@DrWendyWalsh Tea App Hack

 Dr. Wendy is covering why America is obsessed with child abuse, Trump and Epstein, and the tea app hack. It's all on KFIAM-640!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is Doctor Wendy Walsh and you're listening to KFI
AM six forty the Doctor Wendy wallsh Show on demand
on the iHeartRadio app. This is the Doctor Wendy Walls Show.
Coming up is America's obsession with child sex abuse related
to politics or our gender wars. I've got some answers
for you. And a dating app that trash as men

(00:24):
has just been hacked, probably by a man. Also, what
are the five most important things you need to know
about romantic love? And finally, a pharmacist tells us why
kissing strangers can impact your mental health. Ooh, I can't wait,
can't wait. Hey everybody, good to see you. If you're

(00:44):
new to my show. I have a PhD in clinical psychology.
I'm not a therapist. I'm a psychology professor. And in fact,
later in the show, I'm going to actually give you
a little MENI lecture, just a MENI lecture from one
of my developmental psychology classes, to help explain some of
the news happening today. You know how I always say
for couples to have health and happiness and long term commitment.

(01:09):
It's really not me bored. It's really important that they
add novelty into their relationship, like just putting your partner
in a different light, doing something different together, surprising them
with something that's positive. Okay, So I have to tell
you the cutest story on Friday night. So Friday, I
had a flight in the morning. I landed in la
and I had to go immediately to a shoot because

(01:30):
I was working for a client. And I was pretty
tired because I'd gotten up at like three point thirty
in the morning. I just kept on going anyway. I
get home in the afternoon, there's my sweet Julio there,
my new husband, and he says, I don't care how
tired you are. I have a pilates class booked for
us at seven o'clock. And I'm like, oh, okay, I

(01:51):
was tired, but you know how hard can pilates be?

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I go, Oh my gosh. It was the cutest thing.
It was couple's night. I had candles and champagne and
you like stretched each other and stuff. It was at
Club Pilates and Marina del Rey, by the way, I
don't know. They did it as a special thing. And
he goes to that place for plates a lot. So
he wanted to show me you know, his people and

(02:15):
his place. But it was so sweet. It was like
a romantic date. Romantic date. Then we went home and
made tuna sandwiches for dinner. That was it, anyway, adding
novelty very important. Now you know, I talk a lot
about the science of relationships. I'm a psychology professor. I've
written three books on relationships, wrote a dissertation on attachment theory,

(02:37):
and generally on this show, I never ever, ever, ever
talk about politics, unless it's to talk about how we
are all far more alike than not. I will just
say this, And also when I talk about relationships, I
talk about the relationship we have with our tribe, that

(02:58):
being our culture, and some the way our culture unknowingly
programs us. We don't even realize we're getting this information,
so tying it to the news this week. As you
probably know, on Friday, Attorney General Pam Bondi's top deputy,
Todd Blanche I know where you know that name from.
I'll remind you in a minute. He wrapped up a

(03:19):
second day of private, not recorded anywhere jailhouse interviews with
Jeffrey Ebstein fixer Girlaine Maxwell. She's serving a twenty year
sentence in a Florida jail. I wonder if the first
thing I thought is do they have air conditioning there?
I just don't know. But it's in like Tallahassee or something.
I'm like, oh my gosh, it must be so hot
in the summer. She is convicted on charges of sex trafficking. Now,

(03:42):
as I said, I don't usually talk about politics on
the show, and you should not think about this as
a political conversation. We have far more in common as
Americans than not. But what I do talk about is
human behavior. I always ask myself why, you know, like
why do people do that? Why did they say that?
And never in a way to judge someone. My goal
is always to understand understand human behavior. So before we

(04:08):
examine the human motivations according to psychological science, for both
Todd Blanche and Gerlain Maxwell in those interviews, because probably
by Monday, by tomorrow, we're going to find out what happened,
I hope, and they're going to have both of them
pressure to either lie or to tell the truth, different
pressures with different consequences. And I'll explain more in a minute,

(04:29):
because first I want to talk about child sex abuse
in general. I have noticed in my life. There are
times where there seems to be a media panic around it, right,
And also I've noticed that it happens more with my
conservative friends. They seem really obsessed with this whole idea

(04:51):
of pedophiles and child sexual abuse, and I'm always like why, why,
Like what is going on? I remember a few Christmases ago,
my niece came to visit me, and she's from Tulsa, Oklahoma,
and very religious and has grown up mostly on the Internet,
and she told me her favorite hobby is pedophile hunting online.

(05:11):
Like I think she poses as she was very young
looking as a young girl, to try to capture people
and then send them into the FBI or something. I
don't know, all right, Well.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
So catch a productor used to be all the rage,
So I get the excitement in it. But most of
your time favorite hobby interesting. I have better things to
do with my time. But I want to go back
in history and let's make some connections here. Remember the
McMartin preschool case right here in Manhattan Beach in the
nineteen eighties. Remember Pizzagate in twenty sixteen, where Hillary Clinton

(05:40):
was supposedly running a child sex ring out of a
pizza store. And now we have Jeffrey Epstein. So these
kinds of stories really blast the headlines and they really
ignite our fears. But I've got the suspicion that our
obsessions don't really.

Speaker 1 (05:55):
Come from concern about children. Something deeper and what I
think it's a reaction to a shift in feminism. Every
time I want you to think about it, just pause
and think about it. Throughout US history, whenever there have
been periods of feminist advancement, they've been followed by heightened
moral panic about child abuse. So this gets amplified by

(06:19):
the media. Right there are these controversial legal issues. So
for instance, it began in the first wave of suffrage
movement when women wanted to property rights, access to education,
oh yeah, the vote. In the late eighteen hundreds, the
first case was the abduction of a young boy named
Charlie Ross. He was just four years old in Germantown, Pennsylvania,

(06:42):
and this was the first time that a kidnapping got
national media coverage. Is what happens when feminism explodes. We
are collective breeders, we are collective raisers of children. So
all of us go, but what about the children if.

Speaker 4 (06:58):
Women are busy working, what about the children.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Remember that Macmartin preschool trial in Manhattan Beach during the
height of the second wave feminism, over one hundred children
claimed sexual abuse. After intensive parent and therapist questioning, ultimately
the case was dropped. There were no convictions. It was
discussed that maybe these young children were just programmed and

(07:24):
prompt by their parents to say certain things. Then, in
the nineteen nineties to two thousands third wave of feminism,
critiques of masculinity, increasing openness about female sexual agency. That
was the first time we had laws that changed people
that we used to call child prostitutes into child victims

(07:46):
of trafficking. Ooh, see the connection. Mid twenty tens, we
have a woman running for president, first one, Hillary Clinton,
Pizzagate conspiracy. If the women are all at work and
running the countries, what's going to happen to the children.
And now the late twenty tens to twenties feminist fourth wave,
we saw the Me Too movement and right along with

(08:07):
it we have Ebstein scandal, Gurlaine Maxwell trial, QAnon conspiracy
theories about kids. America just keeps getting obsessed with child
sex abuse because every time that feminism challenges a status quo,
some part of our culture reacts by fear and worries

(08:29):
about the children. The good news are all of this,
though there's always good news is that it drives change.
Like I said, we change the laws so that child
prostitutes I can't believe we ever used that term are
not arrested anymore. They're more saved. All right, So now
you know all this is background. When we come back,
I want to talk about the theory of human motivation

(08:52):
and the current Trump Ebstein drama.

Speaker 5 (08:56):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
This is the Doctor wendywall Show. All right. So earlier
I was talking about our relationship with our culture and
how we really are one cooperative brain together. Also, evolutionary
psychologists have always said that we are cooperative breeders. We
care as much about other people's babies as our own.

(09:24):
And I drew this historical line between waves of feminism
and mass panic about child sex abuse. It's almost like,
as an entire culture, we go, but if.

Speaker 4 (09:36):
The mommies leave the home, what will.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Happen to the babies? In fact, one of our listeners
just left a talk back for me. Do we have
that Bosh, not yet.

Speaker 5 (09:50):
Hey, doctor Wendy, just listening.

Speaker 6 (09:52):
Very interesting about your take on feminism and child abuse.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Now that you said it makes perfect sense.

Speaker 6 (10:00):
I've ever done a talk back before, but this one,
I think you hit the nail on the head.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
Have a great night.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Thank you. By the way, you guys can send a
talkback anytime you want. You just go to the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 3 (10:13):
And what do you do, Kayla, You hit the microphone
button in the left hand corner. You can record a
thirty second message and send it into the show.

Speaker 1 (10:19):
But don't you have to first go to KFI.

Speaker 3 (10:21):
Now you just have to listen on the iHeartRadio app
to your show live. Yep, you gotta listen live on
the iHeartRadio apps to do that.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
I hit the little microphone. Yeah, and then Kayla gets it.
And anyway, thank you to that listener. And I'm so
glad you're brave enough to leave a talkback. All right,
moving on, So hold that thought right, that maybe feminism
is connected to child sex abuse. But now let's talk
about the psychology, the psychology of human motivation and this
trump Epstein drama we're all having to live with every day.

(10:47):
Reminder Friday Attorney General Pam Bondi's top deputy, Todd Blanche
wrapped up his second day of private not record. It
very important because anything could happen. They could say anything happened.
It's private, it's not recorded, nobody has documents of no
one else is in the room, nobody's recording it. It's
just two people making moral decisions and thinking about themselves,
the people and children and whatever. And he interviewed the

(11:11):
Jeffrey Ebstein famous fixer, Gearleen Maxwell, who's serving a twenty
year sentence in Florida. So I'm going to remind you
you've heard the name Todd Blanche before because he is
one of Donald Trump's defense attorneys from remember the twenty
twenty four New York criminal trial. It was sometimes called
the hush money case, and that was where Trump's conviction
resulted in thirty four felon accounts he was convicted of. Okay,

(11:33):
So he is Trump's protector. Let's keep that in mind.
So Gearleine Maxwell, she's a British socialite, former best friend
maybe ex girlfriend of Jeffrey Ebstein. She was convicted in
twenty twenty one for trafficking underage girls for sexual abuse.
So Apparently she played a key role in recruiting and
grooming victims for his sex trafficking ring. Her boss friend

(11:57):
died in jail. Now, I don't know what conspiracy theory
you believe or not, whether you believe he died by
suicide or murder, I don't know. I wasn't there. Depending
on what theory you believe. The official state of cost
is suicide. So let's talk about Todd and Gearlaine in
that room together for two whole days. What possible outcomes
could happen for each of these two people. So Todd

(12:19):
could get fired by Trump through Pambondy, he could get promoted,
or he could at least get to keep his job.
I did some digging. He is married with children, but
it's all private, hush hush on the internet because nobody
wants to come and bother him. So nobody should come
and bother him. His kids are likely in private school.
He lives in New York City. He's a private defense attorney.
It's estimated that he earns between one million and five

(12:40):
million a year educated guests. Basically, he would lose a
lot if he got fired. Girleaine Maxwell, what could happen
for her. Well, she could stay in jail. She could
I'm not saying this, I'm just saying it. She could
potentially get murdered in jail. Who knows. She could get
her sentence reduced by executive order, she could become completely

(13:01):
pardoned and get at a jail free card. She could
maybe save her public image. So there's a lot at
stake for both of these two people. Now, let's talk
about the psychological theory. She's not going to trust him
in that interview, so truth telling would only occur if
it served a clear personal interest, either legally to her

(13:25):
reputation or psychologically. So let's just say, hypothetically, we don't
know that Garlaine Maxwell acknowledged that President Trump was a
client of Epstein's trafficking network. If she says that, she
actually risks reinforcing her identity as a wilful enabler of
abuse at the highest power. Right, So, if she wants

(13:48):
to reduce her own psychological discomfort, that's called cognitive dissonance,
having two feelings at the same time, she's going to
avoid or deny the truths. Right. The other thing is,
if she's a little bit narcissistic, which is common with
elite offenders. She may work to maintain a carefully curated persona,

(14:09):
the one like she's the victim and it all happened
to her, poor thing. Right, So if she acknowledged Trump's involvement,
it could unravel her persona entirely. If now she says, oh,
yes he was a client, and yes, you know I
ran his credit card whatever, So she has to be
silent to keep her image in her own mind. And

(14:33):
then there's the strategic withholding of psychological as psychological leverage. Right,
So she might practice what's called strategic omission, So she
might leave out all kinds of names, especially Trump's, as currency.
If she believes Todd Blanche has proximity to power, which
he does, that might help her. Now let's look at

(14:54):
Todd Blanche. He's got a big problem, right if she
tells him again this is hypothetical, we don't know. If
she tells him Trump's defense lawyer that he was a
former client of Epstein, he's going to be caught between
his legal and ethical duties. Remember, he's got attorney client
privilege versus confidentiality. Can he even say anything bad about

(15:15):
Trump without getting in a lot of legal trouble? He's
also a human, so he's got a personal moral compass. Right,
So he might have feelings of disgust about child exploitation,
and those might supersede his desire for justice, we don't know.
And then he's got these intense public and political pressure pressures. Right,

(15:37):
So I said earlier, I'm going to give you a
little lecture on developmental psychology. But actually there's a section
of my developmental class where I talk about moral development.
And anybody who's taken a psychology course knows that you
learned about Lawrence Kohlberg's levels of moral development. He proposed
that our human moral reasoning, these two people are going

(15:58):
to be dealing with this, progresses over six stages. I'm
just going to basically say the earliest one has to
do with right and wrong based on personal consequences. And
these are like kids in elementary school age or really
dumb celebrities like these mean one where it's like I'll
only do right if it's good for me. I'll only

(16:18):
do wrong if it's bad for me. Later in life,
it's more like a sense of conventional he called it
conventional morality. Right might be interpersonal accord, like I need
people around me. I want to find what other lawyers
might do here. Todd Blanche might keep silent out of

(16:40):
professional identity and peer approval of everybody, right, or this
whole idea of maintaining social order. The legal system relies
on rules. If I break confidentiality, I damage the entire
legal profession, and the rule of law is above emotion.
But where we all want to be eventually is Kolberg's

(17:00):
third level, which is called post conventional morality. Right or
wrong is defined by what we feel in our gut.
Is what is right or wrong for everybody. It's not
about what the laws say. It's not about what the
rules say. It's not about personal gain or personal loss.
It's what is right right, And so that's what these

(17:21):
two have to deal with. I think there's very little
chance that they will ever reach post conventional morality. Like,
for example, someone who's an activist right, who goes and
does something huge because they want to change laws. Right,
I would say, people who are out there stopping the
ice crews with their cameras and whatever and risking being

(17:42):
arrested even though the law says people who are I
legal can be deported and arrested. There are other people
saying no, morally, this doesn't feel right, so they're at
the post conventional morality level. Do you think there's any
chance Todd Blanche that have that kind of soul? First
of all, we don't even know what she's going to say.
I had one other theory, by the way, that if

(18:03):
she does say I'm sorry. Trump had nothing to do
with any of this. They were buddies back in the day.
They had a falling out. Well, by the time he
got to his child sex ring, Trump was nowhere around.
She could easily say that, and probably will say that
keep herself alive in prison. But if she does, then
Trump could maybe pardon her later. And if he does,

(18:26):
what are people going to think of that? That people
might not believe her then, I don't know. I don't
know what's gonna be.

Speaker 4 (18:31):
It's gonna be fun.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
It's like our little soap opera we're playing out in America,
and who cares what side you're on politically. It's a
great show, all right. When we come back, Tea gets hacked. Well,
revenge porn also gets tampered down. T is a dating
app that exposes men. I'm gonna explain about it when
we come back. It's very interesting this hack that happened

(18:53):
this week.

Speaker 4 (18:53):
You have doctor Wendy Walsh with you.

Speaker 1 (18:55):
This is the Doctor Wendy Walsh Show. Okay, enough about
what's going on in the drama. Although my husband Julio
just walked in the room on the break and said
that Eurline Maxwell's lawyer came out and basically said, oh,
she answered every question, she was truthful with everything. It
was almost like this lawyer was setting it up for
her to get a pardon from Trump. But I think

(19:17):
it could backfire on him because if he gives her
a pardon, then maybe people who believe that she was
a sex trafficker of children might be like, why is
our beloved president giving a preedophile girl, a pedophile helper
girl a pass. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
I don't know. A part of me believes that they
will question it, but another part of me, a huge
part of me, feels like they're blind followers to an extent,
like this man.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Can do no wrong. He's done a lot wrong with me.
I don't know. I don't know. I have a born
again Christian brother in Telsa, Oklahoma, and we had a
very long text chat today and he's having cognitive dissonance. Really,
he says, God will make the decision about what's right
for this man or not.

Speaker 5 (19:55):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
I was like, okay, okr. Hey, So I've always said,
you know, you can go on Amazon, you can buy
books on various websites, and you can go to Yelp
and you can give ratings and reviews of everything in life, restaurants, products,
all kinds of things. I've always said, the dating apps

(20:18):
need to give reviews. We need to be able to
review people. It's got to be out there. Of course,
the problem is you don't know who's doing the reviewing
and what their intentions are. Right, what if the person
doing the reviewing has kind of poor mental health. Well,
the other thing I like about Yelp, by the way,
did you know like if you go and see something
that has a bad review, you can click on the

(20:39):
person who gave the bad review, and you can go
read all their reviews of everything else, and you can
see they're a Debbie downer. They're just a nutjob who
says bad things about everybody and everything. So all of
a sudden you just don't even care about their review. Well,
that's what I think. All the reviews should be public
when we rate each other on things, but especially on
dating apps. I want to say this. Dating apps have long

(21:02):
stayed away from doing any kind of background checks on
their users, and the reason why is they want to
prevent liability. If they did a background check on somebody
and that somebody turned out to be a hatchet murderer,
then the person who went on the date who got
hatchet murdered, well, their family could go to the dating
app and go you set them up with this person.

(21:23):
You said this person was safe, and they're not safe,
so there you go. We want money. So therefore, the
dating apps basically don't do any kind of background checks.
And I said, well, in lieu of that, maybe women
should get together in a girlfriend to girlfriend gorilla network
and post little messages. So there actually is one. It's
a Facebook page called are We Dating the same Guy?

(21:47):
You have to be a woman to get in apparently,
and you can post things. But it is full of
women who just had bad dates, because maybe they always
have bad dates. I don't know.

Speaker 4 (21:59):
This week, a surge.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
In media attention came for a relatively new dating app,
and it is a dating app called Tea, as in Tea,
What's the T on him. It's the young people say
that what's the T means? What's the gossip?

Speaker 5 (22:12):
Right?

Speaker 1 (22:13):
What's the dirt?

Speaker 5 (22:13):
What you got?

Speaker 1 (22:14):
T t EA? Why do you have a frown on
your face? Producer, Kayla, you walked in the room with
the frown on your face right in the middle while
I was talking about tea.

Speaker 3 (22:20):
Well yeah, well we got we got a great talk
back about the t app, which is going to be
really good to play back with.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Fushi gets back, Okay, okay, good get kid. So anyway,
this week it was so women are allowed to rate
men on it, and this week it was hacked and
a bunch of the user's identities were released online, so
the women pictures and names were flooded out everywhere. So
it lets women this app Tea anonymously ask about men

(22:47):
like I have a date with this guy, anybody recognize him?
And they can also warn each other about men they've encountered.
It actually rocketed to the top spot in the US
Apple app Store last week, and then on Friday the
company confirmed that it had been hacked. Thousands of images,
including selfies, were leaked online about the women users. So
it was founded by dude Sean Cook, a software engineer

(23:12):
who used to work at Salesforce and Shutterfly. He founded
it in twenty twenty two after witnessing his mom's terrifying
experiences on dating apps. So, he says, some of the
dating apps unknowingly include men with criminal records or people
who are catfishing, meaning they are not the person they

(23:34):
say they were. Also, women are being deceived by men
who have false identities. So here's the problem, there was
I'm reading like one of the Apple Store reviews. Actually,
this isn't the problem. This is a good thing. One
woman says she discovered over twenty red flags, including serious

(23:55):
allegations like assault and recording women having sex without their
concent whoa ah, Yes, so this reviewer said, I can't
imagine how things could have gone, but I'm glad I
didn't go out on that date. So then this reporter
from the Sunday Times wrote a thing about how the
Tea is bitter is what she called it. She said,

(24:17):
you don't have to get inside the Tea app to
feel its toxicity. Screenshots from the app on Reddit reveal
some shocking claims from female users.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
Like avoid this man, or here's what his name is?

Speaker 1 (24:29):
He has herpes and STDs.

Speaker 5 (24:32):
He lies to.

Speaker 4 (24:33):
Get what he wants and then he's gonna ghost you.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
I think those are valid information that women need to
share with each other.

Speaker 6 (24:39):
Actually, she seemed very upset, and actually, she says another
man was described as an abusive, pathological, liar, manic and
victim mentality.

Speaker 1 (24:51):
Well, here's the problem. We don't know who these women
are who are saying this, and we don't know about
their mental health, and even the ident deverification and background checks.
They just don't allow women with poor mental health to
trauma dump on guys, poor innocent guys. I love man.
I mean, I'm up two minds here. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
Same.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
I've been a part of the Facebook group, not the app,
but I've been a part of the Facebook group for
a really long time, and I just decided I would
never post my partner in there, just because I feel
like some people can be vengeful or just jealous and
just say whatever they want to say in order to make.

Speaker 1 (25:24):
You feel away. Somebody's trash is somebody else's treasure. That's
very true. You say, we have a talk back about this,
They got one.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
This app makes me super uncomfortable to even try dating now.
I already felt like I wasn't good enough attach anyway
for people, and this app allowing.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
Women to welcome back to the doctor Whitywall shows. Yes
was waiting in the background. Yeah yeah, but yeah, yeah,
I agree. I love men and wei and be outrating them.
On the other hand, things like conviction for violent sex

(26:06):
acts or or you know, murder again, you know, not
just run of the mill felonies.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
Remember, if you would listened to.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
My show long enough, you know the statistic that ten
percent of American men have experienced incarceration, and because of
the injustices in the justice system, a huge proportion of
those men are black and brown. However, ten percent of men,
that means ten percent of men are instantly undateable to
most women when many of them most of those crimes

(26:36):
were non violent crimes. They served their time, paid back
to society, picked up their trash on the beach, whatever
they were told to do, and they're dust them off.
Some of them are perfectly datable right now. So, having
said that, I'm really of two minds here. I'm just
I don't know the answer, But I do know that
dating and sex are a much higher ask copy for

(26:57):
women than they are for men and women should have
ways to protect themselves. I was going to say the
revenge porn that happens on the other side is what
men do to women, right they take videos of them
and then put them online. But I'm happy to tell
you that on May nineteenth of this year, President Trump
signed the Take It Down Act into law, creating the

(27:19):
very first federal statue that criminalize criminalizes the non consensual
publication of intimate images, including both authentic images and deep
fake content. So that's great, that's good news. I don't
know what the answer is, but we got to figure
out how to all be healthy and happy together and

(27:40):
say when we date. But I'm gonna keep following this
tee thing. Think it's kind of interesting. You know how
guys get on and use it. You have to be
a woman and prevent your open up your camera to
a selfie, but you can ask the AI to generate
your own face as a selfie as a female. As
a female, a.

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Man can yeah oh wait, that's not a man can
look like A man can look.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
Like Oh I got it, I got it. Yeah, yeah,
it's a problem. Anyway. When we come back, I'm heading
to my social media to answer some of your relationship questions.
If you want to send me a question is at
doctor Wendy Walsh. You're listening to doctor Wendy Walls Show
on KFI AM six forty one Live everywhere on the
iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 5 (28:12):
You're listening to Doctor Wendy Walsh on demand from KFI
AM six forty.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Welcome back to the Doctor Wendy Wall Show on KFI
AM six forty Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio App.

Speaker 4 (28:26):
I'm on social media.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
If you want to send me a Instagram DM, do
so at doctor Wendy Walsh at Dr Wendy Walsh. Dear
Doctor Wendy, My girlfriend likes to isolate and shut down
when issues occur in her life. But I like to
communicate and talk out problems. How can I compromise to
still support her and get the support I need and

(28:50):
respect her space? All right, I'm just going to give
you the bad news first. What she is doing isolating,
shutting down is called the silent treatment, and this dismissive
behavior is the number one thing that leads to breakups
and divorce. It's not whether conflict happens, it's how repair

(29:11):
is made. And it sounds like she has no skills
for repair. The first thing I think you should do.
He has talked to her about it and say, doctor
Wendy says, blame me. That we have different conflict repair
styles and it's really hard for me when you isolate
and shut down. How is a way that you could
stay in the conversation with me without feeling shamed, blamed

(29:32):
or whatever, because you also have to make it a
safe place for her to continue to talk. If what
you're doing is all blaming and not listening to her,
just saying I'd like to hear more about how you're
feeling when we have a fight, And I promise you
I'm not gonna criticize you. I'm just going to try
to mirror back what I think you're saying so I

(29:53):
can understand you more because I love you and this
conflict repair style is difficult for us. If this doesn't work,
then you've got to try to encourage her to see
a couple's therapists who can teach you these dynamics, because
I'm telling you, this problem is not going to go
away on its own. It's got to be addressed head on,
but not in a critical way, in sort of a loving,
open way. And you should bring it up. Not when

(30:15):
you're in a fight, No, no, no, no, Definitely bring
it up when you're in a calm, loving place, maybe
like right after sex, when you're cuddling. That'd be a
good time. Dear doctor Wendy. My husband and I, Oh,
I know this one. I have so been there. My
husband and I are arguing constantly since our baby was born. Oh.

(30:35):
I know, stress and lack of sleep play a role,
but I'm starting to feel like we're losing each other.
How do couples stay emotionally connected in the chaos of parenthood?
All right, First of all, you're not alone. Every new
couple goes through this. You know what my therapist told
me when I was in that stage. She told me
that what happens when two people look into a cradle

(30:58):
at a baby is they project onto that baby what
their body, not their brain, what their body remembers from
that time. So you know, the baby's pre verbal, the
adult has stored feelings in their bones from their preferbal
stage of life, and so they literally get into couples

(31:20):
get in a silly arguments.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
But no, they're too hot, they're too cold. No, put
her down, let her cry. It out, No, pick her up.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
No, I think she needs a new diaper.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
What are you doing? She's gonna just keep crying if
you do that, right.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Oh oh, I remember, I remember. So here's my answer.
When the baby's sleeping, when you're both relatively in okay
moods time of day, you've got to say, we have
to find a different way, because I remember the motivation.
I love you so much, and you don't want to say, like,
I don't feel emotionally connected with you. It sounds like

(31:52):
a criticism to say, I love you very much and
I want us to get back to the closeness we
had before. I know we both love our baby. I
know we both want the best for our baby, and
we're getting into so many arguments, and we need to
be on the same team for our child, so, you know,
and find time to have some form of sex with them, okay,

(32:12):
just to keep them calmed down. Now, keep the testosterone down.
I'm just gonna say, okay, I say some form of
you know what that means. It could be a hugger kiss,
That's all I'm saying. But good luck to you. Worst
comes to worst. Don't let it get crazy. Go see
a therapist. They'll give you some really great tools you
can use. All right, moving right along, dear doctor Wendy.

(32:33):
I recently realized that I have been a serial monogamist.
I jump from relationship to relationship without ever being alone.
For the first time, I'm single, and it's terrifying. How
do I learn to be okay with myself before I
date again? All Right, A couple things I need to
say here. Despite what you guys think, I'm gonna say, generally,

(32:59):
sitting alone is not the best way to learn how
to have healthy relationships, I know, right, So, think of
relationships as a gymnasium for your mind. If you just
go to the gym and watch people working out, you're
not going to get in shape. You have to push
against those machines. And so, you know, doing all the

(33:22):
meditation and the therapy and the self worth and the
mindfulness and the yoga and the sitting on the side
of a mountain and saying I'm just going to be
with myself now. Yeah. So in the end, it's relationship
skills that help people have healthy relationships. Okay, So I

(33:44):
would say, rather than quote unquote jumping into relationship from
relationship is the word jump that jumped off the page
for me. Jump jump jump jumped out of the DM
is that I need you to learn how to go
slowly and not have sex too quickly. I think that
would be the best advice. Don't jump into a relationship,

(34:07):
just dip a toe in and spend some time assessing.
That's how you will learn to have a healthy relationship
with somebody else. Being alone will teach you some remedies
for quelling your abandonment anxiety, and that's cool. Hopefully the
remedies aren't like cannabis and alcohol. But you know, but
I think after you take a little bit of time alone,

(34:28):
not too long a month, then just ap your toe in,
Go slow, go slow, all right? When we come back,
I have a very special guest. No, no, no, not yet.
First get it in order, Doctor Wendy, I want to
talk to you about some brutal truths in psychology that

(34:49):
might cut deep when you hear them, but actually are
going to make you a better person. Listen up when
we come back. You're 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 KFI Am six
forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime

(35:11):
on demand on the iHeartRadio app