June 23, 2025 • 39 mins
Hour 2- Dr. Wendy is offering her Wendy wisdom with her drive by makeshift relationship advice. PLUS we are giving tips on silencing your brain when making love, how your personality impacts your love life, and is your anxiety sabotaging it? It's all on KFIAM-640!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Kf I am six forty. You have Dr Wendy Walsh
with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Right now.
I'd like to welcome my Instagram audience. If you're on Instagram,
just log on right now search Doctor Wendy Walsh and
you can come on in the studio and see what
we do here. This is the time of the show
where I am taking your relationship questions by phone or
answering in social media on DMS. If you'd like to
(00:31):
give us a call, the numbers one eight hundred five
two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. Okay, Producer Kayla,
who do we have on the line. We have Dell
with the question Dell.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hi, Dell.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Hi there, how are you good?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
What's your question? Love? So?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
My question is is it a bad thing if a
male has a female partner who is significantly more attractive
than them? And is there any advice you'd give to
this couple where though female is significantly more attractive than
the male.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Okay, So, dell. Let me tell you this, It doesn't
matter what you think the world thinks about how attractive
the male might be, how attractive the female might be.
None of that is as important as what the person
feels they are. And so if a guy is, you know,
(01:25):
on the scale of one to ten by society's weirdo standards, five,
and he meets a girl who's a seven, if she
thinks she's a four, he's the luckiest man in the world.
And there are guys who are fives who think they're
tens and they are in Life is a self fulfilling prophecy.
(01:46):
Life is a self fulfilling prophecy. So if you believe
in yourself, then other people will believe it to you know.
I was doing some reading this weekend the founder, the
sociologist who's the founder of the whole theory of self
fulfilling prophecy, he himself was. He was born in nineteen
ten in South Philly. He was a son of Eastern
(02:08):
European immigrants, and he felt discrimination, so he changed his
name to be more American sounding, and he took up
as a teenager magic tricks, and he realized something about
magic that the audiences actually finished the illusion in their
heads before he'd even finished doing the trick, meaning like
(02:28):
they wanted to believe, they wanted the show. So how
does this apply to romantic lives? If you have self
confidence and you believe in yourself, you will be more
attractive to more people because they are your audience and
they want to believe. But it starts with something that
(02:49):
comes from inside you. First, Thank you so much for
calling Dell. It's a pleasure. Okay, Yes, we have Debbie
with a question. Debbie. Hi, Debbie, it's Dr Wendy.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Wendy So nice to hear your voice and talk to you.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Thank you. Nice to hear you too. So what's your question?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh gosh, I've been I've been single for at least
ten years in my last committed relationship with fifteen years ago,
and I just don't know how to get over my past,
hurts to put myself out there again. I have a
really bad picker.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Picker. Yeah, so we like to colloquially call it a
bad picker, when actually psychologists might say that you're reliving
old trauma. Right, So we all have this idea for
what love is in our head. Psychologists would call it
a working model. For love. That's their psychobabble, right, And
(03:45):
if our early life, and often this is when we
were pre verbal, and we don't remember if there was
feelings of loss or hurt or pain. In some way,
our brain decides that that's what love is, and that's
what love should feel like. And so it creates a picker,
as I like to say, it takes us right back
to the scene of the crime, over and over.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I had an anxious, ambivalent attachment style for most of
my adult life, and literally, if a guy treated me badly,
I liked him more. It was heartbreaking. I was thinking
about this. I had a big white Catholic wedding for
my mother when I was like twenty one, and the
guy I married of his short college marriage. The guy
(04:30):
I married, I remember the first night I met. He
and his friends out at a club and he came
back with a round of drinks and you know what
he said. He said, Oh, I guess when Wendy gets
around to buying around, the bar will be closed. And
I married him and that was the first thing he said, like,
you better pay up. And I did pay up in
(04:51):
all kinds of ways.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So, Debbie, my answer to you is get into good therapy,
perhaps with a psychoanalytic therapy bist. Ask them what their
style is somebody who knows attachment theory. I promise you
there's somebody for you when you're ready. I was a
single mom, Debbie for twenty years, and I found the
(05:14):
love of my life towards the end of my empty
nest time when I was ready. Right, And I think
he's out there when you're ready. But you might have
to do the work and go to therapy like I did.
I think it's very important. Thank you for calling. I
appreciate it. Thank you all right. Let me head over
to social media because people have been sending dms too.
(05:35):
If you'd like to call, the number is one eight
hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred
five to zero one KFI. Dear doctor, Wendy says this listener.
My ex left a week ago. Oh, I'm left. I
guess you're already calling her an ex, not my And
now she's texting me that she loves me and hopes
I'm doing well. Is she trying to come back? No? No, oh,
(06:00):
what she's doing. If she left, then she wanted to leave,
and now she feels guilty and yes, she loved you.
You can actually leave someone you love. Did you know
that you can actually say this person, I love this
person a lot, I care about them. They're not good
for me and this is not where I want to
be in the long term or my future. She's missing you,
(06:23):
but that doesn't mean she wants to get back with you.
Plenty of people have feelings of ambivalence right after a breakup.
Some people break up because they want to test the
mating marketplace and step on out there and see what
it is. And they go on one bad date and
they're like, I missed that person who knew me and
was nice to me, right, or maybe they want to
(06:44):
keep you as a backup mate. I would say if
she's texting you one week later saying I love you.
I hope you're doing okay, she's not saying can we
get together? Can we talk? I think I've made a
big mistake. Let's go to a couple's therapy. Let's work
on our relationship. That's a different conversation, not just a
missing you that's about her loss. Because remember, even if
(07:10):
you know when a breakup happens, it's a deep feeling
of loss. It feels like losing a leg. I mean
that leg might have had gangerine it was time to go,
but you still lose miss that leg. Right, So in
the same way, I would be cautious about texts that
just say I miss you and I love you instead
(07:30):
of let's get together. I really want to talk about this.
I'm in a mistake. We need to go to therapy.
Let's work on things, okay when we come back. I'm
going to continue to take your calls and answer your
questions from social media. The handle is at doctor Wendy
Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. The phone number is one
eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight
(07:51):
hundred five two zero one five three four. You're listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty.
Were live everywhere on the Iheartradioky if I am six forty,
you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I'm heading to my social media
send me a DM. The handle is at doctor Wendy
Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh, and I'll be happy to
(08:13):
answer your relationship question. Here from Instagram. This person tells
me that they're finally about to get married, but there
is an abusive uncle in their past that triggers them.
Somebody who was very abusive. Now grandma still has that
uncle living in the house with her. Grandma says, if
(08:37):
you don't invite uncle to your wedding, then I'm not
coming to your wedding. This is called emotional blackmail. It
is your wedding. It's probably costing you a lot of
money and time and energy. You have the right to
have whoever you want at your wedding. And if your
(08:58):
grandmother uses to collude with an abusive uncle either way,
does she know why You might want to tell her
then that that's her loss. It's her loss and the
uncle's loss. She's trying to emotionally blackmail you. It is
your wedding. Do what you want to do, all right.
(09:18):
So I was scrolling through my dms on Instagram, and
I found three different listeners as the same question three
different ways. So I want to read their three questions
and then I'll give one answer to explain them all.
The first listener says, my ex was emotionally abusive, and
yet I felt a wave of sadness when I saw
(09:42):
on social media that he's having a baby with someone else.
Why would I feel heartbroken over someone who hurt me?
It's the first one. The next listener says, why do
I sometimes still crave the love of somebody who made
me feel completely unlovable? And the third listener says, if
(10:06):
I miss someone who treated me poorly, does that mean
I haven't healed or is that just part of being human? Okay, So,
as I said a little earlier, breakups are a loss.
Our relationships are our emotional lifeline for many people who
(10:28):
have an insecure attachment style. Though we attach ourselves to
people who may hurt us, but it's still an emotional lifeline.
It's still a piece of who we are and were.
So the first listener says, why would I feel heartbroken? Who?
(10:49):
Oh this her excess having a baby with someone else
over someone who hurt me? Because there is a solusion
that they've found happiness and you're the problem. But I
promise you the best predictor of somebody's future behavior is
their past behavior. And if there's any feeling that I
(11:11):
think would be more fair to experience, it is empathy
for her is pregnant girlfriend or wife. Right, So it's
because you're still he's a He's an object. He's a unique,
convenient object for your feelings, right, And using this object
(11:35):
to go and tell the story to a licensed therapist
is the thing that can help you heal. And the
other listener, why do sometimes still crave the love of
someone who made us feel unlovable? Well, nobody makes you
feel anything, right, Those feelings are already inside you. You
chose somebody to help amplify those feelings. So this is
(11:58):
not blaming you. It's all on conscious right. But your
attachment style is aligned towards trauma. We call these traumatic bonds. Right.
And the third listener who says, does it mean I
haven't healed or is it just part of being human? Well,
it's a little bit of both, right. I mean, loss
(12:18):
is painful, we have to learn how to tolerate loss.
But also if you're still pining away for somebody who
is very hurtful, that means you haven't healed entirely. Right,
similar question, The next listener says, everyone says I dodged
(12:39):
a bullet when I left my ex, But why does
it still feel like rejection? Back to what I said earlier,
breakups hurt. Relationships become part of our actual identity, and
when we split in two, it's like we've lost a
piece of ourselves. You know, when you're in a relationship, well,
let's assume it's a healthy one, you share the emotional
(13:01):
work of life. You also may share the physical labor
of life. I know this firsthand now because I was
a single mom for twenty years where I was doing
the work of mother and father and I was exhausted.
And then I meet this guy who's a true fifty
percent partner and we're sharing everything, and my life feels
(13:22):
so easy now. I almost feel guilty. It's so easy, right,
And so that's how a good, secure relationship should feel like.
But when you break up, whether relationship was good or
bad or ran its course or whatever, you lose half
a brain in some way, and you have to build
the neurotransmitters of being a single person again and getting
(13:42):
everything done, the thinking, the feeling, and the labor right.
So it does feel loss like a loss, It feels
like rejection. Even though you did dodge a bullet. Trust
your friends, you did dodge a bullet. Gosh, it's the
theme that's happening to everyone seems to be writing the
same question in different words. Listen to this listener, Dear
(14:05):
doctor Wendy, I'm in a new relationship because sometimes I
still think about my ex, not because I want him back,
but because I don't understand how he moved on so easily.
Should I tell my partner? No, this is you and
your issue that is going to raise so much sexual
jealousy or historical jealousy or whatever. Don't even It's like
(14:29):
bringing a third person into the relationship, even if it
only is your imagination. Right. Closure that's so interesting. This
next listener asks me, is closure something you get from
someone else or something you create yourself? I will tell
you you will never get it from someone else. It's
(14:52):
like getting a forced apology, right, you say you're sorry, Okay,
I'm sorry. How good did that feel? Right? It doesn't
whin and it's extracted. Extracted apologies don't feel good, just
like extracted closure. You don't need closure. You don't need
to know why. You just need to work things out.
(15:12):
You know, one time I had an ex boyfriend call
me Goes. I'm in therapy and I have some questions
about what happened at the end of our relationship. You
said this, and you said that, and what did that mean?
And I had so moved on at that point. It
wasn't my business to help him heal. He has a
therapist he can talk to. This had to do with
him and his feelings.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
You do not get closure from somebody else. You create
closure within yourself. All right. One more quick question before
we go. Dear doctor Wendy, what's worse the moment you
find out they cheated for the moment, oh, you realize
that you knew deep down all along. I don't know
(15:54):
about worse or better, but I will say that when
you realize that you knew all along, that's called insight
into your own feelings and your own experience, and then
you can prevent it next time because now you have
self awareness. I think that's a great gift. To realize
(16:15):
you knew deep down all along. You gain some insight
into yourself. I'm sorry it happened to you, all right.
If you have questions relationship questions, you can always send
me dms on Instagram during the week. The handle is
at doctor Wendy Walsh. When we come back. How to
shut up your brain when you're making love. You know,
(16:38):
some people have a chatty cathy in their head and
it's keeping them from really enjoying themselves. Let's talk about
it when we come back. I feel called out, I
feel are you in my mind right now?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
My gosh?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Wait, do you check your phone during sex? Because people
mentioned that they do in one study. I would never no,
I know. Even Kayla's shocked, her gasping.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
All right, you're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Kf I am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh
with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show how
to shut up your brain when you're making love. Okay,
I'm just gonna say it. Have you ever been with
your partner in an intimate way and you found yourself
doing your to do list for the next day, maybe
(17:28):
planning your kids' schedules, thinking about work projects, hopefully not
checking out your fingernails and your manicure, or worse, are
you thinking about the sex like your partner's pleasure, your pleasure?
Should we do this, should we do that? Et cetera.
You know, I remember when I was pregnant with my
(17:50):
first child and I read every book on pregnancy and delivery.
There was one sentence in one of them that really
stood out because you know, here I was this intellectual,
thinking person and I wanted to think through everything about
labor and delivery. And the sentence in the book said,
delivering a baby is about putting your intellect aside and
(18:12):
letting the animal out, the animal inside you. I don't
mean the baby, I mean the animal that lives inside you.
Let natural reflexes do their work. But plenty of people worry,
They worry, they think they're half there. There was a
(18:33):
study that came out a few years ago where young
people admitted whatever they were gen z xyzu, I don't know.
They admitted that ten percent of people check their phones
during sex. Crazy. Crazy, Look, all sexual relationships change over time.
(18:56):
You're not supposed to be a swinging from chandeliers and
French made costumes was ten years after you've been together.
Although if you are, that's great. I'm so happy for you.
That's wonderful. But you know, at the beginning, there's a
lot of neural hormones on your brain. It's so easy
to get in the mood, it's so easy to have
spontaneous sex, and as a result, when things start to change,
(19:20):
people think there's something wrong in a relationship. I was
reading this article today from the website very Well mined
verywellmind dot com, one of my favorite websites, and this
particular article addressed these chronic overthinkers in bed and the
authors say that today many couples report feeling mentally absent
(19:41):
during sex. They're physically present, but emotionally they're tuned out.
They're too much in their head and this is kind
of actually the reason why couples lose their spark. In
the article, a certified sex therapist, Heather Shannon was quoted
and she said, instead of feeling your partner skin or
(20:03):
connecting through touch, you're wondering if they're turned off, or
you're wondering whether you venmo your babysitter. Right. There's also
recent research I read published in the Journal of Sex
and Marital Therapy that showed that sexual distractions, whether body image, worries,
that's a big one with women. By the way body
look at dudes do not care. You care more than
(20:26):
they care. Trust me. I remember years ago, was a
young man, but he was talking about breast implants and
he said, I guess some guy had said, oh, I
like them naturally, and he just said, look, if they're there,
they're real. That's all guys care about. If they're there,
they're real. It doesn't matter. If you're there, you're real.
(20:47):
You're a woman, right. There is some worries sometimes about
performance anxiety that more often affects men, the body image
stuff more often affects women. The performance anxiety expects me.
And if you leave this unchecked, you're going to find
that your relationship is going to continue to become more disconnected.
(21:11):
There is research to show that couples who report low
sexual satisfaction are also more likely to experience the emotional distance,
lower relationship satisfaction, and eventually a higher likelihood of divorce.
Now I need to pause here to say that there
is a thing called mature companionate love. If you've been
together for decades, you don't have to be rocking it
(21:35):
every single week. And in fact, sex itself may take
a different form. I have friends because of health issues
say that they don't have intercourse. They have outer course.
It may be affection, it may not involve orgasm. You know,
(21:56):
women after menopause, their hormones decline by the way. There
is medical things you can do. Ladies, go see your gun.
At the age of forty, forty percent of men experience
a rectileless function at the age of fifty fifty percent
of the age of six sixty sixty percent, et cetera,
et cetera. If you're dating somebody who's seventy, just go
to the movies, right, Caleb, are you laughing? But the
(22:22):
real problem that happens in relationships isn't lack of physical intimacy.
It's lack of emotional intimacy. And if you could have
conversations about this, it would be so much better. Right now,
how do you really fix it? Well, one of the
things you can do is practice mental foreplay. Literally, think
(22:44):
about something sexy in your head, get in the mood,
get aroused, and guys, I just want to say this,
scheduled sex is sexy for women and for you. Spontaneous
nonsense is not happening anymore. Okay, there's a lot women
have to do to get paired for this. Okay, you
don't need to know all this stuff, but we need to. Yeah,
fourplay could take three days for women. It might involve
(23:08):
getting a new scented candle, maybe some new underwear, getting
a whax somewhere. There's all kinds of things that she
has to do to get ready, so putting it on
the schedule is not a bad idea. Right mindfulness. There's
actually a study from the Journal of Sex Research that
says practicing mindful awareness, focusing on your five senses right
(23:31):
can increase arousal and sexual satisfaction. And this is basically
getting out of your head and into your body. One
of the things I know this is TMI. I'm about
to give you, t M, I too much information when
I'm starting to become aroused, A yawn a lot, a
yawn a lot. And Julio used to say, what am
I boring you? And I just it's my way of relaxing.
(23:54):
I'm getting into my body, out of my head, and
I relax. That's the way it is. Don't rush the journey. Uh.
If you think your sex life is gonna look like
any scene from a Hollywood movie, you are so wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
First of all, there's no foreplay in Hollywood. I crack up.
(24:14):
Every time the actor comes, he slams her against the wall,
he lifts up her dress. There's penetration I'm like, it
never happens like that anywhere anytime in life. That looks
like pain to me. That looks like rape to me. Okay,
that is not so just don't rush it. Lots and
(24:35):
lots of foreplay. Also, don't define sex as an orgasm.
This is the biggest mistake people make. There's no such
thing as bad sex. As my motto, no such thing
as bad sex. If your whole idea is it's not
a good sex unless there's orgasm, You're gonna have a
hard time having long term monogamy. Okay, because sometimes it's
(24:58):
just being tender and talking and touching each other. I
do want to say you should talk to each other
about sex too, You guys, you can't like just play
around in the dark and hope things will work out.
You need to have conversations, all right, and let your
partner talk, let them say what they need to say,
and do that not in the bedroom, do that somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Look, you also might consider seeing a sex therapist. They're great,
they're licensed with a sect. SAM. What does ASEX stand
for American Associated? He's gone? SAM is a sex therapist?
Are you a sex therapist? S? Are you a sex certified. Yeah,
a sex certification. He's a double he's a double talent.
Here he's a sound therapist licensing PhD and human sexuality.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yay.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
And so what does ASEX stand for again? American Association
of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. There you go as sect.
That's all you do is you ask somebody, well, you
call Sam is what you do and then and he
will talk to you. How'd I do? By the way, Sam,
they do okay with that segment? Thank you? Good to note.
(26:06):
All right, when we come back, Uh, how does your
personality impact your love life? I mean really your personality type?
How can it influence what's going on in your romantic life?
Let's talk about it when we come back. You were
listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show and KF I
am six forty with Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
KFI use Doctor Wendy Walls with you. Is this the
(26:31):
home stretch of the Dr Wendy Wall Show? We made it?
Why does it go so fast? Breaking news should be
four hours?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Great content?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Hies.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I know I was thinking about this today because I
teach developmental psychology and I teach personality development. As part
of that, and we always talk about the Big five model,
the Big five personality traits. It is the most widely
respont infected framework in psychology that really kind of categorizes
(27:05):
people's personalities into five broad dimensions. Now it's not that
you only fall into one of those dimensions. Everybody has
all five, but to one degree or another. Right, So
let me explain. And by the way, it's used in
all kinds of psychological assessments. It's used in academic research,
(27:26):
it's used in workplace evaluations. I have a theory, by
the way, that Trader Joe's. I don't know if it's true.
I'm making this up. Trader Joe's gives the Big five
personality tests because you ever notice that everybody who works
at Trader Joe's is an extrovert. You get to that
cashier and you have some tomato sauce with you, and
they have three different recipes that they need to tell
(27:48):
you about, and they need to say they had it
last week or whatever. I really think it is like
maybe they use Meyers Briggs, which is less respective, but
it can also look for that. All right, So let's
talk about what these five traits are. The five factor.
There's openness to experience, and that's people who are willing
to try new things, be imaginative, curious. If I had
(28:10):
to think of examples of people that might represent openness,
it might be people like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Lady Gaga,
those kinds of people. Then there's conscientiousness. Here's a little fact.
Conscientiousness rises in most people across the lifespan. This is
(28:31):
people who are organized, responsible, reliable, and goal oriented. Right
or Mine Granger from Harry Potter.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And so I noticed, like I used to be sloppy.
I was, my room was not well whol always say
my room is still sloppy. Okay, So I was sloppy
in my work. I would shortcut things, And now I
dot my eyes and cross my t's and make sure
everything's perfect, because you know, I've learned that when you're sloppy,
(29:04):
it's more work later. Right, So conscientiousness tends to go up.
I should also tell you that students who are conscientious,
meaning they submit all their papers and homework on time,
they make sure everything's been spell checked and written well,
et cetera, they tend to just do better and earn
(29:25):
higher grades. They're conscientious. Then there's extraversion, and that looks
at our outgoing, energetic and being social social people that
might be Richard Branson, Miley Cyrus, Donald Trump. Agreeableness, So
some people are crimungeons. If you're low on agreeable agreeableness,
(29:46):
you're the person who's like, eh, I don't want to
go I don't like that person. I don't want to
do that. And then high on agreeableness is, hey, let's
try it. We should trust them. They seem like a
nice person. If there's a gender divide, I will tell
you that women tend to score a little higher on
agreeableness and men score just not every man, Okay, those
(30:07):
is anecdotal evidence, but men in general little lower on agreeableness.
My girlfriends and I had a conversation one time. We
were traveling somewhere and we were saying how easy it
is to travel with women, because like, oh, no you
go first, No you can cook today, No we'll go out,
it's fine, all good, all good, And guys like, no,
we got to catch the train at five, I want
everyone up by far we get to They're just like
(30:31):
so grumpy when you travel. Not my Houly, of course,
he's perfect. And the fifth dimension is neuroticism. This is
people who have strong feelings of anxiety, anger, sadness. I
always think of Woody Allen's characters in his movies as
being highly neurotic. Right, So I usually ask the students
(30:56):
in my class and make them all take the Big
Five personality test and then them before I reveal my score,
which dimensions they think I score highest on? And Kayla,
what do you think it is? What dimensions you score highest?
I think? Did you listen to them all? Did? I? Just?
Were you reading something else I was posting on the website.
(31:18):
Go to the website see what you posted right now? Anyway,
it's extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to new experience. Those are
my highest Yeah, makes sense. So let's talk about how
these personality traits impact our love life. So somebody who
might be highest in openness might be the partner who
(31:42):
loves planning, you know, spontaneous weekends or getaways, exploring new ideas,
having deep late night conversations. Someone who's low in openness
might just want routine tradition, and those are the way
things are right, And so you have to respect your
partner and understand that you are often attracted to somebody
(32:05):
who's completely opposite from you, because that's a piece you
want in yourself. Conscientiousness. So a conscientious person, this is
definitely Julio. He remembers birthdays, anniversaries, He has all these cards,
He goes card shopping, he writes important things, He follows
through on promises, He handles shared responsibilities. You know, I
(32:32):
used to help him do the dishes, but then he
told me I was doing it wrong. So there you go.
I sit there and finish my glass of wine and
watch him do the dishes. Extraversion. It's really interesting because
extroverts and introverts are often attracted to each other, largely
because introverts make a great audience and they're great listeners,
(32:53):
and they also wish they could be a little more
extroverted than the extroverted wishes they could bite their tongue more.
Trust me, we do. And then agreeableness. Somebody, as I mentioned,
who's highly in agreeable is a compromiser. They have lots
of empathy, they're good at resolving conflicts. Low end of agreeableness, argumentative, critical,
a little bit defensive, neuroticism, anxiety, worry about being abandoned, misreading,
(33:20):
texts that could be completely neutral. If you ever heard
somebody read a text and they said, oh, and they
said fine, we'll talk tomorrow, I said, how do you
know they use that tone of voice? Why is they're
period and at an exclamation point? Right, they could have said, oh, fine,
we'll talk tomorrow then love, you know, like that fine?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Right?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
By the way, if you want to take the Big
five test, it's online. It's very simple. It's Big five
dash test dot com. That's pretty simple. Big five. Those
are the words, not the number five, The word five,
Big five dash test dot Com. Now, I do want
to talk about those that are high in neuroticism. They
have a lot of anxiety, and they often sabotage their
(34:02):
romantic relationships. They might have mood swings, They might be
really sensitive and react very easily. So they blame often
their partners because their partners are making When I hear
people say you made me feel that way, I'm going
to remind everybody that no human can make another human
(34:24):
make They can't make them have a feeling. All the
feelings exist inside us, and feelings are very important. They
are messengers. They are messengers that things are going great,
and they are messengers that, hmm, we need to change
a few things. They're not going so great. But nobody
makes you have a feeling, right. But we do have
(34:46):
that one friend out there who's always worried that their
partner is with another partner cheating on them, that their
partner doesn't love them as much as.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
They love them.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
And then what happens is life becomes this self fulfilling
you know, it's so interesting. People say, I don't know
what it is, but every man I've been with cheated
on me. You know, you picked him and maybe you
drove him to cheat. I'm not blaming the victim here,
I'm just saying, you know, there's a reason. There's a reason.
(35:17):
So there actually is research on this. There's a new
study that was published in the Journal of Sexual and
Relationship Therapy. I'm sure that Sam writes for this journal
all the time, and it maybe wrote this called Neuroticisms
Ties to Relationship satisfaction the role of conflict tactic behaviors. Okay,
(35:37):
so that's awesome sounding already. I think you might have
written it. People high in neuroticism or anxiety are far
more likely to criticize their partner emotionally withdraw during conflict.
In John Gottman's work says that that's the worst thing.
Don't give them the silent treatment, use guilt as a
tool to manipulate somebody and escalate small arguments into big
(36:01):
blow ups. Is that you think about it, you criticize
your partner. I'm a big believer, and you want to
water what you want to grow. Don't water the weeds,
water what you want to grow. That means, look, catch them,
be good, think about all the things that they do
that's wonderful, and compliment them and say it out loud.
(36:22):
Guess what they're going to do it more. But if
you spend your time criticizing them. First of all, I'm
the type of personality that when people tell me I'm
doing something wrong, I literally do worse. I literally I
just want to show them, Oh yeah, you think this
is bad, let me show you how bad it can be. Right,
Like I just I don't change based on criticism. I
(36:45):
wonder if there's a gender thing on this, because I
noticed something. Female trainers at the gym are encouraging to
their clients. I hear them say, come on, you got it.
I think you have two more in you. Oh that's
so great, that's so much better than yesterday. You're doing
so well well, And then male trainers are like, come on,
I don't think you can even do ten more. Oh,
(37:05):
come on, you weak today. I hear this, and I'm like,
how does that motivate people? So I once had a
male trainer like that, and the more he criticized me
and told me that I couldn't do things, the less
I did it. I said, okay, fine, I won't do
it right. That's how I am. Don't criticize your partner.
Water what you want to grow, and no matter how
hard it is. I know you may have learned this
(37:26):
in your family of origin. When you're upset, don't withdraw.
Stay in it. Stay in it, even if it's just
to listen to them, just say I'm you know. The
first time I had that feeling to run away, I
think Hulu and I have been dating only like six
weeks or something, and we had some little tiff I
don't know what it was, and I said to him,
(37:48):
I have a running feeling right now, and he did
something spectacular. He stood up from his chair, came over
to me, touched my shoulder and said, no, no, it's
not that big. Don't leave, and he it was I
bid for care. I want to run away. He met
that bid with care, So don't leave. Don't run. That's
all I'll say. Hey, I'm here every Sunday from seven
(38:11):
to nine pm, and if you want to follow me
during the week, the handle on all my social media
is at Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh. You
can even go onto my website on my contact page
and sign up from a newsletter. I don't send them
very often, but when I do, you want to hear
from me first. I always say there's no gossip about
me because I've told people first. It's always my pleasure
(38:32):
to be here. I am so obsessed with the science
of love and I want you to have the best
relationship possible. Thanks so much for being with me. You've
been listening to the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on KFI
AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear
(38:53):
us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to
nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeart Radio app.
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Kf I am six forty. You have Dr Wendy Walsh
with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Right now.
I'd like to welcome my Instagram audience. If you're on Instagram,
just log on right now search Doctor Wendy Walsh and
you can come on in the studio and see what
we do here. This is the time of the show
where I am taking your relationship questions by phone or
answering in social media on DMS. If you'd like to
(00:31):
give us a call, the numbers one eight hundred five
two zero one five three four. That's one eight hundred
five two zero one five three four. Okay, Producer Kayla,
who do we have on the line. We have Dell
with the question Dell.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Hi, Dell.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
It's doctor Wendy.
Speaker 4 (00:46):
Hi there, how are you good?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
What's your question? Love? So?
Speaker 3 (00:50):
My question is is it a bad thing if a
male has a female partner who is significantly more attractive
than them? And is there any advice you'd give to
this couple where though female is significantly more attractive than
the male.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Okay, So, dell. Let me tell you this, It doesn't
matter what you think the world thinks about how attractive
the male might be, how attractive the female might be.
None of that is as important as what the person
feels they are. And so if a guy is, you know,
(01:25):
on the scale of one to ten by society's weirdo standards, five,
and he meets a girl who's a seven, if she
thinks she's a four, he's the luckiest man in the world.
And there are guys who are fives who think they're
tens and they are in Life is a self fulfilling prophecy.
(01:46):
Life is a self fulfilling prophecy. So if you believe
in yourself, then other people will believe it to you know.
I was doing some reading this weekend the founder, the
sociologist who's the founder of the whole theory of self
fulfilling prophecy, he himself was. He was born in nineteen
ten in South Philly. He was a son of Eastern
(02:08):
European immigrants, and he felt discrimination, so he changed his
name to be more American sounding, and he took up
as a teenager magic tricks, and he realized something about
magic that the audiences actually finished the illusion in their
heads before he'd even finished doing the trick, meaning like
(02:28):
they wanted to believe, they wanted the show. So how
does this apply to romantic lives? If you have self
confidence and you believe in yourself, you will be more
attractive to more people because they are your audience and
they want to believe. But it starts with something that
(02:49):
comes from inside you. First, Thank you so much for
calling Dell. It's a pleasure. Okay, Yes, we have Debbie
with a question. Debbie. Hi, Debbie, it's Dr Wendy.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Wendy So nice to hear your voice and talk to you.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
Thank you. Nice to hear you too. So what's your question?
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Oh gosh, I've been I've been single for at least
ten years in my last committed relationship with fifteen years ago,
and I just don't know how to get over my past,
hurts to put myself out there again. I have a
really bad picker.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Picker. Yeah, so we like to colloquially call it a
bad picker, when actually psychologists might say that you're reliving
old trauma. Right, So we all have this idea for
what love is in our head. Psychologists would call it
a working model. For love. That's their psychobabble, right, And
(03:45):
if our early life, and often this is when we
were pre verbal, and we don't remember if there was
feelings of loss or hurt or pain. In some way,
our brain decides that that's what love is, and that's
what love should feel like. And so it creates a picker,
as I like to say, it takes us right back
to the scene of the crime, over and over.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
Now.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
I had an anxious, ambivalent attachment style for most of
my adult life, and literally, if a guy treated me badly,
I liked him more. It was heartbreaking. I was thinking
about this. I had a big white Catholic wedding for
my mother when I was like twenty one, and the
guy I married of his short college marriage. The guy
(04:30):
I married, I remember the first night I met. He
and his friends out at a club and he came
back with a round of drinks and you know what
he said. He said, Oh, I guess when Wendy gets
around to buying around, the bar will be closed. And
I married him and that was the first thing he said, like,
you better pay up. And I did pay up in
(04:51):
all kinds of ways.
Speaker 3 (04:52):
Right.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So, Debbie, my answer to you is get into good therapy,
perhaps with a psychoanalytic therapy bist. Ask them what their
style is somebody who knows attachment theory. I promise you
there's somebody for you when you're ready. I was a
single mom, Debbie for twenty years, and I found the
(05:14):
love of my life towards the end of my empty
nest time when I was ready. Right, And I think
he's out there when you're ready. But you might have
to do the work and go to therapy like I did.
I think it's very important. Thank you for calling. I
appreciate it. Thank you all right. Let me head over
to social media because people have been sending dms too.
(05:35):
If you'd like to call, the number is one eight
hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight hundred
five to zero one KFI. Dear doctor, Wendy says this listener.
My ex left a week ago. Oh, I'm left. I
guess you're already calling her an ex, not my And
now she's texting me that she loves me and hopes
I'm doing well. Is she trying to come back? No? No, oh,
(06:00):
what she's doing. If she left, then she wanted to leave,
and now she feels guilty and yes, she loved you.
You can actually leave someone you love. Did you know
that you can actually say this person, I love this
person a lot, I care about them. They're not good
for me and this is not where I want to
be in the long term or my future. She's missing you,
(06:23):
but that doesn't mean she wants to get back with you.
Plenty of people have feelings of ambivalence right after a breakup.
Some people break up because they want to test the
mating marketplace and step on out there and see what
it is. And they go on one bad date and
they're like, I missed that person who knew me and
was nice to me, right, or maybe they want to
(06:44):
keep you as a backup mate. I would say if
she's texting you one week later saying I love you.
I hope you're doing okay, she's not saying can we
get together? Can we talk? I think I've made a
big mistake. Let's go to a couple's therapy. Let's work
on our relationship. That's a different conversation, not just a
missing you that's about her loss. Because remember, even if
(07:10):
you know when a breakup happens, it's a deep feeling
of loss. It feels like losing a leg. I mean
that leg might have had gangerine it was time to go,
but you still lose miss that leg. Right, So in
the same way, I would be cautious about texts that
just say I miss you and I love you instead
(07:30):
of let's get together. I really want to talk about this.
I'm in a mistake. We need to go to therapy.
Let's work on things, okay when we come back. I'm
going to continue to take your calls and answer your
questions from social media. The handle is at doctor Wendy
Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. The phone number is one
eight hundred five two zero one KFI. That's one eight
(07:51):
hundred five two zero one five three four. You're listening
to the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show on KFI AM six forty.
Were live everywhere on the Iheartradioky if I am six forty,
you have Doctor Wendy Walsh with you. This is the
Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. I'm heading to my social media
send me a DM. The handle is at doctor Wendy
Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh, and I'll be happy to
(08:13):
answer your relationship question. Here from Instagram. This person tells
me that they're finally about to get married, but there
is an abusive uncle in their past that triggers them.
Somebody who was very abusive. Now grandma still has that
uncle living in the house with her. Grandma says, if
(08:37):
you don't invite uncle to your wedding, then I'm not
coming to your wedding. This is called emotional blackmail. It
is your wedding. It's probably costing you a lot of
money and time and energy. You have the right to
have whoever you want at your wedding. And if your
(08:58):
grandmother uses to collude with an abusive uncle either way,
does she know why You might want to tell her
then that that's her loss. It's her loss and the
uncle's loss. She's trying to emotionally blackmail you. It is
your wedding. Do what you want to do, all right.
(09:18):
So I was scrolling through my dms on Instagram, and
I found three different listeners as the same question three
different ways. So I want to read their three questions
and then I'll give one answer to explain them all.
The first listener says, my ex was emotionally abusive, and
yet I felt a wave of sadness when I saw
(09:42):
on social media that he's having a baby with someone else.
Why would I feel heartbroken over someone who hurt me?
It's the first one. The next listener says, why do
I sometimes still crave the love of somebody who made
me feel completely unlovable? And the third listener says, if
(10:06):
I miss someone who treated me poorly, does that mean
I haven't healed or is that just part of being human? Okay, So,
as I said a little earlier, breakups are a loss.
Our relationships are our emotional lifeline for many people who
(10:28):
have an insecure attachment style. Though we attach ourselves to
people who may hurt us, but it's still an emotional lifeline.
It's still a piece of who we are and were.
So the first listener says, why would I feel heartbroken? Who?
(10:49):
Oh this her excess having a baby with someone else
over someone who hurt me? Because there is a solusion
that they've found happiness and you're the problem. But I
promise you the best predictor of somebody's future behavior is
their past behavior. And if there's any feeling that I
(11:11):
think would be more fair to experience, it is empathy
for her is pregnant girlfriend or wife. Right, So it's
because you're still he's a He's an object. He's a unique,
convenient object for your feelings, right, And using this object
(11:35):
to go and tell the story to a licensed therapist
is the thing that can help you heal. And the
other listener, why do sometimes still crave the love of
someone who made us feel unlovable? Well, nobody makes you
feel anything, right, Those feelings are already inside you. You
chose somebody to help amplify those feelings. So this is
(11:58):
not blaming you. It's all on conscious right. But your
attachment style is aligned towards trauma. We call these traumatic bonds. Right.
And the third listener who says, does it mean I
haven't healed or is it just part of being human? Well,
it's a little bit of both, right. I mean, loss
(12:18):
is painful, we have to learn how to tolerate loss.
But also if you're still pining away for somebody who
is very hurtful, that means you haven't healed entirely. Right,
similar question, The next listener says, everyone says I dodged
(12:39):
a bullet when I left my ex, But why does
it still feel like rejection? Back to what I said earlier,
breakups hurt. Relationships become part of our actual identity, and
when we split in two, it's like we've lost a
piece of ourselves. You know, when you're in a relationship, well,
let's assume it's a healthy one, you share the emotional
(13:01):
work of life. You also may share the physical labor
of life. I know this firsthand now because I was
a single mom for twenty years where I was doing
the work of mother and father and I was exhausted.
And then I meet this guy who's a true fifty
percent partner and we're sharing everything, and my life feels
(13:22):
so easy now. I almost feel guilty. It's so easy, right,
And so that's how a good, secure relationship should feel like.
But when you break up, whether relationship was good or
bad or ran its course or whatever, you lose half
a brain in some way, and you have to build
the neurotransmitters of being a single person again and getting
(13:42):
everything done, the thinking, the feeling, and the labor right.
So it does feel loss like a loss, It feels
like rejection. Even though you did dodge a bullet. Trust
your friends, you did dodge a bullet. Gosh, it's the
theme that's happening to everyone seems to be writing the
same question in different words. Listen to this listener, Dear
(14:05):
doctor Wendy, I'm in a new relationship because sometimes I
still think about my ex, not because I want him back,
but because I don't understand how he moved on so easily.
Should I tell my partner? No, this is you and
your issue that is going to raise so much sexual
jealousy or historical jealousy or whatever. Don't even It's like
(14:29):
bringing a third person into the relationship, even if it
only is your imagination. Right. Closure that's so interesting. This
next listener asks me, is closure something you get from
someone else or something you create yourself? I will tell
you you will never get it from someone else. It's
(14:52):
like getting a forced apology, right, you say you're sorry, Okay,
I'm sorry. How good did that feel? Right? It doesn't
whin and it's extracted. Extracted apologies don't feel good, just
like extracted closure. You don't need closure. You don't need
to know why. You just need to work things out.
(15:12):
You know, one time I had an ex boyfriend call
me Goes. I'm in therapy and I have some questions
about what happened at the end of our relationship. You
said this, and you said that, and what did that mean?
And I had so moved on at that point. It
wasn't my business to help him heal. He has a
therapist he can talk to. This had to do with
him and his feelings.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Right.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
You do not get closure from somebody else. You create
closure within yourself. All right. One more quick question before
we go. Dear doctor Wendy, what's worse the moment you
find out they cheated for the moment, oh, you realize
that you knew deep down all along. I don't know
(15:54):
about worse or better, but I will say that when
you realize that you knew all along, that's called insight
into your own feelings and your own experience, and then
you can prevent it next time because now you have
self awareness. I think that's a great gift. To realize
(16:15):
you knew deep down all along. You gain some insight
into yourself. I'm sorry it happened to you, all right.
If you have questions relationship questions, you can always send
me dms on Instagram during the week. The handle is
at doctor Wendy Walsh. When we come back. How to
shut up your brain when you're making love. You know,
(16:38):
some people have a chatty cathy in their head and
it's keeping them from really enjoying themselves. Let's talk about
it when we come back. I feel called out, I
feel are you in my mind right now?
Speaker 1 (16:48):
My gosh?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Wait, do you check your phone during sex? Because people
mentioned that they do in one study. I would never no,
I know. Even Kayla's shocked, her gasping.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
All right, you're listening to doctor Wendy Walsh on demand
from KFI AM six forty.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Kf I am six forty. You have Doctor Wendy Walsh
with you. This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show how
to shut up your brain when you're making love. Okay,
I'm just gonna say it. Have you ever been with
your partner in an intimate way and you found yourself
doing your to do list for the next day, maybe
(17:28):
planning your kids' schedules, thinking about work projects, hopefully not
checking out your fingernails and your manicure, or worse, are
you thinking about the sex like your partner's pleasure, your pleasure?
Should we do this, should we do that? Et cetera.
You know, I remember when I was pregnant with my
(17:50):
first child and I read every book on pregnancy and delivery.
There was one sentence in one of them that really
stood out because you know, here I was this intellectual,
thinking person and I wanted to think through everything about
labor and delivery. And the sentence in the book said,
delivering a baby is about putting your intellect aside and
(18:12):
letting the animal out, the animal inside you. I don't
mean the baby, I mean the animal that lives inside you.
Let natural reflexes do their work. But plenty of people worry,
They worry, they think they're half there. There was a
(18:33):
study that came out a few years ago where young
people admitted whatever they were gen z xyzu, I don't know.
They admitted that ten percent of people check their phones
during sex. Crazy. Crazy, Look, all sexual relationships change over time.
(18:56):
You're not supposed to be a swinging from chandeliers and
French made costumes was ten years after you've been together.
Although if you are, that's great. I'm so happy for you.
That's wonderful. But you know, at the beginning, there's a
lot of neural hormones on your brain. It's so easy
to get in the mood, it's so easy to have
spontaneous sex, and as a result, when things start to change,
(19:20):
people think there's something wrong in a relationship. I was
reading this article today from the website very Well mined
verywellmind dot com, one of my favorite websites, and this
particular article addressed these chronic overthinkers in bed and the
authors say that today many couples report feeling mentally absent
(19:41):
during sex. They're physically present, but emotionally they're tuned out.
They're too much in their head and this is kind
of actually the reason why couples lose their spark. In
the article, a certified sex therapist, Heather Shannon was quoted
and she said, instead of feeling your partner skin or
(20:03):
connecting through touch, you're wondering if they're turned off, or
you're wondering whether you venmo your babysitter. Right. There's also
recent research I read published in the Journal of Sex
and Marital Therapy that showed that sexual distractions, whether body image, worries,
that's a big one with women. By the way body
look at dudes do not care. You care more than
(20:26):
they care. Trust me. I remember years ago, was a
young man, but he was talking about breast implants and
he said, I guess some guy had said, oh, I
like them naturally, and he just said, look, if they're there,
they're real. That's all guys care about. If they're there,
they're real. It doesn't matter. If you're there, you're real.
(20:47):
You're a woman, right. There is some worries sometimes about
performance anxiety that more often affects men, the body image
stuff more often affects women. The performance anxiety expects me.
And if you leave this unchecked, you're going to find
that your relationship is going to continue to become more disconnected.
(21:11):
There is research to show that couples who report low
sexual satisfaction are also more likely to experience the emotional distance,
lower relationship satisfaction, and eventually a higher likelihood of divorce.
Now I need to pause here to say that there
is a thing called mature companionate love. If you've been
together for decades, you don't have to be rocking it
(21:35):
every single week. And in fact, sex itself may take
a different form. I have friends because of health issues
say that they don't have intercourse. They have outer course.
It may be affection, it may not involve orgasm. You know,
(21:56):
women after menopause, their hormones decline by the way. There
is medical things you can do. Ladies, go see your gun.
At the age of forty, forty percent of men experience
a rectileless function at the age of fifty fifty percent
of the age of six sixty sixty percent, et cetera,
et cetera. If you're dating somebody who's seventy, just go
to the movies, right, Caleb, are you laughing? But the
(22:22):
real problem that happens in relationships isn't lack of physical intimacy.
It's lack of emotional intimacy. And if you could have
conversations about this, it would be so much better. Right now,
how do you really fix it? Well, one of the
things you can do is practice mental foreplay. Literally, think
(22:44):
about something sexy in your head, get in the mood,
get aroused, and guys, I just want to say this,
scheduled sex is sexy for women and for you. Spontaneous
nonsense is not happening anymore. Okay, there's a lot women
have to do to get paired for this. Okay, you
don't need to know all this stuff, but we need to. Yeah,
fourplay could take three days for women. It might involve
(23:08):
getting a new scented candle, maybe some new underwear, getting
a whax somewhere. There's all kinds of things that she
has to do to get ready, so putting it on
the schedule is not a bad idea. Right mindfulness. There's
actually a study from the Journal of Sex Research that
says practicing mindful awareness, focusing on your five senses right
(23:31):
can increase arousal and sexual satisfaction. And this is basically
getting out of your head and into your body. One
of the things I know this is TMI. I'm about
to give you, t M, I too much information when
I'm starting to become aroused, A yawn a lot, a
yawn a lot. And Julio used to say, what am
I boring you? And I just it's my way of relaxing.
(23:54):
I'm getting into my body, out of my head, and
I relax. That's the way it is. Don't rush the journey. Uh.
If you think your sex life is gonna look like
any scene from a Hollywood movie, you are so wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
First of all, there's no foreplay in Hollywood. I crack up.
(24:14):
Every time the actor comes, he slams her against the wall,
he lifts up her dress. There's penetration I'm like, it
never happens like that anywhere anytime in life. That looks
like pain to me. That looks like rape to me. Okay,
that is not so just don't rush it. Lots and
(24:35):
lots of foreplay. Also, don't define sex as an orgasm.
This is the biggest mistake people make. There's no such
thing as bad sex. As my motto, no such thing
as bad sex. If your whole idea is it's not
a good sex unless there's orgasm, You're gonna have a
hard time having long term monogamy. Okay, because sometimes it's
(24:58):
just being tender and talking and touching each other. I
do want to say you should talk to each other
about sex too, You guys, you can't like just play
around in the dark and hope things will work out.
You need to have conversations, all right, and let your
partner talk, let them say what they need to say,
and do that not in the bedroom, do that somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Right.
Speaker 2 (25:22):
Look, you also might consider seeing a sex therapist. They're great,
they're licensed with a sect. SAM. What does ASEX stand
for American Associated? He's gone? SAM is a sex therapist?
Are you a sex therapist? S? Are you a sex certified. Yeah,
a sex certification. He's a double he's a double talent.
Here he's a sound therapist licensing PhD and human sexuality.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yay.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
And so what does ASEX stand for again? American Association
of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists. There you go as sect.
That's all you do is you ask somebody, well, you
call Sam is what you do and then and he
will talk to you. How'd I do? By the way, Sam,
they do okay with that segment? Thank you? Good to note.
(26:06):
All right, when we come back, Uh, how does your
personality impact your love life? I mean really your personality type?
How can it influence what's going on in your romantic life?
Let's talk about it when we come back. You were
listening to The Doctor Wendy Wall Show and KF I
am six forty with Live Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
KFI use Doctor Wendy Walls with you. Is this the
(26:31):
home stretch of the Dr Wendy Wall Show? We made it?
Why does it go so fast? Breaking news should be
four hours?
Speaker 3 (26:37):
Great content?
Speaker 1 (26:39):
Hies.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I know I was thinking about this today because I
teach developmental psychology and I teach personality development. As part
of that, and we always talk about the Big five model,
the Big five personality traits. It is the most widely
respont infected framework in psychology that really kind of categorizes
(27:05):
people's personalities into five broad dimensions. Now it's not that
you only fall into one of those dimensions. Everybody has
all five, but to one degree or another. Right, So
let me explain. And by the way, it's used in
all kinds of psychological assessments. It's used in academic research,
(27:26):
it's used in workplace evaluations. I have a theory, by
the way, that Trader Joe's. I don't know if it's true.
I'm making this up. Trader Joe's gives the Big five
personality tests because you ever notice that everybody who works
at Trader Joe's is an extrovert. You get to that
cashier and you have some tomato sauce with you, and
they have three different recipes that they need to tell
(27:48):
you about, and they need to say they had it
last week or whatever. I really think it is like
maybe they use Meyers Briggs, which is less respective, but
it can also look for that. All right, So let's
talk about what these five traits are. The five factor.
There's openness to experience, and that's people who are willing
to try new things, be imaginative, curious. If I had
(28:10):
to think of examples of people that might represent openness,
it might be people like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Lady Gaga,
those kinds of people. Then there's conscientiousness. Here's a little fact.
Conscientiousness rises in most people across the lifespan. This is
(28:31):
people who are organized, responsible, reliable, and goal oriented. Right
or Mine Granger from Harry Potter.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
Right.
Speaker 2 (28:43):
And so I noticed, like I used to be sloppy.
I was, my room was not well whol always say
my room is still sloppy. Okay, So I was sloppy
in my work. I would shortcut things, And now I
dot my eyes and cross my t's and make sure
everything's perfect, because you know, I've learned that when you're sloppy,
(29:04):
it's more work later. Right, So conscientiousness tends to go up.
I should also tell you that students who are conscientious,
meaning they submit all their papers and homework on time,
they make sure everything's been spell checked and written well,
et cetera, they tend to just do better and earn
(29:25):
higher grades. They're conscientious. Then there's extraversion, and that looks
at our outgoing, energetic and being social social people that
might be Richard Branson, Miley Cyrus, Donald Trump. Agreeableness, So
some people are crimungeons. If you're low on agreeable agreeableness,
(29:46):
you're the person who's like, eh, I don't want to
go I don't like that person. I don't want to
do that. And then high on agreeableness is, hey, let's
try it. We should trust them. They seem like a
nice person. If there's a gender divide, I will tell
you that women tend to score a little higher on
agreeableness and men score just not every man, Okay, those
(30:07):
is anecdotal evidence, but men in general little lower on agreeableness.
My girlfriends and I had a conversation one time. We
were traveling somewhere and we were saying how easy it
is to travel with women, because like, oh, no you
go first, No you can cook today, No we'll go out,
it's fine, all good, all good, And guys like, no,
we got to catch the train at five, I want
everyone up by far we get to They're just like
(30:31):
so grumpy when you travel. Not my Houly, of course,
he's perfect. And the fifth dimension is neuroticism. This is
people who have strong feelings of anxiety, anger, sadness. I
always think of Woody Allen's characters in his movies as
being highly neurotic. Right, So I usually ask the students
(30:56):
in my class and make them all take the Big
Five personality test and then them before I reveal my score,
which dimensions they think I score highest on? And Kayla,
what do you think it is? What dimensions you score highest?
I think? Did you listen to them all? Did? I? Just?
Were you reading something else I was posting on the website.
(31:18):
Go to the website see what you posted right now? Anyway,
it's extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to new experience. Those are
my highest Yeah, makes sense. So let's talk about how
these personality traits impact our love life. So somebody who
might be highest in openness might be the partner who
(31:42):
loves planning, you know, spontaneous weekends or getaways, exploring new ideas,
having deep late night conversations. Someone who's low in openness
might just want routine tradition, and those are the way
things are right, And so you have to respect your
partner and understand that you are often attracted to somebody
(32:05):
who's completely opposite from you, because that's a piece you
want in yourself. Conscientiousness. So a conscientious person, this is
definitely Julio. He remembers birthdays, anniversaries, He has all these cards,
He goes card shopping, he writes important things, He follows
through on promises, He handles shared responsibilities. You know, I
(32:32):
used to help him do the dishes, but then he
told me I was doing it wrong. So there you go.
I sit there and finish my glass of wine and
watch him do the dishes. Extraversion. It's really interesting because
extroverts and introverts are often attracted to each other, largely
because introverts make a great audience and they're great listeners,
(32:53):
and they also wish they could be a little more
extroverted than the extroverted wishes they could bite their tongue more.
Trust me, we do. And then agreeableness. Somebody, as I mentioned,
who's highly in agreeable is a compromiser. They have lots
of empathy, they're good at resolving conflicts. Low end of agreeableness, argumentative, critical,
a little bit defensive, neuroticism, anxiety, worry about being abandoned, misreading,
(33:20):
texts that could be completely neutral. If you ever heard
somebody read a text and they said, oh, and they
said fine, we'll talk tomorrow, I said, how do you
know they use that tone of voice? Why is they're
period and at an exclamation point? Right, they could have said, oh, fine,
we'll talk tomorrow then love, you know, like that fine?
Speaker 3 (33:39):
Right?
Speaker 2 (33:39):
By the way, if you want to take the Big
five test, it's online. It's very simple. It's Big five
dash test dot com. That's pretty simple. Big five. Those
are the words, not the number five, The word five,
Big five dash test dot Com. Now, I do want
to talk about those that are high in neuroticism. They
have a lot of anxiety, and they often sabotage their
(34:02):
romantic relationships. They might have mood swings, They might be
really sensitive and react very easily. So they blame often
their partners because their partners are making When I hear
people say you made me feel that way, I'm going
to remind everybody that no human can make another human
(34:24):
make They can't make them have a feeling. All the
feelings exist inside us, and feelings are very important. They
are messengers. They are messengers that things are going great,
and they are messengers that, hmm, we need to change
a few things. They're not going so great. But nobody
makes you have a feeling, right. But we do have
(34:46):
that one friend out there who's always worried that their
partner is with another partner cheating on them, that their
partner doesn't love them as much as.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
They love them.
Speaker 2 (34:55):
And then what happens is life becomes this self fulfilling
you know, it's so interesting. People say, I don't know
what it is, but every man I've been with cheated
on me. You know, you picked him and maybe you
drove him to cheat. I'm not blaming the victim here,
I'm just saying, you know, there's a reason. There's a reason.
(35:17):
So there actually is research on this. There's a new
study that was published in the Journal of Sexual and
Relationship Therapy. I'm sure that Sam writes for this journal
all the time, and it maybe wrote this called Neuroticisms
Ties to Relationship satisfaction the role of conflict tactic behaviors. Okay,
(35:37):
so that's awesome sounding already. I think you might have
written it. People high in neuroticism or anxiety are far
more likely to criticize their partner emotionally withdraw during conflict.
In John Gottman's work says that that's the worst thing.
Don't give them the silent treatment, use guilt as a
tool to manipulate somebody and escalate small arguments into big
(36:01):
blow ups. Is that you think about it, you criticize
your partner. I'm a big believer, and you want to
water what you want to grow. Don't water the weeds,
water what you want to grow. That means, look, catch them,
be good, think about all the things that they do
that's wonderful, and compliment them and say it out loud.
(36:22):
Guess what they're going to do it more. But if
you spend your time criticizing them. First of all, I'm
the type of personality that when people tell me I'm
doing something wrong, I literally do worse. I literally I
just want to show them, Oh yeah, you think this
is bad, let me show you how bad it can be. Right,
Like I just I don't change based on criticism. I
(36:45):
wonder if there's a gender thing on this, because I
noticed something. Female trainers at the gym are encouraging to
their clients. I hear them say, come on, you got it.
I think you have two more in you. Oh that's
so great, that's so much better than yesterday. You're doing
so well well, And then male trainers are like, come on,
I don't think you can even do ten more. Oh,
(37:05):
come on, you weak today. I hear this, and I'm like,
how does that motivate people? So I once had a
male trainer like that, and the more he criticized me
and told me that I couldn't do things, the less
I did it. I said, okay, fine, I won't do
it right. That's how I am. Don't criticize your partner.
Water what you want to grow, and no matter how
hard it is. I know you may have learned this
(37:26):
in your family of origin. When you're upset, don't withdraw.
Stay in it. Stay in it, even if it's just
to listen to them, just say I'm you know. The
first time I had that feeling to run away, I
think Hulu and I have been dating only like six
weeks or something, and we had some little tiff I
don't know what it was, and I said to him,
(37:48):
I have a running feeling right now, and he did
something spectacular. He stood up from his chair, came over
to me, touched my shoulder and said, no, no, it's
not that big. Don't leave, and he it was I
bid for care. I want to run away. He met
that bid with care, So don't leave. Don't run. That's
all I'll say. Hey, I'm here every Sunday from seven
(38:11):
to nine pm, and if you want to follow me
during the week, the handle on all my social media
is at Dr Wendy Walsh at doctor Wendy Walsh. You
can even go onto my website on my contact page
and sign up from a newsletter. I don't send them
very often, but when I do, you want to hear
from me first. I always say there's no gossip about
me because I've told people first. It's always my pleasure
(38:32):
to be here. I am so obsessed with the science
of love and I want you to have the best
relationship possible. Thanks so much for being with me. You've
been listening to the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on KFI
AM six forty live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app. You've
been listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh. You can always hear
(38:53):
us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to
nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the
iHeart Radio app.
Dr. Wendy Walsh on Demand News
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