,
the probably the most common question I get is what's normal?
Am I? Normal?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Is normal? Is this typical?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Let me tell you there's no such thing as normal
when it comes to dating, mating, and relating. We have
the widest range of dating and bonding behavior, sexual behavior,
and paternal investment. Paternal investment fathers investing in kids of
any primate species. Literally, there are guys out there who's
(17:26):
only investment in their offspring we know them is one
teaspoon of sperm elon well he puts some finances into.
And then there are other men who are carpool driving,
softball throwing, baby wearing, doting dads right, and we have
everything in between. We also have men and women who
(17:50):
are complete players, not monogamous ever, not gonna happen. And
other people of all genders who are completely monogamous cross
a lifespan might have you know, one or two or
three stints of monogamy. By the way, do you want
to know how anthropologists tell how much monogamy is in
a species. They look at the size of their scrotum. Yeah,
(18:13):
listen to this. So at one end you've got chimpanzees.
Their scrotum are particularly large relative to body size. They
tend to be very promiscuous, very sexual, very violent, all
that testosterone. If there's a nursing mother, they practice in
fantaside and kill the baby to make her fertile again,
(18:36):
and there's a lot of rape that goes on. Crazy.
I don't want to be around chimps. And then there's
like orangutans at the other end, they're like big hulking bodies,
little tiny chestnuts, kind of monogamous, very paternalistic. And you
know what we have with Homo sapien. That would be us.
We have everything. We have the widest range of mating
(18:58):
behavior and parenting behavior. However, culture matters. Humans have lots
of cultural variations. For instance, capitalism and patriarchy, which are
cultural inventions, really favor nuclear families in capitalism and patriarchy.
(19:20):
We don't have a group childcare, etc. We don't have
subsidized childcare in the workplace. We have Mom and dad
should try to do it. It's all on you. Religion
might be a cultural factor. The Abrahamic religions, Judeo Christian,
Muslim favor in group mating people in the parish because
they want to keep membership in their club. Also, developmental
(19:46):
stages matter, and our developmental growth stages of individual humans
has been shifting. You know, in nineteen fifty a twenty
five year old man was married, had a mortgage and
two kids. Today people are launching much later. But that
(20:06):
brings other problems in relationship because fertility matters. We might
be dating and marrying later, but our biological fertility windows
have not shifted. And before you stop there and go
it's a women's problem. All kinds of new research is
showing that if men have babies later in life, their
kids have a much higher rate of autism. Lots of
(20:27):
push on that, lots of evidence. So we are trying
to use technology to deal with the fact that our
biological windows have not changed. Things like egg freezing in
vitro fertilization surrogacy. I want to remind you that breakups
and divorce are normal, They are not failures. So what
(20:51):
is a somewhat typical pattern of relationship life? After I
told you there's so much variety, let's talk about what's
kind of typical. Well, first of all, nowadays, dating and
sexual exploration in our teenage and twenties is the norm.
I should tell you. As of twenty twenty two, the
median age for first time marriage in the United States
(21:12):
listen to this is thirty and a half years for
men and twenty eight point six years for women. That means,
by that age, if you're out in the mating marketplace,
by the age of thirty, half the men are off
the market. Half the men are off the market, and
the ones that are still in the market same with
the women half. All right. States with the lowest median
(21:35):
age at first time marriage Utah, of course, twenty six
for men, twenty four for women, Idaho, Arkansas, and Wyoming.
Then at a certain point, people divorce. Here's another interesting
stat The average age of first time divorce is thirty
and a half for men and twenty nine for women.
It's about the same and the average duration of that
(21:57):
marriage is about seven years. So look what we're saying,
don't get married under the age of twenty five, because
that's when you have the highest divorce rate. But the
other group where divorce rates are flying up are people
over the age of fifty because we're living so much longer.
Fifty is the new forty, sixty is the new fifty.
(22:19):
People are realizing they're bored in their relationships or the
purpose of the relationship is over now raising kids or
building a business or whatever it may be, building a household,
and so we're seeing divorce is gray divorce. We call
it gray divorce increasing faster than anything. And back to
mate selection. It used to be that there were only
(22:42):
single people in their twenties, and now there are large
swaths of single people across the lifespan. I mentioned to
you that when till Death to Us part was invented,
death was pretty imminent. And as a result, even if
you're a complete secure attacher, if you have a healthy
relationships and you're very monogamous, that you still may have
(23:06):
two or three long stints of monogamy in your life.
So we have to continue to learn and hone our
relationship skills about mate acquisition, mate retention, and sometimes learning
mate expulsion. This is typical. This is normal. If you
believe a myth that you meet your soulmate once early
(23:27):
in life and you're going to stay with That is
the minority. Now. I know I'm going to get some
talkbacks from you guys on the app and emails from using.
But I met my wife and we've been married forty
five years and we stayed together. Good for you, congratulations
and I'm so glad you were happy, and I'm so
glad it was satisfying to everybody involved. But you're not typical.
(23:50):
You're the minority. What is typical is two or three
stints of monogamy with some mate selection or sexual exploration
in between. And I want to pull everybody off the
gilt train if they think that any relationship they've had
has failed and hasn't failed. You're learning, you're getting better,
(24:10):
and I'm proud of you. And that brings our show
to a close. I'm always here for you at seven
pm on Sunday nights here on KFI. If you miss
any part of the show, it's always put up on
the iHeartRadio app. Just search doctor Wendy Walsh and keep
in touch with me, go on to Instagram and follow
me at d R Wendy Walsh. I'd love to hear
(24:31):
from you. Send me some DMS. It's great to hear
from everybody. I'll see you next week. You've been listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening
to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live
on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm
on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to k
I AM six forty the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio App. Welcome back to the Doctor
Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio App. If you have not downloaded the
iHeartRadio app yet, you really should because if you miss
any episode of the Doctor Wendy Walt Show or part
(00:21):
of it, or you want to send a segment to
a friend, you need to get on that app because
it's there permanently afterwards and you can listen to it
at your leisure whenever you want. All right, I'm about
to answer some of your dms that you're sending in
on Instagram. My handle is at doctor Wendy Walsh at
dr Wendy Walsh. Reminder, I'm not a therapist. I'm a
psychology professor. But I did write a dissertation on attachment theory,
(00:46):
wrote three books on relationships, and been to a lot
of therapy myself. So let's get into it. Dear doctor Wendy.
I don't want to spend hours and hours with someone
every time we hang out. I'm ok. With seeing someone
for two to three hours once a week. I don't
know how to communicate this without sounding awful. It's just
(01:08):
my preference to not immerse myself in a man. Oh
this woman writing this in a man right away? Or
alter my life too much? How should I tell him?
I don't know you, and I don't want to diagnose you,
but this shore sounds to me like the voice of
somebody with an avoidant detachment style. You see, people who
(01:31):
desire a secure relationship are not afraid of intimacy, not
afraid of closeness. I will agree with you on one thing.
If you're just beginning to date somebody, you don't need
to spend more than two or three hours with them
on any given date. I heard recently from someone who said, oh,
I met the greatest guy in our first date lasted
(01:53):
seven hours. I want to smack her across the face. No,
I wouldn't really, But has I had that thought like,
oh my god, she should not? Kayla, you just looked
at me like I was a mean mom. I thought
you're talking about me. No, No, it would doesn't mean
did you have a date? I told you how to
date that last of six hours? You're like, that's way
too much time. It is too much time. But I've
met someone else, so you're not alone. Other women make
that same mistake. I met another woman who said she
(02:13):
did it for seven hours and then she met him
the next day for another seven hours. Too much, too much,
way too much, way too much. So I like the
short dates, but the frequency, this whole thing of I
don't really want to alter my life for a man.
I don't want to get too close. I feel awful.
I don't know. You know, if you're comfortable, then I
(02:34):
would just say it. Just tell people, because it's not
like having an avoidant attachment style is dysfunctional for you.
It's working for you. But what you need to do
is find another person who has an avoidant detachment style.
You guys will be perfect together. You will live like
polite roommates in your life. There'll be no intimacy and
you'll be fine. There won't even be a lot of fighting, probably,
(02:55):
So you just gotta be honest with those people. Honesty
is the best policy. I already talked about that, all right.
Moving on, dear doctor Wendy. I dated a guy in
twenty twenty. We dated for a long time, but we
never became official boyfriend and girlfriend. Well that's your fault,
just saying okay, so I had to throw that in.
He told me he was healing himself with his therapist
(03:17):
and didn't want a relationship until he heals. So I
just want to pause and interject something here. You said
we dated for a long time. Then you said he
didn't want a relationship until he healed. I have some
news for you. You were having a relationship, and so
(03:38):
was he just throwing that out there. I realized that
was an excuse and moved on with my life. We
are still friends. This week, he told me he loves
me and he thinks about me every day. Should I
give another chance? I do love him, but he never
moved forward with me the last time. Oh this is
(03:59):
a good one. I have a good answer here. Okay.
First of all, in general, the best predictor of somebody's
future behavior is always their past behavior. If you go
back to the same system you had before, he will
behave the same way. So the answer is if you
(04:21):
do choose to give him another chance. I actually kind
of think it's a good idea, especially if he's working
with a therapist, that you're gonna say, okay, but we
need to do it differently, this way, this time, and
here's how I want it to be different. You might suggest,
because you said we dated for a long time, you
might suggest, why don't we go to couple's therapy together
so we can create a different system together as we
(04:44):
build this. Or you could say, hear the things that
bothered me about last time, how it never moved forward.
Or you could say, hey, if you say you love
me and I have those feelings too, then from the
get go, let's be boyfriend and girlfriend. Let's not I
have undefined nonsense. You already know this person. Remember you
dated for a long time, so I would set up
(05:07):
the boundaries definitely, and I might give them another chance.
Do went to therapy? That's good, all right, dear doctor Wendy.
My husband quit his job to become an actor. Oh god,
this is heartbreaking. As soon as I read that sentence,
I'm heartbroken. Quit his job to become an actor. You
(05:29):
know what, I had a friend. I'm none even reading
the rest yet until I just jump in and say this.
I had a friend. She and I had modeled together
when we were young, and then she moved to Texas
and she married, you know, to a typical story of
a model. She married a successful guy, had three kids
once they became teenagers because she married young and had
them so she was still youngish. And she came out
(05:52):
to LA and said, I don't know what it is,
but I just got the bug. I got the acting bug.
She's from Texas.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
She can talk like that.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
Am I making fun of her? She got a book? No,
I you do Texas very well, but she got an
acting book. And so I remember she came over to
LA and she called some of her high flutin friends
who had contacts, and she had a lunch with like
Mike Ovitz or something at his private Malibu house. I'm like,
I don't know if that sounds like all business, but
okay whatever. So I sat her down to lunch one day.
(06:24):
You know again, I'm a truth teller and a heartbreaker.
I'm such a mirror and reality check. And I said
to her, why do you really want to become an actor?
And she said, well, I just had the book. And
I said, you know, acting is about having a limelight
sean on you. It's about having a little entourage around you.
It's about having a people applaud you. I'm wondering if
(06:47):
you're feeling unloved in your life at home, if you're
feeling ignored, if you're not getting enough attention. Look, it
wasn't therapy. I was being a friend and I had
a wondering. Okay, so I said it to her anyway.
She said to me, you're so deep. I think you're right.
Started crying. Went back to Texas, got a therapist, patched
(07:10):
it up with her husband, and seems, I'm just looking
at her on social media, seems beautiful and happy. So
there you go. All right, back to this couple. Dear doctor, Wendy,
my husband quit his job to become an actor. Wait,
there's another sentence, Kayla, you're gonna love. We are in
our late fifties. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm
heartbroken for her, heartbreaking. And then the next sentence, he's
(07:34):
not very good at acting. I'm sorry. If you're listening,
I'm sorry, if you're listening, it's just so painful, it's
so heartbreaking. Wait, next sentence, I'm gonna review. Okay, everybody,
my husband quit his job to become an actor. Point
number one, point number two. We are in our late fifties.
You all know it's a young person's game, all right.
(07:55):
Point number three, he's not very good at acting. That's
her opinion. We don't know the truth there. Point number four,
this is stressing me out. And then the question how
can I gently tell him to get his crap together? Okay,
the word gentle doesn't need to be there. Okay, you
(08:15):
need to say, dude, make yourself happy. But I'm not
hanging around while you run around to a bunch of
auditions and go to parties and meet starlets and whatever.
Why are you doing it? What is up? Right? You guys?
Should you should demand if you want to keep the marriage,
demand you go to couple's therapy and go what is up?
I mean, I understand it's time to find yourself. But look,
(08:36):
I went through a phase in my late forties where
I thought, maybe I still could join the New York
City Ballet. Maybe there's a chance, right, I mean, we
have these fantasies. Look, the chance of a young hot
person in their twenties becoming successful and earning a living,
not even famous, just earning a living in the entertainment
business is very slim. In your fifties, It's even slimmer
(09:00):
there are fewer parts. It's hard to break in. You
don't have the contacts. They would rather hire an actor
in their fifties who's had thirty years of experience in
the business. So I'm sorry to burst your bubble. You
know what's gonna happen, Kayla, She's gonna take this segment
from the iHeartRadio app. She's gonna send it to her
husband with all the laughter, Wendy, he will cry. I
(09:21):
know we can't.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Don't send it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Sometimes you have to give people the gift. Oh JESU.
All right, when we come back, I'm gonna continue answering
your relationship questions. Thank you for trusting me. I promise
I'm gonna try not to laugh next time, but I
know I'm laughing out of It's like Yallow's humor. It's sad,
breaks my heart. You're listening to the Doctor Wendy Wells
Show on KFI AM six forty with Live Everywhere on
(09:44):
the iHeartRadio App.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wells Show on KFI
AM six forty, Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app I
am weighing on your love life. You send me a
DM on Instagram, follow me on Instagram at dr Wendy
Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh, and send me a private message.
I do not disclose your name. I try to not
reveal any details about your identity, and I try really
(10:16):
hard not to laugh unless it's so heartbreaking that I'm
going to cry. Unless I giggle. That was last segment. Okay,
dear doctor Wendy, I have been with my wife since
we were teenagers. Oh that's so sweet. I don't know
life without her. We just aren't compatible. In our forties.
We tried therapy and nothing changed. She doesn't understand that
(10:38):
I don't feel appreciated. Is there any way to save us?
I have only one thing to say. That's a question
for the two of you to ask each other in
a therapist's office. This might be the beginning of you
guys doing some conscious uncoupling. I know you said and
(11:00):
you don't know life without her, but that doesn't mean
that life without her might not be great. You also said,
she doesn't understand that you don't feel appreciated. Your therapist
is going to help you figure out whether it's about
something she's doing or something that's going on internally with you,
(11:21):
Like no one could make you feel appreciated because you
don't appreciate yourself. I don't know. I don't know the answer,
but I think the two of you need to talk
about whether to go forward or not together. And don't
be afraid of the future. Don't be afraid of change.
You've been together like twenty five years. That's a successful
(11:45):
relationship even if it culminates, So never feel like it's
a failure. But people change across a lifespan. They do.
Dear doctor Wendy ah, very honest, simple listener wrote this
to me, my son is gay. I never would have
(12:07):
guessed what are the best ways to support him? You know,
I was reading the New York Times writes these things
called tiny love stories, and there was one from a
actually a couple of years ago. I was took a
deep dive into some backstuff, back pages, and this young
woman said that it was so hard for her, at
the age of eighteen to tell her mom that she
(12:31):
was gay. She said, coincidentally, her mom had always called
her her rainbow child's and she was little because she
thought of rainbows as happiness and pot of gold at
the end of the rainbow. It had always been her nickname,
and her mom's reaction was sort of nothing, not positive,
not negative. She really wasn't sure how her mom took it.
(12:54):
And one time she was away at college and for
her birthday, her mom sent her a huge box of
rainbow colored goldfish crackers to snack on. Don't ask me
about the dies and those things, and her mom said,
did you get it rainbow crackers for my rainbow child?
(13:16):
And she said, at that moment, I knew my mother
loved me deeply, no matter what. So the answer is,
your son is your son, and love is love. There's
no when you say how do you support him? You
support him the way you would support any other child
you have. You love them, you care about them. You
(13:39):
don't necessarily have to be intrusive about their love lives
if you don't want to know, or you can say, hey,
I'm supportive, I love you. I want you to choose
a partner who loves you as much as I love you,
and whatever whoever you are, your mine. You do you
(14:01):
remind your kid that they are loved unconditionally, all right? Uh,
Dear doctor, Wendy. I found out that a guy I
was dating went through my phone. He confronted me about
someone else I am dating. I feel this is a violation.
How do I tell him never to ever do this again?
Or should I just leave him? We've only been dating
(14:24):
for four months. Well, there are a few things here
I want to talk about. First of all, he's testing you, right,
he's testing the control things. He violated your trust, he
violated your privacy. You should be very upset about that.
On the other hand, you said you were dating somebody else.
(14:44):
I don't know if this guy who went through your
phone thought he was exclusive with you, had you had
the conversation. So how much is it on you that
he had this perception? Now if you say, well, we
just never had the conversation. So if we don't the conversation,
maybe I could be dating more people. Right. So, I
(15:04):
think what's really important with everybody out there is that
when in the early stages of dating, especially once you
enter a sexual relationship, is you start to be clear.
You start to be clear about you know, what the
boundaries are, what the rules are, whether you're exclusive or not,
whether you're public, blah blah blah, blah blah, and if
you haven't done that, So let's assume. I'm just going
(15:28):
to assume here that the two of you never had
the conversation about exclusivity, and so you assumed it's okay
to date other people. He went through your phone saw
that indeed you were dating other people. It's a big
mess right now, Okay. I will say that this was
a test to see what you could tolerate because you've
only been dating in four months, and there's obviously somebody
(15:50):
else you can be dating. I would, this is me,
me and my personal opinion in my life, I would
call it a red flag and leave him because if
he's go I went through your phone already, later he's
going to become your stalker. Like that is such a
violation and such a betrayal. So for me, I'd be like,
(16:11):
you know what, dude, we were not exclusive, if that's true,
and so you had no right to violate my privacy.
So I don't think we could see each other anymore
because it's only going to get worse. Trust me. Hey,
when we come back, people often ask me what's a
normal love life? What is typical? Right? Let me tell
(16:33):
you what I think A normal love life is when
we come back. You are listening to the Doctor Wendy
Wall Show on KFI AM six forty with Live everywhere
on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty, Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App. You know,
the probably the most common question I get is what's normal?
Am I? Normal?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
Is normal? Is this typical?
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Let me tell you there's no such thing as normal
when it comes to dating, mating, and relating. We have
the widest range of dating and bonding behavior, sexual behavior,
and paternal investment. Paternal investment fathers investing in kids of
any primate species. Literally, there are guys out there who's
(17:26):
only investment in their offspring we know them is one
teaspoon of sperm elon well he puts some finances into.
And then there are other men who are carpool driving,
softball throwing, baby wearing, doting dads right, and we have
everything in between. We also have men and women who
(17:50):
are complete players, not monogamous ever, not gonna happen. And
other people of all genders who are completely monogamous cross
a lifespan might have you know, one or two or
three stints of monogamy. By the way, do you want
to know how anthropologists tell how much monogamy is in
a species. They look at the size of their scrotum. Yeah,
(18:13):
listen to this. So at one end you've got chimpanzees.
Their scrotum are particularly large relative to body size. They
tend to be very promiscuous, very sexual, very violent, all
that testosterone. If there's a nursing mother, they practice in
fantaside and kill the baby to make her fertile again,
(18:36):
and there's a lot of rape that goes on. Crazy.
I don't want to be around chimps. And then there's
like orangutans at the other end, they're like big hulking bodies,
little tiny chestnuts, kind of monogamous, very paternalistic. And you
know what we have with Homo sapien. That would be us.
We have everything. We have the widest range of mating
(18:58):
behavior and parenting behavior. However, culture matters. Humans have lots
of cultural variations. For instance, capitalism and patriarchy, which are
cultural inventions, really favor nuclear families in capitalism and patriarchy.
(19:20):
We don't have a group childcare, etc. We don't have
subsidized childcare in the workplace. We have Mom and dad
should try to do it. It's all on you. Religion
might be a cultural factor. The Abrahamic religions, Judeo Christian,
Muslim favor in group mating people in the parish because
they want to keep membership in their club. Also, developmental
(19:46):
stages matter, and our developmental growth stages of individual humans
has been shifting. You know, in nineteen fifty a twenty
five year old man was married, had a mortgage and
two kids. Today people are launching much later. But that
(20:06):
brings other problems in relationship because fertility matters. We might
be dating and marrying later, but our biological fertility windows
have not shifted. And before you stop there and go
it's a women's problem. All kinds of new research is
showing that if men have babies later in life, their
kids have a much higher rate of autism. Lots of
(20:27):
push on that, lots of evidence. So we are trying
to use technology to deal with the fact that our
biological windows have not changed. Things like egg freezing in
vitro fertilization surrogacy. I want to remind you that breakups
and divorce are normal, They are not failures. So what
(20:51):
is a somewhat typical pattern of relationship life? After I
told you there's so much variety, let's talk about what's
kind of typical. Well, first of all, nowadays, dating and
sexual exploration in our teenage and twenties is the norm.
I should tell you. As of twenty twenty two, the
median age for first time marriage in the United States
(21:12):
listen to this is thirty and a half years for
men and twenty eight point six years for women. That means,
by that age, if you're out in the mating marketplace,
by the age of thirty, half the men are off
the market. Half the men are off the market, and
the ones that are still in the market same with
the women half. All right. States with the lowest median
(21:35):
age at first time marriage Utah, of course, twenty six
for men, twenty four for women, Idaho, Arkansas, and Wyoming.
Then at a certain point, people divorce. Here's another interesting
stat The average age of first time divorce is thirty
and a half for men and twenty nine for women.
It's about the same and the average duration of that
(21:57):
marriage is about seven years. So look what we're saying,
don't get married under the age of twenty five, because
that's when you have the highest divorce rate. But the
other group where divorce rates are flying up are people
over the age of fifty because we're living so much longer.
Fifty is the new forty, sixty is the new fifty.
(22:19):
People are realizing they're bored in their relationships or the
purpose of the relationship is over now raising kids or
building a business or whatever it may be, building a household,
and so we're seeing divorce is gray divorce. We call
it gray divorce increasing faster than anything. And back to
mate selection. It used to be that there were only
(22:42):
single people in their twenties, and now there are large
swaths of single people across the lifespan. I mentioned to
you that when till Death to Us part was invented,
death was pretty imminent. And as a result, even if
you're a complete secure attacher, if you have a healthy
relationships and you're very monogamous, that you still may have
(23:06):
two or three long stints of monogamy in your life.
So we have to continue to learn and hone our
relationship skills about mate acquisition, mate retention, and sometimes learning
mate expulsion. This is typical. This is normal. If you
believe a myth that you meet your soulmate once early
(23:27):
in life and you're going to stay with That is
the minority. Now. I know I'm going to get some
talkbacks from you guys on the app and emails from using.
But I met my wife and we've been married forty
five years and we stayed together. Good for you, congratulations
and I'm so glad you were happy, and I'm so
glad it was satisfying to everybody involved. But you're not typical.
(23:50):
You're the minority. What is typical is two or three
stints of monogamy with some mate selection or sexual exploration
in between. And I want to pull everybody off the
gilt train if they think that any relationship they've had
has failed and hasn't failed. You're learning, you're getting better,
(24:10):
and I'm proud of you. And that brings our show
to a close. I'm always here for you at seven
pm on Sunday nights here on KFI. If you miss
any part of the show, it's always put up on
the iHeartRadio app. Just search doctor Wendy Walsh and keep
in touch with me, go on to Instagram and follow
me at d R Wendy Walsh. I'd love to hear
(24:31):
from you. Send me some DMS. It's great to hear
from everybody. I'll see you next week. You've been listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six
forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening
to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live
on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm
on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app
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