September 22, 2025 • 34 mins
Dr. Wendy is talking about the Kayne West documentary, In Whose Name and the new science of attachment. PLUS we are covering why marriage matters, and getting some Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice. It's all on KFIAM-640!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf
I Am six forty the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show. It's always my pleasure to be with you
every Sunday from seven to nine and talk about love,
your love life. And it's not some cupid nonsense. It's
(00:22):
the science of love. You know, I have real data.
Do you know? One time, producer Kayla you here today?
Oh yeah, how you know? One time I asked the
robot the chat GPT, tell me what kind of reputation
does Doctor Wendy Walsh have because it's going to crawl
around the internet.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh? Interesting?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It said that I was smart. I like that, that
I was science based. I like that. But it said
I was strident and a little bit chicky. Oh yeah,
I like that, do you Yeah? I like to kind
of make people think with my truth. As someone else
said to me one day recently, you just speak your truth.
You did, and your truth sometimes bothers some people. That's
very true. And you know what, you get to a
(01:03):
certain age, my people, you don't care that everybody like
you doesn't matter. The people who know me like me,
love you. So the other night, oh, I have to
do a tiny little commercial. My husband Julio is one
of the executive producers of a new documentary that opened
this weekend. You guys should all go see it because
you want to support my family. It's called in Whose Name?
(01:27):
And now I'm about to say what the documentary is about.
And half of you are going to go now and
you're going to turn off the radio. I'll start this way.
A young filmmaker who was just seventeen years old got
plucked off YouTube by a very famous celebrity and he said,
just follow me, man, just do whatever you need to do.
And this young man, starving and eating probably Ramen noodles,
(01:50):
followed this person, this celebrity for seven years. Now. During
the seven years, this particular celebrity had a major downfall, divorce,
lost some contracts. Okay, half of you hate him. I'm
just gonna say half of you hate him because more
than half because of his probably because of his mental
health problems. I'm talking about Yay, the man formerly known
(02:13):
as Kanye West. If you don't know who Kanye West is,
you put a googlip and he has been known for
saying some very very controversial and I will say hurtful
things to many people. And I said, when it all
came out, the anti Semitic stuff and whatever, this is
classic mania of somebody who has a borderline personality disorder.
(02:34):
Now I have another friend who's a therapist who says,
borderline doesn't make you a hater, makes you have mania
versus whatever. He learned that somewhere and true. Maybe he did. Anyway,
the documentary is called in Whose Name? It's in theaters everywhere,
and it is a candid look of what went on
behind the scenes. I found it. I've seen it three
(02:55):
times now. I have found it an interesting look at
when mental health meets unlimited resources. You're in that land
of no nos.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So anyway, there's a long story to say. On Friday night,
I was at the premiere party and I meet a
woman there. Can't remember what her role is, Oh, I
know she owns it like a screening room, and they
had done some of the early screenings there and we
were chatting and Julio. She was a colleague of Julio,
so you know, he had introduced me. This is my wife, Wendy,
you know, so we chat chat chat, chat chat, and
somehow some subject comes up about relationships, and he goes, well,
(03:30):
you should ask my wife, because she's doctor Wendy Walsh.
I thought this woman was gonna lose it. I thought
she was gonna pop a gasket. She's looked at me,
she goes, Oh my gosh, I've been listening to you
for ten years. I didn't know this is what you
looked like because we never match our voice. Ever, I
wonder what she I forgot to ask her, what did
(03:50):
you think I look like? But anyway, we had a
great old time. It was fun giving her a hug.
And I love running into listeners KFI listeners out there.
It's just such a tickle. It's great. All right. I
want to talk a little bit about the new science
of attachment. You know, I talk about attachment theory a lot.
If you don't know what attachment theory is, you have
(04:10):
you have your own specific romantic attachment style, I promise
you do. It is a combination of your genetic predisposition
for needing people, or needing more personal time, or needing
closeness or needing distance, or having anxiety around attachment, like
(04:30):
I need to have somebody close, or anxiety, Ooh, they're
too close, that feels awful. It's partly a genetic predisposition,
and then those genes are enlivened in the first few
years of life by how you were parented. Right, So
you might ask yourself, like, why do some people get
way too clinging with their partner, even a chat bot, Right,
(04:52):
we've been talking about that while others run for the
hills when somebody gets a little too close. Well, it's
all about our attachment style. The big question people always
ask me is can you change your attachment style? Absolutely
I did. I had an anxious, ambivalent attachment style for
most of my romantic life, which was come closer, come closer,
(05:12):
I'm longing for you. Oh too close, you're too nice,
Go away, go away. I don't want the nice ones, right,
So I hurt myself with people. And I know it's
definitely related to the fact that I had a dad
in the navy. He was gone most of the time.
I was always pining away for him, trying to get
him to come close. But when he came back, and
he was a wonderful dad. When he came back, he
(05:33):
was kind of emotionally avoidant, right, nobody talked about feelings anyway.
I little search this week to see if there's any
new research on attachment out there. Are you watching the clock? Kler?
By the way, Because I didn't, and because I talk,
Here's what happened. I talk and talk and talk, and
I could sit here and talk for twenty minutes, thirty minutes.
I'm a psychology professor. I have filled three hour lectures.
(05:57):
I'm sure my students' butts get completely numb, all right,
completely numb, but I just talk. So I have Kayla
here wrapping me up when it's time. So here's what
some of the research says. There is new research out
of a journal called Scientific Reports. It found that people
with an insecure attachment style that means you're either really
(06:17):
anxious and need to be close to somebody, or you're
really avoidant because you feel easily smothered. I'm surprised that
somebody paid for the study. Those attachment styles are often
shaped by early trauma, but not only that, they make
people vulnerable to serious mental health risks, including suicidal thoughts.
(06:41):
So if what I've been describing sounds like you, you're
more anxious, you're more avoidant than getting some therapy could
really help you. Another study, people with a secure attachment
style got less damage during COVID with the social isolation.
I found this one really interesting. One is that all
(07:02):
this social anxiety, especially with the young people, because they
missed two important developmental years, for those who had a healthy,
good relationship with their family and their parents, they had
less damage because of it. And then yes, another one
on AI a current. A research study in something called
current psychology found that people do project their attachment needs
(07:23):
onto their robot. They might see comfort, fear rejection, fear
rejection from chat ChiPT Please it's not a person. Oh
you know what I saw today, Kayla? I was right.
You know the weymos that are all over town. I'm
in Venice, so they're everywhere. I'm taking them too. I
sit in the backseat, the windows are shut, nobody can
see me. I'll put my little music on whatever. I
(07:45):
was walking out of Starbucks today and all windows were
down in a weymo. Dude who was riding was sitting
alone in the front passenger seat blasting the music and
singing and dancing. What do you conclude about his behavior? Exhibitionist?
I'm in a way.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Mod at me. Everybody look at me.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
He's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay. The big takeaway, folks,
is attachment theory isn't just about your romantic attachments. It's
about your mental health, and it's about even your workplace
of relationships and your relationship with your chat pot if
affects all of your behaviors. All right, when we come back,
I'm going to get a soapbox and a rant that's
going to please some of you and some of you
(08:25):
will hate it. But it's based in research.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Don't argue with the data why marriage still matters a
lot of heterosexual women have lost complete hope in marriage.
Let me get into it when we come back. You
are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
This is the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. I would like
to welcome my Instagram audience if you would like to
come in the studio. Oh, then just log onto Instagram
right now and go to my account, which is doctor
Wendy Walsh. It's okay, Brett, I get it anyway, So
I'm looking at the comments that are coming in anyway.
It's always fun when people do come on my Instagram,
and the first thing I ask them to do is
(09:15):
to write in the comments section where they're watching from
or listening to the show from, because you, even though
you know I'm after this, I'm gonna be taking calls
with relationship questions. Okay, and you might not be able
to hear both sides of it on Instagram, but you
can always download the iHeartRadio app and get both sides
of the conversation. So before we get to that, though,
I'll announce the phone number. After this, I want to
(09:38):
talk about why I think marriage still matters. And don't
hang up. Don't just stop right now because you're thinking,
oh my god, I thought she was a feminist. There
are a lot of women who are very tired, single women,
very tired and very angry right now. They are often
blaming men for being commitment phobic right when actually, just
(09:58):
to lay out the game board for we have a
oversupply of successful women in the mating marketplace, and they
all those women think that they deserve because of their
education and economics. A man who's more successful than them.
My fingers are making quotation parks marks successful than them,
(10:19):
when actually they should be choosing a good father and
someone who's kind. So you get some men riding a
wave of very free sex and not ready to commit.
You get another group of men who are very angry
and feel left out in the cold, the so called
nice guys. Right, And in the middle of all this
(10:39):
you have nothing new. Really, two groups. One group telling
women you don't need a man. You know, you could
have a baby on your own, or you could have
a same sex relationship. All of that is true, by
the way, but I just want to touch about the
odds after this. And then you have another group saying
women you need to get into tradition gender roles and
(11:01):
get married. Now, marriage and traditional gender roles do not
necessarily go hand in hand. Any of you who are
listening who are in a marriage, No darn well that
when the trash needs to be taken out and it smells,
whoever's closest to grab it, you don't say, what does
your anatomy look like for you to do that particular job? Right,
(11:24):
I happen to have a husband whose favorite tasks in
the world are doing dishes and folding laundry. You know
how you have a dryer and then it like beeps
right after the stuff is dried, So I guess to
let people know that if you sit it there, it
might get wrinkled. He literally jumps and runs when he
hears that beep, like he needs to get it well
(11:45):
it's warm and fold that laundry. I'm so so grateful,
so grateful to have such a wonderful person. But I
want to talk about why I still think traditional marriage matters.
Careful that word traditional. The modern nuclear family is actually
a pretty recent event in our evolution. What's natural and
(12:06):
normal and traditional for humans is to roam in packs
of many generations, working as cooperative breeders, raising kids as
a tribe, including aunties and grandmas and uncles and cousins
and gay brothers and gay sisters, all helping a child
thrive in the village. It was only with farming, which
is the greatest downfall for women, where women were stuck
(12:29):
on one plot of land with a dude, lost their
whole sorority of women friends and it was more difficult
for them. This is where the traditional nuclear family began
to evolve and then once we hit the Industrial Revolution,
women were sidelined even more and their entire survival was
based on whether they could get a man to commit.
(12:52):
In fact, they either had to sort of rent out
their vagina for a lifetime in a contract called marriage
that says you'll support me and any offspring that come
from this, or they rented it out by the hour.
Did you know in Victorian England there were for every
twelve men there was one prostitute. Right that was like
the feminists back then because there weren't jobs. There weren't
(13:16):
wasn't the ability to extract resources from the environment for women. Well,
now women can equal almost equally. I mean the pay
is not quite the same, right, but marriage is still
the best nest we have for kids now. Whether you
like or don't like the system until we have a
four day work week with extended parental leave for anybody
(13:36):
of any gender and free childcare in every workplace, marriage
is actually still the best legal protection we have for children.
Two parents in a household mean more money coming in,
more incomes coming into that household for education and all
kinds of things. Marriage comes with some automatic legal rights
(13:59):
and protect for kids in terms of inheritance, health insurance,
tax benefits, parental rights, et cetera. Two parents double the
amount of attention a kid can get. Married. Couples are less,
they're more stable, they're part We sort of organize ourselves
around couples in our society, and so they're more stable. Now,
I want to remind you, I'm reading this from the data,
(14:20):
but I was a single mother for twenty years, and
I knew how hard it was. There are just as
many other risks for single parents, higher risk of poverty,
higher risk of or lower risk of educational attainment for
kids of more behavioral and emotional challenges for the kids,
single parents with worse physical and mental health. I lived it.
(14:41):
So this is why I do make a case for
traditional marriage now. It's only because this is where we're
at now, and change is happening, which is great. And
if you have time, go try to change public policy,
Go march, write letters, do whatever you need to to
make life better for parents. But if you're a single
heterosexual woman in your early thirties who wants to become
(15:02):
a mother, not everybody does who wants to become a mother,
the marriage is still the best deal we have, all right,
When we come back. I'm going to be taking your
relationship questions. The number is one eight hundred five two
zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five two zero
one five three four. Got it? Five two zero one
five three four pick up the phone. Producer Kass going
(15:25):
to be answering the phone and I'll be happy to
weigh in on your love life. You are listening to
the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show and KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
If you want to come into the studio and see
what we're doing here, you're welcome to log onto my
Instagram account at doctor Wendy Walsh at d R Wendy Welsh.
This is the time of the show when I am
answering your relationship questions. A reminder to everybody. I'm not
a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. But I've been upse
obessed with the science of love for many decades and
I've written three books on relationships, did a dissertation on
(16:06):
attachment theory, and i have been in every kind of
relationship that ever existed. I have been a single woman,
I've been a cohabitating girlfriend. I have been a married woman.
I've been a divorce a. I've been a single mother,
I've been a mistress. I've been everything possible, and I
have some wisdom that I would like to share with you. Okay,
(16:28):
if you'd like to call, the number is one eight
hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one
eight hundred five to zero one five three four. Okay, Producer, Kayla,
who do we have? First, we have Greg with a question. Greg. Hi, Greg,
it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Hi, doctor Wendy. I'm gonna promote myself and then I'm
gonna ask you a question.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
First of all, I'm a widower and I'm fifty eight
years old. I'm half Native American, half black, and I've
been on dating sites and all this kind of stuff
for a while now and I'm not getting the correct
results of the type of woman that i'd like. And
the way you are with Julio. You're going to laugh,
(17:11):
but I'm like Julio and really good. Yeah, I'm a
very nice guy. I love to laugh and have a
good time and all that kind of stuff. I'm looking
for a casual relationship. I'm in the Silver Lake area.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Okay, Greg, I just heard your commercial. But there's one
word that made me sit up and take notice. So
you're a widower, you're fifty eight, you sound gorgeous, half black,
half Native American. Oh my goodness, and so well spoken
and so kind, and you're fit. It goes to the gym.
Everything great, ladies, But you use the word casual relationship.
What is a casual relationship to you? Greg? What are
(17:45):
you looking for?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Basically, no marriage is what I'm the only thing I'm saying,
no marriage.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
No marriage. But would you consider living with a woman?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
No?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
No, So you don't want to live with a woman.
You don't want to merge lives. So you want to
meet and have dinner and sex.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Sex is you're just going to make you laugh. But
sex is not my number one priority. My number one
priority is to go out and have a good time
and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And what's a good time?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
What do you like?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
What do you like to do?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Dinner? Going to different going to different places places I've
never been, places that she's never been, and experiencing different things.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
And why are you so afraid of of cohabitation and marriage.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
No, I don't believe in cohabitation. Marriage I'm not afraid
of is just that I don't want to do it anymore.
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So uh So, basically, you are telling our listeners on
KF I am six forty here that you want a
woman to sign up for kind of a part time
relationship and not actually merge lives. That's why you're having
a hard time. That's why you're having her. I'll tell
(18:58):
you one big difference Greg between you and Julio. Julio
literally the first time he met me for coffee, he
tells me now that he thought and has head, this
woman is going to be off the market so fast.
I better find a way to lock her down. So
he made all these excuses that he needed to see
me every day. I literally I called my best friend
like four days into it, and I go, are you
sitting down because I've just seen the same person three
(19:19):
days in a row. And she's like, what you You're
the one who's going no, no, no. Because he knew.
His excuses were like, oh, I have this business trip,
I'll be back in a couple weeks, and then he'd
called me, oh, it just got pushed by a day.
Can we just meet for lunch real quick today? You know?
But actually I said there was there even a business
trip to Miami. He goes it was. I was telling
everybody they had to wait for me because I needed
(19:41):
to get this deal done. So, Greg, that's the problem
is you're afraid of cohabitation and marriage, and that sends
a signal to women that you're afraid of emotional intimacy
and that you're afraid of commitment. So as nice as
you are, as much as you like those non traditional
gender rules, you're going to have a hard time for
women signing up for that. So, but you did do
(20:02):
the commercial. So if anybody sends me a DM on
Instagram and says where's Greg, send me a DM to
Greg and I'll connect the two of you. Thanks for calling,
appreciate it, nice talking to you. Okay, Producer Kayla, Do
we have anyone else? Or should we go?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Do you have a talk?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Actually said something last week and someone wanted more information
on it. Okay, what did I say last week of.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
How a woman can get pregnant from someone other than
her husband?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
This listener wants to listen to my favorite cocktail party conversation.
It's a bit of basic biology how a woman can
get pregnant by a man she's never had sex with.
I love to tell my students this in my developmental
psychology class when we're talking about early inception, et cetera.
So it works like this. So male anatomy is such
(20:52):
that that sperm can be preserved underneath the foreskin and
taken to a new vessel. Did I explain that, Well,
a penis is shaped like a plunger and scraper. So
with all that said, imagine there's a man and he's married,
(21:13):
and he's having an affair with a married woman. Now
that married woman, because it's very common that when people
are having affairs, pay attention to this. Folks. When people
are having affairs, often their sex drive goes up with
their primary partner because everything's all juiced up and stimulated. Right,
they're really excited again, everything's happening. So let's say this
(21:35):
woman who's having an affair gets up in the morning
and has sex with her husband, who actually doesn't get up,
just has sex with her husband in the morning. Then
for lunch she goes and meets at a hotel room
the married man she's having an affair with that married
man may be uncircumcised, which is cool. It's the natural,
the way mother Nature says is supposed to be. And
with his plunder and Scraper takes her husband's sperm home.
(22:01):
He gets home and that night he sees his wife
and decides to have sex with her. And she if
that husband of the affairee has better swimmers, she can
get pregnant by that man. Let me tell you divorces
that happened over this, okay, is that crazy uh baby
comes out a different race, you know, and she gets
(22:22):
accused of having an affair and she's like, I know,
I didn't. I don't get it right. So that's the
answer to that. Talkback all right. If you have a question,
you can call in. The number is one eight hundred
and five two zero one five three four. I am
going to go to my social media because producer Kayla
has built some very good questions. Oh before I do,
somebody who's live right now on my Instagram asked me
(22:43):
to answer this question. Tips for a long distance relationship
for a married couple. Okay, the most important thing is
that there's an end date. Relationships suffer, especially long distance
relationship hips. When they are just open ended. We don't
(23:04):
know how long we're going to keep this job in
this place, we don't know how long we're going to
keep commuting, and somebody loses interest because they can't wait.
But if you know, oh, I only have to wait
until this date or this year, then I can get
through this. That's the most important thing is that you
have an established end date. Now it may be just
an agreed upon date. By the end of this year,
(23:25):
we're going to decide who's quitting their job and moving
to the other city. Right, it doesn't have to be
that the job ends or whatever. Secondly, the research shows
that the one thing that does help long distance relationships
stay connected is conversations about feelings intimacy, not just how
is your day? Where'd you eight? Where'd you go? Oh?
(23:47):
That's great, Okay, i'll talk to you tomorrow. Honey, No,
it's a miss you. I love you so much. I
love this relationship. I'm so looking forward to next Friday
when we get together. Let's plan some stuff we can
do together. It's always so wonderful to be with you. Right, Feelings, longing, anticipation, love,
(24:11):
Did you hear the feelings in that sentence right. And
also regular contact involving video bone is not enough. It's
really funny because when Julio travels on business, he gets
like all shy when we FaceTime, Like for some reason,
he feels like he goes oh like FaceTime. But it's
actually better for me. I like to see him and
(24:33):
see his facial expressions when he's saying things to me.
So anyway, those are the best tips I could give you.
Somebody on Instagram right now is asking me, You've been
married only two weeks and you're already arguing and getting
so defensive. All right, I want to remind everybody that
research shows even the healthiest couples have the most conflict.
(24:55):
Now they're not the knockdown dragonmount battles. They are more
like the border skirmishes, little things that establish boundaries. I'm
pretty sure if you guys just got married two weeks ago,
that heightened the stress in your relationship, that feeling of
there's no way out, we got to figure this out,
(25:16):
or this feeling of this person is engulfing me now
it's too much. What am I gonna do? And so
you get defensive? Right, this is the perfect time when
the two of you somebody has asked me what about
sexting and long term relationships, and go, Look, anything you
put in your phone is going to end up somewhere someday,
(25:38):
on the internet, in court documents, in the media. I
don't know. Just don't. I just say don't. Okay, that's
my feeling. But let me get back to arguing. If
you've only been married two weeks, is the perfect time
for you to get in with a good licensed couples
therapist who can help establish some really good conflict resolution skills.
(26:00):
All relationship skills can be learned. Having a healthy relationship
is not about luck. It's not about just knowing how
to pick the right person. It's knowing how to be
a good person in a relationship somebody who And got
to understand if you're trying to change somebody or she's
trying to change you, you're going to have problems because
(26:21):
relationships are about adapting to that person and their differences,
but also knowing that that they have your back, reminding
yourself why you fell in love in the first place,
always holding them in high esteem in your brain. That's
the important part. All right, when we come back, I'm
(26:42):
going to continue to take your calls and answer your
social media questions. Write down this number. What eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. That's one eight
hundred five two zero one five three four. You are
listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM
six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Okay, producer, Kayla, who do we have? We have Justin
with a comment. Okay, Justin with a comment. Hi, Justin,
it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Hi there, Hi, doctor Wendy.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
What's your question or comment?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I tuned in just as you began speaking to the
prior gentleman who was having trouble meeting somebody on the app.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
So, oh, Greg, who wanted a casual relationship?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yes, right, right right.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I was pretty shocked by your answer. I mean, yes,
granted when he said casually, my ears perked up too,
But didn't you basically tell him he doesn't deserve to
date anybody unless you want to cohabitator Merritt.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
No. He asked me why he's having trouble, and I
answered why. I didn't say, you don't deserve love. I said,
there's a minority of women who might like that. But
that's why he's having a problem, because most women want
to have a committed relationship ship that goes somewhere right
then or you move in together. You know, I'm not
(28:04):
saying he's not undtable.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Now, I'm like dating profiles when they ask what you're
looking for, Uh huh, it's almost universal that they say
open to shorts. Now, whether they're you know, whether that's
not being genuinely honest, but.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
You mean women get that in their profiles.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yes, it's almost universal moment, you know, looking for long
term open to short is super common.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, that's a mating a female mating strategy that means
women where they'll be like, I'll tell him I'm open
to a short relationship and then maybe he'll just fall
in love with me and not be able to leave me.
Men do the opposite in their mating strategy. They say
I'm looking for a long term relationship when actually they
want a short one, and they say, oh babe, it
(28:49):
just didn't work out. But the truth is they're both
mating strategies. Everybody likes to do little FIBs at the
beginning Now again, I'm not generalizing. I'm not saying that
every single woman wants to get married and live with you.
I'm not saying that every single man wants a casual relationship.
What I'm saying is Greg said, why is it that
(29:11):
he's having trouble finding love? And that's one of the
reasons because it is a minority of women. Thank you
Justin for your question. Though. I love debate, really appreciate it. Okay,
Producer Kayla, do we have someone else? We have Amy
who is interested in Greg. Amy's interested in Greg? Oh,
I love this. Hi Amy, it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Hi, doctor Wendy. How are you good?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Now? I never thought I'd become a dating service, But
tell me what appeals to you about Greg.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I also am a wawer.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
You know.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
I am not looking to live with anybody, just companionship.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Really, you got your house, your work, your life, and
you're like, I don't want to have another guy in
my house. I'm good, Yes, yes, exactly. Okay, So here's
what you need to do. Amy. You need to send
a DM to me on my Instagram, and if Greg
reaches out to me on my Instagram, then I could
(30:12):
connect the two of you, But I want to tell
you something. You have a little competition because I've already
received dms from three other women who want to meet Greg.
Who You're gonna win, Amy, You're gonna win. I can
feel it in my blood. Send me a DM at
Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh, and let's see
(30:34):
if Greg sends me a DM too, and I can
connect you guys. Thanks for calling Amy.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yes, ma'am, you have a beautiful evening.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Thank you, goodnight. Fight. So, like I said, women who
want a casual relationship are a minority, but it doesn't
mean they don't exist. I love it all right. I
want to since I've into my dms and I'm reading them,
I want to go through a few questions real quick
because we how much time do we have left? I
don't know where time is going here? Another minute or two? Okay,
(31:04):
let's see. Dear doctor Wendy, what's the best way to
resolve repeated arguments that seem to start over small things
but escalate quickly. It's interesting you say repeated arguments, because
I'm wondering if you're arguing kind of about the same thing.
One of the things, one of my favorite therapists, Doctor
Robbie Ludwig in New York City, says she does lots
of couple's therapy. When I said to her, what's the
(31:26):
most common thing people fight about? She because doesn't matter
what it is, it's the same thing for them over
and over and over that they never really solved. They
learn to manage. So the answer is catch it early
before it escalates and say something like, oh, this is
the thing we always fight about. Can we find a
different way to talk about this or change the subject?
Which would you prefer to do? That actually happened with
(31:47):
Hulu and I. I'd like about five am. He was
up watching Oh are those Formula one race of things?
In the middle of the thing, and then we got
into conversation about something and I go, oh, this is
the same thing we always argue about. And he said,
let's just go to sleep. We need our sleeps. We
caught it early, we decided to avoid it all.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Here's another one, Dear doctor Wendy, My girlfriend avoids confrontation
and shuts down during disagreements. How can I encourage healthier
conflict resolution? Okay, I'm doing a whole segment on that.
When we come back, so the silent treatment, So just
hang on you get your full answer. Dear doctor Wendy,
what do you think of taking a ceramics class for
(32:23):
a date? Great idea, anything where you're actively doing something bowling, ceramics, hiking.
I heard where did I read somewhere today that some
woman had put in her profile that she loved chocolate
chip cookies. So the guy invited her on a date
in New York City to visit three different cookie shops
and compare them to see which were her favorite. I
(32:44):
thought that was cute, little activity, a lot of sugar.
We'll say that. I think I have time for one
more question, Dear doctor Wendy, do relationships tend to be
more meaningful when they start naturally in person or can
connections from dating apps be just as strong? Well, they
certainly can be just as strong dating apps. But if
you tuned in last week, I talked about new research
that showed that people who met in the real world
(33:06):
first actually valued their relationship more felt they had more
relationship satisfaction. It's because they usually meet doing some common
interest thing, and with dating apps, as you can tell
from my last call from Justin, people lie on their
dating apps all the time just to entice people, and
if a relationship begins with a lie, then it's harder
(33:27):
to build trust. So real world is coming back in fashion.
I love that. Okay. If you have more questions for me,
you are always welcome to go to my Instagram, put
them in the dms Kayla, and I read them and
we get them out here on the show. All right,
when we come back, the very worst relationship behavior that
you can ever do, and if it happens to you,
(33:50):
I'm going to tell you what you can do about
it when we come back. You are listening to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on
k five A M six forty from seven to nine
p m. On Sunday and any time on demand on
the iHeartRadio app.
This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to kf
I Am six forty the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on
demand on the iHeartRadio app. This is the Doctor Wendy
Walls Show. It's always my pleasure to be with you
every Sunday from seven to nine and talk about love,
your love life. And it's not some cupid nonsense. It's
(00:22):
the science of love. You know, I have real data.
Do you know? One time, producer Kayla you here today?
Oh yeah, how you know? One time I asked the
robot the chat GPT, tell me what kind of reputation
does Doctor Wendy Walsh have because it's going to crawl
around the internet.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Right.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Oh? Interesting?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
It said that I was smart. I like that, that
I was science based. I like that. But it said
I was strident and a little bit chicky. Oh yeah,
I like that, do you Yeah? I like to kind
of make people think with my truth. As someone else
said to me one day recently, you just speak your truth.
You did, and your truth sometimes bothers some people. That's
very true. And you know what, you get to a
(01:03):
certain age, my people, you don't care that everybody like
you doesn't matter. The people who know me like me,
love you. So the other night, oh, I have to
do a tiny little commercial. My husband Julio is one
of the executive producers of a new documentary that opened
this weekend. You guys should all go see it because
you want to support my family. It's called in Whose Name?
(01:27):
And now I'm about to say what the documentary is about.
And half of you are going to go now and
you're going to turn off the radio. I'll start this way.
A young filmmaker who was just seventeen years old got
plucked off YouTube by a very famous celebrity and he said,
just follow me, man, just do whatever you need to do.
And this young man, starving and eating probably Ramen noodles,
(01:50):
followed this person, this celebrity for seven years. Now. During
the seven years, this particular celebrity had a major downfall, divorce,
lost some contracts. Okay, half of you hate him. I'm
just gonna say half of you hate him because more
than half because of his probably because of his mental
health problems. I'm talking about Yay, the man formerly known
(02:13):
as Kanye West. If you don't know who Kanye West is,
you put a googlip and he has been known for
saying some very very controversial and I will say hurtful
things to many people. And I said, when it all
came out, the anti Semitic stuff and whatever, this is
classic mania of somebody who has a borderline personality disorder.
(02:34):
Now I have another friend who's a therapist who says,
borderline doesn't make you a hater, makes you have mania
versus whatever. He learned that somewhere and true. Maybe he did. Anyway,
the documentary is called in Whose Name? It's in theaters everywhere,
and it is a candid look of what went on
behind the scenes. I found it. I've seen it three
(02:55):
times now. I have found it an interesting look at
when mental health meets unlimited resources. You're in that land
of no nos.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
So anyway, there's a long story to say. On Friday night,
I was at the premiere party and I meet a
woman there. Can't remember what her role is, Oh, I
know she owns it like a screening room, and they
had done some of the early screenings there and we
were chatting and Julio. She was a colleague of Julio,
so you know, he had introduced me. This is my wife, Wendy,
you know, so we chat chat chat, chat chat, and
somehow some subject comes up about relationships, and he goes, well,
(03:30):
you should ask my wife, because she's doctor Wendy Walsh.
I thought this woman was gonna lose it. I thought
she was gonna pop a gasket. She's looked at me,
she goes, Oh my gosh, I've been listening to you
for ten years. I didn't know this is what you
looked like because we never match our voice. Ever, I
wonder what she I forgot to ask her, what did
(03:50):
you think I look like? But anyway, we had a
great old time. It was fun giving her a hug.
And I love running into listeners KFI listeners out there.
It's just such a tickle. It's great. All right. I
want to talk a little bit about the new science
of attachment. You know, I talk about attachment theory a lot.
If you don't know what attachment theory is, you have
(04:10):
you have your own specific romantic attachment style, I promise
you do. It is a combination of your genetic predisposition
for needing people, or needing more personal time, or needing
closeness or needing distance, or having anxiety around attachment, like
(04:30):
I need to have somebody close, or anxiety, Ooh, they're
too close, that feels awful. It's partly a genetic predisposition,
and then those genes are enlivened in the first few
years of life by how you were parented. Right, So
you might ask yourself, like, why do some people get
way too clinging with their partner, even a chat bot, Right,
(04:52):
we've been talking about that while others run for the
hills when somebody gets a little too close. Well, it's
all about our attachment style. The big question people always
ask me is can you change your attachment style? Absolutely
I did. I had an anxious, ambivalent attachment style for
most of my romantic life, which was come closer, come closer,
(05:12):
I'm longing for you. Oh too close, you're too nice,
Go away, go away. I don't want the nice ones, right,
So I hurt myself with people. And I know it's
definitely related to the fact that I had a dad
in the navy. He was gone most of the time.
I was always pining away for him, trying to get
him to come close. But when he came back, and
he was a wonderful dad. When he came back, he
(05:33):
was kind of emotionally avoidant, right, nobody talked about feelings anyway.
I little search this week to see if there's any
new research on attachment out there. Are you watching the clock? Kler?
By the way, Because I didn't, and because I talk,
Here's what happened. I talk and talk and talk, and
I could sit here and talk for twenty minutes, thirty minutes.
I'm a psychology professor. I have filled three hour lectures.
(05:57):
I'm sure my students' butts get completely numb, all right,
completely numb, but I just talk. So I have Kayla
here wrapping me up when it's time. So here's what
some of the research says. There is new research out
of a journal called Scientific Reports. It found that people
with an insecure attachment style that means you're either really
(06:17):
anxious and need to be close to somebody, or you're
really avoidant because you feel easily smothered. I'm surprised that
somebody paid for the study. Those attachment styles are often
shaped by early trauma, but not only that, they make
people vulnerable to serious mental health risks, including suicidal thoughts.
(06:41):
So if what I've been describing sounds like you, you're
more anxious, you're more avoidant than getting some therapy could
really help you. Another study, people with a secure attachment
style got less damage during COVID with the social isolation.
I found this one really interesting. One is that all
(07:02):
this social anxiety, especially with the young people, because they
missed two important developmental years, for those who had a healthy,
good relationship with their family and their parents, they had
less damage because of it. And then yes, another one
on AI a current. A research study in something called
current psychology found that people do project their attachment needs
(07:23):
onto their robot. They might see comfort, fear rejection, fear
rejection from chat ChiPT Please it's not a person. Oh
you know what I saw today, Kayla? I was right.
You know the weymos that are all over town. I'm
in Venice, so they're everywhere. I'm taking them too. I
sit in the backseat, the windows are shut, nobody can
see me. I'll put my little music on whatever. I
(07:45):
was walking out of Starbucks today and all windows were
down in a weymo. Dude who was riding was sitting
alone in the front passenger seat blasting the music and
singing and dancing. What do you conclude about his behavior? Exhibitionist?
I'm in a way.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Mod at me. Everybody look at me.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
He's crazy. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay. The big takeaway, folks,
is attachment theory isn't just about your romantic attachments. It's
about your mental health, and it's about even your workplace
of relationships and your relationship with your chat pot if
affects all of your behaviors. All right, when we come back,
I'm going to get a soapbox and a rant that's
going to please some of you and some of you
(08:25):
will hate it. But it's based in research.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
You know.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Don't argue with the data why marriage still matters a
lot of heterosexual women have lost complete hope in marriage.
Let me get into it when we come back. You
are listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show and KFI
AM six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
This is the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show. I would like
to welcome my Instagram audience if you would like to
come in the studio. Oh, then just log onto Instagram
right now and go to my account, which is doctor
Wendy Walsh. It's okay, Brett, I get it anyway, So
I'm looking at the comments that are coming in anyway.
It's always fun when people do come on my Instagram,
and the first thing I ask them to do is
(09:15):
to write in the comments section where they're watching from
or listening to the show from, because you, even though
you know I'm after this, I'm gonna be taking calls
with relationship questions. Okay, and you might not be able
to hear both sides of it on Instagram, but you
can always download the iHeartRadio app and get both sides
of the conversation. So before we get to that, though,
I'll announce the phone number. After this, I want to
(09:38):
talk about why I think marriage still matters. And don't
hang up. Don't just stop right now because you're thinking,
oh my god, I thought she was a feminist. There
are a lot of women who are very tired, single women,
very tired and very angry right now. They are often
blaming men for being commitment phobic right when actually, just
(09:58):
to lay out the game board for we have a
oversupply of successful women in the mating marketplace, and they
all those women think that they deserve because of their
education and economics. A man who's more successful than them.
My fingers are making quotation parks marks successful than them,
(10:19):
when actually they should be choosing a good father and
someone who's kind. So you get some men riding a
wave of very free sex and not ready to commit.
You get another group of men who are very angry
and feel left out in the cold, the so called
nice guys. Right, And in the middle of all this
(10:39):
you have nothing new. Really, two groups. One group telling
women you don't need a man. You know, you could
have a baby on your own, or you could have
a same sex relationship. All of that is true, by
the way, but I just want to touch about the
odds after this. And then you have another group saying
women you need to get into tradition gender roles and
(11:01):
get married. Now, marriage and traditional gender roles do not
necessarily go hand in hand. Any of you who are
listening who are in a marriage, No darn well that
when the trash needs to be taken out and it smells,
whoever's closest to grab it, you don't say, what does
your anatomy look like for you to do that particular job? Right,
(11:24):
I happen to have a husband whose favorite tasks in
the world are doing dishes and folding laundry. You know
how you have a dryer and then it like beeps
right after the stuff is dried, So I guess to
let people know that if you sit it there, it
might get wrinkled. He literally jumps and runs when he
hears that beep, like he needs to get it well
(11:45):
it's warm and fold that laundry. I'm so so grateful,
so grateful to have such a wonderful person. But I
want to talk about why I still think traditional marriage matters.
Careful that word traditional. The modern nuclear family is actually
a pretty recent event in our evolution. What's natural and
(12:06):
normal and traditional for humans is to roam in packs
of many generations, working as cooperative breeders, raising kids as
a tribe, including aunties and grandmas and uncles and cousins
and gay brothers and gay sisters, all helping a child
thrive in the village. It was only with farming, which
is the greatest downfall for women, where women were stuck
(12:29):
on one plot of land with a dude, lost their
whole sorority of women friends and it was more difficult
for them. This is where the traditional nuclear family began
to evolve and then once we hit the Industrial Revolution,
women were sidelined even more and their entire survival was
based on whether they could get a man to commit.
(12:52):
In fact, they either had to sort of rent out
their vagina for a lifetime in a contract called marriage
that says you'll support me and any offspring that come
from this, or they rented it out by the hour.
Did you know in Victorian England there were for every
twelve men there was one prostitute. Right that was like
the feminists back then because there weren't jobs. There weren't
(13:16):
wasn't the ability to extract resources from the environment for women. Well,
now women can equal almost equally. I mean the pay
is not quite the same, right, but marriage is still
the best nest we have for kids now. Whether you
like or don't like the system until we have a
four day work week with extended parental leave for anybody
(13:36):
of any gender and free childcare in every workplace, marriage
is actually still the best legal protection we have for children.
Two parents in a household mean more money coming in,
more incomes coming into that household for education and all
kinds of things. Marriage comes with some automatic legal rights
(13:59):
and protect for kids in terms of inheritance, health insurance,
tax benefits, parental rights, et cetera. Two parents double the
amount of attention a kid can get. Married. Couples are less,
they're more stable, they're part We sort of organize ourselves
around couples in our society, and so they're more stable. Now,
I want to remind you, I'm reading this from the data,
(14:20):
but I was a single mother for twenty years, and
I knew how hard it was. There are just as
many other risks for single parents, higher risk of poverty,
higher risk of or lower risk of educational attainment for
kids of more behavioral and emotional challenges for the kids,
single parents with worse physical and mental health. I lived it.
(14:41):
So this is why I do make a case for
traditional marriage now. It's only because this is where we're
at now, and change is happening, which is great. And
if you have time, go try to change public policy,
Go march, write letters, do whatever you need to to
make life better for parents. But if you're a single
heterosexual woman in your early thirties who wants to become
(15:02):
a mother, not everybody does who wants to become a mother,
the marriage is still the best deal we have, all right,
When we come back. I'm going to be taking your
relationship questions. The number is one eight hundred five two
zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred five two zero
one five three four. Got it? Five two zero one
five three four pick up the phone. Producer Kass going
(15:25):
to be answering the phone and I'll be happy to
weigh in on your love life. You are listening to
the Doctor Wendy Waalsh Show and KFI AM six forty.
We're live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
If you want to come into the studio and see
what we're doing here, you're welcome to log onto my
Instagram account at doctor Wendy Walsh at d R Wendy Welsh.
This is the time of the show when I am
answering your relationship questions. A reminder to everybody. I'm not
a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. But I've been upse
obessed with the science of love for many decades and
I've written three books on relationships, did a dissertation on
(16:06):
attachment theory, and i have been in every kind of
relationship that ever existed. I have been a single woman,
I've been a cohabitating girlfriend. I have been a married woman.
I've been a divorce a. I've been a single mother,
I've been a mistress. I've been everything possible, and I
have some wisdom that I would like to share with you. Okay,
(16:28):
if you'd like to call, the number is one eight
hundred five two zero one five three four. That's one
eight hundred five to zero one five three four. Okay, Producer, Kayla,
who do we have? First, we have Greg with a question. Greg. Hi, Greg,
it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Hi, doctor Wendy. I'm gonna promote myself and then I'm
gonna ask you a question.
Speaker 4 (16:47):
Okay.
Speaker 2 (16:48):
First of all, I'm a widower and I'm fifty eight
years old. I'm half Native American, half black, and I've
been on dating sites and all this kind of stuff
for a while now and I'm not getting the correct
results of the type of woman that i'd like. And
the way you are with Julio. You're going to laugh,
(17:11):
but I'm like Julio and really good. Yeah, I'm a
very nice guy. I love to laugh and have a
good time and all that kind of stuff. I'm looking
for a casual relationship. I'm in the Silver Lake area.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Okay, Greg, I just heard your commercial. But there's one
word that made me sit up and take notice. So
you're a widower, you're fifty eight, you sound gorgeous, half black,
half Native American. Oh my goodness, and so well spoken
and so kind, and you're fit. It goes to the gym.
Everything great, ladies, But you use the word casual relationship.
What is a casual relationship to you? Greg? What are
(17:45):
you looking for?
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Basically, no marriage is what I'm the only thing I'm saying,
no marriage.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
No marriage. But would you consider living with a woman?
Speaker 2 (17:56):
No?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
No, So you don't want to live with a woman.
You don't want to merge lives. So you want to
meet and have dinner and sex.
Speaker 2 (18:04):
Sex is you're just going to make you laugh. But
sex is not my number one priority. My number one
priority is to go out and have a good time
and all that stuff.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
And what's a good time?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
What do you like?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
What do you like to do?
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Dinner? Going to different going to different places places I've
never been, places that she's never been, and experiencing different things.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
And why are you so afraid of of cohabitation and marriage.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
No, I don't believe in cohabitation. Marriage I'm not afraid
of is just that I don't want to do it anymore.
Mm hmmm.
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So uh So, basically, you are telling our listeners on
KF I am six forty here that you want a
woman to sign up for kind of a part time
relationship and not actually merge lives. That's why you're having
a hard time. That's why you're having her. I'll tell
(18:58):
you one big difference Greg between you and Julio. Julio
literally the first time he met me for coffee, he
tells me now that he thought and has head, this
woman is going to be off the market so fast.
I better find a way to lock her down. So
he made all these excuses that he needed to see
me every day. I literally I called my best friend
like four days into it, and I go, are you
sitting down because I've just seen the same person three
(19:19):
days in a row. And she's like, what you You're
the one who's going no, no, no. Because he knew.
His excuses were like, oh, I have this business trip,
I'll be back in a couple weeks, and then he'd
called me, oh, it just got pushed by a day.
Can we just meet for lunch real quick today? You know?
But actually I said there was there even a business
trip to Miami. He goes it was. I was telling
everybody they had to wait for me because I needed
(19:41):
to get this deal done. So, Greg, that's the problem
is you're afraid of cohabitation and marriage, and that sends
a signal to women that you're afraid of emotional intimacy
and that you're afraid of commitment. So as nice as
you are, as much as you like those non traditional
gender rules, you're going to have a hard time for
women signing up for that. So, but you did do
(20:02):
the commercial. So if anybody sends me a DM on
Instagram and says where's Greg, send me a DM to
Greg and I'll connect the two of you. Thanks for calling,
appreciate it, nice talking to you. Okay, Producer Kayla, Do
we have anyone else? Or should we go?
Speaker 3 (20:14):
Do you have a talk?
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Actually said something last week and someone wanted more information
on it. Okay, what did I say last week of.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
How a woman can get pregnant from someone other than
her husband?
Speaker 1 (20:30):
This listener wants to listen to my favorite cocktail party conversation.
It's a bit of basic biology how a woman can
get pregnant by a man she's never had sex with.
I love to tell my students this in my developmental
psychology class when we're talking about early inception, et cetera.
So it works like this. So male anatomy is such
(20:52):
that that sperm can be preserved underneath the foreskin and
taken to a new vessel. Did I explain that, Well,
a penis is shaped like a plunger and scraper. So
with all that said, imagine there's a man and he's married,
(21:13):
and he's having an affair with a married woman. Now
that married woman, because it's very common that when people
are having affairs, pay attention to this. Folks. When people
are having affairs, often their sex drive goes up with
their primary partner because everything's all juiced up and stimulated. Right,
they're really excited again, everything's happening. So let's say this
(21:35):
woman who's having an affair gets up in the morning
and has sex with her husband, who actually doesn't get up,
just has sex with her husband in the morning. Then
for lunch she goes and meets at a hotel room
the married man she's having an affair with that married
man may be uncircumcised, which is cool. It's the natural,
the way mother Nature says is supposed to be. And
with his plunder and Scraper takes her husband's sperm home.
(22:01):
He gets home and that night he sees his wife
and decides to have sex with her. And she if
that husband of the affairee has better swimmers, she can
get pregnant by that man. Let me tell you divorces
that happened over this, okay, is that crazy uh baby
comes out a different race, you know, and she gets
(22:22):
accused of having an affair and she's like, I know,
I didn't. I don't get it right. So that's the
answer to that. Talkback all right. If you have a question,
you can call in. The number is one eight hundred
and five two zero one five three four. I am
going to go to my social media because producer Kayla
has built some very good questions. Oh before I do,
somebody who's live right now on my Instagram asked me
(22:43):
to answer this question. Tips for a long distance relationship
for a married couple. Okay, the most important thing is
that there's an end date. Relationships suffer, especially long distance
relationship hips. When they are just open ended. We don't
(23:04):
know how long we're going to keep this job in
this place, we don't know how long we're going to
keep commuting, and somebody loses interest because they can't wait.
But if you know, oh, I only have to wait
until this date or this year, then I can get
through this. That's the most important thing is that you
have an established end date. Now it may be just
an agreed upon date. By the end of this year,
(23:25):
we're going to decide who's quitting their job and moving
to the other city. Right, it doesn't have to be
that the job ends or whatever. Secondly, the research shows
that the one thing that does help long distance relationships
stay connected is conversations about feelings intimacy, not just how
is your day? Where'd you eight? Where'd you go? Oh?
(23:47):
That's great, Okay, i'll talk to you tomorrow. Honey, No,
it's a miss you. I love you so much. I
love this relationship. I'm so looking forward to next Friday
when we get together. Let's plan some stuff we can
do together. It's always so wonderful to be with you. Right, Feelings, longing, anticipation, love,
(24:11):
Did you hear the feelings in that sentence right. And
also regular contact involving video bone is not enough. It's
really funny because when Julio travels on business, he gets
like all shy when we FaceTime, Like for some reason,
he feels like he goes oh like FaceTime. But it's
actually better for me. I like to see him and
(24:33):
see his facial expressions when he's saying things to me.
So anyway, those are the best tips I could give you.
Somebody on Instagram right now is asking me, You've been
married only two weeks and you're already arguing and getting
so defensive. All right, I want to remind everybody that
research shows even the healthiest couples have the most conflict.
(24:55):
Now they're not the knockdown dragonmount battles. They are more
like the border skirmishes, little things that establish boundaries. I'm
pretty sure if you guys just got married two weeks ago,
that heightened the stress in your relationship, that feeling of
there's no way out, we got to figure this out,
(25:16):
or this feeling of this person is engulfing me now
it's too much. What am I gonna do? And so
you get defensive? Right, this is the perfect time when
the two of you somebody has asked me what about
sexting and long term relationships, and go, Look, anything you
put in your phone is going to end up somewhere someday,
(25:38):
on the internet, in court documents, in the media. I
don't know. Just don't. I just say don't. Okay, that's
my feeling. But let me get back to arguing. If
you've only been married two weeks, is the perfect time
for you to get in with a good licensed couples
therapist who can help establish some really good conflict resolution skills.
(26:00):
All relationship skills can be learned. Having a healthy relationship
is not about luck. It's not about just knowing how
to pick the right person. It's knowing how to be
a good person in a relationship somebody who And got
to understand if you're trying to change somebody or she's
trying to change you, you're going to have problems because
(26:21):
relationships are about adapting to that person and their differences,
but also knowing that that they have your back, reminding
yourself why you fell in love in the first place,
always holding them in high esteem in your brain. That's
the important part. All right, when we come back, I'm
(26:42):
going to continue to take your calls and answer your
social media questions. Write down this number. What eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. That's one eight
hundred five two zero one five three four. You are
listening to the Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM
six forty. We're live everywhere on the iHeart Radio app.
Speaker 3 (27:01):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
Okay, producer, Kayla, who do we have? We have Justin
with a comment. Okay, Justin with a comment. Hi, Justin,
it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Hi there, Hi, doctor Wendy.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
What's your question or comment?
Speaker 4 (27:21):
I tuned in just as you began speaking to the
prior gentleman who was having trouble meeting somebody on the app.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
So, oh, Greg, who wanted a casual relationship?
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Yes, right, right right.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
I was pretty shocked by your answer. I mean, yes,
granted when he said casually, my ears perked up too,
But didn't you basically tell him he doesn't deserve to
date anybody unless you want to cohabitator Merritt.
Speaker 1 (27:42):
No. He asked me why he's having trouble, and I
answered why. I didn't say, you don't deserve love. I said,
there's a minority of women who might like that. But
that's why he's having a problem, because most women want
to have a committed relationship ship that goes somewhere right
then or you move in together. You know, I'm not
(28:04):
saying he's not undtable.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
Now, I'm like dating profiles when they ask what you're
looking for, Uh huh, it's almost universal that they say
open to shorts. Now, whether they're you know, whether that's
not being genuinely honest, but.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
You mean women get that in their profiles.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
Yes, it's almost universal moment, you know, looking for long
term open to short is super common.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Yeah, that's a mating a female mating strategy that means
women where they'll be like, I'll tell him I'm open
to a short relationship and then maybe he'll just fall
in love with me and not be able to leave me.
Men do the opposite in their mating strategy. They say
I'm looking for a long term relationship when actually they
want a short one, and they say, oh babe, it
(28:49):
just didn't work out. But the truth is they're both
mating strategies. Everybody likes to do little FIBs at the
beginning Now again, I'm not generalizing. I'm not saying that
every single woman wants to get married and live with you.
I'm not saying that every single man wants a casual relationship.
What I'm saying is Greg said, why is it that
(29:11):
he's having trouble finding love? And that's one of the
reasons because it is a minority of women. Thank you
Justin for your question. Though. I love debate, really appreciate it. Okay,
Producer Kayla, do we have someone else? We have Amy
who is interested in Greg. Amy's interested in Greg? Oh,
I love this. Hi Amy, it's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 4 (29:34):
Hi, doctor Wendy. How are you good?
Speaker 1 (29:36):
Now? I never thought I'd become a dating service, But
tell me what appeals to you about Greg.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
I also am a wawer.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
You know.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
I am not looking to live with anybody, just companionship.
Speaker 1 (29:50):
Really, you got your house, your work, your life, and
you're like, I don't want to have another guy in
my house. I'm good, Yes, yes, exactly. Okay, So here's
what you need to do. Amy. You need to send
a DM to me on my Instagram, and if Greg
reaches out to me on my Instagram, then I could
(30:12):
connect the two of you, But I want to tell
you something. You have a little competition because I've already
received dms from three other women who want to meet Greg.
Who You're gonna win, Amy, You're gonna win. I can
feel it in my blood. Send me a DM at
Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh, and let's see
(30:34):
if Greg sends me a DM too, and I can
connect you guys. Thanks for calling Amy.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yes, ma'am, you have a beautiful evening.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Thank you, goodnight. Fight. So, like I said, women who
want a casual relationship are a minority, but it doesn't
mean they don't exist. I love it all right. I
want to since I've into my dms and I'm reading them,
I want to go through a few questions real quick
because we how much time do we have left? I
don't know where time is going here? Another minute or two? Okay,
(31:04):
let's see. Dear doctor Wendy, what's the best way to
resolve repeated arguments that seem to start over small things
but escalate quickly. It's interesting you say repeated arguments, because
I'm wondering if you're arguing kind of about the same thing.
One of the things, one of my favorite therapists, Doctor
Robbie Ludwig in New York City, says she does lots
of couple's therapy. When I said to her, what's the
(31:26):
most common thing people fight about? She because doesn't matter
what it is, it's the same thing for them over
and over and over that they never really solved. They
learn to manage. So the answer is catch it early
before it escalates and say something like, oh, this is
the thing we always fight about. Can we find a
different way to talk about this or change the subject?
Which would you prefer to do? That actually happened with
(31:47):
Hulu and I. I'd like about five am. He was
up watching Oh are those Formula one race of things?
In the middle of the thing, and then we got
into conversation about something and I go, oh, this is
the same thing we always argue about. And he said,
let's just go to sleep. We need our sleeps. We
caught it early, we decided to avoid it all.
Speaker 3 (32:02):
Right.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Here's another one, Dear doctor Wendy, My girlfriend avoids confrontation
and shuts down during disagreements. How can I encourage healthier
conflict resolution? Okay, I'm doing a whole segment on that.
When we come back, so the silent treatment, So just
hang on you get your full answer. Dear doctor Wendy,
what do you think of taking a ceramics class for
(32:23):
a date? Great idea, anything where you're actively doing something bowling, ceramics, hiking.
I heard where did I read somewhere today that some
woman had put in her profile that she loved chocolate
chip cookies. So the guy invited her on a date
in New York City to visit three different cookie shops
and compare them to see which were her favorite. I
(32:44):
thought that was cute, little activity, a lot of sugar.
We'll say that. I think I have time for one
more question, Dear doctor Wendy, do relationships tend to be
more meaningful when they start naturally in person or can
connections from dating apps be just as strong? Well, they
certainly can be just as strong dating apps. But if
you tuned in last week, I talked about new research
that showed that people who met in the real world
(33:06):
first actually valued their relationship more felt they had more
relationship satisfaction. It's because they usually meet doing some common
interest thing, and with dating apps, as you can tell
from my last call from Justin, people lie on their
dating apps all the time just to entice people, and
if a relationship begins with a lie, then it's harder
(33:27):
to build trust. So real world is coming back in fashion.
I love that. Okay. If you have more questions for me,
you are always welcome to go to my Instagram, put
them in the dms Kayla, and I read them and
we get them out here on the show. All right,
when we come back, the very worst relationship behavior that
you can ever do, and if it happens to you,
(33:50):
I'm going to tell you what you can do about
it when we come back. You are listening to the
Doctor Wendy Walls Show on KFI AM six forty. We're
live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've been listening to
Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear us live on
k five A M six forty from seven to nine
p m. On Sunday and any time on demand on
the iHeartRadio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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