Dr. Wendy is offering her Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice for your relationship questions. PLUS why spring brings break ups. It's all on KFIAM-640!
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf
I Am six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app kf I Am six forty.
You know doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Wall Show, and I am taking your calls
and answering your social media questions. Reminder, I'm a psychology professor,
not a therapist, but I've written three books on relationships
(00:20):
and I'm obsessed with the science of love. If you'd
like to give me a call, the number is one
eight hundred and five two zero one KFI. Okay, Producer Kayla,
who do we get? We have Paul with the question.
Hi Paul, It's doctor Wendy Paul. Are you there? Hello, Hidy, Yes,
do you have a question? Hi?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hi, I can here. I turned down my radio, but
I got.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You now good. What's your question?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, my question kind of reflects upon the last caller
and the caller before. I think it was Mike that
said he was in love with still in love with
this twenty year old the ex wife I personally was
married for twenty years, exactly twenty years. We decided to
get divorced pretty much when the kids got old enough.
(01:10):
And we we're divorced for over ten almost ten years,
you know, off and on, you know, we saw each
other off and on. We couldn't we were inseparable. We
thought we were going to get back together. Well, we
ended up getting married again. And this was this was
four years ago. It was it was beautiful. I mean,
(01:35):
we ended up, but things were way different now, That's
what I was going to say.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I bet it's a different relationship, right, It's.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Way different now. The I'm I'm diabetic now and I'm
pretty much blessed with everything that a diabetic has and
that I'm possibly going to be losing my foot here
and couple months, oh dear, I but my life is
(02:05):
going to change, and it's causing me, causing anger, causing
resentment towards my wife because of the things that we
do together. We're very outdoorsy, very very we I mean,
we have a boat, we have already, We do stuff
outside all the time. And now that pretty much put
(02:27):
the hall to everything for at least a year. And
I am just you know, trying to get through this,
and it's causing a lot of rift in our marriage.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And earlier I was talking about relationship transitions, right. I
don't know if you heard. And this is when I
want to address two things Paul. First of all, thank
you for being so candid and sharing your situation with us.
I want to make sure that everybody knows when we
listened to the previous caller, Mike, who said, you know,
he'd been in this relationship that was abusive for twenty
(02:59):
years and why does he still miss her? And then
you said, you guys were married twenty years and then
you got divorced, and then on and off for ten years,
and then you got married again to each other four
years later. The most common length of marriage where divorce
is the highest is about around twenty years, when the
empty nest happens, right, and then they haven't repurposed their relationship.
And so I want to remind you that you probably
(03:21):
divorce not only because of the kids getting older and
leaving the house, but also because sometimes relationships become so
ingrown and meshed, and in order for people to grow
as an individual, they feel they have to separate to
do it. Now, you guys are at the stage where
you're pretting presented with a challenge, which is you finally
(03:42):
got your groove back, you got remarried to each other,
you were able to communicate I hope your needs and
able to establish a new kind of relationship that you describe.
And now your relationship is about to hit a big
vulnerable point a transition, and I would suggest again getting
into the hands of a good therapist so that you
(04:03):
can have a co pilot navigating this transition, because the
relationship contract is going to have to be rewritten yet again,
and you're obviously having an emotional experience as well as
your physical health experience, right, and she's going to have
a reaction to it. And sometimes having a neutral party
helping you make sense of all the chaotic feelings that
(04:25):
come up when an unplanned for transition like this happens
is the thing to do. So, Paul, I wish you
the best. I wish you guys continue to love and
support of each other. I personally think if you can
get through divorce and then getting back together, that this
is a piece of cake and you're going to be
able to get there. But thanks for calling, Paul. All right,
(04:48):
let me move to social media. Dear doctor Wendy, I
get the ick because I have a guy that will
not use a condom, he complains when I try to
get him to use one. I feel he doesn't respect
me because he ignores my request. Should this be a
deal breaker. I don't even have to think on this one. Yes,
(05:08):
that's a deal breaker. Your needs are being ignored. Your
body is being put in peril. No, I'm telling you
one hundred percent. That's the easiest test to find out
if somebody would be a good mate to say, hey,
put a condom on. If he says no, oh, then
you're not gonna walk the baby a stroller. Dad, I
don't know. You don't respect my needs. Forget it, get
(05:31):
rid of them. Pay attention to that ick, she said,
I got the ick. Yeah, you get the ick. Because
it's time to say goodbye to him. That's a deal breaker.
I don't care how cute he is. I don't care
how much money he makes. I hear you right now. Yeah,
but but he does this, I don't care. This is
a life and death decision. He could bring any number
of germs into your body to hurt you. He could
(05:52):
bring an unwanted child into your body. Just don't know. Goodbye,
deal Baker, all right, dear doctor, Wendy. I have a
best friend since I was six years old who recently
got divorced. It's a very tough time for her. My
husband told me that she has been ooh flirty and
suggestive with him. He wouldn't lie to me. I feel
(06:13):
really angry with her. What's the best way to handle
the situation? Okay, let me tell you what's happening. This
is so common. So what happens when people go through divorce? First,
I want to remind you that divorce is highly contagious
within social circles, as marriage is too. By the way,
I always say, if you're dating, always ask the person
you're dating, like how many of their friends have gotten
married recently or are engaged? Right, Because it's very contagious.
(06:36):
Divorce is also contagious. So, but when people first go
through a breakup or divorce, they want to get their
mojo back. They want to basically determine what their value
is in the mating marketplace, so they're going to naturally
be a little flirty. They're testing boundaries, etc. Now, you
(06:56):
don't do it with your best friend's husband. You and
I both know this is a moral dilemma here, and
you're really feeling angry. You have to tell her your feelings.
Now she's gonna deny. I don't know. My husband said
that it's not even true. I wasn't even dressed at
sexy and I would just be nice to him. She's
going to get defensive. So in order to prevent her
from getting defensive, here's what you're going to First of all,
(07:19):
you need to have seen something, because when you report
back on gossip it's really hard. My husband said, you
need to actually witness something and then say later, Hey,
you know when we were all over at my place
and I noticed you put your hand on his arm
a little bit when you were talking, I didn't like that.
Stayed on your feelings and what you witnessed. Just stay
(07:40):
with what you see, what you hear her doing, what
you can observe, and then talk about your feelings about it.
That made me feel uncomfortable. I'd like you to stop
doing that. That's all you do. Talk about what you
saw or heard from hersey whatever, and then talk about
how it fell to you, and then give her the
new prescription. That's how you let people know that they
(08:03):
pissed you off. All right, I think we have time?
Do we have time for one more. Yes, okay, hey,
doctor Wendy. Oh interesting. I wear wigs all the time,
and no one but me sees my real hair. A
fellow I am dating requested I take it off on
one of our sleepovers. I feel he won't like me
anymore if he sees me without it. He thinks I'm
(08:26):
not comfortable with him if I don't show him my hair.
Who is in the wrong. You're both in the wrong
because you're having sleepovers before you have trust and intimacy.
That's what I'm gonna say. Okay, like, that's a lot.
You're going to expose most of your body, but not all.
There's gonna be like pick and shoes here on which
(08:47):
body parts get to show up in bed. So there,
you're wrong, But he's also wrong for I mean, he's right,
and you're right. You have a right to protect yourself.
But you moved way too fast towards physical intimacy without
being ready to be fully physically intimate. Right. I remember
(09:10):
one time, Okay we'll go unnamed, but one person said
to me before we had sex for the first time,
we had been dating a little bit, and I thought
he was going to he was so serious. He said,
there's something you have to know before we before we
have sex. I'm just so embarrassed about this. But you know,
if we're going to be intimate, I think she'd know
(09:31):
everything about my body. And I'm like, oh, on on,
he's got three of them. Is what is happening here?
What is it is happening? And so I take it
very seriously. I say yes, what is it? And he goes, well,
I was hiking recently and a lot of downhill and
my hiking boots I lost a toe, now, swear to God,
(09:51):
to him that was like he'd lost every hair on
his body or something. And I was like, so, like,
I probably won't be sucking toes. I don't know, Like,
I don't why, who cares? Right? But it was a
big deal to him. So I had to ask act
really respectful. Right, So I think you need to say
(10:12):
to him, when I feel safer, I'll be able to
do this for now, Let's not be physically intimate until
we get to that place emotionally, right. It's perfectly okay
to do that, all right? So do I have time
for one more? Are we going to the quickly? Okay?
Dear doctor Wendy, I'm dating for the first time in
almost a year. Congratulation. I was avoidant because relationships make
(10:36):
me anxious. How can I help myself not overanalyze every
single thing? Yeah, over it's the word over analyze. We're
supposed to be analyzing, but just don't over analyze. I
hope you're not over analyzing yourself. You should be just
assessing the other partner and relaxing and having good time. Look,
if you suffer from social anxiety and you have problems
(10:56):
presenting yourself in intimate situations, this is something that's so
highly treatable in therapy, So I would get yourself a wingman.
Not sure your therapist is going to go on a
date with you, but you know somebody who can talk
to about strategies for this because they are easily easy
to overcome. But I'm glad you're out there. That's wonderful. Hey,
when we come back, it is spring, a very exciting
(11:18):
time of year. But there's something interesting that happens in
relationships only, not only mostly in the springtime. I'll tell
you about it when we come back. You're listening to
Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty Live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Welcome back to the Dr Wendywall Show on KFI AM
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know
spring is about growth, isn't It isn't about new beginnings,
isn't about new life and all that. Why is it
the season with the most breakups? Well, there have been
many studies that point to this, especially Facebook's own relationship
(12:05):
status data. Did you know Facebook now can track relationship
trends because they see when people put like in a relationship,
out of relationship, single again, whatever. Apparently there are two
major spikes during the year when there are lots of breakups.
You're going to be surprised about one. It's two weeks
before Christmas. In a couple weeks before Christmas, it's almost
(12:27):
like people are like, I am not going through the
holidays with you, or if it's a young relationship, like
they haven't been seeing each other. It's like I don't
want to bring it home to the family. It's not
going to happen. So mid December that's when we see
people changing their relationship status a lot on Facebook, and
the other time is April springtime. I can't believe that
(12:50):
breakups bloom in spring more than any other time. So
let's talk about why.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
All right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
First of all, cuffing season is finally over, or if
you don't know, what cuffing season is, is the dark
days of winter beginning in November before Thanksgiving, where people
think it's time to hunker down and cocoon for those
dark days. I'm gonna get somebody, right, so no one
wants to be alone at their maybe Christmas office party.
(13:19):
They don't want to have questions from those old aunties
at their holiday parties saying why aren't you married? Don't
you have somebody? So they cuffed down, right, They just
they literally ignore a bunch of red flags and go,
I'm gonna take this person for the holidays. It's gonna
be fine. Well spring happens and cuffing season is over.
Then they look at that person, I'm like, how did
(13:39):
I ignore all those red flags? That's one reason. Another reason,
now we're past Valentine's Day, there's something called the post
Valentine's Day effect, or as I like to call it,
Singles Awareness Day. As soon as you hit the middle
of February, people realize how unhappy they might be in
(14:04):
their relationship, that everybody else seems to be having the
most romantic time and they're not so. But by March
people are starting to act on these ideas right and
into April. But the other thing is I think having
to do with the fact that we just get outside.
You know, we've been hibernating, We've had all our Netflix marathons,
we're at outdoor gatherings, vacations, and we're meeting new people.
(14:28):
The world feels expansive, our mating marketplace feels bigger. So
we look around and go, should I put up with
this person? Because look at all this opportunity out in
the bright sunshine. And speaking of that, we clean house
right spring. Cleaning is not only something we do because
(14:49):
it's time to do it in our house, and if
you haven't cleaned your house, this is the time. Clean
out those closets the garage too. This is the season.
But it's a metaphor because when we exp eternally organized,
it's a bid for us to internally organize. So you'll
see people like cleaning like crazy because they're really trying
(15:10):
to clean up inside. They're going to declutter their emotional lives, right,
and maybe ask themselves, is this relationship helping me? Is
it helping me grow? Do I feel seen? Do I
feel connected? The other thing that happens in spring, I
know with me, temperatures start to rise, we start to
wear less clothes, which means we suddenly become very conscious
(15:34):
of our bodies. And so people start to eat less,
they move more. They're getting in shape for bikini season.
When you start to get in shape, that increases your hormones. Yeah,
those sexy hormones. But it also I mean, what is
getting in shape? It's getting yourself ready for the mating marketplace. Right.
(15:54):
I also, because I am someone who suffers from seasonal
effective disorder, know that when the spring comes, my mood lifts.
I feel so happy. People who do suffer from depression
and anxiety around the darker days of the year feel
themselves uplifted. Now, how does that cause a breakup? Because
(16:14):
you look at your curmudgeon partner and you're like, you
know what, they know, I'm not hanging out with that.
I'm happy now. And also, some people just want to
be single for the summer, especially young people. It's like
I'm going to be traveling, and if they're in maybe
they've got a college boyfriend or girlfriend and they're going
home for the summer to work. They're like, I don't
(16:36):
want to be tied down, right, So, yes, spring is
breakup season. But I would not be doing my job
if I did not say that. There's a psychological mechanism
that I haven't talked about. I talk about a lot
which is attachment theory. Right, So people who might have
a secure, anxious, avoidant or fearful avoidant attachment style, let's
(16:58):
see how spring plays into that. Well, somebody who was
emotionally avoidant values autonomy and personal space, and so in
spring ah feeling of new growth, reinvention, desire for independence.
People might feel suffocated after the winter, hunkering down in
cuffing season. Now, people with an anxious attachment actually probably
(17:18):
sense their partner, if their partner is avoidant moving away,
they crave closeness, They fear abandonment. So the social buzz
that happens around spring might trigger fears of being left behind,
and this makes the clingy partner more clingy, and that
pushes the partner away. And you know, people with a
(17:40):
secure attachment style Let's assume they don't break up, But
if they do, they're only going to break up if
the relationship clearly doesn't align with their values or their
new growth. So attachment plays a role into it all
the time as well. If you've ever been blindsided by
a breakup, I mean it's rare that two people come together,
(18:04):
have a meeting and say, you know what, No you
go first? No, no, you go first. Well, I was
thinking maybe we should break up. Oh, I was thinking
just the same thing. Never happens except in the movies. Instead,
there's one person who's been on a slow burn getting
ready for the breakup, and the other partners completely oblivious.
(18:27):
Uh huh. There's actually new research that looks at the
science of falling out of love, or as I like
to say, when that window closes. Let me talk about
how this works and this new study. When we come back.
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on
KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy
Wall Show on KFI AM six forty Live wear on
the iHeartRadio app. You know, breakup's hurt. I've talked about
breakers for a lot. I've talked about how to get
over breakups, what we need to do. But there's a
group of researchers who just published a study in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that found that when
(19:18):
relationships fall apart, they don't just randomly deteriorate. They actually
follow a two phase decline. Oh no, you're not. You're
gonna look at your partner totally differently after I explain
the two phase decline. Look, plenty of people stay in
relationships that aren't so happy anymore, and they do it
(19:43):
because they're in love with hope and they just hope
that things are gonna get better. But this new study
indicates that for at least one partner, there's a point
of no return. They call this a transition. I love
how the psychobabble of researchers a transition into terminal decline.
(20:07):
We're saving the relationship is pretty much impossible. All right,
let me break it down. So the inn the study,
researchers tracked thousands of couples over time, and they measured
two things. They asked them about their general life satisfaction
and their satisfaction in their relationship, and then they compared
(20:28):
people who eventually separated with people who stayed together. Right,
So they followed thousands of couples over a few years,
quite a number of years in fact, as looking at
this data, I think it was longitudinal studies that existed.
And then they compared those that broke up with those
that stayed together. This is a German study, by the way.
German researchers. They found that couples who go on to
(20:54):
break up typically experience a mild decline in happiness for years,
but then it's followed by this dramatic drop by at
least one partner, drop in happiness by one partners. So
what the researchers say, I'm going to explain these two
phases in just a second. But what the researcher say
(21:16):
is it doesn't matter how many years a couple has
been together. This is not a predictor of whether they're
going to break up. So some of these breakups were
people who had been together twenty years. Some of the
breakups were people that were together two years. Right. What
this research shows is that the time remaining until the
breakup tells you more about the relationship health health. So
(21:39):
they talk about time to separation. Okay, so let's talk
about these phases. The first phase. So breakups happen in
two stages. The first is called the pre terminal phase.
So what they found by looking at the data is
that there is a small decline in relationship satisfaction by
both parts nurse and one partner has a big decline
(22:04):
in life satisfaction. Like in other words, I'm not happy
in my relationship and I'm not happy in my life.
I don't like my job, I don't like my friends,
and I like where we live, whatever it may be
that associates life satisfaction. So at least one partner has
a two pronged dissatisfaction. They're not happy in their relationship
(22:24):
and they're not happy with their life. But the other
partner is just not happy in their relationship. They know
something's going on, so they're the ones that hang on
and wait until there is this transition point. No, I
got to say, I didn't need science to tell me
this because back in the day, when I was single,
when my friends were in relationships whatever, women always talked
(22:45):
about this moment where the window just closes for a
woman and there's nothing he could say or do to
get you back, and you're just filling time until you're
ready to leap right. THEO we call it. Once that
window closes, there's nothing you can do. Well, these researchers
call it the transitional point, that window closing. Now, how
(23:09):
long does it take to break up after that window closes?
This is really interesting. The researchers found, and they looked
at thousands of couples. It takes anywhere from seven months
to two years. Now, I remember years ago, I had
a woman on this show who is like not a lawyer,
(23:29):
but she's like an investor, and she invests in really
high end divorces, right, because what happens in really wealthy
couples is one person likes to hide the money and
leave the other one house rich, cash poor till they're
forced to sell the house. Is the common thing. And
you can guess the genders on that anyway. And so
she says, divorces happen two to four years before anybody
(23:53):
says the d word, because people are busy. You know,
in traditional heterosexual relationships, the dudes are busy stashing money
with family members or offshore accounts, and the women are
busy getting boob jobs and butt jobs and their lips injected,
all because I just want to feel fresh, you know.
But actually they're both unconsciously or consciously planning for the divorce.
(24:15):
So this research is interesting because it kind of supports that.
It says, you know, once that transition point happens, it's
seven months to two years before the actual breakup happens,
and then it comes the terminal phase. In that timeframe,
the terminal phase is characterized by a sharp decline in
relationship satisfaction. But get this, less of a decline in
(24:36):
life satisfaction. So here's what the researchers think that once
one partner has closed the window and went, Okay, I'm out,
I'm not going to stay in this relationship, the other
partner's hanging on with hope. But what is that other
partner doing and why is their life satisfaction going up?
Because they're either shopping for new maids, having affairs, getting
(24:58):
in shape, getting you know, their finances in order. They're preparing,
they're preparing, and the other person just waiting by the
study also found that many people are blindsided by a breakup.
People who were the recipients of the breakup entered the
terminal phase much later. Oh, that's why breakups do feel asymmetrical.
(25:21):
One person wants out and the other one doesn't. So
they wanted to look at these couples and say, is
there a way to save the relationship. It's one of
the most common questions I get, doctor, Wendy, Do you
think it's worth it? Or should I throw in the towel?
Is it worth working on? Of course I always say
it's worth working on, even if you're just going to
go to marital therapy to do some conscious and coupling.
(25:42):
But most people go to marriage and family therapists way
too late, when they're already in the terminal phase. So
these researchers say, the key is that you want to
get there in the pre terminal phase when you're both
feeling a little eh, this isn't going so great. I'm not.
At least one of you is like, I'm not so
(26:02):
happy with my life. Ayeh, just feel a little h
and the other one saying, well, maybe we'll just wait
and see if things get better. No, no, no, no no.
If you suspect things are declining, Do not wait for
them to get better, get into couple's therapy. That's all
I'm gonna say. Hey, that brings it to an end.
I love being with you guys every Sunday from seven
to nine. Sometimes we end a little early because there's
(26:24):
other important special stuff for you. If you miss any
part of the show. Here's what you need to do.
You need to download the iHeartRadio app. You need in
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Walsh and there I come. There's my face and then
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preset hit that button. And then whenever you open the app,
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(26:44):
part you missed will come up. It'll be great. So
if you ever miss any just iHeartRadio app. Otherwise I'm
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It's all my always, my pleasure to be with you. You've
been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
(27:08):
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 kf
I Am six forty, the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app kf I Am six forty.
You know doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Wall Show, and I am taking your calls
and answering your social media questions. Reminder, I'm a psychology professor,
not a therapist, but I've written three books on relationships
(00:20):
and I'm obsessed with the science of love. If you'd
like to give me a call, the number is one
eight hundred and five two zero one KFI. Okay, Producer Kayla,
who do we get? We have Paul with the question.
Hi Paul, It's doctor Wendy Paul. Are you there? Hello, Hidy, Yes,
do you have a question? Hi?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hi, I can here. I turned down my radio, but
I got.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
You now good. What's your question?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, my question kind of reflects upon the last caller
and the caller before. I think it was Mike that
said he was in love with still in love with
this twenty year old the ex wife I personally was
married for twenty years, exactly twenty years. We decided to
get divorced pretty much when the kids got old enough.
(01:10):
And we we're divorced for over ten almost ten years,
you know, off and on, you know, we saw each
other off and on. We couldn't we were inseparable. We
thought we were going to get back together. Well, we
ended up getting married again. And this was this was
four years ago. It was it was beautiful. I mean,
(01:35):
we ended up, but things were way different now, That's
what I was going to say.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
I bet it's a different relationship, right, It's.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Way different now. The I'm I'm diabetic now and I'm
pretty much blessed with everything that a diabetic has and
that I'm possibly going to be losing my foot here
and couple months, oh dear, I but my life is
(02:05):
going to change, and it's causing me, causing anger, causing
resentment towards my wife because of the things that we
do together. We're very outdoorsy, very very we I mean,
we have a boat, we have already, We do stuff
outside all the time. And now that pretty much put
(02:27):
the hall to everything for at least a year. And
I am just you know, trying to get through this,
and it's causing a lot of rift in our marriage.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
And earlier I was talking about relationship transitions, right. I
don't know if you heard. And this is when I
want to address two things Paul. First of all, thank
you for being so candid and sharing your situation with us.
I want to make sure that everybody knows when we
listened to the previous caller, Mike, who said, you know,
he'd been in this relationship that was abusive for twenty
(02:59):
years and why does he still miss her? And then
you said, you guys were married twenty years and then
you got divorced, and then on and off for ten years,
and then you got married again to each other four
years later. The most common length of marriage where divorce
is the highest is about around twenty years, when the
empty nest happens, right, and then they haven't repurposed their relationship.
And so I want to remind you that you probably
(03:21):
divorce not only because of the kids getting older and
leaving the house, but also because sometimes relationships become so
ingrown and meshed, and in order for people to grow
as an individual, they feel they have to separate to
do it. Now, you guys are at the stage where
you're pretting presented with a challenge, which is you finally
(03:42):
got your groove back, you got remarried to each other,
you were able to communicate I hope your needs and
able to establish a new kind of relationship that you describe.
And now your relationship is about to hit a big
vulnerable point a transition, and I would suggest again getting
into the hands of a good therapist so that you
(04:03):
can have a co pilot navigating this transition, because the
relationship contract is going to have to be rewritten yet again,
and you're obviously having an emotional experience as well as
your physical health experience, right, and she's going to have
a reaction to it. And sometimes having a neutral party
helping you make sense of all the chaotic feelings that
(04:25):
come up when an unplanned for transition like this happens
is the thing to do. So, Paul, I wish you
the best. I wish you guys continue to love and
support of each other. I personally think if you can
get through divorce and then getting back together, that this
is a piece of cake and you're going to be
able to get there. But thanks for calling, Paul. All right,
(04:48):
let me move to social media. Dear doctor Wendy, I
get the ick because I have a guy that will
not use a condom, he complains when I try to
get him to use one. I feel he doesn't respect
me because he ignores my request. Should this be a
deal breaker. I don't even have to think on this one. Yes,
(05:08):
that's a deal breaker. Your needs are being ignored. Your
body is being put in peril. No, I'm telling you
one hundred percent. That's the easiest test to find out
if somebody would be a good mate to say, hey,
put a condom on. If he says no, oh, then
you're not gonna walk the baby a stroller. Dad, I
don't know. You don't respect my needs. Forget it, get
(05:31):
rid of them. Pay attention to that ick, she said,
I got the ick. Yeah, you get the ick. Because
it's time to say goodbye to him. That's a deal breaker.
I don't care how cute he is. I don't care
how much money he makes. I hear you right now. Yeah,
but but he does this, I don't care. This is
a life and death decision. He could bring any number
of germs into your body to hurt you. He could
(05:52):
bring an unwanted child into your body. Just don't know. Goodbye,
deal Baker, all right, dear doctor, Wendy. I have a
best friend since I was six years old who recently
got divorced. It's a very tough time for her. My
husband told me that she has been ooh flirty and
suggestive with him. He wouldn't lie to me. I feel
(06:13):
really angry with her. What's the best way to handle
the situation? Okay, let me tell you what's happening. This
is so common. So what happens when people go through divorce? First,
I want to remind you that divorce is highly contagious
within social circles, as marriage is too. By the way,
I always say, if you're dating, always ask the person
you're dating, like how many of their friends have gotten
married recently or are engaged? Right, Because it's very contagious.
(06:36):
Divorce is also contagious. So, but when people first go
through a breakup or divorce, they want to get their
mojo back. They want to basically determine what their value
is in the mating marketplace, so they're going to naturally
be a little flirty. They're testing boundaries, etc. Now, you
(06:56):
don't do it with your best friend's husband. You and
I both know this is a moral dilemma here, and
you're really feeling angry. You have to tell her your feelings.
Now she's gonna deny. I don't know. My husband said
that it's not even true. I wasn't even dressed at
sexy and I would just be nice to him. She's
going to get defensive. So in order to prevent her
from getting defensive, here's what you're going to First of all,
(07:19):
you need to have seen something, because when you report
back on gossip it's really hard. My husband said, you
need to actually witness something and then say later, Hey,
you know when we were all over at my place
and I noticed you put your hand on his arm
a little bit when you were talking, I didn't like that.
Stayed on your feelings and what you witnessed. Just stay
(07:40):
with what you see, what you hear her doing, what
you can observe, and then talk about your feelings about it.
That made me feel uncomfortable. I'd like you to stop
doing that. That's all you do. Talk about what you
saw or heard from hersey whatever, and then talk about
how it fell to you, and then give her the
new prescription. That's how you let people know that they
(08:03):
pissed you off. All right, I think we have time?
Do we have time for one more. Yes, okay, hey,
doctor Wendy. Oh interesting. I wear wigs all the time,
and no one but me sees my real hair. A
fellow I am dating requested I take it off on
one of our sleepovers. I feel he won't like me
anymore if he sees me without it. He thinks I'm
(08:26):
not comfortable with him if I don't show him my hair.
Who is in the wrong. You're both in the wrong
because you're having sleepovers before you have trust and intimacy.
That's what I'm gonna say. Okay, like, that's a lot.
You're going to expose most of your body, but not all.
There's gonna be like pick and shoes here on which
(08:47):
body parts get to show up in bed. So there,
you're wrong, But he's also wrong for I mean, he's right,
and you're right. You have a right to protect yourself.
But you moved way too fast towards physical intimacy without
being ready to be fully physically intimate. Right. I remember
(09:10):
one time, Okay we'll go unnamed, but one person said
to me before we had sex for the first time,
we had been dating a little bit, and I thought
he was going to he was so serious. He said,
there's something you have to know before we before we
have sex. I'm just so embarrassed about this. But you know,
if we're going to be intimate, I think she'd know
(09:31):
everything about my body. And I'm like, oh, on on,
he's got three of them. Is what is happening here?
What is it is happening? And so I take it
very seriously. I say yes, what is it? And he goes, well,
I was hiking recently and a lot of downhill and
my hiking boots I lost a toe, now, swear to God,
(09:51):
to him that was like he'd lost every hair on
his body or something. And I was like, so, like,
I probably won't be sucking toes. I don't know, Like,
I don't why, who cares? Right? But it was a
big deal to him. So I had to ask act
really respectful. Right, So I think you need to say
(10:12):
to him, when I feel safer, I'll be able to
do this for now, Let's not be physically intimate until
we get to that place emotionally, right. It's perfectly okay
to do that, all right? So do I have time
for one more? Are we going to the quickly? Okay?
Dear doctor Wendy, I'm dating for the first time in
almost a year. Congratulation. I was avoidant because relationships make
(10:36):
me anxious. How can I help myself not overanalyze every
single thing? Yeah, over it's the word over analyze. We're
supposed to be analyzing, but just don't over analyze. I
hope you're not over analyzing yourself. You should be just
assessing the other partner and relaxing and having good time. Look,
if you suffer from social anxiety and you have problems
(10:56):
presenting yourself in intimate situations, this is something that's so
highly treatable in therapy, So I would get yourself a wingman.
Not sure your therapist is going to go on a
date with you, but you know somebody who can talk
to about strategies for this because they are easily easy
to overcome. But I'm glad you're out there. That's wonderful. Hey,
when we come back, it is spring, a very exciting
(11:18):
time of year. But there's something interesting that happens in
relationships only, not only mostly in the springtime. I'll tell
you about it when we come back. You're listening to
Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI AM six forty Live
everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Welcome back to the Dr Wendywall Show on KFI AM
six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You know
spring is about growth, isn't It isn't about new beginnings,
isn't about new life and all that. Why is it
the season with the most breakups? Well, there have been
many studies that point to this, especially Facebook's own relationship
(12:05):
status data. Did you know Facebook now can track relationship
trends because they see when people put like in a relationship,
out of relationship, single again, whatever. Apparently there are two
major spikes during the year when there are lots of breakups.
You're going to be surprised about one. It's two weeks
before Christmas. In a couple weeks before Christmas, it's almost
(12:27):
like people are like, I am not going through the
holidays with you, or if it's a young relationship, like
they haven't been seeing each other. It's like I don't
want to bring it home to the family. It's not
going to happen. So mid December that's when we see
people changing their relationship status a lot on Facebook, and
the other time is April springtime. I can't believe that
(12:50):
breakups bloom in spring more than any other time. So
let's talk about why.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
All right.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
First of all, cuffing season is finally over, or if
you don't know, what cuffing season is, is the dark
days of winter beginning in November before Thanksgiving, where people
think it's time to hunker down and cocoon for those
dark days. I'm gonna get somebody, right, so no one
wants to be alone at their maybe Christmas office party.
(13:19):
They don't want to have questions from those old aunties
at their holiday parties saying why aren't you married? Don't
you have somebody? So they cuffed down, right, They just
they literally ignore a bunch of red flags and go,
I'm gonna take this person for the holidays. It's gonna
be fine. Well spring happens and cuffing season is over.
Then they look at that person, I'm like, how did
(13:39):
I ignore all those red flags? That's one reason. Another reason,
now we're past Valentine's Day, there's something called the post
Valentine's Day effect, or as I like to call it,
Singles Awareness Day. As soon as you hit the middle
of February, people realize how unhappy they might be in
(14:04):
their relationship, that everybody else seems to be having the
most romantic time and they're not so. But by March
people are starting to act on these ideas right and
into April. But the other thing is I think having
to do with the fact that we just get outside.
You know, we've been hibernating, We've had all our Netflix marathons,
we're at outdoor gatherings, vacations, and we're meeting new people.
(14:28):
The world feels expansive, our mating marketplace feels bigger. So
we look around and go, should I put up with
this person? Because look at all this opportunity out in
the bright sunshine. And speaking of that, we clean house
right spring. Cleaning is not only something we do because
(14:49):
it's time to do it in our house, and if
you haven't cleaned your house, this is the time. Clean
out those closets the garage too. This is the season.
But it's a metaphor because when we exp eternally organized,
it's a bid for us to internally organize. So you'll
see people like cleaning like crazy because they're really trying
(15:10):
to clean up inside. They're going to declutter their emotional lives, right,
and maybe ask themselves, is this relationship helping me? Is
it helping me grow? Do I feel seen? Do I
feel connected? The other thing that happens in spring, I
know with me, temperatures start to rise, we start to
wear less clothes, which means we suddenly become very conscious
(15:34):
of our bodies. And so people start to eat less,
they move more. They're getting in shape for bikini season.
When you start to get in shape, that increases your hormones. Yeah,
those sexy hormones. But it also I mean, what is
getting in shape? It's getting yourself ready for the mating marketplace. Right.
(15:54):
I also, because I am someone who suffers from seasonal
effective disorder, know that when the spring comes, my mood lifts.
I feel so happy. People who do suffer from depression
and anxiety around the darker days of the year feel
themselves uplifted. Now, how does that cause a breakup? Because
(16:14):
you look at your curmudgeon partner and you're like, you
know what, they know, I'm not hanging out with that.
I'm happy now. And also, some people just want to
be single for the summer, especially young people. It's like
I'm going to be traveling, and if they're in maybe
they've got a college boyfriend or girlfriend and they're going
home for the summer to work. They're like, I don't
(16:36):
want to be tied down, right, So, yes, spring is
breakup season. But I would not be doing my job
if I did not say that. There's a psychological mechanism
that I haven't talked about. I talk about a lot
which is attachment theory. Right, So people who might have
a secure, anxious, avoidant or fearful avoidant attachment style, let's
(16:58):
see how spring plays into that. Well, somebody who was
emotionally avoidant values autonomy and personal space, and so in
spring ah feeling of new growth, reinvention, desire for independence.
People might feel suffocated after the winter, hunkering down in
cuffing season. Now, people with an anxious attachment actually probably
(17:18):
sense their partner, if their partner is avoidant moving away,
they crave closeness, They fear abandonment. So the social buzz
that happens around spring might trigger fears of being left behind,
and this makes the clingy partner more clingy, and that
pushes the partner away. And you know, people with a
(17:40):
secure attachment style Let's assume they don't break up, But
if they do, they're only going to break up if
the relationship clearly doesn't align with their values or their
new growth. So attachment plays a role into it all
the time as well. If you've ever been blindsided by
a breakup, I mean it's rare that two people come together,
(18:04):
have a meeting and say, you know what, No you
go first? No, no, you go first. Well, I was
thinking maybe we should break up. Oh, I was thinking
just the same thing. Never happens except in the movies. Instead,
there's one person who's been on a slow burn getting
ready for the breakup, and the other partners completely oblivious.
(18:27):
Uh huh. There's actually new research that looks at the
science of falling out of love, or as I like
to say, when that window closes. Let me talk about
how this works and this new study. When we come back.
You are listening to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on
KFI AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (18:54):
Welcome back to the home stretch of the Doctor Wendy
Wall Show on KFI AM six forty Live wear on
the iHeartRadio app. You know, breakup's hurt. I've talked about
breakers for a lot. I've talked about how to get
over breakups, what we need to do. But there's a
group of researchers who just published a study in the
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that found that when
(19:18):
relationships fall apart, they don't just randomly deteriorate. They actually
follow a two phase decline. Oh no, you're not. You're
gonna look at your partner totally differently after I explain
the two phase decline. Look, plenty of people stay in
relationships that aren't so happy anymore, and they do it
(19:43):
because they're in love with hope and they just hope
that things are gonna get better. But this new study
indicates that for at least one partner, there's a point
of no return. They call this a transition. I love
how the psychobabble of researchers a transition into terminal decline.
(20:07):
We're saving the relationship is pretty much impossible. All right,
let me break it down. So the inn the study,
researchers tracked thousands of couples over time, and they measured
two things. They asked them about their general life satisfaction
and their satisfaction in their relationship, and then they compared
(20:28):
people who eventually separated with people who stayed together. Right,
So they followed thousands of couples over a few years,
quite a number of years in fact, as looking at
this data, I think it was longitudinal studies that existed.
And then they compared those that broke up with those
that stayed together. This is a German study, by the way.
German researchers. They found that couples who go on to
(20:54):
break up typically experience a mild decline in happiness for years,
but then it's followed by this dramatic drop by at
least one partner, drop in happiness by one partners. So
what the researchers say, I'm going to explain these two
phases in just a second. But what the researcher say
(21:16):
is it doesn't matter how many years a couple has
been together. This is not a predictor of whether they're
going to break up. So some of these breakups were
people who had been together twenty years. Some of the
breakups were people that were together two years. Right. What
this research shows is that the time remaining until the
breakup tells you more about the relationship health health. So
(21:39):
they talk about time to separation. Okay, so let's talk
about these phases. The first phase. So breakups happen in
two stages. The first is called the pre terminal phase.
So what they found by looking at the data is
that there is a small decline in relationship satisfaction by
both parts nurse and one partner has a big decline
(22:04):
in life satisfaction. Like in other words, I'm not happy
in my relationship and I'm not happy in my life.
I don't like my job, I don't like my friends,
and I like where we live, whatever it may be
that associates life satisfaction. So at least one partner has
a two pronged dissatisfaction. They're not happy in their relationship
(22:24):
and they're not happy with their life. But the other
partner is just not happy in their relationship. They know
something's going on, so they're the ones that hang on
and wait until there is this transition point. No, I
got to say, I didn't need science to tell me
this because back in the day, when I was single,
when my friends were in relationships whatever, women always talked
(22:45):
about this moment where the window just closes for a
woman and there's nothing he could say or do to
get you back, and you're just filling time until you're
ready to leap right. THEO we call it. Once that
window closes, there's nothing you can do. Well, these researchers
call it the transitional point, that window closing. Now, how
(23:09):
long does it take to break up after that window closes?
This is really interesting. The researchers found, and they looked
at thousands of couples. It takes anywhere from seven months
to two years. Now, I remember years ago, I had
a woman on this show who is like not a lawyer,
(23:29):
but she's like an investor, and she invests in really
high end divorces, right, because what happens in really wealthy
couples is one person likes to hide the money and
leave the other one house rich, cash poor till they're
forced to sell the house. Is the common thing. And
you can guess the genders on that anyway. And so
she says, divorces happen two to four years before anybody
(23:53):
says the d word, because people are busy. You know,
in traditional heterosexual relationships, the dudes are busy stashing money
with family members or offshore accounts, and the women are
busy getting boob jobs and butt jobs and their lips injected,
all because I just want to feel fresh, you know.
But actually they're both unconsciously or consciously planning for the divorce.
(24:15):
So this research is interesting because it kind of supports that.
It says, you know, once that transition point happens, it's
seven months to two years before the actual breakup happens,
and then it comes the terminal phase. In that timeframe,
the terminal phase is characterized by a sharp decline in
relationship satisfaction. But get this, less of a decline in
(24:36):
life satisfaction. So here's what the researchers think that once
one partner has closed the window and went, Okay, I'm out,
I'm not going to stay in this relationship, the other
partner's hanging on with hope. But what is that other
partner doing and why is their life satisfaction going up?
Because they're either shopping for new maids, having affairs, getting
(24:58):
in shape, getting you know, their finances in order. They're preparing,
they're preparing, and the other person just waiting by the
study also found that many people are blindsided by a breakup.
People who were the recipients of the breakup entered the
terminal phase much later. Oh, that's why breakups do feel asymmetrical.
(25:21):
One person wants out and the other one doesn't. So
they wanted to look at these couples and say, is
there a way to save the relationship. It's one of
the most common questions I get, doctor, Wendy, Do you
think it's worth it? Or should I throw in the towel?
Is it worth working on? Of course I always say
it's worth working on, even if you're just going to
go to marital therapy to do some conscious and coupling.
(25:42):
But most people go to marriage and family therapists way
too late, when they're already in the terminal phase. So
these researchers say, the key is that you want to
get there in the pre terminal phase when you're both
feeling a little eh, this isn't going so great. I'm not.
At least one of you is like, I'm not so
(26:02):
happy with my life. Ayeh, just feel a little h
and the other one saying, well, maybe we'll just wait
and see if things get better. No, no, no, no no.
If you suspect things are declining, Do not wait for
them to get better, get into couple's therapy. That's all
I'm gonna say. Hey, that brings it to an end.
I love being with you guys every Sunday from seven
to nine. Sometimes we end a little early because there's
(26:24):
other important special stuff for you. If you miss any
part of the show. Here's what you need to do.
You need to download the iHeartRadio app. You need in
the search bar, you need to write in doctor Wendy
Walsh and there I come. There's my face and then
there's a little button above my face and it says
preset hit that button. And then whenever you open the app,
all the shows you missed will come up, and any
(26:44):
part you missed will come up. It'll be great. So
if you ever miss any just iHeartRadio app. Otherwise I'm
here for you live every Sunday. Remember follow me on
my social media at Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh.
It's all my always, my pleasure to be with you. You've
been listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI
Am six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
(27:08):
been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear
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