@DrWendyWalsh - Makeshift Relationship Advice

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.

And there are guys who are fives who think they're tens and they are in Life is a self fulfilling prophecy. 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 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 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 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.

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.

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 all kinds of ways.

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. 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, 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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

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? 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 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 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 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 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 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 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

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 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 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 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 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. 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.

self awareness. I think that's a great gift. To realize 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, 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?

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 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 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

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 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.

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,

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 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 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 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.

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.

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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. 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. 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 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

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.

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 home stretch of the Dr Wendy Wall Show? We made it? Why does it go so fast? Breaking news should be four hours?

let me explain. And by the way, it's used in all kinds of psychological assessments. It's used in academic research, 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 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 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 people who are organized, responsible, reliable, and goal oriented. Right or Mine Granger from Harry Potter.

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 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, 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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 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, 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, 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?

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 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 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.

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, 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 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. 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 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, 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 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, 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 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

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 us live on KFI AM six forty from seven to nine pm on Sunday and anytime on demand on the iHeart Radio app.